Slouching Towards Oblivion

Saturday, September 30, 2017

ProLeft Podcast





Some notes:

1) New word - Antinomianism
an·ti·no·mi·an
ˌan(t)ēˈnōmēən/
adjective - relating to the view that Christians are released by grace from the obligation of observing the moral law.




In Christianity, an antinomian is one who takes the principle of salvation by faith and divine grace to the point of asserting that the saved are not bound to follow the Law of Moses.[2] The distinction between antinomian and other Christian views on moral law is that antinomians believe that obedience to the law is motivated by an internal principle flowing from belief rather than from any external compulsion.[3]

2) The Daddy State wants us to bitch about immigrants desiring to maintain their culture so we'll internalized the need for us to forget our own history.

Once you've learned not to remember what happened 50 or 150 years ago or 6 months ago or yesterday, then they can replace those memories with a story that fits their agenda.
(seriously, kids - you never read Orwell?)

3) Here's the Franklin quote Blue Gal referred to:

...why should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.

Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.

Today's Pix

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Today's Tweet





There was always a Plus/Minus thing going on with Hefner.

There's a solid truth about Playboy's exploitation of women and the hyper-pimping of an arbitrary "standard of beauty" that continues to fuck with way too many people's heads.

There's also a very real thing where The Playboy Foundation contributed to some important social progress:

Comedian Dick Gregory revealed in an interview that Hefner provided $25,000 toward a reward that Gregory later credited with helping break one of the civil-rights movement’s most notorious cases: the murder of three young civil-rights workers in Meridian, Mississippi.

Hefner was also an avid supporter of Martin Luther King Jr. and would go on to serve as a significant funder of the Rainbow PUSH coalition helmed by King acolyte Jesse Jackson. (Hefner donated to a number of progressive and legal causes throughout his life, including funding America’s very first rape kit, via his charitable foundation.)


So I'm not minimizing or equalizing. I'm trying to see as much of the whole thing as possible.

Friday, September 29, 2017

Deep In The Heart Of Texas

Dale Hansen - the sports guy at WFAA in Dallas.


And oh yeah - if you buy this shit:


...I've got a border wall you might be interested in.

Especially when it's just too easy to find the real thing.


Please stop wondering why I call you guys Rubes, OK?

The Buzz


Buzz Burbank (@MichaelJElston) does the straight up news - with that old familiar liberal bias most closely associated with reality.

(Loads of fun with Political Spoils starting at about 13:38)

Keith


Slice-n-dice it any which way - it still adds up to industrialized fuckery.  The only real question is how much of that fuckery is illegal?

Today's Tweet



The temperature is going up.  AGW is a real thing, and the changes in climate are being driven by it.

Please either get next to all that, or get the fuck outa my government.

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Trae Crowder

Kaepernick's protest is not about what you want it to be about. It's about what Kaepernick says it's about.

And by the fuckin' way - the only reason "conservatives" are using the word "disrespectful" is because Lee Atwater and Roger Stone managed to teach them not to say "uppity".

Sam Bee

Samantha Bee - Puerto Rico etc




How Do You Solve A Problem Like Korea

Another good Randy Rainbow parody:

Today's Tweet



This is one very good reason why you get up off your butt and not only go vote, but find others who might agree with you and get them out to vote too.

Our little experiment in self government goes down the shitter if we don't do the work.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Goin' Deep


I only wish we could take Sagan's poetry and put it together with DeGrasse's showmanship.

But then again, this one's pretty great. Always been one of my faves.

Trevor Brings It

It's wrong to do it in the streets
It's wrong to do it in the Tweets
You cannot do it on the field
You cannot do it if you kneel
And you don't do it if you're rich
You ungrateful son of a bitch
Because there's one thing that's a fact
You cannot protest if you're black

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

New On Comedy Central

This is kind of a variation on Colbert - on steroids - but I'm hoping they let Jordan Klepper get his feet under him and find his audience.

If they can keep it moving and not get too hung up in simple mockery, they might be making something pretty special. Fake Jesus knows they're not likely to run out of raw material any time soon.


