Thursday, May 28, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Fuzzy Math
Yesterday, I was going to blog about empathy and how it was going to be the latest Republican four letter word, temporarily replacing socialist, fascist, San Francisco values, etc., as the buzz word of the week. Because, you know, empathy is such a weak character trait. It's hard to be a grumpy old rich white guy AND show empathy. I digress.
I tuned in to Beck and then Limbaugh and sure, I heard the "E" word, but Limbaugh decided to take a different route. He started talking about what a horrible reversal rate Sonia Sotomayer had in cases that she had ruled on. He was ranting about some absurd number like 80% of her decisions were later reversed. Now, knowing Limbaugh I knew that a)there had to be more to the story or b)he was just making shit up.
Fortunately, The Daily Kos, exposed the real story. I'll let them take it from here:
Diamond legend Ted Williams once said that hitting a baseball "carries with it the continuing frustration of knowing that even if you are a .300 hitter... you are going to fail at your job seven out of ten times." The same, apparently, is true for Supreme Court appellees. Over each of the last several terms, the high court has reversed 75% of the cases that have come before it.
That number might seem high, but it makes perfect sense. The Supreme Court, unlike the federal circuit courts of appeal, can choose which cases it wants to hear (a perogative called certiorari). The Supremes select just a handful of matters (maybe 1-2% out of thousands) each year, and they generally pick rulings they'd like to overturn. After all, if they're happy with an appeals court decision, why spend more time on it if they'd only uphold it?
Judge Sonia Sotomayor, though, seems to have something in common with Teddy Ballgame - her average was well above average. Indeed, Sotomayor's decisions were upheld far more frequently than the norm. Apparently, out of the 380-odd opinions she penned while on the Second Circuit, the Supreme Court granted cert on just six. And of those six, Sotomayor was reversed on only three. That's a .500 batting average, a figure even Ted Williams would have to admire.
Hmmm. Quite a different story when you take away the Oxy-moron's twisted slant, huh? So either Rush is dumber than I thought or he believes that his listeners are dumb enough to buy into his bullshit. Or both.
I tuned in to Beck and then Limbaugh and sure, I heard the "E" word, but Limbaugh decided to take a different route. He started talking about what a horrible reversal rate Sonia Sotomayer had in cases that she had ruled on. He was ranting about some absurd number like 80% of her decisions were later reversed. Now, knowing Limbaugh I knew that a)there had to be more to the story or b)he was just making shit up.
Fortunately, The Daily Kos, exposed the real story. I'll let them take it from here:
Diamond legend Ted Williams once said that hitting a baseball "carries with it the continuing frustration of knowing that even if you are a .300 hitter... you are going to fail at your job seven out of ten times." The same, apparently, is true for Supreme Court appellees. Over each of the last several terms, the high court has reversed 75% of the cases that have come before it.
That number might seem high, but it makes perfect sense. The Supreme Court, unlike the federal circuit courts of appeal, can choose which cases it wants to hear (a perogative called certiorari). The Supremes select just a handful of matters (maybe 1-2% out of thousands) each year, and they generally pick rulings they'd like to overturn. After all, if they're happy with an appeals court decision, why spend more time on it if they'd only uphold it?
Judge Sonia Sotomayor, though, seems to have something in common with Teddy Ballgame - her average was well above average. Indeed, Sotomayor's decisions were upheld far more frequently than the norm. Apparently, out of the 380-odd opinions she penned while on the Second Circuit, the Supreme Court granted cert on just six. And of those six, Sotomayor was reversed on only three. That's a .500 batting average, a figure even Ted Williams would have to admire.
Hmmm. Quite a different story when you take away the Oxy-moron's twisted slant, huh? So either Rush is dumber than I thought or he believes that his listeners are dumb enough to buy into his bullshit. Or both.
Waterboarding Part 2
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Olbermann interviews the conservative radio host who underwent waterboarding to prove that it wasn't torture and 6 seconds later declared that it is "absolutely torture".
I haven't been able to confirm this but I heard that up until 2005 the CIA actually called waterboarding "water torture". What an odd name for something that supposedly isn't torture.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Waterboarding
If you do nothing else today, take the time to check out this video. It shows a conservative radio host being waterboarded to prove once and for all that it's not torture.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
FU Rush
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Olbermann can be a little over the top at times but considering the subject of this rant, you reap what you sow.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Secede Already
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The more the Texas Governor talks about secession, the more I'm in favor of it.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
BillyBillyBilly
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Nice point by point smackdown of BillyO and his use of Nazi propaganda to try to smear Obama. What a class act. Sometimes I truly feel sorry for people who trust this fool for their information.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Beat the Rich
This is pretty funny. It starts out slow but stick with it until they are actually playing the game. It's worth it.
Friday, May 8, 2009
The Defense Rests
Dick Cheney said in a recent interview, "We resorted, for example, to waterboarding, which is the source of much of the controversy, with only three individuals."
So now that he has officially confessed to war crimes, can we finally begin proceedings to prosecute this evil sociopath?
So now that he has officially confessed to war crimes, can we finally begin proceedings to prosecute this evil sociopath?
