No Diggity: Althouse "Support" For Kansas City Bombs

The Kansas City Royals lost The World Series to the San Francisco Giants last night. Anybody else still remember Althouse's previous thoughts on the subject? I do:

"They look so happy now, the people of Kansas City, and I'd rather support them than the imperious San Francisco….”

And there went any hope Kansas City had of beating us, because Althouse is currently excelling at doing everything she can to be "happy" on the wrong team:

Fighting that good fight, against racism, by posting polls of frustrated white opinion - knowing whites outnumber blacks 6 to 1 - without a single comment that it's white supremacy she's been rooting for. 

Supporting Scott Walker, the smiling white guy with racist friends, for Wisconsin's governor - knowing he's going to run for president.

Going along with unconstitutional laws to block black voters nationwide.

Calling for "panic" over the first black president's rational response to her own ignorant, racist, delusional Drudge-led-by-the-nose non-crisis - actually encouraging white hysteria on the black man's watch. 

And, this week, Ann posted this racist catcalling video that edited out all the white guys (how'd the supposedly non-racist Ann miss what any fool could see? Was it on purpose?) Ann could care less, as long as it advanced her bullshit agenda.

But, for now, we can be "happy" the Royals still lost.

It's great symbolism.

Maybe, instead of being "happy," Althouse should hope she and other whites can grasp "meaning"....

The Temptations: Time Passes (U Learn To Walk & Talk)

I'm pondering conservative's racism from almost a century ago.

"White racial terrorism in places like Tulsa and East Saint Louis was the tyranny of white supremacy in human form, bombing, killing, raping, and burning black people alive and their communities to the ground. Anti-racism has created no such terrors or blood-letting where white conservatives are victims."

Compared to conservative's racism from almost a century later.

"The study revealed that most whites who claim to have a colorblind perspective on race, generally have poor perceptions about Black people and refuse to admit it. This passive-aggressive mentality about race ultimately gets passed down to their children. The children were directly asked questions about how their parents felt about Black people. Most of the children were very aware of their parents’ covert racism and candidly reported negative observations such as 'Blacks are bad' and 'Blacks are criminals.'”

With conservative's ability to see history elsewhere.

But not where it matters.

Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron compared Republicans that oppose President Barack Obama to the Ku Klux Klan.

Speaking to USA Today Tuesday on the 40th anniversary of his then record-breaking 715th home run, the 80-year-old Aaron said that Republicans are hindering Obama’s job performance.

“Sure, this country has a black president, but when you look at a black president, President Obama is left with his foot stuck in the mud from all of the Republicans with the way he’s treated,” Aaron told USA Today Sports. Aaron continued: “The bigger difference is that back then they had hoods. Now they have neckties and starched shirts.”

Aaron stated that there is still room for improvement for race relations in the U.S.

“We have moved in the right direction, and there have been improvements, but we still have a long ways to go in the country,” Aaron told USA Today Sports.

Aaron goes on to describe the racist letters he has kept for decades as he was chasing Babe Ruth’s home run record.


“To remind myself that we are not that far removed from when I was chasing the record,” Aaron explained to USA Today Sports. “If you think that, you are fooling yourself. A lot of things have happened in this country, but we have so far to go. There’s not a whole lot that has changed.”

It's almost like they're *up* to something,...

Slavery In Baseball: "The Curious Case of Curt Flood"

Real White Guys: Not Enough Left To Change Anything

I think Branch Rickey was the last white guy who thought like this:

  “The thing I wanted to do was to not make him appear as just an angry black man. There are things that Chalky experienced that I have no understanding of. I don't know what it's like to see my father hang from a tree, or to be illiterate in America. I don't know what that feels like. So I wanted to bring dignity to him, in spite of all his flaws, and I wanted people to understand why he does the things that he does. And last but not least, I wanted to pay homage to my ancestors, to anybody who's alive today, any black men that are alive today.’”

There was that old guy who trained Mike Tyson, too, but they're pretty few and far between,...

 

The Internment Of U.S. Japanese & Idaho's Highway 12

The past can even sneak up on us driving by,...

