Sonic Charmer notices something I’ve been noticing:

Sometimes you don’t have to know the right answer to be able to recognize a wrong answer. And sometimes just the method for getting an answer is enough to tell you that it’s wrong.

There are many subjects which I may not have time to fully investigate and become fully knowledgeable (if at all) on them, yet when seeing people who do write about them, I can nevertheless still tell that their arguments are full of crap.

Let’s take the argument that the government was not to blame for inflating the housing bubble. Here is an example (which I don’t mean to pick on as it’s far from the worst offender, but I came across it today):

the claims that Fannie and Freddie were the primary culprits behind the inflation of the housing bubble and the flood of fraudulent mortgages is nonsense. … the worse junk mortgages were not bought and securitised by Fannie and Freddie. These were packaged and sold by the investment banks, Goldman Sachs, Lehman, Citigroup and the rest. Fannie and Freddie got into junk mortgages late in the game, and even then, their primary motive was to regain lost market share.

This belongs to a species of argument, cherished also by the likes of Paul Krugman, that involves bringing statistical measures to bear so as to show that Fannie and Freddie didn’t buy ‘most of’, or a ‘majority of’, subprime loans, or didn’t issue subprime bonds, or whatever. The intent is to demonstrate that their ‘presence’ in the portion of the market deemed problematic (‘subprime’, or something) was small, and/or that other actors (investment banks, e.g.) bought the loans which were deemed problematic. The conclusion is that the government (Fannie/Freddie) can’t have been to blame.

It is clear that this argument is incorrect merely based on the methodology. The logic used is just plain incorrect, and in fact, economically ignorant. It cannot be correct.

This doesn’t mean I have a proof that the government was to blame. It just means that all the people I’ve ever seen saying it wasn’t, have crappy arguments that don’t hold water. They are using the wrong kind of argument, a kind that cannot possibly be correct.

“Cannot possibly be correct” is a little on the strong side, I’d say. This neglects the “stopped clock right twice a day” thing, which is key to the persuasive power of these wrong, flawed arguments. Every now and then, the wrong methodology is used to reach a thoroughly bolluxed conclusion, random in all respects save for the frenzied agenda that drives it. But then the ball happens to land on the right roulette slot and the scatterbrain looks like a wizened sage. Is this not exactly what happened with the “no WMDs in Iraq” situation? Twenty-twenty hindsight reigns supreme.

But the observation is a valid one, and perhaps we need a new word to describe it. Neal Boortz has been maintaining for a long time that the dreadful state of public school education in this country is not only directly responsible for the flawed, ramshackle arguments finding currency & natural vibe; but may in fact be complicit in this. This, too, I find to be mostly meritorious, although again I see some gaps: I know lots of people who paid good free-market money for their education (or whose parents did on their behalf) and think very highly of this particular piece of their learnin’s. But they wouldn’t know truth if it ran up and kicked ’em square in the nuts, because they dismiss decent arguments before they’ve fairly evaluated them. In fact, in many cases they seem to equate the quality of their education with the speed with which they dismiss arguments that might, in fact, actually mean something and be worth considering. In effect, they have paid good money out of their parents’ second-mortgages, for lifelong habits that will keep them ignorant.

It’s a bigger issue than formalized education, whether the education is provided in a public or private setting. This drives to the very heart of how, in Anno Domini Twenty Eleven, we here the the western hemisphere define things like “smart,” “erudite,” “reasoned,” “well-reasoned,” “logical,” “rational,” “truthful”…our tragic recent tendency is to equate all these things with a single, smooth, quick deft motion to shunt bits of information aside without absorbing them. Because, supposedly, those bits of information are contraband…because, supposedly, they have a toxic effect. It’s as if, by merely coming in contact with them, the thinker contaminates the rest of his knowledge-base.

Although deep down we all know: If there’s any verity at all in that worn-out college cliche, “I’m not here to tell you what to think I’m here to tell you how to think,” there should be nothing to worry about there. You should be able to pick up a piece of information, even if it is delusive, deceptive, sneaky, and reeks of propaganda; come into contact with it; evaluate it, rigorously, playing “what-if” games with it, accepting-for-sake-of-argument. None of this means you have to believe it with no reservations or attaching your name or reputation to it. If you have been educated in any way that means anything at all, anywhere, you should have been able to build up that “no-man’s-land” because you should have been able to foster an ability to detect bullshit & react accordingly. Without becoming an intellectual pussy, summarily rejecting things that might be bullshit.

Why is this important? Because when you treat knowledge as a potential contagion, you run into the problem discussed at the beginning of the post…you start spewing nonsense, using Krugman-arguments people can tell are flawed by their very methodology. You end up consuming precisely what you were trying to avoid consuming. Worse still, you end up regurgitating it.

It’s like our modern culture has started to value anti-spyware and anti-virus software packages in the neighborhood of hundreds of thousands of dollars per license, and then when you order up such a package you just get a postcard in the mail that says “don’t log on to the Internet.”

Boortz:

I’ve told you a few times how much I enjoy the letters-to-the editor section of The Naples Daily News. Here’s a gem from yesterday’s paper. Sit down before you read this:

Editor, Daily News:

Until I read Jack Tymann’s guest essay, I thought the $4.94 gasoline price had absorbed every available erg of popular anger.

Tymann’s defense of the oil companies should warrant an explosion of outrage.

Unfortunately, here in Naples we appear to have an acquiescent and oblivious public. In Florida and across the nation it is inevitable that there will be a public revolt. Nationalizing the oil industry abolishes the economic power of the oil companies. It will enable the government to provide for the common welfare. Presently the oil companies are exploiting the people and their profits seem like thievery.

The oil companies constitute a clear and present danger to democracy and must be put under state control. Nationalizing the oil companies means hiring managers at fair salaries, not the average

$10 million annually for each CEO. Take the profits and revenues from their private pockets and use them for the public good. Use their profits to pay teachers and provide for state budget health-care needs.

Make the oil companies non-polluting energy resources to deal with global warming. Now they are responsible for the destruction of the environment and the reason for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the militarism of this country.

Some will rage socialism or worse. But nationalization is in the tradition of democratic and capitalistic countries everywhere.

— H.H. Hermann

How in the hell do you grow to adulthood in this country and still be intellectually dense enough to write a letter like this to a newspaper? Oh … forgot. Government education.

Notice the line in the letter about profits that seem like thievery. Do you think the writer would have a clue as to what the profit margins of these oil companies would be?

First … let’s take ExxonMobile. First quarter 2011 profits for Exxon Mobile were $10.7 billion dollars. Maybe it’s just the sheer size of this profit figure that causes the Naples letter writer to talk about thievery. Remember, though, that ExxonMobile is a HUGE company operating in 100 or so countries. Do you think Mr. Herman could tell you how much ExxonMobile paid in taxes to the federal government? Not only no, but HELL no. So here’s a little education for you.

First Quarter 2011:

ExxonMobile earnings on operations in the United States. $2.6 billion.
ExxonMobile taxes paid to the U.S. Government. $3.1 billion.

Now just hold on a minute here, Mr. Hermann. Paying more in taxes to the U.S. government than you actually earn on your operations in this country is “thievery?”

See, there’s a hazard involved in deciding such issues emotionally…and then shooting your mouth off.

Get the word out.

Stuart Schneiderman, “Had Enough Therapy?”:

It’s too soon to say for sure, but it looks like the lost generation has not abandoned all hope, yet.

It has, however, abandoned Barack Obama. At least, it retains some primal optimism.

Yesterday I was posting about the horrifically high levels of joblessness and underemployment among recent college graduates.

Today, a new poll revealed that 83% of this group voted for Obama in 2008. Social justice, anyone? If there was ever a testimony to the effectiveness of academic brainwashing, this is it.

Yes, the eighteen-year-olds get the vote, and Barack Obama gets control of the government’s Executive Branch. Both are examples of too large a moving vessel being commanded by a weak, sluggish pilot possessing experience inadequate to the task at hand.

Schneiderman links to the survey results, which say:

A very large proportion of recent university graduates have soured on President Barack Obama, and many will vote GOP or stay at home in the 2012 election, according to two new surveys of younger voters.

“These rock-solid Obama constituents are free-agents,” said Kellyanne Conway, president of The Polling Company, based in Washington, D.C. She recently completed a large survey of college grads, and “they’re shopping around, considering their options, [and] a fair number will stay at home and sit it out,” she said.

The scope of this disengagement from Obama is suggested by an informal survey of 500 post-grads by Joe Maddalone, founder of Maddalone Global Strategies. Of his sample, 93 percent are aged between 22 and 28, 67 percent are male and 83 percent voted for Obama in 2008. But only 27 percent are committed to voting for Obama again, and 80 percent said they would consider voting for a Republican, said New York-based Maddalone.

But then he provides a reality check, and I happen to agree with this:

…[T]his is not unalloyed good news for Republicans. The GOP should not take these voters for granted. Many of them may easily stay home on election day.

Wise old sensible souls will tell you that Republicans should now go out and connect with these voters by addressing the issues that matter to them.

They fail to tell you that Republican candidates must take the fight to Obama, directly and vigorously. If Obama and the Democrats are in full campaign mode, the Republicans cannot fall back into conciliatory and compliant.

What’s it all add up to?

Capitalism. The message needs to be: You will never hear us say “When you spread the wealth around it’s good for everybody.” Because we want you to find work. We want you working for a boss who finds the decision to employ you, to be a profitable one, one he’d make all over again. And we want you to save massive amounts of dough, we want you paying a buck forty a gallon or less for gas, we want you laughing all the way to the bank.

And if you can be the boss five years after graduation instead of ten, nobody will be more tickled-pink than us. We won’t demand an eighty percent marginal income tax rate on your flabby fat rich ass. Because we’ll want it to make good business sense for you to add on hundreds or thousands of the next generation of college grads to your payroll, at which time America’s flirtation with watered-down socialism will be nothing more than a distant memory. That’s our vision.

Yes, we want to get rid of all the poor people…by making them not poor anymore.

Republican campaign ad writers? Drop me a line. I’ve got more ideas about what you should and should not do. Make the time, you’ll be glad you did and so will the country.

Hat tip for the awesome link to blogger friend Gerard.

Wisdom from my Hello Kitty of Bloggin’ account…

See, there are two reasons why people might care that you were here once: You got up off your ass and did something, or you were here when it all come to a screeching halt.

Getting up off your ass is hard.

Therefore, we have this perpetual fantasy, going on and on since 1000 AD give or take, that the world is ending. It’s just people who wish to be significant, people who want to matter, but don’t want to be bothered with getting up off their asses.

Now, since I wrote that — to be precise, somewhere around a quarter to eleven this morning — I was on cell phone to the house phone, talking to my girlfriend, and she reported back that the Mormons know where we live now and she had to put me on hold while she fought them off so she could go take her shower. And that was my first reminder today that The Rapture is supposed to happen today…also…there are people who believe in it, who get up off their asses. To go door to door & try to save some souls. So it wouldn’t be fair to say these people can’t get up off their asses when here they are getting up off their asses.

But I would argue the observation still holds. These people are literally making a religion out of “I was here when it all went down!” That means they have a need to be thinking this; and that cannot be healthy or good, no matter how you slice it.

Now, are there people who work hard to actually produce things, who believe in The Rapture? Maybe. But I’m now at the point where I don’t believe in them until I see them.

Part of what has brought me here is the Anthropogenic Global Warming crusade, which I think of as merely an extension of this gut-instinct of “My life’s not complete unless I know I’ll be here to sing Amen.” I look at them and I see non-producers…non-producers who know they are non-producers, and are bothered by the fact that they aren’t producing anything but don’t want to admit it. So yes, here comes the relentless drum-beat with all the staples of the argument meticulously constructed: We’re in the end times, it’s all our fault, we must mend our ways, join our movement and you’ll do your part to save humanity, or at least achieve redemption.

It’s those last two that really cheese me off though. Between saving yourself, and doing your bit to save all of humanity, there is an important distinction. And all these zealots seem, to me, to discard that distinction rather casually.

Fek•toid (n.)

A factual statement presented during a discussion that involves disagreement; its veracity would survive a diligent and skeptical inspection, but its relevance would not.

