Just because a country elects a smart president doesn't make it a smart country. A few weeks ago I was asked by Wolf Blitzer if I thought Sarah Palin could get elected president, and I said I hope not, but I wouldn't put anything past this stupid country. It was amazing - in the minute or so between my calling America stupid and the end of the Cialis commercial, CNN was flooded with furious emails and the twits hit the fan. And you could tell that these people were really mad because they wrote entirely in CAPITAL LETTERS!!! It's how they get the blood circulating when the Cialis wears off. Worst of all, Bill O'Reilly refuted my contention that this is a stupid country by calling me a pinhead, which A) proves my point, and B) is really funny coming from a doody-face like him.
Now, the hate mail all seemed to have a running theme: that I may live in a stupid country, but they lived in the greatest country on earth, and that perhaps I should move to another country, like Somalia. Well, the joke's on them because I happen to have a summer home in Somalia... and no I can't show you an original copy of my birth certificate because Woody Harrelson spilled bong water on it.
And before I go about demonstrating how, sadly, easy it is to prove the dumbness dragging down our country, let me just say that ignorance has life and death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq War, 69% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11. Four years later, 34% still did. Or take the health care debate we're presently having: members of Congress have recessed now so they can go home and "listen to their constituents." An urge they should resist because their constituents don't know anything. At a recent town-hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his Congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare," which is kind of like driving cross country to protest highways.
I'm the bad guy for saying it's a stupid country, yet polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. 24% could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does. Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive. You know, like the way the Slumdog kid knew about cricket.
Not here. Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators and more than half can't name their congressman. And among Republican governors, only 30% got their wife's name right on the first try.
Sarah Palin says she would never apologize for America. Even though a Gallup poll says 18% of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth. No, they're not stupid. They're interplanetary mavericks. A third of Republicans believe Obama is not a citizen, and a third of Democrats believe that George Bush had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, which is an absurd sentence because it contains the words "Bush" and "knowledge."
People bitch and moan about taxes and spending, but they have no idea what their government spends money on. The average voter thinks foreign aid consumes 24% of our federal budget. It's actually less than 1%. And don't even ask about cabinet members: seven in ten think Napolitano is a kind of three-flavored ice cream. And last election, a full one-third of voters forgot why they were in the booth, handed out their pants, and asked, "Do you have these in a relaxed-fit?"
And I haven't even brought up America's religious beliefs. But here's one fun fact you can take away: did you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That's right, half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament and cannot figure out which one came first.
And these are the idiots we want to weigh in on the minutia of health care policy? Please, this country is like a college chick after two Long Island Iced Teas: we can be talked into anything, like wars, and we can be talked out of anything, like health care. We should forget town halls, and replace them with study halls. There's a lot of populist anger directed towards Washington, but you know who concerned citizens should be most angry at? Their fellow citizens. "Inside the beltway" thinking may be wrong, but at least it's thinking, which is more than you can say for what's going on outside the beltway.
And if you want to call me an elitist for this, I say thank you. Yes, I want decisions made by an elite group of people who know what they're talking about. That means Obama budget director Peter Orszag, not Sarah Palin.
Which is the way our founding fathers wanted it. James Madison wrote that "pure democracy" doesn't work because "there is nothing to check... an obnoxious individual." Then, in the margins, he doodled a picture of Joe the Plumber.
Until we admit there are things we don't know, we can't even start asking the questions to find out. Until we admit that America can make a mistake, we can't stop the next one. A smart guy named Chesterton once said: "My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying... It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.'" To which most Americans would respond: "Are you calling my mother a drunk?"
Re: New Rule: The Sun Revolves around Earth (really)
August 8 2009, 9:13 PM
Well, Gee, that fits right in with the Pravda artil=cle that I posted a few weeks ago that opined that America was becoming Communist due top the dumbimg down of Americans(Teacher Unions) the ministry convinced that the Communist would win, and finally Obama became president.
Well, of course that was just opinion, but what is that that you've posted.
Re: New Rule: The Sun Revolves around Earth (really)
August 8 2009, 9:17 PM
Well, Gee, that fits right in with the Pravda artil=cle that I posted a few weeks ago that opined that America was becoming Communist due top the dumbimg down of Americans(Teacher Unions) the ministry convinced that the Communist would win, and finally Obama became president.
Well, of course that was just opinion, but what is that that you've posted.
***********************************
well, the truth is poetse.. you are stupid. We all know that.
