I haven't done one of these in a few years, mainly because the election of Donald Trump has resulted in an almost constant stream of pants on fire level lies coming out of the liar-in-chief. One of the effects of this is that Politifact only has a hard time choosing among Trump and his allies lies for the the worst of the year, and none of the D's minor lies or misstatements rises even close to competing.
2019: Trump's repeated false claim that the whistleblower got Trump's Ukraine call almost completely wrong
2018: Online smear machine tries to take down Parkland high school students
2017: Trump's repeated false assertions that Russian election interference is a "made up story"
2016: Fake News
2015: Trump's campaign lies
2014: The Ebola Scare.
2013: If you
like your health care you can keep it. (Had this been expressed "If you
like your qualifying health care, you can keep it" it would have been
true: the plans that were closed by ACA were fraudulent in some way.
In 2008, they had rated this same statement as true)
2012: Romney/Ryan completely false claims that Jeep was moving its factory to China
2011: Democrat's completely true statement that Republicans voted to end medicare as we know it.
2010: Republican's absurdly false claims that the ACA is a government takeover of healthcare.
2009: Republican's dangerously false claims about death panels.
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
25 March 2020
30 September 2018
Media misuse of words
Ballistic. Ballistics is the study of the inertial motion of objects under the influence of gravity, windage, momentum and so forth, with no midflight attempt to change speed or direction. To "go ballistic" means to stop trying to control the vehicle, to let inertia do its work. In the scene in the movie Top Gun where the pilots were talking about this, they meant they were going so fast they kept going for quite a while, despite throttling down. Going really fast under high power and in control is NOT ballistic. If an athlete or car loses control after going really fast and crashes through a barrier, that is ballistic.
Cache and cachet. A cache (pronounced "cash") is a small store of something, stored away for later, or the act of storing something in such a place. Cachet (pronounced "ca-shay") is the prestige or fashionableness of something. A few days ago, a soldier was pointing to the pile of crates he and his men had dug up in Afghanistan, describing them as a "cachet" of weapons.
Could care less. A lot of people say this when what they actually mean is "couldn't care less". If you could care less, it's because there's still room for you to care less, that is to say, you do still care, at least a little bit. If you couldn't care less, it's as if to say your care-meter on this subject has bottomed out.
Decimation -- people seem to think this is much worse than "Devastation" but not necessarily. Decimation was a punishment the Romans meted out, most often to legions that had displayed cowardice in action. They'd execute one in ten, chosen at random, to scare the others into acting better next time. So if the bad thing completely destroyed about 10%, leaving the rest relatively untouched, that's decimation. If the bad thing destroyed 50%, that's much worse than decimation.
Gridlock refers to a specific type of traffic jam, one which is the result of multiple backups in an urban grid intermeshing in such a way as to prevent any of them from moving. The term is a merging of "Grid" and "Deadlock". I often hear the giant traffic jam that occurs when the mountain pass is blocked, or a due to a blocking accident as gridlock. There's no grid in the mountain pass. Snowlock maybe. The grid, if there is one, is irrelevant to the blocked road.
Cache and cachet. A cache (pronounced "cash") is a small store of something, stored away for later, or the act of storing something in such a place. Cachet (pronounced "ca-shay") is the prestige or fashionableness of something. A few days ago, a soldier was pointing to the pile of crates he and his men had dug up in Afghanistan, describing them as a "cachet" of weapons.
Could care less. A lot of people say this when what they actually mean is "couldn't care less". If you could care less, it's because there's still room for you to care less, that is to say, you do still care, at least a little bit. If you couldn't care less, it's as if to say your care-meter on this subject has bottomed out.
Decimation -- people seem to think this is much worse than "Devastation" but not necessarily. Decimation was a punishment the Romans meted out, most often to legions that had displayed cowardice in action. They'd execute one in ten, chosen at random, to scare the others into acting better next time. So if the bad thing completely destroyed about 10%, leaving the rest relatively untouched, that's decimation. If the bad thing destroyed 50%, that's much worse than decimation.
Gridlock refers to a specific type of traffic jam, one which is the result of multiple backups in an urban grid intermeshing in such a way as to prevent any of them from moving. The term is a merging of "Grid" and "Deadlock". I often hear the giant traffic jam that occurs when the mountain pass is blocked, or a due to a blocking accident as gridlock. There's no grid in the mountain pass. Snowlock maybe. The grid, if there is one, is irrelevant to the blocked road.
A Hacker is a computer programmer who works quickly, often by modifying existing code (the etymology is from "Hack and Slash", and to those who do it, the simile is apt). The implication is that this is also sloppily done, although a number of the very best are neat workers too. The media has decided that people who break into and vandalize computers or steal data or software should be called hackers. Some of them are hackers, but most are not and most hackers don't break into computers. Many worms and viruses are probably written by hackers, but most hackers do not do these things. A better term for those who break and enter computers is “computer cracker”—in the sense of “safe cracker”--or "vandal".
An Implosion is a specific type of kaboom. A kaboom where the detritus goes outwards is an explosion. A kaboom where the detritus goes inward is an implosion. A recent trend in building demolition has been to use a large number of small explosive charges to simultaneously (or sometimes sequentially over a short period) undermine the structure of a building so as to make it collapse inwards on itself...an implosion. The triggering charge for an atomic bomb is an implosion. Once critical mass is achieved, the fissionable material of the bomb then undergoes an explosion. Many in the media have taken to calling any kaboom an implosion, apparently because they think it sounds more cool.
Unthinkable means you literally couldn't think of it before it happened, either because nobody had the idea, (as in "previously unimagined". Sept 11 may qualify for this) or because thinking about the topic causes the mind to rebel and you can't get your mind go there. Disgusting and offensive as it is, child molestation is clearly not unthinkable, because lots of bad people have not only thought about it, but done it. The second time some particular reporter says that a child molester has done the unthinkable, they're not telling you that the crime is unthinkable, but that the reporter can't think. Personal favorite, from an actual reporter and former pro football player here in Seattle: "Once again, the unthinkable has occurred."
Words have meaning.
Unthinkable means you literally couldn't think of it before it happened, either because nobody had the idea, (as in "previously unimagined". Sept 11 may qualify for this) or because thinking about the topic causes the mind to rebel and you can't get your mind go there. Disgusting and offensive as it is, child molestation is clearly not unthinkable, because lots of bad people have not only thought about it, but done it. The second time some particular reporter says that a child molester has done the unthinkable, they're not telling you that the crime is unthinkable, but that the reporter can't think. Personal favorite, from an actual reporter and former pro football player here in Seattle: "Once again, the unthinkable has occurred."
Words have meaning.
(Bertrand Russell tells a story where one of his house staff was accused of stealing something. She defended herself by saying: "I ain't never stole nothing". Russell, ever the logician, works through the logic of this statement, which literally translated, means that there does not exist a time in all of history at which she has not stolen something. or put more simply, she has *always* (including before she was born) been stealing something.)
21 August 2017
Game of Thrones Continuity
Last night's episode was very exciting, although there were some continuity issues, I thought. There are many spoilers in here, so if you aren't caught up, stay away!!
1: The whole reason Jon Snow went to Dragonstone was to fetch a bunch of dragonglass (obsidian), which apparently can kill wights and white walkers. He didn't ask for it right away but did some sparring and staring longingly with Daenerys before finally giving Tyrion the opportunity to ask him if there was some lesser thing that they could do for him. This added suspense but makes little sense.
2: The whole reason the 7 samurai and their redshirts went north of the wall was to come into contact with some wights so they could bring one of them back. They knew they'd have do some fighting with wights and white walkers. Jon had been mining dragonglass. Didn't he think to bring a few of these special weapons to arm them, just in case they ran into the very thing they were looking for? (7: Jon, Jorah, Tormund, Dondarion, Thoros, Hound, Gendry. The first part of the episode was used for exposition, just like in the Kurozawa and Yul Brenner versions) (perhaps they did use dragonglass weapons but you'd think they'd have made a point of it, which they didn't)
3: best I can make out, it's about 1500 miles from Eastwatch to dragonstone. I don't know how fast GoT ravens fly, but pigeons do about 50 mph and can only fly for about 20 hours without taking a rest. If ravens are similar, that's 30 hours of flying plus a few hours of rest. Let's assume the dragons can fly twice as fast (much more than that and a rider could not possibly stay aboard). Adding Gendry's run all the way back to eastwatch and time for a little discussion in both places lets say 60 hours. The 7 samurai experienced a little cracking ice, but the Wight army was too much for it and they pulled back. Starting from no ice, at 0F, 60 hours can produce 6 inches of ice. Enough for a person or maybe a small group to walk on but not enough for an army of wights. But they weren't starting from zero, there was already ice. The broken spots had to re-freeze, but they'll do that a lot more quickly than if they'd been starting from clear water. So, 60 hours is just barely enough.
4: the Hound's stone is much lighter than a wight army or even a single wight. The fact that the ice is now hard enough to support a stone is no indication that it can support an army.
