-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Sep 14, 2009, at 1:30 AM, Robert X. Cringely wrote:

Either that or you simply like to insult people you don't know.

Yes. Yes, I do. I'm even good at it sometimes. :-) I also effusively praise people I *don't* actually know. Like, say, Norman Borlaug. Or you, on occasion. Most of the erst-"modern" media, as currently constituted, is a moral sewer, "Bob". The internet, present company :-), and some cable channels excepted. And it's not the management, or the technical people, or the advertising salespeople. It's the very people who create the "news", which *is*, as I said, a veritable cloaca maxima: of thinly-disguised neofeudal Marxism. What? You thought I meant Dissipation? Debauchery? Anchor-porn? Or maybe you thought I meant "capitalism", "greed", "oppression" of the "workers", or some other grotesque salad of Marxist loan-words? Nope. Though when one actually lies for a living it must prey on the soul sometimes. And, it's probably even worse to actually believe the progress- and initiative- destroying collectivist *superstition* that the so- called mainstream media emets these days. To paraphrase Scott Adams (speaking of someone else who destroys initiative and progress...), people like Tom Brokaw and almost everyone fronting for the government controlled leftist media "...combine pomposity and a command of trivia and try to pass it off as intelligence" And the media *is* leftist and government-controlled, in the case of of Mr. Brokaw's medium, from the day in 1934 when Roosevelt (a leftist...) bamboozled the American people into letting him expropriate the airwaves and set up the FCC. Yes, I'm sure Mr. Brokaw worked very hard his whole career at writing thirty-second digests of news stories from the front page of the New York Times, or from Time, or the AP, or Granma, or Tass, or wherever, and reading them into a camera while slathered in pancake makeup with a bunch of klieg lights making his face grimace into that famous, rugged, far-seeing visage. All while maintaining enough of an air of absolute informed authority to keep his ratings up and sell elderly-care products to a continually-declining audience. Particular to *my* observation of him in action that day, however, was his *entire* "greatest generation" history-regurgitation schtick, the *height* of hypocrisy, in light of his unceasing efforts to undermine the military effectiveness of his *own* country, pretty much every weeknight of his adult life. It was almost impossible for me to keep my gorge down while watching him spew that stuff into the faces of the *next* generation, all while a bunch of crypto-commie academics drooled adoringly at him, nodding sagely at his now old -- and, okay, dissipated -- far-seeing visage. So, no, I'm sure Mr. Brokaw is a *delightful* person to down a few beers with, or stand in a government-restricted trout-stream to fly-fish with. Or sit on a dais with while he collects another honorary degree. But, to me, he represents the very business end of a, yes, moral, sewer. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?... ;-) Cheers, RAH -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 9.10.0.500 wsBVAwUBSq5FfcUCGwxmWcHhAQEghgf8CsGJpvqscZkKfqLlTbgSDLd64NytL5HC 04RzoJ9qjTdKMBV2Ugd6mOD3FdwLQdX5GgHmlG8wg0eteyclx7mCq1vIrEZEc/EJ msJYJ7bCrCQTmA/EeRM4w/vDDS/VCNtK7gJHXMOU3RJvMqftXj6WEBr7HGmENsvw jQ57OYz1bfEsHE60OkSghPnmRZs++EywTMTRDmcflUwYtjFMe7BQVgV2WF/3AKtN r3BhCOLiWecsKxe1BtxEH1d3j6+/+czYwpyJlpmzcwto9fPkO8+6DnyZNVyJ8FU5 l5T/IOmxX0c2gL6niOSt315jVVR40D4qeCXnSwvfbBMraTUUg2PNBg== =A/to -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----