ZOMBIE CONTENTIONS » Say What?

when you’re a designated shepherd or sheepdog…

CK MacLeod — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 20:17:51 +0000

… (remember you can designate yourself) part of you is actually glad to see a wolf, because now you can prove to everyone how important you are, by bossing everyone around for their own good.

“A doctor and a peasant know more than a doctor alone,” the Italians used to say. Self-appointed doctors everywhere are working to suppress this insight. Human societies can save themselves from the next wolf, if they are allowed to do so; but it is hard for them to save themselves from the shepherds.

Margo @ Yet another global warming apocalypse.

Consider this angle on what Ryan is doing:

CK MacLeod — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:37:37 +0000

The unbridled, technocratic arrogance of this administration has acted like a time machine. Obama and the Dims have, deficit wise, leapt at least 10 years into the future. The ever-over-the-horizon inevitable fiscal catastrophe of the committed welfare state has been brought rudely into the present tense for all of us to gape at in shock. RIGHT NOW! As with the hapless, doomed frog sitting in water slowly being heated to boiling, yet continuing to sit because the heat is being added incrementally, Americans have for 40 years been putting up with first 50- then 100-, then 200-, and even 400-and-500-billion-dollar annual shortfalls with pathetic equanimity. The Dims threw caution to the winds, skipped right past 800-billion and even trillion-dollar deficits – why tarry? – and seized the big brass ring: Whack! $1.6 trillion bucks in the hole. Suck on that! And more of the same to come. Ring-a-ding-ding!

The frog is scalded pink and more than ready to jump. It just wants somewhere – anywhere but the destination on offer now – to land. Ryan suspects that, I believe. Why can’t the Repub leadership see it, too?

Joe NS @ Who’s afraid of Paul Ryan?.

America is much bigger and much stronger and far more resilient and wonderful…

CK MacLeod — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:17:08 +0000

…than the pedestrian Obami would have it, and [Avatar] is an American film. Think about it. The Russians and Chinese and others will see it and they must again marvel at our creativity and our technology. They will be seeing yet another distinctive American film, a wonder like Dances With Wolves and E. T. and Close Encounters… before it. Again they will be seeing America at Her best, an America which can meld together all people of good will, an America which is not afraid to be self critical and idealistic. They may even come to think well of an America which can inspire such a fine sense of wonder as “Avatar” has done.

Zoltan Newberry @ In a world of their own: Conservatives and Avatar.

I persist in viewing Obama as…

CK MacLeod — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 20:29:56 +0000

…a narcissistic political “prodigy” who rode that perfect storm of financial crisis, race neurosis and war exhaustion into office. To call him an anti-Semite seems, ironically, to attribute to him something approaching a genuine principle. I doubt he’s held a sincere political, social or religious conviction in his life, in the sense of being willing to subordinate his ego to it or sacrifice his cynosural glow on its account.

Seth Halpern @ Ockham’s Razor.

The way health care is run and paid for in America today…

CK MacLeod — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:23:06 +0000

…is entirely dictated and distorted by the actions of government. It’s not too much to say that government is to blame for everything we don’t like about our health care system. [...] It IS possible for things to be different, and the main thing that has to change is how much the federal and state governments are involved in “health care.”

JE Dyer @ The Obamic Wars Have Hardly Even Begun.

There is only one issue left…

CK MacLeod — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 06:27:12 +0000

…how we handle our Debts,every other issue is an evasion of the stranglehood that Debt has on every aspect of our society. And none of the options are pretty in a Democracy,in fact,too much Debt is the quickest way to go from a Democracy to a Dictatorship.

Rex Caruthers @ In defense of rightwing Leninism.

we’re already in the ‘bearded spock’ universe…

CK MacLeod — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 04:56:12 +0000

…when you deficit spend to avoid bankruptcy, where you dither on military commitments in order to reassure our allies, where you suppress oil and gas exploration, in order to become energy independent. Where you threaten the strangulation of every aspect of economic activity to encourage jobs, where terrorists get civil trials, and the CIA men who captured them, risk prosecution. This is stupidity on a cosmic scale

narciso @ The Palin Equation (Palinism #5).

Re-Quoted for the Eternal Archives

CK MacLeod — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:34:19 +0000

“I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.” – Richard Feynman

Sully @ CONTENTION OF THE DAY – something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Some businessmen realizing the opportunity to game the system…

CK MacLeod — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:55:29 +0000

…come up with the idea of carbon credits, based upon the latest climate scaremongerers who have moved from ice age to heat wave – both with nothing but faith backing them up. Enron is the name, and along with Goldman Sachs figure a ton of money is to be had shaking down people for indulgences to the global warming gods. And just for fun, the governments, who we will need to make this work, will also have a new revenue source so they can continue giving away goodies to secure their re-elections. Academia, who had been taken over by the utopians 20 years ago, has also begun to utilize science for the purposes of implementing their faith based desires, not for discovering truth, and also realize they can support this cabal and bring in tons of grant money in the process, and get the chance to tell everyone how to live. Journalists – who are educated ignorants – and who also want to change the world, go along, so that they too can see utopia on earth. A utopia defined by them! To help the great unwashed! And so the lie is perfected and the scam is launched. By people we have been brought up to think are honest people. Ha!

Take away the governments power to be involved in all things other than their specifically constitutionally delegated responsibilities and none of this happens. The bubbles (dot com, housing, lending)aren’t because of gold, they are because politicians cannot keep their damn hands out of the cookie jar. If government quits trying to prevent everyone from failing, the stupid stuff will slow down to a trickle.

JEM @ In other noise….

My Mum…

CK MacLeod — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:15:03 +0000

… used to say our very short rabbi from Brooklyn was going to sue the city because they built the sidewalk too close to his ass.

Zoltan Newberry @ Noonan: Barack, We Hardly Knew Ye