And The Hits Keep Rollin'

hat tip = Facebook buddy BD

Some Costume Ideas

Today's Truth In Advertising

hat tip = Facebook buddy DR

5th Base

Bristol Palin has her panties in a wad - no wait, that's a bad way to start something with her - well, actually it seems like that's how it's started with her at least twice - no wait, that's not good either.  We don't slut-shame here.  We like sluts here.  No, wait.  Dammit.

Uhmm - never mind.  Look, Bristol Palin isn't really worth the time or the effort, so let's just sit back and enjoy some Garfunkel & Oates.

hat tip = janecita

STFU, Donny

Fighting My Way

And That's The Way It Is

Ladies and Germs - Jonathan Pie:

hat tip = Facebook buddy DR

Emily's Birthday

I stumbled across this a week or two ago.  Another little historical tidbit I had no idea about.  Seems kinda important actually, especially considering we're in the middle of our National Save The Ta-Tas Festival.  I figured since we're gonna spend 8.5% of our year trying to give a fuck about 51% of our population (which makes up 100% of our moms wives and daughters), maybe I could make some tiny effort to learn something about and appreciate one whole person.

So here ya go:

Emily Davison was born this day in 1872.

...militant activist who fought for women's suffrage in Britain. She was jailed on nine occasions and force-fed 49 times.[1] She stepped in front of King George V's horse Anmer at the Epsom Derbyon 4 June 1913, suffering fatal injuries. Her funeral on 14 June 1913 was organised by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Thousands of suffragettes accompanied the coffin and tens of thousands of people lined the streets of London. After a service in Bloomsbury, her coffin was taken by train to the family grave in Morpeth, Northumberland.[2]

Modern historians agree that Davison was trying to disturb the Derby to draw attention to her cause, rather than to commit suicide,[3][4] and 2013 analysis of newsreel has supported the idea that Davison was reaching up to attach a scarf to the bridle of the King's horse. Analysis of newsreel also indicated that her position before she stepped out onto the track would have given her a clear view of the oncoming race, further countering the belief that she ran out in a haphazard way to kill herself.[5]

I guess I just love tough gutsy people.

Things Change

hat tip = Facebook buddy VWE

Today's Pix

What Charlie Said, et al

Charlie Pierce:

The balance of power in half the national legislature now seems to be in the hands of the crème de la crazee. (This is such a mess at this point that Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from Wisconsin, and a man whose ambition makes Satan look like Uriah Heep, has done everything except hire a skywriter to say he's not interested.) Is this finally enough for the elite political press to notice that half the American political process is in full-blown dementia? Or does Jason Chaffetz have to lose, too?

 And from Matty Ice via twitter:

SHOCKING: Rep. Kevin McCarthy drops out of Speaker race to join Hillary's campaign.

— MATTY ICE (@MattyIceAZ) October 8, 2015

That purity movements are self-limiting is supposed to be self-evident.  But, like JFK said, there's always gonna be at least one son-of-a-bitch who doesn't get the word.

So, I guess I'm thinking this is another stellar example of the upside-down-and-bass-ackwards-ness of trying to apply The Greater Fool to a certain brand of politics.

And, as always, Brother Driftglass reminds us to be ever watchful for the coming Both-Sides bullshit:

2. What shiny, Dirty Hippy-shaped object will the Beltway press now deploy to continue the pretense that this problem is shared equally by Both Sides? My guess is, since this is an "All Hands On Deck" Both Siderist emergency, we can expect the David Brookses, Ron Fourniers and Mark Halperins to be called out to work double shifts on the Sunday Gasbag Cavalcade.

From time to time, just remind yourself that eventually this comes down to, "we both know the whole world is fucked up 'cept for you and me - and I'm beginning to have my doubts about you."

Pick A Bias, Any Bias

The more we learn, the more we understand how little we actually know.

A cognitive bias refers to a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment, whereby inferences about other people and situations may be drawn in an illogical fashion.[1] Individuals create their own "subjective social reality" from their perception of the input.[2] An individual's construction of social reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behaviour in the social world.[3] Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality.[4][5][6]

Some cognitive biases are presumably adaptive. Cognitive biases may lead to more effective actions in a given context.[7] Furthermore, cognitive biases enable faster decisions when timeliness is more valuable than accuracy, as illustrated in heuristics.[8] Other cognitive biases are a "by-product" of human processing limitations,[9] resulting from a lack of appropriate mental mechanisms (bounded rationality), or simply from a limited capacity for information processing.[10]

A continually evolving list of cognitive biases has been identified over the last six decades of research on human judgment and decision-making in cognitive science, social psychology, and behavioral economics. Kahneman and Tversky (1996) argue that cognitive biases have efficient practical implications for areas including clinical judgment.[11]

Some examples:

A Music Thing

Tiny Desk Concerts

What You Don't Do
Unstoppable
Forget
--Lianne LaHavas

hat tip = Little Green Footballs

Refresher Time

Not milk and cookies so much - well, maybe, but grab enough for a couple meals or whatever; this can take a while.

The Power Of Nightmares Part 1: Baby, It's Cold Outside 

You can find Parts 2 & 3 at the archives

It's About The Guns

I don't know Nicholas Kristoff's stuff very well, so I'm not endorsing the whole package - I'm just saying he seems to be talkin' some sense here.

First, we need to comprehend the scale of the problem: It’s not just occasional mass shootings like the one at an Oregon college on Thursday, but a continuous deluge of gun deaths, an average of 92 every day in America. Since 1970, more Americans have died from guns than died in all U.S. wars going back to the American Revolution.

When I reported a similar figure in the past, gun lobbyists insisted that it couldn’t possibly be true. But the numbers are unarguable: fewer than 1.4 million war deaths since 1775, more than half in the Civil War, versus about 1.45 million gun deaths since 1970 (including suicides, murders and accidents).

If that doesn’t make you flinch, consider this: In America, more preschoolers are shot dead each year (82 in 2013) than police officers are in the line of duty (27 in 2013), according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI.

--and--

Daniel Webster, a public health expert at Johns Hopkins University, notes that in 1999, the government listed the gun stores that had sold the most weapons later linked to crimes. The gun store at the top of the list was so embarrassed that it voluntarily took measures to reduce its use by criminals — and the rate at which new guns from the store were diverted to crime dropped 77 percent.

But then he comes up with this clinker:

But in 2003, Congress barred the government from publishing such information.

Why is Congress enabling pipelines of guns to criminals?

Why? Really?

The NRA spent $15,000,000 against Democratic candidates, $92,000 against Republican ones. "Non-partisan." http://t.co/EDy64n4l8w

— Peter W. Singer (@peterwsinger) October 4, 2015

 

Like the man said: Follow the money.

Coin-Operated Politicians do what they're told to do by the people who put them in power, and keep them in power.  And those "people" ain't me (even tho' I always go out and vote), and it sure as fuck ain't you when you decide you're above it all and refuse to vote.  

And just to be clear here - it ain't me (even tho' I do vote) because you don't vote.  You're sitting on your ass letting the rest of us do all the work; and then you continue to sit on your ass, bitchin' about how fucked up everything is, even tho' you refuse to pitch in and help.

So in the case of guns and public health policy, what exactly is the Number of Dead Children that we have to reach before you give up your stoopid sorry-ass excuses for neglecting your baseline responsibility as a US citizen?