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."
What a great question!
ReplyDeleteSorta like "Have you stopped beating your wife?"
Aren't you going to the AIPAC meeting WiO?
DeleteNot think year.
DeleteJust watching on Youtube.
Leader of the Free World spoke today.... I heard Obama is scared by his very WORDS.....
Not this year.
DeleteAsh, AIPAC's growth is unprecedented, today, over 16,000 Pro-America - Israel relationship are in DC. THOUSANDS of College kids, Blacks, Hispanics, Christians and Gays have JOINED AIPAC's movement swelling the conference to historic numbers.
DeleteAn amazing number and it's ever growing.
:)
All Christian crazies and the Zionists are watching in stunned disbelief.
DeleteDeuce, that's where you just don't get it...
DeleteReally,
Israel supporters run the spectrum of Americans.
And zionists come in all faiths and colors...
You just can't see past your hatred and anger.
I feel sorry for you.
That's the question, isn't it. The country that once led the world in Science, and Technology is now governed, to a large extent, by a party that does not believe in Science.
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON: The United States and its allies have received no request from Iraq to carry out air strikes in support of Baghdad government troops fighting to recapture Tikrit, the Pentagon said Monday.
ReplyDeleteThe Iraqi operation to take back Tikrit from Islamic State jihadists is the largest-scale offensive yet launched by Baghdad and Shiite militia backed by neighboring Iran were playing a key role.
But the US-led coalition, which has conducted thousands of air strikes against the IS group to back up Iraqi and Kurdish forces on the ground, is not providing air power for . . . . . . .
We Got This
.
ReplyDelete15 Megatons of Hell: The Castle Bravo Nuke Test
What it’s all about.
.
What "what's" all about?
Delete.
DeleteIf you can't figure it out don't worry your pretty little head about it.
:o)
.
Republicans believe in Nuclear Fission.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is the Republican Agenda serves the interests of only a fraction (maybe, actually, a very small fraction) of those that vote for their party.
ReplyDeleteHow do you do this. How do you get people to vote against their own best interests?
My thesis is that you have to move the conversation to their most base instincts - racial hatred, and fear.
Then promote the salve - Religion.
Beautiful, beautiful religion. Soothes the fear, and validates the need for exclusion of the other . . . . . . uh, the sinner.
But, you can't "think" about it. You can't think about Adam and Eve in the context of all that Science teaches about DNA, Evolution, Carbon Dating, and Geology.
You have to discard the evil. The antithesis to your lovely story. You have to exorcize the anti-religious thought.
You must be worthy of Republicanism.
You Must be Ignorant.
"The Phenomenon of Man" Rufus.
DeleteTeilhard de Chadin
Coming from Mississippi outback, it is not surprising to me you have never read an intelligent Christian book concerning evolution.
You yourself are the mirror image of the ignorant Mississippi hick fundamentalist Christian preacher you always rave about......and rave is the only word that fits you.
You are as illiterate and dumb as a corn cob.
And so proud of it, too !
.
ReplyDeleteBibi wants to destroy this opportunity. He wants more sanctions. He wants to win the Israeli elections on 17 March. He might even bomb Iran – which would bring an immediate military response against the United States. But he’s going to be telling Congress that the entire existence of Israel is at stake. According to Uri, Bibi will be spitting in the face of President Obama. “I don’t think there was ever anything like it,” Uri Avnery wrote this weekend. “The Prime Minister of a small vassal country, dependent on the US for practically everything, comes to the US to openly challenge its President, in effect branding him a cheat and a liar… like Abraham, who was ready to slaughter his son to please God, Netanyahu is ready to sacrifice Israel’s most vital interests for election victory.”
I don’t wish to exonerate Bibi’s cynicism. Even Uri admits that he cannot imagine any more effective election ploy. “Using the Congress of the United States of America as a propaganda prop is a stroke of genius,” he says. But the Prime Minister of Israel knows he can get away with anything in America...
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-difference-between-america-and-israel-there-isnt-one-10078658.html
Likely true but true or not there is no doubt Bibi believes it as we see from his 2001 of-the-cuff discussion with a group of Israelis.
