.
I grew up in a small, close-knit parish, which coincidentally (and grudgingly) happened to be located in one of the world’s larger cities. Haven’t been back there, or to my recollection inside a Catholic church, since I left for college. But growing up in a community where everyone knew, and had an opinion about, one’s every act and thought was a pretty good preparation for science fiction fandom, and not a bad head start on the blogverse, either…
Speaking of knowing one’s audience, last week Roy Edroso gave every non-glibertarian blogger’s favorite target a good kicking in “Gen McMe“:
… Long story short, McArdle’s tale of whooaaa is meant to convince… well, nobody; she compares complainers to children, and throughout her chronicle (which might make a nice ebook entitled “Down and Out at the Koch Institute“) never misses a chance to tell the kids, in her own sorry-notsorry way, you think you have it rough? It’s just a way to fill column inches, and for some people the best way to fill column inches is to offer oneself as an example of grit and determination, a Horatio Alger of the Thermomix set, for the littlebrains to emulate…
As if you needed any more proof that The Up Side of Down is going to be the biggest inspirational best-seller since The Five People You Meet at a Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein Shooting Match. When life gives you lemons, make Avocado Wasabi Ice Cream!…
***********
Apart from mocking the eminently mockable, what’s on the agenda for the start of another week?
JGabriel
Roy Edroso:
I first scanned littlebrains as libertarians — not that there’s any definitional difference.
.
Linda Featheringill
My main goal for this morning is to wake up. Ugh. Too early, too dark. Even the dog didn’t want to get up and go outside, although the monsters [garbage trucks] hit our neighborhood with enthusiasm on Monday mornings.
Linda Featheringill
BTW, happy autumn to everyone. I guess the summer of our discontent has moved on and we’ll have to find new things to complain about.
Edited. No, I can’t spell. Why do you ask?
raven
“Obama is going to have you roll from Obamacare directly to a lifelong registration for food stamps”. Guess who?
Schlemizel
Since the shit stain got brought up here again last night I’d like to ask someone to explain to me why there is a difference in reaction to Megan and Lil Andy. Both are consistently on the wrong side of issues that mater. Both are intellectually dishonest making up or accepting bad science, phony research and painfully incorrect conclusions in defense of immoral or just plain wrong ends. Both are full of themselves and obnoxious narcissists. Both have ‘walked back’ bullshit flung under their name with ridiculous excuses.
The only difference I can see is that Lil Andy eventually admits he was sorta, kinda, wrong but it wasn’t his fault (calculator gastritis anyone?) and in one way he was right. But that is always once the damage has been done & his FUD has been around the world a few times.
Why is one treated as an intellectual worthy of engagement and the other as the red-nosed bozo they both are?
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: I know, I know!!!
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: How do the other people sit there and no one says “THE RESISTANCE TO THE LAW IS BASED ON FUCKING LIES!!!!!!” ?
fuckwit
In all cultures, the vast majority of people are stupid, that’s just the law of averages. Most cultures try to reward and elevate their best and brightest, with varying degrees of success.
Except in America, where it seems the stupidest rise to the top fastest and make the biggest bucks. And then lock themselves (and, eventually, their progeny) into those positions of power and fame indefinitely.
I swear, sometimes it seems people think Mike Judge’s Idiocracy was a fucking instruction manual.
Fort Geek
@Linda Featheringill: That was my goal, too. I’m awake now. I’m done for the day.
raven
Time to take Bohdi to the vet. Of course, after a terrible weekend with him yelping at every move and us worrying like mad, he seems to feel fine now. He’s going anyway!
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: OR… that when polled on the parts of the law, people actually like almost all of the provisions by a pretty good margin.
Linda Featheringill
@Fort Geek:
“I’m awake now. I’m done for the day.”
:-)
Kay
@BillinGlendaleCA:
This from yesterday, Toledo paper:
Love to know how the Tea Party determined which groups were to be targeted.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Is he going to get tutored?
aimai
@Kay: Don’t you think they sent the same form letter to everyone?
different-church-lady
@Linda Featheringill:
Small, manageable goals is the way to go.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: (that was a Far Side joke)
different-church-lady
Apparently being on the edge of 50 fills all your childhood friends with the mad desire to track you down on Google and attempt to reconnect for the first time since the last time you saw them over three decades ago — four of ’em this month so far.
different-church-lady
@Fort Geek: Where do you find the strength?
