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."

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Honeymoons in Space

By the time he was 16, Newt Gingrich was sure of two things.

He would marry his high school geometry teacher. And he would save Western civilization.

Gingrich has moved on to younger wives. But he’s still obsessed with numbers and rescuing the planet.

In 1994, he described himself to me as “a conservative futurist,” which seems like an oxymoron. The man George Will once called a “cherub with a chip on his shoulder” finds the future simultaneously apocalyptic and massively fun.

You can picture President Gingrich on his first day in the Oval Office, emanating an impish doomsday aura of “Let’s see what happens if we press this button!”

In his own feverish, gee-whiz imagination, Newt is both the arsonist and the fireman.

When I covered Gingrich during his ’90s revolution, he was captivated by Alvin Toffler’s “The Third Wave” and the “Star Wars” trilogy; he was hanging around with Arianna Huffington, author of “The Fourth Instinct”; he preached a Contract With America that contained eight reforms and 10 proposed laws; he proselytized five “new” aims — new hope, new dialogue, new access, new partnership and a new team — and his reading list included “The Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy” by a 17th-century Samurai warrior and martial-arts master named Miyamoto Musashi.

Speaker Gingrich told me that he became a historian because he read Isaac Asimov’s seven-volume Foundation series about a mathematician and psychohistorian from Planet Trantor “who looked at long sweeps of history and tried to understand probable patterns of behavior.”

“I found it a very believable and understandable way of thinking about data,” he said. (Feel free to supply your own joke about Psycho Historians.)

I asked the speaker if he believed in space aliens. “It’s mathematically plausible,” he replied, joking that he hoped a friend who had written about space-traveling pachyderms was prescient, to speed up Republican colonization of outer space.

In his 1984 book, “Window of Opportunity,” Gingrich cheerleaded for “a permanent lunar colony to exploit the moon’s resources” and honeymoons on the moon, blaming Teddy Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and “the welfare state” for our failure to build Hiltons and Marriotts in the Milky Way.

In his 1995 book “To Renew America” — the books stay largely the same, though the two wives fondly referenced change — Gingrich wrote about six challenges, including putting scientists and adventurers “back into the business of exploration and discovery.”

He spiced up the space honeymoon idea: “Imagine weightlessness and its effects and you will understand some of the attraction.”

Gingrich is a historian who treats the future as history, even though it’s unknowable. He went from backbench bomb-thrower to Newt Skywalker, talking “byte cities,” “brain lords” and “cyberpolitics.”

At a talk I attended here in 1995 called “From Virtuality to Reality,” the speaker declared: “In a sense, virtuality at the mental level is something I think you’d find in most leadership over historical periods.” Sounding Newt Age-y, he mused: “We are not at a new place. It is just becoming harder and harder and harder to avoid the place we are.”

Gingrich, who had gotten to know Alvin and Heidi Toffler in the ’70s when he was a history teacher at West Georgia College, asked the futurists to advise him on how to recast Congress for a “third wave” information society — following the first agricultural wave and the second industrial wave.

Certainly, Gingrich, the self-styled Destroyer and Savior of Civilization, must have been drawn to Toffler’s contention in “The Third Wave” that visionaries must engage in the “mind-staggering” project of bulldozing government and “building a new civilization on the wreckage of the old.”

Conceding that some would find it “seditious,” Toffler informed the founders in an imaginary letter that their system of government was “increasingly, if inadvertently, oppressive and dangerous to our welfare.”

Gingrich agreed in 1995 that we might have to “rethink our Constitution” — something that wouldn’t go over well with originalists.

The man who wishes to be our leader implementing Lean Six Sigma might shy away from Toffler’s main thesis, that we were moving toward a basically leaderless society where information was available to everyone, so everyone could make their own decisions. “Someday,” Toffler wrote, “future historians may look back on voting and the search for majorities as an archaic ritual engaged in by communicational primitives.”

And what about Toffler’s prediction that those (like Gingrich) who resist the end of the nuclear family and the spread of gay parenting, gay rights, women’s rights and abortion access as variegated families set up shop in “electronic cottages” would just add to the pain of inevitable transition to a “de-massified society”?

