Fun Fact: Menlo Park, NJ (not CA)

In November 1877, one of Edison’s first major inventions at Menlo Park was the phonograph, which was a basic machine that allowed a person to speak into a diaphragm that was attached to a pin that made indentations on a paper wrapped around wood. The first words Edison successfully recorded on the phonograph were “Mary had a Little Lamb”. By 1878, this invention was known all around the world and Edison soon earned the title of “The Wizard of Menlo Park.

Dad was a big fan Edison.

As a bartender, I cannot comment politically on what patrons discuss politically. I work in a restaurant that pulls talented people from all around the world (work visa, student whatevers, etc). It has been so difficult for us to share the american culture with everything that is going on these days. Immigration laws have become more strict. The way news media portrays the government is disgusting. Yet, we have a long list of people that want to come here and learn. Where I work we want people to be better, be fair, honest, and work towards a positive contribution.

*sigh*

This video is spot on.

[author flagged as a spammer - redacted]

@enoch,

I don't have any opinion on what Hedges says because I didn't take the time to listen to him...

Here was my bigger take away, an article posted by RT that is criticising negative press for Russia immediately gets filtered into my 99% likely hood of being misleading, either by outright lies or more often lies of omission.

Now, that filter got bypassed a bit seeing a recommendation from someone I deemed thoughtful on things. So, I went and did a 5 second google on the subject and found red flags immediately, so then I stopped again.

And Noam Chomsky has fallen off the rails IMHO. He's never going to lie, and he is incredibly intelligent, well reasoned and thoroughly knowledgeable. The catch is he is also biased in the sense of presenting everything he says over the last decade plus through the filter of American exceptionalism. He'll present mountains of accurate and compelling evidence of everything wrong about American foreign policy and the horrible impacts it has all around the world. Trouble is, he'll maybe give 2 sentences on the pre-American period or the alternative of American inaction.

In fact, as I wrote this I was going to blindly espouse that Chomsky's world view would council in favour of Clinton's inaction on Rwanda even with full hindsight. That prompted me to google for Chomsky's actual opinion on it, which led immediately to the fact that Chomsky wrote the forward for a book denying that the victims of Rwandan genocide were Tutsi but instead that they were in fact it's architects...

I have this fear that someday the ants will emerge from hiding all around the world and hunt me down for my experiences as a child experimenting with my very first magnifying glass on sunny days.

*promote what we should be doing all around the world as common practice.

Also, this should be in the top 15.

Actually, the proof that something did not end up in the hands of the Chinese, the Russians, or myself for that matter, is quite difficult, given that evidence of absence is impossible to obtain. However, the absence of evidence to the claim that they have gained access to information through Snowden himself is reason enough for me.

You want proof that nothing was transfered to them? Might as well try to prove the non-existance of the famous tea pot in orbit.

So the basic argument boils down to motivation as well as credibility of claims.

His motivation to keep access to his material restricted to the selected group of journalists is apparent from his own interviews. They are supposed to be the check on the government, they lack the information to fullfil the role, they need access to correct (what he perceived to be) a wrong, namely a grave breach of your consitution on a previously unheard of scale.
Providing access to Russia or China would instantly negate all hope of ever not drawing the short straw in this mess, as the US is the only country on the planet who can provide him with amnesty and therefore safety.

So why would he do it? For a shot at asylum? You know as well as I do that (permanent) asylum in China/Russia is worthless if the US is after you. Europe could guarantee one's safety, but given the lack of sovereignty vis-a-vis the US, it would not be an option.

That leaves credibility of claims. And that's where my first reason comes into play, the one you put down as "naive". His opponents, those in positions of power, be it inside government or the press, have a track record of being... let's not mince words here, lying sacks of shit. James Clapper's act of perjury on front of Congress is just the most prominent manifestation of it. The entire bunch lied their asses off during the preparation of the invasion of Iraq, they lied their asses off during the revelations triggered by Chelsea Manning and they lied their asses off about the total und unrelenting surveillance of American citizens in violation of their constitutional rights.

If you think supervision of the NSA by the Select Committee on Intelligence is actually working, I suggest you take a look at statements by Senator Wyden. The NSA even plays them for fools. Hell, Bruce Schneier was recently approached by members of Congress to explain to them what the NSA was doing, because the NSA refused to. Great oversight, works like a charm. By the way, it's the same fucking deal with GCHQ and the BND.

So yes, the fella who "stole" data is actually a trustworthy figure, because a) his claims were true and b) his actions pulled off the veil that covered the fact that 320 million Americans had their private data stolen and were sold out by agencies of their own government in conjunction with private intelligence contractors.

What else...

Ah, yeah. "Sloppy" and "stupid". Again, if he was sloppy and stupid, what does that say about the internal control structure of the intelligence industry? They didn't notice shit, they still claim to be unaware of what precisely he took with him. Great security, fellas.

