Archive for the ‘Everyday Dimwits’ Category

Thirty Ignorant Opinions That Are Nevertheless Somehow Popular

Monday, July 6th, 2009

One good thing that has come from Gov. Palin’s resignation, is I’ve been able to beef up my inventory of opinions it seems find support from a clear majority, even though they’re just plain dumbass opinions. They come to be because a lot of everyday folks feel socially obliged to feel opinionated about things, but haven’t had the time, energy, inclination or incentive to form opinions the way we all know opinions should be formed. So a lot of them take the easy-out. They say whatever sounds good, and from then on they get an ego-investment in this arbitrarily-selected opinion, that ends up being a dumbass opinion much more often than not.

It is how we use the democratic process to make our worst decisions.

It is the best evidence we have that we need to make the voting process more difficult, and not easier.

These are opinions that derogate the person who gives them ink, a voice, or an otherwise good name. There is a lot more going on with these opinions than just me disagreeing with them. For example — I don’t think we should legalize prostitution or drugs; I don’t think we should even be seriously discussing it. But I understand why well-informed, intelligent, good people think we should. I understand why people think women should be allowed to abort, and even have their abortions publicly funded, although I disagree with that too. These opinions go well beyond those. These opinions, and their popularity, are ugly remnants of this mindset we’ve been nurturing that all passionate things must be respected. It isn’t so. If you hold these opinions, you are a problem. You are uninformed. They are cries for help. They are shorthand notation for “I desperately require some way of forming an inflamed opinion but I don’t know how to get ahold of the information I need to form it responsibly.”

They are the opinion equivalent of driving several miles down the highway with your blinker on.

30. Together, we can take on global warming and we can win. Save the planet. Together we can do this.
29. We’ve got to get some more money into the education system, because our children are worth it.
28. Seventy languages in use in a school district is a sign that it is a rich tapestry of diversity, and that is good for everybody.
27. Any statement that qualifies “tax cuts” as an expenditure, such as comparing the “Bush tax cuts” with real spending plans.
26. We’re going to need a bigger stimulus.
25. The trouble with our justice system is that the people who decide the cases don’t have enough empathy.
24. We’ve got to do something to help the unemployed, like taxing the snot out of the businesses that just might hire them.
23. It’s going to take Barack Obama a long, long time to fix all this stuff, and He is trying His best.
22. If women were in charge of the world there wouldn’t be any wars.
21. FOX News tells lots of lies, but I can’t come up with any examples.
20. You know what we really need to change? If a guy has lots of sex he’s a stud, if a woman does the same thing she’s a slut. SO unfair!
19. Everything that needs inventing has been invented. Men, drop out of school, learn to rap and do your crunches.
18. We’ve got to change our policies because our (unnamed) allies in Europe don’t like us.
17. I can’t approve of Barack Obama’s policies. But I still like Him personally, and that’s what really matters.
16. We must all be forced to call gay people “married.” It’s a civil rights issue. For them. Not for anyone else. Just for them.
Culottes - Who Decides This Stuff?15. We have to raise the tax rate on the rich, because that makes us all a better people.
14. The Earth is sure to be doomed if I use traditional sandwich baggies. But it’s got a fighting chance if I use these ones that are 25% lighter.
13. Sarah Palin isn’t a real woman; she’s a Republican.
12. I know exactly what my thousand dollar car needs: Three thousand dollar rims.
11. If we drill, we won’t see a single drop of oil for x years. Besides, adorable polar bears, penguins, pristine environment blah blah blah.
10. We should not have attacked Iraq because Iraq didn’t attack us.
9. I wanna watch American Idol!
8. Hooters? Isn’t that a strip bar or something?
7. The second amendment is out of date because all them founders couldn’t have envisioned nukular weapons and what-not
6. Those illegal aliens are just trying to make a better life for their kids so we should coddle them all and make them citizens.
5. Vote for Obama! Hope! Change!
4. If your kid doesn’t feel like paying attention it’s a learning disability. Medicate him.
3. No one’s going to be safe until we get rid of all these guns we have lying around.
2. Culottes and clamdiggers. That’s what hip fashionable hot looking women should wear this summer. Who wants to see a gorgeous woman’s bare thigh anyway.
1. Palin quit because of a scandal. Yup. After all that digging, months and months, the entire Fourth Estate…they left one hidden. Boy, do they feel foolish.

“We Are Under the Thumb of Idiots”

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

James Lewis writing in the American Thinker: When Did The Lowbrows Take Over?

I’ve been trying to grasp for a truth that is so obvious that all of us know it. But it’s not a polite truth, so we don’t talk about it. Yet I think it’s important to say it out loud, because it is a truth that haunts our national discourse.

As a nation we are under the thumb of idiots. Not just indoctrinated, or wrong-thinking, or power-hungry, or manipulative, or even malevolent people. No, I mean real lowbrows, people who constantly fall for really stupid ideas.
:
StupidityThe Federal EPA is about to officially declare carbon dioxide to be a pollutant. That’s not just false and unscientific; it’s not just an excuse for taxing everything in sight, including breathing. It’s not merely wrong. It’s idiotic.
:
Or look at Obama’s unbelievable spending spree. No sane and sensible taxpayer could possibly believe that spending trillions and trillions of dollars on blue-sky fantasies makes any sense at all; the only reason Americans aren’t in open rebellion yet is that half of them can’t believe it’s happening, and the other half are idiots.
:
Obama’s 22 White House czars. That’s really stupid. As well as a violation of the Constitution. But it’s a Chinese laugh line. It’s so obviously wrong and power-mad that it’s not worth debating.

Legalizing drugs. That’s really stupid.

Obama’s power-grab over the medical sector of the economy? It’s profoundly stupid. We can insure all the uninsured people in the country for a tiny fraction of all that money.
:
The rise to power and fame of the real lowbrows explains a lot. It even points to an answer of sorts. Because we’ve all been intimidated by the Cult of Nice not to contradict anybody who comes out with a really stupid, destructive idea. We can no longer call a really stupid idea what it is. I know that I censor myself all the time. We have been taught to keep our mouths shut when a word in time might make a real difference. We have allowed the national conversation to be dumbed down. [Italicized emphasis Lewis’; bold emphasis mine]

As excellent as the writing is, and the thinking behind it, and the fact-gathering that supports the thinking, Lewis has missed something. There’s a certain McCarthy logic going on here. I’m not saying by “McCarthy logic” that we should be interrogating people in front of the Senate and demanding to know are they now, or have they ever been, a member of something. I’m referring to McCarthy’s scathing insult against General George C. Marshall — something about if the General was merely stupid, the laws of probability dictate that his ideas would work out half the time.

Pass on the question of whether that applied to Gen. Marshall or if it was legitimate to accuse him of treason. McCarthy logic applies here: If the problem was that we were nationally stupid, or under the nation-wide thumb of a ruling class of idiots, the laws of probability dictate that we would become enamored of sensible ideas half the time. The stopped clock must be right twice a day.

It isn’t happening.

What is happening is that we are profoundly bored — and therefore there is a certain allure to the words of anyone who proposes for our review, that maybe two plus two equals five. This is why I apply the McCarthy logic. If we were simply stupid, we’d land on four every now and then by random chance.

The problem taking place here, is that the name of the game isn’t to be right; nothing depends on that anymore. All our trappings in life, our fancy iced coffee drinks, our stale reality teevee shows, our football games, we get ’em whether we’re right about everything or wrong about everything. In generations past, being wrong could getcha killed. But not here and not now, so we don’t care. No, the point to an idea, now, is to get attention from others. End result? An idea that gets you attention, and is wrong, is worth something — an idea that is right, but gets you no attention, is a waste of breath.

Presto. Two and two are five. And two-and-two cannot be four. THAT, there, ladies and gentlemen, is the problem. That’s why we are wrong so often; we are trying to be.

Hat tip to Rick.

Universal Sign of Civility

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

I was letting my brain percolate in front of the idjit box, like everyone else does, for a change. Feeling my I.Q. drop minute by minute, glassy eyed, slack-jawed, singing that old familiar refrain “two thousand channels and not a damn thing worth watching on any of ’em.” There was something on called “Real Housewives of New Jersey” or some such. I know nothing about this show. It must be one of those what’s-called “reality” teevee shows because something would happen, which would consume less than a minute, and then ten or twenty minutes would be spent talking about how it made everybody feel when the thing happened, the result being that on an hourly basis no more than two or three plot-advancing things would actually happen but there would be lots of idle chatter about how it made people feel.

Someone put a book on a table in a restaurant. This had the social effect of leveling mountains — for reasons that weren’t explained to me within a good half-hour. It seemed even longer. The book, it seems, is a non-fiction thing dealing with the sex life of the woman who put it on the table, and she wanted to get something off her chest about what people had been saying about it behind her back…or something. It took me the better half of an hour to figure this out, I’m ashamed to say I under-valued my time so much that I plugged away at it that long. When the book went on the table and three or four women interviewed said “I knew right away this couldn’t end well” I guess that just piqued my curiosity. I wanted to find which one was the dysfunctional twit. Answer, they all were.

