COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

The Tingle is Gone



Obama is really losing it.

71 comments:

  1. Not for Quirk. He'd vote tingless over Sarah Palin.

    (It's too much playing with horoscopes)

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  2. I don't understand it; no one ever talked about the evil mchitler shrub like that.

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  3. You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin"

    We're off to look for a Sahaptin dictionary.

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  4. Matthews looks like he's aged a decade since I listened to him last, maybe two years ago.

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  5. Question of the day: What kind of dog is Obowwow?

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  6. BIG WEINER?

    HOT DOG?

    A SCHMUCK?

    A PUTZ?

    THAT'S WHAT KINDA DOG HE IS

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  7. They've got the Nez Perce dictionary on reserve, goodie.

    Wife thinks of him as a ferret.

    Ferret In A War Dance

    Know Your Ferrets

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  8. Does anyone know what a koan is?

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  9. Chris Edwards, director of tax policy for the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, said he favors both a permanent research tax credit and Obama's proposal for 100 percent expensing, calling both "very positive" steps and a sign that the administration is getting seriously worried about the economy.

    Still, he added, "the administration would nullify the benefits if they are matched by various tax proposals for businesses."

    Thomas Mann, a political scientist at the Brookings Institution, said Obama's three proposals -- infrastructure spending, a permanent R&D credit and upfront 100 percent business write-offs -- "constitute a re-entry into the make-the-economy-grow argument."


    Proposals From Obama

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  10. What's the sound of one hand clapping, Trish? Who were you before you were born? If the Buddha isn't the Buddha who is the Buddha?

    He might be a polecat/ferret hybrid.

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  11. I've seen that word precisely twice in my wanderings around the internet.

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  12. Buddhist koans for sale here--


    /buddhism KoansSponsored LinkFind /buddhism Koans at Great Prices. www.pronto.com

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  13. You guys do not recognize the use of "code words"?

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  14. They're a kind of teaser used mostly by the practitioners of Zen to confound the mind out of its usual lazy patterns of thought leading to a kind of dead end and then an understanding beyond logic, beyond the rational.

    Read closely, Quirk seems to use them all the time.

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  15. Is a Quirk
    A Quark
    Or a soaring Lark
    With a felonious Bark
    And half a Smile?

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  16. New York Times - ‎9 minutes ago‎
    WASHINGTON - President Obama will rule out on Wednesday any compromise that would extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy beyond this year, officials said, adding a populist twist to an election-season economic package that is .

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  17. That class warfare dog.

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  18. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and an adviser to Republicans, predicted in an interview that “nothing is going to happen between now and the election,” except perhaps for passage of a separate administration package of tax cuts and lending for small businesses. Senate Republicans had been blocking that legislation.

    Nigel Gault, chief economist for IHS/Global Insight, an economics consulting firm, said he likes both the infrastructure and R&D proposals but, “they’re not going to kick-start the economy.”

    He and other economists questioned why the administration is not proposing a major payroll tax cut to spur hiring. The White House considered the idea, according to officials, but dismissed it in part because it would reduce revenues to Social Security and Medicare.


    No Extension

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  19. What is a Koran without an r?

    An improvement.

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  20. Rahm Emanuel has never been shy about his ambition to be mayor of Chicago. He told me and a bunch of other people last year that he would run if Rich Daley decided not to seek a seventh term.

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  21. By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff

    A group of local Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders gathered at the State House today to decry what they described as anti-Islamic rhetoric and violence fueled by the controversy over the proposed mosque near Ground Zero in New York.

    The speakers, who included a rabbi, a Catholic priest, a Quaker, several Protestant ministers and a Muslim leader, likened incidents such as the recent stabbing of a Muslim cab driver in New York City, and plans by a Protestant Florida pastor to burn a Koran, to the persecution of religious dissidents in colonial-era Boston. ...

    "We cannot and will not remain silent in the face of the surge of fear about, and threats against, Islam and Muslim-Americans," said the Rev. Nancy S. Taylor of the Old South Church, a United Church of Christ congregation in Boston's Back Bay. "We denounce terrorism, no matter who it's done by. At the same time, we reject the wholesale equation of terrorism to Islam."

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  22. Religious leaders, including Washington Roman Catholic Archbishop emeritus Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and Dr. Michael Kinnamon of the National Council of Churches, released a statement saying they were "alarmed by the anti-Muslim frenzy" and "appalled by such disrespect for a sacred text."

    "To attack any religion in the United States is to do violence to the religious freedom of all Americans," said the religious leaders, including Rabbi David Saperstein, head of the Union for Reform Judaism, and Rabbi Julie Schonfeld of the Association of Conservative Rabbis.

    "The threatened burning of copies of the Holy Qu'ran this Saturday is a particularly egregious offense that demands the strongest possible condemnation by all who value civility in public life and seek to honor the sacred memory of those who lost their lives on September 11," they said.


    anti-Muslim Frenzy

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  23. Why is the koran always called a sacred text, a holy book? By these nincompoops in the Protesant and Catholic world here.

