Hi, everybody! It’s good to be back home!
I was torn whether to mention in this morning’s post that I would be Northern Virginia-bound from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area (Washington County) for most of the day. Who knows what banned and lurking commenters would seize on that intelligence to raid the forum here while I was unable to moderate, as occurred yesterday?
1. I wonder if most lawyers have the same reaction… The Pennsylvania lawyers I spoke to all seemed to share the same impression of the Michael Cohen testimony that I had. Why would anyone believe someone like that? What is the point of Congressional testimony by a convicted liar and disbarred attorney? No one disagreed that Cohen couldn’t be a witness in any proceeding, not would his testimony be admissible. How could anyone see this as anything but a transparent and base effort by Democrats in Congress to try to smear the President with ad hominem slurs and unprovable allegations by someone obviously trying to somehow improve his own, self-made, miserable position? The lawyers are also concerned Congress is weakening the crucial attorney client privilege by encouraging a witness to breach it.
2. Ethics Corrupter: Nancy Pelosi. How dare the speaker of the House insult the President before the public by saying, “Do the country a favor, don’t run in 2020?” The democratic Congress continues to lead the effort to strip the President and his office of all the respect and basic deference they both must have for the government to function. Her snide condescension is unprofessional and nauseating….as well as bizarre, coming after the Trump-led economy just had its best month of growth in a decades—just as he promised it would. Given the state of her own party right now, a plea of “Do Democrats a favor, don’t run in 2020” would be more logical.
3. Engineering ethics. My GM rental car was keyless. It’s cool and all, but why? Congress is trying to pass new safety regulations because keyless cars are killing people. Drivers leave them running without realizing it, and sometimes poison themselves or other with carbon monoxide. They also may be easier to steal.
What, exactly, is the problem that keyless ignition was needed to solve? The “improvement” adds to the cost of cars, and appears to be a classic example of fixing something that ain’t broke, just Americans like gadgets. I have attacked the “if it saves one life” idiocy of the anti-gun lobby, but that’s because guns have very valid uses. If a completely gratuitous change in engineering and technology kills anyone without conferring some counter-balancing advantage, then that change is irresponsible and reckless.
4. Not good enough—not even close. The Washington Post, which is being sued by lawyers for 16-year-old Nicholas Sandmann for its role in focusing partisan hate on a student who had in fact done nothing wrong, issued an “Editor’s Note” on the episode late yesterday. Here it is in its entirety:
A Washington Post article first posted online on Jan. 19 reported on a Jan. 18 incident at the Lincoln Memorial. Subsequent reporting, a student’s statement and additional video allow for a more complete assessment of what occurred, either contradicting or failing to confirm accounts provided in that story — including that Native American activist Nathan Phillips was prevented by one student from moving on, that his group had been taunted by the students in the lead-up to the encounter, and that the students were trying to instigate a conflict. The high school student facing Phillips issued a statement contradicting his account; the bishop in Covington, Ky., apologized for the statement condemning the students; and an investigation conducted for the Diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic High School found the students’ accounts consistent with videos. Subsequent Post coverage, including video, reported these developments: “Viral standoff between a tribal elder and a high schooler is more complicated than it first seemed”; “Kentucky bishop apologizes to Covington Catholic students, says he expects their exoneration”; “Investigation finds no evidence of ‘racist or offensive statements’ in Mall incident.”
A Jan. 22 correction to the original story reads: Earlier versions of this story incorrectly said that Native American activist Nathan Phillips fought in the Vietnam War. Phillips said he served in the U.S. Marines but was never deployed to Vietnam.
Allow me to translate: we got the story completely wrong because we did not follow basic reporting procedures, interviewing all key participants, evaluating different versions of the story, and flagging our own biases while correcting for them, resulting in the paper misleading the public and harming an innocent child.
Here’s another, blunter translation: we are cowardly and suck, and don’t even have the integrity to apologize for a disgraceful display of terrible journalism that would be embarrassing for a newspaper in Hole-In-The-Wall, Any State, but is absolutely unforgivable for the Washington Post.
- “Subsequent reporting, a student’s statement and additional video allow for a more complete assessment of what occurred…” is a lawyer’s phrasing of the fact that the original reporting was incompetent and negligent.
- “Subsequent Post coverage, including video, reported these developments…” Sure—after a full-scale, nation-wide, anti-Trump, anti-white, anti-Catholic, hate campaign against the students in general and Nicholas Sandmann in particular has been seeded, encouraged, and launched. Celebrities like Bill Maher called for the kid to be physically attacked. He received death threats, as he was tarred as a racist.. A competent, ethical, unbiased newspaper doesn’t do this.