5: I said, out loud, "oh dear, now he's got a dragon" the moment the dragon was hit by the ice lance. They can obviously make wight bears and horses, so it seemed pretty obvious. It's not clear which dragon it was, except that Daenerys always rides Drogon and that one made it out. I'm guessing it was Viserion, because Rhaegon is penciled in to be Jon's dragon once he realizes he's a Targaryen, being named for his real father.
6: What does a fire breathing wight dragon breathe? icy fire? ordinary fire? blast of freezing something? does the ice put the fire out? a non-fire breathing dragon isn't as scary as a fire breather, but still pretty scary.
7: when the Hound kicked their captive wight, a whole bunch of wights on the shore screamed. when Jon killed the White Walker with Valyrian steel, a whole bunch of wights suddenly died. The characters are thinking that they were in thrall somehow to that particular White Walker and he has to be alive for them to animate. I'm thinking this is some connection analogous to warging. There only seem to be a handful of White Walkers...perhaps emphasis should be on taking them out.
8 The 6 remaining samurai all owe Daenarys a lot. Jorah pledged to her long ago, Jon did from his sickbed, and Davos joked that he might too.
9: I think the Hound has a strong crush on the Stark girls. It's clear that he had a strong sense of decency and a little bit of a soft heart all along, but his relationship with his psychopath brother and his employment by the Lannisters had forced him to suppress this under a thick layer of cynicism. I wonder if he'll fall for Daenarys the way he's fallen for the Stark girls.
10: Way too much deus ex machina in this episode. The dragons arriving in the nick of time, Jon coming to the surface within inches of his sword, Benjen Stark arriving when he did and giving Jon his undead horse. How is it that other wights are in thrall to the White Walkers but Benjen somehow has kept a mind of his own? Did Jon realize that his uncle or his horse were undead?
11: The fight between the Stark sisters makes no sense. Arya knows enough about the Lannisters to know that Sansa had been forced to write the letter, and Sansa knows Arya could have done nothing about it. She is right to be creeped out by Arya's face collection but she took the explanation with surprising aplomb. Arya was understandably jealous of the attention focused on Sansa but she was also happier without it. Perhaps Littlefinger is concerned that if they join with Daenerys, his chances at the Iron Throne are basically gone, although he may still have a shot at Sansa and in a rivalry between the girls, Arya will side with Jon and Daenerys.
12: How are dragons born? apparently they need a big fire. Where do the eggs come from? Do they need a mating pair to make eggs? Do they need a Targaryen to go into the fire with them? We don't know what gender the three dragons are. Maybe all dragons can lay eggs and only fire and Targaryns can fertilize them. Apparently the first dragons came from a volcano in Valyria. Was this volcano also related to the Doom of Valyria?
1: The whole reason Jon Snow went to Dragonstone was to fetch a bunch of dragonglass (obsidian), which apparently can kill wights and white walkers. He didn't ask for it right away but did some sparring and staring longingly with Daenerys before finally giving Tyrion the opportunity to ask him if there was some lesser thing that they could do for him. This added suspense but makes little sense.
2: The whole reason the 7 samurai and their redshirts went north of the wall was to come into contact with some wights so they could bring one of them back. They knew they'd have do some fighting with wights and white walkers. Jon had been mining dragonglass. Didn't he think to bring a few of these special weapons to arm them, just in case they ran into the very thing they were looking for? (7: Jon, Jorah, Tormund, Dondarion, Thoros, Hound, Gendry. The first part of the episode was used for exposition, just like in the Kurozawa and Yul Brenner versions) (perhaps they did use dragonglass weapons but you'd think they'd have made a point of it, which they didn't)
3: best I can make out, it's about 1500 miles from Eastwatch to dragonstone. I don't know how fast GoT ravens fly, but pigeons do about 50 mph and can only fly for about 20 hours without taking a rest. If ravens are similar, that's 30 hours of flying plus a few hours of rest. Let's assume the dragons can fly twice as fast (much more than that and a rider could not possibly stay aboard). Adding Gendry's run all the way back to eastwatch and time for a little discussion in both places lets say 60 hours. The 7 samurai experienced a little cracking ice, but the Wight army was too much for it and they pulled back. Starting from no ice, at 0F, 60 hours can produce 6 inches of ice. Enough for a person or maybe a small group to walk on but not enough for an army of wights. But they weren't starting from zero, there was already ice. The broken spots had to re-freeze, but they'll do that a lot more quickly than if they'd been starting from clear water. So, 60 hours is just barely enough.
4: the Hound's stone is much lighter than a wight army or even a single wight. The fact that the ice is now hard enough to support a stone is no indication that it can support an army.
5: I said, out loud, "oh dear, now he's got a dragon" the moment the dragon was hit by the ice lance. They can obviously make wight bears and horses, so it seemed pretty obvious. It's not clear which dragon it was, except that Daenerys always rides Drogon and that one made it out. I'm guessing it was Viserion, because Rhaegon is penciled in to be Jon's dragon once he realizes he's a Targaryen, being named for his real father.
6: What does a fire breathing wight dragon breathe? icy fire? ordinary fire? blast of freezing something? does the ice put the fire out? a non-fire breathing dragon isn't as scary as a fire breather, but still pretty scary.
7: when the Hound kicked their captive wight, a whole bunch of wights on the shore screamed. when Jon killed the White Walker with Valyrian steel, a whole bunch of wights suddenly died. The characters are thinking that they were in thrall somehow to that particular White Walker and he has to be alive for them to animate. I'm thinking this is some connection analogous to warging. There only seem to be a handful of White Walkers...perhaps emphasis should be on taking them out.
8 The 6 remaining samurai all owe Daenarys a lot. Jorah pledged to her long ago, Jon did from his sickbed, and Davos joked that he might too.
9: I think the Hound has a strong crush on the Stark girls. It's clear that he had a strong sense of decency and a little bit of a soft heart all along, but his relationship with his psychopath brother and his employment by the Lannisters had forced him to suppress this under a thick layer of cynicism. I wonder if he'll fall for Daenarys the way he's fallen for the Stark girls.
10: Way too much deus ex machina in this episode. The dragons arriving in the nick of time, Jon coming to the surface within inches of his sword, Benjen Stark arriving when he did and giving Jon his undead horse. How is it that other wights are in thrall to the White Walkers but Benjen somehow has kept a mind of his own? Did Jon realize that his uncle or his horse were undead?
11: The fight between the Stark sisters makes no sense. Arya knows enough about the Lannisters to know that Sansa had been forced to write the letter, and Sansa knows Arya could have done nothing about it. She is right to be creeped out by Arya's face collection but she took the explanation with surprising aplomb. Arya was understandably jealous of the attention focused on Sansa but she was also happier without it. Perhaps Littlefinger is concerned that if they join with Daenerys, his chances at the Iron Throne are basically gone, although he may still have a shot at Sansa and in a rivalry between the girls, Arya will side with Jon and Daenerys.
12: How are dragons born? apparently they need a big fire. Where do the eggs come from? Do they need a mating pair to make eggs? Do they need a Targaryen to go into the fire with them? We don't know what gender the three dragons are. Maybe all dragons can lay eggs and only fire and Targaryns can fertilize them. Apparently the first dragons came from a volcano in Valyria. Was this volcano also related to the Doom of Valyria?
11 August 2017
Game of Thrones Predictions
We're 4/7ths through the 7th season. Daenerys has had some losses but just took a huge win with her dragons and Dothraki. Bronn just saved Jaime from a dragon but both are sinking into deep water, pulled down by the weight of their armor. Jaime appears to be unconscious. Jon Snow has been making friends with Daenerys but refuses to bend the knee. He's presumably busy mining dragonglass.
I predict that Jaime and Bronn survive by getting their armor off, but are captured. They will have a reunion with their brother/old friend Tyrion. They will both eventually switch sides but not for quite a while yet. They'll stay captive for a while. One of them will escape, probably Bronn.
Tyrion loves his brother, but Jaime loves his sister and is loyal to what's left of the family. Tywin and Cersei have made that loyalty impossible for Tyrion, but Tyrion doesn't want his brother to die. It's a tough one. Jaime dying heroically would resolve everything, but that would wreck the drama of the story, so the writers probably won't do that.
Jon Snow will have an incident soon where one of the dragons takes a shine to him, probably the one named for his biological father. I'm guessing the dragon will invite him to go for a ride but it may play out a different way. He doesn't yet know yet that he's a Targaryen. When he and Bran get together finally, he'll find out, and suddenly all will become clear. The writers are drawing this out for as long as possible.
Nobody seems to be concerned that the one-time Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, who is an exceptionally duty-driven person, is now King in the North. Everybody knows that the only way out of the Night's Watch is to die. There are hundreds of Stark bannermen who don't know that Jon Snow did die and was resurrected, yet are nevertheless pledged to what must seem to be a watchman who has violated his vow. Sam Tarley was already on the way to the Citadel when this happened and doesn't know. He sent a raven (which apparently got to Winterfell somehow) to Jon telling him about the dragonglass at Dragonstone, but the Citadel seems pretty isolated. Sam probably doesn't know that Jon died and that his departure is legitimate, albeit unorthodox.
