Thought for the Day

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=buttslinger;1821040
If Jesus taught us anything, you can lose with Grace. Like Graceland in Memphis. I don't know, Stavros, if you don't like Elvis, I have to question all your values, really, Thank you. Thank you very much.[/QUOTE]

Values don't come into it, a taste in music does. Technically, I suppose, Elvis made music, if you call that singing. In qualitative terms it would be pointless for me to continue as I don't even think this ridiculous, bloated southern queen is worth my attention.

Forgot to add: Volume IV of Richardson's biography of Picasso has not been published yet. It was given a date of 2014 but there have been numerous delays not least as Richardson is I think 95 and has poor eyesight.

[Stavros]

When I'm fixing diner and Trump comes on the radio I'm often inspired to appropriate the words of Elvis. If you were in the kitchen you'd hear me a singin':

Well they said you was high class, but that was just a lie.
Yeah, they said you was high class, but that was just a lie.
Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit an’ you ain’t no friend of mine.

Of all the things I have heard him called, 'high class' was never one of them! He has been portrayed most of the time as the man that he is: vain, deceitful, vulgar and crude.

[trish]

True enough, it's mostly Donald who says Donald is a class act and it's mostly Donald who calls his opponents low class. To be fair, his supporters do also get confused sometimes: Are solid gold faucets and knobs in the lavatory high class or just vulgar?

[chupapau]

True enough, it's mostly Donald who says Donald is a class act and it's mostly Donald who calls his opponents low class. To be fair, his supporters do also get confused sometimes: Are solid gold faucets and knobs in the lavatory high class or just vulgar?

LOL! Sure enough, quite vulgar! Do people who like ketchup fill swimming pools with it?

[Jericho]

Do people who like ketchup fill swimming pools with it?

That sounds like fun.
Added bonus, yer rusty sheriffs badge would come out nice and shiny!

[buttslinger]

Thanks, Jericho, for the thumbs down on Stravos' Elvis Dis, I hope everybody knows I like and admire Stavros and take every opportunity to tease him. The 4th Picasso book is like the vacuum nature abhors, kind of like the one in Trump's head. I see a lonely little rich boy, desperate for attention from his parents who sent him away to military school, mixed in with a narcissistic prick who just plain enjoys being a prick.
Even more alarming is the group dynamic psychosis of the Republican base.....wha' did they SLEEPWALK through 2000-2008? Was a Black President so infuriating to them they had to hire Trump to get even???
Democracy is actually still kind of an experiment, and it's being tested right now. I can recall being ecstatic having Trump as the Republican Candidate. Maybe Putin is sending subliminal messages through the dumbest American TV shows. Strange Forces are in play!!!!

[Jericho]

Thanks, Jericho, for

Whilst I do question his taste in, well, everything really, thanks in this case are unearned.

[buttslinger]

Whilst I do question his taste in, well, everything really, thanks in this case are unearned.

he he, we're all performing a thankless task here, if it weren't for the torrid t-girls, .............sigh

[trish]

torrid
adjective
1. very hot and dry.
2. full of difficulty or tribulation.

Which meaning did you have in mind? Choose carefully.

[Stavros]

Moving on from the trivial issues discussed above to something more serious: does social media change policy and the way people think, and win elections?

One of the major issues in the investigations that Robert Mueller is conducting, concerns the ability or otherwise of 'Bots' and automated messages, particularly on Twitter, to sway people's opinions. The favoured tactic appears to be to select keywords like 'Clinton' 'Deep State' 'Democracy' 'Scandal' 'the truth' and so on as tools that are designed to smear someone's reputation, raise questions that appear to have a troubling answer, but also mount campaigns.

This analysis by Politico of the #releasethememo is the clearest example I have come across of how this works, noting that even a large part of the campaign originated in and was driven by the Russians, it dove-tailed with other 'alt-right' and pro-Memo enthusiasts to generate thousands of tweets/re-tweets a day. It is quite a long article, but it does more than most articles to explain how the system is used and can be manipulated by those keen enough to take it on. It is also part of the narrative that puts Russia in the frame as a leading opponent of liberal democracy, which it has in the past ridiculed as an incompetent form of government that is messy and confused -and has often been anti-Russian. Russia's strategic aims in the long terms are to break the solidarity of those it sees as 'the enemy' -NATO and the European Union being top of the list; to break-up the large trading blocs such as the EU which Russia sees as exerting too much power in Europe at the expense of Russia's economic needs, particularly in retrieving the markets and raw materials it lost when the USSR dissolved; and because Russia is stronger when its enemies are weaker.

Thus, the article begins:
On Tuesday morning—the day after the House Intelligence Committee voted along partisan lines to send Rep. Devin Nunes’ memo, alleging abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, to President Donald Trump for declassification—presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway was confronted with the idea that Russian trolls were promoting the #releasethememo hashtag online. She was offended. Russian trolls, she told a television interviewer, “have nothing to do with releasing the memo—that was a vote of the intelligence committee.” But her assertion is incorrect. The vote marked the culmination of a targeted, 11-day information operation that was amplified by computational propaganda techniques and aimed to change both public perceptions and the behavior of American lawmakers.
And it worked. By the time the memo got to the president, its release was a forgone conclusion—even before he had read it.
This bears repeating: Computational propaganda—defined as “the use of information and communication technologies to manipulate perceptions, affect cognition, and influence behavior”—has been used, successfully, to manipulate the perceptions of the American public and the actions of elected officials.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...he-memo-216935

Highly recommended.