Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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Green Goo

Walter E. Wallis on Jerry Pournelle’s Current Mail page, commenting on typical Mass Media Podpeople misconduct at White house press conferences:

The latest “You are dethpicable” response to White House critics demonstrates the need for a change in that office to someone who can respond more in the language of today’s discourse.
Gulag/Nazi accusations need something more than prissy tsking.
I propose that the office be shared between Ann Coulter and John Bolton, with the occasional addition of a sock puppet to respond appropriately to the more idiotic, Helen Thompson type questions. If that does not bring the press conference back from the gotcha game it has become to a sincere machine to answer questions, we can borrow one more device, pouring green goo down from the ceiling on really inappropriate commenters.
(Hmmm… that’s a lot of green goo!)
And Jerry Pournelle’s addendum:
Maybe we can expand on this idea…
Anyone wanna have a go at it?
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Boiling mad? Well you oughta be.

A followup to “Nearly speechless” below

When you’ve finished the homework assigned below, read this ironic essay. It’s written by this man. Then, read the first few chapters of this book, beginning here.
A sample:
“… I insinuate that the day will come when an employer will hire them on the basis of test scores, even though my own experience is that employers are (rightly) indifferent to such things. I never lie outright, but I’ve come to see that truth and teaching are incompatible.”
And,
“…We’ve had a society increasingly under central control in the United States since just before the Civil War: the lives we lead, the clothes we wear, the food we eat, and the green highway signs we drive by from coast to coast are the products of this central control. So, too, I think, are the epidemics of drugs, suicide, divorce, violence, cruelty, and the hardening of class into caste in the U.S., products of the dehumanization of our lives, the lessening of individual and family importance that central control imposes.”
There will be a test. What? you say. Life’s the test, my friend, life.
MQ from my fav piece (so far) by that man:
“Somehow out of the industrial confusion which followed the Civil War, powerful men and dreamers became certain what kind of social order America needed, one very like the British system we had escaped a hundred years earlier. This realization didn’t arise as a product of public debate as it should have in a democracy, but as a distillation of private discussion. Their ideas contradicted the original American charter but that didn’t disturb them. They had a stupendous goal in mind—the rationalization of everything. The end of unpredictable history; its transformation into dependable order
“From mid-century onwards certain utopian schemes to retard maturity in the interests of a greater good were put into play, following roughly the blueprint Rousseau laid down in the book Emile. At least rhetorically. The first goal, to be reached in stages, was an orderly, scientifically managed society, one in which the best people would make the decisions, unhampered by democratic tradition. After that, human breeding, the evolutionary destiny of the species, would be in reach. Universal institutionalized formal forced schooling was the prescription, extending the dependency of the young well into what had traditionally been early adult life. Individuals would be prevented from taking up important work until a relatively advanced age. Maturity was to be retarded.”.–The Underground History of American Education
And it was so…
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And the day was going soooo well… *sigh*

So there I was, perfectly set for another curmudgeonly day…

…and Harvey had to screw it all up with his ode “by” Howard (the Duck) Dean. *sigh*
I mean, perfect setup to another perfect day:
Woman walking her dog… right down the smackin’ middle of a narrow street. “Get outa the road, broadbeam! And take your frizzy rat with you!”
Another one: decides that pulling up into the far left half of a two-way street to wait for a left hand turn (blocking my forward progress) is a Good Idea. Waves at me sweetly as though to say Ain’t I cute? “Not you are NOT!!! Get your driver’s license at a Wacker’s lady?!?!?”
You get the idea: a perfect start on a perfect day. heh-heh…
And then… this. *sigh* Way to ruin a perfect day Harvey.
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Nearly speechless

It’s been a long time since I was really stunned speechless

But this came close. The post that started this monumental thread over at The Nation of Riflemen?
“I Don’t DO Math” by Jay C. Odaffer
Stunning. A brief sample to start you out:
It happened again. This happens every semester. It’s become a sort of sick game for me, trying to guess which of my students it will be. Sometimes after the first test, most likely after the mid-term, at least one student will walk into my office to find out why he or she did so poorly on the exam for one of my science classes and inevitably declare, “Well, I skipped THOSE questions because I don’t DO math.”
Right. Neither do dogs. Parrots can. So can apes. But dogs, cats, and apparently assorted products of America’s secondary education system who’ve gone on to college, just don DO math.
It’s a looooooong thread, and a bit rough and tumble at times, but worth the read.
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STOP the ACLU: The Law Offices of the American Taliban

Driving Christianity off the public square

Hmmm… do you think once the ACLU drives Christians “underground” it’ll ease off?
“Ruling limiting prayers at public meetings causes stir in Bible Belt.” And of course, the ACLU’s paws are all over this one.
Christians (well, and practicing Jews, too) are semi-OK with the ACLU if they keep their heads down and mouths shut, it seems. Kinda like the “official” policy in Saudi Arabia, where the House of Saud has proclaimed that as long as Christians worship privately at home, they can keep life and limb.
Oops! That’s just the “official” policy. For foreign media consumption only.
Hmmm… don’t let the ACLU hear about this.
BTW, this post at lgf links to a more extensive read linking some of the primary movers and shakers in the War on The War on Terrorism. The so-called “Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) and the American Criminal Liberties Union: fighting to keep America safe for the Islamic jihadists who want to murder you.
MQ from the creep who was a founding member and prime mover in the CCR:

“I stay in this profession only because I want to be a double agent, to destroy the whole f***ing [U.S.] system.”—William Kunstler

A real charmer, eh?
Yeh, the disingenuously named communist front, CCR, is just a lesser-known ACLU clone. But they both have the same agenda: tear down the walls of civilization that protect us from the murderous svages without and the barbarians within.

