I saw another news item today about these biometric implants that are being talked about more and more. It is basically a chip that is implanted under your skin and would contain a wealth of information about you that could be scanned by someone to ascertain your identity or age or whatever.
I've seen reports that in some places, women have age identifying chips implanted in their breasts so that they don't have to carry id to get into clubs -- the bouncer waves a wand over their bosum and if the chip reads true, they get in.
Now I don't want to get all biblical here, but I'm getting a whole "Mark of the Beast" vibe from this. The Bible of course refers to a mark on the hand or forehead and that none without it can buy or sell. When I was a kid, my dad told me that was how he saw credit cards. Seen those VISA commercials lately? Yeah, don't even bother bringing cash to a store. Cash, for cryin' out loud! Actual money! Nope, we want that plastic.
The old man was onto something there.
But this [chip] is much more literal. And of course, proponents of this technology seem to go out of their way to thumb their noses at bible prophecy by suggesting that the chip go in a person's hand or forearm.
And think of the extrapolation -- financial information, medical information, info on personal habits, etc. See Minority Report? Imagine going into a store, through those anti-theft pillars, and poof! Up pop ads tailored to your preferences. Want to get a loan or buy a car? Pass your hand through the reader and the dealer is showing you what you can afford.
Way too spooky! And possible within a couple of years -- not lifetimes! Do we really need this?
Seen that mess with Dog the Bounty Hunter? Apparently, he's in hot water over a message he left on his son's answering machine!
Now he used the "N" word, which we all know is bad. But it was a private message, not a public comment. At least not until the snotty kid sold it to TMZ or someone.
Look, I think this guy is a clown. He looks like a fool and does a fairly disreputable job. I've heard him talk, and he's no Rhodes Scholar.
But he has a right to say, in private, whatever he wants to say. We all have that right. Just because it's unpleasant or un-PC, doesn't mean he can't say it privately. But now, he's going around apologizing and being all contrite. Yeah, what a bad-ass.
Is this what we've come to? Held accountable for private conversations? How Orwellian! How wrong! If I shoot my mouth off to my son and say some really awful things. And he tapes it and puts it out in the public, then shame on him! We all have an expectation of privacy in our personal conversations. That's what all this screaming about the FISA laws and wiretaps are about.
When we get to the point were we can't speak, especially privately, without fear of being censured or punished, then we've lost perhaps our greatest freedom. The freedom of expression. It's in the Constitution. You know, the First Amendment. Important enough to the framers to put it first. They knew.
As an unabashed conservative, which puts me at loggerheads with nearly all my co-workers and even my loving sister on some issues, I've complained frequently about media bias. And of course been told that's it's all in my imagination. A couple of years ago, a UCLA study concluded there was media bias against conservatives and Republicans, but that was dismissed as being skewed because of the war in Iraq (psst, don't tell anyone -- deaths are down, people are returning to their homes, the surge is working).
But now there is a report out of that bastion of non-conservative thinking -- Harvard University, by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy that concludes, (horrors) that the media is biased against the Republican candidates for president.
Here's a few interesting tidbits:
"[the study]...found that in covering the current presidential race, the media are sympathetic to Democrats and hostile to Republicans."
"Democrats are not only favored in the tone of the coverage. They get more coverage period. This is particularly evident on morning news shows, which 'produced almost twice as many stories (51% to 27%) focused on Democratic candidates than on Republicans.'"
"The most flagrant bias, however, was found in newspapers. In reviewing front-page coverage in 11 newspapers, the study found the tone positive in nearly six times as many stories about Democrats as it was negative. ..."
"Reviewing 154 stories on evening network newscasts over the course of 109 weeknights, the survey found that Democrats were presented in a positive light more than twice as often as they were portrayed as negative. Positive tones for Republicans were detected in less than a fifth of stories while a negative tone was twice as common."
On the nightly network news shows, Democrats had almost 40% positive coverage while Republicans got 18.6%. Republicans got 37.2% negative coverage, more than twice that of Democrats at 17.1%. NPR's "Morning Edition" -- the content for which taxpayers pay -- gave Democrats more positive coverage, 41%/30%, and Republicans more negative coverage, 20%/5.9%.
"Another distinguishing characteristic of the print stories studied was tone. Democrats got much more positive coverage in the daily papers examined than they did elsewhere. Fully 59% of all stories about Democrats had a clear, positive message vs. 11% that carried a negative tone. That is roughly double the percentage of positive stories that we found in the media generally. Just under a third (30%) of the front page stories examined were neutral."
"Republican candidates, in contrast, were more likely to receive clearly negative stories in print than elsewhere: 40% negative vs. 26% positive and 34% neutral."
