John, your first few links have to do with the Diebold morph. I thought some Noam would be appropriate:

One of the most important comments on deceit, I think, was made by Adam Smith. He pointed out that a major goal of business is to deceive and oppress the public.

And one of the striking features of the modern period is the institutionalization of that process, so that we now have huge industries deceiving the public—and they're very conscious about it, the public relations industry. Interestingly, this developed in the freest countries—in Britain and the US—roughly around time of WWI, when it was recognized that enough freedom had been won that people could no longer be controlled by force. So modes of deception and manipulation had to be developed in order to keep them under control.

And by now these are huge industries. They not only dominate marketing of commodities, but they also control the political system. As anyone who watches a US election knows, it's marketing. It's the same techniques that are used to market toothpaste.

And, of course, there are power systems in place to facilitate this. Throughout history it's been mostly the property holders or the educated classes who've tended to support power systems. And that's a large part of what I think education is—it's a form of indoctrination. You have to reconstruct a picture of the world in order to be conducive to the interests and concerns of the educated classes, and this involves a lot of self-deceit.

(Noam Chompsky, emphasis mine). Here is a more in-depth post (which has a notation on it "Your comment is awaiting moderation") that ties it into the Deibold name change.

OT, but WTF??????

Brad's ol' buddy Tom Feeney is back in the news - and remember Yang Enterprises?

An Oviedo businessman donated $5,000. His ties to Feeney have raised questions before.

WASHINGTON - The fund that U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney set up to help pay his legal bills has received a $5,000 donation from an Oviedo businessman who is hoping for a NASA contract.

And it's the same person, Tyng-Lin Yang, whose relationship with Feeney raised questions when Feeney was Florida House speaker.

(snip)

Yang also is president of Yang Enterprises, a software and engineering company whose Web site touts its hope for a "logistics operations contract'' at NASA's Johnson Space Center.

KBE #2

Really glad some olde timers (even way before John G) are blogging again. Shades of 6 or 7

Should we use the term "Feeney supporter" for anything other than a jockstrap? Is "Feeney briber" more like it? There is a lot of yang in this yin it seems to me.

Excellent post. We are back to the primodial ooze from whence the nighmare exuded in '00 ... thanx.