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."

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Jenny Sanford, class act.



57 comments:

  1. Nutty as a Fruitcake.

    Just like her husband.

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  2. EPA suppresses staff evaluation of warming evidence.

    “The time for such discussion of fundamental issues has passed for this round. The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision… I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office.”

    - Internal EPA email, March 17th, 2009
    .


    M. Simon via Watts Up With That

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  3. linearthinker,

    Clearly, you are no bureaucrat!

    Suppose a chair warmer gets a memo asking, "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?"

    Now, you might say, "Someone is jerking my chain." But, you are no bureaucrat.

    The genuine article would immediately go into CYA mode, countering, "Given staff's current heavy workload, the nature and scope of this inquiry will require substantial additional resources, particularly of staff, space, and budget."

    This would be the case whether the bureaucrat in question knew a woodchuck from #2 vacuum grease*. Process is everything, and that is the magic of bureaucracy.

    * The mention of #2 vacuum grease has nothing whatsoever to do with the nature and scope of this lede.

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  4. Clearly, you are no bureaucrat!

    Thanks, Allen. Nicest thing anyone's said to me today.

    Too long in the belly of the beast to have any patience for them.

    There's a thread up at BC that began about MJ and morphed into a description of the decay in large organizations, particularly technical branches of gov't and industry, that rang a bell. I'd witnessed the same perverse sense of internalized organizational dementia myself. RWE (#5) kicked it off pretty well. I could go on, but will spare ya my personal anecdotes.

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  5. eco-development, libido envelopment

    “On Thursday, Sanford agreed to reimburse the state for part of the more-than $8,000 tab for that economic development trip, which enabled him to see his mistress in Argentina's capital city.”

    Somebody has some “splainin’ to do.

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  6. Romney was a class act on the Dennis Miller Show.
    Responded to the Sanford question
    (He knows them well, has stayed in there house.)
    by expressing concern for the wife and kids, and never mentioning the embarassing Jerk.
    (Whose Shtick makes New Age California Leftists sound grounded)

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  7. He finally got the DVD and is thourghly engrossed in the PBS intellectualism that is Zorro Mastery.

    Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth (1988)
    Starring: Joseph Campbell (III) & Bill Moyers
    .

    The new full six part saga, must viewing for all aspiring intellectuals:
    Bill Moyers on Faith and Reason.

    Hear Joseph Campbell on the Holy Grail and see if THE DA VINCI CODE got it right. (Read the transcript!

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  8. their.

    Thank you.

    I was beginning to worry about you.

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  9. I momentarily relaxed my sphincter.
    My bad.

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  10. There are still five copies available @ Amazon.com, just $20.99 per copy of "Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth".

    Get yours before they're gone!

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  11. Narrated by Moyers.
    That alone makes it worth twice the price.

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  12. Joseph Campbell - The Hero's Journey ~ Joseph Campbell (III), Jean Erdman, George Lucas, and Peter Donat (DVD - 2007)
    ---
    Doug IV

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  13. Hear Joseph Campbell on the Holy Grail and see if THE DA VINCI CODE got it right. (Read the transcript!

    Bob's at the chiropracter. He clicked on "read the transcript", but didn't bother to print it out. Reading sideways text will do that.

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  14. Allen,
    I evolved a technique for dealing with paperwork in the Army. There was a never ending stream of request letters and memos from higher hq.

    I got a big brown grocery bag from the Class VI store and tucked it into the cubbyhole of my desk. All those letters went into it. The only ones that came out were the ones that were followed up with a threatening "Reply Due" reminder.

    Damned few came out. I've always believed they forgot about the stuff once they'd sent out their own requests.

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  15. linearthinker,

    Consider the volume of email!!! EVERYTHING is equally important...no priorities...DELETE...DELETE...DELETE...;-)

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  16. McNamera was going to save the World by keeping track of everything @ central HQ.

    I got converted from a mechanic to a TAERS clerk on arrival in Korea when the CO checked out my paperwork.
    (lucky for me. - a heated office instead of changing a 5 ton's tire in zero degree weather)
    "The Army Equipment Records System"

    We filled out the forms that would be required @ the next inspection whether the work was done or not, and threw the carbon copies that were sposed to go to Mac in the trash.

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  17. I've asked so many times now, I can't keep track of all my queries:

    So, Linear, did Dell include a free upgrade to Win 7?
    (Costco does)

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  18. I think the Governor not only went off the deep end but is a bit a narcissist. His interviews have been absolutely ridiculous. I agree with Deuce, he should have simply "shut up."

    His wife; how is she supposed to behave? She should though, ignore the blood sucking media.

