Today's burning question: why the Hell did I find a used condom in front of the cash-machine this morning? If it had been a cash-point in a back alley, I might be able to understand its involuntary witness to seedy street-sex, but since the bank to which it belonged is in the Market Square, there is simply no way one could indulge oneself in a spot of urban dogging without being caught in flagrante delicto by passing taxi drivers.
There are several nearby side-streets that could, perhaps, be considered suitable locations for outdoor inner city trysts, but all of them have adequate bin-coverage, implying that either the contraceptive was defiantly carried past such devices and then deliberately discarded in front of Barclays, or that our mysterious Durex was placed in a pocket for safe-keeping, only to escape confinement as our unidentified felon was fishing for their debit card, hoping to draw out money for reasons mercifully unknown. As bad as the former scenario is, the latter is far worse.
The only other possibility is that our errant johnny was in fact cast aside in triumph down a side street and then transferred by unknown means to right between my goddamn feet as I inspected my bank balance. Given the clement weather of late a freak gust of wind seem unlikely, and whilst school children are notorious for kicking around the various street detritus they find from place to place, surely even today's surly, quasi-feral youths would balk at practicing their dribbling skills with a used prophylactic.
That's as far as my thinking's gotten, at any rate. Any suggestions from you lot as to a plausible scenario?
Friday, 30 May 2008
Smash And Grab
I thought I might take a little time today to expand on the aside I made yesterday about certain aspects of the Republican party bearing a startling resemblance to ram raiders. Not because the analogy is unfair (or if it is, it's unfair to all the money-grabbing petty criminals out there who don't start wars over the course of a job), but because I realised I'd hit upon a potential long-term strategy for ultra-rich libertarians that I hadn't completely understood until now.
Bush and his ilk (by which I don't necessarily mean neoconservatives, which I think is a term much misused at the moment) are potentially unique in the annals of democracy, because they have managed to cobble together a government predominantly made up of people who think government is an obviously dumb idea. Every political party has its own ideas on what is and isn't a government's business, of course (one of several reasons why the sooner people start identifying themselves on the political compass rather than a scale from left to right, the better); much of the flak directed at our own Labour government is due to the surfacing of a far stronger authoritarian streak than most people realised they possessed. But the Bush administration has taken this to new depths. Once you cite moral objections when vetoing bills aimed at keeping sick children alive, you've passed the point at which you're an outlier; you may even be an outlier to the outliers.
The reasons why libertarians in general are so suspicious about government poking its nose in are many and varied. What's crucial to note, though, is the people we're talking about, Bush and his cronies and more importantly those who hold his purse-strings, are not just libertarians, they're libertarians and they're rich as all Hell. Whether or not they have deeper and more complex political philosophies as to the degree of control over the citizenry the federal government should be awarded, there is an inescapably simple equation that each and every one of them is entirely well aware of, keeping the Man in check = more fucking loot for those as has it.
These people might not necessarily be completely selfish with their vast hordes of wealth. Better political commentators than I have pointed out that the Americans frequently prefer the idea of giving their money to charity to having it taken from them in the form of taxes which then fund welfare projects, even if the exact same people end up getting helped in the long run. Maybe it comes back to the hoary old chestnut of "freedom" again (as a country the US seems to have a borderline bat-shit definition of the concept of freedom that I might get round to tackling someday). The point is even the altruistic millionaires frequently want their altruism to be on their terms, and not mandated by the suits inside the Beltway.
What this has inevitably led to is a branch of the Republican party (which is made up of at least three branches, and countless sub-branches, all clumsily soldered together into one coalition in the Reagan era, a coalition now increasingly showing signs of fracturing) for which the goal of their chosen president is just to scale down the government as much as possible, as quickly as possible, with particular attention given to taxes.
So that, I argue, is the motivation. Here's the strategy. Because Bush's fundamental axiom is that big government is a bad idea, the vast majority of blunders (if indeed they are such) made by his administration go towards proving his point. It might not work on those with a sufficient degree of political nous, but for a lot of people, each time the government fucks up, the suggestion that government should just butt out becomes more attractive, not less [1]. The war in Iraq or the destruction of New Orleans is something big enough to make everyone sit up and notice, but in general the media is happy to avoid pointing fingers at those specifically to blame for what's gone wrong, and meanwhile the Republicans can keep banging on about how they always said it shouldn't have been the government's responsibility anyhow.
So if the Bush manages to scale something back, he wins. If he fails to adequately wield what power he has (at least domestically), he wins. The deficit explodes, the rich/poor divide gets ever more ludicrously chasm-esque, more and more millionaires build themselves their Scrooge McDuck style money-bins and breast stroke their way through the horde of treasure. It's all gravy.
