Month: July 2005

OK, this is so good, I may not have to blog the rest of this week. Heck, it’s so very nearly perfect, I may have to hang up my keyboard permanently…

Recieved from Hugh H. (No, not that one; an entirely different one.) via email:

The Drugs I Need

Take one (and one ONLY) and call me in the morning. If you can. (You might just laugh your head off and so not be able to call. Better have the EMTs ready to resucitate you before viewing.)

Rightwing Nuthouse posted on this WAPO article about the devastating potential of an “Asian bird flu” pandemic. Then he posted here (on The Wide Awakes) about his original original post at Rightwing Nuthouse and asked TMH Bacon Bits‘ The MaryHunter for his “mad scientist” response.

(With me so far? ‘K)

Well, The MaryHunter hasn’t responded, yet, as far as I can tell, but here’s my take: every cloud has a silver lining. This sounds like a made-for-mad-scientist opportunity to address the global threat of Islamic jihadists.

Mad Scientist Mode: ON

I’m thinking… a new charity.

Contaminated Quail for al Qaeda?

Tainted Turtle Doves for Terrorists?

Scummy Sandpipers for Saudis?

Wicked Woodcocks for Wacko Wahabbists?

Yeh, so an Asian bird flu pandemic could be catestrophic. With a little planning, there could be a silver lining…

The possibilities seem absolutely endless…

Mad Scientist Mode: OFF

This Newsmax headline outlines McCain’s (justified) fear that Fred Thompson would make a better presidential candidate than he. (Of course Thompson would make a better president than that snake McCain)

Click on over to Cao’s Blog to check out her post featuring the Loony Left Moonbat Brigade displaying classic signs of Liberalist Personality Disorder.

LPD is a complex array of co-morbidity. The seductively simple thing to do would be to simply label it as a subset of narcissism, but that’s not a sufficient description.

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

• has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
• is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
• believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
• requires excessive admiration
• has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
• is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
• lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
• is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
• shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes_1_

Still, it’s a good place to start exploring the “Liberalist Personality Disorder.”

But LPD (Liberalist Personality Disorder) seems to encompass much more than Narcissistic Personality Disorder. There are many in the Loony Left Moonbat Brigade who also exhibit signs of Histrionic Personality Disorder.

See:

A pervasive pattern of excessive emotionality and attention seeking, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

• is uncomfortable in situations in which he or she is not the center of attention
• interaction with others is often characterized by inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behavior
• displays rapidly shifting and shallow expression of emotions
• consistently uses physical appearance to draw attention to self has a style of speech that is
• excessively impressionistic and lacking in detail
• shows self-dramatization, theatricality, and exaggerated expression of emotion
• is suggestible, i.e., easily influenced by others or circumstances
• considers relationships to be more intimate than they actually are _2_

But wait! There’s more! (Too much more, as it turns out… ) Yeh, I guess LPD is a complex of co-morbidity issues. Once one starts to dig into the snakepit that is LPD, signs of so many disorders become plain that it’s impossible to separate one out as dominant in the groupthink.

Regardless, I think good public health policy would be to treat this disorder similarly to TB: isolation from the population at large. heh

Of course, those who advocate
that soldiers shoot their officers ought to be given the opportunity to do so in person, don’t you think? That is, ship them to Iraq and let ’em tell it to the guys in Deuce-Four (I-24th) in Mosul… it’d probably result in some VERY effective psychological “reality therapy”.

(Note: it’s easy to distinguish between “Liberalists” and “Liberals”. Liberals—genuine Liberals—listen to opposing views, engage in reasoned discourse, argue fairly and can “agree to disagree” amicably. Liberals also believe in free Speech and Press, Free Assembly (to petition for redress of grievances) and Freedom OF (not FROM) religion. The Liberalists who have hijacked the Democratic Party, for example, have none of those characteristics. Upcoming: a brief description of CPD: Conservatist Personality Disorder, or “me-too-ism in denial”. heh)

Finally, someone has given Vice President Dick Cheney a potentially compelling reason to run for president.

“The day Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I’ll kill myself,” [Helen Thomas] told the HILL. “All we need is one more liar.”

Thomas made the remarks to the newspaper Thursday, July 28, 2005, according to Drudge.

Of course, the statement by Thomas will only become falsifiable (testable) if Cheney were to announce he were running. But then, he could always announce and then withdraw if Thomas became that rare mass media personality to actually say what they mean and mean what they say…

At least then we might be able to test what kind of liar Helen Thomas might (or might not) be.

heh

(Crossposted from a Friday post at Balanced News Blog–yeh, I’m that far behind here… )

Light—very light—posting today. In fact, until later this may be all there is…

In fact, try checking out my sidebar and blogroll for reading material today. Anywhere But Here, Cathouse Chat, Cao’s Blog, Keep the Coffee Coming, BTW—oh, darn it, they’re all worth reading or I wouldn’t have blogrolled ’em. I souldn’t even have started a list; should just have inserted my bloogroll here and said, “Read these today, ‘K?”

L8R…

CLICK on over to Feisty Repartee for all he caloric goodness you can handle.

I wanna sing new lyrics to the “Mazda Song” after just glancing through this week’s offerings: Yum, Yum. Yum!

Rant: ON

Chapter II of an ongoing gripe…

Yeh, I know, I know. Communication sometimes happens even with usage errors in common speech. But mass media (including print media) is so darned full of the subliterate that I sometimes get a tad steamed.

No, subliterate writing and speech isn’t all the fault of Mass Media Podpeople (and their brethren in advertising and entertainment and “the (mostly phony) arts”. No, a lot of the fault can be traced to bad, really bad public schooling. Oh, and lazy people who just don’t give a flip about learning their own language well or who just don’t care to read much. (And even there, I find myself correcting grammar, usage and spelling in books I own—print and ebook—in narrative or descriptive passages. I pretty much leave dialog alone. What the heck do editors and proofreaders get paid for?)

And yeh, I know I use colloquialisms loosely on this blog, and I even have numerous typos and the occassional misspelling (like “occassional” which should be “occasional” See? Sometimes I catch myself and make corrections. :-).

But really, ought we not to be a tad more literate as a society than we are? Or mabe just a wee tad less subliterate? Especially those who make a living with the printed and parrotted-from-a-teleprompter word?

Just read the list of errors at Common Errors in English. I’ve seen or heard darned near all of them—some of them frequently—from mass media (print, audio and video/tv/etc.) since I last ranted about this topic.

And people listen to these subliterate morons!

Oh, and one other thing: If I hear one more person say, “To err is human; to forgive, divine” and mispronounce “err” as “air” I swear I’ll scream bloody murder! It’s “ûr” or “er” (as in dumbER than rocks). Learn the language!

*grumble, grumble, gripe, complain*

OK, OK, I know most darned near all of the folks who read this blog do NOT fall into the subliterate category, in general. And here, note: I once again do NOT classify myself as being “literate” in to the same order of literacy as my grandparents, for example. I’d need a much better grasp of history, for one thing, to meet that standard.

Still, wouldn’t it be lovely *heh* if more folks actually knew how to speak and write English—especially in Mass Media?

Rant: OFF.

There. I feel muuuuuch better, now…

More? Of course there’s more. But I’ll leave the rest as an exercise for the students…