Category: Dumbasses

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The Brightest, Most Intelligent President Evah #1

I know this has been beat to death, but it needs to be used to beat something else to political death.

Barack Obama: “I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go?”

Yeh, yeh, I’ve heard all the excuses about this “mis-speaking” but none of them wash. It doesn’t matter HOW tired or pressured this asshole was, “57” (with one left to go–and specifically excepting Alaska and Hawaii, since he was referring to the contiguous states) is simply not the kind of thing that any American who’s marginally literate would even mistakenly say, because the 48 contiguous States would have been drilled into his unconscious.

No, this “intelligent” Hahvahd-edumacated idiot has only a surface, semi-, transient connection to anything approaching a knowledge of American history and geography, and he’s ruling by fiat from the White House along with fellow Dhimmicrappic conspirators against the Constitution in Congress who are afraid Guam will capsize because of over-population and that “every month that we do not have an economic recovery package 500 million Americans lose their jobs.” (Total US population is somewhere a tad north of 300 Million, even counting children, illegals, retirees and welfare slugs.)

Hmmm, seems innumeracy is rampant in the “Party of Smart People” eh?

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Updating the Emperor

“The opinion of ten thousand men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.” —Marcus Aurelius

Nowadays, our electorate can more properly be described by,

“The opinion of ten thousand men is of no value if they are all willfully ignorant.”

There are adequate means now for ANY person in these (dys)United States to be adequately well-informed about the important issues of the day, but, sadly, few bother to take the time or make the effort to do anything but soak up–directly or indirectly–the viewpoints of the Ruling Elite mostly via the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind.

Keep in mind: your ignorant, self-enstupiated neighbor’s vote counts just as much as yours does.

Educate the stupid.

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The Problem With Democracy

…especially in our ever more enstupiated society:

“The opinion of ten thousand men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.” —Marcus Aurelius

And you know, it doesn’t matter if it’s 50 million or 100 million ignorant sheeple. The principle (and its truth) is the same. Compound that by an ever more enstupiated sheeple, and democracy in these (dys)United States becomes a perilous proposition.

Also,

“You may have have no interest in politics, but that emphatically does not insure that politics has no interest in you; you ignore it at your peril.” —Jerry Pournelle

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A Little Healthy Skepticism

Now, understand that I know the following is just one data point, and anecdotal at that, but nevertheless, for reasons that will become apparent, I view it as an important data point. And yes, I promise I will wander far afield from that data point before the post is over. Deal with it. 🙂

How many years now have we heard the litany that

  • cholesterol-clogged arteries lead to atherosclerosis and that leads to heart attacks and strokes AND that
  • ingesting cholesterol-rich foods leads to cholesterol-clogged arteries, etc.

Well, I’m not sure how many years that’s been, but I’m pretty sure it’s on the close order of four decades.

Now, here’s the anecdote.

40 years or so ago, I received an invitation in the mail from a county health department to be part of a cholesterol survey. Note: this was not a scientific study, but simply an epidemiological survey. Big difference between the two, although many conflate them. I dutifully responded, went in and had blood drawn and filled out a survey that detailed my diet.

I got called back to have my whole thing done all over again because, it turned out, my results did not match up with the expected results. Why? I’m not sure, but I have some ideas. You see, my diet was laden with butter, red meats, whole Guernsey milk (with at least a quart of cream per gallon), etc.–all the things that did not match up with the expected model, since my blood cholesterol levels were very low.

Now, I have no idea what they finally did with my data, even though in the retest my results on blood cholesterol levels were the same as before, but I have my suspicions. *heh*

My ideas on why my data did not match their expected outcomes are many, but a significant factor could well have been my age (early 20s) and activity levels (a couple of miles running and over 10 miles biking per day–minimum–in addition to a WSI class, working 30+ hours a week and full time school and social life).

But no. All the survey was interested in was cholesterol intake and lipid blood levels.

Even now, though, at a more *cough* advanced age, with a sedentary life style and food intake that wouldn’t satisfy the normal cardiologist, my cholesterol levels are only very, very slightly above the even more restricted levels sought today (yes, they do keep moving the goal posts, although doing so has demonstrated no significant effect on heart attack and stroke occurrences), well within the modern medical industry’s “OK” levels.

I suspect that, in addition to the activity levels and age I believe played some part in baffling the study’s sponsors ~40 years ago, some genetic component may also be at play. It’s interesting that my doctor asked, on initial survey, only whether my parents or grandparents had had heart trouble, NOT when. When I noted that half my grandparents had had heart trouble, I qualified it with, “One grandfather developed heart issues in his early 80s and the other, after 40 years of diabetes, eventually died of a heart attack at 88.”

A different spin on things once the conditions were defined more clearly.

Of course, my dad has had heart/circulatory issues for the past ten years. He’s 87, now. My mom’s had electrical issues with her heart for years, but since I’ve never shown any signs of similar issues, that’s a non-issue as well.

If I do develop issues when I’m in my 70s or 80s, so what? It’s called old age.

This one size fits all approach to health issues based mostly on epidemiological studies is simply stupid. But guess what? The “feddel gummint”–the same folks who apparently believe that the U.S. is Lake Woebegon and all children can be above average–wants to force folks into the world of Harrison Bergeron, where some sort of statistical average is all that’s allowed. Watch out for “Height Panels” to come along after Death Panels are well established, in order to literally reduce everone to the lowest common denominator…

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Proposed Change to Oath Congresscritters Take

Just musing here…

This is pretty much the oath anyone entering federal employment must take, including congresscritters:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

My modest proposal would insert after “swear” the words, “I will first do no harm to the republic,” followed by “that I will support and defend…” etc.

