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Have Novel -- Will Travel!

 

We live today in the information age. With print-on-demand, anyone can write and publish a book or novel. The problem is how to market and sell that book once it is published.

Major book publishers are not interested in an unpublished author, preferring instead to stick with better-known, successful authors. But, in order to become a well-known and successful author, you need to be published.

Enter the Information Superhighway – the internet. Having tried unsuccessfully to entice a major publisher to look at my work, I have decided to publish a few excerpts from my novel on selected sites on the internet. It is my hope that a publisher will read these excerpts and take an interest in reading the entire manuscript.

 

Working title:

Thinking Outside The Box

A Novel About Terrorism

A brief synopsis:

Jamal and Siad were both American Muslims with longstanding and personal reasons to both hate their country and to be willing to die to punish it. With help from radical Islamic terrorists, they develop a plan to blow up a major college football stadium during the game.

Commander Thomas Lainge was looking forward to his retirement from the Navy when the President asked him to take over as head of NSA. When one of his analysts detects what he believes to be a terror cell, he must convince a FISA judge to allow him to wiretap an American citizen.

Ishmael was a Muslim student, so horrified by the attack on 9/11 that he vowed to work with the FBI to root out possible terrorists within his own Muslim community.

These characters and others are thrown together into a tale that combines fact with fiction, intertwining events we read about today, with a plot that might, or might not happen tomorrow. The novel is fast paced with non-stop action, told in a way that keeps the reader on the edge of his seat.

A real page-turner, the number one complaint of those that have previewed the novel is; they wanted more!


An Excerpt from Chapter 9

Somewhere in Italy

Mahmoud had ceased to wonder at how he had been caught. The most careful of men, he had at first tried to dissect his every move, gleaning the missteps that had led to his arrest. Unable to pinpoint any errors on his own part, he was now resigned to whatever fate Allah had in store for him.

The near silence was broken suddenly as the door through which the nurse had entered was thrust open, banging against the wall. Small flakes of paint fell to the floor, attesting to the fact that this was not the first time for this occurrence. Mahmoud’s head snapped up as two men entered. His attention was riveted on the one in front, carrying a small leather satchel. Almost unnoticed, the second man slipped behind Mahmoud, as the first man placed the satchel on a small table in front of him, and opened it.

Carefully, he removed a small hand-held propane tank with an adjustable nozzle. Setting the tank upright on the table, he next took out a hand igniter, twisted the knob on the nozzle to allow gas to escape, and ignited it. Slowly twisting back the knob, he adjusted the gas down to a barely visible blue flame.

Mahmoud’s eye never left that flame, even as the man removed a small stand and adjustable clamp from the bag, setting it up next to the flaming tank. It was not until he had also removed a long ugly looking knife and anchored it into the clamp that his attention was diverted from the flame.

As the man placed the end of the knife in the flame, that flame flared yellow where it contacted the blade. Staring now at the knife, Mahmoud’s eyes visibly narrowed, a questioning look coming for the first time over his face.

Unnoticed, the second man slipped up behind Mahmoud, just beyond the range of his vision, whispering into his ear in Arabic.

“You have seen my knife before, my friend.” There was no friendliness in his voice, which, even in a whisper, rang loudly through the room. “I see you recognize it. Are you surprised to see it again…here…now?”

An Excerpt from Chapter 26

In Ann Arundel County, MD

The house remained deadly quiet, the only sound coming from the hum of the computer in the corner of the living room. Always on, the whisper of the cooling fan told him it was doing its job. Tiptoeing up the carpeted stairway he first of all looked in on the boys, the door to their rooms both slightly ajar. No nightlight lit the upstairs of his home, but his eyes had quickly adjusted to the dim light, and enough moonlight came through the open windows to provide all the light he needed. They both appeared to be soundly sleeping, the covers thrown about, half on and half off the bed, in typical boy fashion. Their rooms gave the appearance of having been ransacked, a sure sign that Peg had not yet ordered their bi-monthly cleaning.

They were now in the middle of their second full week of school, their book bags each stacked next to their bedroom doors. Naturally neither bag was orderly, as books and papers protruded from their open tops. He wondered if they had homework. A touch of guilt crossed his mind. He imagined Peg standing over them, helping them with their Math or their English homework. His conscience told him that was his duty to perform, a duty that he was derelict in his performance.

