I Don't Like Thinking This Way

It's a pretty lousy feeling when you're not so sure the "good guys with the guns" are on your side.

And that lousy feeling doesn't get any better when you start thinking you may have something in common with these assholes:

We Teach Life, Sir

I am now officially in conflict with the current paradigm - OK OK, more in conflict...



Whether they are or not, Israel ends up looking like complete assholes.

hat tip = Facebook friend NFP

Living In The Penumbral Age

(paraphrasing) What the Deniers tell us to fear most - massive government intervention and over-reach and meddling in the free market - is exactly what we're going to get when catastrophic changes due to Climate Change really kick in.

The podcast at Inquiring Minds:

hat tip = MoJo

Today's Best Thing On The Toobs

Ya cain't say nuthin' more perfecter than this Wonkette headline:

Today's Pix

Today's Toon

Been Wondering

We've seen certain things pop up regarding the much slower growth in federal hiring under Obama; and the dramatic decreases in deficits and debt; and the low inflation numbers; and the uptick in hiring along with the steady drop in unemployment; etc etc etc.

And when I say "pop up" I mean "hardly a fucking word about any of it from the Press Poodles".

But hey - maybe that's just me.

Anyway, I've been wondering why the Repubs aren't jumping up and down screaming about how they've been right about everything, and how all these unicorns and rainbows came about because they forced the Prez to rein in all that reckless outa-control spending ... that wasn't and still isn't ... uhm ... you know - happening.

Well guess what, kids.

"Congress has severely damaged the economy with deep spending cuts in a misguided attempt to solve a short-term debt crisis that simply does not exist," wrote CAP economists Harry Stein and Adam Hersh.

The progressive think tank's analysis is based on the latest budget outlook from the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan congressional research group, which was released on Tuesday.

So where are you, Democrats?  Why is there no talk from you guys about "the failed conservative policies of the past"?  Are you guys so inept that you can't see this opportunity?  Are you so truly bereft of testicular fortitude that Elizabeth Warren is the only one unwilling to remain comfortable in the role of battered spouse?

Get up on your hind legs and make some fuckin' noise, dammit.

Logical Fallacy #19 - Black Or White

A false dilemma (also called black-and/or-white thinking, bifurcation, denying a conjunct, the either-or fallacy, false dichotomy, fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses, the fallacy of false choice, the fallacy of the false alternative, or the fallacy of the excluded middle) is a type of informal fallacy that involves a situation in which limited alternatives are considered, when in fact there is at least one additional option. The opposite of this fallacy is argument to moderation.

The options may be a position that is between two extremes (such as when there are shades of grey) or may be completely different alternatives. Phrasing that implies two options (dilemma, dichotomy, black-and-white) may be replaced with other number-based nouns, such as a "false trilemma" if something is reduced to only three options, instead of two.

False dilemma can arise intentionally, when fallacy is used in an attempt to force a choice (such as, in some contexts, the assertion that "if you are not with us, you are against us"). But the fallacy can also arise simply by accidental omission of additional options rather than by deliberate deception.

Pay Up Or Get Out

BIll Moyers, on a simple (sounding) tax reform idea:

The epidemic of tax inversions represents just one of many ways corporations are dodging their taxes by taking advantage of our outdated and rigged corporate tax system. It is time for a serious debate about corporate taxes, and on Monday a new report by District Economics Group economist Michael Udell offered a bold new alternative that is so radically simple that even the most clever corporate tax accountant would have a hard time finding a way around its fair and universal proposition: If a company sells products or services in the US, it must pay taxes on the US proportion of its worldwide sales.

But first, let’s explore how today’s complexity enables corporate tax avoidance.

Are We “Broke” or Just Not Collecting the Taxes We Are Owed?

“America is broke,” declared House Speaker John Boehner a few years ago. But clearly the country is not broke; we are just being robbed, as many corporations create ways of avoiding, dodging, shirking and generally not paying their taxes. The share of federal revenue coming from corporate taxes has dropped from around 32 percent in 1952 to 8.9 percent now. As a share of gross domestic product, it has fallen from about 6 percent of GDP then to less than 2 percent now. Meanwhile the rest of us — including small domestic companies that don’t have armies of tax consultants — have to make up that shortfall, either through increases in things like payroll taxes, or through cuts in the things government does to make our lives better.

hat tips = Facebooks buds VW and DR 

What We Choose To Believe

If I project backwards 40 or 50 thousand years, it's not hard to understand how a species capable of rational thought could look at this and make the simplest Type 1 Error by ascribing agency to it.  How do you not when you have no way of knowing otherwise?



