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...
Christmas crotch sizzler, Army base shooter, Times Square truck bomber. That’s three. Three strikes and you’re still not out.
Newlywed Cassy takes note of the fact that, disturbingly, our Dear Leader is cutting funding where it counts. I guess counterterrorism isn’t “shovel-ready”:
After the attempted Christmas Day bombing, Obama stayed in Hawaii and played golf. His administration has botched the investigation of the Fort Hood jihadist. And now, we’ve had the attempted car bombing in Times Square. How did Obama handle that? He cut New York’s anti-terror funding just 11 days later:
Eleven days after the botched plot to bomb Times Square, the Obama administration on Wednesday slashed some $53 million from the city’s terror-fighting budget.
“For the administration to announce these cuts two weeks after the attempted Times Square bombing shows they just don’t get it and are not doing right by New York City,” fumed Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
To top it off, the news arrives as President Obama comes to town today amid buzz he will meet with the very cops who helped thwart the bombing.
Obama will also be tapping the city’s deep pockets for the Democratic Party.
“The President seems more interested in raising money for political campaigns than providing New York the money it needs to defend itself against Islamic terrorism,” said Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.), the top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee.
Bingo, Rep. King.
This has apparently been in the works since December, but one would think that after New York was the subject of an attempted terrorist attack, he would reconsider. Even Chuck Schumer is astounded by this. Obama clearly doesn’t understand the concept of homeland security, and I’ve got a feeling that he probably wouldn’t care even if he did. He’s perfectly fine trying to squeeze more money out of New Yorkers for himself, but he isn’t willing to spend a little to keep them safe. If this administration, the most spend-happy administration in decades, isn’t willing to spend money on something, then you know it’s got to be low on their priority list.
Whereupon I entered a comment about exactly what it is we elected. This is true wisdom from Yours Truly. You should write it down and keep it in your back pocket; refer to it again whenever His Holiness does something strange, and keep looking at it again long after we finally get rid of Him. Because this is what Cheerleader Management is all about, and it isn’t limited to the presidency.
This has apparently been in the works since December, but one would think that after New York was the subject of an attempted terrorist attack, he would reconsider.
This makes the situation worse, IMO. It makes it worse because it makes the whole parable much simpler, almost suitable for condensation into a Hans Christian Andersen or Brothers Grimm fairy tale. See, “we all” voted for Obama because the desire was for a champion to emerge who would soothe our emotions and make sure “hope is in the air.” We got precisely what we wanted. A cheerleader. Managers like Obama do not labor to alter the outcome, with regard to anything save a narrow sliver of issues within their immediate concerns. They are status quo. What they manage, is our emotional reaction to things. They are there to encourage us to accept things we otherwise would not.
They are like the customer service representative on the phone, who wastes our time, letting us figure out for ourselves we are talking to the wrong person. Changing nothing, just throwing useless bromides at us to stop us from litigating.
I have other words for those other matters on which Obama wants to be a force of advocacy, as opposed to “leadership.” On those matters He does real harm. But I think the more potent lesson for us all to learn is with regard to these management issues in which His harm is passive. Anyone who’s worked for any length of time, has had a boss like this. It does not make you want to go to work any earlier or work any harder.
He’s a fake yo-yo trickster, just like K-Strass. We like to think our primal layers of intellect, just as a product of human evolution, are sufficient to keep from being snookered by emotion-managers like this. Well, we’re wrong. Just like K-Strass will keep fooling teevee network after teevee network, politicians like Obama will keep working themselves all the way to the top where they’ll make their craven, do-nothing, status-quo, dithering-in-Afghanistan type decisions. And as long as they talk a good game we’ll just keep falling for it. By which I mean the Big We…not every single one of us, just enough of us to make the decision to get fooled one more time.
It’ll keep happening. As long as there are rocks on the ground and the river is still flowing, and there are people who feel their way around their problems rather than think their way through them, the “Rah Rah!” manager will stick around, using his talents to prevail on us to accept miserable situations we otherwise would not. Our genome lacks any defense mechanism that would enable us to effectively cope. We’ve not had to develop one in the past…not in a past that is meaningful to the slow process of evolution. It is, for the most part, a mass-communication-age problem.
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We wish the investigation of the Fort Hood jihadist was botched. It was not. Orwell got the date wrong.
- jamzw | 05/13/2010 @ 09:23