- Where is the direct apology to Sandmann, whose life and reputation were falsely stained, and who was the individual the Post’s wrongdoing harmed?
I know the Post doesn’t ever read its own Ethics Code, but I do, it being my job. Here’s what it says at the outset:
We fully recognize that the power we have inherited as the dominant morning newspaper in the capital of the free world carries with it special responsibilities:
to listen to the voiceless
to avoid any and all acts of arrogance
to face the public politely and candidly
Was the Post listening to the voiceless when it baselessly accused a 16-year old of harassing an elderly Native American without bothering to get the student’s account of the event? No. Was the Post’s determination to exploit this incident to impugn supporters of the President and pile on in the ongoing effort to vilify whites as inherent bigots arrogant? Obviously. Is this Editor’s Note candid? Of course not.
Here is the Code’s section on fairness:
Reporters and editors of The Post are committed to fairness. While arguments about objectivity are endless, the concept of fairness is something that editors and reporters can easily understand and pursue. Fairness results from a few simple practices:
No story is fair if it omits facts of major importance or significance. Fairness includes completeness.
No story is fair if it includes essentially irrelevant information at the expense of significant facts. Fairness includes relevance.
No story is fair if it consciously or unconsciously misleads or even deceives the reader. Fairness includes honesty – leveling with the reader.
No story is fair if reporters hide their biases or emotions behind such subtly pejorative words as “refused,” “despite,” “quietly,” “admit” and “massive.” Fairness requires straightforwardness ahead of flashiness.
Did the Post story omit “facts of major importance or significance.” It sure did. Was it complete? Clearly not.
Was the reporting fair?
No.
Did the story “consciously or unconsciously mislead or even deceive the reader”? Absolutely and beyond debate.
Was the reporting fair?
No.
Does the Washington Post admit, in its “Note,” any of this, or state directly that the story violated the Post’s published ethics standards?
No! That means that the “note” itself violates the Post’s standards!
One more ethics point that Post editors may not be aware of, having pretty much jettisoned any commitment to journalism ethics over the past three years: newspapers are supposed to be especially careful when reporting on children—yes, even when they are wearing MAGA caps. Here are Accountable Journalism’s “Editorial Guidelines for Reporting on Children,” and a useful excerpt:
Journalists should report on children in an ethical manner, and specifically:
• Seek the truth and report it accurately and as fully as possible;
• Act independently;
• Minimize harm
• Ensure balanced reporting that is in the best interests of the child ;
• Listen attentively to children.
Let’s see: Nope…nope…nope…HAHAHAHAA!..nope. The Post was 0 for 5 in the Covington story.
It was disheartening, when the truth of this bias-driven nit job on an innocent teen came out, that so many Democrats, progressives, pundits still couldn’t muster the integrity to admit how unethically the coverage was. Columnist David Brooks shrugged off the episode (in which is own paper was complicit) by tweeting that after the facts finally were revealed, all of the uproar over the incident seemed “silly.”
Biased, incompetent and unethical reporting that harms children and misleads the public isn’t “silly.” It’s serious, and it’s dangerous.
5. Back to the top: My wife and I were listening to a countdown of the best pop and rock records from 1965, which might have been my favorite year for music (and some other things) of all time. We both giggled to hear Barry McGuire’s hilariously over-heated rendition of the apocalyptic “Eve of Destruction,” which, I am proud to say, struck me as absurd when I first heard it, unlike so many of my politically addled friends and those of my parents. I still love the song for its wacky lyrics and the invaluable perspective it provides in times like these, when the cynical, the dishonest, the hysterical and the stupid are claiming that this is the worst state of affairs the United States has ever been in, and that we are surely doomed.
If I wrote a contemporary issues (Climate Change! School shootings! Rape culture! Nazi in the White House!) parody of “Eve of Destruction”—and I’m tempted—would the “woke”even realize it?
Ethics Alarms 
On keyless cars, I like mine.
It is easy. I don’t know how I could leave it running. The horn honks if all doors are closed and the key is outside the vehicle; it also beeps if the engine is off, a door is open, and the headlights are on.
I wonder about the ease of stealing. As I said, the horn honks when all doors are closed and the key is outside the car. I have never tested whether it drives with key outside.