Now, as a species capable of rational thought, and knowing what we know, how do we look at this and stop wondering just because we're more comfortable with ignorance and superstition?

You're Not Alone And You're Not To Blame

Matt Dillahunty excerpted from NonProphets Radio:

Haves And Soon-To-Haves

Try not to think about Logan's Run or The Island or Roller Ball or whatever.

Feed A Child

Reaction to this ad has become what I have to consider an almost perfect snapshot of what's wrong with our "conversations" whenever we try to talk about any of the increasing number of Elephants In The Room.





The point is that way too many pets get way better treatment than way too many kids, and maybe we could do some tiny little thing to change that just a tiny bit(?)  Maybe we could just think about it?  Seems pretty simple.  But to hear some of the reaction, you'd think the ad was actually advocating in favor of keeping children as pets - or that black kids are dogs - or that - what exactly!?!

Seriously, when did everybody get so fuckin' stoopid?

Check out the Feed A Child website, or make a contribution of 20 Rand (SA only) by texting "child" to 40014.

You can make a contribution from elsewhere using PayPal.

Today's Eternal Sadness

At the nexus of our twin pathologies involving the worship of both Gun Violence and Celebrity:

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) — A gunman who killed a rookie officer responding to a report of an armed robbery at a drugstore early Sunday never tried to rob the store and instead lay in wait for police, telling a witness to watch the news because he was "going to be famous," authorities said.

Lawrence Campbell shot Officer Melvin Santiago in the head shortly after he and his partner arrived at the 24-hour Walgreens at around 4 a.m., Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop said. Other officers returned fire at Campbell, killing him.

Campbell, 27, of Jersey City, was one of three suspects wanted by police for a prior homicide, Fulop said.

Fulop said Campbell was carrying a knife when he walked into Walgreens and asked for directions to the greeting card aisle. He assaulted an armed security guard at the store and snatched his gun, Fulop said.

So that last bit - there was in fact one of Wayne LaPierre's Good Guys With A Gun on hand at the time, and several other Good Guys With A Gun showed up too.

When do we get hip to some of this shit?

Today's Pix

Rev Fishsticks Speaks

Because - of course - equal rights for LGBT can only mean "two guys havin' sex".

I'm tellin' ya, these theo-cons always zero in on the sex, and who they can punish for it.

hat tip = Mock Paper Scissors

One From d r i f t g l a s s

Among the many things I get from this guy, there's nothing better than his PhotoShop stuff.

Can you think of a better analogical nickname for Rush and Sarah and Sean et al than the term "Nutdriver"?

Fuckin' genius is all that is right there.

Today's Quote

There are many kinds of success in life worth having. It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful business man, or railroad man, or farmer, or a successful lawyer or doctor; or a writer, or a President, or a ranchman, or the colonel of a fighting regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison. It may be true that he travels farthest who travels alone; but the goal thus reached is not worth reaching. And as for a life deliberately devoted to pleasure as an end — why, the greatest happiness is the happiness that comes as a by-product of striving to do what must be done, even though sorrow is met in the doing. There is a bit of homely philosophy, quoted by Squire Bill Widener, of Widener's Valley, Virginia, which sums up one's duty in life: "Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are." --Teddy Roosevelt

Punishment For Being

You may have heard about the obscene behavior of Virginia law enforcement in the case of a 17-year-old sexting his girlfriend:

A Virginia teen is facing two felony charges after he was caught sexting with his girlfriend.

If he's convicted, he could be forced to register as a sex offender and spend time in jail.

Trey Sims, 17, was charged with manufacturing and distributing child pornography in January, while exchanging texts with his then-girlfriend, who was 15 at the time. His iPhone and iPad were seized by police, and he was taken into custody.

And by now, just about everybody's heard of SCOTUS making it more probable that any given employer will be free to create a work environment that feels pretty hostile to any woman looking to take charge of what does or doesn't happen to/with/in her own body.

This kinda shit is happening because the default position in our little Christian-dominated establishment is to punish sexual behavior (ours, not theirs btw).  They have to.  If they don't, then they lose the power to keep us in line.

