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, November 14, 2006

Evening Pearls of Wisdom



"A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one." Ben Franklin

67 comments:

  1. Deuce,

    Garbage in, garbage out.

    Sometimes, Ph.D = Philosophical Dementia.

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  2. I was inspired by Proconsul Bremer.

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  3. By the way allen, I was impressed with your defense of the quality of posting at the Elephant. After reading that, I went and read the latest EB vs BC post. I agree with you. We do not get as many posters, nut that has been increasing. we should never discourage new participation, but we have a good group and I would hate to lose the intimacy that we enjoy here.

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  4. nuts and buts. we bet them both.

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  5. IMPORTANT SURVEY BETA TRIAL TONIGHT
    In an attempt to help the EB I have developed a survey that I would like each poster to participate in this evening. The question is insignificant. Just press your finger on the screen under your choice.
    1.I agree w/Habu 2.I agree w/Habu

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  6. Well compile the results overnight and post them when I get up around 9-9:30.

    Thank you all in advance for your participation.
    If you do not participate the computer will pick an answer at random so that we will have a full data set to examine. Those chosen by the computer will be marked as such.

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  7. Popping into say a job well done.
    Bill Gates

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  8. come on, I've actually visited boot hill. It goes like this

    Here lie lester moore
    shot to death with a 44
    No les
    no more.

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  9. "Enemies make you stronger, allies make you weaker." -- Frank Herbert

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  10. Is there any chance Wretchard is C-4?

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  11. The japanese invented a light concentrator that followed the sun and conducted the sunlight on optical fibers to transmit the natural light to dark rooms in the house. The light was always in balance with the natural light outside.

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  12. I found this to be an interesting post:

    Sunday, July 10, 2005

    The Belmont Club
    The Belmont Club, or Wretchard rather, was cited in the Times of London in connection with "Downed US Seals may have got too close to Bin Laden". It's pretty strange since I've neither met Bin Laden nor ever been in Afghanistan, and makes me feel something of a fraud at being cited in connection with something I have no direct knowledge of. (Though the analysis is probably correct). It also reopens the question of whether Wretchard should continue to blog anonymously. Anonymous blogging has proved a good buffer against the petty vanities of authorship. The deal is you don't do radio interviews, signed articles etc. The upside is that you have no ego to protect. The ideas you articulate are separated from your own personality.

    This model is only partially functional now. People who knew me in the past, as well as my colleagues at Pajamas Media, know perfectly well "who" I am, although I think that information is totally irrelevant. Since the model of anonymity is failing, I'll disclose the boring details. My name is Richard Fernandez, of Filipino birth and Australian citizenship. My interest in history probably began at Harvard, from which I graduated with a Masters in Public Policy. Wretchard is the name of an imaginary cat, the symbol of that entire race of stoic, yet somewhat foolish creatures. Belmont is the name of a suburb I roomed in while at Cambridge, Mass.

    posted by wretchard at 7/10/2005 03:27:00 AM

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  13. Does this sound like C-4?

    Cedarford said...
    Wretchard - OK, you're Filipino. You know there is a paucity of well paid media pundits and commentators that have ancestry in the Philippinesand are well-spoken and very insightful.

    One in fact.

    So....any desire to venture into media? Do women find you appealing? As men find Malkin???

    Well, seriously now, I share your disappointment over the Philippines political problems and hope that if you still have relatives there, that they are not adversely affected...

    7/10/2005 01:33:44 PM

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  14. Back around 1970, I think, some mag like Pop Science showed a big Steam Generator on a tower surrounded by an array of acres and acres of guided mirrors.
    Don't know if said tower got off the ground.

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  15. Motorcyclist's Wing Man
    Dutch Kaffel of Frankfort, Ill., cruises along with Harley the Canada goose named after the motorcycle Kaffel rides on when the bird follows him.

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  16. 2164th cited:

    "...The upside is that you have no ego to protect. The ideas you articulate are separated from your own personality..."

    Ah but the enemies you make when you decide mid-stream to go towards a more anonymous model.

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  17. rufus said:

    They're talking $0.05 Kw/hr, and that's kick-ass, with low initial cost of installation.