Jim...
[but, to paraphrase your fellow travelers... please provide links, or an argument, where what is posted is untrue]
This message has been edited by Avalon99 on Aug 8, 2009 9:19 PM
Re: New Rule: The Sun Revolves around Earth (really)
August 8 2009, 9:52 PM
Once again:
New Rule:
Just because a country elects a smart president doesn't make it a smart country. A few weeks ago I was asked by Wolf Blitzer if I thought Sarah Palin could get elected president, and I said I hope not, but I wouldn't put anything past this stupid country. It was amazing - in the minute or so between my calling America stupid and the end of the Cialis commercial, CNN was flooded with furious emails and the twits hit the fan. And you could tell that these people were really mad because they wrote entirely in CAPITAL LETTERS!!! It's how they get the blood circulating when the Cialis wears off. Worst of all, Bill O'Reilly refuted my contention that this is a stupid country by calling me a pinhead, which A) proves my point, and B) is really funny coming from a doody-face like him.
Now, the hate mail all seemed to have a running theme: that I may live in a stupid country, but they lived in the greatest country on earth, and that perhaps I should move to another country, like Somalia. Well, the joke's on them because I happen to have a summer home in Somalia... and no I can't show you an original copy of my birth certificate because Woody Harrelson spilled bong water on it.
And before I go about demonstrating how, sadly, easy it is to prove the dumbness dragging down our country, let me just say that ignorance has life and death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq War, 69% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11. Four years later, 34% still did. Or take the health care debate we're presently having: members of Congress have recessed now so they can go home and "listen to their constituents." An urge they should resist because their constituents don't know anything. At a recent town-hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his Congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare," which is kind of like driving cross country to protest highways.
I'm the bad guy for saying it's a stupid country, yet polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. 24% could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does. Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive. You know, like the way the Slumdog kid knew about cricket.
Not here. Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators and more than half can't name their congressman. And among Republican governors, only 30% got their wife's name right on the first try.
Sarah Palin says she would never apologize for America. Even though a Gallup poll says 18% of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth. No, they're not stupid. They're interplanetary mavericks. A third of Republicans believe Obama is not a citizen, and a third of Democrats believe that George Bush had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, which is an absurd sentence because it contains the words "Bush" and "knowledge."
People bitch and moan about taxes and spending, but they have no idea what their government spends money on. The average voter thinks foreign aid consumes 24% of our federal budget. It's actually less than 1%. And don't even ask about cabinet members: seven in ten think Napolitano is a kind of three-flavored ice cream. And last election, a full one-third of voters forgot why they were in the booth, handed out their pants, and asked, "Do you have these in a relaxed-fit?"
And I haven't even brought up America's religious beliefs. But here's one fun fact you can take away: did you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That's right, half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament and cannot figure out which one came first.
And these are the idiots we want to weigh in on the minutia of health care policy? Please, this country is like a college chick after two Long Island Iced Teas: we can be talked into anything, like wars, and we can be talked out of anything, like health care. We should forget town halls, and replace them with study halls. There's a lot of populist anger directed towards Washington, but you know who concerned citizens should be most angry at? Their fellow citizens. "Inside the beltway" thinking may be wrong, but at least it's thinking, which is more than you can say for what's going on outside the beltway.
And if you want to call me an elitist for this, I say thank you. Yes, I want decisions made by an elite group of people who know what they're talking about. That means Obama budget director Peter Orszag, not Sarah Palin.
Which is the way our founding fathers wanted it. James Madison wrote that "pure democracy" doesn't work because "there is nothing to check... an obnoxious individual." Then, in the margins, he doodled a picture of Joe the Plumber.
Until we admit there are things we don't know, we can't even start asking the questions to find out. Until we admit that America can make a mistake, we can't stop the next one. A smart guy named Chesterton once said: "My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying... It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.'" To which most Americans would respond: "Are you calling my mother a drunk?"
Re: New Rule: The Sun Revolves around Earth (really)
August 8 2009, 10:26 PM
You and Bill Maher richly deserve each other. He's out-thinking, and out-writing you by a ton with a single post, but the spiritual kinship is obvious. Kumbaya, moonbat...
Re: New Rule: The Sun Revolves around Earth (really)
August 8 2009, 10:27 PM
You and Bill Maher richly deserve each other. He's out-thinking, and out-writing you by a ton with a single post, but the spiritual kinship is obvious. Kumbaya, moonbat...
