It's A Wonderment

We can always count on the NRA to come up with something clever to say every time some dipwad kills somebody with a gun.

So I'm wondering why they've said nothing about how the folks in Ferguson wouldn't be having all these problems if they were all properly armed.

And since we're seeing some actual repression of people by an over-amped militarized local police force - as opposed (eg) to the phony crap that went down at the Bundy place in Nevada - where are all those valiant defenders of freedom?  Where is the Tea Party Militia?  Where are the Oath Keepers?

I'm really disappointed that the True Patriots haven't showed up yet - if for no other reason than to show the Murican Public once and for all that they aren't really the gun-sucking, whiny-butt-pussy, racist assholes we all know them to be.

Francis Wilkinson at Bloomberg went to the NRA website:

What I was looking for, of course, was outrage over "jack-booted thugs" terrorizing the populace. After fundraising and paranoia, outrage is the NRA's chief product. Whether it's President Barack Obama conspiring to subvert the constitution and strip citizens of self-defense, or former President Bill Clinton deliberately fomenting violent crime as a predicate to gun control, NRA leader Wayne LaPierre has always been extra vigilant about government's potential to abuse its police powers.

"If you have a badge" under the freedom-hating Clinton administration, he said in 1995, "you have the government's go-ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law-abiding citizens."

I wonder: Has the shooting death of the Missouri teen traumatized LaPierre into silence?

Logical Fallacy #22 - Anecdotal

The expression anecdotal evidence refers to evidence from anecdotes. Because of the small sample, there is a larger chance that it may be unreliable due to cherry-picked or otherwise non-representative samples of typical cases.[1][2] Anecdotal evidence is considered dubious support of a generalized claim; it is, however, perfectly acceptable for claims regarding a particular instance. Anecdotal evidence is no more than a type description (i.e., short narrative), and is often confused in discussions with its weight, or other considerations, as to the purpose(s) for which it is used. This is true regardless of the veracity of individual claims.[3][4][5]

The term is often used in contrast to scientific evidence, such as evidence-based medicine, which are types of formal accounts. Some anecdotal evidence does not qualify as scientific evidence because its nature prevents it from being investigated using the scientific method. Misuse of anecdotal evidence is an informal fallacy and is sometimes referred to as the "person who" fallacy ("I know a person who..."; "I know of a case where..." etc. Compare with hasty generalization). Anecdotal evidence is not necessarily representative of a "typical" experience; in fact, human cognitive biases such as confirmation bias mean that exceptional or confirmatory anecdotes are much more likely to be remembered. Accurate determination of whether an anecdote is "typical" requires statistical evidence.[6][7]

What I Love

It seems a lifetime ago, but there was a time I had the great privilege of being allowed to hang around at the periphery of arguments like this one:



There's just something amazingly inspiring to me when I hear the heavyweights gettin' after it like that.

And also too, the exchange between Tyson and Dawkins was exactly that - it was an exchange.  Both men are strong advocates of their respective points of view, and they don't mince words in presenting them or defending them.  But what makes this important to me is that both men have points of view that have real and intrinsic value.  They're both coming at it from the perspective of reason and provable fact - and they'll battle it out as to the best way to get their points across to an audience less knowledgable than themselves.  Ya just can't not love that.

But instead of hearing this kind of smart discussion, the "debate" we get to witness on practically any subject is limited to a stultifying exhibition of Fact vs "Yeah, but Jesus" - or Fact vs "Yeah, but some people say" - or Fact vs "Yeah, but the Democrats".

And it ends with, "So, scientists are telling us the earth is a sphere that rotates on its axis and orbits the local star, while others believe this not to be the case - obviously some good arguments on both sides, but we'll have to leave it at that because the marketing department needs to sell you some shit you've never heard of, which you don't need, and you can't afford.  Please join us tomorrow for our featured segment - Oxygen: Essential to human life or just another scam from the Chemical Manufacturers?"

