by Ugh
I hope I'm not stepping on the other front pagers toes with this, but somehow the Jeb! campaign's 112 page (!) power point briefing for big donors (that took place before the latest GOP debate) was let loose on these here internets. It is, uh, quite a thing to see (like the BT-16). It has me seriously considering my disdain for .ppt as a means of communication, because without it we wouldn't have such pearls of wisdom as "race will remain fluid for some time because... voters have A.D.D." (ellipses in the original) and describing Ricky Marco Rubio as the "GOP Obama."
So, good times in there. I hope we see similarly vapid power points leaked from all sides. Anyway, open thread for your discussing pleasure. Also, too, U.S. troops in Syria? Sure, why the fnck not....
Wow, cleek. That's like a 2 hour plus presentation! 112 slides... the mind boggles.
I was particularly taken by Slide 11 claiming that Jeb is the "Best Candidate". No matter how much better one thinks he would be as President, it's impossible to argue that he is even mediocre as a candidate. The fact is, he's terrible at campaigning.
Posted by: wj | October 30, 2015 at 01:04 PM
Curse you, Ugh.;)
I always double-check the "Posts" tab before I post, so I can see if another front-pager is working on something. Didn't you see me?
Posted by: Doctor Science | October 30, 2015 at 01:20 PM
I thought I did that. Crap. Happy to take this one down, just let me know.
Posted by: Ugh | October 30, 2015 at 01:26 PM
Nah, we're big kids, we can run two at once on different topics.
Posted by: Doctor Science | October 30, 2015 at 01:30 PM
I don't get it. What's this got to do with Ivanhoe?
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | October 30, 2015 at 01:38 PM
At least they're not both labeled "weekend open thread" ;-)
Posted by: wj | October 30, 2015 at 01:39 PM
I don't even know what to make of the last slide. "Pop Art, Politics & Jeb"
Seriously?
Posted by: Ugh | October 30, 2015 at 01:51 PM
I *think* that last slide is supposed to be their equivalent to the Obama "Hope" poster. *boggles*
Posted by: Doctor Science | October 30, 2015 at 02:22 PM
In #12, George Will is quoted: "his record in Florida is ...... measuredly more conservative than that of Ronald Reagan's ..."
"measuredly"?
Did Will, of all people, have a vocab. lapse?
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/measuredly
Shouldn't it be "measurably".
Did he mean "musically", as in a song and dance.
Maybe he meant "miserably" more conservative?
At any rate the young "Babaloo" Rubio, set him on his ear during the debate.
"Show up for work in the Senate?" asked Rubio in answer to Jeb's power-pointed outrage. "This country wants a President who doesn't show up for work, after the first day of signing death warrants for millions of Americans, and I'm just the man for the job!" to great huzzahs from the assembled.
Is so.
Posted by: Countme-In | October 30, 2015 at 02:25 PM
Obviously, Jeb! cannot be trusted with confidential stuff.
Posted by: bobbyp | October 30, 2015 at 03:07 PM
I *think* that last slide is supposed to be their equivalent to the Obama "Hope" poster. *boggles*
So maybe Jeb is the GOP Obama! So confused....
Posted by: Ugh | October 30, 2015 at 03:11 PM
what's up with all the slides titled "Ackbar: Strategic Dashboards" ?
is that Admirable Ackbar (It's A Trap!), or is that a gasp Arabic word?
Posted by: cleek | October 30, 2015 at 03:30 PM
snot
Posted by: Marty | October 30, 2015 at 03:52 PM
Admirable Ackbar!
ha! i kill me.
Posted by: cleek | October 30, 2015 at 03:54 PM
Ackbar ~ Barack
Posted by: CharlesWT | October 30, 2015 at 04:16 PM
I admire those who made it all the way through.
I didn't.
Posted by: byomtov | October 30, 2015 at 09:14 PM
Hey, at least you started. I couldn't even muster the enthusiasm to do that.
Posted by: Nombrilisme Vide | October 30, 2015 at 09:29 PM
The only reason I'd open that powerpoint is to search it for hidden metadata. Not worth the effort to fnck that particular loser rat, sez I.
Posted by: Snarki, child of Loki | October 30, 2015 at 09:41 PM
Hey, look.It's the shrink government drowning babies assholes abusing the power of the state, and whose message is really this: "My way or the highway."
A 2nd Amendment response is long overdue.
You may now proceed with your regularly scheduled programming.
Posted by: bobbyp | October 30, 2015 at 11:34 PM
Nobody (outside a few fanatical libertarians, maybe) really wants to shrink government. What they want is to shrink the parts that do things that they don't like. While increasing the size, scope, and power of the parts that do things that they want done.