    Well, places like Washington State with hydro, or Kentucky with coal, only pay $0.06 Kw/hr. It would benefit the northeast corridor, which now ways $0.13 Kw/hr, and especially Hawaii which pays $0.20 Kw/hr and has lots of sun.

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  18. Pound pound pound goes the Stirling
    Ring ring ring goes the Bell.

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  19. Woman Catholic said...
    doug said:

    That would be PC for Sure:
    Brokeback Healthcare.

    Which includes a subsidy for chiropractors, ironically.
    ---
    ---
    ---
    Hawaii was an early adopter, statewide.
    Has since scaled back when costs skyrocketed along with the population of Chiroquackers in Paradise.

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  20. About fifteen years ago, I was working with a Dutch utility company and a Japanese construction consortium and a German Engineering firm that developed a technology where they stripped the sulfer from the smoke stacks of coal burning generators by using a lime mist that produced gypsum as a byproduct. They took scrap newspaper and manufactured gypsum fiberboard with both waste products.

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  21. 2164th said:

    Well, seriously now, I share your disappointment over the Philippines political problems and hope that if you still have relatives there, that they are not adversely affected...

    The P.I. is exactly like a "Latin American" country that got lost and sits in the waters of East Asia, and it shares the same problems that a place like Mexico does...ie, a few mega-rich families control nearly all the wealth and Senate positions, while teeming masses of mostly very good, devout Christian people try to make it day by day...and it is very hard when the price of gas for their jeepneys even today won't come down. Crony capitalism is deeply entrenched and ensures that the country will never become an "Asian Tiger" like South Korea or Taiwan. The communist New People's Army is still lurking around, and there's a corner of Mindinao that wants to break off and form an independent Moro (Muslim) state. Things are so bad that last February 74 people were trampled to death trying to get a chance at a lousy $20,000 jackpot.

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  22. But WC, does that sound like Cedarford?

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  23. (1996 Press Release)
    "The only other one in the United States is NOPEC (No OPEC, get it?) in Lakeland, Fla.
    The real key to this kind of recycling venture, says Sheehan, is supply.
    NOPEC's founder locked up the Florida used french fry oil supply first thing. Now he is producing up to 22 million gallons a year of biodiesel"
    ---
    ---
    EB Motto:
    NOPEC, Just Old Peckers.

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  24. 120 gal per acre is a money maker? It seems you would make a lot more money growing gladiolas.

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  25. My guess: Lebanese-extraction Ford Motor Co engineer. Got all the Ford political positions (as did Henry), plus the cedars-of-lebanon tag, plus the um, dislike, um, of Israeli-type folks. Michiganish, Dearbornish, sensibilities. Engineer way of keyboarding, with the walled-off topics rolled into "project" length posts. Linear. Data-driven. Wears the plastic pocket-protector. Thick glasses, not real big on humor, 35-40. Bowls in a company league. Eats out, fast-food. Video-gamer in spare time.

    No value judgements--just my hunch.

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  26. Rufus,
    Don't knock your namesake, Rudolf.
    He didn't have the hindsight of history, or even the buttsights under Buddy's Grandstands.
    ----
    "Rudolf Diesel envisioned with his first fuel ― peanut oil!"

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  27. Pretty good Buddy. What about the posting times?

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  28. Eat more fast food.
    Produce more MauiBioDiesel.
    ...not to mention methane.

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  29. um, yas, the bookclub has dispensed with Seymour Butz' "Under the Grandstand" and is now discussing I.P. Freely's "The Yellow River".

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  30. It seems to me the crop of choice must be a perennial.

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  31. Splodes better too.
    Remember Dave "Fireball" MacDonald at Indy?
    RIP

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  32. can't do posting times. I'm a detective, but not a very *good* detective.

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  33. Some of the hybrid poplars are very aggressive growers and withstand multiple cutting.

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  34. 2164th said...

    But WC, does that sound like Cedarford?

    You seem to be trying to build a case that Wretchard is Cedarford. As near as I can tell, only Habu1 is using multiple sockpuppets on either BC or EB. But Wretchard is of Filipino extraction, and Jews are like alien beings to Filipinos, they have almost no contact with them, and so no reason to want them to be exterminated...and it's not like Harvard is Bob Jones U or something.