Eventually, of course, people begin to smell a rat, and, much as is happening at the moment, the mood of the country begins to turn (note though that it took catastrophes both at home and abroad to potentially oust the GOP, and last time round it happened at least in part because H.W. Bush broke his pledge to not raise taxes, which pissed off the very people I'm describing here). At that point, as described yesterday, the Republicans can just cut and run. If the Democrats do get in, they face the potentially insurmountable challenge of clearing everything up whilst being constantly hammered from the other side of the aisle (and again, I'd point out that this was to some extent what happened to Clinton). If the Republicans do manage to get another term (how this is even being considered as an option is depressing beyond belief), apparently by pretending McCain is totally different to Bush (who himself pretended to be totally different to his father, and by the exact same metrics; enthusiasm for bipartisanship and an increased level of "compassion" for those less fortunate) even when his voting record makes that so transparently false I might use the data in the first question on a Statistics GCSE paper, then that's four more years of grabbing more money, inflicting more damage for the Democrats to patch up, and continuing to poison public opinion against the very concept of government itself.
It is, frankly, a brilliant strategy. The poor, ethnic minorities, homosexuals, the unions and so forth, all flat-out need the Democrats in power in order to have any chance of advancing their agenda (whether it be the right to belong to a union without getting fired, marrying another man, or reducing the number of young black men getting a) addicted to drugs and b) shot); it is a necessary condition (although to the party's eternal shame, a far from sufficient one). The wealthy, on the other hand, don't need any given party in government. They prefer the Republicans, sure, but with the Democratic Party in power, they still have a metric fuck-ton of cash squirreled away, and they still hold a disproportionate amount of sway over the government because of it.
Viewed from this angle, you begin to ask yourself how much of the terrible, terrible mismanagement of the last eight years was short-sighted partisan idiocy, and how much of it was mine-laying designed to hobble a Democratic administration right out of the gate. This may all have the appearance of a governmental conspiracy theory, but such theories almost always require the idea that the government is far, far more efficient and cohesive than we generally take it to be. This theory simply works on the basis that the very inefficiency and lack of cohesion so many believe is there may be partially intentional.
The only real way I can see out of this cycle, short of some of the other tribes within the Reagan coalition wresting control from the Bushoids, is to be more successful at getting the message out to the people regarding Republican screw-ups, and just as importantly, make it abundantly clear that these screw-ups are born from a particular political philosophy, not because the federal government is de facto a bad idea. This won't really help when it comes to conservatives sniping from the sidelines, but we need to frame the debate in terms of Democratic policy vs Republican policy, not governing vs no governing.
Yeah, I know. I'm not holding my breath.
[1] Some may say that I'm being somewhat smug and elitist here (more so than usual), but it's a fairly rare occurrence for anyone to lose money on betting the electorate are idiots. Christ, if they can swallow "lowering taxes increases revenue", and not notice that every time taxes are lowered, not only does it inflate the deficit, but it isn't their taxes that are lower, then there's no hope for them.
Bush and his ilk (by which I don't necessarily mean neoconservatives, which I think is a term much misused at the moment) are potentially unique in the annals of democracy, because they have managed to cobble together a government predominantly made up of people who think government is an obviously dumb idea. Every political party has its own ideas on what is and isn't a government's business, of course (one of several reasons why the sooner people start identifying themselves on the political compass rather than a scale from left to right, the better); much of the flak directed at our own Labour government is due to the surfacing of a far stronger authoritarian streak than most people realised they possessed. But the Bush administration has taken this to new depths. Once you cite moral objections when vetoing bills aimed at keeping sick children alive, you've passed the point at which you're an outlier; you may even be an outlier to the outliers.
The reasons why libertarians in general are so suspicious about government poking its nose in are many and varied. What's crucial to note, though, is the people we're talking about, Bush and his cronies and more importantly those who hold his purse-strings, are not just libertarians, they're libertarians and they're rich as all Hell. Whether or not they have deeper and more complex political philosophies as to the degree of control over the citizenry the federal government should be awarded, there is an inescapably simple equation that each and every one of them is entirely well aware of, keeping the Man in check = more fucking loot for those as has it.
These people might not necessarily be completely selfish with their vast hordes of wealth. Better political commentators than I have pointed out that the Americans frequently prefer the idea of giving their money to charity to having it taken from them in the form of taxes which then fund welfare projects, even if the exact same people end up getting helped in the long run. Maybe it comes back to the hoary old chestnut of "freedom" again (as a country the US seems to have a borderline bat-shit definition of the concept of freedom that I might get round to tackling someday). The point is even the altruistic millionaires frequently want their altruism to be on their terms, and not mandated by the suits inside the Beltway.
