Humor – Page 38 – The Wrongologist

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 22, 2015

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs”− John Rogers

On Friday, we wrote about the Randian/Republican ideologues who want to keep myth alive in our discourse about economics. Today, we note that the Oklahoma Tea Party wants to change AP History courses in the state because maybe, they teach too much of the bad parts, like that messy land grab from Native Americans and all that civil war violence in the west. The bill would require schools to instruct students in a list of “foundational documents,” including some good things, such as the Federalist Papers, along with some questionable items like the Ten Commandments, two sermons, and three speeches by Ronald Reagan. In addition, they want included:

Founding documents of the United States that contributed to the foundation or maintenance of the representative form of limited government, the free market economic system and American exceptionalism

Limited government, the free market system and American Exceptionalism? Nope, no political agenda there.

The bill designates a total of 58 documents that “shall form the base level of academic content for all United States History courses offered in the schools in the state.” Many of the texts are not controversial and are undoubtedly covered in AP US History courses around America. Things like the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and Gettysburg address. The bill was approved by the Education committee on an 11-4 vote.

It’s all great stuff if you want to raise a state full of conservative think-tank weenies.

But we must go further. TPM reported that Fox host Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery suggested getting rid of the nation’s public schools altogether on Thursday’s “Outnumbered.” She was talking about that Oklahoma bill:

There really shouldn’t be public schools, should there?…I mean we should really go to a system where parents of every stripe have a choice, have a say in the kind of education their kids get because, when we have centralized, bureaucratic education doctrines and dogmas like this, that’s exactly what happens.

Sure. Bring back the 16th century, because in the 17th century, the first public school in America was founded (1635). So public education must have been holding us back ever since. Oh, and a glance at Ms. Montgomery’s Wikipedia page shows that she is a product of public education, from Lakeridge High School in Oswego, OR and from UCLA, it was public schools all the way. Hard to judge if that is a good thing, though. She seems to have graduated from both.

The news this week included snow, the dog show, the stay of the immigration executive order, Jebbie talking foreign policy, Biden acting frisky with the new Secretary of Defense’s wife, and A-Rod’s apology.

The Northeast has its own bad torture movie:

After the Beagle won at the Westminster Dog show, there were consequences:

Jeb Bush spoke about foreign policy. Mostly, he tried to flick away his bad angel:

Activist judge changes immigration policy, and the GOP is for it:

Biden misunderstood exactly WHO was being too frisky this week:

A-Rod found pie on his menu in NY:

Road Trip Vol. II

Finally, trees with green leaves, green grass and temps in the 50’s. There was snow cover along I-95 for 630 miles south from the mansion of Wrong in Connecticut. After that, we passed through 50+ miles of ice-covered trees. In that part of America, there seemed to be few snow plows, so gas station and supermarket parking lots were ice-covered. Many schools and stores were closed.

I-95 was dry from Baltimore to Savannah, due to Socialist snow plows clearing and salting the roads. Apparently, the Obama tyranny will never end.

Have you noticed that Congress looks more and more like their owners?

Boehner is convinced that America will blame the Democrats when funding for the Department of Homeland Security expires. The reality may be the opposite:

Today’s Links:

What ISIS wants. A must read from The Atlantic.

Netanyahu wrecked a two-state solution with Palestinians in 2011. Found this at Sic Semper Tyrannis, a go-to blog on military strategy in the Middle East

Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren have “cordial” meeting. Does cordial mean, “civil, but can’t stand each other?” Were they smiling, or grinding their teeth?

Limited Blogging

There will be limited blogging over the next few days, as the Wrongologist and Ms. Oh So Right take a road trip to a warmer place. It was -2°F this morning, and the wind was blowing. We want to experience spring a few months early, so off we go.

There should be some interesting links and a daily cartoon over the next few days, if Wrongo can connect to the Internet while Ms. Right is driving. To get you off to a good start, here a caveman’s take on the eternal questions about the value of a healthy lifestyle:

Monday Wake-up Call – February 9, 2015

Today’s wake-up is for people in Vermont. Most of us know that Latin is considered to be a dead language, because it is taught in few schools, and very few of those are public schools. Thus, very few people can read it, and, aside from a few Roman Catholic priests, almost one speaks it.

In an interesting cultural study of America’s rural North East, an eighth grader in Vermont thought it would be a good idea for the state to adopt a Latin motto, “Stella quarta decima fulgeat” (“May the fourteenth star shine bright”).

You may not know that Vermont entered the union as the 14th state.

