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.