Brazil Embarrassed as Ruthless Germany Wins 7-1
He paused as though he expected Winston to speak. Winston had tried to shrink back into the surface of the bed again. He could not say anything. His heart seemed to be frozen. O’Brien went on:
It’s been a peculiar World Cup. The group stage, a stupendous goal fest, had people proclaiming this tournament the greatest in history almost as soon as began. Then that period gave way to a series of fraught, low-scoring knockout matches. They’ve been compelling, by and large, but maybe the tournament could do with an injection of that early excitement to remind everybody that it’s still happening.
"And remember that it is for ever. The face will always be there to be stamped upon. The heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated over again. Everything that you have undergone since you have been in our hands----all that will continue, and worse. The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the executions, the disappearances will never cease. It will be a world of terror as much as a world of triumph. The more the Party is powerful, the less it will be tolerant: the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism. Goldstein and his heresies will live for ever. Every day, at every moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon and yet they will always survive. This drama that I have played out with you during seven years will be played out over and over again generation after generation, always in subtler forms. Always we shall have the heretic here at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible----and in the end utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own accord. That is the world that we are preparing, Winston. A world of victory after victory, triumph after triumph after triumph: an endless pressing, pressing, pressing upon the nerve of power. You are beginning, I can see, to realize what that world will be like. But in the end you will do more than understand it. You will accept it, welcome it, become part of it."
Brazil-Germany, on Brazilian turf, should deliver. This will be a game of incredible intensity between two teams for whom success on the soccer pitch is a matter of national pride.
Winston had recovered himself sufficiently to speak. "You can’t!" he said weakly.
But what kind of game it will be will come down to how Brazil decides to play in the absence of its biggest star. Without Neymar----the tousle-haired beach infant who was supposed to win glory for Brazil before he fractured a vertebrae against Colombia – his teammates could go down one of two paths. They could:
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Monday, July 7, 2014
July 7, 2014.
Some Still Lack Coverage Under Health Law
"I told you, Winston," he said, ‘that metaphysics is not your strong point. The word you are trying to think of is solipsism. But you are mistaken. This is not solipsism. Collective solipsism, if you like. But that is a different thing: in fact, the opposite thing. All this is a digression,’ he added in a different tone. "The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men."He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: "How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?"
Months after the sign-up deadline, thousands of Americans who purchased health insurance through the Affordable Care Act still don't have coverage due to problems in enrollment systems.
Winston thought. "By making him suffer," he said.
In states including California, Nevada and Massachusetts, which are running their own online insurance exchanges, some consumers picked a private health plan and paid their premiums only to learn recently that they aren't insured.
"Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but MORE merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy----everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always----do not forget this, Winston----always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face----for ever."
Others received a policy but then got married, had a baby or another "life event" that required their coverage to be updated, yet have been waiting months for the change to take effect.
"I told you, Winston," he said, ‘that metaphysics is not your strong point. The word you are trying to think of is solipsism. But you are mistaken. This is not solipsism. Collective solipsism, if you like. But that is a different thing: in fact, the opposite thing. All this is a digression,’ he added in a different tone. "The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men."He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: "How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?"
Months after the sign-up deadline, thousands of Americans who purchased health insurance through the Affordable Care Act still don't have coverage due to problems in enrollment systems.
Winston thought. "By making him suffer," he said.
In states including California, Nevada and Massachusetts, which are running their own online insurance exchanges, some consumers picked a private health plan and paid their premiums only to learn recently that they aren't insured.
"Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but MORE merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy----everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always----do not forget this, Winston----always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face----for ever."
Others received a policy but then got married, had a baby or another "life event" that required their coverage to be updated, yet have been waiting months for the change to take effect.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
July 6, 2014.
Hillary Clinton Begins to Move Away From Obama Ahead of 2016
Winston made another convulsive movement. This time he did not say anything. O’Brien continued as though answering a spoken objection:
Hillary Clinton has begun distancing herself from President Barack Obama, suggesting that she would do more to woo Republicans and take a more assertive stance toward global crises, while sounding more downbeat than her former boss about the U.S. economic recovery.
"For certain purposes, of course, that is not true. When we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenient to assume that the earth goes round the sun and that the stars are millions upon millions of kilometres away. But what of it? Do you suppose it is beyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?"
People are "really, really nervous" about their future, Mrs. Clinton said at an event in Colorado last week that included hints of her emerging strategy to convey that she would be more effective in the pursuit of Democratic policy goals than Mr. Obama has been during his time in office.
Winston shrank back upon the bed. Whatever he said, the swift answer crushed him like a bludgeon. And yet he knew, he KNEW, that he was in the right. The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind----surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false? Had it not been exposed long ago as a fallacy? There was even a name for it, which he had forgotten. A faint smile twitched the corners of O’Brien’s mouth as he looked down at him.
"They don't think the economy has recovered in a way that has helped them or their families," Mrs. Clinton said. In contrast, Mr. Obama sounded almost cheery after Thursday's jobs report, saying the country could make even more progress if Congress were willing to "set politics aside, at least occasionally."