Thus liberals want to shrink the parts of government which monitor people's sex lives, and the parts which restrict what information is available to them. And reactionaries (aka, at least by themselves, conservatives) want to shrink the parts that constrain their access to their favorite toys (guns) or provide services to the undeserving (i.e. the poor). Meanwhile virtually nobody admits to wanting to shrink the parts that provide income and medical services to the elderly -- either for ideological reasons, on one side, or because their political base is among the elderly, on the other side.
The level of hypocracy on both sides runs from astounding to incredible.
Posted by: wj | October 31, 2015 at 07:33 PM
Well, we liberals only want to shrink the parts of government that monitor people's sex lives because we feel badly for the poor souls doing the 24-hour monitoring given the wasted amounts of downtime and the sheer boredom between actual incidences of sex between consenting adults in this great country of ours, which talks a good game, but when the time comes, often fall asleep before the sex or the monitoring thereof gets off the ground and we can stand up, so to speak, and be counted.
Plus, it always seemed to me hypocritical that the monitors themselves take time off to engage in sexual acts on our dime, when really, the monitoring of OUR sexy time is what really makes things exciting, although I wish they'd quit yelling "Cut!" at the most inopportune moments.
Besides, the monitors are always aghast when it turns they are being monitored as well, although they do seem disappointed when the answer is "No" to the question "Is this thing on?"
George Costanza wanted to shrink the parts of government, its naughty bits shall we say, doing the monitoring because it was causing him shrinkage of a different horse.
Posted by: Countme-In | October 31, 2015 at 08:03 PM
Meanwhile virtually nobody admits to wanting to shrink the parts that provide income and medical services to the elderly
Crazed socialist here...but I certainly don't want to shrink this part of the government. I would advocate increasing it.
How this makes me a hypocrate, I'm just not too clear on. But whatever.
Posted by: bobbyp | October 31, 2015 at 08:43 PM
It only makes you a hypocrite if you simultaneously object to the desires of the people you insist on supporting. After all, if they died off, resistance to change (especially the changes you want) would drop dramatically. ;-)
Posted by: wj | October 31, 2015 at 11:26 PM
"It only makes you a hypocrite if you simultaneously object to the desires of the people you insist on supporting."
So the person that said: “I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.” was a YOOGE hypocrite?
Oookay.
Posted by: Snarki, child of Loki | November 01, 2015 at 10:31 AM
It isn't hypocracy if you object to what someone says, but defend their right to say it.
It's hypocracy if you object to what they say, but defend them. Not their right to say it, but them. That is, you work for and expect their support, because you avoided saying out loud (let alone working against) that you object to what they say.
Posted by: wj | November 01, 2015 at 11:01 AM
I think the word is " hypocrisy"-- are computer spell- checkers running amok again?
Anyway, wj, I can't figure out what you mean. I want to expand the social safety net and shrink the portions of government that spy on people or blow up the wrong ones, though if someone argued more money would enable the government to stop blowing up the wrong people I'd at least listen to that argument. Probably not agree, but I would listen. Not sure where the hypocrisy would be in this.
Posted by: Donald Johnson | November 01, 2015 at 12:31 PM
Hypocracy is like democracy, but for hypocrites.
I think that's actually what the USA has.
Anyway, back to wj: how is keeping someone from being thrown in jail for their writings not "defending them"?
Perhaps a bit too subtle a distinction, but if it is hypocrisy, then let's make the most of it.
Posted by: Snarki, child of Loki | November 01, 2015 at 12:53 PM
No, no, no. It's hypocrate, not hypocracy. See, supporting "feel-good" programs like medical care or pensions for oldsters is pretty much exactly like when someone crams a hippopotamus into a tiny, innocuous crate and walks right into your house with it. You let your guard down, and lock up your hippo guns like the responsible gun owner you are... and that's when the insidious fiend opens the crate, a full-grown bull hippo springs forth, and begins devouring and killing everything and everyone it can sink its cruel teeth into. Just like the government. Hence, "hypocrate". It's spelled with a "y" instead of an "i" to help get you to drop your guard.
Posted by: Nombrilisme Vide | November 01, 2015 at 01:10 PM
Okay, nobody can tell me blog reading isn't educational-- hypocracy is a great word.
Posted by: Donald Johnson | November 01, 2015 at 01:44 PM
hypocracy: rule by the syringe.
Posted by: bobbyp | November 01, 2015 at 02:09 PM
how is keeping someone from being thrown in jail for their writings not "defending them"?
That is defending them, of course. If, on the other hand, you argue for what they are saying, just because you want to play for their votes....
But I would be thinking more (in the case of liberals) of someone who demands that we use our leverage as an economic power to push hard for other countries to treat tehir dissidents (or workers) better. While arguing that we shouldn't be trying to tell other folks how to run their contries, because they have their own cultures with their own values.