    In a side (but related) note, I see that Robert Byrd will be elected Grand Imperial Wizard of the Senate, and stand three heartbeats away from the Oval Office.

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  35. ...then some bastard business partner took out Mickey Thompson and his wife!
    Just got busted, 2 decades later.
    ---
    http://indymotorspeedway.com/500d-64.htm

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  36. WC, It is an open case. I have more, but was curious if anyone else had any thoughts on it.

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  37. Poplars would be good for flood plains and do double duty as ethanol and flood control.

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  38. You violated a copyright, Rufus.
    http://www.envision.com/

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  39. i always just use my name. I want to make enemies who can find me, so i can get rid of some of this moldering old magnum buckshot laying around here.

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  40. A wicked brew of tamales and hatred, here in the house on Horror Hill.

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  41. alright, how come habu can act crazy but I can't? Double Standard!

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  42. no, i interrupted a good alt energy discourse. apologies. i'll retire until i get over the giggle fit.

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  43. You are not to be taken seriously, Buddy.
    By AnyBuddy.

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  44. wonder, how *does* this blog do, by way of 'hits'?

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  45. May the wind be always at your back, and Fido not snore in his sleep.

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  46. When is closing time for the Elephant Bar, anyway, when it wraps all the way around the Earth?

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  47. a string of John Ford/John Wayne/Monument Valley movies on TCM, for the nighthawks--

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  48. Bin Laden doesn't matter any more, alive or dead. Because, like nuclear scientists, he has invented the bomb.

    You can arrest all of the world's nuclear scientists but the bomb has been made. BinLaden created al-Qaeda amid the matchwood of the Middle East.


    Bin Laden doesn't Matter

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  49. Hey, somebody's gotta get that Spoon Surgeon guy here:
    That takes us to Thailand.
    Land of the Friendly (Muzzie) Coups.

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  50. EB "Humor" "Shallow and Distorted."
    by
    Trina tsk tsk.
    (coulda woulda, but shoulda?)

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  51. Question:
    PhotoshopSupport.com
    How would you describe the Dreamweaver learning curve for a total beginner?
    ---
    Janine:
    The challenge with that question is how you define total beginner.

    When my friend's mother first tried using his computer, she picked up his mouse, pointed it at the monitor and quickly got frustrated that it didn't change channels.

    http://www.digitalfamily.com/videos/dreamweaver/

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  52. Kid used to do support for ISP:
    I'll have to ask him for some of the old classics.
    Two I remember:

    Lady stuffing a floppy in the CD cart.

    Using it for a Cupholder!

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  53. "Sometimes, Ph.D = Philosophical Dementia."

    Or, Ph.D = Posthole Digger

    Or, Ph.D = Piled High & Deep... which probably describes most of our academic elites these days.

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  54. "...but we have a good group and I would hate to lose the intimacy that we enjoy here."

    Agreed.

    Even the lurking is good in the EB.

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  55. Enter the James Baker and Lee Hamilton-led Iraq Study Group (ISG). It's my bet that it will produce nothing original in terms of strategic and operational thinking.

    It may well produce a set of policy recommendations palatable to Democrats and Republicans -- in other words, consensus political cover that allows the sober and wise to continue to support Iraq's war for freedom and modernity.


    Desert Storm Legacy

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  56. doug< i could teach you all you need to know with photoshop in four hours. There are so many features you can ignore. It all depends on your visual creativity.

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  57. Triton'sPolarTiger , it looks like you are in the post-lurking stage. Welcome aboard.

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  58. possumDieter, Oh that says" Post a Comment on:"
    I misread it>

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  59. Show us, the hypertextualy challenged, the mis apostorphied knaves that we are, the way possumdieter. The forum belongs to those willing to stand forward.

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  60. doug said:

    Lady stuffing a floppy in the CD cart. Using it for a Cupholder!

    Female IT experts

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  61. DR,

    What I can never figure is how about 12,000,000 Jews, spread all over the globe, with only a fraction remotely Orthodox, manage to wield such power, as attributed by C4 et al, and simulataneously be up sh*t creek most of the time.

    The Elders aren't doing a very good job. Maybe we Jews need an "Bloody Tuesday" election.

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