She's someone's
Feb 2, 2019
Sorry Ralph
Full statement demanding that Governor Northam resign immediately. pic.twitter.com/XEf0H6HvOf— Virginia Democrats (@vademocrats) February 2, 2019
Gov Ralph Northam (D-VA) will have to resign. Stay tuned for all hell breaking loose if he doesn't.
The statement:
And I don't really care about all the tearing at clothing and the gnashing of teeth going on in the halls of power as the operatives try to position things in a way that minimizes the damage and squares things up with blah blah blah. Stop it. Just stop that shit.
Northam fucked up. 35 years ago - when he was 24 years old. I fucked up in somewhat the same way. A lot of us fucked up like that. We told and retold "black jokes", and laughed our asses off, and we tho't using the N-Word meant we were "just keepin' it real". We believed we weren't being the racist assholes we were actually being.
"It was just a joke".
All of that is by way of explanation and not excuse. Because there is no excuse, because there can be no excuse.
I can say oops, and try to do better, but I'm not the Governor. I'm not the guy everybody has to be able to count on not to be that racist asshole - and not to have been a racist asshole - and at least to have not covered up being that racist asshole.
Seriously - when do these "political smart guys" finally learn that it's the cover up that comes back to fuck 'em?
The feeling of betrayal will never go away. Some will artificially nurture it as a useful political weapon, but for the people who matter - the people who believe public service is an honorable thing - they won't forget or forgive. And they shouldn't.
Northam is done.
And I think we'll be OK with Justin Fairfax.
Feb 1, 2019
Happy Birthday
Seems like a great way to start Black History Month.
The land that never has been yet—
and yet must be —
the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine — the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME —
who made America,
whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
whose hand at the foundry,
who made America,
whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
whose hand at the foundry,
whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. He moved to New York City as a young man, where he made his career.
He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry. Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance in New York City. He famously wrote about the period that "the negro was in vogue", which was later paraphrased as "when Harlem was in vogue".
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. He moved to New York City as a young man, where he made his career.
He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry. Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance in New York City. He famously wrote about the period that "the negro was in vogue", which was later paraphrased as "when Harlem was in vogue".
Lessons
There can be no debate without a reliable partner.
Remember this as we try to navigate the political bullshit being foist on us by Daddy State Plutocrats.
Via YouTube Jill Bearup with a nice roundup of Logical Fallacies:
Remember this as we try to navigate the political bullshit being foist on us by Daddy State Plutocrats.
Via YouTube Jill Bearup with a nice roundup of Logical Fallacies:
0:33 Fallacy of Composition
0:42 Fallacy of Division
0:52 The Gambler's Fallacy
1:00 Tu Quoque (Who Are You To Talk?)
1:19 Strawman
1:32 Ad hominem
1:49 Genetic Fallacy
1:56 Fallacious Appeal To Authority
2:15 Red Herring
2:34 Appeal to Emotion
2:48 Appeal to Popularity (Bandwagon)
2:52 Appeal to Tradition
2:56 Appeal to Nature
3:04 Appeal to Ignorance
3:16 Begging the Question
3:32 Equivocation
3:50 False Dichotomy (Black or White)
4:00 Middle Ground Fallacy
4:09 Decision Point Fallacy (Sorites Paradox)
4:29 Slippery Slope Fallacy
4:46 Hasty Generalisations (Anecdotes)
5:05 Faulty Analogy
5:14 Burden of Proof
5:43 Affirming the Consequent
6:10 Denying the Antecedent
6:22 Moving the Goalposts
6:35 False Cause (and Texas Sharpshooter)
6:54 Loaded Question
7:01 No True Scotsman
7:10 Personal Incredulity
7:18 The Fallacy Fallacy
At The Crux
A couple of basic truths:
Not content with billions of dollars in profits from the potent painkiller OxyContin, its maker explored expanding into an “attractive market” fueled by the drug’s popularity — treatment of opioid addiction, according to previously secret passages in a court document filed by the state of Massachusetts.
- Nobody ever went broke underestimating the good sense or intelligence of the American consumer.
- If there's a problem, look for who profits from the problem itself and/or from the proposed solution.
Not content with billions of dollars in profits from the potent painkiller OxyContin, its maker explored expanding into an “attractive market” fueled by the drug’s popularity — treatment of opioid addiction, according to previously secret passages in a court document filed by the state of Massachusetts.
