IBM-led advertising X-odus gains steam as more flee Musk's platform

IBM may have led the latest advertising X-odus from Elon Musk's social media platform, but several other companies reportedly joined Big Blue over the weekend, amid calls for Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino to quit to save face. As we reported at the end of last week, IBM pulled advertising from the platform in the wake of a …

[Ball boy]

Yaccarino is damaged goods

She can't really walk away yet, it's too soon and would look like she misunderstood her role (which wouldn't bode well when looking for another position). On top of that, having taken Musk's poison pill, she's damaged her chances of getting hired by any major company for fear of being somehow linked by association with The Great One himself.

Her best bet - by far - is to hold out for another six months or so then strike a deal with a publisher, hire in a ghost writer and try to make a killing with a 'life under Musk' exposé.

[Jet Set Willy]

Marketing = prefessional bullsheit

In other news...

Bears defecate in arboreal areas

Popes tend to be of the non-protestant but still Chritian faith

Elon Musk is a cunt

carry on

[Mitoo Bobsworth]

Re: Marketing = prefessional bullsheit

'Elon Musk is a cunt' - I did nazi that coming!

[Don Jefe]

Re: Marketing = prefessional bullsheit

Anne Frankly, I do not find it funny.

[MrRtd]

What reputation is left for her to ruin after becoming a Musk-puppet?

[A.P. Veening]

What reputation is left for her to ruin after becoming a Musk-puppet?

Imagine what would happen to it if she became a Trump-muppet.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey IBM, Apple and the rest

Why not save yourself a shed load of money and stop spending on X for good?

That might (who am I kidding) persuade Musk that he is going to kill the platform if he carries on the way he is at the moment. His paymasters (the Saudi's) won't like that.

I wonder if he wll mysteriously fall out of a window? It has to be a possibility he has to consider.

[F. Frederick Skitty]

Re: Hey IBM, Apple and the rest

I seem to recall chopping people up in a Saudi embassy is more their style.

[Winkypop]

Re: Hey IBM, Apple and the rest

Come over for a quick chop, errr, I mean chat…

[DS999]

Re: Hey IBM, Apple and the rest

The Saudis only contributed a few billion to buying Twitter, they make and lose 10x that much just from daily oil price fluctuations so I doubt they are too worried about losing that money if Twitter goes under. They killed Khashoggi because he was reporting the truth about the Saudi leadership, and they don't like that.

[aerogems]

Re: Hey IBM, Apple and the rest

My personal guess is the Saudi's don't care about Twitter either way. As long as it's in operation they have leverage over Twitler to get IP addresses and other PII on any "dissidents" within their borders and elsewhere. If Twitter goes titsup, that's just one less platform on which people can spread info the Saudi government doesn't like. And, of course, if somehow Twitler manages to actually pay off the debt he took on to buy his own little mean girls platform, they make a tidy little profit. So, it's basically a no-lose scenario for them.

[mevets]

A lesson from Tigger and Pooh.

Maybe if he tried to destroy ~~twitter~~ X, he would accidentally save it.

[Pascal Monett]

"a global Jewish cabal"

So, does Musk believe in Jewish space lasers as well ?

Basically, he's stuck in 1935.

That explains a lot.

[Kristian Walsh]

Re: "a global Jewish cabal"

Well, people have called him the modern-day Henry Ford...

[raving angry loony]

Re: "a global Jewish cabal"

"modern day Henry Ford"? Nah.

Ford had one redeeming feature, he wanted to treat his workers right. Then was stopped by the Dodge brothers in the infamous Dodge vs Ford legal precedent.

Ford was still a nazi loving shit though. But at least he tried to help his workers. Unlike Musk.

[Kristian Walsh]

Re: "a global Jewish cabal"

Sadly, Ford didn’t have that redeeming feature. Conditions for all auto workers were poor in the 1930s, but Ford had the reputation of being the most capricious. Attempts to unionise at Ford were met with brutal reprisals. Ford company security and the Dearborn, MI police (effectively a company Police Department) had a long history of violence against current and former employees of the Ford Motor Company during the 1930s when they dared to ask for better conditions.

Ironically, it was precisely Ford’s disproportionate use of force against union organisers that swayed public opinion against the captains of industry and toward the unions. Photos of a 1936 assault on a union recruiting party by Ford security staff made national news, and seriously damaged Ford’s reputation as a “decent man” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Overpass].