Torn between the virtual and the virtue-crats, Gingrich this week endorsed the “marriage pledge” of an evangelical group in Iowa opposing same-sex marriage and abortion and vowed fidelity to Callista. Hasn’t he taken that vow and broken it twice before?

Sometimes you go with “Future Shock.” Sometimes you go with present schlock.

- MAUREEN DOWD

152 comments:

  1. "In his own feverish, gee-whiz imagination, Newt is both the arsonist and the fireman. "

    ---

    Somehow, I ended up subscribed to one or more of Newt's missives to the masses.

    More than once I vowed never to vote for this Charlatan of Schlock.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Maureen Dowd has passed into political-writer’s menopause.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bain Capital -

    "Bankrupting Companies, firing workers."

    In Newtland.

    Future Schlock,
    indeed.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Keep the faith Doug. Don’t take no for an answer.

    ReplyDelete
  5. MoDo gets a temporary pass with me for:

    "By the time he was 16, Newt Gingrich was sure of two things.

    He would marry his high school geometry teacher. And he would save Western civilization.
    "

    ---

    Newt in a Nutshell.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Deuce said...

    "I will not vote for Romney."

    ---

    Obama over Romney, because of...?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Alvin Toffler is Newt's Rev. Wright

    Alvin Toffler's writings sound a lot like a controversial pastor from four years ago. Except this time, there's no racial angle to explain away the radical ideas being promoted in connection with Newt.

    Here are some essential links for Newt's mentor, Alvin Toffler, series on how the US Constitution has become oppressive and dangerous requiring it to be done away with.

    "Third Wave" by Alvin Toffler
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553246984/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...

    (Click to read part of the book online)

    "Creating a New Civilization: The Politics of the Third Wave"
    (Author), Heidi Toffler (Author), Newt Gingrich (Foreword)
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1570362238/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...

    Excerpt from The New American's debrief of Gingrich following his Scazzofola(sp?) backing in NY-23 in 2009 that references Gingrich's role in the "Third Wave" series:

    "Futurist
    In 1994, Gingrich described himself as “a conservative futurist.” He said that those who were trying to define him should look no further than The Third Wave, a 1980 book written by Alvin Toffler.

    The book describes our society as entering a post-industrial phase in which abortion, homosexuality, promiscuity, and divorce are perfectly normal, even virtuous.

    Toffler penned a letter to America’s “founding parents,” in which he said:

    “The system of government you fashioned, including the very principles on which you based it, is increasingly obsolete, and hence increasingly, if inadvertently, oppressive and dangerous to our welfare.

    It must be radically changed and a new system of government invented — a democracy for the 21st century.”

    He went on to describe our constitutional system as one that “served us so well for so long, and that now must, in its turn, die and be replaced.”


    READ FULL NEWT DEBRIEF AT:
    http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/2396-newt-ging...

    "The Era of Reagan is over."

    - Newt Gingrich

    ReplyDelete
  8. Good Lord I had a dream about this place. Like the bar was a real place and we were all there acting our parts just as we were talking on a thread.

    I think I know what everyone looks like.

    ReplyDelete
  9. MeLoDy said...I think I know what everyone looks like.

    This is me, Mel.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Deuce said...

    I will not vote for Romney.

    Anybody but OBAMA (One Big Ass Mistake America).

    ReplyDelete
  11. Well, s I've been sayng for years now, here at the Elephant Bar, the vote for President s not binary.

    Gary Johnson: The invisible man

    Mr Obama is going to carry Hawaii, doug.
    Why waste your vote on Romney or Newt?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Unless you're a believer in "Big Government".

    ReplyDelete
  13. Oh, doug, it has nothing at all to do with missiles.

    These Zionist terrorists are attacking the Israeli Defense Forces. Read the story, become "enlightened"

    The Jerusalem Post reports that former Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer of the Labor party called for the IDF to respond to attacks with deadly force, regardless of whether the attackers are Jews or Arabs.

    "Whoever comes to kill you – kill him first. This is terror," he said.

    "I was witness to such terror in 1995, which ended in a prime minister being killed," he added, referring to the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist.


    It was not a Muslim missile that killed Mr Rabin.
    Not even close.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Even the Israeli recongnize that there are "Two Standards".

    In a commentary for Haaretz, Aeyal Gross, a law professor at Tel Aviv University, expands on the apparent double standard used by the IDF and the Israeli government in response to Jewish extremist and Palestinian protests.