A Vermont Republican state Senator, Joe Benning, introduced legislation recommending that Vermont adopt the eighth grader’s idea as a motto. Things got stupid in a hurry, as indignant Vermonters took to the Twitter machine and the Internets. Here are a few samples:

I thought Vermont was American not Latin? Does any Latin places have American mottos?

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!! Sick and tired of that crap, they have their own countries

How do you say idiotic senator in Spanish? I’d settle for “deport illegals” in Spanish as a backup motto

Hell No! This is America, not Latin America. When in Rome do as the Romans do!

So if they think Latin is the language of Latinos, what do they think Pig Latin is? The language spoken by Latino police? While it’s safe to say that the number of Vermonters who can’t tell Latin from Latino are a minority, it’s just sad that they feel emboldened to advertise their ignorance online.

The issue isn’t “just” that there are some people who do not know Latin. More disturbing is that people don’t even know there IS a language called Latin, and because of their anger, or their sense of American Exceptionalism, they make extremist, xenophobic statements.

Oh, and have they never heard of “E Pluribus Unum”?

This leads straight to your Monday musical wake-up song, Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in The Wall, Pt. 2”, from their album, “The Wall“. PF’s biggest mainstream success, it was written by PF’s lead vocalist, Roger Waters. ABITW Pt. 2 is a protest song against rigid schooling and boarding schools in the UK. It was the band’s only number-one hit in the United Kingdom, and the US. The song talks about how the student had a personal wall separating him from the rest of the world, how the teachers were just another brick in the wall. ABINTW Pt. 2 became a protest song for certain South African students in 1980 during the Apartheid regime, and the song was subsequently banned in South Africa.

Here, for Vermonters who have never heard of the Latin language, is the “We Don’t Need no Education” clip from “Another Brick in The Wall”:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 8, 2015

Today is Sunday, the day when Christians worship their God. So, it’s appropriate that we focus on the reaction of certain right-wing Christians to Mr. Obama’s talk at the National Prayer Breakfast last Thursday. He spoke for about thirty minutes but the part of the speech that the right wing are focusing on is when he brought up the Crusades: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

Humanity has been grappling with these questions [violence in the name of religion] throughout human history. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.

The righties are complaining that Obama is saying that Christianity is equivalent to ISIS. Which of course, isn’t what he said. He was saying that Islam was not ISIS, and demonizing Islam for the sins of ISIS is hypocritical, because, among other reasons, Christians have plenty to answer for, given their historical actions in the name of religion. So, conservatives are slamming Obama for not equating terrorism with Islam. For example, Jim Gilmore, former Republican governor of Virginia said:

He has offended every believing Christian in the United States…Mr. Obama does not believe in America or the values we all share.

The blog Red State said:

Barack Obama, leftwing community organizer and closet theologian, used the National Prayer Breakfast to throw a tu quoque at anyone critical of Islam while continuing to fancy himself as the Pope of Islam

When did the clearly dominant religion in the US develop a glass jaw?

Mr. Obama has attended this prayer breakfast each year to speak about his faith. And the things he said this time were things that Christians agree with: that at times, the religion has been perverted, that we have to walk humbly before God, that God’s purposes are mysterious to us. These thoughts are accepted by every Christian. And so what he said was normal, a recognition of historical fact, and an urge towards some level of perspective and humility.

But what Obama says is never enough for these crypto-Christians. And as for American’s Christian conservatives, they love, love, love violent retribution. One example is their love affair with torture. Do you need the reminder that Sarah Palin said about waterboarding:

that’s how we baptize terrorists

Here is your OTHER approved form of Sunday worship:

But today, we have as many deniers as believers:

Mr. Christie, a denier, needs a different vaccine:

Mr. Romney’s exit creates a stampede:

Bibi gets to address Congress, but teleprompter has ideas:

Brian Williams not always honest:

Chris Christie: Pro-Life, But Anti-Vaxx

Here is some humor for your Wednesday:

Chris Christie: "Parents should choose whether their child spreads deadly infectious diseases to all their classmates, not the government."

— Top Conservative Cat (@TeaPartyCat) February 3, 2015

There's no vaccine against stupid.

— God (@TheTweetOfGod) February 3, 2015

Say hello to the triumph of ignorance, fear, and science denial. And along come the Republican politicos, starting with Governor Chris Christie, who was quoted by the NYT:

It’s more important what you think as a parent than what you think as a public official. I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well.

But, here is what Mr. Christie said in reference to a much less deadly disease, Ebola:

All these contagious diseases must be contained and killed dead in their tracks.

Christie quarantined the Ebola nurse, Kaci Hickox against her will near Newark Airport after he ordered 21-day mandatory quarantines for all returning health workers.

What’s different other than the politics?