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  19. So, Linear, did Dell include a free upgrade to Win 7?
    (Costco does
    )

    I haven't seen it and wouldn't know what to do with it if I did.

    Sorry I overlooked the question. Too much time spent reading Moyers on Campbell on the DaVinci Code sideways. Does Moyers think it's earthfriendly to cram that shit in a pdf file sideways? Saving bits?

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  20. desert rat said...
    There are still five copies available @ Amazon.com, just $20.99 per copy of "Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth".

    Get yours before they're gone!

    Just sold mine in the garage sale today... 50 cent...

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  21. The myth of Campbell's alleged anti-semitism (made by a single columnist, without more than "feeling" from reading between the lines) has been disproved to the satisfaction of those willing to examine the facts generated over the course of Campbell's lifetime.

    "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."
    ___Churchill

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  22. Thankfully, Sanford will be departing.
    His trips to Ipanema were partially paid for by taxpayers.

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  23. Campbell Halls
    I wonder how many have anything to do with our Hero the Third?

    Ours was the coolest looking.
    Campbell Hall is the biggest classroom at UCSB.

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  24. Maybe that will lure al-Bob back, thinking it's a giant alien spacecraft.

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  25. Maybe al-Bob is mourning MJ's demise?

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  26. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  27. That is not proof, allen. Only your opinion.

    Mr Campbell was a secular humanist that attempted the deconstructiob of the Abrahamic religions. He propagated that idea on government subsidized media.

    Revealing those religions to be mere myths, Persian myths, at that.

    Perhaps that is proof positive of loving or even respecting the Jews of history, or at least not hating them, but I disagree.

    It is not an intellectually sound argument to make, that someone that works his entire life to delegitimize religions respects them.

    Judism is just another part of the Zorro Mastery tree of philosophy, Mr Campbell said it, and the PBS intellectuals, agree.

    If you stand amongst them, as well as the Israeli, enjoy the company. Please.

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  28. You, allen, are the one that reported Mr Campbell's lies about the history he represented as truth.

    That the Hebrew texts were modified during the exile, in Babylon.

    I've read in other places, as well. Some even claiming the 'Jews' that "returned" to the Levant were not related to the ones that were exiled in the first place.

    THat would seem to be a dagger in the heart of the jewish story, if true. I doubt that it is, but it is written.

    Just as what Mr Campbell has written is there to be read. Modern Judism is a branch of Zorro Mastery, as is Christianity and Islam.

    If that is not an attempt to deconstruct the foundations of Judism, well then disagreeing about US policy towards Israel certainly is not anti-Jewish, at all. It is not anti-Jewish by the very nature of the definition developed for Mr Campbell and his teachings which go to the source core of the Jewish myth ...

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  29. The intellectuals of Public Broadcasting unite!

    Under tha banner of Bill Moyers allen rides out to meet the religous zealots that still believe in divinity and not the power of man, the mind and myth.

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  30. DR,

    Even a cursory review of the literature on the Campbell, anti-semitism, mini-controversy will find instantly that Mr. Gill is the only person to make the absurd accusation (aside from you, of course).

    It is not necessary for me to agree with Mr. Campbell on every score to respect him. When I do not agree, I have no need to label him an anti-semite. Reasonable men may reasonably disagree. Only in the fullness of time will the truth be known..."I see through a glass darkly, but then I will know, even as I am known"__Paul

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  31. If deconstructing Jewish history is not anti-jewish, than nothing is.

    Certainly not current policy disputes concerning Israel.

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  32. Mr Campbell's thesis denys, on its face, the historic ties between modern Judism and that which came before the exile to Babylon.

    That is at the core of his thesis.

    That is either accurate or not.
    If not his promoting it, is anti-Jewish, or nothing is.

    Other than actual physical assualt.

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  33. DR,

    "Though HE slay me, yet will I trust HIM."___Job

    By the way, the text is not Hebrew...That does not make it less true...Joseph Campbell, notwithstanding.

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  34. I have no idea who Gill is and do not need him or Bill Moyers assistance to draw my own conclusions as to Mr Campbell work and that of his acolytes.

    Acolytes who are at work, as we speak, deconstructing Christianity, as well as Judism, creating a historic moral equivalency with Islam.

    That is at the core of Campbells' public work.

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  35. The equivalency of the modern religions, in their myths.

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  36. The equivalency of the modern religions, in their shared foundational myths.

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  37. bobbie, a current acolyte of Mr Campbell and Mr Moyers, has already abandoned Lutheran Christianity to follow the Norse God, Thor.

