House of Eratosthenes

Note To Self: If you’re still among the living in one year’s time — that’s September 5, 2008 — re-write this from scratch just to see if any of the items have changed. It’s rather obscene that the one-year-plus election season has given you such an opportunity (see Item #4).

1. That the Republican candidates at the debate tonight can take turns bashing Fred Thompson, who is not there to defend himself. Actually, it’s worse than that. It’s as if the democrats have taken seven years to say among themselves “Now that we all agree George W. You-Know-Who is an evil stupid idiot, let’s ingratiate ourselves with each other by showing off who can throw the most frequent and acrid insults his way,” and the Republicans all got together and said “Those democrats have the right idea, let’s do what they’re doing.” Oh okay, so now to be a politician, you have to all agree on a target, and see who does the best job tossing Molotov cocktails at that target. I remember when being conservative was all about being classy. Come to think of it, if I was 21 instead of 41, I’d still be able to say that…I remember when conservative, was all about classy. That time has past. This is a really, really sad thing. Screw all of you guys. Go Fred.

2. That what we call “scandals” have become devices to make sure conservatives are driven out of power, and liberals remain, and that so many people who pride themselves on following what we call “news,” remain charmingly ignorant of what’s going on in spite of the evidence paraded right in front of them, month in, month out. Studds stays in. Craig is out. Frank stays in. Lott is out. Kennedy stays in. Packwood is out. Clinton stays in. North is down. Reid is unharmed. Gingrich is forced out. Doolittle is still up, but on his way down. Pelosi and Feinstein stay in. De Lay is gone. Over and over and over again we see: When you look at what stinks, it’s a mixed bag between conservative Republicans and liberal democrats. But when you look at who resigns and who remains in power…things are so slanted toward the left-wing, it’s all but impossible to at least inspect the scandal as — just possibly — a cynical tool devised, designed and deployed to keep a certain faction in power. I mean, after a while you just have to ask…is it still not obvious to you people what’s going on? And why not, are you super-dense or something? Over the last decade…how many conservatives have stayed up, and how many liberals have tumbled down? Not that many of either, right? Yer bein’ played. It should have been obvious to you, years ago.

3. The Futility Argument. Blogger friend JohnJ noticed our liberals like to declare certain endeavors unworthy of human effort, due to perceived lack of potential for success. I was noticing this is true, but the liberals like to maintain a certain selectivity about this. They declare things futile that really aren’t…like…locking up people who commit violent crime, and keeping on doing it, until anybody who’d commit violent crime, is locked up. And then, as if to declare a bitter war on logic itself, they suddenly energize themselves to engage certain efforts that really are futile…like making sure we all have the same amount of material stuff, in the name of “economic justice.” That’s just one example. My theory is that to engage some kind of task that will demand energy over the long term, and might really be achievable, is such a frightening prospect that they don’t have the balls to do it. And so they declare anything that might be possible, to be impossible, abstain from doing it, and excoriate anybody who might see it as a worthy venture…instead retreating to the relative safety of things anyone with a brain knows is pure fantasy, like making sure we all have the same quantity and quality of toys. Engaging tasks that might actually be completed successfully, it seems, is pretty scary to some people. I want to barf when the people who are intimidated by this simple challenge, end up running things.

4. Our next election is on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008. It makes me want to barf when I realize I’ve been listening to people campaign — hardcore, in the traditional sense of campaigning, in every conceivable way — since February of 2007. That’s a big ol’ chunk of time. That’s twenty-one months of campaigning. This is truly obscene.

5. Really, really hot-looking women, wearing long pants.

6. When people make tenuous points of debate sound reasonable, that in reality aren’t anything close to it, by using sarcasm.

7. When people hold themselves out as some kind of super-brave martyrs, on the order of Mahatma Ghandi or Jesus Christ, by “speaking truth to power” in the United States of America, a country in which it’s unconstitutional to prosecute you just for saying stuff — a Utopian haven of safety for political dissidents if ever there was one in the history of the human race.