Today's GIF

Google fractal

Not Just Another Dumb Jock

Gregg Popovich struggles at times to find the words, but if this is at all representative of how people in positions of influence are thinking, then we're doing better than I thought.


And Steve Kerr talks about the Warriors taking a pass on their White House visit - making a very solid statement on values:


BTW - nobody is protesting the national anthem, and nobody is protesting the flag.

BTW2 - stop telling me 45* has accomplished something positive. You might as well say it was a good thing those 300 passengers were killed in just about the most gruesome way imaginable because we got all these great new data points on how to improve airline safety.

Keith


Don't stand for this shit

Monday, September 25, 2017

Keith


A little impluse control goes a long way. Which is why 45* will never stop punching down instead of lifting up.

Today's Quote


Let me get this straight, America. You terrorize and enslave an entire race for over 300 years; ban them from your privileges for the next 100 years; fill two-thirds of your prison cells with them until today - and you're angry with them when they don't applaud your history.

Today's Tweet



PoliticusUSA:

Opinion of the Republican Party is at its lowest point since CNN began poling the question in 1992.

While nearly 6 in 10 Americans are mad at both parties, opinion of the Republican Party has hit an all-time low according to a new CNN poll.

While 41% approve of the Democratic Party and 51% disapprove, only 29% approve of the Republican Party while 62% disapprove.

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Kinda Quote

Sometimes I wonder if the government is being run by smart folks who are putting us on, or total idiots who aren't.
--unknown


A Podcast


Thoughts:

  • The power of the narrative is in the power of naming things
  • Whatever it is, call it what it is
  • Hillary failed (and we failed along with her in very much the same way) because she couldn't switch from Wonk to Story-Teller.


Some other thoughts:

  • The distraction machine
  • We create consumers, not thinkers
  • If both sides are the same, then I don't have to make a decision
  • You are the product, and you're being sold to the advertisers
  • Companies have a vested interest in you becoming dumber and dumber



send 'em a check:
PO Box 9133
Springfield IL 62791-9133

Look for their Amazon link:

Friday, September 22, 2017

Every Man A Millionaire

Warren Buffett is currently sitting on $100 Billion Cash.

One Hundred Billion Dollars - CASH

Mr Buffett is known as one of the good-guy rich guys, and he knows he shouldn't have that kinda scratch lying around doing nothing.

But not even Warren Buffett knows what he oughta do with all that money when stock prices are crazy high, and most companies worth buying are over-valued, and and and.

He's said recently that the market (Wilshire 5000) is currently valued at about 140% of US GDP, and that usually means there's a "correction" coming.

The word "correction" in this context generally means "Honey, I won't be home for supper tonight because I plan on stepping in front of the train".

Typically, markets collapse right about now.

So here we go again.

BTW, we have a simple response to the GOP's favorite bromide of Tax Cuts for Over-Privleged Entitled-Feeling Rich-As-Fuck Elitist Assholes will boost the economy, create a gazillion jobs and increase federal revenues:


We're left with only one really great way to use all that money, and it ain't Supply Side. After 35 years of trying really really really hard to make it work, and trying even harder to get everybody to pretend it works, we now know the single most important thing about it -  that shit don't work.

I hate saying it, but we prob'ly need to tax the fuck outa some folks and put the money into Education, Trades Training, and Infrastructure.

It's called Keynesian Economics and it works.  We know it works because it always works because that's how a modern economy fucking works.

Today's Pix















Today's Tweet



Beat me to it

Today's GIF

A short film, actually

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Kimmel Fighting Back

Seems a little weird, but I think there's something happening with Libruls - they're getting up on their hind legs again.


Maybe Jimmy Kimmel isn't really "Liberal". Maybe he's just a guy who knows we need to try driving it down the middle - and in this ridiculous environment, he looks like a loonie leftie when he says anything of substance, or calls out a Ratpublican for lying to him - and now he's started to see that you don't get anything but fucked over when you play nice with some of these douche buckets.

A smiling hyena will still eat your kids

Today's Tweet



I guess I'd just like to know why the Ratpublicans think it's OK to force us to be unwilling test subjects in these little real-time experiments that everybody knows will fail.