No nation of adult men wearing so-called "flip flops" in public as a matter of habit can ever be taken seriously. That is simply impossible.
Ha!
Ha!
Spied yesterday: The Drunk Driver Always Has the Right of Way (Ethan Coen)...
The loudest have the final say,
The wanton win, the rash hold sway,
The realist's rules of order say
The drunken driver has the right of way.
The Kubla Khan can butt in line;
The biggest brute can take what's mine;
When heavyweights break wind, that's fine;
No matter what a judge might say,
The drunken driver has the right of way.
Found today: an economist explains...
Game theory shows that there are times when irrationality (real or feigned) is a highly effective strategy. Someone who seems impervious to logic is someone who also gets his own way a lot. Consider, for example, toddlers, terrorists, bosses, dogs and the late Charles de Gaulle.
The loudest have the final say,
The wanton win, the rash hold sway,
The realist's rules of order say
The drunken driver has the right of way.
The Kubla Khan can butt in line;
The biggest brute can take what's mine;
When heavyweights break wind, that's fine;
No matter what a judge might say,
The drunken driver has the right of way.
Found today: an economist explains...
Game theory shows that there are times when irrationality (real or feigned) is a highly effective strategy. Someone who seems impervious to logic is someone who also gets his own way a lot. Consider, for example, toddlers, terrorists, bosses, dogs and the late Charles de Gaulle.
Go here. Watch the video. Read the story. And then, if you have the stomach, read the comments by the cops below. Here's a taste for those who don't click links willy-nilly:
Cop chases innocent kid due to mistaken identity. Kid runs briefly, eventually stops. Cop body checks kid into wall, putting him into a coma. Cop buddies universally laud the incident as good work.
"He shouldn't have ran if he didn't do anything wrong. He got what he deserved."
Fucking scumbags.
Cop chases innocent kid due to mistaken identity. Kid runs briefly, eventually stops. Cop body checks kid into wall, putting him into a coma. Cop buddies universally laud the incident as good work.
"He shouldn't have ran if he didn't do anything wrong. He got what he deserved."
Fucking scumbags.
As "climate change" begins to wind down, more panics will have to be stirred in order to jsutify (and inflame) the ever present bourgeois, affluent guilt that seems to arise in such a thick portion of the Western population. Also - there's money and power to be had in scaremongering, to be sure. The press, the political aristocracy, the opportunistic fad peddlers.
Enter - mass extinction. Man induced, (un)naturally.
"Though scientists have directly assessed the viability of fewer than 3% of the world's described species, the sample polling of animal populations so far suggests that we may have entered what will be the planet's sixth great extinction wave. And this time the cause isn't an errant asteroid or megavolcanoes. It's us.
...
"For me, conservation is ultimately a moral obligation and simply the right thing to do." That leaves us a choice. We can save life on this special planet, or be its unwitting executioner."
The arrogance and self-importance of these people just staggers me. And, of course, the inevitable coup de grace is delivered at the end of article - pinching off debate and making the highly dubious assumptions and conclusions throughout the piece seem like certainties - that this is at once an impending disaster but also a moral issue. Anyone who disagrees is a monster.
This is a very old strategy from a well worn playbook.
Enter - mass extinction. Man induced, (un)naturally.
"Though scientists have directly assessed the viability of fewer than 3% of the world's described species, the sample polling of animal populations so far suggests that we may have entered what will be the planet's sixth great extinction wave. And this time the cause isn't an errant asteroid or megavolcanoes. It's us.
...
"For me, conservation is ultimately a moral obligation and simply the right thing to do." That leaves us a choice. We can save life on this special planet, or be its unwitting executioner."
The arrogance and self-importance of these people just staggers me. And, of course, the inevitable coup de grace is delivered at the end of article - pinching off debate and making the highly dubious assumptions and conclusions throughout the piece seem like certainties - that this is at once an impending disaster but also a moral issue. Anyone who disagrees is a monster.
This is a very old strategy from a well worn playbook.
Wow.
AGW is the ultimate blame game and bureaucratic shell game. Everyone is to blame so no one is to blame. Measurable verifiable results are claimed to be decades or even centuries in the future. In the mean time, just keep spending money and building insular bureaucratic fiefdoms that are morally above reproach. Imagine a project with no beginning and no end, where the results are whatever you decide them to be.
Via the comments on this article, wherein Obama points the finger at "climate change" for North Dakota flooding.
Via the comments on this article, wherein Obama points the finger at "climate change" for North Dakota flooding.
Last year, Eva Ligeti and her husband uncorked a couple of bottles and invited friends for a low-key Earth Hour party at their home in Forest Hill.
"It was lots of fun, very cozy," says Ligeti, executive director of the Clean Air Partnership. "We turned off the lights, burned candles, had the gas fireplace on, had wine and cheese – and talked about how you can have a good life, especially in Toronto, without using a lot of energy."