What this has inevitably led to is a branch of the Republican party (which is made up of at least three branches, and countless sub-branches, all clumsily soldered together into one coalition in the Reagan era, a coalition now increasingly showing signs of fracturing) for which the goal of their chosen president is just to scale down the government as much as possible, as quickly as possible, with particular attention given to taxes.
So that, I argue, is the motivation. Here's the strategy. Because Bush's fundamental axiom is that big government is a bad idea, the vast majority of blunders (if indeed they are such) made by his administration go towards proving his point. It might not work on those with a sufficient degree of political nous, but for a lot of people, each time the government fucks up, the suggestion that government should just butt out becomes more attractive, not less [1]. The war in Iraq or the destruction of New Orleans is something big enough to make everyone sit up and notice, but in general the media is happy to avoid pointing fingers at those specifically to blame for what's gone wrong, and meanwhile the Republicans can keep banging on about how they always said it shouldn't have been the government's responsibility anyhow.
So if the Bush manages to scale something back, he wins. If he fails to adequately wield what power he has (at least domestically), he wins. The deficit explodes, the rich/poor divide gets ever more ludicrously chasm-esque, more and more millionaires build themselves their Scrooge McDuck style money-bins and breast stroke their way through the horde of treasure. It's all gravy.
Eventually, of course, people begin to smell a rat, and, much as is happening at the moment, the mood of the country begins to turn (note though that it took catastrophes both at home and abroad to potentially oust the GOP, and last time round it happened at least in part because H.W. Bush broke his pledge to not raise taxes, which pissed off the very people I'm describing here). At that point, as described yesterday, the Republicans can just cut and run. If the Democrats do get in, they face the potentially insurmountable challenge of clearing everything up whilst being constantly hammered from the other side of the aisle (and again, I'd point out that this was to some extent what happened to Clinton). If the Republicans do manage to get another term (how this is even being considered as an option is depressing beyond belief), apparently by pretending McCain is totally different to Bush (who himself pretended to be totally different to his father, and by the exact same metrics; enthusiasm for bipartisanship and an increased level of "compassion" for those less fortunate) even when his voting record makes that so transparently false I might use the data in the first question on a Statistics GCSE paper, then that's four more years of grabbing more money, inflicting more damage for the Democrats to patch up, and continuing to poison public opinion against the very concept of government itself.
It is, frankly, a brilliant strategy. The poor, ethnic minorities, homosexuals, the unions and so forth, all flat-out need the Democrats in power in order to have any chance of advancing their agenda (whether it be the right to belong to a union without getting fired, marrying another man, or reducing the number of young black men getting a) addicted to drugs and b) shot); it is a necessary condition (although to the party's eternal shame, a far from sufficient one). The wealthy, on the other hand, don't need any given party in government. They prefer the Republicans, sure, but with the Democratic Party in power, they still have a metric fuck-ton of cash squirreled away, and they still hold a disproportionate amount of sway over the government because of it.
Viewed from this angle, you begin to ask yourself how much of the terrible, terrible mismanagement of the last eight years was short-sighted partisan idiocy, and how much of it was mine-laying designed to hobble a Democratic administration right out of the gate. This may all have the appearance of a governmental conspiracy theory, but such theories almost always require the idea that the government is far, far more efficient and cohesive than we generally take it to be. This theory simply works on the basis that the very inefficiency and lack of cohesion so many believe is there may be partially intentional.
The only real way I can see out of this cycle, short of some of the other tribes within the Reagan coalition wresting control from the Bushoids, is to be more successful at getting the message out to the people regarding Republican screw-ups, and just as importantly, make it abundantly clear that these screw-ups are born from a particular political philosophy, not because the federal government is de facto a bad idea. This won't really help when it comes to conservatives sniping from the sidelines, but we need to frame the debate in terms of Democratic policy vs Republican policy, not governing vs no governing.
Yeah, I know. I'm not holding my breath.
[1] Some may say that I'm being somewhat smug and elitist here (more so than usual), but it's a fairly rare occurrence for anyone to lose money on betting the electorate are idiots. Christ, if they can swallow "lowering taxes increases revenue", and not notice that every time taxes are lowered, not only does it inflate the deficit, but it isn't their taxes that are lower, then there's no hope for them.
Thursday, 29 May 2008
Play The Tape To The End
The liberal blogosphere (and man, how I hate that word) has been alive for some time now with a discourse which can be narrowly divided into three parts.
