Stuart McMillen:
McMillen nails it.
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Huxley vs Orwell
Orwell feared the truth would be concealed from us.
Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.
McMillen nails it.
I see it as a two stage process.
ReplyDeleteKind as if you replaced Orwell's atomic wars with a 'brave new world' period. In both cases the authors were wrong about one thing: There was no need for a catastrophic war of annihilation to usher the 'brave new world' or an 'Oceania' into being. Just the fear of one worked perfectly.
Personally, I think the soma and the feelies have almost run their course. The money to run the machine is getting a little low.
Just about time for the Ministry of Love, and the perennial war with East Asia/Eurasia.
Crusader: "Just about time for [...] the perennial war with East Asia/Eurasia."
DeleteWell, it's all very confusing, Sir.
May 27, 2010: "Our long-term security will not come from our ability to instill fear in other peoples but through our capacity to speak to their hopes," Mr Obama said in a message introducing a new national security strategy... American global leadership, the document argues, depends on a strong economy and a determination to progress in the areas of "education, clean energy, science and technology, and a reduced federal deficit".
--- The Telegraph
Not quite one month later,
June 15, 2013: "Top U.S. intelligence officials said Saturday that information gleaned from two controversial data-collection programs run by the National Security Agency thwarted potential terrorist plots in the U.S. and more than 20 other countries..."
--- CBS News
Barack Obama must be really, really, REALLY smart to see that the Via Baracka leading to Pax Obamarama is paved with windmills and warrantless domestic spying. Now that's out-of-the-box thinking. To mere mortals, it sounds like a case of "making it up as you go along".
Fox News is the perfect example.
ReplyDelete-KW
KW,
DeleteThe entire MSM is a perfect example. Fox and MSNBC are just the two poles of the dialectic. Two authorized franchises of corporate expression.
More accurately, it's Fox and MSNBC/ABC/NBC/NPR/CBS/CNN.
DeleteAdm.
DeleteCertainly. The public relations industry has all but replaced journalism.
Well, in some cases, it's a family affair:
DeleteThe list of prominent news people with close White House relations includes ABC News President Ben Sherwood, who is the brother of Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, a top national-security adviser to President Barack Obama. His counterpart at CBS, news division president David Rhodes, is the brother of Benjamin Rhodes, a key foreign-policy specialist. CNN's deputy Washington bureau chief, Virginia Moseley, is married to Tom Nides, who until earlier this year was deputy secretary of state under Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Further, White House press secretary Jay Carney's wife is Claire Shipman, a veteran reporter for ABC. And NPR's White House correspondent, Ari Shapiro, is married to a lawyer, Michael Gottlieb, who joined the White House counsel's office in April.
--- WaPo
Egnor, you're just a killjoy. Why, there are people out there suffering, dude!
ReplyDeleteThe government's program for disability benefits for federal workers is rife with waste and abuse, according to a three part series in the Washington Examiner.
The series documents many cases of apparently healthy young federal workers feasting at the disability trough. One ran marathons while collecting disability. Another hauled in $142,000 in disability payments for a neck injury – all while buying a boat called "Free Ride," travelling the world, doing trapeze flips on a Club Med vacation and enjoying snow skiing and scuba diving...
The FECA (Federal Employee Compensation Act) program pays 75% of wages for most recipients, all of it tax free. By comparison, federal retirement pay amounts to 60% of wages and it is taxed. In a statement to Fox News Monday, the Postal Service's Inspector General said, "Workers’ comp has become an unintended retirement system. The Labor Department is not addressing these abuses and has no incentive to strike at fraud.
--- Washington Examiner (via FoxNews)
The suffering is widespread and must be compensated.
This is really funny. Here's an anti-Christain bigot at a gas station in Florida. She claims to teach the Constitution.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TAR956IzEd8
"You can take a picture of me, and you can put me on Youtube, because I am absolutely for our Constitution. I know what's in our Constitution.'
She then tells them that the Constitution mandates a separation of church and state, and when the Christians hand her a Constitution and ask her to locate that clause, she loses her mind, smacks them, and threatens to call the police. Then she goes inside, calls the police, comes back, and tells them they can't take a picture of her. She accuses them of harrassment because they note her license plate.
"Get away from my car,” she yells. “I’ll tell police you are not just harassing, but are assaulting me.”
Then she hits one with her purse.
The money quote: "I got a real problem with Christians."
KW in drag.
TRISH
Good one, TRISH. She reminds me of a few teachers I had in school. She's probably the faculty adviser to the tolerance and diversity club.
DeleteThis country has small problem with anti-Christian hate. You can always identify the haters; they're the ones who don't see a problem.
Joey
she loves the constitution. and when you hand her one, she smacks you. so glad to know she's teaching falsehoods to children in the publik skoools. (soory, eye went their two.)
Deletenaidoo
Joey: "She's probably the faculty adviser to the tolerance and diversity club."
DeleteHeh.
Pity the police didn't show up. Teacher Lady is such a sympathetic victim.
Really funny, Trish. I hope you enjoy feeling like a persecuted Christian, even though you're not.
DeleteI noticed you claimed a few posts ago I persecuted your kid by making fun of him/her. I did not. Show where I did or admit you're full of shit.
Did you watch the video? You're trying to tell me that that person isn't a dyed in the wool bigot? And she's a teacher! Any teacher with similar opinions about blacks, Jews, ot homosexuals would be fired.
DeleteIt took me two seconds to find it.
http://egnorance.blogspot.com/2013/02/nick-gillespie-on-gays-in-boy-scouts.html#comment-form
February 4, 2013:
You: "I applaud your determinacy to protect those boys and lesbians from your daughter."
Me: "Oh, you're picking on my six year old. That's funny, Troy."
You: "Oh, the outrage. I, a grown man, attacked an innocent little girl. Have you no decency, sir?"
Did you think I forgot?
TRISH
I'll quote Francisca S., from the same post: "Not only are you picking on a six year old girl, but you're doing it to her mother. You're a heel."
DeleteTRISH
Actually, Troy, it looks like you're full of shit. I remember that exchange. I think that was the thread where you came out of the closet as a repressed baby-boinker. Or perhaps not so repressed.
DeleteThe Torch
Troy is a strong believer in the domineering Christian majority myth. He once posited that 95% of Americans are Christian. As far as I can tell, he made that number up out of thin air. (The real number is 73%, and that includes nominal Christians.)
DeleteIt's vitally important to his agenda however to portray Christians as all powerful because they need to play the role of oppressor in his deranged reality play, and never the oppressed. That way, no matter how many instances you can show him of Christians being treated like crap, denied equal treatment under the law and free exercise rights, he can tell you to "quit whining" because it simply isn't possible for a group that 95% of Americans belong to could possibly have a legitimate complaint. He needs to maintain the fiction that the US is a society with so much religious fervor it's actually scary. Jesus freaks are everywhere!
I think we all know that Jesus freaks are not everywhere. Actually, the modern American citizen is quite secular in his outlook. Most don't understand basic tenets of Christianity.
Ben