The only downer, she says, was when "my boys looked up the street out of the window and were disgusted that there were still houses with electric lights on."
You people can't be this fucking stupid. Can you? I mean...really?
Jesus fucking Christ. And you're brainwashing your kids to be self-righteous morons to boot.
"It was lots of fun, very cozy," says Ligeti, executive director of the Clean Air Partnership. "We turned off the lights, burned candles, had the gas fireplace on, had wine and cheese – and talked about how you can have a good life, especially in Toronto, without using a lot of energy."
The only downer, she says, was when "my boys looked up the street out of the window and were disgusted that there were still houses with electric lights on."
You people can't be this fucking stupid. Can you? I mean...really?
Jesus fucking Christ. And you're brainwashing your kids to be self-righteous morons to boot.
This is why the internet is so great.
Stephane Dion is paying heavily for his hoped-for six months at 24 Sussex Dr. He started Monday with his principles.
The would-be prime minister, who first arrived in Ottawa to fight on the unity front and authored the Clarity Act, a significant federalist achievement, sat next to Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe and welcomed his signature on a document that could give separatism its greatest advance since the departure Rene Levesque.
The document is a deal that would let the Liberals and the New Democratic Party try to run the country for the next 18 months, propped up by Duceppe's 49 MPs. Mr. Dion and NDP leader Jack Layton welcomed the pact with speeches about democracy and their overwhelming concern for the country. Mr. Duceppe skipped all that and got straight to the point: he signed on because it furthers his ambitions in Quebec, and he'll abide by it as long as that's the case.
Initially he agreed to just 18 months, with an option for an additional 12 months if conditions warrant - i.e. if he can still extract enough concessions to make it worthwhile. To win his signature Mr. Layton and Mr. Dion agreed to a number of demands that will elevate Quebec to special status in Confederation, well above any of the other provinces or territories, even as it draws billions every year in equalization payments paid by those same regions.
From here.
There are millions and millions of Albertans who didn't vote Liberal or Bloc or NDP or for a "mutant hybrid" of the three. And yet, here's the "leaders" they didn't vote for brokering deals that will see billions of dollars stolen from them, for the sole purpose of furthering the political ends of said leaders.
This is total and complete nonsense. Intelligent, principled Governance is clearly the last thing on these scumbags minds - it's all about grabbing, holding and retaining power.
The would-be prime minister, who first arrived in Ottawa to fight on the unity front and authored the Clarity Act, a significant federalist achievement, sat next to Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe and welcomed his signature on a document that could give separatism its greatest advance since the departure Rene Levesque.
The document is a deal that would let the Liberals and the New Democratic Party try to run the country for the next 18 months, propped up by Duceppe's 49 MPs. Mr. Dion and NDP leader Jack Layton welcomed the pact with speeches about democracy and their overwhelming concern for the country. Mr. Duceppe skipped all that and got straight to the point: he signed on because it furthers his ambitions in Quebec, and he'll abide by it as long as that's the case.
Initially he agreed to just 18 months, with an option for an additional 12 months if conditions warrant - i.e. if he can still extract enough concessions to make it worthwhile. To win his signature Mr. Layton and Mr. Dion agreed to a number of demands that will elevate Quebec to special status in Confederation, well above any of the other provinces or territories, even as it draws billions every year in equalization payments paid by those same regions.
From here.
There are millions and millions of Albertans who didn't vote Liberal or Bloc or NDP or for a "mutant hybrid" of the three. And yet, here's the "leaders" they didn't vote for brokering deals that will see billions of dollars stolen from them, for the sole purpose of furthering the political ends of said leaders.
This is total and complete nonsense. Intelligent, principled Governance is clearly the last thing on these scumbags minds - it's all about grabbing, holding and retaining power.
Well, it finally happened. I turned off a new Simpsons episode right in the middle. It took this show nearly two decades to evoke in me the sort of instant apathy I reserve for a great deal of other television shows, but there it is.
The problem with said episode was the absolute boot-licking obsequiousness shown in general for populist liberal sensibilities. It's not that the show inflamed my own political leanings - its that it betrayed the very basis and foundation upon which the Simpsons has stood as a pillar of comedic satire for so long: namely, subversiveness. The often subtle yet razor-sharp manner in which the Simpsons previously took on populist notions (from both the left and right) was mainly what won the show a place in my heart. Until now.
Last night, the plot featured Bart meeting a Muslim family and Homer predictably playing the antipode to the prevailing American zeitgeist by being as boorishly xenophobic and prejudiced as possible. Even that would have been somewhat acceptable if it hadn't been so ham-fisted in it's delivery (I think Marge actually said something about tolerance and diversity being virtues) and so grossly derivative overall (they might as well have been chasing after Family Guy - and therefore All in the Family - crying: "Us too! Us too! We can be terribly, terribly liberal! We can fellate the Democrats!").
