Research and The Court

The death penalty for child rape goes back to the Court because the lawyers fucked up their research!  They couldn’t find a bill!  An Executive Order!

Zotero

Thanks to Camilla for pointing met to this blog post on the Thomson/GMU case re: Zotero.  Just bullies?!

Intellectual Dishonesty

Please bear with me, I need to get through a little bit before I get to the dishonest.  I’ve been thinking about the republican voters and I think that they divide into 3 or 4 groups.  The low information voter: they have accepted the meme that the Republicans are strong and careful and that the democrats are wild eyed crazies who hate the troops.  I feel badly for their mistaken beliefs and their unwillingness to learn, but they are really fundamentally good, though mistaken people.  The next group are the bigots: whether religious or white supremacists or whatever, I believe that they are fundamentally damaged people.  I hate their beliefs, but I think that there must be some horrific reason why they hate so much.  I pity them.  The next group are the selfish: those who profit directly from the republican turmoil, who feed at the trough.  These are the Wall  Streeters, the Fox people, the Clarence Thomas’s.  I feel disgust at them, but I do recognize the selfishness is a very very human trait, one that we usually learn to sublimate for the group by age four, but some never learn.  The fourth group are the intellectually dishonest.

These are the neocons, the “free market” extremists, those who developed and sold the republican ideology.  What really pisses me off about them is their intellectual weakness.  OK, you had a hypothesis.  Maybe I think that it was dangerous and mistaken, but it appeared to have some validity.  So, you tested it.  It failed.  What does an intellectually honest person do?  Step back consider the failure, learn, and develop a new hypothesis.  That’s what the leftists have done repeatedly, which is why there are functioning liberal democracies: they are not afraid to learn.  Is that what the archictects of the disasters of today are doing?  No, they are doubling down.  They are afraid to learn.  Why?

This post helped me develop a hypothesis.  Their entire self image is built up around being a tough “free marketer” or neocon.  I think that they see it as manly and for some reason (Vietnam?) they question their manhood.  Their entire self is built around this fable and despite all evidence, they can’t let the fable be wrong because, if it is, who are they?  What are they?

What kind of country do we live in?

The most important economic decisions are made by unelected bankers.  Hmmm, scared?

Our house may be divided

is it also burning?

Jesus

it really is 1929.

Exactly

Conservatism as a governing philosophy is dead, George Bush killed it.  But, bleat the “conservatives” he’s not one of us, he is the “anti-conservative”.  If that were so, then why are you so in love with Palin: Bush in a skirt?

Pay Equity

A recent WSJ editorial extols the Republicans for the fact that pay differences between men and women declined when they hold the White House.  Hmm, you say, counter-intuitive, but I guess that they are better on this pay stuff than I thought.  But, wait a minute!  Kathy G. reminds us that there are two factors in play here. It could be that the Republicans pushed hard for raises for women that no one remembers.  Or, they screwed over formerly well paid men and made their pay decline.  If women’s pay declines more slowly than men’s the pay inequity declines.  It may not mean an improvement for either, they might (and are) both screwed.

Which do you think happened?  All those great well paid manufacturing jobs down at the plant are still there, right?

James Fallows

On why Palin is so very scary

Barbara Jordan

Thanks to Jack and Jill Politics for reminding us all what a fantastic person Barbara Jordan was.  We miss her!!!