Mine is a Ford, though, so it’s technology might differ from GM
-Jut
My Volkswagen also has keyless entry with push-button start. It’s not something I sought out particularly, but it’s very convenient as my key need never leave my pocket. Perhaps the technology isn’t as fool-proof as it ought to be for the general public, but like you I have a hard time imaging how I could mistakenly leave the ignition on (it would make a very obnoxious noise when I opened the driver door) or how it would be any easier to steal (hotwiring should almost certainly be more difficult).
OK, I read the articles Jack linked. It seems misplaced to blame the keyless ignition for a driver neglecting to turn off a running motor. I’ve known people who absent-mindedly left their car running with the key in the ignition. As for theft, the article doesn’t claim that they’re easier to steal than cars with traditional keyed ignition cylinders; it just reports that thieves have gotten better at being able to steal them without having the owner’s key fob.
When on 63th street in NYC (FDR exit) my son-in-law, who was late to a meeting, got out of his car and told my daughter to drive to the hotel. When he got almost a block away the car shut off as he had the fob in his pocket. Terrified, my daughter had to run after him to reclaim the fob and return to the car to start and move it. Many, many irate New Yorkers were not happy.
They use a signal trandmitter to l pick up the key fob’s signal and relay it to the car. They sell Faraday pouches for keys to keep them in at home. Some keys can be shut off, it will say in your owner’s manual.
I was given a keyless rental car once when mine was in the shop. I dubbed it the Crisis Mobile for a variety of reasons (guess what make it was).
Anyways, had to leave for work at an absurd hour that week. I get in the car, but it could not detect the dongle, so the alarm goes off.
At 4 am.
I’ve been skeptical of keyless cars ever since.
The thing about keyless ignition systems for me is that they break one of my cardinal rules: don’t use electronics to do a job that can be done mechanically. Old-school keys very rarely fail. Wireless detection systems, on the other hand, are far from mature or reliable at this point, and offer very little advantage to offset the fact that they have many more potential failure points than a proper key.
One of my clients is a startup developing RFID chips, and it’s been eye-opening to see firsthand how finicky those things can be. External interference, antenna design, position of the sensor relative to the antenna, and many other factors can result in a misread.
One of my other clients has a keycard-based entry system on the office doors, and I keep the keycard in my wallet. If I hold the wallet a certain way, it works fine. If I hold it any other way, the door sensor detects the RFID chip in my credit card instead, and won’t unlock. I’ve never had a mechanical lock refuse to open because I have other keys on my keychain… 🙂
Hey, now, don’t be so hard on Barry McGuire. He’s the only person in history to have the guts to try to rhyme contemplatin’ and coagulatin’ in song. Sure, it doesn’t rhyme at all and hits the ear like a cold mackerel, but he had the guts to try. I always thought the lyrics of that song sounded like a bad first draft.
I always appreciated the boldness of rhyming integration with disintegratin’, but that’s just me.
How about rhyming “Red China” with “Selma, Alabama”?
#3 – Keyless cars have killed. Not only is there the carbon monoxide danger that has killed, keyless cars are a part of the runaway Toyota fiasco.
I’m betting if I take a poll, few here know how to turn off a keyless car while driving. Do you know how? The answer is hold the start button for 3 seconds. That’s very counter-intuitive compared to the old fashioned “turn it to off.”
Even if one eliminates the key, the intuitive off-accessory-on-start function should remain, but that’s gone for an inexplicable reason.
Hysteria.
I doubt you’d want the keyless ignition to turn off the car with a single touch while driving; imagine accidentally pushing the button at highway speeds. (People have certainly accidentally knocked keys out of the ignition cylinder while driving, too.) Holding the button down makes much more sense to ensure that the driver actually wants to turn off the car while driving. That’s got little or nothing to do with the “runaway Toyota fiasco,” in which drivers didn’t even shift to neutral or attempt to use the handbrake, never mind turning off the engine. Not that Toyota had no responsibility for defective designs (poorly fitted floor mats, “sticky” accelerators), but keyless ignitions weren’t the culprit.
As for the concern over carbon monoxide poisoning, again, keyless ignitions are not the culprit. In the vast majority of such circumstances, the victim who left their car running is elderly. Perhaps they couldn’t hear or feel that the engine was still running, since after all engines are much smoother and quieter than they were 40 years ago, but I’m inclined to think senility is usually involved. Would a physical key in an ignition cylinder have prevented those deaths? Maybe a few, but I think mostly only if the driver had other keys on a ring with the car key and needed to unlock something outside the car. Otherwise, the fundamental absent-mindedness would have exactly the same result, keyless ignition or not. The solution in this case is not abandoning keyless ignitions, but having the engine shut itself off automatically after idling in park for a certain amount of time. As well as regularly testing elderly drivers and revoking driver licenses as soon as they aren’t fit to drive safely.