“Saddam Hussein did not attack us.” “Jimmy Carter is America’s greatest ex-President.” “Palin quit.” “Dick Cheney ran Halliburton.” “Carbon dioxide’s effectiveness as a greenhouse gas is proven in a number of experiments.”

The fektoid is meaningfully distinguished from the factoid:

A factoid is a questionable or spurious—unverified, incorrect, or fabricated—statement presented as a fact, but with no veracity. The word can also be used to describe a particularly insignificant or novel fact, in the absence of much relevant context. The word is defined by the Compact Oxford English Dictionary as “an item of unreliable information that is repeated so often that it becomes accepted as fact”.

Factoid was coined by Norman Mailer in his 1973 biography of Marilyn Monroe. Mailer described a factoid as “facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper”, and created the word by combining the word fact and the ending -oid to mean “similar but not the same”. The Washington Times described Mailer’s new word as referring to “something that looks like a fact, could be a fact, but in fact is not a fact”.

In contrast with the factoid, the fektoid is not only true, but easily proven so. It succeeds indisputably as it stands on its own; but as the foundation for an argument to be constructed on top of it, it fails glamorously.

The weaker minds may accept the argument, which they would in turn reject in the absence of the accompanying fektoid. But nobody is willing to string together in sequence the magic words that would be built around “[fektoid]…therefore…we know [what is posited] to be valid or true.”

Nevertheless, if they have failed to attain the necessary skills and talents involved in thinking like a grown-up, or have invested an abundance of emotion or passion in the discourse so that they cannot use these skills, they may behave subsequently as if that is the case. Its use may be thought of, with apologies to George Lucas, as a Jedi trick that only works on the weak-minded.

Byron York, National Examiner:

President Obama told a crowd at a Democratic fundraiser in Boston Wednesday night that he was able to pass a national health care bill “with a little assist from the former governor of Massachusetts.” The reference to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and to the health system Romney enacted in Massachusetts, drew laughter from the crowd of about 900 at the Boston Center for the Arts.

“With a little assist from the former governor of Massachusetts, we said that health care should no longer be a privilege in this country,” Obama said. “It should be affordable and available for every American.”

A short time later, at a smaller fundraiser in a private home in Brookline, Obama said, “Our work isn’t done. Yes, we passed health care, with an assist from a former Massachusetts governor.” The crowd, which had paid $35,800 per couple to attend, broke into laughter and applause. “Great idea,” Obama added. “But we still have to implement it.”

Obama’s quick jabs at Romney are a brief preview of what will come in the general election campaign if Romney wins the Republican presidential nomination. Under pressure from some conservative leaders to repudiate his Massachusetts system, Romney has instead defended it, although he says he does not support its enactment nationwide. Of course, no matter what Romney says on the issue of health care, Obama will attack him for it. Obama’s re-election team is said to be eager for a match-up with Romney. If they get their wish, we’ll hear a lot more about Romneycare from the author of Obamacare.

Mittens has consistently been a front-runner, enjoying a potent lift from a large campaign war chest, and vague-to-non-existent definition of his positions on the issues. But lately, there’s been a reshuffling in the crowd of contenders coming just after him. The number two spot is taken by — oh, my, it’s that awful, horrible woman who isn’t actually running and is supposed to be stupid or something:

With Mike Huckabee’s exit from the race, Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin are now on top of the Republican field, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday.

Twenty percent of Republican and Republican-leaning voters say they’d support the former Massachusetts governor, while 18 percent say they’d support the former Alaska governor.

Newt Gingrich comes in third place with 11 percent.

Quick recovery there, Governor. Seem just last week the wise chattering sages were measuring a coffin for your campaign. Interesting, since you don’t actually have one yet…and you running statistically neck-and-neck with the lead dog, just a short time later, still without having announced any decision to actually run, is also interesting.

I wonder if Birther Zero can make a quick “jab” at the hot granny over some Alaska socialized-medicine plan. I’m thinkin’ that’s a negative. Not that she doesn’t have vulnerabilities in other areas…she’s hated by important people somewhere, who don’t want us to know who they are, how many of them there are, why exactly it is that they hate her or why we should care. They don’t seem to be the brightest bulbs on the tree. But she certainly is hated, along with everyone in recorded human history who ever posed a threat to something.

Mitt isn’t hated. He isn’t defined with enough detail to be hated, and it looks like he isn’t posing enough of a threat. President Obama, obviously, feels like He can deal with the Mittster with a tap. Or a “jab.”

If it’s down to these two former governors, the Republicans need to figure out if they will rally behind someone who says nothing, or someone who says something. They have always lost when they cast their lot in with someone who says nothing. They have always won when they fall in behind someone who says something.

What should we call the era that just ended here? “Say something evil about a fellow Republican and I’ll automatically win because everyone will think I’m cute and cuddly”?

Maybe call it “The Nineties”? The “I’m more adult than either of these two extremist jackasses” decade? Clinton-triangulation-strategy?

I’m pleased and proud to watch the Former Speaker’s rapid immolation here. It’s not schadenfreude; I’m hoping something got learned here. Perhaps it isn’t learning, but rather the evolutionary force involved in our fickle, revolving fatigue has nudged us in a more productive, albeit random, direction. I’ll take it.

I’m beyond sick & tired of what Newt Gingrich tried to do here. “I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering,” everyone who’s been paying the slightest bit of attention knows what that means. Two decades straight, we’ve been watching this nonsense go down. Oh yes, we get it: “You have the fringe kooky moonbats over here, then you have your teabagger nutbars over there, and then there’s me.” Pause for dramatic effect, fold hands over your chest as if in prayer, gaze skyward and wait for halo to appear over head. Yes, rally behind me and I shall lay my healing hands upon the nation’s rift.

It’s a non-starter. And there’s a lesson here.

Take your time.

There’s no rush.

It’s only May.

Why set yourself up as a target any sooner than necessary?

I would hope there’s another one: You don’t look mature, sagely and wise by being the first guy in the room to open your mouth, and the last guy to define specific solutions. This is a bigger problem than just Gingrich, it’s been going on and on and on…we’ve been tolerating it and tolerating it…and now, from my vantage point — which I’m desperately hoping is accurate — the era ends. With a buffoon who went too far, and has nobody, absolutely nobody, in his corner. He even pissed off my blogger buddy in New Mexico.

The era of “call fellow Republicans extremist zealots and everyone will automatically love me” has come to an end. It ends with a gutted, tenderized, braised, char-broiled, breaded & deep fried, pan-seared newt.

Oh, and I see the democrats are thinking this is a point for their side. Good, I say. If they were too smart to overplay their hand, they wouldn’t be democrats.

“Newt,” by the way, has no letters in common with “Momma Grizzly.” Just sayin’, that’s all.

Prominently displayed by Uncle Gerard as he linked to us sometime yesterday or early this morning.

It’s particularly damaging when a message about gas prices can be distilled down to bumper sticker length. Generally, as people gaze out over where bumper stickers are displayed, they are likely to have had cause to think about gas prices sometime in the last few minutes…and are cranky and irritable, someplace they’d rather not be.

Of course you don’t have to be too plugged in to current events, to understand I deserve very little credit for this; about as much as…well…as Obama deserves for taking down Osama. Credit goes to Maha Rushie.

Why is Obama getting so little help from this boobie-prize of taking down Osama? Why such a short-lived and inconsequential bump? Why so little lift?

It’s clear to me, the problem is with this ill-advised bandying-about of this clumsy word, “gutsy.” Just noodle that over in your noggin for a little while, casually, and you’ll see how bad this sounds. Obama made a decision, and the decision, in intent and in outcome, was beneficial to the interests of the country over which Obama presides. It is the first decision He’s made in office that fulfills these criteria. I’ll state it again: The intent, and the outcome, were in harmony with what is good for the country. In the Obama universe, that is “gutsy.”

Had George Bush made the same call, they wouldn’t be using that word. That could be explained, partially, by the obvious fact that “they” are people who like to see Obama succeed and Bush fail. “Gutsy” is a positive adjective, therefore it applies to Obama and not to Bush.

But that doesn’t explain all of it.

Obama-makes-gutsy-call is something of a man-bites-dog story. “Teh Won” is not known for making gutsy calls, He is known for voting “present.” What other gutsy calls has He made? There’ve been some, you could say — but they help Obama and not the country.

Shouldn’t a “gutsy” decision involve some kind of alternative choice? It seems there should be some other-path that could have been pursued, and would have been pursued, by some ineffectual middle-management suck-up…which would have deprived the country, or the charge of the stewardship of the suck-up, of some appealing outcome over the long term, but would have left the short-term prospects of the suck-up entirely whole, unscathed and unblemished. A “gutsy” decision-maker, I think, should be selecting some avenue of execution that poses a danger to his reputation but is the better option for whatever he is managing. This seems, to me, self-evident. I think we all get it…

…and yet Obama’s “call” is considered “gutsy.”

See, I think it’s a ‘fessing-up that this is not something Obama would be expected to do. It’s a non-pussy-pacifist decision, a decision that is good for Obama and the United States of America. It’s also a decision pretty much anybody else would have made — although, as we grope for some possible exceptions to that absolute statement, we all first look back to the history of presidents from Barack Obama’s party. (Clinton? Carter?)

So I think deep down, everybody understands when the adjective “gutsy” is used in this context, the word that is really meant is “unexpected,” and maybe “surreal.” And so it is implicitly understood: You can’t say, from this event, that you can just throw some Barack Obama at any new problem & walk away worry-free. If that was the case, “gutsy” wouldn’t be the word. Now: What exactly got FDR elected four times?

Also, “gutsy” calls should be likely to make new enemies. They should pack a potential to make an enemy out of someone the maker of the call wouldn’t normally want to piss off.

Who, among Obama’s friends, is thinking about becoming His enemy because He decided to lower the boom on Osama bin Laden? It just naturally opens up a re-examination of all the questions that John McCain wasn’t…er…gutsy enough to go asking about three years ago. Through this innocuous, two-syllable descriptor, we’re left with a new curiosity about Obama’s connections, a curiosity which is in fact not new at all, just reawakening from a slumber of dormancy.

The latest award for Best Sentence I’ve Heard Or Read Lately (BSIHORL) goes to Dr. Thomas Sowell; in this case, it is two sentences and not just one, but we’ll find a way to deal with that. Once again, it is an overdue complaint which has enjoyed too much silence for too long, that puts the Professor’s pen in motion, and the complaint is about intellectuals:

If there is any lesson in the history of ideas, it is that good intentions tell you nothing about the actual consequences. But intellectuals who generate ideas do not have to pay the consequences.

Hat tip goes to a certain left-wing gadfly, whose own pen has been agitated into motion, busily correcting Sowell over quibbling, inconsequential things that were not actually said.

Much is made of the anger the future generations will have with us for acting as poor stewards of the “environment.” Should future generations feel inclined to ask the necessary questions, I think they’d be much more perplexed about the environmental movement, specifically about the brittle lefties who look down with sneering condescension upon anyone who does not genuflect with unquestioning obedience and obeisance toward said movement.

How in the world did that work? …the future generations would want to know. Decades and decades of manufacturing with mass production, with iron, plastics and paint; centuries and centuries of people investing in enterprises, trying to make money; and thousands upon thousands of years of people growing crops, trying to figure out how to harvest more, struggling against the ever-attendant insect problems.

Environmentalists made up their minds that industry became toxic, in all these different ways, somewhere around 1960? And then they started selling variations on this theme…and getting away with it, getting the pitch sold. How?

If said future generations come askin’ me, I’ll be able to produce an answer but it won’t indict only the environmentalists. My answer would have to have something to do with the rest of us, and our lack of reasoning ability. The idea that, in the heyday of helpful, productive industries earning profits by giving people the things they actually needed, some new industries could be created out of nothing but fear — I’d tell them this whole idea seemed so foreign to us that we got snookered by it over and over again.

That’s about as good as I can make us look. Can’t do any better than that.

You know what they say, can’t put Osama in your gas tank.

The bump President Obama received after the killing of Osama bin Laden more than two weeks ago in Pakistan has vanished completely, according to the latest Gallup Tracking poll released Monday.

