Mr Bonhoeffer

In the political sense, stupidity isn't an intellectual defect - it's a morality deficit.

Bonhoeffer Revisited

"Reasons fall on deaf ears."

Stupidity - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

More On Stoopid

This time we go back to Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

“There is meaning in every journey that is unknown

to the traveler.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

On Stoopid

Sometimes it's just smart people behaving stupidly. But, as Carlo Cipolla points out, in some way or another, we almost always make the mistake of selling The Stoopid short.

5 universal laws of stupidity

1. Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
2. The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
3. A stupid person is one who causes loss to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring loss himself.
4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and in all places, and under every circumstance, to deal with - or even associate with - stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

Even in a room filled with articulate,

accomplished,

highly educated people,

there are some who are destructively stupid.

ala Dunning-Kruger

You have to learn enough to believe you're right, and then you have to learn more so as to know you're probably wrong.

An Oldie

George Clooney pitching UDUMASS

Tell It, Sam

Samantha Bee

I'm not going to pull any punches by calling you ignorant, because that word implies you exist in a state of certain innocence, where you simply don't know something. 

When you know there's good information, but you reject it in spite of everything every credible source tells you is the truth, then you're just being stoopid.

Cuz - you know - Mama always said stoopid is as stoopid does.

Sam's Back

Don't be stupid
Be a smarty
Undermine the Nazi Party

samanthabee.com/lifeafterhate.com

Samantha Bee:

It's A Ladder, Einstein

Dear @realDonaldTrump: Here's a friendly reminder from @VicenteFoxQue that Mexico will not pay for your wall. pic.twitter.com/Osg8ZUYLlG

— Super Deluxe (@superdeluxe) June 7, 2017

Scoreboard, Bitches

Today's Anti-Trump

Lil Donny recently tried to make a case for being "good to the gays" or some such - the usual clumsy left-handed shit that falls out of his face every time he opens his yap.  Anyway, he was trying to pander to LGBTQ, and this started making the rounds:

"If gay people felt the least bit friendly towards Trump, one of us would've already done something about his makeup, and fixed that ridiculous thing on top of his head."

Colbert Explains

What - I gotta draw ya a fuckin' picture!?!

Today's GIF

Grist:

The temperature spiral that took the world by storm has an update. If you think the heat is on in our current climate, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

To recap, University of Reading climate scientist Ed Hawkins wrecked the internet a few weeks ago with a revolutionary new way to look at global temperatures. Using a circular graph of every year’s monthly temperatures and animating it, Hawkins’ image showed planetary heat spiraling closer to the 2 degrees C threshold in a way no bar or line graph could do.

Let's see ya cherry pick that one, DumFux News. 

This Just In

Ol' Doc Maddow is reporting on some new polling numbers from Public Policy Polling.

To wit: Donald Trump is less popular than Lice, Traffic Jams, Used Car Salesmen, Hipsters, DMV, Jury Duty, Nickelback and Root Canals.

The good news is that Trump beats Cockroaches and Hemorrhoids...

...unless you're talking just to women:

 

Seriously?  He loses to Nickelback!?!  That guy's fucked.

What We Really Need

"... are fewer people who think there's one single thing that will solve all of our problems ..."

Lily Eskelsen, NEA President:

Gimme what we'll spend the next several years on a coupla fully-loaded Ford class aircraft carriers, and I'll turn every public school in this joint into a fucking palace.  Not by painting the walls and landscaping the parking lots, but by helping the people who struggle sometimes just to survive in the neighborhoods where those schools are. 

You can't fix the schools if you don't fix the neighborhoods.  And you can't fix the neighborhoods without giving people solid reasons to believe we're not gonna turn our backs on them and allow their kids to be mangled and pulverized by the cycle of poverty ignorance and crime. 

Pay It Heed, Dummy

And remember that while the Dems have been pretty much too quiet and too absent for too fucking long, the GOP is nothing but Guns-Everywhere-Kill-'Em-All-Let-God-Sort-It-Out.

You don't like it? Get up on your hind legs and do something about it.

Science Monday

I'm putting this up the day before Denver loses it's record 6th Super Bowl - actually, I'm  trying to put up a lotta stuff in advance, because if my Donkeys pull it off, I'm prob'ly gonna be drunk for several days.

So here's some great stuff from The Thinking Atheist:

Medical Neglect In The Name Of God

The Mic Drop

Nobody's doing it better right now than Larry Wilmore.

Still hoping Trevor Noah will at least start to catch up soon.  Also hoping the suits give him the space and the help he needs to do that.

Left Behind

What strikes me is that these people sound like children.  Whether they're 22 years old or 60 - when they speak, they sound like they think they know everything they need to know, and that there's just no way they could be trying to argue their point from a false premise.

The two Goober Squadlings in that report can't believe they won't get their way just because they think they're right and everybody else is wrong and, "Gee, Dad - it's just not fair - all the other kids did it".

And not to give ya too much of a whiplash, but we need to put some real schooling back into schools.  We need to teach kids about critical thinking, so they don't grow up to become easy marks for any random jagoff who can fool 'em into believing whatever he tells 'em in order to serve his own lust for power.

I'm not trying to set myself up as a paragon.  I've bought into all kinds of shit that ends up looking pretty stoopid in retrospect.  I owned a pair of Earth Shoes for fuck's sake - but c'mon, guys - at least I haven't let anybody convince me Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 is the only thing in the US Constitution that matters.

Skepticism is our friend, kids.

Apply the same principles to everything anybody says about their "deeper understanding".

The arrogance that seems always to grow from deliberate ignorance can get your dumb ass killed.

Refresher Time

Not milk and cookies so much - well, maybe, but grab enough for a couple meals or whatever; this can take a while.

The Power Of Nightmares Part 1: Baby, It's Cold Outside 

You can find Parts 2 & 3 at the archives