Mothers asked their children to go wait in the car. Then everybody had a huge 1970’s pop-psych-type “confrontation” or what not. Why the restaurant manager didn’t demand they all leave, I’ll never know.

Simultaneous with that, I found myself browsing this page on the wireless (some images perhaps not strictly work-safe). And that is when it hit me.

Keeping kids away from the nasty stuff. It is a litmus test for civilized human beings existing like civilized human beings, no matter their country, the other aspects of their culture, their religion, their skin color, the language they speak, the clothes they wear, whether they’re vegans or meat-lovers, whether they do or do not believe in capital punishment, nuclear disarmament, solar power, legalizing pot, whatever.

Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, don’t eat the flesh of your own species, don’t have sexual relations with things not of your species, and don’t expose your kids to everything. Skip certain things when the company is mixed, or ask to have a word in private. Keep the dirty movies in one corner of the video store with a curtain in front of it. Treat the innocence of your children like something sacred, and treat the innocence of other people’s children as something even more sacred.

These are just basic, basic rules of any civilized society. People who don’t understand these rules, shouldn’t be living amongst people who do.

Blonde Weekend

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

Help Gerard think of a blonde joke to celebrate. Perhaps a caption.

What is it with this masquerading rodents around as some sort of canine creature, and all that?

Someone Needs to Make a List

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

Someone with a spleen to vent…about The Blog That Nobody Reads…but nevertheless, so far as I know, has never seen fit to comment here.

Blogsister Daphne called out my attention to Eternity Road, where all kinds of derision was being dumped upon us. At first, she simply mentioned it…I assumed there would be a trackback I could follow, somewhere, or at least that I could Google it. But it was not to be. Not enough traffic from those parts. So I had to ask her for a link, to get a better idea of where I was going wrong. And she pointed me to a homepage that eventually led me here. The place is run by one Frances W. Porretto.

I actually agree with Frances’ overall point which is “There’s no substitute for knowing how to argue your case.” Trouble is, he himself doesn’t seem to believe in it. What would I be arguing, exactly? And against what? He doesn’t like that I can recognize these small-l libertarians…not the Large L variety, who believe in limited government, individual freedom, live-and-let-live…but rather the “legalize drugs is all I care about” variety. He doesn’t like me pointing that out. Why exactly? He disagrees with the point about drugs being bad? He thinks they’re good? Or he doesn’t want me to have contempt for things, for which he doesn’t think I should have contempt? If it’s the former, then he is, indeed, a dimwit; and if it’s the latter, then he has renounced his credibility as a “libertarian.” At any rate, we know he likes to jump to conclusions about who can & can’t argue a point, without testing them on it.

It seems he’d prefer to enter is comments into a blog that could lay real claim to being a Blog That Nobody Reads.

Daphne tried to set him straight, pointing out to her, my intended meaning was crystal clear (as the author of the original comments, I can vouch that she hit a bulls-eye). Porretto was having none of it. Faced with truth, versus his interpretation of it, he ricocheted a terse command to our defender that she stop wasting his time. Being a lady of intelligence, class and dignity, she complied.

Comment #3 really impressed me, but probably not in the way he hoped to. What am I saying? He took special care to make sure I’d never see what he had to say:

Mr. Freeberg, in his purple haze blog that he says nobody reads, just likes to make lists. List makers, of course, like loooong lists, and sometimes take poetic license with the elements of their fancy. Freeberg, in fact, often numbers his lists with Roman numerals to add a certain mystique and gravitas to the list itself and the items listed.

Formatting your opinions as lists may not be the best way to promote your position, but it helps you to keep your place in the discussion and creates the impression that you know what you’re talking about. “Here’s my list; what about that, a**h***?”

Santa’s list, enemies lists, shopping lists, potential terrorist lists, things to do lists, no fly lists, sex offender lists, guest lists, gun registration lists, list of crimes on your rap sheet lists, etc. Think about it, Mr. Freeberg will run out of purple long before he runs out of lists.

Run out of purple? Someone please drop something in the comments below, clueing me in on what exactly that is supposed to mean. It’s { red=64 green=32 blue=128} foreground, { red=198 green=198 blue=246 } background; six bytes of the same data, over and over again. How does one “run out”? And there’s something egotistical or sanctimonious about list-making? Just damn.

I’m flabbergasted. Who the hell ever gets anything of any complexity accomplished somewhere, without making a list first?

I think that guy needs to make a few lists himself. Something gives me the general impression he’d really, really like to, and has more than a few ideas about what should go on them.

I hadn’t given it a great deal of thought before, certainly not as much as this fellow seems to think I have. But I guess making lists is just one of those vital yet simple things that some people never learn how to do — which speaks volumes about how little they have attempted to achieve in everyday life. And, as usual, when people cruise through life avoiding doing the simplest and most vital things, whenever they see someone else doing ’em, sometimes they get a little pissed.

Thing I Know #246. He who does, is a bigger man than he who does not. He who does not, but thinks out what is done, is better than those who think not. He who does not and thinks not, but respects those who do, is a bigger man than he who respects not.

Does Wonder Woman’s Costume Undermine Her Portrayal as a Strong Female Character?

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

Submitted for discussion some nine or ten months ago.

Does Wonder Woman’s costume undermine her portrayal as one of the DCU’s strongest female characters?

Shouldn’t she be wearing something a bit more practical, after all they changed Catwoman’s costume to make it seem more practical & less glamour. WW has worn better costumes such as her armour, than her traditional look. So is it time fo[r] a permanent change?

Someone please point me to the last superhero who restored his or her “portrayal of a strong character” with a costume change.

I’ll tell you what undermines Wonder Woman’s portrayal as a strong character. It isn’t her female-ness. It’s the opinions of all these sycophants that are brought out of the woodwork by her female-ness. Everyone wants to play the game of “The Womens’ Movement Was About To Be Set Back By A Century Until I Spoke Out And Rescued Everything.” And her suit doesn’t cover much, so that just seems to set it all off.

What very few people seem to understand, is that Wonder Woman’s costume actually makes a great deal of sense. A great deal of sense — more than the costume worn by any superhero who wears a cape. What’s the downside? Why would a superhero not wear a gymnast’s outfit and boots? Let’s see…too many people would notice — doesn’t apply. She’s an ambassador. As a super-heroine, she lacks a secret identity, because of this ambassadorial status. Not modest enough — also doesn’t apply. Wonder Woman comes from a place where women prance around naked all day & all year. The costume was selected in order to show us, in the US of A, respect; as a gesture of goodwill. She thinks she’s dressing up. Leaves her too vulnerable — doesn’t apply. Her bracelets deflect bullets. She might get cold? She’s made out of clay.

Wonder WomanI always thought of her as fitting into the Big Three with perfection. Superman’s got godlike powers; Batman doesn’t have any at all; Wonder Woman’s just someplace in between. She gets into a fight in the middle of the city in midsummer, wearing her trademark bathing-suit-and-boots — it’s easy to think she’s human. The fight is taken into a frozen arctic tundra, now you have a subtle reminder that she’s a super being.

In fact, if you want to look at things that undermine her portrayal as a strong female, that would be a far better place to start. The inconsistency. Can she fly? If she can’t, then can she leap an eighth of a mile like the original Superman? Does she have that stupid invisible jet? I really think, if the movie goes forward, the invisible jet should be included only as a joke. What about invulnerability? What happens if she tries to deflect a bullet with her bracelets, and fails? Is it true that her magic lasso becomes as long as she wants it to be at any given time? (I always thought that was kinda silly.)

Super strength? How much? Can she go toe-to-toe with Superman? Could she win? Can she bear his children if she cares to? How’s that work, exactly?

It’s just a fact: If she’s made weaker than Superman, the rights & privileges of ordinary women will survive just fine.

You know what she really needs, is a makeover just like the one slapped down on Superman back in 1986 by John Byrne. That was awesome. The Man of Steel’s powers were limited; he was and is completely vulnerable to anything magic, including the lightning bolts that transformed Billy Batson into Captain Marvel. The silver-age “planet hurling” Superman, you could forget about. His costume was ordinary fabric, and remained intact in an onslaught of machine gun fire thanks to a narrow field of Kryptonian energy that surrounded Superman’s body, maybe a quarter inch or so. So that did away with the absurd notion of Ma Kent “unweaving” the blue, red and gold Kryptonian fabric in Baby Superman’s birth rocket, and re-weaving it into a costume. Plus, if Superman was in the presence of a bomb, the costume would come away intact but the cape would be shredded, maybe set on fire. Way cool.

That’s how you solidify Wonder Woman’s position as a icon that represents female strength. Confine the re-inventing energies to things that really need re-inventing. WW has more than her share of them.

Women are in sad shape right about now. They’re being defended by people who honestly think of themselves as tireless defenders of womens’ position in society, and of womens’ rights; but those defenders don’t believe women are strong or worthy of respect, if they’re wearing certain things. That pretty much sums it all up, I think.

Twins Have Different Dads

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

Hmmm

A Texas mother of twins got the shock of her life when doctors revealed that her 11-month-old boys do not have the same father.

Mia Washington decided to get some expert advice when she and her partner noticed that twins Justin and Jordan had different facial features.