When the Wrongologist’s kids were in school, if your kid wasn’t vaccinated, they weren’t allowed to go to school. Period. That may have been the single largest reason that measles was declared virtually eradicated in 2000. Now, because of the anti-vaccine movement, the fight against deadly (and preventable) childhood diseases has taken a huge step backwards.

Here’s the reality: We’re all in this together, so your refusal to vaccinate your children has greater ramifications than just your narrow self-interest and magical thinking. The truth is that vaccination ISN’T a personal decision; it’s a social obligation. Maybe Republicans believe we don’t have a society, that America is simply a collection of individuals who can make any damn choice they please, because, liberty!

That pernicious belief must be stamped out if the nation is to survive.

So, why is Christie parsing this? This isn’t something Mr. Christie needs to hedge about. You simply say, the people who are choosing not to vaccinate their children based on some Internet BS or the spouting of some half-wit television person are endangering your children and mine. Go get the shots. Period.

The refusal by the anti-vaxx community to meet its obligations to preserving the public’s health is irresponsible, and arguably borderline criminal. This is what happens when many in the country believe demonstrably false things and then, emboldened by weasel politicians, cherry-pick the science to fit their prejudices.

Monday Wake Up Call – February 2, 2015

Waaay too many Mexican appetizers last night, not to mention margaritas and beer. Anyway, another national football excess is in the record books, congrats to Tom Brady and the Patriots.

Get your day started with this hilarious meditation on football vs. baseball by the great George Carlin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1422579428&v=qmXacL0Uny0&x-yt-cl=85114404

Monday’s hot links:
There’s no such thing as Nacho cheese. On the day after the Super Bowl, when so much nacho cheese was consumed, this shows how little can be taken for granted. Inquiring minds are wondering—do people expect nacho cheese to be a particular flavor? Or color? Or texture? Or is it just any cheese that happens to be on nacho chips? Here’s the truth: There are no standards for nacho cheese, it is just whatever we believe it to be. Does this bring up deeper, non-cheese-related existential questions?

Yosemite Park reported the first confirmed sighting of a rare Sierra Nevada red fox (Vulpes vulpes necator) in nearly 100 years. Park wildlife biologists documented a sighting of the fox on two separate instances (December 13, 2014 and January 4, 2015) within the park boundary. The Sierra Nevada red fox of California is one of the rarest mammals in North America. Estimates say there are fewer than 50 in the US. Check it out:

Mississippi has the highest vaccination rate for school-age children. It’s not even close. Last year, 99.7% of the state’s kindergartners were fully vaccinated. In California, epicenter of the Disney measles outbreak, almost 8% of kindergartners (41,000 children) were not immunized against mumps, measles and rubella. In Oregon, it was 6.8%. In Pennsylvania, it was nearly 15%! The secret of Mississippi’s success stems from a strict mandatory vaccination law that lacks the loopholes found in almost every state.

Leaving Afghanistan has become one of the most difficult operations the US military has ever undertaken. A Colonel in charge of packing up Afghanistan last year called it “a logistics Super Bowl.” Here is Lt. Gen. Raymond Mason, who headed Army logistics until he retired last year:

Certainly in our lifetime, it’s one of the biggest, if not the biggest operation in terms of complexity, size, and cost.

The dirty little secret is that our military knows how to get people, weapons and supplies into a war zone, but has little experience getting them back out. This may cost the taxpayers more than $2 billion before it is done.

China has sent drones to Nigeria. As the Boko Haram insurgency enters its 7th year, China is busy building a better relationship by selling drones, MRAP vehicles and smart bombs to Nigeria, (most of which the US has been unwilling to provide to Nigeria due to human rights concerns). China wants to become a first tier exporter of military equipment, and is looking to lock up Nigeria as a supplier of oil. On January 25, 2015, a photo appeared online showing a Chinese CH-3 UCAV drone which crashed in Nigeria’s Borno Province. Borno is the area where much of the Boko Haram violence occurred in 2014.

Your thought for the week: We hear all the time from yahoos on the web and yahoos in Congress something like this:

Isn’t it unfair that corporate dividends are taxed twice?

The answer is no, and here’s why:

A corporation is a legal entity. If it has an “accession to wealth” (meaning, a profit in tax legalese), in our system, the corporation must pay taxes. A stockholder is also a legal entity. If a stockholder receives a dividend, he/she also has an “accession to wealth”, and thus, pays a tax.

Why is this hard to understand? No one claims that when a worker gets paid a wage, and pays a tax on that income, and later spends some of that after-tax income paying someone to mow their lawn, that it is double-taxation for the lawn guy to pay income tax.

