Louis CK

Takes some getting used to, and ya gotta stay with it to get where he's trying to go.

Wish You Were Here

The Tribe Explained - update

Here's a bit more on Agnotology from Wired Magazine.

"People always assume that if someone doesn't know something, it's because they haven't paid attention or haven't yet figured it out," Proctor says. "But ignorance also comes from people literally suppressing truth—or drowning it out—or trying to make it so confusing that people stop caring about what's true and what's not."

I get into arguments all the time.  Usually online, but sometimes, I just can't let some random comment by some random acquaintance slide by unchallenged.  I also have a few drinkin' buddies and when we get together, it's time to play "What's Yer Fuckin' Problem?".  It gets pretty heated on occasion, but we're still good friends and at least nobody's ever hit anybody.  I've been trying to work on tempering my more aggressive impulses.  I wouldn't say that I have a short fuse for the most part, but there are definitely some things that'll set me off, and this idea of WIllful Ignorance is at the heart of the matter for me.

I'm always looking for obscure (or just different) and seemingly unrelated concepts; trying to find ways of mixing ideas together to come up with something new or at least something that pushes me forward in my own development in whatever small way is possible.  I guess I tho't everybody did the same, and I should hope that most still do, but it's pretty apparent that an awful lot of folks don't.

Anyway, my new synthesis has to do with putting Agnotology together with the ice cream scene from Thank You For Smoking.  I can argue with somebody who is impervious to the facts all I want, but I'm never going to change his mind.  So the point of the exercise is not to wear myself out on him, but to argue in a way that could influence whoever else might be listening.

The Tribe Explained

From David Roberts at Grist:

It's a numbingly familiar pattern in media coverage. The conservative movement that's been attacking climate science for 20 years has a storied history of demonstrable fabrications, distortions, personal attacks, and nothingburger faux-scandals -- not only on climate science, but going back to asbestos, ozone, leaded gasoline, tobacco, you name it. They don't follow the rigorous standards of professional science; they follow no intellectual or ethical standards whatsoever. Yet no matter how long their record of viciousness and farce, every time the skeptic blogosphere coughs up a new "ZOMG!" it's as though we start from zero again, like no one has a memory longer than five minutes.

He starts off talking about how "Climategate" has triggered 5 separate investigations, and all 5 have come back in total agreement that there's nothing there to get excited about.  Then he gets to the good stuff about how it doesn't matter what the facts are because The Tribe has already made its point, the Press Poodles have dutifully reported the bullshit contentions as if they actually mean something, and a few of us are left wondering if there might be something to the charges after all (kinda the point, y'know?).

So what really got me though is that this phenomenon of staying willfully ignorant has a name - Agnotology.

The lesson we've learned from climategate is simple. It's the same lesson taught by death panels, socialist government takeover, Sharia law, and Obama's birth certificate. To understand it we must turn to agnotology, the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt. (Hat tip to an excellent recent post on this by John Quiggen.)

I'm having trouble getting this post wrapped together so it can make the kind of sense to a reader that I think it does to me.  (I get a little too amped up when I learn something new like this)  Read the two pieces.

Wisconsin

There's a bunch of polling results coming out now, indicating Gov Walker is losing in the court of public opinion - most of them are running something like 60-40 against his attempt to bust the unions.

So here's what I'm wondering:  how long before his consultants tell him it's OK to claim victimhood at the hands of the big bad, all-powerful unions?  DumFux News has guys calling the protesters thugs, and the union workers freeloadin' losers.  It's gotta be getting close to the time they switch it around and try depicting the unions as the fat cats and the poor little ol' Guvner as besieged on all sides by the evil greedy proletarian commies.

Hey, Colorado

Feeling a little sentimental I guess.  One of the favorites I used to sing to the kids at bedtime.

The Cost Of War

From WaPo

Without once referring to his son's death, the general delivered a passionate and at times angry speech about the military's sacrifices and its troops' growing sense of isolation from society.

"Their struggle is your struggle," he told the ballroom crowd of former Marines and local business people. "If anyone thinks you can somehow thank them for their service, and not support the cause for which they fight - our country - these people are lying to themselves. . . . More important, they are slighting our warriors and mocking their commitment to this nation."

My first reaction is, "blow it out your ass, General."  I don't like that being my first reaction, but there it is.

There are lots of people losing their businesses, their jobs and their homes because when the military goes off to war, it leaves giant holes in local economies.  Do you think the people in towns like Fayetteville aren't aware of the cost?

Some dozens of people have been murdered by veterans returning with PTSD - a condition that is deliberately ignored by the military in many cases, with many service members being discharged and untreated for it;  many dozens of veterans have committed suicide.  Are the families of those dead soldiers and those murder victims somehow unaware of the cost of these wars, General?

And what about those of us who try to keep track of what's going on?  What about people who were against the wars in the first place, but who go right on paying their taxes, and waving their flags, and donating money to veterans' relief funds?  Every fucking day, General.

I can only imagine how lousy it must be for you to have had a son killed in a war you think nobody cares about.  And I pray every minute of every day that I never have to do more than imagine it.  But you're doing what you signed up to do, General Kelly.  So do it.  Or resign your commission and stop doing it.  But either way, stop whining about it.  And stop walking around with your chest all puffed up, trying to act like you're more important than what you claim to be fighting for.

The Turn Around

via Political Carnival:

Yes, it's class warfare alright.  It's the guy making $500k convincing the guy making 35 that the guy making 50 is fuckin' him over.

Classic.

The Take Away

St George of Carlin