vobios.tumblelog
i hate the internet, but these are the pieces i like
Posts tagged news
Jan 23 '12
Nov 18 '11
May 31 '11
May 6 '11
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“Government statements that were presented as gospel truths in every media outlet in the world, and which served as the basis for ten thousand earnest, serious commentaries, turn out, one day later, to have been false. We had been told – by the president’s top “counterterrorism adviser,” John Brennan – that Osama had been “engaged in a firefight” when he was gunned down by American agents. This was not true; it turns out that he was unarmed when they shot him in the head. We were told that the base coward used his wife as a human shield while he pumped hot lead at America’s boys. This was not true. There were no human shields – although Osama’s wife was shot in the leg, while another woman, wife to a bin Laden aide, was shot and killed by the agents. Of course, even these new officially released“facts” must be taken with a grain of salt, since they spring from the same impenetrable murk of the security apparat from whence the original story of the raid emerged. Will these new details change tomorrow? (Meanwhile, actual reporters doing actual reporting independently uncovered another falsehood in the first story: the compound that was raided in Abbottabad was not a “million-dollar mansion,” but a rather ordinary house in a middle-class area, worth about $250,000.)”
May 4 '11
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“Fourteen million Americans are out of work, nearly a third of them for more than a year. The Depression-like jobs crises in black neighborhoods around the country have become so acceptable as to be literally unremarkable in national news media. When overall joblessness inched downward in March, the fact that black unemployment increased, again, was greeted with callous shrugs from the White House to CNN. But America is exceptional because we can kill. Our economy is defined by greed. The top 1 percent of earners take home a quarter of income in this country. Wall Street banks are logging record profits while the Treasury Department professes helplessness at the fact that tens of millions of people are still losing their homes to those banks. Because of that foreclosure crisis, the stunning racial wealth gap—the typical black family has a dime for a dollar of wealth held by its white counterpart—will surely grow worse. The White House is paralyzed with inaction in the face of all of these challenges. But it can kill, so we are great. We have the world’s most expensive health care system, and yet in 2009 infant mortality in the U.S. was higher than in 29 other countries and the worst among rich nations. Why? In large part because the infant mortality rate is so high among black and Latina women. We cannot find justice for them, but we can kill and call it justice. We have a $14 trillion deficit. A massive giveaway to defense contractors lurks inside that number—a transfer of public funds that has been justified, in ways both explicit and implicit, by the evil visage of Osama Bin Laden. And now, Washington is as likely as not to make up the loss by taking apart the safety net that once created something like economic justice in America. But the president would like us to agree that we are great because we can kill. “May God bless the United States of America,” Obama declared last night, a sentiment echoed by so many today. Indeed. But the familiar refrain feels to me more like an urgent plea for forgiveness than the triumphant war cry that it is.”
May 4 '11
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“I am here tonight to be a part of this experience. I go to college at GW … This is the ultimate freshman experience. I don’t know what’s going on right now, but I am really freaking excited.”
Mar 21 '11
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“A Libyan jet crashed Saturday in rebel-held city of Benghazi, which came under attack from government forces.”
Mar 1 '10
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“Residents look at a collapsed building in Concepcion, Chile, Saturday Feb. 27, 2010 after an 8.8-magnitude struck central Chile.”
Feb 9 '10
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“When it comes to finding new and exciting ways to conduct warfare, who gives battle more innovatively (or frequently) than the U.S.? So I wasn’t too surprised at recent news reports intimating that we’re having a secret war in Pakistan. Not with Pakistan, of course. We don’t fight countries much anymore. It’s those damn terrorists. Wherever you go, there they are. It’s gotten to the point where we can invade pretty much any country at random and bingo! A bunch of terrorists is there waiting to fight us. In places like Pakistan, you have to fight the damn terrorists on the QT, because, as I understand it, if the Pakistanis ever find out they’ll get so mad they’ll overthrow their government, the one we’re propping up, and then the terrorists will become the government and the war will get bigger, noisier, bloodier, more expensive and worst of all, incredibly non-secret. They’re very touchy, those Pakistanis. Fortunately, we’ve developed stealthy weapons such as the Predator Drone, which lurks around the skies, ducking behind clouds a lot. When in the open, it whistles, looks casual and pretends to be a tourist. Should it spot an enemy, it drops a rather subtle and unassuming guided missile on him. This way, we avoid having a few hundred thousand noisy, sweaty troops clomping around the countryside, which is always a dead giveaway that there’s a war on. So the thing is, whatever you do, don’t tell the Pakistanis. If you know a Pakistani, talk with him about sports, weather, fashion, the new season of Lost, anything but war.”
Jan 26 '10
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“In late October, Newsday, the Long Island daily that the Dolans bought for $650 million, put its web site, newsday.com, behind a pay wall. The paper was one of the first non-business newspapers to take the plunge by putting up a pay wall, so in media circles it has been followed with interest. Could its fate be a sign of what others, including The New York Times, might expect? So, three months later, how many people have signed up to pay $5 a week, or $260 a year, to get unfettered access to newsday.com? The answer: 35 people.”
Jan 7 '10
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“A delayed Y2K bug has bitten hard at some 30 million holders of German debit and credit cards, making it impossible for them to use automatic teller machines and point-of-sale terminals since New Year’s Day. Multiple news agencies said the outage stemmed from card chips that couldn’t recognize the year 2010.”
Jan 7 '10
Dec 23 '09
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“Ashanti’s stalker has been sentenced to two years in jail for sending raunchy penis pictures and creepy “I’m watching you” messages to Ashanti momager Tina Douglas for years on end. Douglas told the jury she could’ve gotten rid of Devar Hurd by changing her phone number, but do you know how many people have this number? Upon which everyone in the jury pursed their lips and nodded. Yes, changing numbers sucks.”
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… and thus my jury duty comes to an end
Nov 11 '09
Oct 21 '09
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“I have been wasting my tweets letting people know about an empty balloon! And because he is only six years old he will not face any punishment at all! I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets a trip to Walt Disney World! … I haven’t seen a disaster involving a balloon this bad since the Hindenburg.”