    His intellectual pursuits leading him to personally abandon the Abrahamic concept of monotheistic religion for the comforts of mythical Valhalla.

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  38. Valhalla translates as
    'Hall of Allah'

    or is that just not intellectually serious?

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  39. I'd say, allen, that while Mr Campbell is anti-religion he is pro-semite.

    The Semetic languages and their common roots strengthening his thesis of historic commonality.

    The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa. They constitute a branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family, the only branch of that family spoken in both Africa and Asia.

    The most widely spoken Semitic language today is Arabic (322 million native speakers, approx 422 million total speakers). It is followed by Amharic (27 million), Tigrinya (about 6.7 million), and Hebrew (about 5 million).

    Semitic languages are attested in written form from a very early date, with texts in Eblaite and Akkadian appearing from around the middle of the third millennium BC, written in a script adapted from Sumerian cuneiform. The other scripts used to write Semitic languages are alphabetic. Among them are the Ugaritic, Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, South Arabian, and Ge'ez alphabets. Maltese is the only Semitic language to be written in the Latin alphabet and is the only official Semitic language within the European Union
    .

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  40. To be an anti-semite is, by strength of numbers, the same as being anti-Arab.

    Can I get a show of hands of the anti-Arabic in the audience?

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  41. Germany has misread Islam
    By Christopher Caldwell


    When Wolfgang Schäuble convoked a multi-year “Islam Conference” in 2006 to ease relations between German society and its Muslim minority, the interior minister made a statement – “Islam is a part of Germany” – that was viewed as a groundbreaking and generous concession.

    Today it looks more like a statement of the obvious. At the final session of the conference on Thursday, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) released a study on “Muslim Life in Germany”. It found that there are vastly more Muslims in Germany than most specialists and pundits had assumed. Where most estimates held the Muslim population at around 3m, the more comprehensive BAMF study places it around 4m, and possibly as high as 4.3m. That means Muslims make up not 4 per cent of the population, but 6 per cent
    .

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  42. CNN) -- NATO and Russia have agreed to restart their military relationship, nearly a year after it had been frozen over the war in Georgia, the top NATO official said on Saturday.

    "The NATO-Russia Council is up and running again also at the political level," said NATO Secretary- General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, speaking at a meeting of ministers in Corfu, Greece.

    Russia is not a member of NATO but is a member of the NATO-Russia Council, formed in 2002. It consults, coordinates, reaches joint decisions on and carries out joint action with NATO on areas such as terrorism, cooperation on Afghanistan and military exercises
    .

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  43. HONOLULU -- A labor union for Hawaii's biggest shipping company, Matson Navigation Co., went on strike Saturday.

    The American Radio Association, which represents radio officers on Matson container ships, called a limited strike in Seattle, likely disrupting the loading and sailing schedule of the Hawaii-bound MV Maui.

    Only one member of the union is assigned to the Maui, but the International Longshore and Warehouse Union workers won't load the ship if they honor the picket line, said Charles Khim, an attorney for one of the other unions in talks with the shipping company. The ILWU is not involved in the contract talks.

    "The net effect is that the ship will not be loaded," Khim said.

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  44. Boston GlobeObama, Lawmakers Discuss Immigration
    Washington Post - ‎Jun 25, 2009‎
    A bipartisan group of lawmakers emerged from a White House meeting with President Obama on Thursday confident that the president is ready to put his political weight behind an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws.

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  45. WTF?
    I have to admit that even at this ripe old age when I should have no excuses, the GD Union still surpised me.
    Great timing I guess.
    The sure have an ally at the top.

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  46. CARACAS, VenezuelaPresident Hugo Chavez says a U.S. general shouldn't be raising concerns that Venezuela is buying arms, and the American commander is wrong to argue there isn't a "conventional military threat in the region."

    Chavez says the U.S. is a threat to Venezuela, and that's why his government is strengthening its military.

    The comment is aimed at Gen. Douglas Fraser, who took over as commander of U.S. military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean this week. Fraser has questioned an apparent Venezuelan military buildup.

    Chavez said Saturday that Fraser should look in a mirror, adding: "General, you're the threat!"

    Venezuela has signed deals with Russia to buy more than $4.4 billion worth of arms since 2005
    .

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  47. I guess it all is a Persian myth, isn't it. The Zorro Master did hang his hat at Magii, right? Was he originally from there?

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  48. Hmm, folks don't seem nearly as sure about the Zorromaster as they did the last time I looked him up.

    They seem to have moved his b'day up a little bit.

    Dang, another legend shot all to hell. Now, he just influenced the Jewish Religion. Didn't say what kind of "influence," though.

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