Signs of the Apocalypse: Kristen Stewart to Star in a Rom-Com Version of "1984"

I don't want to life on this planet anymore.

"Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart: The effect doth operate another way."

The line from Shakespeare seems fitting for this.  Do recall this too.

Government Literary Stimulus!

Read up, bookworms!  

Here's an accompanying bon mot: "It should be a point of consensus that any chief executive that sends the public flocking into the loving arms of Orwell and Rand is probably not doing the job correctly." Heh.

Taiwanese News Animators Vs. NSA Snooping

Dystopian Literature or Current Events?

Buzzfeed - yes, Buzzfeed, home of cute baby animals and celebrity gossip - wants to know if you can tell the difference between Orwell and Obama.

Fill In That Scandal-a-Palooza Wildcard Bracket, People

This scandal bracket was supposed to be a wry joke.  Well, nobody's laughing now as we know that we can definitely fill in that last wild card bracket with the news about the NSA and Verizon.  

People are furious, and they should be.  Don't give us that stupid argument that if we've done nothing wrong, then we've nothing to fear from government agencies snooping around.  Secret blanket surveillance is not OK.  This isn't even targeted.  This isn't about people suspected of wrongdoing.  The NSA's just indiscriminately scooping up everything on everybody.  Anyway, see this and this, which pithily snarks, "from the Verizon: home-to-nearly-100-million-terrorism-suspects! dept."

Oh, by the way, am I the only one starting to get a case of "scandal fatigue"?  Another day, another mess in the news ... Hey, government overreach?  Must be Thursday.

Also, Rand Paul.

UPDATE: But wait, there's more!

Kill Lists and the "Disposition Matrix"

This Washington Post piece is racing across the Internet.  Take a look. Via Wired's Danger Room.  So where's the outrage about Obama's institutionalizing program of drones and ever-expanding targeted killings? Oh, and is it just me, or does "disposition matrix" sound positively Orwellian?

Thoughts on a Surveillance Society

Hitchens on Kim's North Korea

Even in his absence Christopher Hitchens is still on point.  See this 2005 piece in which Hitchens visits North Korea and describes it as being worse than Orwell's dystopia from 1984.  Read the whole thing.


UPDATE: While we're at it, read Havel on North Korea too.

Life Imitates Satire: Occupy San Francisco Goes Into Banking

Bwahahahaha!  Is it the "inevitable culmination"?   If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!  And somehow I can't help thinking, "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

Quote of the Day: the Idiocy of Some Intellectuals

British physician Theodore Dalrymple sums up one part of our current so-called intelligentsia's trouble:

The avoidance of the obvious is an occupational hazard for intellectuals, because the obvious threatens them with redundancy. One might have thought that it was perfectly obvious that there were deep psychological currents in suicide bombing, and equally obvious that there us widespread greed and incontinence during epidemics of speculative behaviour. Therefore it is only natural that intellectuals should be found who would argue precisely the opposite, that deep motives are in fact shallow and shallow ones deep.     

It's positively Orwellian. Look, there is nothing so obvious that an "intellectual" won't utterly misunderstand it, and there is nothing so stupid that an "intellectual" won't believe it.  There is practically nothing so pernicious that a self-proclaimed elite won't espouse it in the effort to separate himself from those whom he (or she) considers to be the great unwashed masses. Now wasn't I just saying that the ostensible leadership class right now is utterly useless?  There is, of course, also this.

Jon Stewart on Obama's Deficit Speech

I already took my potshot here, but Jon is just hilarious as he disassembles the rhetorical nonsense.  You get bonus points, Jon, sweetie, for including a shout-out to Orwell. (Slight content warning at the end of the video, though.)

The Daily Show - Slashdance - Democratic Deficit Reduction Plan
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Amazon Apologizes for Kindle Debacle

Update on the Kindle debacle: At least this is an actual apology, not the wishy-washy "non-apology apology" that we so often get. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos eats his humble pie, so I give him credit for that.

Here's some proper groveling for public relations:

This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our "solution" to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.

With deep apology to our customers,

Jeff Bezos

Founder & CEO

Amazon.com

Irony Overload: the Amazon Kindle Debacle -- Plus Commentary!

In a nutshell: Amazon recently deleted copies of George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 from the Kindles of its customers. Seriously. 1984.

OK, now check out this analysis, which contains commentary on Amazon's "lawyerspeak" response from someone surnamed . . . OK, wait for it . . . KAFKA.

I can't make this stuff up!

Anyway, fabulous quote from the article:

Information-controlling companies want to avoid the label Orwellian, but it certainly doesn't help when the thing you're being Orwellian about is the work of George Orwell.

More here from an unhappy technophile.

UPDATE: In defense of Amazon?