A lot of music out of one guitar
I just spotted this video on Reddit.com. In this version of "Heartbreak Hotel," Tommy Emmanuel generates an incredible amount of music using a mere six strings.
Big money causes President Obama to choke on net neutrality
Do you remember the way candidate Obama spoke out fervently in favor of net neutrality throughout his campaign? Check out this video compilation of some of his many pre-election pro-net-neutrality pronouncements. Guess what? Now that Google and Verizon have decided that a multi-tier non-neutral arrangement will help their profits statements, Obama is unwilling to fight back. Just as he failed to do regarding single payer health care. Just like he failed to do when Wall Street "reform" failed to address too-big-to-fail and failed to reinstate Glass-Steagall (and see here). Just like he did when the military-industrial complex insisted on ramping up U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan. Just like he fail to do as he continues to drag his feet on Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell. Now Obama is unwilling to fight back in support of net neutrality: "President Obama campaigned on net neutrality, and yet the White House has been surprisingly quiet on the issue since the breakdown of FCC negotiations and in the wake of Google and Verizon's joint policy proposal." President Obama has lost his voice regarding net neutrality even though
Joel Kelsey, political advisor with nonprofit media-reform group Free Press, "said the proposal would create "tollbooths on the information superhighway." "It's a signed, sealed and delivered policy framework with giant loopholes that blesses the carving up of the Internet for a few deep-pocketed Internet companies and carriers," he said in a statement.In the midst of all of this hypocrisy, Obama's Press Secretary Robert Gibbs unloaded on the "professional left," insisting that " “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.” How about this, Mr. Gibbs? Barack Obama has repeatedly proven that he would rather have any sort of deal than a deal that achieves the principles Mr. Obama announced in his campaign speeches. Obama achieved some good things too, but how is anything mentioned at the top of this post differ from anything john McCain would have done? Except, perhaps, when he called the health care bill "reform" instead of calling it the "send gushers of tax money and forced clientele to the health insurance industry." The above-described failures didn't occur in a vacuum. We also seen his refusal to bring American torturers to justice. We've seen expansion of off-shore oil drilling. He's authorized remote-controlled drone attacks on Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen, where these are conducted by the CIA, and in which numerous civilians have been killed, and we have good reason to believe that many other deaths of innocent people have been covered up. I voted for Barack Obama, but I'm sorely disappointed. Not that there was any other reasonable place to put my vote. From now one, though, I am going to judge Barack Obama solely by what he does, not by his elegant campaign speeches. For additional trustworthy information on the Google-Verizon deal, see this list of articles at Free Press.
Arms race
This web page reminded me of the ongoing arms race between cheaters and cheaters of cheaters.
Warning labels for attempted journalism
We desperately need warning labels for writing that purports to be serious journalism, but isn't. Here is a terrific set of useful stickers by Tom Scott. My favorites:
Warning: Journalists hiding their own opinions by using phrases like "some people claim." Warning: Journalists do not understand the subject they are writing about. [caption id="attachment_13796" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Image by Chris2766 at Dreamstime.com (with permission)"]Addendum: Here is my favorite warning label regarding the mass media (from Free Press):[/caption] and Warning: To ensure future interviews with subject, important questions were not asked.
Another dose of quotes
A reader named Mike Baker kindly sent me a huge batch of terrific quotes that he has been gathering. Here's a sampling, the first of several, from Mike's collection: There is one tradition in America I am proud to inherit. It is our first freedom and the truest expression of our Americanism: the ability to dissent without fear. It is our right to utter the words, "I disagree." We must feel at liberty to speak those words to our neighbors, our clergy, our educators, our news media, our lawmakers and, above all, to the one among us we elect President. - The Nation (15 July 1991) "Americans are the best entertained and the least informed people in the world." --Neil Postman, author, and from Amusing Ourselves to Death, Penguin Books, 1985 "It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper." - Rod Serling "By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy - indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred of self satisfaction" ~ William Osler (Canadian Physician, 1849-1919) "Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand." ~ Bodie Thoene “How can we worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore one on Monday” – Anonymous The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. ~ Charles DuBois “We must become the change we want to see in the world” ~ Mohatma Gandhi Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961) Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like. - Will Rogers Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. ~Albert Einstein The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment. ~ Robert M. Hutchins "Your failure to be informed, does not make me a wacko." --John Loeffler, host Steel on Steel radio program It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from his government. —Thomas Paine The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. ~ Plato "Most Americans aren't the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected; they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government, they assume that its might makes it right." Joseph Sobran (1946- ) Columnist It may well be that our means are fairly limited and our possibilities restricted when it comes to applying pressure on our government. But is this a reason to do nothing? Despair is not an answer. Neither is resignation. Resignation only leads to indifference, which is not merely a sin but a punishment. ~ Elie Wiesel