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Comments Posted By whatsthatsound

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Nature of debate, Goodbye Christopher Hitchens

Lots of opinions, and lots of cats. You have my sympathy!

» Posted By whatsthatsound On September 15, 2010 @ 5:36 am

Not you and me, because we would still have to deal with the “opinions” of our furry friends. And they can be brutal! 😉

» Posted By whatsthatsound On September 15, 2010 @ 5:10 am

Certainly not “boring” to me, Kalima. I think you make excellent points, and I agree with what you write about making waves. There are enough waves as it is!

» Posted By whatsthatsound On September 15, 2010 @ 4:43 am

That is a fantastic quote, boomer! I have pretty much held the same view, although Ms. Anderson articulates it far better than I ever have.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On September 15, 2010 @ 4:42 am

I agree with you. I, like you, don’t respect opinions. But, unlike you, I don’t respect facts, logic or argument. I acknowledge them, validate them, etc., but can’t see any reason to respect them. I respect people, and ferrets. For example, if someone tells me something really valuable, I respect him for that. And I try to show him my respect. I don’t respect the thing he told me, but I do try to incorporate it into my philosophy as best I can. I don’t really see why I should respect a fact. A fact just is. I acknowledge it. Simple.

I don’t respect logic. I respect and admire the hairless apes who developed it, and those who are particularly adept at using it.

I don’t respect argument. In terms of having any sort of positive feeling toward it, I’m about fifty fifty. I like it when I win, and I don’t like it when I lose. I like it when it teaches me something, and I don’t like it when it makes me feel like killing somebody. I DO respect people who argue well, but no more than I respect people who have formed very interesting opinions.

So, in a nutshell, I have no more positive feelings toward logic, argument or facts than I do for opinions.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On September 15, 2010 @ 2:53 am

Wish You Were Here…Again

I agree with others that this is worthwhile for reposting. Such a story! Thank you, Q. Do you think Moist Robot will have anything to say about this?

» Posted By whatsthatsound On September 8, 2010 @ 8:44 pm

Circus News Networks

So true, Adlib. Some whackjob with 50 deluded followers now gets to create an international incident that can have real world repercussions, and at the very least tarnishes our image among a something akin to a third of the world’s population. And for what? What does he get out of it? What sort of madman could imagine God condoning his behavior, or perhaps, what sort of MadGod does he think he’s following?

But I becha he’ll back down. He said he will “pray” about his decision. I’m guessing that’s his escape hatch. Somebody very high up (Not God high up, but pretty far high up) has got to be putting a lot of pressure on him now. So he’ll say that praying has changed his heart, that God has told him to practice “forgiveness” or some such bullshit. And the clown act will be over. Bring on the elephants.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On September 8, 2010 @ 10:27 pm

Friday Music Thread – Guitar Heroes

This song has become so iconographic, and the Beatles are known more for the textures and inventiveness of their songs than for any individual instrument’s part, that it’s easy to overlook the fact that this song has a short, sweet and soulful guitar solo that can stand alongside the best of ’em.

Let It Be

» Posted By whatsthatsound On September 4, 2010 @ 7:40 pm

Some of Us on the Left Are Being Royally Ratf*cked

I agree. I think he’s surrounded himself with some pretty compromised folks, and he gets a shitload of bad advice. He seems to be a firm believer that only insiders can fix things, but that just means the solutions they come up with are the ones that their buddies still in the industry can stomach. It’s the “if we don’t do this, world go blooey!” argument.
In fact, that might work as an epithet for the whole darn human race:

“We Got Bad Advice”.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 29, 2010 @ 2:24 pm

the badger surfaces! Nice to see you here, furry!

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 27, 2010 @ 4:44 pm

A Friday rant about the Tea Party, Psychics and tiny biting flies

Wow, what a postcard from Bizarro World! Thanks, Javaz.
We REAAALLLY need to do something about education in this country!