"He could have allowed the press to do it's job without disclosing a much of what has been released."

He disclosed nothing. He is not an experienced journalist and therefore, by his own admission, not qualified to make the call what to publish and how. That's why he handed it over to Barton Gellman at the WaPo, Glenn Greenwald at the Guardian and Laura Poitras, who worked closely with Der Spiegel.

If Spiegel, WaPo and Guardian are not reputable institutions of journalism, none are. So he did precisely what you claim he should have done: he allowed the press to do its bloody job and released fuck all himself.

As for the cheap shot at not being an American: seventy years ago, your folks liberated us from the plague of fascism, brought us freedom. Am I supposed to just sit here and watch my brothers and sisters in the US become the subjects of total surveillance, the kind my country suffered from during two dictatorships in the last century?

Ironically, that would be un-American, at least the way I understand it.

And there's nothing gleeful about my concerns. I am deeply furious about this shit and even more so about the apathy of people all around the world. You think I want Americans to suffer from the same shit we went through as a petty form of payback?

Fuck that. It's the intelligence industry that I'm gunning for. Your nationality doesn't mean squat, some intelligence agency has its crosshairs on you wherever you live. It just happens to be an American citizen who had the balls to provide us with the info to finally try and protect citizens in all countries from the overreaching abuse by the intelligence industry.

In fact, I'd rather worry about our own massive problems within Europe (rise of fascism in Greece, 60% youth unemployment, unelected governments, etc). So can we please just dismantle all these spy agencies and get on with our lives?

Sorry if this is incoherent, but it's late and I'm even more pissed off than usual.

I don't get the Right's logic on stuff like this... More and more wealth is moving to the top few percent, and more and more of the earnable wages are moving to the top few percent. Walmart for example could easily afford to pay every employee something like $2-3 more an hour, give benefits and hire more people so their stores are properly staffed and still make a profit. And they get upset at the people working there needing help... "oh it's the government's fault for giving them aid letting the company do that"... What?! The company made a choice, and they blame the government actions for it... it's like when they blame moving jobs overseas on the government instead of the rich guy who decided that it is in his own greedy personal self interest to send the jobs there rather than pay Americans. Or its like that cartoon where a rich man, a middle class man and a working class person are all at a table with 100 cookies and the rich guy takes 99 of them, the middle class guy gets 1 and the working class guy has crumbs, then the rich guy warns the middle class guy "better watch out, he wants your cookie" and they fall for it, they get mad at that guy rather than the guy who took 99 cookies for himself...

They get upset at wanting to keep minimum wage in pace with inflation, something that happens in most countries. They get upset at the idea of the cost to business to do so, but somehow businesses do it all around the world... heck, when we were thinking of moving to New Zealand and a few other places we discovered that most countries force employers to give paid vacation time, not just a bonus that some/most employers offer after 1 or 2 years of service if they want. Almost every country forces employers to offer paid maternity leave, and paid holidays... American businesses have it easy compared to most countries, one could possibly argue they have an unfair advantage compared to the rest of the world. And it's not like those businesses outside the US don't make a killing, as in those countries the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, so that isn't a unique US trait.

They claim that only like 4% of the workforce get paid minimum, but ignore the fact that figure doesn't account for the fact that if minimum kept pace with inflation, that is the actual cost of living, then it would be over $10 something right now, which means everyone making less than that is below minimum... that guy working at Walmart, Target, McDonalds or whatever for $9, yes, they may be "above minimum" but if you account for the actual cost of living they are below it...which means that person making $12, while they are well above minimum isn't that far above it. Stretching it further, if minimum kept pace with worker productivity, and nobody is suggesting it should, it would be over $17, so the companies are getting great value out of their workers, and still would be even if minimum wage kept pace with inflation. That doesn't even account for where it would be if it kept pace with CEO/Executive pay of over $22...

And yes, Walmart is near the bottom of the rung in jobs, no matter what the right may say about them having a choice... Nobody grows up wanting to work at Walmart, McDonalds and the like. Most people working at those sort of jobs work them because that was the best job they can get, and after a while, you gain "job security" as well as you can call it that, which makes it harder for them to move on, up and out, taking a risk that some rich guy might ship their jobs overseas so he can take more for himself while screwing over his workers and the American public. So they get stuck, because it's the best option that they have, especially in a country that is so far lopsided in favor of the business over the workers... in one of the few countries that doesn't guarantee health insurance for everyone, that took a Republican created plan that makes people buy health insurance from for profit insurance companies (which if I recall correctly was one of the top 3 most profitable businesses in the US per dollar earned, with banks at number one, and pharmasutcal companies), and made it the law of the land, while those same Republicans, many who co-sponsored the legislation when Republicans tried to pass it at the federal level, now oppose their own creation... because apparently the changes that the left made to the bill (not being able to deny people for pre-existing conditions and not being able to charge them extra, and moving to comprehensive coverage rather than just catastrophic coverage, so two things that mean insurance companies have to pay out more for) are bad.

Ultimately I plan to buy a super-tanker and fill it with Vodka and travel all around the world having free port parties.

I appreciate a flashmob orchestra as much as the next guy, but for those people bashing the US for not having a "commitment to the arts", let's not forget that the US entertainment industry is probably way bigger and more productive in terms of culture and profit than most european countries combined.

Maybe orchestras in the US are not playing in the streets, but they're playing original compositions (as opposed to some beautiful but still old and pretty worn-out Beethoven song) for multimillion dollar blockbuster movies, where millions of people can enjoy them in theaters and homes all around the world.

Unlike many european countries, the US, unfortunately, doesn't have anything like a "Department of Arts and Culture" to waste billions of dollars promoting folkloric dances and archaic art forms that can't survive on their own entertainment value.

Cool video though.

The point is valid anyway. If there is a crazy Republican saying stuff like this today, that's the person they should be quoting. But regardless of the age of the quote, the larger point is about political relevance. This guy was a member of a state legislature from a very small district. His influence on Pennsylvania's politics was small, and his influence on national politics was zero. I can find nutjobs in minor political offices all around the world that will say ignorant things, across the political spectrum. Just because they exist doesn't mean they are relevant to me or anyone else outside of their political sphere of influence (any more than any other nutjob spouting foolishness).

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

@jonny
If the republicans were much different as a party today. You'd have made a good point i think.
The fact that the GOP is still saying crazy shit like this 20 years later is a very telling statement in and of itself.

To add to that, sorry to always bring it up - but it was the last mass upheaval that I witnessed. But, before we went to war with Iraq people protested all around the world - in some places hundreds of thousands of people came out. Then after we dropped bombs & people made an even bigger stink the movement was basically stamped out with force. After that the movement lost the majority of its steam. They elected Obama for real change... people have to face reality. Direct Democracy fucking now! This republic, free enterprise bullshit just isn't working and no republicrat or fascistican is going to do anything for the majority.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

@criticalthud I find some marginal intellectual value in it, to be sure. But we aren't so different than 2000 years ago, it doesn't take much to loose all foundations of order as recent events all around the globe show. While the language we use to talk bout rights and such might have become more sophisticated, the man behind the language lingers on.
Comparing direct Democracy to cooperation is much like comparing your neighbor to your best friend. The former is cooperation by force of conditions (his relation to your own set of circumstances) and the later force of both your desires (your friend's and your own to be in a mutual relationship). The latter carries more weight when you make choices. The challenge I have to myself is how to make a system that harnesses this much stronger force of cooperation to a larger set of people. To be sure, most of the people you would elect don't actually care about you in a very real way. And conversely, neither do 1 million people in California. For me, both representative and direct democracy have a lack of care towards individual members.


thank you for a well thought out and articulate response. it is this kind of exchange that gives me hope. I would submit that we are quite a bit different from greek era consciousness, and that the age of reliance upon myth and superstition is at a close. This may or may not happen in our lifetime but we are and have been turning away from superstition to explain the world favoring and science instead. We are altering both our behaviors and our consciousness to become more rational human beings, and this change is happening at a very high rate, especially now that we are talking with each other.

are we on the brink of destruction...sucking the ecosphere dry? yeah, probably, and we're still too mired in the age of the ego to really give a fuck as a species. but i'm still finding you far more rational than michelle bachman, and I trust my neighbor far more than a politician in the pocket of big pharma.

I would submit that recent event around the globe are not indicative of a loss of order, rather a recognition by the general populace of their continued and growing irrelevancy. Despite the chaos, there is an increased sense of awareness that is developing on this planet.... and rapidly. And once it starts, it is potentially infinite.

people all around the world are quickly figuring out that they are getting fucked and they want to do something about it.
and we are quickly figuring out that we are not god's chosen and the world is not our domain to rule as we see fit. we're just another species, and we are fucking up the planet in a bad way.
and we are modifying their behavior to become more rational beings.
and rationality values cooperation

or who knows. maybe i'm just trippy dippy

>> ^quantumushroom:

I want people all around the world to have the right to choose whether or not to carry a concealed firearm, to protect their lives and the lives of those around them.
My anger at this heinous and senseless crime just takes a different tack than others. If you disagree, that's fine by me.


Well that's not fine by me if you disagree...I'm gonna take my Liberal Nazi Jewness and beat you senseless with it! GRRRRR You're soo oppressed you poor chicken little who's trying to warn us our Socialism spells doom! GRRRRR

I want people all around the world to have the right to choose whether or not to carry a concealed firearm, to protect their lives and the lives of those around them.

My anger at this heinous and senseless crime just takes a different tack than others. If you disagree, that's fine by me.