Well, via an intrepid commenter, I see that MattY has written his most penetrating insight yet:
All these countries are actually full of stupid policies--in Sweden a privately owned store can’t sell Tylenol and the United States invaded Iraq to eliminate a nonexistent nuclear weapons program--but we succeed nonetheless.Yeah, you know, my one neighbor didn't get the proper building permits from the city before enclosing his back porch, and my other neighbor is a serial ritual sex murderer. Haha. Foibles.
38 comments:
How very true. I mean, sure Hitler slaughtered millions, but he succeeded in bringing affordable automobiles to the German public.
Have MY's parents asked Yarvard or Oxbridge or wherever he spent his college years for their money back? Unless this is all some sort of 21st Century humor that I don't get.
This brings to mind the diff between irony and "irony". And long walks on the beach.
And Tylenol causes more annual reported deaths than bad eggs. But, WGAF.
I think MY's parents are probably pretty happy with how their money was spent. I mean, I doubt you learn how to toss off such glib moral equivalencies at just any old college.
Bees kill more people than ecstasy. Coconuts kill more people than sharks. Cigarettes kill more people in a year than have ever died from WMD. You're about a million times more likely to be killed by your spouse than by a Saudi malcontent.
MattY might as well have stopped education at Civics class in junior high, for all his understanding of how the government actually works.
Democracy is an awful form of governance; that is why we have largely abolished it. We have retained a rump democracy where the knuckledragging lumpenvoters barely can decide anything. For example, in California Prop 8 won with 52% of the vote, including most of the stupidest and most ill-informed "swing voters". It was subsequently stayed by a single unelected judge. Go democracy!
The actual governing class is not the "least knowledgeable"; it is people exactly like MattY, educated at Harvard (but hopefully somewhat less ignorant). For example Judge Walker, who smacked down prop 8, was educated at U Mich and Stanford. Not exactly Harvard, but close enough.
Democracies in the non-Western world (that is, those owning 90% of the world's population) do not last. Rather, they collapse into something else, usually a one-party state with a strongman. It is only democracies in the West that seem to be able to avoid this fate, and of course as previously mentioned we're not really in democracy either. We have escaped its awfulness in the other direction, by handing over actual governance to committees of MattY types. Scary, but not as scary as democracy.
"Democracy", such as it is, succeeds in the West not because of its virtues, but in spite of its flaws. It survives because of the virtues of the people: those "norms" that MattY is willing to admit, and genes which I am sure he would deny.
Leonard's comment puts me in mind of the time my rabbi decided to give his Rosh Hashanah homily on the midrashic interpretation of Isaac's young adolescent career in Tagalog.
Isaac had a career in Tagalog? Who knew?!
Wait a minute, is Yglesias saying he lives somewhere you can buy Sudafed over the counter? This is all starting to make sense...
I got them black tops. I got that Bin Laden. Two for ten; they got garbage down the way.
Yeah, Leonard reminds me of all my conservative friends who worked really hard and then got offered scholarships to the top universities in the country. Mostly they turned them down because they didn't want to be brainwashed, even though it meant costing them an easy leg up in our "meritocracy."
They are truly the noblest of creatures.
Whaaa? Wait a minute. When did we invade Sweden?
Even funnier, apparently he is wrong about the Tylenol...
I don't know if he realizes it or not, but he did call himself the least knowledgeable politically. I think that's pretty dead on.
Nutella, do you really have any conservative friends? In any event, I'm sure you are working hard to be the change you've been waiting for (aren't we all?) -- and to get a cushy spot on one of those "meritocratic" committees.
Genes?
Can you point to any specific HUGO? Loci, maybe?
Harvard doesn't teach chemistry?
Yggie:
Also in Europe, Tylenol is "paracetamol."
Whale-boy, it's paracetamol everywhere. Tylenol is a trade name, dig?
And let's NOT forget, keeping an aquatic mammal...for domestic...within city limits. That ain't legal either.
Professor Coldheart - Is that a C.R.E.A.M. ref in the IOZ comments?
Genes? Don't you know there ain't no genetic differences between ethnic groups? The preponderance of Jews as Nobel prizewinners (sciences) is just because their families valued science at home. And they didn't have to deal with the stigma of their people being enslaved in the past.
@Ken - clumsily blended with Season 3 of The Wire, yes.
