Sir Veillance, the only knight left in the court.
Category Archives: Politics and Society
Articles about society, people, and politics.
1492
In 1492 native Americans discovered Columbus…
Fruit of the Poisonous they did it first… did not! did too! did noo-oot!
As a Swede I often find myself stunned by the “magical” thinking of the U.S. justice system and the, often times, completely bizarre “tricks” pulled to get obviously guilty persons off the hook.
Take for instance “Fruit of the Poisonous Tree”, described as…
…a legal metaphor in the United States used to describe evidence that is obtained illegally. The logic of the terminology is that if the source (the “tree”) of the evidence or evidence itself is tainted, then anything gained (the “fruit”) from it is tainted as well. (Wikipedia)
Continue reading Fruit of the Poisonous they did it first… did not! did too! did noo-oot!
Patented language
Shut up, I’ve patented language!
The Surveillance Society
Police: You’re under arrest for treason!
Citizen: Why?
Police: You are having a dream about assassinating the president.
Citizen: But that’s not the president! It’s my father… with a president-mask.
Police: OK, then it’s conspiracy to commit murder…
Citizen: Oh! I’m sorry.
More Dangerous than a Criminal
An officer of the law that breaks the law is more dangerous than a criminal.
Croakaine
Croakaine – the drug and the effect in one word!
Enemy combatant
Enemy combatant, a military ethnic slur for a person of Arabic or middle eastern descent.
Right?!
Anschluss 2.0
Anschluss 2.0: Happening right now at a Russian-Ukranian border near you…
I mean, if Putin was any smart, he’d claim there was weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine, that would have worked, but using propaganda about threatened Russian speakers and arranging a ballot where 97% is for a separation… that is so 1930ies.
The great watch conspiracy
…or what happens at 10 past 10?
…or a celebration of conformity in the PR-business?
Search for any image of watches… chances are 90-99% of them show the time 10:10.
Why is that? Conspiracy? (Illuminati?!) Brain washing? Lack of imagination? EU/US standards? Laws against unjust competition? Fear of competitor advantages? Fabric settings?
I have no clue… But I do have 50 images of watches, all set to somewhere from 10:05 to 10:15… most almost spot on 10:08 or 10:12.
There are a few “wild” ones out there going as far as 10:20… but that’s Nike… and look… Diesel also goes to 10:20… Both are digital… New conformity?
Then we have the (not so wild) wild ones, (Adrenaline) that set their watches to ten to two…
Searching the web (mentalfloss, Google Answers, and petapixel) gives the following bits of info:
- It was not the time of death of Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King
- It was not the time when the atom bombs were dropped, either on Hiroshima nor on Nagasaki
- It is about aesthetics; the hands are symmetrically placed, which makes the clock look nice (and not broken or unbalanced – something you’d probably not want from a clock)
- It is also about practicalities; the hands are not on top of each other, on top of the company logo, or on top of any date displays or other extra features (however the last one can be disproved by several of the above-depicted clocks – e.g. the Calvin Kline clock would show more extra features if it was set to 09:15.)
- It is also to make the clock look happier, you could achieve the above by setting it to 08:20, but then the clock would seem like it’s frowning
That’s all good and well… but… the digital clocks…? None of the above reasons are valid for them… other than the fact that setting them to 10:10 or similar follows some company policy. Timex sets their clocks to 10:09:36 exactly, just to mention one such company policy.
Talkwards 