Non-Prophet

Fascism has arrived and its name is Alec.

In an article by Thom Hartmann called The Ghost of Vice President Wallace Warns: "It Can Happen Here" , he quotes a 1944 New York Times article by Vice President Wallace:

" If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. ... They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead."

"The really dangerous American fascists," Wallace wrote, "are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."

That was written after the 1933 proposed military coup orchestrated by the likes of Standard Oil, Du Pont, General Motors, Chase National Bank and Goodyear Tire to overthrow the presidency of FDR. The BBC documentary on the plot suggested also that Prescott Bush, G.W. Bush's grandfather, was also involved.

The dictionary definition of fascism is as follows:

"A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

Hartmann goes on to make the following point:

Mussolini was quite straightforward about all this. In a 1923 pamphlet titled "The Doctrine of Fascism" he wrote, "If classical liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government." But not a government of, by, and for We The People - instead, it would be a government of, by, and for the most powerful corporate interests in the nation.

ALEC is the instrument by which fascism is exercised in America.

Halliburton Heading East

So is this shocking? Should we feel like our tax dollars are being sent over seas? Is there a good reason to care? Does it really matter where Halliburton locates its headquarters? I'm not so sure it does.

here:

Halliburton Co., the U.S. oilfield service giant, said on Sunday it will move its corporate headquarters and its chief executive officer to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates in an effort to expand business in the Eastern Hemisphere. Halliburton chief executive David Lesar said Halliburton was considering listing its shares on one of the Middle East bourses. It is currently listed on the New York Stock Exchange. "My office will be in Dubai, and I will run our entire worldwide operations from that office," Lesar said at an energy conference in Bahrain. "Dubai is a great business center." Halliburton, which was led by Vice President Dick Cheney from 1995-2000, did not specify what, if any, tax or political implications the move might entail.

jetBlue Speaks

From an email I received from jetBlue:

Dear JetBlue Customers,

We are sorry and embarrassed. But most of all, we are deeply sorry.

Last week was the worst operational week in JetBlue's seven year history. As a customer scheduled to be on one of our flights during this period, we know we let you down. Following the severe winter ice storm in the Northeast, we subjected you to unacceptable delays, flight cancellations, lost baggage, and other major inconveniences. The storm disrupted the movement of aircraft, and, more importantly, disrupted the movement of JetBlue's pilot and inflight crewmembers who were depending on those planes to get them to the airports where they were scheduled to serve you. With the busy President's Day weekend upon us, rebooking opportunities were scarce and hold times at 1-800-JETBLUE were unacceptably long or not even available, further hindering our recovery efforts.

Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for the anxiety, frustration and inconvenience that you experienced. This is especially saddening because JetBlue was founded on the promise of bringing humanity back to air travel and making the experience of flying happier and easier for everyone who chooses to fly with us. We know we failed to deliver on this promise to you last week.

We have begun implementing immediate corrective steps to regain your confidence in us as part of a comprehensive plan to provide better and more timely information to you, more tools and resources for our crewmembers and improved procedures for handling operational difficulties in the future. We are confident, as a result of these actions, that JetBlue will emerge as a more reliable and even more customer responsive airline than ever before.

Most importantly, we have published the JetBlue Airways Customer Bill of Rights—our official commitment to you of how we will handle operational interruptions going forward—including details of compensation. I have a video message to share with you about this industry leading action.

You deserved better—a lot better—from us last week. Nothing is more important than regaining your trust and all of us here hope you will give us the opportunity to once again welcome you onboard and provide you the positive JetBlue Experience you have come to expect from us.

Sincerely,

David Neeleman
Founder and CEO
JetBlue Airways

Sprint Is Totally Evil

I feel totally ripped off by Sprint, my mobile phone service provider. After a very reasonable 1-1/2 years, out of 2 on my contract, I went online made a change in one of the options on my service plan. I upped the number of monthly minutes I was receiving. It cost an extra $10/month, but my logic was that that would be cheaper than the extra minutes charge I'd hit myself with consistently over the last few months. Today in the mail I received a notice outlining the change in my plan. To my horror I saw that they took this opportunity to re-start my contract. They say I now have 2 years left and if I was to cancel early it'd cost me an extra $200!

