Tag: stupid is as stupid does

Ya know those “life skills” classes our pubschools waste time on that feature a five-/ten-pound bag of flour (or some such–a dozen eggs, whatnot) as something for kids to haul around, be responsible for care, etc. for a week, supposedly in place of a baby?

Yeh, that.

Well, confession time segue-ing into “saving baby”.

I sometimes talk about folks being “dumb as a bag of hammers”. Well, I have a bag of hammers, almost. One I’ve bought, others from the toolboxes of various relatives who’ve gone on to their reward. It’s good I have a large collection of hammers—including five ordinary claw hammers of various vintages–cos I tend to just set ’em down where I am using them and when I go back to look for ’em to put ’em away, they’re… gone. Walked off. Decided to play hide n seek with me. Whatever.

Oh, they always turn up. Eventually. And get put “where they belong”… until the next time.

Same thing with tape measures and a few other tools.

So, I got a new (cheapo, but nice) tape measure yesterday and have been trying to play “saving baby” with it. When I set it down and walk off from it, I immediately go back and pick it up and cuddle and rock it while commenting something like, “Oh, Baby! You could have rolled right offa that counter and hurt yourself on the floor! I must take better care of you!”

Maybe it’ll get tired of being babied and run off to find my other tape measures.

Sure it’s weird, but you expected something else from America’s Third World Countyâ„¢?

🙂

…for American foreign policy in the Middle East:

THE KILKENNY CATS

There were once two cats of Kilkenny.
Each thought there was one cat too many;
So they fought and they fit,
And they scratched and they bit,
Till, excepting their nails,
And the tips of their tails,
Instead of two cats, there weren’t any.

Shiites hate Sunnis.

Iran hates Iraq.

Almost everyone hates the Saudis (though they kiss up to the fake royals).

And so it goes. There are so very many factions in the Muslim world who hate each other that perhaps the best American foreign policy in the Middle East might be to encorage such factionalism and “brotherly hatred” in hopes that the eternally self-destructive Muslim world will play Kilkenny cats for us and simply eat itself up. (Of course, when one or another side looks like it’s gaining ascendency, playing quartermaster to the “loser(s)” to keep ’em bleeding each other equally would be a Very Good Thing.)

…So they fought and they fit,
And they scratched and they bit,
Till, excepting their nails,
And the tips of their tails,
Instead of two cats, there weren’t any.

It’s a thought (which is one thought more than seems to have been put into our current Mass Media Podpeople-driven foreign policy).

Think the ants’ll stay off this one at Basil’s? Looking for some lettuce and tomato at TMH’s Bacon Bits.

In lieu of a full xposting on the American Communist Lawyers Union from STACLU this week, how about a buffet of STACLU’s recent wares? (Read more at the links provided)

Blue Plate Special

When the ACLU wins a case against the Boy Scouts, the public display of the Ten Commandments, veterans memorials, and other symbols of American history and heritage guess who pays them? You do! However, there is current legislation going before the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, as well as a companion bill going before the House that is designed to put a stop to this…

Soup du jour

Senate Passes Legislation To Protect Mt. Soledad Cross… Once this is signed by the President, which will no doubt happen, it will moot all current court battles by making it a Federal issue instead of a State one…

and dessert:

…we all know the philosphy that the ACLU and its followers adhere to: “If standards are good, then double standards must be twice as good.”

OK, so three doesn’t quite make a smörgÃ¥sbord, but there’s more at STACLU on these and other topics, all related to defense of our civil liberties from attacks by the ACLU.

I begin this mini-micro-roundup of interesting stuff ’round and about with a quote from a reader’s email over at Chaos manor Musings:

“Political correctness is affirmative action for lousy ideas.”

While you’re mulling that one over (and the meta-commentary it makes on affirmative action), here are a few intersting posts and other tidbits from my limited cruisin’s this week, so far.

Two must-reads from Planck’s Constant (Yeh, I know they’re included in an open trackbacks post, but these are too good to let languish there):

Do the Christian thing. *heh* Well-said.

The Scorpion and the Frog, re-framed.

Woody makes a case for Geogians to re-elect the racist Cynthia McKinney. Interesting arguments, Woody. Wanna make the same case for, oh, say… Billary? 😉

While we’re on McKinney, Ann Coulter has a word or three on the topic…

“Cynthia McKinney: One of the most intelligent Democrats in the country.”

Social networking… in the hands of the narcs, the undoing of some dumb parents. (How do I know they’re dumber than a bag o’ hammers? Look at their progeny… )

More fake news exposed by Dan Rhiel. Seems the Mass Media Podpeople learned the wrong lesson from Ra^thergate. Naturally.