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
One Day At A Time
We've been slowly making our way through the Penn & Teller Bullshit! series. Last night, we watched the one about 12 step programs (Season 2, Disc 3), which focused primarily on the Alcoholic Anonymous program. I had already determined that these 12 step programs are bullshit, but until last night, I had never bothered to actually look closely at what the 12 steps actually say.
I will share them with you in a moment. But first, let's cut straight to the bottom line, which is that these programs have absolutely no effect on whether or not a person gets sober and stays sober. The research shows that the AA success rate is around 5% and the success rate of someone who just decides for himself to stop drinking is around 5%. What it comes down to is if a person is ready to quit, they're going to quit, with or without AA.
The main difference is that the person who decides for himself only has to go through one step, change the behavior. The person who goes through AA has to admit that they are powerless losers and the only way they can be saved is if they submit entirely to an invisible deity, who will then magically cure you. But only after you have completed all of the steps.
I had heard that religious groups use these meetings to prey on new members while they're at their lowest and most vulnerable but I never realized just how over the top the 12 steps are in their religious mumbo-jumbo. This is nothing short of a cult.
Take a look at all 12 steps and tell me which one's you couldn't do by yourself, without a make believe higher power, and which one's you really need to do at all in order to change a behavior. I'll go first.
AA Steps
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.
--- You're not powerless over alcohol. You just have bad habits and bad self discipline. Decide you don't want to be that person anymore and then fix it. And don't give me that lame "disease" argument. Cancer is a disease. Alcohol is a beverage.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
--- How? I mean this one is just insane. You're all there is and even if you go pretending or actually believing that there is a higher power guiding you, in the end you did it all by yourself. Yes you did.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
--- No, you made a decision to change your behavior. That's all.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
--- Good. Everyone should do this from time to time. But it's not going to have any bearing on whether or not you stop drinking.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
--- If it makes you feel better, go for it. But it's not going to have any bearing on whether or not you stop drinking.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
--- If God made you (in his image) didn't he put those defects of character there on purpose? Why would your God want to remove them? And if the "defects of character" actually means "drinking", then again, all you're doing is changing a behavior.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
--- Ummm...see my answer to #6.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
--- Go for it but again, it's not going to have any bearing on whether or not you stop drinking.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
--- See answer to #8.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
--- See answer to #8.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
--- This has absolutely nothing to do with drinking or changing a bad behavior. This is nothing more than pimping their religion.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
--- Spiritual awakening? Hardly. All you did was change a habit. And in the process, you were tricked into becoming members of a religious cult and now the next step is they want you to go out and start recruiting new members.
So when you break it down, very few of these 12 steps actually have anything to do with actually changing a behavior. Instead, it's all geared toward conditioning you to start buying into their religion, which is what they are really selling you...one day at a time.
I will share them with you in a moment. But first, let's cut straight to the bottom line, which is that these programs have absolutely no effect on whether or not a person gets sober and stays sober. The research shows that the AA success rate is around 5% and the success rate of someone who just decides for himself to stop drinking is around 5%. What it comes down to is if a person is ready to quit, they're going to quit, with or without AA.
The main difference is that the person who decides for himself only has to go through one step, change the behavior. The person who goes through AA has to admit that they are powerless losers and the only way they can be saved is if they submit entirely to an invisible deity, who will then magically cure you. But only after you have completed all of the steps.
I had heard that religious groups use these meetings to prey on new members while they're at their lowest and most vulnerable but I never realized just how over the top the 12 steps are in their religious mumbo-jumbo. This is nothing short of a cult.
Take a look at all 12 steps and tell me which one's you couldn't do by yourself, without a make believe higher power, and which one's you really need to do at all in order to change a behavior. I'll go first.
AA Steps
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.
--- You're not powerless over alcohol. You just have bad habits and bad self discipline. Decide you don't want to be that person anymore and then fix it. And don't give me that lame "disease" argument. Cancer is a disease. Alcohol is a beverage.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
--- How? I mean this one is just insane. You're all there is and even if you go pretending or actually believing that there is a higher power guiding you, in the end you did it all by yourself. Yes you did.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
--- No, you made a decision to change your behavior. That's all.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
--- Good. Everyone should do this from time to time. But it's not going to have any bearing on whether or not you stop drinking.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
--- If it makes you feel better, go for it. But it's not going to have any bearing on whether or not you stop drinking.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
--- If God made you (in his image) didn't he put those defects of character there on purpose? Why would your God want to remove them? And if the "defects of character" actually means "drinking", then again, all you're doing is changing a behavior.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
--- Ummm...see my answer to #6.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
--- Go for it but again, it's not going to have any bearing on whether or not you stop drinking.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
--- See answer to #8.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
--- See answer to #8.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
--- This has absolutely nothing to do with drinking or changing a bad behavior. This is nothing more than pimping their religion.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
--- Spiritual awakening? Hardly. All you did was change a habit. And in the process, you were tricked into becoming members of a religious cult and now the next step is they want you to go out and start recruiting new members.
So when you break it down, very few of these 12 steps actually have anything to do with actually changing a behavior. Instead, it's all geared toward conditioning you to start buying into their religion, which is what they are really selling you...one day at a time.
And on the Eighth Day...
The running joke on the left is that the new symbol of the GOP is a dinosaur. I wonder why?
Friday, May 1, 2009
Oops, We Left Out an Important Part of the Quote
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The truth about the new ad from the National Organization for Marriage.
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