"The Great War of Yankee Aggression."
How, exactly, is someone supposed to interpret this. The congressmen let slip a slight smirk, so perhaps he was making a joke -- but it really makes you wonder what sort of philosophy is behind this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXT9ZDAbK_o
Showing posts with label idiocy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label idiocy. Show all posts
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Talking sense
Beltway blatherings about bipartisanship get dissed here http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123491659161904365.html by Thomas Frank of the Wall Street Journal:
The way I remember it, the No. 1 issue in the election was the collapsing economy, followed at some distance by the Iraq war. On both of these questions, Mr. Obama prevailed because he was the candidate who promised most convincingly to reverse Republican policies -- not because he planned to meet the GOP halfway across the charred ruins of American prosperity.
The reason the Washington media think bipartisanship is the top issue, even when economic disaster stomps Americans like Godzilla, is because of the way it reflects their own professional standards. They are themselves technically impartial, and so it's only natural for them to wish for a hazy millennium in which everyone else in Washington is impartial, too.
It is supposed to be high-minded stuff, this longing for a bipartisan golden age. But in some ways it is the most cynical stance possible. It takes no idea seriously, since everything is up for compromise. The role of the political parties is merely to cancel each other out, so that only the glorious centrists remain, triangulating majestically between obnoxious extremes.
What's more, bipartisanship's boosters can't even discern friend from foe. The Republican caucus in the House of Representatives, which seems to be growing even more conservative as its numbers shrink, has clearly resumed the strategies of the early Gingrich era -- obstruction, bomb-throwing and more obstruction. But to the mainstream media, the angry Republican pols seem to mainly discredit Mr. Obama, who failed to win over the GOP. Which will, of course, encourage the bitter-enders to obstruct even more.
Never has Beltway orthodoxy looked as clueless and futile as it does today. Confronted with the greatest failure of economic ideas in decades, it demands that the president make common cause with people for whom those failed ideas are still sacred. To think we can solve our problems in this way is like hoping to chart a route to the moon by water.
The way I remember it, the No. 1 issue in the election was the collapsing economy, followed at some distance by the Iraq war. On both of these questions, Mr. Obama prevailed because he was the candidate who promised most convincingly to reverse Republican policies -- not because he planned to meet the GOP halfway across the charred ruins of American prosperity.
The reason the Washington media think bipartisanship is the top issue, even when economic disaster stomps Americans like Godzilla, is because of the way it reflects their own professional standards. They are themselves technically impartial, and so it's only natural for them to wish for a hazy millennium in which everyone else in Washington is impartial, too.
It is supposed to be high-minded stuff, this longing for a bipartisan golden age. But in some ways it is the most cynical stance possible. It takes no idea seriously, since everything is up for compromise. The role of the political parties is merely to cancel each other out, so that only the glorious centrists remain, triangulating majestically between obnoxious extremes.
What's more, bipartisanship's boosters can't even discern friend from foe. The Republican caucus in the House of Representatives, which seems to be growing even more conservative as its numbers shrink, has clearly resumed the strategies of the early Gingrich era -- obstruction, bomb-throwing and more obstruction. But to the mainstream media, the angry Republican pols seem to mainly discredit Mr. Obama, who failed to win over the GOP. Which will, of course, encourage the bitter-enders to obstruct even more.
Never has Beltway orthodoxy looked as clueless and futile as it does today. Confronted with the greatest failure of economic ideas in decades, it demands that the president make common cause with people for whom those failed ideas are still sacred. To think we can solve our problems in this way is like hoping to chart a route to the moon by water.
Science integrity is a National Defense issue
I don't know how to put it more bluntly than this, but the creationist/global warming-denialist knuckleheads making up the core of the GOP these days and passing crap like the so-called "Louisiana Science Education Law" (sic) are a present danger to the United States.
http://richarddawkins.net/article,2706,Analysis-of-SB-733-LA-Science-Education-Act,Lousiana-Coalition-for-Science
This warplane was NOT designed by people who disregard science, folks:
Maj. Micah Fesler, a 433rd Weapons Squadron pilot, flies an F-22A “Raptor” from a Lockheed-Martin factory in Georgia to Nellis AFB, Jan. 9. This Raptor is the first to be delivered to the 57th Wing from Lockheed-Martin, and is scheduled to be used by the U.S. Air Force Weapons School for training of PhD-level instructor pilots. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Phil Landram)
This is the kind of weapon designed by people who have no use for science and believe the world was created 6,000 years ago:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,2706,Analysis-of-SB-733-LA-Science-Education-Act,Lousiana-Coalition-for-Science
This warplane was NOT designed by people who disregard science, folks:
Maj. Micah Fesler, a 433rd Weapons Squadron pilot, flies an F-22A “Raptor” from a Lockheed-Martin factory in Georgia to Nellis AFB, Jan. 9. This Raptor is the first to be delivered to the 57th Wing from Lockheed-Martin, and is scheduled to be used by the U.S. Air Force Weapons School for training of PhD-level instructor pilots. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Phil Landram) This is the kind of weapon designed by people who have no use for science and believe the world was created 6,000 years ago:
An artillery shell rigged as an IED in Iraq. Photo taken from globalsecurity.org site
Monday, February 16, 2009
Climate "truthers"
From The Reality-based Community:
Most of the glibertarians, cultural conservatives, and gadget-heads who constitute the useful idiots around the core oil-and-coal-company global-warming denialist constituency would be horrified to imagine themselves playing the role of 9/11 Truthers, or RFK Jr. pumping the thimerosal/autism link, or Thabo Mbeki claiming that AIDS isn't caused by HIV. But all four "movements" are alike in depending on compete mistrust of actual scientific experts. (Holocaust denialism is similar in that respect, but different in being almost entirely insincere: the Holocaust deniers seem to be saying, "Hitler didn't kill all those Jews, and I'm glad he did.")
Most of the glibertarians, cultural conservatives, and gadget-heads who constitute the useful idiots around the core oil-and-coal-company global-warming denialist constituency would be horrified to imagine themselves playing the role of 9/11 Truthers, or RFK Jr. pumping the thimerosal/autism link, or Thabo Mbeki claiming that AIDS isn't caused by HIV. But all four "movements" are alike in depending on compete mistrust of actual scientific experts. (Holocaust denialism is similar in that respect, but different in being almost entirely insincere: the Holocaust deniers seem to be saying, "Hitler didn't kill all those Jews, and I'm glad he did.")
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