A shiny gold donkey to whoever knows what inspired me to use this title.
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Meta
Tom Petty? The American flag? Whatever the case, awesome pic!
Thanks – – – Petty is the outside of the onion, the answer lies a few layers in.
Jessica Lynch, Saw her picture on MSN
Nope – – – Lynch has nothing to do with it…regardless of the bogus child support complaint she recently filed against me…really, she’s hardly ever crosses my mind.
Chris:
Would it be okay to use this quote from you –
And I don’t blame them one bit. If I were that Iraqi, I’d be looking for payback also.
I just hope they leave the blue states alone this time and go after the headquarters of Arby’s or something.
Despite the playful tone inserting Arby’s in there I think that the rest of the quote is exactly what I need for a post I am working on.
Actually Chris I don’t need that quote. Found one that works much better elsewhere.
A quote like that has to be presented in context or it comes off as ‘any Iraqi who kills Americans’, when in fact, I’m talking about an Iraqi who had done nothing wrong, yet was tortured by Americans then droped in the middle of nowhere with a Benjamin.
I don’t blame this Iraqi for going insane. The Canadian we renditioned, the one who was kept in a rat infested cell the size of a coffin and tortured for six months…he’s not the same person he was before.
I don’t think anyone would be.
I wasn’t going to use it out of context. I wanted to illustrate a point. Changes are afoot at The Rolling Barrage and I wanted to show that a variety of opinion is one of the strengths of our nation.
However, after further consideration, I decided it was best to wait.
Cheers,
Washington
Oh – The cat staring out the door with the flag waving…?
Washington, was that a guess? That’s my baby girl Cleo and my flag…
Hint to what I’m getting at – – – – has something to do with television, what I saw this weekend.
Noticed the changes to Rolling Barrage, looking good!
Time to put that cat on a diet!
captain…just by me reading that, Cleo’s feelings are now hurt. I’ve heard this from many in the past year or so, but the apartment Heather and I moved out of provided no room for her to get any exercise…since moving into the house, she’s slimed down some. She loves the staircases…I’ll throw the toy mouse down the cellar stairs and she’ll bolt down, bring it back in her mouth, drop it, and I’ll throw it up the stairs, and that’ll go on for a while.
Looks like you live in Mayberry. Very nice
Thanks karl – – yea, it’s old and New Englandish
Dogs have owners and cats have staff.
Does it refer to a particular show in which this song was playing on a sony boombox?
BINGO!!! Van Helsing, the donkey is yours!
Yes, as Tony Soprano lied there in an induced coma, Carmella played this song and recalled a trip to the shore with the Buccos.
Thanks Van…..funny, the name you chose came up as well…laughed my ass off when Paulie said it.
Thought this was interesting:
KURT KLEINER
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints? Chances are he grew up to be a conservative.
At least, he did if he was one of 95 kids from the Berkeley area that social scientists have been tracking for the last 20 years. The confident, resilient, self-reliant kids mostly grew up to be liberals.
The study from the Journal of Research Into Personality isn’t going to make the UC Berkeley professor who published it any friends on the right. Similar conclusions a few years ago from another academic saw him excoriated on right-wing blogs, and even led to a Congressional investigation into his research funding.
But the new results are worth a look. In the 1960s Jack Block and his wife and fellow professor Jeanne Block (now deceased) began tracking more than 100 nursery school kids as part of a general study of personality. The kids’ personalities were rated at the time by teachers and assistants who had known them for months. There’s no reason to think political bias skewed the ratings — the investigators were not looking at political orientation back then. Even if they had been, it’s unlikely that 3- and 4-year-olds would have had much idea about their political leanings.
A few decades later, Block followed up with more surveys, looking again at personality, and this time at politics, too. The whiny kids tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with ambiguity.
The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging loose, turning into bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests. The girls were still outgoing, but the young men tended to turn a little introspective.
Block admits in his paper that liberal Berkeley is not representative of the whole country. But within his sample, he says, the results hold. He reasons that insecure kids look for the reassurance provided by tradition and authority, and find it in conservative politics. The more confident kids are eager to explore alternatives to the way things are, and find liberal politics more congenial.
