Time Magazine

The protests in the Middle East started last year, but I guess Mark Zuckerberg was more important than the lowly Iranian protesters. Oh well, what should I expect? The U.S. Navy Seals are the story of the year. If you don’t believe just wait until next year when President Obama boasts about killing Osama Bin Laden.

Turkey Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an important part of world events, but he didn't sell iPads.

In a couple of weeks Time magazine will unveil its Person of the Year. Last year, Mark Zuckerberg was named Person of the Year because of a movie. I said at the time that the Tea Party made the most sense given the historical nature of the mid-term elections, but Time is a liberal rag so what do I expect?

If Zuckerberg was the pick last year then it seems like a slam dunk that Steve Jobs would be the pick this year. There’s no clear choice and some of the choices on Time’s website are comical, including Lionel Messi, Anonymous, and the 99%. The most popular choice at the moment is Turkey’s Prime Minister. Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Since most American can’t even tell you who the chief justice of the Supreme Court is I doubt Time chooses Erdogan.

The dark horse candidate is Gabrielle Giffords. The story of her recovery is amazing and it also pushes the liberal meme that right-wing extremism led to the shooting. Don’t worry, the facts of the case are beside the point. Think I’m wrong? Liberals are still blaming JFK’s assassination of right-wing extremists even though Lee Harvey Oswald was a communist. Frank Rich’s recent article in the New Yorker that continues the facade is comical. It would be funnier if it was actually satire.

I would like to see Seal Team 6 get the nod. The operation against Osama Bin Laden is the story of the year. In a culture of apathy, sensationalism, and cynicism it would be nice to see the heroes of that operation get the credit.

On the season premier of Boardwalk Empire a group of Ku Klux Klan members open fire on African-Americans trafficking alcohol. They must have killed around six people, including a woman, and shot a number of others.There have been a series of things on the show that aren’t exactly historically accurate, but this scene was way over the top.

In 1920, the KKK had over a million members. The Klan was active in New Jersey during that period, but it’s always been a secret society. There were several unsolved lynchings during this period and many were related to KKK activity. The writers for Boardwalk Empire made it seem as if the KKK was committing atrocities out in the open. If that scene would have happened in Atlantic City in 1920 there’s no way it would have been tolerated by a majority of Americans.

My point is not to downplay the heinous nature of the KKK. The history of racism in the United States is important and the writers should have taken some more time to get it right. They could have still included the Klan and made their point without “jumping the shark.” It reminded me of the scene in the movie The Patriot where British Colonel Tavington orders a church full of a few hundred inhabitants burned with the people inside. No such thing ever took place. Nothing that brutal was ever recorded in the war.

The cowardice of the KKK was that it was a secret society. The KKK at that time was racist, anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-communist, and part of the temperance movement. The only thing the Boardwalk Empire writers made sure to include was the fact that KKK members thought they had God on their side. The whole episode is just a perfect example lazy writing.

What’s the big deal? Well, for people like myself who are educated about history it’s not a big deal. However, most people are pretty ignorant when it comes to history. Do we really want people to believe that in 1920 white people in New Jersey were gunning down African Americans in broad daylight? Do we want Americans to believe that the British were burning innocent civilians to death by the hundreds? Writers shouldn’t be expected to follow history perfectly, but it would be nice to get the major details correct. Otherwise, it’s just piss-poor propaganda.

Rick Perry's latest article in the #WSJ proves that #WSJ & #Perry are not only racist (stupid) Imperialists but hail theocracies like Iran

September 18, 2011 3:57 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@lhommeblank

William Nachtrieb

I have never understood Christianphobia in the United States. Why is there this fear that Christians are trying to create a theocracy? I grew up in the South. I’ve lived in Georgia, North Carolina and in Florida. I have two uncles who are pastors of Assembly of God churches in the Northwest. Never in my short 32-year existence have I heard someone say that Christians should take over government. Not only is this manufactured fear myopic and dumb, it’s not Biblical.

