* A poll shows that most Americans don’t think candidates from either party will do a good job as president. I think this is a step in the right direction. Usually in politics, we say one guy is great and the other guy is bad and the they’ll say their guy is great and our guy is bad. But can’t we compromise and agree they’re all awful? Treating all politicians with contempt is the first steps towards a smaller government, because when you hate and distrust them all, you realize how imperative it is to give them as little power as possible.
* Q. What do you call someone who thinks it’s a bad idea to sell guns to Mexican drug cartels? A. A racist.
I think it’s safe to say that racism has replaced patriotism as the most popular last refuge of a scoundrel. But really, what does Holder have left? This Fast & Furious thing is so awful to the point of being cartoonish. Unless he wants to do the right thing and resign in disgrace, what’s he got left other than to throw any charge he can think of out there? Certainly not dignity.
* New one from Biden: “Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy.” They’re just sort of tyrannical, backwards, violent people we’ve been fighting for the last decade, but no one should take that as meaning we don’t like them and don’t want to be friends.
* Apparently a couple people have used these things called “neti pots” and died from brain eating amoebas. To which my reaction is: THAT’S A THING?!!
Yes, apparently there are brain eating amoebas (well, they’re not technically “amoebas”) that just sit around in bodies of water waiting to get in through your nose and eat your brain. And if that happens, there’s a 98% mortality rate. It just rarely happens (it needs to be heated water), but apparently a neti pot can help if you use tap water because lots of tap water has BRAIN EATING AMOEBAS!
Somewhere near you right now is a body of water with little amoebas resting in it saying, “Brains! Brains!” WHY DID I NOT KNOW THIS?!
* Here’s a new one for my argument that atheism isn’t so much anti-religion as just itself an ill-defined and flighty religion. It’s from the New York Times arguing you can be good without God — and sure, you can do good things but the question is always “why” and once again I’m frustrated with how illogical the arguments are for that. She lists a number of moral judgments she says are “obviously true” but never expounds on why they’re obviously true — other than they feel really wrong. She doesn’t even attempt to make a logical argument. A lot of people feel homosexuality is wrong… so is that obviously immoral too or what sort of consensus do we need?
And what if you’re a sociopath and have no natural feelings of right or wrong — are you then not bound by morality? (this is something I explore in one of the novels I’m working on) To give it a more concrete case, let’s say you’re a sociopath who runs a country — like North Korea — and get a lot of benefit from the “obviously bad” things the author lists such as torture and slavery. Can you make a logical argument to this person not to be awful to people to his own benefit? Society sure didn’t stop Kim Jong Il, so I guess he had nothing to worry about.
The author of the piece objects to nihilist atheists because… I guess that just feels wrong again. But the nihilist seem to me more honest and more like they actually tried to logically think through their philosophy. To me, it seems clear the author believe in some sort of divinity to the drive to do good — that’s it’s not just some mindless directive from evolution — but for some reason she wants to leave her god ill-defined and unexamined and just uses lots of verbiage to dance around that fact.
* Apparently Harry Reid has been stealing ideas from Sunny:
Harry Reid, what a one man conviction of how awful our concept of government is in that we have people like him making decisions that actually affect other people.
* Wisdom of the Day: “It’s ‘New Year’s EVE,’ not ‘New Year’s STEVE.'” –Bill Corbett
* New Dark Knight trailer!
Looks like it gets political. Apparently Catwoman is a member of the Occupy movement. Ace has some commentary on what he considers the heavy-handed messaging in Nolan’s Batman films, to which I respond that Ace is a dumb stoopid and these movies are awesome. And if you’ve seen the Dark Knight, you have to agree I have the more reasoned argument.
Can we please elect Sunny instead? Even her most tongue-in-cheek silly ideas would do less damage to society than Harry. Please?
Nothin’ – and I mean nothin’ – gets past my nose.
I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that pretty much sums up my feelings on atheists (and explains the reason I am agnostic).