Posted by: wj | November 01, 2015 at 02:18 PM
I think liberals of that sort are fairly rare--there are liberals who oppose using military force to make other countries reform their societies while supporting boycotts against countries that practice some form of apartheid. I'm one of those, though I would also oppose any boycott or sanctions or blockade that caused enormous economic suffering or actually increased death rates. I favor, I suppose, symbolic sorts of boycotts in some cases, but not the boycotts or blockades or sanctions that Western countries take for granted we can and should and do impose on places like Gaza or Iran or Iraq. If my preferred boycotts resulted in innocent suffering on a large scale then I would be a hypocrite, which is why I don't favor anything that draconian. Not that it would ever happen anyway.
Posted by: Donald Johnson | November 01, 2015 at 03:38 PM
I, unfortunately, have known people who too exactly those positions simultaneously. (Which is why I brought it up.) But perhaps I have simply been singularily unlucky.
Posted by: wj | November 01, 2015 at 04:19 PM
If it's a matter of official sanctions, or invasion and regime change, I'm with you, wj.
But the only place that such "treatment of dissidents (or workers)" gets the kind of attention you suggest is in the context of an international agreement, and I don't think those "cultures with their own values" have an automatic right to favorable treatment in an agreement with another country. If they don't like the conditions, they can walk away from the negotiations.
Or perhaps you mean "we shouldn't bitch about them". If so, tough. First Amendement means the USA can unleash Count's nova-hot bitchin' against ANYONE and EVERYONE. No prisoners, no quarter. If they don't like it, they can move to North Sentinel Island, where they don't have to hear any of it.
Posted by: Snarki, child of Loki | November 01, 2015 at 06:30 PM
wj,
since woody wilson (no relation to brian), american liberals have had absolutely no qualms about "trying to tell other folks how to run their countries". as to the rest, i fear you suffer from a terrible misunderstanding. many on the more left left mount their foreign policy critique as an extension of the critique of the capitalist system. insofar as powerful international corporations are exporting that economic system, the results should be fair game for criticism.
the assault on worker power is the same, whether it is in bangladesh or gary. social and cultural differences across nations are pretty much beside the point.
our foreign policy is misguided, not because some invoke an alleged humanitarian non-interventionist principle, but because it is misguided, arrogant, geo-politically stupidly ignorant, hypocrtically self serving, and intellectually bankrupt.
you know things are pretty bad when putin sounds sensible.
Posted by: bobbyp | November 01, 2015 at 08:25 PM
the only place that such "treatment of dissidents (or workers)" gets the kind of attention you suggest is in the context of an international agreement,
Snarki,
If we are talking about insisting that countries abide by agreements that they are already party to, then that's a different story.
But see, for example, the demands that the TPP include provisions on the subject. Granted, that would be an international agreement, if it is agreed to. But it isn't one yet. That's flat out telling someone else how to run their country -- albeit, admittedly, essentially offering them a bribe to change things.
Posted by: wj | November 02, 2015 at 08:45 AM
arrogant, geo-politically stupidly, ignorant, hypocrtically self serving, and intellectually bankrupt.
That definitely sums up big chunks of it. Although I would modify it slightly to "ignorantly well-intentioned" -- which accounts for at least some, and possibly most, of the "geo-politically stupid" parts.
Posted by: wj | November 02, 2015 at 08:49 AM
Open thread?
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/rise-wedding-loan-jump-bandwagon-110036285.html
Seems kind of half-baked to me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrdsIxelE2M
Mike Nichols needed some sort of punctuation mark at the need of that great scene. The toaster is perfect.
I love that the toaster is front and center the entire scene. It's an example of Chekhov's dictum that if there is a gun hanging above the mantle in the first scene of a play, most likely that gun will be fired at someone before the curtain comes down.
But innocent moviegoers, elementary school children, and college students tell us that roughly once a month.
Posted by: Countme-In | November 02, 2015 at 09:06 AM
wj, so it's okay to strictly enforce stuff that's already agreed to, but heaven forfend actually pushing to get stuff into the agreements before they're signed?
As far as the TPP goes, it seems clear that the US negotiators worked pretty hard to ignore any objections from actual, you know citizens.
BTW, it's part of our culture to bitch and complain and poo-fling at folks doing cr*p we don't like, don't you dare try to oppress our culture, in the name of internationalism!
Posted by: Snarki, child of Loki | November 02, 2015 at 11:39 AM
But see, for example, the demands that the TPP include provisions on the subject...
Most nations are signatories to whole hosts of international agreements, cf UN Charter, etc.
In one way or another, you could probably find that just about any nation on earth is therefore formally committed to worker rights.
So, I'm still not quite understanding the point you are trying to make in this thicket.
regards,
Posted by: bobbyp | November 02, 2015 at 12:51 PM
Jeb Bush today demanded of the debate networks that they provide him with a selection of nails to eat at his podium in lieu of any difficult questions.
Ted Cruz demanded that Rush Limbaugh be lead moderator in future debates while Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and a bevy of other toothless conservative fluffers are stationed on their knees between the podiums and the candidates to keep everyone equally on the up and up.
