Daniel

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, George Soros issued some blistering comments aimed at Facebook and Google.

I’ll admit, it stopped me in my tracks when I saw a headline claiming ultra-liberal George Soros slammed Facebook and Google calling them a ‘menace’ to society and ‘obstacles to innovation’.

So, what did Soros say?

Here are some excerpts:

“Social-media companies deceive their users by manipulating their attention and directing it towards their own commercial purposes. They deliberately engineer addiction to the services they provide. This can be very harmful, particularly for adolescents. There is a similarity between internet platforms and gambling companies. Casinos have developed techniques to hook gamblers to the point where they gamble away all their money, even money they don’t have.

“Something very harmful and maybe irreversible is happening to human attention in our digital age. Not just distraction or addiction — social-media companies are inducing people to give up their autonomy. The power to shape people’s attention is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few companies. It takes a real effort to assert and defend what John Stuart Mill called “the freedom of mind.” There is a possibility that once lost, people who grow up in the digital age will have difficulty in regaining it. This may have far-reaching political consequences. People without the freedom of mind can be easily manipulated. This danger does not loom only in the future — it already played an important role in the 2016 US presidential elections.

“But there is an even more alarming prospect on the horizon. There could be an alliance between authoritarian states and these large, data-rich IT monopolies that would bring together nascent systems of corporate surveillance with an already developed system of state-sponsored surveillance. This may well result in a web of totalitarian control the likes of which not even Aldous Huxley or George Orwell could have imagined.”

“The owners of the platform giants consider themselves the masters of the universe, but in fact, they are slaves to preserving their dominant position.”

“The internet monopolies have neither the will nor the inclination to protect society against the consequences of their actions. That turns them into a menace, and it falls to the regulatory authorities to protect society against them.”

Some people have a hard time trying to digest issues like net neutrality. Sure, with all the differing opinions and various news outlets reporting on the issue, it’s easy to understand why.

Enter Burger King.

Wait, what?

Yes. Burger King. Please pull forward to the first window.

Sometimes, in order to make a point, you have to illustrate the absurd with the absurd.

Using the infamous Whopper, Burger King explained net neutrality in simple to process terms.

I guess you could say Burger King flame-broiled the net neutrality debate.

The government, once again, is shutdown over another spending bill. However, depending on who you ask, you will find that it’s either President Trump to blame or the Republicans. Honestly, isn’t it all about how you look at it?

So what… the government is shutdown. Quite frankly, many are excited at that statement. Thinking of it that way would have us thinking that at least they aren’t wasting any more taxpayer money on reckless and frivolous spending.

But this is about something bigger. Much bigger!

Hop in a time machine real quick as we travel back to 2013. Do you remember? Washington was pounding away at a spending bill and nobody could hash things out. So… since they couldn’t pass it, the government ran out of money and it was forced into a shutdown.

At the time, it was all because the Republicans wouldn’t budge and give Obama and the Democrats what they wanted. It was never Obama at fault. It was never the fault of the Democrats. All the blame was put on the Republicans. If you tried to argue against it, you were, of course, on the dark side.

Okay, hop back in and let’s travel back to present day. Once again, Washington was faced with passing another spending bill. Only this time, there was a Republican President. And, and, the Republicans have a majority in the House and Senate.

So… who’s at fault? That’s right! Trump. It’s all his fault and nobody else’s. Sure, we still blame the Republicans, because, after all, they have the majority and they do whatever Trump tells them to do.

Sure, that’s one way to think about it. But, it’s a silly way to think about it.

It’s what’s at play that’s the bigger picture.

Let’s focus our attention on the Democrats! There is a spending bill on the floor that everyone in Washington is okay with. Yes, even the Democrats. They’re fine with it. However, they also want to fund DACA and the illegal activities of illegal immigrants. Republicans, on the other hand, say no.

So, why not pass the bill and then work on passing immigration reform? Plain and simple. The Democrats care about putting illegal immigrants ahead of America. And, they care so much about it that they are willing to shut down the government.

But, and here’s where it gets kind of silly… it’s STILL Trump’s fault. No matter how you want to spin it, and people are doing their best to do so, we’re NOT allowed to blame Democrats for anything.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas sits down to discuss moments of his life, faith, and family.

In this interview, we get a rather relaxed Justice Thomas as many have likely never seen him before. At one point, he laughs so hard he almost could have fallen out of his chair.

On the topic of faith, he discusses his reason for attending mass daily before work saying it helps him do his “job, a secular job, in the right way and for the right reasons.” Faith, he says, gives him “the strength to do what I have to do every day, to assert the independence, to be willing to take the beatings, the criticism, the unfairness.”

The biggest takeaway for me is just how genuine and humble Justice Thomas is.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably never given much thought as to what happened when the loveable M&M duo came face to face with Santa and they fainted.

If you’ve forgotten, here’s the 1996 M&M Christmas commercial:

Well… M&M felt it right to let you and I know what finally happened. And, it probably didn’t play out quite how you would have imagined.

So, how did they follow up their original 16-second commercial?

By making a minute and a half follow up!

Rather than bore you any longer by explaining what happened, watch M&M’s new Christmas commercial “Faint 2”:

How cool is that? What a great message!

“Did I ruin Christmas Red?” Yellow asks sheepishly.

Red, seeing how the debacle has forced the community to come together says, “Actually buddy, I think you made it even better.”