cognitive dissonance
I found this Village Voice article confusing:
Barely a year after their reporters won a Pulitzer prize for exposing data mining of ordinary citizens by a government spy agency, New York Times officials had some exciting news for stockholders last week: The Times company plans to do its own data mining of ordinary citizens, in the name of online profits.The news didn’t make everyone all googly-eyed. In fact, some people at the paper’s annual stockholders meeting in the New Amsterdam Theatre exchanged confused looks when Janet Robinson, the company’s president and CEO, uttered the phrase “data mining.” Wasn’t that the nefarious, 21st-century sort of snooping that the National Security Agency was doing without warrants on American citizens? Wasn’t that the whole subject of the prizewinning work in December 2005 by Times reporters Eric Lichtblau and James Risen?
And hadn’t the company’s chairman and publisher, Pinch Sulzberger, already trotted out Pulitzers earlier in the program?
Yes, yes, and yes. But Robinson was talking about money this time.
I understand that data mining is evil if the Bush administration is behind it, but perfectly fine if the NYT is behind it. This is just a specific instance of the general rule that X is evil if the Bush administration is behind it. What made me do a double take was that this was published in the Village Voice. Will wonders never cease?
Posted on May 10th, 2007 by pwyll
Filed under: politics
Entries RSS
The wonders will cease when you start paying attention to the facts that George W. Bush and his henchmen are shredding the fabric of our Jefferson Democracy and also using the blood of our children drying in the Mesopotamian sun to do it, inter alia.
You might start by reading George Tenent’s new book.
Do you mean this book?
Oh Paco;
how soon we forget our own Jefferson sent the Marines under Stephen Decatur off to Tripoli when we were a young nation. The same sun was shining then.
Dooley
Funny you should mention it; it gives me the occasion to to in a second link, Jefferson Versus the Muslim Pirates, by guess who.
The mystical elegance of discussion, rather than polemical diatribe, in consideration of the important issues of the day.
Grazie; Allora
Former CIA Director Tenent’s book is entitled “At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA”. See http://www.amazon.com/At-Center-Storm-Years-CIA/dp/0061147788/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-2445760-1971047?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1178951448&sr=1-1
Dear Dr. D,
Re: “The sun was shining then.”
Instant Karma
–by John Ono Lennon
Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna knock you right on the head
You better get yourself together
Pretty soon you’re gonna be dead
What in the world you thinking of
Laughing in the face of love
What on earth you tryin’ to do
It’s up to you, yeah you
Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna look you right in the face
Better get yourself together darlin’
Join the human race
How in the world you gonna see
Laughin’ at fools like me
Who in the hell d’you think you are
A super star
Well, right you are
Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Well we all shine on
Ev’ryone come on
Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna knock you off your feet
Better recognize your brothers
Ev’ryone you meet
Why in the world are we here
Surely not to live in pain and fear
Why on earth are you there
When you’re ev’rywhere
Come and get your share
Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Yeah we all shine on
Come on and on and on on on
Yeah yeah, alright, uh huh, ah
Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Yeah we all shine on
On and on and on on and on
Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Yeah we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
[Emphasis added]
Happy Trails!
Paco