Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
I have said before, and the schedule does not permit any rummaging through the archives for a link, that many of our modern problems have to do with certain charismatic individuals assuming mantles of real authority when they are not only inexperienced in making sensible decisions, but powerfully motivated toward making non-sensical ones. If the solution to a problem is only too obvious, say for example Orwell’s simple equation of two and two make four; then some of the charisma would have to be sacrificed in providing the correct answer of four. Four is what an ordinary person would say. To those whose position has been defined and perhaps created due to an illusion of their uniqueness, four is therefore out of the question because it would injure the definition. Some flimsy justification must therefore be sought for saying three, five or ten.
In other words: We’re screwed before you even get to the liberal-versus-conservative stuff. Once we elect the “There’s Just Something About Him” types, we’re already over the cliff. We’ve already made our commitment to nonsense.
It occurs to me lately that perhaps the source of the problem is in our search for superlatives. Think of Ayn Rand’s model of the Looters and Moochers. The moochers want free stuff; they have nothing by way of products or services to offer for a barter, but they have their numbers, which means power for the looters — if the looters can acquire, and retain, the approval of the moochers. But we could survive that without a search for superlatives among the looters. If you’re a moocher, but you believe two and two make four, and you don’t want the best of the best looters, only the looter who can bring you your things at the expense of a stranger who produced it; then, you will respond to the only facts that are truly relevant in the matter of our debt problem.
They are these: Our government is committing, on an annual basis, an amount greater than the greatest it has ever taken in. The difference between current disbursements and maximum revenue is about a trillion dollars. That’s a little over a third of what the budget was a couple years ago, and a little over a fourth of what it is now.
So a committed moocher who is receptive to common sense, and applies a “pass fail” test to candidates for public office would say: Okay then. The party’s over.
But the search for superlatives involves a tournament, in which only the champion among champions will do. A looter who says “the party is not over,” obviously is superior to the looter who says that it is. Two and two make five.
A looter who says “we don’t need to cut a single thing anywhere” is better than the looter who says “the party isn’t over an we can still loot.”
The looter who says “the solution to this problem is to raise taxes on the wealthy and not cut anything,” is better than the looter who simply says we don’t need to cut anything.
The looter who says “Oh and by the way, it’s those ‘pull yourself up by your own bootstraps’ guys who made the problem in the first place” — he’s the best of them all. And so here we are: Washington, DC is stuffed lousy with ’em.
But that doesn’t mean this is true, no matter how many times we vote on it and find that message to either triumph, or at least to resonate. That doesn’t change the facts on the ground. Two and two still make four.
And the party really is over.
The experiment may be over as well. If it isn’t, we’ve certainly found an enormous weakness in it. One well worth documenting for future civilizations who may want to try similar experiments.
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