Tag Archives: truth

George Carlin. I’m a modern man…

I’m a modern man, a man for the millennium. Digital and smoke free. A diversified multi-cultural, post-modern deconstruction that is anatomically and ecologically incorrect. I’ve been up linked and downloaded, I’ve been inputted and outsourced, I know the upside of downsizing, I know the downside of upgrading. I’m a high-tech low-life. A cutting edge, state-of-the-art bi-coastal multi-tasker and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond!
I’m new wave, but I’m old school and my inner child is outward bound. I’m a hot-wired, heat seeking, warm-hearted cool customer, voice activated and bio-degradable. I interface with my database, my database is in cyberspace, so I’m interactive, I’m hyperactive and from time to time I’m radioactive.

Behind the eight ball, ahead of the curve, ridin the wave, dodgin the bullet and pushin the envelope. I’m on-point, on-task, on-message and off drugs. I’ve got no need for coke and speed. I’ve got no urge to binge and purge. I’m in-the-moment, on-the-edge, over-the-top and under-the-radar. A high-concept, low-profile, medium-range ballistic missionary. A street-wise smart bomb. A top-gun bottom feeder. I wear power ties, I tell power lies, I take power naps and run victory laps. I’m a totally ongoing big-foot, slam-dunk, rainmaker with a pro-active outreach. A raging workaholic. A working rageaholic. Out of rehab and in denial!

I’ve got a personal trainer, a personal shopper, a personal assistant and a personal agenda. You can’t shut me up. You can’t dumb me down because I’m tireless and I’m wireless, I’m an alpha male on beta-blockers.

I’m a non-believer and an over-achiever, laid-back but fashion-forward. Up-front, down-home, low-rent, high-maintenance. Super-sized, long-lasting, high-definition, fast-acting, oven-ready and built-to-last! I’m a hands-on, foot-loose, knee-jerk head case pretty maturely post-traumatic and I’ve got a love-child that sends me hate mail.

But, I’m feeling, I’m caring, I’m healing, I’m sharing– a supportive, bonding, nurturing primary care-giver. My output is down, but my income is up. I took a short position on the long bond and my revenue stream has its own cash-flow. I read junk mail, I eat junk food, I buy junk bonds and I watch trash sports! I’m gender specific, capital intensive, user-friendly and lactose intolerant.

I like rough sex. I like tough love.… -->

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The phantom reality of Reuters

Reuters has commented on the interview with Putin at the end of the International Economic Forum in St.Petersburg, Russia, reinforcing their own version of phantom reality that they pour into the ears of poor business executives world over. It is simply amazing how shameless a “news” agency may become in inventing stories and trying to undermine the reality in the minds of the audience.

Take the interview with Putin at the end of the International Economic Forum. The only thing Reuters could say about the Forum itself is that it “loses lustre”. The Forum is actually an annual event that happens for almost twenty years now and its development is described by other sources quite differently: “over the past five years the Forum has transformed into a leading global business event, attracting over 7,000 Russian and international participants, representing government and business leaders from around the world, joined by leading voices from academia, the media, and civil society.”

The Reuters actually manages to get quite a lot of propaganda into their short articles. Like the description of the Putin interview, for example, starts off with a statement from Reuters that “Russia can’t, or simply won’t, control its border to stop heavy weapons flowing to separatists in Ukraine”. After this, anything Putin may offer would sound like an excuse. However, we have not seen a similar statement regarding the massive flow of heavy weapons from Hungary and Poland to Ukraine, have we? Or something about the recent approval of U.S. parliament of $200 million budget for the supply of weapons to Ukraine? In real world, the U.S. and EU openly supply weapons to the war in Ukraine, while in Reuters world, Russia does that. Fortunately for Reuters, they don’t need to supply any facts or evidence in their own world, otherwise it may have become tricky.

And, of course, when there are no facts and no logic, Reuters must turn to the intellectually-dishonest debate tactics: discuss the personality of the opponent. Putin is always late, he is looking assertive, he is “veritable Vlad”, who “clings to perceived slights at the hands of West.” The whole report is just that: false assertions, irrelevant statements, personality attacks, and twisted claims.

As for the Malaysian … -->

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Media is quick to jump into Cold War

Here I am, peacefully reading this article in BusinessWeek about the recent shooting at Charlie Hebdo in Paris where criminals shot several people to death. The article is interesting as it talks about the origins of violence towards those who dare to create dissenting satire and evoke laughter at the corruption of powerful and sacred.

Suddenly, halfway through the article it turns into an unfounded rhetoric about the “iron fist of Putin” in Russia and false interpretations of the quasi-political dissent in Soviet Union in the last century. What gives?

BusinessWeek is hardly an independent magazine but it was not yellow press either, as far as I remember. Amazing to see how quickly most media joined the Cold War on Russia with all the anti-Russian hysteria building up now. I cannot name any mainstream Western or U.S. magazines or newspapers that would write anything close to the truth about Russia anymore.… -->

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Quote of the day

Plato says:

Rhetoric, it seems, is a producer of persuasion for belief, not for instruction in the matter of right and wrong … And so the rhetorician’s business is not to instruct a law court or a public meeting in matters of right and wrong, but only to make them believe.
Then the case is the same in all the other arts for the orator and his rhetoric; there is no need to know the truth of the actual matters, but one merely needs to have discovered some device of persuasion which will make one appear to those who do not know to know better than those who know.

How true, how true… The whole point of any public speaking, be it on TV or in a meeting room, is not to bring the enlightenment but merely to convince. And this simple truth takes years to discover. Some may think that reading Plato in the young age may spare us some difficulty and suffering but I disagree. One must become ready through experience to accept such simple truths.

The obvious consequence should not escape our attention: any public speaking should be seen as an attempt to convince you, not to make you better off. Simple, neh?… -->

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