I'm kind of surprised that Amazon didn't manage to snag any conservative magazines. All of the political magazines available on the Kindle are liberal. It would be nice to see The Economist or a mainstream political magazine like Roll Call (www.rollcall.com). Sure there's stuff like Forbes, but that is business. I guess Amazon knows an audience of early tech adopters are going to have a liberal bent. But a lot of those customers are probably conservative businessmen as well. I know it can't be just the e-mag thing because many conservative magazines have web subscriptions.

Ditch the kindle, switch to the SONY and roll your own magazines using libprs500 ;)

I wouldn't assume that those were the only magazines Amazon approached.

Ditch the kindle, switch to the SONY and roll your own magazines using libprs500 ;)

I looked at Sony Reader when it first came out and drooled over it. I decided in the end that I didn't want it because the Sony CONNECT store had a paltry supply of books and Sony has a track record of cool gadgets with poor follow through on the software side. It's cool, but I think the Kindle better matches my needs and personality. I also looked at the iLiad, but it's not in my price range.

I chose the Kindle because of whispernet and amazon. For me reading is something that seems to get harder and harder to do with my busy schedule. The ability to find a book online, sample it, and download it without having to run back to a computer is a major feature for me. It's a major convenience that simplifies my life, and that's what I want out of an ebook reader.

The second point is wireless delivery of blogs/newspapers/magazines. A yearly subscription to Le Monde delivered to America daily is about $1300. On the Kindle, it is about $300. If you look at the difference as money saved, the reader pays for itself in only a few months. Of course, I could never subscribe before due to the cost so it isn't money saved per se, but it is worth it to me. For a French Minor and avid political reader like myself, there is tremendous value in the wireless subscriptions. As soon as I get my Kindle, I definitely plan on signing up for Slate. I'm not hot on the idea of subscribing to a lot of blogs, but there are a few I wouldn't mind parting with 99c a month to receive. Springwise and Cool Tools stick out in my mind. If PsyBlog (www.spring.org.uk) ever becomes available, I'd probably pay for that.

The third point is that it is Amazon. Sony is an electronics company with a cool track record for design but a not so hot record in the service industry. I don't get the feeling that the CONNECT store is something they're putting a lot of effort into. Amazon is a bookseller. Amazon already has five times as many books as Sony, and since it's Amazon I feel confident that the store is more than just a selling point for the device. I know that thousands of books are being added to the store every day. Just in the last couple of days I've noticed series I was interested in being filled in very rapidly. That's just older series of books. I expect that Amazon will do everything in their power to ensure that they eventually get all books released in electronic format right away.

I never though politics would enter Kindle discussions, what next...

Sheesh I was kidding :)

Sheesh I was kidding :)

Sorry. I've just seen too many people calling the Kindle garbage. I felt like I had to defend my choice.

Ah I apologize if if I stepped on any sore spots.

What does "Liberal" mean in this context? ie what is a "liberal magazine"?

What does "Liberal" mean in this context? ie what is a "liberal magazine"?

I hope this doesn't end badly.

In an American context, there are two labels, liberal and conservative. The label liberal is largely synonymous with the Democrat Party, and can include the labels progressive, socialist, communist, as well as some fringe group rights loonies (NAACP, NOW, PETA).

A liberal magazine genrally takes the position of "it's wrong if a conservative did it, but perfectly okay and wonderful if a liberal did it". They will take this position not just on editorial content, but on how the news is slanted.

I hope this doesn't end badly.

In an American context, there are two labels, liberal and conservative. The label liberal is largely synonymous with the Democrat Party, and can include the labels progressive, socialist, communist, as well as some fringe group rights loonies (NAACP, NOW, PETA).

A liberal magazine genrally takes the position of "it's wrong if a conservative did it, but perfectly okay and wonderful if a liberal did it". They will take this position not just on editorial content, but on how the news is slanted.

For not wanting this to end badly you certainly went out of your way to ensure that it did. What an insulting bunch of tripe.

snookums, Amazon has a KNOWN HISTORY FOR ABANDONING EBOOKS AND LEAVING THE USER WELL AND TRULY SCREWED. This is NO JOKE. This is FACT. And you complain about Sony? Sometimes I just don't get some people.

I hope this doesn't end badly.

In an American context, there are two labels, liberal and conservative. The label liberal is largely synonymous with the Democrat Party, and can include the labels progressive, socialist, communist, as well as some fringe group rights loonies (NAACP, NOW, PETA).

A liberal magazine genrally takes the position of "it's wrong if a conservative did it, but perfectly okay and wonderful if a liberal did it". They will take this position not just on editorial content, but on how the news is slanted.

If you really wanted to keep things civil then calling folks like the NAACP "loonies" wasn't a very wise way to go about it. I wish I could give you negative karma.