Obama’s approval rating is now at 46 percent, equal to his approval rating in the last tracking poll conducted before Obama addressed Americans late on May 1 and informed them of bin Laden’s death. Forty-four percent of Americans now disapprove of the job Obama is doing as president.

According to the Gallup poll, Obama’s approval rating crested at 52 percent after the bin Laden killing. His disapproval rating never fell lower than 40 percent.

Shouldn’t be a problem for this President, not if He’s so accustomed to making “gutsy” calls. Just make another one. Problem solved.

Right?

Yep, 256 colors of him, the real deal:

Alright, say what you will, it’s a little corny…but it made me giggle.

Hat tip to my brother, Kris.

Let’s resurrect the famous picture one more time, shall we…

Well, he didn’t…in fact, I recall him and Vice President Cheney saying exactly the opposite thing, on a number of occasions.

It’s an inconvenient truth. And another, and another and another. A whole platter full of ’em.

Hat tip again to blogger friend Rick.

Well, that was a very good getaway, considering it was a one-night. Got my gal a tablet, Motorola Xoom…and it’s a hit. The hotel did everything right, the food in the restaurant was completely awesome.

The only pall cast over the trip is a generalized trend I’m seeing unfold over a much, much broader timeframe. The wild Sonoma Coast is being overrun with hippies. We went zipping on out there, with my fine flabby torso all decked out in this tee shirt:

…which now, as is always the case, draws lots of positive comments and thumbs-up. Nevertheless, by the time we came back, I was thinking I should have packed the one that looks like this:

I can’t blame the establishments for this. The hippies in Berkeley and San Francisco have begun to imagine US 101 N as a closer version of Europe around the Mediterranean. They seem to be saying “Let’s spend the weekend pretending we’re in Milan.” From the point of view of the gift shops and restaurants and hotels, it’s a cash cow. So they’re starting to mutate.

Now, I do have my preferences on things, but I’m a live-and-let-live kinda guy. So what’s my beef with the hippies? I didn’t have any complaints when you saw them here & there…I didn’t even complain when you saw them all over the place. Hippies can be interesting people. No, my complaint is when you can’t get away from them. Let’s face it, since the sixties the hippie lifestyle has been one of cognitive dissonance. “We just want to be left alone to grow our vegetables & whatever, and do our own thing, man”…coupled up with…”change the world, one [insert name of incremental thing] at a time. Man.” They like having the props that come with wanting to do-your-own-thing — freedom lovers — but they aren’t wholly dedicated to that. In fact, not even in the slightest. All too often, they want to make other people do things their way, but not admit to it.

And this comes up during the periodic outings to the surf. I’ll sum it up in one single word: Food. Everything, lately, is Tuscan…or…a charming little bistro on the Champs-Élysées. And you know what that means: A big white plate, with a little piece of something tasty but non-nourishing in the middle and some kind of sauce drizzled over it in an elegant pattern…seventy bucks.

No, I’m not here for a cheeseburger. I can get that anywhere. But I’m not here just for the taste, either. This is an adventure for us, we’re going to want to get out of the car, walk long distances, maybe even climb in some places. We don’t want to have to stay in the car or sit in hot tubs, conserving energy to avoid getting that low-blood-sugar-headache feeling. And really, just speaking for myself, I’ve noticed when I start panicking over this…that’s when I get fat. It isn’t the actual eating, it’s the ordering double-size-just-in-case that makes me fat. Since I was raised in the old school mold of “clean your plate.”

So in the long run, the European smaller-portions thing doesn’t work for me. What seldom to never gets mentioned is that European portions-control is tailored around European physical activities; which, near as I can make out, consists of sitting at a tiny table on a tiny stool with a tiny teacup on a tiny plate, and bellyaching about Americans. Well, this American likes to spend some calories doing things.

I hasten to add that none of this culinary bitching applies to the restaurant in the above-linked hotel. When I say the food was awesome, I mean…just go. This chef knows his stuff.

We had a complete blast. This hotel has lots of give-a-damn in everything it does, and we wished we stayed longer. More on that below.

Back to the hippie-rant.

There are other irritants besides the menu overhauls taking place; these other things I consider to be minor, to the point of being marginal, because unlike the food, they do not affect me in any way. Except maybe for the bill. Aesthetic things which seem to absorb vast amounts of energy and effort, which are completely lost on me. Lots of customs imported from Europe. Our favorite place has become an eclectic mix of things from my ancestral homeland of Scandinavia with Sardinia and Sicily thrown into the mix, and the Native American architecture built into the structure that cannot be hastily removed.

And that’s what inspires this little screed. We do like to sit by the fire pit with the hippies, drinking wine with them and exchanging some life stories. That’s what the weekend or vacation is about, and hippie or not, by the time one is midway through one’s sixties one generally has something of interest to say. I might even go so far as to say, that’s what hippies are for. The “counterculture” does pay off in this setting. Sitting by a fire pit, swapping stories. Hippies have ’em. Although, it is clear, they have learned enough about decent civilized behavior over the years, to only speak in mixed company about a tiny morsel of what they really have to say.

But to take over the whole coastline — and that’s what has happened here — is a different thing. If the hippies can make it up to Timber Cove, which lies beyond thirteen miles of treacherous winding mountain highway even the goats fear to tread, that’s approaching a monopoly status. Hell, it’s all the way there. And that’s depressing. No point trying to drive any further trying to get away from ’em. The thirteen miles is the most formidable barrier there is.

So if we must share the place over the weekend, let go of the freakin’ menu, you hippies. Here’s this ocean, with all its treasures, we could throw something into it we’re so close. That’s why we’re here, right? And on your way up over the treacherous and intimidating mountain pass, you see lots of — what? That’s right. Cows.

Surf. Turf. So no, this Yankee doesn’t want to see a cheeseburger on the menu. You know what I want.

No lobster tails or tenderloin in Venice, Italy, or in Oslo, Norway? Well then, that’s something America does right. Like Dilbert said, “This is the part where you agree with me, and we both get on with our lives.” Or else, you go to Venice.

Which brings me to a sensible explanation, I thought, produced by my girlfriend while she was tolerating my bitching about the cuisine, punctuated by my plaintive wailing of “What the hell is going on lately?” Her theory: It’s that damn TSA poking and prodding and searching the baby’s diapers for terrorists’ weapons and explosives.

Flying is a royal pain in the ass. So instead of flying off to Athens, or Istanbul, let’s just point the Prius toward Shoreline Highway, up past the Russian River and make-believe.

I think that makes perfect sense. The timeline matches up perfectly. Before flying turned into a complete nightmare, this was more of a cowboy country. Fireplaces that burned real wood, hiking trails with real hills, dips and valleys. Corned beef hash, biscuits & gravy, pork chops & eggs, entire pages on the menu dedicated to just steaks.

The wine lists still boast proudly of the brands that come from the local valley, as opposed to France. I hope that never changes.

I’m doing a rather sloppy job of combining my hippie-rant with my glowing praise of Bodega Bay Lodge, so the reader may end up confused. So let’s bottom-line it. The logs are Duraflame, which is not real wood but it’s good enough. They smell great. The WiFi is good, can’t say enough for the food, the adorable woodland creatures are in abundance, the swimming pool seems to be in working order although we did not partake.

The service was top-notch.

But you can’t get away from the hippies.

Update: We had a discussion the next day about the gentleman who walked over to shake my hand over the “Worst President Ever” tee shirt. The interesting thing here was, the lady and gentleman were both extremely pointed in their own deliberations about why, exactly, they agreed with the sentiment about our current President. In fact, their own thoughts on this were more crystallized than ours, which is really saying something.

The thing that really stuck out to all four of us was the opacity. It is, as I’ve observed myself, something that closely resembles a borderline mental illness. This question, then that question, then some other question, they’re all resolved with some variant of “you should not be asking that and since you did, you are not the kind of person to which this White House owes any answer.” But never with any actual information. When every single question that comes up is met with that attitude…

…well, I don’t want to mix rants here. That was theirs. Incidentally, the husband wanted to make extra sure which President was being characterized as “worst” before shaking my hand, whether it was this one or the previous. But I get the distinct impression that if he found out it was an anti-Bush tee shirt, he’d still be shaking my hand. And the wife was lamenting that the best remedy for our nation’s current woes was something it would now never see: A President Hillary.

I think they either had a mixed-marriage, Matalin/Carville thing going on…or else they were both democrats.

I find that encouraging. The jokes have been made that Barack Obama is, when all’s said & done, uniting the country after all — both sides of the fence want to see Him out of there. This is just one example of that, and an unconfirmed one since I don’t really know if they were democrats…but then, we don’t need that much supporting evidence for this, the signs are out there. It’s something that would make me worry if it was my job to get Obama re-elected. And so we do see signs of promise.

It’s likely to be an interesting election year. I daresay, we’ve never had anyone in the White House as charismatic as Barack Obama. We’ve never had an incumbent with a base so intensely dedicated. We’ve never had a base display such an intensity of dedication without being able to explain why. On the other hand, it’s been seventy years since the President has managed to win re-election in an economy this crappy, with so little sign of turn-around.

It’ll be a nail-biter. One thing that makes me nervous is to look around and see the people who are becoming liberal democrats, without realizing they’re becoming liberal democrats. They’re on an “entrance ramp” to the moonbat highway and they don’t know it. Others, on the other hand, are not liberals and never will be. That means there must be a handy definition, perhaps yet to be fully codified, with regard to the ones who are teetering on the brink.

It seems, to me, to begin with a single word, “should.” And the opposing force is provided by another single word, “how.” There are all these situations that “should” not exist in our real world existence, but do; and there are these other situations that cannot be found anywhere…but “should.” We should not have invaded Iraq, these moderates-who-are-becoming-liberal-democrats tell us with such certainty, such passion, such conviction. Now, at first blush, how do you go about not invading Iraq seems a pretty simple proposition, doesn’t it? Easier than falling off a log. Just don’t do it. But as they ritually and monotonously go about morphing this “should”-ness into an ever-so-popular visceral white hot hatred against you-know-who, they forget the backstory. It isn’t ignorance, in fact it is something they have lived through personally. In fact, the backstory has a lot to do with why the hatred burns so brightly. It is the hatred the Londoners felt against Titus Oates before he was sentenced to be lashed in the town square every now and then, whenever someone got it in their heads to go at it again, permanently. It is the hatred the nation felt against Susan Smith who drowned her sons in the car, and then made up a story about some black guy doing it…which people, then, fell for. It is the hatred felt only by the guy who feels like he got snookered. People who didn’t get snookered, don’t feel this hatred. So how would we have gone about not invading Iraq? Those with a working, functional long-term memory know there is no easy answer to this question; in fact, even knowing what we know today, invading Iraq was not necessarily wrong, at all. That’s why we aren’t unanimous on this.

There are other “shoulds” offset by other “hows.” A lot of them have to do with money. To the lazy thinker, when you say “these people should be paid more than seven-seventy-five an hour,” the only deliberation that may ensue after that, is whether…well, whether they should or shouldn’t. Any opposition to this, therefore, is gutterballed into a straw-man argument that goes something like “no, nobody should make more than that” even when nobody in proximity is saying anything remotely close to such a thing. If they bothered to listen to the opposition, they’d find the opposition is more likely to be presenting a “how.” The so-called moderate, but compassionate, who more often than not fancies himself to be the deeper thinker, is so consumed with one side of the equation that he neglects the other: The money must come from somewhere, right? There are only so many possibilities: the management will willingly come up with the extra money; the management will be required to come up with the extra money; a new program will be started to provide the extra money. We can safely exclude the first of those, since if management willingly came up with the extra money, the so-called “worker” would already be getting it and we would not be having the conversation. The other two options have to do with forcing someone, therefore depriving someone of an option, so could we inspect that please?

But the answer is no, because people overly enamored with “should” tend to change the subject when the question turns to “how.” That’s just the way people are.

