The Onion on Lance
Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
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An interesting take on why Armstrong has been able to take in so many people for so long, especially in the US:
American Gullibility Is Optimism's Dark Side
What Armstrong won't tell you is that his athletic feats were impossible without the regular and careful use of EPO and blood transfusions. I say impossible without any trace of doubt because (a) all of Armstrong's major foes during his 1999-2005 reign were dopers; and (b) EPO and blood transfusions give a rider a 5% to 10% power advantage on mountain climbs vs. his non-doped self. Riders can't win the Tour de France without excelling in the mountains. The best in the world can't give 5% to 10% to No. 2 and still win.
...By all reasoning and a growing list of grand jury testimonies, Armstrong decided to become not just a doper, but the smartest doper in the pack. He trained harder, yes. He planned better, yes. And he doped smarter, too, even hiring a notorious dope-friendly hematologist on an exclusive basis.
...Gullibility is the tax on American optimism. That tax was worth paying for most of our history. The Great Recession and Era of Cheats might change that.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/24/bernie ... gaard.html
By the same Author.
http://blogs.forbes.com/digitalrules/20 ... storiesbox0 -
Fox News now using the Onion piece in full on their website as if it's genuine news
The Forbes piece is excellent0 -
iainf72 wrote:
Classy writing as usual in The Onion. What beats me just now is I'm a subscriber to The Onion and I hadn't seen this piece. It still hasn't popped up in the mail yet. Odd. :?"Lick My Decals Off, Baby"0 -
iainf72 wrote:
Am i missing something here is that site supposed to be funny or satirical or what ? The Tiger Woods article for one is quite frankly pathetic.Gasping - but somehow still alive !0 -
Get with the times, granddad: http://twitter.com/TheOnionmercsport wrote:Classy writing as usual in The Onion. What beats me just now is I'm a subscriber to The Onion and I hadn't seen this piece. It still hasn't popped up in the mail yet. Odd. :?0 -
Moray Gub wrote:Am i missing something here is that site supposed to be funny or satirical or what ? The Tiger Woods article for one is quite frankly pathetic.
Yes, it's probably the internet's best known news satire website.
Can I be the one who comes out with the cliche, "It's not as funny as it used to be". It went downhill when the main writers all moved to The Daily Show. I prefer the Daily Mash (with it's Britishness), these days.
However, the Onion's books "Our Dumb Century" and "Our Dumb World" are two of the funniest books ever written.Twitter: @RichN950 -
AndyRubio wrote:
Get with the times, granddad: http://twitter.com/TheOnionmercsport wrote:Classy writing as usual in The Onion. What beats me just now is I'm a subscriber to The Onion and I hadn't seen this piece. It still hasn't popped up in the mail yet. Odd. :?
Ah, I see. :roll:"Lick My Decals Off, Baby"0 -
RichN95 wrote:Can I be the one who comes out with the cliche, "It's not as funny as it used to be". It went downhill when the main writers all moved to The Daily Show. I prefer the Daily Mash (with it's Britishness), these days.
+1
Though the video news section remains stunningly well produced
http://www.theonion.com/video/apple-int ... -no,14299/
The Daily Mash gets a lot of traffic from it's football reports, footy banter always sells well,
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/sport/spo ... 006282855/
though generally it's the Dail Mail spoofs that are best.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/heal ... 008112992/Warning No formatter is installed for the format0 -
Uncommonly blunt, not many punches pulled there. Presumably Forbes' legal team aren't afraid of Lance's lawyers. This kind of talk in the USA would have been unthinkable a year or two ago and suggests there really is more to this story than was previously thought.BikingBernie wrote:An interesting take on why Armstrong has been able to take in so many people for so long, especially in the US:
American Gullibility Is Optimism's Dark Side
I have long considered that American audiences, on the whole, must be uncommonly gullible. The huge influence of the sad, deluded bible-bashing 'Religious Right' is a prime example (says someone who grew up in a deeply Christian household). There are also plenty of intelligent, rational voices in America that sadly don't get much airtime.Aspire not to have more, but to be more.0 -
dulldave wrote:
MG and the 'bleedin' obvious' have never been close friends!0 -
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Quite so. The degree of 'social conditioning' in the US is such that only 3% of Americans say that they don't believe in 'God', the lowest percentage of any nation in the world (the rate in countries like Germany, France, Denmark and Sweden is between 40 and 50%). Similarly, critical thinking skills seem to be a rare commodity in the US with 87 % of Americans saying that they 'never doubt the existence of God'. I wouldn't be surprised if figure for the belief of Americans in 'the American way' is similarly high, regardless of political differences.Simon E wrote:I have long considered that American audiences, on the whole, must be uncommonly gullible. The huge influence of the sad, deluded bible-bashing 'Religious Right' is a prime example
Such a degree of conformity and the limitations placed on genuinely free thinking (other than that allowed within the boundaries set by the system, such as what brand to buy) has helped to create a nation that is wide open to exploitation by all types of snake-oil salesmen, from religious cultists to marketing men to the likes of Mr. Armstrong. Of course the real purpose of this conditioning and the ongoing 'dumbing down' of America is to ensure that the corporations and politicians have a firm grip on the minds of the 'Bewildered herd', as Walter Lippmann put it, applying the ideas of the likes of Edward Bernays to 'manufacture the consent' of the people.