I Was Reminded Of My Best Friend's Uncle: A Great Man

"I think the change in black consciousness in recent years has made me more sensitive to injustice in every area of my life."

Who are the great men in your life?

My Practical Conservatism Is Better Than Libertarianism

As usual, I'm politically where the action is, and my conservative "friends" - as usual - are stuck out there putting lipstick on a pig again:

"Today, we’re reminded of why [Rand] Paul will never be able to gain much traction outside the libertarian-right without a big change: His shocking blind spot on race."

Oh, don't I know it. Notice my little racial tirade over the weekend? It was in response to Rand Paul supporters. Those people Public Enemy's Flava Flav should've been talking about (instead of just feminists) when he said, "You're blind, baby. You're blinded by the facts, of who you are, because you watching that garbage - straight garbage!" 

And yes, I include libertarian Glenn Reynolds' "advice" as a big part of that ugly, useless package.

Worse than a bunch of Romney-backing clowns now trying to tell my black ass what to do, is the realization these conservatives obviously have no clue what they're doing politically (after - based on Reynolds' wrong-headed assessment of a Romney win - they'd smugly told me "We don't need your vote!") They're now so ideologically driven they have totally forgotten how to win elections. 

Get over it, guys - reality's against you.

"Libertarian populism won't save the GOP."

"Romney to NH GOP: Don’t vote in anger in the 2016 primaries and nominate someone who can’t win."

"Rasmussen poll of Republican voters: Christie 21, Rubio 18, Jeb Bush 16"

I mean, Duh-and-Double-Duh. You know how this round is going to go:

They've got a winner in Christie (who they blame for Obama's win, instead of themselves, for backing Romney) but, rather than taking the win, they're going to embarrass themselves further by bashing their own heads in. Then they'll bash in the heads of anyone who doesn't agree totally with everything they demand (that's what they did with me) and then they'll lose. Again. Without honor or even a smidgen of hope for success. 

That's crazy.

Like the last man I voted for, George W. Bush, I like being right more than being popular.

"His aides wanted to delete it from his speech, and President George W. Bush was mocked by ESPN and Meryl Streep for it afterward. But when he used his 2004 State of the Union address to raise the issue of steroids in baseball, it boosted the issue to the top levels of politics. 

Nine years later, analysts say Major League Baseball may never have reached the point this week where it issued the biggest suspensions in 90 years had official Washington not turned the spotlight on performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). 

Matt Welch, editor in chief of Reason magazine, who has written on baseball and the government, said the government made a point of going after high-profile end-user players — an important strategic decision. 

“That really showed this was about making examples. That was explicit in George W. Bush’s State of the Union address. This was all about making examples,” he said."

I wrote about the need for shaming just this morning. Now it's evening, and I've got another message for my conservative "friends":

If you're as resistant to it as liberals - along with the need to apologize when you're wrong - then I hope you like nature, a lot, because you're going to be wandering in the political wilderness for years, and possibly decades, to come.

Know who your real friends are, people - this time it's really real:

And all yours to lose,...

 

"The Corrections" Isn't Just A Book Title, You Know?

If everyone caught lying was treated like this, we'd be a much better country by now:

"The boo-birds came out in force again Tuesday for Alex Rodriguez. 

But then something different — a swelling of cheers from the crowd in Chicago. 

The fans let out a healthy roar after A-Rod was grazed on the elbow by a Chris Sale pitch in the third inning."

Or how about this baller:

"Before the debate, Weiner put a hand on McDonald's back and said hello, prompting McDonald to reply: 'I would appreciate if you would never touch me again.'"

Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Mitt Romney, Oprah Winfrey, Glenn Reynolds, Ann Althouse - the potential list of targets goes on:

Really - when it comes to how society currently functions - what we need is a little more shame:

Can you imagine all the "upscale subversives" we'd be done with?

Healing

You know, when we can watch cult videos like this and all we really want to know more about is, "Where'd a cultist get that outfit?", it's possible we might have followed cultism too long.

Or just given up.

Or the PTSD has passed.

Or we're just becoming "normal" again.

Plus, seriously, we can't win - that's been a theme of this blog from the start:

We can't win.

Not against NewAge.