Sam has been assigned to copy a bunch of scrolls that are decaying. I predict that some of them will prove very interesting and one will have some information, forgotten for centuries, that will be crucially important in the fight against the Night King. I think the Archmaester suspected that this might be the case and Sam's punishment will prove in fact to be a huge reward.
I'm guessing nobody else in Winterfell appreciates just how deadly Arya has become, although there are quite a few hints. When asked who had taught her the trick with the dagger, she told Brienne "no one". Brienne took it to mean that she'd just figured it out on her own, but she meant she'd been taught by the faceless men. If Arya (or somebody) is able to kill Cersei, just about all the POV characters remaining have a good reason to get along with each other and are already friends at some level, and can get to the real business of defending the realm against the Night King. I suppose this means that Cersei can't be killed for a while, if only for dramatic purposes.
Gendry is probably out there somewhere. He is already friends with Arya, and her reunion with HotPie a few weeks ago is probably foreshadowing. He realizes he owes his life to Davos, but he'd been penciled in for the Night's Watch. Gendry is a notch more legitimate a holder of the Iron Throne than Cersei (he's the illegitimate son of Robert) so Cersei would probably kill him if she heard about him, but she doesn't know. I'm guessing Sam plays a role. Once Sam gets his Maester's chain, he's destined to return to the Watch; he didn't die like Jon, but he effectively has a wife and child, which is a violation of his oath too.
I predict that Jaime and Bronn survive by getting their armor off, but are captured. They will have a reunion with their brother/old friend Tyrion. They will both eventually switch sides but not for quite a while yet. They'll stay captive for a while. One of them will escape, probably Bronn.
Tyrion loves his brother, but Jaime loves his sister and is loyal to what's left of the family. Tywin and Cersei have made that loyalty impossible for Tyrion, but Tyrion doesn't want his brother to die. It's a tough one. Jaime dying heroically would resolve everything, but that would wreck the drama of the story, so the writers probably won't do that.
Jon Snow will have an incident soon where one of the dragons takes a shine to him, probably the one named for his biological father. I'm guessing the dragon will invite him to go for a ride but it may play out a different way. He doesn't yet know yet that he's a Targaryen. When he and Bran get together finally, he'll find out, and suddenly all will become clear. The writers are drawing this out for as long as possible.
Nobody seems to be concerned that the one-time Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, who is an exceptionally duty-driven person, is now King in the North. Everybody knows that the only way out of the Night's Watch is to die. There are hundreds of Stark bannermen who don't know that Jon Snow did die and was resurrected, yet are nevertheless pledged to what must seem to be a watchman who has violated his vow. Sam Tarley was already on the way to the Citadel when this happened and doesn't know. He sent a raven (which apparently got to Winterfell somehow) to Jon telling him about the dragonglass at Dragonstone, but the Citadel seems pretty isolated. Sam probably doesn't know that Jon died and that his departure is legitimate, albeit unorthodox.
Sam has been assigned to copy a bunch of scrolls that are decaying. I predict that some of them will prove very interesting and one will have some information, forgotten for centuries, that will be crucially important in the fight against the Night King. I think the Archmaester suspected that this might be the case and Sam's punishment will prove in fact to be a huge reward.
I'm guessing nobody else in Winterfell appreciates just how deadly Arya has become, although there are quite a few hints. When asked who had taught her the trick with the dagger, she told Brienne "no one". Brienne took it to mean that she'd just figured it out on her own, but she meant she'd been taught by the faceless men. If Arya (or somebody) is able to kill Cersei, just about all the POV characters remaining have a good reason to get along with each other and are already friends at some level, and can get to the real business of defending the realm against the Night King. I suppose this means that Cersei can't be killed for a while, if only for dramatic purposes.
Gendry is probably out there somewhere. He is already friends with Arya, and her reunion with HotPie a few weeks ago is probably foreshadowing. He realizes he owes his life to Davos, but he'd been penciled in for the Night's Watch. Gendry is a notch more legitimate a holder of the Iron Throne than Cersei (he's the illegitimate son of Robert) so Cersei would probably kill him if she heard about him, but she doesn't know. I'm guessing Sam plays a role. Once Sam gets his Maester's chain, he's destined to return to the Watch; he didn't die like Jon, but he effectively has a wife and child, which is a violation of his oath too.
07 May 2017
Dr Who Companions
Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladden). She worked with the 3rd, mostly the 4th, and 10th doctors (Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, and David Tennant). Her combination of independence, intelligence and feistyness combined with just the right amount of damsel in distress made her perfect.
Romana (Mary Tamm), She only did one season with the 4th doctor (Tom Baker). She was also a Time Lord and was academically and in several other ways the doctor's superior, but she had a lot less experience. She was also an ice princess, in the Hitchcock sense, which works well in a movie but doesn't last for a longer relationship than that. So at the end of that season, she regenerated into the actress that was Tom Baker's girlfriend and later wife, Lalla Ward. That character made more sense for the show, but I didn't like her as much.
Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) She worked with the 4th and 5th doctors (Tom Baker and Peter Davison). Another very smart ice princess, she was not as strong as first Romana but because there were two other companions, it held together longer.
Martha Jones (Freema Argeman). She worked with the 10th doctor (David Tennant) and had the bad luck to be with the show when they went through a really terrible storyline. The few good stories they did though, she did well.
Christina de Souza (Michelle Ryan). She only did one episode with the 10th doctor (David Tennant). I'm disappointed they didn't go with her, she was terrific as was the character she played (a skillful thief who was not entirely selfish). I've seen Ryan in other things--she wasn't as good.
Sally Sparrow (Carey Mulligan). Only in one episode, but it was the best episode ever.
Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman). She was with the 11th and 12th doctors (Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi) and I think she was an excellent choice for the part she played.
Jo Grant (Katy Manning). She was with the 3rd doctor (Jon Pertwee) and was a bundle of energy and vivaciousness and handled the damsel in distress well.
The Brigadier, Captain Yates, Sergeant Benton (UNIT: Nicholas Courtney, Richard Franklin, John Levene). Not companions in the normal sense since they didn't travel with the doctor, but they were important, mostly with the 3rd doctor.
Adric (Matthew Waterhouse). I liked Adric. For some reason most people don't. Perhaps it's that he's a mathematician. He did a lot of good things and died heroically. I think he's the only companion to have been killed off (although Rose was trapped in a different dimension, which amounts to the same thing). He's not my favorite but he's certainly in the top 25%.
At the other end
Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) was one of the most popular companions. But I don't get her at all. Her grandfather, Wilfred Mott (Bernard Cribbins) was in every way a better character.
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) was also very popular. I get her a little more than Donna, but still don't see the appeal.
Melanie (Bonnie Langford) was fun to look at, but that was about it. A very annoying personality.
Peri (Nicola Bryant) Whiney and annoying, with a terrible American accent. there are so many talented British actors who can do a good American accent, and even more good actual American actors. But they chose someone who couldn't, and had her play an American anyway. It didn't help that her Doctor (#5, Colin Baker) was just as annoying as she was.
Leela (Louise Jameson) Attractive and wore her costume well, but obviously lacked the physical skills the character she was portraying supposedly possessed and completely broke the suspension of disbelief you need to have for this sort of show. The episode that most drove this home involved a pretty spaceship pilot doing mildly active things with Leela. The pilot, despite her stiletto heels, was visibly more athletic and coordinated than Leela.
An aside on monsters: Central to the appeal of a show like Dr. Who is suspension of disbelief. It's easier to suspend disbelief about a frankly cheesy special effect like Daleks or the other propman-in-a-suit monsters when it's obviously meant as a stand-in for something more credible. When the computer generated characters get good enough that you're no longer making allowances, the standards of everything else in the show also need to go up to match. But the plots of the new version are just as cheesy as they ever were and in a lot of cases even worse.
Romana (Mary Tamm), She only did one season with the 4th doctor (Tom Baker). She was also a Time Lord and was academically and in several other ways the doctor's superior, but she had a lot less experience. She was also an ice princess, in the Hitchcock sense, which works well in a movie but doesn't last for a longer relationship than that. So at the end of that season, she regenerated into the actress that was Tom Baker's girlfriend and later wife, Lalla Ward. That character made more sense for the show, but I didn't like her as much.
Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) She worked with the 4th and 5th doctors (Tom Baker and Peter Davison). Another very smart ice princess, she was not as strong as first Romana but because there were two other companions, it held together longer.
Martha Jones (Freema Argeman). She worked with the 10th doctor (David Tennant) and had the bad luck to be with the show when they went through a really terrible storyline. The few good stories they did though, she did well.
Christina de Souza (Michelle Ryan). She only did one episode with the 10th doctor (David Tennant). I'm disappointed they didn't go with her, she was terrific as was the character she played (a skillful thief who was not entirely selfish). I've seen Ryan in other things--she wasn't as good.
