The daily diet

As you might suspect, I am a voracious consumer of information. Between work and home I spend a lot of time in front of a computer and even in the car I am listening to the news.

The issue is not getting access to news-its getting access to good news, correct information, correctly analyzed that is the problem. To form my incredibly erudite opinions my news diet consists of a variety of sources. Unlike the “I get what I need from Fox” crowd-you will see it is a varied and healthy information diet that stimulates not strangulates the brain. YMMV:

Daily reads:
The Shopping Mall Times-all the news about Alabama football you never really cared to know.
The contents of my Google home page. Like many Americans, I get a great deal of news from on line sources-this is particularly true since I am never without my I-phone, and spend more time at the computer than in front of the TV. The Google-IGoogle application is great aggragator of information and displays in an easy and quick to read format.

My feeds:
The Economist
Navy Times
memorandum
NYT Home Page
Channel News Asia
The Straits Times Home page
Dilbert
Google News
FP Passport
Politics-The Atlantic Magazine
Motley Fool Headlines
Quotes of the Day
The Wall Street Journal
My e-mail headers.
Plus a few of my favorite blog feeds. ( I’d rather not offend any one so I will keep the titles to myself).
And finally-The Victoria’s Secret model of the day.

Sadly-at work-our IT department lives in the stoneage, so my Google page comes out all messed up at work. It would appear they are deathly afraid of anyone having information in an organized fashion or being able to use HTML functionality. It works great on my home computer though and I suspect will work well with I-Pad I am looking for as a Christmas present.

Weekly / Monthly magazine subscriptions:

The Economist
The Kiplinger Letter
Forbes Magazine ( biased in many ways, but a good insight into what the moneyed people bankrolling politics is thinking).
Esquire
The Atlantic Monthly
International Living
Motley Fool Stock advisor.
MOAA/VFW/DAV magazines
US Naval Institute Proceedings
Naval History Magazine

I also have several on-line subscriptions to some Expat message boards.

Radio and TV-

I listen to NPR just about every day. I like their Marketplace evening show, and I am also a fan of “Wait! Wait! Don’t tell me”. ( In my opinion NPR gets a bad rap-their news stories tend to be detailed and fair and balanced in a way Fox can never hope to achieve).

I kind of split myself CNN and Bloomberg for TV news. I rarely watch MSNBC ( contrary to popular belief-it is not as much fun as when Bush was President)-and Fox News only when I have to and can’t get to a channel changer at work. ( I am well known for switching channels away from Fox when no one is looking).

To me, its clear that technology has changed the way people get their news. That’s why television news has diminshed and become nothing more than hackneyed entertainment, on both sides.  For the record I think Olbermann SHOULD have been suspended-but the key issue is that at least MSNBC has a rule, while Fox news has over 600 examples of blatant support and donations to the GOP. When Bill Kristol defends Keith Olbermann, you know MSNBC did something correct.

And that, students, is how you can begin to obtain my heightened level of enlightenment. If that makes me an “elitist” so be it. Elitism is based on knowledge and wisdom, which logically should be the basis for making important decisions.