Category Archives: Propaganda

UPDATED: Putting Lipstick On The Pigs At NSA*

Constitution, Democrats, Homeland Security, Propaganda, Republicans, Technology, Terrorism

We’re doing the right thing; we’re not doing anything illegal,” said Four-Star General Keith Alexander to Fox News’ Bret Baier. An otherwise good reporter, Baier has been asking some poignant questions of the very clever, dissembling, outgoing director of the National Security Agency’s unconstitutional, naturally illicit and all-round reprehensible spying programs. However, Baier, another bright lad, seems to be merely going through the motion; making sure he does journalistic due diligence without any forceful follow-up. A less than obligatory follow-up would be: “I know that what you do is probably ‘legal,’ but is it ‘moral’?”

The occasion of the interview? Obama’s likely bogus “calls for an end to NSA’s bulk phone data collection.”

“What would you do to Edward Snowden if you were alone in a room with him” was more revealing of Baier’s sympathies. Alexander vaporized about the assorted entrapment operations to which hoovering up trillions of messages have led. (More about “The Dynamics of Entrapment.”)

BAIER: Former President Jimmy Carter saying he writes letters instead of sending e-mails because he’s worried that you’re listen — you’re reading his e-mails.

ALEXANDER: Well, we’re not. So he can now go back to writing e-mails. The reality is, we don’t do that. And if we did, it would be illegal and we’d be found, uh, I think accoun — held accountable and responsible. Look at all the folks that have looked at what we’re doing, from the president’s review group to Congress to the courts to the DNI, DOD, Justice. Everybody reviews what we do to see if anybody is doing anything illegal like you suggest. No one has found anything, zero, except for in 12 cases where people did that and we had already reported those.

* With apologies to pretty pigs.

UPDATE (3/26): The great Glenn Greenwald seems surprised that, much like Republicans, Democrats are opportunistic, lying, bottom-feeders. He notes that “what rational people do, by definition, is” this:

if a political official takes a position you agree with, then you support him, but when he does a 180-degree reversal and takes the exact position that you’ve been disagreeing with, then you oppose him. That’s just basic. Thus, those of us who originally defended Obama’s decision to release the photos turned into critics once he took the opposite position – the one we disagreed with all along – and announced that he would try to suppress the photos.
But that’s not what large numbers of Democrats did. Many of them first sided with Obama when his administration originally announced he’d release the photos. But then, with equal vigor, they also sided with Obama when – a mere two weeks later – he took the exact opposition position, the very anti-transparency view these Democrats had been attacking all along when voiced by Bill Kristol and Liz Cheney.
At least for me, back then, that was astonishing to watch. It’s one thing to strongly suspect that people are simply adopting whatever views their party’s leader takes. But this was like the perfect laboratory experiment to prove that: Obama literally took exact opposition positions in a heated debate within a three week period and many Democrats defended him when he was on one side of the debate and then again when he switched to the other side.

“The Leader is right when he does X, and he’s equally right when he does Not X. That’s the defining attribute of the mindset of a partisan hack, an authoritarian, and the standard MSNBC host. …”

MORE.

Weighing A Second Career In Education Against The Lobotomy Prerequisite

BAB's A List, Education, Political Correctness, Propaganda

By Myron Pauli

There will be a time one day when I retire from doing research for the Navy and I entertained a thought of possibly becoming a teacher and possibly inspiring the minds of future Einsteins but then reality hit me.

First, you must take lobotomizing “education courses” to teach in school systems where normal teachers are the minority of employees adrift in a politicized bureaucracy of department heads, principals, assistant vice-principals, associate superintendents and God knows what.

Then you have the idiotic curricula that you are forced to teach.In history, it is politically correct rubbish where every minority group and sexual orientation except possibly white men fought in World War 2 and where the Zoot Suit Riots are more important than the Battle of Kursk. In physics, I can proudly say that my daughter got an A last quarter while I am ashamed to say that she learned little if any physics. Rather than teaching the future psychologists, stockbrokers, lawyers, and actresses a descriptive course about the forces of nature, the spectrum of light, laws of thermodynamics, structures from the nucleus to the universe, or how devices like lasers or transistors work – they teach algebraic crank plugging. Admittedly, the scientists can learn this in short order once they get calculus, but this is the only exposure most of the kids will ever see of physics.

Taking the place of parents, the schools are a political battleground between “Heather Has Two Mommies” and “abstinence education.” Can I hold out for “Uncle Fred Loves His Goat”?

I am blissfully ignorant of other curricula but perhaps Paul Simon’s adage sums it up: “When I think of all the crap I learned in High School, it’s a wonder I can think at all!”

Then we have the students, that collection of Charlie Mansons, Robert Mugabes, Lucrezia Borgas, Kim Jong Uns, and Miley Cyruses that often make the cast of “Blackboard Jungle” look like the Vienna Boys Choir. If you are lucky, the non-violent bored inmates are just texting each other about Justin Bieber, shopping malls, and the next sex/booze/drug parties. My daughter’s school’s nickname is “Weedson” and not because of uncut lawns. Some of the sleep deprived overtested zombies in Fairfax have to catch buses as early as 5:45 am.