It's sad to see it go, but it's amazing the show lasted as long as it did I guess.
RIP Simpsons. You're numerous seasons of actually good material will grant me solace.
The problem with said episode was the absolute boot-licking obsequiousness shown in general for populist liberal sensibilities. It's not that the show inflamed my own political leanings - its that it betrayed the very basis and foundation upon which the Simpsons has stood as a pillar of comedic satire for so long: namely, subversiveness. The often subtle yet razor-sharp manner in which the Simpsons previously took on populist notions (from both the left and right) was mainly what won the show a place in my heart. Until now.
Last night, the plot featured Bart meeting a Muslim family and Homer predictably playing the antipode to the prevailing American zeitgeist by being as boorishly xenophobic and prejudiced as possible. Even that would have been somewhat acceptable if it hadn't been so ham-fisted in it's delivery (I think Marge actually said something about tolerance and diversity being virtues) and so grossly derivative overall (they might as well have been chasing after Family Guy - and therefore All in the Family - crying: "Us too! Us too! We can be terribly, terribly liberal! We can fellate the Democrats!").
It's sad to see it go, but it's amazing the show lasted as long as it did I guess.
RIP Simpsons. You're numerous seasons of actually good material will grant me solace.
The illiterate rarely vote, and when they do vote they do so without the ability to make decisions based on textual information. American political campaigns, which have learned to speak in the comforting epistemology of images, eschew real ideas and policy for cheap slogans and reassuring personal narratives. Political propaganda now masquerades as ideology. Political campaigns have become an experience. They do not require cognitive or self-critical skills. They are designed to ignite pseudo-religious feelings of euphoria, empowerment and collective salvation. Campaigns that succeed are carefully constructed psychological instruments that manipulate fickle public moods, emotions and impulses, many of which are subliminal. They create a public ecstasy that annuls individuality and fosters a state of mindlessness. They thrust us into an eternal present. They cater to a nation that now lives in a state of permanent amnesia. It is style and story, not content or history or reality, which inform our politics and our lives. We prefer happy illusions. And it works because so much of the American electorate, including those who should know better, blindly cast ballots for slogans, smiles, the cheerful family tableaux, narratives and the perceived sincerity and the attractiveness of candidates. We confuse how we feel with knowledge.
The illiterate and semi-literate, once the campaigns are over, remain powerless. They still cannot protect their children from dysfunctional public schools. They still cannot understand predatory loan deals, the intricacies of mortgage papers, credit card agreements and equity lines of credit that drive them into foreclosures and bankruptcies. They still struggle with the most basic chores of daily life from reading instructions on medicine bottles to filling out bank forms, car loan documents and unemployment benefit and insurance papers. They watch helplessly and without comprehension as hundreds of thousands of jobs are shed. They are hostages to brands. Brands come with images and slogans. Images and slogans are all they understand. Many eat at fast food restaurants not only because it is cheap but because they can order from pictures rather than menus. And those who serve them, also semi-literate or illiterate, punch in orders on cash registers whose keys are marked with symbols and pictures. This is our brave new world.
Entire thing here.
The illiterate and semi-literate, once the campaigns are over, remain powerless. They still cannot protect their children from dysfunctional public schools. They still cannot understand predatory loan deals, the intricacies of mortgage papers, credit card agreements and equity lines of credit that drive them into foreclosures and bankruptcies. They still struggle with the most basic chores of daily life from reading instructions on medicine bottles to filling out bank forms, car loan documents and unemployment benefit and insurance papers. They watch helplessly and without comprehension as hundreds of thousands of jobs are shed. They are hostages to brands. Brands come with images and slogans. Images and slogans are all they understand. Many eat at fast food restaurants not only because it is cheap but because they can order from pictures rather than menus. And those who serve them, also semi-literate or illiterate, punch in orders on cash registers whose keys are marked with symbols and pictures. This is our brave new world.
Entire thing here.
In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?
"Driving truck-loads of money out into the New Mexico Desert and dumping it into a massive pit is one of America's greatest traditions."
LOL!
In Honor of the coming ascension of the newest scoundrel to the world's throne...
Posted on 2008.11.03 at 15:26
HL Mencken:
[W]hen a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental—men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost… [A]ll the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre—the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
I guess the moron is just leaving the White House, but...
[W]hen a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental—men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost… [A]ll the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre—the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
I guess the moron is just leaving the White House, but...
Im not interested in recounting the whole ridiculous CHRC vs. Ezra Levant thing here. The gist is: some nonsense political body is trying to prosecute Levant for something he wrote under the the odious umbrella of "hate crimes" (ie, thought crime).