Kalgaard's suggestion that the world view which underpins Christian religion in the USA also leaves Americans more open to being conned in other ways fits right in with such an analysis. In fact, I am sometimes tempted to think that Christianity was purposefully designed in order to encourage unthinking credulity in ordinary people. After all, if you can be persuaded to believe in some of the more ludicrous dogmas of Christianity, you are probably open to believe anything!
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Simon E wrote:This kind of talk in the USA would have been unthinkable a year or two ago and suggests there really is more to this story than was previously thought.
Are you kidding?
Everyone with any knowledge of cycling has known for atleast five years that Armstrong doped. If you're catching on now, at the same time as Forbes (a business magazine) then you're significantly behind the curve on these issues..0 -
samiam wrote:Simon E wrote:This kind of talk in the USA would have been unthinkable a year or two ago and suggests there really is more to this story than was previously thought.
Are you kidding?
Everyone with any knowledge of cycling has known for atleast five years that Armstrong doped. If you're catching on now, at the same time as Forbes (a business magazine) then you're significantly behind the curve on these issues..
You're completely missing his point. There's a big difference knowing something and publishing it. Most journalists know plenty of things that they wouldn't dream of printing unless there was a big change in the prevailing circumstances.Twitter: @RichN950 -
samiam wrote:Simon E wrote:This kind of talk in the USA would have been unthinkable a year or two ago and suggests there really is more to this story than was previously thought.
Are you kidding?
Everyone with any knowledge of cycling has known for atleast five years that Armstrong doped. If you're catching on now, at the same time as Forbes (a business magazine) then you're significantly behind the curve on these issues..
Well, if you and all these other people HAVE KNOWN all of these things for years,
I'm sure you should be giving this evidence to the proper authorities. Withholding evidence
is a crime you know. Give this Novitsky guy a call. I'm sure when he hears what you have to say and the evidence that you have in hand, that he will be on the first flight over to see you. Let us know how all that goes.0 -
ratsbeyfus wrote:dulldave wrote:
MG and the 'bleedin' obvious' have never been close friends!
I think the site is quite frankly sh*te , very very poor satire. Though i am not surprised you like it .Gasping - but somehow still alive !0 -
Those journalists also know which tennis players/swimmers and football teams doped but prob won't want to say too much because they cant thro' either publshing laws or super injunctions or because there migh not e any free trips to overseas sports fixtures/Olympic games etcM.Rushton0
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mrushton wrote:Those journalists also know which tennis players/swimmers and football teams doped but prob won't want to say too much because they cant thro' either publshing laws or super injunctions or because there migh not e any free trips to overseas sports fixtures/Olympic games etc
Since when are these so called journalist's all seeing and all knowing? If I'm doing drugs, I'm going to DO THEM in front of the media? Or even near the media? That makes sense.
Also, who says these journalist's KNOW these things? Other than themselves? Well, and of course, biking bernie?0 -
Dennis, do you believe Al Capone was a gangster, or just a tax evader?
Because for a very long time in America, Al Capone was a mafia hoodlum, racketeer and murderer and many knew this. But they just couldn't catch him and in the end, it took a humble case of tax evasion to get him.0 -
Moray Gub wrote:ratsbeyfus wrote:dulldave wrote:
MG and the 'bleedin' obvious' have never been close friends!
I think the site is quite frankly sh*te , very very poor satire. Though i am not surprised you like it .
Just tugging your chain Mr Gubbible... here's a picture of LA to cheer you up!
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dennisn wrote:samiam wrote:Simon E wrote:This kind of talk in the USA would have been unthinkable a year or two ago and suggests there really is more to this story than was previously thought.