Oh, Lulz. Personally, I'd take a genetic predisposition for the moovee$$ over a Norse Dynamite Prize anyday.
I'm quite the Toe the Lineman myself when it comes to scientific matters. Genes have names, histories, distributions, associated proteins, linked syndromes and diseases, a whole panoply of research conducted on them. Find your Jew-gene (Jewne?) in the yellow pages, or else recognize how your unsupported scientific metaphors do the heavy-lifting for you.
3:54
You mean like this?
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2156/9/14
WMD! I got that WMD! Fuck! Look out 5-0!
I heard that WMD is the bomb!
cfox:
Acetaminophen
Capt'n Obvious
>Say Cred Cows
Yeah, be sure and let us know when they find the Democracy gene.
You can't fool me. There is no sanity clause!
Hey IOZ, when are you going to do a pithy analysis of John Cole's blog Balloon Juice? I used to drop in there a lot, but it seems to have become yet another circle jerk of Obots. Tried to engage today, but nothing but flame throwers in response. Thoughts?
Well, if this is what Yggie means by "democracy", it kinda sorta hangs together. But I still say the guy's a Yale plant.
-- sglover
oh the update was classic:
I'm told the incumbent Swedish center-right government actually changed the Tylenol thing since I was there in October 2009. Also in Europe, Tylenol is "paracetamol."
Balloon Juice in general is pretty Obot, but John Cole seems to be pioneering Old Man Blogging more and more. Most of his posts seem to be pointless maundering about his pets, whatever's on TV, his aches and pains, his food, his birdfeeders, his friends, and links to Andrew Sullivan.
Did somebody mention John Cole?
Last week, Greenwald had a long list of legitimate dings on the President explaining why many are not that thrilled with Obama, but this entire “enthusiasm gap” is something I simply do not understand. It is something where I have a legitimate blind spot, because for me, even if I am not that thrilled about voting for Democrats (and I’m going to have to bring an air sickness bag and put menthol cream under my nose while voting for Oliverio this fall), I am entirely enthusiastic about voting against the Republicans. I don’t like a lot of things the Democrats have done, and Obama has sure pissed me off on any number of issues, but the other guys are CRAZY.
I can’t be alone. I would go hopping to the poll on one leg like the black knight. I would crawl through glass. I would literally do anything I had to to make it to the polls to beat back this wave of stupidity. I just don’t understand why more don’t feel the same way. And yes, I understand, “My guys suck a lot less” really isn’t a good GOTV message, but the other guys are SOOO bad it is more than enough to motivate me.
The worst part of Balloon Juice is without a doubt the commenters there. Representative sample :
"When I read postings such as yours, if makes me long for the days long ago when I was a Republican. Republicans tend to vote no matter what. They will bitch, but eventually they tend to get their just rewards. Democrats (not all are this, but the loud ones fit the criteria perfectly) on the other hand, seem to just want to leave the game as soon as it doesn’t go their way. Perhaps we need better Democrats in Congress but we sure as hell need a better base as well. One that doesn’t give up at the very sight of adversity.
Case in point; I’m angry as hell at the Dems for their pathetic and bigoted response to the mosque/community center. And I have said as much to my reps in Congress. But even if I am furious at them, I am still going to vote. That’s my obligation to my team and to ensure that I have a right to keep complaining to my reps."
--Frank, September 5th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2010/09/05/contemplating-a-turnover/#comment-2013921
Capt O -- ah yes, right you are, but whether it's called Tylenol or Paracetamol, it's the same compound eh? That was my awkwardly-made point, anyway. Just commenting on the subtleness (or lack thereof) in Yggie's understandings of the world he proceeds to comment on while missing points of relevance. "It's not even called Tylenol in Europe!" isn't a winning point unless the point is trade names, and not whether the drug is sold in Europe.
Well, and keeping an amphibious rodent, within the city, for domestic, well, uh, that ain't legal either.
Dunno about Sweden, but in several European countries I've been to, over the counter means literally over the counter - ie you can't just grab drugs off the shelves and have the cashier ring them up, but you don't need a prescription. You just tell the pharmacist what you want and he or she brings it to you. (The idea being, among other things, that pharmacists are trained to spot possibly suicidal people and talk them out of buying large quantities of drugs)
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