I see other people are on their way to becoming post-modern liberals without realizing it, because they are simply continuing a life-long response to peer pressure. They do not think this is what is happening to them, because they are not necessarily obsessed, like high school sophomores, with wearing the latest fashions. So they think they are on the outside of this. Many, in fact, are quite insistent that they are “strong-willed,” “thinking for themselves,” teaching their kids to do the same, et cetera, et cetera…

The problem is, though, even though they may not be swayed by what a measured majority may think, they still define “a great point” according to whether it has reached plurality. So if they hear an opinion, they don’t put too much thought into whether it might be valid until they hear someone else say “that’s a great point” then tney might take it a little more seriously. They have the fortitude and the backbone to help push that boulder up to the top of the mountain, then; to add their voices to the chorus until such time as it has reached the fifty-percent mark and reached true majority status. And if that fails, they consider it to have been a noble effort, just like any true rugged individualist.

But they don’t have what it takes to be the guy who says “that’s a great point” — the number two. And they fall well, far, short of what it takes to be the guy who made the point, the number one. To them, if they don’t see that moved-and-seconded sequence, then it is absolutely impossible for any worthy point to have been made.

Henry Fonda could go in to a jury room with eleven of these people…and not have a single prayer of turning things around. It wouldn’t happen. These people are succumbing to peer pressure and they don’t know it, because they aren’t evaluating the ideas and the arguments according to content. Until the motion has been seconded, it isn’t worth considering.

I see another class of person getting suckered into becoming a hardcore lefty without realizing this is what is happening to him. Or her. Actually, it tends to more often be a “her” although it is lopsided in that direction only slightly. My home state of California, at this time, looks to be the first of the fifty states to go bankrupt, because of this kind of thought process. A policy is debated, in advance of a potential enactment of a policy not yet existing, or repeal of a policy already on the books. The debate comes down to whether a defined class of people should receive some special entitlement…and they decide it emotionally. Think of the example up above about hiking the minimum wage. This is slightly different. A litany is soon spewed out about “those people have to…” and then you get to hear about some fuzzy narrative. Nurses have to clean up bodily fluids, cops have to pull people over and maybe get shot, firemen have to charge in to burning buildings. And the prison guards, let’s not forget the prison guards.

I see no point inserting the ritual disclaimers about how wonderful I think nurses/cops/firemen/guards are, because my beef is not with the conclusion reached in these exchanges. My beef is with how it is decided. The virtue of this defined class…is speechified…waxed-lyrically-about. And presto! No need to have any further discussion about it. But this is not the way mature adults decide what to do.

It works the other way too. Oil companies and their evil profits. I know you’ve heard that one a few times lately. We have all this “pain at the pump” and unfortunately, everybody who drives a car to work has a good claim on the smallest-violin, just like cops and nurses and firemen and prison guards. All of us who buy gas have a “how would you like to” story to share, if only there was someone we could share it with who didn’t also have to pay $4.65 a gallon. To a rational thinker, a reasonable question emerges — and remains unanswered. How do we get from there…the price of gas is higher than we would like it to be…to over here, which is more congressional investigations (which never find anything), more regulation, more oversight, and would someone please come up with a scheme to take the profits away. You know the old joke about the South Park Underpants Gnomes with the one, two, three.

This is very much like that:

1. Diminish profits derived from anything that has to do with getting gas on the market;
2. ???
3. Cheaper gas prices!

When is the last time —

No, scratch that. Can anyone name for me a single commodity that came down in price, as a direct result of our efforts to make it more expensive, onerous and difficult to bring that commodity to market.

You see, in none of the above cases is it a very exotic or intricate or involved test of practical thinking these democrats-in-training have failed. They are actually very rudimentary thresholds. I would expect any sixth-grader, who has shown the responsibility, drive, initiative and capacity for independent living to walk home from school and be a latch-key kid, to pass these thresholds.

But of course, once you’re a grown-up you become entitled to conveniences. As are kids. But grown-ups get to decide which conveniences they like, and continue consuming them indefinitely. And what are conveniences, other than vacations from the necessity of personally making things happen, getting your hands dirty? And so adults are availed of the luxury of “bowing out” of the exchange, with everything except their wallets, thus gradually forgetting how things come to be. Beef comes from the store. Corn comes from a can. Water comes from a bottle. Clothes come from Amazon.

Therefore, we are all susceptible to this sloppy, democrat-entrance-ramp thinking. It doesn’t have much to do with intelligence. A lot of very smart people slip into this. They get a “should” in their heads that excites them, forgetting about the “how”; they believe no idea is worth thinking unless it’s moved-and-seconded; and they think privileges and punishments should be decided and set-aside only according to how good or bad some class of people can be perceived to be.

Barack Obama has a good chance for a second term, actually. That isn’t to say it won’t be a tough fight for Him. But I would say most of the people voting for the democrat in the 2012 election, as of today they don’t know yet that they’re democrats. But their thinking is just as diseased.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News and Washington Rebel.

Amazing and Awesome.

Mike Rowe’s Testimony Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
May 11, 2011

Chairman Rockefeller, Ranking Member Hutchison and members of this committee, my name is Mike Rowe, and I want to thank you all very much for the opportunity to testify before you today.

I’m here today because of my grandfather.

His name was Carl Knobel, and he made his living in Baltimore as a master electrician. He was also a plumber, a mechanic, a mason, and a carpenter. Everyone knew him as a jack-of-all-trades. I knew him as a magician.

For most of his life, my grandfather woke up clean and came home dirty. In between, he accomplished things that were nothing short of miraculous. Some days he might re-shingle a roof. Or rebuild a motor. Or maybe run electricity out to our barn. He helped build the church I went to as a kid, and the farmhouse my brothers and I grew up in. He could fix or build anything, but to my knowledge he never once read the directions. He just knew how stuff worked.

I remember one Saturday morning when I was 12. I flushed the toilet in the same way I always had. The toilet however, responded in a way that was completely out of character. There was a rumbling sound, followed by a distant gurgle. Then, everything that had gone down reappeared in a rather violent and spectacular fashion.

Naturally, my grandfather was called in to investigate, and within the hour I was invited to join he and my dad in the front yard with picks and shovels.

By lunch, the lawn was littered with fragments of old pipe and mounds of dirt. There was welding and pipe-fitting, blisters and laughter, and maybe some questionable language. By sunset we were completely filthy. But a new pipe was installed, the dirt was back in the hole, and our toilet was back on its best behavior. It was one of my favorite days ever.

Thirty years later in San Francisco when my toilet blew up again. This time, I didn’t participate in the repair process. I just called my landlord, left a check on the kitchen counter, and went to work. When I got home, the mess was cleaned up and the problem was solved. As for the actual plumber who did the work, I never even met him.

It occurred to me that I had become disconnected from a lot of things that used to fascinate me. I no longer thought about where my food came from, or how my electricity worked, or who fixed my pipes, or who made my clothes. There was no reason to. I had become less interested in how things got made, and more interested in how things got bought.

At this point my grandfather was well into his 80s, and after a long visit with him one weekend, I decided to do a TV show in his honor…

Mike Rowe goes on to note that what we really need is a “national PR Campaign for Skilled Labor.” Truth be told, this is somewhat offensive to my libertarian sensibilities. In my universe, the government does not go telling us what is important to us — we decide that, and then we vote the government in or out and then they do that.

But that’s a minor quibble. How minor? If we did have a national PR campaign I wouldn’t shed a single tear. Because the man’s right. However we get there…we gotta get there.

We don’t have a lack of respect for skilled labor in this country. In a way, I wish we did. Because if that was the case we could say “Hey, there’s a lack of respect for skilled labor in this country” and then we could take that on. This is more like a slow burn, all smoke no fire — people who dis hard work, and then successfully delude themselves into thinking they don’t. Arguing with that is like nailing the proverbial fart to the wall. But the stink is still there.

It’s the critical thinking that takes a hit. If you never have to actually fix something, you can start thinking, you know, just plain idiotic things. Things like, we elect a black President and it will end racial discord forever…or…when there’s an oil leak in the gulf, what we need is a moratorium against drilling. Dumbass things like those. You’ll see they are most popularly championed in the urban areas. Where people call plumbers instead of doing it themselves, because they can.

Mike Rowe has long been a hero in my house. This just reinforces that. What a speech, and what a guy.

How’s this. Since NBC is rejecting Wonder Woman, she goes back to pages 1 through 22. She goes prancing around in that tiny Lynda Carter thing with her bare legs all hanging out and everything, the whole time. Some feminists try to get her to wear some pants and she completely blows ’em off.

Then she runs up and kicks Superman’s fickle ass of steel.

Everybody ends up happy. Superman the hyper-nationalist super-patriot gets his ass kicked; Superman the sissypants internationalist bozo gets his ass kicked; a woman kicks a man’s ass; and the feminists who try to get all the good-looking women to cover up their legs, are told to stick it. Plus you have Wonder Woman’s bare legs. Everybody wins except ugly feminist women with mustaches, and who gives a rip about them.

Okay, seriously though. What makes comics great, especially comics from the Golden Age. We marvel at them for their consistency. They morph a little bit, but all that shows is that there are fine minds behind these pages, and not automatons. And let’s repeat: They morph a little bit. There’s a balance.

If they’re complete chameleons, then that’s nothing but a digest of current events. Might as well just bag the comic book and sit in on a fashion show. We are amazed by these works of art because something is remaining consistent; without that, they’re just drawings. Drawings aren’t nearly so precious. Lots of people can draw. I mean, I’m not one of ’em, and I don’t mean to put anybody down, but it’s true. In 2011 there are lots and lots of titles out there. But we buy DC and Marvel because? Right. The legacy.

I realize everybody who pitches in is going to want to leave their mark. That’s only natural. And it isn’t undesirable at all. So here’s the guideline I’m proposing: Stick to defining things that aren’t defined yet. Super-freeze-breath is stupid and not supported by the laws of physics…and I don’t mean like flight or super-strength, I mean, not even remotely, not even a little bit. Canx it, it’s dumb. Can Wonder Woman fly? If so, ditch the plane, it’s stupid. If not, keep the plane, but she can’t fly without it. Where the hell do Clark Kent’s shoes go? After 73 years maybe it’s time to come up with an answer to that, right? What happens if Wonder Woman tries to deflect a bullet and she misses? If nothing, then why does she bother trying?

So Superman stands for The American Way…oh yes he does…and Wonder Woman shows off her legs, and whatever brittle ugly women with wretched looking legs don’t like it, along with the “World Without Borders” maniacs wanting Superman to be more international — which he isn’t — they just don’t have to buy the damn thing. I mean, seriously. How much loot were they going to spend, really? How many sponsors’ products were they going to buy? Thought so. Toss ’em out on their ears.

This moment of common sense is brought to you free of charge. You’re welcome.

Update 5/13/11: Aw, can’t believe we missed this. We must be more of a leg man than we thought we were. Even though we wrote about this before it completely went over our head.

The photos. Look at Lynda Carter’s costume…this is what I was talking about, there are elements of it that go clear back to the very beginning, the one with the “beauty contest winner” look and the long false eyelashes. Look down, below the waist. The boots and the skimpy panties that have these nameless no-account busybodies so huffy and peeved. Now look over at Ms. Palicki with the ridiculous horse-jockey outfit.

And then think about Superman renouncing the citizenship, and all that hoop-de-doo.

This is the same effort, the same attempt. They aren’t trying to make it so gorgeous, beautiful young women are dressing like men. That’s part of it, to be sure, but only just…

Wonder Woman, with the ridiculous trouser outfit, was shedding the stars and stripes. The shorts were white stars on a field of blue. The boots were red and white striped.

Now of course, that all makes sense in some way. Comics are sold overseas. If you’re selling comic books, why settle for greenbacks when you can have those, plus euros and pounds and yen? They’re trying to go after an international audience.

But here’s the thing though. People in foreign countries have wanted to buy American products for a long, long time. People in foreign countries, Japan especially, have been interested in American culture. For a relatively long time.

See, America isn’t changing that much. Superman and Wonder Woman, to the extent they exist — as icons of appeal, which I think have been defined through these latest failed attempts to reshape and change them — aren’t changing that much either. At the end of the day, when it comes time to get comic books & related products moved, Superman still embodies American ideals and Wonder Woman wears a swimsuit with boots that have American-flag colors.

Kinda. Depending on the venue.