Paternity tests then revealed what had happened — two eggs had been fertilized by two different sperm and there was a 99.99% chance the twins had different dads. Doctors at the DNA lab in Dallas, Texas had never seen such a result.

Washington later admitted she had had an affair and got pregnant by two different men at the same time.

I Made a New Word XXVIII

Saturday, May 16th, 2009

Goodperson Fever (n.) is an obsessive-compulsive disorder involving the demonstration of certain positive attributes to strangers, for purposes of self-validation. It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle if these positive attributes don’t really exist, or if there is a great need to achieve this validation for purposes of acquiring social status, contrasted with a much lower level of confidence that these attributes really exist.

The fever has one distinguishing symptom, the recognition of which provides a conclusive, undeniable diagnosis that the fever is in its advanced stages: The more that has been achieved as far as getting the word out that the patient is a Good Person, the greater the impulse to do it again.

Eco CupLesser symptoms include: Expressing one’s political beliefs about something when the topic of conversation is different or unrelated, and when nobody inquired; isolating classes of people as targeted beneficiaries of one’s helpful efforts, for purely obsequious purposes, such as “women” and “minorities”; excessive concern about the environment, but purely as a social issue and without any regard to cause and effect — such as drinking coffee out of a “green” eco-cup, but then commuting to work in a Ford Explorer or Toyota Tundra. The litmus test is that the incentive to do these good things that good-persons do, suddenly dissipates when it is perceived that nobody is paying attention.

In government and in other positions of authority, Goodperson Fever is the cause of nearly every bad law in human history. Someone, somewhere, wanted to demonstrate to strangers what a good person he or she was.

There is very little that can be done to treat Goodperson Fever, since ignoring it doesn’t make it go away, and providing the validation that is so desperately craved by the patient, just makes things worse. Experts say there are lots of things we can do to prevent it though. Some significant responsibilities for potential victims in the childhood years, will give them an opportunity to measure their self-worth from within and therefore mitigate the need to go seeking such validation from total or near-total strangers later on. Also, Goodperson Fever epidemics take hold most often in social circles and in geographic regions where there is little work to do, or what little work there is, is done by “everybody” with little or no opportunity for individuals to distinguish themselves. It seems to be a natural consequence of propagating the “Together We Can Do This” meme with a little too much zeal. People start to hunger for ways to establish an identity and ultimately fall into the trap of proving themselves to be the “Most Extraordinary Ordinary Person” around.

Some say our susceptibility to this may be a holdover from thousands of years of evolution, from when man lived in villages that operated as a commune. The theory is that after a bleak harvest season, when food and other resources became scarce, people began to look for ways to prove themselves worthy in case the sustenance on hand was insufficient to accommodate everyone, and some villagers would have to be cast out for the survival of the rest. According to this, those who were less inclined to engage this vicious cycle of proving themselves, were the ones who were ostracized. They died off, and were thus removed from the gene pool. Those who are alive today, therefore, are descended from the sycophants who managed to straddle that illogical line: Everything that is worth doing, is worth doing by everyone, and nobody should go off and do anything by his lonesome — that would imply a specialty, and we can’t have specialties because everyone is worthy and everyone is equal. But oh, by the way, just in case the hunting is bad and the crops are withered, here are the reasons why I’m more worthy than most.

Whatever the cause, it is responsible for a great deal of damage, although, it must be said, no hard scientific correlation has yet been found between Goodperson Fever and global warming.

But — for the good of society — we’re sure as hell going to try to come up with one.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

First in Family to Coast Through College

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

The Onion (that means it’s satire, for those who are unacquainted):

“My grandpa wasn’t able to afford school until he came back from the war and got help with his tuition through the G.I. Bill,” says [University of Minnesota senior Daniel] Peterson, reclining on a futon. “He studied hard and took a job at night so he could support my grandma and dad while he finished his degree.”

“Listening to his stories, I promised myself that, no matter what, I would do everything in my power to take it real easy through college,” Peterson adds.

His father a successful engineer, his mother a dedicated social worker, this Rochester, MN native grew up dreaming of an education more painless than the one his parents had known. At 17, he received a letter of acceptance from UMN, and at that moment committed himself to five years of sleeping late, drinking often, and sneaking by with a 2.7 GPA. After scuttling plans to major in video game design, Peterson enrolled in the school’s American studies program, vowing never to sign up for any class that met before 11 a.m. or required him to write a term paper over five pages.
:
“My father, my father’s father, and all those before them—they struggled and gave it their all so I wouldn’t have to,” Peterson says. “Sure, I could do what everyone else my age does, studying really hard because my parents spent 20 years carefully setting aside money for my education. But I won’t do that to my mom and dad. Not when I can blow off class and do just enough cramming at the end of the semester to pull a B-minus.”

When he’s finished with school, the 23-year-old plans to continue honoring the Peterson name by living off his graduation money for a few months and then maybe temping for a while until he figures out what he wants to do next.

His attitude hasn’t gone unnoticed by his parents.

“I don’t think Daniel is taking his studies seriously,” Peterson’s father says. “When he comes home, I never see him crack a book. He’s always out with his friends or on the Xbox. And now he’s talking about maybe going to grad school.”

“This is everything a father could want for his son,” he adds. “I am so proud.”

Good satire has to have an element of truth to it. The more, the better.

The Onion is known for providing good satire.

I really do wish I could say this was an exception to the rule…but I can’t. I’m afraid it is excellent satire.

D’JEver Notice? XXVIII

Monday, May 4th, 2009

Some folks don’t appear to have learned to write. At all. They put commas and apostrophes in the wrong places, they confuse basic homonyms like “your” and “you’re,” or “there” “they’re” and “their.” Some of them skip over vital components of their sentences entirely, like verbs, and expect the reader to just stick the stuff back in and make sense of what they’ve written.

But I’m a live and let live kinda guy, and life would be boring if we all had the same opinions. And it’s kind of hard to insist everyone has to write everything perfectly before we can figure out what they’re trying to say.

Some folks seem to have a high expectation of the educational profile of others, in order for people to be worth anything. It’s not that they can point to any one thing they learned in their higher education and say, “I am so much more functional and worthwhile because I learned that.” The vibe they give off, gives greater representation to the idea that college somehow came easy for them, both for acquiring the service and for fulfilling the expectations of their professors, and they live in a tiny world in which everyone’s completed a four-year. They seem to think, you can clean school bathrooms, you can cook the fries at a fast food joint, you can dig some postholes or ditches…anything above those should require a “real” diploma and a degree.

But I’m a live and let live kinda guy, and life would be boring if we all had the same opinions. And it’s kind of hard to insist that high school diplomas really mean much of anything anymore, or that we all ought to think they do.

However — these are not two end-points of a common spectrum…they have overlap. Some folks are in both of these camps.

What do I have to say about that? Words fail me. I just don’t understand it.

Update 5/4/09: Maybe this is what they’ve got in mind (hat tip: Hewitt), when they insist that everyone who walks restaurant customers over to their waiting table, everyone who brews a fancy coffee drink behind a counter, everyone who paints the white line by the side of a road, has to have that “real” college diploma, with a declared major and everything:

You just have to go through that trial-by-fire first, people!

It Got Complicated

Sunday, May 3rd, 2009

Daily Star:

WHEN I caught my partner having lesbian sex with her best mate in our bed I went straight round to my ex-wife’s flat for a weekend of passion.

My partner retaliated by having a threesome with her lesbian pal and my best mate. Not to be outdone, I then had a fling with her stepmum.

But the pain didn’t stop there…oh no. Two weeks later my partner flew to Spain and texted me every day with lurid tales of sex on the beach with waiters, toy boys and holiday reps.

Finally, last November, we called a truce. She apologised for cheating on me in the first place and promised not to stray again.

I said I’d be prepared to behave if I thought I could trust her. We kissed and made up.

And everything worked out, they lived happily ever after.

Just kiddin’.

And She’s a Financial Animalist Too

Saturday, May 2nd, 2009

Groan. The future is in good hands, I see.

Hat tip to Sports By Brooks, via FARK.

Silly Sweepstakes

Friday, May 1st, 2009

As far as silly things taking place in the year 2009, the leading candidate can only be penciled in because the year is still so young and so full of hope and promise in the Silly Things Department (STD).

But thus far…this one easily takes the cake.

For last year? I’m ready to hand the trophy to this item, here. The subject matter is similar-to-same.

School Form

Friday, April 17th, 2009

This is me, filling out a form for my son’s field trip. I’ve been known to be ticked off by a lot of things that tick off a lot of other people…on the other hand, I’ve also been known to be confused and befuddled by things that are crystal-clear to everyone else. Over the years, I have learned when I find some matter of interpretation to be confusing, usually you could round up ten randomly-selected people — not only would all ten of them be decidedly un-confused…but eight or nine of them would be at a complete loss to explain how there could possibly have been any ambiguity about it.

I have zip-zero-zilch-bubkes of an idea which one this is. Leave your ideas in the comments below, and don’t worry about being kind. Insults-with-enlightenment, is a package I can use.

All I know right now is, in the course of trying to figure this thing out, my blood pressure must’ve easily doubled…

FORM: Name of student.

ME: Hmm, okay that sounds easy enough… I write kid’s name on form.

