As IF Times

Source: The Post (2017) – Rotten Tomatoes

Observing the massive conflagration of liberal properties has been entirely amusing of late.  We refer not to the California fires of course, but to the majority of news outlets that purport to offer straight up reportage.

When I first began to make comments on the subtleties of bias that permeated most of the popular media’s offerings of news, those threads of bias were not always obvious.  As the years have passed and with the widening political divide in America, any pretext of objectivity has yielded to full blown whoppers and knee slappers on the part of many heretofore unimpeachable sources.  Like him or not, the election of Donald Trump has poked through the thin veneer of credibility of such outlets as CNN, NBC and ABC, not to mention the more foamy at the mouth MSNBC and the Washington Post.  He has exposed these outlets for their nakedly partisan skews.

It’s not that all of this now properly labeled “fake news” originates from these outlets.  Sometimes, it’s just a matter of reporting on the crackpot utterances of someone famous.  However, the fact that they give voice to the rants of the more logically challenged people of society, mainly ‘celebrities’, makes them complicit in their dissemination of fake news.  Just the other day, Chelsea Handler (who?) expressed that the massive fires in Southern California were somehow orchestrated by Donald Trump.  Of course, that’s preposterous.  We know that only Kim Jong Un can control the weather.

Recent revelations of galling hypocrisy and malfeasance within their own ranks is the most rapturous bit of schadenfreude that could be offered to the rational public, now hopefully awakened to the dangerous tilt that these outlets have all subscribed.  This tilt was recently best depicted by David Frum who recently opined in an interview that:

“…The mistakes are precisely the reason people should trust the media. Astronomers make mistakes all the time because science is a process of discovery of truth. Astrologers never make mistakes or at least they never own up to them because what they are offering is a closed system of ideology and propaganda…”

It hardly gets more Orwellian than that.  By the way, replace the word Astrology with Global Alarmists next time someone brings up that bit of fantasy.

It is therefore all the more galling that an upcoming film depicting the noble activities of the Washington Post will soon be offering their version of moral courage to the unwitting public. More amusingly, Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, those two pillars of liberal  sanctimony are cast as the sympathetic protagonists.  That would be like a film on how Pravda provides the truth and exposes corruption to the Russian people.  It’s assured that the film will be reasonably successful, if only because of the fan base of the title stars. It will however, compete with that other blockbuster film, also in the fantasy space, only slightly less believable,  the next installment of Star Wars.

Source: Why Amazon is eating the world | TechCrunch

By now we know that Amazon has become ubiquitous in our modern lives.  The erstwhile bookseller has become THE 800 pound gorilla in the retail space as its shadow looms over all types of commerce.  Not content to just sell books, Amazon’s reach extends to every consumable product imaginable and recently, they’ve made a foray into the grocery business by buying upscale grocer, Whole Foods.   Lesser known perhaps was the purchase of the Washington Post newspaper by owner Jeff Bezos, giving them a political platform as well.

After reading the convincing story in the above link, we feel that Amazon is not done with world domination.  There’s no reason to think that they would not one day push into the field of pharmaceutical delivery or even for medical services.  Why not legal services, dating services and pet adoption?  Home and car buying are probably already in the works.  How much easier would it be to get a new spouse online?  A few convenient clicks, no expensive dating required and especially if they have the no hassle return policy.

Amazon is not as some think, a technology company.  They are the epitome of the most efficient logistics company.  They are able to provide consumers with the cheapest, largest selection of goods in the most convenient way for customers.  As Bezos famously said, “I’ve never had someone come to me asking to be charged more and to have it delivered more slowly”.  That is the nub of the business model: people want convenience.

How lazy have we become as a society when we can’t even be bothered to go to the mall to buy shoes?  Are we really that busy?  What are we doing that’s so important that we can’t do a stroll to buy something?  There was a story today which claimed in despondent terms, how customers at McDonald’s would now have to wait….one extra minute for their burgers because they were going to  use fresh meat instead of frozen!  The horror!  How is the company going to survive?

In unrelated developments, the rush is on to introduce self driving cars, because apparently, driving and parking are too much trouble for a stressed populace; and besides it’s easier to use Amazon apps to buy stuff if you’re not actually driving.  It all sounds good as a marketing ploy; convenience, cheap and likely green, but aren’t many of these inventions and services created in search of a use? Sort of like an electric dog polisher or an automatic nose picker? How did the world get along before expecting things to happen instantly?  How are we better off because we received the latest shoe 3 days earlier than by standard means?  How did our time become so precious, that saving a bit here and there is essential for happiness?

A friend remarked about how purchasing the latest space age bicycle seat post on his $7000 road bicycle would shave 150 grams from the curb weight of the machine.  In reality, a quick trip to the bathroom would save just as much if not more weight.  But it all sounds good, so it must be better.