Image Is A Thing

In the picture below, there are 5 guys clearly visible.

Only one of them is not dressed (and not behaving) in a manner which might indicate that he's looking for trouble.

I'm not saying there's anything that justifies the riots.  Sometimes, the reality of shitty circumstances plus the tears of impotent rage just kinda catch up with you and it all blows up in unpredictably unavoidable (and understandable) ways.

You may be at the protest to show a little solidarity with your community, and maybe to vent your spleen a little by yelling at the cops, but all it takes is for one jag-off to throw one bottle, and suddenly a really bad situation gets a whole lot worse.

Cuz here's the thing: Authoritarians will always provoke you into actions they can use to rationalize their intentions to lord their power over you.  Once that bottle is thrown, they have the excuse they were looking for all along.

Today's Pix

(click on an image to blow it all up into a slideshow)

 

A Question

...if I may, please.  How come this story gets decent coverage on one of HBO's comedy shows, but not on any of the big network "news" shows?



favorite line: "Apparently, even the cluster fucks are bigger in Texas."

hat tip = Wonkette

Revisiting The Visitors Thing

From The Daily Press (Virginia tidewater area) yesterday, talking about the most recent attempt to swing government towards the Authoritarian side of the spectrum:

We are quick to criticize elected officials and government bodies when they seek to limit the public's access to information, either by operating behind closed doors or concealing documents which should be readily available for the asking. It is similarly important to single out such groups for praise when they make a decision respecting those principles.

That brings us to the University of Virginia, the commonwealth's flagship institution, which smartly walked away from a worrisome aspect of a proposed "statement of expectations" being prepared for its Board of Visitors by a subcommittee of that board.

A draft circulated earlier this month attempted to quash dissent by members, instructing them to avoid speaking publicly on board decisions "whether past, present or imminent" unless granted the approval of the board's leader. Essentially it would require the board to speak with one unified, unquestioning voice.

Starts out pretty good, but then this:

Dr. Sullivan was pressured to resign before public outcry led to her reinstatement in what can charitably be described as a debacle for the university's Board of Visitors and a highly visible black eye for the entire U.Va. community.

That last bit sounds a lot like Blaming The Victim, so I gotta ask - in what way do you think Terry Sullivan was at fault for being the target of an attempted coup orchestrated (in secret) by Helen Dragas; and how exactly was it wrong for an outraged public to protest such dirty dealing?

It's not always easy to see who's wrong and who's right, but sometimes it's actually pretty clear.  But then somehow, no matter what the issue is, and no matter what the outcome was; for the public, the discussion of these problems must always be shoe-horned into "both sides..." and "plenty of blame to go around" and "it makes everybody look bad" etc etc etc.  False Equivalency must prevail.

The Press Poodles have become extraordinarily adept at making it sound like they're just trying to be the voice of moderation - trying to keep the peace - trying to maintain a healthy balance.

Maybe we're seeing the logical progression of the very sorry state of affairs in the News-As-Profit-Center model of "journalism" in the 21st century.  They can't afford to take any financial hits, so if they piss off any of their readers then they stand to lose revenue, and that means they dance according to whoever's paying the band, and that means we get "news" that's been bleached to the point of invisibility.

But for me it also means we're being told not to pay attention; we shouldn't let it worry our pretty little heads, and we can all just go back to sleep.

Bullshit.

It matters what's true and not true.
It matters what's best for the most.
It matters what my government is doing in my name and with my money.
It matters that I have a say in how my government operates.

And it matters a lot for the 4th Estate to get back up on its hind legs and start doing it's fucking job again.

Hey, News Editors - if you think something's fucked up, then you say so.  If it turns out you got it wrong, then you own it and you say you were wrong about it - and hey, guess what - that means you'll have something to put in your little newspaper tomorrow.  Could we try that for a while?

The War Picture

This has been making the rounds, and the story is that media editors refused to publish it because it was just a little too gruesome for domestic consumption.  Bullshit.