After speaking with two incredibly inarticulate customer service representatives it became obvious that Sprint got me, and there is no way these fuckers are going to budge an inch. They don't even let you speak to someone who has the authority to do anything about a billing dispute. This is a scam. Sprint is evil. If for any reason you feel compelled to purchase a service from these scumbags, be very, very careful. Buyer beware.

jetBlue Loses Its Halo

I, and my 7 year old daughter, fly with jetBlue a considerable amount. I've earned multiple frequent flier flights with my True Blue membership. I have been a fan of these guys for years. Recently though I have noticed the quality of my flight experience dwindling. Other than their present apparent lack of ability to take off on time, their service has continued to be superior to the other airlines. The killer is that the prices have sucked since last summer. I've been stuck with three $600-$800 round trip tickets that were admittedly for the heavy traffic dates. Now this nightmare. I managed to miss this mess. My daughter flew last night without much of a problem, and she returns on jetBlue in two weeks. I'm thinking it might be time to research other options, or perhaps switch over to Frontier. jetBlue was the cheapest, most luxurious and most consistent, but they now need to seriously fix something. It might be too late for them to save my business.

nytimes.com:

The founder and chief executive of JetBlue Airways, his voice cracking at times, called himself “humiliated and mortified” by a huge breakdown in the airline’s operations that has dragged on for nearly a week, and promised that in the future JetBlue would pay penalties to customers if they were stranded on a plane for too long.

David G. Neeleman said in a telephone interview yesterday that his company’s management was not strong enough. And he said the current crisis, which has led to about 1,000 cancelled flights in five days, was the result of a shoestring communications system that left pilots and flight attendants in the dark, and an undersized reservation system. Until now, JetBlue and its low fares have enjoyed overwhelming popularity and customer satisfaction ratings.

The crisis began Wednesday when an ice storm hit the Eastern United States. Most airlines responded by canceling more flights earlier, sending passengers home and resuming their schedules within a day or two. But JetBlue thought the weather would break and it would be able to fly, keeping its revenue flowing and its customers happy.

On the contrary, JetBlue’s woes dragged on day after day. On Saturday night, for instance, the airline said that the 23 percent of flights it had cancelled on Saturday and Sunday would also be cancelled Monday. The confusion led to angry exchanges between customers and employees, prompting the airline to call out security personnel.

If it were a drug it would be illegal.

From csun.edu

Television Statistics According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day (or 28 hours/week, or 2 months of nonstop TV-watching per year). In a 65-year life, that person will have spent 9 years glued to the tube.
I. FAMILY LIFE

Percentage of households that possess at least one television: 99
Number of TV sets in the average U.S. household: 2.24
Percentage of U.S. homes with three or more TV sets: 66
Number of hours per day that TV is on in an average U.S. home: 6 hours, 47 minutes
Percentage of Americans that regularly watch television while eating dinner: 66
Number of hours of TV watched annually by Americans: 250 billion
Value of that time assuming an average wage of S5/hour: S1.25 trillion
Percentage of Americans who pay for cable TV: 56
Number of videos rented daily in the U.S.: 6 million
Number of public library items checked out daily: 3 million
Percentage of Americans who say they watch too much TV: 49

II CHILDREN

Approximate number of studies examining TV's effects on children: 4,000
Number of minutes per week that parents spend in meaningful
conversation with their children: 3.5
Number of minutes per week that the average child watches television: 1,680
Percentage of day care centers that use TV during a typical day: 70
Percentage of parents who would like to limit their children's TV watching: 73
Percentage of 4-6 year-olds who, when asked to choose between watching TV
and spending time with their fathers, preferred television: 54
Hours per year the average American youth spends in school: 900 hours
Hours per year the average American youth watches television: 1500

III VIOLENCE

Number of murders seen on TV by the time an average child finishes elementary school: 8,000
Number of violent acts seen on TV by age 18: 200,000
Percentage of Americans who believe TV violence helps precipitate real life mayhem: 79

