Reality is just an illusion

Wherein watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat

From Cathy Seipp is a pointer to an LA Weekly article about Charles Johnson of LGF uncovering the faked Reuters photographs. It's an interesting story and for a generalized look at the decision process in the news room that may lead to such errors, the current Lileks Bleat is a good place to start.

So while that thread of news is in the background, I'm rereading Interface, my favorite political conspiracy novel. Because conspiracy theories are also floating around and it seemed appropriate. I came across this quote that made me laugh and also wonder why the deception wasn't uncovered any earlier.

Americans may be undereducated, lazy, and disorganized, but they do one thing better than any people on the face of the earth, and that is watch television. The average eight-year-old American has absorbed more media technology than a goddamn film student in most other countries. You can tell lies to them and they'll never know. But if you try to lie to them with the camera, they'll crucify you.

This does seem to agree with the following description from Snow Crash: There are only four things we do better than anyone else: music, movies, microcode (software), and high-speed pizza delivery.

More conspiracy quotes
Here's a few quotes I pasted at Althouse and I might as well put them here.

Two quotes from Bill Hicks, profanity removed.

There's a handful of people running everything. That's true. It's proveable...I'm not a conspiracy nut...it's proveable. A handful, a very small elite run and own these corporations, which includes the mainstream media. I have this feeling whoever is elected president...no matter what the promises were on the campaign trail--blah, blah, blah. When you win you go into this smoky room with the 12 industrialist capitalist scum*** who got you in there. And you're in this smoky room, this little film screen comes down, and a big guy with a cigar (puff puff) Roll the Film (puff puff)...

And it's a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you've never seen before. That looks suspiciously off the grassy knoll. And the screen goes up and the lights come on, and they go to the new president: "Any questions?"

*************
They're all the same. I'll show in politics in America. Here it is right here.

I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.
I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.

Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding both puppets.

Shut up! Go back to bed America, your government is in control. Here's Love Connection; watch this and get fat and stupid. By the way, keep drinking beer you morons.

And now Umberto Eco, from Foucault's Pendulum:

Not that the incredulous person doesn't believe in anything. It's just that he doesn't believe everything. Or he believes in one thing at a time. He believes a second thing only if it somehow follows from the first thing. He is nearsighted and methodical, avoiding wide horizons. If two things don't fit, but you believe both of them, thinking that somewhere, hidden, there must be a third thing that connects them, that's credulity.