It’s the rest of the world that is changing. This is what nobody’s paying attention to, and I think they/we should. People overseas who happen to have money, a generation ago, would see a product associated with America and say “I’ll buy that.” Maybe even, “because it’s American and I like American stuff, I’ll buy that.” This year, maybe they’ll buy it if you take out a razor blade and carefully remove the red, white and blue labeling…it isn’t so much the idea it was built in the United States…they don’t want the words, they don’t want that name, they don’t want the colors. We’re being boycotted. These new costumers and artists are still narcissistic pricks itching to be able to say “I’m the one who” completely re-made an icon that is timeless. But they’re acting on behalf of consumers, or potential consumers…who, in turn, are acting on behalf of others who might see them using, or reading, or eating or drinking something with red-white-and-blue. And this isn’t desired.

And no, from what I’m seeing this did not start in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq. From what I recollect, this subtle push has been going on since about a decade before that, maybe a bit more.

The solution is completely obvious. We need to boycott back. And no, I don’t think that is a lost option in this day & age in which we owe China a bunch of money. If we’re really suffering the fate of sharecroppers, then it’s in China’s interest that we stand up for ourselves, because debt that is owed by a country set to survive & thrive in the years ahead, is worth much more than debt that is owed by a country petering out of existence.

So says Jim. Yup, I got sucked into another one. And, I have every confidence there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, who would agree with Jim on that. Provided they would be compelled to become interested in the exchange.

Ed Darrell did debunk Dr. Sowell, very, very decently. I agree with that; if, by “debunk decently,” we mean “Ed handed down a list of rules that make sense to Ed, about what people should be reading and what they should not be reading.” Ed debunks lots of things this way. It is, for the most part, the only weapon in his arsenal.

Along the way though, the Larry-Moe-Curly triumvirate of Jim Nick and Ed, all communicated the thought with crystal clarity — and it is important to all three of them to get this across, so I have decided I will aid their efforts here. The right wing, which they all think so poorly of, indeed seems to be exempt from the definition of “everyone” as they labor to build the perfect society that welcomes & functions for everyone…gets into the trouble with them, by absorbing information. The left wing, which earns their accolades and adoration, does so by coming up with reasons and excuses not to absorb information. Nearly all the arguments from the friendly crowd at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub, from what I see, essentially boil down to the statement of “you should not be reading this thing over here.” Whether it’s Dr. Sowell, or Anthony Watts, or Steven Milloy or Gov. Perry of Texas.

Which is, I think, a situation worth commenting on…since it is a situation much bigger than Fillmore’s bathtub. It stands in perfect contravention to the liberal-self-love theme of “our side isn’t afraid of information but those evil Republicans don’t know how to handle it.” For those who can pay attention to things and remember things long-term, that mindset remains valid until arguments are presented on both sides and then analyzed. And then a pattern emerges: Conservatives say “well, like this guy said” and liberals say “I have a pre-catalogued, pre-circulated, pre-rehearsed reason not to read or listen to anything from over there.” They’ve got this blacklist to which they’re steadily adding names of loathed people. Which, ironically, is supposed to be a major selling point, for their side, against the conservatives. It’s supposed to be the right wing that blacklists people.

Now liberals don’t have a monopoly on this. But it certainly has emerged as one of their defining traits. Prerationalism; yellow-light red-light. “I don’t read anything from there and you shouldn’t either, everyone who reads anything from there is less cool than anybody who doesn’t read it.” That’s yellow light. Right light is the tried-and-true “You are no longer of the community, you shall be shunned, whoever does not shun you shall be shunned, whoever does not shun he who did not shun you will likewise be shunned.”

Larry-Moe-and-Curly, in their rush toward prerationalism, missed a point about Sowell and my citation of his column: It needs no “experimental” support, since I did not cite Dr. Sowell because of his base of knowledge, but rather because of his skill with the written word. Sowell had made a good, and important, point.

One of the sad and dangerous signs of our times is how many people are enthralled by words, without bothering to look at the realities behind those words.

One of those words that many people seldom look behind is “education.” But education can cover anything from courses on nuclear physics to courses on baton twirling.

You have to be a subscriber, or some kind of regular reader, of Fillmore’s Bathtub to appreciate what really happened here. The focus of this particular blog is somewhat narrow. There is an occasional historical tidbit about Texas; a lot of sniping and grousing about Milloy’s blog and Watt’s blog; much alarmism about people walking around somewhere, thinking the wrong things, reading the wrong things, which do not service the interests of the democrat party in Texas or in the nation. Lots about global warming, much more about DDT and eggshell thinning. The balance of what remains, and what remains covers perhaps half of the total volume, perhaps more than that — is a lot of bitching about Governor Perry and other Republicans bringing harm to “education” by cutting a budget item, or making moves to cut it. Rest assured, Darrell does provide support for his claims. But you can forget about any balanced argument, any mention of why someone would think of cutting the item. You’d think it would be set up once in awhile to be made an object of ridicule, but I don’t see it happening much. Just — these evil guys who hate education are about to cut something, so help me hate them.

The word “education” is being used as a label which, on inspection does not seem to apply to what would be described by a reasonable person in such a way. And, if the method of argumentation is a model for what this is supposed to mean…well, it doesn’t come off as very educated.

By pointing out that the e-word is very often used to describe a spectrum of things that is so broad as to become linguistically unworkable, it is Sowell that has done a decent job of debunking Ed Darrell and his two lackeys. Reams and reams and reams of what they have had to say, in fact. With just three well-crafted sentences making up two short paragraphs.

The takeaway from all this is another recollection of Thing I Know #183:

When an education has given you the ability to dismiss ideas more quickly, it’s not really an education.

Which I suppose builds on Sowell’s point (before I heard of it). Too many people are living among us and making much out of a habit of blocking information out by means of something they describe with this word “education”; they seem to think of education as a process of essentially sticking your fingers in your ears and going la la la. You see them do this all the time, really — this awful loathed person over here actually paid attention to that awful loathed bit of information over there…therefore…he is uneducated…while, contrasted with that, me and my friends made a point of not paying attention to the awful loathed bit of information, therefore we are better educated.

Nevermind that this “in-crowd” is now thoroughly unable to describe the details of the information that was exchanged, which they then want to complain about. And they’re proud of not being able to explore it in detail, as they proceed to complain.

I don’t know about you. But that isn’t what I think of as “educated.”

By the way. The other article Sowell wrote, which got him on this Larry-Moe-Curly-McCarthy-blacklist thing, so that “educated” people prove their education by making sure they’re never exposed to what Sowell has to say…is here. It makes an important point: “[A] democracy needs informed citizens if it is to thrive, or ultimately even survive.” Many among those who claim to be “educated,” and to value something they prefer to call “education,” don’t seem to be in favor of this informed citizenry. This particular Sowell column is complained about a whole lot in liberal circles, especially on the web. Interestingly, you won’t find too many links directly to the column. Many more of such screeds will only point to other such screeds, and not to the source of the outrage.

Liberals do that an awful lot, I’ve noticed.

Update at 2010PDT Today: The trackback from this post has had an effect very much like tossing a lit match into a barrel of gasoline, as I knew it would. New life has been breathed into Ed’s post, and Larry Moe & Curly are now climbing all over themselves. Once again — it has degenerated into a jerk-off session which examines and re-examines all the things that make left-wing people more wonderful and awesome and decent than right-wing people. Mr. Darrell seems to have forgotten his original point was about the funding of public schools, and now wishes to examine the tragedy of all families in said schools not making an equal amount of money — his new lamentation is about the lack of funding to the households I think.

It’s not possible to determine that, of course. Here’s the thing about Ed Darrell: He goes on and on about such-and-such an opposing force having failed “to provide evidence for their claims” or “provide support for his claims.” But the targets of such criticism are one-up on him, because whether supported or not at least their claims are defined. Ed’s claims are not defined. He links to a page full of statistics and graphs and charts and data, pointing out this debunks something Dr. Sowell said. But there are no specifics. What is being debunked, exactly? I can’t answer that and neither can you, unless your name is Ed Darrell. But Darrell won’t.

But who cares. It’s all about those three being better people…than…whoever is on the other side of some imaginary fence. Makes this quote from Orwell’s 1984 seem apropos:

But always — do not forget this, Winston — always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever. [emphasis mine]

This is why it’s important to discuss this. Nick Jr. typifies the cognitive dissonance. This is the guy who said:

What is the one thing in this country that can bring everyone together?

Government.

…and then self-corrected to…

Correction. That should “the one and only thing that can bring people together in this country.”

If you take the time to look (it’s a lot of looking, Nick’s posts never seem to stand on their own, he tends to post again and again and again, he’s a bit of a scatterbrain) you’ll see pretty much everything he’s had to say is that Republicans are worse people than…something. Liberals, democrats, Michael Moore fans, anarchists, something. It requires a great deal less courage, less intellectual fortitude, to oppose something than to build something.

Nick, whether he realizes it or not — and I think he does, but who knows — entirely lacks passion about the personal goals he has in mind as he has defined them, in writing. He doesn’t really want government, or anything else, bringing anybody together with anybody else. But the Orwell quote, along with Nick’s flip-flopping, really captures what applies to all three. A thrill of victory running in a vicious cycle. A boot stepping on a face, forever.

Again, there is nothing unique here. Nothing special about Fillmore’s Bathtub at all. This is a very big phenomenon taking place. It’s going on, right now, coast to coast. Our liberals are batshit crazy.

A popular talking point among the GOP has surfaced in response to the President’s “gutsy” call to take out Osama bin Laden, and it goes something like “well, what kind of idiot would have made any other call?”

It’s popular because it makes an important point that is forgotten all too often, which in turn means something. President Obama’s greatest achievement, ever, is now defined and crystallized. He is never going to top this one, and what it says about Him is — not a whole lot, when you get down to it. You can’t point to an Obama policy that started a chain of events culminating in the death of bin Laden. But you can certainly point to a lot of such policies of His predecessor, that guy He castigated over and over again on the campaign trail, and over and over again after He was inaugurated and started His “rule,” as if He was still campaigning.

So Obama takes credit for policies that not only are on the outside of anything He ever would have enacted, anytime, anyplace, ever…He also takes credit for policies He repeatedly spoke out against, even after He was sworn in and there should have been no further need to campaign. When He was supposed to have been so busy doing His job that there shouldn’t have been any time for campaigning for a job He already had. In fact it’s fair to say He neglected that job so He could take time out of it — inexplicably — to campaign for it.

Had He spent more time making decisions in that job & following up on those decisions, rather than campaigning for the job as if He didn’t have it yet when He actually did…a lot of those policies, which culminated in the death of bin Laden and thus the beneficial result, probably would no longer have been in force. In this way, the talking point is a powerful and persuasive argument — although it probably requires a much greater attention span to receive all of it, in the case of anyone outside the audience of those who really need to hear it.

But you know what? Now the talking point has an answer. President of the United States Ron Paul.

Ron Paul says he would not have authorized the mission that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, and that President Barack Obama should have worked with the Pakistani government instead of authorizing a raid.

“I think things could have been done somewhat differently,” Paul said this week. “I would suggest the way they got Khalid [Sheikh] Mohammed. We went and cooperated with Pakistan. They arrested him, actually, and turned him over to us, and he’s been in prison. Why can’t we work with the government?”

Asked by WHO Radio’s Simon Conway whether he would have given the go-ahead to kill bin Laden if it meant entering another country, Paul shot back that it “absolutely was not necessary.”

“I don’t think it was necessary, no. It absolutely was not necessary,” Paul said during his Tuesday comments. “I think respect for the rule of law and world law and international law. What if he’d been in a hotel in London? We wanted to keep it secret, so would we have sent the airplane, you know the helicopters into London, because they were afraid the information would get out?”

The Ron Paul Apologia Squad is aptly represented in the comment section, I see. But I have yet to see a single comment say something to the effect of “When Bush went in and got Saddam Hussein back in ’03, that’s the way we should have done it.” See, if you’re really going to do something about a problem and discard the option of “ostrich diplomacy” sticking your head in the ground and hoping the problem goes away — you want to do something about it — then it’s one or the other. You work your way through the bad-guy military one flank at a time, which means body bags; or you send an elite squad in to make a neat little hole in the BigBad’s head.

This is why I find it hard to respect the Ron Paul movement; or, for that matter, those who support that movement. If these people are being sincere in discussing how decisions should be made at the top of our government, by which I mean they’re conducting their own lives in a manner consistent with the way they want these decisions to be made — then, they must not be capable of making decisions, since they cannot meaningfully comprehend the list of available options.