IV. COMMERCIALISM

Number of 30-second TV commercials seen in a year by an average child: 20,000
Number of TV commercials seen by the average person by age 65: 2 million
Percentage of survey participants (1993) who said that TV commercials
aimed at children make them too materialistic: 92
Rank of food products/fast-food restaurants among TV advertisements to kids: 1
Total spending by 100 leading TV advertisers in 1993: $15 billion

V. GENERAL

Percentage of local TV news broadcast time devoted to advertising: 30
Percentage devoted to stories about crime, disaster and war: 53.8
Percentage devoted to public service announcements: 0.7
Percentage of Americans who can name The Three Stooges: 59
Percentage who can name at least three justices of the U.S. Supreme Court: 17

Compiled by TV-Free America
1322 18th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 887-4036

Double Stuff

I've continued researching how corporations are marketing junk to our children, programming them right under our watchful eyes and jumping at any chance to circumvent my teachings which almost always run orthagonally to theirs. I'm sure I am only starting to see the tip of the iceberg here, and I have only just begun to get upset over it. I found a good example of this in an account of how Oreo brand cookies attempted in the late 90's to become a billion dollar product in the US. They nearly made it. Thankfully, it seems like sane pressure is at least partially effective; Not in solving the problem, but in having some type of small effect that is at least visible. Then again, the Oreo is back, so maybe not.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Though the cookie sold well in supermarkets, Hardie wanted to put Oreo products in every vending machine, restaurant and convenience store. Even children's bedrooms. He wanted the cookie's image printed on kids' pajamas and toys.

"The idea was to be ubiquitous," Hardie said, "like M&M's or Coca-Cola."

To reach its youngest customers, Oreo marketers struck a deal with toymaker Fisher-Price. The Oreo Matchin' Middles game asks preschoolers to match the shapes embedded in plastic cookie wafers and filling.

Thanks to a partnership with Mattel, the Oreo School Time Fun Barbie debuted. "Let's go over to Barbie doll's place for some study time - and snack time!" the box said.

The African-American version of the doll became an unwitting collector's item, a symbol of politically incorrect marketing. ("Oreo" is sometimes used as a disparaging term for African-Americans who are seen as black on the outside and white on the inside.)

For restaurants, Nabisco offered Oreo toys, place mats and goodie bags. "The ABC's of Marketing to Kids," a Nabisco advice booklet for restaurateurs, suggested sprinkling Oreo pieces on applesauce or giving free Oreo desserts to kids who showed report cards.

Marketing to children was less controversial then. Industry conferences held sessions on pitching products in classrooms. Coca-Cola put its logo on school scoreboards. Teachers handed out book covers featuring ads for Gatorade drinks, Reebok shoes, Jolly Rancher candies.

For its part, the company created a sales gimmick so compelling that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. - well on its way to becoming the nation's largest food retailer - made the Oreo a fixture of its store entertainment strategy for years. In June 1997, all 2,300 Wal-Marts held Oreo-stacking contests for kids. To let employees know how important this was, Wal-Mart beamed to its stores a video of its CEO stacking Oreos.

.....

"The Oreo Cookie Counting Book," a cookie-shaped board book, debuted the year of the acquisition, joining M&M's, Goldfish crackers and Reese's pieces in the baby and toddler education market. "Children will love to count down as ten little Oreos are dunked, nibbled and stacked one by one ... until there are none!" the back of the book read.

Kraft also jazzed up a Nabisco Web site that attracted kids with brand-emblazoned video games - known as "advergames" - in which Oreos kept players alive longer and held the key to victory.

The games can be especially potent. Though a TV commercial typically lasts no more than 30 seconds, kids on average spend five to seven minutes playing an advergame, one study found.

Junk food looks exciting, even healthful, in some games. In one Indiana Jones-like game, players collected Oreos while fending off attackers and searching for the Temple of the Golden Oreo. "Find the golden cookie jars and your health indicator is reset to 100 percent," the rules said.