"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."
You know those lower back tattoos showing up more and more on what used to be called “loose women”? Would “sluttoo” be an appropriate term to refer to such things? Just… asking.
Update. Just saw this at the “Shit My Dad Says” blog:
…if you’re an attractive young female that stars on a television show, you’re allowed to dress like a hooker and instead of people saying “Are you a hooker?” they say “I love that dress, where’d you get it?”
Ain’t it the truth? *sigh*
“Mother Earth” apparently hates the things as well. From the Christchurch earthquake:
*heh*
h.t. Tim Blair
ISP went down again last night. *sigh* Did all the normal stuff can do from my end, up to and including replacing the cable “modem” with another, known good, unit and some lil “tricks” the local cable tech clued me in on that are not included in SOP.
No joy. *sigh* Called customer “service”. Doubleplus nojoy. Idjits. The BEST response I got from two first level “service” people was a proposal to schedule an appointment for a tech to drop by sometime on September 13. September 13?!? Ten whole calendar days?!? *feh* After stressing and re-stressing (thus distressing *heh*) to the customer “service” cubicle serf that such a “service” was no service at all, and certainly showed no evidence of good faith, I managed to finally, after repeated “requests” (read, “demands”) that my call be escalated to someone who could deal with the issue properly, I reached someone who noted that my cable “modem” was online, but was “not communicating with the server”. Right. Not at my end. From her end, she could–and did–reset the server’s connection with the modem (I had already been through several reboots of my whole network, in whole and incrementally, in those steps noted in paragraph 1 above), whereupon everything was working again.
Why the first two “service” serfs couldn’t or wouldn’t correct things at the ISP end, I don’t know, but the first rule of dealing with such “service” came in handy again: always escalate until you get someone who can at least find their own backside with a mirror on a stick and full directions written in monosyllabic words.
Now, it’s not barn-burning speeds, but at least it approaches what the ISP advertises:
I can live with that, although my cable “modem” can handle much greater speeds than that.
Obviously, Jerry Pournelle will not be welcome in D.C. with commonsense thoughts like this:
We can legitimately argue over the desirability of government building programs and whether all that ought to be left to the market; but it seems to me that if government is going to borrow money and spend it, the end result ought to be something useful, not just spent money… Just spending borrowed money doesn’t seem to work well.
It certainly doesn’t for private citizens. It may well make sense for a man who has landed a job as a carpenter to borrow money to buy his basic tool kit, or even to buy a car for transportation to and from work. It makes little to no sense to borrow money to take a trip across country for vacation and relaxation, or to buy frivolities. Everyone knows this, or certainly used to. Apparently the government doesn’t really know it. And now we borrow money to fund entitlements, to build demonstration projects, local museums that no one is going to visit, increase salaries of government workers and to hire new government workers whose funding will then fall on the local community, and other such horrors. Spending borrowed money without a very specific [and useful to the general public–ed] purpose is nonsense.
Of course, “common sense” is anathema to the ignorant, preening, over-credentialed ruling class. “Ignorant”? What, aren’t they mostly products of “elite” colleges and universities? Yep, for the most part they are, and that’s one of the linchpins of their unassailable ignorance and institutionalized stupidity. I’m not by any means anti-intellectual; I highly approve of thoughtful consideration of issues and genuinely intellectual pursuits that enlighten, broaden horizons and improve the conditions of those who pursue them, as well as benefit society at large. But. That sort of intellectual behavior is the antithesis of what goes on in most colleges and universities nowadays–and especially “elite” schools.
Any soi disant Academia Nut Fruitcake Bakery “intellectuals” want to argue the point with me? Hmmm? See my Comments Policy for fair warning.
Just sayin’
I do wish we had a few congresscritters with the work ethic and intelligence of this lil long-legged rat.
BTW, stolen from a FB post by Kat.