My personal gauge for the effectiveness of the Obama propaganda system

I have my own personal gauge of how well the Obama propaganda system is working. It consists of my social circle, almost all of whom are strong Obama supporters. They read newspapers, watch a lot of CNN and MSNBC, and despise Fox News. They see themselves as well-informed about current events and politics. So whenever there is an occasion when many of them are gathered together, I usually raise a current topic to see what their reaction is. [Read more…]

Two nice Honda ads

Some may recall that famous Honda ad from about five years ago that showed a Rube Goldberg device made out of Honda car components. What was notable was that they wanted to do it in a single take and had to repeat it 606 times before they got it right on take number 607. For those who missed it, here it is again. [Read more…]

“If you believed something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting”

In this interview with Noam Chomsky (which I date from the exchanges as having taken place soon after the Gulf War in 1991), he schools a British journalist on the reality that most journalists for the big media are not the crusading types they think they are but don’t even realize how much they work within a very narrow range of views. [Read more…]

Killed for expressing happiness

You know what is a major problem with most religions? They are killjoys. The thought that people are engaging in enjoyable acts somehow bothers them, hence the prohibitions against ordinary pleasurable activities like eating, drinking, singing, dancing, films, sex, and contraception (because it allows people to have more sex). Most of the time these prohibitions stay is the realm of the laughable and absurd but sometimes become deadly. [Read more…]

EFF sues the NSA

Earlier attempts by privacy and civil liberties advocates to sue the NSA over it data gathering activities were rejected by the courts because of a two-pronged government defense strategy: (1) refuse to confirm or deny that such programs exist on grounds of national security and then (2) argue in court that since the plaintiffs could not prove that they had been under surveillance, they had no right to sue. Shamefully, the courts accepted this Catch-22 style argument. [Read more…]

Why we tell the same stories to the same people

We have all experienced occasions when a family member or friend tells us a story that they have told us before. Usually we pretend it is new to us because it seems somehow rude to tell them that they are repeating themselves. Also it is likely that we have done the same thing to others and so we also benefit from this act of politeness. I know that I have done so and only realized what I was doing later or half way through the story and, in the latter case, felt obliged to quickly complete it. This is because we all have a repertoire of stories that we draw upon repeatedly in conversations with others. [Read more…]

One wheeled cycle

Remember the Segway? Now along comes a unicycle that operates similarly to that and has a self-balancing technology that makes it so stable that it is impossible to fall off it. It is called the RYNO and you can read more about it here. It can be parked anywhere that a bicycle can be parked. It is being marketed to commuters in dense traffic areas that have high parking charges. [Read more…]