>>> >> >>> Any half way decent news service like the BBC.

>>> >> >> The BBC is so biased I use it to find out what the world's lies
>>> >> >> are.

>>> >> > Corse the shit news you avidly mindlessly devour isnt biased at
>>> >> > all,
> eh ?

>>> >> You don't know anything about how I get my information.

>>> > Rod Speed is one of those morons who decides what he believes with a
>>> > priori propositions consistent with his prejudice, and then he ignores
>>> > everything contrary to what he "knows" is true.  A relatively common
>>> > pathology today.

>>> Yea, the Democrat leadership has this problem.

>> I was reading Ann Coulter this morning; she seems to have a few major
>> blind spots as well.  It can't be a problem restricted to Dems.
> I didn't say _all_ Dems.  I said their leadership.  They've
> been having cognitive dissonance since the late 80s;

>>> I think it's more likely that this kind of thinking box
>>> believes it can create any reality it wants.  Seems to be
>>> more common as time goes on; even PBS is showing <spit>
>>> reality shows.  I'll know it's become pandemic when the
>>> religious channels begin to show them  (or do I want the
>>> word endemic?).

>> It's about ontology.  The Rod Speeds of this world have their own
>> system that puts them at the top of the food-chain, intelligence,
>> education, or morality notwithstanding.  If they can't dictate the
>> terms of existence, they no longer have status and become just like
>> everyone else:  finite, flawed, and no better than any of the great
>> unwashed.  Within the confines of their special reality, they "lead"
>> with some bullshit authority, and discriminate between their nominal
>> peer-group and "others".

>> It's all very self-serving and juvenile.
> My life-long hypothesis about this is that those
> people didn't have to work when they were kids.

>> >> >> I don't think you've isolated your variables correctly.  While it
>> >> >> may
>> >> >> be true that consumer telecommunications service has degraded
>> >> >> across
>> >> >> the board subsequent to divestiture of the Bell monopoly, that does
>> >> >> not imply a direct causal link.

>> >> > I believe it does, especially when considering the specifics of the
>> >> > service quality decline. . . .

>> >> >> Similarly, the fact that Bell System
>> >> >> was more reliable can be attributed to the vastly simplified
>> >> >> technology employed in comparison to 4G, xDSL, cable, etc.

>> >> > If anything, service quality should be _more_ reliable and more
>> >> > cost-
>> >> > efficient thanks to new technology.

>> >> Oh, please.....  Cell phones have gone back to sounding like
>> >> half-duplex lines.  TV reception now sucks.  Radio transmissions
>> >> spill over.  Stoves interfere with AM radio transmissions.  People
>> >> even have toilets which require electricity.  New tech has been
>> >> making people lax and they forget how to do things.  The Green
>> >> Party's hidden goal is to destroy society as we know it and it's
>> >> tactic is to stop all electricity transmission.

>> > Now that looks like real paranoia.  How do the reptilian underground
>> > nazis figure in to things?  I need to know so I can prepare for the
>> > immanentization of the eschaton.  Damned Illuminati.

>> Look at their goals.  They want to shut down all electricity generation
>> which will result in no society, no trade, no work.  I can understnad
>> the members swallowing the party platform without thinking about
>> the ramifications but the leaders sure know about it.
> It is difficult to say what the leaders really know about it.

>> >> >> >>> Any half way decent news service like the BBC.

>> >> >> >> The BBC is so biased I use it to find out what the world's lies
>> >> >> >> are.

>> >> >> > Corse the shit news you avidly mindlessly devour isnt biased at
>> >> >> > all,
>> eh ?

>> >> >> You don't know anything about how I get my information.

>> >> > Rod Speed is one of those morons who decides what he believes with a
>> >> > priori propositions consistent with his prejudice, and then he
>> >> > ignores
>> >> > everything contrary to what he "knows" is true.  A relatively common
>> >> > pathology today.

>> >> Yea, the Democrat leadership has this problem.

>> > I was reading Ann Coulter this morning; she seems to have a few major
>> > blind spots as well.  It can't be a problem restricted to Dems.

>> I didn't say _all_ Dems.  I said their leadership.  They've been having
>> cognitive dissonance since the late 80s; it was 50-50 in the late 70s.
>> I never thought I'd yearn for the old Southern Democrat thinking.
>> The Reps. are catching up but not all of their leadership have acquired
>> a 100% reality filter...yet.

> One of the problems with politicians is that they are not usually
> technical specialists in any field other than politics.  Not such a
> huge problem a couple hundred years ago when mankind's technological
> capabilities were not so large.  Now most of them are at the mercey of
> their advisors, most of whom I suppose will tell them what they want
> to hear, and anyways there's no guarantee that said advisors are
> themselves competent to make rational policy recommendations.

> I have a picture of our leaders wandering around in the corridors of
> power confined to hermetically sealed bubbles where only the news and
> information that is "fit to print" ever makes it to their eyes or
> ears.  However much that is true must affect their decision-making
> capability for the worse.

>> >> >Apparently reality is too prosaic for their tastes.

>> >> I think it's more likely that this kind of thinking box
>> >> believes it can create any reality it wants.  Seems to be
>> >> more common as time goes on; even PBS is showing <spit>
>> >> reality shows.  I'll know it's become pandemic when the
>> >> religious channels begin to show them  (or do I want the
>> >> word endemic?).

>> > It's about ontology.  The Rod Speeds of this world have their own
>> > system that puts them at the top of the food-chain, intelligence,
>> > education, or morality notwithstanding.  If they can't dictate the
>> > terms of existence, they no longer have status and become just like
>> > everyone else:  finite, flawed, and no better than any of the great
>> > unwashed.  Within the confines of their special reality, they "lead"
>> > with some bullshit authority, and discriminate between their nominal
>> > peer-group and "others".