    "It is easy to imagine what would have happened had Palestinians invaded an Israeli military base and vandalized vehicles, burned tires, thrown rocks at the brigade commander and injured his deputy. It would have ended in death, injury, or arrest for many of them. But the perpetrators of this week's incident were Jews, not Palestinians," he writes in Haaretz, a liberal Israeli newspaper.

    The proximity of the two incidents invites comparison, but the disparity in the response has long been evident.

    Demonstrating Palestinians are met with force - sometimes deadly - and arrests. Jews in the territories, even when they riot and use violence against Palestinians or the army, are usually accorded what amounts to immunity by both the military and the judicial establishments.

    ReplyDelete
  15. No beach blanket bingo in Egypt - Muslim Brotherhood wants to regulate foreign tourists

    ReplyDelete
  16. NBC/Wall Street Journal poll of registered Republicans:

    Newt Gingrich (40 percent)

    Mitt Romney (23 percent)

    Ron Paul (9 percent)

    Michele Bachmann (8 percent)

    Rick Perry (6 percent)

    Jon Huntsman (5 percent)

    Rick Santorum (3 percent).

    ReplyDelete
  17. That will certainly lead to fewer tourists, in Egypt, Ms T.

    Which will just exacerbate their problems.

    ReplyDelete
  18. While the culture of competitive politics is taking hold, in Egypt.


    In Egypt elections, secular parties rally to stop Islamist tide

    Ahead of today's second round in Egypt elections, secular candidates took a page out of the Islamists' book and engaged in a punishing schedule of grass-roots campaigning.

    ReplyDelete



  19. "They're whitewashing his career now,"
    said Marc B. Wolpow, a former managing director at Bain Capital who opposes Romney's White House bid.
    "We had a scheme where the rich got richer. I did it, and I feel good about it. But I'm not planning to run for office."
    [Los Angeles Times, 12/16/07]

    ReplyDelete
  20. We saw, are experiencing, the damage one bad President can do (Dubya) so
    "entertaining" would be a bad thing.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Well we have a Harvard man at the helm now. He has mostly got us out of Iraq but has not been helpful at much else.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I am trying to balance my checkbook. I cannot figure what I did with $1.2 billion.

    ReplyDelete
  23. In all honesty, though, I don't think I can vote Republican this time around.

    It looks like Obammie's got me.

    ReplyDelete
  24. The Pubs are just too wedded to "Oil, and Wars for Oil."

    Also, this is the part of the cycle where the pubs, having pissed off their money, gambling on stupid shit, try to get it back out of my ass.

    Obammie, Obammie, I is stuck wit your black ass for 4 more years. Lord hep me.

    ReplyDelete
  25. If you want to read a pretty good overview, economically, of what is/has been going on in the world the following speech by Mark Carney Governor of the Bank of Canada (text in pdf format with charts) is really worth taking a look at.

    http://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/speech-121211.pdf

    ReplyDelete
  26. Why don't you put that in a clickable link, Ash?

    ReplyDelete
  27. Bob never seems to quote anything from the Wahabbi St. Journal, unless it favors the journal's second largest shareholder, The good prince from Saudi Arabia.

    That's why I can't vote Republican this time around.

    One side is trying to find ways to get us off oil, and the endless wars for same, and the other side is trying to kill any, and all new technologies that are trying to emerge.

    ReplyDelete
  28. You "I can't vote for Candidate X" people are going to give us four more years of Obama.


    Can't vote for Romney for instance.

    He's at least be likely to appoint better judges than Obama.

    You want the next 25 years run by people like Kagan and Sotomeyer?

    Think about about it!!

    b

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  29. Romney would give US judges, like David Souter.

    Romney is just not conservative, and there is no promise he'd appoint such to the Supremes.

    No more than George HW Bush did.

    Both are cut from the same clothe..

    ReplyDelete
  30. .

    Maureen Dowd has passed into political-writer’s menopause.

    It doesn't take a rocket scientist nor a psycho historian to know what Newt is.

    And isn't.


    Newt:

    If the Soviet empire still existed, I'd be terrified. The fact is, we can afford a fairly ignorant presidency now.

    Newt should know.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  31. .