Adam and Eve "sinned; they were disobedient" - and never mind the metaphorical baloney about trees and fruits and the knowledge of good and evil.  It makes for a pretty good story, but the guys who wrote the book were very much in agreement that it was really all about the sex because the thing they concentrated on - the thing everybody remembers about it - is that god curses all womankind with dreadful pain during childbirth - and how does she get pregnant?  Yeah.  

So they conclude that sex is what Original Sin is all about.  No sex, no sin; so sex must be bad, so sex must be punished.  Except of course that we need you to procreate, so we'll make up some more bullshit and call it "necessary evil" (and don't get me started on the brilliance of that bit of holy entrapment).

So anyway, if sex is OK, then there's no sin, which means there's no Fall of Man, which means there's no need for redemption, which means we don't need a Redeemer, which means we don't need Jesus, which means nobody shows up on Sunday to pay the preacher's mortgage absorb the teachings of holy scripture (which conveniently seem always to fit the GOP Platform), which means Theo-Con Politicians lose elections, which means they can't protect the church's tax-exempt status and to reciprocate the church's largesse by figuring out ways around the law in order to pump more public dollars into church coffers, and on and on and on.

So they have to punish us for sex.  If they don't, their whole thing collapses in on itself.

And also too - why do you think these buttheads rail so loud and so long and so often against Evolution?  Because evolution actually rewards us for sex, which can't be tolerated for all the old reliable reasons.  No Adam and Eve = No Fall = No Jesus = No Church = No Money = No Power.

Saturday Tunage

Things Have Changed --Bob Dylan




Lookin' For The Heart Of Saturday Night --Tom Waits




One For My Baby And More For The Road --Frank Sinatra




Lenny --Stevie Ray Vaughn




I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (cover) --Jimmie Spheeris




You Don't Know Me (cover) --Michael Grimm

Today's Pix and Some Toons

A Blast From The Past

From NBC News way back in 2006:

NEW YORK — In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications.

Researchers emphasized that their work can't address whether God exists or answers prayers made on another's behalf. The study can only look for an effect from prayers offered as part of the research, they said.

They also said they had no explanation for the higher complication rate in patients who knew they were being prayed for, in comparison to patients who only knew it was possible prayers were being said for them.

Critics said the question of God's reaction to prayers simply can't be explored by scientific study.

That was only a little over 8 years ago - can you imagine the reaction of The Right Radicals if somebody tried it again now?

Take a look for yourself sometime. Just google this phrase: prayer study fails.

You're welcome. Enjoy.

hat tip = Atheist Experience

Today's Quote

Religion, n.  a daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to the ignorant the nature of the unknowable.  --Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Something's Wrong With Kansas

...and it seems to have everything to do with a "philosophy of governance" based on a deep and abiding hatred for government.

From the OP/ED page of The Wichita Eagle:

It seemed like a good idea at the time – a two-year budget cycle enabling lawmakers to “budget the first year, do oversight the second year,” as Gov. Sam Brownback put it a year ago. But a lot of unfinished fiscal business will greet Brownback and the 2014 Legislature next week.

In some cases, the state has no choice but to act.

For example, Brownback vetoed the entire 2015 budget for the Kansas Department of Corrections last summer rather than see it take a $10 million cut. In his veto message he said he looked “forward to working with the 2014 Legislature in finding the department sufficient resources to ensure public safety is not imperiled.”

Because statewide property-tax revenue has been lower than expected but K-12 enrollment is up, state funding for public schools is estimated to be $17.8 million less than the 2013 Legislature intended for the current fiscal year and $19.9 million short for 2015, the Lawrence Journal-World reported last month. The Legislature needs to offset the shortfall.

So your state's kinda flat-on-its-ass broke and Moody's downgraded your credit rating, but you guys just go right on believing Oz is out there waiting for you, and all you need is a few more tax cuts to get you up over that rainbow.

It's bullshit, guys - your premise is bullshit.  St Ayn says very clearly that when your premise is false, your conclusion cannot be true.

Less Tax Revenue ≠ More Tax Revenue.

And just as a BTW, this little problem was not unforeseen.  Here's a piece in Christian Science Monitor from more than a year ago:

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback (R) and the GOP-controlled legislature are struggling to accomplish two goals: They want to repeal the state income tax but need to balance a budget that, despite substantial spending cuts, faces a $700 million shortfall.