The only reason why some liberal progressives feel this way is because of ignorance. As secularism has increased in the United States so has ignorance about Christianity. In fact, many who claim to be Christian know very little about what they believe or the scriptures behind their faith. In popular culture Christians are depicted as hypocritical, judgmental prudes who don’t practice what they preach. From a Christian perspective this isn’t surprising. This is what happens to every wealthy society. A society that has everything it needs is never satisfied.

We hear all the time about the evils of religion, but it was Christian leaders that stood up against slavery and segregation. It was Christian leaders that led the suffrage movement. It was Christians and churches that helped with the poor and the disadvantaged before the progressive movement pawned it off on the state. Since the New Deal Americans have cared less and less about their fellow man and let someone else do it. Creating a bureaucracy to take care of your neighbor because you don’t want to do it isn’t noble. At some point the nation will find itself both morally and financially bankrupt. It will not be because of Christ.

There are places where obtaining a vending permit is logical. These people meant to cause a scene and they accomplished their goal. The real travesty is when cops shut down a child’s lemonade stand in a residential neighborhood, not this nonsense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04MNf1YdNxI

I think people deeply underestimate what a huge problem this day-night issue is if you’re trying to design an energy system involving solar technology that’s more than just a hobby. You know, the sun shines during the day, and people turn their air conditioners on during the day, so you can catch some of that peaking load, particularly if you get enough subsidies. It’s cute, you know, it’s nice. But the economics are so, so far from making sense. And yet that’s where subsidies are going now. We’re putting 90 percent of the subsidies in deployment—this is true in Europe and the United States—not in R&D. And so unfortunately you get technologies that, no matter how much of them you buy, there’s no path to being economical. You need fundamental breakthroughs, which come more out of basic research.

Money spent on research would be a better government investment, but I fail to see why the government should spend money developing a technology that the private sector is already hard at work developing. There’s a huge monetary reward for a solar technology breakthrough. There’s no need for the government to be involved. It’s just another money hole.

I'll take the automobile over social media any day.

Anyway, one of the guests on the show said that you can see cultural and economic progress in the rise of the young entrepreneurs who started Facebook and Twitter. I see the exact opposite. I see a culture that no longer makes things, but rather engorges itself in meaningless, shallow entertainment.

Most of the innovation we’ve seen in the information age has had little to do with making our lives easier or better, but has instead provided new and better ways to be social-media zombified couch potatoes.

While past generations were busily perfecting jets, rockets, the combustion engine and instant coffee, this generation is trying to figure out how best to get the latest scoop on Lady Gaga or Casey Anthony in 30 characters or less. You might say America is entertaining itself to death, and it very well may be. History is littered with great civilizations that imploded from the sheer weight of their decadence.

Perhaps I sound like each generation’s grumpy old man, though I’m not that old, but admittedly somewhat grumpy. Every generation likes to bitch about the generation that follows, and for good reason. It is quite likely that progress is a bell curve that cannot be sustained. At least that’s what history has taught us. Therefore, older generations may have a point about previous generations, possibly starting around the time of the Civil War.

My theory is that America has already reached its potential and is on the right (or wrong, if you prefer) side of the bell curve. The culture has objectively declined in recent years. While parents in the ‘50s were aghast at the pelvis of Elvis, just imagine what they’d think of (insert name of just about any pop star). The juvenile and prurient nature of today’s pop culture does not represent progress toward higher forms of art. Rather, it represents regression to tribal, animal-like forms, a regression that has been ongoing for years.

And while we revel in the ingenuity of iPhones, iPads, Androids, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and whatnot that ensure we’re constantly immersed in regressive pop culture crap, what the hell are we making? Absolutely nothing. We’re becoming less connected as we become more connected, and more distracted from the things that really matter.

In the process, we become more willing to cede our independence and liberty if it will buy us precious app time to play with our doodads. This is not a recipe for a healthy and progressive society.

The Stars and Stripes is a glaring omission from the doodle. I can almost hear the brainstorming session now: “Let’s do something for the Fourth of July, but let’s not get carried away.” Using the American flag for the doodle would have been too much.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELC_e2QBQMk