Doctors will be on hand to make sure the candidates elections don't last more than four hours, to the great relief of the electorate for whom a good rogering is a hobby, not a vocation.
Each candidate will be provided an opportunity for an opening money shot and then further opportunities at 20-minute intervals until the climax of the debates.
Babaloo Rubio objected that this would provide Carly Fiorina an unfair leg up, and Donald Trump added that he will prevent that sort of thing by keeping a leg over her.
Dr. Ben Carson said the Amercian people expect ample parking in the rear come January 2017 and that he alone is qualified to give it to them good and hard.
Posted by: Countme-In | November 02, 2015 at 04:51 PM
Hypocracy and hypercracy are surely useful Greek derivations for, respectively, underactive and overactive government ?
So one can quite fairly and consistently call libertarians hypocrats; and socialists hypercrats...
Posted by: Nigel | November 02, 2015 at 05:19 PM
You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh...
http://www.wired.com/2015/11/bushs-new-campaign-hashtag-is-backfiring-big-time/
Posted by: Nigel | November 02, 2015 at 05:52 PM
Why yes, I've been known to twit from time to time.
Posted by: Jeb! | November 02, 2015 at 07:45 PM
I heartily favor the candidates for the GOP nomination holding their future debates under their own ground rules. Don't know what ground rules they would all agree to, but creating consensus in the GOP is not my problem.
I enthusiastically favor them inviting only non-Lamestream media into the debate venue, and imposing any gag rules they like. Don't know whether any media outlets (even FOX News) would accept, but ensuring a large audience for the GOP is not my problem either.
I favor these things out of idealism: political parties are private organizations, political candidates are private individuals; they owe no duty to, and are owed no support from, either government or journalism. If the GOP wants free TV time for infomercials, broadcasters are under no obligation to provide it. The general election campaign is public business. Primary elections are not.
I recognize I am arguing against interest here, because I sincerely believe that the best way for the GOP candidates to present themselves as well-informed, well-reasoned, and well-meaning to the largest possible audience is to hold debates moderated by Rush Limbaugh on a sound-proof stage behind an opaque curtain. But the GOP won't take my advice.
--TP
Posted by: Tony P. | November 02, 2015 at 09:30 PM
so it's okay to strictly enforce stuff that's already agreed to, but heaven forfend actually pushing to get stuff into the agreements before they're signed?
Snarki, I have no problem with pushing to get stuff like that into agreements. What I have a problem with is doing so while insisting that the preferences of the other culture must be honored and never questioned. You can have either one. You cannot have both, unless you want to be considered a hypocrite.
Posted by: wj | November 02, 2015 at 09:52 PM
wj,
ah, that makes your point much clearer, thanks. I'm not sure who would be in that particular hypocritical box, unless it's different 'leftier-than-thou' factions arguing with one another, or where different issues are getting treatment (labor safety vs. press freedom, frex).
Concrete examples welcome.
Posted by: Snarki, child of Loki | November 02, 2015 at 10:07 PM
it seems to me that "112 pages" + "briefing" = oxymoron
Posted by: russell | November 02, 2015 at 11:11 PM
and really, putting an exclamation point after your name as a way of branding your political campaign is just an invitation to invidious comparisons with crappy, inane Broadway musical failures.
Posted by: russell | November 02, 2015 at 11:13 PM
Concrete examples welcome.
Seconded.
Posted by: bobbyp | November 02, 2015 at 11:40 PM
Open thread! Here's a couple for consideration:
If you support mass transit and are arguing with the yahoo who says we just need to build more roads, get prepared. Read this.
If the USofYaY is so great, why do so few of us have any f*cking money?
Does Marx have relevance today? Opinions differ.
Food for thought. Culled from Mike the Mad Biologist. Enjoy.
Posted by: bobbyp | November 02, 2015 at 11:47 PM
Concrete examples welcome.
Regretably, the evidence I have is anecdotal. Which is to say, I have personally heard acquaintences make those combinations of argument -- rather than having readily available links to someone making them on-line.
And unfortunately, my day job is going to make any significant web searching this week improbable.
Posted by: wj | November 03, 2015 at 07:29 AM
wj,
yeah, I hear you. There's always some guy at the end of the bar telling everyone his inconsistent, hypocritical, incoherent opinions.
Unless they have some actual authority or influence over foreign policy, it's best to just chalk it up to American Culture (that must never be sassed, and long may it wave).
Posted by: Snarki, child of Loki | November 03, 2015 at 08:19 AM
putting an exclamation point after your name as a way of branding your political campaign is just an invitation to invidious comparisons with crappy, inane Broadway musical failures.
Well, there was Oklahoma!, though Jeb is hardly OK.
Posted by: byomtov | November 03, 2015 at 09:29 AM
one of the local car dealers has a commercial out right now where the announcer says something about how their prices are the lowest they've ever been and then a guy in a Donald Trump mask shows up and says "just like Jeb's poll numbers!"
ouch.
when you've lost the jackass used car screamers, it's probably time to pack it in.
i can't find the commercial on-line, sadly.
