Point: Don't blame the war on the warrior.
Rebuttal: What kind of a war ya gonna have if nobody shows up to fight?
May 3, 2012
Buh Bye, Newt
I'm gonna miss ol' Newt. The guy's been a consistent source of entertainment, running the gamut of content from his deadpan "Yes" when asked if he was calling Willard a liar, to the way he projects himself into the future and talks about how all the numbers make it impossible for him not to get the nomination, or how we'll have a permanent moon base by the end of his 2nd term. There's nobody more fun to watch - kinda like some kid on YouTube who does a ballstand when he tries to jump his bike off his mom's porch - it's a little retch-inducing, but I just can't turn away.
It's pretty easy to see why this guy gets 50 large for a speech. It's a polished performance, and it doesn't matter that it's the classic sales-y yarn that any good huckster learns how to spin - if you do it right, you can get 'em to believe almost anything. Just make sure you put plenty of plausible sounding goals together with some techno-jargon, place it all far enough in the "future" so the vision is a bit misty and soft-focus, but not so far as to be out of reach.
The message: "Newt has this vision because he's amazing. I do not have this vision (because I am not amazing), so I need to work really hard to make up for not being amazing like him."
Translation: Newt has some ideas, but no fuckin' clue how to make any of it work, so I get to bust my ass to make it work for all of us. I also get to pay him large sums of money for the privilege of working my ass off and making him rich, and while I get a little something in return, it'll only be enough to keep me interested, but not enough to make me independent of a guy like Newt, and never enough to be considered his equal."
One other quick note: At about 16:30, Ol' Newt laments the nastiness of the tone of the rhetoric in congress. I wonder how it got that way.
It's pretty easy to see why this guy gets 50 large for a speech. It's a polished performance, and it doesn't matter that it's the classic sales-y yarn that any good huckster learns how to spin - if you do it right, you can get 'em to believe almost anything. Just make sure you put plenty of plausible sounding goals together with some techno-jargon, place it all far enough in the "future" so the vision is a bit misty and soft-focus, but not so far as to be out of reach.
The message: "Newt has this vision because he's amazing. I do not have this vision (because I am not amazing), so I need to work really hard to make up for not being amazing like him."
Translation: Newt has some ideas, but no fuckin' clue how to make any of it work, so I get to bust my ass to make it work for all of us. I also get to pay him large sums of money for the privilege of working my ass off and making him rich, and while I get a little something in return, it'll only be enough to keep me interested, but not enough to make me independent of a guy like Newt, and never enough to be considered his equal."
One other quick note: At about 16:30, Ol' Newt laments the nastiness of the tone of the rhetoric in congress. I wonder how it got that way.
May 2, 2012
Huh?
I've been sifting thru a lot of YouTube stuff on god and religion lately, and sometimes these little tiffs pop up at the oddest times for the oddest reasons. Here's a "report" on one of my recent faves.
Butter Up And Bend Over
You have to drill down and look deep to get the "whole story", but when it looks this kinda stark it's pretty clear just how fucked we are.
hat tip = TPM
hat tip = TPM
The New Hoover
Vote Romney - 2 Escalades for every wife and an elevator in every garage.
From Prof Krugman via NYT
From Prof Krugman via NYT
So, about that doctrine: appeals to the wonders of confidence are something Herbert Hoover would have found completely familiar — and faith in the confidence fairy has worked out about as well for modern Europe as it did for Hoover’s America. All around Europe’s periphery, from Spain to Latvia, austerity policies have produced Depression-level slumps and Depression-level unemployment; the confidence fairy is nowhere to be seen, not even in Britain, whose turn to austerity two years ago was greeted with loud hosannas by policy elites on both sides of the Atlantic.
Just A Thought
We keep hearing about what a horrible problem the National Debt is, but do we know for sure what all has contributed to it? Why is it such a huge number?