The trial in the kangaroo court of political opinion has been on-going for awhile. As if the whole thing wasn't disgusting enough, there's been a new twist pop up recently:
If the commissioners find me guilty, they'll prosecute me before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. In the thirty years they've been prosecuting section 13 "hate speech" cases, they've never lost. Political prosecutors in Iran and China would be impressed.
But here's where Dagenais becomes a symbol of everything that's wrong with the CHRC and its censorship fetish: she blacked out portions of my defence before passing it on to the commissioners. Seriously -- she censored what I wrote in my own defence, before she passed it along to the people who will sit in judgment of me. She's only allowing me to say things in my defence that she approves in advance. Look at the version of my letter she's passing on: several of my arguments are blacked out.
That's right. The monkeys are trying to censor his defense in effort to...censor him. In Orwell's 1984, Winston's job was to black out sections of documents wasn't it?
The trial in the kangaroo court of political opinion has been on-going for awhile. As if the whole thing wasn't disgusting enough, there's been a new twist pop up recently:
If the commissioners find me guilty, they'll prosecute me before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. In the thirty years they've been prosecuting section 13 "hate speech" cases, they've never lost. Political prosecutors in Iran and China would be impressed.
But here's where Dagenais becomes a symbol of everything that's wrong with the CHRC and its censorship fetish: she blacked out portions of my defence before passing it on to the commissioners. Seriously -- she censored what I wrote in my own defence, before she passed it along to the people who will sit in judgment of me. She's only allowing me to say things in my defence that she approves in advance. Look at the version of my letter she's passing on: several of my arguments are blacked out.
That's right. The monkeys are trying to censor his defense in effort to...censor him. In Orwell's 1984, Winston's job was to black out sections of documents wasn't it?
Anyone who employs children - particularly their own children - to fabricate propaganda shouldn't be breeding.
"No! You can't see him! He's an invisible hydro-dragon! Super dangerous. Trust me."
A hilarious look at the forked tongue of thieves and scare-mongers, appropriately entitled "the wrong way to ask for $700 billion".
A hilarious look at the forked tongue of thieves and scare-mongers, appropriately entitled "the wrong way to ask for $700 billion".
Color me astonished that the bail-out bill was defeated yesterday. I was certain that that thieving boondoggle was going to be shoved up the middle-class tax-payers ass down there. Course, no one's out of the woods yet. One of the better commentaries I've seen on the situation so far:
Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), who also voted against the bail-out bill, insists that "Inaction has never been an option, but [Treasury chief Henry] Paulson’s plan should never have been our only option." Democratic and their "Progressive" enablers have repeatedly hinted that they’d be willing to accept a multibillion dollar bailout if it’s attached to partial nationalization of the firms being bailed out, or re-regulation of financial corporations, or new entitlement programs, or, even better, a combination of all three.
This is a losing approach — because there’s clarity in a simple demand of "No—hell no!" that you lose amidst the complicated details of everyone’s latest Great New Plan, once you start horse-trading and concede that it might be O.K. in principle to grab billions of dollars out of working people’s pockets and give it to a bunch of hat-in-hand robber barons begging to go on the government dole, if it can be tied to advancing your other political goals. It’s also the wrong approach, because no matter what strings you might manage to attach, there is no justification whatsoever for this massive act of robbery from working folks.
Fuck this corporatist bullshit.
Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), who also voted against the bail-out bill, insists that "Inaction has never been an option, but [Treasury chief Henry] Paulson’s plan should never have been our only option." Democratic and their "Progressive" enablers have repeatedly hinted that they’d be willing to accept a multibillion dollar bailout if it’s attached to partial nationalization of the firms being bailed out, or re-regulation of financial corporations, or new entitlement programs, or, even better, a combination of all three.
This is a losing approach — because there’s clarity in a simple demand of "No—hell no!" that you lose amidst the complicated details of everyone’s latest Great New Plan, once you start horse-trading and concede that it might be O.K. in principle to grab billions of dollars out of working people’s pockets and give it to a bunch of hat-in-hand robber barons begging to go on the government dole, if it can be tied to advancing your other political goals. It’s also the wrong approach, because no matter what strings you might manage to attach, there is no justification whatsoever for this massive act of robbery from working folks.
Fuck this corporatist bullshit.
Apparently, the new, new left environmentalist fascists only have 100 months to save us all from ourselves. After that, the magical "tipping point" will be reached when run-away positive feed-back systems will engage and bake us like bread in the oven.
At least they have the balls to give us a date. Y2k anyone?
Notice the fucking ads along the bottom of the page. "This ominous message of doom and self-righteous indignation brought to you by..."
At least they have the balls to give us a date. Y2k anyone?
Notice the fucking ads along the bottom of the page. "This ominous message of doom and self-righteous indignation brought to you by..."