Posted by: cleek | November 03, 2015 at 09:55 AM
putting an exclamation point after your name as a way of branding your political campaign is just an invitation to invidious comparisons with crappy, inane Broadway musical failures.
Or to the musician formerly known as Prince, for a while, before he could be known as Prince again.
Most of the GOP crew doesn't need an exclamation point after their name so much as an interrobang. Perhaps more than one.
Posted by: Snarki, child of Loki | November 03, 2015 at 11:08 AM
ABC, vying for a future Republican debate, is upping the ante:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/lara-spencer-donald-trump-lap-photo
The Donald wants whatever moderator is asking a question to sit in his lap and play cutesy with his ear while he answers.
Rubio countered with a demand for a lap dance from Dan Rather during his closing remarks.
Cruz wants a ventriloquist's dummy in his spitting image to sit in his lap so he can stick his hand up the back of the dummy's suit coat and work the controls.
Bush, ever more aggressive, demanded a happy ending.
Carly Fiorina said the lot of them better be ready for the reverse cowgirl gambit, echoing her laptop strategy at HP.
Dr. Carson said he don't need no stinking dummy since he'll be showing up as he is and that should be dumb enough for government work.
Posted by: Countme-In | November 03, 2015 at 06:34 PM
Right down the road from me:
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29064963/open-carry-becomes-focus-after-colorado-springs-shooting
A veteran of three tours in Iraq was shot dead right off his bicycle, along with two innocent women minding their own fucking business.
Money quotes:
"Police agencies across the state say the statute poses a difficult question of how to react when citizens call — frequently — to report an armed person in public."
'"Is this person exercising their rights or about to start a very serious situation in which someone is going to be killed?" said Jacki Kelley, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. "We just don't know the difference."'
As far as I'm concerned, there is no difference between those two items.
Oh, you're exercising your rights. Fuck you. Not in my face, you're not. How do I know what you are up to?
I don't advise tapping the guy on the shoulder and inquiring sweetly what his intentions are, or maybe engaging him in a mind-reading discussion regarding Tench Coxe's masturbation habits back in the day.
Rather, if are like me and you are old enough to have nothing much to lose and you don't own a gun, nor want to, immediately take them out any way you can.
Alternative methods have been suggested n these very pages, stab them with any sharp object at hand, run them over with an SUV, twice, bash their head and face in with a rock, get behind them and strangle the f*ck, whatever you can do and then get the gun away from them and beat them to death with it.
What's that you say, you are exercising your right to open carry? So am I. The right to hurt you for being an asshole without attempting to guess your intentions, and then ask questions later, if you're still living.
And that's just the guys who are doing the public carrying, crazy or not, exercising their rights or not.
There's no telling what sort of savage violence the pigf*cking, murderous, vermin, NRA, conservative, Republican filth in and out of government deserve who campaign for such laws and enabled these murders and all of the other fucking horseshit in this country.
But it needs to be shock and gruesome on a mass scale.
Posted by: Countme-In | November 03, 2015 at 07:27 PM
As usual, all the wrong people are gunned down in America:
http://indefinitelywild.gizmodo.com/hey-ted-cruz-youre-holding-your-gun-backwards-1740325931
Posted by: Countme-In | November 03, 2015 at 08:04 PM
I'm reading Richard III at the moment. His words pretty well sum up most of the Republican primary crew:
"I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.
The secret mischiefs that I set abroach
I lay unto the grievous charge of others....
.... but then I sign, and with a piece of Scripture
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil;
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odd old ends stol'n forth of holy writ,
And seem a saint when most I play the devil."
Posted by: Countme-In | November 03, 2015 at 08:11 PM
It's almost like an armed society is a terrified society, not a polite one.
Posted by: Ugh | November 03, 2015 at 08:35 PM
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/11/04/1444154/-Matt-Bevin-defeats-Jack-Conway-to-reclaim-Kentucky-governorship-for-the-Republicans
In his campaign documents, he has promised to make unions illegal in Kentucky, as in most Communist countries, will junk state worker pensions, and disconnect Kynect, the very successful Obamacare exchange, and discontinue the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, thus promising the attempted murder of more than a million Kentuckians.
Kim Davis will be permitted to f*ck gays the way she likes it.
He doesn't clothe his naked villainy and the subhuman majority of Kentuckians want to see the blood flow.
Posted by: Countme-In | November 03, 2015 at 08:38 PM
"I talked to one man who had half his brain removed by Carson when he was two and now rides a horse and will most likely vote for him.
And I thought to myself- that makes sense."
From balloon juice. Course the writer is now being accused of political incorrectness, probably by the Half-a-Brain for Carson PAC.
Or maybe its the equestrian lobby.