"Network evening news closely reflected the overall media when it came to dividing time between Democrat and Republican candidates (49% vs. 28%). While all three produced more stories about Democrats than Republicans, at the NBC Evening News the gap was smaller—just an 11 percentage point difference (41% Democrats vs. 30% Republicans) vs. roughly a 30 percentage point gap at ABC and CBS. The tone of coverage in the 30-minute evening newscasts was much more positive toward the Democrats than Republicans."
"The CNN programming studied tended to cast a negative light on Republican candidates—by a margin of three-to-one. Four-in-ten stories (41%) were clearly negative while just 14% were positive and 46% were neutral. The network provided negative coverage of all three main candidates with McCain fairing the worst (63% negative) and Romney fairing a little better than the others only because a majority of his coverage was neutral."
Golly gee whiz, maybe it's not all in my head after all. How about that?
Here's my vote for best commercial of the campaigns so far. Leave it to a trial attorney to use someone's own words against them.
HAH! Couldn't have happened to a more arrogant, superior acting group of people.
A Trojan virus, specifically targetting Macs has popped up. The OS X Trojan hijacks users DNS settings to enable hackers to direct them from secure banking sites to phantom sites where credit card numbers and personal information can be stolen.
All those years of Mac users smugly looking down their noses at PC users and laughing about their imperviousness to bugs and viruses is apparently over.
What I want to see now is a commercial with that pudgy PC guy laying the smackdown on that snarky, arrogant Mac kid.
Yeah I know, I'm late with that, but it's been a complex couple of days here. Not going to drone on about the game or the obvious stuff, but here's my thing about some of the assocated stuff:
Great job by Tim McCarver as always. He's easy to listen to, insightful and critical when necessary. I liked him calling out the ump for that ridiculous strike zone in game 4. And the un-remarked on observation during game 2 that Schill hit 92 on FOX's radar gun, not the wacky stadium gun that has curveballs hitting 100. Next inning was Schill's last.
Jeanne Zalasko(sp?) needs to go back to Entertainment TV or wherever they found her. Worst pre-game show ever! And they couldn't find a couple of ex-ballplayers with any credentials? Oh and here's a tip, Jeanne: try and learn the names of the team's owners, that way you won't look like a fool mangling the intros during the trophy presentation.
Speaking of trophy presentations -- couldn't they have plugged Bud Selig in for a couple of minutes prior to the celebration to get him awake? That was the most joyless, uninspired, perfunctory presentation I've ever seen. You'd of thought he was giving Barry Bonds an award or something.
Oh, and someone get the GM or owner or whoever that fool was that said that the Rockies were the better team and that if they had played ten games, the Rockies would have won six, out of the thin air. The hottest team in baseball got swept four straight. They led for a total of one inning. That was flat out dominance. Get over it.
Holy cow! These Sox are hotter than . . . uh . . . well, they're pretty damn hot! I can tell you that!
Look, I expected them to win the first two games. No one's gonna beat Beckett in the post season, it's that simple. And as I've said before, Schilling's playing for his legacy, he'll find a way to win. Plus of course, the games were in Boston.
But that 10-5 game last night, wow! Dice-K looked good on the mound, and pretty decent at the plate. Who knew? They gave the Rockies a little comeback, then put the hammer down and pulled away. If you're a Rockies fan, don't get your hopes up because Oki got tagged for a homer. He gave up a home run on his first major league pitch, then held batters hitless for like 27 innings afterward.
I'm also a bit surprised at folks who thought the Sox would be impotent under NL rules. This is one of the first years, the Sox had a winning record in interleague play. And not just by a little. Tito's done a nice job managing the guys under the no DH rule. And don't forget, they swept St. Louis in 2004 winning two games under those rules. These aren't your grandpa's Sox, these guys can win anywhere.
It will be fun to see Lester start the game with the clinch possible. Our local player, Carlos Pena won the Comeback Player award this year, and justifiably so. But Jon's story is just as compelling, and to clinch the Series would be a storybook ending for the year for him.
The Rockies are starting sinkerball pitcher Aaron Cook tonite, so don't be surprised to see Tito pull Papi early and put Youk back in the game as the Indians Westbrook (another sinkerballer) gave the boys fits in his two starts.
I'd love to see the guys clinch in Boston, just to see the party, but I'll be completely happy to see them win it tonite. All the bitching by sports writers about the sweep not being fun -- that's just loser talk. I want to see my teams win, win all the time, and win convincingly. Nothing wrong with that.
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If you have not joined in, you are really missing out!