In internal correspondence beginning in 2014, Purdue Pharma executives discussed how the sale of opioids and the treatment of opioid addiction are “naturally linked” and that the company should expand across “the pain and addiction spectrum,” according to redacted sections of the lawsuit by the Massachusetts attorney general. A member of the billionaire Sackler family, which founded and controls the privately held company, joined in those discussions and urged staff in an email to give “immediate attention” to this business opportunity, the complaint alleges.
ProPublica reviewed the scores of redacted paragraphs in Massachusetts’ 274-page civil complaint against Purdue, eight Sackler family members, company directors and current and former executives, which alleges that they created the opioid epidemic through illegal deceit. These passages remain blacked out at the company’s request after the rest of the complaint was made public on Jan. 15. A Massachusetts Superior Court judge on Monday ordered that the entire document be released, but the judge gave Purdue until Friday to seek a further stay of the ruling.
The short-hand version of Mike's General Theory of Economics (and at the risk of indulging myself in at least a couple of Logical Fallacies):
I'm a capitalist because god is a capitalist.
Capitalism is the closest approximation of "the natural order of things".
To survive, I have to take in a number of calories sufficient to fuel the work necessary to find my next meal.
I should also try to put aside a little something for that rainy day when no matter how much work I do, I get nothing.
Which leads to a second part:
We're not the same as all those other life forms (that pesky big brain thing again).
An adult male bear will kill and eat the cubs of another bear as part of his effort to mate with a female and get his genes into the next generation of bears. That's the natural order of things - for bears.
The natural order of things is brutal. And while it seems cruel, without the necessary self-awareness, it's just how that part of the universe works.
But humans are self-aware, and because of that self-awareness, we have to know that emulating certain animal behavior is a conscious decision, and so it can be rightly identified as cruelty.
But here comes the first part of the greater truth that the Radical Libertarians always ignore in their attempts to rationalize their shitty behavior, which are driven by their equally shitty attitudes:
God also gave me a pancreas to make sure my blood sugar level - boosted by those calories I'm taking in - is regulated. Sugar is a good thing, but without a well-timed little blast of insulin it's going to kill me.
Sugar's good. Insulin's good. Too much of either sugar or insulin - and I fuckin' die.
Sugar's good. Insulin's good. Too much of either sugar or insulin - and I fuckin' die.
And god provided me with a nice big brain so I can recognize the absolute need for that regulation - the need for balance - along with the need to incorporate that awareness into whatever philosophies or ideologies I might come up with.
We're not the same as all those other life forms (that pesky big brain thing again).
An adult male bear will kill and eat the cubs of another bear as part of his effort to mate with a female and get his genes into the next generation of bears. That's the natural order of things - for bears.
The natural order of things is brutal. And while it seems cruel, without the necessary self-awareness, it's just how that part of the universe works.
But humans are self-aware, and because of that self-awareness, we have to know that emulating certain animal behavior is a conscious decision, and so it can be rightly identified as cruelty.
We should try to make more of an effort to be a little smarter than the average bear.
Jan 31, 2019
Today's Tweet
But can they stick the landing?
Hey Polar Vortex, you may freeze my @JusticeForGirl pants but you’ll never kill their style #FrozenJustice #SisterhoodOfTheFrozenPants #PolarVortex #MNnice #BoldNorth #Negative50 #WinterFun #PerfectLanding pic.twitter.com/7s9Lro7Lpx— Danika Brinda (@DanikaBrinda) January 31, 2019
Brrr
But, according to DumFux News, we can't stop using fossil fuel now, even though the use of fossil fuel has fucked it all up for us, because fossil fuel is the only thing we have that's really reliable - and let's be sure to conveniently ignore the fact that the fossil fuel industry's efforts to make their fuel the only one we can rely on is what got us into this fuckin' mess in the first fuckin' place.
Sorry not sorry but - goddammit, I hate these assholes.
Overheard on the intertoobz yesterday:
"I think I just keyed that guy's car with my nipples."
Jan 30, 2019
Safety Tip
Please make an extra effort to control your rage over the next few days, because it's inevitable that you'll hear some typically stoopid jokes about "Global Warming" from some typically stoopid Red Hat Rubes.
Just try to remember: busting your knuckles on that idiot's head hurts a lot more when it's really cold like this.
Stay calm and keep shoveling
Overheard
45* tweeted only once yesterday, and 30 million rubes assumed it was because he was wrapped in a Muslim prayer rug, bound with duct tape, in the trunk of a super car blazing through the southwestern desert at 300 miles an hour.
I only wish it was possible for us to think any of that was beyond what the rubes are willing to believe.
I only wish it was possible for us to think any of that was beyond what the rubes are willing to believe.
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