Ratings do not indicate whether or not its bias or accurate. simply that there are many people, like yourself, who do not want true news, they want stories that rally their political base.

The idea of "fair and balanced" needs to be considered here. It is not, and never has been, a true journalist's job to be "fair."

reporting is simply relaying the facts. if those facts paint you in a negative light, then so be it. it isn't the journalists job to then go, dig up positive facts and report them too.

The news was not supportive of Palin, they ran stories about her that were true, and more or less damaged her political ambitions at the time. i get very tired of the conservative "news" fans crying that everyone is bias but them. that argument has never held any water. its a schoolyard argument.. 'its not me, its everyone else!" sure...

sorry palin had so many issues, but its not the fault of the reporters for reporting them.

i suggest everyone watch "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism"

it has nothing to do with being conservative or liberal, it has to do with a mega-corp owning massive media networks in an area, and its affect on journalism.

I'd like to bring up one point to your anecdote.

Taxes are not a primary reason that businesses left the US in favor of foreign operations. The greatest incentive towards the exodus is labor costs in America.

$7/hr on an assembly line might not sound like a lot here, but it buys that $7 buys an employee for a week in Taiwan (example) instead of 1hr as it does here.

Physical books will become less popular, and less common, but they will not disappear.

Take vinyl records for example. They are not as prevalent today as in the past, but they continue to exist in spite of 8-tracks, casettes, CD's and now MP3s.

For people who are fans, nothing will replace having, reading and collecting physical books. Many of us may move to electronic formats, but there will always be "die-hards" who will keep the format alive.

the economy is not a stand-alone entity. it is a system of forces (governmental, market, etc) that exist collectively. it exists in due to our own demands. the economy extends beyond the concept of the "market" as it incorporates the tools and forces we use to push/pull the market (such as regulation).

studying economics, one learns that there is no silver-bullet in dealing with it. that's to say, neither monetary or fiscal policy (the two primary tools employed by society/government) to force economic outcomes are proven.. not imply that we can not affect the economy, but to say that we can not specifically control or impact it in guaranteed, measurable ways.

that said, we can make the most impact by adjusting our behaviors that are known to impact our environment. furthermore, the economy responds to constraints. for example, when there was a demand for increased food, the market (a major piece of the economy) responded not only by producing more livestock, but additional, smaller markets formed, such as the railways, to meet the upstream demands.

In the same way, as the global community applies regulation and requirements aimed at helping our environment, it will force new markets to evolve. these new markets help diversify and grow our existing economy, making it more robust and more resilient to downturns (effect of diversification).

so, in short, to move forward with efforts to improve the environment, we'll see emerging markets and all that goes with them (new jobs, new industry types, new skill sets, new resource demands) that, in turn, improve our economy by default.

finally, from a personal standpoint, the environment can exist without a robust economy. an economy can't exist without a supportive environment. and finally, with our without a healthy economy, WE can not exist without a stable environment.