Sorry, neglected to close an italics tag.
In the runaway Toyota incident, I think the computer froze. When the computer freezes, you can’t turn off the car. That on/off button doesn’t turn the car off or on, it just tells the computer to turn the car on or off. No computer response=no on or off. The computer controls the throttle position and fuel injector settings. No computer=no change to throttle or fuel injectors. The transmission select lever does not change the gears, it only tells the computer to change the transmission selection. So, no computer response = you can’t take it out of gear.
In other words, I do believe the keyless start did play a role in that, just not the obvious one.
I have never heard of the problem you’re describing. The sudden unintended acceleration problem Toyota had which resulted in a media circus in 2009-2010 was caused mostly by driver error, but two *mechanical* factors appear to have contributed in some circumstances: 1) the accelerator pedal getting caught under an ill-fitting all-season floor mat; 2) the accelerator pedal sticking in a depressed position. It wasn’t the computer “freezing,” and most of the cars involved had standard keyed ignition cylinders anyway.
The computer does not control the brakes, and not the emergency brake either.
Can you cite that, Michael R?
https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/runaway-toyotas-police-release-911-tape-94-mph/story?id=10057010
As a child, the accelerator on our car stuck (the cruise control cable hung with the throttle wide open). The car was doing 85+ mph down the highway with my father standing on the brake. When he felt it was getting out of hand, he flipped the car to neutral and turned off the ignition. We glided off the interstate and into a service station with smoke pouring out of the wheel-wells from the brakes. That car only had 99 hp. At wide open throttle, the brakes have no chance.
Sikes was full of it.
“[Toyota] said data captured by the car indicated that the brakes and accelerator were depressed about 250 different times during the incident.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703909804575123380572242938
https://jalopnik.com/government-documents-prove-runaway-prius-was-a-hoax-5755213
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/41537165/ns/business-us_business/t/mainstream-media-owe-toyota-apology/
“Brakes always override throttle”
This is a mechanical override, not electronic. Notice Sikes used his brakes to eventually stop his car… meaning he could have at any time. The investigation exonerated Toyota, and disproved Sikes’ story.
There are mechanical reasons (floor mats, sticky gas pedals…) for runaway acceleration, but no known electronic ones.
Got stuck in the moderation queue …
But no electronic issue caused that problem. I, too, have had a Chevy truck race uncontrollably, and used the same method to stop as your father. Throttle cable bolt broke, throttle got stuck wide open.
Keyless ignitions and car computers had no role in either case.
Regarding keyless cars and push-to-start systems. These, like many other features found on today’s cars and trucks, have grown from the trend of replacing mechanical systems with electronic systems. Old key locks, both on the doors and ignition, were the most effective methods of anti-theft technology available way back when, and remained so for decades. As electronic components got smaller and less expensive, more and more electronic stuff trickled down into the car.
While key-type ignition systems worked OK, there were issues, namely with steering column locking systems that failed, the key lock cylinders that failed, the electric ignition switch failures (think GM in the 2000’s and subsequent debacle) and those systems were usually pathetically easy to “hot wire” and steal. Keyless and push-to-start offer greater convenience (i.e. less work for the driver) and typically increased security as the digital authentication system used to prevent theft is better than the old mechanical lock and key.
Just as many newer features, from cruise control to semi-autonomous driving systems, have changed vehicle operation, the mentality and comprehension of the people operating these things hasn’t always kept up with the technology. Too many people use technology they don’t really understand, from push button starting to Tesla’s Auto Pilot, and sometimes the consequences are significant. Sometimes people are too busy with the other mobile computer, the hand-held one, to remember to turn their car off, or simply because the change to pushing a button hasn’t been done enough times to make the critical connections in their brains a permanent physical action once parked. That doesn’t mean the tech push is going to stop but it should mean that people should understand and respect (pay more attention to what they’re doing) to the stuff they’re using.
By the way, our last two vehicles with keyless systems create an unholy racket if you exit the vehicle with it running and the fob on your person. Some older systems didn’t do this as loudly and yes, with hybrids, especially older one’s, it is easy to forget they’re “ON” if the engine isn’t running, but at the end of the day, it’s the driver’s responsibility to use the vehicle properly and make sure the thing shuts off when they’re ready to park it and walk away.