Language AdvisoryFORM: Parent.

ME: Alrightee, then. Morgan K. Freeberg.

FORM: Address.

ME: Oh, I know this one. Address goes in.

FORM: Phone number.

ME: Hmmm…they want to get hold of the kid, or they want to get hold of me. Must be me. I’ll write in the land-line, just in case.

FORM: Date of birth.

ME: Er…okay. Hmm. Um…lessee…yeah, that has to be me. July 15, 1966.

FORM: Age.

ME: (Right eye starting to twitch a little bit.) Let me think on this, now. There’s no way anyone can possibly give a flying fuck that I’m forty-two. They must be asking about the kid. Okay. Eleven. (Scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch…) I hate this form I hate this form I hate this form I hate this form. (Write in date of kid’s birth in the remaining space.)

What’s next?

FORM: Business phone.

ME: Son of a BITCH!! (Furiously scratch out kid’s date-of-birth, kid’s age, and as long as we’re at it, the land-line phone.) These fucking (write in cell phone #) assholes (write in my date-of-birth) don’t know how (write in my age) to make a goddamn (write in business phone) FORM!!!

(Hyperventilating now.)

What else?

FORM: Grade.

ME: GYAAAH!! (Eyes get a weird glow, skin starts glowing green, shirt rips…)

See, some of this frustration is cumulative, and it spills over from the maddening experience of finding Christmas gifts during the shorter days of the years, and movies during the longer ones. I have learned something about how this monstrous thing called a “civilized society” molds and shapes things just before they’re paraded under the eyeballs of these creatures called “parents.” It is not inconsideration. It is not lack of empathy. It is not lack of sympathy, it is not negligence, it is not simple laziness.

It is hatred. Perhaps it’s a subconcious thing, perhaps it’s not, but either way it’s clear to me there is some strong desire to deal injury to parents. Things that should be easy, are artificially difficult…not quite so much time-consuming to any great degree…but migraine inducing. And perhaps there’s nothing passionate about it. Maybe, like something out of The Godfather, it’s all business. Someone, somewhere, has figured out a way to create or accentuate a stream of income by giving migraines to parents…it works in some way that would be neutralized, somehow, if the parents did not receive migraines.

I don’t know how exactly that works.

But I swear to God — it must be there. The mothers, if not the dads, they must know what I’m talking about…especially if their kids were born in late summer. You know how it seems there’s a worldwide conspiracy in place to get you to faint, or vomit, or rupture your bladder as you carry that big ol’ belly around?

Well after the kid pops out and starts breathing air, it’s transferred to the dads. At which time, it becomes more real. Every little thing has that extra surplus of difficulty, or expense, or confusion, just to remind you of your inferior status. Usually it’s “family” movies that make the dad look like an ass, or a klutz, or a dimwit, or a workaholic, or a jerk or an acoholic or a strutting self-important martinet that everyone loathes. Things are two or three times as hard as they need to be. Two or three times as humiliating. Two or three times as frustrating.

Some of the other things are just five-or-ten-percent harder than it seems like they should be. Paradoxically, those are the more frustrating items. Like that damnable school form. It’s like they have to have that little frosting on the cake…some way of getting that middle finger in there.

It’s probably just my imagination.

But if that’s the case…suppose there’s a challenge to design a form more confusing than this one, without making it any more complicated. Would you know how to rise to a challenge like that? Because I wouldn’t be able to do it. If I had decades to think on it I’d never be able to come up with a way to “improve” it. Some form designer, somewhere, not only is childless, but really, really has it in for us.

Ideas About How to Fix Everything

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

An abortion pride movement

So it was with great interest that I read and reflected upon Jacob Appel’s “It’s Time for an Abortion Pride Movement.” This author and bioethicist emphasizes: “The political and social reality today is that pride is a necessary prerequisite for acceptance and equality. That is why the movement is ripe – more than ripe – for an Abortion Pride Movement.”

I passionately agree. I also believe that the framework for such a movement already exists and is quite powerful. Talking about abortion pride as a social change movement, destigmatizing abortion – and by extension, destigmatizing women – are concepts I have believed in and fought for all of my adult life.

A Republican Party that promotes gay marriage:

Memo to the GOP: Go Gay
by Meghan McCain

I am a woman who despises labels and boxes and stereotypes. Recently, I seemed to have rocked a few individuals within my party by saying that I am a pro-life, pro-gay-marriage Republican. So if anyone is still confused, let me spell it out for you. I believe life begins at conception and I believe that people who fall in love should have the option to get married. Lest we forget, our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, grants the same rights to everyone in this country—“All men are created equal.” If you think certain rights should not apply to certain people, then you are saying those people are not equal. People may always have a difference of opinion on certain lifestyles, but championing a position that wants to treat people unequally isn’t just un-Republican. At its fundamental core, it’s un-American.

At the end of the day, speaking at the Log Cabin Republicans’ convention isn’t just about reaching out to the gay community—although I believe doing so is vital to the future success of the party. It’s also about reaching a wider base and redefining what it means to be Republican, and leaving labels, stereotypes, and negativity by the wayside. That more and more people are discussing gay rights speaks positively for the millions of young and progressive Republicans waiting for our party to return to its roots. Personal freedoms are what makes this country the greatest country in the world. And just like the civil-rights and feminist movements before this, the movement toward gay equality and gay marriage is one I have absolute faith will triumph over prejudices. Moreover, I believe the Republican Party has, at this moment, the opportunity to come forward and play an instrumental role in securing gay rights. That’s why I’m speaking at the Log Cabin convention and couldn’t be prouder to be doing so. And yes, I’m still a Republican. Get used to it.

That’s exactly it. The whole problem last year was that the Republican and democrat parties didn’t engage in a mad dash to see who could legalize gay marriage first. If only they had gotten into a meaningless squabble like that, it would’ve been a GOP blow-out.

And we’ll never truly respect women until we have celebrations for baby-butchering. Maybe parades, with some floats shaped like parts of fetuses?

Meghan McCain is quite the piece of work. Of course you can be a Republican and still be in favor of re-defining marriage. But your merely saying so, is not going to get her to go away. She has a more hostile agenda in mind. She isn’t thinking of providing rights to a certain class of person, she’s got another class of person she wants to define, target and banish to irrelevance.

I’ve heard it asked, quite often, “How does your marriage suffer if gays are allowed to marry?” It’s a valid question, but so is that troubling other one: “Without gay marriage legalized, or even with gay marriage outright-banned — what, exactly, are homosexuals left unable to do that everyone else is able to do?” And with that question left unanswered, it becomes crystal clear: Meghan McCain has no burning passion to provide equal status to anyone. She can’t; the equality is already there. Her passion is to poke someone else square in the eye. This matters to her more than anything. And you can see how trivial the idea of Republican victory is, to her, in reality. Look how many paragraphs she managed to grind out without discussing prospects for the next election cycle. Yup, she talks about making the party more inclusive — but that’s as far as she goes. Not a syllable about actually altering the outcome. Just like her old man.

She is a rotten, acrid vat of fetid vinegar with a sickly sweet sheet of frosting on top. The poor girl isn’t nearly as positive of a person as she believes herself to be.

One cannot help but wonder what kind of influences she has at home. Perhaps the Republican champion, who refused to get his hands dirty with his opponent’s Jeremiah Wright controversy, isn’t quite that much into kinder-gentler-stuff behind closed doors.

But at least she has a good excuse; she’s a young, likable dimwit whose father is well-known for putting cocktail-party-invitations above principle. Marcy Bloom, on the other hand, is 57 years old…knows what she’s doing…and, it’s easy to see, has a heart full of hate.

STREETBUZZ: How about your family and childhood?

MARCY BLOOM: I had an older brother and younger sister. As was common, my brother was clearly favored as the male and first born. I feel that our parents loved us all very much, but my brother clearly got favoritism simply by virtue of being a male. Thus feminism was born somewhere in my heart and soul (laughter) even though I was obviously too young to have true awareness of what that was. I simply felt there was something intrinsically unfair about any kind of favoritism based on gender.

STREETBUZZ: School?

MARCY BLOOM: Brooklyn N.Y., woo-hoo! Sociology and healthcare administration, Long Island University, Brooklyn campus. Yes, serious as one could be during the sixties and seventies. I knew I needed training to be able to function in the world. even though all I wanted to do was march against the war, march for women’s rights, and march against the oppressive U.S. adminstration (LBJ and Richard Nixon!) Nothing’s changed, huh? Goes around…

There’s a lesson here. When you’re motivated by the negative, you become inclined to come up with wombat-rabies bollywonkers crazy ideas…ideas not the slightest bit likely to produce the positive outcomes you say, and you just might possibly believe, they are supposed to fulfill. You become just a tiny bit insane. All you really understand with clarity, is which class of asses you want kicked, and how hard you want to kick them. You become a sort of zombified person who can’t really be trusted with anything else.

I wonder if these ladies ever look at what they put down in print the next day and, in a moment or two of quiet and clarity, think to themselves “What in the hell was I thinking?” I wonder if that’ll happen to them someday?

“Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment.” — Michael Corleone, Godfather III

Both links via Hot Air.