He had slipped his shoes off before ascending the stairway. Now, carrying them in his left hand, he entered his own bedroom. He recognized his wife as a lump on the right side of the bed, completely covered, with her pillow thrown over her head. He’d often kidded her about that, telling her that she wouldn’t even be able to hear a fire alarm the way she slept. Her reply was inevitably that it was his duty, as the man, to waken her in case of a fire.

Slipping across to the master bath, he closed the door to the bath before switching on the overhead light. The sudden brightness momentarily stunned him, his eyes, however, quickly adjusting. Reaching into the shower, he turned on the water, adjusting the temperature before stepping inside. Removing his shirt and dropping it to the floor he surveyed his own image in the mirror. He looked tired, he decided. He was looking forward to taking a break. It would be good for him to get away this coming weekend. The stress of this job was enormous.

He dropped the remainder of his clothing in a pile next to the hamper, and stepped through the frosted door into the shower. The moment the hot water contacted his skin he felt relief. The steam rising around him instantly warmed him like a sauna. For several minutes he just stood there, allowing the water to wash over his body. The noise of the shower prevented him from hearing the door to the bath open and then click closed again.

Taking a handful of shampoo from the bottle in the corner, he scrubbed it into his hair. With his back to the shower door, he did not notice the shadowy figure that swept across in front of the shower.

An Excerpt from Chapter 5

FISA Courtroom Washington, DC

Something in his body language must have hinted that he was about to speak out to the judge, because he felt the Attorney General’s hand lightly rest upon his shoulder with just the hint of pressure applied with the fingers. In a very unobtrusive manor, he was being told by the Attorney General to “Shut up.”

“Your honor,” he began again, only to once again be interrupted from the bench.

“The standards for a wiretap under the FISA provision when it involves surveillance of a US citizen or an alien residing legally within our borders are clear. The Attorney General must present a case to present before the court stating the facts and circumstances relied upon . . . to justify belief that the target is an agent of a foreign power or engages . . . in international terrorism.”

“I thank you for that explanation,” the Attorney General replied dryly, the irony showing in his voice. What the judge had just told him was nearly word for word from the statute. If the judge perceived any hint of rebuke in his words, she showed no sign of it.

If the court will examine the documents presented, she will see that a very strong case has been made that we are dealing with a clandestine organization…possibly an al Qaeda terror cell…that is using disposable cell phones to communicate with persons both

outside and within our borders,” the Attorney General reiterated.

“The court will notice,” he continued, “in those conversations captured outside our borders…a clear pattern of behavior has been established to indicate…”

Once again the judge interrupted the AG, stopping him in mid-sentence.

“I have examined those ‘intercepts’ and I see no clear pattern, except the fact that there are a lot of wrong numbers being dialed. If we are to wiretap anyone who misdials a number, it would seem to me that government resources will be tied up for decades listening to innocent persons.”

If you are a book editor or publisher, please contact me through the email address at: dahinz@aol.com If you are not a book publisher, please pass this on to someone who is.

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100 Hours – 100 Days – 100 Years

 

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi promised the American public an energetic and ambitious agenda, to be accomplished within the first 100 hours of her tenure. With that promise in mind, the Democrat majority in the House pushed through several “progressive” agenda items including an increase in the minimum wage, reduction in student loan rates, and timed withdrawal from the central front in the war on terror in Iraq.

At the end of the first 100 days not a single of those items has reached the President’s desk, or been enacted into law. While long on rhetoric, the Democrat agenda has been short on success. Gradually, though belatedly, it has begun to dawn upon the Democrat leadership in Congress that leadership requires – well, leadership!

Promising a spirit of bi-partisanship hitherto unheard of in Washington DC, the new Democrat leadership immediately embarked on a program of minority (read that Republican) suppression, greater still than that which the Democrats had claimed the Republicans had imposed upon them, when the GOP was in control of Congress.

This tit-for-tat agenda, the very approach the Democrats had campaigned against, and the business-as-usual approach they had railed against when the Republicans held the majority, epitomizes the reason the American public distrusts and reviles Congress. The “he did it first” appeal so often heard from Washington reminds too many of us as the same type of childish nonsense we suffer with our unruly five-year-olds.

