Stand Down, You’re Distorting the Vote – BONUS POST

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Obviously, given America’s current political situation, certain people will be receiving the “Flying Fickle Finger of Fate” award. Here’s a little ditty that describes the situation.

STAND DOWN, YOU’RE DISTORTING THE VOTE

Sung to the tune of “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat” from the 1955 movie-musical Guys and Dolls, with apologies to the estate of Frank Loesser.

ReadING teleprompters on Trump’s road to reelection,
by Trump’s hand
Fox NEWS played along,
and whenever they could,
they hollered Dominion’s shady!!!
But luckily patriots knew right from wrong.

For the lawsuits said stand down, stand down, you’re distorting the vote,
the lawsuits said stand down, stand down, you’re distorting the vote.
And Fox News made us wonder, how they were ever compelled to help Trump GLOAT.

Stand down, stand down, stand down, stand down, stand down, you’re distorting the vote.

We saw the lies on Trump’s road to reelection.
We found by Trump’s hand, fake electors in our midst.
And there Fox stood, handing out the hypocrisy,
but the patriots were bound to resist.

For the patriots said stand down, you’re on a power trip,
the patriots said stand down, you sore loser, get a grip.

And Fox News made us wonder if there’s truth to anything they ever wrote.
Stand down, stand down, stand down, stand down, stand down, you’re distorting the vote.

And as Trump STAFFED those fronting his reelection,
a wave of subpoenas came,
saying Trump come to COURT.
And as he shrank, he hollered, someone MAKE me!
Secret papers were found at his resort.

Patriots said stand down, stand down, you’re distorting the vote.
Said to him stand down, stand down, you’re distorting the vote.

And Fox’s slander made us WONder how they’re ever going to stay afloat.
Stand down, stand down, stand down, stand down, stand down, you’re distorting the vote.

Stand down, you’re distorting, stand down, stand down, stand down, you’re distorting,
stand down, you’re distorting, stand down, stand down, stand down, you’re distorting the vote.
Stand down, you’re distorting the vote.

Peace

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The Book of the Week is “Peace, the biography of a symbol (sic)” by ken kolsbun with michael s. sweeney (sic) published in 2008. This colorful volume described how a symbol has gone viral worldwide. That symbol is an instantaneous message that its bearer is anti-nuclear, anti-war and / or anti-discrimination.

English artist Gerald Holtom invented and mass-produced the “peace sign” (hereinafter abbreviated ps; consisting of a circle bisected by a vertical line, and on the bottom half, an upside-down “v”), to be attached to picket signs for a 1958 anti-nuclear-weapons march in Britain. Thereafter, the ps was used on what became all sorts of memorabilia, repeatedly, internationally in different kinds of protests.

After WWII, the governments of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. brainwashed many of their citizens into thinking that the other nation (the enemy (!)) would use nuclear weapons to make war. According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked a detailed list of Notes, Sources, References, Bibliography and index), beginning in December 1960, Bradford Lyttle led ps-displaying members of the Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA)– (pacifists urging American and Soviet nuclear disarmament) in a march from San Francisco to New York City, through Western Europe, that ended in Moscow in October 1961.

In November 1961, the group Women Strike for Peace (WSP; a spinoff of the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy) was afraid that usage of nuclear weapons at the newly constructed Berlin Wall would trigger more widespread hostilities and globally cause slow, painful deaths due to cancer. So they led about 50,000 ps-bearing females (many of whom had children) to go on strike; alpha males with hubris syndrome were the perpetrators of massively destructive war tools, after all.

In autumn 1963, freedom walkers teamed up with peace walkers to express their displeasure with violations of their civil rights, and nuclear weapons, through marching from Quebec to Cuba. Everyone wore the ps. Folk singer Pete Seeger joined in the activism. He said, “Songs are sneaky things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons. Penetrate hard shells.”

Read the photo-filled book to learn about numerous other people whose messaging helped spur the peace sign’s popularity through countless protests.

I Get Around – BONUS POST

This is the song Clarence Thomas is singing now.

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I GET AROUND

sung to the tune of “I Get Around” with apologies to the Beach Boys.

Resort-bound, get around, I get around,
yeah, get around, woo-woo, I get around,
I get around, get around, yacht-bound, I-didn’t write it down,
I got wined and dined, get around, resort-bound, I get around,
I’m the VIP kind, get around, yacht-bound, I’m makin’ real good friends.