Well, Kim, I’m drooling, too. Good heavens, that’s purty!

Stupidity has its price, even in our cradle-to-grave nanny state society. The Median Sib asks, What was she thinking?. Obviously, nothing. *sigh* The article doesn’t say, but the woman referred to could have been the head of any number of departments in an Academia Nut Fruitcake Bakery or Feddle Gummint Bureaucrappy. Thems things that takes real smarts.

That’s about it for now. Sure, there’s a ton more (like commentary on the Murtha suit from a buncha perspectives), but I feel like stopping here, for now. Need more caffeine. Or more sleep. Or both.

This is Wednesday’s Open Trackback Alliance post. Link to this post and track back. Enjoy the video below.

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I don’t have a firm date for this interview, but www.savethesoldiers.com posted it on YouTube on May 25, 2006. Boortz on the Fair Tax bill.

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As I said, this is an open trackback post. Link to this post and then track back. If you want to host your own linkfests, check out

Also note the other fine blogs featuring linkfests at Linkfest Haven.

This is Tuesday’s open trackbacks post. Link to this post and track back. More below the post by Heidi.

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The North American Union, SPP, and NASCO: Erasing America’s Borders
By Heidi at Euphoric Reality

Our government has undertaken some monumental legislation that fully impacts the American way of life, our freedom, and our sovereignty. The purpose of such legislation is to homogenize Canada, Mexico, and the United States into a North American Union – and we’re all going to sleep through it.

Have you heard of a little-known program called the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America? This tri-lateral partnership was signed by President Bush last year without Congressional oversight or public approval. Opponents of the SPP have called it NAFTA on steroids – and we all know how disastrous NAFTA has been for everyone except Mexico. It also appears to be modeled on the ineffective and highly unpopular European Union (unpopular with the people, that is).

I went to the website, www.spp.gov, to begin my research. Continue reading “Guard the Borders/Tuesday Open Post”

A couple of folks have noticed their trackbacks/comments being held for moderation, where none save tbs/comments snagged by my SPAm filters were held before. It’s a function of three things:

1.) I upgraded my WordPress installation over the weekend (and so deleted and re-installed plugins… and didn’t reinstall ’em all)
2.) Had been getting no fewer than 2,000 SPAM comments/trackbacks a day for the past week or so.
3.) Changed my approach to SPAM comments/tbs.

Now NO comment/tb is supposed to be approved unless at least ONE comment/tb from that source has been approved by me. Since I semi-restarted the SPAM filters when I upgraded the blog (and yeh, I was severely caffeine- and sleep-deprived at the time and remember doing it but not what I did. *sigh*), some of y’all who have commented/tbed here before will need manual approval, as well as all really new commenters.

Makes more trouble for me that it does for you, really, and my SPAm count has actually gone up… cos SPAM that was slipping through the filters before—and still is—is now being held in moderation… along with every legitimate comment/tb that my new WP install doesn’t recognize as having been around before.

OK, I’m still caffeine-deprived, cos re-reading the graphs above is like taking two, three four lumps of sugar (thanks, Pete Puma).

3or4.wav

Momday Open Post. Link to this post and track back. More below the post body.

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…winning the CNN narrative seems more important to many of the “statesmen” who are making these decisions than actually winning something important. I am reminded of Pareto’s Foxes and Lions and what happens when Foxes rule… ¹

Repetition is said to aid learning, so here ya go: When a society elevates silly issues to importance, and spends a lot of social capital on them to the detriment of addressing serious issues, that society is in serious trouble. “That society” is us.

Homosexual “marriage”–a silly, time-wasting issue. We’ve better things to spend ourselves on. Not even worth this sentence saying it’s not worth the time wasted on it.

Snail darters et al. Really, now: the survival of certain species (especially when more than a few times “endangered” species have proven to, urm, NOT be) should be left to good old darwinian natural selection. *heh*

Speaking of which: arguing over which religion is taught in schools, Neodarwiinism or Creationism… while the pubschoools in this country are flushing the minds of yet another generation down the toilet. Priorities, folks! College grads can’t read. What difference does it make how they think we got here as a species if they can’t even read? (And the real question is how the hell did they get outa high school and into college as illiterates?)

TSA. Need I say more? Is there a better single example of a public policy/debate/issue that’s skewed by dangerous silliness than the Thousands Standing Around? Attempt to confiscate the Medal of Honor from a real American hero on the way to speak at West Point; make a mother drink her own breast milk (expressed and bottled for her baby’s use in flight); grope, harass and steal from average citizens day in and day out… rather than do what’s rational and focus on security risks according to a reasonable profiling system (as the safest airline in the world—El Al—does). Typical of the dangerous silliness driving American security, border and foreign policy.