Are you kidding?
Everyone with any knowledge of cycling has known for atleast five years that Armstrong doped. If you're catching on now, at the same time as Forbes (a business magazine) then you're significantly behind the curve on these issues..
Well, if you and all these other people HAVE KNOWN all of these things for years,
I'm sure you should be giving this evidence to the proper authorities. Withholding evidence
is a crime you know. Give this Novitsky guy a call. I'm sure when he hears what you have to say and the evidence that you have in hand, that he will be on the first flight over to see you. Let us know how all that goes.
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.0 -
Moray Gub wrote:
I think the site is quite frankly sh*te , very very poor satire. Though i am not surprised you like it .
I think the fact they're taken seriously now and again means they're masters at satire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_onion# ... _seriouslyFckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.0 -
I thought that this was bang on the money. The line "We should test these kids on what they know, not what we want them to know" could have come straight from my director of teaching and learning.Moray Gub wrote:I think the site is quite frankly sh*te , very very poor satire.
http://www.theonion.com/video/in-the-know-are-tests-biased-against-students-who,17966/0 -
Largely valid comments, but I think the nature of America and Americans is subtly more complex. While the majority of Americans may be heavily socially conditioned and unaware of it, there is a significant minority who are highly aware, highly well-read and extremely capable of thinking outside of any box. American society is severely divided on many levels, far more so than most European ones. I think there is some underlying characteristic of American society that explains both its worst and its best aspects - something like openness, tinged with enthusiasm.... their society is fundamentally extroverted. This makes the more stupid amongst them particularly susceptible to unthinking acceptance of social conditioning, without that conditioning needing to be overtly forced - it is simply permeated through all social media and conventions and lapped up, unquestioningly. It also makes smarter Americans more likely to push the boundaries, question authority and accepted norms and value genuine free-thinking and independence, which is, after all, enshrined in the original concept of U.S. society as envisaged by its founders. It's a deeply weird place, just as Australia and New Zealand are in their own very different ways - unlike most countries in the world, it hasn't evolved its society slowly over hundreds and thousands of years, but rather has thrown it together in the last 2 or 3 centuries from a mixture of disconnected old-world bits and pieces and blue-sky thinking on a blank slate. To borrow a term from evolutionary biology, it is a hopeful monster.BikingBernie wrote:Quite so. The degree of 'social conditioning' in the US is such that only 3% of Americans say that they don't believe in 'God', the lowest percentage of any nation in the world (the rate in countries like Germany, France, Denmark and Sweden is between 40 and 50%). Similarly, critical thinking skills seem to be a rare commodity in the US with 87 % of Americans saying that they 'never doubt the existence of God'. I wouldn't be surprised if figure for the belief of Americans in 'the American way' is similarly high, regardless of political differences.
Such a degree of conformity and the limitations placed on genuinely free thinking (other than that allowed within the boundaries set by the system, such as what brand to buy) has helped to create a nation that is wide open to exploitation by all types of snake-oil salesmen, from religious cultists to marketing men to the likes of Mr. Armstrong. Of course the real purpose of this conditioning and the ongoing 'dumbing down' of America is to ensure that the corporations and politicians have a firm grip on the minds of the 'Bewildered herd', as Walter Lippmann put it, applying the ideas of the likes of Edward Bernays to 'manufacture the consent' of the people.
Not designed for this purpose, but easily adopted for it. When Christianity was invented, there weren't really any better cosmologies or social and moral systems around that would work universally. When the enlightenment, widespread literacy and education, and eventually modern cosmology, geology and evolutionary biology came along in western societies, the people who continued to cling on on to the old religions became a different kind of people from historical christians. It always pisses me off when I am trying to visit a medieval cathedral and am disturbed or obstructed in my appreciation of it by modern so-called Christians smugly promulgating their tiny-minded beliefs and associated rituals, which in the context of a good modern education are a travesty of the deeply beautiful and transcendent (if terrifying and hopelessly misguided) attempts of human beings to understand their universe in an age of darkness, ignorance and short, brutish life.BikingBernie wrote:Kalgaard's suggestion that the world view which underpins Christian religion in the USA also leaves Americans more open to being conned in other ways fits right in with such an analysis. In fact, I am sometimes tempted to think that Christianity was purposefully designed in order to encourage unthinking credulity in ordinary people. After all, if you can be persuaded to believe in some of the more ludicrous dogmas of Christianity, you are probably open to believe anything!
