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Light news week, not much to talk about. Let’s see, we’ve got Troy Senik sitting in for Rob Long. We’ve got The Washington Examiner’s Byron York guiding guys through the confirmation hearings, Trump’s battles with the media. We’ve got some marriage advice for Ricochet member @Josh. And we’ve got Lileks on sentient machines and Apple’s descent into irrelevancy. Ho hum.
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Music from this week’s podcast: From Russia With Love by Matt Monro
The ALL NEW opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
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Shower the people, @EJHill
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I like a little more warrior in the happy warrior. The happy part always gets talked up, but the warrior bit always gets left by the wayside.
Regarding Apple’s new office building, this was covered by C. Northcote Parkinson as one of his laws: when an organization finally has time to build its perfect headquarters, it is on the downward slope. Perfection is finality and finality is death. He cited the British Navy. They made do with offices scattered around London when Britannia ruled the waves, and built their final proper headquarters building when the service was just a ghost of its former self.
Wow, the intro music with the low-brassy three tone ending has been restored to its previous glory. For some reason, for a long time there was a cheesier, cheaper sounding version that had air gaps between the notes that killed the momentum. Glad to hear the old one again.
I just started listening, but let me ask y’all this in response to Peter’s point about trusting the intel agencies: What makes intelligence officers more trustworthy than journalists? Are the incentives — both for good reporting and for misinformation — the same?
News media’s audience rewards sensationalism. Is an intel worker more likely to be recognized for reporting humdrum or for providing shocking information? Does security intel rely any less or more on the filtering of data for relevance or quality before it is shared for interpretation? How does the intellectual diversity compare?
In other words, remove current political trends as factors. What is true always and anywhere of intelligence agencies and of news media? Do the different methods by which information is acquired or the different consumers of that information result in different reliability of information providers?
Look, I know we all love the sponsors but I can’t help but think of this movie clip every time I hear them promote WINC:
Maybe someone should tip the wine company off?
“She wants you to wear a kilt, you’re wearing a kilt.”
Aye.
Troy and Byron York? What a great podcast!
I can’t believe that none of the gunfolk have pointed out how Peter and James are mishandling their guns in the picture.
Thanks! I was able to restore the original files and reconstitute the theme, with a few additions.
My expression can be explained by the realization that my finger is on the trigger.
Troy pretty much sums it up:
“As you listen to Barak Obama, he does not have a conception of the country that is broader than his own politics.”
Any comment on the behavior of Rick Wilson from the editors at Ricochet?
Re: the guy from Tumblr.
I lived in the US from 2003-2006 and I didn’t understand at the time why it was supposed we were living in an apocalyptic wasteland of despair. I remember, in the Fall of 2006, one of my friends (now a UMass professor!) sighing like Eeyore that ‘there could no longer be any doubt that George Bush was one of the worst presidents ever.’
Ok, I got that they were opposed to the Iraq War. I got that they were gay activists. I got that Bush was blamed for Katrina. I got that, in this particular sense, they were on the side of ‘good’. But please, please, I need to understand: what was it that made living in America quite so bad from 2001-09 and what made it so good from 2009-2017? What did I miss about actual daily existence?
Any podcast with @troysenik is a great podcast! Congratulations on the upcoming nuptials, Troy. She’s one lucky lady.