Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
From HotAir:
Just watch Kirsten Powers and her disbelief in this interview when the bomb is dropped about 6:00 in. She’s so flustered when she finds out the truth that President Bush vetoed the 2008 bill with the end-of-life provision in it and it was the Democrat Congress that overrode the veto and forced it into law.
This is where we run into problems having these “friendly discussions” with our liberal friends. A lot of the time, when we get into the most trouble, we aren’t even trying to confront them or disagree with them in anyway…it comes under the heading of stopping them from making fools out of themselves as they repeat a bunch of drivel they were given by someone on the next terrace up in their little MLM pyramid, which they never bothered to research. Just trying to save a friend from looking like a horse’s ass.
But if it’s true, and doesn’t serve the interests of their agenda…it’s “not true.” They’ve got their own definition.
Update 1/2/11: Powers does the honorable thing and ‘fesses up.
I want to be very precise in my criticism of her and people like her. We all have only a limited amount of time we can spend on research, and we’re all flawed. It’s silly to pretend there’s something wrong with her just because she got a detail wrong…
It is the immediate dismissal of something that didn’t fit her preconceived notions. The reasonable response would have been something on the order of “that’s the first I’ve heard of that, I don’t know about that, I’ll have to look into it…” which I’ll concede would have looked a little silly on live teevee, maybe her nerves got the better of her.
My point is: This is as good a definition of any, of “extremist.” Someone tells you something that’s news to you, and you figure out whether it’s true or not based on whether it helps prove what you want proven. At that point, you’ve created your own bubble, your own little version of “truth.” And there’s a lot of it going around lately; molding and shaping the facts to fit the theory rather than the other way ’round.
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A Belated Happy New Years my friend!
A narrative of revisionist history. Ideologues often deny facts, and in Powers case, her credibility.
All the best in the New Year!
- Kini | 01/02/2011 @ 01:59Liberals don’t know what they’re talking about? And yet they’re oh so sure about it, and trumpet it to the skies? Shockah!!!!
I have a good friend* who, like all liberals, wants “Wall Street” to be “regulated.” I tried the old “which specific regulations would you like?” bit and he came back with stuff about executive compensation.** Sad, but not surprising, since “not understanding how the labor market works” is just one phase of the grand liberal project of misunderstanding everything about basic economics until the end of time.
What was surprising, though, was his total lack of even the most basic financial knowledge. I’m not talking about the ability to price derivatives or discuss credit default swaps; I’m talking basics — as in, he really couldn’t understand how, if I bought a share of stock at $1 and sold it for $3, someone somewhere wasn’t getting screwed out of $2.
I’m not even kidding.
And hey, I understand. Humility is hard. It took me a good long time to develop the self-confidence to say “I don’t know” when it comes to major issues. But isn’t it part of adulthood to develop that confidence? Where are we going wrong in the child-rearing /socialization process that many, many people can know nothing about a subject, and care to know nothing about a subject, and yet are all for making rules affecting millions of people on that very same subject?
*You might legitimately ask how I can be friends with such a person. It’s hard sometimes, but he’s like that one crazy-cool uncle everyone has as a kid — you learn not to mention Area 51 to Uncle Charlie when he’s had a few drinks, and everything will be fine. Like most liberals, my buddy is actually wonderfully conservative in the management of his personal affairs — he wants to make money, he hates paying taxes, he deplores the falling standards in schools, he teaches his kids to be honest and hardworking and moral. It’s just that his brain goes haywire any time he hears the magic words “society” and “government.”
**that’s the problem with that particular liberal-baiting tactic. Even I agree that some kinds of compensation are “too high” — I doubt that Alex Rodriguez, for example, really generates $300 million or whatever in revenue for the Yankees. But as a conservative I know that free markets include the right to make stupid decisions in the marketplace. Explaining that takes quite a bit of effort, though, while decrying “fatcats” takes ten seconds and is sooo much more emotionally satisfying….
- Severian | 01/02/2011 @ 08:18Anyone can Twitter their way around the truth.
- Kini | 01/03/2011 @ 04:15Forgiven, but not forgotten.
[…] Severian (in a comment at Freeberg’s) describes someone you also might know: I have a good friend who, like all liberals, wants “Wall Street” to be “regulated.” I tried the old “which specific regulations would you like?” bit and he came back with stuff about executive compensation. Sad, but not surprising, since “not understanding how the labor market works” is just one phase of the grand liberal project of misunderstanding everything about basic economics until the end of time. […]
- dustbury.com » W-2 review | 12/01/2011 @ 04:54