Posted by: Countme-In | November 03, 2015 at 08:42 PM
Regarding the Colorado Springs murders, I'd advise citizens in that fair city, when they call the cops to report a guy walking around openly carrying a weapon for no reason and if they desire immediate action to allay their concerns that murder might be afoot, to describe the suspect as a black or a Mexican.
Also, describe him as unarmed, since these characteristics apparently are the tipoff in this great country of ours that murder most foul is on the offing.
He's sure to be taken out.
Think about this with the non-Carson half of your brains: we've experienced a spate of cases across the country, regularly scheduled it seems, like a miniseries, wherein unarmed people, mostly blacks, are gunned down for slight to no reason by police, and now we have a case where a distraught-looking white guy is reported to be carrying a weapon down city streets and the cops have to thumb thru the small print in the State Constitution to figure out if they might --- maybe --- be able to respond, in case Wayne LaPierre might birth a cow and shoot it, while three are butchered.
As a class of people, we Americans are full of sh*t.
The wrong people are being interdicted.
Posted by: Countme-In | November 03, 2015 at 09:14 PM
Count, you're overheating again.
Your 7:27 PM is way too close to seriously advocating violence.
A big part of the trouble with open carry for guns is that it makes it too hard to tell the actual responsible gun owners from the mass murderer wannabes. Similarly, though I think you *probably* aren't actually planning to kill people, talking like you do gives cover and lowers the activation energy for people who are.
Chill, or chill out.
Posted by: Doctor Science | November 03, 2015 at 10:45 PM
You mean, I yell "THEATER" at a crowded fire and the authorities show up?
I'll chill for now and consider the "out" option.
The activation energy is plenty low without my help and despite my efforts.
What do you think, ugh is going to run out and go on a killing spree?
Posted by: Countme-In | November 03, 2015 at 11:05 PM
DocSci: Chill, or chill out.
Gimme a fucking break, Doc. You think The Count should chill his hot rhetoric down? How far? To a cold, silent, seething rage, maybe?
Between the gun enthusiasts and the civility fetishists, I wonder how much room is left any more for an "appropriate" reaction to an obscene atrocity.
--TP
Posted by: Tony P. | November 04, 2015 at 12:52 AM
Tony, We can all decry the insanity of the gun nuts. And comment on the predictable problems that arise from their approach to the subject. Many of us do.
But all without ranting about how they should all not only die out, but die violently at the hands of others.
Posted by: wj | November 04, 2015 at 08:09 AM
You can't advocate killing other people on ObWi. Even if you think they suck.
Them's the rules.
Posted by: russell | November 04, 2015 at 08:28 AM
I don't begrudge Doc her effort to maintain standards.
I'm perfectly aware of the envelopes I push and sometimes when I click the "post" button, I know the shock collar I wear (which Hilzoy kindly lent me years ago) is about to have its voltage dialed up by the remote, invisible hand.
That Doc is not moderating the Republican debates, serving on police review boards, or fashioning chew toys laced with soporifics to throw at the grring likes of Coulter, Cruz, and Lapierre, to name three, is indicative of how little of the market for non-violent civility inducement has been addressed in our society.
"You can't advocate killing other people on ObWi. Even if you think they suck.
Them's the rules."
I could quibble with that assertion, but accept a simple "Yup" as a sure sign of my agreement with the local rules.
Advocacy for killing other people by various means, concealed and unconcealed, should be left to the experts such as the Redstate board and contributors, most of the leaders in the Republican Presidential primaries, the so-called Freedom Caucus in the House, the lawmakers and electorate in Colorado who enabled the murders in Colorado Springs (advocacy for carrying weapons in public designed exclusively to kill can only be a coincidence with advocacy for killing other people, I guess), and the new Governor of Kentucky.
And, thank you, Tony.
I'm all better now.
Posted by: Countme-In | November 04, 2015 at 09:14 AM
Count,
No need to advocate violence. They are taking themselves out.
What does this say about 'white culture'? Inquiring minds want to know.
Posted by: bobbyp | November 04, 2015 at 09:27 AM
Maybe there is an upside to the Colorado Springs incident.
I'll bet there were dozens or more citizens who saw the guy carrying the gun in public on his way to killing three, and who were contemplating robbing banks, stealing cars, shoplifting, maybe applying for health insurance through the Colorado Healthcare exchange, or had merely been impolite recently, and who, contra ugh upthread, abruptly reverted to the straight and narrow and began leading a more courteous, less criminal life, as the advocates for constantly-present incipient bloodshed have claimed all along would happen in a well-armed society.
In that context, three corpses on slabs in the Colorado Springs morgue seem a paltry price to pay for order and the metronomic, nothing-to-see-here conditioning of the body politic to the sight of killing weaponry displayed in public.
And think of the tax dollars saved, or at least the disbursement delayed, by civil servants remaining non-responsive, and wear and tear delayed on their sirens and flashing lights and saved for more important matters.