Shivering in That Dark Cave

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

First of all, I think you should read this. It’s a list of the comments Neal Boortz had to make about a new book by David Frum, about how Republicans need to stop being Republicans and conservatives need to stop being conservatives. It’s got a bunch of comments under it. Twenty-something last I looked…but now, up to 76. I can tell you back when it was just twenty-something comments, that pretty much each one was meritorious and more than worth the time taken to read it. I don’t know if that’s still true.

Elisabeth’s viewpoint comes closest to my own…

I think the author [Frum] is an idiot. Just look over the past few decades, the further Republicans get away from conservative ideas the greater the flop. The more they stick to conservative ideas the better they do. George Bush ran in 2000 on much more traditional conservative values, such as a humble foreign policy. McCain went much further away from true conservative ideology, and look where that got the party.

Sure there are a lot of liberals out there, but the real problem is that the Republican party is alienating a lot of potential supporters by getting away from the conservative values! Those who voted for McCain are die hard and will vote Republican no matter what. There are others who vote on ideology and they are jumping ship and moving to third parties!

Here’s your winning formula for 2012: Policies, policies, policies. The Republican candidate should hit the campaign trail for about twenty months, consistently sounding-off on a common theme: YES Barack Obama is one cool cat, because He has to be. It’s His policies…they don’t work. You have to have really cool people with lots of charisma, to sell policies that don’t work. This is why smart, experienced people tend to get skeptical when they’re sold things by charismatic people — and fools tend to keep on listening to the charismatic people. Which one are you?

You didn’t vote on policies in 2008. Now it’s four years later and you have a chance to redeem yourselves.

Next up…blogger friend Rick ran up an excerpt from Verum Serum that really made me think a lot, and I hope it makes you think too. I really can’t see a way to hollow it out or pare it down. So here is the whole thing.

THE CAVE PEOPLE (Adapted from a story by Max Lucado)

LONG AGO, or maybe not so long ago, there was a tribe who lived in a dark, cold cavern. The cave dwellers would huddle together and cry against the chill. Loud and long they wailed. It was all they did because it was all they knew to do. The sounds in the cave were mournful but the people didn’t know it, for they had never known the joy of life.

But then, one day, they heard a different voice rise above their pitiful wailing. “I have heard your cries,” it announced, the words echoing through the cave. “I have felt your chill and seen your darkness. I have come to help.”

The cave people grew quiet. They had never heard this voice. The message of hope sounded strange to their ears.

“How can we know you have come to help?” asked one of the tribe.

Out from the shadows stepped a figure they had never seen before. “Trust me,” he answered. “I have what you need.”

The cave people peered through the darkness at the stranger. He was stacking something, then stooping and stacking more.

“What are you doing?” one cried, nervous. The stranger didn’t answer.

“What are you making?” one shouted even louder. Still no response.

“Tell us!” demanded a third.

The visitor stood and spoke in the direction of the voices. “I have what you need.” With that he turned to the pile at his feet and lit it. Wood ignited, flames erupted, and light filled the cavern.

The cave people turned away in fear. “Put it out!” they cried. “It hurts to see it.”

“Light always hurts before it helps,” he answered. “Step closer. The pain will soon pass.”

“Not I,” declared a voice.

“Nor I,” agreed a second.

“Only a fool would risk exposing his eyes to such light,” declared a third.

The stranger stood next to the fire. “Would you prefer the darkness? Would you prefer the cold? Don’t rely on your fears. Look to the light and take a step of faith.”

For a long time no one spoke. The people hovered in groups covering their eyes. The stranger stood next to the fire. “It’s warm here. Come, join me.” he invited.

“He’s right,” one from behind him announced. “It is warmer.”

The stranger turned and saw a figure slowly stepping toward the fire. “I can open my eyes now,” she proclaimed. “I can see.”

“Come closer,” invited the fire builder.

She did. She stepped into the ring of light. “It’s so warm!” She extended her hands and sighed as her chill began to pass.

“Come, everyone! Feel the warmth,” she invited.

“Silence, woman!” cried one of the cave dwellers. “Dare you lead us into your folly? Leave us and take your light with you.”

She turned to the stranger. “Why won’t they come?”

‘They choose the chill, for though it’s cold, it’s what they know. They’d rather be cold than have to change.” The stranger looked sad.

“And they would rather live in the dark?” she asked in disbelief.

“Yes, they would rather live in the dark,” said the stranger.

The now-warm woman stood silent, looking first into the darkness and then at the man in the light.

“Will you leave the fire?” he asked.

She paused, and then answered, “I cannot. I cannot bear the cold.” Then she spoke again. “But nor can I bear the thought of my people in darkness.”

“You don’t have to,” he responded, reaching into the fire and removing a stick. “Carry this to your people. Tell them the light is here, and the light is warm. Tell them the light is for all who desire it.”

And so she took the small flame and stepped into the shadows.

As I read through this I had two thoughts…simultaneous, but directly contradictory with each other.

First, the stranger is Barack Obama. That is Obama’s message, you know. You poor shivering dimbulbs don’t even know what enlightenment is, and here I am to show you.

The second, is that the stranger is my message about conservative as it should be offered in 2012. Which means the Obama-fans are the fearful, clammy, starving simpletons.

Where the second analogy really comes to fit with reality, is with this ignorance the cave-people have with regard to what light is. That’s your overly-enthused Obama voter. Don’t forget — these are people who built their entire identities around politics in 2008, and yet in that year, thought Republicans were running the Congress. These are people who think the planet is gonna die, but if you unplug your coffee pot from the wall, by golly, it just might have a fighting chance. These are people who knew all about Sarah Palin’s son really being her grandson (which wasn’t true), and that she said she could see Russia from her house (which she never said), but never knew a single thing about Joe Biden’s frequent, almost daily, gaffes.

These are people who think our economy is going to get stronger when the rich are taxed so heavily that nobody makes any money doing anything.

These are people who, when you corner them with the poor logic of their so-called “arguments” — what is it they say? “Together we can do this.” It doesn’t matter what we do, as long as we do it together. So they huddle together for warmth, in the cold and in the darkness.

It fascinates me endlessly — Barack Obama is at one end of this equation in symbolism, from where He is in the equation in substance.

Neal, the answer to your question is self-evident. For conservatism to win in 2010 and 2012, all it has to do is be prepared to lose. Because deep down, we all understand that truth has no desire, no inclination, no urgency to be perceived right here and now. This is why when a car salesman tells you a deal is going to work in your favor today and today only, you should pick up all your stuff and run in the opposite direction as fast as your little legs can possibly carry you.

Conservatism should be the piper that you can pay now…or later. It is sound policy, whether it is popular this year or not. It is the truth you can accept when you’re in your twenties, or your thirties, or your forties. It is the notion that this thing works, and that thing does not.

That will win. Someday. And it won’t be long in coming.

Pretending to be an imitation-liberal, like David Frum wants…that could easily go a generation or two, maybe three, without a sensible voice in power for a single day. Like those disastrous years from Jimmy Carter’s administration, repeated for thirty or forty years.

The choice belongs to everyone. We’re all acting like our minds are made up. But in reality, everyone is listening to everybody else…because at this point, very few people really understand what a working strategy looks like. For parties, or for the country.

Reality TV

Saturday, February 7th, 2009

So I’m getting some static about items #23 and #24 on my list of what might possibly be putting the Big Reveal on you being a stupid idiot…

#23. Watching reality television.

#24. Talking about what you saw on reality television.

As you might expect, I’m getting the static from people who consider themselves reasonably smart, but watch reality television and then talk about what they saw on reality television.

Let’s recap what “reality television is,” okay?

1. Set the stage for something that is about to happen (30 seconds).

2. Something happens (15 seconds).

3. Someone is interviewed about how the thing made them feel when it happened (just over 8 minutes).

4. Commercial break of somewhere around a good five minutes.

5. Go back to Step 1, and repeat this four times. Then roll credits.

Now here’s the part that I find really entertaining. What do people say right before an episode of reality TV is about to pop up on the idjit box, hmmm? What’s that thing they say? What’s the last thing they say at work when they talk about the episode they’re about to race home to watch?

I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen. Right?

Well, here’s what’s going to happen. Four minor things — more likely just three. And lots…and lots…and lots of talking about how people felt when those things happened. With breathy woodwind background music.

One more little thing. I conservatively estimate that corporate America could save about $50 billion every single year, if we could all agree on some number. Let’s say 37, just for grins. Let’s all just agree that Code 37 is an acceptable substitute for “Last night so-and-so was voted off, and this was contrary to my expectations, OMIGAW!!” If people could just say “Code 37 on Marko” or “Code 37 on Angela” or whatever, they’d be spending a couple seconds on these inane conversations instead of the better portion of an hour, our nation’s lost productivity would be trimmed off overnight, people would get much more done, and maybe we could save the economy.

It’s bound to work better than that stupid stimulus — which, just for the record, is Item #40.

What Gave You Away?

Saturday, February 7th, 2009

How it is understood that your brain is a moped engine powering a Humvee — and so quickly, with such certainty, by so many. Where exactly is that “I’m a moron” sign located? You’ve checked and checked, it doesn’t seem to be written on your forehead, but people around you act as if it is. What’s clueing them in?