Sally Sparrow (Carey Mulligan). Only in one episode, but it was the best episode ever.
Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman). She was with the 11th and 12th doctors (Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi) and I think she was an excellent choice for the part she played.
Jo Grant (Katy Manning). She was with the 3rd doctor (Jon Pertwee) and was a bundle of energy and vivaciousness and handled the damsel in distress well.
The Brigadier, Captain Yates, Sergeant Benton (UNIT: Nicholas Courtney, Richard Franklin, John Levene). Not companions in the normal sense since they didn't travel with the doctor, but they were important, mostly with the 3rd doctor.
Adric (Matthew Waterhouse). I liked Adric. For some reason most people don't. Perhaps it's that he's a mathematician. He did a lot of good things and died heroically. I think he's the only companion to have been killed off (although Rose was trapped in a different dimension, which amounts to the same thing). He's not my favorite but he's certainly in the top 25%.
At the other end
Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) was one of the most popular companions. But I don't get her at all. Her grandfather, Wilfred Mott (Bernard Cribbins) was in every way a better character.
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) was also very popular. I get her a little more than Donna, but still don't see the appeal.
Melanie (Bonnie Langford) was fun to look at, but that was about it. A very annoying personality.
Peri (Nicola Bryant) Whiney and annoying, with a terrible American accent. there are so many talented British actors who can do a good American accent, and even more good actual American actors. But they chose someone who couldn't, and had her play an American anyway. It didn't help that her Doctor (#5, Colin Baker) was just as annoying as she was.
Leela (Louise Jameson) Attractive and wore her costume well, but obviously lacked the physical skills the character she was portraying supposedly possessed and completely broke the suspension of disbelief you need to have for this sort of show. The episode that most drove this home involved a pretty spaceship pilot doing mildly active things with Leela. The pilot, despite her stiletto heels, was visibly more athletic and coordinated than Leela.
An aside on monsters: Central to the appeal of a show like Dr. Who is suspension of disbelief. It's easier to suspend disbelief about a frankly cheesy special effect like Daleks or the other propman-in-a-suit monsters when it's obviously meant as a stand-in for something more credible. When the computer generated characters get good enough that you're no longer making allowances, the standards of everything else in the show also need to go up to match. But the plots of the new version are just as cheesy as they ever were and in a lot of cases even worse.
04 July 2016
Pesterware
The first pesterware was advertising on TV. I understand the purpose of advertising and to some extent I even embrace it. It pays for some or all of the desired programming or at least makes it less expensive--which enables production of more. Once in a rare while, I even see something in an ad that I want to buy.
TV advertising has crossed the line in several ways. When they run the same ad over and over and over and over and over, I initially get bored, but before long I get irritated. A little repetition is understandable: people miss the beginning of the show, go to the toilet during ads, etc. I skip as many as I can with a Digital Video Recorder (or its predecessor a VCR). But at some point it becomes so annoying that I no longer watch the channel. SciFi and FX are both in this category for me. These guys break up the show into such short slots that I am constantly cursing them--a 90 minute movie extended to 3 hours, in 5 minute spurts, often with substantial parts of the movie cut out. No thanks.
Another way they irritate me is by putting a bug, splash or crawl over the screen. A typical example: a news program will show some video with a banner over it: KWTF BREAKING NEWS!!! and the critical thing will be hidden by the banner. Sometimes they get the banner out of the way, but rarely. A bug or bottom of screen crawl would have been better. (why do they put it away from the bottom, ever? Back in the days of rounded screens, the bottom was a moving target, so I understand why they moved it up then. But since the '70s, screens have been relatively rectangular and technology has eliminated sync and size issues completely. But they're still doing this.) Recently a few channels have been putting a moving bug in the corner, occasionally with an accompanying noise, often loud enough to obscure the programming. Sheesh.
Once upon a time, the government put a limit to advertising on the airwaves: 16 minutes per hour. This is no longer the case but many channels still stick to it.
Computer pesterware has never had such a limitation. Virtually all browsers have a popup blocker and virtually all users have it enabled. So websites have implemented their own popups. The best of them do things in a way that don't interfere and have a little X in the upper right to dismiss them. But many of them can't be dismissed without giving the offender some of your personal data. I boycott such sites. I also run an ad blocker. Many advertisers have figured out how to detect that the blocker is running and a few badger you about it.
In my view, unintrusive advertising is acceptable. If it prevents the content I wanted from being accessed, it is intrusive. If it keeps badgering me, even after I have attempted to dismiss it, it is intrusive. If it makes spurious noises or flashes, it is intrusive. If it takes more than two seconds to figure out how to dismiss it, it is intrusive. If it consumes consequential amounts of network bandwidth, or any other resource on my computer, it is worse than intrusive.
Advertising doesn't have to be pesterware. But when it is, we need to stop it.
TV advertising has crossed the line in several ways. When they run the same ad over and over and over and over and over, I initially get bored, but before long I get irritated. A little repetition is understandable: people miss the beginning of the show, go to the toilet during ads, etc. I skip as many as I can with a Digital Video Recorder (or its predecessor a VCR). But at some point it becomes so annoying that I no longer watch the channel. SciFi and FX are both in this category for me. These guys break up the show into such short slots that I am constantly cursing them--a 90 minute movie extended to 3 hours, in 5 minute spurts, often with substantial parts of the movie cut out. No thanks.
Another way they irritate me is by putting a bug, splash or crawl over the screen. A typical example: a news program will show some video with a banner over it: KWTF BREAKING NEWS!!! and the critical thing will be hidden by the banner. Sometimes they get the banner out of the way, but rarely. A bug or bottom of screen crawl would have been better. (why do they put it away from the bottom, ever? Back in the days of rounded screens, the bottom was a moving target, so I understand why they moved it up then. But since the '70s, screens have been relatively rectangular and technology has eliminated sync and size issues completely. But they're still doing this.) Recently a few channels have been putting a moving bug in the corner, occasionally with an accompanying noise, often loud enough to obscure the programming. Sheesh.
Once upon a time, the government put a limit to advertising on the airwaves: 16 minutes per hour. This is no longer the case but many channels still stick to it.
Computer pesterware has never had such a limitation. Virtually all browsers have a popup blocker and virtually all users have it enabled. So websites have implemented their own popups. The best of them do things in a way that don't interfere and have a little X in the upper right to dismiss them. But many of them can't be dismissed without giving the offender some of your personal data. I boycott such sites. I also run an ad blocker. Many advertisers have figured out how to detect that the blocker is running and a few badger you about it.
In my view, unintrusive advertising is acceptable. If it prevents the content I wanted from being accessed, it is intrusive. If it keeps badgering me, even after I have attempted to dismiss it, it is intrusive. If it makes spurious noises or flashes, it is intrusive. If it takes more than two seconds to figure out how to dismiss it, it is intrusive. If it consumes consequential amounts of network bandwidth, or any other resource on my computer, it is worse than intrusive.
Advertising doesn't have to be pesterware. But when it is, we need to stop it.
22 April 2016
Is Jon Snow Dead?
Spoiler Alert! If you haven't seen Game of Thrones series 5 or read George R R Martin's A Dance with Dragons, then this spoils one of the most important scenes, which is in both...read no further. This is an educated guess about what is about to happen.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There appear to be 4 ways that people can survive death or be brought back to life in the Game of Thrones universe:
A priest of R'hllor can use a fire ritual to bring a dead body back to life. Something seems to be lost if that happens though.
The chief White Walkers (Wights?) seem to have the ability to create White Walkers from corpses. The White Walker is a zombie and has little or none of its original mind left.
If a person who can animate another creature (Warg) is actively doing it at the time of their bodies death, then their mind is permanently transferred to the victim. This is considered at some length in the books, and apparently there is a merging of the minds that takes place after the death of the Warg.
Some people seem to be able to survive fire. This may be resistance, but I think it may actually be a death and full reanimation by fire...or perhaps a more than full reanimation, with special Dragon-related powers. I'm not sure if it's a property unique to Targaryens or what, or if it's tied in some way to the Priests of the Red God's ability to revive a dead person.
Here's the speculation: Jon Snow is not the illegitimate son of Eddard Stark, but the legitimate son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. Lyanna had been kidnapped by Rhaegar, starting Robert's Rebellion, but she had fallen in love and they had married. (Targaryens are allowed multiple marriages). When Eddard and his bannerman Howland Reed came upon her, dying in childbirth, Lyanna made Eddard and Howland promise that he would keep the secret of her children's parentage until they reached adulthood, and each raise one of them as his own. Eddard took the son, raising him as his own bastard, Jon Snow. Howland took the twin daughter and adopted her as his own, Meera Reed. Howland Reed is now the only person alive who knows what exactly was promised, and he has carefully stayed inside his fortress
If this is true: 1) Jon and Meera are fully legitimate Targaryens, 2nd and 3rd in line for the iron throne after their Aunt Daenerys. If Robert Baratheon had known the twins true parentage, he'd have had them killed as a legitimate threat to his right to the throne. It would have been particularly galling for him, because he was the one betrothed to Lyanna and he was madly in love. No wonder their mother wanted their secret kept. This was a terribly hard secret for Eddard Stark to keep. 2) One or both may be able to be reborn in fire. Both are dead at this point: Meera was killed defending her brother Jojen Reed, Bran Stark, and Hodor from White Walkers as they entered the camp of the Children of the Forest at the end of Season 4. She presumably is now a white walker, but it may be possible to bring her back to life by burning her. I speculate that this will happen in dramatic fashion at some point. They will burn Jon to try to keep the corpse from becoming a white walker. I'm not sure whether he will emerge in dramatic fashion from the fire or figure out a way to sneak off.
