Don't Forget Now

...this Sunday is National Back To Church Sunday. Woo-hoo!

So I wanna remind everybody to be sure to find something more useful to do - like go for a hike or take in a movie; or just stay home and alphabetize your Tupperware or re-shingle the doghouse or pick fly shit outa the pepper shaker.  Anything at all.

And if you click on that link - do some shopping, because nothin' says you love Jesus more than good old fashioned e-tail bidness - cuz y'know, if you don't care enough to spend a few bucks in support of The Savior™ well then don't be surprised to learn he don't love ya back when your time comes - know whadda mean?

That's What I'm Talkin' About

I complain a lot about Press Poodles, and how way too many "journalists" are doing a crappy job of reporting.

Well, from FAIR's excellent website, here's the primary-number-one-whole-wheat-no-artificial-ingredients-99-and-44-one-hundredths-percent-pure-and-unadulterated example of not just doing a crappy job, but the straight-up refusal even to know what the fucking job actually is:

NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd's declaration that it's not his job to inform viewers when politicians spread misinformation was noted by several progressive blogs today, including Talking Points Memo.

Appearing on MSNBC's Morning Joe today (9/18/13), Todd responded to Ed Rendell's claim that Obamacare opponents are full of misinformation about the program by explaining that this was because Republicans "have successfully messaged against it." But wasn't journalism's job to expose misinformation? No, Todd insisted; if the public was misinformed about the Affordable Care Act, it was the president's fault for not pushing back:

Chuck Todd: "What I always love is people say, 'Well, it's you folks' fault in the media.' No, it's the president of the United States' fault for not selling it."

(If the embedding has been disabled, the TPM version of the YouTube video was still up as of about 11:30AM EDT

There is no longer any reason for anybody to pay any attention to anything Lil' Chuckie has to say.  Ever.

(And finally, if you're as sick of this shit as I am, you can drop 'em a line via email: viewerservices@msnbc.com)

Dear Mr President

It seems pretty simple - don't negotiate with hostage-takers.

Congress and the president are again at loggerheads on how to move forward as the government's money runs out at the end of the fiscal year this month and federal agencies are once again warning employees and preparing contingency plans for a closed government.

All this because Republicans are making demands in exchange for government funding and Democrats are saying "no way."

Some Press Poodles (not a lot, but some) are actually talking about it in truthful terms, and have been willing to challenge the Repubs on occasion.  Again, not many and not often because most of our "journalists" are still completely hung up on their Fairness Bias, which makes them believe that if they quote somebody saying "the sun came up this morning", they're required to get a reaction from somebody with an opposing point of view - and you can straight-up count on the simple fact that somebody's just dying to get his own bad self on the TV so he can finally have that one shot at fame that his mama always told him he deserves.  Take a quick tour through your Program Guide and then tell me all about the huge differences between DumFux News and COPS and Chuck Todd and Gator Boys and Joe Scarborough and Honey BooBoo and Howard Kurtz - or any of the other "reality shows" polluting the air.

So anyway, in keeping with how the wingnuts like to do business - usually a variation on  "blaming the victim" - we have Repubs holding their breath and stamping their little feet to get what they want.  

And does anybody ever ask what they really want?  No - not really.  

Sometimes we hear a Press Poodle ask some random Repubs why they're threatening to blow the place up and they'll mutter the standard empty platitudes of "Fiscal Responsibility" or "We have a spending problem..." or whatever phrasing they've paid Frank Luntz to pull out of his ass today, but nobody ever asks them what any of it actually means in terms of policy; or what outcome they expect to achieve by that policy; and never mind if it means people could simply start to die in the streets if it doesn't work this time any better than it's worked the last 35 fuckin' years.

Repubs made huge strides in the 90s after Newt Gingrich taught them to keep repeating "failed liberal policies" over and over and over - when do we get the other side of that coin?

Today's Toons

Synchronicity

I'm wondering if there's anything that can be drawn from this having to do with our seeming need to look alike and act alike and think alike -  is there something physical that drives us towards conformity that can be so simple (and subtle) that we don't even notice it?

Teach Your Children Well

Buy This Book Right Fucking Now

Equivocation

Equivocation exploits the ambiguity of language by changing the meaning of a word during the course of an argument and using the different meanings to support some conclusion. A word whose meaning is maintained throughout an argument is described as being used univocally. Consider the following argument: How can you be against faith when we take leaps of faith all the time, with friends and potential spouses and investments? Here, the meaning of the word “faith” is shifted from a spiritual belief in a creator to a risky undertaking.

A common invocation of this fallacy happens in discussions of science and religion, where the word “why” may be used in equivocal ways. In one context, it may be used as a word that seeks cause, which as it happens is the main driver of science, and in another it may be used as a word that seeks purpose and deals with morals and gaps, which science may well not have answers to. For example, one may argue: Science cannot tell us why things happen. Why do we exist? Why be moral? Thus, we need some other source to tell us why things happen.

(The illustration is based on an exchange between Alice and the White Queen in Lewis Carroll'sThrough the Looking-Glass)

Street Justice

In a way, I don't like the fact that I still get a kind of zesty feeling inside when something like this happens.



There's an element of Instant Karma to it that I think is not completely unjustified.  I guess what I worry about is that people seem to take a small-ish incident like this one and then try to apply the principle to every situation.  Over time, we start to lose not only our sense of proportionality, but we get further and further away from the basic tenet of Due Process itself.

David Frum

Frum has been trying to pull his guys back from the brink. (and btw: that shouldn't make anybody think I consider him any kind of hero - he's not)

But when the guy gets one right (IMO), I think it's OK to say he got one right.

Mr Frum's tweets:

Today's Pix