The first part is the most common one, which can be roughly summed up as "Obama FTW". Which, you know, is probably true. The Republicans are horribly divided, painfully aware that what they're doing isn't working, but not actually having any idea as to what to do instead. Various ideas have been floated by some of the party's high-fliers, but all seem to fall into one of two categories: too obviously cosmetic to fool anyone, or too obviously radical to be of interest to the hardliners, who are generally unwilling to entertain the possibility that their current dire straights might actually point to a flawed philosophy, as oppose to a good one that failed to work in practice. Far worse for the Republicans, though, is that they are also low on funds. The recent story about changing locations for a McCain fund-raiser for fear the paying guests would be outnumbered by anti-war protesters was one of the funniest I've read in ages, once the GOP starts being careful as to when and where they get their money, it surely has to be a bad sign for them.
So they have no real idea as to how they'll turn their image around, nor do they necessarily have the funds to do it. All that's being managed at present (as the Democrats continue to pummel the crap out of them at the Congressional level) is some half-hearted attempt to distance McCain from Bush (as though having the latter campaign for the former behind closed doors will help; if there are people in the US who will only support for McCain if Bush is there to hold his hand, surely they're seriously outnumbered by the people for whom watching McCain disappear into a shadowy enclave with Mr 27% is going to be an immediate nay vote). There are many reasons why that's liable to be an impossibly hard sell, but that's another story.
So I agree with the basic sentiment of Group No 1, even if I might quibble over the specifics (and frequently the spelling). The second line of discussion, though, I agree with too. This one can be roughly surmised as "It ain't over 'til it's over." Now, sure, that's obviously true. There's always another potential swift-boating. Certainly the bizarre behaviour of the American media continues to implicitly favour McCain. The most talked-about political events of the last month or so included how bad Obama is at bowling, how he ordered orange juice instead of coffee at a diner, and how he told people his great uncle helped liberate Auschwitz and then said the day after, "Whoops, sorry, it was actually Buchenwald" [1]. The Wright scandal was orders of magnitude greater than McCain's problems with Pastor Hagee , and while I'm not really a fan of Wright for several reasons (and those commentators who tried to play down the fact that he did shout "God damn America!" and suggested the federal government created HIV were, I think, trying too hard to characterise the media reaction as entirely unwarranted when it was really merely hysterical), but since Hagee has suggested Hitler was doing God's work by setting up the board for the Apocalypse, I don't think a greater degree of parity should have been out of the question. So whilst the election is pretty much the Democrat's to lose, they could still snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. After all, nothing falls apart faster than a bunch of liberals who actually get within sniffing distance of winning something.
The third strand is the most complex, and thus the most interesting: this one points out that even if Obama does win in November, it could turn out to backfire on the Democrats spectacularly. Digby over at Hullabaloo is one key voice here, although hers is far from the only one. The basic point here is that the Republicans excel at disruption [2]. The endless filibusters in the most recent session are one example of this, as is the total sinking of Clinton's attempts to reform the health care system (reform that the voters at the time, and right now for that matter, desperately wanted) are just two obvious examples. The theory goes that conservatism is so completely shot to crap right now the best plan is to relinquish the reins for four (or even eight) years. That way you leave a Democratic President in the Oval Office, sat on the floor with a tub of super-glue, staring at the Humpty-Dumpty like mess the US is in right now, wondering how the Hell he (and it will be a he) can possibly put it back together again.
And he won't have the luxury of being able to tackle it one issue at a time. The GOP (and the media) won't let him. There are dozens of messes to sort out, many left behind by Bush but still more that were never cleaned up after Reagan, or even Nixon, and if the President mucks any one of them up, the Republicans will never let it out of their teeth. And the conservatives in congress can make damn sure it does get messed up, what with their endless disrupting and ad hominem screeching and lowest-common-denominator attack ads and working the Blue Dogs etc. etc. etc. If Obama isn't careful he's going to feel like an NQT in his first lesson, with thirty different tasks to balance, all of which have to go right, whilst surrounded by people who are determined to force failure. If the country were doing well the Republicans could get a lot of mileage out of this tactic, with so many problems out there that need to be addressed, the GOP could do incalculable damage to their opponents.
So, here's my question. With so many people convinced Obama will win, and so many people convinced that the Republicans will continue to use their tactics of disruption and character assassination to try and prevent it (aided and abetted by their usual free pass from the media), and so many people convinced out that the Republicans already have an excellent strategy ready to secure the Oval once again by 2016 at the latest, why is there no-one out there that I can see actually talking about coming up with a play-book that a Democratic administration could use to actually fight back?
