LT Saloon

We May Be Doomed No Matter What

When people place an ideology or person above their self-interest, and prize dogma more than fact, then they have essentially joined a religious cult and are therefore beyond reasonable thinking. Is there any doubt that the Fox News faithful, much of the Big Media, many of the Teabaggers, and the Republican Party have now devolved to this point?

“The same idiots who have been seduced by cigarette-money-sized tax cuts for themselves, used to justify a massive slashing of the burden once carried by the rich, are now bitching as government services implode. The New York Times is reporting that citizens of Arizona – one of the most regressive states in the union – are now unhappy because their highway rest stops have been eliminated due to the state’s fiscal crisis. I just want to grab these people and shake them by the shoulders, politely suggesting to them that next time they have to pull over in the desert sands between Tucson and Phoenix and squat by the side of the road, they might want to give a thought or two to all the money they pissed away in another desert, this one in Mesopotamia. Likewise, people are now also starting to whine about schools closing and prisoners being released from jail, also because of budget slashing. And I just want to ask those bright folks whether they still think all those tax cuts for the already outrageously wealthy plutocracy were such a good idea in retrospect, after all.
“This is just the tip of the spear. American government is in the process of imploding, and it won’t be long until the pathetically minuscule social safety net that we have will be shredded as well. Stupid voters who turn to the Republican Party in the next two election cycles will be outraged at the GOP if it does what it says it will do and slashes social spending. And, of course, they will be equally outraged if the Republicans don’t. It just doesn’t seem to occur to these folks that you have to pay for government services. And why should it, really? The GOP have been selling the magic of free government since Ronald Reagan brought voodoo economics to the national stage in 1980, nearly quadrupling the national debt in the process.”
– David Alan Green, “To Hell in a Handbasket,” CommonDreams.org, March 7, 2010.

“Political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler provided two groups of volunteers with the Bush administration’s prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. One group was given a refutation — the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003. Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration’s claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse.
“A similar ‘backfire effect’ also influenced conservatives told about Bush administration assertions that tax cuts increase federal revenue. One group was offered a refutation by prominent economists that included current and former Bush administration officials. About 35 percent of conservatives told about the Bush claim believed it; 67 percent of those provided with both assertion and refutation believed that tax cuts increase revenue.
“… Nyhan, a PhD student at Duke University, and Reifler, at Georgia State University, suggest that Republicans might be especially prone to the backfire effect because conservatives may have more rigid views than liberals: Upon hearing a refutation, conservatives might ‘argue back’ against the refutation in their minds, thereby strengthening their belief in the misinformation. Nyhan and Reifler did not see the same ‘backfire effect’ when liberals were given misinformation and a refutation about the Bush administration’s stance on stem cell research.”
– Shankar Vendatam, “The Power of Political Misinformation,” Washington Post, Sept. 15, 2008.

Notable Quotables Caught at Random

“Conservatives could learn a lot from Tiger Woods’ wife, Elin. We should take a page out of her playbook and take a 9-iron and smash the window out of big government.”
– MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Classy) at the CPAC conference.

“When I watch porn, if it’s not hot enough, I’ll make up back stories in my mind. My biggest dream is to write pornography.”
– John Mayer

“I love the women’s movement — especially when walking behind it.”
– Rush Limbaugh, hiding his gayness, after judging the 2010 Miss America pageant.

“You have become in some ways the voice of sanity on Fox, which is like being the thinnest kid at fat camp.”
– Jon Stewart to Bill O’Reilly on his Fox News show.

“That is the last time I have sex with 200 middle-aged journalists. Europeans with wispy beards. The men were worse.”
– Ricky Gervais, hosting the 2010 Golden Globes Awards, kidding because his new movie received no nominations this year.

“An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of the Lone Ranger.”
– Dan Rather

“It ain’t what you know that hurts you, it’s what you know that ain’t so.”
– Satchel Paige

“Those who ignore the Godzilla of reality will one day be stomped flat by the Godzilla of reality. Ask the Republicans.”
– Primo Hermosa

“I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance.”
– Ruben Blades

“Eternity’s a terrible thought! I mean – where’s it all going to end?”
– Tom Stoppard

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.”
– Albert Einstein

“Hi! I saw profile. You are so muscular and handsome I would like be meeting you soon for love time.”
– Spam Email from a Russian woman to Sen. Mitch McConnell.

Over at Smirking Chimp…

I discovered a great quote. Classwarfare was responding to Palin’s insistence that we stop using “retarded.” As you know, sometimes manuals will advise you to “retard the timing.”

So I guess we will have to change all those tech manuals and stuff concerning carburetors and ignition timing to read “SPECIAL NEEDS IGNITION TIMING.”

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

A random collection of quotes by the late civil rights and antiwar leader who was born on January 15, 1929 and assassinated on April 4, 1968.

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies — or else? The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

Read on -- There is more »« Okay, fold it up now

Quotes with a Holiday Punch

“How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few his precepts!
O! ’tis easier to keep holidays than commandments.”
– Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1757.