    Well we have a Harvard man at the helm now. He has mostly got us out of Iraq but has not been helpful at much else.


    I won't be voting for Obama. However, the fact that you would vote for one of the seven dwarves to replace him indicates to me there is a lot of emotion tied up in your decision.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  32. .

    You "I can't vote for Candidate X" people are going to give us four more years of Obama.


    I am completely metagrabolized. I had counted on you to help me push the Natural Law Party candidate over the top.


    .

    ReplyDelete
  33. That was a good article, Ash; Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  34. .

    Can't vote for Romney for instance.

    He's at least be likely to appoint better judges than Obama.



    Nonsense. Any man who would strap his dog to the top of his car for a 12 hour trip to Canada lacks judgment (that is of course giving him the benefit of the doubt that he isn't just a cruel, uncaring bastard).

    It's hard to say on that last point for anyone who has seen him in this picture with the other Bain executives:

    Mitt McScrooge

    The photo was staged but at a time when Bain was dumping htousands of US jobs it points to Romney's lack of judgment.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  35. NLP judges would be ok, now that I think about it.

    They'd never get around to appointing one, being in meditation 24/7.


    You strapped your dog to the roof of your car, and drove to Canada?

    Well, it's not a long trip from Detroit.


    b

    ReplyDelete
  36. You didn't strap your dead grannie to the top of your car, did you? Or maybe your dead aunt?


    b

    ReplyDelete
  37. .

    You strapped your dog to the roof of your car, and drove to Canada?


    This observation points out the obvious result of Bob having English as a second language.


    .

    ReplyDelete
  38. Why do judges need to meditate?

    ReplyDelete
  39. Any new news on the wife Doug?

    I'm pulling for y'all! Good Luck!!

    ReplyDelete
  40. This observation points out the obvious result of Bob having English as a second language.

    Least I'm bilingual, Quirk.


    b

    ReplyDelete
  41. I'll mediate that argument, anon.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Thanks, Ash:

    Doc gave her more pain pills and Faxed her workplace that she's off 'til Jan 1.

    Since her stomach doesn't seem any better, I am not impressed.

    If she continues to be unable to consume 1500 calories a day, they will be forced to do something else.
    ...or just let her expire.

    I have other plans (different Docs) if she loses more weight this week.

    ReplyDelete
  43. I don't understand any of that Doug but I'm sure pulling for her, too.

    b

    ReplyDelete
  44. "I sure hope that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby. The real test is what would happen if Bibi tried to speak at, let’s say, the University of Wisconsin. My guess is that many students would boycott him and many Jewish students would stay away, not because they are hostile but because they are confused.

    It confuses them to read that Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who met with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of Russia last Wednesday, was quoted as saying that the recent Russian elections were “absolutely fair, free and democratic.” Yes, those elections — the ones that brought thousands of Russian democrats into the streets to protest the fraud. Israel’s foreign minister sided with Putin.

    It confuses them to read that right-wing Jewish settlers attacked an Israeli army base on Tuesday in the West Bank, stoning Israeli soldiers in retaliation for the army removing “illegal” settlements that Jewish extremists establish wherever they want.

    It confuses them to read, as the New Israel Fund reports on its Web site, that “more than 10 years ago, the ultra-Orthodox community asked Israel’s public bus company, Egged, to provide segregated buses in their neighborhoods. By early 2009, more than 55 such lines were operating around Israel. Typically, women are required to enter through the bus back doors and sit in the back of the bus, as well as ‘dress modestly.’ ”

    It confuses them to read a Financial Times article from Israel on Monday, that said: “In recent weeks, the country has been consumed by an anguished debate over a series of new laws and proposals that many fear are designed to stifle dissent, weaken minority rights, restrict freedom of speech and emasculate the judiciary. They include a law that in effect allows Israeli communities to exclude Arab families; another that imposes penalties on Israelis advocating a boycott of products made in West Bank Jewish settlements; and proposals that would subject the supreme court to greater political oversight.”

    And it confuses them to read Gideon Levy, a powerful liberal voice, writing in Haaretz, the Israeli daily, this week that “anyone who says this is a matter of a few inconsequential laws is leading others astray. ... What we are witnessing is w-a-r. This fall a culture war, no less, broke out in Israel, and it is being waged on many more, and deeper, fronts than are apparent. It is not only the government, as important as that is, that hangs in the balance, but also the very character of the state.”

