Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Song of the South, Occupy Wall Street, and Why Conspiracies Are So Hard

By Jason Neal

NOT Coming Soon to a Theater Near You - As part of their latest parental extortion scheme, Disney over the course of the next few years will be opening the vault to all their hits for limited engagements via 3D. But don't expect 'Song of the South' coming around anytime soon ....or ever. Because remember reading about those good old, halcyon days right after the Civil War where the South was bastion for racial peace and equality? Neither did anyone else. Which is why Disney wishes it could magically make every VHS tape of it still out there disappear like The Jonas Brothers.

The 1946 live action/animation film set in the Reconstruction Era of the South where an elderly Black sharecropper Uncle Remus regales small children and animated furry animals with stories of Southern folklore. While most famous for its Oscar winning song 'Zippity Doo Daa', its also noted for its cringe inducing effect caused by its racial stereotypes and slave/master overtone that managed to be blissfully ignorant of history making it the SECOND most politically incorrect movie of all time.

FUN BONUS FACT: You'll notice I said 'Song of the South' was the SECOND most politically incorrect movie of all time. That honor goes to the 1971 film 'The Day the Clown Cried' a fun, whimsical Holocaust tale starring Jerry Lewis as a concentration camp political prisoner forced dress as a clown to be a pied piper for Jewish children and lead them to their deaths in a gas chamber. Worst part was how the movie was going to be marketed as a dark comedy (I'm not kidding). Not surprisingly the producer after seeing finished result immediately canceled its release and ordered all reels and negatives destroyed. Looking back it probably saved Jerry Lewis' career so his awkward performances are reserved for his lounge act.

Casual Sex? Yeah there's an app for that!  - Based off the popular gay app Grindr, now comes Blendr for heterosexuals which shows the GPS location of anyone in your immediate area looking for sex at that very precise moment. So say it's lunchtime and your looking for a little 'somethin,somethin'. Click on the green dot to message whomever and assuming they have (choose one) no standards/addiction to crack/zero impulse control...bada bing....you're back a work...with hopefully no need for Anti-Viral medication. It's like a McDonald's drive thru for nymphomaniacs.

US Congress, only slightly more popular than Penis Cancer - According to Gallup, the approval rating for Congress stands at a meteoric 12%. The real question here is who are those 12% of people who actually think this current crop of lawmakers is doing a good job. Seriously did they poll mental wards and retirement homes?

Permission Granted to Serve Fabulously - Do Not Ask, Do Not Tell was officially phased out allowing gay and lesbians to serve in the military openly. Also as we approach the 10 year anniversary of gay marriage slowly becoming legal, a helpful guide of what has transpired thus far:
Funny how civilized society hasn't collapsed

Not that Steve Jobs needs any more eulogizing, but... - Did you know the Apple IIe computer helped end the Cold War? In December 1988 Soviet Premiere Mikhail Gorbachev came to New York City for a summit with President Reagan and newly elected Bush the Senior. Legend has it all three visited a elementary school in Harlem where Gorbachev was given a tutorial on how to use a personal computer...by an 8 year old. So stunned was Gorbachev by the ease of which a kid could learn new information from this revolutionary machine, he suddenly realized his country had nothing technologically of that magnitude. And for any hope of Russia to compete with the West things back home were going to have to change. Thus it was at that moment the seeds of Soviet Union's demise were sown.

But Seriously, Steve Jobs doesen't need anymore eulogizing - While I believe Jobs belongs in the pantheon of Edison, The Wright Bros, and Galileo. Let's not get carried away because was still a human after all. Which is a polite way of saying Jobs could be sort of a prick. The reason I never became Apple fanboy was all of those shiny new devices were made in nearly slave labor like conditions in China. So while his vision of personal computing liberated many, it also trapped others. Plus people who worked him said he had a mean streak the size of Haley's comet.

Wherein I examine the most pressing question of the Amanda Knox Trial -With Amanda Knox acquitted by a Italian Supreme Court for allegedly going OJ on her college roommate while as an exchange student in the country. The biggest unanswered question surrounding her case is not about the dysfunctional Italian legal system or even if she did it. For men at least it's would you...like...you know...do her?

To assess this question we'll utilize a scientific method called 'Rachael Ray Units'. This is the measurement of how many alcoholic beverages would you need to consume for TV host Rachael Ray to become attractive or in this case Knox. For Amanda Knox the results are 6.2 (as in needing 6 beers and 2 shots) which puts her in Sarah Jessica Parker territory.

