Insert a Trite Metaphor for a Corral #112

Posted on August 28, 2011 in Roundup

Time destroys the speculation of men, but it confirms nature. Cicero

• Concerns about the Religious Right are not Overblown — It seems that the Washington Post has been caught employing a clueless religion reporter
• Skeptics issue $1 million psychic challenge — Real money if you can prove that you have psychic abilities
• Official details on the Virginia earthquake — No reason for folks back East to feel ashamed for their panic. This is large enough to be scary and do a little damage. Amusing, though, that it happened in the middle of Eric Cantor’s congressional district. See Ezra Klein’s list of his favorite earthquake tweets.
• Is Steve Jobs Bipolar? — An illustration of what can happen if you surround someone living with bipolar with supportive friends and associates.
• Economic equality is linked to biased self-perception — In our desperation, we inflate our sense of who we are. Sad.

Insert a Trite Metaphor for a Corral #111

Posted on August 21, 2011 in Roundup

• Stop Coddling the Super-rich — Warren Buffet shows his true love for America. Also read this article on how bad economic inequality in the United States really is. (It’s bad.
• “Blue Gold”: T. Boone Pickens and the Privatization of Water — Oh dear. This article is from a known terrorist organization. But it is still interesting (and without calls for violence)
• White Nose Syndrome: Something is Killing Our Bats — Also look here.
• The 8 Worst Types of Blog on the Internet
• When the irrational is considered rational — Can you see the gorilla in the financial markets?
• Infographic: How Online Retailers Make You Spend More — Free shipping is the big one for me
• Japan Earthquake: Ethical Residents Return $78 Million From Rubble — Can you imagine Americans doing this? And the Japanese do it without Christianity, just a strong sense of honor.

Insert a Trite Metaphor for a Corral #110

Posted on August 14, 2011 in Roundup

Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible. — Frank Herbert

Memes. A couple of memes driving extremists caught my attention today. The first was suggested by the comment of a progressive who told an African American woman that she had to “get over being black”. The meme is that most African Americans have an unreasonable hair trigger about race and are only supporting Obama because he is black.

It’s an echo of a meme that the Republicans have been circulating for years, one that they apply until their black candidates get criticized for their positions. Then invoking racism becomes just fine as [[Alan West]], [[Clarence Thomas]], or [[Herman Cain]] will show you any day.

Another folk theory that I encountered this past week is “all politics is corrupt”. This dripped off the honeyed lips of a Tea Party minion. I’ve been hearing this one since Watergate and it is always Republicans who invoke it. The idea here is that if all politics is corrupt, then the Democrats do it, too, and we can’t fault them ((I don’t tolerate corruption from any politician regardless of party.)) .

There’s an insidious intent behind the meme and that is to block any attempts to reform the political process. A secondary aim is to treat corruption involving millions in donations from corporations or wealthy individuals as insignificant. “Ah, politics is always corrupt. Live with it.”

We must resist such memes. First, we must recognize that we are a long way from a post-racial age — just look in the prisons and in the unemployment figures ((For that matter, we’re hardly in a post-feminist age. We need to struggle for equality just as surely now as ever.)) Second, we must never let anyone tell us to give up — that we can’t do better than we are. Finally, let’s not knock down the good that has been accomplished because we’re told it’s just hopeless. It is time to tell the GOP that you can’t be a party of morals that takes paybacks. When you sell out to the rich, you are contributing to a national rot. Stop it now.

• Lessons from Wisconsin — Have the Democrats ever heard that they are having messaging problems? Is there wax in their ears?
• Voters Can Fix the Court’s Citizens’ United Mistake — Using an old trick from long ago.
• The error of political prayer — Roger Ebert explains why prayer in government or for government is a bad thing.
• Roger Ailes and the rise of Fox News — From liberal Mike Douglas to Nixon to world domination.
• Strobe Illusion — This will distort your reality without resort to drugs. Safe for non-driving situations.
• New Twitter Algorithm Could Out Dudes Pretending to be Lesbians — This has been going on for longer than you can imagine.
• Arctic Ice Melt Could Pause for Several Years, Then Resume Again — You can bet ALEC will use this as an excuse for helping the oil companies to keep squeezing petroleum profits out of the rest of us.
• You can count on this: Math ability is inborn — I kept telling them it was so!
• Narcissists look like good leaders, but they aren’t

Insert a Trite Metaphor for a Corral #109

Posted on August 7, 2011 in Roundup

A despot doesn’t fear eloquent writers preaching freedom–he fears a drunken poet who may crack a joke that will take hold. — E. B. White

No AAA for Effort. The final news about what S&P will rate U.S. bonds is still waiting on its number crunchers to correct their accounting error that the Obama administration found late on Friday. (S&P seems to be off by a couple of trillion dollars.) In the meantime, we have another financial crisis brought on by the Republicans. As usual, a paucity of responses dominates the discussion on the anti-Obama side. Their primary talking point is the solo, monolithic “blame it all on Obama”.

The S&P report explaining the decision to lower the rating on U.S. bonds is clear: the problem is our lack of revenue coupled with the late proclivity of our Congress towards “brinksmanship”. Extrapolating from this enables us to level the finger at the party whose philosophy encompasses both of those: Republican ((Blue Dog Democrats have done their share on the revenue side, but the theatrics belong exclusively to the Tea Party-driven GOP)) .

Nonetheless, Obama-bashers of both sides obstinately get the story wrong. One of the most creative and wrong was that of a cowboy-hatted Tea Bagger who told me “read the damn document”. I did. And it said what I said it said, Mister.

Of course, this was never meant for me. It was meant for his fellow Tea Baggers and those who will never read the document for themselves. It suggests esoteric knowledge that absolves the Tea Party of all the wreckage they have caused in the last few months. Denial is the Tea Party way: ’tis better for these rabbits to call themselves coyotes so that maybe, just maybe, they will not be eaten by the wolves who back them.

• After the Debt Ceiling Debacle — Look at all the stories that went unnoticed while the Tea Party was trying to crash the nation.
• Did Obama Cave — Did the Pope convert to Satanism?
• Al Gore and Keith Olbermann Send A Wave of Terror Through Fox News — Is it time for an American Spring?
• Seven types of troll: a spotter’s guide — The stupidest for me are the Obama-bashing “progressives”, but they aren’t mentioned here.
• Five Scriptures You Won’t Hear at Rick Perry’s Event
• Life Hacking: How to sleep anywhere, anytime — The principles here seem sound.
• Is Land — This wonderful balloon is now adrift. Curse the clods who cut its anchor.
• Breeding Crops With Deeper Roots Could ‘Slash CO2 Levels’ — Those in my circle who dislike genetic engineering reject this approach, but I think it is worth thinking about.
• Northern Humans Had Bigger Brains, to Cope With the Low Light Levels, Study Finds — Big brains make you see better, not make you smarter than Africans.
• Blame Game: Sleepier College Students Are More Likely to Blame Others and Plan Revenge — I see this playing out all the time on Twitter. I am at my worst when I don’t sleep. Others?