    So while Newt is cynically asking who are the Palestinians, he doesn’t even know that more than a few Israelis are asking, “Who are we?” "

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/opinion/friedman-newt-mitt-bibi-and-vladimir.html?hp

    ReplyDelete
  45. A Calorie is a unit of measurement of energy, anon.

    kcalories is what you see on the labels and what you burn (called Calories, with a capital "C").

    kcals is equivalent to 1,000 calories (calories with a small c).

    So when it comes to dieting, kcals (Calories) are what you really deal with.

    Usually though people refer to kcals as calories with a lower case c.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Doug, I was really reluctant to do this; but, here goes:

    You might try seasoning the dickens out of her food with Red Pepper. I know it sounds crazy, but foods that give me heartburn, even when taking omeprazole - cucumbers, for ex. - don't when seasoned the Korean way (lots of Red Pepper.)

    I've read a lot of articles that swear by this, and none that refute it.

    On the other hand, red pepper, alone, won't cure acid reflux (my Korean honey takes omeprazole, also.)

    I only write this because I don't think there is any way that the red pepper can hurt her, and it sounds like you really need all the help that you can get. It might be worth a try.

    ReplyDelete
  47. MeLoDy said...

    "Good Lord I had a dream about this place. Like the bar was a real place and we were all there acting our parts just as we were talking on a thread.

    I think I know what everyone looks like."

    ---


    That was no dream, Mel:

    Someone hacked
    "Go to Meeting"

    onto your computer for a few hours.

    Those images are seared, SEARED, into your skull.

    I suggest post-traumatic therapy.

    ReplyDelete
  48. I keep a small bottle of Crushed Red Pepper in the cupboard to season various dishes that I don't feel have enough zing to them.

    The McCormicks bottle is four dollars, or so, and will last a long time.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Thanks, Rufus:

    If it was me, I would try it for sure.

    Sadly, caloric deficits have yet to soften her skull.

    Didn't Allen used to have a Korean honey?

    You didn't steal her, did you?

    ReplyDelete
  50. I love my pizza covered with red peppers, so supply is not a problem.

    ReplyDelete
  51. Nah, his was "all used up." I went and got my own. :)

    ReplyDelete
  52. (maybe I'll try sneaking it in her oatmeal next time I cook it.)

    Think that'll work?

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  53. No sloppy seconds for our man Rufus.

    ReplyDelete
  54. :) I don't know about the oatmeal.

    But, any food that she would normally put salt, or pepper on (or wish she could) would be worth a good sprinkling.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Unfortunately, you can't "disguise" it. :)

    It makes itself known pretty quickly.

    ReplyDelete
  56. "But, any food that she would normally put salt, or pepper on (or wish she could) would be worth a good sprinkling."


    I thought you meant it had to be cooked into it.

    If sprinkling is OK, she could start with 1, then 2, etc. and conduct a safe test.

    ...but she won't

    ReplyDelete
  57. I like the "Crushed" Red Pepper, Doug, because it's "flakey."

    Makes it hard to "Overserve" yourself. :)

    I don't use it every day, because I cook my stews, and chili with a small can of Rotels. Trust me, that stuff don't need no "spicin' up."

    ReplyDelete
  58. Well, for some it might, but I just like my food spicey, not suicidal. :)

    ReplyDelete
  59. I like crushed peppers too.
    Rotels?

    ReplyDelete
  60. Deuce's secret reason for backing Newt:

    Newt, Mitt, Bibi and Vladimir

    I have a simple motto when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I love both Israelis and Palestinians, but God save me from some of their American friends — those who want to love them to death, literally.

    That thought came to mind last week when Newt Gingrich took the Republican competition to grovel for Jewish votes — by outloving Israel — to a new low by suggesting that the Palestinians are an “invented” people and not a real nation entitled to a state.

    This was supposed to show that Newt loves Israel more than Mitt Romney, who only told the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom that he would move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem because “I don’t seek to take actions independent of what our allies think is best, and if Israel’s leaders thought that a move of that nature would be helpful to their efforts, then that’s something I’ll be inclined to do. ... I don’t think America should play the role of the leader of the peace process. Instead, we should stand by our ally.”

