John Stossel talks about the Bitcoin

[Bazil]

Not sure if anyone saw this the the famous US libertarian John Stossel wrote a story on the bitcoin: http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/blog/2011/06/02/digital-currency-libertarian-future-0

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[nuggets4all]

A nod of approval from Stossel's mustache lends much legitimacy to The Bitcoin.

[Jaime Frontero]

john stossel is an idiot.  even if he's right, he's still an idiot.

someday i hope to perfect a fission-like device that will fire stossel and geraldo rivera at each other in a magnetic containment tube - causing them to release all their energy in an orgasmic burst of...

...teh dumb.

[Astro]

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[Jaime Frontero]

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

you are much more polite than i.

ok.  that works...

[MoonShadow]

john stossel is an idiot.  even if he's right, he's still an idiot.

someday i hope to perfect a fission-like device that will fire stossel and geraldo rivera at each other in a magnetic containment tube - causing them to release all their energy in an orgasmic burst of...

...teh dumb.

And you're an ass.  This was a neutral blog post, what is your problem with Stossel?  Are you his ex-wife or what?

[niemivh]

Stossel is a ------------, wait, you say he's promoting bitcoins?

Stossel is awesome!

 

[Freakin]

The only stance Stossel took in that article is that the war on drugs is a failure.  It was completely neutral on bitcoins.

[Jaime Frontero]

john stossel is an idiot.  even if he's right, he's still an idiot.

someday i hope to perfect a fission-like device that will fire stossel and geraldo rivera at each other in a magnetic containment tube - causing them to release all their energy in an orgasmic burst of...

...teh dumb.

And you're an ass.  This was a neutral blog post, what is your problem with Stossel?  Are you his ex-wife or what?

well creighto, i don't like people with the kind of forum that stossel has who lie about facts to support a political point of view:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1133

...i don't like those who abuse the tax advantages of charitable institutions:

http://www.thenation.com/article/teflon-correspondent

...i am especially ticked off by global warming deniers - and hugely more so by those who lie and use unjustified character assassination to spread the disinformation that harms us all:

http://www.fair.org/activism/stossel-tampering.html

but other than that - and a few dozen more things about him that i won't burden you with - he certainly has a nice mustache.

[evoorhees]

...i am especially ticked off by global warming deniers - and hugely more so by those who lie and use unjustified character assassination to spread the disinformation that harms us all:

http://www.fair.org/activism/stossel-tampering.html

but other than that - and a few dozen more things about him that i won't burden you with - he certainly has a nice mustache.

I'm a global warming denier. I also think Stossel is fantastic, because he doesn't believe in using coercion to force his opinion on others.

[Lynzoi]

I have a friend who worships John Stossel... I keep having to point out to him the various manipulative things he does in his reporting. He garners attention by making everyone he talks to look like an idiot, through the magic of tricky editing. I recall one particularly stupid episode where he said the best way to save the tiger is to farm it for meat, and he implied that Chinese stores already sell things made of tiger meat. As evidence, he showed a picture of a tea package with a tiger on it. It's stupid.

One thing I like about Stossel though, is his willingness to take unpopular opinions. He defends the virtues of plastic and pesticide. He says teachers unions are a scam. He even defends polygamists.

I think the problem with him is he's lazy. He probably didn't do any research about Bitcoin himself, he probably hired someone else to look stuff up for him, and then he picks some sort of libertarian thing to tie it into (the war on drugs). He's also an extremist.

I generally hate reporters. They all seem to be liars.

...i am especially ticked off by global warming deniers - and hugely more so by those who lie and use unjustified character assassination to spread the disinformation that harms us all:

http://www.fair.org/activism/stossel-tampering.html

but other than that - and a few dozen more things about him that i won't burden you with - he certainly has a nice mustache.

I'm a global warming denier. I also think Stossel is fantastic, because he doesn't believe in using coercion to force his opinion on others.

This is not true at all. Did you read the links that were posted? Stossel lies and manipulates data, and as for coercion, he often interrupts people he is arguing with, or edits them out when they are about to say something intelligent. If that is not coercion, I don't know what is. I could come up with several specific examples and links to videos, but I am tired at the moment.

[Montpelerin]

john stossel is an idiot.  even if he's right, he's still an idiot.

someday i hope to perfect a fission-like device that will fire stossel and geraldo rivera at each other in a magnetic containment tube - causing them to release all their energy in an orgasmic burst of...

...teh dumb.