What do all these silly things have in common? Yeh, a gimme question not even rising to the level of a rhetorical device. You’d already answered it before I asked it, unless you are an integral, driving part of the problem.

Every single silly (but dangerous) issue distracting from dealing with real, serious issues are driven by the anti-democratic, anti-Western, anti-American, anti-free speech faux liberals on the left and lent impetus by stupid faux conservatives in the right who let the faux liberals frame the issues and circumsribe the arena of discussion.

And every single solitary social issue that is harming our society today, whether a silly issue detracting from the level of public debate or genuinely serious issue, is exacerbated by the ever-increasing anti-federalism of the Federal government.

The Republic has one foot (some would say both feet and digging itself deeper) in the grave, already, and most folks waste all too much time arguing about silly things.

I guess that’s just what happens when a society is rich enough to squander its wealth on siliness. And when its “leaders” are more concerned with preening for an audience (or simply stroking their own… egos) than doing essential work to insure the society’s security and future.

But there’s a danger sneaking in under our radar (many, in fact) that will one day reveal all these to be silliness writ large enough to kill. And it’s not just that our so-called “education system” is steadily churning out citizens who are dumber than a bag of hammers. No! We cannot be satisfied with that level of moron production! No, our society (via its chosen political masters) must INSURE that its population is ever dumber:

“Cognitive Decline: The Irreducible Legacy of Open Borders”

But let’s all talk about how to accomodate non-English-speaking children in our schools and about how two daddys is oh-so-good for kids (instead of sealing our borders, fixing our schools and making divorce difficult to obtain).

Bah.

The Random Yak Gets It

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As I said, this is an open trackback post. Link to this post and then track back. If you want to host your own linkfests, check out

Also note the other fine blogs featuring linkfests at Linkfest Haven.

For those of y’all who’ve been following along…

Well, tomorrow the saga of Yolanda Yaris, my daughter’s first personally-selected, “bought-on-her-own” car, ends when she picks up Guido Yaris, Yolanda’s replacement as transportation. Since time pressure, physical exigencies, and foot-dragging and obstructionism from ins company thugs refusing to make her whole meant Lovely Daughter had to have things handled this week, she settled on (I almost more accurately wrote “settled for”) a car that is about $1,000 less than Yolanda was: the three-door (hatchback) body version of the Yaris that uses the same drive train and frame, etc.

In red: the ONE color LD wanted to avoid.

Ah, well, it’s just transportation.

At least red will be very easy to see during daylight hours (and she doesn’t drive much at night, when she’ll have lights to provide visibility to other drivers, anyway). LD’s dad is pleased, though. Handling characteristics and fuel economy should be just a tad better with Guido than with Yolanda, and the rest of the car’s the same solid Toyota engineering.

Bye-bye, Yolanda.

Yeh, I am sometimes kinda nit-picky. So?

One reason I like eBooks in html format is that I can easily edit them when the author and editors have fallen down on things that they ought to catch. I mean, after all, if I paid $4 for a book, I have a right to expect these folks to earn their $$ by doing a workmanly job of writing and editing it. (You’re not paying me jack for reading this, so mty typos stay. So there.)

Case in point (and the spur for this nit-picky post): I’m reading a book right now that’s really pretty well-written. The author not only has a history degree (and other neato keano DV stuff) but he wasn’t ruined by a history degree in a contemporary college/university, that is, he knows his stuff. It’s fiction, but this guy’s fiction is usually pretty tight, and any historical/cultural references are pretty much on target.

So, when I ran across a piece of dialog where a character said (according to the author’s “transcription”), “Here, here!” I was just a tad disgusted.

As the guy should know, the expression is “Hear, hear!” as derived most likely from the expression “Hear him, hear him!” as I recall the OED stating it. It’s an expression of strong agreement.

“Here, here!” means, well, nothing, has no roots outside of subliterate blatherings and is entirely unworthy of this author.

So, yeh, I’ve corrected a few other usages, typos, misspellings and expressions in this particular book, and I kinda have to wonder if

1.) The editor wasn’t waaaay under the weather (or relying on some sub-par copyreaders) or
2.) The co-author (yeh, there’s someone else in the mix), whom I’ve never read before, wasn’t responsible for this bit, or
3.) Both.

I vote for both.

But at least I can correct the usage, save MY copy (corrected) and read on…

Nice thing about eBooks in html format…

🙂