If you are a non-black teacher and you discipline a black student for either disruptive behavior of using 1st grade English in the 11th grade, you run the risk of an R-word (racist) accusation from the child or his pseudo-parents – not worth risking you career by correcting anyone. Ironically, the students may have been better off in the old segregated but disciplined schools in the old Jim Crow era – and Booker T. Washington is rolling in his grave.

On the flip side, see what happens if you ever give Amy “Tiger Mom” Chua’s precious brats an A-. Hell hath no fury like a Tiger Mother scorned.

Meanwhile, you have New Math, Leave No Child Behind, Race To the Top, Common Core, the Fad of the Month and the supreme directive to teach to the test. Any teacher who survives all of this with any talent has my sympathy and blessing. More typical is the baseball coach who teaches history via a 3-class rotation of computer-graded multiple-choice tests, showing movies, and showing power-point presentations with no questions asked. The honors students and special schools tend to get the real teachers and the ordinary and substandard students are often left with the burned-out surviving dregs.

Perhaps you might say that my daughter is at some poor rural or ghetto school but “Weedson” is actually a US News “Gold Medal” high school that is ranked # 116 with no admissions tests – professionals try to move into this neighborhood. The school also acts as a “zero tolerance” pressure cooker whose high ranking also includes 6 suicides in 18 months. Perhaps there is a contest for “most suicides” and Woodson (Weedson) can really earn the Gold Medal.

At least the suicidal kids are not shooting up the school! Considering my professional work in detection and defense against gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, perhaps a high School career is appropriate for my post-Naval research career!

******
Barely a Blog (BAB) contributor Myron Pauli grew up in Sunnyside Queens, went off to college in Cleveland and then spent time in a mental institution in Cambridge MA (MIT) with Benjamin Netanyahu (did not know him), and others until he was released with the “hostages” and Jimmy Carter on January 20, 1981, having defended his dissertation in nuclear physics. Most of the time since, he has worked on infrared sensors, mainly at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. He was NOT named after Ron Paul but is distantly related to physicist Wolftgang Pauli; unfortunately, only the “good looks” were handed down and not the brains. He writes assorted song lyrics and essays reflecting his cynicism and classical liberalism. Click on the “BAB’s A List” category to access the Pauli archive.

UPDATED: Conservatives and Lefties United Against The Beauty Ideal

Aesthetics, Conservatism, Feminism, Gender, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Propaganda

Radio mouth Laura Ingraham ventured into the “Shangri-La of Socratic disinterest,” i.e., “The O’Reilly Factor,” to promote leftist feminist thought: Laura whined that Sports Illustrated promotes a certain body image in women.

No, moron. The magazine is responding to a certain consensus about beauty, extant across most civilized societies. Like high intelligence, such perfection is uncommon. We can’t all possess the assets these thoroughbred beauties possess.

But like lefties, conservatives do not acknowledge that people are not created equal. (Come to think of it, lite libertarians are pursuing the same “thought,” but about that another time.)

The most Laura can do is take comfort in the fact that these gorgeous girls are, mostly, as dumb as bricks and will age, but there is nothing she can do to demote their coveted advantage and promote the “self-image” of her presumably uncomely kids. Nobody wants to see Gabourey Sidibe, “the mountain of human flesh that stars in the film ‘Precious,'” on the coveted cover of Sports Illustrated.

UPDATE (2/22): My comments from Facebook thread:

Someone said that beauty is like art. I agree. We are drawn to looking at lovely things. Less evolved sorts prefer what I call the porn aesthetic (see column for examples). However, I can tell you that I saw some of these beauties on Charlie Rose last night. They only have to open their mouths to spout stupid, banal, political platitudes, and wave their hands affectaciously—and I cringe. I looked on a bit, out of appreciation, then I “fled” the channel.

Btw, yammering about “diversity” is of a piece with being brain washed. We don’t have to “care” about diversity. Pursuing/practicing these political concepts is a hallmark of a propagandized people.

Tomfool Fallon Providing Bread, Circuses & Propaganda For Booboisie

Barack Obama, Celebrity, Healthcare, Propaganda

I now better understand why MSNBC fired Jay Leno. Yes, they likely wanted to replace political satire with a vaudeville of giggles, goofiness, mind-numbing banter and G-d-awful music. But, with bread and circuses for booboisie comes the “responsibility” of propagandizing the same population.

As if on cue, last night, Tomfool Fallon brought up the Affordable Health Care Act with Michelle Obama, who launched into a promo schtick for this juggernaut of a law.

One minute and fifty nine seconds into this segment, fuckface Fallon segues into a Zero Care promotional segment. The dumb dweeb started it. For shame!