a thought

Consider the idea of the Divine Right of Kings. Now substitute "the wealthy" for "kings". Pretty much the GOP stance in a nutshell.

sunday funny

via

saturday matinee

quote for the day

First, from the Harvard Business Review:

More than ever, X'ers are being challenged to invent their own path forward. As it has been before, that path will almost certainly be less guided by conventional rules and less dependent on traditional institutions, than by X'ers' own sense of self-reliance and quest for multiple options. I encourage X'ers to re-imagine the next 30-50 years of your life: most of you won't have the institutionally-funded retirement options that many Traditionalists have enjoyed or the housing-based nest egg that provides many Boomers with the flexibility to blend volunteer and paid work over the years ahead. But you have your own ingenuity and entrepreneurial skills with which to build a unique future... X'ers should avoid even trying to follow the Boomers' path and, instead, have confidence to bring your own pragmatic sensibility both to organizational leadership - and to the design of your own life plan.

Then, Ed's reply at Gin And Tacos:

This is almost indistinguishable from the advice we might give someone on their way to prison: Figure it out, and good luck. Mom and Dad had pensions and job security, we have our "own sense of self-reliance and quest for multiple options." Neat.

Now, I love Gin And Tacos, but in this instance, I think Ed missed the mark. Close, but no cigar, Ed. The message here is not a shrug and a "good luck, kid", it's that old standard of the Grand Ol' Party: Fuck You I've (or We've) Got Mine (Ours).

just taking note:

there is someone on Facebook or the interwebs or someplace who goes by the handle "Cthulu Hand Luke". And that, all by itself, is worthy of comment.

hump day happiness

Okay, really. This is funny, but seriously, people should be able to keep these straight.

via George Takei

stolen, just plain stolen, for your edification

To help anyone out who just can't understand it anymore, Nice Guy Eddie has identified four degrees of conservative reasoning. Four levels that can help you gauge the exact level of insanity we've reached on any given issue or discussion...

Level One: Bill O’Rielly / John Boehner - Mitch McConnell

Person A tries to argue a conservative position. Person B refutes their argument with facts, research, evidence, reason and logic.

The liberal concludes that person A is wrong.

The conservative concludes that person B is liberal.


Level Two: Sean Hannity / Trent Lott - Tom DeLay

Person A, in attempting to defend the conservative position, is caught in a demonstrable lie by person B.

The liberal concludes that, as the argument was predicated on a falsehood, person A must be wrong.

The conservative concludes that since person A is conservative, person B must be wrong.


Level Three: Rush Limbaugh / James Inhofe - Jim Bunning

Person B further presents person A with strong, scientific evidence that his (conservative) position is wrong.

The liberal concludes that the conservative position is weak because it’s not supported by evidence

The conservative concludes that the evidence is weak, since it doesn’t support the conservative position.


Level 4: Glenn Beck / Michelle Bachman - Sarah Palin

Person A continues to spout falsehoods and starts displaying hypocritical, faux outrage over non-stories, made up allegations and paranoid nonsense. Person B continues to demonstrate that each point, in turn is becoming increasingly desperate and absurd.

The liberal wonders why anyone is still listening to person A.

The conservative wonders why person B hates his country so much.

saturday matinee

In case you want a name for this madness, it's Bo-Taoshi

via

Thank you blogger

For making your product worse. I cannot think of a better metaphor for the American experience than the one you have presented to me today. Your Orwellian terminology ("streamline"? did you mean "dumb down"?) and your "improvements" that no doubt have more to do with your bottom line than the public convenience. Or how about the sad underlying notion that because it's been the same system for several years, the public has grown bored with it and so needs a change just to regain interest. I suppose that I'll have to put up with it, I mean, since the service is free and all, I'll just have to make the best of it. But you havent won any friends here today, and I can imagine anyone familiar with the old system looking at the new one and saying, "oh goody, that's just what it needed".

Because it's not.

A few years ago, I would have thrown in a few "fuck you"s, but I'm older now, and today it just doesnt seem that important. But I dont like it, and I hope that this turns out to be a New Coke moment for you all.

needed: drummer who can keep good time?