Re: New Rule: The Sun Revolves around Earth (really)
August 8 2009, 11:05 PM
To you? Why on earth should I bother?
************************
Exactly. I told you the same.. and you didn't like it. I suppose that you think that you have a superior knowledge about such things.
Well you see, there's a reason it won't work that way. And that reason is the *reality* of what I have posted in the way of my thoughts and opinions vesus your ouput, for any given time period you, or anyone else might wish to choose. No, sorry, your professorial dismissals neither count as output of any significance in their own right, nor do they in any way diminish or demean mine. There is an established way to do that, and that is called "discussion". No, sorry, you are not exempt by reason of income, pedigree, resume, accumulated degrees, or perceived intellect. Anyone can claim to be a master musician, as long as they avoid any musical effort.
So the apparent answer to your question is that as long as you remain mute, the answer remains moot. By simple default, yes, I do have superior knowledge of such things, by the equally simple fact that even one, is greater than the sum of zero. Or to put it all so much more eloquently, put up, or shut up...
Re: New Rule: The Sun Revolves around Earth (really)
August 8 2009, 11:59 PM
Well you see, there's a reason it won't work that way. And that reason is the *reality* of what I have posted in the way of my thoughts and opinions vesus your ouput, for any given time period you, or anyone else might wish to choose. No, sorry, your professorial dismissals neither count as output of any significance in their own right, nor do they in any way diminish or demean mine. There is an established way to do that, and that is called "discussion". No, sorry, you are not exempt by reason of income, pedigree, resume, accumulated degrees, or perceived intellect. Anyone can claim to be a master musician, as long as they avoid any musical effort.
So the apparent answer to your question is that as long as you remain mute, the answer remains moot. By simple default, yes, I do have superior knowledge of such things, by the equally simple fact that even one, is greater than the sum of zero. Or to put it all so much more eloquently, put up, or shut up...
****************************
Please, let me know when you want to have a discussion. I'd really welcome it.
Re: New Rule: The Sun Revolves around Earth (really)
August 9 2009, 12:16 AM
Gee. You call me stupid and that's the best argument you can use to prove it. Wow!
********************
Ok. You are very smart. Back up your assertions. Can you?
Jim...
####################
(Login gillis7)
Re: Dear Sarah shows her idiocy once again...
August 8 2009, 8:06 AM
Well, I'm sorry professor, but somehow, your completely unsubstantiated opinion, your completely unmade case, just doesn't inspire me to accept it with the proper and presupposed awe. Now if you were to bother with even a half-hearted attempt at any sort of point by point refutation of the piece, we might have a place to start. Yeah, I know it's cold, and I hate to be the one, but you haven't quite achieved pronouncment-level gravitas yet. sorry...
gus.
***********************************
Nothing there that I have any particular disagreement with. Apparently that's not the case with you. So which points, and why?
*************************************
Really? You don't have any points of disagreement?
Jim..
*******************
gus seems to have proven a very good point right here,Spalding.....care to refute that one?
Re: New Rule: The Sun Revolves around Earth (really)
August 9 2009, 12:21 AM
Well, I'm sorry professor, but somehow, your completely unsubstantiated opinion, your completely unmade case, just doesn't inspire me to accept it with the proper and presupposed awe. Now if you were to bother with even a half-hearted attempt at any sort of point by point refutation of the piece, we might have a place to start. Yeah, I know it's cold, and I hate to be the one, but you haven't quite achieved pronouncment-level gravitas yet. sorry
Re: New Rule: The Sun Revolves around Earth (really)
August 9 2009, 11:24 AM
Well you see, there's a reason it won't work that way. And that reason is the *reality* of what I have posted in the way of my thoughts and opinions vesus your ouput, for any given time period you, or anyone else might wish to choose. No, sorry, your professorial dismissals neither count as output of any significance in their own right, nor do they in any way diminish or demean mine. There is an established way to do that, and that is called "discussion". No, sorry, you are not exempt by reason of income, pedigree, resume, accumulated degrees, or perceived intellect. Anyone can claim to be a master musician, as long as they avoid any musical effort.
So the apparent answer to your question is that as long as you remain mute, the answer remains moot. By simple default, yes, I do have superior knowledge of such things, by the equally simple fact that even one, is greater than the sum of zero. Or to put it all so much more eloquently, put up, or shut up...
****************************
Please, let me know when you want to have a discussion. I'd really welcome it.