There are more folks wondering about this than we know. Gonna add to this list as I think of more…

…but at the moment, the only one truly worthy of comment is the one at the very bottom.

1. Walking around with your fly open.

2. Using “y’know,” “totally” or “basically” more than three times within five sentences.

3. Unplugging your cell phone and your coffee pot…to help SAVE the PLANET.

Ritalin-O's4. (Men) Wearing a football jersey three sizes too big for you.

5. Medicating your son for his “abnormal” behavior, that is, in fact, quite normal behavior for a boy.

6. Pursuing a conversation with someone fifty feet away across a parking lot for more than a minute.

7. Speaking of a tax cut as something that “costs” money.

8. Taking a picture with the lens cap on.

9. (Men) Wearing a baseball cap backwards.

10. Calling someone greedy for simply wanting to keep something that belongs to them.

11. (Women) Speaking of the demands you make on men, and your refusal to ever be satisfied with their attempts to meet them, as if that’s an endearing quality.

12. (Men) Marrying a woman who brings nothing to the table except her incessant demands.

13. Ordering a fancy coffee drink with whipped cream on top…taking special care that it is made with NON FAT MILK…

14. …and then bitching away about your household budget while you slurp a morning-beverage that costs four bucks.

15. Hitting Reply-All button, “I Agree!” and Send, when you get a message specifically requesting people not to use Reply-All all the time.

16. Wishing aloud that politicians “of both parties” would find a way to “work together” and “get more done” without exploring what exactly would get done.

17. Wishing aloud that our country would “sit down and talk with our enemies” and “stop offending our allies,” without elaborating on what agreements should & shouldn’t be made, which allies these are supposed to be, or how exactly they’ve been offended.

Strip Bar?18. Using the words “strip bar” to describe the Hooters restaurant chain.

19. Chastising someone else for being stupid, for simply disagreeing with you, while making third-grade mistakes with homonyms like “your” and “you’re,” “our” and “hour,” “their,” “there” and “they’re,” and “one” and “won.”

20. Using the word “majority” to legitimize an opinion, as if you wouldn’t want to be doing that selectively.

21. Three thousand dollar rims on a one thousand dollar car.

22. Hearing of one man’s sad tale of the life he shared with an unscrupulous female, and the wreckage his life became afterward, responding with the timeless non-sequitur “Not all women are like that.”

23. Watching reality television.

24. Talking about what you saw on reality television.

25. Advertising your opinion that Sarah Palin is stupid when you’ve never actually met her.

26. Getting a tattoo on your face…

27. …consisting of images or words you wouldn’t want your grandmother (or your job-interview guy) to see.

28. Using the word “loving” as a euphemism for homosexual.

29. Climbing into the cage to make friends with the wild animal at the zoo.

30. “The rich get richer, the poor get poorer.”

31. Leaving the bathroom with a foot and a half of toilet paper stuck to your shoe.

32. Gun control. You know, to “get rid of all these guns lying around.”

33. Skateboarding in a parking lot.

34. Driving several miles with your blinker on.

35. Extolling the virtues of some country’s “free” education and/or “free” health care.

36. Talking about how you’re overweight because of your “metabolism” or your “genes”…when your mouth is full.

37. “Irregardless.”

38. Beginning any statement about your political views with “Hey hey, ho ho.”

39. Talking about childrens’ “self esteem.”

40. Talking about the “stimulus” as if it is a job-saver, rather than a left-wing giveaway.

Lately…*sigh*…this shit all looks the same to me.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

It is often said that being a beat cop makes you cynical about humanity, and the experience does this to you in a most destructive way: The glimmerings you pick up about our species, what makes it tick, our capacity for evil and violence, are all TRUE. What’s unique is the side of the human condition you’re seeing.

Rather like figuring out what an elephant looks like by staring at its asshole.

Well, as of now, you don’t need to respond to domestic-disturbance calls or go chasing off after drug dealers to gain a dark perspective of the human condition. You can just read the last two posts on Rachel Lucas’ blog.

Air passenters are ungrateful

Manhattanite Tess Sosa, who escaped the sinking plane with her husband and two small children, thought the airline was too focused on self-congratulations – and “they want to exonerate themselves as much as they can.”

“They are happy they had such amazing results, and they applaud themselves, and then give us a small token?” she said. “That’s how I take it.”
:
“You’re going to crash me into the water, and you’re going to tell me all I get is an upgrade?” asked Antonio Sales, 20, who was traveling with the University of South Carolina’s track team. “That’s more of an ‘OK, you’re not dead, I’ll give you something to hold on to.’ It’s not enough at all.”

Teammate Gabrielle Glenn, 20, was more blunt: “That’s it. They should sue.”

Rarely have I beheld such ungrateful piggy behavior.

The airline is “applauding” itself BECAUSE none of you died. Due to them employing an excellent pilot and crew who saved your lives. They have nothing to “exonerate” themselves for because the crash wasn’t the fault of any human being on the entire planet.

Geese, bitches. GEESE.

My favorite is the one I titled this post after. Antonio Sales, 20, someone who needs a punch in his tiny little nuts. Hey Antonio. The reason “you’re not dead” is BECAUSE they decided to “crash you into the water” BECAUSE THE FUCKING ENGINES FAILED – BECAUSE OF GEESE – AND THAT WAS THE ONLY WAY YOU WOULD NOT DIE.

And a “Mom” who seems to think the whole universe is here just to give her a place to have more and more children, husband or no. You were wondering why you hear so much about this bitch lately? Because it’s part of her plan

The woman who gave birth to octuplets this week conceived all 14 of her children through in vitro fertilization, is not married and has been obsessed with having children since she was a teenager, her mother said.

Angela Suleman told The Associated Press she was not supportive when her daughter, Nadya Suleman, decided to have more embryos implanted last year.

“It can’t go on any longer,” she said in a phone interview Friday. “She’s got six children and no husband. I was brought up the traditional way. I firmly believe in marriage. But she didn’t want to get married.”

Angela Suleman said her daughter always had trouble conceiving and underwent in vitro fertilization treatments because her fallopian tubes are “plugged up.”

There were frozen embryos left over after her previous pregnancies and her daughter didn’t want them destroyed, so she decided to have more children.

Sure, that’s what I would do.

And dig this:

THE single mother of octuplets born in California last week is seeking $2 million from media interviews and commercial sponsorship to help pay the cost of raising the children. [emphasis Rachel’s]

It’s Narcissistic Personality Disorder — and no, Barack, I am not requesting treatment for this epidemic be made part of the “stimulus”. But an epidemic we do have:

The narcissist is described as turning inward for gratification rather than depending on others and as being excessively preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power and prestige.

We lavish all this attention on idiots for idiotic reasons — voting for unqualified candidates for President because “there’s just something about Him, I can’t explain it”; giving people their time in the limelight on American Idol when they can’t carry a tune in a bucket; doting on prospective mothers during baby showers.

What we seem to forget, is little kids are watching this. And the little kids grow up. You almost can’t blame them for then saying “Okay, my turn, where’s mine?”

Almost.

I’m sure Nadya Suleman had a similar experience sometime during or prior to the teenage years, when she got this “obsession.” Now she wants to know where hers is. Of course she does.

And the airplane passengers are just more of the same.

We seem to have crossed a meaningful boundary here. Sometime in the first half of the twentieth century, mass communication became possible and affordable, and so it was suddenly important for us to be seen doing things. To show what wonderful people we are, to whoever might be watching. And so you had all these bullshit social programs very much like the ones we’re creating right now, to “put people to work”…nevermind that no true wealth was being created. Looking back on it, it was quite silly, really — even though we’re making the same mistakes all over again.

Well now, it’s important to be seen by other people while we’re watching yet other people. The Voting-For-Obama thing is a perfect example — how many of his slobbering, ignorant supporters used the phrase word-for-word, “I want to be part of this”? More than just a few. If their friends didn’t know they were voting for Obama, the exercise would’ve been futile. It was never about being-part-of-this, it was about being-KNOWN-to-be-part-of-this, which is a different thing. You watch the forementioned attention whores on American Idol who can’t carry a tune in a bucket…well, you can’t just watch that in solitude, and then keep it a secret. No! you have to go to work and babble away about how unfair it is that so-and-so got voted off. So everyone knows you were watching it.

So we have NPD where we didn’t have it before — because we asked for it.

Just like we stopped smacking kids in the butt when they misbehave, and now it’s some kind of mystery why every third kid has something called “ADHD.” It’s not a mystery. We treat each other different, in a few years’ time, we’re going to be acting different. The mystery would be how to explain it if it didn’t happen.

Hey Rachel…great stuff. Now I think you need to put up a post or two about bunnies or candy canes or something. Wallow in this sewage for too long and it’ll just eat you up inside. You know it and I know it.

The Less Sense You Make, The More Help You Get

Sunday, February 1st, 2009

I knew I wasn’t the only one doing this. Natalie has been doing exactly the same thing.

Her legs look much nicer. And even if they didn’t, she’d still be much more fun to watch. You do not…do not…repeat, do not want to watch me dealing with one of those machines. You do not. And if you are watching, in the same room, get ready to duck because a cordless phone’s going to be flying across the room in a few moments.