I'm coming to terms with these killings.
Who says only one can fly over the cuckoo's nest?
Posted by: Countme-In | November 04, 2015 at 10:38 AM
Spike Lee chimes in:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4594834/
Though one has to assume that, as the idea is about 2400 years old, its prospects for success are limited...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata
Posted by: Nigel | November 04, 2015 at 10:44 AM
Perhaps stating it a bit too ardently, the Count is completely right about open carry. It's the worst thing ever for public safety and has nothing to do with Second Amendment rights. If anything, it cuts against Second Amendment rights because, as incidents like these multiply and as it becomes obvious there can be no intervention until shots are fired, the case for gun owners' rights will be undercut. Same with arming college students. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Posted by: McKinneyTexas | November 04, 2015 at 11:02 AM
After following Nigel's second link, I cannot let this pass:
the Lioness on the Cheese Grater
I'll leave it to the reader to find out what that is, assuming the reader isn't lucky enough to know already.
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | November 04, 2015 at 11:05 AM
http://stephanieklein.com/2009/04/the-lioness-on-the-cheese-grater-a-sexual-position/
Posted by: Countme-In | November 04, 2015 at 11:11 AM
I find it pays to frequent the same blog as my attorney.
Or as I refer to McTX, a friend on retainer.
Posted by: Countme-In | November 04, 2015 at 11:14 AM
Wow. I was unfamiliar with "the Lioness on the Cheese Grater" so I looked it up and discovered the standard interpretation.
Then I discovered this learned article upon the same topic, and spent several awestruck moments wandering down the bypaths of classical themes and imagery to arrive at an interpretation very different from the standard one.
Recommended to all incipient classicists, avid students of sexual positions, and the rest of the ObWi readership (if any) that may not be included in the aforementioned categories.
Posted by: dr ngo | November 04, 2015 at 11:33 AM
Friend and attorney, if and when needed.
Posted by: McKinneyTexas | November 04, 2015 at 01:03 PM
Stupid, stupid, stupid
just about as stupid as nullification and empowering the sheriff to decide what's Constitutional. but, nobody ever accused gun fondlers of being smart.
Posted by: cleek | November 04, 2015 at 02:44 PM
The idiot savant surgeon is in first place:
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum
Posted by: Countme-In | November 05, 2015 at 01:59 AM
I thought this was interesting on Carson.
tl;dr - Carson apparently finds Bircher W. Cleon Skousen's view of the world persuasive.
to my eye, this continues to be relevant, 50-plus years on.
Posted by: russell | November 05, 2015 at 09:06 AM
From the Harpers article at russell's link(incredibly insightful):
The basic elements of contemporary right-wing thought can be reduced to three: First, there has been the now-familiar sustained conspiracy, running over more than a generation, and reaching its climax in Roosevelt’s New Deal, to undermine free capitalism, to bring the economy under the direction of the federal government, and to pave the way for socialism or communism. A great many right-wingers would agree with Frank Chodorov, the author of The Income Tax: The Root of All Evil, that this campaign began with the passage of the income-tax amendment to the Constitution in 1913.
Posted by: Marty | November 05, 2015 at 10:24 AM
I've been thinking about this for a couple of days now, and call me old-fashioned but I just can't get my head around the combination of "sex position" and "cheese grater".
Spatula, flour sifter, olive oil cruet, maybe even rolling pin. All possibles.
Cheese grater? I'm just not seeing it.
Posted by: russell | November 05, 2015 at 10:51 AM
As pointed out by the various articles upthread, ancient Greek cheese graters were closer in shape to knives than to modern box graters, if that helps.
Posted by: Nombrilisme Vide | November 05, 2015 at 11:08 AM
i just can't get past grated cheese.
to me, it brings up some pungent - and frankly unpleasant, since i'm not a fan of the kinds of cheese one grates - associations.
Posted by: cleek | November 05, 2015 at 11:27 AM
If you follow dr ngo's link, you'll find that the sexual position doesn't involve a lioness doing something with a cheese grater, as I had originally interpreted it. Lionesses, and other creatures, were (supposedly?) depicted on ornamental handles on cheese graters (and other household implements), typically in a crouching position.
That takes some of the weirdness (and fun, if you're into that sort of thing) out of it, I guess, but there it is.
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | November 05, 2015 at 11:50 AM
So, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was an erotic film?...
Posted by: CharlesWT | November 05, 2015 at 12:35 PM
So, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was an erotic film?...
It certainly wasn't devoid of eroticism, if I remember correctly. Wasn't there a scene where combat was turned to love-making in rather short order with the non-striking application of a hand to a groin?
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | November 05, 2015 at 12:58 PM
Lionesses, and other creatures, were (supposedly?) depicted on ornamental handles on cheese graters (and other household implements), typically in a crouching position.