First, it's bullshit because there's never a shortage of War Porn consumers.

But second, sometimes when we're feeling more honest than usual, we'll say, "Well, it's awful; but, you know, it's war - and people die in war".

Bullshit again.  People don't just die in war.  They aren't lying around waiting to drift off into some eternal slumber.  They're killed - usually with a very particular purpose in mind, and in the most horrific and brutal ways it will ever be anybody's misfortune to witness or even imagine.

Whether you were for the war or against it; whether you thought it was necessary or stoopid; that picture shows us what was done in our names and on our behalf - either because we said that's what we wanted done, or because we didn't do enough to keep it from being done.

We have no right to turn away.

Today's Pix (NSFW)

Today's Video

You know you're politically dead to about 60% of the country when Jon Stewart cuts you into tiny little pieces and scatters your remains to the wind.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,Daily Show Video Archive

I won't say ol' Vaginal Bob is all washed up - lord knows there's a double-digit percentage of voters with single-digit IQs who're thinking "anybody them libruls hate that much cain't be all bad".  The guy actually still has a constituency, and that makes him worth something to the GOP machine.

So he'll find his way into the Wingnut Welfare System.  My guess is that he'll drop out of sight for a while - he has to raise a shitload of money for "the defense fund" and that means he has to stay low while some of his "friends" make a shitload of money off of his need for a shitload of money (politics is as good a scam as religion in exactly that way), but mostly he needs time to reflect and to assess and to search his soul, and to find a good ghost writer for the truly inspiring story of his rise to the Governor's Mansion, and his fall (because of the wickedness of his helpmate who was tempted by the Evil One because of her lustful heart); and his time in purgatory, and his eventual redemption in the eyes of The Lord - can I get a fuckin' AMEN here, people!?!

And then he'll end up with a relatively low-profile job at one of the Lobby Shops, where he'll slave away for a few election cycles, and then suddenly pop up at one of the "conservative" circle jerks - CPAC or whatever - to take his shot at re-emerging as a viable  political player etc etc etc.

We've seen this movie a thousand times.

Friday Tune-A-Rama

Red Handed --Obadiah Parker





I'm Yours --Jason Mraz





In A Sentimental Mood --Emily Remler





I'll Be Over You (cover) --Andy McKee





White Rhythm and Blues --JD Souther





Words --Gregory Alan Isakov





Hellos and Good-Byes --Tommy Emmanuel





Love Song --Sara Bareilles

Logical Fallacy #21 - Appeal To Nature

Some people use the phrase "naturalistic fallacy" or "appeal to nature" to characterize inferences of the form "This behaviour is natural; therefore, this behaviour is morally acceptable" or "This property is unnatural; therefore, this property is undesireable." Such inferences are common in discussions of homosexuality, environmentalism and veganism.

The naturalistic fallacy is the idea that what is found in nature is good. It was the basis for Social Darwinism, the belief that helping the poor and sick would get in the way of evolution, which depends on the survival of the fittest. Today, biologists denounce the Naturalistic Fallacy because they want to describe the natural world honestly, without people deriving morals about how we ought to behave (as in: If birds and beasts engage in adultery, infanticide, cannibalism, it must be OK). The moralistic fallacy is that what is good is found in nature. It lies behind the bad science in nature-documentary voiceovers: lions are mercy-killers of the weak and sick, mice feel no pain when cats eat them, dung beetles recycle dung to benefit the ecosystem and so on. It also lies behind the romantic belief that humans cannot harbor desires to kill, rape, lie, or steal because that would be too depressing or reactionary.[5]

A Certain Sameness

Addicting Info ran a piece about how the Wingnut Militia Goons who were supposed to gather en masse along the US-Mexico border have come up just a tad bit short.

As it turns out, patrolling the border isn’t exactly the adventurous and glamorous life that right-wing militia members thought it would be.
In fact, the militias are all talk and no walk with internal disputes and just plain boredom leading to many armed vigilantes taking their weapons and going home.