One way or another, I'm pretty sure the Red Witch Melesandre will be involved and Jon Stark will now become the object of her affections and promotion. She may be able to figure out the truth somehow. She plainly has exceptional ability to see things at a distance. The scene where she said, exactly as Ygritte said it: "You know nothing, Jon Snow" gave me goosebumps. (While researching for this I stumbled across the fact that Kit Harrington and Rose Leslie have been dating (these are the actors that played Jon Snow and Ygritte))
We know that dying absolves a member of the Night's Watch of their commitment. I suspect Jon will find a way to continue to honor it, nevertheless. He's aware that the White Walkers are far more dangerous than any other threat to Westeros.
While it is technically speculation at this point, there have been so many clues that I am almost certain that Jon Snow is the child of Rhaegar and Lyanna, and that's what the secret was between Lyanna and Eddard. I'm pretty sure that the only surviving character who knows the truth first hand is Howland Reed. The legitimacy, and that Meera is Jon's twin, is more speculative, as is the ability to be reborn in fire (as opposed to merely surviving, which was what we were led to think with Daenerys).
I wonder if the fact that there are three dragons and three Targaryens (Daenerys, Jon and Meera) is significant.
We know that the Targaryens have this dragon and fire ability and that some Starks have Warging--Bran for sure, and we've apparently seen Jon Snow doing it with Ghost. I wonder if Warging and communicating with dragons are related gifts or if Jon will be unique in having both.
We may learn the truth Sunday. I speculate that there will be something mysterious happening first, and the story will come out in a more complicated way.
--------
addenda 1 May 2016
It turns out my first guess was correct, that Melisandre, the priestess of R'hllor, was able to bring Jon back, although only Ghost and the audience realize it yet--she thinks she failed as we fade to credits. I thought the scene was very well played, if a little predictable. Right up until she tried, it could have gone either way--they'd mentioned burning the bodies. This may have been better storytelling choice strategically, to avoid giving away Jon's parentage too soon.
After 2 years out of the production, Bran is back, and his warging has given him a look at his father Eddard, aunt Lyanna, and uncle Benjen, as children, as well as Hodor before he lost the ability to speak. Bran wants to see more, and we can be sure he will learn some interesting things, but his new warging guide, played by the great Max von Sydow, is worried lest he go too far and get lost.
We also see Meera, who was the survivor of the White Walker attack--it was her (adoptive) brother Jojen that was killed. It's been 5 years since I read it and 2 since I saw it acted...sorry. The scene, I thought, really emphasized her similarity in appearance and attitude with Jon Snow.
And the release of the dragons. I'm a little mystified why Tyrion wasn't made a quick morsel, as was Tyrion himself. Perhaps the dragons really are smart enough to see the larger picture. Or maybe he has some Targeryan blood. Perhaps his biological father was not Tywin Lannister after all.
One of my favorite non-POV characters was Syrio Forel. I keep hoping he survived the fight, where he had a wooden practice sword and was looking pretty good against fully armed Kingsgard Meryn Trant when the scene cut away. When the opportunity presented itself, Arya violated her vows to the Many-Faced God to avenge him. I keep hoping he turns up in his native Braavos.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There appear to be 4 ways that people can survive death or be brought back to life in the Game of Thrones universe:
A priest of R'hllor can use a fire ritual to bring a dead body back to life. Something seems to be lost if that happens though.
The chief White Walkers (Wights?) seem to have the ability to create White Walkers from corpses. The White Walker is a zombie and has little or none of its original mind left.
If a person who can animate another creature (Warg) is actively doing it at the time of their bodies death, then their mind is permanently transferred to the victim. This is considered at some length in the books, and apparently there is a merging of the minds that takes place after the death of the Warg.
Some people seem to be able to survive fire. This may be resistance, but I think it may actually be a death and full reanimation by fire...or perhaps a more than full reanimation, with special Dragon-related powers. I'm not sure if it's a property unique to Targaryens or what, or if it's tied in some way to the Priests of the Red God's ability to revive a dead person.
Here's the speculation: Jon Snow is not the illegitimate son of Eddard Stark, but the legitimate son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. Lyanna had been kidnapped by Rhaegar, starting Robert's Rebellion, but she had fallen in love and they had married. (Targaryens are allowed multiple marriages). When Eddard and his bannerman Howland Reed came upon her, dying in childbirth, Lyanna made Eddard and Howland promise that he would keep the secret of her children's parentage until they reached adulthood, and each raise one of them as his own. Eddard took the son, raising him as his own bastard, Jon Snow. Howland took the twin daughter and adopted her as his own, Meera Reed. Howland Reed is now the only person alive who knows what exactly was promised, and he has carefully stayed inside his fortress
If this is true: 1) Jon and Meera are fully legitimate Targaryens, 2nd and 3rd in line for the iron throne after their Aunt Daenerys. If Robert Baratheon had known the twins true parentage, he'd have had them killed as a legitimate threat to his right to the throne. It would have been particularly galling for him, because he was the one betrothed to Lyanna and he was madly in love. No wonder their mother wanted their secret kept. This was a terribly hard secret for Eddard Stark to keep. 2) One or both may be able to be reborn in fire. Both are dead at this point: Meera was killed defending her brother Jojen Reed, Bran Stark, and Hodor from White Walkers as they entered the camp of the Children of the Forest at the end of Season 4. She presumably is now a white walker, but it may be possible to bring her back to life by burning her. I speculate that this will happen in dramatic fashion at some point. They will burn Jon to try to keep the corpse from becoming a white walker. I'm not sure whether he will emerge in dramatic fashion from the fire or figure out a way to sneak off.
One way or another, I'm pretty sure the Red Witch Melesandre will be involved and Jon Stark will now become the object of her affections and promotion. She may be able to figure out the truth somehow. She plainly has exceptional ability to see things at a distance. The scene where she said, exactly as Ygritte said it: "You know nothing, Jon Snow" gave me goosebumps. (While researching for this I stumbled across the fact that Kit Harrington and Rose Leslie have been dating (these are the actors that played Jon Snow and Ygritte))
We know that dying absolves a member of the Night's Watch of their commitment. I suspect Jon will find a way to continue to honor it, nevertheless. He's aware that the White Walkers are far more dangerous than any other threat to Westeros.
While it is technically speculation at this point, there have been so many clues that I am almost certain that Jon Snow is the child of Rhaegar and Lyanna, and that's what the secret was between Lyanna and Eddard. I'm pretty sure that the only surviving character who knows the truth first hand is Howland Reed. The legitimacy, and that Meera is Jon's twin, is more speculative, as is the ability to be reborn in fire (as opposed to merely surviving, which was what we were led to think with Daenerys).
I wonder if the fact that there are three dragons and three Targaryens (Daenerys, Jon and Meera) is significant.
We know that the Targaryens have this dragon and fire ability and that some Starks have Warging--Bran for sure, and we've apparently seen Jon Snow doing it with Ghost. I wonder if Warging and communicating with dragons are related gifts or if Jon will be unique in having both.
We may learn the truth Sunday. I speculate that there will be something mysterious happening first, and the story will come out in a more complicated way.
--------
addenda 1 May 2016
It turns out my first guess was correct, that Melisandre, the priestess of R'hllor, was able to bring Jon back, although only Ghost and the audience realize it yet--she thinks she failed as we fade to credits. I thought the scene was very well played, if a little predictable. Right up until she tried, it could have gone either way--they'd mentioned burning the bodies. This may have been better storytelling choice strategically, to avoid giving away Jon's parentage too soon.
After 2 years out of the production, Bran is back, and his warging has given him a look at his father Eddard, aunt Lyanna, and uncle Benjen, as children, as well as Hodor before he lost the ability to speak. Bran wants to see more, and we can be sure he will learn some interesting things, but his new warging guide, played by the great Max von Sydow, is worried lest he go too far and get lost.
We also see Meera, who was the survivor of the White Walker attack--it was her (adoptive) brother Jojen that was killed. It's been 5 years since I read it and 2 since I saw it acted...sorry. The scene, I thought, really emphasized her similarity in appearance and attitude with Jon Snow.
And the release of the dragons. I'm a little mystified why Tyrion wasn't made a quick morsel, as was Tyrion himself. Perhaps the dragons really are smart enough to see the larger picture. Or maybe he has some Targeryan blood. Perhaps his biological father was not Tywin Lannister after all.
