Steyn ponders liberty in the technological era

For those of you who don’t read Tim Blair, here’s Mark Steyn on the radio.

LINK

A question for our Seppo mates.

Just where does Barack Obamas accent come from?

Someone pull the plug...

He has an obviously cultivated speech pattern modeled closely on Martin Luther King, the uptick at the end of each sentence ( good verbal trick to attract attention) and the pauses, all easy to see where hes got those from.

 

As best as I can tell from Wiki (a strangely reverent article), from the ages of 0-4 he was in Hawaii, then from 6-10 in Indonesia. Then another 8 year stint in Hawaii.

That pretty well covers when most people would have settled on their “regional” or native accents. From my dealings with Indonesians he appears to have picked up no tonal or verbal tics or inflections from there. But I don’t know anyone who’s “native” to Hawaii. Id be quite surprised if many of them spoke with a similar style as Barry.

 

Is it possible that Obama has a wholely maufactured verbal style? His mode of speaking is plainly patterned on a role model (MLK), whom has he patterned his speaking voice on?

 

I’m curious to know.

A: Does he sound like a Hawaii native?

B: If not then who do you think he has patterned his speaking voice on?

C: Does that say anything about the man?

At least one was funny

Korea’s swine flu farce

Well, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that swine flu has been spreading. And in a sense, governments are right to quarantine people with cases and/or suspected cases of it.

But surely that quarantine should be done properly and effectively.

The Korean government is arguably not doing this. First, there seems to be a double standard going on. Koreans who may have come into contact with H1N1 are being quarantined in their homes whilst when it comes to us foreigners, we’re being rounded up and being put in a sub-standard quarantine facility which, according to eyewitness reports, is conducting sub-standard practices.

It’s all quite a joke, except it isn’t very funny. The reports from foreigners in quarantine are quite alarming. Examples include their trash overflowing the bins, the same thermometers being used on different ‘patients’ without being cleaned, a guy handing out brochures for a restaurant freely walking in and out of the building, the building is not equipped for such a role, excessively high temperatures inside the building, a nurse wiping the blood off an injection point with her bare hand, the list goes on. Check out other pages from those blog links for more info and/or updates.

It’s not all bad, but at best, it’s a farce.

And the US embassy doesn’t really seem to care. According to one blogger, this is how the conversation went…

Me: “Hiya! I just thought the Embassy should be aware that 30+ U.S citizens have been quarantined right outside Seoul for suspicion of swine flu exposure.”
Operator: “Okay, well it’s a weekend, and we’re closed. Monday’s memorial day, so could you call back on tuesday?”
Me: “You…you’re serious?”
Operator: “Is it an emergency? Cause if it is we have someone we can call.”
Me: “Um…let’s see, there’s 30 americans in quarantine for swine flu exposure. Basically, we’re arrested. It’s totally cool, don’t worry—we’ll call on tuesday—”
Operator: “Okay, thanks for calling.”
Me: “No wait—”

Now, sure, a few grains of salt should probably be taken here, and I don’t necessarily believe all the eyewitness reports or agree with all the sentiments people are expressing (in one pic, there’s a bloke wearing an Obama shirt…EEK!), but if even just half the stuff is true, it still paints a very disturbing picture. It appears governments don’t really care about this but after the media beat-up (before Kim Jong Il fixed that), they had to be seen to be doing something.

H/T Brian and Roboseyo.

The Osbourne Identity

“Ozzie Osbourne” was once a female singer named Janis Joplin…

Grace Slick and Janis Joplin

… who faked her death, had a sex change, and came back as, “Ozzie Osbourne.”

Clearly.

This is just a way to turn you on to the amazing site of photographer Jim Marshall (No not the same Jim Marshall that makes guitar amplifiers).

Jim has photographed some of the most famous rock icons since the 60’s.

Mick!

Frank!

I viewed every photo there last night. Absolutely fascinating.

Drudge Calls Kim a Nigger

I kid, I kid.

This made me blow coffee through my nose this morning. For you non-Americans out there, N-Bomb, F-Bomb and the like are PC-speak here to avoid saying nigger and fuck in polite company… which we’re not, obviously. So, in my sleepy stupor, my brain processed that as, “Kim Jong Ill, Nigger” instead of, “Kim has a Nuclear Bomb.” LOL!