The Noble Lie

I have been reading, watching documentaries (I recommend checking out Uncounted), and spending time with the important people in my life. I have not had the time or inclination to write. I think I am also coming out of the shock this wave of nightmare scenarios has produced -- understanding how it works does not make you immune -- and starting to catch my breath.

I have been reading a lot and thinking about a lot of stuff, and this post is going to be very scattershot.

You have to really listen to the words

A link shared by Justin from Skilluminati / Brainsturbator, whom I linked to a few posts ago and who apparently followed me back, got me very into the psychological make-up of the words we use. He linked an article with a lexical analysis of the presidential debates, and I have been digging down that hole ever since. This is absolutely fascinating, and ties in with some of the other reading I have been doing about NLP and similar techniques, as well as Median Voter Theory which is a sort of Game Theory applied to elections, stating that rational candidates (or their handlers more to the point) will tend to anticipate and gravitate towards the same policies and positions. I would add that this leaves only image, "character" and minor policy details open to any kind of real debate.

Sarah Palin says over and over, "You have to really listen to the words Obama uses." The message Palin is implicitly giving when she says that is, "You don't have to really listen to the words I use." I think we need to pay attention to the words they all use.

• Lexical analysis of 2008 debates
• Word Watchers - tracking the candidates words in the 2008 election
• Spinning the election
• Wordle - a great visual word-frequency analysis tool

Another issue I am thinking about a lot is how much we assist the fine-tuning of our own propaganda by continually participating in opinion polls and surveys.

I've been a reader of Skilluminati / Brainsturbator for a while, and I gave him a long-overdue link on my links page. I added his insightful site and another news source I check daily, with some of the most salient and succinct analysis out there, Cryptogon.

Honesty is such a lonely word

Finally, we get some straight-talk by a JP Morgan Chase executive. Remember that bailout money we spent to help get the loans flowing again and businesses back on their feet? Well, they have no intention of using the money for loans. That money is going straight to their Mergers and Acquisitions department, to buy out their smaller competitors. I love how he says "help the folks who are struggling more than Chase." When he says folks, he means banks, and when he says help, he means gobble up.

In point of fact, the dirty little secret of the banking industry is that it has no intention of using the money to make new loans. But this executive was the first insider who's been indiscreet enough to say it within earshot of a journalist.

"Chase recently received $25 billion in federal funding. What effect will that have on the business side and will it change our strategic lending policy?"

"Twenty-five billion dollars is obviously going to help the folks who are struggling more than Chase," he began. "What we do think it will help us do is perhaps be a little bit more active on the acquisition side or opportunistic side for some banks who are still struggling. And I would not assume that we are done on the acquisition side just because ofthe Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns mergers. I think there are going to be some great opportunities for us to grow in this environment, and I think we have an opportunity to use that $25 billion in that way and obviously depending on whether recession turns into depression or what happens in the future, you know, we have that as a backstop."

• Joe Nocera - So When Will Banks Give Loans?

I've got the eye in the sky

Naomi Klein had a very powerful article in Rolling Stone titled "China's All-Seeing Eye," about the high-tech police state which which China has built up with the help of some American know-how. What really struck me the hardest is that the guys who are high in the running to provide face-recognition software for China's closed-circuit TV surveillance system were also the creators of a very popular Chinese Flickr-like photo sharing site. Naturally, this means the face-recognition software company has a large and ever-growing database of voluntarily-submitted photos with which to analyze faces. It made me think of the American site, whose name should be rather eerie in light of this article -- Facebook. One of the features of Facebook allows you and your online friends to "tag" photos, identifying which Facebook users are depicted in each picture.

• Naomi Klein - China's All Seeing Eye

You're not just wrong, you're dangerous and insane

Speaking of the Rolling Stone, one of the most scathing ridicules of "9/11 Truthers" was served up by Stoner Matt Taibbi. He was apparently disgusted that he recieved hate mail after declaring that anybody who questioned the official account of 9/11 is "clinically insane." That's one step away from calling them terrorists. In fact, when these people get shipped off to prison camps in China, or the old USSR, that is the pretext under which they were/are taken. They are clinically insane conspiracy theorists, and the only proper treatment for this is sanity-building prison labor.

There are many negative criticisms I could make of the "9/11 Truth Movement" and some of the people who make it up. None of the criticisms could stand up to the criticisms I have to make of the people who take great pleasure in heaping social ridicule on the "Truthers" and spend more time bringing ridicule and social pressure to bear than logic, reason, or good argumentation. Rather than debate, they get off on the fact that they can really unleash their inner sadist and the usual consequences don't apply because these are freaks that are being abused.

