Slouching Towards Oblivion

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Podcast

Episode 384 - Cable News is Corrupt on Purpose, Just Like Trump



Fox Wins

Here's the latest score card for everybody's favorite, Bullshit Mountain:

2017 Pulitzer = 0

2017 Peabody = 0

2017 Polk = 0

Thus the record that Fox News established at the very beginning in 1996 remains unblemished by recognition as an actual news organization.

Friday, April 14, 2017

Today's Today

On this, the holiest of holy days, let us pause for a moment's reflection on the awesomely awesome awesomeness of god's own church on Earth.


Amen, motherfucker.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Today's Tweets

Tommy Jeff's Birthday

Thomas Jefferson April 13, 1743

From the Monticello website:


Thomas Jefferson was always reluctant to reveal his religious beliefs to the public, but at times he would speak to and reflect upon the public dimension of religion. He was raised as an Anglican, but was influenced by English deists such as Bolingbroke and Shaftesbury. Thus in the spirit of the Enlightenment, he made the following recommendation to his nephew Peter Carr in 1787: "Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."1 In Query XVII of Notes on the State of Virginia, he clearly outlines the views which led him to play a leading role in the campaign to separate church and state and which culminated in the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom: "The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. ... Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error.2 Jefferson's religious views became a major public issue during the bitter party conflict between Federalists and Republicans in the late 1790s when Jefferson was often accused of being an atheist.

 

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

It Still Ain't Normal

From Brookings:

With the exception of building the wall, majorities of white voters without college degrees lean in the same direction as the overall electorate.

Healthcare is flashing another warning signal. As the debate over repealing the Affordable Care Act (AKA “Obamacare”) has unfolded, public sentiment has shifted from “repeal and replace” toward a strategy of “repair and retain.” In the meantime, the people are holding President Trump and congressional Republicans responsible for the condition of the healthcare system.

In the wake of the failed effort in the House of Representatives to repeal the law, President Trump threatened to leave the law alone and let it self-destruct. But the April Kaiser Family Foundation survey finds that 75 percent of the public wants the president and the Republicans to do what they can to make the law work, compared to only 19 percent who think they should let the law fail so they can replace it later. Moreover, 61 percent say that the president and the Republicans are now in charge and are responsible for problems with the ACA—not President Obama and the Democrats who enacted it.
Quinnipiac Poll:

64 percent of voters oppose building a wall on our southern border.
72 percent oppose lowering taxes on the wealthy.
62 percent oppose removing regulations intended to combat climate change

65 percent believe that climate change is “primarily” caused by human activity
59 percent want the United States to do more to address this problem
68 percent think that we can do so and protect jobs at the same time.

With Apologies To Click & Clack

When you've got a guy who knows nothing, and you put him together with other guys who know nothing, it's possible to break thru the lower limits of ignorance to achieve a state of knowing even less than nothing.

The 45* administration is making a valiant attempt to prove this hypothesis.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Monday, April 10, 2017

Today's Tweet

Daddy State Derangement Syndrome

The only thing missing is the beheading of a hostage at the end.

hat tip = @JackSmithIV

Sunday, April 09, 2017

Philosophy Explained

Heraclitus - You can't eat the same donut twice

Plato - A donut shares its ideal donut-ness with all other donuts

Aristotle - A donut's donut-ness is self-contained

Augustine - A donut must achieve grace to become fully donut

Descartes - The donut hole proves the existence of the donut

Locke - Donuts taste good to me

Hume - Donuts exist because I imagine donuts

Kant - Each donut equals my total donut experience

Wollstonecraft - Women deserve donuts too

Mill - Donuts are good if they make people happy

Kierkegarde - I have faith in the deliciousness of donuts

Marx - Everybody deserves a donut

Nietzsche - Stop at nothing to get your donut

Saussure - Beignet/Krapfen/Ciambella/Buรฑuelo: they are all equally donut

Wittgenstein - Fried pastry, zero, spare tire, whatever

Beauvoir - White patriarchal domination is responsible for the shape and the self-defeating inadequacy of the donut

Raised Right

It's not so much a dog's poor behavior that bugs the fuck outa me - the dog's being a dog. What grates on the conservative bits of me soul is the human who insists on off-loading some of his responsibility for that dog's behavior onto everybody else. Anybody else actually.


Your dog is not a fashion accessory. And it's not furniture - it's not part of the decor intended to round out some idiotic fantasy image of American family life.

Have some respect for yourself and for your neighbors and for the dog - take the whole thing seriously enough to make the effort to train the dog properly.

You own the dog. You own the responsibility - all of it.

Today's Tweet