In America, the large corporate entities that govern the country have found another bizarre step in their attempt to completely control speech on the Internet: censorship of non-copyrighted material. Seriously.
From today’s New York Times: an article about the availability of Rorschach tests on Wikipedia in which they liken the posting of the Rorschach tests to cheating and immorality. The article is so slanted, it has to be read carefully to determine if it was penned by The Onion.
Please read the article for yourself, and look carefully for the answer to two major questions:
1. Why are people able to publish the Rorshach tests in books freely, but not on the Internet?
2. Why should any group (psychologists in this instance) have more access to free available information than the rest of the public?
I couldn’t find the answers in the article.
Disclaimer: I have participated in the administration and analysis of psychological tests in my business capacity (we paid for all tests in full), and come from a family of Psychologists.
I see Marlon Brando being attacked by a pig. Is that normal, doc?
Many thanks to everybody who alerted me to the recent WordPress error in calculating the number of site hits. I feel I should notify my readers regarding the extent of the issue, as far as I am aware.
1. Last month, there appeared a sudden significant drop in the total cumulative number of hits for my and other WordPress blog sites. My cumulative number of hits dropped by over 10,000 in one day. This error has affected many, if not all, of WordPress blogs. The total number of hits has not yet been replenished.
2. Additionally, the rate of hits (number per day) dropped even more significantly in my and other sites. My rate dropped by 80% in one day, at the same time the significant rate decreased for many other, if not all, of WordPress blogs. The rate has not returned to normal since that day.
3. WordPress has acknowledged the error that coincided with a programming change, but has not provided any further information to the numerous attempts to contact them, other than the inaccurate message “issue is fixed”.
4. Currently, I do not know if this error will ever be fixed or if the cumulative number of hits and hit rate will be replenished. Also, I do not know the actual reason for the change – perhaps a programming error not caught by standard checks or inaccurately adjusted due to advertising changes.
5. This is the first ‘major’ problem I have experienced with WordPress, and they have a good reputation within their own forums – leading me to expect a positive resolution to this problem. However, it has been a month since they were first notified of the error, and we have yet to receive any subastantive response or resolution.
If you look at your own or others WordPress site hits, please note that the number of hits is artificially low. If you plan on obtaining a WordPress account, you may want to wait until this issue is fixed.
When Judge Sonia Sotomayor was first mentioned as a potential candidate to the Supreme Court, I wrote my concerns here. That article dealt with one manner in which PR firms for large governmental corporations manage to motivate the opposition to support their corporate candidate. Today, I would like to revisit that topic, mainly due to Glenn Greenwald’s just published article. It appears that Glenn Greenwald has fallen into their clever trap.
Although I disagree with Glenn in this one instance, I mean no disrespect towards him:
1. Glenn Greenwald is one of the best journalists in existence. I read his work every chance I get, including his excellent books. To paraphrase what someone once said of Noam Chomsky in The Nation, “not to have read Glenn Greenwald is to court genuine ignorance.”
2. The public relations industry has spent decades and trillions of dollars to influence public opinion and behavior. Not one individual can claim they have not subconsciously been affected by such a large influence, except perhaps a deaf dumb and mute African tribesman. Not me, not you, and not even Glenn Greenwald – whose endurance in this area is remarkable.
Today, the New York Times announced that President Obama will officially nominate Sotomayor for U.S. Supreme Court. Sotomayor, originally appointed by former radical CIA director George Bush Sr, has made the following decisions (from ScotusBlog, linked to in Glenn’s current article.)
Privacy rights: Sotomayor is against individual privacy rights. From the article: “workplace conditions can be such that an employee’s expectation of privacy…is diminished.” Here, she explained, the search was permissible because it could have revealed employee misconduct.
Sotomayor, however, is very compassionate towards governmental privacy: “In two cases involving requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Sotomayor wrote an opinion that declined to order the release of the requested information, explaining that she did not want to “unreasonably hamper agencies in their decision-making.”
Public health vs. corporate profits. Sotomayor prefers profits, apparently. She ruled against the EPA in its fight to enforce the Clean Water Act against power plants. “Sotomayor wrote and opinion holding that the EPA was not permitted to engage in a cost-benefit analysis to determine “best technology available”; instead, it could consider cost only to determine “what technology can be ‘reasonably borne’ by the industry” and whether the proposed technology was “cost-effective”
Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a sympathetic character, a minority female who is intelligent and inappropriately attacked by wacky republicans. Instinctively, I want to side with her. But I also want clean water and air, and I want an open government by and for the people. I cannot support a dangerous corporate stooge. We have enough of those already in the U.S. Supreme Court.
United States Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter has announced he will be leaving his position in June, providing President Obama with the opportunity to replace the Republican chosen Justice with someone more socially aware.
Justice Souter was appointed by Republican President George H. W. Bush to represent big business in the Supreme Court. Souter did not let Bush down, consistently voting for big business over society whenever possible, to the extent that business publications openly admit the Court was sided 6-3 or 7-2 in favor of big business (Justice Kennedy being the swing vote, see this Forbes article for an example). Per that same Forbes article,”…William Eskridge, a professor at Yale Law School and a prominent scholar on Supreme Court dynamics said: “Many of the business cases were 6-3 or 7-2 [decisions] and that isn’t likely to change.”