In a video from 2001, Netanyahu, reportedly unaware he was being recorded, said: “I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in our way.”
"80% of Americans support us. It's absurd"
.
Forget the numbers...
DeleteThe overwhelming majority of Americans support Israel's right to BE.
It's right to defend it's self and it's right to be the homeland for the Jewish people.
All else?
Nonsense.
Oh, and when America reaches out for HELP in the middle east?
Israel is always on call.
Folks around here may not like the truth of today. but it's a fact.
Israel stands at the arrow point of the fight against Jihadists.
America is 9000 miles away.
It is worse than that.
ReplyDeleteNo country has been scammed by the absurd coalition of the manipulators and the US Christian Coalition. The Republicans didn’t even let Jews into their schools and clubs a generation or two ago. They are dependent for their survival on the Christian fundamentalists that believe they are tied to God through Israel.
The contempt the Republicans held for the Jews would not hold a candle to the contempt most American Jews, who do not vote for the Republicans, hold for the Christian conservatives.
It is the most bizarre political parasitic relationship possible and there in no more of a master manipulator than Netanyahu.
Really?
Delete"scammed"?
Yeah I guess Israel invents those enemies to collect a few billion in aid?
You just don't UNDERSTAND much of anything Deuce.
The republicans of OLD were hated by the Jews for various reasons,
Over 50% of the Jews that vote democratic are not even practicing Jews, they are "jews" by birth, not by thought and deed, they are uber progressives.
That's why they vote democratic.
How do you "measure" contempt?
I got an interesting insight with having a Jewish circle and a Republican circle. The Republicans were certainly less circumspect than the Jews but I know that any Jew that hears someone say, “Jews are a marvelous group. “... well, I don’t have to tell you.
DeleteTell your so called "jewish" circle your contempt about Israel...
DeleteLOL
If it didn’t cost us so much, it would be worth the price of admission.
ReplyDelete...the entertainment value.
DeleteFor a jetting setting world traveler such as yourself you can't afford a few hundred bucks?
DeleteMy how the 1% have fallen...
You saw a little bit of it here when WIO and Allen could not stand Bob until they found him useful for the cause.
ReplyDeleteAh, gee.
Delete. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Prior. . . Prior Revised. . . . Consensus . Consensus Range . . . . Actual
ReplyDeleteCore PCE price index - M/M change . . 0.0 % . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.1%. . . . . . .0.1 % to 0.2 %. . . . . . 0.1 %
For the last 2 months Core Inflation (inflation Minus food and energy) has run at a 0.006 / year rate (0.6%)
DeleteThe Fed's supposed target for inflation is 2%. .
And, Employment, of course, is Not where we want it to be - not even close to where we want it to be.
And, yet, one party bangs on, and bangs on, and bangs on the "raise the rate" drum.
Care to guess which one?
Deuce and Rufus, two decent guys who have broken bad.
ReplyDeleteDeuce, just a short while ago, used to say "Any Rupublican over Obama"
While Rufus voted for Bush.
It's sad to see these two once jovial, intelligent, and in the case of Deuce, artistic, guys break so very bad.
Really I don't understand the reason for it.
Israel is a wonderful country, and Jews are a marvelous group. There is something mysterious, almost miraculous, about how they kept their culture going for 2,000 years of diaspora.
It's sad to watch Deuce and Rufus.
It's high noon, and Gary Cooper is in town, to speak to Congress, and Deuce and Rufus side with the bad guys, the outlaws, the savages.....
You're just a racist moron.
DeleteAnd, now, you have a party that's as batshit crazy as you.
Fuck you, you racist piece of shit.
DeleteYou are bat shit crazy, and a wizard of illiteracy.
Rufus is a moron, moron, moron.....
The very living definition of a Mississippi illiterate hick.
:(
Gosh, what a fate.......
Heh, I always get a big laugh out of ol' Rufus, the dear, who has never been right about anything.....