Last month, a Minuteman militia member named Chris Davis announced via video a plan for stopping undocumented immigrant children from crossing the border. They’re idea? Aim guns at them and shoot if they don’t turn around and go back to the hell they’re escaping from. After catching much flak for it, the man who issued the call in the first place backed away from his words and removed the video. His plan failed and his hope for a groundswell of volunteers to militarize the border fizzled as well. Currently, Davis and a tiny band of militiamen are spread out along a wide swath of the border along three states.

So the effect here is pretty interesting.  These guys (prob'ly) got all het up about patrolling the border cuz they spend way too much time surfing the wingnut website whirlpool where every link they click on takes 'em to another page that says almost exactly the same thing as all the other pages, and so they end up believing not only the bullshit story, but that everybody buys the bullshit story, and it's driving millions of good decent Muricans - just like their-own-bad-selves - to take up arms and defend our sovereign purity from the hordes of filthy vermin blah blah blah.

The Right Wing Echo Chamber's a real thing, but it's actually intended just to make you think you'll be joined by a gigundous mob of like-minded cheese fritters just itchin' to go for a little target practice while playing Rambo Junior in the desert southwest.  The Panic Pushers are hoping to manufacture a critical mass when there really isn't the slightest potential for such a thing to happen organically.  That kind of self-delusion is what got you that Romney Landslide in 2012, remember?

Do ya just never get tired of chasing the tin cans they're tyin' on your tail?

As a simple exercise, every once in a while take whatever nonsense du jour pops up and google the main point; something like "immigrants infected".  No matter what it is, an awful lot of the time, you'll get several pages of hits that say practically the same thing - including a bunch where it's an obviously copy-n-paste-verbatim kinda deal.  And it's not just DumFux News and Breitbart and Wingnut Daily either.

It's good to refresh your memory about just how In The Tank these chuckleheads really are, and how way too many Press Poodles are doing anything they need to do to cater to some people's willing ignorance in order to sell 'em some extra camo shirts or dippin' snuff or gold-leaf-plated pot metal "coins".  Business is the first order of business after all; and the "News Bidness" is no exception - not any more.

But it's just as important to remember that rubes are always willing to buy into the belief that no matter what they get talked into doing, as long as they're convinced they're acting in the name of some greater calling or higher power, nothing is out of the question, so everything is acceptable.

'Twas ever thus, and ever thus 'twill be I suppose.  Society carries the seeds of its own destruction just as our own individual bodies carry a host of harmful bacteria and viruses that can kill us whenever the balance of "good germs vs bad germs" goes a little wacky.

The body politic seems in dire need of a powerful high colonic right about now.

The Power Of Nightmares

This is a blast from the past, and I'm putting it up again because (1st) it's a good look at how the perceptions and opinions of whole populations can be cynically manipulated, and (2nd) because as time passes, we need to stay aware of the extreme dangers that arise from the merger of Religion and Politics.



You can watch the 2nd and 3rd episodes at the archive site.

Today's Christianist

Ya can't be "a true Christian" if you don't vote Republican.



hat tip = Mock Paper Scissors

Just Chill A Minute, Dammit

Thanks to (and a big ol' hat tip for) Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs.  It's good to take a step back and try to remember where we were trying to go before all this weird shit happened and we started feeling so lost.

Shower The People --James Taylor

Today's Wingnut

hat tip = Addicting Info

I guess Lil Donny is off his meds again - railing against the docs who contracted Ebola Fever while trying to be professionals who actually give a fuck:

"People that go to far away places to help out are great-but must suffer the consequences"

That would certainly help explain why Trump and his fellow-traveler "conservatives" are so dead-set against trying to make the VA a better place.  Soldiers who go to far away places to help us out are great, but they knew the risks when they signed up, so if they don't have sense enough to die over there, fuck 'em(?)

How is it that these guys are always making stoopid general pronouncements, and nobody "on their side" ever seems to get wise to it?