[1] Incidentally, the RNC responded to that last one with "Obama's frequent exaggerations and outright distortions raise questions about his judgment and his readiness to lead as commander in chief", which is interesting not only because they're applying their 2000 tactics all over again, but because this is coming from the party whose presidential candidate keeps repeatedly confusing Shia Muslims with Sunni Muslims when discussing who we're supposed to be shooting at in Iraq. It's also worth noting that, again like in 2000, the statement was not only corrected, but whilst left uncorrected gives no benefit to the candidate. Claiming (as Bush did in 2000) that a tax cut will positively affect"the vast majority" of the lowest-earning tax-payers is a political lie meant to hide the unpalatable truth. Forgetting which concentration camp your relative helped liberate would be a nonsensical lie to tell.
[2] The tactics of the truly vile branch of the Republican party (of whom Bush is certainly one example) are easy to understand once you understand the aim is to get your rich friends as much money as quickly as possible. There seems no evidence over eight years that Bush has a developed political philosophy, beyond "leave me alone". The Bush years can be seen (with disturbing ease) as a limousine ram-raid upon the federal budget. And once you've robbed a liquor store, you don't mind if the police chase you out of it. Just as long as you know there's another store on the block you can rob again in, say, eight years. It's no wonder they might prefer winning power to retaining it.
The first part is the most common one, which can be roughly summed up as "Obama FTW". Which, you know, is probably true. The Republicans are horribly divided, painfully aware that what they're doing isn't working, but not actually having any idea as to what to do instead. Various ideas have been floated by some of the party's high-fliers, but all seem to fall into one of two categories: too obviously cosmetic to fool anyone, or too obviously radical to be of interest to the hardliners, who are generally unwilling to entertain the possibility that their current dire straights might actually point to a flawed philosophy, as oppose to a good one that failed to work in practice. Far worse for the Republicans, though, is that they are also low on funds. The recent story about changing locations for a McCain fund-raiser for fear the paying guests would be outnumbered by anti-war protesters was one of the funniest I've read in ages, once the GOP starts being careful as to when and where they get their money, it surely has to be a bad sign for them.
So they have no real idea as to how they'll turn their image around, nor do they necessarily have the funds to do it. All that's being managed at present (as the Democrats continue to pummel the crap out of them at the Congressional level) is some half-hearted attempt to distance McCain from Bush (as though having the latter campaign for the former behind closed doors will help; if there are people in the US who will only support for McCain if Bush is there to hold his hand, surely they're seriously outnumbered by the people for whom watching McCain disappear into a shadowy enclave with Mr 27% is going to be an immediate nay vote). There are many reasons why that's liable to be an impossibly hard sell, but that's another story.
So I agree with the basic sentiment of Group No 1, even if I might quibble over the specifics (and frequently the spelling). The second line of discussion, though, I agree with too. This one can be roughly surmised as "It ain't over 'til it's over." Now, sure, that's obviously true. There's always another potential swift-boating. Certainly the bizarre behaviour of the American media continues to implicitly favour McCain. The most talked-about political events of the last month or so included how bad Obama is at bowling, how he ordered orange juice instead of coffee at a diner, and how he told people his great uncle helped liberate Auschwitz and then said the day after, "Whoops, sorry, it was actually Buchenwald" [1]. The Wright scandal was orders of magnitude greater than McCain's problems with Pastor Hagee , and while I'm not really a fan of Wright for several reasons (and those commentators who tried to play down the fact that he did shout "God damn America!" and suggested the federal government created HIV were, I think, trying too hard to characterise the media reaction as entirely unwarranted when it was really merely hysterical), but since Hagee has suggested Hitler was doing God's work by setting up the board for the Apocalypse, I don't think a greater degree of parity should have been out of the question. So whilst the election is pretty much the Democrat's to lose, they could still snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. After all, nothing falls apart faster than a bunch of liberals who actually get within sniffing distance of winning something.
The third strand is the most complex, and thus the most interesting: this one points out that even if Obama does win in November, it could turn out to backfire on the Democrats spectacularly. Digby over at Hullabaloo is one key voice here, although hers is far from the only one. The basic point here is that the Republicans excel at disruption [2]. The endless filibusters in the most recent session are one example of this, as is the total sinking of Clinton's attempts to reform the health care system (reform that the voters at the time, and right now for that matter, desperately wanted) are just two obvious examples. The theory goes that conservatism is so completely shot to crap right now the best plan is to relinquish the reins for four (or even eight) years. That way you leave a Democratic President in the Oval Office, sat on the floor with a tub of super-glue, staring at the Humpty-Dumpty like mess the US is in right now, wondering how the Hell he (and it will be a he) can possibly put it back together again.