Woah, woah. I didn't intend to start any arguments.

HarryT: In the context of U.S. politics, Liberal and Conservative are opposite of their meanings in the UK. They're both blanket terms really though.

Social conservatives believe that the government should support things like traditional marriage and oppose things like gay marriage, abortion, raunchy television. Economic conservatives believe in the free market, meritocracy, and oppose government support programs like nationalized health care and welfare. Foreign Policy conservatives support putting American interests first, strong national defense, and support the U.N. as a tool for diplomacy, but don't think the U.S. should defer to it.

Social liberals support gay marriage, abortion rights, non-traditional values, quotas for minorities, etc. Economic liberals favor safety nets such as welfare, nationalized health care, usually increased taxes on the rich, and strict regulation of business. Foreign Policy Liberals support multilateralism, U.S. adherence to U.N. sanctioned international law, etc.

No one individual is really an ideologue. I've met people who are Social liberals but Foreign Policy Conservatives.

As for what a liberal magazine is, most of the political magazines on Amazon are described as liberal in their description. I'm not being subjective here. I just thing it is odd that Amazon didn't manage to get something like Pat Buchanan's magazine, The American Conservative.

Nate the great: All politicians do the "it's wrong if our opponents did it, but perfectly okay and wonderful if my friends did it" thing. That's why conservatives ranted and raved over Clinton's infidelity, but stood quiet when it was revealed that Gingrich was doing the same or later when Swarzenegger (spelling?) had to apologize for sexually harassing all those women or when that one guy was found to have made sexual advances on his underage pages or when Bill O'Reilly got caught on tape sexually harassing his producer. There are a million examples from both sides of this issue. I didn't intend to start a great political debate on this forum. I am actually and independent and I like to read both liberal and conservative magazines. I like to look at all sides of the issues.

If you really wanted to keep things civil then calling folks like the NAACP "loonies" wasn't a very wise way to go about it. I wish I could give you negative karma.

You are correct. Since this isn't a site about politics, naming specific groups was inappropriate as well as not needed to answer Harry's question. I apologize.

Thanks snookums, that's very interesting.

I'm not sure you're entirely correct in saying that they are the opposite to the UK, although they are certainly slightly different. We have three main political parties rather than your two: labour (currently in power - nominally socialist although not very), liberal democrats (middle of the road to slightly left of centre), and conservative (right of centre).

Even our conservative party, however, is probably rather to the left of your Democratic Party, in that they support government-funded health and education; our "national health service" has been one of the cornerstones of politics in the UK since the 1940s and it would be political suicide for any party to come out against it :).

Thanks again for the interesting information; one of the best things about MR is the fact that one gets to talk to people from all over the world and find out how things are done elsewhere.

Just curious, do most US voters register with a particular party?
Not many people in the UK openly affiliate themselves with a political party (that way we get to moan about all of them :)); but the election coverage we're getting from the US talks about Democrat/Republican registered voters, with Independents as the third option. It sounds as if most voters are identified as belonging to one of the groups.

Just curious, do most US voters register with a particular party?
Not many people in the UK openly affiliate themselves with a political party (that way we get to moan about all of them :)); but the election coverage we're getting from the US talks about Democrat/Republican registered voters, with Independents as the third option. It sounds as if most voters are identified as belonging to one of the groups.

Generally most do register with one party. Until recently this was required in order to vote in the primaries. However, some states now permit independent voters to vote in the primary by picking one of the two parties ballots. In CA, this year, the democrats allow independents to vote for the presidential candidate while the republicans do not.

By the way, Harry, democrats in the US are the liberal group and are usually fine with nationalized medicine.

Dale

Thanks for the reply, DaleDe :)

Well Harry different states have different primary structures. The primaries, as I'm sure you've heard, are how the parties pick their candidates to run against the opposition. You don't have to register as either party to vote in the general elections for president and congress. For the primaries it comes down to how the individual states handle the matter. For instance, I live in a state with an open primary so I registered as a independent. That means that come Feb 5th I can walk up to my polling location and cast my votes in any particular parties primaries whether it be Democrat, Republican, Reform, Libertarian, Communist, Nazi, etc. (We do have those parties on the ballot in my state. You just don't hear about them because they don't have a chance in hell of winning.:))

I can't switch off though. I have to only vote for candidates in one particular party. The choice of party is up to me when I arrive. Open primaries have been criticized because some people believe that a process called "raiding" can go on. They suspect that people sometimes sign up as independent so they can vote in the oppositions primary and vote for the candidate least likely to win. No one has ever proved that this goes on, but I've heard some say that it is one of the reasons for the Democrats stranglehold on Louisiana.