And you're an ass.  This was a neutral blog post, what is your problem with Stossel?  Are you his ex-wife or what?

well creighto, i don't like people with the kind of forum that stossel has who lie about facts to support a political point of view:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1133

...i don't like those who abuse the tax advantages of charitable institutions:

http://www.thenation.com/article/teflon-correspondent

...i am especially ticked off by global warming deniers - and hugely more so by those who lie and use unjustified character assassination to spread the disinformation that harms us all:

http://www.fair.org/activism/stossel-tampering.html

but other than that - and a few dozen more things about him that i won't burden you with - he certainly has a nice mustache.

I'm sorry, but when the first accusational fact I search for from your sourced fair.org article is proven to be a blatant lie - the rest of your post (as well as your claims and positions) lose all credibility.

Stossel's errors are often so obvious that one wonders how they could have ended up on the air. In a 20/20 report on medical research (10/11/99), Stossel complained that too much funding was going to AIDS research, claiming that spending on the disease was "25 times more than on Parkinson's, which kills more people."

In fact, AIDS killed more than 16,000 people in the United States in 1999--down from 43,000 in 1995. Parkinson's, which is not itself generally fatal but contributes to other illnesses, has a mortality rate of 2 per 100,000 to less than 1 per 100,000, depending on the demographic group (BC Medical Journal, 4/01)--which works out to a death toll in the United States of less than 4,000 per year.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/entities/death/parkinson's_disease/e7/rk/ut/

http://www.wolframalpha.com/entities/death/HIV_AIDS/g5/8f/bn/


Maybe it is time to reconsider YOUR biased opinions?

[MoonShadow]

I have a friend who worships John Stossel... I keep having to point out to him the various manipulative things he does in his reporting. He garners attention by making everyone he talks to look like an idiot, through the magic of tricky editing.

No much editing is usually necessary.  Most people really are stupid.

[MoonShadow]

john stossel is an idiot.  even if he's right, he's still an idiot.

someday i hope to perfect a fission-like device that will fire stossel and geraldo rivera at each other in a magnetic containment tube - causing them to release all their energy in an orgasmic burst of...

...teh dumb.

And you're an ass.  This was a neutral blog post, what is your problem with Stossel?  Are you his ex-wife or what?

well creighto, i don't like people with the kind of forum that stossel has who lie about facts to support a political point of view:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1133

...i don't like those who abuse the tax advantages of charitable institutions:

http://www.thenation.com/article/teflon-correspondent

...i am especially ticked off by global warming deniers - and hugely more so by those who lie and use unjustified character assassination to spread the disinformation that harms us all:

http://www.fair.org/activism/stossel-tampering.html

but other than that - and a few dozen more things about him that i won't burden you with - he certainly has a nice mustache.

Granted, everyone makes a few errors every now and again, but if Stossel was as bad as you (and your sources, don't you do your own fact checking?  I do, and I usually find that both Stossel and Beck are both much more accurate than the bloggers will admit; particularly when paired up against their ideological opposition such as that one guy who doesn't have a show anymore or that other guy that got fired from MSNBC.  What were their names again?  Hard to remember, as only about four people actually watched either show.) claim then he wouldn't be able to stay on television.  He would have been sued out of the business long ago.

A cursory look at your links tells me straight away that the sources that you trust don't deserve it.

[syn]

john stossel is an idiot.  even if he's right, he's still an idiot.

someday i hope to perfect a fission-like device that will fire stossel and geraldo rivera at each other in a magnetic containment tube - causing them to release all their energy in an orgasmic burst of...

...teh dumb.

The liberals all loved Stossel when he produced things that went after big business (he won many awards).  Once he started thinking for himself, and started questioning the corruption and incompetence of big government then the liberals hate him.

You sir are a liberal drone who probably spends the other half of your internet surfing time on reddit.  You are used to being fed what to think (you need to continue to fit in with your hipster crowed).

Please keep your droning to a  minimum here.  Think for yourself.

Does this line of thinking feel familiar to you:

Guantanamo bay open (Bush is Evil, but Obama OK)
Suspension of habeas corpus (Bush is Evil, but Obama OK)
Contracting with Haliburtan (Bush is Evil, but Obama its OK because he made them change their name)
Warretnless wiretaps (Bush is Evil, but Obama OK)
the list is long, but the lack of thinking for oneself is obvious...
 

[jaimedimon]

I have a friend who worships John Stossel... I keep having to point out to him the various manipulative things he does in his reporting. He garners attention by making everyone he talks to look like an idiot, through the magic of tricky editing. I recall one particularly stupid episode where he said the best way to save the tiger is to farm it for meat, and he implied that Chinese stores already sell things made of tiger meat. As evidence, he showed a picture of a tea package with a tiger on it. It's stupid.

Wait a minute, are you telling me there is no tiger meat in Chinese tea???

