Just good news this time. I’ve been feeling decent to good for a few months now. I’ve been doing things which city people would call “hikes”, but I call “itsy-bitsy, teensy-tinsy miniature walklettes.” Three to four miles on mostly flat ground. That’s good for a leukemia patient, but the thrill of clearing such a low…
Category: politics
Way too early analysis of 2024 presidential candidates
Let’s take some time from my hospitalization posts at look at prospects for the 2024 US Presidential Election. The short version: things are looking utterly bleak. Irredeemably dismal. We the people must demand better. The Republicans: forget it. They’re all stark raving loony nutso mad. They’re unabashed bigots, every single one of ’em. They’re advocates…
Joe Biden is an Inflatable Love Doll
Like an inflatable love doll, one can project whatever fantasy one wishes upon Joe Biden. He’s a climate warrior! He’s pro-union! He’s a life-long crusader for abortion rights! He has a great civil rights record! If you believe hard enough, if you cultivate your delusions strongly enough, if you click your ruby slippers together and…
A Thought Experiment and Analogy Combination
Imagine you’re a project manager in a company. It’s time to submit an annual budget for running your little fiefdom. The company is notoriously tight with money, even though it’s doing well financially. Whatever budget you submit will likely be cut by about 20%. Do you: A) Submit an “honest” budget proposal, only asking for…
Seven Stupidest Anti-Bernie Arguments
There are many stupid reasons put forth by pundits and regular folk to justify their opposition to the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. I’ve picked seven of the most stupidest of them and pointed out the obvious problems with these arguments, despite the fact that rebuttal really should be unnecessary. I mean, the arguments are so…
Newbie or Noob?
I recently joined a discussion listserve group. It uses an old-fashioned technology, email, to communicate people’s missives to the group. People are then free to comment. It mostly consists of people posting really stupid stuff, other people pointing out how stupid the stuff is, and then the posters of stupid stuff complain about how the…
Famous Presidential Quotes
“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” ~ George Washington “… government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” ~ Abraham Lincoln “We have nothing to fear but fear itself” ~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt…
Doggies for Bernie
I started a new group on Facebook. It was Molly’s (my Shi-tzu/Pomerainian) idea. If you want, you can visit/join here. Molly telepathically dictated this manifesto to me: Doggies for Bernie Manifesto by Molly We, the doggies of the USA, have grown weary of party politics in the USA. While Republicans enact counter-productive measures for many…
Suggestions for Bernie Sliming
Sigh. It’s gonna be a long, long primary season. Bernie has barely declared his candidacy and the center-right corporatist mainstream media is already cranking out story after story after story attacking him. We should not lose sight of the real victims here. Our hearts should bleed for the poor, sweet, innocent, defenseless hacks forced to…
Gish Galloping Bernie
One of my top nominees for the Most Irritating Rhetorical Technique of All Time Prize is the Gish Gallop. Basically, the debater tries to drown the argument in a flood of claims, as if an enormous volume of specious gibberish is convincing in and of itself. Each point must be exhaustively rebutted individually, or else…