I don’t do well in the department of pretending to have a coherent conversation with someone when they, and I, both fully understand this isn’t what is taking place. I know good manners involve keeping up that illusion, but this is my Achilles’ Heel. And if it’s a machine pretending to be helpful and not being helpful, that doesn’t lower my frustration one little bit. I get that funny gleam in my eye Bill Bixby used to get in his, my veins all stick out, my skin turns green and my muscles swell up until my shirt rips. It’s not a pretty sight.

Enough about that. Watch how Nat deals with it. Good looking, classy young lady solving a vexing problem in a practical, constructive way.

Shoe-Throwing Monument

Friday, January 30th, 2009

Yup, seems to be genuine.

Cheer away. But, it should be obvious to anyone with a working brain, chuck some footwear at our new hopey changey President and nobody, from anywhere on the political spectrum, from sea to shining sea, will lift a finger to protect you.

You damn sure aren’t getting a monument anywhere.

Sea Kittens

Sunday, January 11th, 2009

Sea KittensVia Cassy we learn about the sea kitten campaign at PETA, who is griping again that we seem to be much more sympathetic toward warm blooded furry creatures than we are toward cold-blooded slippery creatures, and darn it, that just isn’t right.

So they’d like you to call the fish “sea kittens” from here on in. Meow, meow. They’ve even got a little kids’ storybook to go along with it.

They’re wrong, by the way, at least where I’m concerned. I personally have a great passion for the wonderfulness of fishies, especially with lemon juice and my special mudbutter recipe that calls for half a stick of the yellow stuff all smooshed in with oregano, thyme and just a hint of cayenne. The land kitties, on the other hand, I’ve never given the matter a great deal of thought. Had rabbit, once, and liked it a great deal. Land-kitties would be just about the same as rabbit, although I suspect not nearly enough meat to make it worthwhile.

Honestly, I don’t know what they’re talking about. I think very highly of the fishies. Yummy, yummy fishies. Steaming and flaky, over aluminum foil, just pulled off the propane with my special mudbutter recipe, with a small bottle of Chardonnay chilled about twenty degrees Farhenheit colder than where all the experts tell me to chill it.

“Time is for White People”

Saturday, January 10th, 2009

John Hawkins realized he left some obnoxious quotes off the list of most-obnoxious-quotes.

Therein lies the danger of putting together lists of anything concerned with people acting like assholes. It seems you’re never really quite truly ready to hit the “Publish” button, y’know?

Tantrum

Wednesday, January 7th, 2009

Dr. Helen found an article from the seventies, it seems. Remember back then? Get in touch with your emotions…Alan Alda…Phil Donahue…show your feelings…express yourself…confront. It’s baaaaack —

The end of the holidays, cold weather and economic gloom will make today one of the most stressful days of the year for returning to work.

But experts have come up with an unlikely remedy – throwing a tantrum.

‘Releasing tension through shouting and screaming is a really beneficial way to expel the negative energies caused by stress,’ said body language expert Judi James, the Big Brother psychologist.
:
The advice comes as a survey reveals that people are most likely to be irritated by colleagues eating noisily (28 per cent), sniffing (26 per cent), talking too loudly on the phone (21 per cent) and even singing (5 per cent).

Researchers found only one in ten prefer to sit quietly to combat tension, while more than a third admitted to having tantrums.

Anyone over forty should already know how this goes. People have their outbursts, they feel so special, they go see their shrinks, they feel so special, they talk about how they’re going to their shrinks, they feel so special. Everywhere you go, everywhere you look, someone is confronting someone, usually because their shrink told ’em to. They feel so special.

And then everybody’s doing those things, or at least, knows somebody who is doing those things.

Then they don’t feel special anymore. So people do more and more outlandish things, and after a few years the fuses blow and they’re forced to get into something that better defines their “specialties.” There’s an enormous crash, like a caffeine or energy-drink crash, for those who never had any real talent in the first place. Then it’s on to neon clothing, perms-for-guys and leg warmers.

I wonder what would’ve happened if we didn’t go through that? A computer in every home by 1977? A CD player in every car by 1981? By 1983, we figure out that sunbeams and wind are insufficient for accelerating our cars to freeway speeds every morning? The Governor of Arkansas plays a saxophone on Arsenio Hall and people roll their eyes and go “whatever”…instead of electing him President?

Personal expression does seem to possess an antithetical relationship to progress. My advice is looking more and more astute and sensible as 2009 grinds painfully onward. And it’s less than one week old.

Ban All Guns

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

He certainly does seem sure of himself.

The Founding Fathers of our country made a mistake when they said we had the right to bear arms. They did not know we would be allies with the British and no longer have to worry about them coming over to oppress and colonize us. The British found greater spoils in Africa and India and never looked back on the United States after the Revolutionary War.

The right to bear arms is killing all of us. In 2005 the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported 3,006 children and teens killed by gunfire, most of them young, black men in inner-city neighborhoods. And CNN reported yesterday that black-on-black murder of young black men is up 40 percent from last year. The harder the times get, the higher these statistics will go.

Do people really not recognize the danger involved in this mindset, that when times get tough we should expect people to kill each other because it’s only natural, like perspiring on a hot day?

Hat tip to Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler.

Thing I Know #252. If there are some rich people who steal, and there are some poor people who don’t, then you can’t justify or explain crime with a bad economy.

You Know…

Monday, December 29th, 2008

I hope this airhead causes a complete avalanche effect when she finally falls down for good.

I have no beef with Caroline Kennedy. But she represents a political class that is high on my list of peeves. The elitist twit. Don’t know nuthin’ about nuthin’, and here’s this microphone sticking in my face, no problem I’ll just reach in my grab bag of focus-group phrases. Constitution, healthcare, torture, listening to my constituents, incredible opportunity, work twice as hard as anybody else, public service…y’know, y’know, y’know.

Hillary’s got some of this going on, too. Neither woman is known for even pretending to have any new ideas. It’s just a lot of “work”; everyone already agrees on how it should be done, y’know, it’s just like a big ol’ washboard in the Senate with a big pile of dirty clothes that have to be run across it, or a barrel of butter that has to be churned, or any other piece of housework. Yeah, housework.

What is it about being one of these strong-willed liberated left-wing politician females? You’re supposed to be a walking paradigm shift. But they’re the very last public figures to whom you can turn, to get a paradigm shift. It’s like your mother opening up the floor for discussion about how the clothes should be folded — never happens. She just folds the damn clothes. I see it in the older ones too. I write to Dianne Feinstein asking her what the prospects might be for her to change her position on issue xxx, and I get back a boilerplate “Thank you for asking about Sen. Feinstein’s position. Her opinion is…” Yeah. She’ll get back to me on what opinion I’m supposed to have, after the people whose names are filed in that very special section of her rolodex, tell her.

How much would it advance the cause of womens’ liberation — whatever still remains to be done — if, just a bit more often, a famous, powerful, high-profile woman said “there is a common misconception that we need to do X; these are the reasons I think we need to do Y instead.” In other words, argue — like a man. Break away from this whole “y’know” thing…stop pretending that we all agree on what needs to be done, and we’re just waiting for someone powerful and female to do the “work,” like little boys waiting for their mommas to wash the urine-soaked bedsheets.

Feminists should be the very first in line complaining about this. It reinforces the idea that if you want to have a reasoned discussion about what we really know, what might really be going on, and what to do about it, you have to turn to the men; women are just there to do grunt work after everybody’s come to the same conclusion that the dog vomit should really, y’know, sometime today, get cleaned off that rug.

I’m supposed to cringe in proxy embarrassment when Gov. Palin points out that Alaska and Russia are close together. Y’know? Who decided that, y’know? At least Alaska’s Governor has a track record for figuring out for herself what needs doing, and making a decision about how to get it done, when there are some very powerful people who don’t want it done. Standing up for something. Disagreeing. Fighting. Like men do.

Hat tip: Cuffy, via Gerard.

I Agree With #58, #34 and #11

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

But I’m not going to do too much agreeing, because these folks found over 60 “people who deserve it” — and not a single one of them was a liberal.

Let me repeat that.

Turn off any and all ideological preferences you might have. Any. All. For just fifteen seconds.

There were no liberals on the list. No liberals have anything coming.

Think about Al Franken. Think about the other Al. Think about Alec Baldwin. Larry King. Tom Leykis. Sarah Silverman. Jesse Jackson. Madonna. Rosie. Hillary. Bill. Rahm. No annoying liberals at all. Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sarah Palin made the cut. Okee dokee…any-way…58, 34 and 11 still get a big thumbs-up from me. I’m down with ya, you overly-cutesy, left-wing liberal “our side can do no wrong” attention whores.

Update: Keep complaints to myself? Never. Offered under the Submit A Punch page:

People who expect you to listen to their phone messages before you call them back, even though they never say anything on said messages beyond “Hey gimme a call back, bye.” Punch.

People who ask you to fix something on their computer, and then keep sitting in front of it, not even so much as leaning one direction or the other, blocking your access to the keyboard with their gelatinous forms. Punch.

Liberal “activist” movie actors. There’s hundreds of ‘em. I’m sure you can think of one or two that are more annoying than Hasselbeck. If you can’t, your entire list is crap. And you get the punch.