[Lynzoi]

I have a friend who worships John Stossel... I keep having to point out to him the various manipulative things he does in his reporting. He garners attention by making everyone he talks to look like an idiot, through the magic of tricky editing. I recall one particularly stupid episode where he said the best way to save the tiger is to farm it for meat, and he implied that Chinese stores already sell things made of tiger meat. As evidence, he showed a picture of a tea package with a tiger on it. It's stupid.

Wait a minute, are you telling me there is no tiger meat in Chinese tea???

Yeah I know, ludicrous right?

Here is this thing I am complaining about, if anyone cares.

Notice how he shows an example of a product that does not "cantain" tiger, and then a few seconds later, the exact same product appears on the screen for a split second, and Stossel is claiming the product actually does cantain tiger. Really, it's sickening. I swear Stossel does this sort of thing all of the time.

The idea that it's even possible to farm tigers is disturbingly stupid. I mean... it's a tiger. It's not a bison. I'm all for free market enterprise and everything, but... you want to farm tigers? Give me a break indeed.

[jashan]

Quote from John Stossel's article:

It is a digital currency that my producer tells me is valauble partly because it's untracable: there is supposedly no way for the government, or anyone else, to see who owns or transfers Bitcoins.

Maybe he should have checked with the Wiki first: Bitcoin Wiki: Weaknesses - Tracing a coin's history

Quotes from Bitcoin Wiki: Anonymity (just one link down the line)

While the Bitcoin technology can support strong anonymity, the current implementation is usually not very anonymous.

The main problem is that every transaction is publicly logged. Anyone can see the flow of Bitcoins from address to address (see first image). Alone, this information can't identify anyone because the addresses are just random numbers. However, if any of the addresses in a transaction's past or future can be tied to an actual identity, it might be possible to work from that point and figure out who owns all of the other addresses. This identity information might come from network analysis, surveillance, or just Googling the address. The officially-encouraged practice of using a new address for every transaction is designed to make this attack more difficult.

[MoonShadow]

Quote from John Stossel's article:

It is a digital currency that my producer tells me is valauble partly because it's untracable: there is supposedly no way for the government, or anyone else, to see who owns or transfers Bitcoins.

Maybe he should have checked with the Wiki first: Bitcoin Wiki: Weaknesses - Tracing a coin's history

Quotes from Bitcoin Wiki: Anonymity (just one link down the line)

While the Bitcoin technology can support strong anonymity, the current implementation is usually not very anonymous.

The main problem is that every transaction is publicly logged. Anyone can see the flow of Bitcoins from address to address (see first image). Alone, this information can't identify anyone because the addresses are just random numbers. However, if any of the addresses in a transaction's past or future can be tied to an actual identity, it might be possible to work from that point and figure out who owns all of the other addresses. This identity information might come from network analysis, surveillance, or just Googling the address. The officially-encouraged practice of using a new address for every transaction is designed to make this attack more difficult.

First, he admitted that he was operating on hearsay; second, it's a blog not a news article and third he is still way better than most of the "articles" on Bitcoin I've seen thus far.

[YeniHurriyeT]

I have a friend who worships John Stossel... I keep having to point out to him the various manipulative things he does in his reporting. He garners attention by making everyone he talks to look like an idiot, through the magic of tricky editing. I recall one particularly stupid episode where he said the best way to save the tiger is to farm it for meat, and he implied that Chinese stores already sell things made of tiger meat. As evidence, he showed a picture of a tea package with a tiger on it. It's stupid.

Wait a minute, are you telling me there is no tiger meat in Chinese tea???

Yeah I know, ludicrous right?

Here is this thing I am complaining about, if anyone cares.

Notice how he shows an example of a product that does not "cantain" tiger, and then a few seconds later, the exact same product appears on the screen for a split second, and Stossel is claiming the product actually does cantain tiger. Really, it's sickening. I swear Stossel does this sort of thing all of the time.

The idea that it's even possible to farm tigers is disturbingly stupid. I mean... it's a tiger. It's not a bison. I'm all for free market enterprise and everything, but... you want to farm tigers? Give me a break indeed.

He's not saying YOU have to farm Tigers. He's saying its the best way to preserve the species. And he's right. Would you use force to prevent people from farming tigers?

Personally, I hope no one farms Tigers and they DO go extinct so I can stop hearing people whine about them. Same goes for whales, rhinos, elephants, lynx, and every other endangered species.

As for global warming and other complaints about Stossel, pathetic. First of all, Global Warming is a retired term. It's called 'Climate Change' now. The Climate always changes. Whether or not humans have any effect on it doesn't change anything. What is certain is that governments (men with guns) are using Climate Change as an excuse to increase their power by taxing literally everything including your right to breath (exhaling releases the evil CO2!)