    That’s right. America’s role is to just applaud whatever Israel does, serve as its A.T.M. and shut up. We have no interests of our own. And this guy’s running for president?

    ReplyDelete
  61. You'll find Rotels in the Canned Tomatoes section. Tomatoes, and Chilis, in a small can.

    ReplyDelete
  62. Probably not nearly as good as chopping up the chilis, yourself, but, handy, and it does spice up the soups, and chili nicely.

    ReplyDelete
  63. Quirk Alert:

    Astrologers still make more money than astronomers.

    (specially round Xmas time)

    We are told often enough that fundamental particles are not like anything we can imagine, and I am sure it's true. But the one thing that the God particle shows is that we can only think of it as like other things – and it isn't like any of them. Something of the same, of course, is true of God. But the incomprehensibility of theology and the incomprehensibility of science are different. For one thing, God can – we're told – be felt but not mathematically modelled, whereas fundamental particles are the other way round.

    Higgs Boson, A Voter in Detroit, And Recently 'Let Go' From SoulsRUs, Isn't Really Like G-d At All



    b

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  64. Between you and me Doug I think we got the whole of Friedman's article posted...

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  65. Least I'm bilingual, Quirk.



    Bilingual implies fluency AND understanding, unfortunatly in your case not the case.


    .

    ReplyDelete
  66. .

    Rufus could have a point Doug.

    If their are auto-immune drugs involved such as prednisone it can affect taste. There is little incentive to eat when everything tastes bland.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  67. Missed that, Ash:

    You can tell Rufus to use my clickable!

    ReplyDelete
  68. No Prednisone going on now, but when I burned out my stomach, just approaching the table made me lose my appetite.

    ...dreading the way it was gonna feel.

    ReplyDelete
  69. .

    Oh by the way, I don't know about the peppers Rufus mentioned so I'm not sure how that would affect the esophegus.

    Just saying that spicing up the food could help.

    .

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  70. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  71. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  72. Well, like I said, back before I started taking Prilosec, and after a cumulative tens of semis of Bud Light, I had moderate to bad "heartburn," especially after eating certain foods.

    I was pleasantly surprised when Baby-Doll's Red Korean Food didn't give me heartburn (I hadn't read anything about red peppers, and ulcers, at that point.)

    I realize how counter-intuitive it all is, and I'm very much aware of how hard it is to get the better half to do "counter-intuitive" things. Probably why they live so much longer than we do, I imagine. :)

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  73. BTW, Black pepper is, supposedly, about the Worst thing you can put on your food if you have acid reflux (or, ulcers.)

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  74. What's Ron Paul doing running in the Republican primaries anyway?

    He resigned from the Republican Party back in 1987 I think it was, made a big deal of it and wrote a big resignation letter.


    b

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  75. Ron Paul will never win the Republican nomination (much less the Prsidency,) But he IS damned well likely to win Iowa.

    In fact, I would almost put him 50/50 right now.

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  76. Romney is the handsome swindler who plots to win your mother’s heart and make off with her fortune. Gingrich is like the husband who periodically gets drunk and runs off to spend a week with a stripper in a low-rent motel but always comes home in the end. Which one would you rather see your mother marry?

    John Chait

    b

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  77. Signatures of Hitler, Mickey Mouse acceptable on Scott Walker Recall Petitions

    ‎ -
    The signatures of Adolf Hitler and Mickey Mouse will be counted in the effort to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, so long as they are properly dated and bear a Wisconsin address.

    The Government Accountability Board reviewing the petitions unanimously approved a plan that would allow questionable names to be counted if they are signed within the circulation dates and have a proper address, WISN Milwaukee’s Channel 12 is reporting. According to the ABC affiliate, the suspicious names will be noted as such, but will not be eliminated without a challenge.

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  78. Iowans are, I am sure, good people, but they are really, exceptionally lousy at picking Presidents (esp. on the Republican side.)

    Pat Robertson, anyone?

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  79. Ron Paul -- naw
    Gingrich -- naw
    Romney -- naw
    PALIN -- not on ballet


    NATURAL LAW PARTY ---yea!


    b

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  80. I cover half the table with spillover black pepper from my plate.
    Boatloads of Coors.
    Tobasco
    etc
    Maybe she got second-hand Gastric Reflux?


