One of my favourite cartoons:
Which in a round about way leads me to this, also one of my favourite cartoons, from Randall Munroe:
That really sums up my experience at the Swamp. I still have trouble with insomnia, but somehow I am have been able to let fools rest. But this is not to say I have a problem with stirring up the soup, primordial or otherwise, as long as one uses a long enough pole. I just haven’t found one yet that is longer than thirty-nine and a half feet.
And speaking of insomnia, one of my favourite podcasts, by the fellow who played the PC in those memorable MAC versus PC ads,
now has a feature called “Someone on the internet is right” where he deals with the pedants who correct his grammar so helpfully after his show airs. [In my quest for aural entertainment I have actually gone back and listened to all the episodes, from the beginning, because it all makes more sense that way.]
But to add meaning to this little consideration, why can people not admit they were wrong? I have really changed my views politically over the past thirty years and yet we seem to expect some sort of robotic consistency from our putative leaders. Ah ha! we cry: “You said something different ten years ago! Waffler.” Hmnnn. Are there other adults in whom we prize inflexibility and rigidity of thought? Scientists? Doctors? Engineers? Teachers? Au contraire, a flexible and open mind is far preferable in any so-called expert, and why public policy should differ eludes me.
Now please excuse me while I go and reform some opinions. And eat a banana. Have a wonderful Wednesday if possible, unless, to paraphrase my dearly departed father when told to have a nice day, you have made other plans.
I linked to this guy before. He puts out a monthly “conspiracy” podcast, sort of a post-conspiracy podcast, and his sense of humour suits mine, his imaginary sponsors being Stan Tongue’s Tungsten Stand, and the Society for a Better Life Underground, people who bunkered out and won’t come out.
http://www.doorwaytothehiddenworld.com
you ask why some people will never admit they were wrong. i think it is mostly an ego problem.
this guy continues to really surprise me. he certainly will admit to Reagan’s policy errors, and to the failure of supply side neolib/neocon ideas as well. so true what he says about the libertarian belief in deregulation. still, as you say above, in the face of overwhelming evidence, the idiocy must go on. after all, if something doesn’t work, it’s only because you are not doing enough of it.
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/08/11/social-cost-capitalism-paul-craig-roberts/
i will check out your links later.
Say Hey, Kids! Mrs. O’s brand spanking new job just fell to Uncle Warren’s axe. Go ahead and feed us into the meat grinder of the new economy.
My gut says she’ll land on her feet. People were fighting over her just a few months ago.
If worst comes to worst, I still have a ridiculous amount of gold I’d like to unload…
Work 2.5 months, get 6 months severance pay. I guess it could be worse. Somehow… 😳
The peeps at my new gig are already asking me if maybe I want to work more hours?
It’s weird. After 20 years of feeling like the fastest guy in the room, I now feel like the slowest. But, to paraphrase somebody or other, they like me, they really like me.
Yeah, it will all work out.
Good luck all.
ps: and…unemployed son just got a hot lead on a job today. By the weekend it could be that Mrs. O is the only one unemployed in the family, which is 180 degrees bass ackwards of the past 30 years. It is indeed a crazzzzy ass world….
Eric
My mum died, I broke my leg and have a cyclical vomiting illness. But why mention it?
And Good Morning to … well, you know who you are, mostly …
And there is a possibility I am also a little crazy … I went to see the lovely lad at the local market, and while he had some spectacular hibiscus (and I came home $20 poorer and a “Midnight Marvel” richer) he did NOT remember a blue hibiscus from last year. So when this one blooms pink I will have to eat my hat, or possibly just my hibiscus now that I know it is a mallow.
And I really really
And I am sorry, but I just have to say, Trump? We Canadians are more than able to embarrass ourselves politically, but I think America has really got to think about this one. His hair alone cannot be allowed on the world stage. And he is a blustering, blithering idiot.
We are actually having an election this fall and the leaders of the parties have been having meaningless slog-fest debates – but at least there is an election coming. How endless the political cycle is now in the States – and still Clintons and Bushes …. We will hopefully avoid a Trudeau empty suit hanging in 24 Sussex drive, and I think I am actually going to vote for our local fellow, who is an NDPer, our “socialist” party. He will win our riding as he is a nice fellow, son of an erstwhile popular mayor, and this is a safe seat in general for liberals and NDPers. I wondered about voting fringe, as I have in the past, but if my missing vote perpetuated the Conservatives and their mega-prison concepts, or helped shoe in Trudeau, I would feel terrible. So least of the three main evils. Last election we had a promising fourth party, who caved just before the election and told all their supporters to vote Liberal … death knell for the Green Party. There – an end to the Canadian debate, and we will vote this fall.
