As part of its ten-year anniversary, writers at the tech portal Cnet.com have come up with a list of the Top Ten Worst Products of the Decade. It should be of no surprise to those involved, but a Dallas-made product came in No. 2, right behind that dreadful, hokey Microsoft operating system, Bob.

That’s right, it is the Cue:Cat – the incredibly stupid handheld scanner developed with an investment of more than $40 million Belo Bucks.

This appliance is aptly reviled to this day. Entire Websites like Killcat.com were devoted to ways of smashing, exploding, shredding and generally torturing the little red-nosed pussy cats. The thing never worked right on notebooks, it trampled user privacy and, although it was handed out free, it contained the most draconian end user agreement ever foisted on the public.

So how does a major media company like Belo get involved in such a pickle? How did its leaders wind up fleeced and permanently embarrassed? And why, pray tell, weren’t people sacked in the aftermath?

The answer to all these questions is found in three words.

1) Arrogance. The corporate leaders, decidedly dumb about technology, believed they could force computer users to allow them to track their activities online, then sell them advertising. They had no respect for the public intelligence.

2) Deafness. IT folks, the entire tech team, just about everyone with a lick of savvy in the newsroom ... they all said it was a stupid idea. Nobody listened.

3) Deceit. Belo editors and hierarchy ordered up an embarrassing array of self-serving stories. Reporters were told to "use normal coverage considerations," and "write it straight." Yet nothing "straight" was allowed onto the air or in print at any of the Belo media outlets. Locally, Channel 8 featured three long days of myopic 'Cat glorification. The DMN attempted to force its tech writer (moi) to approve a completely lobotomized version of my initial story package. Its final form, under no byline, excluded nationally prominent personal technology experts who talked about the fundamental (and oh, so obvious) Cue:Cat design and conceptual flaws.

It's one thing to be dumb. It's quite another to be arrogantly deaf, dumb and deceitful.

Unfortunately, all the major players in the sad Cue:Cat saga are still basking in the power and glory of the Belo Death Star.

At any right-thinking organization, they'd be out on the Young Street sidewalk ... alongside the poor Circulation Department worker bees who took the whack for another set of stupid, arrogant, deaf and dumb Belo management decisions.

-=drb

Paul Kix writing on D Magazine's Blog, Front Burner, points to the Laura Miller web page as an example of unfinished business.  At the risk of appearing to kick the Mayor around over the trivial it is really an interesting metaphor for unfinished business.  Take a gander:  www.lauramiller.com

As Yosemite Sam would say, "Them's fightin' words!"

While I couldn't agree more with Carolyn's assessment of the state of journalism today, blaming Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh or any of the plethora of broadcast bigmouths for this demise is, at best, misplaced.

"Responsible journalism"? "Fair and balanced"?... It is the very irresponsibility, unfairness and imbalance in print journalism that has spawned today's crass ravings from the right and left in the first place.

O'Reilly to blame? Hardly. He's just one more aftereffect of "journalism gone wild".

No matter how you want to look at it,  we know which came first.

...The immortal words spoken by every T.V. hero after he'd dispatched the bad guy.

Lately, these words are falling on deaf ears. Now our hero might have to resort to extolling "make an appointment with a doctor that can see this guy before next week".

Recently, I received a letter stating that our family doctor was retiring. The let down was made a little softer by inserting the business card of a perfectly willing and capable replacement...Fine...

Fine until your kid gets sick and needs to see said doctor. I made the call to the new guy's office on Monday and was told the sick one could see the doctor the following Friday. I explained that we were former patients of Dr. so-and-so and that Dr. such-and-such had been referred as his replacement.

"Oh, in that case,you'll have to come and meet the doctor for an 'introduction visit'. You can do this anytime".

OK...Here's where we are... My kid's sick and can see the doctor in 4 days but I'm not sick and can see the doctor anytime?... Oh, by the way, it will be treated as an office visit and you'll be expected to pony up a co-pay...

Newest line by our T.V. hero. "Body, heal thyself".