We’ve got a lot of people running around with this problem, I notice. They aren’t all Ron Paul fans. They like to speechify, and they can do a grand job of doing it, against some decision someone else made. But they can’t pick something themselves, and what’s worse, they don’t seem to care.

Just speaking for myself, if both options are available, I like Obama’s solution much better. People in the military are, generally speaking, about half my age or less than that. I like seeing them live. And I like seeing bad people humiliated as they’re taken down, by being taken down without too much of a fuss. Many’s the time I said, before Saddam was taken down, that that’s what should happen to him. One bullet, a .22 short, and save the casing. Then let it be said that the terror that is the regime of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, was taken down by a bullet thiiiiiiiis big. That would have been ideal. Plate that puppy in 22k gold and display it in the Smithsonian.

Yes, this leads to a debate about whether the .22 short can be lethal. It should be considered as such, in the sense that proper safety on the range (where the .22 short is used most often, I expect) demands that all projectiles be considered potentially lethal. But in a highly coordinated move on a compound based on a decade of accumulated intelligence work, would you use one where it counts, with no second-chances…custom-made, sharpened, depleted-uranium slug? With some snarky insult chiseled on it. Can you fire DU with the measure of gunpowder in a .22 short cartridge? That debate becomes more technically involved than it’s worth. Still a fun thing to think about.

Back to the subject at hand. It’s still a valid talking point the Republicans have. Obama is in a precarious position with this business about “I’m the badass who who took down bin Laden” propaganda gravy train, because the facts say His singularly greatest achievement anywhere is something He got done by staying out of the way, letting better men getting the work done, and being the meaningless figurehead who just happened to have been in charge when it went down. If you really want to dig for something He did that led to the good results, you end up with a bunch of broken promises. He was supposed to shut down Guantanamo but didn’t; He was supposed to stop the War on Terror but didn’t; He was supposed to “change” this, that, or some other silly thing, but didn’t.

You want to have your singularly greatest achievement within this earthly existence, ever, accomplished in such a way? Again, I must confine my remarks to my own personal situation and speak solely for myself. But no. A decisive negatori on that.

Be all that as it may: Going forward, let us not call this “what idiot would’ve” argument unanswerable…for it has been answered. There is an idiot who would have made another call.

Hat tip to Memeorandum.

Victor Davis Hanson explores the written rules and regulations of targeted-assassination warfare, and then the unwritten rules & regs we actually follow:

It’s…easier to conduct assassinations abroad if the Commander-in-Chief is liberal. This neutralizes criticism from the media, universities, the legal community, and Hollywood. Obama the law professor can assassinate bin Laden in Pakistan, dump his body in the ocean, and with first-person emphasis boast of our brilliant mission in a way Bush the Texan could not get away with—in the same manner that killing the son of Qaddafi, and the effort to kill Qaddafi himself, are not really forbidden targeted assassinations under Obama, and in the manner that Guantánamo, tribunals, renditions, preventive detentions, Predators, wiretaps, and intercepts that so bothered Senator Obama and others are now deemed essential. This paradox is just the way it is; the media will report a liberal president’s Predator drone attack or commando hit as done with reluctance and without other viable choices. Were a conservative leader to take the same actions, he would be portrayed as a trigger-happy war-monger reveling in the violence. Thus, the street celebrations that ensued when news of bin Laden’s death broke are seen by the media as a new unity inspired by Obama. Three years ago, they would have been seen as macabre triumphalism.

Hat tip to blogger friend Rick.

The solution, obviously, is to make it less profitable to bring the gas to market.

Linking two of the politically volatile issues of the moment, Senate Democrats say they will move forward this week with a plan that would eliminate tax breaks for big oil companies and divert the savings to offset the deficit.

With high gas prices and rising federal deficits in the political spotlight, senior Democrats believe that tying the two together will put pressure on Senate Republicans to support the measure or face a difficult time explaining their opposition to voters whose family budgets are being strained by fuel prices.
:
“Big Oil certainly doesn’t need the collective money of taxpayers in this country,” said Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, one of the authors of the legislation that Democrats intend to showcase. “This is as good a time as any in terms of pain at the pump and in revenues needed for deficit reduction.”

It’s a bigger issue than gasoline. The liberal democrat solution to any commodity becoming more expensive, is to take the profit angle out of it, sit back & hope for the best. Scoring: Problem remains but profit is gone == success; problem solved but profit is made solving the problem == failure.

And, problem remains and someone’s still making a profit == try again.

Hat tip to Instapundit.

It has to work this time around. When a company is forced to give up its profit through increased taxes, isn’t that company’s natural reaction one of “Golly! That Congress, representing The People, sure does hate us a lot! We’d better lower our prices!” Yeah, there is a long and rich history of this working out just great. Never fails.

Discussed further at Althouse’s place, where Crimso comments:

In order to be “fair,” the government should only take the “collective” money that reflects profits. What percent of revenues (on average) of the oil companies is profit. Never mind. I already know the answer, and I know there’s a shitload of companies who have much higher profit margins.

So now some jackass, or perhaps more accurately looter or thief, a member of Congress (but I repeat myself) wants to decide how much of “our” money the oil companies deserve. “A republic, if you can keep it,” indeed. I guess we can’t.

I’m taking my girlfriend to breakfast, but it’s got nothing to do with Mother’s Day. She’s clocking in to work at the reasonable hour of eleven o’clock, so we’re going to take advantage and spend some time together.

The Freeberg family doesn’t have any actual mothers in it. The Freeberg-male eccentricity drove them all off; the ones who managed to survive it, anyway. Mom died years ago, “Kidzmom” is off in Nevada and it’s up to the boy to take the initiative to honor his Mother, and in his fourteenth year I hope to hell he’s got enough going on to do it without being reminded. If not, I’ll give him a good thumpin’ when he gets here and that will be my Mother’s Day contribution.

That, and bitching about the long line at the restaurant.

Anyway. Hope yours is happy. Let Mom know you’re thinking of her, while she’s still here.

Update: “I have no doubt that as a matter of course, she handled pains that would have crushed me, and whatever strength I may have, I credit to her and to God.” Professor Mondo delivers up some wonderful prose describing the story behind his white carnation. It fits ours as well, as it happens.

Dad’s second-most-recent visit down here was back in ’07; he took Amtrak. He left with a vow never to take Amtrak again, since he spent something like thirty hours on a route that was supposed to take only twenty-four or something. From what I hear, this is a common experience on Amtrak, much of which runs on borrowed rail that belongs to Union-Pacific…or somebody. And so I found it curious when, after Joe Biden’s announced selection as Barack Obama’s running mate, I was looking up his entry in Wikipedia and stumbled across a paragraph extolling the Senator’s virtues as a regular Amtrak rider. Joe Biden’s awesome! He rides Amtrak! Yay! (I see now, the tone is different, applying more focus to Biden’s five-year stretch as a single-dad and the tragedy that started said stretch; but that creates more questions than answers, with the high fallibility involved in Amtrak schedules.)

I thought back to this, briefly, when I read George Will’s excellent column called “Why Democrats Love Trains.” It’s all about one word: dependency.

Yesterday, I immersed myself in the dependency class. I rode the light rail downtown, looped back up North-ward, used my mountain bike spun in to the University district and caught the light rail back home again. I still haven’t made up my mind whether this is a humbling experience, or the reverse. I’m very fortunate to enjoy a three-mile commute Monday through Friday, and to live in an area with a much higher per-household income compared to what surrounds us. I consider my horizons to have been broadened by the unpleasantness.

It makes me look at my own single-dad-ness much differently. You’ll notice, all across the political spectrum we make much of the idea that people should not judge other people, and it becomes doubly wrong to judge people based on a superficial glance. So I try not to. But then again, we also make much of the idea that something called the “environment” has a state to it, and we should avail ourselves of every opportunity to think about that state and our effect on it as we pass through it; try to keep it as it is, avoid making it worse, maybe even make it better.

Well guess what. You have to judge people in order to do that. If, as a parent, you’re going to be adding some.

And this thought, as is the case with the thought above, comes down to that one word dependency. Again.

It impresses me that, as I pass through this big valley, these wide swaths of ground where I’m thinking “must get the fuck out of here before dark, must get the fuck out of here before dark,” the ones whose names show up in the newspaper where the murders happened, overlay with remarkable precision the places serviced by light rail and by bus lines. It’s true in Sacramento, in Seattle, in Detroit, and every other “big” place I’ve ever lived or visited. I’m given to entertaining the thought that this is a testament to good design. People in humble areas need to get to work, they don’t get to pick and choose where that work is going to be, and many cannot afford cars.

The problem with that theory is that it accounts only for an approximation. I’m seeing much more than an approximation here; I’m seeing the sort of precision you see when your hand is covered by a latex glove. A light rail system cannot evolve; at least, not easily. This system reachs a terminus in my district, in downtown Folsom. It’s then up to me to saddle up again and cycle the remaining four miles home, regardless of which of the last three stations I chose. It’s as if, the day they were laying track, someone said “Okay, I just saw three houses in a row worth more than such-and-such, so we stop here.”

You simply can’t walk through how that would work. Tearing up track is exorbitant, and the same goes for laying new track. Not an everyday occurrence. So the route is static. If it were dynamic, how would the heavy demand in humble areas, and the lighter demand in more affluent areas, translate into a force on this supposedly-dynamic track? The market forces are light: A two-hour pass for $2.50, all-day ticket for $6.00. Light rail systems, by design, are to be a rebuke against the free market anyway. It’s hard to think of a profitable one, even harder to think of one that remains profitable for several years in a row. So they’re not situated well to flex, to accommodate the signals of supply and demand. This theory is not in healthy shape, and its health deteriorates further when I throw more observations at it — that’s a sign that the theory isn’t a good one.

Besides of which, after I got myself a nice day’s exercise and a quality sunburn, the first station I hit on Power Inn road, wasn’t selling tickets. The machine was busted. I chose to ride on eastward and buy a pass at the next one. My fellow “passengers” at this location, did not have such an option and they didn’t very much care. They were hopping the turnstyle. Of course they were; whadya think they’re gonna do? Wonder if the regional transit authority knows the machines are busted here? The repairs looked inexpensive, to me. One machine complained specifically of its paper roll being empty. The other might consider accommodating if the customer could pay the six dollars in coin.

I know, from experience, how this works. The dependency-class is dependent. It depends on a service, and because it is dependent, anybody who denies the service, by action or inaction, is infringing on a fundamental human right. And, should this take place, this imbues the dependency-class with new rights it would not otherwise have. And so The System, which denied the service by inaction and failing to keep the machines in good working order, has it comin’. The rail hoppers will enter, again, that surreal region in which a crime is to be committed, but not really, because it is a “gettin’ even” for another crime that was committed. A written law will be violated, as redress of grievances for the violation of some other unwritten law.

So I think back to the four possibilities that arise with correlation:

A. X causes Y
B. Y causes X
C. An unseen-as-yet Z, causes both X and Y
D. It’s all a coincidence

And so I slip down to the next on the list, which I like better. It is in healthier shape, after I get done assaulting it with observations and facts. This other theory says the crime and the blight and the dysfunction, start with the rail system and radiate outward. Y, the rail, causes X, the rancor, weirdness, borderline-mental-illness, diminished skill. That would explain the neat precision overlay on the map.

A dependency relationship, we see once again, is toxic. We are very slow to catch on to this when we are given evidence of it, because we are taught a great deal to the contrary. We are taught “no man is an island,” that communities that thrive and prosper, are communities in which people depend on each other. That may or may not be true. But I think what has to be realized here, is that there is a difference between people depending on each other, and people putting together a system and then other people coming to depend on that system. A community filled with inter-dependence relationships is personal; a leviathan system providing spotty, splotchy, unreliable service to a dependency-class of vengeful moochers, is impersonal.

You know, I think it comes down to that old saying about democrats. There can be no denying how much they love poor people — all their policies keep them that way, and create more.

In about a week and a half, Our First Holy Divine Man-God-Boy-King President has acquired and released a form of identification, and then claimed credit for dispatching the most wanted man in the entire world. His is a unique case in which these achievements are roughly equivalent.