Probably the most extreme example (but not the only one) of Souter’s fixation on putting large corporate profits over people’s rights was his lead opinion in 2008 to drastically reduce the fine paid by Exxon for their negligent and destructive oil spill (Exxon Valdez). Souter’s twisted ruling came as Exxon was pulling down record profits, thanks to so many Americans willing to die and kill for oil profits.
In order to ensure another pro-business candidate replaces Justice Souter, a well financed PR campaign has begun. One slimy psychological tactic used is: to ‘announce’ a likely candidate who is favorable to corporate profits, in this case Justice Sonia Sotomayor a Bush I appointee. Then, to build opposition support for their own candidate, release media ‘attacks’ based on bigotry. In this case, many articles were placed attacking Sotomayor for being a Hispanic woman. These articles cause the expected instinctive reaction from people who hate bigotry to support Sotomayor, a candidate against their own interest. Now many people are supporting Sotomayor, unfortunately without any idea they are being manipulated by well financed PR campaigns.
The candidacy of President Obama is a perfect example of this tactic. Large corporate funding supported his candidacy for president.
Step 1: finance a Black and a female candidate for President who are both strong supporters of Big Business. Both Clinton and Obama have been in favor of increases in military budget, banking financing, etc. Obama has continued to push money to big business since his election.
Step 2: Use ownership of newspapers, TV, and radio media to attack candidates based on sex or race. Never mention the candidates support of controlling corporate financing.
Step 3: Watch people get upset by attacks and become defensive, as planned. Continue attacks to spur their enthusiasm for your candidate.
Step 4: People enthusiastically vote for sympathetic character, who happens to be against their values.
Step 5: Profit!
Obama’s pro-big business actions since his election reinforces an important ideal: it is more beneficial to elect someone whose policies will help Black people than someone who is Black themselves. I’d rather we had Ralph Nader, who has fought for woman’s rights, than a woman who ignores those rights, like Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin. Please, let’s not get fooled again.
meet the new spokesmodel, same as the old spokesmodel
Nonstampocollector uses sarcasm and humor to try and determine who wrote the Holy Bible, an all knowing and all loving God or ignorant men from thousands of years ago.
Cat finds Jesus. srsly!
Here is the quote from the Bible regarding the eating of your own children:
The Holy Bible: King James Version. 2000. The Fifth Book of Moses, Called Deuteronomy 28.
And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the LORD thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee:
so that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he shall leave:
so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat: because he hath nothing left him in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in all thy gates.
The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter,
and toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them 2 Kgs. 6.28, 29 · 4.10 for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates.
¶ If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD;
This afternoon I learned three icons from my childhood died.
Marilyn Chambers, Harry Kalas, and Mark Fidrych have all very sadly passed away at young ages.
Marilyn Chambers was the first mainstream adult movie star of my awareness. I have never seen any of her movies, but she was on TV, written up in newspapers, and even had a hit disco single (No nudity in this video, but it’s very suggestive). Marilyn Chambers was only 56.
Harry Kalas was the voice of the Phillies as long as I can remember, and had the most memorable voice in Sports. I still get chills when I hear his voice, bringing me back to when Dave Cash and Greg Luzinski were my heroes. Harry Kalas was only 73.
Harry Kalas (on right) with Richie Ashburn
Mark Fidrych died in an apparent accident, at age 54. Mark was a star sensation in 1976, about which I recently wrote in this article.
These three icons will be missed by all their adoring fans. My heartfelt condolences go out to their families. Hopefully they will gain some solace realizing the joy their loved ones spread to millions in their shining past.
At least Abe Vigoda and Mason Reese are still with us.
Mason Reese was a big star. no really.
Update:
The video for Marilyn Chambers’ Benihana was apparently removed (thanks to Marcy for the alert). I was able to find a replacement clip with the song, but for some odd reason the video refers to serial killers. Perhaps even more disturbing is that I now sing along with Marilyn.
So guys, how about that game last night and power drills, tools grout… Ok, good! Now all women have left us alone, we men can discuss a big puzzling problem we all have with women. How do they possibly go through all those rolls of toilet paper?!?!?
always wear a fancy hat to church
I mean sure, I use toilet paper every few days or so – but every friggin week I am balancing the 64 giganto roll pack of butt softies around the market, knocking over cans right and left. I can’t even see over the thing to check out cute women! (maybe that’s their plan) Women wonder why we buy so much chili? It’s to have an excuse for carrying all that stool-sopping cotton rolls.
Oh, your Mom's cooking? I'm prepared.
Seriously, my girlfriend calls me up to give me this same update every couple days:
1. farting in bed is not as funny as you think it is
2. My Mom doesn’t like to be called willieMcGee, whatever that is.
3. we are out of toilet paper.
Well, here for you men, women’s dirty toilet paper secret finally revealed. From a hidden bathroom video camera, this footage shows us what women secretly do in the bathroom! Yes, the secret is out! Warning, these videos are appalling!
