Sunday, October 31, 2010

Mainstream Relief Valves #17 - George Carlin

Every self-respecting Conspiraloon has already seen the following clip numerous times but it is so beautifully expressed that I've never really tired of it

It's taken from 'Life is Worth Losing', a HBO Special by George Carlin





And what struck me the last time I watched the clip is the enthusiasm of the audience response to Carlin's routine.

In a handful of minutes Carlin, articulately and passionately, summarises the essence of Our predicament. The crowd clearly loves being told about how it is getting f*cked in the rear end and whoops and cheers every time Carlin pauses for breath


And then?

They all went home

And presumably carried on getting f*cked in the rear end as usual

Which, if you think about it for a moment, is quite peculiar behaviour


'You're getting f*cked!'

'Ha Ha, That's so true. Guffaw Guffaw'

'No really. I mean it!'

'Tee Hee. Got to go home now so that I can get up tomorrow and get f*cked some more. Ho Ho'



And if you think about it for a while longer, it's simple enough to figure out why Carlin, and people like Carlin, were and are allowed to have their little rants


Just as long as they're not offering any viable alternatives


44 comments:

Parapacem said...

Tryin' to construct a conspiracy theory 'round Carlin, are we? :-)

"Just as long as they're not offering any viable alternatives"

Yes, Carlin was kind of a relief valve, but there is the other side to this. There are and have been (and always will be) those who are trying to give a viable alternative. They call themselves Socialists, Communists, Social-Democrats, Progressives, and so on. Hell, in the US even true, classical Liberals can give a more viable alternative than those in power. But they are and have been given a bad name. Slapped the label Commie or Liberal (regardless whether they actually are liberals).

And in the end, any little progress you can make (e.g. be it a little step towards actual health care) will "ease the suffering" of the people and hold the system better together. So shouldn't we do it then?

(A bit incoherent rambling here; I am wasting my time here instead of finishing a leaflet against imperialism. So are you my relief valve now?)

Stef said...

I wouldn't argue againist that

Unless you were just doing the equivalent of hiding a tumour with a sticking plaster

Stef said...

"So are you my relief valve now?"

lol

Stef said...

meanwhile, in other news, more tWoT comedy gold...

The Observer understands that the East Midlands device was so sophisticated an examination by experts initially suggested it did not contain explosives. "Even when it was examined, the sniffer dogs couldn't detect it," a security source said. "It was only when they [forensic experts] had a second look at it they realised what it was."

the Nonabombers are becoming ever more devious

gyges said...

In comments to a previous post someone used the word taggant. I didn't know what this meant but thickie-pedia revealed all.

One particular taggent 2,3-dimethyl-2,3-dinitrobutane, "usually called DMDNB or DMNB. Dogs are very sensitive to it and can detect as little as 0.5 parts per billion in the air, as can specialised ion mobility spectrometers."

I wondered how it was synthesised and found an interesting patent (no link to be provided due to section something-or-other of the Terrorism Act 2000) which used an enzyme from horse raddishes in order to effect a key coupling step.

Fascinating from the pov of a chemist.

Anyway, just imagine posting air mail dusted with some of the taggent. It would make the taggent redundant with regard to sniffer dogs etc and bring all flights to a halt 'til the Stasi worked out what was going on.

If I were a terrorist, this is the sort of thing that I'd do; what's the point of trying to kill people when the state of fear generated by the previous gov can be so easily exploited.

Tom said...

Funnily enough I found George on an old MP3 player this afternoon. He was a cynical old bugger and wouldn't be offering to provide any solutions.

Nevertheless, he was an impeccable pedant about the English language and had a rather good singing voice to boot. That's got to count for something.

Anonymous said...

Saying 'it's all bullshit' is telling people what they want to hear, and serves to maintain that status quo.

If he told them it was All True, then they might actually think about it and get pissed (off; possibly both).

BTW, have you not heard Carlin slip 'too many people' and 'single child family' into his routine?

Stef said...

GC on enviromentalism and saving the planet

Stef said...

whatever Carlin had to say about the over-population myth he was positively Catholic in comparison with Doug Stanhope

Charlie Brooker loves his arse

Stef said...

20 years ago we had Bill Hicks

This generation gets Doug Stanhope

This is not what I would consider an example of progress

Stef said...