    ...all in the Jeans, I think.
    Stomach has Iron Balls.

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  81. I( will not vote for Perry. Hopefully there is someone left by election day.

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  82. I see China is putting retaliatory duties on US cars. That almost makes me happy.

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  83. I have to be careful with posting on the iphone. No spell check but some interesting word substitutions.

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  84. .

    I will not vote for Obama.


    Hey, go TM with the NLP.


    .

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  85. Abandon the politics of the everyday. Embrace the politics of always. Give up the money grubbing politics of the agora, embrace the politics of the clean river running, laughing. O turn from the politics of despair, what falls away is always, and is near. Embrace the politics of inner space, become the center of your very own world, not Jerusalem, not Harney Peak shall be your center. Turn inwards away from the old moon rising, light and shade, light and shade, toroic, to earthshine rising, then to enlightment of the sun, lionlike. See the other as yourself, not as one of the ten thousand things. Inner peace, not outward war.

    Get straight with reality, vote Natural Law Party.

    Brought to you by B and Q, and we approve this message.


    b

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  86. Gary Johnson's switching to the Librarian Party, tomorry.

    Pot Smokers, "Unite!"

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  87. Maybe all the red peppers, and tobasco are giving you a leg up, Doug. :)

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  88. Doug

    Find a chiropractor that specializes in holistic medicine and cancer. Seriously. Of course I don't know the details of her situation but they might be able to help get her healthy and eating again.

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  89. If you're talking about acid reflux then a swig of vinegar will help with that.

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  90. She got some pot pills from the Cancer Doc.
    Doesn't like it.
    Doug has to use it before it goes to waste.
    Trying to talk her into letting me divide it up on a cracker, or something so she can take half, etc.

    GP recommends real pot
    "so she can control the dose."

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  91. She tried the Vinegar, recommended by GP.

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  92. Marshmellow root

    slippery elm

    licorice root

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  93. This is why you need a chiropractor. They will be able to best fit her needs.

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  94. Pulsatilla sounds interesting.

    Pussey and Pulsatilla would probly be a great combo.

    ...for me

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  95. nux vomica

    Also known as Poison Nut, SEMEM strychnos and Quaker Buttons.

    Sounds good to me.

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  96. Practically every sentence in that article about strychnine under Medical Uses has "citation needed".

    b

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  97. hmmm, kinda sounds like you'd take a great big shit, breath real fast while your heart slows down while your vision, hearing, smell, touch etc becomes acute.

    Other than the big shit part, might be a good orgasm alright.

    If you live.

    Which reminds me of the trial going on here of the woman found strangled with a belt. Did she do it to herself? That is what the defense is asserting ---auto-erotic asphyxiation.

    b

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  98. But while the president touted the withdrawal as an "extraordinary achievement," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) later railed against the decision to pull out of Iraq, blasting the move as one that made "good political sense" for Obama.

    In a speech on the Senate floor, McCain criticized the Obama administration's "hands-off" approach to the Iraq war, adding, "This administration has consistently failed at the highest level to lead on Iraq."

    "Unfortunately, it is clear that this decision of a complete pullout of United States troops from Iraq was dictated by politics and not our national security interests," McCain said, adding that history would remember Obama's leadership "with the scorn and disdain it deserves."

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  99. Pulling out of Iraq everything will go to hell except in the north, where American hotels are going in, Afghanistan is hopeless, and the current Pres doesn't know and doesn't care what to do about Iran.

    The Israelis seem happy that Syria is breaking up.

    Merry Christmas

    b

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  100. I think I know what everyone looks like.

    Wed Dec 14, 07:56:00 AM EST


    Does allen have an orthodox beard?

    b

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  101. And a pot belly?

    b

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  102. Oh my god…I could have queen of the nanna naps. It was another factor that made me think this venture was made for me!

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  103. Okay, I admit it. The dementia is getting worse. Do we have a "Jenny Translator," here?

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  104. Of course allen has an orthodox beard.

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  105. You just don’t get it do you volta man?

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  106. .

    Pres doesn't know and doesn't care what to do about Iran.



    What's your plan bobbo?


    .

