1 Had to hit the dictionary for apotheosis.  Heh, learned a new word today.

2 Wizz Kids.....

3 Alright, who forgot to latch the door on Biden's "office" this time?

4 It is truly amazing that people who know so much about how we proles should live our lives know so little about their own spheres of responsibility.

5

Don't know much about history

Don't know much biology

Don't know much about a science book

Don't know much about the french I took

But I do knowI know better than you

And I know that if you do what I tell you to

What a wonderful world this would be

Don't know much about geography

Don't know much trigonometry

Don't know much about algebra

Don't know what a slide rule is for

But I do know that one and one is two

And if you would only do what I tell you to

What a wonderful world this would be

Now I don't claim to be an "A" student

But I'm trying to be

So maybe by being an "A" student baby

I can win the election in 2016 for me

Don't know much about history

Don't know much biology

Don't know much about a science book

Don't know much about the french I took

But I do know better than you

And I know if you would do what I tell you to

What a wonderful world this would be

 

6 So what will be our apotheosis? 



Open Revolt?

7 "Elitist technocrats are also the ones making you buy pasteurized milk and buy cars with seat belts."

What I find endlessly risible is that out here in Northern Commiefornia, affluent liberal followers of the socially approved local religion -- gourmet food -- whine incessantly about how hard it is to buy unpasteurized raw milk.

Never making the connection between the liberal nanny-state meddling busybodies they themselves elect, and the intrusive inconvenience to their own lives.

8 And these are the people who presume that they can run the world for us, and do our jobs better than us. They can't. And I didn't even need to see Healthcare.gov crash and burn in Icarus-colored flames to know it. How did I know that their self-esteem greatly outpaced their level of competency? Simple: Because I've met them. Yet single payer will be easy peasy for them to implement & run......

9 I was so darn busy planning your little lives that I forgot to check on whether we're spying on America's allies.

10 I want to change my gender to Blurred Lines Brunette.

I'll never leave the house.

11 I think this misses how they actually get elected which is the most important thing. Sure, the lefties think they're elite but the GOP has stopped mocking them for that. Also, gee, it's easy to get elected when you racially demagogue to the recently added 60 million new americans you've placed in every city in the country.

12

But they will happily exempt themselves from the ill effects of their machinations.

 

13 "They believe themselves to be transcendentally hypercompetent, a delusion that they are permitted to cling to only because they've never been in positions of actual responsibility where their decisions will result in well-defined failure or well-defined success." Mostly, they specialize in inflicting the pain of their failures on everyone else while making sure they don't suffer.

14

Ace,

 

This is one of your best. It gets to the heart of the Liberal Elite mindset.  What they can't get their head around is this: Will they abide with someone else making decisions for them who are even More Elite Than They Are? 

15

"I can't figure out if the people acting outraged at me about this are stupid or disingenuous. Or both. Probably both."

 

Well, my morals tell me its wrong. But, I would love to meet this little shithead and bitch slap him so hard that his Kleenex would become a Kotex. Little pond scum bottom feeding weasel.

16 "If upon consideration, one can find no faults on oneÂ’s own side, then cry for mercy; for this must be a most dangerous delusion."



 ---  C. S. Lewis

17 Tell them the elites broke the system in the first place and they'll look at you like a dog trying to learn particle physics.

18 Wait. David Brooks actually said something intelligent once? WHY WASN'T I ALERTED IMMEDIATELY????

19

They do not know what they don't know.

 

---

 

Somehow, I doubt that they will appreciate Rumsfeld talking about known knows, known unknowns, unknown knowns, and unknown unknowns anytime soon.

20 They do not know what they don't know.

And these people mocked Rumsfeld's distinction of "known unknowns" (things you know you don't know) vs "unknown unknowns" (things you don't know you don't know).  I'll bet that second category is huge for a lot of them.

21 It's actually no wonder that the vast majority of academics are liberals. We're constantly assuring ourselves that our fancy degrees mean something and give us command over any sphere of knowledge. Oddly though, when someone with a fancy degree in say...Bioethics says "you know this degree really doesn't help any of us shape such complex policy." they're suddenly not all that knowledgeable to the elites.

22 Progressivism will be America's fatal conceit.

23 I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University

24 @3 Alright, who forgot to latch the door on Biden's "office" this time?

Posted by: Barry O at October 31, 2013 03:42 PM (8GKDa)

 -----

I dunno, but I left a couple of special brownies next to the "office" door along with a an aluminum foil suit; then I left a line of yellow string running out to the shooting range and a sign on the inside of the door that says "Shoot me."

I also invited Kucinich to be outside the door waiting, I want to see what happens when he spots Biden blasting his way out the door. I'm betting on him bagging the "alien" and calling his UFO buddies.

25 --- C. S. Lewis

Posted by: mama winger at October 31, 2013 03:47 PM (P6QsQ)

His writing is so... freaking hard!  1 CS Lewis paragraph = 200 pages of a normal book.

He was a true master of the craft.

26

Bravo Ace.

 

27 Those who can;do. Those who can't;teach and Those who can't do but think they can;pontificate or legislate.

28 They're actually too stupid to even understand how screwed they are. They don't understand the interlocking relationships between customers - health insurance - doctors - hospitals. They had the conceited view that they are smarter than the rest of us and all they had to do was force everyone onto more expensive plans and this would have zero ripple effect downstream. They're very, very wrong. The website and signup are actually the high water mark here. Wait till people realize they lost their doctor or the the hospital they want is now out of their network and they are paying more money for the privilege. Way to go, geniuses.

29 Classic liberal NYC intellectualism was summed up decades ago when one of the mavens of the chattering elite said in a surprised voice, "None of my friends voted for Nixon."

30 Actually I think Icarus most likely went splat resulting in a messy pool of urine colored wax interspersed with blood and feathers, no flame outs.

31

How did I know that their self-esteem greatly outpaced their level of competency?

I offer Exhibit 1: The California State Legislature

32 Brooks, who defined it thusly: “The essence of conservatism — from Burke to Hayek — is epistemological modesty — an awareness of how little we can know about ourselves, and how little we can plan. Because life is so complicated."

Still incomplete. The missing component is the understanding that Government, like a sledgehammer, is almost always the wrong answer to any given problem.

The O-care debate was predicated on the wall-eyed assumption that DotGov was the only thing that could 'fix' our system.

33 They're very, very wrong. The website and signup are actually the high water mark here. Wait till people realize they lost their doctor or the the hospital they want is now out of their network and they are paying more money for the privilege.

Yup.  They'll be more screwed once the website actually runs.

34

Shorter Ace?

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

-Brandis

35 excellent post Ace, of course we've known Slow Joe's malady a long time.....

and hell Obama was such a good Lawyer he devolved into a pro shit stirrer.....

I trust a drunk to guard a bar more than a liberal to guard our liberty.

We're living the end of Will Smith's I, Robot.

36 29 Classic liberal NYC intellectualism was summed up decades ago when one of the mavens of the chattering elite said in a surprised voice, "None of my friends voted for Nixon." Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at October 31, 2013 03:49 PM (gMFC1) NY Times film critic Pauline Kael, I believe. It's attributed to her but in this instance "fake but accurate" would be correct.

37 Though liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view

38 Howie Dean was just on CNBC. keep in mind that have clever people in their cohort. They learn, they adapt a new spin, and they come back. He was spewing the latest bullshit spin to make someone else the fail.  But he is like the rest; they all let slip the veil a bit. He crowed that this is about burden sharing. However the theme of the piece was about the individual being happy with his plan. Simple answer to that. We just ain't smart enough to figure out that the state regulated plan we thought we were happy with was a scam, a shit product. we were just too stupid to realize that so wise kind folks had to step in and save us from ourselves.  He and Joe Biden figured that out for us. 'nuff said.

39 Fantastic analysis as always on the rampant pseudointellectuallism of the left, ace. Barrow's self-regard is writing checks his competency can't cash. I don't remember if it was here at the HQ or elsewhere I picked this little link up, but it's an excellent expansion on Reagan's famous quote about liberals knowing so much that isn't so: http://jangosteve.com/post/380926251/no-one-knows-what-theyre-doing In summary, what makes you dangerous is The Shit You Don't Know You Don't Know. (which is why leftists are so dangerous) Coupled with that is their hubris and undeserved self-esteem, and you have a recipe for disasters like O-care.

40 These doggone code monkeys don't come cheap.  That, or the price of bananas is sky-high!

41 I know enough to know I don't know enough. 

42 So the last shall be first, and the first last


and the meek shall inherit the earth.


-----


stuff a famous Jewish rabbi said

43 They do not know what they don't know.

"Elite" friend #1 BA, JD: "Which came first Hiroshima or Pearl Harbor? I should know that"

"Elite" friend #2 BA, JD, LLM: (During discussion of Kosovo conflict) "Is that what they called the cold war"?

Note: someone is paying those two six figures per year to do "smart" stuff.

44 "

How did I know that their self-esteem greatly outpaced their level of competency?

Simple: Because I've met them."

^^^^ this.

Confidence is never spoken of by a true character.  Humility and wisdom breed fine things.  Arrogance and ineptitude invite disaster.

45 Actually I think Icarus most likely went splat resulting in a messy pool of urine colored wax interspersed with blood and feathers, no flame outs. Hitting water at anything above 120 ft is like hitting concrete....

46 Although the disease of progressism manifests irtself in many ways, another common feature, that I think we will witness in the coming weeks and months, is the belief that the reason their plan didn't work was that there was too little of it.  It would have worked if they just had more money, more time, more regulations, stiffer penalties, and less freedom.  They always double down on failure.

47 Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. C. S. Lewis

48 There is a universal solution to all these progressive insufferable pricks' high-mindedness. Getting the living snot beat out of them - preferably by one of us serfs and preferably in front of their douchebag friends at a cocktail party or some shitty trendy club or restaurant they frequent. It has a tendency to focus their tiny little minds.

49

Wrote this earlier today... great minds think alike:

 

"But, when in doubt, Occam's Razor remains the most useful tool in analyzing politics. Why is Obamacare failing so badly?

Because its authors just aren't that smart, or organized, or hard-working, or detail-oriented.

They've never done anything in their lives like run a business where accomplishment actually mattered more than bullshit.

They've been lawyers, or academics, or politicans.

They are, in short, the apotheosis of the post-1960s graduate student mentality... they don't actually have any skills... other than changing the world."

50 Classic liberal NYC intellectualism was summed up decades ago when one of the mavens of the chattering elite said in a surprised voice, "None of my friends voted for Nixon."


Pauline Kael, NY Times movie review scribbler.
I believe the she was expressing her astonishment at Nixon's 49 state landslide over McGovern. "Nobody that I knew voted for him."

51 Healthscare.gov-A Halloween cartoon: http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/10/branco-cartoon-healthscare-gov/

52

Heh - I was just peeking at Josh Barro's bio (and Sad Beard Yglesias and Ezra Klein and Dave Weigel) earlier to make a similar point about how many media types have no background in the things they write so authoritatively about.

 

Josh Barro has a BA in psychology from Harvard.  He worked for a short time as an analyst at Wells Fargo before becoming a "business and economics writer", such as he claims to be.

 

That's it.  That's the extent of his expertise.  He got an entry level job at a bank, did that for a while, then started being pad to write about business and economics because his father is a famous economist.  And, believe it or not, he's got by far the strongest qualifications of the group I cited above.  None of them have ever done anything but write for various blogs, newspapers and magazines, nor do any of them have an advanced degree of any kind nor any degree in an applicable field.  Sad Beard's got a BA in philosophy, Klein has one in polisci, Weigel has a double BA in journalism and poli sci.  None of them studied business, economics or law.

 

Elite? Charlatans is what they are.

53 0'care the Apotheosis? Nay, that would be Common-Sense, Universal, Mandatory Sodomy For Teh Childrens! Just you wait and see...

54 I've a sinking feeling that gummint workers of all types, whether working or retired and on their defined-benefit joyrides, will feel nothing at all in future, health-care-wise. They will keep their doctor. They will keep their hospital. All will be well with them.

55 I, Pencil isn't a documentary to them, it's a fantasy flick.
 
Ayn Rand was a kook, because they don't need to live under Soviet rule to know it was mostly okay.

56 HERE COMES THAT GIANT POODLE DOG BIG AS A BLIMP ... WITH A RHINESTONE COLLAR ...

57 The funny thing is the leftist elitists will argue that government needs to control the choices of us little people because we're human and fallible; but they never ONCE consider the fact that they, too, are human and fallible -- so why should their opinions and choices be any better than ours?

58 OT. This sounds ominous. The Israelis just took out a missile storage site in Syria that was said to house missiles send from Russia.

59 One time a few years ago, my wife was apologizing to me because I had to attend some dumb ass Faculty function, when she said "I know you think they're a bunch of "elites"...." and I cut her off cold. I have never, ever, used that word to describe anyone. I hate the term, except in it's most generic sense. Told her that. She amended her remark to "assholes" and I totally agreed.

60 23 I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University Posted by: the JEF at October 31, 2013 03:48 PM (zOTsN) William F. Buckley

61

I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said

 

should have ben said to Pallone, et al

62

I'm an Idea Man.

Details bore me.

63 Our friends on the Left know so much that isn't true.......

64 Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich

65 27 Those who can;do. Those who can't;teach and Those who can't do but think they can;pontificate or legislate.

Posted by: flmom at October 31, 2013 03:49 PM (nSjrf)  hey hey HEY.. easy with the teaching slams.

but in general, it's correct.

66

Its just like the Global Warming prediction software.

 

They're not "Climatologist" geeks, so they leave prediction to their corrupt experts.

 

And they're not web-script geeks so they trust that to their corrupt experts.

 

67 News: Google, Oracle, Red Hat sign on to try and pull Obama's chestnuts out of the fire. Otherwise known as 'collaborators' http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/31/us-usa-healthcare-surge-idUSBRE99U16R20131031

68 Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.”

69 58 OT. This sounds ominous. The Israelis just took out a missile storage site in Syria that was said to house missiles send from Russia. Posted by: JackStraw at October 31, 2013 03:54 PM (g1DWB) Preparing for a possible air strike into Iran, I imagine. Lot's of IDF special forces activity on the ground as well; several physicists and others associated with the nuke program have been liquidated (I love that word).

70 There is an inverse relationship between reliance on the state and self-reliance.”

71 Kifflom!

72 Many years ago I said, "The press is our chief ideological weapon." Some of you Americans learn quickly.

73 An outrageous example of what Ace is talking about is provided by Val Kilmer back when he was considering running for governor:


[Klosterman]: You mean you think you literally had the same experience as Doc Holliday?

Kilmer: Oh, sure. It's not like I believed that I shot somebody, but I absolutely know what it feels like to pull the trigger and take someone's life.

[Klosterman:] You understand how it feels to shoot someone as much as a person who has actually committed a murder?

[Kilmer] I understand it more. It's an actor's job. A guy who's lived through the horror of Vietnam has not spent his life preparing his mind for it. He's some punk. Most guys were borderline criminal or poor, and that's why they got sent to Vietnam. It was all the poor, wretched kids who got beat up by their dads, guys who didn't get on the football team, couldn't finagle a scholarship. They didn't have the emotional equipment to handle that experience. But this is what an actor trains to do. I can more effectively represent that kid in Vietnam than a guy who was there.

74 62 I'm an Idea Man. Details bore me. Posted by: Brock O'Bama at October 31, 2013 03:55 PM (QM5S2) So was Hitler. Just draw a line on the map from the Vistula to the Urals and voila! Russia is ours!

75 The academic community has in it the biggest concentration of alarmists, cranks and extremists this side of the giggle house

76

Let me just ask a few questions that will ring true to the other "regular guys" out there.

 

Do you think Barack Obama has ever changed a tire?