    A work of a neurotic then psychotic madman, the cause of 14 centuries of violence.

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  24. A group of local Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders gathered at the State House today to decry what they described as anti-Islamic rhetoric and violence fueled by the controversy over the proposed mosque near Ground Zero in New York.

    Interesting.

    One wonders why we never see a group of Islamic Imam's gathering at the state capital to denounce terrorism and Islamic radicalism in all its forms.

    One way street?


    .

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  25. Religion is one thing, organized religion another.

    One would like to think that the aforementioned religious leaders gathered in a spirit of amity, tolerance, and good will and that their message is intended just as delivered.

    However, to the cynical, it might appear that these religious leaders are trying to preserve their own positions of declining relevancy by defending some of their own.

    Not that I am cynical of course.

    .

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  26. Those looking to defend Rauf in Jewish circles have a new card to play: It turns out that the imam delivered a moving speech at the 2003 memorial service held in a Manhattan synagogue for Daniel Pearl, the journalist murdered by Islamist terrorists in Pakistan.

    Invoking Pearl’s final words before his beheading, Rauf declared: “If to be a Jew means to say with all one's heart, mind and soul, ‘Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Elohenu Adonai Ehad -- hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One,’ not only today I am a Jew, I have always been one.”

    The speech was cited last week by Jeffrey Goldberg on his influential Atlantic.com blog, and then mentioned on one of journalism’s biggest stages: Frank Rich’s lengthy Sunday column in the Week in Review section of The New York Times.

    On his blog, Goldberg called Rauf “a moderate, forward-leaning Muslim,” and said the imam’s words showed courage because “any Muslim imam who stands before a Jewish congregation and says ‘I am a Jew’ is placing his life in danger.”

    Rauf’s other supporters note that he is a frequent participant in interfaith dialogues, who condemns terrorism and fanaticism.

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  27. Seems, Q, that even when they do, it does not count.

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  28. "...the imam delivered a moving speech at the 2003 memorial service held in a Manhattan synagogue for Daniel Pearl, the journalist murdered by Islamist terrorists in Pakistan."

    One wonders what he was supposed to say in a Jewish synagogue.

    One wonders why the speech did not reach a broader audiance.

    One wonders why it was merely one man and not many.

    (And please rat don't start googling for god's sake.)

    .

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  29. They may say that, bob, because they take General P's admonitions to heart. Perhaps they do not want to contribute to putting US troops in the Islamic arc in greater danger than they already are.

    Maybe they do not want to create more terrorists by declaring that the US is engaged in a "War on Islam".

    Maybe because they respect the religious beliefs of 1.2 billion folk around the whirled.

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  30. However, to the cynical, it might appear that these religious leaders are trying to preserve their own positions of declining relevancy by defending some of their own.

    Quirk

    That very thought popped through my mind too.

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  31. It may be, Q, that they are flat out afraid of the radicals.

    Perhaps they learned a lesson from the way Salman Rushdie has been demonized by the Iranians.

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  32. The administration is doing a fine job of putting the troops in danger all by itself with the rules of engagement.

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  33. And when someone like that Rauf fella does stand up, the Christian "Right" in the US just beats 'em down, regardless.

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  34. That's General P and the rest of the military, bob, not the Administration. Those rules go back to Rummy and Bush.

    Same rules that "won" in Iraq.

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  35. The Sin of Indulging Your Guilty Conscience

    “Europe sees its history as a series of murders and depredations that culminated in two global conflicts,” he writes. Europe, according to Pascal, has since World War II been “tormented by a need to repent. . . . Those born after World War II are endowed with the certainty of belonging to the dregs of humanity, an execrable civilization that has dominated and pillaged most of the world for centuries in the name of the superiority of the white man.”

    A Masochistic Continent's Guilty Pleasures

    Is Europe committing continental suicide (average birth rate 1.53) because they have a continent wide guilty conscience. Some guy named Bruckner posits that thesis. Worse yet, Mona Charen goes along with it.

    Hard to know what is in the heart of an entire continent. Hard to refute the theories of someone who aparently does.

    I look for a simpler explanation to their malaise. I think they started out on a simple and idealistic path, enjoyed the ride along the way, and are just now realizing that they screwed the pooch.

    .


    .

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  36. the religious beliefs of 1.2 billion folk around the whirled.

    1.2 billion zombies is, admittedly, a lot of zombies.

    Whole damned day laid out for them, ending in that most beautiful noise of all, the call to prayer at set.

    Like Churchill said, every woman some man's property. This hallal this haram, it's all an old man's scam. A scam to kill for.

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  37. Fred Thompson tweets: Obama: some people in DC "talk about me like a dog". Maybe it's because he keeps treating this country like a fire hydrant.

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  38. Personal economic advantage, Q.

    It costs more to raise children than not.