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No more Blogger Comments….

Haloscancommenting and trackback only.

Just got tired of the old “both and” thing. (Thanks, Rich, for spurring me to get off TDC and just do it.) Yeh, that means past Blogger comments aren’t visible right now, but they aren’t gone, and if I wanna I can put ’em back.

But I don’t think I wanna. 😉 It also means I’ll be checking comments only once or twice a day, so no quick replies via email as I have sporadically done. If you really need to get my attention, drop me an e- cos that’s checked automatically umpteen times a day. Or call me at my Minneapolis phone number. Oh! You don’t have that one? heh (Well, I do… 🙂

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Links Up!

Start surfin’

Short shrift. Just lunchtime links cos time’s pressing today.
Woody’s News and Views: Selective Outrage On Gulags From the LLMB and MMPA? Really? Who’da thunk it? 😉
Cathouse Chat comments and links to an essential Varifrank read with Why Should Gitmo Remain?
Kim duToit: Where the Law Belongs Yup.
Diane’s Stuff includes Environmental Concerns, today. A thoughtful post. Which leads right to…
A Chaos Manor discussion. Jerry Pournelle carries on a thoughtful, civil and informative email discussion with someone presenting a thoughtful, civil and informative (will wonders never cease?!?!? 🙂 position on global warming.
Cao’s Blog has a look at ACLU attempts to undermine our society and force its religion on the rest of us with ACLU demolishing the Los Angeles Seal: A Call to Action from David Horowitz
And yeh, it’s early—I’m jumping the gun on the Carnival of the Recipes by a coupla days—but Christine has posted a GREAT recipe for No-Cook Cream Cheese Candies Oh. Yum. (RCat’s Spanish Tortilla recipe is a work of culinary engineering/art, too. Gotta have some-a that!)
CLICK on over to Keep the Coffee Coming for a fix of Laura Nyro and Judy Collins.
Boudicca warns of an upcoming Blog Crawl. Be afraid. Be very afraid. One potential participant asked about blogging “nekkid” so You Have Been Warned. 🙂
ALa comments on the Torture Log…. (*UPDATED*) Oh. Dear. The tortures at gitmo are almost as horrible as listening to U.S. Senators bloviate on C-SPAN!!! Almost.
Rich’s Daily Link Zeitgeist has a couple of “my” links already, so grab some linky stuff from him.
Well, I wish I had time to link more stuff just off my RSS feeds and such, but I can scan through them faster than I can link back to ’em and I’m outa lunch time, folks! TTFN!
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Pull the other one

Blessed Son & Heir just brought me another cuppa joe and I had a brilliant insight. See comments. heh. indeed.

Found this over at Spurs’ place. Linguistic logic isn’t the author’s strong suit, but it still works… kinda. In an enormously funny way (well, to me).

Your IQ Is 140

Your Logical Intelligence is Genius
Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius
Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius
Your General Knowledge is Genius
Yeh, well if I’m so smart why ain’t I rich? 🙂 The central flaw of this test is revealed in the score I got (see my revelation below).
Funny thing (confession’s good for the soul and bad for the rep): I posted a mini-rant about a screwy question on the test in comments over at Spurs’ place… and I’m still operating on sleep mode. (Coffee deprivation.) I ranted on about one of the questions being faulty and needing to answer it incorrectly to get it “right”—and I couldn’t even remember what the questions and answers were 5 mins after taking it.
Cuppa coffee later, I started wondering about what I’d said. Went back and looked at the lil quiz. Unless someone sneaked in and changed the thing between my rant and my first cuppa joe, I ranted on about the wrong question—had not even gotten my reasoning about the test right 5 mins after taking it!
Just goes to show ya. Smarts ain’t all they’re cracked up to be. I ace tests. It’s a given. Give me a test and I’ll ace it. Any form: multiple choice, essay, whatever. But have I learned anything from the test (or even leading up to the test)? Can I apply what I’ve “learned”? Who knows?
There’s only one constant: How much I actually learn, how much I actually reason (rather than just go on “gut”) all depends on how much coffee I’ve had.
Coffee: the original brain food.
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OK, time to declare James Lileks a National Treasure

I mean, with snark like this, who needs Dave Barry?

From today’s Screedblog:

I get lots of emails like this at work. They make me tired. From the crusading Rex Curry, Attorney at Law:

Teachers, students, school boards and schools all over the USA received this open letter. Please help spread the word. Flag Day (6-14) is a good day to remove the flag from schools.

Goes without saying. And let’s burn some forests on Arbor Day, too. And what better day to commit suicide than your birthday.

Get thee hence. Read and enjoy!