Thinly Veiled

They don't call it influence-peddling, and they sure as hell don't call it bribery - they don't even call it lobbying any more - and before too much longer, they won't have to call it anything because we won't be able to see it.  The whole rotten thing will be scrubbed and sanitized to the point where not even the people participating in the scam will be able to recognize the stench of their own corruption.  Remember, we have great capacity for rationalization; bordering closely on self-delusion.



BTW - it's Russia TV.  So grains of salt are in order.  That said, sometimes the most honest criticism comes from your fiercest rival.

Here's the Link to Republic Report

Today's Pix

Logical Fallacy # 4: The Fallacy Fallacy

From Wikipedia:

Argument from fallacy is the formal fallacy of analyzing an argument and inferring that, since it contains a fallacy, its conclusion must be false.[1] It is also called argument to logic (argumentum ad logicam), fallacy fallacy,[2] fallacist's fallacy,[3] and bad reasons fallacy.[4]
Fallacious arguments can arrive at true conclusions, so this is an informal fallacy of relevance.[5]

Form[edit]:

It has the general argument form:

If P, then Q.

P is a fallacious argument.

Therefore, Q is false.[6]

Thus, it is a special case of denying the antecedent where the antecedent, rather than being a proposition that is false, is an entire argument that is fallacious. A fallacious argument, just as with a false antecedent, can still have a consequent that happens to be true. The fallacy is in concluding the consequent of a fallacious argument has to be false.

That the argument is fallacious only means that the argument cannot succeed in proving its consequent.[7] But showing how one argument in a complex thesis is fallaciously reasoned does not necessarily invalidate the proof; the complete proof could still logically imply its conclusion if that conclusion is not dependent on the fallacy:

All great historical and philosophical arguments have probably been fallacious in some respect... If the argument is a single chain, and one link fails, the chain itself fails with it. But most historians' arguments are not single chains. They are rather like a kind of chain mail which can fail in some part and still retain its shape and function.  --David Hackett Fischer, Historians' fallacies[3]

Making The Case

...with the case being that "conservatives" and DumFux News are all about the hyper-partisan politics and not about the policy at all.

From Media Matters (hat tip = Democratic Underground):



Another straightforward conservative, being all rational and pragmatic.  And of course, that's just crap all day long, because Chuckles Clownhummer said very nearly exactly the opposite when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008:

What is to be done? Let's be real. There's nothing to be done militarily. What we can do is alter Putin's cost-benefit calculations.

I wonder what changed.

Today's Reality

I don't watch "reality TV" because it's anything but reality.  I guess I should say I don't watch much of it.  I do feel the need to check in on it once in a while - partly because I have teenagers who watch way too much of that shit, and partly because ya gotta take a peek at whatever passes for "the popular culture" once in a while.

So anyway, the Kardashians and the Robertsons and all these other over-privileged addicted-to-themselves attention whores have absolutely nothing to say and nothing to do unless they first go as far outa their way as possible to find something to piss and moan about; and once they find something to get bitchy about, they go even farther outa their way to make sure their friends and family members are the ones they scuffle with over it.  BTW: they keep it "in the family" because the writers and the producers (and most importantly, the marketeers) have told them that's what the rubes viewing public want to see.  Nobody's that dysfunctional without being Deliberately and Purposefully Dysfunctional.  So that's pretty fucked up right there, but knowing it's what we asked for is even more fucked up.

Anyway - take all that and go one tiny step farther, by overlaying it onto what we see in politics practically every day.

Why does Walt Putin need to fuck with Crimea?  And why do Huckleberry Fauxbutch and Grampy McDumfuck then have to work so hard trying to figure out how to take the caricature of Obama as the feckless dictator who rules by Executive Order whenever he calls the GOP on obstructionism, and turn him into a dithering stumblebum who couldn't lead ants to a sugar bowl because he won't immediately launch all the nukes when Putin decides to wiggle his dick at somebody in western Asia?

There's plenty that's both real and wrong about what's happening in and around Ukraine.  I just wanna see a lot less of the fake shit.  Show me more of John Kerry stepping on his dick with a track shoe scolding the Russians about not invading countries for bullshit reasons - that was real and fun - and really funny.

Today's Placebo

Kristi Erdal, Colorado College, talking about her research on some of the amazing shit your brain can do.

Be sure to stick around for the Self-Delusional News after the cookie commercial too.



We are now a little less dumb. 

Stay In School(?)

It's A Start

Atheists Don't Have No Songs --Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers

Because They're Rubes

Via Wonkette, this piece in WaPo:

RICHMOND — If you’re a law-abiding gun owner, former Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli II would like to be your lawyer — for less than $10 a month.

Cuccinelli and three partners have launched Virginia Self Defense Law, a firm focused on defending Second Amendment rights. With bargain-basement pricing and a cheeky slogan — “Defending those who defend themselves” — the venture seeks to tap into a feeling among some gun owners that the right to bear arms is under attack.

And here's the nail-on-the-head part:

...because I am not a fucking asshole who can’t feel like a big man unless he is waving a metal penis around. But that is not the point! The point is, how is Cuccinelli convincing the rubes to give him money before they’ve even done their crimes? Easy. They’re rubes, like I just said.

An Observation

Guys like Bloody Bill Kristol and Leo Strauss and practically any other NeoCon Proto-Fascist pus pocket you care to name - these guys are always pushing for doing things "the old-fashioned way", which for my purposes here is all about "society manufacturing good citizens".  Which is exactly the way it's been done for 400 centuries in every other place in the world, under every system of government ever; which is exactly the opposite of how we're supposed to be doing it here in the USofA.