Obviously, there're plenty of factors, but I think we can identify 3 main things:
1) Direct Revenue Reduction - aka Tax Cuts
2) Recession - higher unemployment equals fewer tax payers equals lower tax collections
3) Wage Stagnation plus Speculation-Driven Inflation - a multiplier effect
But it seems like we never stop to consider what we've had to borrow in order to spend at least $2 Trillion on a couple of wars, plus an amount we don't even get to know about that's been sucked up by all the Black Ops / Homeland Security boondoggles over the last 10 years. If you borrow $2 Trillion, you're gonna have to repay it to the tune of about $6 trillion when it's all over - if we get that far.
Anyway, here's a thought: Let's call it "Bush's War Debts". But only for a little while - just long enough to squeeze out all of the Sunshine Patriots like Cheney and Giuliani and Bolton, and anybody else who was married to the NeoCons' bullshit fantasies.
Pin the word "debt" to their lapels and let's see how long the rubes stay in line behind 'em.
After a while, it'll naturally evolve to The War Debt, and we might have a chance to get back to where we understand that we don't get to do anything without paying for it - sometimes in ways we hadn't anticipated.
Obviously, there're plenty of factors, but I think we can identify 3 main things:
1) Direct Revenue Reduction - aka Tax Cuts
2) Recession - higher unemployment equals fewer tax payers equals lower tax collections
3) Wage Stagnation plus Speculation-Driven Inflation - a multiplier effect
But it seems like we never stop to consider what we've had to borrow in order to spend at least $2 Trillion on a couple of wars, plus an amount we don't even get to know about that's been sucked up by all the Black Ops / Homeland Security boondoggles over the last 10 years. If you borrow $2 Trillion, you're gonna have to repay it to the tune of about $6 trillion when it's all over - if we get that far.
Anyway, here's a thought: Let's call it "Bush's War Debts". But only for a little while - just long enough to squeeze out all of the Sunshine Patriots like Cheney and Giuliani and Bolton, and anybody else who was married to the NeoCons' bullshit fantasies.
Pin the word "debt" to their lapels and let's see how long the rubes stay in line behind 'em.
After a while, it'll naturally evolve to The War Debt, and we might have a chance to get back to where we understand that we don't get to do anything without paying for it - sometimes in ways we hadn't anticipated.
May 1, 2012
The Greatest Scam
Religion tries to tell me that my life is meaningless without an AfterLife©, and then proceeds to tell me I can obtain this Heavenly Glory only if I believe in this or that brand of god.
Religion is a scam that gives you a disease, and then sells you a cure.
Religion is a scam that gives you a disease, and then sells you a cure.
History New Found
"I join you therefore in sincere congratulations that this den of the priesthood is at length broken up, and that a protestant popedom is no longer to disgrace the American history and character." --Thomas Jefferson
From a site called Liars For Jesus, and a lady who knows her shit.
This David Barton guy is running a typical play from "conservatives". Take a guy like Tommy Jeff, who practically personified The Enlightenment and who was pretty representative of The Founders' near-unanimous rejection of "princes and popes" - you take that guy and you turn him into something he's not, using revisionist bunkum and outright lies.
From a site called Liars For Jesus, and a lady who knows her shit.
This David Barton guy is running a typical play from "conservatives". Take a guy like Tommy Jeff, who practically personified The Enlightenment and who was pretty representative of The Founders' near-unanimous rejection of "princes and popes" - you take that guy and you turn him into something he's not, using revisionist bunkum and outright lies.
Apr 30, 2012
Today's Quote
A golden oldie:
"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." --Steven Weinberg, quoted in The New York Times, April 20, 1999
Uh Oh
At least one headline writer at one media outlet has had a sudden attack of conscience or integrity or truth-telling - or something - I'm not sure we even have a word for it anymore.
hat tip = Democratic Underground
Not to worry tho'. I'm sure it was just a momentary lapse. A little Paycheck Reduction Therapy should straighten that guy up and make sure he doesn't run the risk of becoming Fact Addicted or anything.
hat tip = Democratic Underground
Not to worry tho'. I'm sure it was just a momentary lapse. A little Paycheck Reduction Therapy should straighten that guy up and make sure he doesn't run the risk of becoming Fact Addicted or anything.
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