I’m getting bugged and probed by some pesky foes.
I gotta find new gifts I don’t have to disclose.

My cronies and me are gettin’ TOO well known.
Yeah, the previous admins used to leave us alone.

I get around, resort-bound, get around, I get around,
yeah, get around, woo-woo, I get around,
I get around, get around, yacht-bound, I-didn’t write it down,
I got wined and dined, get around, resort-bound, I get around,
I’m the VIP kind,

conFLICTS up and down, I get around, I-didn’t write it down, resort-bound, yacht-bound, bound, bound.

We always loved Crow’s trips ’cause they’re for us elites
and we made sure our connections were ALWAYS discreet.

It’s our turn to be targeted, ’cause we’re on the far Right.
We’ve got the best PR and we’re ready to fight.

I get around, resort-bound, get around, I get around,
I get around, get around, yacht-bound, I-didn’t write it down,
I got wined and dined, get around, resort-bound, I get around,
I’m the VIP kind,

conFLICTS up and down, I get around, I-didn’t write it down, resort-bound, yacht-bound, bound, bound.

Resort-bound, get around, I get around,
yeah, get around, woo-woo, I get around
I get around, get around, yacht-bound, I-didn’t write it down,
I got wined and dined, get around, resort-bound, I get around,
I’m the VIP kind, get around, yacht-bound, I’m makin’ real good friends…

the signal and the noise (sic)

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The Book of the Week is “the signal and the noise (sic)” by nate silver (sic), published in 2012. In this volume, the author described in redundant and wordy terms, why human beings are so fallible in their predictions and forecasts (and explained the difference between the two). Basically, humans get distracted by noise, so they don’t zero in on the right signals in order to tell the future correctly.

Ironically, the author used less-than-ideal language in describing the epic failings of ratings-agencies in the 2008 financial crash. He should have pointed out that they could have mitigated, just a little, their false advertising by using better risk-assessment wording.

Silver wrote, “… trillions of dollars in investments that were rated as being almost completely safe instead turned out to be almost completely unsafe.” (Never mind the awkwardness of the word “being” in the middle of the sentence, or “it” in the middle of a sentence– so many recently published books have that kind of bad writing.) The ratings agencies should describe investments as “low-risk” or “high-risk” and use the adverbs “extremely” or “very” or “somewhat” or “slightly” as applicable, but never use the word safe.

Anyway, another irony was that the author appeared to be distracted by vast generalizations that were just noise– as cherry-picked data tend to be. He provided all sorts of line graphs and scads of data on housing bubbles. He cited a study on market prices of the “American home” completed by Robert Schiller and Karl Case that created an index based on a century’s worth of data– the years between 1896 and 1996, inclusive.

The research indicated that an inflation-adjusted home bought for $10,000 in 1896 would be worth $10,600 in 1996. Is that noise or what? Silver didn’t specify what “American home” meant. Anyhow, who would buy a home in 1896, and sell it in 1996?

Silver did admit that predictions and forecasts were less inaccurate when qualitative data supplemented statistical models. Worded facts are considerations that add real-world conditions because numbers never tell the full story in complex situations, which are dynamic.

Incidentally, at the book’s writing, he had had success in making predictions in professional baseball because: 1) an excessive amount of data on it had been collected, and 2) he claimed its rules didn’t change. The latter is not true anymore. And besides, performance-enhancing drugs, not to mention new stadiums– among other factors– have put new noise and signals in baseball statistics.

The author pointed out that more data actually made for worse accuracy in predictions in many areas of life. Technology in the form of software that can process scads and scads of data in record time has improved humans’ ability to specifically forecast severe weather, but not earthquakes. As an aside– in any area that involves linguistics, technology is overrated. A chatbot cannot comprehend complex concepts and nuanced language (like sarcasm, irony and idioms). American English is especially fraught with words that have multiple meanings, so it is highly contextual.

There are still financial crashes, gamblers who lose big-time, and “experts” who can’t modify conditions to improve the economy with certainty. Incidentally, as is well known, more and more, daily life in America has been infiltrated by politics.

Read the book to learn about futuristic pronouncements of: television pundits, professional-sports commentators and gamblers, seismologists, chess software, national-security advisers, poker players, and many others.