And then there's RushBo:



Be afraid.  C'mon guys - if I'm wrong about y'all being a buncha whiny-butt pussies who're frightened by every shadow and every fleeting glimpse of anything you can't either immediately identify as friendly (aka "exactly like you") - or anything you're not allowed to shoot 47 times with your 50-calibre manly inadequacy compensator - then ya gotta be able to recognize that you're being played for suckers.

And now I'll trot out the old standby (Groaner Alert):  These "Thought Leaders" on the far right must think you're all mushrooms - why else do they keep you in the dark and feed you a steady diet of shit?

Huh?

As if anybody needed another indication that DumFux News is a bad place to get anything but dumber.

Cuz everybody knows Murica has to be 110% against that sub-human mongrel in the White House.

hat tip = Democratic Underground

Connections

I wonder if this:




...might hook into this:



Big O has been really really careful never to say the word 'torture' in any public setting - not that I can recall anyway (update*).  So I have to wonder why he's saying it now, and I don't think it's solely because it's come up and he's trying to do the damage control thing by blaming Bush or whatever.  That said, tho', the guy can be crazy stupid good at political judo, and keeping in mind that it's never just about what they tell us it's about, here's a few possibilities stumbling thru my brain clutter today:

• he's floating the torture thing to counteract the impeachment thing.  "you fuck with me on impeachment, and I'll fuck you back even harder by arresting Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and a hundred others and I'll personally deliver 'em all the The Hague to face charges for their war crimes". (you'll notice Liz Cheney popped up on DumFux News almost immediately to slag the Prez for a good 4 minutes - talking about torture and making no mention of her dear ol' dad - of course)

Anyway - back to stumbly thingies:

• he's angling for better support from his own wingers.  The guy does an awful lot of Hippie-Punching, and so he's throwing a bone to the Left Wing to get 'em all out to the polls this fall.
• he's finally getting around to addressing the post 9-11 madness.  And so this is all about trying to signal an attempt to make up for doing nothing about it; or he needs to move a little closer to traditional foreign allies in order to get something from them(?) - maybe shore up support for sanctions on Russia and Iran and/or slapping Israel(?)

Dunno, but things happen for a reason, and maybe this happened late on a Friday so it wouldn't get much coverage, which means it'll generate very little heat, which means  everybody's expecting the Press Poodles to keep it on the down low because there's a coupla dozen trainloads of politicians and operatives and bureaucrats and Press Poodles who should rightly be in prison because they took an active part in the shittiness or they actively avoided doing anything to prevent it, or they made sure we didn't notice or whatever.

As long as you can make it look like everybody's responsible, then nobody can hold anybody accountable for anything - ever.  Welcome to America's Imperial Era.

*Update = From Little Green Footballs:

Obama’s statement on torture wasn’t really news; in May 2013 he said pretty much the same thing: Remarks by the President at the National Defense University | the White House.

Meanwhile, we strengthened our defenses — hardening targets, tightening transportation security, giving law enforcement new tools to prevent terror.  Most of these changes were sound.  Some caused inconvenience.  But some, like expanded surveillance, raised difficult questions about the balance that we strike between our interests in security and our values of privacy.  And in some cases, I believe we compromised our basic values — by using torture to interrogate our enemies, and detaining individuals in a way that ran counter to the rule of law.

Still seems kinda odd to me tho'.

The Challenge

On the The Professional Left podcast this week, Bluegal referenced the video below (Samuel L Jackson saying motherfucker - 171 times)...



...and then issued a challenge:  Somebody should do something similar with Chuck Todd and Cokie Roberts and any other Press Poodle who draws a paycheck for being adept at Pimping The Horserace - ie: making sure that whenever Ted Cruz walks across the rotunda and publicly skull fucks John Boehner, what we hear at the end of the TV segment is, "Yeah, but the Democrats..." and "Both sides..." and "There's plenty of blame to go around..."

Once you know what to look for, it's easier to find.