8. When someone memorizes the answers to a test for 24 hours or less, and therefore achieves some kind of coveted certification — and is therefore hailed as having “achieved” something, on par with a thinker and doer who invented a better mousetrap that actually saved money and/or limbs and/or lives. We don’t owe a damn thing to people with sheepskins on their walls. We owe what we have to people who saw what they saw, thought what they thought, concluded what they concluded, and did what they did. Which is a completely different thing from memorizing pre-canned answers for a portion of a single day, so that a test could be passed. Deep down, I think everyone knows this. That’s what makes me want to barf when so many people forget it.

9. Doofus Dad movies.

10. When politicians run for re-election on simple problem-solution platforms, when they already ran on it the previous election cycle. Like…”shoring up Social Security.” Or…”defending a woman’s right to choose.” Or…”making the minimum wage a living wage.” Or…”continuing our nation’s struggle for Civil Rights.” Seriously, a lot of these things go back thirty years, if not longer than that. We keep on electing people who hold themselves out as being able to “solve” these problems…and clearly, aren’t solving them…why do we do this again?

11. People carelessly tossing around the word “Peace.” It is NOT the absence of war. It has to do with the unconditional acceptance of conditions, which are helpful to one side, and unhelpful to another. The communists used this trick. It’s probably the most effective thing they ever did. In this sense, if none other, they are still among us.

12. That illegal immigration is the one crime which a great number of high-profile candidates for high office, are willing to treat as something other than a crime. It is the Number One crime that enjoys this kind of protection…with smoking pot being a close second. Enough already, they’re CRIMINALS. They are people who have broken one law, most of whom would have no compunctions whatsoever about breaking a second! If you can’t protect women from being killed by illegal aliens, and little girls from being raped by illegal aliens, and teenagers from being murdered and chopped up into pieces by illegal aliens — then don’t run for anything. What’s so hard about this?

13. That people with personal problems with the death penalty, can serve in judicial capacities on courts having jurisdiction over sovereign states that allow the death penalty. This is like allowing vegetarians to run steakhouses.

14. Gluttonous quantities of WAGTOCPAN, which you can find around here much more easily than you might think.

15. That the English language should be controversial. Some people even call it “racist,” thereby all-but-proving Thing I Know #212. To which I have to ask one of my favorite questions — what color is English??

16. That the United States having a border that actually counts for something, is controversial.

17. That the understanding of our planet as a living, dynamic ecosystem, with a temperature and climate pattern that varies with the passage of time as any reasonable mind would expect it to, is some potent argument for liberal politicians to be elected to office. Yes of course the climactic metrics change over time, the planet is a LIVING THING you dimwits. If it was static to the precision of a hundredth of a degree over the course of a hundred years, that would mean everything on it was DEAD. That’s clearly not the case, so what is it that surprises you so much?

18. While we’re on that subject…it makes me barf when I see people defining their identities according to the activity of lecturing their fellow citizens about “carbon footprints,” while running around in vehicles that are quite LARGE. I think your “global warming” thing is a great big crock. My car gets 36 miles a gallon. What the hell are YOU driving, Mister Al Gore Inconvenient Truth Ford Explorer Eight Miles a Gallon Guy? Go pound sand, you pretentious assholes.

19. Shopper-in-training carts. When I go shopping for food, I’m already not having a good time. I don’t need some eight-year-old ramming a miniature plastic shopping cart up my ass when I’m looking for the beer.

20. Bush-bashing liberal conspiracy theorists who accuse our President of the worst, being allowed to make issues out of things that any reasonable person would declare to be trivial to the point of being comical. Supposedly he’s a complete retard who can’t even string together a complete sentence because he’s such a dimwit — but he fooled everybody by crashing planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and then blowing up the levees in New Orleans, and then that bridge in Minneapolis, all without anybody really suspecting anything about his involvement because he’s such an Evil Genius even though he’s a complete idiot. And then he fooled us all into thinking Iraq had weapons of mass destruction even while the experts were saying Iraq didn’t have them…got 3600 coalition members killed, in addition to “hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.” And to fix this, we should…um…raise the minimum wage a buck and a half? Roll back tax cuts? What a load. A lot of people fall for it, all the time…and this makes me want to barf.

