[shrugtheironteacup]

I watched that Glenn Beck video twice.

Hoping, as I did, that anything he said would seem to follow from something he said before it.

Maybe there is some Beck code he is speaking in.

Perhaps, a Beck breakfast cereal in which we can find the appropriate decoder ring.
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[psiga]

I watched the video specifically because you said all that, shrug.

By god, it's like the linguistic equivalent of an optical illusion.

Is that the second floor, or the basement? Is it even part of the same building?

Where am I? I don't even know what the color red is anymore.
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[psiga]

It's vaguely Lovecraftian to consider.
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[Winona Ghost Ryder]

Glenn Beck = Orson Scott Card

[Dracko]

Shit, he called it.


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[Adilegian]

[Dracko]

God, I remember that piece of shit.

Fucking hell.

That shit gets under my skin.
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[Adilegian]

[psiga]

Ooh, eye witness reportage of the now-infamous wikileaks heli footage, brought to us by Wired: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/2007-iraq-apache-attack-as-seen-from-the-ground/
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[Takashi]

This last page and a half is like a horrible joke. The Glen Beck video... I don't even know how to answer that. There is a slight of hand there, a slithering trick that attempts to conceal concepts that are in plain sight, and his clientèle, dazed by the cheap wine in this cabaret, applauds in unison, believing that have been something wonderful and awaiting the following titillation.

Was literally wide gasped on the whole Vonnegut one.

[psiga]

As one of the commentators says: "The article is WRONG. WikiLeaks states, in the very first page of text in the video, that “While some of the men appeared to be armed, the behavior of nearly everyone is relaxed”."
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[Takashi]

Hmm. That's true (and I admit I forgot it myself, mostly because I assumed this to be obvious), but that part has been consistently been removed from all the televised footage, what has lead to even more misinterpretation, namely McCord seeing it on the telly and getting that feeling.

WikiLeaks could have avoided much distress if the "short version" (that I personally think is the source of all the misreadings from the start and would provably had been better delivered as a text description or something) had the people that were likely to be carrying guns signaled - much like when they pointed out that a camera was not a weapon early on.
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low-end.net | Whimsy (soon) | Serfdom 2.0

[shrugtheironteacup]

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[P1d40n3]

Every time you think Fox News has finally settled on an acceptable level of bullshit, they go and sink deeper.

[Adilegian]

[CubaLibre]

The entire equation of socialism with tyranny continues to utterly boggle me. Most of these people aren't actually libertarians - they're Republicans. They like socialized schools and socialized highways and socialized police and socialized medical care for the elderly. The willful blindness is just astounding.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Mr. Mechanical]

Fox News is telling people what they want to hear, and since people usually tend to believe things they already wanted to believe in the first place this makes their job that much easier. The Fox audience was already suspicious of Obama before he got elected and the GOP/Neocon faction are such whores for power that they will say and do literally anything to smear his image, no matter what the reality actually is, because in this day and age of managing perception in mass media the Image always trumps the reality. It's just a giant echo chamber at this point, for Fox and friends.

Anybody with half a brain can see what a piece of trash agitprop network Fox is, but being able to see the reality does nothing if you can't effectively attack the image that is projected. Though Jon Stewart has made a career out of doing just that, he's really just preaching to his respective choir these days (much like Fox themselves). No one's mind is getting changed anywhere, because there's no actual dialog taking place. Just a lot of shouting and name calling and stupidity. It's why I only enjoy discussing the politics of politics, rather than politics themselves. Because talking politics with anyone these days anymore boils down to repeating bs talking points you heard from some talking head on tv somewhere.

And on that note let me pass on this latest Glenn Greenwald :D

Unlearned lessons from the Steven Hatfill case

aaaand

The Atlantic piece that spawned the blog post (seriously read this one even if you ignore Greenwald)

There are already enough problems with regular mainstream mass media news networks. Sitting around pointing out how blatantly dishonest Fox News is and how willfully stupid their audience must be to keep eating it up is fun and all, but they're only a part of a larger problem.
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[dark steve]

[Mr. Mechanical]

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[CubaLibre]

[Mr. Mechanical]

Google - Greater transparency around government requests

http://www.google.com/governmentrequests/

[Mr. Mechanical]

Obama Revives Rumsfeld’s Missile Scheme, Risks Nuke War

[elvis.shrugged]

What the fuck?
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last.fm
tumblr

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

ctrl-f "obama"

one (1) instance in title of article
one (1) instance in article prope, as "Obama administration"

the rest in comments.

