Only in America: From the Bizarre to the Absurd

[icymist]

Commentary by Willy E. Gutman

Saturday March 31, 2007

White House-led efforts to muzzle the press, stifle artistic expression and subvert free thought while stepping up its own deceitful propaganda is being daily turned up a notch with a series of seemingly isolated but intimately linked initiatives that reflect the Bush administration's obsession with controlling information - and the minds of Americans. To wit:

During the 25th annual Banned Books Week, a Houston-area parent challenged "Fahrenheit 451," Ray Bradbury's incendiary work about reading and freedom of thought. "It's just all kinds of filth," the parent claimed - admitting that he had not read the book. Never let fact interfere with opinion.

At a Manchester, N.H., awards dinner honoring defenders of the First Amendment, featured speaker Newt Gingrich argued for "a different set of rules" to govern free speech in light of the war on terror. The terrorist threat, he argued, will "lead us to want to know what is said in every suspect place in the country (and) lead us to learn how to close down every Web site that is dangerous." Including the ones that chronicle his own dubious ethics?

In a bid to increase its revenues, Google is developing "ambient-audio identification technology" that would use personal computers' internal microphones to monitor what TV channels Americans watch. The U.S. government must be salivating.

Not to be outdone, Microsoft has submitted a patent application for a "censoring filter," which would alter digital speech recordings "so that undesired words or phrases are either unintelligible or inaudible."

Read the article

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Makes me want to cry for my lost, beloved country.

[RoccoR5955]

2. Yeah Right..

Uh huh, if they ban Fahrenheit 451 here, I would personally take it to whoever starts the legislation and shove it up one of their small bodily orifices until it hurts them real bad.

As far as Noot saying ANYTHING... He only should be allowed to open his mouth to change feet. Of course, they want to limit our freedoms, and use the Constitution as toilet paper, after their 9/11 plan succeeded.

Microsoft has been working on speech recognition for a long time. The only one who can come close with any speech recognition is Ray Kurzweil, and his software STILL doesn't do well with my Brooklyn accent.

They can censor THIS! They can't even recognize what I say. Uh huh, sure, they can censor what they can't understand.

[lectrobyte]

3. Seems like a lot of trouble for google to go to, since the newer TVs and Tivos

already track what you watch anyway. Gimme that old time reception!

[HowHasItComeToThis]

4. PUT A "FREE SPEECH ZONE " SIGN IN YOUR FRONT YARD

I AM GOING TO DO IT.
FOLLOW MY LEAD BY DOING THE SAME.

FORWARD THIS ARTICLE AND IDEA OF A FREE SPEECH ZONE TO FRIENDS.

:toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :kick: :kick: :kick:

[pigpickle]

5. no surprise - more proof that hatred is driven by ignorance

[piedmont]

6. Holy shit-- I had not heard of "ambient-audio identification technology"

Here's a link I found:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=188703450

For this and other offenses, I'm gonna start evaluating other search engines with the goal of reducing my Google use.