“I don’t hate God. It’s his Fan Club that I have issue with.”
Sure Kim Jong-iL was short, pot bellied, had a stupid haircut, liked to kidnap people, and had other bad habits like killing and starving his people. Okay I’ll give you that, BUT you gotta admit, under his leadership his country cast less of a carbon footprint then Al Gore’s Mansion…………………… http://www.flickr.com/photos/lynetter/73481007/
“BRAIN EATING AMOEBAS!”
Frank, you’re shouting.
Wait. I wanna shout too.
LIBERAL AMOEBA BRAINS!
Holder’s complete sentence mentions “the nature” of his relationship with the president as well as race. But no one is talking about “the nature” of their relationship. Do they have something special going on?
“New one from Biden: “Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy.” They’re just sort of tyrannical, backwards, violent people we’ve been fighting for the last decade, but no one should take that as meaning we don’t like them and don’t want to be friends.”
Definitive proof that someone is batsh1t crazy: When they begin to sound like Ron Paul.
Funny thing about finding millionaires who have created jobs. I’m close to the archetype of what NPR (for example) would consider a dolt. I live in the state
whose name is synonymous with flyover country, unsophisticated residents, etc. (Frank made fun of it just yesterday). I sing in my church choir. It took me less than thirty seconds to find this on the web:
http://nation.foxnews.com/wall-street-protests/2011/10/26/peter-schiff-schools-occupy-i-employ-150-people-how-many-do-you-employ
Peter Schiff is, I assume, a millionaire (I don’t have actual proof of this, but it seems likely). He employs one-hundred-fifty people because he bought a small brokerage firm, messed with it a bit, and moved it to Connecticut. I’m guessing that the firm employed far fewer than one-hundred-fifty people when he acquired it. Here’s a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schiff
Neither NPR nor Harry Reid could find a millionaire who has created jobs. Yet I found one in less than thirty seconds. What does that say about the intelligence (or, more accurately, the honesty) of NPR and Harry Reid?
By the way, everybody who sneers at Iowa is absolutely right. It’s terrible here. You wouldn’t like it. Don’t move here. Don’t visit. Particularly if you’re from New York, California, or Washington, D.C.
I have never heard of these Nooki pots of which you speak.
Saw a bit of fear factor last night, and I just would like to say, I would be willing to concede to the gheys any demands they need to feel like they are being treated fairly, IF THEY WOULD JUST SHUT UP ABOUT BEING GAY.
What is it about some people that they have to blast their gheyness to the world every 5 min.
I was gonna channel Neville Chamberlain for Biden, but this set of actual quotes are better than my meagre humor. Substitute “Taliban” and “Biden” as you will:
Neville Chamberlain:
Adolf Hitler:
After viewing the Dark Knight tralier, I’d have to say that the implication that Bruce Wayne hasn’t done anything for those of lesser means is misleading. His character has historically been a great philanthropist (as well as a playboy and superhero). But, I guess that’s why Catwoman is on the wrong side of the equation… Because, you know Batman is gonna jack her @55 up at some point in the movie. Without geeking out too much, does anyone know if Azrael will be introduced toward the end of this movie (assuming Bane breaks Batman’s back at some point ala the ‘Knightfall’ story arc)?
@Iowa Jim: I assume you have seen this: http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2011/12/is-this-hell.html
It is pretty faithful to the original Bloom story.
Ace has become the Charles Johnson of RINOs. You can go ahead and ignore him.
Why are you so racist against brain eating amoebas? Did they sell guns to carcinogens or something?
Wasn’t there a nickname for the Munich Pact? Chamberlain’s Bedtime Story or some such?
I think the point of the atheism article was that you can be moral without being religious, or, you don’t need a divine agent to make ethical choices. As one who was brought up Catholic, it took me until I was in my 20s to realize this. I was going to bring up Socrates in “Euthyphro” as a good explanation of this argument, but the article you cited already does this.