In a society that values self-confidence and out-goingness, it’s a mostly flattering picture for liberals. It also runs contrary to the American stereotype of wimpy liberals and strong conservatives.
Of course, if you’re studying the psychology of politics, you shouldn’t be surprised to get a political reaction. Similar work by John T. Jost of Stanford and colleagues in 2003 drew a political backlash. The researchers reviewed 44 years worth of studies into the psychology of conservatism, and concluded that people who are dogmatic, fearful, intolerant of ambiguity and uncertainty, and who crave order and structure are more likely to gravitate to conservatism. Critics branded it the “conservatives are crazy” study and accused the authors of a political bias.
Jost welcomed the new study, saying it lends support to his conclusions. But Jeff Greenberg, a social psychologist at the University of Arizona who was critical of Jost’s study, was less impressed.
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karl, while reading this, it reminded me of a friend of mine I had growing up. I moved away to NH and over a decade later we ended up working together. His political beliefs and personality growing up match this study exactally, just as mine do the opposite way.
This is science…so it’ll cause a ‘nuh-uh’ reaction from many.
Chris:
Most the people that I know that are very rigid do not seem very happy most the time. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that the world is always changing and new things are being discovered, if that scares them, they are probably going to spend most of your time scared and angry. Not to mention the fact that they probably miss many opportunities, because it does not fit exactly into their plan.
I think I have told you this, I am a Psych/Bio major and one of the big topics in many of my classes is anti-depressants, I am starting to understand why some people might need to be medicated.
The formula of ‘do the right thing’ + ‘work hard’…when it doesn’t equal fairness, success or happiness, bitterness replaces hope and a chip becomes lodged firmly on one’s shoulder. This weight can make someone jaded, negative…but worst of all, it can squash any sense of empathy for one’s fellow man.
So when the formula of ‘do the right thing’ + ‘work hard’ does finally = fairness, success or happiness in that person’s life, they clutch it tighter and seem to care less about whether or not anyone else gets theirs.
This is the mentality that allows someone to approve manditory minimum sentences for non-violent crime, a minimum wage that hasn’t moved in about a decade, fellow Americans without health coverage…
The politicatos leverage this dynamic with talk of a ‘welfare state’, which in the voter’s mind equals a single mother of five living in a house paid for by other people’s tax money. In the establishment’s mind though, it also equals grandma’s social security check, and always has. ANY assistance to ANYONE is wrong, and as long as they can convince millions of voters to believe that by voting against their interests, that they’re dealing out justice to whoever’s getting over, it’s SATISFYING.
Reagan told a story about a welfare mom who lived in an apartment with high ceilings. That she collected over 100K a year from the government without having to lift a finger. Of course, none of it was true, but the very IDEA that such a thing could happen was good enough to bring over millions of baby boomers who in fact HAD theirs, and were damn sure not going to let anyone get what they worked for unless they sacrificed just as much.
The ‘welfare mother’ myths are still prevelant today, and people still hold onto that, clutch it as hard as they can…all because of this chip they’ve got on their shoulder, which if it were removed, would equal a lot more happiness in toto.
Of course, around where I’m from, if a caller to a radio station happens to NOT have that chip on their shoulder, the host assumes that they’re on drugs.
It’s the norm now. Wake up and think about how unfair it is that you have to work for what other people get for free…
See how that works? They’ve convinced these people that the side with the born-rich trust fund folk who didn’t have to work for theirs…well, they’re all right. It’s the invisible person who lives in a ghetto and doesn’t work…that’s offensive!
Chris:
Thx, I think you explained some thngs very well.
This article seems to fit with this site as well:
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (3/20/2006) — American’s increasing acceptance of religious diversity doesn’t extend to those who don’t believe in a god, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota’s department of sociology.
From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.
Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. “Atheists, who account for about 3 percent of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years,” says Penny Edgell, associate sociology professor and the study’s lead researcher.
I’ve found militant atheists and also folks who were militantly against them. This is very interesting, because the concept of freedom is something that’s supposedly engrained within our culture, yet the concept of someone deciding (as is their right) that there isn’t a God…that’s the tiping point.