It’d have no more force than the current oath does on that conspiracy of dunces who almost daily do harm to the Constitution and the republic it defines, but at least it’d be easier to point out to some of the dimmer sheeple how much in violation of their oaths of office they are. Maybe. There’s no way to plumb the depths of sheeple stupidity.

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What Do You Call a Gathering of “Maroons”?

Think Bugs Bunny’s infamous “What a maroon… “

Well, Woody was the first one to clue me in on the latest from that conspiracy of dunces, posting this,

This is the new logo for the Party of Voting Dead, Illegals and Felons? Oh, well. Woody then posted a number of more reasonable representations of the party’s real agenda and nature, even adding one based on a comment I made. I took that graphic representation and modified it as below:

Yeh, yeh, I didn’t do a really close color match to the original, but in my defense, it’s about 3:30 a.m. here… *yawn*

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Once More Unto the Breach

The bane of having read voraciously since an early age: bad writing stands out like a sore thumb. Now, don’t take that as an assertion that I can readily emulate good writing. No, I’m simply critical of others’ bad writing. *heh*

What spurred me to comment once again? Raymond Khoury. I picked up his first novel at the library yesterday while I was there checking my email and performing other “essential” connectivity tasks (because service had not yet been restored here at twc central). What a waste of time. Cardboard cutouts for characters, straight from central casting–no surprise since Khoury apparently cut his teeth on television production–combined with stock “footage” of scenes from all the really boring cops shows that’ve come down the pike are bad enough, but his presentation is worse.

Example: a car chase (near New York City’s Central Park, no less), complete with driving through a chain link fence and vacant lot (where?!?) and this little gem of stupidity:

“Reilly jinked the Chrysler through a chicane-like cluster of cars and trucks… “

OK, setting aside the Irish Catholic “cop” (OK, in order to make him BIGGER, Khoury’s “promoted” the cop to FBI agent *feh*) as the primary in a novel about a stolen Vatican artifact *sigh*, what’s with “chicane-like cluster of cars and trucks”? Really stupid. Better, if one is going to have the boring car chase at all, would be “through a chicane of cars and trucks”. Much better imagery, much tighter reading. (Assuming the subliterate boobs reading the book were to know what a chicane is. Or how to use a dictionary to find out.)

But everything in the first 70 pages of this book has persuaded me that this is as good as it gets. The best is pedestrian stock “footage” from bad cop shows. This is one of those rare books I have no desire or motivation whatsoever to read to its predictably boring conclusion.

I suppose it’s a truism for a reason, but the good writers just don’t write fast enough. *heh* And writers like Khoury (and Dan Brown, for that matter–a few of the worst-wasted hours of my life were forcing myself to finish a Dan Brown best-seller) flourish–and even make best seller lists–because their readers are subliterate boobs who would’t recognize good writing if someone slapped them between the eyes with it. OK, OK, I’d not recognize good writing if it were presented to me in that fashion either, but you get my intent, eh? 🙂

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Essential Requirement for Modern “Tech” Writers

To be a “tech” writer for websites nowadays, it seems a requirement that English orthography be disregarded. One example of many:

“From retail stores to residential homes LEDs hold the promise of better durability and a longer lasting light but more important they use less energy than a standard incandescent bulb.”

Two written syntax errors and one grammar error in one sentence. And the writer got paid for doing that. *sigh* I’ll not link the source, but this sentence is just one example of many in one short blurb that is much, much more literate than most.

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The Real Problem? I Discovered the OED at an Early Age

Seriously. As a child I enjoyed little more than reading dictionaries and encyclopedias, and when I discovered the OED (and in my tender young manhood, Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament and its exhaustive treatment of Koine Greek *sigh*), well, I was in hog heaven.

So, understand that when I read some illiterate blurb in an email come-on to an online article such as the sentence below, I am a bit disturbed:

“It’s not the cheapest set out there, but it’s chalk full of features.”

It’s not that the author of the blurb is necessarily functionally illiterate (he did, after all, manage to spell his misused word correctly *heh*), but that he apparently has no idea that “chalk full” is nonsense reveals that he’s actually read very little. Any even passably semi-literate person such as myself knows full well that the phrase is “chock-full” or a close variant, and dictionary addicts such as I know why (hint *cough*: the majority opinion leans toward the first word in the term deriving from the Middle English “chokken“–meaning to cram or pack tightly, and NO opinion of any literate person even considers “chalk” to be in the same room as “chock” for the expression :-)).

Then blurb was written, more than likely, by some subliterate college graduate who’s heard the expression but never read it… and never even considered that looking up an expression he’s heard but not read might be a Good Thing before putting it in print.

Dumbass.

And, as my Wonder Woman pointed out to me, the writer of that excrescence is apparently an illiterate, uncultured savage whose only exposure to coffee has been limited to the crap sold by Starbucks and other boutique gathering places of the illiterati. Otherwise, he might have heard of, seen or even imbibed some of this:

(OK, OK, my Wonder Woman was too kind to characterize this savage as what he–oh! dread! it could be a “she”! *heh*–obviously is. I added the “illiterate, uncultured savage” and the comment on the crap that’s sold as coffee by Starbucks. Doesn’t make my editorializing incorrect, though.)