Deletehar har harddehar har
:)
Rufus is such a dumb fuck he got grubbered.
DeleteAnd didn't even notice....
:)
Then there's our ratshitass, who claims I support ISIS, for god's sake, when what I've said is if I had a switch and could flip the switch and kill them all, I'd flip the switch.
ReplyDeleteWhat a truly idiotic place this has become.....
Ho ho ho
I await a communique from Q in Mosul. If one arrives, I shall report.....
Shit, it was sunny this morning and then it snowed in Moscow.......
ReplyDeleteThat's this area for you, just wait an hour and the weather will change......
One nice thing about being semi-retired is one can work a semi-day, at one's own pace.
ReplyDeleteYup, the architect and super salesman of ObamaCare, Mr. Grubber, got it right. If he said it once he said it dozens of times:
ReplyDeleteThe American People are dumb as corn cobs.
And Rufus has proven him right.
Still dodging those "death panels," Alvin?
DeleteStill using that "new and improved" Medicare?
DeleteThe one with the smaller donut hole, and the free tests, and vaccinations.
My daughter, the cancer survivor, never has to worry about being "accepted" for insurance, again. Our family loves that.
DeleteI am happy things have worked out for you daughter.
DeleteThings didn't work out so well for my friend the veteran Dale, who got 'delayed' to death.
DeleteBasically 'death paneled'.
:(
The Bible and the Gospels and the Letters are an odd mixture of history, myth, speculation, inspired story etc etc.
ReplyDeleteOnly a moron like Rufus would insist on reading these works on the first grade level.
New discoveries in archaeology are being made all the time -
Jesus' House? 1st-Century Structure May Be Where He Grew Up
by Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor | March 01, 2015 10:35am ET
People in the Middle Ages believed Jesus grew up in this first-century house in Nazareth, according to research.
[Pin It] People in the Middle Ages believed Jesus grew up in this first-century house in Nazareth, according to research.
Credit: Photo copyright Ken Dark
View full size image
Archaeologists working in Nazareth — Jesus' hometown — in modern-day Israel have identified a house dating to the first century that was regarded as the place where Jesus was brought up by Mary and Joseph.
The house is partly made of mortar-and-stone walls, and was cut into a rocky hillside. It was first uncovered in the 1880s, by nuns at the Sisters of Nazareth convent, but it wasn't until 2006 that archaeologists led by Ken Dark, a professor at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, dated the house to the first century, and identified it as the place where people, who lived centuries after Jesus' time, believed Jesus was brought up.
Whether Jesus actually lived in the house in real life is unknown, but Dark says that it is possible. [See Images of the 'Jesus' House and Nazareth Artifacts]
"Was this the house where Jesus grew up? It is impossible to say on archaeological grounds," Dark wrote in an article published in the magazine Biblical Archaeology Review. "On the other hand, there is no good archaeological reason why such an identification should be discounted."...............
http://www.livescience.com/49997-jesus-house-possibly-found-nazareth.html
The ossuary of Caiaphas, the high priest in the Jerusalem temple at the time of Jesus, was found not so long ago, it is affirmed.....
On the other hand, the hometown and home of Adam and Eve is unlikely to be found..........:)
One day the archaeologists may do a dig in rural Mississippi and find a treasure trove of Budweiser cans and Beam bottles around the foundation of some old long decayed and vanished hovel and speculate this may be the home of the Famous Rufus the Guzzler of legend.
Who knows ?
The argument over whether The Guzzler 'really' existed or not will heat up.....
"It's the village dump. No one could drink that much"
Delete"NO, it's The Guzzler's compound. There are only Beam bottles and Bud cans here"
"Impossible. Anyone normal would have died of liver failure in youth by drinking so much"
"NO, Legend always has an element of truth. Men were better in those days, stronger, rural, not metro. It is definitely the compound of The Guzzler"
"I will stake my intellectual credentials and university degrees on it - it is the Compound of The Guzzler"
Delete"NO, you fool...."
