Recently, I finally got around to adding some news feeds to my Google Reader. (Quick sidetrack: Google Reader has revolutionized my browsing habits. I can't believe I used to actually visit blogs individually every day.) I'm sticking to World News and US News for now--basically, the bare minimum to feel like a reasonably informed citizen. I can live without a daily dose of Health/Science news, and I don't need Entertainment/Sports at all.

Anyway, the stuff in the news lately has been wigging me out. Does anybody have any better information on any of the stuff I'm about to discuss? Because I'll readily admit, this is an understanding I've picked up by scrolling through tons of news entries. But, I had to get some stuff off my chest. (If nothing else, to get some writing in here.)

Apparently Russia and the US recently got into a little tiff about missile defense in Europe? My understanding is that the US installed some missile defense systems, which made Russia cranky, so Russia threatened to set up actual missile attack systems. I can't even begin to explain how silly this seems to me. Russia: "How dare you try to defend against missiles that aren't there? Just for that, we're going to make sure there are missiles!" US: "Um . . . yeah, not really making us feel better." And Europe: "Didn't we just leave this party?" (Seriously, guys, the Cold War is supposed to be over.) But then! Sarkozy steps in and convinces Russia not to do anything stupid! Go France!(?) I guess he figured it's no use trying to convince US not to do stupid things.

And Israel is blockading Gaza. Because starving civilians is the best way to resolve age-old religious and diplomatic differences. So of course, Hamas is like, "ARGH! WE SHOOT YOU!" And Israel's like, "No food for you!"

No wonder people make their livings making fun of the news. It's so absurdly tragic (or sometimes, just absurd) that you can either laugh or cry.

I use Google News, because I like having access to lots of different sources for any given story. It can be interesting, but occasionally frustrating. I watched a video about Israel's blockade of Gaza, and about the time the narrator was talking about how Israel is starving babies, I realized the coverage was from Al Jazeera. And while I'm sure that blockade actually is making it hard to feed the babies, I'd kind of like to get my news stories from a third party in any given conflict.

Though, I suppose I also don't have any evidence that, say, the Associated Press would be more accurate. I think after so many years of being preached at about bias in the media, I don't really trust anything all that much. Let's face it--you can spin things pretty damn easily. (And I'm not accusing the media of liberal bias . . . just bias in general.) I dunno when I turned into a skeptic, but it happened somewhere along the line.