Speaking of that, female movie actresses who are thought of by women as being beautiful, pretty, gorgeous, attractive or sexy. And should therefore outrank everyone else on a man’s list of sexy women. It’s not the actress’ fault, but it still makes them annoying. Jane Seymour. Andie MacDowell. Jennifer Connelly. Julia Roberts. Punch.

The ugly girlfriend. You know what I’m talking about. There’s a pretty girl, you see her, she sees you, you’re interested in her, she seems to be interested in you…she’s not there with a guy, but she IS there with an ugly girlfriend. And the ugly girlfriend wants to go HOOOOOME NOOOOOW!!! Punch.

Public service announcements…and television commercials from LDS, and others…telling me how to raise kids. “Teach ‘em about similarities, not differences.” The message may be a good one. Trying to grasp control over how total strangers raise their kids, even for the sake of promulgating a good message, is not a good thing. It is a bad thing, a very bad thing. Especially when it’s done with taxpayer dollars. Punch.

Speaking of which — I’d really like to punch any one of a number of people who have speeches to offer that have something to do with “we are all connected.” If you’re not treating that as some kind of a problem, for which you’re going to propose a solution (and I have yet to hear anyone take that conversation there), you get a punch. Because these people don’t see us as equals all tied together…they see themselves, and their pals, as deciding where we’re all going to go, and the rest of us as following along. Recycle, because we are all connected. Get involved with my movement, because we are all connected. Donate to my program because we are all connected. Well no, we’re not, and you’re just a busybody who wants to recruit people to your pet project. In all likelihood, you’re promoting something to do with “diversity” even though you can’t stand the idea of some total stranger doing things different than the way you’d do them, and you’re completely tone-deaf to the irony. Punch.

Update: Aw dang…you realize what everyone seems to have forgotten, is people with loud mobile things. Realize where I’m going with this, here — the loud things are mobile, because if they were stationary, their owners would get the vicious nostril-tearing facial flattening they so vigorously deserve.

And you know which two I mean: 1) The Hawg, trying its level best to use that famous Harley-Davidson shock wave to shatter bedroom windows and set off car alarms; and 2) the asshole with his convertible’s stereo tuned to j-u-s-t the right frequency to make your eardrums throb in horrible pain, cranked up to the max, at, of course, the red traffic light that refuses to turn green.

Facial trauma is way too good for ’em. This kind of offense calls for something testicular.

Road Rage

Friday, December 26th, 2008

Shenanigans? (Warning, naughty language, but it’s a road rage video so you already knew that.)

Yeah, I call shenanigans. Because of the ending. It’s too clean, and I can’t believe you’d film yourself doing that and slap it up on YouTube.

Still fun to watch. And fun to think it’s true.

Power and Freedom Mean Pounding Your Verginer Like a Pork Chop Under a Jackhammer

Friday, December 12th, 2008

Our good friend in New Mexico told me I should lower my blood pressure by paying less attention to dimwits. He’s not the first to say so. We, here, see Buck as an exceedingly sensible gentleman, one who possesses a past different from ours but is united with us in the future. In other words, throw us into a time machine, crank it ahead by a couple decades, out pops Buck. And it certainly does make good sense to monitor issues related to the systolic and diastolic when one is in one’s early forties, than in his late fifties, so we did what he suggested.

And paid more attention to intelligent, sophisticated people.

Like Dr. Helen.

Crap. More nonsense. Being a lady of class and dignity, she does not endorse, she just points, but there it is, getting me all worked up. Got any more wonderful ideas, Buck? The idiocy, it would seem it surrounds us on all four sides.

Young women ‘have more sexual partners’ than men
Young women are more promiscuous than men, according to a survey that claims the average 21-year-old has had nine sexual partners compared with seven for men.

The poll of 2,000 by the magazine More also found that one in four young women has slept with more than 10 people, compared with one in five men who had done the same.

In addition, half of those questioned admitted they had been unfaithful, whereas only a quarter said they had been cheated on by a boyfriend.

It comes just a week after an academic study branded Britain one of the casual sex capitals of the Western world, with residents having more one-night stands and more liberal attitudes than those in Australia, France, the Netherlands, Italy and the US.

Lisa Smosarski, the editor of More, said: “Our results show that after decades of lying back and thinking of England, today’s twenty-something women are taking control of their sex lives and getting what they want in bed.”

First of all, there are problems with statistics…which I’ll get to later on.

But before that — whoomp, there it is. Lisa Smosarski puts a voice behind this thought that’s usually just rolling around out there, contemplated but unspoken. The five thousand years of oppression, by thoughtless, piggish men against the innocent, doe-eyed women, continues throughout this day and beyond…until girls start screwing like minks, and then that will somehow magically bring it to an abrupt end and it’ll be time for the ladies to start dancing like Ewoks at the end of Return of the Jedi (or Obamatons on January 20, but let’s keep the awkward metaphors to a minimum).

Captain Obvious is availed the luxury of dropping a single paragraph and then bailing out to attend to more pressing matters. Here’s his contribution: When you screw, you have a good chance of getting pregnant whether you use contraceptives or not. And a big round belly has very, very little to do with power. Or freedom. And it damn sure doesn’t have much to do with taking control of your sex life. More like surrendering same for a couple decades.

The floor is thus yielded to the owner of The Blog That Nobody Reads, so he can again bewail — with his blood pressure topping out — the continuing progress of all the civilized world, seemingly, past the second milestone on the way to complete insanity, which is the act of feeling your way around challenges rather than thinking your way through them. This doesn’t make any sense. The picture of a lady who has taken charge of her sex life, doesn’t have much to do with sleeping with lots of guys. Such a lady more likely sleeps with one guy. Think about it. Whether you’re a male or a female, cheating means lying. It means sneaking around. It means all the encumbrances that come with deceiving someone. And there’s nothing liberating about that.

Now, on to the statistics.

And Guthrum has put forward a decent, although somewhat incomplete, attempt to field this one. It comes down to a simple rhetorical question: With whom are these young ladies doing their fornicating? The study doesn’t seem to have much to do with lesbian sex, foreigner sex, or with a male-heavy domestic population. By process of elimination he determines someone is lying.

Well, I have another explanation, since Guthrum’s explanation would have to controvert the conventional wisdom of boys lying upward and girls lying downward. And this is a piece of conventional wisdom I believe…at least…when alcohol is not involved.

Here’s my explanation. And if it is true, it is not at all helpful to the study, or Ms. Smosarski’s idiotic conclusion(s), which is why it was left out of the article.

The fellas are subject to more of a 80/20 rule when it comes to frequency of sex and number-of-partners: Among those who are young and available, twenty percent of them are having eighty percent of the sex. This is not necessarily true of the women, since this would only take effect if there was some personal attribute that would make it likely for any particular instance to have more sex than her sisters. That would be physical beauty — which I think we should take into account only if we want to presume, when an appealing young lady is presented with lots of opportunities, she takes advantage of all of them. Let’s give the fairer sex the benefit of the doubt here.

So if you were to draw a graph about how much sex each person is having, and with how many partners, and draw two graphs on two pieces of paper for two genders — the female graph would be more of a flatline and the male graph would be all spikey.

And these “Alpha Males” who are screwing anything with a skirt, don’t participate in polls.

It’s just that simple. It fits in well with my philosophy about polls: They separate themselves from reality, when it is presumed, too casually, that that which was tested, extrapolates safely into that which is the universe. There are lots of things, generally, that confound this, and the tendency among study-makers and poll-takers is to not check those things out too carefully. Whether you buy it or not — Guthrum’s beef with the study makes good sense. With whom are these freewheeling strumpets doing their cavorting? Smosarski doesn’t seem to possess the mental horsepower to seriously entertain the question…which I find unsurprising.

Finally, my blood pressure trickles a little bit upward when I consider the issues of time and history. Those who cling to this notion that women will finally be free of male oppression the day they’ve finally done enough screwing, after all the other transgressions they’ve committed against responsibility and common sense, have failed to make use of long-term memory and allowed history to slip out of their mental fingers. Has this not been a doctrine that has already been put in practice for four decades or more? Free-love and all that shit?

Aighh…it’d be funny if nobody was listening to it. But congratulations to Editor Smosarski and those like her. Your next generation of urban-sprawl welfare queens, and all their litters of whelps, is comin’ right up. And half those whelps will be girls…whom you’ll tell to have lots of sex with lots of guys so you can sell your shitty magazine.

Their mommas who’ve spent so much of their lives with swollen ankles, big round bellies, and no man hanging around long enough to handle the extra work — somehow, for reasons I still fail to grasp — will, for the most part, fail to take the time to set ’em straight.

Who cares about any of it.

Women are having lots of sex. More sex than guys. That means they’re “free.” And empowered.

Yeah.

++sigh++ Blood pressure not coming down yet. I’m off to stare at my own Things That Make Me Smile page, to put me in a better mood.

Thanks For Cearing That Up

Saturday, December 6th, 2008

My intuition tells me there’s a little bit too much attention to vague notions of “diversity” involved in your education system there, Ms. Rhee…maybe the time’s come to focus on something else.