This is really simple folks: Money moves from entity, to entity, to entity, and each time, income tax applies.

And, if someone makes the argument that the shareholder is the corporation, they don’t get what a corporation is. It’s a separate legal entity that exists to protect shareholders from the business’s liabilities. The fact that it pays taxes is a normal consequence, and the entire point of its existence.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 1, 2015

The Super Bowl is today. There will be queso con chorizo and enchiladas at the Mansion of Wrong.

It was a busy week. Obama has bromance with India’s Prime Minister Modi, then flies to the funeral of the Saudi King. The Republican beauty pageant began; we learned that the Koch brothers plan to spend nearly $900 million to elect Republicans in 2016, but Mitt isn’t running. Mitt didn’t leave gracefully, but perhaps he showed the self-awareness to avoid further indignities. He signed off calling for an “end to the grip of poverty,” which, considering the source, should be received by most with something between a snort and a laugh.

The Koch brothers are almost their own political party. The biggest contenders for the Republican nomination went to Palm Springs for their audition with the Koch funding team. This means if you are a candidate, you will shade your story and beliefs to please the Kochs and their fellow travelers. That means you are going to spend more thought about getting and keeping your Koch money, and less time thinking about which policies matter. Or maybe, its just birds of a feather.

Choose your poison at the SB:

Thank you, Supreme Court, politics is now forever in your debt, and democracy has left the building:

We will soon leave the snow season for the money season:

Mitt decides not to be the next Adlai Stevenson:

Mr. Obama visits Saudi Arabia, makes sales call:

When will they ever learn?

Your word for the week: Agnotology.

Agnotology is the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data.

Does this concept bring to mind any particular group?

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 25, 2015

“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” – Frederick Nietzsche

It is clear that we have entered what may be the last years when we can delay or avoid entirely, the decline of America as the world’s indispensable nation. What is unclear is what the US electorate thought they were voting for last November. Polls have repeatedly shown that the public favors the Democrats’ policy proposals, but increasingly, votes for Republicans. So polarization has ensued, and DC has already turned its focus to the NEXT election, even though we just had one.

Everything between here and there will be simply BS and time filling. Are we to lose another two years? The rest of the world will not be waiting for us.

The Republicans had many responses to the SOTU:

Then there was the official Republican response:
BTW: Don’t you wear the plastic bags INSIDE your shoes to keep the water out? Shoe condoms? Really?

Yet, there are always a few things we all agree with:

With the unfathomable House and Senate votes that have already been taken, is there an image problem?

Last week, the pro-life peeps marched in DC, and the R’s in a show of support, tried a vote on abortion:

Could this be the way the logjam ends in DC?

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 18, 2014

With the media and the political parties now shifting their focus to 2016, once again, the Democrats need to remember how badly they have been shellacked under the Obama presidency. The WaPo reports that Republicans have gained more than 900 state legislature seats since 2010. Here is the sorry record:

Mr. Obama now holds the record for “worst coattails” by a modern president, eclipsing even Nixon. There are more than 7,000 state legislative seats in the USA, so the Democratic losses between 2010 and 2014 amount to 12% of all state legislative seats nationwide.

Republicans now control more than 4,100 seats, their highest number since 1920. After taking over 11 legislative chambers from Democrats in 2014, Republicans now control 30 state legislatures completely, and have full control of state governments (legislatures and governorship) in 23 states.

Democrats, by contrast, have full control of 11 state legislatures and total control of state government in just seven states. This isn’t just Obama’s fault, Democrats have focused almost exclusively on the winning the Electoral College since Mr. Clinton left office. Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy is long dead. This loss of state legislatures owes much to the spectacular failure of Democrat’s leadership. Democrats should throw out their entire leadership team and start over. Why would any candidate want to brand themselves with the organizations run by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and whoever it was that said Democratic candidates should run content-free campaigns in 2014?

How bad is this? Remember that policy is made first at the state level. With Republicans in control of so many state governments, the policy track record for their side will be vastly superior to what Democrats can do at the state and local levels. Also, State legislatures and governors redraw congressional lines. In most states, how the nation’s 435 House districts will look after the 2020 Census will be determined by governors and state legislators. Republican legislators are more likely to draw lines that are friendly to their side. Unless Democrats can reverse their state House and Senate losses before the 2021 redraw, Republicans will control the House for a very, very long time. Finally, State legislatures are the minor leagues of politics. Most politicians − President Obama included − who go on to great things, hone their craft in the state legislature of their home state. The Republicans’ farm system is now significantly larger than that of Democrats.

So begins the Republican’s discussion about 2016: