Scientists

I’m not sure what a “neo-con” is, but I think I am one. I want Saddam Hussein’s head mounted on a wall. I want bin Laden’s head next to his, and Kim Jong-Il’s next to bin Laden’s, and the “I’m a dinner jacket” guy’s head next to Il’s. And then I want us going out looking for a fifth head. That would be a great start.

Not “machismo.” Just common sense.

Some would say if I want that, I should be enlisting. To them I say…whatever. Your point is off-topic. You think it isn’t, but it is. Here’s a great way of demonstrating how off-topic it is: If those psychopaths should be allowed to run around, don’t the people who argue and yell and bicker and fight to keep them running around, have the job of living closest to them? Shouldn’t they be taking the “yeah Hussein was a threat, but not to America, so that makes him all okay” talk and sticking it? Shouldn’t they be the ones living in Tel Aviv? Especially if they’re insisting people like me should be enlisting, or else shutting the hell up? Aren’t they the ones who are hypocrites?

Anyway.

There’s this theory running around among “neo-cons,” I’m told. The theory goes like this: Osama bin Laden took out the World Trade Center, and the Pentagon, because he was getting desperate and frustrated. He did the thing with the USS Cole, he did the thing with the Khobar Towers, and we didn’t give him any attention for it. And he ended up in this “What in the hell is it going to take” mode.

I got a theory of my own. I think this is the mode scientists are in. They come up with explanations for the things we can observe, which is their job…and then us little people take their hypotheses out of context, waggling our fingers in each others’ faces, intoning, “I am right because the scientists agree with me.” Which is a terrible misuse of science when you think about it. Scientists, when the rubber meets the road, don’t “agree” that “the evidence supporting evolution is overwhelming.” That isn’t their job. They don’t “agree” that “global warming is real.” And it doesn’t help that some unscrupulous scientists are out there, promoting the idea that science is an ivory tower, wherein “pristine” opinions are formed; opinions that the dirty, unwashed masses had better just co-opt as their own, or else if the dirty unwashed masses dare to disagree, then they become dirty stupid unwashed masses.

I think there are some slightly more scrupulous scientists who understand that’s a perversion of science, but are not above starting a “backburn.” And so they shake science up. Which is healthy in a certain way, because science serves truth best when it engages in a game of “King of the Hill” — the longer a theory stands, the more aggressive should be the effort to challenge it.

But it also helps to stymie this finger-waggling exercise. It makes it harder for us to waggle our fingers in each others’ faces, citing the proxy opinions of those oh-so-smart scientists, if the scientists change their minds every once in a while. And so the scientists — no, I’m not comparing scientists to bin Laden, but — are engaged in the “what is it gonna take” mode.

Alar on the apples. DDT. Oncoming ice age; no wait, global warming. Oops, we were wrong, oat bran doesn’t do anything to cholesterol. Pluto isn’t a planet after all.

If my theory has some merit, what is it we’re doing to get those scientists so agitated? I’m going to take a wild guess it’s probably this: Science says something, and the commoners think of themselves as engaging in “critical thinking” and “skepticism” if they — get ready for this — believe it. Those among us who ask bothersome questions about it, and show reluctance to believe it, are called “Bushbots” and “sheep.”

The definitions of “skeptics” and “sheep” are one-hundred-eighty degrees reversed.

If I was a scientist, that would bug the piss outta me. Well, I would try to discipline myself to not pay attention to it. But as a human scientist, I’d still be bugged about it.

Believing something, without reservation, because someone else says it is so, makes you a critical thinker?

As Seen On TV

Fireflies in the Cloud: The Top Ten Stupidest “As Seen On TV” Products. Good stuff.

The product works like this. You first shape yourself a nice, fat hunk o’ ground beef. Then, like a Play-Doh mold, you plop the device on top of the meat, squish it down, and swish it around on the counter where the balls form in the individual compartments. VOIL�! You have yourself some tasty, raw, I-can’t-believe-what-a-mess-this-leaves-on-my-countertop meatballs. And just to remind you where meatballs go best, it comes with four “pasta” forks.

Yes, it’s a blatant rip-off of Retrocrush. I don’t care. It’s great work. Made me chuckle.

Whatever Happened To Dungeons? II

The continuing lifetime and usefulness of the “innernets” is in danger, and we have to lock up all the women. No wait, that’s not progressive enough…not all the women. Just the ones who can read. Sorry, gals; in ya go. Drastic times call for drastic measures.

Too harsh, you say? Well wake up. They’re ruining the “innernets.” Want proof? Just look around. Actually, let’s try this. Let’s make something up. Make up a completely ludicrous example…something that would prove, beyond all reasonable doubt, that too many ladies are reading what’s on the web, and the web is contorting itself into mystical entanglements, destroying its own content, in an effort to please them. Kinda like guys wearing their baseball caps backwards. The “innernets” is dressing themselves up all funny, trying to please the ladeez, and when all’s said and done, looks like they dressed in the dark or something. Like overgrown little-boys.

What might our imaginary example entail. I know. Let’s say an advice column comes out…you know how women love advice columns. And they love to see guys admit their mistakes, and/or get called out for them. Okay, so a guy writes an advice column and addresses it to other guys. He chirps away at them, as if he’s their mothers or something…or maybe their ex-wives…or bigger sisters…and tells them what to wear. Wait! What to wear on a first date! And then, let’s just make it crazy-ass woman-friendly. Let’s have the male advice columnist to tell his male readers…aw hell, I dunno…let’s have him tell them — hell, let’s go for broke — to wear little itty-bitty hearts on their socks!

And then let’s have him give a cutesy little sign-off that will make the psycho ladies just titter and cackle with evil delight, like the witches from MacBeth.

Our fantasy complete, let us now scour reality, top to bottom, to see if we can find something to line up with this preposterous example.

As Emeril Lagasse might say…BAM!!!

Men: How to dress for a first date
By Matt Schneiderman

Let�s face it: Women love clothes. Why else are they constantly shopping and complimenting their girlfriends on that incredible new top or pair of pumps? And while you may be wondering, “What does this have to do with me?” I’ll tell you: More and more, women are expecting, even demanding, that the men they date look more like the “after” images on Queer Eye than the “before.” In other words, showing up at a swanky martini bar in your college hoodie and lucky sneakers may make that first date your last.
:
Paying attention to the particulars is what will really convince a gal you�re a cut above average. “What you wear should speak to your individuality,” says [Stuff Magazine Fashion and Groom Director Kelly] Rae. “If you�re wearing a shirt with French cuffs, wear interesting cuff-links.” And don�t overlook your socks. “White gym socks belong at the gym,” says Rae. “Anything with a pattern can be fun.” Look for something with a design, like hearts or diamonds. “If he can pull the right socks off, he�s a winner.”

Matt Schneiderman is a New York-based freelancer who has been known to show up for dates wearing clothes his mom picked out for him.

Let’s get real for just a second here. This is nothing less than rat poison dropped in the giant kettle of clam chowder that is our civilization. Stuff Magazine is a monthly periodical that rolls out to subscribers, for money…a custom that was invented by bright, energetic, hard-working and creative men who did not have little hearts on the socks they wore. The article is written up, and translated into HTML which is an OSI Layer 6 page description language invented by men who didn’t have little hearts on their socks. The article is then read by people who use TCP/IP, a Layer 3 protocol developed by men missing little tiny hearts on their socks, where it is then displayed on computer monitors, invented and built by men who don’t have little tiny hearts on their socks, after passing through a computer processor, which was painstakingly designed by hard-working and dedicated engineers who wore socks that had no little tiny hearts on them.

We don’t owe anything to people who follow these silly rules! Not even the many, many things that made writing and reading this article possible!

Drives me nuts. So, ladies. Kindly stop tearing apart our society, and all the things it has that are needed for all the things you say you like to have. Honor the sloppy man, who has given you so much. Cease and desist from marrying the grizzled tattooed big-bad-boy, and pressuring him to change into some clean-cut nice guy who kisses your mother on the cheek after taking you to dinner and staying up late to watch “Will & Grace” re-runs with you. Literally, and figuratively.

You love the technology, respect the uber-masculine guys who brought it to you. Men is men, teddy bears is teddy bears. The two are different.

Now kindly get inside that iron door so I can lock it. We need to save what’s left of masculinity while it’s still here. Tried our best to preserve your freedom at the same time…looks like that’s not going to work. You keep looking at web pages, and pussified she-males like Matthew Schneiderman find out you’re out there, and then they fill up the web with crap, trying to please you. Enough is enough. We’ll send some hard, masculine, grizzled, poorly dressed men to bring you some meals on a regular basis, and after awhile I’m sure you’ll come to appreciate them. If your cuisine is some fresh-killed game that they shot and gutted and cooked themselves, maybe you’ll learn to appreciate raw masculinity even more.

It can come in handy. Seems at this point it’s been proven beyond all reasonable doubt: Brittle, whiny controlling women, need the sloppy, fashion-oblivious knuckle-dragging manly-man — or, at least, all this neat shit he’s been creating over the centuries — much, much more than the knuckle-dragging manly-man needs the whiny controlling women.

Now, get in.

Thing I Know #140. Some of the worst ideas a man has, have to do with getting admiration from the ladies. The worst ideas among those, are the ones that eventually succeed at this.

Memo For File XXI

Before I get into the guts of that goofy wiretapping decision, let me first express my high admiration for two fine legal minds, one dead, one living. The dead-white-guy comes first. See if you can recognize the source of these words; you would be well-served to be able to.

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each. So if a law be in opposition to the constitution: if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law: the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty.

If then the courts are to regard the constitution; and he constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature; the constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply.

Those then who controvert the principle that the constitution is to be considered, in court, as a paramount law, are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the constitution, and see only the law.

This doctrine would subvert the very foundation of all written constitutions. It would declare that an act, which, according to the principles and theory of our government, is entirely void, is yet, in practice, completely obligatory. It would declare, that if the legislature shall do what is expressly forbidden, such act, notwithstanding the express prohibition, is in reality effectual. It would be giving to the legislature a practical and real omnipotence with the same breath which professes to restrict their powers within narrow limits. It is prescribing limits, and declaring that those limits may be passed at pleasure.

That it thus reduces to nothing what we have deemed the greatest improvement on political institutions-a written constitution, would of itself be sufficient, in America where written constitutions have been viewed with so much reverence, for rejecting the construction. But the peculiar expressions of the constitution of the United States furnish additional arguments in favour of its rejection.

The judicial power of the United States is extended to all cases arising under the constitution. Could it be the intention of those who gave this power, to say that, in using it, the constitution should not be looked into? That a case arising under the constitution should be decided without examining the instrument under which it arises?

This is too extravagant to be maintained.

The subject is the ability of the Supreme Court to declare a law unconstitutional. I’ll let you in on who the author is, but first, I want to go after the pattern of logic here. Take a good look at what’s happening.

The author first establishes that what greets us, is an either-or scenario, no “middle ground” being possible. Of course, his example gets that going automatically, so he doesn’t need to articulate it. Now, you can pick A or B; both may not apply, and one or the other must; the author is a proponent of B. He does not write about how the sun will shine every day if B prevails, or about the rivers flowing with chocolate or mountains made out of marshmallows, or Hatfields and McCoys playing hopscotch together happily. He doesn’t tell you the air will be fresher if you pick B, or how much better the food will taste. He doesn’t tell you that Christopher Reeve will get outta that wheelchair and dance a jig if you pick B.

No, he writes about what happens if you pick A. The option he doesn’t want.

And then he writes about the consequences in the most flattering terms possible — for his opposition.

In short, his words are intended for that opposition. He doesn’t call them a bunch of poo poo heads or anything like that…he simply takes their position, and pursues it, extending it into the most generous possible, yet unappealing, and unvaoidable, consequences. It’s simply devastating. It is logic. Learn it, live it, love it.

So, that’s what Chief Justice John Marshall had to say in 1803, handing down the Marbury v. Madison decision that defined the Supreme Court’s authority to declare things unconstitutional to begin with. It is logic we don’t see today, from Republicans or Democrats — certainly not from the latter. It is not “Hooray For Our Side” type stuff, by any means. This is the kind of thing that is done right before minds are changed. Yes, it is possible. We tend to forget, but once upon a time men were expected, if they were adequately educated and sufficiently articulate with the written word, to make enemies into allies. Resentful allies, maybe, but allies nonetheless.

Today, we don’t even try for it.

Okeedokee. There’s your dead-and-decomposed legal mind. Now for the still-living one.

Ann Althouse has written extensively on this decision, here and here and here and here and here and here. Of course, she isn’t doing what John Marshall did, she’s just snarking. But it’s good, solid snarking. Besides, when you’re a District Judge and you hand down a written opinion about controversial subjects, you should expect a snarky snippet or two. You’re asking for them.

Conservative columnists have not let Judge Diggs Taylor down here. They’ve been snarking away. But most of the stuff boils down to this, I’m afraid: “This is a stupid decision because I don’t like what it says (and I haven’t read it).” Not very compelling. And it certainly doesn’t rise to the Marshall standard.

Nor does Ms. Althouse…but she’s still far superior. Plenty good enough for me. She has a fine legal mind and, in the links above, makes some great points. Read up.

Now, for whatever it’s worth, from reading the decision myself, these are my impressions.

Pages 1 to 17 are pretty mundane, although they nevertheless are remarkable for two reasons. One, they recount the history of prior cases in which the rights of citizens to have their days in civil court, and of The People to be represented in pressing criminal proceedings, conflicted directly with the urgency in keeping state secrets under the protections deemed proper. Kind of interesting stuff, there. Two…they prove Judge Anna Diggs Taylor has what it takes, to research into matters of fact, and recount them. This becomes relevant later.

On page 18, the Diggs Taylor locomotive begins to slip off the track of reason. The issue is whether the plaintiffs, ACLU et al, have standing to bring suit against the defendant, the NSA.

The ability to communicate confidentially is an indispensable part of the attorney-client relationship. As University of Michigan legal ethics professor Leonard Niehoff explains, attorney-client confidentiality is “central to the functioning of the attorney-client relationship and to effective representation.” He further explains that Defendants’ TSP “creates an overwhelming, if not insurmountable, obstacle to effective and ethical representation” and that although Plaintiffs are resorting to other “inefficient” means for gathering information, the TSP continues to cause “substantial and ongoing harm to the attorney-client relationships and legal representations.” He explains that the increased risk that privileged communications will be intercepted forces attorneys to cease telephonic and electronic communications with clients to fulfill their ethical responsibilities. Defendants argue that the allegations present no more than a “chilling effect” based upon purely speculative fears that the TSP subjects the Plaintiffs to surveillance. In arguing that the injuries are not constitutionally cognizable, Defendants rely heavily on the case of Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1 (1972).

In December 2005, the President publicly acknowledged that the TSP intercepts the contents of certain communications as to which there are reasonable grounds to believe that

* (1) the communication originated or terminated outside the United States, and

* (2) a party to such communication is a member of al Qaeda, a member of a group affiliated with al Qaeda, or an agent of al Qaeda or its affiliates.

In Laird, the plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief on their claim that their rights were being invaded by the Army�s domestic surveillance of civil disturbances and “public activities that were thought to have at least some potential for civil disorder.” Id. at 6. The plaintiffs argued that the surveillance created a chilling effect on their First Amendment rights caused by the existence and operation of the surveillance program in general. Id. at 3. The Supreme Court rejected the plaintiffs� efforts to rest standing upon the mere “chill” that the program cast upon their associational activities. It said that the “jurisdiction of a federal court may [not] be invoked by a complainant who alleges that the exercise of his First Amendment rights is being chilled by the mere existence, without more, of a governmental investigative and data-gathering activity.” Id. Laird, however, must be distinguished here. The plaintiffs in Laird alleged only that they could conceivably become subject to the Army�s domestic surveillance program. Presbyterian Church v. United States, 870 F.2d 518, 522 (1989). The Plaintiffs here are not merely alleging that they “could conceivably” become subject to surveillance under the TSP, but that continuation of the TSP has damaged them. The President indeed has publicly acknowledged that the types of calls Plaintiffs are making are the types of conversations that would be subject to the TSP. Although Laird establishes that a party�s allegation that it has suffered a subjective “chill” alone does not confer Article III standing, Laird does not control this case. As Justice (then Judge) Breyer has observed, “[t]he problem for the government with Laird . . . lies in the key words ‘without more.'” Ozonoff v. Berzak, 744 F.2d 224, 229 (1st Cir. 1984). This court agrees with Plaintiffs’ position that “standing here does not rest on the TSP’s ‘mere existence, without more.'” The Plaintiffs in this case are not claiming simply that the Defendants� surveillance has “chilled” them from making international calls to sources and clients. Rather, they claim that Defendants� surveillance has chilled their sources, clients, and potential witnesses from communicating with them. The alleged effect on Plaintiffs is a concrete, actual inability to communicate with witnesses, sources, clients and others without great expense which has significantly crippled Plaintiffs, at a minimum, in their ability to report the news and competently and effectively represent their clients. See Presbyterian Church v. United States, 870 F.2d 518 (1989) (church suffered substantial decrease in attendance and participation of individual congregants as a result of governmental surveillance). Plaintiffs have suffered actual concrete injuries to their abilities to carry out their professional responsibilities. The direct injury and objective chill incurred by Plaintiffs are more than sufficient to place this case outside the limitations imposed by Laird.

Got that? Here, I’ll bottom line it for you: Alleged violations of the Fourth Amendment, based on no evidence, just speculation…plus a “chilling” effect from that speculation, upon whatever you do professionally — from representing legal clients, to running a church, and I must presume everything in between, and beyond — equals…standing to sue, under the auspices of Laird v. Tatum (1972).

Zowee! Professional responsibilities. Huh. So…if I have “professional responsibilities” to run a shop, and I want to hire some kid to sweep the floors for three dollars an hour, and the kid is willing to work for that wage, I can sue to havve the minimum wage laws overturned as unconstitutional. Right? I have standing, right? Anna Diggs Taylor must agree with that. How about logging? What if I’m a lumberjack who has “professional responsibilities” to cut down old-growth trees, and the Endangered Species Act keeps me from doing that. Standing to sue, right? Judge Diggs Taylor surely must think so!

I mean she has to…because right after that, she goes on to cite an example that is the direct opposite of the lumberjack example above. For every action there has to be an equal and opposite reaction, right?

The instant case is more akin to Friends of the Earth, in which the Court granted standing to environmental groups who sued a polluter under the Clean Water Act because environmental damage caused by the defendant had deterred members of the plaintiff organizations from using and enjoying certain lands and rivers. Friends of the Earth, 528 U.S. at 181-183. The Court there held that the affidavits and testimony presented by plaintiffs were sufficient to establish reasonable concerns about the effects of those discharges and were more than “general averments” and “conclusory allegations.” Friends of the Earth, 528 U.S. at 183-184. The court distinguished the case from Lujan, in which the Court had held that no actual injury had been established where plaintiffs merely indicated “‘some day’ intentions to visit endangered species around the world.” The court found that the affiants’ conditional statements that they would use the nearby river for recreation if defendant were not discharging pollutants into it was sufficient to establish a concrete injury.

The whole decision reads like this. It’s not Marbury v. Madison by any means.

It all comes down to this. If I start reading the Diggs Taylor decision, starting at Page One with the unshakable belief that the TSP is unconstitutional, and that George Bush needs a good come-uppin’s…I will like what I read. I will feel better about having the opinion that I have. I will giggle like Roscoe P. Coltrane after finally busting Those Duke Boys for running moonshine…especially when I read stuff like this on page 40…

The Government appears to argue here that, pursuant to the penumbra of Constitutional language in Article II, and particularly because the President is designated Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, he has been granted the inherent power to violate not only the laws of the Congress but the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, itself. We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all “inherent powers” must derive from that Constitution. [emphasis mine]

If I’m solidly in the defendant’s corner, or if I simply don’t have my mind made up yet…or even if I have warm sentiments toward the Judge’s decision, but am not quite completely sold on it yet…I don’t have firm support for the idea being sold here. I’m not firmly sold that “The Government appears to argue here that…[President Bush] has been granted the inherent power to violate…the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, itself.” I do not know that. The Judge has not sold me on this — not unless I was already sold on that. This is hooray, rah-rah-rah, cheerleading stuff.

Nor am I sold on the idea that “[t]here are…no powers not created by the Constitution.” Not if I didn’t start from that premise. I know what Anna Diggs Taylor wants me to think, but that’s not the point. The point is how well she’s substantiated it. And here she has confronted an issue that has been subject to prolonged and raucous back-and-forth debate in the legal community, for generations now. And within the scope of her decision, she’s just settled it, by simply announcing what she thinks and moving on. Onward! To the next issue!

What a freakin’ pinhead.

As for the burning question “What in tarnation is this gutter-sniping about hereditary Kings in America?” I’ll leave that to other bloggers. NO, I’m not going to try to convince blog-readers who doubt that this is a personal attack, more toward my point-of-view. It’s just my opinion, that’s all. I have high confidence in it. President Bush is the first U.S. President in, like, 170 years or so who is the son of another President. In my estimation, it is obvious it’s a personal attack on him. Whoever doubts it is insincere, a dimwit, or both. If the Judge came out tomorrow, and insisted the blood relationship between the two Presidents was simply a coincidence — I’d look on that as being a coincidence the way Vito Corleone was an olive oil salesman. Suuuuuuuure.

But my really big deal is the rah-rah-rah “Hooray For Our Side” cheerleading stuff. The recognition that this decision, is not intended for the eyes of anybody, save for those who already agreed with the decision. If Judge Anna Diggs Taylor has one quarter of the intellectual acumen I think you should have to even be considered as a District Judge, she should have realized it would be to her benefit to write for the opposition like Chief Justice Marshall did two centuries ago…and practice mental Judo against them, persuading their center-of-gravity toward the edge of their vertical supports, and then knocking them down. And if she has a third of that above-mentioned bare minimum of intellectual acumen, she should have been able to do exacty that.

Instead, she has cooked up an entree that is garnished, as a parting shot, with the following…

As Justice Warren wrote in U.S. v. Robel:

Implicit in the term ‘national defense’ is the notion of defending those values and ideas which set this Nation apart…It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of…those liberties…which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile.

HELLO Judge Anna Diggs Taylor. You are on page 43 of a 43-page decision. If you ain’t convinced me by now, you ain’t convincing me with one single cherry-picked quote from a former (thanks Ms. Althouse for pointing this out) CHIEF Justice, not simply “Justice,” of the Supreme Court.

To sum it up, if I’m alive in 1803 and I don’t like Chief Justice Marshall’s decision, and I want to argue against it, what’s my situation? It’s awkward…extremely awkward…untenably awkward. Most sane men would call it unworkable. More than a few would switch sides, because of the persuasive power of the words written, and for no other reason.

If I’m all cranky and angsty about Judge Diggs Taylor’s decision, and want to argue against it…and boy howdee, get outta the way, that line is winding around the block, take a number…what is my situation there? Where do her cherry-picked quotes from only-tangentially connected prior cases, and her “that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it” pronouncements leave me?

Not in an unworkable situation at all. In a quite comfortable one. With the proper legal background and credentials — and in reality, I don’t even have those — I’m left more than a little anxious to show up and make my point. I’m probably parking by the courthouse an hour and a half early, chomping at the bit to get started. Probably fighting with a bunch of other lawyers for the opportunity to do it. She’s left me in the position of a hungry alley cat toying with a crippled mouse.

So yeah, Judge Diggs Taylor. Nice work. I won’t beat up on you any further, I think you’ve already done a fine job doing that to yourself.

Update 8/23/06: Someone was commenting that the fifth installment to the continuing series about my Yin and Yang theory, has a direct tie-in here. Which is correct, because this is the installment about the different ways the Yin and Yang argue. Even by itself, this one chapter is quite a windy thesis. I’ll bottom-line it: Maturing later in life, the Yin place themselves in a position of relative apathy about the feelings of those around them, placing more emphasis on their internal cognitions. To the detriment of their social skills, they have a tendency to become superior independent thinkers, and as a result are able to consider both sides of a given argument. Their opposites, the Yang, have a tendency to “win” such contests by, once you get down to the bare essentials, whipping up their own compatriots into some kind of emotional frenzy and not doing a whole lot else. And so without knowing exactly what they are doing, the Yin leave themselves “losing” the argument in any kind of public forum in which a crowd’s cheering and cat-calls decide the victor, while at the same time doing a superior job of adhering to Aristotle’s definition of an educated mind: “…to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

Anchoress

I have never given The Anchoress any fanfare. Let’s fix that by linking to her thrashing and trashing of the New Yorker that she handed out yesterday. President Bush reads stuff, The New Yorker feels the need to correct him about what he’s reading.

Let’s also give link-credit to aup at Just Muttering who says she’d give many eye teeth to have written the Anchoress’ piece.

Me, I just wish I could claim credit to four words therein: “What a foppish snot.” That is just a great sentence, right there. The rest of it isn’t bad either.

996 Bloggers, 23 Days

Nobody ever reads this blog, of course. But when people do, a great many times, they turn out to be…bloggers. Many among those are “blogger friends” of mine. Good friends. People who blogrolled me after I blogrolled them. Or vice-versa.

Won’t you please give a read to the post linked. We’re close…so close, yet so far.

996 And 23 Days

That�s what�s left.

A few minutes ago Jess of It�s my life laugh if you must signed up and became the 2,000 the participant in 2,996. Her welcome email told her she was #2,021 but we�ve had some entrants deleted due to bad sign-up info.

The first 1,000 took 57 days. We made the jump from 1,000 to 2,000 in 25 days.

Now we�ve got 23 days to get the last 996.

I think we can do it.

What’s this about? To the uninitiated, the project’s masthead sums it up nicely. If you’re not already signed up, and are ready+willing+able to help out…please consider doing so. Thank you.

2,996 is a tribute to the victims of 9/11.

On September 11, 2006, 2,996 volunteer bloggers will join together for a tribute to the victims of 9/11. Each person will pay tribute to a single victim.

We will honor them by remembering their lives, and not by remembering their murderers.

This Is Good XVIII

There’s an unfunny side to this…you kind of have to wonder why life isn’t really this way. Not so much, what societal forces are at work to keep such a thing from ever happening, or what is to be inferred about us since it has not happened — but more like, what would be wrong with such a thing if it did happen.

Good material for some deep, philosophical musings. But never let philosophical musings get in the way of some healthy humor. So on with the show.

If Men Wrote Advice Columns

Q: My husband wants to have a threesome with me and my best friend.

A: Obviously your husband cannot get enough of you! Knowing that there is only one of you he can only settle for the next best thing your best friend. Far from being an issue, this can bring you closer together. Why not get some of your old college roommates involved too? If you are still apprehensive, maybe you should let him be with your friends without you. If you’re still not sure then just perform oral sex on him and cook him a nice meal while you think about it.

Oral sex? Nice meals? What the hell is the problem? Ya gotta admit, as far as one-size-fits-all solutions to problems in relationships, this guy’s answers show a lot more promise than most. Certainly more than…aw, what the hell is it they say…confronting…talking out your feeeeeeeelings…counseling…

Note to self: When the time comes for the deep philosophical musings, the following is worthy of thought. We have no way to grade advice columnists. Hell, you can assess the average performance of a fortune teller, better than you can assess the average performance of an advice columnist, easily.

Now, what if, just taking this as a hypothetical…you could grade an advice columnist. Suppose you had to get a license before you could be an advice columnist, and the minute you got that license the state started tracking each person to whom you gave advice, and kept track of where their relationships went. Supposing we had more diversity in our advice columnists…men…women. And of course the men would give out advice like you see above. Husband promised for a year to fix the garage door, and hasn’t yet…blow job…nice meal. Husband won’t stop wearing those awful plaid pants that went out of style in 1971…blow job…nice meal. Husband chews tobacco and it’s disgusting…blow job…nice meal. Lady advice columnists — just keep up the same ol’ crock. “Get counseling.” At the end of the year, we compare statistics and see how everybody’s doing. What kind of advice leads to happy relationships? And from what “flavor” of advice columnist, does such advice flow?

Heh. I think deep down everybody KNOWS how that would shake out.

It’s Bad, Mmmkay?

Religion == bad, and thanks to FARK we come to learn of a study that actually comes out and says so. Or at least, gives us a push off in that direction.

The Institute for Humanist Studies has an article up that points to a study by Gregory S. Paul, in Baltimore, Maryland…a place known to me as a wonderland where people don’t know how to get the hell out of the way when there’s a car coming down the road. Eh, okay that was nasty. Sorry. You jaywalkers need to be called out on the “innernets” for your own good. Darwin can take a break sometimes. Anyway. There’s some data out there that sets up a good solid statistical connection between people of certain countries believing in God, and people in certain countries committing suicide, and getting pregnant, and killing each other, etc. Guess what? God makes people kill each other.

Well, the language is a little more scientific than that, but in sum, that is what it says. Secular societies are shining little utopias compared to the knuckle-dragging societies where people are actually religious.

The data are pretty sound.

Of course, it IS cherry-picked; on that, there can be no doubt. The history of the world, especially the post-industrial world, is packed with stories of communist societies killing people, a phenomenon that enjoys no similar counterpart in faith-based societies or “faith-flavored” societies. It’s sincere cherry-picking, or it could be, I guess. But it’s cherry-picking nonetheless. The secular communist societies aren’t in the study. Bad things happen to the correlation, of course, once you put them in, because they done some bad stuff.

There is another problem of which I have come to be aware, one that applies to all studies that compare the United States with other countries and conclude with an unflattering light being cast in the direction of us Yanks. It doesn’t have anything to do with suspicions cast upon the motives involved in such studies — although those suspicions are there, and the problems they suggest are all too real. It has to do with comparing industrialized countries with a super-industrialized specimen amongst them.

Whether our religious beliefs have a causal relationship with our financial success, or not, it seems difficult to argue against the financial success having a causal relationship with the metrics being studied. My acceptance of that premise, has a lot to do with my regard for any “America-versus-X” study as being contaminated to the point of uselessness. To say, so-and-so per thousand people are murdered every ten years in America, and compare the same metric in, let us say, Norway — well, that just doesn’t work. Any school of statistical thought that would observe such a comparison, and place confidence in a theory derived from it, would discredit itself. It’s like comparing homicides per thousand people per decade in the financial district of a large city, versus out in the suburbs of that same metropolitan area. It’s apples-and-oranges.

America, for now, is in a class by itself. Anyone who works with statistics, and doesn’t treat America that way, isn’t working with statistics very well. They may do a great job of sticking to proven facts and applying scientific principles, but without common sense tying it all together it’s still just so much nonsense. Kind of reminds me of the Water Humor letter from the early nineties.

Still, it’s an interesting read if nothing else.

BONUS: A couple of FARKers got into it about something I thought was off-topic, at least, until you start to form conclusions from the study and want to argue about how much something has been proven. The one who I thought was doing a poorer job of sticking to the subject-at-hand, came up with this essay about correlation versus causation. It’s a red herring, but packed with some good lean meat and makes some great points.

Consistency

I have a question for those who stand with our thirty-ninth President. On anything. And my question concerns the word “morality.” Does this describe a relative concept, or an absolute one? In other words, is this thing that is described by that word, something that applies to us all universally, equally, regardless of the different perspectives upon which we draw in recognizing what it is? Could it be incumbent upon one person to apply another person’s sensibilities of what is “moral” and what is not? Or are we all free to figure out for ourselves what is moral, recognizing the different opinions of our commanders, statesmen, religious leaders and celebrities with lip-service, empty platitudes, and nothing else?

It’s a heady question. It introduces the idea of freedoms coming at loggerheads. You have the freedom to prosecute others for violating your moral code, whether they agreed to it or not — or, you have the freedom to define your own set of moral taboos however you wish. Both cannot apply; and, one or the other, must.

Jimmy Carter lives in a funny world, I think. He seems to think one answer applies to some amongst us, and a different answer applies to the rest.

Via Boortz, I come to find out about a column written by David Limbaugh called “Sympathy for the Devil.” It would appear Limbaugh is describing an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel; I tracked down said interview here. And I must say, as Carter goes off on his latest tear against the current administration, it strikes me as a bit odd — the man who made me a registered Republican for life by showing me what bad policy looks like and the enormous damage it can do, directly addresses the conundrum with which I opened this post.

The fundamentalists believe they have a unique relationship with God, and that they and their ideas are God’s ideas and God’s premises on the particular issue. Therefore, by definition since they are speaking for God anyone who disagrees with them is inherently wrong. And the next step is: Those who disagree with them are inherently inferior, and in extreme cases — as is the case with some fundamentalists around the world — it makes your opponents sub-humans, so that their lives are not significant. Another thing is that a fundamentalist can’t bring himself or herself to negotiate with people who disagree with them because the negotiating process itself is an indication of implied equality. And so this administration, for instance, has a policy of just refusing to talk to someone who is in strong disagreement with them — which is also a radical departure from past history. So these are the kinds of things that cause me concern. And, of course, fundamentalists don’t believe they can make mistakes, so when we permit the torture of prisoners in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, it’s just impossible for a fundamentalist to admit that a mistake was made.

Go back and read that again. Carter makes an comment about what he calls “fundamentalists” which appears to be based on his own observations. In his first point, all he’s doing is clarifying what a fundamentalist is, and what ideas they have about my question. The ensuing nasty tidbits about fundamentalists are things that, according to him, just logically derive from that first one. “And the next step is: Those who disagree with them are inherently inferior…”

So Carter, it would appear, has an answer to my question. And it is a definite one.

But not a universal one.

The other principle that I described in the book is basic justice. We’ve never had an administration before that so overtly and clearly and consistently passed tax reform bills that were uniquely targeted to benefit the richest people in our country at the expense or the detriment of the working families of America.

“Basic justice,” huh? What does that adjective mean, “basic”? Easy to understand? Good heavens, I hope not. I’m still trying to figure out what is “just” about people making much better decisions than mine, and then before they get to reap the profits of those wise decisions, being fleeced to fatten up my sorry ass.

No, I don’t think even Carter would define “basic” that way. I’m going to go waaaaaaaaay out on a limb here, and based on the context, postulate he is defining “basic” to mean “you can’t argue with this because I’m not going to let you” or some derivative of that.

But wait! I thought imposing your morality on others was wrong! I thought it led to you thinking others are inferior and lead meaningless lives, blah blah blah.

Perhaps that doesn’t pertain, somehow, to Jimmy Carter. I’d like to see some evidence it doesn’t; I’ve been watching the old goat for quite awhile. Depending on who you’re talking about, he does seem to think that some among us get to define morality, and others amongst us have the privilege of simply practicing what the first group has defined. One thing is for sure: If morality is something that prevails in a singular direction upon us all, according to Carter, we don’t all get to vote on it. Another thing is sure: He, himself, definitely has a say. And it looks like a lot more than just a “vote.”

What I find odd, is that the people Carter calls “fundamentalists,” seem to have an answer for me, and it’s a pretty good one. They say this thing called “morality” is up to God, and not man; in fact, man intrudes upon God’s domain, committing a grave offense against Him, by usurping this authority. Man, similarly, commits a grave offense against Him, by violating what that authority says. This is The Word of He Who Put Us Here; if you’re not willing to abide by it, then what good are ya? It’s a solid, logical question — once you accept the premise there is a He. And, if you are placed in a position of interpretive authority by other men, should you then permit others to violate this morality, or choose the dictates of your man-made office over that morality — again, what good are ya? What in the world would inspire Him to keep you here…other than, moment-to-moment, it’s not quite yet worth His time to kick your ass to oblivion, kind of like I haven’t quite gotten around to running the next load of dishes yet?

Great rhetorical questions, they do what rhetorical questions should do. They’re unanswerable. The theory is placed under assault, often, supposedly for contravening logic. The notion that it contravenes logic, is supported by nothing whatsoever, save for the fact that the theory has something to do with God. As far as starting with a premise and proceeding forward with one cognition after another cognition, and arriving at a conclusion about rules we should follow — I find it to be very strong. I’m told that it isn’t. I’ve yet to figure out why.

Carter talks about “traditional” values. He should go back and read the Declaration of Independence. This is the “basic” argument that justified our independence from Great Britain in the very beginning. Ooh! I’m so sorry, to all those I offended…er, no I’m not. It’s the truth. That’s just the way it is. That’s the design of the machinery.

Now, to my first question. What is morality? Does it have a place in a society where some people make rules, and others abide by them?

Or does each person decide this for him- or herself?

I’m at about 28 years, give-or-take, not having a shred of respect for Jimmy Carter’s opinion about anything. There are a lot of people behaving as if they’d like to dislodge scales from my eyes, and inspire me to listen to the curmudgeon’s ramblings. Whether they realize it or not, what they’re trying to tell me is that at age ten I was right after all, and my exposure to real life, stupid people, evil people, narcissists, thieves, charlatans, boneheaded mistakes on my part, bills to pay, etc. etc. etc. has just made me dumber. They’re saying I knew something then, and don’t know it now. To them, I say a great first step in changing my mind would be to get an answer to my question about morality; a consistent one. Straight from him, would be great; something that somehow comports with all that he says — all that he says, about anyone — would be almost as good.

But consistency is the vital attribute to such an answer. If someone wants to change my mind about the man who received my last Democrat-party vote in this lifetime — thank goodness I was too young to actually cast it! — I’m going to have to insist on it, or don’t bother answering. Seems like so little to ask.

TWISI

So this guy who keeps asking me if I mention him in my blog…he shows up at work every day with a cup from Starbuck’s which, nine to noon, is his bucket o’swill, and from noon to five is his tobacco receptacle. Gee, I wonder how many guys now will think that sentence is directed at them, huh.

A note about my patronage of Starbuck’s. For me, things are a little different…I shun the cardboard. I think it makes the coffee taste different. It’s a trifling matter when the cost and quality of the product mirror your experience at Dunkin’ Donuts, but of course, at Starbuck’s, that is not the case. So…

ME: Hi. I’d like a drip, Venti, dark, for here, IN A MUG, no room, and a copy of that liberal snot-rag over there. (Maybe for sake of clarity I’ll call it “the newspaper.”)

Cashier, WAY too peppy: Sure! Oh…uh, you mean a regular coffee?

ME: Yup.

Cashier: Okay! That’ll be $2.05 (unless it’s Sunday, in which case it’s $3.15).

ME: (Pleasantly as I can manage, at 5 in the morning.) Can I get that in a MUG, please?

Cashier: Huh? (Looks down at their hand which is holding a cardboard cup.) Oh! Right! Um…you said that! Ha!

ME: (All smiles.) No problem!

(Negotiations may ensue about “actually we just broke our last Venti mug” or “actually someone just walked off with our last Venti mug” or some such…)

Cashier: HEY! That is a cool card thingy you got there!

ME: Yup.

So I digress. The point is, I hate cardboard. I hate it. Cardboard is for the drive-through. Cardboard is what you use when portability is an absolute requirement. Coffee in cardboard is like beer in a can. The product within assumes the temperature of the surroundings far, far too quickly, and I find that to be gross. So I don’t use cardboard.

My chaw-chewing colleague, therefore, has reacquainted me to the Starbucks The Way I See It campaign. I and some others call it TWISI. The goal is…

To get people talking, �The Way I See It� is a collection of thoughts, opinions and expressions provided by notable figures that now appear on our widely shared cups.

And there’s some kind of snippet on each cardboard cup — which, of course, at this moment I do NOT have in front of me — that says the company wants “to bring conversation back in the coffee houses.”

But some people don’t like that. They point out that the quotes have a liberal bent.

Moments after picking up a venti vanilla latte from a St. Petersburg Starbucks, Sam Maston removed his cup’s cardboard sleeve to inspect a message printed beneath.

“America’s national debt is now $7.5-trillion, and it’s skyrocketing, even as America’s population ages,” the cup read. “There will never be a better time to start paying off this crippling debt than today.”

The quote, from environmentalist Denis Hayes, didn’t faze the 29-year-old Maston.

“I’m a pretty hardcore Democrat,” said Maston, who wore a black rubber wristband bearing the words I DID NOT VOTE 4 BUSH. “I think they should put that stuff on there.”

Not everyone agrees.

The Seattle coffee chain has raised some eyebrows over its “The Way I See It” campaign, which prints quotes from thinkers, authors, athletes and entertainers on the side of your morning machiatto. The goal, according to the company, is to foster philosophical debate in its 9,000-plus coffeehouses.

The quotes aren’t all that inflammatory, though several mirror Starbucks’ hallmark tall-grande-venti pretentiousness. Take this one from film critic Roger Ebert: “A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it.”

The problem, critics say, is the company’s list of overwhelmingly liberal contributors, including Al Franken, Melissa Etheridge, Quincy Jones, Chuck D. Of the 31 contributors listed on Starbucks’ Web site, only one, National Review editor Jonah Goldberg, offers a conservative viewpoint.
:
Company spokeswoman Valerie Hwang said the goal is not to stir up controversy. She said the company has lined up 60 contributors with “varying points of view, experiences and priorities” in an effort to promote “open, respectful conversation among a wide variety of individuals.”

Each cup also bears a caveat letting customers know that the quote is “the author’s opinion, not necessarily that of Starbucks.”

“The program is such that we’re not requiring our customers to read,” Hwang said, “but rather the quotes are there for our customers to discover and enjoy.”

Several liberal blogs, like this one and this one have identified conservative backlash, right-wingers threatening not to buy Starbucks products anymore, because of TWISI #43:

But one particular quote — #43 — blatantly pushes the homosexual agenda. It�s by Armistead Maupin, who wrote �Tales of the City,� a bestseller-turned-PBS drama advocating the homosexual lifestyle, and it reads: “My only regret about being gay is that I repressed it for so long. I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don�t make that mistake yourself. Life�s too [expletive] short.”

Well, Ms. Hwang, it looks like the program is a success because TWISI #43 has promoted open, respectful conversation among a wide variety of individuals. Well…open conversation anyway.

And from this we can learn much.

We seem to have a lot of fire from the right, thanks to people who would like to borrow a page from the liberal-activist handbook and use commercial pressure to control the public forum, expurgating from it certain things they do not like. That’s an educational thing to take in, I think, and we owe it to TWISI.

We’ve got a lot of people on the left, who would take the observation about people on the right, above, and from this form the conclusion that controlling the public forum, is a conservative attribute. In other words, by implication, they hold the liberal viewpoint to be unconditionally friendly to ideas of all kinds. This proves that the left is jam-packed with people who either don’t know what is going on, choose not to pay attention, or are just plain nuts. Another valuable and educational lesson we owe to TWISI.

We also know there is an unhinged sentiment floating around out there in liberal-land, reeking of cognitive dissonance, inspiring sort of a “backburn”: scoldings directed at ideological opponents, who would deign to scold. Comments like “just fucking drink your coffee and keep your hate inwards, thankyouverymuch” showcase mankind’s seemingly endless capacity for waging battle against incendiary invective, through the dubious tactic of using that very invective. This is revealing. We owe the lesson, largely, to the hateful leftists…and TWISI.

What is to be said about the folks on the right who would airbrush the homosexual-friendly TWISI #43 from our viewpoint? Feh. From where I sit, it’s purely a freedom-of-speech issue. And I hope I’ve made it plain where I am on that; Starbuck’s is a private concern. These censor-wannabes are after something they can never have.

The question that remains, is how many of them there are. From the links above, in the comments section of some of those blogs, and the quotes in the news story, obviously there are a couple here & there. I see no evidence at all that the quantity of individuals within such a class, rises above any more than that.

But “bendygirl” seems to do a much better job of representing the left, than the “Ban TWISI #43” cabal does of representing the right: “‘I want to enjoy your product without having Earth Day Network propaganda thrust at me.’ Earth Day Network is propoganda…about what…the earth?” Thus ends the point made by bendygirl. It is a point made through sarcasm. It is a point that seeks to carefully avoid actually making a point. It seems TWISI seeks to promote dialog, and bendygirl seeks to bring it to a close.

How many liberals are like bendygirl?

I can only go by experience. And my experience is, with some noteworthy exceptions, practically all of them are. Liberalism appears to be an ideology borne out of a limited attention span, and a drive to form opinions out of sarcasm.

That would be purely an article of faith on my part. Something purely unsupported. If it were not for the free and open discussion promoted by TWISI. Which just goes to show why I’m opposed to the folks on the right-wing who would expose the TWISI content to the rigors of social activism, hoping to cut out the TWISI bits they happen to dislike. Those far-right goo-gooders, are reflecting poorly on themselves, as they openly campaign against the rights and privileges of folks on the left to reflect poorly on themselves.

I hope TWISI continues to grow and to thrive, Snippet #43 and all. Even if every coffee cup that rolls off the press, pops out with a hardcore Earth-day-friendly homosexual-agenda-promoting far-left bumper sticker slogan…stuff that makes #43 look like a picnic…now and evermore. It promotes the discussion, and from the discussion we see how people truly think.

Missing The Smugness

Last Friday, I wrote about today’s ecology activists and I’ll let my words speak for themselves.

I remember thirty years ago there was a big-time environmental movement going on. The Ad Council put on television commercials, with an image of an Indian crying over a littered cityscape. Some people did ecologically-friendly things, most people did not. The people who did, acted smug. Sanctimonious. Better-than-you.

I miss the smugness.

Because their successors, today, can lecture you about how the planet is doomed — the planet is doomed! — and if the two of you happen to walk past a Hummer H2 while he’s flinging his environmentalist spittle in your direction, he won’t bat an eyelash. And nobody has the cojones to say, it seems: Hey, you just talked about the human race coming to an end and the planet becoming uninhabitable. Have you no comment on this machine we just walked past? None?

Now, here’s the bee up my butt. I don’t have anything against the tree-huggers of yesteryear for being smug. And for being craven hypocrites, I don’t bear any malice against the tree-huggers today. My jaundiced eye beats down, instead, on people who believe what the environmental activists of today tell them…everything…without even blinking.

Because, let’s just admit it. In my hypothetical about the spittle-flinging environmentalist, going on about global warming, and greenhouse gases, and George Bush this and Kyoto Treaty that, blah blah blah, and the two of you are walking along and you pass the H2 and he has nothing to say about it whatsoever — let’s just agree outright, you’ve got better than even odds the environmentalist has nothing to say against the H2 because it happens to belong to him.

That’s the situation we have today.

You doubt me? Well, let’s take a look at what we have going on here. Via Drudge Report, via Boortz, we come to find out about a speech delivered by the distinguished Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

Illinois Senator Barack Obama warns citizens at his 50th Town Hall meeting about gas guzzling, WPSD-TV reports.

It was among many points made to the standing room only audience at the Metropolis Community Center. Obama spoke on everything from DC politics to global warming.

He says part of the blame for the world’s higher temperatures rests on gas guzzling vehicles. Obama says consumers can make the difference by switching to higher mileage hybrids.

Today the Senator said, “It would save more energy, do more for the environment and create better world security than all the drilling we could do in Alaska.”

“After the meeting… Obama left in a GMC Envoy after admitting to favoring SUV’s himself,” claimed local News Channel 6.

MORE

Tommy Vietor, Senator Obama’s press secretary, explains: “What Senator Obama has long advocated is the use of vehicles that are more fuel efficient, including but not exclusively hybrids.

“The vehicle senator obama travels in while in illinois is a Flexible Fuel Vehicle (FFV), which can run on e85, a blended fuel made of 85 percent ethanol.

“So he in fact was practicing what he preached at the town hall meeting in Metropolis yesterday when he said we must drive fewer gas-guzzling vehicles.”

But it does not appear that GMC’s Envoy is E85 ready.

Developing…

See what I mean? I don’t blame Sen. Obama and people like him; I blame people for believing the hype.

People are talking about the planet’s looming failure to continually support life as we know it. Well, not all of them. But show me someone who thinks we should “take global warming seriously,” and I’ll show you someone who…at the very least…is advancing the notion that humanity, as a whole, faces — if not extinction, then health risks. Physical injury of some kind. All of us, everyone with a pair of lungs and a beating heart and a patch of skin.

People aren’t going to start thinking critically just because I wish they would. But when you have a high-profile senator giving a lecture on our gas-guzzling ways and how we contribute to global warming — for the fiftieth time! — and then, afterward, hopping into a gas guzzler and lumbering away, that’s just silly. And not a little bit. It’s up to Monty Python levels.

And there is nothing unusual about it. This is not an isolated incident. To simply wish for a global warming guy to behave as if we have a problem here, about as serious as what he’s claiming, is to wish for something you won’t be getting and just about everyone can tell you, you ought not expect. And then the bullshit comes cascading down upon us, and half of us are ready to dive in with spoons, and beg for seconds.

You folks who like to all fall for the same crap en masse, because it gives you that sense of togetherness…can’t you find something else? I’m sure there’s something in your personal e-mail from a guy who wants you to help him smuggle money out of Nigeria, why don’t you think about goin’ for that one?

This Is Good XVII

Via Snopes, a true rarity. A slightly-corny joke I had not heard before, that is acually pretty decent humor-wise…

Lawyers should never ask a witness a question if they aren’t prepared for the answer.

In a trial, a Southern small town prosecuting attorney called his first witness, a grand-motherly, elderly woman to the stand. He approached her and asked, “Mrs. Jones, do you know me?”

She responded, “Why, yes I do know you, Mr. Williams. I’ve known you since you were a young boy, and frankly, you’ve been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you’re a big shot when you haven’t the brains to realize you never will amount to anything more than a two-bit paper-pusher. Yes, I know you.”

The lawyer was stunned! Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, “Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?”

She again replied, “Why yes, I do. I’ve know Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. He’s lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can’t build a normal relationship with anyone and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him.”

The defense attorney almost died.

The judge asked both counselors to approach the bench, and in a very quiet voice said, “Neither of you bastards better ask her if she knows me.”

Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself… XVII

Via Deb Schlussel we come to find out about yet another golden needle that should not pass into the blogosphere haystack without being captured. Great work, I have nothing to add.

WHEN will the Muslims of Britain stand up to be counted?

When will they declare, loud and clear, with no qualifications or quibbles about Britain’s foreign policy, that Islamic terrorism is WRONG?

Most of all, when will the Muslim community in this country accept an absolute, undeniable, total truth: that Islamic terrorism is THEIR problem? THEY own it. And it is THEIR duty to face it and eradicate it.

Daffy Definitions

Just some silly definitions Peter Gympie was kind enough to assemble over at his place, Holtie’s House . Down unda. Good stuff.

1. Marriage: It’s an agreement in which a man loses his bachelor
degree and a woman gains her masters.

2 . Divorce: Future tense of marriage

3 . Lecture: An art of transferring information from the notes of
the lecturer to the notes of the students without passing through
the minds of either.

I thought #12 was kinda sad… 🙁

The Difference

Can’t let this one go without commenting. It is such a professional-grade, high-resolution picture-perfect capture of the difference between Republicans and Democrats, that I gotta say something about it. If I let this drift on by, why, I’d have to wait years for an example that’s this crystal-clear.

Well, days, maybe. Hours? Who knows.

Okay, they happen all the time. But there’s something special about this one. We are told that Republicans want to “make America into a theocracy.” We are told Democrats are “the party of the little guy.” We are told Republicans want to “shove their morals down our throats” and that Democrats will let you “live your life however you will.”

People don’t understand this about me, but the older I get, I have more trouble with that vision — not less. Our current Vice President, and Senior Senator from the great state of Massachusetts, have just done a dandy job of illustrating why. Let’s start with Vice President Cheney’s press conference first, with the parts I think are important — against the expectations of most people, I think — highlighted.

I was — obviously, we’re all interested in this year’s election campaign. I know Joe Lieberman and have a good deal of respect for him given that we were opponents in the 2000 campaign; and of course, spent a fair amount of time watching the man and studying him over the years, especially in connection with our debate in 2000. And as I look at what happened yesterday, it strikes me that it’s a perhaps unfortunate and significant development from the standpoint of the Democratic Party, that what it says about the direction the party appears to be heading in when they, in effect, purge a man like Joe Lieberman, who was just six years ago their nominee for Vice President, is of concern, especially over the issue of Joe’s support with respect to national efforts in the global war on terror.

The thing that’s partly disturbing about it is the fact that, the standpoint of our adversaries, if you will, in this conflict, and the al Qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task. And when we see the Democratic Party reject one of its own, a man they selected to be their vice presidential nominee just a few short years ago, it would seem to say a lot about the state the party is in today if that’s becoming the dominant view of the Democratic Party, the basic, fundamental notion that somehow we can retreat behind our oceans and not be actively engaged in this conflict and be safe here at home, which clearly we know we won’t — we can’t be. So we have to be actively engaged not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but on a global basis if we’re going to succeed in prevailing in this long-term conflict.

So it’s an unfortunate development, I think, from the standpoint of the Democratic Party to see a man like Lieberman pushed aside because of his willingness to support an aggressive posture in terms of our national security strategy.

Lea Anne, you want to take it from there?

MS. McBRIDE: Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. First we’ll go to Liz, Associated Press.

Q Yes. Mr. Vice President, thank you for joining us today. With Lieberman in Connecticut losing, Joe Schwarz in Michigan, Cynthia McKinney in Georgia, is there an anti-incumbent wave this year? If so, which party does it benefit?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I guess, I’d be hard put to think of what the wave is, or what parallel you can find between Joe Lieberman, Joe Schwarz and Cynthia McKinney.

Q Well, they’re all incumbents and they all lost.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That may be. I don’t see it as an anti-incumbent move. I think each one of those races was — the Schwarz race, obviously, was a Republican race — there’s a history behind that in terms of how Joe got elected last time around and his opposition this time around. I didn’t see it as having national ramifications, nor do I think the McKinney race does. I think the Lieberman case clearly does.

Q But not in terms of anti-incumbent sentiment —

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No.

Q — among the American people?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No.

Q Thank you, Mr. Vice President, for doing this. Based on what’s happened now to Joe Lieberman, do you think that Iraq is going to be — the election is going to be a referendum on the Iraq war?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I can’t say that. I think national security policy is likely to be generally important. I supposed it will depend a lot — these off-year elections, obviously, turn a lot in terms of local issues, and issues that are identified with specific states and congressional districts. But clearly within the Democratic Party, it would appear to be that there are deep divisions. I think there’s a significant body of opinion that wants to go back — I guess the way I would describe it is sort of the pre-9/11 mind set, in terms of how we deal with the world we live in.

Q And do you see yourself on the campaign trail this fall making these same points? Are we hearing the beginnings of a strategy on how to deal with this situation?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I think it is appropriate and should be that there be some discussion, obviously, of these issues this fall. I suppose different people will look at in different perspectives. I expect there will be a number of people out there who put national security issues first and foremost when they evaluate candidates. And I suppose I’m probably one of those. And I think we ought to address it, and I think there will be a fair amount of debate associated with that campaign this fall. I can’t say that that’s going to be necessarily true in every single district. I certainly plan to talk about it a lot. I expect the President will, too.

Q Sure, okay.

Q Yes, thank you, Mr. Vice President. Is the White House going to offer Senator Lieberman any help as he runs as an independent? And in addition, what makes you think that the anti-war sentiment that Lamont won on won’t work against Republicans, as well?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, I doubt that we have any intention or aspirations of getting involved in Joe Lieberman’s campaign.

Q Well, just other than —

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think we can look at it on a personal basis and say I think he’s a good man. And if he were to leave the Senate, that would be a loss to the Democrats. But we’re not embracing Joe Lieberman’s candidacy.

Q Sure, okay.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Now what was the second part of your question?

Q The second part was, what makes you think the anti-war sentiment that Lamont tapped into won’t work against Republican candidates this election?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, you’ve got to remember that was in a democratic primary. But I think Connecticut — Connecticut is Connecticut. It’s got a long history there. They have not elected a conservative senator for quite some time.

Q So how certain are you that Republicans will maintain control of both houses for this election?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I feel significantly better about it today than I did, say, three months ago. I’ve done about 80 campaigns now. I think we’ve got a lot of good candidates out there. We’re making a major effort. I’ve done more this cycle than I have in previous cycles with respect to these off-year elections. The President is actively and aggressively involved. I think it will be a hard fought election contest. Clearly, the off-year election in the second term of a presidency always is. But as I say, I’m more optimistic now than I was a few months ago that we’ll have a good November 7th. I think it will be a hard fought contest, but I do expect we’ll retain control of both houses.

Q What makes you more optimistic, sir?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Just the feel I get out on the road, the quality of the candidates, the way our fundraising is going, I think the caliber of our get-out-the-vote efforts and so forth various places have been important in the past, and I think will be again this time around.

MS. McBRIDE: Thank you so much, sir.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Good to talk to you.

Looks kind of like pepper sprinkled on mashed potatoes, huh?

To those of you who are reading this in something that doesn’t show bold: What I’ve highlighted, is everywhere Vice President Cheney discusses an opinion, or an inference, or a cognition, or a viewpoint, with the disclaimer that it is his. And he does this, practically, everywhere. Trifling matter? It is, for now. But below, you’re going to see what Sen. Kennedy had to say about the Vice President’s remarks. And then this distinction — between things Dick Cheney says are so, at least, from his point-of-view, contrasted with things Dick Cheney says are so because that’s the way they are and that’s the only way to see it — becomes much more important.

This is supposed to be a divide between a political party that represents moral absolutism, and another political party that allows for individual choice. It seems flip-flopped, to me. The moral-absolutist party, it seems to me, is the one that allows individual choice. And the individual-choice party…

…well, I promised an exerpt from someone who’s supposed to represent that party. Let’s see what he has to say. Better yet, let’s see how he says it.

Vice presidents are notorious for serving as an administration’s chief attack dog, and time and again Dick Cheney has been unleashed to accuse anyone who is opposed to the Bush administration of aiding the terrorists. But this time he has gone too far.

The comments he made on the result of the Connecticut Democratic primary – that it might encourage “the al-Qaida types” who want to “break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task” – are an attack not just on Democrats, but on democracy itself.

What happened in Connecticut is in fact a model for democracies everywhere. The people of the state heard a vigorous debate between two competing visions of how to protect this country. Young citizens became deeply involved, and turnout was high. The primary reminded us of the miracle of our democracy, in which the nation is ruled by its people – not by any entrenched set of leaders. There are few better messages we could send the world in these troubled times.

Cheney’s comments about the election were ugly and frightening. They show once again that he and his party will stop at nothing to wrap Republicans in the flag and to insinuate that anyone who votes against them is giving aid and comfort to the terrorists. It’s obvious that this administration lacks basic respect for our fundamental freedoms.

Cheney and his crowd are all for free and open elections – as long as they turn out their way. They are all for free speech – provided it supports the administration. They are all for the rule of law – as long as the law does not prevent them from doing whatever they want to do. When elections, speeches or laws are inconvenient, he does not hesitate to declare that they are helping the terrorists. I can think of no graver offense against our democracy.

Ned Lamont’s victory in Connecticut scares Cheney for one simple reason: It demonstrates that a free and independent people can and do hold public officials accountable for their words and deeds.

If the terrorists are indeed paying any attention to the Connecticut primary results, they must be worried.

The people of Connecticut spoke out loud and clear in favor of change. Ned Lamont will stand strong for the people of Connecticut, and put tough and smart foreign policies ahead of the politics of fear and more “stay the course” failures. Republicans will stop at nothing to make sure that the November elections are not a referendum on their misguided policy in Iraq or on the way they have run our country for the past six years. Unfortunately, this time the facts are getting in their way.

The American people are ready to change an administration that let Osama bin Laden escape. They are ready to change a Congress that let precious years go by without demanding the implementation of the recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission to keep us safe.

They are ready to change a policy on Iraq that has drained our resources, weakened our security, stretched our troops and recruited new terrorists.

The November election will teach Dick Cheney and others of his ilk that they cannot use fear to cling to power. As Will Rogers said, “It’s no disgrace not to be able to run a country nowadays, but it is a disgrace to keep on trying when you know you can’t.”

How many “I think” type statements did you see up there? I saw one, which I put in italics as well as bold. Everything else, from the pen of this “little party” guy, the “individual choice party” guy, the “you are free to think whatever you want and say whatever you feel party” guy…is just things the way they are.

The notion that our current policies are recruiting new terrorists, I notice, is advanced often; supported rarely; never in doubt. This would have been a great occasion upon which to support it. But propaganda from those who salivate for more power, of course, never needs intellectual support. It needs lungs, powerful and numerous — nothing more.

Personally, I find it rather ominous. I may have the opinion that Dick Cheney is not “ilk”; or that our policies are not recruiting new terrorists; or that the terrorists aren’t all that worried about Ned Lamont being nominated — perhaps that the terrorists would have been a bit more jittery had Lieberman prevailed. Sen. Kennedy has made it clear that these are not his opinions. And that’s okay by me. But he’s also made it clear that in his mind, there is something blessed and sacrosanct about his opinion. Something that goes beyond his being a senator, and my not being one. After all, Vice President Cheney is a pretty important guy; he said “if you will…the al Qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task.” He placed this in the context of his personal, private opinion. He did not excoriate anyone who may have a different opinion, not even by implication. He was asked what he thought, and he thought the foregoing was “partly disturbing.”

Sen. Kennedy says “this time, he [Vice President Cheney] has gone too far.”

HOW, Sen. Kennedy? Do you really mean to say Republicans go too far, when they fail to support any one year’s developing platform of the Democrat party? Do you really mean to say the adjective “disturbing” sinks below some kind of minimal threshold of decorum, beneath which everything is to be regarded as unacceptably inflammatory?

What about the noun, “ilk”? How would that stack up against the threshold?

Since your party is supposed to stand up for the freedom of people to say what they will, think what they will — be atheists, burn flags, et al — what is to happen to me if I have opinions different from yours? It’s obvious, to me, you think there should be consequences. You said so yourself, the Vice President went “too far.” Okay, so a Republican, whose job it is to emerge victorious against Democrats, thereby, do what he can to make Democrats lose — goes to far in defining what is disturbing about the opposing party’s platform. That seems to me to be pretty reckless, but okay.

I’m not a politician. I do not have the job of defeating Democrats. My job is to support my kid by sitting in a cubicle doing technology-type stuff, please my woman in bed, and write a bunch of stuff for The Blog That Nobody Reads. So what is to be said about my opinions?

I think the terrorists are tickled-pink that Ned Lamont has been nominated. If they aren’t partying hard now, they’ll certainly be high-fiving if he actually wins the seat. And they’ll be crying tears of pure happiness if a Democratic Congress is seated in January.

Those are my opinions.

Clearly, it seems to me, you don’t think I should have them. And it just seems to logically follow, you don’t think I should be allowed to give them voice, because if I’m to do that, other people may have those opinions too.

So what is to become of me? It is hard for me to believe that you want the Vice President to be held “accountable” for his cognitions and his statements, but wouldn’t want me to be held accountable for mine.

I don’t think I need to say any more. Vice President Cheney’s statements — which I doubt you wanted me, or anyone else reading your editorial, to see for ourselves — are so overwhelmingly pockmarked with qualifiers that his opinion is his own. Your own comments are overwhelmingly pockmarked with qualifiers that go in the opposite direction — your viewpoint is the viewpoint. There can be none other.

So, I guess my rhetorical question is, since you’re all about telling people what to think and Cheney is all about telling people what he thinks, for which party would Braveheart vote?

It doesn’t seem to me he’d punch the ballot for yours.

Nor would Mary Jo.

Blogs, What’re They Good For?

Um…exposing bullshit like this. Can we really count on the alphabet-soup networks to give this kind of thing the prominence it deserves? Not just to simply mention it in passing before moving on to the next weather/traffic report, but to actually give it some visibility, and take a minute or two to ponder what it all might mean?

Somehow, I can’t quite envision folks in the Rather/Couric/Cronkite clique actually giving this stuff some actual “wings.” Meanwhile, how many topics do we have to discuss that are any more important? Really?

Money sent to Pakistan for quake rehabilitation was used to fund the Heathrow bomb attack plot that was foiled by British authorities, says an investigation by a leading Pakistani daily.

According to the Daily Times, the Muslim Charity of UK remitted a huge amount of money to three individuals in three different bank accounts in Mirpur, Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) in December 2005 as earthquake relief.

But the money in the three accounts in Saudi Pak Bank, Standard Chartered and Habib Bank Ltd was solely for the purpose of financing the foiled bomb plot, the paper said.

Thanks for this one, Karol.

Sidebar Update V

I have not updated the blogroll in the sidebar in over a month, and the meantime I’ve come to learn of some great resources that have to get in there. I’ll keep the comments about each item to myself, since at the moment I’m not quite up to doing justice to each one; all I’ve managed to do, is achieve some semblance of assurance that the list is complete. It includes some noted bloggers who have agreed, with me, to a link exchange, and since I’m so slow in completing the last step it might be said that I’m not coming through on my end. Can’t have that.

So let’s run through it & get folks where they belong…

Althouse

Andrew Olmstead

Blog Curry

Dummocrats

Emerald Bile

Libertas Immortalis

One Cosmos

Target of Opportunity

Toys in the Attic

Check ’em out. They’re good, or they wouldn’t be here.

Rustic

I wish when people thought of submitting thoughtful criticism, they had some kind of foreshadowing of what I’m going to ignore versus what might possibly capture my attention. I’ll make it real simple: I have a lot of trouble relating to others, bordering on functional schizophrenia, and if I write something that’s hard to read, that’s something I’d like to know. You’ve got better-than-even odds that I’m completely freakin’ clueless as to the difficulty “real” people have in muddling through this hulking monstrosity of a sentence/paragraph/passage I just wrote; in fact, it’s not too remote a possibility that I’m obliviously proud of how crystal-clear I was.

Now, once I’ve surmounted that daunting hurdle of thinking I’m easy-to-understand, and actually being easy-to-understand — not a simple task — comments about my style, are like…well, let me put it this way. I was recently lectured by an ex that I need to “get over it” and get married. That is, to the new squeeze, not her. And I’m like, what??? Do you have ANY idea how stunningly worthless this little opinion happens to be. Okay, duly noted…and filed.

What can I say. Some advice is precious. It doesn’t necessarily follow that all advice is.

Anyway, I digress. The point is, some people want everything on the “innernets” to be a certain way. Some guy writes in a blog that nobody reads anyway…he fails to conform to some notion of “style”…and a missive must be sent out to him, so that he may conform. The Internet must be brought in line one blog at a time, I guess.

For those folks, a little dose of perspective to shake things up. Found out about it via The Whore, who is always worth a glimpse whatever she’s wearing. Emerald Bile .

I found the post from March 25 highly entertaining.

if I hear anyone saying “Is it just me, or…..” or “Am I the only one who…” then I move away from them as fast as I can.
And, by the way, the answer to those questions is “No” and “No”, because invariably, the things that these cunts believe themselves to be the only ones saying, doing or thinking, are incredibly mundane things that half the population say,do or think as well. And even if these “AM I the only one” types happen to be boasting about slightly rarer traits than usual, like : “Am I the only one who collects feathers” or: “Am I the only one who enjoys being bitten by dogs”, you can bet that there still are other people who do those very things as well, because the world is enormous.

Right on. One of my pet peeves, too.

Is it just me, or am I the only one who thinks that makes you sound like a pretentious, spoiled-brat high-school sophomore valley girl?

Studies Prove

Is it possible to be a more cool person than Thomas Sowell? What would it be like to be him? Man, that would rock so hard.

REQUIRED READING. Those two words, of course, are practically synonymous with Dr. Sowell’s name. But this trilogy is, like, really really super-required.

Why are you still here? Click. Read.

Studies Prove, Part I
Studies Prove, Part II
Studies Prove, Part III

Minimum Wage Vision

Walter Williams makes some good points, which should be obvious to everyone, about how the minimum wage actually works. In doing so, he adheres closely to my own perception of what such a law can do and what it can’t. This just proves what an intelligent guy Professor Williams is; he agrees with me.

Minimum wage laws do not raise wages. In order to do that, it would have to be within the authority of Congress, and the state legislatures, to find extra money. Such laws don’t even pretend to do that. What they do, is outlaw jobs. That’s it. Just those two words. Outlaw…jobs. You have a job, and the job doesn’t fall within the stipulated parameters, your employer is breaking the law until he comes into compliance by changing the attributes of the job, or getting rid of it.

Either one of those solutions will fulfill the requirements of the law. One costs money, the other doesn’t. But my point is, the law does what the lawmaking body has the authority to do. Making your job illegal, falls within that…getting you some extra money, does not.

The Great Divide

Hmmm. Not sure if I can capture everything this might mean. I can certainly capture part of what it means, but that part speaks for itself.

Via Two Babes and a Brain, I learn of these things on Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air blog. They are the results of a Pew Research poll conducted amongst Christians and Muslims in various countries. Yeesh.

Time Management

Thing I Know #126. Life is not fair. I have found that with hard work and the vigorous exercise of poor judgment I can make my life a whole lot less fair.

It’s five o’clock on a Friday afternoon, and I’m feelin’ blue.

I’ve just made the acquaintance of a fellow blogger, whose creative energies have earned my respect, no easy feat that. And he thinks I’m pissed at him. I’m not. The source of the confusion, appears to be my unclear method of writing…a little bit of long-winded rambling, a little bit of dry humor. You see, he is the subject of Installment #14 of “Imitation Is The Sincerest Form.” This is a leitmotif I write up, whenever (1) I say something, (2) someone else says more-or-less the same thing, and (3) that someone-else said the-same-thing at least a day or two later than I said whatever it was I said. When that happens, it becomes part of this recurring theme.

And I get cute. I pretend the other person perused my blog, saw what I said, and made a conscious decision to rip it off. Hence the aforementioned “dry” sense of humor. C’mon, admit it…it’s silly, to the point you have to let off a chuckle, to suppose Ann Coulter herself comes by, takes a glimmer of this very blog your reading now, and decides — heh — this is kinda cool, I think I’m going to steal it.

I mean, obviously, that’s humor. This is The Blog That Nobody Reads. Ann Coulter plagiarizes from it…or Thomas Sowell does likewise…that’s pretty silly. Well, it gets a chuckle out of me, if from nobody else.

So I wrote to this guy…

I’m not posting your pictures yet, but I like them and I said so.

Great idea. I did it first. You did it better. I said that too. Let’s just say great minds think alike.

http://mkfreeberg.blogspot.com/2006/08/imitation-is-sincerest-form-xiv.html

Now, click open the post in question. “Imitation Is The Sincerest Form XIV,” click it open. Read it from top to bottom. Nothing in there negative, right? There’s some subtle insinuation that I’m being ripped off…but if you read it, it’s clear, that as a practical matter I don’t think anything’s been stolen.

So…imagine my surprise when I get this back…

I’m sorry you’re so bitter about the situation.

Just so you know, I had never seen your blog before today. I got the idea after finding a site that had pages and pages of D&D/RPG-oriented “Motivational” posters. You and I aren’t the only rip-off artists. 🙂

-Echo

…and I’m like WAITAMINNIT. Bitter? From whence do you get that?

And then I look around the site some more, and I what’s going on. HE is a FEMALE. And I can’t help but think, see, that explains it somewhat. Oh, what an ugly thought. But I can’t help it. I don’t mean to say guy a would have handled it any better; the site just got linked from FARK, after all, and I’m sure she’s swimming in e-mails. But here’s the thing: It’s no secret, men work different. A man has time to answer e-mail…or else, he doesn’t. Yea or nay, nothing in between. The ladies, there seems to be something going on there. It’s like they labor beneath some standard, something that does not similarly burden the gentlemen.

Look at it this way. I’m a dude, I dress in the dark, I put a dark-blue sock on one foot and a black sock on the other. Or maybe they’re both the same color, but to anyone paying attention they’re obviously different styles. Room for improvement? Sure, but what is the eventual result. Nothing, not a damn thing. Can our ladies do that? Heh…don’t even think about it.

And so, you see, we live in different worlds. So I mean no slight against the fairer sex when I say, upon discovering the person was female, certain things are explained. There is a certain social pressure, a certain sense of discipline, from which I have spent a lifetime being sheltered thanks to the nature of my “hook-ups.” This puts certain taboos in place.

Now, if you’re going to allocate just ten seconds to skim over what I sent her, no more than that, and force yourself to write a reply — I guess maybe it would look like I was upset about something. It’s conceptually possible. Even then, you would have to read very selectively. This is part of the trouble with communication over the “innernets.”

Well anyway, I wrote a reply toot-sweet, trying to set things straight. I’m a FAN. She’s earned a place in my sidebar, whether there’s another reply forthcoming or not; nothing gets a gut-chuckle out of me, quite as reliably as old-Star-Trek humor especially when it involves the nameless guy in a red shirt who gets killed by a monster on the alien planet.

But I like dry humor, too. And it bugs me when someone whose creative energies I admire, thinks I’m upset with what they did, when I’m anything but.

And on that note…

Francesca Cisneros apparently stands to gain just as much from a Time Management course as any other woman living, if not moreso — said course to be taught by a MAN. Oh I know how horrible that sounds, but c’mon. I’ve got a good pair of eyes, and a working brain; I can see stuff and think about what I’ve been seeing. What is it with chicks and time management? Seems like ever since Eve fooled Adam into taking a bite out of that apple — and we all know how well THAT turned out — every biped mammal with indoor-plumbing, trying to get something done in a finite amount of time, seems to be engaged in an exercise not unlike cramming twenty pounds o’potatoes in a ten pound bag. What is up with that???

It’s not like women lack organizational skills. It’s clear, to me, that they are light years beyond men in this department…but everywhere I look, they seem to be falling behind. And it seems to constantly lead to stuff, like the Star Trek lady above, not having the time to see a genuine compliment for what it is — and it also leads to stuff like this.

Francesca Cisneros, 32, admitted she speeds in her 2002 Honda Civic because she�s always late to meetings, police said. She told police she threw the tickets away because she thought nothing would happen to her.

The woman was caught speeding 64 times on Loop 101 and five times on surface streets between March 2 and July 31, police said. Her highest alleged speed was 86 mph. She also is accused of a redlight camera violation in March.

Police have arrested several people accused of speeding excessively on Loop 101 based on evidence from Scottsdale�s photo enforcement program, which began Jan. 22. One man was charged with driving at 147 mph.

Cisneros was arrested Tuesday at a Scottsdale police station, where she had gone to speak to a detective, Sgt. Mark Clark wrote in an e-mail.

City Prosecutor Caron Close said Cisneros faces pos- sible jail time because five of her citations were for alleged criminal speeding “20 mph or faster over the posted speed limit” and she also was driving twice on a suspended license.

If found guilty on all 64 civil speed violations alone, she would be responsible for $10,048 in fines at $157 a ticket.

No, I’m not attempting to slight the fairer sex — what I’m doing, is identifying an enigma, involving things the fairer sex does WELL. Fellas, you know what I’m talking about. Ever watch a woman clean up a kitchen? They get more done in ten minutes than we can in ten months. And yet…they always seem to have a time deficit. I mentioned, above, certain taboos that apply only to them, and these seem to cause the time deficits. The inability to say “that’s not gonna fit” and to drop things. You would think, then, that we’d be sitting around watching them do all the important stuff, like little boys watching their mommas bake the cookies and sort the laundry. You would think.

But who invents everything? WE DO.

What do the chicks have? Windshield wipers. Elevators. That’s about it. Everything else, men did; and we had time leftover for a beer or two. No fights started over the “innernets”; well, not because we failed to read something all the way through, for lack of available time, anyway.

It seems men have an exclusive ability to filter things out. To say, “AW, FUCK IT.” To prioritize. To say, I can clean my bedroom, or I can achieve the next major innovation in nuclear fission…so the room stays filthy. To turn a blind eye to the empty beer bottles all over the floor, while just beyond them, the world’s first stationary alternating-current generator roars to life. It seems the chicks aren’t capable of doing that. To the fairer sex, everything is as well-organized as an alphabetized spice rack…or else, nothing is. No, scratch that. There IS no “or else.” Things just have to be that way. Perhaps this is the source of the time management problem.

And so they have to cut corners. They grab their free right turn at the crosswalk, nearly steamrolling over me on my 24-speed bicycle in the middle of their blindspot…because they’re late to some goddamned meeting. Always a day late and a dollar short. Always running around, chock full of adrenaline, with a cute little day timer bursting at the seams with purple Post-It notes.

Owing ten thousand dollars in speeding tickets. Sixty-nine of ’em! Holy crap.

Not that I mean any of this as a snark tossed in the direction of “Echo.” Had I known she would be so rushed reading through what I wrote about her, I would have worded it more clearly. Should I fail to make my peace with her, I will bookmark her site and continue to watch it with interest. Like I said, her brand of humor is right up my alley.

Captain Kirk deserves to be lampooned much more than he already has been, after all. And in his case, that’s really saying something.

Update: You know, in fairness I can’t leave this post up without recounting something that complicates the theory significantly. But it’s an observation, it’s a fair one, and it provides equal-time. Can’t make the ladies mad, ya know.

I drive a little tiny rice-rocket. It’s seventeen years old. It’s an efficient, zippy little Toyota sedan, and I drive it as if it weighs EIGHT TONS, which it doesn’t. It’s just my way; I like brake pads and I like gasoline. I like keeping ’em around.

I got SO close to being rear-ended. By a MAN. An asshole. I say, there’s something about women nowadays, they’re always go-go-go and this leads to problems. Well, a woman would not have done what this jackass did. Fucker almost rear-ended me. Came just really, hold-fingers-not-far-apart, this close.

I was turning left, he was behind me. I chose not to go through a yellow light. Seemed like a sensible idea; the guy ahead of me barely made it through, after all. So I’m looking in my rear view mirror after I stop, and this guy is just b-a-r-e-l-y catching on to the fact that I’m not going to go, a look of real terror flashes on his face and he stands on the brake. He’s also b-a-r-e-l-y doing something else: Looking at me. He had to swivel his head forward, from off to the right, to absorb what’s going on in front of him. Like as an afterthought.

And after he screeches to a stop, he’s pissed. I can see being pissed at the light, which is known to me as a dumbass light. But no, he’s pissed at me. Well you know what? I’m not in the mood either, asshole. If I wasn’t going to make it, you certainly weren’t going to make it. YOU NEED TO WAIT. Take your turn.

But much more importantly, if you can only pay attention to the action outside of your windshield here-and-there, now-and-then…isn’t your entrance into a controlled intersection behind a long procession of cars, just a great time to catch up on what’s going on? The crossword puzzle can wait for that, one would think.

That’s a man thing. It seems the ladies are driving around with blinders on when they make right turns…the fellas are freakin’ oblivious when they make left ones. Both are too busy to pay attention, especially when the weather is warmer. But they let their guard down at different times. Kind of interesting.

There ya go, gals. Equal-opportunity. More than equal, actually, since speeding-girl is racking up tickets and driving on a suspended license, but Rocketman back there is provoking me into looking him in the eye and swearing and gesturing, something I never do; and just before that, nearly making me piss my pants.

I hate traffic on Friday afternoons in the summer. Sometimes it seems like just a dull pain, other times it’s more like suicide.

CAIR’s Feelings Are Hurt

CAIR is upset at President Bush. CAIR got it’s widdle feewings hurt. President Bush used the term “Islamic Fascists” in a speech, and they want him to take it back.

Unusual for this to be the case, but it would appear — not that I have a lot of talent in discerning this — an informal vote would produce a vast majority that agrees with me. We don’t care; or, we care a lot, and are very passionately happy President Bush used the term. Hope he keeps on doing it.

We, here at The Blog Nobody Reads, will even go a step further. CAIR is proving President Bush’s point. That’s because fascism is supposed to mean “a political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchical government” and on this page, we regard things like authority, and all of its attached tentacles — liberty, freedom, responsibility, power — to blossom forward into the realm of the physical, after they have originated in the realm of thought. In other words, it’s really hard to grant people the freedom to behave as they will, without also granting them the freedom to think how they will. Similarly, you can’t centralize the authority to tell them what to do & what not to do, without deciding for people what to think & what not to think. Freedom of action, and freedom of thought, are inextricably intertwined.

And here comes CAIR, to tell people what not to think.

This is about the First Three Pillars of Persuasion. I don’t really need to define what those are and I don’t need to lecture people about following them. They are The Fact, The Opinion, and The Thing To Do…everybody knows them and everybody uses them. When something you care about is at risk, people go ahead and follow them. A nest of wasps may be under the jungle gym your kids play on, or not…a black widow may have made a nest under the beds, or not…your wife may have felt a lump in her left breast, or not…your heart may have skipped a beat, or not…people do what only free men can do. They exercise the first liberty that fascists rescind. They infer, forming the Second Pillar from the First Pillar; and they plan, forming the Third from the Second.

This blog is named after a guy who traversed those first three pillars. He peeked into a water well or two, and figured out the size of the earth. It’s what President Bush just did. It is what you need to do, to protect yourself and those you love.

And everybody has an instinct, and a drive, to do it. Even fascists. Fascists, though, deny the right and the privilege to others, just because they can.

Thank you for proving the President’s point, CAIR. Next time a liberal uses PVR, persuasion-via-ridicule, to make fun of President Bush for believing “they hate us for our freedom,” I’ll remember this. Because “they” actually do hate us for that. We aren’t supposed to think the way free people think. We’re supposed to stand by and take orders about whom to love, whom to hate, what to believe, when not to profile.

Well, the trouble is, we don’t get to live another day because we thought like that; we’re not all big and rich and easy-to-hate, because we thought like that; God didn’t build us to think like that. As humans, we have big-ass brains, and we have them for a reason. And anybody using their God-given brain, is going to see there are Islamic Fascists out there who are trying to kill us. And anybody who takes such a thing seriously, is going to act on it. Those who don’t take it seriously, hey, I hear there’s a great American Idol re-run on Election Day. Why don’t you stay home and watch it.

Thing I Know #129. Leaders; votes; clergy; academics; pundits; prevailing sentiment; political expediency. Wherever these decide what is & isn’t true, an empire will surely fall.

Imitation is the Sincerest Form XIV

Awhile ago I made up this poster and uploaded it to Motivational Buck.

I have since used it, so many times, for reasons that should be obvious, that I’ve forgotten what originally inspired it. Nor does it matter very much what that would have been.

Now, I don’t know if this clever person reads my blog. I would suspect hardly anybody does. But how, then, do you explain this gem which was posted this morning in FARK. Actually, many gems…three pages of gems.

Which are actually useful. In so many ways.

Just for the record, even if the clever fellow happened across my poster and made a conscious decisions to rip it off, shamelessly, which I highly doubt happened…I consider it to be an exercise not unlike stealing b-flat. The idea is not sufficiently complicated to make such a theft possible. Besides, some of these are pretty awesome. Built to be used. If you can figure out how to call such a thing “intellectual property” so that I can, in the classic vernacular, “safeguard” my “intellectual property” — and then actually use the great stuff the guy actually made, thereby, doing exactly the thing to him that he’s supposed to have done to me, except worse — why, then, you’d be a much better lawyer than I’ll ever be.

In sum, as seems to always be the case when I’m robbed in such a way, I’m not calling the police. I’m quite flattered. GREAT work.

Battlestar Nuance

The Hunny wanted to get ahold of the original Battlestar Galactica movie. We finally got it done, now all we have to do is find some time to watch it together.

I was sneaking a peak at the first few minutes of it and, as is my habit, I noticed something more philosophically deep than what was intended by the people who made the movie. But I dunno. Recall a week ago, I had torn into xXx: State of the Union, homing in on a scene at the mid-point of the film lasting a mere 39 seconds, and yet defining everything in the story taking place at the political level. In sum: The good guy, the current President played by Peter Strauss, wanted to “turn enemies into allies” and take a pacifist approach…about something. Something that was never mentioned, in fact, just, something. And of course the bad guy wanted to make war just for the hell of it. Gave him an erection, or maybe he was in bed with the defense contractors. Maybe both. That went undefined too…which is fine, I guess, it’s a kids’ movie.

I was noticing if you flipped the scene over like a pancake, and set things up in complete opposites, you would have a perfect encapsulation of real life. Blogger friend Buck Pennington also noticed this. The President, who is the good guy, is about making war as needed so that evil men can be made into the dead things they should be; the “bad guy,” which is the personification of incorrect policy decisions, wants to appease in situations where it is not appropriate. And the bad guy tries to usurp the authority of the good guy. That’s exactly the situation we’re in now.

Well, recall that when the original Battlestar Galactica movie came out, the President was a “bad guy” who liked to appease. Didn’t work out so hot. Folks who think he had the right idea, call him “America’s best ex-President” — not flattering, to say the least.

You do know, don’t you, that Lorne Greene’s character used to have two sons? He named them Apollo, and Zack. Side point: It has been extremely rare for old men in science fiction movies, of any kind, to need women to procreate. “Welcome to my planet, Captain Kirk, this is my extremely lovely daughter who has never seen a man before and doesn’t know how to kiss. Yet. She has no mother, of course, and we all speak perfect English.”

Anyway, I digress. So Lorne Greene, all by himself, produced a son with the name of a greek deity and then another son with the name of a hillbilly.

Well, the scene where the second son is killed by Cylon warriors, about twenty minutes into the movie, is the opposite of the scene in xXx: State of the Union. See, Lorne Greene didn’t have just a second son, he also used to have a boss, “The President.” The President ordered Lorne Greene to take the pacifist approach, and not to launch any enforcement fighters to save the other guys who were already on patrol — not to do anything that could have been interpreted as a sign of belligerance. The “don’t wanna make ’em mad” approach.

It seems when we already have the “don’t wanna make ’em mad” approach in the Oval Office, it’s okay to make a movie showing what could be the downside of such a thing. Of course, you can’t make a movie like that today. We have a Texan in the White House, one who actually has some balls, and calls evil men evil men. And so when you make an entertainment-movie addressing the pacifist-versus-concealed-carry conundrum, you’re supposed to make concealed-carry look like the wrong idea, and glorify the pacifist approach. Since, in real life, that’s what we don’t have running things.

I just think it’s interesting. Whether approaching a conference table with a sidearm is a sensible idea, or not, is a philosophical question rooted in the fundamental nature of how people operate. I think both sides would agree, this is a cognition that does not change with the passage of time. And yet, in popular culture, it does.

Well, my own opinion is that Hollywood had the right idea, back when we had the wrong President in real life. The capacity of the “don’t wanna make ’em mad” approach to prevail — actually, to simply not get you killed — depends on the dubious prospect of hitherto-sworn enemies telling the truth all the time. Obviously, the first time an antagonist chooses to lie to you about his intentions, the “I’m unarmed, and they’ll follow my superior example” approach will be bad for you. It is bound to happen. This is just a matter of solid logic and simple common sense. The debate, therefore, ends up being about whether there are people in the world who are willing to lie about things.

And that is a question to be left to history. The way history resolves it, is not friendly to the pacifist approach.

Boortz and Rhodes on Larry King

Neal Boortz is bragging that he kicked Randi Rhodes’ ass on Larry King. I really wish I could watch the interview for myself, or at least part of it, so I can make up my own mind.