[Don Jefe]

Re: "a global Jewish cabal"

You’re more right than you may know. The Great Replacement, Great Reset, Great Tartaria, and mudfloods are all rooted in 19th century Nordicism (the forerunner to Aryanism). A lot of it is 100% plagiarized from the literature that would inspire colossal dickheads like American journalist and conservative thought leader Lothrop Stoddard to write bestselling ideological hate treatises like “The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy” and “Racial Realities in Europe”. His most famous contribution to history was his coining of the term Undermen, which would be translated as Untermensch in German.

The further you dig into any of those popular topics, the worse it gets. It’s just straight up NSDAP mythology with the names changed so the audience doesn’t realize what they’ve gotten into until they’re too deep to care. The worst part is that updating the facade of Nazism is enough to let it spread on social media without so much as a second glance.

[PhilipN]

IBM ...Twitter...???

Why'd they ever think it was a good idea to be on it in the first place?

[A.P. Veening]

Re: IBM ...Twitter...???

Why'd they ever think it was a good idea to be on it in the first place?

When has a bean counter management ever had a good idea? IBM has been going downhill ever since the bean counters took over.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: IBM ...Twitter...???

I really have to wonder how many consumers for any sort of goods or services are persuaded, or even influenced, by advertisements on Twitter; but that goes double for "enterprise" hardware, software, and services. "Oh yes, I've decided to spend half a million dollars based on a dozen words of marketing fluff some intern posted to a dodgy website."

For a while we had someone in Marketing who was very big on trying to get people in Development to be "social media warriors". The stupidity and obnoxiousness of that metaphor aside, I was never at all convinced that we would be doing the company any favors. Top developers retweeting marketing guff makes me more suspicious of a firm, not less. Engineers writing technical blog posts explaining algorithms and design choices — sure, that could help with credibility. Engineers puffing up product features, not so much.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

The obvious move

Yaccarino needs to lock Musk's account for promoting hate speech and tarnishing the business image.

If Musk fires her, she'd be leaving with a somewhat redeemed reputation while X loses business and slowly suffocates in debt. If Musk apologizes, Yaccarino is cementing a bit of power and X might survive a little longer.

[Nastybirdy]

Freedoms

Let's say it again, boys and girls.

Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequence.

Freedom of speech is also the right of companies to go "I don't like what you're saying" and take their money elsewhere and no amount of sad little tantrums and threats of lawsuits from Manchild Musk will change that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Freedoms

Now tell that to all the lefties who are now showing their true colours and have lost jobs for making very antisemitic statements and are now throwing epic tantrums.

As for twitter, it has adverts? Good to know my ad blocker is working well.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Freedoms

if your truly antisemitic your a nazi not a leftist

you might be talking about israel criticism which is not antisemitism

same goes for any racism, homophobia, transphobia or any other discrimination

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Freedoms

"if your truly antisemitic your a nazi not a leftist"

Same thing. You could also be a communist as they also hated Jews. All left wing authoritarian ideologies.

"you might be talking about israel criticism which is not antisemitism"

No, this is people saying things like 'death to the Jews' in public or saying how they support Hamas or painting swastikas on Jewish owned businesses.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Freedoms

"this is people saying things like 'death to the Jews' in public or saying how they support Hamas or painting swastikas on Jewish owned businesses."

there nazis or other right wing hatemongers because that hatred does not and can not by definition exist in the left

[ChoHag]

Re: Freedoms

I'm sorry, are we arguing about how to do racism correctly?

[TheWeetabix]

Re: Freedoms

The other great American Passtime….

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Freedoms

"there nazis or other right wing hatemongers because that hatred does not and can not by definition exist in the left"

Bahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!! Oh wait, you're serious?

That hatred ONLY exists on the left.

[Schultz]

Nazis versus Leftists is the wrong paradigm

Look up Stasser and the left wing of the nazi party. The party called itself national socialists for a reason.

Maybe we should be more selective with the labels we apply to people. And stop using these labels as a convenient way to discredit those we disagree with. OTOH, your use of language does help me recognize your personal set of biases, so carry on.

[BartyFartsLast]

Re: Nazis versus Leftists is the wrong paradigm

That Internet Research Agency claim you're mindlessly repeating about Nazis being socialists has been debunked so many times I can't make my mind up if you're so bad at trolling it's laughable or if you're really so ignorant that you actually believe it.

Either way, it's pitiful that you're so down the rabbit hole you can't even see daylight.

[Jedit]

"The party called itself national socialists for a reason"

As was specifically stated by the Nazis at one point, it was so they could co-opt the existing socialist political apparatus. The NSDAP were anti-Communist and anti-union and Hitler once said he considered Marxism to be a disease. There was nothing left wing or socialist about them; the Strasserites were better described as the least right wing element of the Party, and they were stamped out because they didn't want the Party to be beholden to the elites who were supporting Hitler at the time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "The party called itself national socialists for a reason"

You do know that Marxism is not the only left leaning ideology and you can still be anti-communist and be a lefty.

You're very much propping up the theory that the left define everything to the right of Marx as 'far right'.

[aerogems]

Re: "The party called itself national socialists for a reason"

They don't even know what Marxism is. It's just something they hear repeated on Fox News or some other conservative "news" outlet and so they adopt it. They started out in the 50s with "communism" which they misused to mean fascism or totalitarianism. Then people became inured to that word so they went back to the communist manifesto and took out the word "socialism". Now people are becoming inured to that one so they go with the author of the communist manifesto, Karl Marx. I'm sure if we could peer 10-20 years into the future they'll be calling it Engelism or something after the other author of the communist manifesto. After that, all the people who were alive during the "red scare" will likely be dead so they can go back to using communism again. Or, if we're lucky, the sensible conservatives we keep hearing exist, will have enough and stuff the lunatic fringe back into the basement dwellings from whence they came.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Nazis versus Leftists is the wrong paradigm

They were called "national socialists" for the same reason that "Golden Delicious" apples are called that. Marketing spin to promote the opposite of the truth.

[Zolko]

Re: Nazis versus Leftists is the wrong paradigm

or the reason why east-Germany was called DDR : Deutsche Demokratische Republik. It was not democratic and not a republic. Germans are not very good at marketing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Freedoms... another low information "anti Nazi"

You know the NSDAP.The actual Nazis. Know what the S and A stand for. Socialist and Workers.

In fact the biggest wing of the NSDAP until the "little Ernst Röhm unpleasantness" in 1934 was the very left wing socialist wing. And right up to the end 'Sozialismus" was a key political principal of the NSDAP party. Because thats were the majority of its supporters came from. The same kind of people who had voted for the SPD and KPD. Center parties less so.

As for the actual Fascists. In Italy. Most of the leaders had split off from the many left wing / socialist political groups in Italy at the time. Even Britains own home grown Black Shorts leader had been a senior Labour party politicians before he set up his own shop. As were a lot of the early members. Ever heard of the New Party?

All fascists and "nazi" parties were collectivist. Just like the socialist / communist and left wing parties. Birds of a feather. Its the social democrats and liberal democrats who are the actual opposite political pole.

Left Wingers. Nazis. Pot. Kettle. Black.

[jotheberlock]

Re: Freedoms... another low information "anti Nazi"

And the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a democracy. You can tell, it's right there in the name, they couldn't possibly be lying about that could they?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Freedoms... another low information "anti Nazi"

They have elections on a local level.

[mpi]

Re: Freedoms

Making antisemitic statements is not a left-wing political stance. The color of the flag one is waving is irrelevant, when contradicted by what one says and/or does.

[Snapper]

Re: Freedoms

It might not be a political 'stance' but I think most people who are awake realise that there is plenty of vicious antisemitism on the left of politics.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: sad little tantrums and threats of lawsuits

from manchild Trump and his stooge Musk.

Trump has no concept of "Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequence" unless it is to state that he'll build an even bigger and better prison (no one knows more about prisons than me) for everyone who dares criticize him after 5th Nov 2024. Lawsuits are so passe, instead, he'll just throw everyone in jail without due process naturally. If you doubt me then please read the 'Project 2025' manifesto and then listen to Trump's own words in recent weeks.

There... fixed it for you..

Elon is just copying what his own lord and master is doing.

[katrinab]

Re: Freedoms

And most importantly, freedom of speech is also freedom from forced speech.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Freedoms

Forced speech is the ideology of the left. Their opinion from your mouth.

Nothing said tolerance like the mob attacking a group of people having a meal in NY (I think) for not bending the knee and raising the fist in (forced) solidarity.

But remember we had Maxine Waters saying if you see them in the street or a restaurant or a gas-o-leene station and get in their faces.

[Arthur the cat]

Re: Freedoms

Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequence.

ObXKCD

[Groo The Wanderer]

I'm just surprised it took so long for the exodus to begin, given what I keep hearing about how bad the X-Twitter cesspool has begun to reek...

[DS999]

I think that companies have to wait for things to get so bad that almost everyone will agree with their decision. A company like Apple doesn't want to be put into a position where they face some sort of right wing boycott.

[aerogems]

Get the popcorn ready

I'm going to enjoy watching Twitler get his ass handed to him in court again. I hope that at some point the media matters counsel calls Twitler to the stand and asks him why, if Twitler is such a proponent of free speech, their client isn't allowed to express themselves by publishing these reports. I would imagine a scenario similar to the infamous chat where some former Twitter developer started asking Twitler for specifics. Twitler of course couldn't answer because he's a con artist, got all flustered, and called the guy an asshole.

I'm just waiting for him to threaten to sue companies that stop advertising to try to force them to continue advertising. It's the next logical step, as much as logic applies to anything Twitler does. "If you don't advertise, I'ma gonna sue!"

Very few people actually support free speech. A lot of people say they do, but when it comes to something like allowing the KKK to hold a parade down main street in some city, a lot of people will seek to prevent them from being able to do so. Even if all the proper permits and whatnot have been requested and granted. Of course most people don't spend almost $50bn on a platform, then go running around claiming how big a proponent of free speech they are, just to turn around and threaten to sue people for exercising their right to free speech. That level of assholery is achieved by only a rare few individuals... mercifully.

[Gary Stewart]

Re: Get the popcorn ready

The lawsuit has been filed. Need to go to the store tomorrow as my popcorn supply will certainly run out before this is over. The best part is that this is an unwinnable lawsuit, the worst part is that Musk has enough money to not care.

[DS999]

Re: Get the popcorn ready

Musk isn't filing suit to win, he knows it will lose but he gets cheers from the MAGA morons and he craves their adulation. The real reason he's filing suit is to try to intimidate others who report on stuff like this and cow them into silence.

[MiguelC]

Re: Get the popcorn ready

My be is the lawsuit will not happen. Anti-SLAPP laws would come into action and Xitter and Xitler would end getting their arses whipped.

[PhilBuk]

Re: Get the popcorn ready

The suit was filed in Texas. Does that state have anti-SLAPP laws?

Phil.

[MiguelC]

Re: Get the popcorn ready

Doing a little research never hurt anyone...

In Texas, the law that protects people from SLAPP lawsuits is called the Texas Citizens Participation Act. It protects your First Amendment rights, such as free speech, the right to petition (ask the government for help), and the right of association. It is often referred to as the “Anti-SLAPP law."

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Get the popcorn ready

The Fifth Circuit has ruled that the Texas Anti-SLAPP law doesn't apply to cases in Federal court. That's why Space Karen filed in Texas.

[aerogems]

Re: Get the popcorn ready

I really hope Twitler's lawyers start facing the same kind of sanctions Trump's crack legal team for the 2020 election did. I know the courts are usually very reluctant to sanction petitioners, but when a complaint is so obviously in bad faith and not grounded in reality, let alone the law, any lawyer who files the case should do so under penalty of losing their license. This isn't a case of, "Oh, my client lied through their teeth to me," or "I wanted to advance a novel legal theory," sort of thing. This is established law, that even a lay outside observer can tell is pure bullshit. The whole point is to use the courts as a cudgel to harass the other party.

[Anonymous Coward]

Twitter has never been so good.

[aerogems]

This is The Register, not The Daily Stormer. I can see how you might get confused, since they're spelled absolutely nothing alike.

[Piro]

To be fair, he's correct. Twitter used to be a cesspit. Now it's a cesspit, but we're getting some laughs from news articles about it, so at least it's given something back.

[TheMeerkat]

Alongside antisemitic posts on Twitter?

We have antisemitic hate marches going on in the centre of London, why care about Twitter?

[DS999]

We have antisemitic hate marches going on in the centre of London, why care about Twitter?

Because the people marching in them aren't getting paid by Disney and Paramount to carry signs advertising those companies. On Twitter they are, so that's why these companies care. Overall as far as concern over anti Jewish hate goes, then yes whether ads for big companies appear alongside Nazi posts on Muskie's playground is down the list of concerns.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes you just need a 'hook line and sinker' gif to reply to posts

[Roj Blake]

You are Suella Braverman, and I claim my £5.

[Mitoo Bobsworth]

In 1995, Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com, said: "I predict the internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse."

He missed the mark spectacularly - however Musk is currently working hard to turn his little corner of it into a black hole.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Meanwhile, some right-leaning media outfits and companies have pledged to book ads on X in response to the boycott

Well, that should send the last of the other advertisers running for the hills.

[Kristian Walsh]

The phrase “right-leaning” is a bit odd in that quote. That usually describes the pro-captialist media, the likes of Forbes, Barron’s or the Wall Street Journal... none of these are likely to associate themselves with race-hate. Even conservative and Christian media (e.g. The National Review) wouldn’t touch the sort of views Musk is currently approving.

It’s only the deranged Right (roughly Fox News to Stormfront) that would willingly associate with Twitter/X now, but Fox wouldn’t bother as it has those viewers anyway, and the nutjob outlets don’t have their own money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Only Guardian / NYT readers here I see..

Who know nothing of the rather "interesting" political posturing of the ADL over the last few decades. Especially under it most recent leadership. Mostly high level DNC apparatchiks. And who never actually read the full tweet thread. Which was pretty much completely correct based on a defendable interpretation of what the ADL has actually said and done over the last decade or so.

The recent history of the ADL is not a pretty story based on it previous sterling history. Some truly inspiring work in previous generations. The current leadership have committed to a complete abrogation of all its founding principals. There is no "hierarchy of oppressed". ADL's verbal gymnastics about people like Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton is a sight to watch. Like the Crown Hights "pogrom" never happened. And so on.

But hey, what do I know. As a staunch supporter of Israel. Who has known many Israelis (and Palestinians). With many Jewish friends. And who's significant other is Jewish.

Haven't you guys heard of primary source validation of "news stories? Some of us have been doing it since the 1970's you know.

[abend0c4]

Re: Only Guardian / NYT readers here I see..

I read the Guardian and I take issue with a significant number of the positions taken by the ADL.

And that's the problem with making generically hostile assumptions whether they're about "Guardian Readers" or "Jews" - it implies "they" are all the same and not individually human.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Only Guardian / NYT readers here I see..I read them for deades too..

I was a regular reader of both the Observer and Guardian from the mid 1970's on. Stopped reading them regularly when they went b*t sh*t crazy around 2014 when they decided they were now in competition with the Huntington Post and Daily Kos for webclicks.

I was a daily reader of the NYT from the early 1980's until the late 1990's. When it became very obvious that all the rumors about Pinch Sulzberger being an Idiot Rich Kid were completely true. And they started publishing totally fabricated stories and became little more than an echo chamber for the commonplaces of Upper East Side (very rich) Gentry Democrats.

I miss the old Observer. And I really miss the old Rosenthal era NYT. And the New Yorker which committed voluntary suicide in 2016.

So my characterization of the typical current Guardian / NYT readers as low information smug Bobos stand. Its a real pity that Bobo as a the term of abuse only got traction in France. As the David Brooks book really captured the utter vacuousness of both the class and the wannabees. The people who gave us Virtue Signalling.

[abend0c4]

Re: Only Guardian / NYT readers here I see..I read them for deades too..

I miss the old Observer

Perhaps you simply miss your youth.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Only Guardian / NYT readers here I see..I read them for deades too.....

Nope. As I was far from young when the Observer as a separate newsroom was finally folded into the Guardian. Less than 10 years ago,

What I miss is the huge actual diversity of backgrounds of reporters in the old days. If you hung out with reporters / journalists over the decades you would know that until about 10 / 15 years ago they were from every walk of life, not the current J-School / "Journalism degree" idiot children of the affluent middle classes. Too stupid to realize that its no longer a viable career but from a very financially comfortable background so as not to really care.

The Guardian like the NYT are both supported by large trust funds which are being slowly run down. And the people they hire are either "our kind of people" or the token quota hires from the designated "oppressed" groups. Of which the most talented (and there are quiet a few) soon move on to were they are not patronized by the mostly white folk who went to the right Iver League Schools / Oxbridge who still run both newspapers. There is more actually diversity of all sorts in the newsrooms of the Daily Mail and NY Post that you will find in the Guardian or NYT newsrooms.