Just a bit more Bill...

It's interesting to ponder how he'd fit in today's media landscape

Shame he died so young

Tom said...

Doug Stanhope - he's the Alex Jones you can enjoy between meals.

The Antagonist said...

It's interesting to ponder how he'd fit in today's media landscape

Did something change? Much?

gyges said...

"Once debtors got inside, they were fooled into believing they were in a courtroom with a judge, but the whole thing was a fake,"

... fascinating.

It reminds me of Italy, a couple of years back, when the police were taking orders from bogus police.

stef said...

When you fly into Romania you're handed an illustrated flier which points out the differences between real policemen you'll meet on the streets and fake ones

no such guidance in the UK for spotting fake game show hosts

stef said...

of course, if you were a Freeman on the Land sort you'd argue that 'real' (admiralty) courts are bullshit anyway, unless you unknowingly volunteer to submit to their jurisdiction

stef said...

e.g. http://www.fmotl.com/

The Antagonist said...

Suspicious Package to U.S. not from Yemen; Yemenia Air Cargo Director
* Yemen Post Staff

Mohammed al-Shaibah, Air Cargo Director for Yemenia Airways said to Yemen Post, "No UPS cargo plane left Yemeni lands over the land 48 hours. These accusations are false and baseless."
He added, "No UPS or DHL cargo packages heading to Chicago through Yemen took place in the last 48 hours as well."

"All packages are checked very carefully in Yemen, and there is no evidence to prove that this package came through Yemen."

CNN reported the suspicious package, which contained a "manipulated" toner cartridge, tested negative for explosive material, the source said, but it led to heightened inspection of arriving cargo flights in Newark, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and a UPS truck in New York.

Anonymous said...

Check it out... now a repentant al qaeda member turns himself in and owns up:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11666272

Anonymous said...

cheers stef for this:

http://www.fmotl.com/

'the informer atgpress' (site is now down, but people have put up his interviews on youtube, fascinating bloke, albeit from a US perspective) & tpuc.org are worth checking out too.

Anonymous said...

The bullshit over this bomb from Yemen is hitting ludicrous heights, also on the German media.It would be funny if it wasn´t so sad.
I guess too many people have forgot the boogie man ALI QUAEDA

stef said...

cheers stef for this: http://www.fmotl.com/

also...

http://1215.org/

http://worldfreemansociety.org/

though neither these links nor the previous one constitute a thumbs up from myself

I haven't had a chance to really look into this stuff, though I suspect there is at least a grain of truth at the heart of it

I also suspect that if you try implementing these principles and put a foot, even so ever so slightly, wrong the Powers That Be will rip your face off

A bit like trying to summon a Demon to do your bidding. That sort of thing

Anonymous said...

gyges
I wonder if you meant this?
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6911328/description.html

(I want to win a cigar)

stef said...

I've been expending my Tonabomber related energies on comments underneath Craig Murray's posts on the subject

He gets a much better class of troll and denial of service attack than I ever do. No doubt in recognition of his much higher profile. That would seem to be where the action is at times like this

Anonymous said...

More hateful sh*t from (who else)...

"Saudi Arabia's shadowy connection"
Frank Gardner

'shadowy' uuuuuuooh!

- lwtc247

stef said...

Frank Gardner is positively Islamic in comparison with what Melanie Phillips is currently puking out

I honestly don't have the stomach to link to it

She's an Orwell Prize winner btw

Eric would have enjoyed the irony

stef said...

...and Frank, of course, is a leading expert on shadowy connections

gyges said...

Two points,

(i)@Anon 1 Nov 22:54. Metaphorical cigar on the way. Amongst the enzymes listed, one of the more popular is horse raddish peroxidase. Soon they'll be a War Against The Horse Raddish, any one caught growing or buying horse raddish will be classed as sinister (in reference to Stef's earlier post).

(ii) May I re-apply for membership of the Conspiraloon Alliance? I ask, because, forgive me would-be-fellow loons but I have sinned. I believed a news report with regard to the toner bombs.

The BBC report here says,

"The cartridge contained PETN and plastic explosives mixed with lead azide, they said. Lead azide is an explosive commonly used in detonators."