Remember, the other day, we were talking about how Oprah's exploited Jon Stewart's "Rally For Sanity" event? Well, we've found another story about how some low-level NewAge bullshitters are exploiting (and making fools of) Major League Baseball players, too. Now, if All-American Mom and Apple Pie Major League Baseball is gullible enough (or - being jocks - stupid enough) to fall for this, what hope is there for a really snotty blog to make a dent in anything, but possibly certain individual's lives?

See, when we got into this, we thought it would be simple:

A) Find some pundit, screaming something like, "MALARIA KILLING MORE PEOPLE THAN WE THOUGHT?"

B) Helpfully point out that, over 200 years ago, malaria was the first problem claimed to be "cured" by Samuel Hahnemann's homeopathy.

C) Wait for the whole world to go, "Oh yea, wow, thanks TMR!" (We expected this to take no longer than 3 days.)

D) The entire world-wide homeopathy industry collapses in shame.

We now see that was unrealistic.

Plus skeptics tried it in England (no media outlet covered the story in America) and Britain's NHS got away with saying, essentially, "Fuck you, the NewAgers are paying, so bugger off!" and that was the end of that.

So we can't win.

Instead, we go on, reading one "informative" article saying:

"Homeopathy has no proven clinical benefit for patients. ..."

Followed by another "informative" article entitled:

"13 Benefits of Homeopathy"

And we are unmoved by any of it. Except, if that's how they want to play it, to feeling a little bit more content with the idea of anomie. But - to anyone thinking that's a wrong reaction to have - don't forget, in truth, it's the only "normal" reaction a human being could have. From the blurb on Harry G. Frankfurt's "On Bullshit":

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, "we have no theory."

Frankfurt, one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bullshit and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.

Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

Is it "normal" not to address (or to pretend not to see) "one of the most salient features of our culture", though recognizing it's "a greater enemy of the truth"?

Really?

Wonder where that cultist got that outfit?

Homeopathy: It Goes With Everything (But Coke)

"In 2001 the IPCC published its Third Assessment report prominently featuring a graph that became 'the logo of global warming'. Previous historical reconstructions didn't show our modern warm climate as particularly anomalous. This was very different, and was hailed as a 'call to action'. Yet Michael Mann's studies were deeply flawed. Omit one or two proxies, for example, and the scary warming 'spike' disappears. Mann's model could produce hockey stick shapes using random data, such as baseball scores, or red noise. Critics alleged that Mann's choices of data and statistical tools all cooled the Medieval Warm Period, and emphasised late 20th Century warming.

A new book recounts how the 'Hockey Stick' model was created and more intriguingly, the political and institutional defence of the indefensible. (At one stage the Hockey Stick's defenders argued that trees on different continents had 'teleconnections' with each other - a claim that wouldn't be out of place in a homeopathy brochure.)"

-- The Register

Almost Made It Home - Never Touched The Bases

"Hey, I have no great desire to foul up the planet any more than the next person, but if in reality, [Global Warming's] all a fraud, it makes Bernie Madoff look like a Little Leaguer."

-- Bob Faulkner, welcoming The Western World to the con - AKA informing our cultish believers that, financially, they really made The Big Leagues this time - while also explaining how this skeptic can friggin' know with absolute conviction, tonight, there ain't gonna be no God damned joy in Minyanville.

And On The Good Side,...Laughter

Hat Tip: The Anchoress

When Women Are Amazing,...

...they're simply amazing.

Hat Tip: Neocon Express.

Goals And Holes: A Look At Living With Liars

"The findings provide another lens through which to view claims, from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s story of sniper fire in Bosnia to exaggerations of income, charitable contributions and SAT scores. As much as these are embroideries, they are also expressions of yearning, and for reachable goals."

-- Benedict Carey, commenting on new studies investigating self-serving lies, in the New York Times

"He doesn't do well with any kind of cross-examination once he's given his name."

-- Mike Lupica, commenting on Roger Clemons' lame apology for his apparent adultery in the New York Daily News


Sure - Clinton, and Clemons, yearn to reach the goal of us believing them without a shred of evidence they can be truthful. No deal,...though placing them, both, under sniper fire can be easily arranged.