American Christianity is a specific modern travesty unique to that society. It's really something completely different from both real, historical christianity as well as from modern christianity as practiced in the rest of the world. Have you ever noticed how the religious right in America hardly ever actually talk about jesus, other than in his role as a supposed conduit to God? hardly surprising, given that the moral code jesus taught (forgiveness, non-violence etc) is almost exactly the opposite of what these people actually practice themselves. Far better to dwell on the old testament God, whose spiteful small-mindedness and taste for vengeful smiting is more their kind of thing...0 -
samiam wrote:dennisn wrote:samiam wrote:Simon E wrote:This kind of talk in the USA would have been unthinkable a year or two ago and suggests there really is more to this story than was previously thought.
Are you kidding?
Everyone with any knowledge of cycling has known for atleast five years that Armstrong doped. If you're catching on now, at the same time as Forbes (a business magazine) then you're significantly behind the curve on these issues..
Well, if you and all these other people HAVE KNOWN all of these things for years,
I'm sure you should be giving this evidence to the proper authorities. Withholding evidence
is a crime you know. Give this Novitsky guy a call. I'm sure when he hears what you have to say and the evidence that you have in hand, that he will be on the first flight over to see you. Let us know how all that goes.
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.
So call this Novitsky, tell him your duck story PROOF about LA, and I'm sure he will thank you for setting him straight. And on top of that you'll make the world safe for cycling again.
What's stopping you? The duck proof is pure genius. If you're not, you should be a lawyer.0 -
I agree. When I was studying philosophy and neuroscience it often struck me how some of the greatest insights came from American writers. It is just unfortunate that for every Chomsky the US seems to have a hundred thousand unthinking, flag-waving Bible bashers.neeb wrote:While the majority of Americans may be heavily socially conditioned and unaware of it, there is a significant minority who are highly aware, highly well-read and extremely capable of thinking outside of any box.
Again I agree, as doubtless would many of the past masters in the use of Propaganda, such as Joseph Goebbels who said: 'This is the secret of propaganda: Those who are to be persuaded by it should be completely immersed in the ideas of the propaganda, without ever noticing that they are being immersed in it.'neeb wrote:their society is fundamentally extroverted. This makes the more stupid amongst them particularly susceptible to unthinking acceptance of social conditioning, without that conditioning needing to be overtly forced - it is simply permeated through all social media and conventions and lapped up, unquestioningly.
I feel that Chomsky was also pretty much right when he said 'Propaganda is to democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.'
Exactly so. It is unfortunate that Christianity, as in following the teachings of Jesus (which in many ways promote an early form of co-operative socialism) is so tied up with lots of metaphysical mumbo-jumbo about 'God'. Didn't Bill Bailey once joke that if you were in the Bible Belt of the US and pointed out that much of what Jesus said was essentially socialist in outlook, the outcome might well that you would be tied up and taken for a drag behind a pickup truck?neeb wrote:American Christianity is a specific modern travesty unique to that society. It's really something completely different from both real, historical christianity as well as from modern christianity as practiced in the rest of the world. Have you ever noticed how the religious right in America hardly ever actually talk about jesus, other than in his role as a supposed conduit to God? hardly surprising, given that the moral code jesus taught (forgiveness, non-violence etc) is almost exactly the opposite of what these people actually practice themselves. Far better to dwell on the old testament God, whose spiteful small-mindedness and taste for vengeful smiting is more their kind of thing...
P.s. a good illustration of the attitudes you discuss comes from the report in today's Observer about the hijacking of the anniversary of Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech by the right-wing 'Tea Party' movement:
There were plenty of T-shirts reflecting the mood, ranging from Obama's iconic Hope image, in which the president had been replaced by George Washington, to ones celebrating the US military – "Special Ops: A mission from God" :roll:0 -
If you are doing drugs? You certainly seem to be on something. And you keep repeating yourself.dennisn wrote:Since when are these so called journalist's all seeing and all knowing? If I'm doing drugs, I'm going to DO THEM in front of the media? 0 -
BikingBernie wrote:
If you are doing drugs? You certainly seem to be on something. And you keep repeating yourself.dennisn wrote:Since when are these so called journalist's all seeing and all knowing? If I'm doing drugs, I'm going to DO THEM in front of the media?
Of course I'm on something. I'm getting older and that's what we do. Take pills.
And for the record I don't sem to be the only one repeating myself. 0 -
This is what's happening inside my head every time I read one of these threads:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NMGsRmZTFQ#t=11s0
