December, 2021 archive
Immunity Impunity
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Tony Norman recounts how police officers’ killing a black man who had done nothing wrong becomes reduced to “a series of procedural flaws.”
Words fail me.
A Taxonomy of Tale-Telling 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Susan A. Nolan and Michael Kimball discuss the differences among misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation (yeah, that last one is a new one on me, also; they define it at the link and methinks it a useful coinage). It’s a worthwhile read in these days of viruses, viral memes, and “social” media.
Speaking of the “Social” Media Surveillance State 0
Toni Birdsong offers seven hints for protecting your digital privacy.
Stray Thought, All the News that Fits Dept. 0
It is an irony that predictions sometimes come true not in the ways envisioned by their predictors.
George Orwell envisioned Big Brother as a remote dictatorial figure enforcing uniformity and compliance through lies (“through lies” is important here), and he predicted a surveillance state in service to Big Brother.
We have a Big Brother, but, rather than promoting unity and conformity in service to the government, it sows chaos and division to undermine government (and governance) through lies (again, the “through lies” is important).
It’s called Fox News (and its many clones and imitators).
We have a surveillance state designed to track our every movement, one to which many persons offer up their deepest secrets willingly, even eagerly; a surveillance state conceived not to enforce uniformity, but to sell advertising, yet which also serves to spread said Big Brother’s lies.
It’s called “social” media.
As Professor Shade was fond of saying, “History is irony.” The irony here is that both of the above resist attempts by government to spread truth.
For example. And another. And another.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Pack politely when you prepare to fly the fiendly skies.
Gutting Out the Vote 0
Georgia county claims that closing all but one polling place will make voting easier.
In other news, down is up, left is right, and pigs have wings.
Freedom of Screech 0
the writer of a letter to the editor of the Portland Press-Herald draws a distinction. Here’s a bit of the missive:
I don’t know whether he as an ironclad legal case–the case law is ambiguous–but methinks he has an ironclad moral case.
The Kult of Kyle 0
This is just creepy.
The Voter Fraud Fraud, Village People Dept. 0
(Warning: Short commercial at the end.)