It’s studies like this that often make me think that our entire experience here on earth is nothing more than some other species conducting an experiment in a petri dish. The study this alien race is conducting has to do with a system’s ability to withstand a diverse array of life without the inhabitants being provided an answer to the question, “why are we here?”
Perhaps they’re noting right now that even the species’ own history of violence, steming from power and the concept of God being used together for selfish means, the fortunate leveraging both to acquire more for themselves…that even with all the data provided, the cycle continues unabated until finally the health of the system itself (the planet) becomes less important to the species than the destructive cycle of power/God…
The fact that Americans would fear athiests even more than homosexuals is indicative of the fact that even humankind’s own survivial (the necessity of sexual reproduction) is less urgent a concern than whether or not one’s neighbor also believes there’s something out there who knows everything and understands.
Many religions have sought their version of ‘Jesus’ right here on earth, with an understanding that without any way of knowing what happens when one dies, that perhaps we’ve overthought it altogether and are in fact supposed to find heaven during this time here. That whether or not God does exist isn’t the thing we have to figure out at all, but rather the challenge life gives us is to collectively figure out how to coexist in harmony.
My feeling deep down when it comes to Islam’s hatred of Judiasm is the fact that one insists that this life is not important, but rather it’s about whether or not one is granted admission to heaven, whether they EARN the honor – whereas Judiasm doesn’t believe in heaven or hell. The fact that millions can be subjugated with one, but not the other…that’s viewed as a problem by those who rely on the suffering of their people through the use of Islam to maintain order and amass great fortunes. If their people were to look at the Jew and UNDERSTAND how they can be happy, while living without fear of damnation, then those people might one day decide to become Jewish and the kingdoms would lose their only bargaining chip, their only means to continue controlling the masses that they need to remain in power and happy.
Therefore, Muslims must believe that Jews are evil and in need of death…always. Even to the point where if Israel handed over the holy sites to Islamic people, they’d still insist that the Jews needed to die.
Now, Americans don’t think that athiests need to die, but the same thing that causes Islam to naturally hate Judiasm, also causes athiests to be feared here.
In a nutshell…the fact that someone could be happy, living life without fear, while not having to go somewhere on Sunday…that someone could be taking chances with whether or not there’s a heaven. THAT PERSON is insane!
Seriously, this study is the key to understanding the meaning of life, and maybe…just maybe, the idea of conducting it was injected by the aliens to whom our very existance represents nothing more than an experiment in a petri dish.
And no…I’m not stoned (in case anyone became convinced that I was while reading this). Stuff like this, my bread and butter…like Iverson lives for crunchtime, I live for this!
Chris:
I wish I had known you when I was taking philosophy classes. I could have just printed your responses.
My mom is jewish and I think my parents planned on raising me jewish. By 1st grade I learned not to mention he whole jewish thing to anyone as they would usually tell you about the 1st graders version of hell, always involved chains and being tossed into the ocean. By 4th grade I refused anymore religous training until someone could explain where god came from, that was the same year my parents stopped making me take piano lessons. Sometimes I wish I had stuck with the piano, but I have never regretted the religous part.
If any of the religions are true, I hope it is some sort of reincarnation as I would love to come back here, life is a blast, I wonder if the people trying to get them selves into heaven miss out on much of what life has to offer.
BTW, try going kosher before you go jewish as it is the hardest part of the religion, and don’t discuss it with 1st graders or they will scare you christian.
Copied this from the new republic. seems to fit:
Liberal modernity exasperates traditional religion. It fosters a pluralism that denies any one faith the power to organize the whole of social life. It teaches that public authorities must submit to the consent of those over whom they aspire to rule, thereby undermining the legitimacy of all forms of absolutism. It employs the systematic skepticism of the scientific method to settle important questions of public policy. It encourages the growth of the capitalist marketplace, which unleashes human appetites and gives individuals the freedom to choose among an ever-expanding range of ways to satisfy them….
Although I’m not a follower of any particular religiosity, I think that the Flying Spaghetti Monster would be my diety of choice.
Flying Spaghetti Monster
If you think Cleo has a lead butt, you should see my Scooter. He was a half dead kitten when I rescued him..and he never quit eating after that..I do think its a neat pic Al.