For some unfathomable reason, we expect more from our elected leaders, than we do from our five-year-olds. History would suggest these expectations to be unfounded.

Quite honestly, more than a little of the blame must be placed upon President George W Bush. When the Republicans held both the Legislative majority and the White House, had he been a little more willing to exert his Constitutional authority, and actually veto a few of the more egregious Republican sponsored legislation placed upon his desk, he would be in a better position today to threaten this Democrat majority with his disapproval.

It was the absence of veto on his part that has emboldened the new leadership to believe that he simply does not have the stomach for confrontation. The “new tone” he chose to bring to Washington, along with his non-confrontational approach to the attacks he has suffered from his first days in office, have served to convince the Democrat leadership that he will cave on his principles, once he is confronted with the legislation on his desk.

Thus far, the specter of filibuster in the Senate, where the Democrat majority is tenuous at best, is all that has prevented the President from that legislative confrontation. The “progressive” legislation the House of Representatives pushed through with little or no debate has come to a screeching halt in the Senate, where the rules prevent such a legislative railroad.

This hiatus from confrontation is soon to end, as the Appropriations Bill to provide funding to our troops in Iraq, loaded with pork-barrel spending, is expected to make its way to his desk in the coming weeks. Week-kneed Republicans, unwilling to prevent the process from derailing American troops in the field, are allowing this abomination to more forward, placing the onus on the President to veto the legislation, sending it back to Congress to be re-addressed.

The American people, meanwhile, are not fooled. Despite the machinations of the Mainstream Media to toe the Democrat line, and portray the President as the villain should he veto the bill, thus cutting off funding to the troops, the public is aware of this President’s unwavering support of the military.

A compromise will be struck, but only after much posturing and pompous rhetoric from the Democrat leadership in Congress. Congressional poll numbers, lower still than the President’s, and public outcry will convince that leadership to change their approach, or suffer the wrath the GOP saw in 2006.

The choice, quite simply, for the Democrat Congressional leadership is to either accede to the wishes of the American public, and work with this President, or suffer an ignoble defeat in 2008 for their arrogance.
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Brian Ross: Leftist Attack Dog!

 

ABC Radio’s “Investigative Reporter” Brian Ross has demonstrated once again that he is not an objective reporter of the news, but instead, an attack dog of the far left. Each weekday, he insinuates himself into our consciousness over the ABC Radio Network, with his “Investigative” reports. These reports are nothing more, in fact, than leftist agenda-driven propaganda, aimed at discrediting anything Republican or Conservative.

Case In point: On Friday he burst into our radios with the report that a judge, with ties to Exxon had reduced the penalties levied against Exxon Mobil stemming from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. That judge has ties to an organization funded by Exxon Mobil and has accepted travel from that organization.

Wow! What an indictment of a public official. Accepting trips from Exxon Mobil; then ruling in favor of that company. Another case of a bought-and-paid-for judge! But a long history of shady and distorted reports from this guy causes us to dig a little deeper into the story. And so, we discover, the facts tell a quite different tale.


Read the entire story here:
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Why We Want To Kill You!

 “Golda Meir once said, ‘Israel will have peace when the Arabs love their children more than they hate Israel.’ I say, ‘America will have peace when we love our children more than we love peace.’”

These were the words of Walid Shoebat, a former Islamic terrorist, concerning the threat that Radical Islam poses to the rest of the world. Shoebat, Zachariah Anani and Kamal Saleem make up the Three Ex-terrorists; lecturers who cross the country spreading the word of crisis.

President Bush has called Islam a great “Religion of Peace” that has been hijacked by radicals. The three former terrorists dispute those words, making the claim that Islam has always been a violent creed spread by the sword, and mired in a 7th century philosophy of slavery and master.

They tell their stories of indoctrination from childhood; of weapons and bomb-making taught to children; and ignorance of the outside world, and the cause of the misery that plagues the region.

Ignorance, they say, both by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, is the main reason for the spread of Islam around the world. Ignorance of the true tenets of the faith, and of the desire for world domination, allow the religion to spread, they say.