Quite possibly the Greatest Waste of Time..EVER - A website called http://blackboardsinporn.blogspot.com/ is devoted to evaluating the content written on blackboards in porn scenes using the typical student-teacher scenario. No actual nudity or sex shown so it's SFW. Just grading whether what's on the blackboard is correct. God Bless America!

Why Conspiracies Are Hard To Pull-Off - A statistical theory from entsophy shows a formula for why:    

To see the real reason, one must understand the central tension of a ringleader.  If you increase the number of conspirators for greater effectiveness, you also increase the chance of failure.  Moreover, effectiveness increases slowly as you add conspirators but the chance of failure increases rapidly.
This can be formulated in a model.  Let n be the number of conspirators and let p= probability that a single conspirator will not cause failure, either through disloyalty or incompetence.  Then
   
Chance of Success = p(n)
Effectiveness = An

Or in other words the more number of conspirators, the higher chance of relying on someone who is a complete dipshit or someone who cannot keep their mouth shut. Which is why I never really believe conspiracy theories involving our Gov't since that would require immense cooperation and sophistication among large bureaucracies without a single person screwing it up or blabbing about it. If you've gone through airport security lately you know this is not possible.

But some Conspiracies Succeed Splendidly - What if I told you that there was secret organization made up of powerful Billionaires and corporations who conspire with key politicians to influence and pass laws in all 50 State Legislatures across the country. You'd would say I should be fitted for tin-foil hat, right?

Let me introduce you to ALEC or American Legislative Exchange Council. A seemingly benign sounding organization but directly responsible for a large volume of legislation in Statehouses across the country all of which is aimed at benefiting large corporations. Founded more than 20 years ago by the various moneyed interests of this country who decided it easier to influence laws they wanted at the State level which often go unnoticed as opposed to the Federal level. So in exchange for upwards of a $25,000 membership fee (otherwise you have to call it a bribe), corporate donors can introduce laws they want enacted to legislators from all 50 states at one time. Then politicians take the proposed legislation back home and introduce it as their own idea and in return are rewarded with nice, fat campaign donations in doing their master's bidding. And thanks to Supreme Court case Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission which now allows unlimited corporate donations its pretty sweet investment for America's economic royalty.

Here's a sampling of how it works. Do you think it's coincidence that stripping collective bargaining rights for Public employees were introduced in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Tennessee almost all in the same month? Of course not, it came from ALEC. Why? So the For-Profit Education Industry can begin the process of taking over Public Education without the interference from those pesky teacher unions. But since this organization is technically not breaking the law the real conspiracy is why isn't the media covering this?

Some investment advice to the Wall Street Bankers: 'Be Afraid....Be Very Afraid' - I have no idea whether The Occupy Wall Street will lead to much needed financial reforms. But it has already accomplished the one thing the Financial Barons fear the most. Remember the film 'Beetlejuice' where the title character can't make materialize to wreak havoc unless you say his name three times? The Beetlejuice for Economic Ruling Class is when Americans start paying attention to three little words..Growing.Income Inequality...Which OWP just rocketed into the spotlight.


One little chart pretty much sums up the past 30 years, where rich got richer mostly at the expense of the Working and Middle Class. Though no one in the other 99% really noticed because our stagnated wages were masked the influx of cheap credit, 'affordable' housing, and consumer items made by cheap labor elsewhere. Plus we always seemed to be divided by petty grievances like Race, The Culture Wars, etc while preoccupied by absurdities in Popular Culture to really notice that Wall Street's insatiable need for higher and higher profits resulted in jobs moving overseas and evaporation of the American Dream for those who still had jobs.

But this recession has brought things into sharp focus because it was created by Wall Street's greed and whose benefactors collectively have suffered nothing as a result of it. And I have a feeling the old red herring of 'class warfare'' and 'socialism' often levied by the 1% and their enablers at Fox News just aren't going to work this time. The Trickle Down Theory that savings the rich get from low taxes will eventually 'trickle down' to the rest of us which formed basis of US economic policy since 1980 simply hasn't happened. If the ruling class think they can get away telling the nation to accept steep budget cuts, high unemployment, diminished social safety net while they get lower taxes. Then they snorted way too much cocaine with high priced hooker last night.