"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
Any time I see “[Whatever]-splaining” used by someone to dismiss an argument, I know the person using the term is really saying, “I don’t have an argument, and I just don’t want to listen, so I’ll use this nonsense term instead of putting my fingers in my ears and chanting, ‘na-na-na-na. . .’ and maybe the horrible person using facts and reason will just go away and leave me with my chosen, ignorant opinions.”
At that point, I realize that the only proper response is raucous mocking.
In future, vote all red, folks. (*sigh* Lesser evil and all that.) You will have all the years after you die to vote blue.
At least there’s one good thing out of the Repugnican’ts losing the House: hopefully it will gridlock Congress. I say hopefully, because
It could happen. . .
These are just a few examples from which to generalize. Not all will have any direct application to any one election.
This year, again, I’m voting primarily against stupidity and evil.
Stupid or evil? (Or both?)
“Pro-choice” (which is really, “Deny ANY choice to the unborn”)
The Thugs Standing Around program of full employment for goons and petty tyrants
“feddle gummint” tyrannical meddling in citizens’ lives while actively enabling outlaws
The Cult of Anthropogenic Climate Scare-ism
Enablers and apologists for the hate cult of the Butcher of Medina evil
One can select any issue dominated by the lies of the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, politicians *gag-spew*
and Academia Nut Fruitcakes and plug it right into the “Stupid or Evil” matrix for consideration.
Punishing job producers for success
Encouraging sloth and greed by robbing those who are productive to give to those who are not (including cronies of politicians who milk the public purse and abscond with our grandchildren’s futures)
You get the drift.
Do NOT encourage everyone you meet/know to vote! The Founders were justly leery of too much democracy (which is why they designed the Constitution to create a representative republic with some democratic elements). Always remember Third World County™’s corollary to Santayana’s Axiom:
“In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance”
ONLY encourage those who are well-informed and who have a rational bent to vote. Actively discourage the ignorant, misinformed, DISinformed, and notably brainwashed from voting. Their influence is uniformly negative, no matter their unthinking, uncritical, ignorant political bent.
(Do read that title in the iconic Jack Nicholson tone. *heh*)
Well, after some time off–and discovering a login issue (and having Vishmitha with BlueHost discover it was a WP version issue ‘n’ fix that), here I am again. No world-shattering observations right now, but I’ll have something up shortly for both of my readers. . . 😉
Breakfast for dinner:
2 people
5 eggs scrambled with about a tablespoon of heavy cream and
1/2 pound “hot” sausage and
1/2 diced onion
1/2 C shredded provolone/mozzarellamix
Diced jalapeno on mine.
Filling, delicious, low-carb (protein-sparing) fare.
(Confession: 1/2 of the way through my plate, I decided the jalapenos, though adequately sinus-clearing, were too mild, so added some habanero salsa.)
The Dewey Decimal System is an extremely useful method of categorizing knowledge for cataloging a library, but it is also a very useful system to use when searching out and exploring a topic of knowledge. An understanding of its classifications can yield some few advantages over computer catalogs of libraries for card catalog users, too. And then, just browsing a section, grazing the pages of books from one end of a class to another, can sometimes yield great benefits.
I once spent time “living” any available spare moment in a large state university library as an undergrad (and it wasn’t even the school I was attending *heh*) making such discoveries–especially during one semester when I was taking a course so far off my majors that I had almost NO background, and none of the prerequisite courses (yeh, talked my way ito it because it seemed interesting) in the subject. Result: The professor found my “insights” refreshingly stimulating, much to the disgust of the other seven members of the class who were restricted by having all the prerequisite boundaries instilled in their thinking.
Ah, but of course all classifications of knowledge, especially those which–like the DDS–comprise relatively rigid, detailed classifications, have the basic flaw of placing artificial boundaries between fields of knowledge. But then, it seems to be a basic human trait to connect disparate elements into a whole, even when that “whole” is wholly artificial and even nonsensical. So, the DDS is, in my use at least, most like a box of building blocks divided into compartments by shape, color, size, etc. It can make it useful when searching for just that right building block.
Sometimes, though, one wants to just dump the box out and scramble up the pieces to see what serendipitous connections one might make. That’s the Internet.
Meat (with LOTS of fat for that delicious, delicious flavor! BACON! BACON! BACON! *heh*), eggs, butter, heavy cream, cheese, and almost NO simple carbs, with limited complex carbs along with fiber weighted toward (~75/25) soluble fiber (which I use mostly in baking low-carb stuff). Some salad greens, berries, and nuts.
Minus six inches in waist (and similar elsewhere). Three pounds lost.
But I REFUSE to be stuck in the middle of them.
There is almost no real news anymore. Almost all that purports to be so is Hivemind propaganda. It’s to the point that such sites as The Onion, Duffleblog, and The Babylon Bee are as reliable (or seemingly more so *sigh*) than “accredited” media sources.
And the so-called “right” end of the spectrum is little more reliable than the so-called “left” end of the media spectrum. While the opinion columnists at Townhall are generally more truthful than front page “news” at the New York Slimes, so-called “news” sites/organs such as Worldnet Daily, Breitbart, The Blaze,and ZeroHedge are all, to varying degrees, propaganda for the putative “right.”
Frankly, I don’t ascribe to Zero Hedge, for example, any more credibility than any other Hivemind “reporting.” Sure, like ABCNBCCBSMSNBCFOX, etc., it is propaganda, but every lie at least has a truthful counter. Zero Hedge can serve as a source of “idiot bait” research. In that, it can also be a “serious” source of info. . . of sorts (about as much as with any other Hivemind organ, give or take), if one really digs. 😉 Also, just like other aspects of the Hivemind (reflecting the biases of every point on Pournelle’s Political Axes), it can serve as a way of checking on what the Hivemind (at least its portion) is trying to obscure, twist, or otherwise outright lie about. Pulling the threads for amusement, if nothing else, can provide a few moments of entertainment, at least, and occasionally, as with other Hivemind elements, the facts it twists can be verified and lead to real and useful information when placed in their original context.
I laugh at the times I took Walter Cronkite seriously (as anything but an effective propagandist).
I am a firm believer in ONLY firing proper “warning shots. The only exception to this rule is if an aggressor is wearing body armor. Or is a zombie. Or is a zombie wearing body armor.
Thatisall.