To get to Lavecon, I took the midlands train from London/Euston up toward Birmingham, and got off at Northampton. On the way up, I went past Bletchley, the home of Bletchley Park – where the British code-breakers (including Alan Turing) worked during WWII.
One of the crucial failures of leadership during the Vietnam War was the way the pentagon managed to reduce a complex political/military/logistical situation down to a discussion about head-count. That allowed the military to focus discussion about the war into a question of head-count: how many dead Vietcong heads did you collect today? How many shiny new American heads did you ship over? How many came back?
A friend of mine made me watch this; I had had too much wine, perhaps, and really couldn’t believe I was seeing what I was seeing.
White House press spokesman Sean Spicer made the comments during an off-camera briefing to journalists in Washington. [bbc]
“NASA Scientists Baffled by Mysterious Pit Photographed on Mars” – like a trout to a clickbait fly, I rise and bite at the hook. [huff]
Last year I went to LaveCon, and I’m going again this year. It’s a small conference held in Northampton, devoted to Elite: Dangerous. There, I will probably make an ass of myself, because that is traditional.
Edward Bernays was the foremost proponent of “public relations” (which encompasses marketing, political propaganda, and other means of manipulating society) – an interesting character, who seemed almost as if he wanted to set himself up as a target for conspiracy theories.
This is the first in what will be a short series that I will try to drop over the course of the year. Because, I grew up reading National Geographic and it wasn’t until I was well into my adulthood that I discovered that I had been absorbing subtle doses of propaganda along with the cool stuff that excited and inspired me.
I’ve described a bunch of situations as “white privilege” when I see cops talking politely to threatening-looking white people who have guns. For sure, white privilege is part of it, but I think there’s something more basic going on, as well.
Jean Meslier
In order to avoid all embarrassment, they tell us that it is not necessary to know what God is; that we must adore without knowing; that it is not permitted us to turn an eye of temerity upon His attributes.