“Jesus wasn’t a Christian, and he never preached in a church. He was also a drinker, and liked to hang out with sinners. We think of him very highly in the Church of Stop Shopping. We put him right up there with Lenny Bruce.”
– Reverend Billy

“Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.”
– Lenny Bruce

“To hear many religious people talk, one would think God created the torso, head, legs and arms, but the devil slapped on the genitals.”
– Don Schrader

“Christian fundamentalism: The doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe-spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life.”
– Andrew Lias

“The problem with fundamentalists insisting on a literal interpretation of the Bible is that the meaning of words change. A prime example is ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child.’ A rod was a stick used by shepherds to guide their sheep to go in the desired direction. Shepherds did not use it to beat their sheep. The proper translation of the saying is ‘Give your child guidance, or they will go astray.’ It does not mean ‘Beat the sh*t out of your child or he will become rotten’ as many fundamentalist parents seem to believe.”
– Author Unknown

“I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, ‘If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?’ ‘No,’ said the priest, ‘not if you did not know.’ ‘Then why,’ asked the Eskimo earnestly, ‘did you tell me?’”
– Annie Dillard

“Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day; give him a religion, and he’ll starve to death while praying for a fish.”
– Author Unknown

“Christianity is not a religion; it’s an industry.”
– Author Unknown

“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
– Anne Lamott

Read on -- There is more »« Okay, fold it up now

Today’s Quotes: Thanksgiving

“I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.”
– Jon Stewart

“Turkey: A large bird whose flesh, when eaten on certain religious anniversaries, has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude.”
– Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

“Coexistence: what the farmer does with the turkey — until Thanksgiving.”
– Mike Connolly

“We can always find something to be thankful for, and there may be reasons why we ought to be thankful for even those dispensations which appear dark and frowning.”
– Albert Barnes

“Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds.”
– Theodore Roosevelt

Quote for the Day

Re: Teabaggers…

You didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.

You didn’t get mad when VP Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy Policy.

You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA Operative was revealed.

You didn’t get mad when the Patriot Act was passed.

You didn’t get mad when we illegally invaded Iraq looking for WMD’S that didn’t exist.

You didn’t get mad when we spent over 600 Billion dollars(and counting) on Iraq War.

You didn’t get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq.

You didn’t get mad when Bush was illegally wiretapping us at home and work.

You didn’t get mad when Bush borrowed money to give to the oil companies.

You didn’t get mad when we didn’t catch Bin Laden.

You didn’t get mad when you saw the horrible Conditions at Walter Reed.

You didn’t get mad when we let New Orleans drown.

You didn’t get mad when Bush got 4,500 soldiers killed.

You didn’t get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark.

You finally got mad when—- The government decided that people in America ?deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick.

Illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, giving your tax dollars to super-rich, are all OK with you?

But helping other Americans is the last draw???

-Bart@bartcop.com

Today’s Quote: The Blockheads and Dummies Haven’t Changed

In a recent interview with The Nation, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev recalled a brief conversation with then-VP Poppy Bush, proving nothing ever changes in the world of wingnut conservatism: they are still the same blockheads and dummies today they were then — there are just fewer of them:

“By the way, in 1987, after my first visit to the United States, Vice President Bush accompanied me to the airport, and told me: ‘Reagan is a conservative. An extreme conservative. All the blockheads and dummies are for him, and when he says that something is necessary, they trust him. But if some Democrat had proposed what Reagan did, with you, they might not have trusted him.’”
– Excerpted from “Gorbachev on 1989,” Katrina Vanden Heuvel & Stephen F. Cohen, The Nation, Oct. 28, 2009.

Today’s Quote: Fuzzing It Up

“Fuzzing it up is a common practice in government. You hide intention and responsibility. You have one person say one thing, and another person the exact opposite. You create a blizzard of paper, so much paper that actual evidence is lost in the glut. And of course, you deny anything and everything you can deny — particularly the obvious. (Denying the obvious is always popular.) You produce noise, distraction and confusion. People rarely think of this as a well-established bureaucratic technique, but it is a tried and true methodology.”
– Errol Morris, “The Most Curious Thing,” NY Times, May 19, 2008.

The Wisdom of Margaret and Helen

Helen Philpot is an 83-year-old woman from Dallas, Texas, and she and her friend of 60-plus years Margaret have a blog where they talk politics and the human condition. Here’s a taste of what they write, but read their site for yourself. BTW, I just hope I’m this lucid and sane at Helen’s age. (Thanks to Cheri for this tip.)

“I guess if you get enough morons congregating in one particular geographical area, eventually they will vote a fellow moron to represent them in Congress. Kind of like sleeping with your cousin – eventually your offspring are not going to be right in the head. But the idiot parade coming out of South Carolina seems to be getting longer and longer these days.” […]

“When exactly did we become so enamoured with health insurance companies that we are now so adamantly fighting for their rights to make a buck off our misfortunes? None of this makes any sense to me. The President wants to make a speech encouraging our children to stay in school and study hard and we compare that to Nazi Germany. Doctors talking to patients about feeding tubes and life support machines has become some secret plot to kill Grandma. Making sure a woman can get treatment for her breast cancer is unreasonable. … What’s next? Governor Perry and Governor Sanford fight to see which state secedes from the Union first — Texas or South Carolina? If only…”
– Helen Philpot, “A Buttload of Moolah!” Margaret and Helen Blogspot, Sept. 10, 2009.

“Rush Limbaugh. Good God where do I begin? Honestly people, a third grader has a better grasp of world affairs than this yahoo. The next time you tune to Rush, ask yourself one question: Do you really want to base your entire political opinion on the musings of a college drop out? I mean even Sarah Palin managed to get a degree — albeit after five colleges and six years. And for the record Mr. Limbaugh, you fat bastard, the basic concept of insurance is spreading the risk over the greatest number of people possible thus making loss, when it occurs, manageable. My God you are a moron.” […]

“But even with all this proof that the Republican Party has become a Confederacy of Dunces, somehow the Democrats in Washington can’t get their shit together long enough to pass a meaningful healthcare reform bill. Mr. President, I ask you this: If they don’t even believe you are an American citizen, why the hell do you care if they think you are going to kill their grandmother? Rush Limbaugh was not elected to any office. Pass healthcare reform with a public option and move on. Rush will get over it. Trust me. He has a pill for that.”
– Helen Philpot, “Michelle Bachmann’s Burning Bush: There’s a Pill for That!” Margaret and Helen Blogspot, Sept. 4, 2009.