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 27, 2010 @ 5:48 pm

TAKE ACTION: Help Write a Speech For Pres. Obama

Agreed, MR. This “he’ll look like an angry black man” apologia does not ring true for me, either. He’s been president for two years, nearly, and people have made their minds up about him, for the most part, already. If he’s got anybody on his team feeding him that, as an excuse for being less forceful, they should be shown the door. And if that’s what he has on his mind, which I highly doubt, then Lord help us all! Half the people in the U.S. thought Bush was a spoiled, unlearned war monger with a Daddy Complex, and nothing HE ever said disabused anyone of that notion. But still he spoke, said what he wanted.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 26, 2010 @ 4:59 am

I like it, Javaz!
We could call it the “We DID Get Fooled Again!” speech.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 25, 2010 @ 7:57 pm

I often quote this poem, (The Second Coming), but these comments, and the stabbing in New York, bring these two lines to mind:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity

Full of other things too, but Yeats was too much of a gentleman to say so!

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 25, 2010 @ 7:55 pm

yes, she just becomes absolutely drained and searches, in vain, for the “coolest” place in the house to sleep in.
I read your story, such an ordeal! It’s ridiculous how many scam operators there are out there in cyberspace.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 25, 2010 @ 4:28 am

will do!
And yes, out in the thick, moist, soggy air. How are the cats holding up? Rosie hates this weather.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 25, 2010 @ 4:02 am

We’re talking about TV, aren’t we? When it all comes down to it, that’s the greatest Slumber Inducing Sheepalizer that mankind has ever invented, isn’t it?

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 25, 2010 @ 3:21 am

You’re not alone in THAT department, K! I tend to piss everybody off at one time or another!

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 25, 2010 @ 3:19 am

I think our disagreement rests on just that last bit you placed in parentheses. Propagandized fear manipulation has become so prevalent, and so combustible, that ANY more fear risks just throwing gasoline onto the fire. I know that life is more complicated than fiction, but in the Star Trek episode I referred to, Kirk and the Klingons (great name for a 60s rock band, I know) LAUGHED at the entity. Fear and anger would only have strengthened it.
Michael Moore, I feel, nailed it in his segment in “Bowling For Columbine” where he talked about the Fear Machine, the “tall black man”, the bogey men all around us. Marilyn Manson. Things We Must Be Afraid Of. I think it wouldn’t hurt for the president to call that baloney out, call it what it is “propagandized fear manipulation”, and challenge Americans to be better than that.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 25, 2010 @ 3:17 am

sorry, can’t agree. Too much fear already. Fear IS the poison that is wrecking everything. If not Arthurian, then Rooseveltian. We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 24, 2010 @ 9:22 pm

Great Minds Trek Alike!

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 24, 2010 @ 8:35 pm

I agree; it needs to be a story. But it can’t be the same story. It can’t tap into the same primal fear bullshit the Republicans have made their forte. It needs to be a fable, something Arthurian, something that makes people see how poisonous the air has become. He needs to keep asking, “Is this really who we are? A bunch of wimps afraid of our own shadows? What has made us this way, what are the voices we’ve been listening to?”
There was an old Star Trek episode about an amorphous alien that kept trying to get the Klingons and the Federation to fight, and finally they realized what was going on and refused to fight. The alien “starved”. That’s the kind of narrative I would like to see being spread now.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 24, 2010 @ 8:14 pm

and THAT means a lot to me, coming from YOU!
🙂

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 24, 2010 @ 6:38 pm

What you wrote is perfect, K, but it makes me want to add something like, “When a house becomes divided against itself, as ours has, we must take a moment to move above the fray, to take our sights off our perceived “enemies”. Rather, we should turn our attention to the voices that are most loudly stirring up the rancor between ourselves and our fellow citizens. We’ve been warned about such voices. They appear in our children’s fairy tales and in our most sacred texts. To fall under the spell of such voices is to lose that which is most precious. We must identify those voices, recognize their true intent, which is nothing other than to loot the once proud house as it collapses from the forces of divisiveness that they themselves fomented, and we must loudly and decisively reject them.”

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 24, 2010 @ 6:20 pm

That’s great! That’s what needs to be said, truly.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 24, 2010 @ 5:59 pm

Magnificent!

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 24, 2010 @ 5:58 pm

Mid-Atlantic Trip Part 5: Charlottesville

J’accuse!

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 23, 2010 @ 7:57 pm

they’re making a comeback.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 23, 2010 @ 6:38 pm

Sorry. I dunno. You just…..REMIND me of somebody…..

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 23, 2010 @ 6:22 pm

hey, you want the job, you got it, Questionable Robot!

» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 23, 2010 @ 5:23 pm