As IF Times

link Sony Cancels Theatrical Release for ‘The Interview’ on Christmas | Variety.

All I can say is, where were the hackers when they released any movie in the past 10 years starring Will Ferrell or Jim Carey? Or any movie featuring Eddie Murphy, Oprah or Whoopi? How about any of the teen horror flicks featuring chain saws, isolated hotels, talking dummies and supernatural crap. This kind of carnage has been inflicted on the American public for years and until now, no one had the guts to stand up to Hollywood and say, “no more!”

Given the success of the James Bond franchise, with their depictions of evil
Eastern Bloc villains, it’s a wonder no one thought of doing what the North Koreans are allegedly doing today. Obviously the Koreans are a tougher audience. In this particular case, apart from the fact that they have criminally hacked Sony and are using extortionist methods, they are saving us from another Seth Rogan epic, so there is a kernel of redemption there.  But isn’t it a bit galling that the evil mastermind purportedly behind this extortion resembles Elmer Fudd with a bad haircut?

It’s interesting to note that the reason Sony decided to pull the showing of “The Interview” is based not on threats of violence per se.  It is really based on liability.  In effect, the fear of lawsuits by people who may be hurt by going to the theatre is more of an issue than people who may genuinely be harmed.  So the real fear is with the American legal system. It doesn’t take an evil genius to determine that this model can be used to attack all sorts of commercial operations.

What has happened to America in the aftermath of “The Greatest Generation”? Can anyone imagine this scenario being played out in the 1940’s? The entire mindset of American society has devolved from “Bring it!” in the face of adversity to “Bring me a latte” in our neutered times.  Over the generations, people have been lulled into believing that “somebody” has the obligation to make sure people are safe; that some authority is charged with protecting people against all harm.  We’ve seen this stupidity through the grotesque machinations of the TSA at airports.  As a society, collective risk tolerance has fallen to comical levels.  But it’s not because people are less brave, it’s because of legal liability in the event of misfortune.  Lawyers again.

Eventually, people will be allowed to go to the theaters again, but it may be after the implementation of metal and perhaps body scanners and dogs at the ticket windows.  The tickets will be 3 times the size they are now because they will need the room to print all the disclaimers of risk and acceptance of such.   That still doesn’t take away the risk of viewing a crappy movie.

link Obama says Ebola travel ban could make things worse – Chicago Tribune.

You know things have taken a horrible turn for the worse when most every problem these days is addressed by appointing a lawyer to fix them.  In this case we refer to the appointment of Ron Klain to oversee the Ebola issue in the U.S.

Think of that: not an engineer, not a medical person nor an accountant, not even a plain old businessman, but a lawyer.  Lawyers by definition are in the business of assessing blame.  They are not trained to solve problems.  They are not known for their organizational prowess.  Their role is to insert themselves into a conflict and point fingers of blame.  It’s not well known that the famous large foam finger you find at sports events was in fact invented by a lawyer in response to a successful trial.

That lawyers would be picked at all to be in charge of anything outside of the interpretation of laws is non-sensical.  It’s as if you hired the TV repairman to help with your flooding problems.  Yet somehow, over the last few generations, the insertion of lawyers as the means of resolution of all social problems has become the norm.  Lawyers shape virtually everything that affects our lives without most of us even being aware of it.  From the design of cars, the foods we can eat, the temperature of coffee, when we can use phones, who we choose to marry and even how we complain, they all have been shaped by lawyers.  The fact that people have to listen to instructions on how to wear a seat belt on an airplane is because of lawyers.

In the linked story, the new notional head Poobah or Czar, overseeing the containment of a possibly vicious Ebola virus outbreak, Ron Klain, is  of course, a lawyer.  He’s the guy who helped Joe Biden reach the American public.  Like that’s a resume builder.   Klain is known for his views on both overpopulation and global warming.  Oddly, if global warming was the big threat to the world’s population as he believes, then the overpopulation thing would look after itself.  Of course, he may not see it that way.  Regardless, he is seen as the great hope to manage the Ebola crisis.  Apparently, there were no medical people with the skillset to manage this crisis.

It should be pretty clear to any rational person that when a serious crisis needs to be addressed and a lawyer is put in place to manage it, then the problems are only beginning.   Sadly, we know there is ample evidence of that.