At the state level there are some good reason why you might not want to vote for your particular parties primary. I live in Arkansas which is one of the few southern states that still votes almost entirely Democrat for our state government. I know that many Republicans in my state vote for the Democratic primaries because they know that none of the Republican candidates are likely to win. Thus whoever wins the Democratic primary will probably be the winner.

I hope this doesn't end badly.

In an American context, there are two labels, liberal and conservative. The label liberal is largely synonymous with the Democrat Party, and can include the labels progressive, socialist, communist, as well as some fringe group rights loonies (NAACP, NOW, PETA).

A liberal magazine genrally takes the position of "it's wrong if a conservative did it, but perfectly okay and wonderful if a liberal did it". They will take this position not just on editorial content, but on how the news is slanted.

Things tend to end better if they start better.

Oh, and the "wrong if they did it but right if we did it" thing? The conservatives, centrists, and, well, anyone and everyone else does it too.

Our political system works completely differently, snookums, in that we don't have a separate vote for Prime Minister - the PM is simply the current leader of whatever political party is in government. If the party changes its leader, the PM changes too, as happened recently when Tony Blair resigned as leader of the labour party, and Gordon Brown was elected leader of the party and hence became PM.

If the party changes its leader, the PM changes too, as happened recently when Tony Blair resigned as leader of the labour party, and Gordon Brown was elected leader of the party and hence became PM.

Brown was the only candidate - did Labour actually bother with a leadership election?

(If they did, is it too late to demand a recount ;))

I think they did, yes, and obviously they had to go through the election process because they didn't know in advance whether or not anyone else would stand.

Our political system works completely differently, snookums, in that we don't have a separate vote for Prime Minister - the PM is simply the current leader of whatever political party is in government. If the party changes its leader, the PM changes too, as happened recently when Tony Blair resigned as leader of the labour party, and Gordon Brown was elected leader of the party and hence became PM.

How is the current leader of the Party selected? That is more or less exactly what our Primaries are about. We are selecting the leader of the party. In the US we never elect a party, we elect people and then that serves to name the leader of the party if the person gets elected. In the congress the party with the majority of people in it then is considered the majorty party and they select a majority leader for congress (separate person in senate and house).

How is the current leader of the Party selected? That is more or less exactly what our Primaries are about. We are selecting the leader of the party. In the US we never elect a party, we elect people and then that serves to name the leader of the party if the person gets elected. In the congress the party with the majority of people in it then is considered the majorty party and they select a majority leader for congress (separate person in senate and house).

Each party chooses its own method to elect a leader. In the case of the labour party (of which Gordon Brown is the leader) I believe (and please correct me if I'm wrong, anyone!) that the leader is voted for only by labour Members of Parliament. Some other parties have a vote of all party members.

Our parliamentary elections work pretty much the same as yours - the country is divided into "constituencies" which are roughly equal-sized in terms of the number of people in them (the borders gets adjusted every 10 years to maintain that). Each constituency elects a member of parliament, who (normally) represents a particular party. The party which ends up with the most seats (generally) forms the government, and the leader of that party becomes Prime Minister.

One interesting difference between our systems is that, although a government can stay in office for a maximum of five years here, it's the PM who decides when to call an election, so he (or she) naturally does so at a time that they consider to be most favourable to their own chances of being re-elected. We don't have elections at fixed times, as you do.

Each party chooses its own method to elect a leader. In the case of the labour party (of which Gordon Brown is the leader) I believe (and please correct me if I'm wrong, anyone!) that the leader is voted for only by labour Members of Parliament. Some other parties have a vote of all party members.


MPs decide who can stand, but lots of people associated with Labour can vote (why candidates need so much cash for their campaigns I guess):
"It is likely that up to a million people will have a say in the leadership race this time."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5177180.stm

Thanks, Sparrow!

MPs decide who can stand, but lots of people associated with Labour can vote (why candidates need so much cash for their campaigns I guess):
"It is likely that up to a million people will have a say in the leadership race this time."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5177180.stm

sounds very similar to our Primaries in states that use closed primaries. thanks for the info.

Dale

For not wanting this to end badly you certainly went out of your way to ensure that it did. What an insulting bunch of tripe.

Amen!

I hope this doesn't end badly.

In an American context, there are two labels, liberal and conservative. The label liberal is largely synonymous with the Democrat Party, and can include the labels progressive, socialist, communist, as well as some fringe group rights loonies (NAACP, NOW, PETA).

A liberal magazine genrally takes the position of "it's wrong if a conservative did it, but perfectly okay and wonderful if a liberal did it". They will take this position not just on editorial content, but on how the news is slanted.

Hahahahahahahahahaha... :rofl:

*ahem*

That was totally uncalled for.