And he won't have the luxury of being able to tackle it one issue at a time. The GOP (and the media) won't let him. There are dozens of messes to sort out, many left behind by Bush but still more that were never cleaned up after Reagan, or even Nixon, and if the President mucks any one of them up, the Republicans will never let it out of their teeth. And the conservatives in congress can make damn sure it does get messed up, what with their endless disrupting and ad hominem screeching and lowest-common-denominator attack ads and working the Blue Dogs etc. etc. etc. If Obama isn't careful he's going to feel like an NQT in his first lesson, with thirty different tasks to balance, all of which have to go right, whilst surrounded by people who are determined to force failure. If the country were doing well the Republicans could get a lot of mileage out of this tactic, with so many problems out there that need to be addressed, the GOP could do incalculable damage to their opponents.
So, here's my question. With so many people convinced Obama will win, and so many people convinced that the Republicans will continue to use their tactics of disruption and character assassination to try and prevent it (aided and abetted by their usual free pass from the media), and so many people convinced out that the Republicans already have an excellent strategy ready to secure the Oval once again by 2016 at the latest, why is there no-one out there that I can see actually talking about coming up with a play-book that a Democratic administration could use to actually fight back?
[1] Incidentally, the RNC responded to that last one with "Obama's frequent exaggerations and outright distortions raise questions about his judgment and his readiness to lead as commander in chief", which is interesting not only because they're applying their 2000 tactics all over again, but because this is coming from the party whose presidential candidate keeps repeatedly confusing Shia Muslims with Sunni Muslims when discussing who we're supposed to be shooting at in Iraq. It's also worth noting that, again like in 2000, the statement was not only corrected, but whilst left uncorrected gives no benefit to the candidate. Claiming (as Bush did in 2000) that a tax cut will positively affect"the vast majority" of the lowest-earning tax-payers is a political lie meant to hide the unpalatable truth. Forgetting which concentration camp your relative helped liberate would be a nonsensical lie to tell.
[2] The tactics of the truly vile branch of the Republican party (of whom Bush is certainly one example) are easy to understand once you understand the aim is to get your rich friends as much money as quickly as possible. There seems no evidence over eight years that Bush has a developed political philosophy, beyond "leave me alone". The Bush years can be seen (with disturbing ease) as a limousine ram-raid upon the federal budget. And once you've robbed a liquor store, you don't mind if the police chase you out of it. Just as long as you know there's another store on the block you can rob again in, say, eight years. It's no wonder they might prefer winning power to retaining it.
Monday, 26 May 2008
The Weekend: Lessons Learned
Five things I learned from the new Indiana Jones film (spoilers ahoy, my peeps):
1) Indiana Jones is now too full of awesome to be affected by the most basic rules of magnetism, gravity, or radioactive decay;
2) Despite his new-found immunity to the laws of physics, Indy still can't get his arse out of trouble without yet another convenient Higher Power arriving to bitch-slap the opposition;
3) You are likely to undercut your point that the Cold War made everyone unnecessarily paranoid about the "Red under the bed" if you have the hero's BFF sell him out to the Russkies twice in the same film;
4) The two most indestructible objects on Earth are snakes and fridges;
5) Even the most fiery of independent women will forgive the man who left her a month before their wedding day whilst pregnant, and do so within hours of meeting him again, and will then proceed to stare at him with pathetic co-dependent puppy dog eyes ad nauseum.
Five things I learned from another visit to the hated South:
1) There are more antiques shops in Hampshire than there are pubs;
2) Hypermobility looks like it really, really hurts (full sympathies to Mr Cleavage, who already had enough to deal with putting me up for the weekend);
3) Car cigarette lighters are not something you want to fool around with (in fairness, Dr B learned this is a significantly more painful way than I did);
4) Flight of the Conchords is awesome. So awesome that I should have kept the DVDs for myself and just given Cleavage a novelty toothbrush, as was at one point tradition between us;
5) No amount of faux-Victorian lampposts and artfully arranged deciduous trees can make up for the fact that paying £7.80 to see a film is a fucking outrage.
1) Indiana Jones is now too full of awesome to be affected by the most basic rules of magnetism, gravity, or radioactive decay;
2) Despite his new-found immunity to the laws of physics, Indy still can't get his arse out of trouble without yet another convenient Higher Power arriving to bitch-slap the opposition;
3) You are likely to undercut your point that the Cold War made everyone unnecessarily paranoid about the "Red under the bed" if you have the hero's BFF sell him out to the Russkies twice in the same film;
4) The two most indestructible objects on Earth are snakes and fridges;
5) Even the most fiery of independent women will forgive the man who left her a month before their wedding day whilst pregnant, and do so within hours of meeting him again, and will then proceed to stare at him with pathetic co-dependent puppy dog eyes ad nauseum.