Actually, if you dig deeper into those links you find this to be rather in question, as all archaeological examples of cheese graters were found to be functional rather than ornamental in design. It's not entirely clear what's going on with that lovely turn of phrase.
Posted by: Nombrilisme Vide | November 05, 2015 at 03:43 PM
First, there has been the now-familiar sustained conspiracy, running over more than a generation, and reaching its climax in Roosevelt’s New Deal, to undermine free capitalism
Does anyone have an idea of when "capitalism" and "America" became conflated?
I don't think it was part of the concept in the early days. The founder-generation administrations and Congresses pursued policies that were, frankly, mercantile. The Jacksonians who followed them were populist, but hardly capitalist in any sense we would recognize now.
Unless I'm misunderstanding the history, which is possible.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, everyone applauded it as a "triumph of free-market capitalism".
Not republican self-government, not rule of law, not protected civil liberties.
Capitalism.
When did the US become all about capital?
Posted by: russell | November 05, 2015 at 03:44 PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleon_Skousen
http://www.salon.com/2009/09/16/beck_skousen/
Here, throw your money away on some expensive but useless investment advice:
http://www.markskousen.com/
http://www.erictyson.com/articles/20101021#.VjvL4CvIfcs
Posted by: Countme-In | November 05, 2015 at 04:41 PM
All physicists are hoaxers:
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/11/who-ben-carsons-mystery-physicist
And Carson didn't even ace Thermodynamics I duri ng his sophomore year.
Posted by: Countme-In | November 05, 2015 at 04:58 PM
Well, there are a great many people who misunderstand what the 2nd law is saying, so Dr. Carson is in...plentiful company.
What it doesn't say, though, is that even in a closed system, entropy will increase homogeneously. It says that the sum of the entropies will tend to increase. People who use the 2nd law of thermodynamics as evidence that the universe had to be ordered by a divine being are idiots. It's an argument that reeks of studied ignorance.
I say that as a guy who is both religious and passingly acquainted with thermodynamics.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | November 05, 2015 at 05:11 PM
If one follows the surmises of the author of the exceedingly learned author of the article I cited, the sexual position implied *may* be that of the woman on top (lioness - symbol of bravery and rule-breaking, etc.) "grating" the man's groin with her own. But this remains speculative - and thus offers us all a spark of speculation in our otherwise dull lives. (I speak for myself only, of course.)
Posted by: dr ngo | November 05, 2015 at 05:12 PM
Furthermore, regarding natural laws, any physicist would look at purported violations of said laws as something fascinating, to be studied and established as fact. Because it would tell them something new about the universe. Eventually, someone like e.g. Einstein would show up and advance a new paradigm that would (also e.g.) explain the long-observed but never-explained oddness in the orbit of the planet Mercury.
I would also advance the notion that the Big Bang represents an event across which the 2nd law probably cannot be regarded to hold, by virtue of there not having been a universe at all on the other side of that event. The 2nd law is an empirical law, deduced from years of observation. If it turned out to not be true in some special circumstances, that wouldn't invalidate all of cosmology in its current state.
All of this is guesswork on my part, because I am not a physicist.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | November 05, 2015 at 05:23 PM
http://mormoncurtain.com/topic_cleonskousen_section1.html
Skousen believed in the worldwide Jewish conspiracy to subvert the banking system (one wonders if Bibi Netanyahu's people will go after this black man for actually following the teachings of a true anti-Semite; I expect not) and was a firm believer in the Mormon Church's racist claptrap from not too long ago:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,341556
He was a fringe nut, like Ayn Rand, both anathema to traditional conservatives when traditional conservatives had credibility.
Now both are ascendant.
It's gotta be stopped.
Posted by: Countme-In | November 05, 2015 at 05:24 PM
There aren't too many places you can go outside of OBWI and learn, consecutively, as worlds collide, the in and outs of the laws of Thermodynamics and the in and out of applied friction between cheese grator and "crotch"ing lioness.
And both principles explained with such modesty and self-effacement -- "I am not a physicist" and "I speak for myself, only".
All I know is that I was grating some parmigiano reggiano on my marinara the other night and there was aroused a spark of speculation in me that quickly reached a veritable big bang and then just as quickly entropy set in and I had to lie down during for a bit and resume the, uh, grating roughly twenty minutes later, though the underlying pasta remained al dente.
All I was missing was the lioness.
Posted by: Countme-In | November 05, 2015 at 05:45 PM
When did the US become all about capital?
My sense is that it was when our great rival was a country (the USSR) which said it was communist and opposed to capitalism. In a sense, we let our enemy define us. Make of that what you will.
Posted by: wj | November 05, 2015 at 06:04 PM
When did the US become all about capital?
I'd guess it was when the government greatly expanded its powers, rationalized the economic, and especially the monetary system, and crushed, in rather bloody fashion, the last vestiges of the aristocratic ethos.
Thank you, Abraham Lincoln
Posted by: bobbyp | November 05, 2015 at 09:07 PM