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- Webloggin - Blog Archive » GOP Debate - A Little More Lively | 09/06/2007 @ 08:10
[…] Scandals and Leftists Fred’s The One Everywhere Like Such As Things That Make Me Barf Imitation is the SincerestForm XX Idiots and Segways This Is Good XLIII Jackasses Ride It Out, Pachyderms Fall And Stay Down On Thompson Creationist Scandals I’m Fifty-Four Percent Addicted… Repeal the Seventeenth I’m a Slithering Reptile […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 09/06/2007 @ 09:34
3. The Futility Argument. Throwing money at Theater Missile Defense = futile but Zillions thrown at “poor” people in the form of checks and services != futile

8. Most people I know who went to college did indeed learn something despite their best efforts. Certainly some meet your example but not many in my experience. That said, we do put too much value on a college degree.

13. Interesting. Does that analogy extend to other things? What about people who do not believe drugs should be illegal?

18. AKA Green-standing.

19. It makes me barf that I can’t buy beer in grocery stores.
- Duffy | 09/06/2007 @ 14:50
8. Well now that I’m a little calmed down I see this isn’t worded very well. We do owe a lot to people who have sheepskins, if & only if those people who have sheepskins also applied themselves and “saw what they saw, thought what they thought, concluded what they concluded, and did what they did.” The text above presumes these are mutually exclusive things (all too often, that turns out to be true). Put more simply, it was the noodling things out, that provided the benefit to those who came later. The sheepskin is simply a manifestation of the talents and the willingness to do the work. By itself, it does not help anyone. And it is not, by itself, an achievement. No more than printing up the label that goes on the wine bottle, has something to do with producing the wine inside.

It doesn’t even prove anything; rather, it is evidenciary of something. And only mildly evidenciary at that, in certain professions. It often seems that distinction is lost by people who are paid good money not to lose it.

19. Yeah, that would make me barf too.
- mkfreeberg | 09/06/2007 @ 17:03
Here’s the thing about college diplomas. The only thing they indicate is that you can probably learn something if taught. The college you attend often has little to do with your intellect and more to do with your wallet. Likewise, the college you attend will provide for you in equal measure that you put into it. Hayseed State University can be much better than Prestigious College if you decide to work your butt off at the former.

Lastly, your GPA at college is reflective of your ability to choose professors more than anything.
- Duffy | 09/07/2007 @ 09:12
Yes, those are both good. This one gripe deserves a post all it’s own, because it’s rather a complex issue and the thing-that-makes-me-barf really boils down to a complaint that it’s treated with simplicity — along with far more certainty in that simplicity, than is warranted. Given that the people exuding this certainty/simplicity generally don’t understand what they’re trying to get out of the certification process by a damn sight.

What makes it complex is that you have different things that fall into this. There are the diplomas, and then there are specialized certifications. And then there are things that really don’t have a lot to do with knowledge at all: notices of passage from the board of health on the window of your favorite restaurant…the seal you need to pop off a bottle before you can take the medicine inside…etc. Once these involve three parties — the guy or thing being certified, the person utilizing the cert to make a decision, and the authority granting the cert — generally speaking, it’s a VERY short time to wait before we see excellence and mediocrity changing places. That’s because this documentation is being used to substantiate performance at-or-above some threshold, but the mechanisms involved in qualifying for the cert, as well as awarding it, all have to do with coloring within lines and following rules.

Here’s an observation: When does certifying things REALLY matter? Most of us would say medicine. Now, when do we start to get really interested in medicine? Discounting the situations in which we or our loved ones have to go under the knife, the next-most-intriguing story is your average “House” episode in which someone has a mysterious infection and nobody knows why; some “maverick” uses an unorthodox maneuver to unlock the mystery that nobody else can figure out. I think, instinctively, everybody understands you can’t really make a difference as an individual, if you don’t behave like an individual. And when you make others follow rules just for the sake of following rules, without understanding the point of those rules, what you’re insisting on is that people don’t do this.

The danger is we’re fooling ourselves into thinking we’re insisting on extraordinary competence, when what we’re really insisting on is the opposite — standard, and substandard, competence. We’re installing machinery, in many walks of life, to produce the exact opposite of what we really want.
- mkfreeberg | 09/07/2007 @ 12:54

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Things That Make Me BarfThursday, September 6th, 2007

Things That Make Me Barf
Thursday, September 6th, 2007