The detached, objective mainstream press really bare their teeth when it comes to tearing into these 9/11 researchers (or Kennedy researchers, for that matter). The outrage some of these people display at the mere thought that our elite would kill 3,000 Americans is unbelievable, not to mention implicitly bigoted because they obviously have no issue whatsoever with ending over a million Iraqi lives to pursue their goals. Do American lives really mean 333x more to them? I know this is going to sound callous, but compared to what Iraq is going through, 9/11 was a Sunday afternoon picnic. Really.

Mat Taibbi is also guilty of trying to characterize the mass of various theories and guesses of what happened on 9/11 into one story, as if "Truthers" must endorse every aspect of every theory that's ever been put out there.

The only site which makes even a small effort to keep a halfway-polite tone while debunking is ironically the United States Government (link below).

• Matt Taibbi - I, Left Gatekeeper
• BBC Conspiracy Files
• Popular Mechanics
• TIME Magazine - Why the Conspiracy Theories won't go away
• America.gov debunks 9/11 conspiracy theories
• My piece on 9/11 Holocaust Deniers (how's that for a reframe?)

Since some people on YouTube have put up video collages of famous people who challenge the official line on 9/11, I have to rotate the other way and put up a small collection of "9/11 Truth Haters." What is fascinating to me about this issue is that, almost unilaterally, it's not enough to disagree on the issue, but it has to be refuted forcefully and anybody who ascribes to such an idea has to be ridiculed more vehemently than any other group, including their political or ideological opponents.

Also, I have to challenge the most popular argument among most of these guys. Why do I have to choose between either inside job or government incompetence? Why couldn't a group of high level insiders take advantage of an incompetent government? It's too dismissive to say people think "the government" did it. There is a lot of research which names names, with supporting evidence.

Penn and Teller

disabled by YouTube

Honestly, I like Penn and Teller, and I knew they had an "anti-9/11 truth" episode out. I've read a LOT of 9/11 stuff and I've read a LOT of anti-and-debunking 9/11 stuff. I haven't heard of half the theories these guys showcase. They do put in a bit of what I would consider legitimate evidence, but it's in 2-second mentions of demolitions interspersed with bizarre segues about how the planes were flown to a military base and attached with remote control equipment. I guess that guy doesn't know that remote control autopilot systems are standard issue in commercial planes.

It's sad how they talk about how it was obviously fires that brought down the towers, while taking deliberate close-up shots of gaping holes in the tower with no fire, just a bunch of black smoke (a dead or dying fire). I've seen some videos of massive skyscraper fires (from buildings that stood, by the way) and they are truly breathtaking.

Greg Palast Disses 9/11 Truthers

Where do any of these people (some of whom make their careers out of chronicling the lies and conspiracies of the powers that be) get off acting so personally, morally outraged at the suggestion that the crooks of the military-industrial complex once again screwed over its own population? At least Greg Palast lost a friend who worked there. The sad thing is that he also broke half the stories that connects the dots of the conspiracy, such as the theft of the election, the Bush/bin Laden link, and the black-balling of CIA and FBI investigations, but just can't take that last step.

Behind the Cut: Noam Chomsky, Bill Maher, Bill Clinton, Ron Paul, Danny Bonaduce

Noam Chomsky Talks Around 9/11 Question

Bill Maher Pwns 9/11 n00b5

Bill Clinton sez "It was an Osama bin Laden Job"

Ron Paul Doesn't Know He Has a Bunch of Weirdo "Truther" Supporters

Danny Bonaduce Bout to Beat Somebody Up

"Wouldn't it be terrifying if I were right all the time?" she asks. It wouldn't be terrifying necessarily; it would mean you were psychic. Which you aren't.

Part 1 of 2

Part 2 of 2

Ex-stage magician James Randi has made a living out of debunking psychics and "healing" evangalists. This is one of his best busts -- Peter Popoff, whose wife would read off peoples' afflictions based on prayer cards that were filled in by the people themselves. The sad thing is, you'd think after this that people wouldn't believe this guy anymore and would stop giving him his money. Nope. He's still at it.

I need to find more details about this because it was actually disgusting how callous and uncaring he and his wife were about these people's actual conditions. She would say things like, "Oh, here's a hot one, this one has cancer, hee hee hee."

Hats off to James Randi.