Analysis of the above statement shows it to be patent nonsense (see later) but the news reports I heard (Radio4 and Radio5 lies) didn't express it as clearly as the above. They simply said that the bombs contained PETN and Lead Azide. They offended my ear my mispronouncing azide each time they reported.

On the basis of this I assumed that there was a detonator present.

Forgive my egregious error conspiraloons.

Returning to the BBC report above and construing it literally, suggests two questions. Why would lead azide be mixed with the PETN and how was it known that the lead azide was mixed?

Neither of the above two questions stand up to scrutinity. (Yes, I know that the azide group has a distinctive infra-red absorbance but how did they take the sample for analysis?)

Stef said...

As with any evangelical enterprise The Alliance holds a special place in its collective heart for repentant sinners

And we all slip occasionally...

In conversation with a charter member of the Alliance a few days ago he said something like

'even the Guardian wouldn't let my comment through'

How I laughed

Stef said...

I love the way the improvised explosive formerly known as PETN has become 'the difficult to detect PETN'

This would be presumably to account for the fact that British explosives experts took six hours to find the stuff hidden within the Tardis like interior of a toner cartridge

gyges said...

"a charter member" even a charter member!

Thank you for allowing me to repent

<thinks of> R v Saunders and Archer </thinks of>

and to become a humble apprentice again. I promise to work harder and perhaps one day ... become a fellow of the craft.

Stef said...

lol

I think you passed that level some time ago

33rd degree status is surely just around the corner

Stef said...

/ snags 33rd comment slot

R v Saunders and Archer

gyges said...

R v Saunders and Archer is a depressingly sad case.

A bloke wanted to kill his wife. He asked his mates advice. His mate prepared a poisoned apple; the bloke left it on the dinner table. His daughter (from memory 9 yrs old) came in and, while he looked on, she ate the apple. He was rumbled and he and his mate were hung. His mate's protestations were along the lines of, but I didn't mean to kill her. The court said that he should have repented; that is, not gone along with the crime and he would've been relieved of liability. He didn't repent; he kept his mouth shut, the child died.

(Told you it was depressing).

paul said...

Surely the best explosive for a toner cartridge is something that looks like toner?

Hmm, whats black, powdery and explosive? Damn, Ive got nothing.

gyges said...

Slight change of subject.

Nicholas Nasim Taleb once upset the banksters by calculating that the banks, in aggregate over the years of all of their combined existence, have never made a profit.

Yes they've made profits from year to year but these profits get wiped out (and then some) when the bank goes bankrupt (mmm, must look up the etymology of the latter word and see if it can reveal anything).

Anyway, along that vain the Guardian Data Blog has just come up with http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/nov/02/failed-banks-map-us data that lists the failure of banks in the US from 1935 to present.

If you download the data and draw a bar chart of total deposits (y axis) against year (x axis) you'll see a bit of noise every now and then from 1935 to present. Within that noise is a massive peak, you've got to see it to believe.

Now, I now about fractional reserve and Bretton Woods and all of that with Tricky Dicky but ... F***king 'ell.

Anonymous said...

@gyges:

Check out Damon Vrabel's videos regarding money:
http://csper.wordpress.com/

I think he is a good guy. Very concise, and easy to understand.

Stef said...

@paul

black pepper?

Stef said...

or some of this perhaps?

Stef said...

"Slight change of subject"

sorry, too paralysed with Fear to think of anything else

Anonymous said...

I see that the old game (for those who are bored/not partial to giving interviews) of slipping in song titles into the run of speech has been played out in the inquest of Mark Saunders, the barrister shot dead by the Met/SAS whoever.....

Policeman 'put song lyrics' in lawyer inquest evidence.

No doubt him & his colleagues had a good snigger about things, afterwards...

"Oh what a lovely terror campaign....."

Stef said...

Ok, that's pretty fucked up

But symptomatic, I would suggest, of the fact that Met/ SAS/ whatever marksmen know that investigations into state killings are a fucking joke

For some reason, I find that the selection of artistes featured in matey's testimony makes this story even more depressing

Tom said...

By contrast, James Blunt has been confessing to his warcrimes for years while the public were led to believe he was singing

gyges said...

Anon@14:49

"Check out Damon Vrabel's videos regarding money:
http://csper.wordpress.com/
"

checked out once. very useful. will re-visit.

Thanks.