It is no easy trick. Their solution: new net short-term revenue increases accompanied by a promise to phase out the state’s income tax. This year’s final budget agreement includes both spending cuts and about $300 billion in new sales and income tax revenue that promise to balance the fiscal year 2014 books. But over the next five years, those new revenues will be overwhelmed by a proposed 20 percent cut in individual income tax rates, setting the stage for annual budget crises.

But y'know, it's the teacher's unions and all those other free-loadin' public employees.  That's the real problem.  Those rotten career bureaucrats - it's their fault cuz they don't really do anything (except make it all run as well as can be expected when they're perpetually short-handed, underfunded and generally treated like a squad of scullery maids).  But hey, they just don't understand Supply Side Economics; and that's because they don't wanna understand.  They insist on believing there's something noble and dutiful about serving the public - they're totally in conflict with the New Paradigm so fuck 'em; who needs 'em anyway?

"Conservatives" have been sellin' us this junk for a very long time.

China Hack

Via HuffPo:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chinese hackers broke into the computer networks of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management earlier this year with the intention of accessing the files of tens of thousands of federal employees who had applied for top-secret security clearances, according to The New York Times.

Senior U.S. officials say the hackers gained access to some of the agency's databases in March before the threat was detected and blocked, the Times reported in an article posted on its website Wednesday night. How far the hackers penetrated the agency's systems was not yet clear, the newspaper said.

Accusations of hacking by China and counterclaims of such activity by the U.S. government have strained U.S.-Chinese relations. Chinese hacking has been a major theme of U.S.-China discussions this week in Beijing, though both sides have publicly steered clear of the controversy.

First off, who didn't think this kinda thing was going on - or wasn't going to happen eventually?

And then, let's consider how the Press Poodles are shocked - shocked I tells ya - about revelations of dirty dealing.

High School Fuck-Around Drama du jour.

I Figured It Out

OK, so I've got it now - maybe.

Republicans are pretty much all about an authoritarian top-down central control business-model power structure where you're all welcome to voice your opinions, but we're gonna need ya to get in line here pretty soon and just do what we're tellin' ya'll to do.  Kinda like religion.

Democrats are more of a make up your own mind; we're all in charge cuz nobody's better than anybody else in this community; do your own thing and we'll try to meet - later - somewhere in the middle and see if we can't get to something that resembles a consensus so we can make some decisions about what's best for the most.  Kinda like atheism.

Why did it take me so long to figure this out?

At about the 3-minute mark, this guys nails it for me.

Dear HBO

...I'm kind of intrigued by your new series - The Leftovers.  It's an interesting premise, and it seems to have some real potential.

But there's one little problem.  The flag patch on Garvey's right shoulder is backwards.  Protocol requires the field of stars always to be on the forward edge - ie: never "in retreat".

Just a nit I felt needed pickin'.

Today's Monster Of The Id

The Former 1/2-Term Governor is a real star in the DumFux firmament.  Her skill at taking random sentence fragments (generally composed of buzzwords and coded phrases), and cobbling them into TV-friendly 30-second sound bites that can then be repackaged as common sense political reality is practically unrivaled.  And the simple fact that her "commentary" is unfailingly incendiary - to the point that she should come with her own HazMat label - puts her in a class where calling the roll is a very much abbreviated exercise.

That's Odd

From Yahoo News via Democratic Underground:

Beginning in January of this year, 13 states individually increased their own minimum wages, creating a sort of natural experiment in which the remaining states could serve as a control group. All that was left was for someone to do the math, and the Center for Economic and Policy Research, building on research conducted earlier in the year by Goldman Sachs, delivered that in a report last week.

Of the 13 states that raised their minimum wages, all but one saw job growth in the first five months of 2014. To be sure, that’s a small achievement in an environment where the national economy is adding something on the order of 250,000 jobs per month.

The really interesting finding is that the states that raised the minimum wage saw job growth that was, on average, higher than states that did not. The 37 states that did not raise the minimum wage at the beginning of this year saw employment increase by .68 percent. Those that did raise the wage saw employment increase by .99 percent.

So those hippie-dippie mush-brained libruls were right - again?  And what about all the death and destruction foretold by all those "grownups" on the other side? - the ones who were so absolutely certain that raising the Minimum Wage even a tiny bit threatened the natural order of the universe, and would surely call down the wrath of a vengeful Mammon to lay waste the land and curse all humankind forever, and blah blah fucking blah.