One of my favorite non-POV characters was Syrio Forel. I keep hoping he survived the fight, where he had a wooden practice sword and was looking pretty good against fully armed Kingsgard Meryn Trant when the scene cut away. When the opportunity presented itself, Arya violated her vows to the Many-Faced God to avenge him. I keep hoping he turns up in his native Braavos.
28 August 2014
The President's Analyst--the Missing Scene
One of my favorite movies is 1967's The President's Analyst, starring James Coburn as Dr. Sidney Schaefer. For some reason, an important scene was cut out, and since the early '70s, it seems to have vanished. The scene goes like this:
Dr. Schaefer has just learned that he's been selected to be the President's psychoanalyst, and is thrilled at the opportunity. Since he'll be moving to Washington, he takes one last walk around his beloved New York City, to the catchy tune of Lalo Schifrin's "Look Up". Just as the song ends, he finds himself in front of an artsy movie theater playing a title that interests him, so he goes in. There's only one open seat, next to a beautiful girl, so giving that James Coburn grin, he takes it. The movie begins almost immediately, and within just a few minutes, the other moviegoers are disgusted by what they're seeing. But Dr. Schaefer and the girl are enjoying it thoroughly. By the time the movie ends, the theater is empty except for them. They introduce themselves to each other as they walk out. She's named "Nan" and is a "$90,000 a year model." The median wage in 1967 was $5200, so in today's money, she was making about a $million a year, and would be one of the highest paid models in the world, comparable to Twiggy or Jean Shrimpton. They soon are his apartment. They've already found, from their reactions to the movie, that they are both very liberal sexually and she invites him to bed.
The scene is cut from just before he sees the theater marquee, to Sidney and Nan rolling around in bed. I suppose it reflects a level of sexual liberalism that offended some people. But it was shown on prime time TV many times in the '60s and early '70s. The fact that he'd just met Nan is important to the plot later on, but as it's shown she just comes out of nowhere.
I hope there's a copy of the scene somewhere. The movie revels in the most progressive attitudes of the '60s--free love, drugs, hippie communes, abstract art, even a few hints of nudity, as well as the growing skepticism of corporate and bureaucratic power.
Dr. Schaefer has just learned that he's been selected to be the President's psychoanalyst, and is thrilled at the opportunity. Since he'll be moving to Washington, he takes one last walk around his beloved New York City, to the catchy tune of Lalo Schifrin's "Look Up". Just as the song ends, he finds himself in front of an artsy movie theater playing a title that interests him, so he goes in. There's only one open seat, next to a beautiful girl, so giving that James Coburn grin, he takes it. The movie begins almost immediately, and within just a few minutes, the other moviegoers are disgusted by what they're seeing. But Dr. Schaefer and the girl are enjoying it thoroughly. By the time the movie ends, the theater is empty except for them. They introduce themselves to each other as they walk out. She's named "Nan" and is a "$90,000 a year model." The median wage in 1967 was $5200, so in today's money, she was making about a $million a year, and would be one of the highest paid models in the world, comparable to Twiggy or Jean Shrimpton. They soon are his apartment. They've already found, from their reactions to the movie, that they are both very liberal sexually and she invites him to bed.
The scene is cut from just before he sees the theater marquee, to Sidney and Nan rolling around in bed. I suppose it reflects a level of sexual liberalism that offended some people. But it was shown on prime time TV many times in the '60s and early '70s. The fact that he'd just met Nan is important to the plot later on, but as it's shown she just comes out of nowhere.
I hope there's a copy of the scene somewhere. The movie revels in the most progressive attitudes of the '60s--free love, drugs, hippie communes, abstract art, even a few hints of nudity, as well as the growing skepticism of corporate and bureaucratic power.
22 June 2014
The Monopoly Party
One of our great parties has been taken over by pro-monopoly radicals. Most of the supporters of that party don't know that, but the monopolists have figured out that if they can sell their story of laissez-faire economics, support for religious wedge issues and by sowing disruption and conflict in their party and their opponents, they can gain power and keep their monopolies despite it being against the law.
The most obvious monopolies are the big banks, the big oil companies, the big insurers, and a few others, most notably Walmart, the biggest company in the world. Many of these are not literally monopolies: e.g. 4 banks control $8T of the $10.5T total assets managed by all US banks. But they collude on policy--you really don't have much choice, and none of the hundreds of smaller banks can compete with any of the big 4 even if they have a better product.
The pro-monopolists want monopoly in other things than their own narrow business: they strenuously object if anybody criticizes them. They teach their naïve supporters that any arm of government that doesn't do exactly what they want them to is dangerous and can't be tolerated. They work very hard to discredit opposing opinion, a lot of it through name calling. (they talk about taxation without representation: in fact they have a lot of representation---the Tea Party are about 10% of the electorate but they control one house of congress and successfully block all action in the other). They look for opportunities to suppress voters likely to object to them. They suggest that some offenses are so bad that such people should not receive due process. They tell us--against all evidence--that the current Democratic president is the most outrageously radical leftist in our history...in fact he is one of the two most conservative Democrats since the 19th century and about even on the left-right spectrum with Nixon and Eisenhower and not far left of their plaster hero, Reagan.
Most dangerously, they have been buying up and monopolizing media, so that only their narrow, pro-monopoly message gets out. There are a few centrist news operations remaining: New York Times, MSNBC, Huffington Post, etc., but most of the mainstream has moved very far right. An important way to do this is by buying lots of advertising and hinting that the funding source will dry up if they don't give "equal time" to their pet right wing pundits. Many of the bastions of good reporting: the Wall Street Journal, the PBS News Hour, 60 Minutes, The Washington Post, and more, have fallen prey to this. The once carefully neutral PBS New Hour will give equal time to a knowledgeable expert and a crackpot, and sometimes they skip the expert altogether. There are NO left wing news sites with a significant following in America and precious few elsewhere.
The bottom line is this: Laissez-Faire is anything but fair, free enterprise. It can be, for a little while. But very quickly, it almost always degenerates into monopoly or race to the bottom, and without regulation, once you have monopoly or race to the bottom, it's practically impossible to break out. There are very few supporters of Laissez-Faire who have an informed understanding of it and its history. But there are tens of millions who hear that there's freedom involved and stop thinking at that point. Ayn Rand's childish wish-fulfilment fantasy novels are very popular among these people.
Nobody argues that we should do away with referees in sports. We can sometimes get away with it in sandlots and schoolyards, but very often it degenerates into disputes and cheating--where nothing is on the line but bragging rights for a few kids. But that's what the monopoly party wants us to do in politics and business and media. Millions of lives are on the line.
The most obvious monopolies are the big banks, the big oil companies, the big insurers, and a few others, most notably Walmart, the biggest company in the world. Many of these are not literally monopolies: e.g. 4 banks control $8T of the $10.5T total assets managed by all US banks. But they collude on policy--you really don't have much choice, and none of the hundreds of smaller banks can compete with any of the big 4 even if they have a better product.
The pro-monopolists want monopoly in other things than their own narrow business: they strenuously object if anybody criticizes them. They teach their naïve supporters that any arm of government that doesn't do exactly what they want them to is dangerous and can't be tolerated. They work very hard to discredit opposing opinion, a lot of it through name calling. (they talk about taxation without representation: in fact they have a lot of representation---the Tea Party are about 10% of the electorate but they control one house of congress and successfully block all action in the other). They look for opportunities to suppress voters likely to object to them. They suggest that some offenses are so bad that such people should not receive due process. They tell us--against all evidence--that the current Democratic president is the most outrageously radical leftist in our history...in fact he is one of the two most conservative Democrats since the 19th century and about even on the left-right spectrum with Nixon and Eisenhower and not far left of their plaster hero, Reagan.
Most dangerously, they have been buying up and monopolizing media, so that only their narrow, pro-monopoly message gets out. There are a few centrist news operations remaining: New York Times, MSNBC, Huffington Post, etc., but most of the mainstream has moved very far right. An important way to do this is by buying lots of advertising and hinting that the funding source will dry up if they don't give "equal time" to their pet right wing pundits. Many of the bastions of good reporting: the Wall Street Journal, the PBS News Hour, 60 Minutes, The Washington Post, and more, have fallen prey to this. The once carefully neutral PBS New Hour will give equal time to a knowledgeable expert and a crackpot, and sometimes they skip the expert altogether. There are NO left wing news sites with a significant following in America and precious few elsewhere.
The bottom line is this: Laissez-Faire is anything but fair, free enterprise. It can be, for a little while. But very quickly, it almost always degenerates into monopoly or race to the bottom, and without regulation, once you have monopoly or race to the bottom, it's practically impossible to break out. There are very few supporters of Laissez-Faire who have an informed understanding of it and its history. But there are tens of millions who hear that there's freedom involved and stop thinking at that point. Ayn Rand's childish wish-fulfilment fantasy novels are very popular among these people.
Nobody argues that we should do away with referees in sports. We can sometimes get away with it in sandlots and schoolyards, but very often it degenerates into disputes and cheating--where nothing is on the line but bragging rights for a few kids. But that's what the monopoly party wants us to do in politics and business and media. Millions of lives are on the line.
