Nick Lewis: The Blog

Wow, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann just said EXACTLY what needed to be said right now about Katrina.[requires quickitem] I don't know much about Olbermann, but this was the most refreshing take I have yet heard from TV news on the situation in New Orleans. Here's a preview from the transcript:

...having given our leaders what we know now is the week or so they need to get their act together, that period of editorial silence I mentioned, should come to an end.No one is suggesting that mayors or governors in the afflicted areas, nor the federal government, should be able to stop hurricanes. Lord knows, no one is suggesting that we should ever prioritize levee improvement for a below-sea-level city, ahead of $454 million worth of trophy bridges for the politicians of Alaska.

Via Frank Paynter:

Berkeley just announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element has been named "Governmentium".

Governmentium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element which radiates just as much energy, since it has half as many peons, but twice as many morons.

Here's an article from ZNet that is well worth your read: The new(s) face of Propaganda,

The new propaganda has its power in the freedom (or apparent freedom) of press. It is for this reason it is possible to call it new(s) propaganda. The new(s) propaganda needs freedom of media, needs debate (only a small amount, and under control). Why? Because until someone can say without restraint what one is thinking, it is difficult to see this kind of propaganda which wants to homologate the mind. The intellectuals or writers who work against this system are, regardless, inside the system. Because paradoxically those who think that it is difficult to talk and write liberally are indeed talking or writing about this, and so are free to say everything. It is here a more interesting aspect of this propaganda appears. The reflections of an intellectual or writer are delivered to a small segment of the population, and usually someone who already knows these things beforehand. It rarely arrives to the general public.

Link to Full Article

"I would now like to start looking at that dimension which I have called by that rather nasty word 'governmentality'. Let us suppose that "governing" is not the same thing as 'reigning', that it is not the same thing as 'commanding' or 'making the law'let us suppose that governing is not the same thing as being a sovereign, a suzerain, being lord, being judge, being a general, owner, master, professor. Let us suppose that there is a specificity to what it is to govern and we must now find out a little what type of power is covered by this notion."

- Michel Foucault, Sécurité, Territorie, Population. Cours au Collège de France. 1977-1978, Paris: Gallimard, 2004. p. 119.

The five recommendations of Reporters Without Borders about freedom of expression on the Internet:

1. Any law about the flow of information online must be anchored in freedom of expression as defined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
2. Internet users alone must decide what material they can and wish to access online. Automatic filtering of online content, by governments or private firms, is unacceptable.

By John Cleese

To the citizens of the United States of America,

In the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. (Except Utah, which she does not fancy.)

Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect :

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour', skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise". You will learn that the suffix 'burgh is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary". Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed". There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won't have to use bad language as often.

"[American legislatures] should be an exact portrait, in miniature, of the people at large, as it should think, feel, reason, and act like them." -John AdamsIn a recent Elway Poll, 42 percent of Americans felt that they were either represented in our government "poorly" or "not at all". The cause of such sentiments is fairly straight forward: almost half of Americans are in fact not represented in our government. Our ancient voting system is designed to only ensure representation for a majority of voters in a particular geographic area. Most Americans have become so accustomed to our system of voting that they its just "the way democracy works". They are mistaken.Our congressional elections use what electoral engineers call the single-member district plurality system.However, most everyone else prefers to use the more succulent name, "the winner takes all system". We are all familiar with the drawbacks of this system. Whether you are a Democrat who lives in Alabama, or a Republican who lives in Massachusetts, you are above all an American who is without a voice in Government. The good news is that there are alternatives to the winner-takes-all-system. In fact, most democratic countries have already replaced our antique system with newer system: proportional representation.

George F. Will recently asserted that the electoral college, like the constitution, "was not devised by, and should not be revised by, simple-minded majoritarians." Indeed, the electoral college was a brilliant 18th century solution to clusters of 18th century problems.There were three good reasons that the constitutional convention rejected the idea of direct elections for the presidency. First off, there was no method of communication that could sufficiently educate voters about presidential candidates. Secondly, our framers worried that the masses had neither the education, nor the refinement required to make prudent decisions. Thirdly, the implementation of national elections would have upset the balance of power among states. For example, direct presidential elections would cause the south to lose most of its political power. Under the electoral college, slaves couldn't vote, but could be still counted as 3/5 man when deciding the number of Representatives and electors for states.