Social media becomes more problematic for me to use by the day. Liberals can say whatever the hell they want with absolutely no fear of censorship. Conservatives can't tell the truth without Facebook or Twitter slapping some half-assed "fact checking" claim that is usually a pathetic joke of biased interpretation passed off as truth by a lazy press corps. Politics cannot be avoided, but only half the conversation is being allowed. I've always used Facebook and liked the interface until I began to realize how intrusive their data mining has become. For example, somehow Mark Zuckerberg found out that I took a business trip to Ireland in 1998. Facebook wasn't launched until six years later, so I could not have posted photos of my trip or published my travel itinerary, not that I would be stupid enough to advertise to burglars when I'm not around to protect my home. I am 99.9999+ percent certain that I have never mentioned that little tidbit of information on Facebook. So, the question is, how did Facebook find out about my trip and mention it as one of the fun facts about me that others can learn without my intentional consent. Ah, but there's the rub, isn't it? To what have I consented, when I clicked "Agree" to their book-length terms of service agreement? I understood that the social media application was going to use information learned about me from my use of Facebook and the internet itself to help advertisers market products to me while I'm using their product. Again, information about my travel to Ireland can't even be on my own computer, because my laptop … [Read more...]
A solution to the NCAA problem
The NCAA has a fairly serious problem, but I have an idea about how to fix it. I am a fan of college football. Specifically, I am a Georgia Bulldog. Yesterday, my favorite team won an exciting Peach Bowl game against the University of Cincinnati Bearcats on a last second field goal. If Cincinnati had won the game, pundits would have been called a stunning victory. However, Bulldog fans had a valid excuse ready if we'd lost--a number of NFL draft-eligible "star" players chose not to play in the game, Now if Georgia had been contending for a national championship, it is far more likely that Eric Stokes, Ben Cleveland, Monty Rice, and other starting players who skipped the game would have been on the field. While many fans complain about these players missing a football game due to fear of injury, I would like to remind the complainers of the serious injuries suffered by the great South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore, or more recently, the serious knee injury to Miami QB D'Eriq King in the 2020 Cheezit Bowl. Those two examples prove the players have a valid concern, but there is a third injured player whose name I'll never forget: Devon Gales, the inspiring young player from Southern University tragically paralyzed in Sanford Stadium while blocking on a kickoff return against the Bulldogs. The NCAA is a very wealthy organization. There is a lot of money involved in college sports, especially college football, and players have demanded they get paid to play. The counterargument to their demand has historically been to point to the value of a college … [Read more...]
Crazy talk
I'm a writer, so it should be no surprise that my preferred means of communication is to put it in writing, especially for any really important information. You can't edit a conversation. It's easy to forget a crucial point to be made when the words are allowed to flow freely from our mouths. When we speak, we might say too much, or not say enough. We might choose our words hastily and only create more confusion instead of clarifying a point. We might make the same mistakes in written form, but we have fewer excuses because the act of writing (and especially proofreading) gives us the best opportunity to organize our thoughts into concise and clear rhetoric that is coherent and persuasive. By nature I'm a very verbal (and often verbose) person, and have little problems giving a speech or presenting arguments in formal debate when the situation calls for it, but I will painstakingly prepare and organize my thoughts even to the point of scripting the jokes, for one simple reason--my mouth often gets me into trouble. Even though I'm a Southerner and speak with a drawl, the words can come out of my mouth considerably faster than my filter's capacity for screening them. The problem has never been getting me to speak, but my knowing when it's time for me to shut up. Like Clint Eastwood famously said in a scripted line for a movie, "A man's got to know his limitations." This brings me to attorney Lin Wood, who recently has been shown encouraging Georgia Republican voters to boycott the runoff elections unless David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler call for a special … [Read more...]
Enemy of the People
Everybody's read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, right? The mainstream media today reminds me of the marketing department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, which Douglas Adams described as "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes." Okay, so maybe the "against the wall" bit was a little harsh, but "mindless jerks" is right on the money. The mainstream media have forgotten what their jobs are: to report the news. Instead, the media have been acting as the marketing department for the Democratic Party. And the phrase "mindless jerk" does conjure up a mental image of CNN's Jim Acosta. Without any corroborating evidence for the infamous dossier produced by Christopher Steele, the media pretended for most of four years that there might be some substance to the idiotic "Russian collusion" conspiracy nonsense that was used to undermine the Trump administration. Yet when evidence of compromising behavior by Hunter Biden was revealed shortly before the election, the media refused to investigate the story. Ideally, the media should be non-partisan. Yet they behave like ravenous wolves in pursuit of conservative politicians, and obsequious boot-lickers to liberals. No reporter complained when Joe Biden mysteriously disappeared for days at a time from the campaign trail; the toughest question he was asked in the days leading up to the election was not about Hunter's laptop or the emails suggesting he'd received millions of dollars in Chinese money, but what flavor ice cream he'd purchased, or what sort of cat he … [Read more...]
Governor Brian Kemp MUST immediately call for a special session of the Georgia Legislature
The name of Lin Wood ought to jar your memory...he's the attorney suing ABC, CBS, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone magazine on behalf of Nick Sandmann, for defamation after the media portrayed the teenager as aggressive and threatening toward a Native American, until video evidence indisputably proved otherwise. Wood has already successfully negotiated settlements of multimillion dollar defamation lawsuits brought against CNN and The Washington Post, who wisely decided to minimize their potential financial loss rather than take their chances in court. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2OHdRUM9Gc&feature=emb_logo In this explosive interview on the John Fredericks show, Lin Wood boldly alleged that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger are both corrupt and called for a special session of the Georgia state legislature before any votes are certified from the November election, citing the fact that Raffensperger lacked the authority to unilaterally make changes to how absentee and mail-in votes would be handled in the 2020 presidential election; that power exclusively belongs to the Georgia legislature. State Senator Brandon Beach has also demanded that Governor Kemp call the special session. The excuse given for Raffensperger illegally usurping the legislature in violation of the Constitution has been COVID-19, naturally. Why doesn't that constitute "Chinese interference" in the 2020 elections? All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good people to stand by and do nothing. Edmund Burke, or somebody else just as … [Read more...]
