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On an oblique connection to this thread you have given me an excellent word for explaining how I lived my life - (so far) - when people talk about their Five Year Plans and Ten Year plans - i can say I prefer to live intuetically.
Intuetically sounds like a genuine "leap" to a basic meaning or expression--Obscurantism sounds like a conscious attempt to make understanding difficult. Muddying the waters or turning on a fog machine, so to speak.
Or making political speeches.
The Bush campaign puts out a regular report on John Kerry's stumperizing known as "the Boston Fog". But, some say, after the debate last night, the fog has lifted.
The "Boston Fog" reminds me of "bomfog" which doesn't have anything to do with "fog" exactly.
Nelson Rockefeller used to end all his speeches with the homily "in the brotherhood of man in the fatherhood of God". The press tired of this after awhile so they acronymed it "bomfog" [which really should be written "bomfoG", I suppose].
Of course, "bomfog" isn't "spin" which is "obscurantism" practised as a political art.
"Spin" spins you around so you end up looking in another direction. "Bomfog" just rolls over you and puts you to sleep.
The best example of "spin" last night came not from the Presidential contenders but rather at the end of CNN's coverage of that "debate" from the President's leading spinmeister.
During his presentation, the President had said [or clearly implied, I can't remember which] that the U.S. had "locked up" the infamous black-marketeer who had sold nuclear technologies to Iran and North Korea.
Twice, at the end of CNN's coverage, Wolf Blitzer asked the President's spinmeister if it was accurate to say that this black-marketeer was "locked up" when he was roaming freely all over Pakistan.
Twice the spinmeister in reply said that the black-marketeer's trading in Weapons of Mass Destruction was "shattered" and the Bush Administration had also achieved success in closing down Libya's WMD arsenal.
Wolf didn't have time to ask the question a third time. Now that's spinmeistery at its best!
President Bush: "And we've been effective. We busted the A.Q. Khan network. This was a proliferator out of Pakistan that was selling secrets to places like North Korea and Libya. We convinced Libya to disarm. "
Take note grapho, Bush did not say "locked up". Wolf Blitzer said "locked up. And you, grapho, eagerly perpetuated the CNN spin.
Will you now please apologize to we good folk on this board?
_______________________________________________
Great idea, grapho, let's semantically dissect the debate last night. I'll go second...
What exactly did Kerry mean when he used the term " Global Test"?
As in...
John Kerry: "But if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons."
Who, for god-help-us example, adjudicates this "Global Test"?
Jeez!
The people of the Globe.
We're all in this together, white boy.
call me curious.
Does the Kerrian term "global test" resonate pleasingly to your keen politically educated ears?
themilum, I do apologize for echoing Wolf Blizter in saying "locked up" when the President said "busted up".
Back at home, when the police make a "bust", the bad guys end up in "lock up".
In Pakistan, the "bad guys" end up roaming the country with Osama Bin Laden.
If that means we have "busted up" their terrorism, without actually "locking them up", then I apologize for my imprecision.
Let's make it a real test .. without consultng a barometer, and without consulting the sky.
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