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...
A Poll I’d Like To See II
Back in May, I came up with a poll I’d like to see. Now, I don’t know why none of the poll-makers, not even one, have taken the hint and put out an actual poll with some of my questions on it. The polls we do see just ask the same questions over and over again, and most of those have to do with the approval ratings of some guy who’s going to stop being President in about 28 months. The irrelevance is striking, but the lack of creativity is even moreso. So it seems, to me, the pollsters would have done well to steal a few of my questions for their polls, just to keep the polls fresh and fun, if for no other reason. But I don’t want to tell them how to do their jobs.
Well it seems every time former President Jimmy Carter opens his mouth, not that I have long to wait for that to happen — he gives me more ideas for a poll I’d like to see. Now in all fairness to Jimmy, you do realize, don’t you, that he’s quite a long way from whistling in the wilderness on this stuff right? We have a lot of people who think his points about President Bush and Prime Minister Blair are right on the money. So far as I can tell, all of these people, or nearly all of them, were born sometime after we fired Carter because we couldn’t stand his policies anymore. But they’re old enough to vote now. Yeah, that’s how old you and I are, if you can remember what a terrible President he was.
Here’s something even more impressive: I have yet to hear — once! — a statement to the effect of “Former President Carter is right and the current administration needs to listen to him, because if we don’t do as he says, we have no hope of achieving the wonderful results Jimmy Carter did like for example…” I haven’t heard that one time yet. Not even in reference to the Camp David accords.
Yet Carter blabs away about what he doesn’t like. Toward what end, nobody knows; even his most ardent fans, seem unable to articulate what goals are to be reached, if we expunge our national policies of all that is offensive to him.
So here is a poll I’d like to see.
It would be more useful than handicapping a President who is going to have the same status as Jimmy Carter 875 days from now, I think. A lot more useful.
I mean, hey, one man’s opinion is just as legitimate as any other’s. But sometimes the nose-counts say something important about what’s going on in our society. It seems to me that question would highlight something going on. I’d really like to know how the percentages stack up. My interest in that question wouldn’t be to influence what’s happening — at least, not completely. I’d really like to see how it shakes out.
What else, what else…well, let’s take a look at some of the things Mr. Carter had to say.
“We’ve never before had an administration that would endorse pre-emptive war – that is a basic policy of going to war against another country even though our own security was not directly threatened,” he said. In his book, President Carter writes: “I have been sorely tempted to launch a military attack on foreigners.” But had he still been president, he says that he would never have considered invading Iraq in 2003.
:
Asked why he thinks Mr Blair has behaved in the way that he has with President Bush’s belligerent regime, Mr Carter said he could only put it down to timidity.
That’s worthy of a poll question right there. Timidity…drives a coalition of nations to launch an attack against a filthy butcher like Saddam. Presumably, if you’ve got some real ballz, you leave the mofo right where he is so he can keep on stirring up trouble, but at least you can brag about having stood up to the big bad George W. Bush.
You know, it occurs to me that if people think the current American “regime” is a “belligerent” one, and most pointedly in comparison to Hussein’s old regime, they can jolly well come out and say so. A lot of people appear to be anxious to do exactly that. But they never quite get around to doing it, nor are they called upon to say that. Let’s have a poll question that asks.
Again, I really wanna know. How many people who call themselves Americans would pick d? I mean, really?
And there’s more fresh meat up at the top of the article. Let’s see a poll on this one.
Tony Blair’s lack of leadership and timid subservience to George W Bush lie behind the ongoing crisis in Iraq and the worldwide threat of terrorism, according to the former American president Jimmy Carter.
I mean, I’m trying to give these questions a humorous spin, but when you stop and think about them for a second or two they are deadpan, flat-ass, heart-attack serious questions.
Some folks have deadpan flat-ass heart-attack serious opinions about the answers. But I can’t help noticing, among those, the folks sympathetic to former President Carter’s point-of-view, only advance those answers in settings where there is a social benefit to be realized from doing so. Protest rallies. Move-On-Dot-Org block parties. Left-wing political conventions. I’d like to see them answer a poll, with some of the ideas they have…and then, I’d like to see the poll tabulated.
There is a reason why I want to see this. From my perspective, when Former President Carter opens his big ol’ cakehole, the newsworthiness of the cakehole-opening event is completely invested in the question of how many people agree with him. What Former President Carter thinks…is something I already know. How well it works when it’s translated into policy…I know that too, and I have no desire to see it again. Whether or not we want more of that policy…that was decided in the fall of 1980.
I think that question is the most serious one, right there. And it is pivotal in determining the relevance of Carter’s remarks. If a majority don’t pick d, then he is just one more cantankerous curmudgeon who won’t shut the hell up. Nothing more. Kind of on par with some guy writing posts for The Blog That Nobody Reads…except unlike Carter, I haven’t been fired after my one-term as President quite yet.
I want to know: For how many of my countrymen does this bitter old fart speak?
Isn’t that what we all want to know?
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The courageous soldier promises under oath to “protect the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, both foreign and domestic”
Terrorstorm brings that oath home
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5948263607579389947
- directinfo | 08/29/2006 @ 14:23Hey, Morgan. Your brain and mine work very much the same way. I look at poll questions it’s very clear why they were written the way they were — so that the numbers could plausibly be interpreted to support the desired argument … the one the pollster wanted to make.
I’m for more detailed polls like yours. 🙂
- Phil | 08/31/2006 @ 12:59