or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
•
"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
September 26, 2006
Gosh, The March Of Time Sure Has Rendered I.F. Stone Completely Irrelevant
On their show last night about I.F. Stone featuring Billmon, Radio Open Source played this snippet (at about 33:25) from a tape of Stone speaking during Vietnam:
Now, governments lie. But they don't like to lie literally, because a literal, flat, obvious lie tends to be caught.So what they do is, they become masters of the disingenuous statement, of phrasing something in such a way that the honest, normal, unwary reader gets one impression, what he's supposed to get.
Then three months later he discovers it's not true and goes back to complain. And they say, well, that's not what we said -- look at it carefully. And you look at it carefully and sure enough, it was really doubletalk and didn't say exactly what they said.
Yes, the world has changed completely since then. How embarrassing for all of Stone's admirers that his insights about politics have proven as evanescent as the morning dew.
Posted at September 26, 2006 03:04 PM | TrackBackDAMN STRAIGHT IT WAS WRONG
I like when Condi or Dubya or Cheney or Gonzales are asked a question, i.e. did you alter this report and they answer "That's wrong" instead of "That's false".
Posted by: Maezeppa at September 26, 2006 05:11 PMSK, when I clicked your link all I get is a ram file, perhaps just cut and paste the address?
Posted by: rob payne at September 27, 2006 12:26 AMSK, I see you need to download Realplayer to view a ram file but I could not get the free version to download, I will try again tomorrow.
Meanwhile Condi Rice is doing her best Tony Snow imitation.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/26/rice-clinton-terrorism/
Go to think progress and check it out it is worth a read and should shed some light on the veracity of anything Rice says.
I sincerely pray and hope that this will stem the flow of how the misunderstood Secretary of State is being undermined by evil forces within the Bush administration in her efforts to bring peace and love to the world.
I think one of the greatest frustrations in life is to watch or listen to an interview of a politician or public figure. It is like some fantastical game with one rule which would be never, ever answer a question on a given topic. Rather points are made by making it seem as if the participants are in two completely different discussions occurring at the same time. If you actually give a direct answer to a direct question you will be instantly annihilated to the point where even your electrons will be stripped from your protons which have been spread across the very curve of the universe never to be heard from again.
Wild cards that may be used in extreme cases are "I will check on that and get back to you" or "You will have to check that for yourself" or a simple "I cannot answer that question without jeopardizing the safety and well being of Americans everywhere."
Presidential weekly radio addresses at theonion are very funny: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/52093
"you need to download Realplayer to view a ram file"
Mplayer also works well, for just about everything:
www.mplayerhq.hu/dload.html
Posted by: buermann at September 28, 2006 12:49 PMBuermann, thanks for the tip. Someday the internet wil standardize like the auto industry did so many years ago.
Posted by: rob payne at September 28, 2006 11:07 PM