If you read Euthyphro and still don’t understand the point, then I think you may be trying to answer a different question than the article is positing, which I’m guessing correctly (forgive me if I’m putting words in your mouth) is “How would we objectively define morality”? Well damn, if you can answer that, you’ll be solving a mystery that philosophers from Aristotle to Spinoza to Kant to Locke have been trying to nail down. I’m not sure the divine camp has it figured out either though.
Torden:
Maybe I incorrectly read what Frank wrote — and he can state better than I could — but I didn’t gather that he was defining morality, but rather, asking on what one bases morality. That is, “What’s your source?” It all goes back to a belief in something. And isn’t that what religion is? Even if you don’t want to call it that?
In less enlightening news, over at Drudge there’s a headline that prolly needs no story:
Man Eats Cocaine From Brother’s Butt, Dies…
So many good alternate titles:
– Just in time for the ’11 Darwin Awards!
– Something Else to Give Up this New Years
– Drugs Are a Terrible Thing
– It Always Worked Just Fine, Says Brother
– Honestly, I Have No Idea How He Got There
Burmashave:
Drugs: That sh*t will kill you!
Don’t eat the brown
acidcokeIn other news, two of Frank’s least favorite people are surging in the polls.
Three guesses and the first one doesn’t count.
Burmashave:
“Death Blamed on Crack Cocaine”
DamnCat FTW
@DamnCat: That’s definitely the win.
Crabby Old Bat –
I hadn’t seen that – pretty surprising given how highly I regard Iowahawk. Thank you!
@DamnCat: Ho Ho Ho.
“* Q. What do you call someone who thinks it’s a bad idea to sell guns to Mexican drug cartels? A. A racist.”
Ok… let’s play along. It’s all about race, everything is, and that affects the rules.
To use this rule, I need to know the details though.
How many Mexicans can an African-American have killed before it’s not racist for Whitey to ask him what he was thinking?
Clearly 300 is under the appropriate number, so a black man should be allowed to have at least 300 Mexicans killed without criticism… but is there a cutoff?
Can Mexicans have an equal number of African-Americans killed without charges or criticism? A lesser numbers?
How many could he have killed if they were Asians? Other African-Americans?
Would it matter if he killed them all himself? Would that be better or worse?
I’m just trying to get the rules straight so I know later when it’s racist to question killing a whole bunch of people.
If Jeffrey Dahmer had been black; would he get a free pass? Or do you need a political office before you get to go around having Mexicans killed.
Oh, and one last question. Hypothetically, if everything went correct in Fast & Furious, where you shipped these guns across the border without any means to track them… what would have happened differently?
What was the “best case scenario” here? What was the goal that was missed? What was the plan that didn’t work?
Because I’m having trouble putting that step into any rational functional plan, regardless of your race.
Well reasoned, gkb. If I may propose a candidate best case scenario, it would have involved two NYT headlines:(1) Arizona arms sales linked to Mexican drug deaths; (2) Congress implements massive gun sale restrictions. Wait, is that racist?
Oh, and I maintain that sticking a teapot up your nose and pouring salt water into your head is proof that amoebas have already eaten your brain. Ergo, 98% mortality. They have cause and effect reversed. And may I add, eeeewwww.
wow I would love to beat down an atheist like Peter Schiff handed those OWS’ers. If one would stand still I know I could hold my own and then some. Why the heck do thay feel the need to to be obnoxious during the season we choose to celebrate the birth of our savior? If you really want to prove your intellectual prowess substitue” Allah” for God and peddle your arguments at a mosque.
“I do not propose to turn this book into one of ordinary Christian apologetics; I should be glad to meet at any other time the enemies of Christianity in that more obvious arena. Here I am only giving an account of my own growth in spiritual certainty. But I may pause to remark that the more I saw of the merely abstract arguments against the Christian cosmology the less I though of them. I mean that having found the moral atmosphere of the Incarnation to be common sense, I then looked at the established intellectual arguments against the Incarnation and found them to be common nonsense.”
– G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy. 1908