Lance Storer begins his community Blog on wine today.  Lance is the Wine expert of Centennial Liquors and an expert of breadth, depth and great good taste.  DallasBlog.com hopes you enjoy Lance's Blog and get much enjoyment from his advice.

Wine City Blog with Lance Storer

Bill O'ReillySome of you may have noticed a shootout underway between FOX News’ Bill O’Reilly and the DMN’s new columnist Macarena Hernandez. Check out her column today.

Hernandez riled O’Reilly earlier in the week with a column that mentioned Tifton, Ga., residents objecting after the town’s mayor, Paul Johnson, flew a Mexican flag as an expression of sorrow for six Mexican farm workers murdered in Georgia. She asked, in her column:

Were the complainers angrier about the red, white and green Mexican flag fluttering in the Georgia air than they were about the horrific murders? Do they watch Fox's The O'Reilly Factor , where the anchor and the callers constantly point to the southern border as the birth of all America's ills? (Sample comment: "Each one of those people is a biological weapon.")

She continued: It is one thing to want to secure the borders and another to preach hate, to talk of human beings as ailments. Taken literally, such rhetoric gives criminals like those in southern Georgia license to kill; it gives others permission to look the other way. In this heightened anti-immigrant climate, what Mr. Johnson did was not only a welcome gesture, but a brave one, too.

O’Reilly took umbrage, as only O’Reilly can do. He vilified Hernandez, the Dallas Morning News and its publisher, James Maroney (sic), in his “Talking Points” memo of Oct. 19.

He noted that he’s been on record time and again as sympathizing with Mexican workers, and then showed a video clip as “the proof that Macarena Hernandez is a liar.” He goes on to say that Ms. Hernandez suggested that “we encourage murder without checking anything out. Talk about promoting hate.”

O’Reilly accuses Hernandez of going “far beyond the limits of responsible journalism.”

Excuse me, but much of the problem in journalism (and politics) today can be attributed to guys like O’Reilly who use TV and radio for their shout-fests and to incite people to action against not what they know but about what they hear on the air from a particular talking head or talk show host.

Hernandez mentions in today’s column receiving “thousands of e-mails” after O’Reilly posted the DMN e-mail address, so his followers could “tell the Dallas Morning News exactly what you think.”

“American journalism is deterioriating quickly,” O’Reilly says, and “there are few standards anymore,” to wit: “Left-wing ideologues like Ms. Hernandez, who has a master’s degree from California Berkeley, are running wild with hateful invectives…”

Again, excuse me. With the proliferation of talk radio, shout TV and the blogosphere, newspapers offer one of the few places where there still are standards in journalism. Where you still can find “fair and balanced.”

A commentary on the op-ed page, such as that by Hernandez (who also graduated from Baylor University before she went to Berkeley), is supposed to have an opinion. That’s what distinguishes it from news stories. But as a former editor of the DMN Viewpoints page, I know that the paper has always sought to publish opposite viewpoints that would provide the kind of balance that would allow readers to form their own opinions.

O’Reilly’s venum is just that…malicious, spiteful and reflective of the kind of poison that is causing the deterioration of journalism.

Travis County Criminal District Court Judge Bob PerkinsTom DeLay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, wants Judge Bob Perkins to recuse himself as presiding judge in DeLay's trial.  He suggests that the Judge has made extensive contributions to people and causes opposed to the House Majority Leader.  DeGuerin notes the list is two pages long.

Not too surprisingly Travis County DA Ronnie Earle sees no problem.  He issues the following statement this morning:

 "The logic behind the defendant's motion to recuse Judge Perkins would mean that no criminal defendant could be tried in a court presided over by a judge who did not belong to the defendant's political party. It would also mean that a judge who contributes to child abuse prevention could not preside over the trial of an alleged child abuser. We believe that to be neither the law nor good public policy," stated Earle in the release.

Did Earle read what he is saying?  Come on.  DeLay isn't an occasional primary voter accused of molesting children, he is the Majority Leader of the US House and the crimes of which he stands accused are wholly based on partisan political efforts.  It may well be that Judge Perkins can rise above his prejudice but it is hard to imagine that anyone putting themselves in Tom DeLay's shoes would want to find out.