>> > It's all very self-serving and juvenile.

>> My life-long hypothesis about this is that those people didn't have to
>> work when they were kids.

> My opinion is that their parents were off the job, too busy fooling
> around with all of their cheap plastic shit to give a damn.

>>>>> The Green Party's hidden goal is to destroy society as we
>>>>> know it and it's tactic is to stop all electricity transmission.

>>> I think she has a point,

>>I don't. I bet fuck all of those don't use phones of some kind.

>>> though I wouldn't phrase it quite that way.  To someone who
>>> believes that modern technology - autos, industrial farming and
>>> fishing, etc. - is destroying the earth the only logical solution is to
>>> reduce our dependence on technology by whatever means possible.

>>That's just plain silly. It makes MUCH more sense to continue to
>>use the technology that works very well indeed like electricity
>>transmission and at most bin what doesn't work as well.

>>I bet sweet fuck all of the Green Party fools use nothing but bikes
>>or walking either, and even the bikes are technology anyway.
> Light weight alloy bikes are highly polluting.

> > Dream on.  All the data the USG now collects on its citizens is going
> > to be abused.  For everything from settling personal scores to going
> > after non-PC writers to allowing corrupt police to target gun owners
> > for B&E robberies.

> There is also a big problem with the private sector collecting
> information and using it against people, such as employers, mortgage
> companies, insurance companies, etc.

> The problem is that some entities are indeed an enemy with the goal of
> destruction.  For instance, Stalin despised the western world.  Today,
> there are fanactical groups who also hate the western world.

> One challenge is that such groups are irrational.  There are those who
> say to extend the olive branch and everyone will become great friends,
> but that doesn't work with irrational people and fanactics.

> The difficult part is protecting ourselves from legitimate threats
> without destroying ourselves in the process.

> FDR and his people were naive about Stalin's intentions.  FDR also
> loved J. E Hoover's gossip and political news, so he gave Hoover a
> free reign.

> Truman recognized the danger of Hoover, but Truman was a minority
> president with the Republicans out to destroy him and the Democrats,
> making it hard for Truman to act properly.

>> Major improvements could be made by getting rid of all the
>> unproductive people and their worthless occupations.  Douglass Adams'
>> telephone sanitizers and the like.  All those union thugs who think
>> they have a right to sit around with their thumbs up their butts while
>> collecting more than generous salaries.  Useless bureaucrats and
>> middle-managers.  All the secret police.  All those worthless
>> "entertainers" you see on reality shows.  Most of Hollywood.  Put them
>> to work doing something useful, like sorting garbage to reduce the
>> amount of waste going into landfill.

> Entertainment is a free market.  Every time I see the obscene salaries
> that entertainers and sports stars get, I have to remind myself that
> they're worth it to someone, apparently a lot of someones.  If people
> didn't go to movies or sporting events the stars wouldn't be getting so
> much money.  Unfortunately garbage sorters (and nurses, firemen, etc.)
> aren't valued so highly.

> Energy consumption will NEVER be reduced.  There will always be a demand
> for more, no matter how many people turn the lights off.  Yet these
> political parties are managing to get countries to shut down power
> generation sources.  this is a problem which will become unmanagable
> in the future.

>> as an aside ... lots of high-earning movies get officially listed as
>> having losses ...

> The movie industry seems to be especially creative with accounting,
> more so than other industries, where a huge hit movie shows a "loss".

> Anyone know more about accounting within the movie industry?

> (As an aside, a great many people in the dramatic arts do not make
> much money at all--it's a very small few who make the huge bucks.  A
> lot have to work at other jobs; others make do filming stuff like
> industrial training films.)

> IMHO, in utilities, a regulated monopoly is superior.  For instance, I
> believe our power supply was more reliable under a monopoly than it is
> under "competition".  Indeed, in the interests of "developing"
> competition, some electric customers in our area were forced, without
> any say, to become Enron customers before it fell.  That meant money
> that should've gone to the local power company went far away to Texas
> instead.

> Former Russians who have moved to the US are amazed at how so many
> people in the 1960s thought the USSR (and Mao's China) was a
> paradise.  They lived it and knew better.

> Not when you have enough of a clue of have
> underground power and phone and cable.

>>> Major improvements could be made by getting rid of all the
>>> unproductive people and their worthless occupations.  Douglass Adams'
>>> telephone sanitizers and the like.  All those union thugs who think
>>> they have a right to sit around with their thumbs up their butts while
>>> collecting more than generous salaries.  Useless bureaucrats and
>>> middle-managers.  All the secret police.  All those worthless
>>> "entertainers" you see on reality shows.  Most of Hollywood.  Put them
>>> to work doing something useful, like sorting garbage to reduce the
>>> amount of waste going into landfill.

>> Entertainment is a free market.  Every time I see the obscene salaries
>> that entertainers and sports stars get, I have to remind myself that
>> they're worth it to someone, apparently a lot of someones.  If people
>> didn't go to movies or sporting events the stars wouldn't be getting so
>> much money.  Unfortunately garbage sorters (and nurses, firemen, etc.)
>> aren't valued so highly.
> Nassim Talib, in his books, makes the point that, up to fairly recently,
> lots of people who could sing fairly well, enhanced their lives by
> preforming locally, in pubs, or private houses, then people started
> to make more money by charging for sheet music,

>> Energy consumption will NEVER be reduced.  There will always be a demand
>> for more, no matter how many people turn the lights off.  Yet these
>> political parties are managing to get countries to shut down power
>> generation sources.  this is a problem which will become unmanagable
>> in the future.
> After some really silly plans were made when energy was cheap
> and plentiful, some goofs are showing up, in Germany they closed,