But spare me the machinations of the Democrats and Republicans making a mockery of language and meaning, through an endless series of posing nonsense.
Oh and I have been meaning to say about the Koch river cleaners – do you also have mandatory volunteering as a component of high school graduation? It is one of the more ludicrous modern inventions and rich folks send their kids on wacky adventures for lots of money and the kids clean a beach and get their hours. I know because I was one of those rich folks and two of our kids sailed in the Caribbean with a wonderful outfit called Sail Caribbean and helped clean up beaches, etc.
I’m all right, Jack!
Originally: “Fuck you, Jack, I’m all right!!” – described the bitter dismay of sailors (“jacks”) returning home after wartime in the Navy to find themselves not treated as patriots or heroes, but ignored / sneered at by a selfish, complacent, get-ahead society – phrase was subsequently toned down for acceptable general use.
Attitude of “every man for himself, survival of the fittest, devil take the hindmost”, … but also, that all the possible advantages (however gained), success (however won) and satisfaction (whatever the cost to others) belong to me first!” Narrow-focus, narrow-gauge pseudo-Darwinian selfishness glorified as a sensible philosophy of society and life.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=I%27m+all+right+Jack!
“So when this one blooms pink I will have to eat my hat, or possibly just my hibiscus now that I know it is a mallow.”
i am at a loss for words. but do spare us the video!
other than that, i’m all right Jack, in fact everything is awesome.
and good morning, at least compared to the alternative.
Yes, Jack, I thought you would be finding life super-de-super awesome.
here is the 2nd definition offered at your link…
Original saying was “I’m all right Jack, pull up the ladder”.
Meaning when a man had got safely on board ship by climbing the ladder from the sea or from a lifeboat, don’t bother about saving the rest of the guys because I don’t really care about them.
A thoughtless self-serving person when asked to sympathise or help someone who had lost his/her job might say “Well, I’m all right Jack!”.
We have a lovely but almost too enthusiastic long time friend who always wants us to say that we are FANTASTIC – as though repetition would make it true. Now he has been through a seriously difficult and life threatening series of operations that have finally taken a turn for the best, so his joie de vivre is honestly come by, and from him I can take it. But barely. And my patience is very thin at the moment. I expect my communication through lyrics to satisfy no one but myself, but I personally enjoyed them immensely.
A thoughtless, self-serving person … now where could we find one of those?
well, i would have to leave the house. and sadly it wouldn’t require much more effort than that. btw – this and not the stones video is my first answer.
Mick Jagger was interviewed in the documentary about James Brown and he was positively adorably humble about his dancing, etc., compared to Brown’s – he said he tried to emulate him but … and it was exceptionally cute as basically a famous strutting white guy admitted he just couldn’t dance. I liked him more, and usually I am not a Mick fan. Like their music, just find him crude and misogynistic.
Unfortunately, you didn’t need to leave the house this morning – just had to see who bothered to poop on my blog last evening.
some people simply don’t want to see the suffering, others really just don’t care.
in either case, “western” society combines either alternative into the default.
Is your life as awesome as you pretend it is on Facebook?
http://ethicalnag.org/2012/04/15/facebook/
My life is both better and worse than it appears on this blog, but I think I try to run the gamut from barf to boat …
My kids didn’t want me to be their friends when Faceplant first appeared in our lives and my hubby had to get updates about NeoPets from a neighbour … and like my father-in-law who has never eaten at Mickey D’s (which the cheerleaders always called McDonald’s and I can’t get it out of my head) I think I have avoided a car-wreck. But daughter uses it very effectively for school stuff – and the personal stuff is a secondary bonus. I think both boys have bailed long ago …
I had a go at being an internet narcissist at the Swamp for a little while, helpfully fuelled by Oxy which I was on for that dratted nerve. But just to boast now, I took myself off those drugs before we figured out the entrapped nerve and hernia – it is no way to live, and writhing on the floor helped me find the surgeon who fixed me up so well. But my ego is pretty well in control – hypocrisy has always struck me as the worst sin – if people lie to you you cannot make proper choices and being open with the kids has been the best choice ever.
Did you ever have to suffer through Christmas letters that were lists of successes? Man I hated those things. My dad would write them, but at least he made them humorous poems. Horrid boastful things. We still get one from a person I really do like, but honestly broadcasting your virtues (they volunteer to teach handicapped people to ski, etc.) is to fail to understand when to discuss which things. I also have a cousin who sends one, but her life is a normal one of trial and tribulation and the letter reads much more like an honest update and always makes me laugh. Her son works at a gas station and might become manager. Now that is good news I can work with.