From what I have read the real question is not so much what DeLay did or didn't do as whether those actions were in fact crimes.  Some pretty good lawyers I know - most of them Democrats - say Eearle hasn't a prayer.  Of course, just because something isn't a crime doesn't mean it was right it just means the punishment should come from the people at the polls.

I do recall a comment made years ago by now Austin super-lobbyist Buddy Jones who had in a previous lifetime served as Hill County District Attorney: "I could get a grand jury to indict you for committing murder in Hill County even if you were in London making a speech to 2000 people at the time of the killing - of course getting a conviction would prove more challenging."

Economist Bruce BartlettBruce Bartlett, a prominent conservative economist and leading proponent of the Reagan tax cuts in the early 1980s, has been fired by the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) an influential Dallas-based think tank whose top officials reportedly were unhappy with Bartlett for writing a book critical of the Bush Administration. The book, entitled The Imposter: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Administration, is scheduled to be published in April by Doubleday, according to a report in the New York Times.

Bartlett had been affiliated with the NCPA for a decade. The DallasBlog has learned that the think-tank’s founder and President, John Goodman, fired Bartlett in a one-minute conversation. Sources close to the economist say Bartlett was “surprised and disappointed” by the manner in which the firing was handled given his long-standing relationship with NCPA and Goodman. The NCPA President was in the D.C. area (where Bartlett works) at the time of the firing but didn’t meet personally with Bartlett . The firing was effective immediately, and reportedly no severance package was provided. Those same sources say Bartlett was terminated because NCPA officials were worried that some of its organization’s major donors might withhold money from the think tank because of Bartlett ’s increasingly outspoken criticism of Bush’s policies. Among the members of Goodman’s Board is Dallas Businessman and former Texas GOP Chairman and big-time Bush fund raiser, Fred Meyer.

NCPA's John GoodmanBartlett was a strong supporter of President Bush during most of Bush’s first term in office, but his views changed when the President pressured Republicans in Congress to pass his Medicare prescription bill, the first new entitlement passed since the LBJ. While Bartlett had begun to have some serious doubts about just how conservative the Bush Administration was, he kept quiet throughout the 2004 Presidential election cycle – not wanting to jeopardize George W. Bush’s re-election chances.

After the election Bartlett became outspoken in his criticism of the Bush administration. An original supporter of the war in Iraq , Bartlett joined fellow supply side economist Paul Craig Roberts as an outspoken critic of the war. Bartlett also wrote extensively about what he considered the big spending policies of the Administration and criticized what he saw as an alarming budget deficit. Recently, Bartlett he had become critical of the Harriet Miers nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The NCPA’s firing of Bartlett was prominently featured in the New York Times and that suggests the mainstream media is beginning to follow divisions within conservative ranks over Bush’s policies. While many Goldwater-Reagan traditionalists and libertarians have been critical of Bush’s policies for some time now, that group made up only a small fraction of the overall conservative movement. Now the Bush Administration is facing increasing opposition from conservative members of Congress and economists like Bartlett . Now many evangelicals have broken ranks with the Administration over the Miers Supreme Court nomination.

The Bartlett firing might have helped the NCPA keep its financial support intact, but it may also have seriously hurt its credibility as a leading conservative think tank.

Eleven members of the Texas House of Representatives in Austin have sent a letter to President Bush and members of the Texas Congressional Delegation calling on the President to do more to stem the tide of illegal immigration in Texas. The signers of the letter include five Dallas-area state representatives: Bill Keffer, Linda Harper-Brown, Jodie Laubenberg, Jim Jackson, and Ken Paxton.

The state legislators point out that there are an estimated 1.2 million illegal immigrants living in Texas, a 71% increase since 1996. According to the Texas legislators, this has imposed a huge financial burden on our state. They cite a report in their letter which claims that, in Harris County, illegal aliens account for 23% of the hospital patients there, “costing $330 million over the last three years.” The legislators call for stronger measures to address the problems of illegal immigration, noting that a recent Texas poll showed that 61% of respondents said that “the federal government is not doing enough to stop the flow.”

[COPY OF LETTER - PDF 7.0 required]