Five things I learned from another visit to the hated South:
1) There are more antiques shops in Hampshire than there are pubs;
2) Hypermobility looks like it really, really hurts (full sympathies to Mr Cleavage, who already had enough to deal with putting me up for the weekend);
3) Car cigarette lighters are not something you want to fool around with (in fairness, Dr B learned this is a significantly more painful way than I did);
4) Flight of the Conchords is awesome. So awesome that I should have kept the DVDs for myself and just given Cleavage a novelty toothbrush, as was at one point tradition between us;
5) No amount of faux-Victorian lampposts and artfully arranged deciduous trees can make up for the fact that paying £7.80 to see a film is a fucking outrage.
Told You So
Looks like Clinton has finally (and in all likelihood accidentally) fessed up to why she's still in the race, there's still the possibility that some calamity will befall Obama and leave her to pick up the pieces.
Which is what I've been saying for a while now. Of course, I assumed that when she was imagining scenarios they were along the lines of Wright-esque political crises, rather than Obama getting all murdered and shit, but then she's running out of hypotheticals at this point.
I also pointed out that this strategy would be even less likely to work once she admitted to it, so she's messed up on several levels here, although at this stage in the game it would be all but impossible to not see what play she's calling anyway.
Which is what I've been saying for a while now. Of course, I assumed that when she was imagining scenarios they were along the lines of Wright-esque political crises, rather than Obama getting all murdered and shit, but then she's running out of hypotheticals at this point.
I also pointed out that this strategy would be even less likely to work once she admitted to it, so she's messed up on several levels here, although at this stage in the game it would be all but impossible to not see what play she's calling anyway.
Friday, 23 May 2008
Statistics Can Be Fun No. 1
One of the longest running arguments I ever had (and am still having) was/is the level of talent displayed by Andrew W.K. The_Accountant is of the impression that he is a witless buffoon. I, on the other hand, consider him someone who is a witless buffoon and a effortless purveyor of brilliantly brainless rock, or at least was for one album, before he became a witless buffoon sans qualifier.
Part of the problem with our long-running discussion (beyond the obvious fact that it's a waste of time even by my standards) is that both of us tend to use the same exhibits as evidence for both prosecution and defence. Take for example what The Onion referred to with atypical understatement as Mr W.K.'s "party-liking stance". The sheer frequency with which the word appears in both the lyrics and on the cover sleeve of I Get Wet is taken by T_A to demonstrate Andy (as his mates call him) lacks the ability to write about any other topic but partying. I, on the other hand, take it as a sign of true genius that a man can base an entire album around saying "I do, in fact, enjoy the process of what we loosely define as "partying", yes indeed, good sir" over, and over, and over, and over; without me getting bored.
The worst/best example is the entirely self-explanatory song "Party Hard". In this song the word "party" is repeated so many times W.K. must have overloaded his spell-checker typing in the lyrics. I eventually decided to quantify just how much AWK (as his ornithological mates call him) enjoys a good shindig by calculating his party per minute (ppm) ratio.
The result is an astonishing 23 ppm. Close to one party every other second. I lack the resources to check, but I'd wager this beats all previous purveyors of party-liking songs, defeating both disturbing sex-dwarf Prince and terrifying bronze man-child Peter Andre.
We can however compare this with James' Crash, which demonstrates a comparatively paltry 7.5 crashes-per-minute; or Taking Back Sunday's Head Club, which manages a faintly recursive count of 3 songs-per-minute.
It's also worth noting that Sufjan Stevens manages a ludicrous 0.027 Illinois-per-minute during Come On Feel The Illinoise, (ignoring the word being mentioned or spelled out by his backing singers on a couple of songs), which given it's a concept album about fucking Illinois is pretty slovenly.
Statistical conclusion: Andrew W.K. likes parties much more than Tim Booth loves car crashes or Needlessly Shouty Bloke likes songs (or possibly his just own songs, which would put him in line with pretty much everyone else's opinion of Tell All Your Friends), and Sufjan Stevens hates the Prairie State, presumably making him a Communist.
Next week on Statistics Can Be Fun, we calculate the exact extent to which you Forgot About Dre.