I wonder what he wrote when I dropped out of high school … I did give them a bit of a hard time but I just did not like school after about Grade 6 – and then again when I went back to get my Grade 13 it seemed okay, and then university was a piece of cake. Bored silly I think mostly as a teen, plus the dyslexia … much more fun out in the “air factory” as we called the little lane and garages near my ghastly high school and then playing pin ball at this little arcade near by. I can’t quite understand why my truancy never really got reported back home … every report card “Xty could do better …” Well yes, but why? So many other avenues to explore …
and for a little levity…
and number one, on the top 10 list of signs that you may be a narcissist…
“Every 3-4 months, we like to do these A2As with your host acting as guest, as well. Always some interesting questions on the collective mind of Turdville and today was no different.”
oh, and sorry for helping to put so many of you into the poorhouse. you probably could use some of that money you flushed down the toilet BTFDs on other things right now, like food. but none of you suckers are posting here anymore anyhow, judging by site traffic. well, back to the living, and the show.
hey, at least no one here is talking to themselves yet. 🙂
interesting subject in the side bar Xty. hard for me to to believe the universe is the result of cosmic accident, but i don’t claim to have any special insight either. though i did watch the new Stephen Hawking movie the other night. 🙂
ok, back to watering. the squirrels are killing off my garden looking for water. we have not had any significant rain here in almost a month now.
it is probably a good thing that there isn’t a comment section after this article. the wing-nuts would be jumping all over each other trying to come up with the most clever, heartless and hateful commentary, dehumanizing and scapegoating the so called “free shit army”.
as it stands this article is good. no one is believing the bullshit “recovery” any more. and now that the China miracle just imploded, how can the FED really raise interest rates? so maybe they will quit sugar coating the numbers. (oh shit, forgot about the 2016 elections) anyway that would be the exact same thing that worsened the first Great Depression, at least one believes that if Keynesian, and i suspect Yellen is.
but i ramble. you started it Xty.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FOOD_BANKS_IN_DEMAND?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-08-13-13-27-53
In no particular order: don’t eat the squirrels brains, no matter how hangry you get at them. Hangry being a word we invented to avoid having to say atrabilious.
Some interesting questions? How could we have been so wrong ….
Teleonomy: I don’t think this fellow is going to say cosmic accident. I think he is going to stick to the difficult question of just chemically, how is some stuff alive and other stuff not. He talks about all life coming from one source, but I think he is mostly saying that’s what Darwin says and is going to avoid the philosophical questions of why, and skirt the question of when. I will let you know what conclusions he is willing to draw. But very much a chemist, not a philosopher.
Even the head of Gallop says the numbers are nonsense as I think DP posted earlier.
And good afternoon.
Particular fondness for these lyrics (and I don’t know why, but they have grabbed and held for awhile), and Jerry rips it up very sharp and cleanly here.
And I think a lot about other’s motives and intentions and seem to learn something every day.
See if it will let me post a tune.
Hi.
Wonderful song … and life does seem to a long, steep, learning curve!
And a nice tune for breaking my wean …
hi all. think i’ll lurk for now. but thanks for doing nice stuff for people you have never met and probably never will just for the hell of it. 🙂
Wo! had no idea that that video was that cheesy. Sorry, just like the song.
Sorting and processing stuff thru my “reducing valve” ( Huxley: Doors of Perception )? correct?
Random tunes may flow out as they flow in.
Hey Woodpecker, are you leaving water out for the squirrels, or have a birdbath or any other water laying around? Yep they’re going for the water in your veggies/fruit.
We’ve had relentless heat with high humidity since the beginning of June I think, but lots of rain storms too…but it seems like dryness always comes. That’s why I was excited about getting my well pump hooked up…..I swear, some people don’t even understand why trees die out in droughts. Anyway, little things like that are victories sometimes.
Golf in the background, muted. PGA Champ stuff in Wisc. Looks like a beautiful place.
this always made me think of cpnscarlet and his nasa contributions, I think he may have honed down a wheel and believes he should be credited for a moon landing.
people are fascinating.
colors for Xty.
yes, once again, this tune in my head.
Good Night.
I always liked Cpn Scarlet – he and I did exchange just a few private messages – and he was right to be angry and call out the Swamp.
I did have birds in my birdbath finally – but we are living in a tropical jungle, having stolen DP’s rain. And while I cannot account for my memory lapse, there is a very pinkish bud on my last year’s hibiscus. I think it will open today or tomorrow, and I will eat my proverbial hat online, but no video, I promise. And the “Midnight Marvel” has one bloom. It is hard to see how tall it is, but a good 3 feet or more. Lovely for late summer – my goal is to always have something perennial in bloom, and this summer I done good.
You have a well? That’s super cool!
I think we will meet someday. Hope springs eternal and we only achieve what we dream.