It’s not just pushing a button, though. It is pushing a button AND pushing the brake, making the new improved system a two step action rather than a one step. And again, while I may “like” the button once I get used to it, if its killing people (saying that people misusing it is the problem, not the technology itself, begs the question), why is it worth the expense and problems?
Pushing the brake is only required for starting the vehicle, shutting it down just requires a button press. At least on all systems I’m familiar with, your experience may vary.
Why is anything worth the expense and problems? On-board car technology has grown due to several factors, namely; requirements to meet federal standards for fuel economy, safety, and emissions. Another big factor is insurance companies, who have influence into vehicle design to help limit their liabilities. Cars that are easy to steal or more costly to repair after an accident are more expensive to insure. Car theft is also a statistic used as one of many data points for crime rates. Make cars harder to steal, drive down insurance costs and crime rates – a win-win.
As far as cost, keyless systems are probably less expensive overall for the manufacturer, if not the consumer. An old-style key, lock cylinder, ignition switch, and related wiring used more copper and more labor to build and install, and repair than modern systems. Push-to-start systems use the fob, a digital button, the already present computer network, and less wiring. While the cost of the fob is high, and certainly not necessarily proportional to it’s actual production cost, the other parts are dirt cheap. Wiring costs are also less because the modern systems are using much smaller wire to carry network traffic rather than the high-current needed to actually power the system. Lighter wiring pays off with increased fuel economy and less overall vehicle mass, another win-win.
Probably the biggest reason keys are going away is because the amount of tech required to run the modern vehicle. In the old days, the ignition switch kept about 4 or 5 circuits mechanically connected when turned on and the engine running. Over time, these electromechanical connections fail, causing stalling and preventing the engine from running. Modern vehicles require numerous computers (modules) to operate on several networks so the engine, transmission, body, fuel pump, anti-theft, instrument panel, and other modules all stay in communication to keep things running. That’s very difficulty and non-redundant for an mechanical key and switch. Older cars had much higher failure rates causing stalls and no-start conditions with the old keys and ignition switches. And because the government gets into issuing recalls for those types of problems, eliminating one of the big factors (the electromechanical ignition switch – again, GM in the 2000’s) helps keep your product out of the news feeds for recalls.
There’s room to debate whether consumer demand for gadgets or the manufacturer’s push to put technology in the vehicles wags the other one but I don’t know which. As people expect to be pampered, entertained, and distracted by the world around them, cars will continue to cater to keeping up with those addictions.
Are drug pushers “catering to addictions” or creating them?
Some drug pushers give away free samples to ‘hook’ new users (usually kids) so that is creating the addiction. However, without the market the pushers go away.
So your answer is a qualified ‘Yes.’
Starting a car with a keyed ignition cylinder requires at least 2 consecutive steps: 1) inserting the key into the ignition, and 2) fully turning the inserted key. This requires more fine motor control than depressing the brake pedal and pushing a start button. Think about which would be better for someone suffering from arthritis or carpal tunnel syndrome.
As for keyless ignitions “killing” people, all you’ve got for that is 28 fatalities since 2006 (according to the NYT) in which an absent-minded or senile driver left the motor running on a car with keyless ignition in an enclosed space, resulting in deadly CO buildup. (What are the numbers for the same situation involving cars with keyed cylinders? No one knows.) How is this obvious human incompetence due to keyless ignitions? It’s not a mechanical or software defect occurring, and the lack of a key cylinder doesn’t logically or intuitively mean that you needn’t turn off the car before you leave it.
From 2005-2014, 124 people died when the mechanical ignition cylinder in their GM vehicles failed while driving, causing the key to turn to the off position. A single manufacturer’s faulty keyed ignition resulted in more than 4 times as many deaths as could—arguendo—be attributed to keyless ignitions. By that measure, keyless ignitions are at least 4 times less deadly than GM’s keyed ignitions!
These are good points, except calling using an ignition key a two step process is pretty funny. Why not more? Let’s see: I have to FIND the damn keys, then open the door, get in then car, take them out of my pocket, find the right key, stick it in, and turn it. That’s 7.
It’s funny to say that it’s a two-step process mostly because most of us are so used to doing it, and it only requires the one hand to do so. But, physically, inserting the key and turning it are two different things. Were it really only one step, the car would start either upon inserting the key, or else you’d only turn a lever on the ignition cylinder.
All the other possible steps you mention for keys are a big part of the reason many drivers, myself included, like keyless entry and ignition: With the fob in my pocket, I pull the handle to unlock and open driver door, get in, close the door, buckle my seatbelt, depress the brake pedal, and push the button.