01 May 2013
The Thought Police
In his novel 1984, George Orwell wrote about thoughtcrime--that it was a punishable offense to even think thoughts opposed the interests of the ruling party. Orwell was right to be concerned, but he was wrong about the mechanism.
In 1996, the NRA lobbied to block research into gun violence by the CDC and were successful: the law they passed prevented "advocacy" for gun control, which had already been illegal, but the message was clear: they cut CDC's budget by exactly the amount that they'd spent on gun research the previous year. If you're not completely sure whether guns are dangerous or not, you're less likely to pass laws that might reduce the number sold. Obama has now signed an executive order rescinding this, but the lack of sensible regulation and escalating sales to criminals and crazy people have killed thousands.
Now a group of republican congressmen, lead by Jeff Duncan, want to end government collection of the data used to generate GDP and unemployment statistics. It's hard to imagine this getting far, but the intent is clear: If the facts are hurting you politically, make it hard for people to find the facts. Fox News will give you their own facts and if there's no neutral source for real facts, Fox's fake ones will be able to sway the discussion.
Economic data is central to a great many things business and government do, from cost of living adjustments to monetary policy. There's a faction that believes these things are an evil in and of themselves and should not be done. But they are central to modern civilization. GDP and unemployment statistics have been badly twisted by political pressure, but they still have some bearing on reality. Getting rid of them entirely would break the link.
You can't really control people's thoughts. But by controlling what they hear and understand, you can control what they think about, and create opportunities to twist their opinions, they will support things that are against their self interest or that of the society.
In 1996, the NRA lobbied to block research into gun violence by the CDC and were successful: the law they passed prevented "advocacy" for gun control, which had already been illegal, but the message was clear: they cut CDC's budget by exactly the amount that they'd spent on gun research the previous year. If you're not completely sure whether guns are dangerous or not, you're less likely to pass laws that might reduce the number sold. Obama has now signed an executive order rescinding this, but the lack of sensible regulation and escalating sales to criminals and crazy people have killed thousands.
Now a group of republican congressmen, lead by Jeff Duncan, want to end government collection of the data used to generate GDP and unemployment statistics. It's hard to imagine this getting far, but the intent is clear: If the facts are hurting you politically, make it hard for people to find the facts. Fox News will give you their own facts and if there's no neutral source for real facts, Fox's fake ones will be able to sway the discussion.
Economic data is central to a great many things business and government do, from cost of living adjustments to monetary policy. There's a faction that believes these things are an evil in and of themselves and should not be done. But they are central to modern civilization. GDP and unemployment statistics have been badly twisted by political pressure, but they still have some bearing on reality. Getting rid of them entirely would break the link.
You can't really control people's thoughts. But by controlling what they hear and understand, you can control what they think about, and create opportunities to twist their opinions, they will support things that are against their self interest or that of the society.
11 May 2012
Limbaugh delenda est
Cato the Elder (234-149BC), Senator and Consul of Rome, finished every speech with the line "Carthago delenda est", which translates roughly to: "Furthermore, Carthage must be destroyed." He did this whether or not the rest of the speech had anything to do with the merchant and military rivalry between Rome and Carthage. Carthage was indeed destroyed in 146 BC, the population taken as slaves, the earth plowed and salted.
Rush Limbaugh has been a dominant figure of the insanity that has overtaken the Republican party since the late 1980s. Rush is in the business of selling controversy. He needs to be ever more outrageous to keep his audience. He doesn't need to have a very large audience to succeed commercially, just enough to keep buying whatever his advertisers want him to pitch. He has succeeded brilliantly. He's a gifted talker and a witty guy. It seems to me until some point in the early '90s, he knew where the line between reality and fiction lay, and carefully edged up to it without crossing. For example he told us that there is more forest in America today than when the Declaration was signed. Well, yeah. There's more forest in Alaska alone than there is land in the entire 13 colonies. But eventually he figured out that he didn't even need to do that--he could get away with "the Big Lie", and that the bigger the lie, the better. And I think he started believing it. Since the Gingrich revolution of 1994, he has become one of the most powerful people in America, with an army of "dittoheads" believing, and fighting for, his every word.
This is dangerous. Rush needs to get crazier and more outrageous every day to maintain his position, but he's willing to do it, and it doesn't bother him a bit if it takes America, and possibly the rest of the world, off a cliff. With the constant adulation and drug use, he's probably so delusional at this point he doesn't even remember that he's been making it up all along.
I'm an advocate of free speech, but there is some speech that cannot be allowed. In particular, intentionally provoking a riot is banned. For example, shouting "FIRE" in a crowded theater is likely to provoke a riot, so it's illegal. This is exactly what Rush is doing.
Limbaugh delenda est.
Rush Limbaugh has been a dominant figure of the insanity that has overtaken the Republican party since the late 1980s. Rush is in the business of selling controversy. He needs to be ever more outrageous to keep his audience. He doesn't need to have a very large audience to succeed commercially, just enough to keep buying whatever his advertisers want him to pitch. He has succeeded brilliantly. He's a gifted talker and a witty guy. It seems to me until some point in the early '90s, he knew where the line between reality and fiction lay, and carefully edged up to it without crossing. For example he told us that there is more forest in America today than when the Declaration was signed. Well, yeah. There's more forest in Alaska alone than there is land in the entire 13 colonies. But eventually he figured out that he didn't even need to do that--he could get away with "the Big Lie", and that the bigger the lie, the better. And I think he started believing it. Since the Gingrich revolution of 1994, he has become one of the most powerful people in America, with an army of "dittoheads" believing, and fighting for, his every word.
This is dangerous. Rush needs to get crazier and more outrageous every day to maintain his position, but he's willing to do it, and it doesn't bother him a bit if it takes America, and possibly the rest of the world, off a cliff. With the constant adulation and drug use, he's probably so delusional at this point he doesn't even remember that he's been making it up all along.
I'm an advocate of free speech, but there is some speech that cannot be allowed. In particular, intentionally provoking a riot is banned. For example, shouting "FIRE" in a crowded theater is likely to provoke a riot, so it's illegal. This is exactly what Rush is doing.
Limbaugh delenda est.
07 May 2012
Rush Limbaugh and DDT
Rush Limbaugh has been on a crusade in favor of DDT for years. His rationale? DDT kills mosquitoes. Mosquitoes are the main vector for malaria. One analysis suggests that the ban on DDT may have killed as many as 20 million children. Like a lot that Rush says, this sounds remotely plausible: malaria kills about 1.2 million a year, and about half of them are children. But that's where the plausibility ends. Among the problems: DDT is still allowed in all the countries that have high death rates due to mosquitoes, as long as it's strictly being used for vector control. Because of the numerous problems with DDT, it's no longer used as much as it once was. One of those many problems is that widespread, but not overwhelming use of DDT has led to many strains of DDT resistant mosquitoes. Rush doesn't believe in evolution either, so this wouldn't be a problem for him, I suppose.
DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) is an organochloride contact insecticide. It's able to penetrate the insect's exoskeleton and disrupt the functioning of their nerves. While it's less toxic for vertebrates, it's a potent endocrine disruptor for them. Endocrine disruptors interfere in a variety of ways with the body's system of hormones, causing various malfunctions. One of its worst effects is that it causes the eggs of birds to be very thin-shelled, leading to very few of them surviving to hatching. During the fifteen years it was heavily used, it nearly led to the extinction of many species of birds, notably including the bald eagle and western brown pelican. (despite living in areas where both species had once been common, I never saw a single one of either between 1967 and 1983. I remember how excited I was when I saw my first eagle in 1983. Now I see them all the time). DDT breaks down very slowly in the environment, which allows it to remain in the food chain, accumulating in the higher vertebrates, far from where it was originally deployed. While DDT is a solid at room temperature, many of the other organochlorides are potent solvents--one of them, carbon tetrachloride, was widely used as in dry cleaning and in fire extinguishers. Their widespread use led to kidney and liver disease, cancers, birth defects, damage to the ozone layer, and countless other bad effects. They are so useful that they are not completely banned, but use is much more careful than it was in the '50s and '60s.
There are many other toxins that are not endocrine disruptors and break down relatively quickly. For example, pyrethrum. This is still mildly toxic to humans, but has far fewer ecological consequences. The mosquitoes seem to have had a harder time adapting to these. The remain more expensive than DDT, but they're nearly as effective. More research needs to be done. Making birds extinct is not the answer.
DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) is an organochloride contact insecticide. It's able to penetrate the insect's exoskeleton and disrupt the functioning of their nerves. While it's less toxic for vertebrates, it's a potent endocrine disruptor for them. Endocrine disruptors interfere in a variety of ways with the body's system of hormones, causing various malfunctions. One of its worst effects is that it causes the eggs of birds to be very thin-shelled, leading to very few of them surviving to hatching. During the fifteen years it was heavily used, it nearly led to the extinction of many species of birds, notably including the bald eagle and western brown pelican. (despite living in areas where both species had once been common, I never saw a single one of either between 1967 and 1983. I remember how excited I was when I saw my first eagle in 1983. Now I see them all the time). DDT breaks down very slowly in the environment, which allows it to remain in the food chain, accumulating in the higher vertebrates, far from where it was originally deployed. While DDT is a solid at room temperature, many of the other organochlorides are potent solvents--one of them, carbon tetrachloride, was widely used as in dry cleaning and in fire extinguishers. Their widespread use led to kidney and liver disease, cancers, birth defects, damage to the ozone layer, and countless other bad effects. They are so useful that they are not completely banned, but use is much more careful than it was in the '50s and '60s.
There are many other toxins that are not endocrine disruptors and break down relatively quickly. For example, pyrethrum. This is still mildly toxic to humans, but has far fewer ecological consequences. The mosquitoes seem to have had a harder time adapting to these. The remain more expensive than DDT, but they're nearly as effective. More research needs to be done. Making birds extinct is not the answer.
26 October 2011
Republicanese
The neocon publicity machine has generated an enormous amount of what George Orwell called “Newspeak”. Neocons have fallen out of repute since most of this was written, during the GW Bush administration, but today's Republicans are still doing it. Here are a few examples:
Non-Starter:
We can't find any fault with this idea at all, but we're immovably against it
anyway. E.G., R51 is a non starter. It would result in huge improvements
to our congested highways at a trivial cost to taxpayers, proportionate to
their use of the highways, but we're against it anyway. Therefore it is a
non-starter.
Clear
Evidence: Not one shred of evidence, or sometimes fraudulent evidence. E.G. We
have clear evidence that Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction,
therefore we will attack him and commit ourselves to many years of
"peacekeeping" in a hostile environment, in the process alienating
ourselves from the rest of the world. The scant evidence we have
shown publicly is in fact a complete forgery. E.G. We have clear evidence
that tax cuts help the economy and increase employment. every
single previous tax cut has triggered a significant rise in unemployment and
the majority have provoked an economic downturn, therefore we are going to try
it again, this time in a way guaranteed to bankrupt the government at the same
time.
Defending
freedom: Suspending or overthrowing constitutional protections of freedom and
civil liberties.
Fighting
terrorism: Starting or provoking conflicts that make people who were already
angry at us willing to go to almost any extreme, including suicide bombings, to
revenge themselves upon us. Also: Wasting huge amounts of money in
bureaucratic boondoggles that make it much more difficult to deal with the
social and political problems behind terrorism.
Overwhelming
majority: between 20 and 49.9% approval. E.G. President Bush enjoys
support from an overwhelming majority of the American people.
Completely
baseless charges: Guilty as hell. E.g., the corruption charges
against Tom DeLay and the influence pedaling and bribery charges against his
crony Abramov are completely baseless. They did them and more.
Clear
Skies: Allowing polluters to do whatever they want with impunity.
Healthy
Forests: Allowing lumber companies to do whatever they want with impunity.
Abstinence
only: Disseminating lies about, and promoting legal impediments to, any
means of contraception more effective than wishful thinking. (the studies
aren't all in yet, but it's starting to look like "abstinence only"
may have caused the largest increase in abortions in our country's history)
Junk
Science: Anything which is carefully researched, peer-reviewed, and widely
accepted by people with expertise in the topic.
Fact:
Something which has no basis in reality except for how it sounds to someone
with no particular expertise in any relevant subject.
Bipartisan: Supported by most republican legislators and maybe (but not necessarily) one or two extremely conservative democrats.
Saving ____: cutting funding to ____ in such a way as to severely undermine its future sustainability but ensure that the ultimate collapse doesn't occur on the present administration's watch. e.g. Saving Social Security, Saving Medicare.
Class Warfare: The victims of long term, sustained attacks finally waking up and complaining about it.
Fairness: Anything that gives wealthy corporations and individuals an unfair advantage, power or money.
Average Person: A person with income between the 90 and 99th percentile. in 2003 this was the range $125,000 to $300,000. The actual median family income then was just over $44,000.
Job Creator: Someone who makes most of their income in the stock or bond market or by collecting rent or interest, and thus creates few or no jobs.
added 27 Jan 2012
Totally Dishonest: Exactly right. E.g.: Mitt's ads about Newt are totally dishonest. That is, they're completely accurate. (Very little Mitt says is truthful, but about Newt, he's right on. Of course Newt is right about Mitt, too.)
added 28 Feb 2013
Showing Leadership: do exactly what Republicans want, in clear violation of what the voters said they wanted or any actual facts on the ground
added 28 Mar 2013
Baseless Assertion: carefully researched, well documented and reasoned. When a republican tells you something is a baseless assertion, it's a fairly safe bet that it's true.
added 27 Apr 2013
Put Politics Aside: I've lost on the facts or the politics but I want to keep pushing my (probably nonsensical) position anyway. (both parties use this one but the Rs use it far more)
Not Picking Winners and Losers: Rigging the game so that the powerful can do whatever they want with impunity and the less powerful have no opportunity to do more than grumble.
added 18 Apr 2014
Nobody Could Have Predicted: It isn't what our rich backers wanted, so we prevented it from happening. Scientists and other people with real expertise not only predicted, but were screaming a warning as loudly as they could.
Cooking the Books: similar to "Junk Science" and "Baseless assertion". Carefully researched, documented and peer reviewed. Tends to be used for statistics.
added 18 Dec 2014
Right to Work: The right of business owners to do whatever they please to workers, especially lower pay, blocking union membership, stealing pensions and more.
Economists who predicted the crisis
We're told by conservatives and mainstream media that nobody could have predicted the crisis.
Here's a partial list:
Brooksley Born, 1996-8 Cassandra of the Derivatives Crisis. Warned about unregulated derivitives, especially Credit Default Swaps and other Collateralized Debt Obligations. Greenspan and his allies destroyed her agency as thanks for her prescience.
Sheila Bair (FDIC chair at the 2006-2011) warned of derivatives and initiated the first legal actions, in March 2007, against a subprime lender, and began advocating for mortgage restructurings shortly later.
Nouriel Roubini, September 2006 Dr. Doom. Predicted a crash of the housing bubble, an oil shock, and a long, deep recession.
Robert Shiller: August 2005: Be Warned: of the housing bubble. says that we'll be seeing housing decline 40% and think it's a "soft landing" compared to what might have happened.
Paul Krugman: August 2005. Greenspan and the Bubble and That Hissing Sound. Describes the housing bubble and its causes, and predicts that we're in for a "rough ride".
What do these people have in common? They are all Keynesians. The truth is that no anti-Keynesian could have predicted the crisis, but quite a few Keynesians did.
More: John Paulson now famously built funds that bet against the housing bubble, and made a pile.
Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's long time business partner, pointed out in 2002 that unregulated derivatives are "a sewer, and if I'm right, there'll be hell to pay in due course"
Michael Burry made a fortune betting against derivatives and was able to explain why at the time. Michael Lewis wrote a book about him and several others, The Big Short.
Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) spoke passionately on the floor of the Senate in 1999 against overturning Glass-Steagall: "I think we will look back in 10 years’ time and say we should not have done this, but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930s is true in 2010". Dorgan was one of only 8 senators who voted "No" on the deregulation bill (the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act). The timing of his prediction was almost perfect.
Here's a partial list:
Brooksley Born, 1996-8 Cassandra of the Derivatives Crisis. Warned about unregulated derivitives, especially Credit Default Swaps and other Collateralized Debt Obligations. Greenspan and his allies destroyed her agency as thanks for her prescience.
Sheila Bair (FDIC chair at the 2006-2011) warned of derivatives and initiated the first legal actions, in March 2007, against a subprime lender, and began advocating for mortgage restructurings shortly later.
Nouriel Roubini, September 2006 Dr. Doom. Predicted a crash of the housing bubble, an oil shock, and a long, deep recession.
Robert Shiller: August 2005: Be Warned: of the housing bubble. says that we'll be seeing housing decline 40% and think it's a "soft landing" compared to what might have happened.
Paul Krugman: August 2005. Greenspan and the Bubble and That Hissing Sound. Describes the housing bubble and its causes, and predicts that we're in for a "rough ride".
What do these people have in common? They are all Keynesians. The truth is that no anti-Keynesian could have predicted the crisis, but quite a few Keynesians did.
More: John Paulson now famously built funds that bet against the housing bubble, and made a pile.
Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's long time business partner, pointed out in 2002 that unregulated derivatives are "a sewer, and if I'm right, there'll be hell to pay in due course"
Michael Burry made a fortune betting against derivatives and was able to explain why at the time. Michael Lewis wrote a book about him and several others, The Big Short.
Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) spoke passionately on the floor of the Senate in 1999 against overturning Glass-Steagall: "I think we will look back in 10 years’ time and say we should not have done this, but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930s is true in 2010". Dorgan was one of only 8 senators who voted "No" on the deregulation bill (the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act). The timing of his prediction was almost perfect.
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