Friday, April 14, 2006

[political-research] Re: Currently on My Mind

24 -- a TV series starring Kiefer Sutherland.
 
I watch almost no TV of any kind -- I find it more profitable to keep pressing the "J" key in Google Reader -- but someone I respect recommended 24 to me.  I am nearly through the first season on DVD from Netflix, and am impressed: tremendous visual energy, powerful soundtrack, brilliant plotting, strong characters, subtlety and nuance in its portrayal of intelligence methods and issues.  If you haven't seen it, I recommend renting the first disc for the first season and see if it clicks in your head.
 
I would go so far as to suggest that 24 breaks entirely new ground in the long-form narrative genre in any medium -- TV, movies or novels.  I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the series, and am hoping that it maintains the same level of quality throughout.  24 is more effective, just on the level of action, than many very expensive Hollywood movies.  This is better than one expects TV to be.  On IMDB's scale, I would rate it 10 stars.
 
Kiefer Sutherland just signed a contract which will pay him $40 million for continuing the series for a few years -- he deserves every penny.
 
Two other TV series with some redeeming value I've enjoyed over the last few years -- Deadwood and Monk.  Sopranos was engaging for awhile -- now it is like something that has gone very bad in your refrigerator.  Disgusting.  I'm really surprised the Italian Anti-Defamation League isn't up in arms about this travesty.  This is not an appealing culture on any level.
 
One problem with 24 -- the non-stop torturing of one's nerves can almost be too much.  The creators of this series have refined this kind of psychological stimulation to a fine art and a science.
 
Richard Cravatts?  He strikes me as an intellectual third-rater -- not worth a second of my attention.
 
With regard to the Mearsheimer-Walt paper: I urge people to make up their own minds.  Read the full copy of the paper carefully here:
 
 
Then track the actual behavior and words of the Israel lobby for a few weeks or months at sites like:
 
1. Jewish World Review <http://www.jewishworldreview.com/>
 
 
3. The Jewish Press <http://www.thejewishpress.com/>
 
 
5. JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) <http://www.jinsa.org/>
 
The Israel lobby is very loud and very conspicuous, and its agenda, as expressed in its own words, is impossible to miss.  The Israel lobby is driven by a level of fear and hostility towards most of the world (I believe the operative term is "xenophobia") that is very difficult for the average person to begin to comprehend.  The Lobby expects -- stridently DEMANDS -- the United States to slay all its enemies, regardless of the political and economic costs to Americans.  There is a major catastrophe brewing over this mess which is probably going to end badly for everyone.
 
The endorsement by the mainstream Jewish lobby (the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations) of Christian Armageddonists like John Hagee raises the possibility that Zionism has metamorphosed into the world's most dangerous apocalyptic suicide cult.  Hagee, like all messianic Christian Zionists, is an extreme crackpot.  I just finished reading his latest book in horror.  He believes that Jerusalem is destined to become the capital, not just of the world, but of the UNIVERSE.  If America gets in the way of building Greater Israel, it will be nuked.  Perhaps it's time to start thinking about deporting dangerous characters like John Hagee, who are eager to destroy the United States on behalf of a mystical cult centered in Israel.  By associating itself with Hagee, the CPMAJO has certainly made itself an organization of interest in the world of potential terrorist threats.


LeaNder <l.l.hahn@web.de> wrote:
24?  hours a day

Another question mark:
Why is now the main culprit CIA, who got all his intelligence on  Iraq's WMD's wrong?
(this is not at all what it looked like). I keep reading it over here too, everywhere.

Only Bramford comes to mind, telling us how eager Tenet was to let Bush have what he needed. ...?

See e.g. Board discussion on the article below:

http://hnn.us/readcomment.php?id=85851&bheaders=1#85851

"It is the samelogic that used to put the CIA at the center of all evil until 9/11 andthe non-being (c. 2003) of Iraq WMDs exposed them for the incompetentdoofuses that they were--and likely still are."



http://hnn.us/articles/23498.html
History News Network:

The Paranoid View of History Infects Harvard
By Richard L. Cravatts

Mr. Cravatts. Ph.D., a lecturer at Boston University, Tufts University,and Emerson College, was the director of publications at Harvard'sKennedy School from 1976-78.

" The characterization of pro-Israel lobbying byorganizations and high-placed government officials as"manipulation"—coercive, underhanded actions whose end result would nototherwise honestly, fairly, or reasonably be achieved—this language isthe very tone that has drawn such immediate and thunderous denunciationof the piece."


>
> 24
> 9/11 Part II
> automated content analysis
> automated knowledge discovery
> automated stylistic analysis
> Brian Jonestown Massacre
> Christian Zionism
> clickstream analysis
> data mining
> false flag terrorism
> global superintelligence
> global warming
> Google Reader
> Israel lobby
> Judeo-Christian fascism
> multiverse
> music fingerprinting
> neoconservatism
> neoliberalism
> Pandora
> peak oil
> Philip Pullman
> recommender systems
> screen scraping
> self-fulfilling Armageddon
> semantic markup languages
> semantic wikis
> southern California coast
> tennis
> text mining
> Thomas Jefferson
> V for Vendetta
>

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