Each former terrorist has a compelling tale to tell of his personal journey from Islamic fanatic to converted Christian. Theirs were journey from hatred against all infidels, to a love for humankind.

You cannot afford to NOT read this article. The entire article is available here:

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A Political Man For All Seasons

 

As the Republican Party struggles to find a Presidential Candidate for 2008 that will wear the Conservative mantle that Ronald Wilson Reagan created, each candidate, when judged, is found to be lacking. Each of the top tier hopefuls has tried on that mantle. None have, as yet, convinced the faithful, that they can wear it convincingly.

Yet, such a candidate is available, and waiting in the wings. The conservative movement has a man who has, throughout his career, championed smaller government, lower taxes, and less Government interference in our daily lives. This man, like President Reagan, is known for his oratory, beloved by the country, and recognized almost universally by the electorate.

He has, as a member of Congress voted to restrict campaign contributions by both unions and corporations. He voted against the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and voted to limit welfare payments to immigrants.

He is against increasing the minimum wage, and for Social Security personal retirement accounts. He voted to eliminate the ‘marriage penalty’ and for across-the-board spending cuts. He voted to extend the Internet Sales Tax moratorium, and to authorize the use of force in Iraq.

He voted for welfare reform, but against the elimination of block grants for food stamps. He voted for a ban on partial birth abortion, and against same sex marriage. He voted for abstinence education, but against the inclusion of prescription drugs under Medicare. He voted in favor of the limiting of endless death penalty appeals, but against stricter national penalties for gun and drug violations.

The man, of whom I write, after spending eight years in Washington, said he longed to return to the honesty and reality of Hollywood. A union member, this man has been a truck driver, a prosecuting attorney, a US Senator, and one of America’s most easily recognized faces on network television today.

The man, of course, is Fred Dalton Thompson.

Thompson’s conservative credentials, in and out of government, make him a natural fit for the conservative movement within the Republican Party. His association with the defining moment of the left in the modern age; he was the co-chief council to the Senate Watergate Committee in its investigation of the Watergate Scandal that eventually brought down President Nixon; and his work for so many years in Hollywood with both television and movies; makes him a man embraced by persons across all spectrums of the body politic.

Like Sir Thomas More in the play, A Man For All Seasons, Thompson is seen as a man of principle, admired by his fans, envied by his enemies, and beloved by the common people. As a ‘non-politician’ politician, he is seen by most Americans as a down-to-earth common man; a fatherly figure, wise in the ways of the world.

Thompson brings a down-home earthiness to his manner, the heritage of his Alabama birth, and Tennessee upbringing. A man not born to wealth, but who has made of himself a wealthy man, through his own talent and enterprise, the American people will turn to him for his homespun wisdom and charm.

From time to time, his name is floated as a Presidential candidate, with a Draft Fred Thompson website touting his appeal.

Fred Thompson is the very candidate for whom the Conservative Movement has been searching. No other candidate projects the charisma and charm, as well as the name recognition and conservative credentials to which Fred Thompson can lay claim. Like President Reagan in 1980, Fred Thompson is the true conservative leader that can take the Party forward in the 21st Century.

David Hinz is the Publisher of The HinzSight Report

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Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari: Terrorist or Businessman?

 UNDERSCORING THE PROBLEMS WE FACE IN COMBATING TERRORISM!

According to an indictment brought against Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari brought Friday in Manhattan federal court, the man has been supporting terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.

According to Ali Alishtari he is a banking underwriter who has "built proprietary online bank security that allowed for protection from ID theft online within electronic data interchanges."

It is through that online business he had built, authorities claim, that he has bilked thousands of investors out of millions of dollars, funneling most of that money to fund terrorism. No doubt, Ali Alishtari will become the next "cause celebre" of the left, as the fascist Bush Administration once again goes after an innocent Arab businessman who is guilty of nothing other than being a Muslim Arab! The entire story is available here:

Go to www.hinzsightreport.com for all the latest in News!
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I Do Not Support The Mission!

 

I Do Not Support The Mission!

This is the week when the newly installed Democrat controlled Congress gets down to the mission of undermining the President of the United States and his policy in Iraq, and pulling the support out from under the troops in the field. On the one hand, wild-eyed liberals cry out for a resolution to Defund the War, while more moderate liberals contend themselves with merely symbolically castrating the President.