I'm not applying that as a defense of Obama or anything regarding this particular story.

But was I just not paying attention, or did both the left and right not do that kind of subtle misdirection of responsibility as frequently during the W Bush presidency?

perhaps Obama would get better press if he had picked someone more obviously evil than him to be his VP.

[Mr. Mechanical]

[Adilegian]

[Mr. Mechanical]

Study shows a link between colorblind ideology and racism
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[Dracko]

[CubaLibre]

[CubaLibre]

[Mr. Mechanical]

[CubaLibre]

Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly anti-"colorblindness" and consider it a tool to perpetuate racism, which still exists today on a grand scale. It's just that the study isn't going to convince anyone. It's a study of perceptions, but those perceptions can only be compared to the exact same set of available perceptions. People who have a "colorblind" perception find the photos non-racist. The study tries to make the photos outrageous enough that they are "objectively" racist but that fails; ultimately the study's conclusions are based on the fact that the studiers have a non-colorblind perception. In other words they already think colorblindness is racist. They happen to be correct, but that doesn't mean there's anything scientific about the study.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Mr. Mechanical]

Ah, that's a great point.
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[Dracko]

"The odd thing is that many politicians and pundits believe that the only way to control health costs is to get consumers to limit their consumption of health care – as if an appendectomy, for example, was a kind of self-indulgence."
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[Adilegian]

[Winona Ghost Ryder]

One stormy night I drove to a mailshop hidden deep in a nearly deserted stand of warehouses. I'd heard something was up and wanted to see for myself.

As I rounded the final turn my eyes nearly popped. Tractor-trailers pulled up to loading docks, cars and vans everywhere and long-haired, earring-pierced men scurrying around running forklifts, inserters and huge printing presses.

Trembling with worry I went inside. It was worse than I ever imagined.

Row after row of boxes bulging with pro-homosexual petitions lined the walls, stacked to the ceiling.

My mind reeled as I realized hundreds, maybe thousands, more boxes were already loaded on the tractor-trailers. And still more petitions were flying off the press.

Suddenly a dark-haired man screeched, "Delgaudio what are you doing here?" Dozens of men began moving toward me. I'd been recognized.

As I retreated to my car, the man chortled, "This time Delgaudio we can't lose."

Driving away, my eyes filled with tears as I realized he might be right. This time the Radical Homosexuals could win.

[Dracko]

the gays are coming to get you, heteronormative white trash america

they're coming to steal your wives

gonna get all dyonisus uih
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[Adilegian]

"You see, even though homosexuals are just 1% of the population, if every one sent a petition to Congress it would generate a tidal wave of two or three million petitions or more."

Even within the universe of bogus thought from which this letter is a tactless emissary, this suggests a pretty confused use of numbers. The guy uses 1% to say "hey they're such a minority!" but then uses "two or three million" to say "whoa so many!"

It's as though he doesn't know whether to say that two or three million is a lot, so he uses the size of the constituency to suggest how awful their influence might be and then uses the percentage to show how two or three million doesn't deserve to matter.

EDIT: I mean is it really that "out there" to think that two or three million people (even within the propaganda's rubric) should have some attention paid to them?

Super-Double-EDIT: "Radical homosexuals will terrorize day care centers, hospitals, churches and private schools. Traditional moral values will be shattered by federal law."
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[CubaLibre]

Well, the idea that as an abstract constituency homosexuals wouldn't be worth catering to, because they make such a tiny percentage of the vote. But, if every single one of them sent a petition, it would be a very powerful message that they were a 100% cohesive and active voting bloc, which most blocs are not. No politician would turn down 3 million votes without any counter-message from a larger and mutually exclusive bloc.

This is, uh, apart from the point that the whole god damned thing is ridiculous.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Winona Ghost Ryder]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Delgaudio

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

maybe he stumbled across an Illuminati plot, but they pretended to be radical homosexuals to throw him off the scent

anyway! Back to the kinder, gentler heteronormative behavior: