Friday, February 28, 2014

An Epidemic of Intellectual Xenophobia



This whole thing about Rush Limbaugh of all people talk about being “pushed” and “prodded to do better” and intellectually “challenged” by authorities is really silly.  Rush is the perfect example of a person who is completely intellectually lazy, as are all people who rely only on FOX news.   Callers say “My dad was always rather conservative but he became a regular fanatical unreachable whacko when he began watching FOX news.  I’ll use Rush Limbaugh’s words against him.  Because FOX news doesn’t make you think, or challenge what you know, or tell you something new.  No- - the purpose of FOX news is to make you “Feel” kind of like a post hypnotic suggestion.  It’s like a post hypnotic suggestion where a whole chain of mental pre assumptions falls into place.  And you trust that “People can reason from point A to arriving at point B”.  But if they had to reason from point A to point B themselves, they couldn’t do it if their life depended on it.   Rush mocks people who talk about “feeling” things yet shows like his are the chiefest perveyers of it, and they aren’t good feelings.  But I was thinking that I myself could have tried harder at school like High School.  If I hadn’t been on the medications I was on, if I had a better diet perhaps with more protein rather than junk food- - I would have done better.  So really- - if Rush was “pushed” as much as he claims certainly by now he has several college degrees, perhaps a Masters- - in several subjects.  Judging from how many people rely on Rush Limbaugh for economic expertise- - certainly Rush Limbaugh could “clean my clock” on any college test in economics.  Or ditto with electronics.  Rush has been in radio his whole life and I have not.  Certainly he could wipe the mat with me in any basic electronics proficiency test.  Of course I got to think about it and Rush is the perfect specimine of how a person ends up who has NOT been pushed- - who dodges the draft and is intellectually the laziest man on the planet.  He would be a poster boy for “Don’t let your kid grow up like this- - fat and lazy- - push your children when they are young”.    I noted way back in April of 1991 that Jesus in the Bible appears to be someone who’s never been “pushed”.   I mean- - if Jesus was the perfect man then surely he went through all of the ‘life lessons” people go through in common to reach maturity, that is, if Jesus is to be our example, he had to have gone through these things of putting up with things his elders told him what to do and how to think.  How come there is nothing about this in the Bible of how “Jesus character was formed” in the maturation process.   If Jesus was the greatest physician that ever lived- - how many hospitals did he build.  How many surgical procedures are named after him.   Is Jesus like Albert Sweitzer, or Marie Curie, or Lister, or Jonas Salk?   Is Jesus greater than these physicians?   If Jesus was a Carpenter what Cathedrals did he build that, say rival the ones in the Middle Ages in Europe?   Rush used to chide people who thought Dolphins were intelligent and yet none of them ever built a road or a bridge or a hospital.  What are Rush Limbaugh's great contributions to society?   Is it "to restore economic sanity to government" like the tea party says?  Can Rush explain ANY economic phenomenon?  Can Rush explain supply and demand economics?   Does he believe that the secret to increased supply and profits is to always sell more at a lower price?  Really?   First of all under classic supply and demand economics there is one perfect price at which something will sell and also the amount that is sold at that price can be predicted with exactitude.  Does Rush know that?   Think about it.  What will happen if your asking price is too low for what you are selling?   No- - reduced profits is not the most obvious peril.   No.  If you set your items at too low of a price you will sell out of the items and there will still be a line of people waiting to buy them.  Conversely if you set your price too high for the items you sell you will have a lot of items left over unsold- - and no one else to buy them.  Of course I have an entirely different theory about price and demand.   This is my changing rectangle and perimeter theory.  That is- - the perimeter of the rectangle remains unchanged but only the shape of the rectangle changes and when the area is at its maximum- - that is your best price.  People know what elastic demand is.  Items with inelastic demand are generally items that “society tells us we cant live without”.  These would be things like - - oh, electricity - - gas - - water.   But people don’t think about elastic supply curves.  For instance.  Suppose- - - nobody on this block but me has coffee and I have stacks of pound and a half cans in my closet.  I may tell others “You know I know you don’t have coffee to sell- - but you can get it from me.  I can “make it happen” but it’s going to cost you.  In exchange for you now having a supply- - you can charge More for coffee you’ve actually GOT than what you would hypothetically sell coffee for if you had some, when you don’t have any.  I guess what I want to know Rush says “excellence” and I say “Excellence in WHAT because I sure haven’t seen any.   Just to sit and read a bunch of clips the Koch Brothers and Grover Norquist hands him?  What kind of talent does that take.  You know- - I hope Sean Hannity is right.  I hope the tea party is at war with “The Republican party” because that means their self destruction is near.  They are getting so extreme and society is moving on - - forward - - without them.   The tea party is fast becoming irrelivent and they can’t stand that.

Bill Press has got my knickers in a twist this morning.  Again he’s talking about how horrible E cigarettes are and how they need all of the smoking and advertising restrictions that regular tobacco products have.  You know a hypocrite when they say something over and over - - and over till your ears ring - - and I’ve spoken how Christians and the tea party do this too- - but in this case it’s “second hand smoke” and “tobacco is a filthy habit, and cancer and carsoginians and all of that.  E cigarettes have none of these liabilities but people like Bill Press want to put cancer warnings on E cigarettes and carry on about photos of infected lungs and all that- on the packages.  Bill Press can’t use pollution as an argument anymore, so now he just says “Well I feel uncomfortable being around people who do that sort of thing”.   Well, what if others felt “uncomfortable” knowing a Black person was in the room, or a guy reading “The Advocate” or “Mandate” or gay pornographic magazine.  Maybe I don’t like people in soap operas the minute they get into an argument with their spouse- - immediately down a drink or two - - just to brace them for what’s coming.  This anti smoking hysteria is every bit as bad at some of the hysterics Christian groups have engaged in in the past, and we all think they’re a bunch of fanatics.

This republican congress HAS no ideas when it comes to useful, productive legislation to either produce jobs, or as an alternative to the Affordable Care Act.  They keep talking about some alternate vision – like Hannity did yesterday – but I haven’t seen so much as one bill that spells out exactly HOW the republicans plan to create more jobs.  In terms of unemployment like this Congressman guest on the Ed Schultz show just now- - people that are unemployed now have had jobs all their live and find themselves in a unique economic situation in this recession which has gone on in excess of six years.  Evidence is clear now that the “recovery” is gaining little if any momentum- - and forces are out there to keep that from happening- and many of these forces are the Republicans themselves, who refuse to pass bills that could really kick start this recovery.  Back in 1983 we had an economic “tail wind” in pulling out of that deep recession of 1982 and Ronald Reagan proposed things to help the unemployed and government employment and involvement was stepped up.  This is the first “recovery’ that actually has been accompanied by a general CUT in government employment and services.  (Selah)


I was watching the remainder of the Bill Nye and “Ham” debate at the Creation Research Institute.  “Ham” said that there is not even any hypothetical possibility that anyone could shake him of the young earth and young universe theory.  Nobody asked him about the Milky Way galaxy being a hundred thousand light-years across.  Mr. Ham insists that though the continental drift and plates and such is at a slow, steady page now, this is not to preclude that it, and a host of other natural laws of science operated completely differently in the past.  What is to be done with an individual like this?  Bill Nye says that certainly the majority of scientist have been incorrect on issues and beliefs in the past, but when Lister for instance, discovered germs in the operating room, this was a proposal that immediately bore fruits in the operating room, as the rate of death during surgery plummeted.  I bring you again the Dana argument that is Jesus was so great and “knew all’ how come he never talked about modern medical science and anti-biotics and all that?  Huh?   As to the question about “where consciousness itself comes from” nobody knows the answer to this.  But for Mr. Ham to say “The answer to every unknown question is to say that God did it’ is almost meaningless.  It’s like people ask where Matthew and Luke got their material for the quotations of Jesus and scholars answer “From the Q document”.  Of course this Q document is just a hypothetical construct because nobody has actually discovered this Q document.  And to just say “God did it’ and then say “God Himself is a complete mystery which we’ll never know” therefore is of no scientific use at all.  And to say “We’ll all find out when we die” is like saying ‘I’ll pay you what I owe you when Hell freezes over, or when money begins raining down from the sky” when if that ever happened- - - nobody would care about having enough money anyhow.  There is a value in something that presents useful information in a timely manner. 


 I had Katie Kurick on.  She talked about this hard-ass juvenile judge who sent kids away to reform school at the drop of a hat, like one minor fight in the eighth grade, and it was a girl.  She stayed in “The Hall” for two years after an initial sentence of three months.  It took out that all that meanness twords youths was something he could make money off of.  So he began getting kickbacks from the juvenile system, and sentences to Juvy rose even higher.  He would deny leaves to see parents even at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  One girl’s father was dying of a stroke and this judge would not even let the girl get a furlough out for that.  Then it was retro-Thursday and they had Jaqueline Smith of Charlie’s Angels.  I guess I learned a thing or two.  All of the girls were really close.  Then it was dinner and we had beef Strogenoff, and I must say they have improved their recipe over the years.  And this was a very beefy batch with good beef.  We had corn and a green salad with that, and rice pudding for dessert.  Dora made it around the room with seconds with a portion larger than the initial one.

It began raining in earnest in the night and has been quite heavy at times.  Last night I was in a long and initially slow medication line around the corner and got an egg sandwich.  It was the usual game shows and then it was “Arrow” followed by “Tomorrow People” I watched till 9:25 but must confess I was fighting drowsiness.   OK,  Kosher bakeries don’t have to supply non Kosher food.  Therefore if “Abortions” aren’t on our menu, doctors shouldn’t have to supply those.  I believe any business owner has the right to determine what services he'll render and which ones he won't, and even has the right to decline to do business with certain people and he doesn't have to give a reason to the government as long as it's not a matter of race, color, or creed.  I believe the businessman has the right to ban guns in his establishment, even if it's a concealed carry state like Florida.  I believe a businessman has the right to say whether smoking is or is not allowed there.  And if I am a bar owner in Russia I believe I have the right to conduct my club as I will and if I want to allow it to become a gay pick-up bar, then I will, or I have the right to discourage gay people from patronizing my bar.  It's my choice.  I believe I have the right to property- - and that some bigger business won't swallow me up using the eminent domain doctrine- - and government coersion.