Monday, February 06, 2006
more of the same...
"A society that puts equality...ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom." - Milton Friedman
Hmm... maybe not the quote that I should go with today - both after my long-winded tirade lambasting media ethics and on this day... lame duck day! Our society needs exposing as a lame-o one though - hence, why not?
Lame-o reasoning, such as Mr. Friedman's, leads one to think that freedom is to be prefered to equality. Yet, out of control, freedom can lead to chaos and anarchy.
Whereas equality may only lead, at its extreme point, to utopia.
I don't know about you flks - but I always lumped up together the concepts of Nirvana, Heaven and Utopia! Once upon a time, Atlantis was there too. But, with added wisdom, I came to realize that, in all likelihood, Atlantis was closer to the wicked Roman Empire (with a bit of Pompeii in it) than anything idyllic.
But that is another story...
Equality is fairness. Life is too short to have so many subdivisions and classifications. We certainly are all equally defenseless when we come into this world - and all equally as feeble and weary when we depart from it.
Whether we are doctors, lawyers (ewwww), scholars, blue collar workers, entrepreneurs, businessmen, politicians, ecclesiastics, blue blooded, commoners, secular or plebeian - we are all in the same boat (lest it is trendier to say nowadays that we are all on the same spaceship called Earth!)
Frowning upon equality because it might "endanger" some freedoms that an elitistic mindset wants to preserve is simply of extreme poor taste.
I guess the lame duck today, on lame duck day, is the atheist who uses this Milton Friedman quote as his signature...
Figured that it would be an atheist...
Figured too that a guy named "Milton" would think he knows better than, say... Nostradamus? His quote sure sounds like a bit of foreboding there...!
The only Milton I've known and actually liked remains Milton Bradley!
Now - for true lame ducks, check out the Canadian government today!
A lame duck, of course, is an incumbent (not an incubus now!) politician who lost in the November elections. They usually remain in office until the beginning of January. Such is the case of Paul Martin, ousted Prime Minister of Canada. He and all of his cabinet of ministers will officially lose their jobs today as Stephen Harper takes over Canada... under the watchful eye of the American interests that financed his meteoric rise to the top.
Hmm... someone should tell Mr. Harper that meteors come crashing down eventually.
The West Wing's Martin Sheen would disagree with my sardonic tone, I am sure. He was recently quoted saying that "we can be very cynical about the people that lead us," while doing his best Dubya pause impersonation before adding that he hoped his show managed "to make people realize that being a public servant is an honor . . . and that so many good and decent people do it and never get any credit."
Credit, eh? Is that what Dubya is going on to finance all of his wild and wacky campaigns around the globe? Who will foot the bill ultimately? Sure as heck is not going to be him, I think!
But I digress...
More data on the lame duck species, courtesy of our good friend The Word Detective
"A lame duck (I suppose I ought to call it "flight-challenged") is one unable to keep up with the flock and who is thus easy prey for predators. The phrase "lame duck" was first applied on the London Stock Exchange in the 18th century to brokers who could not pay their debts. Beginning in 19th-century America, "lame duck" was used to describe a Congressional representative who had failed to hornswoggle the voters into re- electing him in November, but who was not due, under the Constitution, to actually be booted out until the following March. Thus freed of even the pretense of accountability to the voters, such "lame ducks" usually voted themselves a scandalous jackpot of perks, until a stop was put to the practice by the "Lame Duck Amendment" of 1934. Today, new Congresspeople take office in January, their defeated opponents no longer have an opportunity to loot and pillage on their way out, and thus Congress has become a temple of honesty."
Right... Just like the House of Commons, now with Harper headlining it...
Link
Hmm... maybe not the quote that I should go with today - both after my long-winded tirade lambasting media ethics and on this day... lame duck day! Our society needs exposing as a lame-o one though - hence, why not?
Lame-o reasoning, such as Mr. Friedman's, leads one to think that freedom is to be prefered to equality. Yet, out of control, freedom can lead to chaos and anarchy.
Whereas equality may only lead, at its extreme point, to utopia.
I don't know about you flks - but I always lumped up together the concepts of Nirvana, Heaven and Utopia! Once upon a time, Atlantis was there too. But, with added wisdom, I came to realize that, in all likelihood, Atlantis was closer to the wicked Roman Empire (with a bit of Pompeii in it) than anything idyllic.
But that is another story...
Equality is fairness. Life is too short to have so many subdivisions and classifications. We certainly are all equally defenseless when we come into this world - and all equally as feeble and weary when we depart from it.
Whether we are doctors, lawyers (ewwww), scholars, blue collar workers, entrepreneurs, businessmen, politicians, ecclesiastics, blue blooded, commoners, secular or plebeian - we are all in the same boat (lest it is trendier to say nowadays that we are all on the same spaceship called Earth!)
Frowning upon equality because it might "endanger" some freedoms that an elitistic mindset wants to preserve is simply of extreme poor taste.
I guess the lame duck today, on lame duck day, is the atheist who uses this Milton Friedman quote as his signature...
Figured that it would be an atheist...
Figured too that a guy named "Milton" would think he knows better than, say... Nostradamus? His quote sure sounds like a bit of foreboding there...!
The only Milton I've known and actually liked remains Milton Bradley!
Now - for true lame ducks, check out the Canadian government today!
A lame duck, of course, is an incumbent (not an incubus now!) politician who lost in the November elections. They usually remain in office until the beginning of January. Such is the case of Paul Martin, ousted Prime Minister of Canada. He and all of his cabinet of ministers will officially lose their jobs today as Stephen Harper takes over Canada... under the watchful eye of the American interests that financed his meteoric rise to the top.
Hmm... someone should tell Mr. Harper that meteors come crashing down eventually.
The West Wing's Martin Sheen would disagree with my sardonic tone, I am sure. He was recently quoted saying that "we can be very cynical about the people that lead us," while doing his best Dubya pause impersonation before adding that he hoped his show managed "to make people realize that being a public servant is an honor . . . and that so many good and decent people do it and never get any credit."
Credit, eh? Is that what Dubya is going on to finance all of his wild and wacky campaigns around the globe? Who will foot the bill ultimately? Sure as heck is not going to be him, I think!
But I digress...
More data on the lame duck species, courtesy of our good friend The Word Detective
"A lame duck (I suppose I ought to call it "flight-challenged") is one unable to keep up with the flock and who is thus easy prey for predators. The phrase "lame duck" was first applied on the London Stock Exchange in the 18th century to brokers who could not pay their debts. Beginning in 19th-century America, "lame duck" was used to describe a Congressional representative who had failed to hornswoggle the voters into re- electing him in November, but who was not due, under the Constitution, to actually be booted out until the following March. Thus freed of even the pretense of accountability to the voters, such "lame ducks" usually voted themselves a scandalous jackpot of perks, until a stop was put to the practice by the "Lame Duck Amendment" of 1934. Today, new Congresspeople take office in January, their defeated opponents no longer have an opportunity to loot and pillage on their way out, and thus Congress has become a temple of honesty."
Right... Just like the House of Commons, now with Harper headlining it...
Link
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Since I skipped the traditional "Statistics Sundays" - on Super Bowl Sunday of all Sundays too - I thought I'd mention here some of the staggering numbers I chanced by still, somehow... these past 24 hours!
I have one word for you though, off-hand: overconsumerism.
(That is a word - right?)
You make sure it is...
Anything can be affixed the prefix "over-" nowadays anyways...
It was estimated that PIZZA HUT -alone- sold 11 MILLION PIZZAS on Super Bowl Sundays...
Not excessive, one might say...
All the competitors together though - how many millions was THAT...?
Pizza makes one thirsty, hmm?
On Super Bowl Sunday, 275 million dollars worth of soft drinks were sold to go with all those pizzas and chicken wings...
I forget the rest, but you can be sure that there were millions of dollars worth of CHIPS to go with that as well...
And, meanwhile...
in the Third World...
MILLIONS -again, that number- are simply dying of hunger.
Instead of pigging out on junk food during what almost always is a boring spectacle (unless the Patriots are involved - it is) maybe Americans could have sent all that cash over there...
And have spent a quiet Sunday at home instead... hmm?
Watching the game's highlights on the late night sportscast over tea and biscuits was fine in my view... not that I did even that, mind you.
I have one word for you though, off-hand: overconsumerism.
(That is a word - right?)
You make sure it is...
Anything can be affixed the prefix "over-" nowadays anyways...
It was estimated that PIZZA HUT -alone- sold 11 MILLION PIZZAS on Super Bowl Sundays...
Not excessive, one might say...
All the competitors together though - how many millions was THAT...?
Pizza makes one thirsty, hmm?
On Super Bowl Sunday, 275 million dollars worth of soft drinks were sold to go with all those pizzas and chicken wings...
I forget the rest, but you can be sure that there were millions of dollars worth of CHIPS to go with that as well...
And, meanwhile...
in the Third World...
MILLIONS -again, that number- are simply dying of hunger.
Instead of pigging out on junk food during what almost always is a boring spectacle (unless the Patriots are involved - it is) maybe Americans could have sent all that cash over there...
And have spent a quiet Sunday at home instead... hmm?
Watching the game's highlights on the late night sportscast over tea and biscuits was fine in my view... not that I did even that, mind you.
The unbelievable amounts of money wasted on commercials broadcast during the Super Bowl game are even more of an aberration in the art of wastefulness...
I believe that it was, again, a minimum of 2.5 million dollars - for each 30 second spot...
Money could not be more pathetically spent.
To add to the ridicule of it all, on top of being wasteful use of funds that could have... oh, I dunno... SAVED LIVES INSTEAD? On top of that waste, the usage made of those funds produced rather dissatisfying products too (the commercials themselves have become entertainment consummables - we are definitely surconsuming now).
They were not as good as they could have been, those damn commercials, according to this expert...
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/chris_ballard/02/06/super.bowl.ads/index.html
Thou will cut and paste into thy browser - if it is not too much to ask...
I am too sleepy to make it clickable right now...
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I believe that it was, again, a minimum of 2.5 million dollars - for each 30 second spot...
Money could not be more pathetically spent.
To add to the ridicule of it all, on top of being wasteful use of funds that could have... oh, I dunno... SAVED LIVES INSTEAD? On top of that waste, the usage made of those funds produced rather dissatisfying products too (the commercials themselves have become entertainment consummables - we are definitely surconsuming now).
They were not as good as they could have been, those damn commercials, according to this expert...
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/chris_ballard/02/06/super.bowl.ads/index.html
Thou will cut and paste into thy browser - if it is not too much to ask...
I am too sleepy to make it clickable right now...
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