Is it at all weird that none of this has popped up on MSNBC's Morning Blow or on DumFux Business Channel?  Or is it just that I've missed too many of their riveting, insightful and mission-critical segments lately?

Today's Pix

One Bit More

...on the Cliven Bundy thing.

I seem to recall that ol' Cliven said the only authority he was willing to acknowledge was the local sheriff.

From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Rancher Cliven Bundy must be held accountable, Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie said Thursday.

But, the sheriff added, the federal agency trying to do it must reconsider its methods in order to prevent the bloodshed that was so narrowly avoided in April.

Gillespie, speaking to a Review-Journal editorial board, minced no words when recounting the mistakes made in the days and weeks before an April 12 standoff between armed protesters and the Bureau of Land Management on Bundy’s Bunkerville cattle ranch, about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

The sheriff harshly criticized Bundy and said his family committed “serious errors” when BLM officers tried to round up more than 500 of the rancher’s cattle. Bundy, who believes the public land is his to use, hasn’t paid his federal grazing fees for 20 years and ignored a federal court order to remove the cattle.

Gillespie said he spoke to Bundy many times in the months before the roundup. He said he made it clear to Bundy that, if his family was going to protest, it must be peaceful.

But Bundy crossed the line when he allowed his supporters, many of whom were armed militia members, onto his property to aim guns at police, the sheriff said.

“If you step over that line, there are consequences to those actions. And I believe they stepped over that line. No doubt about it,” Gillespie said. “They need to be held accountable for it.”

Yer move, Clive.

hat tip = Addicting Info

Kaili's Pissed

One observation - the Hobby Lobby decision is a near-perfect metaphor for exactly the kind of botched abortions that are prob'ly headed our way because of this mis-guided and poorly- informed, deliberately ignorant "conservative movement" that seems bent on pulling down American Democracy and replacing it with Christian Sharia.

But here's Kaili Joy Gray to girlsplain it to us from a perspective that's only shared by - oh I dunno - a few gazillion other women:

Of course I am mad. My vagina is getting uncomfortably crowded, what with all of that compelling government interest to protect me from myself, and those sincerely held religious beliefs, and the counseling, and the men telling me JUST DON’T HAVE SEX. There’s hardly room for my doctor to even get up in there to make sure my oh-so-important vagina is actually in fine working order, which I know is beside the point to everyone else taking up space for freedom and liberty and Jesus. But it’s really the only point that should matter.

But also too - keeping in mind my first basic tenet (it's never about what they tell us it's about):  This decision is being sold to us as if it's Rep vs Dem, or Librul vs Conservadope, or Godless Big Gubmint vs Holy Little Guy Business Owner - that's bullshit - or mostly bullshit anyway.  This ends up being about furthering the cause of establishing and reinforcing the primacy of Corporation-as-Citizen.

SCOTUS just found another way to push the envelope, using the 1st amendment for cover - Corporations are people who now have the right to free speech (Citizens United) and (the right to nullify federal law by claiming) religious freedom (Hobby Lobby)...and at some point I think we can look forward to a lawsuit on behalf of some poor mistreated corporation whose 'freedom of association' is being denied by the mean ol' bureaucrats at SEC and DoJ et al - so we can say good-bye to Anti-Trust laws and every trace of rules and regulations that prohibit the use of important business tools like Collusion and Price-Fixing and Market Manipulation, and all the other elements of a Libertarian Free Market Utopia.

So let's go ahead and fuss at each other about Church and State, and Bodily Integrity, and  Red Team vs Blue Team - all of which are plenty important btw - just let's be sure we're paying attention to what's behind the curtain too.

Logical Fallacy #18 - Genetic

The genetic fallacy, also known as fallacy of origins, fallacy of virtue,[1] is a fallacy of irrelevance where a conclusion is suggested based solely on something or someone's origin rather than its current meaning or context. This overlooks any difference to be found in the present situation, typically transferring the positive or negative esteem from the earlier context.

The fallacy therefore fails to assess the claim on its merit. The first criterion of a good argument is that the premises must have bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim in question.[2] Genetic accounts of an issue may be true, and they may help illuminate the reasons why the issue has assumed its present form, but they are irrelevant to its merits.[3]

Today's Riddle

Q: Why don't blind people go skydiving?

A: It scares the dog.