So very like the top level of the Conservative and Labor Parties then.

[Darkcloud]

Only problem with that is that Twitter logged everything they did and can show that the only account in the world that saw those ads on those tweets was Media Matters, because they spent an entire day setting things up to get that result.

[Brewster's Angle Grinder]

Think of it like a bomb accidentally detonating...

It doesn't matter how rarely an advertiser can appear next to Nazi propaganda. It's only matters that it can happen at all.

[Kristian Walsh]

You’re extrapolating what Twitter actually said. Read their rebuttal carefully. They not say that only Media Matters saw those ads. They only said that on the day in question, one of the ads in question was served only once, and it was to Media Matters. The other ads were shown more than once, but we’re not told where they appeared.

The one missing piece of information from Twitter was this: how many times, over the past month (for example) were ads bought by the advertisers in question placed beside content from the offensive accounts highlighted by Media Matters?

It’s not a hard query to run, and it would show conclusively that MM’s test was an anomalous result, so why isn’t it included in the company’s rebuttal?

All of this is a symptom of Musk’s deep cost-cutting: the drop in feed quality on Twitter is clear enough for anyone who used it before, but the same lack of attention that shows any old shit to users regardless of their preferences is also allowing ads to be shown beside any old shit too, regardless of promises made to advertisers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even the Useful Idiots were better in the Old Days

Circa 1980 if you had pointed out the strong similarity between the NSDAP and the KPD politics in the early 1930's to any of the many Western Marxists (and there were an awful lot back then) you would have at least got a - Well, But.. - reasonably well informed argument of the relevant minutiae. About how a social collective based on blood nationalism was so very different from a social collective based on class (it is n't) with extensive quotes from (depending on their political tendencies) the relevant catechism of Marx, Lenin, Engels, Mao or for the really slippery ones, Trotsky. Never trust a Trotskyite. The Jesuits of Marxism.

Nowadays? Young 'uns would n't know the difference between deviationism and dialectic if it bit them on their socialist realist arse.

Anyone else miss the totally bonkers English language broadcasts of Radio Tirana of the late 1970's / early 1980's? After Hoxha had fallen out with the Chinese as well. Pure Marxists lunacy. Which even Groucho would have had trouble topping. Sorry I never recorded any on a very noisy Medium wave. Political comedy gold.

I think I'll go watch Vremya on Channel 1 RU. Always good for a laugh. Just like it was in the 1980's. A bit like "The Day Today" but with all the intentional jokes removed.

Who says history does not repeat itself.

[Bebu]

Re: Even the Useful Idiots were better in the Old Days

《Young 'uns would n't know the difference between deviationism and dialectic if it bit them on their socialist realist arse.》

Mostly a consequence of an inability to bimanually locate said anatomical feature, one suspects.

I had forgotten how bonkers the other side of the Iron and Bamboo curtains were before Perestroika & Glasnost (that worked out well did it not?) and actually is still pretty bonkers in those parts.

I recall in those days the lefties on campus were prattling about dialectic materialism which I guessed was that soviet state religion but I have no idea what it was or whether those lefties were for it or against it. They generally made about as much sense to me as my quantum mechanics studies. Not much changed there.

Not that the "West" or non-aligned (third world) nations could then have been considered paradigms of sanity.

Today, if you were to construct a list of the world's noted loonies, you would have more than half of what laughingly passes for this planet's leadership and of the Hotel Registrations in Davos during the WEF bunfights..

Do not go gentle into that good night./ Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

[Winkypop]

I hate Illinois Nazis

All Nazis actually.

I’m sick and tired of them.

I’m going to purposefully disengage online.

[Kristian Walsh]

Re: I hate Illinois Nazis

The Illinois Nazis... weren’t they one of the original NFL franchises?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I hate Illinois Nazis.. did n't you ever see The Blue Brothers?

The "Illinois Nazis" were the bad guys (among many) in that great Chicago travelog documentary film - "The Blues Brothers". Far more accurate and informative than "Ferris Buller's Day Off" ever was.

If only all of us could be On A Mission From God. And all Men In Black were Jake and Ellwood.

[Winkypop]

Re: I hate Illinois Nazis.. did n't you ever see The Blue Brothers?

Correct my son.

Do you SEE the LIGHT?!?

Do you SEE the LIGHT?!?

Have you SEEN the LIGHT?