There is an alternative ending to this Legend of The Guzzler, in which The Guzzler finally sobers up, regains his intellectual strength and memory, finds the Lord, votes Republican, and dies in peace, his entire family of four generations gathered round the sacred death bed....
Delete.......the tom toms beating......
DeleteLooking closely at these alternative endings, we can, doing exegesis, conclude at least that at one time there was someone in MIssissippi who at one time drank one hell of a lot.
DeleteBecause authentic legend always has a kernel of truth at the core.....
DeleteHow to explain this ? -
ReplyDeleteAstronomers Find a Dusty Galaxy That Shouldn't Exist
A object from the very early universe is bafflingly rich with dust that theory says shouldn't have formed yet.
Picture of star cluster Abell 1689
Astronomers have spotted a surprisingly dusty little galaxy within the cluster Abell 1689, shown here in an image by the Hubble telescope.
Photograph by NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), J. Blakeslee (NRC Herzberg Astrophysics Program, Dominion Astrophysical Observatory), and H. Ford (JHU)
Michael D. Lemonick
for National Geographic
Published March 2, 2015
Peering back in time to find the very earliest objects in the universe, an international team of astronomers has discovered a galaxy that shouldn't be there at all.
The problem, the scientists report Monday in Nature, is that while the tiny galaxy dates from just 700 million years or so after the big bang, it's far more dusty than something this young and small has any right to be.
It's surprising, says Daniel Marrone, a University of Arizona expert on galaxy formation who wasn't involved in the research, because although dust is essential for the formation of planets and other solid material, the cosmos started out with no dust at all. In the aftermath of the big bang, the universe consisted only of hydrogen and helium gas (along with dark matter, but that's invisible).
The dusty galaxy is just one of the recent surprises astronomers have found. "Last week," says Marrone, "we learned of an incredibly massive black hole in the early universe. Now we have this average galaxy with significant amounts of dust. We've had this cartoon picture of the early universe, but it's clear that we really don't know what's going on."............
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150302-black-hole-blast-biggest-science-galaxies-space/
"it's clear that we really don't know what's going on"
HEH :)
As good an 'explanation' as any is, using some 'modern' terminology, that the Lord took a coffee break, Quirk serving the sugars, was blogging, and hit the delete button when he was adding 2 + 2..........
We will have to ask Rufus, our house scientist, what is going on here...........it's clear that he knows EVERYTHING.
"In this case, the Nature paper's lead author, Darach Watson, of the deliciously named Dark Cosmology Centre at the University of Copenhagen......."
DeleteQuirk did post grad work there at the DCC......
"With ALMA, completed two years ago, and a new generation of giant optical telescopes now under construction, however, they're likely to find more of these galaxies before long. (See "Cosmic Vision: Telescopes.") The very early universe doesn't make a lot of sense at the moment—but that's almost certainly going to change."
DeleteOne wonders, of course, for better or for worse, more sense, or less.
DeleteSleep tight, star gazers.....
Cheers !
"We've had this cartoon picture of the early universe, but it's clear that we really don't know what's going on."
DeleteHEH :)
The One broke into the Many, as is always happening.....
DeleteQuit, Bob, go to bed........
March 3, 2015
ReplyDeleteObama's Court Jews Raise the Dual Loyalty Canard
By Jonathan Keiler
Accusations of dual loyalty against Jews used to be something one expected to hear, if at all in this country, from the extreme right. But modern conservatives generally strongly support Israel and rarely display anti-Semitic tendencies. On the other hand, the far left has been anti-Israel for decades, and hostility to the Jewish state -- often occulted by philo-Israel bromides -- is increasingly becoming a mainstream sentiment within the Democratic Party. Some leftist Jews have raised the issue before, but now many more have recklessly raised the canard as a means to support President Obama’s opposition to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s forthcoming address to Congress............
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/03/obamas_court_jews_raise_the_dual_loyalty_canard_.html
Some here have taken it upon themselves to adjudicate who is and who is not a 'true American'.
We will be hearing a lot here concerning the speech before Congress by the Israeli Prime Minister here very soon I am certain.
Relieved, back to bed.