Today I just want to post a few quick thoughts on various topics, none of which are sufficient for a full article:
THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS: Before you vote, or if you are thinking of not voting, you should watch Keith Olbermann’s video (transcript here), which really exposes what the Tea Party candidates are all about. I realize that Mr. Olbermann does get a bit passionate at times and that he does not break up his talks with humor (like, say, Jon Stewart) but in this case what he has to say is really important. If you think that the Tea Party candidates are in any way standing up for America or espousing American ideals, you really need to watch the video. Suffice it to say that I firmly believe that if the Tea Party, every gets much of a foothold in American politics, they will destroy the Republican party and many of our cherished American principles. And people of my age and older should really be very afraid of these folks — again, watch the video if you want to know why.
HULU AND THE NETWORKS BLOCKING PLAYBACK ON BOXEE AND GOOGLE TV: This is doomed to fail. The same folks who have figured out how to “jailbreak” mobile phones will find it extremely easy to fool Hulu, et. al. into thinking it’s communicating with a plain old web browser on a standard PC. And the reason that Hulu and the networks should not be blocking their content on such devices is because when the “jailbreakers” do it, you can bet that they will also figure out a way to remove the commercials from the stream. Hulu in particular is very vulnerable here, because either they’re going to have to relent or they’re going to wind up blocking playback to users that really are using a standard browser on a desktop computer. If they don’t relent soon, then the hack that allows viewing Hulu on those devices without the commercials will begin to receive wide acceptance, and then they will be in the position of trying to put the genie back in the bottle — they will never be able to get people to accept watching the ads (which will, of course, mean that eventually they will go out of business).
THE MOST USELESS FEDERAL AGENCIES have to be the Federal Communications Commission and the federal Food and Drug Administration. I’ll leave the FDA alone for the moment, but the FCC is so obviously in the pocket of the huge corporations that you know something is definitely wrong there. Seems like about every other day we read story after story of how Internet users in countries like South Korea get broadband speeds about 100 times what most of us can get. The thing I don’t understand is why this seems to happen even in times when the Democrats have the majority in the legislature — it’s as if the Republicans still control the agenda even when the Democrats are in power — UNLESS the Democrats are also kowtowing to the huge corporations. If Democrats DO lose to the Tea Party loons, they have only themselves to blame, for not doing the right thing when they had every opportunity.
ZECHARIA SITCHIN PASSED AWAY ON THE MORNING OF OCTOBER 9, 2010: Many readers will not know who he was, but basically he was a researcher of ancient Sumerian texts, who offered some very interesting (and often controversial) insights into our ancient past. Even if he wasn’t 100% accurate — and who could be when you are talking about things that happened thousands of years ago, when you consider that our news media often can’t get details right on a story that happened two days ago — his biggest contribution to humanity was to expand the thinking of everyone who ever read his work. For example, you will never look at the evolution vs. creation debate in quite the same way after you find out what the ancient Sumerians had to say about our origins, as reported by Mr. Sitchen. I think he is one of those people whose genius has gone largely unrecognized by his own generation (even though most of his books sold very well), but who will be recognized and revered by future generations. Whether you agree with everything he wrote or not, he was one of the great thinkers of our time. By the way, the Wikipedia article about him is extremely biased, though that doesn’t surprise me considering that his writings were probably seen as a threat to both the existing religious institutions, and to conventional “scientific” thinking regarding our origins.
Related Articles
- R.I.P. Zecharia Sitchin, 1920-2010 (cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com)
- Fired-Up Keith Olbermann Recites Laundry List Of Tea Party Offenses: “This Is The America You Want?” (mediaite.com)
- Keith Olbermann did an amazing Special Comment this evening… (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
- Olbermann: If The Tea Party Wins, America Loses (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
- “Keith Olbermann Special Comment: “If the Tea Party Wins, America Loses”" and related posts (thejoshuablogs.blogspot.com)
- Olbermann Warns Voters Against ‘Cataclysm’ of Tea Party, ‘Would Destroy America from Within’ (newsbusters.org)