Oh, I start one often. Sometimes with my own thread, sometimes in response to one. Feel free to jump in anytime. No, sorry, three-line professorial dismissals do *Not* qualify as discussion. No, sorry, you are not the final authority on any political issue. To date, those qualifiers have all but striken you mute. Pardon me if I don't sit here all atwitter in anticipation.
Re: New Rule: The Sun Revolves around Earth (really)
August 9 2009, 3:55 PM
Please, let me know when you want to have a discussion. I'd really welcome it.
What? All you are capable of doing is spouting your little brush offs. You have not welcomed nor participated in any meaningful discussions in well over a year. Everyone has pretty much written you off.
~~life isn't about how to survive the storm but how to dance in the rain~~
First, I would like to state that Mr. Maher (and by extension, you) are correct about one thing: there are "Americans" who are dumber than dirt, and who unfortunately....reproduce (seen "Idiocracy"?)
To be frank, Mr Maher raises an interesting point when he states: "Until we admit there are things we don't know, we can't even start asking the questions to find out. Until we admit that America can make a mistake, we can't stop the next one". This is true. I would rather see a person admit and apologize for some ill and/or bad decision that simply deflect it on to others.
However, what HIS definition of what is or is not a "mistake" is not the ONLY definition. There are those who, after studying whatever "facts" are available on an "issue" - and government has been very lax in the distribution of "facts" on many of its "issues", "health care reform" included - have determined that the government's solution to the "issue" is not acceptable and should not be implemented. And this is what he calls a "mistake"?
The problem that Mr. Maher encounters is that he extends this label of "stupid" to all of those who do not think (or is it "feel"?) in his exact same manner. This is a common malady amongst those who consider themselves the "political elite", as Mr. Maher does. Those "elites" - be they leftist, rightist, Republican or Democrat - decided long ago that their vision of what "America" should be is the only vision that matters, and that anyone who disagrees with that vision is either stupid, racist, ignorant or downright un-American.
If Mr. Maher is so concerned with "stupid".....he should be examining the attitudes of those "elites" in which he places such overwhelming trust...which he would never do because it may involve the very same admitting of mistakes in which he is so demanding of others - and yet cannot do himself. By his own standard....does that not make him one of the "stupid"?
To be frank yet again, if Mr. Maher wants those "elites" to make his most important decisions for him, well...he has every right to commit intellectual suicide if he so desires. He has every right to subjugate himself to the whims of others if that is his free choice. And sadly, he has every right to his opinions of those who disagree with him. However, he has no right to demand that the rest of us join him in his quest for the perfection of slavery - and if you think that's not what he's demanding, then read his article again - and this time with your brain engaged.
Like a steely blade in a silken sheath
We don't see what they're made of
They shout about love,
But when push comes to shove
They live for the things they're afraid of
---------------------------------------------
Rush - "The Weapon (Part II of Fear)"
There are those who treat every human
interaction as a military engagement that
could escalate into a potential battle
leading to a nice, satisfying conflict
that's part of a war. There is a name for
such people. They're called assholes.
-------------------------------------------
Stanley Bing - "Sun Tzu Was A Sissy"
Re: New Rule: The Sun Revolves around Earth (really)
August 9 2009, 6:06 PM
Bill Maher writes that America is a stupid country because it has idiots who think the sun revolves around the sun.
But Maher, as usual, is playing to the idiots who, like Jim, think his anti-American humor is cute and clever. I think Maher must have a staff that he pays to research anything, ANYTHING bad about America. This earth/sun thing comes fom a 1999 Gallup Poll.
Maher's humor wouldn't be so funny if he told you the whole story, if he even knew it, which includes Great Britain and Germany. Which countries, by Maher's standards, would make them even stupider than America. Of course, Jim Avalon fell for Maher's rhetoric. He always does.
"Probing a more universal measure of knowledge, Gallup also asked the following basic science question, which has been used to indicate the level of public knowledge in two European countries in recent years: "As far as you know, does the earth revolve around the sun or does the sun revolve around the earth?" In the new poll, about four out of five Americans (79%) correctly respond that the earth revolves around the sun, while 18% say it is the other way around. These results are comparable to those found in Germany when a similar question was asked there in 1996; in response to that poll, 74% of Germans gave the correct answer, while 16% thought the sun revolved around the earth, and 10% said they didn't know. When the question was asked in Great Britain that same year, 67% answered correctly, 19% answered incorrectly, and 14% didn't know."