One more issue with the keys that my sister has encountered: they run out of batteries..and when they do, you’re stranded until you can find some..
The key should have a standard key embedded in the fob. For many models you can open the door with the embedded key, then start the vehicle by putting the fob right up to the push button. The key fob can, in many cases still start the car even though it can’t unlock the doors. The battery still has to be replaced as soon as possible, though.
“If I wrote a contemporary issues (Climate Change! School shootings! Rape culture! Nazi in the White House!) parody of “Eve of Destruction”—and I’m tempted—would the “woke”even realize it?”
No, it would become their anthem! But I’d love to read it anyway.
Sing it! SING IT!
::: clears throat (horrible rasping sound) :::
It is interesting: what is going on today is an octave of what was going on before, an extension of it, the flowering of it. How strange really this is! Especially for me who can only understand the previous era through books and narratives, songs and YouTube videos. The question is: What has brought this about? And what is going on? Who can explain? Who sees?
There is now absolute confusion about what *America* is and a terrifying disjunction when it is understood, perhaps only subliminally, that it is no longer what it was thought to be. It is something radically different. And this contrast, this disjunction, tears the nation apart but tears people apart psychologically. National schizophrenia. An economic empire with cynical designs run by bankers and militarists, swampy politicians. And social classes that are at odds to each other. What is left for patriotism is worship of the Mirage of America, if even that can be achieved. The Poisoned Dream. Hamlet’s ghost receding into a cracked mirror. Soliloquies as chaos descends.
There is more to be gained from recognizing that The Crisis now manifesting is far more extensive and thus far more troubling in its import than it seems. Why and how has this come about? It has to do with political and social corruption and the contrast between ‘worshipped ideals’ that are now exposed as false, and the remaining ghost-like over-produced vision that comes on TeeVee as a Halftime commercial for some product: the political and social lie, propped up by Public Relations specialists who sing angelically of social solidarity (and everyone knows it is false).
Quote from Johnny Sea’s Day of Decision:
The ‘basic ideals and structure of America’ may still exist, but many other things have transpired that have corrupted America. Seeing the present clearly is the object — the only solution to chaos — but no one agrees about what has gone wrong and why. The thing that agonizes me and I just can’t get clear about is What did happen? It is the question of Causation. How will I gain this understanding? And if I gain it, what will I do with it?
Here is a song that was said to have been written as a ‘response’ (or a follow-up?) to Eve of Destruction.
That’s a song?
I must confess, it did kick-start a desire to Beat Back The Hun!
Your Liberty Bond purchase has never been easier; they take paypal and major credit cards…and if you order in the next 15 minutes….
Interesting observation @03:04, accompanied by an incuriously Asian-invoking Ruan (?) background melody:
Don’t Attack America, Wear It Down Gradually
Here arethe lyricshttps://houseoflyrics.com/lyrics/johnny_sea/day_for_decision.html. I find it quite interesting. The attempt to recognize destructive forces while simultaneously reviving a patriotic sentiment, alongside a failure to notice the perverse effect of military enterprise separated from a genuine and legal war-aim.
The ‘Wear It Down Gradually’ idea was developed by Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov whose videos can be seen on YouTube. Said to be an ex-KGB agent who was stationed in India for many years and defected to Canada. I found all he had to say interesting. But then I began to understand, or believe that I understood, since I do not have absolute certainty, that the *infecting agent* was not outside and ‘over there’ doing something to us (the idea has recently been revised with the Russia-hacked-our-democracy story, but ‘inside’ and deeply related to the industrial and military structures which have subverted the principles of Constitutional America. The roots of this are extensive. The forces that are eating away at *America* are extensive, complex, interrelated. Everyone has some *story* about what is going on and why, and no one has clarity.
“The attempt to recognize destructive forces while simultaneously reviving a patriotic sentiment”
Hmm!
Barry has earned having his photo in the dictionary under “One trick pony.”
Doing more research, he sings on this lovely song. One Trick Pony?!?
How would the media have reacted, back in 1998-1999, if Congress had called Lanny Davis to testify about Bill Clinton?
(4) I found the answer. If you scroll all the way down on the Ethics Code and then scroll a little more you find section K. Section K reads “The ethical standards in sections A-J do not apply when writing about Republicans.”
#sarcasm
If Climate Change always suggests “Change,” does Global Warming always suggest “Warming?”
Not exactly.
”CNN Explains ‘Global Warming’ Does Not Always Mean Warming.”
So these scientists are contradicting themselves?