In all seriousness, if you think back to the 1970s (ok, I probably do this too much) we did not have these angry voices pouring out of our televisions and radios 24/7 and 365. Really, we did not and I think the rise of talk radio and television has put a serious dent in how we communicate and view each other as well as form our political beliefs. It's no joke. A person could sit in their home all day long for weeks on end and listen to nothing but nasty bilious bullshit coming out of their tv and radio. Or listen to it driving to and from work and then turn on the tv when they get home and hear some more. People here in the USA do this too. They go from the talk on the radio to the tv talk shows when they get home and let's face it the general milieu and tone of these shows is anger, venom and unease. How good can that be for a person? The gist of what is being said tends to always be that you, the listener or viewer, are under attack and your way of life is being destroyed. There is always someone a "they" that is coming to take your money, take your job, screw up your retirement plans, pervert your children, destroy healthcare, create more crime, or blow up buildings.

Is there anybody here that can't conjure up an image in their mind of a red faced screaming Bill O'Reilly? A Rush Limbaugh or similar voice spewing invective? Ann Coulter making a wildly questionable remark in print or any other medium? Or even one of the panels of pundits on any given network, CNN for example, batting about what seem to be obvious (and often warped) talking points from their respective party of choice?

The bottom line is opinion is bigger than news at least here in the USA and really that's all I can speak to. Here's an interesting distinction too, liberals or the left seem to like their opinion delivered with a giggle (Franken, The Daily Show, Maher, Moore, etc) whereas the conservatives or the right seem to prefer the straight ahead stick a stiletto in the rib cage approach of some of the folks I've already mentioned. I'm not saying that's 100% true it just seems to be the way things lean and that's sort of interesting.

Bottom line is it's not really important how each side likes their "opinion" delivered or who said what but in the end when most of our intake of what is going on in the world is delivered to us as opinion how does this effect how we see things? I honestly think many people care less about the facts of a story and more about what certain other people might say about that story on their show.

My questions to people outside the USA are do you have talk radio and political tv talk shows in your countries and do these shows divide people where you are the way they seem to have divided Americans? I wonder if you have talk show hosts that use the same approach as our O'Reillys and Limbaughs. Talk show hosts that paint a nasty picture of the "other side" that is "coming to get you" and wants to "destroy your way of life."

Or is it just us?