One more thing that will never come to pass

73. My home town is not incorporated, but some estimates put us between 10,000 and 25,000 people. I also live about ten minutes from El Paso, Texas and a half an hour from the Mexican border. So I’ve grown up with a very weird sense of identity.

We’ve reached the era of 24-hour news programs with 24-minute news cycles. Unfortunately, the nature of this medium (friggin’ TV) has led to proportionally shrunken attention spans. As a result of this, political mistruths and claims have gotten to the point where they are analyzed in completely different cycles than when they are said.

Here’s an idea: instant fact checking during live events. It’s possible. I mean, places like 2008 Central already provide live blogging of presidential debates. All it would take would be a special C-SPANlike channel with FactCheck.orglike knowledge and American Idolstyle immediacy.

So, of course, it will never happen.

But a boy can dream, can’t he? I mean, can you just imagine what it would be like to see a debate that went something like this:

“We can solve the budget deficit by cutting wasteful spending”

(Note: ‘wasteful’ includes 15 percent from education, 33 percent of social programs, and 8 percent from transportation.
Source: Candidate X’s campaign Web site)

p.s. Candidate X’s record on the economy scares me.

73. My home town is not incorporated, but some estimates put us between 10,000 and 25,000 people. I also live about ten minutes from El Paso, Texas and a half an hour from the Mexican border. So I’ve grown up with a very weird sense of identity. We’ve reached the era of 24-hour news programs…