I’m ready to take a new approach on this, since I’m still trying to process and organize my reactions. People are still bitching about my posts being too long. So — let’s just list the reactions and call it good. One per line and then bail out.

It occurs to me that the result would be just as worthy an artifact to seal up in a time capsule, for the edification of my grandchildren, as any other. So. Without further ado.

1. Chuckling at the talking heads on the news getting “Obama” all mixed up with “Osama.”
2. Marveling at the consistency with which conservatives place the interests of country over party.
3. Wondering if liberals would handle it the same way if Osama bit the mat during the previous administration.
4. No, not really.
5. Thankful for the fighting men in our Navy SEAL units, and in all our military, and the gals too.
6. Still can’t believe Obama is so inept at PR, that victory over bin Laden has turned into a net loss for Him.
7. Absolutely sickened by the decision not to release photos, and genuinely so, not putting on an act.
8. Trying to think of the last good thing I ever learned about this President, that I was allowed to verify for myself.
9. Taking note, again and again and again, of a three-stanza-anthem that has emerged among Obama’s supporters:
 • a. Why should He release anything He doesn’t have to prove anything and He doesn’t owe anybody anything;
 • b. Place all your faith in these (nameless) wise sages who surround The Obama, because that’s what I’m doing;
 • c. Feck off you’re unworthy and should be banished from our super-perfect Obamatopia.
10. Wondering how this affects the domestic issues in the long run.
11. Hoping desperately that the White House has already run into that gut-wrenching “we’ve overplayed our hand” feeling.
12. In a state of dread over what wretched ideas we’re going to see, should that not be the case.
13. In a state of abject bewilderment that such smart people can make the same mistakes over and over again.
14. Isn’t this the equivalent of “parallel parking by Braille”?
15. Gloating that the “birther” movement seems to have declined by half, or more.
16. Noting that this is precisely what we were told, with such condescending certainty, would not happen.
17. Waiting for the apology that I know will not come.
18. Looking forward to many years coming & going without my having to hear “it wouldn’t convince anybody anyway…”
19. Knowing that isn’t going to happen either.
20. Wondering what kind of people would toss out the “wouldn’t convince anyone” bromide without feeling deep shame.
21. Not looking forward to coming into contact with such people.
22. Still walking on air because Osama bin Laden’s dead.
23. Befuddled about the Too Civilized and Evolved to See Any Good Here crowd.
24. Have no idea what in the world is driving them.
25. No wait, now that I think on it, the problem is I have way too many ideas about what is, or might be, driving them.
26. None of these ideas say anything good about them for being the way they are.
27. Or about the rest of us, for putting up with them.
28. Wondering what act of revenge Al Qaeda will try to launch over here.
29. No, not really.
30. But cautious vigilance is always a good thing…to whatever extent it’s my place to exercise it.
31. Wondering where premium gas is going to be by Memorial Day weekend.
32. Hoping everybody looking for work, that is ready willing & able to accept a job offer, gets one.
33. Wondering how that would work for them, if these jackasses didn’t show up talking the economy down every day.
34. Wishing a case of worms on them. Seriously, if you don’t know things will get better, just say you don’t know.
35. Trying to figure out why, if President Awesome is so Awesome, it costs a billion dollars to re-elect Him.

Speaking of blogger friend Phil: He was egging me on, with regarding to a sort of half-assed plan I had germinating in my head anyway. About an hour from here up into the mountains, we have this really cool road that goes up into many, many square miles of hiking and camping spread known as El Dorado National Forest. The plan was to haul the mountain bike up there, along with the Little Joe which is now something like five seven years old, and horribly under-used, with a thick layer of dust all over it. Thought I’d take advantage of the off-season and the diminished traffic, sort of build up my confidence with the device.

Because it’s an intimidating thing, you know, if you haven’t put it into some real use just yet. Dumping your pedal equipment in the middle of the Highway 50 corridor, you know, it could get someone killed. But the machine does seem to be in good working order…just need to get it into circulation.

Well, I forgot the Little Joe. But that was a secondary mission. The primary focus was just exploring the campground. You see, this far up into the mountains, the campgrounds remain frozen like popsicles into the month of May. And so, knowing that the road was closed off to motorized vehicles, I had promised my son that I’d go on this venture to use the pedal-power and check out the campground we had reserved for this summer, when he comes to see us.

This gets into some personal stuff I haven’t written about here. There’s an agreement going on here, one in which both sides have had to flex a little. The boy is with his Mother for the school year right now, we get him during the summer. We’re winding up the first year in which it’s worked out like this. There’s been just a whole lot of the other kind of thing…you know…Momma gets him for the fun summer things, we have to deal with bedtimes and homework and yelling and drama and…and…and. Which, right now, she’s dealing with. As she has all year. But we haven’t had our fun times with the kid yet, and we’re looking forward to that. So we’re looking forward to the fun. Of course, he’s coming up on fourteen, so it isn’t quite as much fun as it would’ve been earlier…

That’s something of a tragedy, of course. We try not to think about it too much. But the fact is, life is not a dress rehearsal. On the other hand — although fourteen is too old for water parks, it’s just right for camping out, figuring out the Seven Manly Ways to Start Fires with your old man…and s’mores.

So I gassed up in Placerville, and managed to find a good parking spot up in the forest just on the early side of ten o’clock. Most weekends, the girlfriend works Saturday and I confine my adventuring to that day of the week. On this particular one she had Sunday allocated as well, so while she slaved away, I bolted together the bike and set to exploring.

The clock on my point-and-shoot is a bit fast, I think by about twenty minutes or so, maybe more.

Here we’ve barged on in past the gate, which you can see if you blow this up enough. Now, one month previous to this shot we were fortunate enough to check this place out — three generations of Freeberg males. It was the first week of April and we were walking around on the snow on top of this gate. So you see, there is a good amount of meltin’ goin’ on. On the previous trip, even on pedal power this would have been quite unthinkable.

As it is, according to the website, this road is open up to cars on May 26. That’s something, isn’t it? Here we are barely four thousand feet above sea level…doesn’t seem Californian at all, huh. Memorial Day weekend and the place is going to be in its first week open, because of snow.

It’s hard to believe, but these campsites are still in premium demand. You’ve heard that California is packed with pussies who consider it a hardship when their four-dollar coffee drinks are made with real milk instead of soy. Well, you’re right about that…California natives get goosebumps if the temperature is below 75 degrees, and start shivering.

But they snatch up these campsites fast enough. Go figure. The “furlough Fridays” have a lot to do with that, as I’ve written before.

As you can see from this shot, it seems going forward we’re snow-free. This is, if I’m remembering right, about 0.42 miles away from where we assembled the bike, 0.15 miles from the gate that blocks off the car traffic.

From this point, the road meanders around, constantly on a downhill grade. Of course, after that sharp turn, I’m cut off from all kinds of civilization…motorized…visual. Wonder if there’s bears down there?

But I told my son I’d check the place out. A promise made is a debt unpaid. So onward we go.

By the way, all of these stills are clickable. Click for larger if you are so inclined; I had my camera set to 3072 pixels wide.

Took a side trip here to check out what’s going on. The bike computer says I’m 1.08 miles in. Why did I take a picture of this placard? What is it I keep telling you about tree-hugging hippies…they smell like grass, corn chips and butt crack, and nobody ever tells them no. About anything. Ever. Except when…no…actually there are no exceptions. Nobody ever tells the long-haired hippies no.

Really, I’ve got nothing to complain about. It’s not like a city block is being closed off for these damn birds. My objection is not so much to the infringement of space, but of time. May 26 is pretty damn late in the year you know.

So once again, the “long pig” is making room for the other creatures. This is in blatant contravention against the Book of Genesis, which makes it abundantly clear that Man is to have dominion over the beasts of the field, the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky. But the pagans with their incense candles and their tie-dyed shirts and their lava lamps and their henna and their ponytails, demand absolute deference. And so, to the animals, the homo sapiens must yield. Hope they appreciate it. The beasts, I mean, not the hippies.

Actually I hope the hippies appreciate it too. Peace, man.

This is not a long-distance trek by any means. We knew that going in. But at this point something interesting, and not completely expected, happens: Water. Frozen. Lots and lots of it. Take a look; the camera is pointing in the direction in which we are traveling, 1.92 miles in. As you can see, we have a little bit of a situation going on. The two-wheel form of travel has reached a decisive dead-end.

We’re hoofing it from here.

The up-side is that we can leave the Trek on its kickstand, exactly as you see it. Bears are not known for their skills, nor for their enthusiasm, when it comes to stealing bikes. Candy bars and Little Debbies, maybe, but not bikes. Must be their butts being too big for the seats, or something.

But I do have to say, it’s a pleasant change of pace to just leave the bike where it is. Even peeled the helmet off my head and just chucked it to the ground as I continued onward, exploring on two feet. Campsites 81 through 111 are down this way, and we’ve reserved campsite 101.

We did not find campsite 101 as it turns out. You see, this snow…it’s in a process of melting and freezing and melting again and freezing again. It borders on a “snowshoe” adventure, and we were in sneakers. In our urban, sedentary lifestyle, we are of generous girth and the pounds-per-square-inch where our soles meet the earth, is a figure in a state of gradual increase.

So we had to shift our weight carefully in order to avoid sinking. Up to our waist. Bottom line? We didn’t explore too much from this point.

Here’s the reservoir, as viewed from the campground.

Across this body of water, there’s another campground we’ve been visiting on & off since the boy was about five or six (he’ll be fourteen this summer). So we’re looking at something familiar to the two of us, from a new angle for me.

At this point, I’m really looking forward to this. The wonderful thing about California is that the nighttime sky changes a whole lot depending on how secluded you are. There is the light pollution, and then there is the gas that comes from human activity. You get away from those two things and it is amazing how many stars you can see.

Of course, right now I’m not too concerned with stars. I’m a little concerned about bears.

On the way back, I saw one of these “bear proof” food repositories. They’re like garbage dumpsters, except weighted down so that a bear can’t tip them over. We-ell…this one was actually tipped over. Made me stop & go hmmm.

This last photo is of the only casualties on the trip, so far as I can see. I didn’t get nibbled by a bear, didn’t see any bears. But these things? My guess is: snowmen. I think what we’re looking at, here, is a snowman graveyard.

So I’m in at a little bit before ten in the morning, out at slightly after eleven.

Incidentally: On the way back to civilization, I stopped off at C & T’s restaurant in Pollock Pines. During the “Dad Grandpa and Kid” trip a month back, we breezed on in at 1:55 and kept them late…turned out their closing time was two. They accommodated us until we were good & ready to leave, not looking the least bit peeved. The service is excellent, the food is just as good. You should go.

This time, I didn’t act like a complete butthole. I patronized them promptly at 11:45.

Now, lessee…we get the kid right after school closes out, in early June. So I’m probably checking this place out one more time, most likely on the 4th of June at which time the road will be open. I could go the weekend before, really. Once the reservation timeframe is upon us, the boy is going to learn something about being a “quartermaster” on this particular camping trip. The meanie-cows who run the El Dorado web site insist on a two-day stay; we’re going to use this to make Friday night into a “shakedown,” and once we have a good inventory of all the goods & supplies we forgot to pack, we’ll descend upon Kyburz, or Pollock Pines — maybe both — snapping up whatever didn’t make the first inventory, at premium prices, for our second night out.

That’s a good camping trip right after the fourteenth birthday, I think. That’s a good age to learn your Dad is fallible and flawed and imperfect — you can’t just hang back, hope the old man thinks of everything, wait to be entertained. Participation becomes a requirement. And you know, in my world that’s healthy.

Anyway, I survived. The bears didn’t get me.

Can’t speak for you, but I’m convinced these fuckers are intelligent.

Every year, somewhere close to the Vernal Equinox it starts. They come out and start pushing the envelope. In wasp-language, they submit the proposition, signed sealed & delivered, that our balcony actually belongs to them.

We courteously submit a rebuttal, in wasp-language.

And so beginning on the Paschal Full Moon or thereabouts, I begin my sentry duties outside. Laptop, beer bottle, Wasp & Hornet Spray. Try not to go mixing ’em up.