PurpleGirl
It’s United Nations session opening week. A big bunch of heads of state are in town. One good thing about working at home/being unemployed is that I don’t have to travel to Manhattan and through the frozen zone. Street closures and traffic tie-ups mean that you get to work late. For a few years I found it easier to go through Brooklyn to the Williamsburgh Bridge to get to the financial district and my office. (That was until the MTA killed the bus that went over the Williamsburgh Bridge — thanks a heap Joe Lhota.)
The Red Pen
Just read an email from LTG Kathleen Gainey, Deputy Commander of USTRANSCOM (the military UPS). She basically said that they are preparing for a government shutdown, but can’t release any details yet.
The money quote is “I am hopeful the shutdown will be avoided. But hope is not an option…”
See, this is what we get for having “Hope” on Obama posters: the Republicans have eliminated it.
P.S. Besides shipping bullets and toilet paper to Afghanistan, USTRANSCOM also coordinates humanitarian aid with SDDC (Surface Deployment Command and Control — why two Ds and one C?) and AMC (Air Mobility Command — although I would have awarded partial credit for the guess Army Material Command), so fuck people in disasters.
PurpleGirl
@PurpleGirl: And having taken my morning medication… I’m going back to bed. Later peeps.
Kay
@aimai:
I don’t know. “Was one of some…”
I’m having trouble with this. I resent it. We pay a lot of state executives a lot of money for them to run the state. We get tons of questions on the law. We spend a lot of time on it. Our Lt Gov is the former insurance commish. Not only is she refusing to do her job, she lies about the law. That makes it harder. I had a landscaper tell me Saturday that he has to buy insurance for his employees by October 1st. No he doesn’t. That’s a lie he was told.
I resent paying them for not doing their jobs, because other people then have to do their jobs. This isn’t optional. People are asking about the law.
if they want to work for the GOP, God knows there is plenty of private-money wingnut welfare out there. Let Koch pay them. I don’t want to.
JGabriel
PurpleGirl:
TPM:
…because Nigeria has contacted us, due to our trustworthiness, to help them with eleventy-trillion dollars left behind in a UN slush fund.
.
Kay
@aimai:
I think they’re asking state leaders who are refusing to offer help on the law the wrong question. I don’t care about their theories on health care or markets. Why would I care about that?
They should ask them how they justify accepting a paycheck when they’re refusing to do their jobs.
Southern Beale
I thought this Flippin accidental shooting was funny. So so so small town.
IowaOldLady
@Kay: I know they should be doing their job and also that their refusal to do it hurts real people. But what really astounds me about this is the sheer pettiness of it. They didn’t get their way so now they’re going to take their ball–no, as many of the balls as they can and flounce onto the sidelines to watch people struggle.
It’s one of those situations where people show you what they are and you have trouble believing it.
Elizabelle
It’s one week since Aaron Alexis shot 12 people just going about their Monday mornings.
Thinking on that today.
Kay
@IowaOldLady:
There isn’t a single state official or employee quoted in this story. Apparently. we don’t even expect them to answer for why they aren’t doing their jobs.
Reading this, one would think the state was run by a bunch of local non-profits and a physicians group. Mary Taylor, the Lt Gov, makes more than 150k a year. What’s she up to? They print a lot of her opinion pieces. They have her phone number. Is she strictly a theorist?
Fort Geek
@different-church-lady: Had to go to the bathroom. Couldn’t get back to sleep after that.
What’s that horrid bright light I see past my blinds? Is it dangerous?
Gin & Tonic
@PurpleGirl: I was impressed in a way to see the US Coast Guard with small boats in the East River that had machine guns mounted in the bow, and manned.
cleek
@fuckwit:
perhaps you’re using the wrong criteria for judging stupidity ?
if a guy can get people to give him their cash, he can’t be too stupid.
Scamp Dog
@OzarkHillbilly: I caught it!
scav
@cleek: brazen and charm will get you that outcome, brains not required for the lcd of such projects. In no way shape or fashion is the race always won by th ebrainiest, in any case.
Luthe
@cleek: A high CHA and a good Bluff roll will get you places high WIS and INT will not. Ask any bard or rogue.
Matt McIrvin
@The Red Pen: Doesn’t the old saying go “Hope is not a plan”? (Very pre-Obama, and very true.)
The Red Pen
@Matt McIrvin: That’s waaaay better wording.