My “Googling” has proven futile…as has my You-Tube-ing. What I’m left with, isn’t much.

I see on the web pages, Neal is bragging about it, and Rhodes is silent about it. That’s a clue, although admittedly, far from sufficient. Boortz has chosen to share a sampling of his e-mail about the debate, both friendly and hostile. The friendly e-mail congratulates him on “she’s going to need an ambulance, stat” and “I could not find the slightest bit of reason in any argument she made.” The hate-mail, on the other hand, says things like “I think you should leave USA because you and people like you doing harm to this great country.”

When Bush debated Kerry three times, The Left liked to intone that Kerry won the debates. Now granted, the residual doubts about Sen. Kerry’s victory, are most persuasively expressed with the observation that there is a great sense of urgency, even today, in repeating over and over that the Senator won…if it was a true ass kicking in favor of the Massachusetts Senator, wouldn’t it be better to let people make up their own minds? Wouldn’t that, at least, be an option? But, it wasn’t an option, and it isn’t an option. A liberal is not allowed to talk about the debates between Bush and Kerry, without announcing that Kerry won — allowing people to decide for themselves, is unacceptable. So in the same situation, we have the question of whether Rhodes’ silence about the Larry King face-off is an exercise in allowing people to make up their own minds. Hmmm. You know, I gotta think if that was the case, she would at least be mentioning that it happened. To the best of my knowledge, she isn’t even doing that. She is known to me as a performer who likes to tell the audience what it’s supposed to be looking at.

The only other thing I have, is my experience in listening to them both. I’m out of Boortz’s area, but being a Boortz Blast subscriber I’ve caught clips of him maybe three or four times, compared to just one stint of listening to Rhodes. I was highly impressed with Rhodes’ ability to advance effusive, improbable ideas, and to follow them up with creative prose about the ideas — carefully avoiding any discussion about what might possibly convince me to accept them. Things ranging from…President Bush is a liar, to, The War In Iraq Is All About Oil.

I haven’t mentioned my one listening adventure with Rhodes, for the simple reason that it isn’t a fair sample. It’s worth mentioning now, however, because the findings from my one experience are perfectly compatible with Neal Boortz’s characterization of the debate I missed. Rhodes, from what little I know about her, seems to be Yang; she explains herself, and her words are selected for those already inclined to agree with her before she utters the first word explaining herself. Persuading a hostile mindset to cross over, or simply tossing out some facts to place the hostile mindset in a state of unease, is outside of her intended scope. From what I can see. To sum it up, what I heard on Air America, appeared to be a pep rally. I quickly gathered the impression I had about as much business being there, as in the ladies’ room. Her words weren’t for me.

Nor is her name. It’s a stage name, intended to honor some dead rock ‘n roll guy. I’m not a rock ‘n roll fan.

So I’m left with little doubt that Boortz won, since he’s been refining his schtick to address, with varying degrees of diplomacy, ideological compatriots as well as opponents whereas Rhodes is just a cheerleader. I have trouble seeing it as a fair match.

One other comment on something I learned this morning: Is it a left-wing talking point, now, that terrorism is to be treated as a “law enforcement problem”? I thought people on the right wanted to use that to define what was wrong with the liberal solution to terrorism, whereupon it was popular for The Left to protest — with righteous indignation, as usual — that their opponents were characterizing the leftist position unfairly, using a simple catch-phrase to address a complicated situation with lots of shades of gray. I thought it was loaded with meaning and interpretation, meant to support the conservative argument and to derogate the liberal one. I thought as far as loaded terms go, it was one notch shy of “appeasement.”

Is The Left actually proud of viewing terrorism as a law enforcement problem? That’s a new one on me. I had thought they had confined themselves to simply trying to get people to stop thinking about terrorism. Subtle distinction to make, but I can’t think of a more important one.

Admittedly I know very little about this woman, but it would seem if she speaks for the liberal movement right now, the 2006 elections have already been decided.

Update: Andrew Olmstead, two years ago, gave a great reason (assuming it’s really needed by anybody, something with which I still have some trouble) why the “law enforcement problem” paradigm isn’t such a swell idea. He did this by pointing to a Washington Post story. You know how some folks like to remind us over and over again that Europe is older than America, more experienced in the ways of the world, much wiser, and how we should learn things from them? Well, Europe has had experience treating terrorism as a law enforcement problem. And we can certainly learn from what’s happened.

Assuming that really is how the debate is being framed. I hope it is. The idea of Democrats losing fifty seats in the House, appeals to me a lot; a hundred-and-fifty, would be better. Hello, Republicans, wouldn’t you like to be campaigning on that this year?

Update 8/12/06: The link to Neal’s website (first one in this post) has been replaced with a permalink. Video here.

Ms. Rhodes says there is material on Media Matters that will prove Neal Boortz called Muslims “ragheads,” which in the context of the interview would mean Neal has to make a $5,000 contribution to Air America. Media Matters itself has this to say.

Although Media Matters for America has not documented Boortz using the specific term “raghead,” on the July 19 edition of his radio program, he called the prophet Muhammad “a phony rag-picker” and stated that Islam is “a religion of vicious, violent, bloodthirsty cretins.”

Obviously, this fails to financially indebt Mr. Boortz toward anything or anyone. But is that a moot point? Does this in fact cross some sort of finish line?

Well, that would depend on what exactly Rhodes was trying to prove. And if you check the transcript, that was left entirely unstated.

Well, she’s a left-winger, so just speaking for myself I think we should use the same logic on this that left-wingers have been using against weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It dooooooeeeeeessssssnnnnnn’t ccccoooooooouuuuuuuuunnnnnnnttttt… nyah nyah, neener neener neener.

I mean, that’s a fair process, right?

Metrosexuals R.I.P.

I’m not entirely sure what this article is trying to tell me. The point seems to be that if I were to be harboring any delusions about becoming a Johnny-come-lately to the Metrosexual skin-moisturizing chest-shaving eyebrow-crinkling puppy-faced Shiraz-over-Budweiser party, the time’s running out on my opportunity to do this because Metros aren’t in style anymore.

I think that’s what it’s trying to tell me. And that would be great news. But I don’t understand words like “grooming,” “sarong,” “moisturiser,” “preening,” “fake tan,” or “waxing.” Or “fashion.”

Nor do I know who David Beckham and Wayne Rooney are, nor do I care to find out. It has something to do with that poor imitation of football they play over in Mother England, right?

Sci-Fi Trailers

Via FARK. I mostly agree with the content of the lists…mostly disagree with the ordering. The Best and Worst Sci-Fi TV Show Openings. Top ten best, top ten worst, with YouTube links by each one. Fun.

Muerto

Nobody ever reads this blog, of course, but among those who do, it can be easily recalled that I’ve wished death on the Democratic party on a number of occasions. It is, I think, inevitable, but nevertheless I hold up hope on the remaining uncertainty regarding the timeframe. I hope it’s soon. I think the party is a cancer on America; the former lives on at the expense of the latter, and I think the continuing survival of the latter isn’t too terribly pleasing to the former.

For those who see something conceptually helpful in what they think the Democratic party is supposed to be, perhaps there’s a desire for the party to place that concept in a light of more elevated importance, although they may share my recognition that something is seriously broken in the party machinery. To the extent that those people are correct about what’s good — and I think there is one — I share their appreciation for those positive concepts. And I hope the party nevertheless sinks beneath the waves, releasing those beneficial attributes to surface again elsewhere. The rotting host that ostensibly supports those positive things, is just not worth the hassle. We need for it to pass on. And we need to bury the corpse quickly when it happens. Skip the funeral and maybe even the wake, for the body stinks already, even as it still draws breath.

Well, now. It seems likely that I’ll be getting my wish. Lieberman has lost. Not for good, for he has vowed to return as an independent, but as of tonight he is going to have to separate from the party that has been his, in order to make that happen.

So it is unofficially official. The Democratic party is the party of Kos.

All you Democrats who are running for re-election to the House or Senate, and stopped short of blaming President Bush for actually causing the September 11 attacks, you’ve got some explaining to do. Haven’t you heard, you’re part of the Screw Them party. Better get with the program, if you don’t want to end up like Joe Lieberman.

The rest of us would be well-advised to start looking around for new healthy competition against the Republicans, after the rotting donkey corpse is hauled off for good. It’s a serious issue, I think. This country wasn’t built to be run by one party; it wasn’t built to have parties at all. After we’ve all seen the light, and decided there’s nothing good about financially punishing rich people just for being rich, and outlawing all jobs that pay less than $7.50 an hour, and taxing thirty-something apartment rats to buy Viagra for rich old people with summer homes and swimming pools, and that the life of a murder victim was just as sacred as the life of the scumbag who actually did the murder…there’s a whole bunch of more serious, worthwhile questions to be settled. So who is to replace the Democrats as the party-of-loyal-dissent? And what should the new party-of-loyal-dissent stand for?

What Is Open-Mindedness, Anyway?

My fellow commentator at Newsblog Central, Darth Pepsi, came up with a piece of pure gold from syndicated columnist Debra J. Saunders.

Imagine, if you can, that slightly more than half of the public voted Democratic in the last presidential election, yet some 80 percent of higher education’s social scientists voted Republican. In that universe, you would expect the left to demand changes in university hiring practices so academia would nurture greater diversity so as to better represent the American community.

Then step back into the real world, where academia has become a solid bastion of the left, as demonstrated by two articles in the latest issue of the scholarly journal Current Review. One article presents a survey of academic social scientists showing 79.6 percent of 1,208 respondents said they voted mostly Democratic over the last 10 years, with 9.3 percent voting Republican. Call that a near monopoly marketplace of ideas.

A second article studied the voter registration of California college professors and found the ratio of registered Democrats to Republicans (among professors located in voting registers) is 5-1.
:
“I think, partly, it is self-selection,” said [Mr. Daniel B. Klein, George Mason University] over the phone Wednesday. He sees “something about intellectuals and hubris and conceit” in academia — with political scientists pumping themselves up as savvy saviors of a public sorely in need of their enlightened views. While liberal professors often think they are open-minded, Mr. Klein believes they also often think “we’re smarter” than those outside academia and have a right to “discriminate against people who get it wrong.”

How do we get to this point? The academia strives to be the place where ideas reign freely, and by the time the academic mind is done torturing itself it is the very symbol of a mind made up, and sealed shut tight.

Is it something in the building? The insulation between the walls, perhaps? Liberalism itself?

I think not. It’s the desire to be open-minded, for no higher purpose than to be simply that and nothing more. The endeavor is the antithesis of itself.

Think it through. You want to be open-minded, and so, pursuing some sort of discipline you come to conclusion X. Your ego is not invested in X, perhaps, but certainly you have invested substantial energy in the discipline that led you to X. Obviously, those who come to a different conclusion, !X, must not have followed the same discipline since if they did follow it, they would believe X just as you do. So they must follow a different discipline.

Is the other discipline as open-minded as yours, moreso, or less so? Your own discipline must be quite useless if someone else can follow an equally open-minded discipline, and come to the conclusion of !X, so your ego takes over here and rules out the first of those options. Just as quickly, and perhaps quicker, the second option is eliminated for the same reason; so by process of elimination, you come to evaluate other disciplines — disciplines you can’t even see — by the conclusions they reach. Ergo, all those who believe !X, must not be as open-minded as you are. Your ego says this is the case, and of course the ego demands, by its very nature, exemption from inspection.

You are open-minded, you believe X, and all those who believe !X are closed-minded. Again, you ego kicks in to support what logic cannot and will not: all those around you who likewise believe X, must be as open-minded as you. And so the last piece is in place. You can gauge the open-mindedness of all sentient and articulate beings, based on their professed beliefs on the question of X. It becomes a litmus test.

I’m sure to the uninitiated, that all looks pretty silly. Well, try this. Debate an academic-minded liberal, and they aren’t too hard to find, on global warming. If you happen to agree with the academic-type on the issue, then take the devil’s-advocate approach.

Or if that’s too tough, pursue the same exercise on intelligent design.

Or capital punishment.

Or stem cell research.

Or gun control.

Or weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Just don’t forget to show true open-mindedness. And keep your eyes peeled…how much open-mindedness is returned from the other side? How much consideration-of-both-sides do you get, before the “closed-minded” label is stuck on your forehead, simply because of the ideas you pretend to advance? Try it. You might learn something.

Anyway, that’s my explanation for how those who make the most noise about being “open-minded,” are the quickest and most competent at becoming anything but. As to why they end up liberal, in our academic circles and in the print media, I suppose that’s a story for another day.