Let me say categorically:  I DO NOT SUPPORT THE MISSION!

That remarkable document, The US Constitution, provided for exactly ONE commander-in-chief, and placed that authority with the President of the United States. That document handed certain powers to Congress, while other powers were retained by the Presidency. Somewhere, in their gross misreading of that document, this Congress has come to believe that the Constitution has vested them with the powers of the Presidency, thus creating 535 little Presidents.

I do not use the word “little” lightly in the previous sentence, as Congress has become a body of “little” people. Leadership, if there ever was any, has long since taken a backseat to expediency, poll numbers, consensus and public opinion. It has become the mission, in this Congress, NOT to lead, but to obstruct.

It has become the mission of this Congress to point out problems, without offering solutions; to pick apart leaders, without providing leadership of their own. It has become the province of this Congress to fool the voters into the belief that they “support the troops” but that they do not “support the mission” of those troops.

It has become the mission of this Congress to pass toothless resolutions, providing themselves with cover if things turn sour, while guaranteeing that result, by passing toothless resolutions!

So, allow me to say, one last time:  I support the Congress of the United States, but I do NOT support their mission!

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A Hillary/Obama Ticket Brings NOTHING To The Table

 

There seems to be a feeling of inevitability on the Right, for a Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama Democrat ticket for President and Vice President in 2008. Staring at that possibility, pundits bemoan the fact that it will be “unbeatable.”

I would beg to differ. A Hillary/Obama ticket brings absolutely NOTHING to the table that wasn’t already there. Let us examine the facts.

In every national election in recent memory, the Democrats have won the majority of the women voters. While Republicans have doe relatively well with certain demographics, married women for example, the majority of single women continue to vote Democrat. This is not likely to change in the near future.

So, Hillary will win this demographic. No surprise here. However, the question becomes, will she bring NEW voters into the campaign? Will she bring enough new voters into the campaign to make a significant difference in the election? In my opinion, the answer is a resounding NO!

Hillary Clinton enjoys the largest name recognition of any candidate who has ever strapped on the presidential candidate feedbag. Her name recognition is so great that she will undoubtedly campaign on her first name alone, campaigning simply as “Hillary!”

The reason for that is two-fold. First of all, she would really, really like for people to forget about that husband of hers; you know the one; the guy who took sexual favors in that little corridor outside the Oval Office. Hillary wants you to think of her as a decisive Senator from New York, NOT the wife a philandering husband who embarrassed not only himself and his country, but his wife as well.

The second reason she will campaign as “Hillary!” is that she wants to continually remind everyone that she is a woman! She really has little to fear on that score, as every time she speaks, we are reminded of that fact.

In fact, that is her greatest weakness. Every time she speaks, we are reminded by her voice, that not only is she a woman, but she sounds like a woman with which all too many of us are familiar.

She sounds like an EX-WIFE!

Every time she gets before a gathering and gets passionately into a speech, most of the men in the audience begin to hear an ex-wife screeching at them. A lot of women, married to men with ex-wives, hear the similarity as well. While she may play well in Democrat Party gathering, where onlookers are willing to overlook the uncomfortable feelings her screech-owl voice elicits, in Middle America she simply turns people off.

For every new single woman she brings into the voting booth, there are two, the ex-husband and his new wife, who will be turned off by Hillary! This is a net gain for the Democrats of a minus-1.

And that is not even to mention the mobilization of the Republican base that a Hillary candidacy will mount. Conservatives, Neo-conservatives, Evangelicals, Fundamentalists and even Misogynists will unite to defeat a woman many define as “The Devil Incarnate.”

It is not coincidental that the Mainstream Media has shown an eagerness to identify and stand behind any credible, or even semi-credible Democrat candidate who might stand against the ‘Hilda beast,” as even they recognize the futility of her campaign.

Noble sentiments about the ‘historic nature” of a woman President, or the “it’s about time” theme so prevalent in Democrat Talking Points, still contain just a hint of the acknowledgement that Hillary might not actually be the “One.”