Winston made another convulsive movement. This time he did not say anything. O’Brien continued as though answering a spoken objection:
Hillary Clinton has begun distancing herself from President Barack Obama, suggesting that she would do more to woo Republicans and take a more assertive stance toward global crises, while sounding more downbeat than her former boss about the U.S. economic recovery.
"For certain purposes, of course, that is not true. When we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenient to assume that the earth goes round the sun and that the stars are millions upon millions of kilometres away. But what of it? Do you suppose it is beyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?"
People are "really, really nervous" about their future, Mrs. Clinton said at an event in Colorado last week that included hints of her emerging strategy to convey that she would be more effective in the pursuit of Democratic policy goals than Mr. Obama has been during his time in office.
Winston shrank back upon the bed. Whatever he said, the swift answer crushed him like a bludgeon. And yet he knew, he KNEW, that he was in the right. The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind----surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false? Had it not been exposed long ago as a fallacy? There was even a name for it, which he had forgotten. A faint smile twitched the corners of O’Brien’s mouth as he looked down at him.
"They don't think the economy has recovered in a way that has helped them or their families," Mrs. Clinton said. In contrast, Mr. Obama sounded almost cheery after Thursday's jobs report, saying the country could make even more progress if Congress were willing to "set politics aside, at least occasionally."
Saturday, July 5, 2014
July 5, 2014.
LaFerrari Is a Million-Dollar Dream
"Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth-century biologists invented them. Before man there was nothing. After man, if he could come to an end, there would be nothing. Outside man there is nothing."
THAT'S NO TYPO: The name of Ferrari's latest thunderbolt is LaFerrari, with the article lewdly rubbing against the proper noun. It's a great name.
"But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever."
First, note the anapestic gallop: la-fer-RAR-eee. For a company whose symbol is a black horse this is a trick worthy of our beloved Dante. Please observe, too, how it's a name that doesn't give a damn about Anglophones. Is it "the LaFerrari," which parses as "the the Ferrari"? Away from the factory gates, English dog.
"What are the stars?" said O’Brien indifferently. "They are bits of fire a few kilometres away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could blot them out. The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it."
In tune with a Latin ear, the name italicizes exclusivity and rarity. Ferrari has said it would build 499 of the hybrid hypercars in the next two years, and no more. Prices vary with markets but the conversation starts at €1.2 million ($1.6 million). Or started. LaFerrari's order book was filled within weeks of its debut at the 2013 Geneva auto show.
"Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth-century biologists invented them. Before man there was nothing. After man, if he could come to an end, there would be nothing. Outside man there is nothing."
THAT'S NO TYPO: The name of Ferrari's latest thunderbolt is LaFerrari, with the article lewdly rubbing against the proper noun. It's a great name.
"But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever."
First, note the anapestic gallop: la-fer-RAR-eee. For a company whose symbol is a black horse this is a trick worthy of our beloved Dante. Please observe, too, how it's a name that doesn't give a damn about Anglophones. Is it "the LaFerrari," which parses as "the the Ferrari"? Away from the factory gates, English dog.
"What are the stars?" said O’Brien indifferently. "They are bits of fire a few kilometres away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could blot them out. The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it."
In tune with a Latin ear, the name italicizes exclusivity and rarity. Ferrari has said it would build 499 of the hybrid hypercars in the next two years, and no more. Prices vary with markets but the conversation starts at €1.2 million ($1.6 million). Or started. LaFerrari's order book was filled within weeks of its debut at the 2013 Geneva auto show.
Friday, July 4, 2014
July 4, 2014.
The Declaration of Independence: The Words Heard Around the World
"But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny----helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the earth was uninhabited."
The Declaration of Independence is the birth certificate of the American nation—the first public document ever to use the name "the United States of America"—and has been fundamental to American history longer than any other text. It enshrined what came to be seen as the most succinct and memorable statement of the ideals on which the U.S. was founded: the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; the consent of the governed; and resistance to tyranny.
"Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness."
But the Declaration's influence wasn't limited to the American colonies of the late 18th century. No American document has had a greater impact on the wider world. As the first successful declaration of independence in history, it helped to inspire countless movements for independence, self-determination and revolution after 1776 and to this very day. As the 19th-century Hungarian nationalist, Lajos Kossuth, put it, the U.S. Declaration of Independence was nothing less than "the noblest, happiest page in mankind's history."
"But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals----mammoths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was ever heard of."
In telling this story of global influence, however, it is important to separate two distinct elements of the Declaration—elements that sometimes get conflated. The first of these is the assertion of popular sovereignty to create a new state: in the Declaration's words, the right of "one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them." The second and more famous element of the Declaration is its ringing endorsement of the sanctity of the individual: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."
"But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny----helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the earth was uninhabited."
The Declaration of Independence is the birth certificate of the American nation—the first public document ever to use the name "the United States of America"—and has been fundamental to American history longer than any other text. It enshrined what came to be seen as the most succinct and memorable statement of the ideals on which the U.S. was founded: the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; the consent of the governed; and resistance to tyranny.
"Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness."
But the Declaration's influence wasn't limited to the American colonies of the late 18th century. No American document has had a greater impact on the wider world. As the first successful declaration of independence in history, it helped to inspire countless movements for independence, self-determination and revolution after 1776 and to this very day. As the 19th-century Hungarian nationalist, Lajos Kossuth, put it, the U.S. Declaration of Independence was nothing less than "the noblest, happiest page in mankind's history."
"But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals----mammoths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was ever heard of."
In telling this story of global influence, however, it is important to separate two distinct elements of the Declaration—elements that sometimes get conflated. The first of these is the assertion of popular sovereignty to create a new state: in the Declaration's words, the right of "one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them." The second and more famous element of the Declaration is its ringing endorsement of the sanctity of the individual: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."
Thursday, July 3, 2014
July 3, 2014.
Dow Tops 17000, Investors See More Room for Bull Run
O’Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. "We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation----anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature."
Strong news on the U.S. economy pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average above 17000 for the first time Thursday, bolstering the belief among investors that the five-year bull market has more room to run.
"But you do not! You are not even masters of this planet. What about Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them yet."
The Dow's move came just 153 trading sessions since it first closed above 16000 on Nov. 21, 2013, making it be the seventh-fastest 1000-point gain in the blue chip barometer's history. The Dow's advance Thursday leaves the index up 3% for the year, having set 14 record high closes along the way, and up 13.9% from a year ago.
"Unimportant. We shall conquer them when it suits us. And if we did not, what difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence. Oceania is the world."
The jump above 17000 was spurred by a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing U.S. employers added 288,000 jobs in June, well above the 215,000 expected by economists.
O’Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. "We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation----anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature."
Strong news on the U.S. economy pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average above 17000 for the first time Thursday, bolstering the belief among investors that the five-year bull market has more room to run.
"But you do not! You are not even masters of this planet. What about Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them yet."
The Dow's move came just 153 trading sessions since it first closed above 16000 on Nov. 21, 2013, making it be the seventh-fastest 1000-point gain in the blue chip barometer's history. The Dow's advance Thursday leaves the index up 3% for the year, having set 14 record high closes along the way, and up 13.9% from a year ago.
"Unimportant. We shall conquer them when it suits us. And if we did not, what difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence. Oceania is the world."
The jump above 17000 was spurred by a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing U.S. employers added 288,000 jobs in June, well above the 215,000 expected by economists.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
July 2, 2014.
Facebook Experiments Had Few Limits
"We are the priests of power," he said. "God is power. But at present power is only a word so far as you are concerned. It is time for you to gather some idea of what power means. The first thing you must realize is that power is collective. The individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an individual. You know the Party slogan: “Freedom is Slavery”. Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is freedom. Alone----free----the human being is always defeated. It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he IS the Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal. The second thing for you to realize is that power is power over human beings. Over the body----but, above all, over the mind. Power over matter----external reality, as you would call it----is not important. Already our control over matter is absolute."
Thousands of Facebook Inc. FB -2.37% users received an unsettling message two years ago: They were being locked out of the social network because Facebook believed they were robots or using fake names. To get back in, the users had to prove they were real.
For a moment Winston ignored the dial. He made a violent effort to raise himself into a sitting position, and merely succeeded in wrenching his body painfully.
In fact, Facebook knew most of the users were legitimate. The message was a test designed to help improve Facebook's antifraud measures. In the end, no users lost access permanently.
"But how can you control matter?" he burst out. "You don’t even control the climate or the law of gravity. And there are disease, pain, death--------"
The experiment was the work of Facebook's Data Science team, a group of about three dozen researchers with unique access to one of the world's richest data troves: the movements, musings and emotions of Facebook's 1.3 billion users.
"We are the priests of power," he said. "God is power. But at present power is only a word so far as you are concerned. It is time for you to gather some idea of what power means. The first thing you must realize is that power is collective. The individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an individual. You know the Party slogan: “Freedom is Slavery”. Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is freedom. Alone----free----the human being is always defeated. It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he IS the Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal. The second thing for you to realize is that power is power over human beings. Over the body----but, above all, over the mind. Power over matter----external reality, as you would call it----is not important. Already our control over matter is absolute."
Thousands of Facebook Inc. FB -2.37% users received an unsettling message two years ago: They were being locked out of the social network because Facebook believed they were robots or using fake names. To get back in, the users had to prove they were real.
For a moment Winston ignored the dial. He made a violent effort to raise himself into a sitting position, and merely succeeded in wrenching his body painfully.
In fact, Facebook knew most of the users were legitimate. The message was a test designed to help improve Facebook's antifraud measures. In the end, no users lost access permanently.
"But how can you control matter?" he burst out. "You don’t even control the climate or the law of gravity. And there are disease, pain, death--------"
The experiment was the work of Facebook's Data Science team, a group of about three dozen researchers with unique access to one of the world's richest data troves: the movements, musings and emotions of Facebook's 1.3 billion users.
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