    One of the primary drivers of abortion, economics, or so I've read.

    And abortion just exemplifies the reason for a lower birth rate, it is not the sole cause of low birth rates.
    Not with all the other contraceptive methods available.

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  39. Quirk you got two dots there stead of one on that last, is that for emphasis?

    If so, I agree with you, they just kinda thoughtlessly wandered into it.

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  40. PDO means AGW is DOA

    The PDO is a long-lived ocean-to-atmosphere heat transfer process (similar to the better-known El Niño and La Niña) but of much longer duration. Cloud cover decreases significantly during the positive PDO phase, allowing more sunlight to reach the earth's surface. In the ocean, this extra energy is stored as heat. In its negative phase, the PDO acts in reverse and cools the atmosphere. And all of this occurs in roughly thirty-year cycles. While this mechanism is operating, mankind is dumping a small, vanishing amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. Big deal.

    The most prominent frauds active in promoting AGW have always tried to bury evidence of natural warming and cooling cycles. Truly, the Medieval Warming Period and Little Ice Age are threats to their very CO2-obsessed existence. But these eras occurred centuries ago, with only proxies (like tree rings) to indicate the actual prevailing temperatures. Hence, data from these eras are easily brushed aside and forgotten. Not so with recent thermometer measurements, and temperatures from two periods in particular that have always plagued the theory of AGW.

    The first is the period from 1900-1940. A full 60% of the temperature increase measured in the last century occurred during these forty years, when less industrialization existed worldwide and therefore less CO2 had been spewed into our atmosphere. The mild cooling period that ended in the mid-1970s is also baffling. But like any good theory, Spencer's PDO-focused model fits the temperature data during these decades amazingly well. Natural processes -- cloud formation and heat transfer -- dominated the temperatures during these decades, as in every other decade in the modern era.

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  41. And they wake up with muzzies all over hell, demanding shit, and, because of their history they are supposed to be kinder, more gentle now, and don't know what the hell to do. Besides they need the petrol.

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  42. Knowing that people would be protesting and asking him questions about his support for the Ground Zero Mosque, the coward in chief is yet again this year skipping the 9/11 Ground Zero ceremonies on Saturday, and instead is heading to the Pentagon.

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  43. Ice Caps Not Melting So Fast After All

    Earth is still rebounding from the last ice age, 20,000 years ago, kinda like a mattress after being slept upon.

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  44. ...Fire hydrant.


    She just keeps firing.


    .

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  45. Maybe Obowwow is best thought of as a Cocker Spaniel, aren't they known for pissing every five minutes?

    At any rate Fred Thompson made a passable good joke there.

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  46. Marine geologists have returned from two months at sea off British Columbia, Canada, where they installed two observatories in the ocean floor to run innovative experiments at the bottom of the sea.

    ...

    Scientists estimate that a large fraction of life on Earth thrives in the "subsurface biosphere."

    ...

    "We'll also learn how carbon is transported and might be stored within deep reservoirs."


    Dynamic Experiments

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  47. you have the rare distinction of being about the only woman I have ever cleaned up after.

    Your link madame

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  48. Diplomatic tensions between China and Japan escalated Wednesday when Beijing called in Japan's ambassador after a Chinese fishing boat collided with two Japanese patrol vessels near a chain of disputed islands and Tokyo arrested the boat's captain.

    ...

    Jiang Yu, a spokeswoman for China's Foreign Ministry, told a regular news conference on Tuesday that Beijing had been in contact with Japan over the incident and was concerned about the situation.

    ...

    Japan has lodged a protest with China several times over the entry of Chinese vessels into waters near the islands. Activists from Hong Kong and Taiwan have also sailed to the islands to make territorial claims.


    Boat Row

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  49. Okay here's the trick:

    <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNzrwh2Z2hQ">Trish's Link</a>

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  50. Come on Trish. You can do it.


    .

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  51. Jay Leno said that the reason the Mayan civilization disappeared so quickly was that they heard a new Walmart was opening in San Diego and was hiring.


    .

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  52. "Come on Trish. You can do it."

    If only she knew what she had to do.

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  53. What should you do?

    Find an interesting topic.

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  54. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  55. then your title


    c'mon Trish you can do it choochoo,choochoo!

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  56. Heard so, was trying to teach her to link, but look what I did, you take over Master Quirk, I'm going to bed too, the dormatorio.


    Vote for Obama, sheeesh!

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  57. Hey, Sam. What time is it down under?

    By the way, you got any interesting topics?

    It's a tough crowd here and we're losing them.

    If you don't come through, we are down to swapping old stories about the mezcal grub.


    .

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  58. I've got the most wonderful crickets out my window, by the way, a real symphony. And they keep excellent time. Sleep to the crickets, wake to the birds, could be worse, like calls to muzzie prayers.

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  59. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  60. Buring of koran called "inflammatory" by State Department.

    heh, I quess it is, when you think about it.

    State gets one right.

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