And then laptop, empty beer bottle, full beer bottle, spray. Laptop, two empty beer bottles, beer bottle, spray. Now we’re at laptop, empty beer bottle, empty beer bottle, empty beer bottle, empty beer bottle, beer bottle, spray. Try not to mix ’em up.

Now here is the spooky part: Following Mother’s Day, or even Easter, there isn’t any spraying going on. It isn’t necessary. Wasps, I’m convinced — and I don’t give a shit what the entomologists have to say about this, okay? — understand the human-like concept of a “property line.” I am stalwart in this belief because I see it happen. They bob & weave the way they do, lazily to & fro…they sort of wander right up to where our negotiations concluded, and they wander right back again. I could measure it down to the fraction of the inch. And you know what? It works this way well past Labor Day, until there are Halloween decorations in the drugstores. At which time they disappear. Lay their eggs, and then salmon-like, go off and die?

It does seem to me that the negotiations need to be resumed the following year. Not possessing an encyclopedic knowledge of insect hibernation/reproduction rituals, I assume I am addressing a new generation. But even if that be the case, it seems to me there are genetic artifacts of what was negotiated the season previous. It’s as if momma wasp and daddy wasp told ’em, “don’t fuck with that guy with the can up there, he’s an asshole” and they listened somewhat.

The theories presented here, I have an opportunity to subject to a vigorous test. A tree is engulfing our balcony. It is deciduous, its pitch flows outward to the farthest leaves on the farthest branches. The wasps love it. But once those lines are negotiated in the springtime, they remain in full force throughout the entire year, and razor sharp.

No further negotiation necessary. Wasps is smart.

Had an argument over on the Hello Kitty of Blogging about the Osama bin Laden post mortem picture not being released…of course, I completely eviscerated the opposition in every conceivable way. And yes, I know what you’re thinking. I thought it too: All smirking egotists think they’ve prevailed in all discussions whether they really did or not. But of course you can’t measure that!

In this case, though, you can. Because every single one of my opponent’s points packed a persuasive punch, but only for people who think things through emotionally, to those who make logic a loathed stranger to be kept at a distance. For those to whom logic is a welcome friend to be embraced, everything he said was impotent.

He deployed three of the best.

1. It won’t change minds, because whoever isn’t convinced in the moment I’m typing this, will never be convinced. This one did startle me, I must say. I would have thought the entire nation got its fill of this last week.
2. These other people over here are part of a formidable “brain trust,” they know better than you do even though I cannot name their names; so why don’t you just shut up and think what they tell you to think. (One of the many problems this creates is: If I’m so insignificant that my opinion shouldn’t have any effect on anything compared to these intellectual titans, then the exercise of convincing me of something must be completely meaningless; so why are we having this conversation?)
3. Prerationalism. You are to be banished from the village gates, sir! Ostracized, to whither and perish in the harsh winter, and I get your ration of milk and grain!

As I commented in there: My position is absolutely moderate with regard to the bin Laden death photograph, just as it was with regard to the birth certificate. I am steadfastly convinced of the opinion President Obama wants me to have. But I will not join in on this exercise of heckling, ridiculing, browbeating, cajoling and bludgeoning those who dissent. I regard their disagreement to be reasonable. That’s called, having the ability to intellectually engage people who have different opinions. Does our President have this ability?

Furthermore, the merits of the doubter’s arguments — the arguments of those who call President Obama a liar — although not sufficient to sway me toward their point of view, is in a state of ascension as more feeble excuses are produced in lieu of the actual documentation. And, my own certainty that the President’s statement of the facts is the correct one, is in a state of decline. All of this is only reasonable.

President Obama has made a career out of a favorite catchphrase of His, “We Must Reject The False Choice.” How ironic it is that He has made a favorite maneuver out of one such false choice: Take My word for it, and oh by the way, if you take My word for it I will count on your support to help defeat and disenfranchise those who are not taking My word for it. That is, in & of itself, a “false choice” is it not? It sounds so…Sith-like, so dealing-in-absolutes-ish. Doesn’t it? Doesn’t that sound like “you’re a friend of us or else you’re a friend of the terrorists”? Wasn’t Birther Zero elected to put a stop to that kind of intellectual simplicity?

But the reason I’m jotting down a memo-for-file on this is: It seems to me these three logical fallacies, historically, have been cellophaned together onto a common flat. In fact, it seems to me they have historically arrived in sequence. Goldilocks slept in a bed that was too hard, too soft, just right. The wolf blew down the house of straw, then the house of sticks, then made a play for the brick and the mortar. Scrooge was haunted by Christmas-past, Christmas-present, Christmas-yet-to-come. Brahma/Creator, Vishnu/Preserver, Shiva/Destroyer. Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Revenge of the Jedi. Sine, Cosine, Tangent. Prue, Piper, Phoebe. Larry, Moe, Curly. That particular prime number seems to be a seed for the universe we know, and in which we are bound. Defined sequences seem to surround it at all times; this appears to be a cosmic constant.

Thus it is with dipshit liberal arguments: alpha, beta, gamma.

I often make much of the weak arguments, the arguments formulated for those who are lacking in a decent, working, long-term memory; those who, as mentioned above, treat logic as a loathed stranger to be kept away. I place pride in my ability to avoid these derelict arguments, to detect what is wrong with them — therefore I have pride in my own long-term memory. But I must admit to being a flawed ugly-bag-of-mostly-water, and my own memory is not infallible. I cannot rattle off a list of previous examples of this; I’m just picking up a vibe. A vibe of deja vu. I wish to crystallize this vibe into an article of reference that, later on, maybe I can use. That’s what memos-for-file are really all about.

I must say, though, I have a great deal more faith in the vibe than I have in most “vibes.” I think there is going to be a pattern detected from this. No point producing the smoking gun nobody will be convinced anyway; why don’t you just shut up and believe these nameless faceless demigod experts; you are to be banished from the village. I’ve gone into detail about each one of these feckless arguments. What is new here is the sequence. I think the sequence is something of a constant. I’ll test the theory in the time that stretches out before me, assuming The Lord sees fit to keep me on the planet for a suitable timeframe.

In the meantime, do I need to state the obvious? Those who are engaged in an attempt to present an argument that possesses real merit, should not need to make use of any of these techniques, or anything remotely like them. They are anti-logical. Like Jedi mind tricks, they only work on the weak minded. A healthy intellect won’t even lose track of a rhythm, should they appear, because if the powers of observation are working, recognition will be immediate. And it was.

Update: Somewhere in my archives, I had made a point of linking to blogger friend Phil…who, somewhere in his archives, summarized a favorite leftist argument as something like “Everyone who agrees with us, agrees with us!” The village-banishment ritual, which here is Installment Three of Three, seems to me to wrap up an instance of this argument. “Now that I have made a point of banishing everyone who won’t buy this argument from the ‘village,’ or at least from my own consciousness, I can continue to state that everybody* agrees with my point of view on this thing!”

In Anno Domini Twenty Eleven, being a liberal has a lot to do with arriving at custom definitions of that word — “everybody.” The liberals won’t say so, but they use that to describe “everybody…within a certain periphery…that I’ve drawn.” If they were too forthcoming about that, they wouldn’t look too “liberal.” But let’s cut the crap. That’s what they mean.

The village-banishment maneuver also has a lot to do with disagreement sliding down a short, steep, icy slippery slope into rancor and dysfunction. Which we then blame on “discussing politics in the workplace/at the party/in the bar.” The blame for which is to be cast to both sides, equally.

But since the liberals are becoming enamored of the prerational village-banishment maneuver, and rather exuberantly at that, isn’t it past high time the blame went to them? I can’t think of a better way to turn a jocular, jovial, light-hearted, family-friendly, fun-for-kids social occasion into a hotbed of rancor, than to pretend to be ready to engage these issues in a friendly, civilized, mutually respectful way — and then, as a direct result of the strategy that has been selected and rehearsed ahead of time, fail to deliver on this.

It’s bad faith. Shouldn’t we treat it like that’s what it is?

Wall Street Journal:

A 2008 study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, for example, found that the highest-earning 10% of the U.S. population paid the largest share among 24 countries examined, even after adjusting for their relatively higher incomes. “Taxation is most progressively distributed in the United States,” the OECD study concluded.

Meanwhile, the percentage of U.S. households paying no federal income tax has been climbing, and reached 51% for 2009, according to a new analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation. That was the first time since at least 1992 that more than half of households owed no federal income tax, according to JCT estimates.; earlier data were unavailable on Monday.

Many who paid no federal income tax for 2009 are likely low-wage workers, students and the elderly, according to Democratic aides, as well as those whose incomes have been affected by the economic downturn. [emphasis mine]

Stealing this from somewhere, although I can’t recall where: We know those liberal democrats must really like poor people since their policies continue to make more of them!

Hat tip to Neal Boortz, who adds:

Are you following this? The OECD says that our tax system is the most progressive among 24 large economies studied —- yet our re-distributor in chief says that the rich really aren’t paying their fair share. They just need to pay more.

And when you have over one-half of the people in this country not paying any income taxes – and from that you can suppose that over one-half of eligible voters don’t pay income taxes – how easy is it for a politician to talk about raising taxes on the evil rich?

Exactly. Must be that steely spine that was responsible for taking down bin Laden. Really going out on a limb there, Holy Man.

Maybe we can stumble on some “science” or some scientific “research” that says an enabling, redistributive government is bad for the environment or something. Voting for more alms emits carbon.

You wouldn’t know it from reading the pages here at The Blog That Nobody Reads. But I do love a true bumper-sticker slogan, that actually would fit on a bumper sticker.

Rush…

CNN says Obama just got a point, a bump of one point in the polls. They’re clearly unhappy about this. There’s a Washington Post Pew poll out now. Now, get this. This is quite telling. Washington Post Pew poll out now that says Obama has had his approval for the way he handled terrorism boosted to an all-time high of 69%. Washington Post Pew poll, Obama, all-time high in approval of how he handles terrorism, 69%. So SEAL Team 6 will be ecstatic to hear that it all worked out, it was worth it. Weirdly, though, on the economy, Obama still sits at 40% approval, a career low. How is that possible? It’s because you can’t put Osama Bin Laden’s blood in your gas tank. It’s because you can’t take Osama Bin Laden’s turban to Walmart and exchange it for a box of crispies. But why is the media going crazy running all these polls? Wasn’t killing Osama a good thing? It was a bipartisan thing. Why are they running all these approval polls anyway? I thought this was simply the right thing to do, to kill Osama Bin Laden? Even if it didn’t help Obama in the polls, this was just the right thing to do. They’re still running all these questions, all this polling.

Let me ask it this way. When did we land on the moon? When did Neil Armstrong take the first step out there on the moon? Remember the year, Snerdley? That’s right, 1969. July, 1969. Who was president? Richard Nixon. Did the country celebrate Richard Nixon after the moon landing? They didn’t celebrate Nixon? They didn’t? We didn’t celebrate Nixon? But Nixon was in the White House when we landed on the moon. Why didn’t Nixon get the credit for it? ‘Cause it was JFK’s baby, right? It was JFK’s objective to put a man on the moon in the next decade. Well, the country came together on Sunday night over the takedown of Osama Bin Laden. The country instantly unified around that singular event. Now, the media wants everybody to think we unified around Obama. The White House thinks — they want us to think — we unified around Obama, do they not? That’s exactly what they want us to think. Even Obama last night — I felt bad for Ted Baxter. His show was interrupted. Fox cut away from The O’Reilly Factor last night to go to the White House to show Obama getting a standing ovation from members of the congressional leadership for unifying the country.
:
Every narcissist’s dream is to have the world agree with them and adore them but that’s not our dream here, that’s not what this unity is all about. No, the American dream concerns our families, our life goals, jobs, homes, those that still have them, our disposable income, those that still have that, and the liberty, those that still have that. I mean there’s really nothing to leverage here. The celebration over Osama’s assassination isn’t transferable to a domestic political agenda. But they’re trying. You see, the American people know what to celebrate. We did that. We know what not to celebrate, too. And that’s liberalism. We don’t do that no matter how it’s positioned. And asking us to set aside our principles as a means of showing unity is absurd. Transparently absurd, but that’s what they’re doing.