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  107. The four Israeli drones that are now in Iran's possession had violated the country's airspace along the eastern borders, while the three U.S. unmanned aircrafts had penetrated into the country' s airspace along either the eastern or southern borders.

    ...

    The Wednesday report by Mehr, however, did not say whether the exhibition will include the U.S. RQ-170 drone.

    In January, Iran claimed that it had shot down U.S., UK and Israeli drones in Persian Gulf several times over past years.

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  108. I am not so sure but it is bloggers like you, ones who think outside the box and have the ability to see the entire big picture, that should tell us.

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  109. I had a plan, some years ago, Quirk, which was along with the Israelis to bomb them till they pipped and give it up.

    So much time has passed, I have no more idea than Obama now.

    I think they have the materials they are working on a reliable delivery system.

    But he's President.

    Things right now are in the Israeli court.

    Maybe they will vaporize them.

    Zechariah 14:12 --
    King James Bible
    And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.


    Sounds like a neutron bomb to me, and we have deconstructed ours.

    What do you think?

    We NLPers can always go into deep meditation.

    b

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  110. .

    The TM route sounds kool bobbo. Now you are thinking out of the box.


    .

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  111. I thought I could help.

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  112. .

    Partial Government Shutdown Threatened


    A couple months ago it was the GOP who played the dicks. Now it is the Dems. OZ never changes, only the players.

    In this case, I doubt there will be a shutdown. Twittledee and Twittledum want to get home for Christmas.




    Congress has passed two short-term spending measures to keep the government running since the fiscal year began Oct. 1. Lawmakers were expected this week to release a long-term spending measure to keep the government functional through September, but have yet to do so. Republicans insisted Tuesday they had a tentative deal with Democrats on the Appropriations Committee to fund the government through next September.

    Republican leaders charged Tuesday that the White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) have instructed lawmakers who brokered the pact to withhold their final signatures from a report that would send the deal for a vote until votes are held on an extension of the payroll tax...


    Partial Shutdown?

    .

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  113. Is it the end of the day yet?

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  114. If we’re lucky, the dramatic awakening that began with the Occupy Movement in September will continue to spread and grow until an enraged public rises up en masse and evicts the entire corrupt gang from Washington, replacing them with genuine representatives of the people and a new commitment to true democratic governance.

    If we’re not so lucky, this nation is likely to slide into global irrelevance -- a backward relic of faded glory, a place where Chinese, Brazilian and European firms will invest to take advantage of our cheap, uneducated labor to produce goods to sell back in their own countries. Such an economic slide would of course not occur without violent conflicts and struggles over ever diminishing wealth and resources.

    By then off course, if our government continues on its present course of militarily meddling in other nations, the US will be almost universally loathed and, in stead of being manipulated into fears of nonexistent threats to our “safety,” we Americans will finally have reason to genuinely fear the actions of other, more powerful, nations, which will find the temptation to compete in meddling in the affairs of what remains of the United States irresistible.

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  115. end of the day?

    or

    end of days?

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  116. no, wait, that's a year from now still.

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  117. Thanks for your help Sam :)

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  118. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  119. This election is going to be like one of those baseball games where they run out of pitcshers and a left fielder has to finish.

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  120. Considering the coming apocalyptic events, I've been slowly increasing my life insurance policies, hard to do at my age, though not impossible.

    b

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  121. The Republican Convention will come begging to Sarah before it's all over.


    b

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  122. Washington Examiner has endorsed Romney.

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  123. .

    Considering the coming apocalyptic events, I've been slowly increasing my life insurance policies


    You dumb shit, who will be around to collect.

    .

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  124. What will I care who collects, you dumb shit.

    It's not about me.

    jeez


    b

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  125. Romney has the misfortune of being an earnest man running in an ironic time, and the leitmotif of the Republican race so far has been the search for the "anti-Romney." Party activists reached out to several men who declined to run, and then Republican voters lavished their affections on, successively, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and now Newt Gingrich, all the while keeping Romney's poll numbers hovering around 25 percent.

    They have been searching for a candidate who shared their conservative principles, who had strength of character, and who, above all, could beat Barack Obama. We believe this candidate has been hiding in plain sight.

    Mitt Romney is not "too perfect," as some political analysts have argued, but he is perfect enough.

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