The “historic nature” of which, brings us to Barack Obama. He is being touted by the MSM as the first black Presidential candidate with an actual chance to win. Apparently, the Rev Martin Luther King never really had a chance to capture the imagination of the American electorate, while such luminaries as Rev Al Sharpton and Rev Jesse Jackson were nothing more, in the opinion of the MSM, than sideshow carneys.

While the MSM is careful not to make the Biden mistake, and call Obama “articulate” and “clean” the message is subliminally clear; “HEY, he ain’t like the rest of ‘em!”

This subliminal racist message is clear in every MSM report about the candidate. And, unfortunately, while not part of the Democrat Party Plank, the dirty little secret is: Democrats do not respect people of color!

Historically the Democrat Party can count on 90 percent-plus of the Black vote. In spite of the color-blind nature of President Bush’s administration, and the high profile candidates fielded by the Republican Party in the mid-term elections, that stranglehold is not likely to change any time soon. So what does Barack Obama bring to a Presidential Ticket? Not a thing!

For every new black Democrat vote he brings into the electoral process, he will drive away a liberal white vote. Because, the dirty little secret is; the Modern Democrat Party is the party of discrimination; the party of oppression; the party of “you just can’t do it without my help!”

Democrat liberals, while mouthing platitudes about equality and justice, are the very people who see race and ethnicity in every person. The liberals are the people who see only hyphenated Americans, not just Americans.

While “little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” is one of the noblest sentiments ever expressed, it is in the Republican Party where these principles are practiced, not the party of Kennedy, King and Roosevelt.

First Posted at The Hinzsight Report

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What is Citizen Journalism

 

What Is Citizen Journalism?

IT’S YOU AND ME SPARKY!

According to We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information,” by Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis, Citizen Journalism is the act of citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information."

In other words, it is what you are doing right at this very moment. The internet, and the advent of the Blog, have done more to push forward the cause of Citizen Journalism than any other technological invention in history. The internet has, in fact, so revolutionized the process of news dissemination, that it now warrants its own News Headline Feed!

The internet is fast passing, and will soon overshadow, the Main Stream Media in how the World gathers its news. Let me offer a couple cases as evidence.

It was internet blogs that uncovered the fact that the MSM were using fake photos in Lebanon to further the cause of Hibollah against Israel. Only after bloggers uncovered the farce, and brought it to the attention of the public, did the MSM grudgingly admit that errors had been made.

The most recent case of Jamal Hussein, while still to be entirely unraveled, was brought to the attention of the public by the ministrations of the internet, over the protestations of the MSM. If nothing else, it will serve to keep the MSM honest, forcing them (we would hope) to check their sources a little more thoroughly before assuming their stories are true.

Citizen Journalism does hold certain dangers. Untrained amateurs, uneducated in the moral imperatives implicit in the dissemination of news, can spread falsehoods in the guise of news, thereby doing more damage than good. But enough about the Main Stream Media, I was going to discuss the  Citizen Journalist.

The MSM have recognized this trend, and many Newspapers and News Sites are actively recruiting Citizen Journalists. Witness, John Edwards! Opps!

It is my belief that the Citizen Journalist is the future of news reporting around the world. How often have we discussed a topic taken from internet headlines; discussed that topic for days even; only to find the MSM report that topic days after we have laid it to rest? It is the immediacy of this forum that is both its greatest asset, and its weakest link.

There are times, unfortunately, where first reports are inaccurate. The recent bomb blasts in Thailand come to mind. First reports were unclear as to the exact number and the perpetrators. Later reports were more complete, although still speculative as to who did it. We, as Citizen Journalists need to be keenly aware of these facts, and to differentiate between what is known and what is speculative. In this we can hardly be worse than the MSM who regularly place their own speculation on the front page as fact.

In coming days I would like to delve deeper into Citizen Journalism, to discuss what we, as Citizen Journalists can do to evade the pitfalls that have marred the efforts of the professionals in the MSM.

Our website, The Hinzsight Report has assembled a talented staff of Citizen Journalists to report and comment on the news of the day. Our live feeds from around the world provide a direct source for up-to-the-minute news, unfiltered by the MSM. We are building a Resource Center for bloggers that will be unsurpassed for source and content.

(Much of this has been taken from the original posting at The Hinzsight Report.)



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