American Exceptionalism is what happens when citizens make for a better society (which in turn makes for better government) - not the other way around.

If we remember only that one thing; if we can keep that one precept in mind whenever we listen to the politicians and the pundits and the Press Poodles and the Think-Tankers and whoever else believes he's entitled to a few minutes in the spotlight (usually because his daddy owns the theater) - maybe we get outa this mess in one piece.

Now, if I can just figure out how all o' dat doesn't mean I'm in line with the TeaBaggers on this one fine point, I'll feel a lot better about it.

It's Just Too Simple

Finding shit out and then telling people about it?  Can't possibly work, but fut the wuck, maybe we could try it for a while.

From truthout, by Wm Rivers Pitt - just a taste of a buncha good stuff.

I believe the minimum wage should be somewhere between $15 and $20 an hour, and that all the so-called business “leaders” crowing against any raise to that wage are self-destructive idiots. Commerce needs funds in the hands of consumers to survive and thrive and consumers today are barely handling rent. Put more money in the worker’s pocket and he will spend some of it at your store, because he can. The minimum wage has been stagnant for 30 years, and is due for a right and proper boost. If people don’t have money, your store won’t sell any goods. Get out of your own way and pay your people, so they can have money to spend on what you’re selling. This strikes me as simple arithmetic.

--and--

I believe the 50 percent of eligible American voters who can’t be bothered to turn out one Tuesday every two years should be ashamed of themselves, because this is a good country, but if that goodness doesn’t show up at the polls, we wind up in this ditch with a bunch of self-satisfied non-voters complaining about the mess we’re in. Decisions are made by those who show up, and lately, the small minority of hateful nutbags showing up become a large majority because they’re the only ones pulling the lever.

hat tip = Democratic Underground

Today's Corporate Monster

...eating companies and shitting people.



Do the petition thing at FreePress.net

...and then Call your Congress Critter

Yo - Gun Freaks

A Quick Analogy

My god-given right to swing my fist ends where your jaw begins.

In light of recent arguments - aka stupid little tempests in stoopider little teapots fomented by the stoopidest little god-bothering bigots ever - I'm talking about "issues" that shouldn't even enjoy the briefest consideration here in what the grownups like to call the 21st fucking century - here's the thing (via Rude Pundit):

...the moment your worship of whatever invisible sky wizard you choose infringes on his right to exist without the rules of your sky wizard imposed on him is the moment that your religious liberty becomes his oppression.

Today's American Taliban

The large steaming piles of douche-canoe buggery that fall out of this guy's Whopper slot in such rapid succession are a pure wonderment to behold.




The kids at South Park had a few ideas about Mr Donohue

hat tip = Blue Virginia

Today's Quote

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” --Upton Sinclair

That popped up in a piece at Bill Moyers, by Mike Lofgren:

Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately termed an “establishment.” All complex societies have an establishment, a social network committed to its own enrichment and perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched. Far from being invincible, its failures, such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only the Deep State’s protectiveness towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to escape the consequences of their frequent ineptitude. [2]

Sorry about dropping that one on you for the weekend, but you know - somebody's gotta look at this shit and it can't just be me and coupla other dweebs who never get anything else done.

Then there's this tasty little morsel:  The number of terrorist organizations we're fighting is a secret.  We also don't get to know who they are, and we don't get to know where they are - but the kicker?  We certainly do get to know that we get to pay for it, but we don't get to know how much it's costing.  Is that the perfect gig or what?

We are so fucked.

Watch this:

Design

This is far more than simple mental masturbation.

Expenditures devoted to "science for the sake of science" - or to just making shit that's interesting and kinda cool - is almost never wasted.

You have to put it out there, and then wait for the engineers to find a workable and/or useful application.

In the meantime, there's real value in the wonderment of it all.

Wait - What?

If this guy's sign truly reflects his circumstance, shouldn't this be a much bigger story?

Real World Pulchritude

Yeah, OK - it's a little lame in that "holy-fuck-man-why-do-white-people-gotta-try-this-shit" kinda way, but there's a fair-sized chunk o' truth here that needs to get out.



hat tip = HuffPo

And So It Begins(?)

The night of the long knives.

Mondo Cané.

Helter Skelter.

Maybe the revolution will be televised after all.

A crime of passion - one that defies the poor ability of your humble correspondent to describe it - was committed against the defenseless and unsuspecting rich white people living in the wealthiest neighborhood in all of USAmerica Inc.

Residents of Atherton CA discovered several defilements of their preciously private property - spray-painted with the obviously ominous phrase, "Fuck the 1%".

The vandalism took place between 6 and 9:30 p.m., along several blocks of Greenoaks Drive and the 100 blocks of Hawthorne, Rosewood and Heather drives, Wade said.

Not so funnily, there was also one reported instance of "Kill People" on the fence in front of one house.  Not cool, guys.  I don't care how fun it is for you to imagine giving a buncha tight-assed over-privileged dipwads nightmares about The Manson Family, it's not right to threaten anybody like that.

He said police have sought private security camera footage from residents, but so far have come up empty. Some residents don't have surveillance cameras and others didn't have them focused on the areas where vandals struck or didn't have them turned on, Wade said.

It is fun tho' - a whole lotta fun - thinking about all the prospecting calls the good folk in Atherton are about to get from the noble entrepreneurs in the Home Security bidness.  Like orcas on a baby whale.

But anyway-

Without leads or suspects, Atherton Town Manager George Rodericks cautioned against jumping to conclusions.

"We don't know if it was an organized group or a couple of teenagers," he said.