Part of the problem with our long-running discussion (beyond the obvious fact that it's a waste of time even by my standards) is that both of us tend to use the same exhibits as evidence for both prosecution and defence. Take for example what The Onion referred to with atypical understatement as Mr W.K.'s "party-liking stance". The sheer frequency with which the word appears in both the lyrics and on the cover sleeve of I Get Wet is taken by T_A to demonstrate Andy (as his mates call him) lacks the ability to write about any other topic but partying. I, on the other hand, take it as a sign of true genius that a man can base an entire album around saying "I do, in fact, enjoy the process of what we loosely define as "partying", yes indeed, good sir" over, and over, and over, and over; without me getting bored.
The worst/best example is the entirely self-explanatory song "Party Hard". In this song the word "party" is repeated so many times W.K. must have overloaded his spell-checker typing in the lyrics. I eventually decided to quantify just how much AWK (as his ornithological mates call him) enjoys a good shindig by calculating his party per minute (ppm) ratio.
The result is an astonishing 23 ppm. Close to one party every other second. I lack the resources to check, but I'd wager this beats all previous purveyors of party-liking songs, defeating both disturbing sex-dwarf Prince and terrifying bronze man-child Peter Andre.
We can however compare this with James' Crash, which demonstrates a comparatively paltry 7.5 crashes-per-minute; or Taking Back Sunday's Head Club, which manages a faintly recursive count of 3 songs-per-minute.
It's also worth noting that Sufjan Stevens manages a ludicrous 0.027 Illinois-per-minute during Come On Feel The Illinoise, (ignoring the word being mentioned or spelled out by his backing singers on a couple of songs), which given it's a concept album about fucking Illinois is pretty slovenly.
Statistical conclusion: Andrew W.K. likes parties much more than Tim Booth loves car crashes or Needlessly Shouty Bloke likes songs (or possibly his just own songs, which would put him in line with pretty much everyone else's opinion of Tell All Your Friends), and Sufjan Stevens hates the Prairie State, presumably making him a Communist.
Next week on Statistics Can Be Fun, we calculate the exact extent to which you Forgot About Dre.
Wednesday, 21 May 2008
Teh Interweb
Point;
Counter-point;
Twat;
Counter-twat.
This is exactly what I fear most about blogging, that someone much, much smarter than me will stumble across this page (despite this place having less hits than Deep Blue Something), disagree with something I've said, and then absolutely bitch-slap me across our treasured series of tubes.
I hope that if (when?) it does happen that I show a little grace than Mr Morgan (never trust a blog whose title includes a capitalised adjective, not even I was egotistical enough to think SpaceSquid AWESOME a particularly good idea).
Oddly, I had a very similar conversation to the one above yesterday with Dr L about whether we should be allowing IVF treatments on lesbians who are capable of conceiving naturally. It's worth noting, though, that Dr L was far more lucid in her arguments (which were in no way as bad as this doofus', although she was still wrong), and somewhat less inclined to revert to ad hominem whilst losing (as oppose to ad hominem whilst winning, which remains my exclusive preserve).
Update: Mother-cruncher "moderated" my post out of existance, as well! Just because I pointed out that "I am not a bigot" cannot be entirely reconciled with "I will tolerate you even though you still live with your parents, wearing shitty clothing and unable to get laid". It might not exactly be bigotry, sure, but if you're going to be a dick to an entire group of people you give no indication of knowing anything about, maybe you should keep your damn mouth shut.
Just sayin'...
Counter-point;
Twat;
Counter-twat.
This is exactly what I fear most about blogging, that someone much, much smarter than me will stumble across this page (despite this place having less hits than Deep Blue Something), disagree with something I've said, and then absolutely bitch-slap me across our treasured series of tubes.
I hope that if (when?) it does happen that I show a little grace than Mr Morgan (never trust a blog whose title includes a capitalised adjective, not even I was egotistical enough to think SpaceSquid AWESOME a particularly good idea).
Oddly, I had a very similar conversation to the one above yesterday with Dr L about whether we should be allowing IVF treatments on lesbians who are capable of conceiving naturally. It's worth noting, though, that Dr L was far more lucid in her arguments (which were in no way as bad as this doofus', although she was still wrong), and somewhat less inclined to revert to ad hominem whilst losing (as oppose to ad hominem whilst winning, which remains my exclusive preserve).
Update: Mother-cruncher "moderated" my post out of existance, as well! Just because I pointed out that "I am not a bigot" cannot be entirely reconciled with "I will tolerate you even though you still live with your parents, wearing shitty clothing and unable to get laid". It might not exactly be bigotry, sure, but if you're going to be a dick to an entire group of people you give no indication of knowing anything about, maybe you should keep your damn mouth shut.
Just sayin'...
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)