Harry Reid is the honey badger; he doesn’t give a shit. He has the advantages of being the Senate Majority Leader which comes with a bully pulpit that can’t be ignored, he’s not some bomb-throwing back bencher, and he is a fellow Mormon who, like Jon Huntsman, seems to harbor a white-hot hatred of all things Mitt. Reid is most likely serving his last term in the senate and he’s is plainly tired of fucking around with Republicans and fully intends to bury their standard bearer which can have down ticket implications if depressed Republicans decide to stay home on election day because their top of the ticket prospects look like they are deader than Bob Dole’s dick.
Aug 3, 2012
Today's Best Line
From TBogg at Firedog Lake via Balloon Juice:
Aug 2, 2012
With Apologies
...to M Magritte.
His detractors all said, "Of course it's a pipe, you fool..."
And Magritte then challenged them - if it's really a pipe, then you should be able to pick it up fill it with tobacco.
Great art is the act of telling lies in a perfectly truthful way.
 |
| The Treachery Of Images - 1928-29 ("This is not a pipe") |
His detractors all said, "Of course it's a pipe, you fool..."
And Magritte then challenged them - if it's really a pipe, then you should be able to pick it up fill it with tobacco.
"The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture "This is a pipe," I'd have been lying!"The point is semantic (even a little pedantic maybe), but he was warning us that what we see is not necessarily what's real. And he was doing that just as advertising was coming of age, and a good 5 years before Goebbels raised it all to a deadly art.
Great art is the act of telling lies in a perfectly truthful way.
Connections
Before the crash in 2008-2009, I remember coming across certain stories of how the US economy was doing - how different states were faring in "America's Lost Decade" - and it seemed like I often saw Utah highlighted on the charts and graphs and maps and stuff - and I couldn't help but wonder what's up widdat? What's so great about what they're doing in Utah; or how they're doin' it?
Then, today, I stumble across this piece of "loonie leftie" news at Democracy Now, and I can finally stop wondering.
My revelation came at about the 30:00 mark when they were talking more about massive federal spending ($1.3 - 1.5 Billion) on none other than Willard's Wonderland, aka: 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
(hat tip = Crooks and Liars)
What is it about investing our tax dollars in the economic infrastructure that we just can't figure out? And what is it about the lyin' sacks of shit "on the right" that we refuse to recognize?
Then, today, I stumble across this piece of "loonie leftie" news at Democracy Now, and I can finally stop wondering.
My revelation came at about the 30:00 mark when they were talking more about massive federal spending ($1.3 - 1.5 Billion) on none other than Willard's Wonderland, aka: 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
(hat tip = Crooks and Liars)
What is it about investing our tax dollars in the economic infrastructure that we just can't figure out? And what is it about the lyin' sacks of shit "on the right" that we refuse to recognize?
Aug 1, 2012
Gun 'Em Down
Yay, Florida - the place where everybody's a lot safer because of a very liberal interpretation of the 2nd Amendment that manifests itself in great ideas like Stand Your Ground and (soon to be expanded) Open Carry.
From news-press.com:
Because Roop "felt threatened".
So lemme see, if I'm just kinda cruisin' around in Florida, and I see some schmuck wearing a Glock 9 on his hip, do I have the right to gun him down just because I'm thinking he could turn violent at any moment since he's obviously over-compensating for having a small dick, or that his daddy fucked his sister, or whatever's feeding his sense of inadequacy today? Can I just say the magic words - "I felt threatened" - and get away with it?
When did we decide that Liberty Valance was actually the hero and therefor a good role model for our behavior?
From news-press.com:
“I went to bend over to help the guy on the ground, the victim, and out of the garage I heard something: ‘I’ll kill everybody or shoot everybody,’ Snyder said. "And he cocked his gun and thank God for the Collier County sheriff’s (deputy), she probably saved my life and everybody else’s life that was in the area,” Snyder said.Nick Rainey was selling frozen steaks and lobster tails door-to-door. As he was leaving Ken Roop's property, Roop returns home, there's a "confrontation" in the driveway, and Roop shoots Rainey - wounding him in the shoulder. Rainey goes down. Roop then walks over to where Rainey is lying on the ground and caps the guy in the back of the head.
Because Roop "felt threatened".
So lemme see, if I'm just kinda cruisin' around in Florida, and I see some schmuck wearing a Glock 9 on his hip, do I have the right to gun him down just because I'm thinking he could turn violent at any moment since he's obviously over-compensating for having a small dick, or that his daddy fucked his sister, or whatever's feeding his sense of inadequacy today? Can I just say the magic words - "I felt threatened" - and get away with it?
When did we decide that Liberty Valance was actually the hero and therefor a good role model for our behavior?
Jul 31, 2012
Reconfirmed
Low-Effort Thought Promotes Political Conservatism
Abstract
The authors test the hypothesis that low-effort thought promotes political conservatism. In Study 1, alcohol intoxication was measured among bar patrons; as blood alcohol level increased, so did political conservatism (controlling for sex, education, and political identification). In Study 2, participants under cognitive load reported more conservative attitudes than their no-load counterparts. In Study 3, time pressure increased participants’ endorsement of conservative terms. In Study 4, participants considering political terms in a cursory manner endorsed conservative terms more than those asked to cogitate; an indicator of effortful thought (recognition memory) partially mediated the relationship between processing effort and conservatism. Together these data suggest that political conservatism may be a process consequence of low-effort thought; when effortful, deliberate thought is disengaged, endorsement of conservative ideology increases.
I lifted the whole abstract from Personality and Sociology Bulletin, dated March 16 this year (full text is behind the Pay Wall). This thing looks pretty much like a "me too" study that confirms at least a coupla previous studies that arrived at the same basic conclusions - that an awful lot of people we call "conservatives" aren't thinking for themselves.
I'll take one more step and say it means they're just kinda going along; it's fashionable to bitch about government and taxes and spending and Welfare cheats and and and. Most of us don't have the luxury of time to stop and think things thru. We're under the gun to perform at jobs where we keep working a little harder and keep getting treated a little shittier. But we're told we're lazy and we aren't working hard enough.
We see The Dow peek up over 13,000, and we hear a fair bit about how well the really Big Companies are doing, but if we stop to take account of where we are in our own lives, the contrast seems pretty stark. Company Pensions practically don't exist, and 401k's or 403b's or whatever got scrubbed clean in 2007/2008. Banks screwed the pooch so badly that tens of trillions of dollars in Net Worth for "average" families simply disappeared. But what are we told now? We're told we haven't saved enough.
We try to get the kids ready for launch, but the price of schooling is thru the roof. And I'm not just talking about the ridiculous costs of college here. "Free Public Education" my ass.
We look for jobs that we can do, only to find that most of the jobs are all about National Security or Defense Industries. And what we're told is that we haven't kept up with our own retraining and continuing education. Which just means that we haven't spent the last 8 years in the military, having our opinions and attitudes drilled into us.
So anyway - there's a lot of general fucked-up-edness right now, and there's a lot reasons for that general fucked-up-edness, and believe it or not there's a lot we can do about it. But none of it fits on a fucking bumper sticker.
If "liberal" is opposite "conservative", and if "conservative" means you're reactionary and reflexive and you don't think for yourself, then OK - call me liberal. But ya gotta remember the rules - if you're calling yourself a "conservative", then you don't really don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
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