He Might Not Be an Idiot, Vut

 Sen. Kennedy plays one on TV, and in The Senate, and for the rubes back home.

I could believe he really is not possessed of average intelligence.   But I have to concede he might be the best at deliberately playing the past.  Anyway.

He was doing his usual tissue paper thin depth of a line of questioning on the Dean of the Yale School of Public Health.  Some such.  Over the past couple days.  In response to her well supported, and reason based, well articulated answer,  he brushed aside all she said.  He dismissed it as word salad.

Word salad is not sentences conveying ideas, and facts, and realities your political bias will not accept.  Asshole.

In theory I get playing dumb to get Republican votes.  But his act at playing dumb, if that indeed is the case, is entirely convincing.

Bullshit is Normalized. It's Killing Us. Perhaps Literally. Sooner Than Later.

My first point of departure was going to be the bullshit apologists for bozo;  otherwise known as DJT, ex POTUS.  Since he has gone past the line of acceptable if execrable rhetoric, and is now knowingly spewing Hitler quotes? What do say about the assholes who are defending him against his critics?  As if it could ever be not fair to point out that a toxic and hate mongering wanna be dictator actually is a  toxic and hate mongering wanna be dictator?  What kind of sick twisted, emotionally and cognitively disordered person, gives a fuck about the feelings of a toxic and hate mongering wanna be dictator?

Sidebar.  Ann Althouse recently posted a clip where Oliver Stone said sympathetic words about a certain toxic and hate mongering wanna be dictator.  She herself has a history of being sympathetic to the toxic and hate mongering wanna be dictator.  Anyway . . .

We live during the era of maximum bullshit.  I don't blame the internet, save for it makes it easy for any asshole to spew their opinions  (I get it, that I sort of resemble the remark myself,)  And it is not as if the never was a time with partisan hackery masquerading as journalism.  But I invite you to read the article.  

Opinion Journalism is Broken 

I haven't properly read it yet.  I will later.  I confirmed my point, and the last paragraph says it well.  Used to be a time where opinion journalists actually did research.  Just this past hour, I read some piece of shitty writing by right wing law professor  J. Turley.  He was singing that right wing hack song about how Disney is losing money because of social positions, and it' influence in the product.  He does not rely on any data at all.  So I feel justified in calling him a dick faced fraud.

Bitch please. You are a perfect example of what the fuck is wrong with so called opinion journalism.  If you are not doing the homework, the research?  Say that up front.  If you are talking about shit you really have no expertise in?   Say that up front.  If you are spewing talking points and or "alternative facts" that your side wishes were true, but know aren't?   Say that up front.

PS.  I googled.  Disney had a decent last quarter, as reported. Various elements of the entertainment industry, particularly for companies with heavy reliance on motion picture ticket sales, are still in flux.  Something further exacerbated by craft guild strikes in the industry that are now resolved, and the industry is still trying to catch up with production.  And some recent releases are suffering for lack of proper  pre release publicity.  Likewise, streaming services all over the industry have been experiencing a correction do to rapid growth for a time, slowing, increased competition, and changing viewing habits.

So if some dishonest motherfucker wants to argue it's the 'woke' agenda doing it all? In a perfect world, that dishonest motherfucker should either have to admit their slip shod, candy assed output as such, if not flat out partisan hackery.

There are several factors why American if not world society is headed to a shit hole. As the late great Professor Harry Frankfurt said,  bullshit is more prevalent than ever.  And it is dangerous.

Shit That Hurts My Pretty Brain.

 Bad arguments, and bad writing.

So the OWL has posted for a second time, about the melting down of the Granny Lee statue.  At least she recognized that the hated (by reasonable people who know the actual history and purpose of such monuments to white supremacy,) status was about hate.  Yet she still gave voice to the other side.  If you heritage is hate, you heritage is not worth respect.  Sometimes shit really is that simple.

I had a headache before reading the blog post.  I even tried to re read it.  But the headache intensified.  So I will just wing it.

Her writing and argument style is the kind that would give me a headache if I did not have one already.  Simply said, she writes her mostly subjective observations about things as if they are universal truths.  

What is my stock assessment of so many things lately?  Tiresome and exhausting.  Yeah.  That covers it.  Without going too far down another rabbit hole. One of the main reasons I am not a free speech absolutist, is that most people and their opinions are usually tiresome and exhausting.

But that is actually one of my default opinions of the human species.  

Cringe America

 I finally have figured out how to express in a few words, why I don't like Harleys, and more generally, Harley Culture.

It's the epitome of American cringe.   It's uncool, middle aged Americans, trying to pass for cool.  And failing at it. Spectacularly.  Definitely not cool.

But you do you, boo.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/out-the-ooze/201507/nothing-says-old-dude-getting-motorcycle

Truth be told? I despair for the nation. I expect ruin. Have a nice day.

 

Word Wars: Wokeism and the Battle Over Language

McWhorter makes the most sense when he sticks to his field of expertise:  words.  This is not to say he never ever, for a moment makes a tiny bit of sense on the social commentary.  I am just pointing out the spectrum.  The relationship between actual knowledge and making objective sense of shit, vs mere belief, and getting shit wrong.

Re his continuing use of the word religion for the anti racist woke thing.  He almost admits his obvious error  here.   He riffs on the good an bad aspects of religion, broadly.  But he fails to make the full on distinction.  And I will just say what he should say instead of what he has been saying:

"When I say it's a religion, I mean it's like the bad parts of religion, but not the good parts.  In other words, its like when people behave badly, having no connection to religion at all."

That is my explanation for what he gets wrong.  And that leads into my next point.  Re his social commentary  (I will not say political, as he really doesn't swim in that shit as much as the social shit.)

Now granted.  If I ever had the chance to speak to him there is a good chance I would rudely dismiss him by saying either you hurt my pretty brain, or that you are not smart enough to waste my time.  But if I were not in a rude mood, I might engage, and say something  . . . . ask something like:

Do you believe your social commentary will be considered worth reading in 50 years, and if not, what do you think will be the reason it is found so lacking?

I can be the master of passive aggressive.  However, as stubborn he is about what he believes, he actually is capable of not only cognition, but self analysis.  Even if the latter is far from his default.  And he might come up with an answer so interesting, I might say, hmmm, that is interesting.

Moving on.  Funny how the Ivy league professor can trash talk his elite, elect peer class, but get all softhearted when a professor gets dogpiled for saying stupid shit on twitter.  But he is a member of that peer class.  But I will admit,  I have some agreement with the idea every single bad tweet should not end a career.   I say it depends on exactly what the tweet was!

Last hit of the day.  A linguist should be more precise with words.  We live in a day and age where the psychopathic leader of one of the world's greatest powers has people literally thrown out of windows.  Don't equate being dogpiled on twitter to that! Actual living people are being made dead that way!  

Do better!

I Am Not Saying The OWL is Cheering On Nazis

 But Ann Alehouse is cheering on bozo's campaign use of flat out Nazi propaganda tactics.

As a first matter, any comparison equating past democratic party members' complaints about elections to the putsch (I don't call it an insurrection?) It's so far past exaggeration or argument it is a flat out lie.  However, in a new ad, bozo's team is calling that previous Democrats' election complaining "violent."

And the OWL said on her blog that she liked the trick.

Didn't that one Nazi say something about going with the lie, and repeating it so often the fact it is a lie gets lost.  People just remember the lie?

And that is what the OWL is supporting;  use of Nazi style, deliberately lie telling.

It's vile and nasty if you ask me.