There's more, but this first panel is all you really need.

quote for the day

"There is a saying amongst actors, said by Stella Adler or Uta Hagen or some other guru of the dramatic arts, “If you can live without [acting], you should.” I have found that I can live without it."

Mara Wilson, former child actor, now grown up and doing what she wants to. Some people grow up. Some people do not. Mara appears to have done so. I say, good for her.

because this will be an issue

"Asking who is the woman and who is the guy in a gay relationship is like going to a Chinese restaurant and asking which chopstick is the fork"

unknown

ha!

see the source.

saturday matinee

The one Doctor I dont need insurance to see.

quote for the day

“Over the next century, Law will be simplified. Lawyers will have diminished, and their fees will have been vastly curtailed.”

—Junius Henri Browne, American journalist, 1893

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-HA-HA-HA! oh God, cant breath.

via. again.

(wrong) quote for the day

"[In the year 2000,] authors of self-help books will be required to provide proof that they have actually helped themselves."

—Jane Wagner, Ms. Magazine, 1990

Via the wonderful Bad Opinion Generator, which Pryme led me to.

Another good one:

“Home taping is killing music.”

—A campaign by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) targeting people who used cassette recorders to tape songs off the radio, 1980

Aint it just?

quote for the day

I miss Vonnegut. 5 years now.

via

quote for the day

"In honor of Obamacare's Bday I'm calling Medicare 'LBJ-Care,' Soc. Sec. 'FDR-Care' & tax cuts for millionaires 'W-Care.'"

John Fugelsang

Late for the birthday, I know, but it works just as well for the SCOTUS case.


stolen from Pryme

quote for the day

Placing the burden of racism on its observer is the natural, cynical result of decades of conservative dog-whistle racism. Commentators throw out deliberately "ambiguous" statements intended to motivate racists willing to read into them what they want to hear. They make repeated references to Obama and watermelons. They talk about "strapping young bucks" with t-bone steaks. Then, when black or liberal commentators denounce those statements, conservative pundits label them as the racists. After all, you'd have to be a racist to think there was racist commentary there; the only people who think about racism are racists. You have to be importing your own racial hangups to the exchange: you altered the outcome of the reaction when your gaze introduced a racial force to the social reaction.

This is largely how the American right wing created "reverse racism".

"Mobutu Sese Seko", founder of the blog Et tu, Mr. Destructo?, from the article "The Dog Whistle Has Sounded: How the Right Talks About ‘Thugs’ Like Trayvon Martin".

more follows:

In the realm of Limbaughean physics, racism is something generated by race hustlers. These rabble rousers alter the dynamic of natural social interactions by injecting wacky racism particles into a totally innocuous discussion about the natural laziness of young black people who just want to own guns and steal buckets of Popeye's fried chicken. A noble white truth teller merely means to pull back the curtain on the inequities demanded by an indolent black class, and when he's called racist, it's someone else's fault for noticing it. People then victimize that noble soul for telling a hard truth, like Jesus.

In any physical exchange, this reversal of causation or responsibility would inspire laughter and contempt. If, to take a random example, some radio-show-hosting triple-chinned drug-addicted serial-divorcé and bloviator stabbed you repeatedly in the stomach, and you complained that you had "lots of knife-holes" in you, nobody could reasonably claim that you were a "stabbing hustler" who was "condemning mere knife enthusiasts" in a cynical ploy to" gain sympathy via stabbism." But this is the state of right-wing racism in America: it exists only on its moment of detection. Until then, it's merely an amorphous cloud of words. The people who are targeted by it are the real racists, because they have the insufferable gall to notice it and then divisively, unrepentantly point it out. They are malcontents operating without the privilege to speak freely.

Man, I wish I could have summed it up as succinctly.

sunday funny

read the rest...


...and be afraid.

saturday matinee

I really, really wish I was better at math, so that I could actually understand all this. Or so that I could be sure that it wasnt just some joke on all us non-mathematics types.

this.

is.

awesome.


via

because I'm old...

... I can post stuff like this.


Because it's true!

if you can look at this picture...

...and instantly get the connection... congratulations, you're now old.

I'm old.


stolen from kox.

sunday funny

late, like four years too late, but still...