 

Do you think Barack Obama has ever put up drywall?

 

Do you think Barack Obama could explain how a carburetor works?

 

Do you think Barack Obama could explain the purpose of priming before painting?

 

Do you think Barack Obama knows what "glazing compound" is for?

 

Do you think Barack Obama has ever operated a chainsaw?

 

I could go on, but you get my drift... these are people who, if they lived in your neighborhood, would be the last person you would ask for a favor in doing something practical.   But they think they can run our lives. 

77 >When this was challenged as elitist, <

It's not elitist. It's despotic and tyrannical thinking.

Over the centuries, it is an argument everyone from Henry VIIII to Stalin have used to suppress freedom and liberty.

It is why such thinkers hate the constitution.

78 "Elitist technocrats are also the ones making you buy pasteurized milk and buy cars with seat belts."

--------------------




I don't need these people to be my mother.  I already have a mother.  One is enough for anybody.

79

"...a minor writer for a minor webzine..."

 

Tangentally, I don't normally throw out a lot of praise to Ace, mainly because there are times I'm embarrassed for him at the wet blowjobs he receives from others, however I do think he's one of the best writers on the web.

 

Because of that, I am constantly amazed and saddened that someone like Conor Friedersdorf collects a paycheck for writing while Ace is stuck here with us.

 

Oh well, nothing's fair.

 

 

80 There is no arguing with someone like this.  They have to be broken to learn humility.

81 The majority of the senior class of Vassar does not desire my company and I must confess, having read specimens of their thought and sentiments, that I do not desire the company of the majority of the senior class of Vassar

82 It takes a lot of know how to stand up at a podium in a suit.

83

Tell them the elites broke the system in the first place and they'll look at you like a dog trying to learn particle physics.

 

---

 

Ever seen a monkey examining a watch?

84 they don't need to live under Soviet rule to know it was mostly okay. Posted by: GnuBreed --------------------- Yeah. It's just that the *wrong* people were in charge. That was the problem...

85 59 lincolntf,

the universal translator would say it is a homonym....

"self-estimated elites" is simply long form for adding air quotes to "elites"....

I use "elites" unironically, when talking about SoCom types and that's about it.

86 I think their biggest problem is they believe their own press. I can see this would be a problem considering there is only one or maybe two outlets that have actually criticized them in the past 7 years. Instead of listening to critics, they listen to cheerleaders and thus learn nothing. Preaching to the choir that is preaching to them could easily create an unsound sense of self. But the good news is they all have high self esteem, so not to worry.

87 They certainly think their shit. but can they chop wood, light a fire, bait a hook, filet a fish, and load a 10/22 and properly make love to their wives??

Didn't think so.

88

Do not forget the moral certainty.  They have lots and lots of moral certainty.  Though actual technical knowledge - such as a an actual medical researcher has about the effectiveness of Pasteurization - no, they have none of that.

 

 

But they are certain, oh are they ever so certain, in the moral correctness of their cause.  And that makes them ever so dangerous.

 

 

(The energetic and stupid are the most dangerous people you can have in your organization.)

89 76 Posted by: The Regular Guy at October 31, 2013 03:57 PM (qHCyt) Barack Obama is a fucking sitzpinkler. He couldn't pee into a toilet without hitting the seat.

90 Preparing for a possible air strike into Iran, I imagine. Lot's of IDF special forces activity on the ground as well; several physicists and others associated with the nuke program have been liquidated (I love that word).

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at October 31, 2013 03:56 PM (uf1pv)

I'm currently reading Raid on The Sun (the IAF strike on Iraq's nuke site in Osarik).  Fantastic book.  Reads like a Tom Clancy novel except this shit actually happened.

Best parts are where Iraqi scientists get invited to a conference in some country and then *BOOM* and "The Islamic Federation of Islam because Islam is Cool" takes "credit."  LoL.  Go mossad!

91 There is no arguing with someone like this. They have to be broken to learn humility. Posted by: grognard ----------------------------- Even that doesn't work, often.

92

"while Ace is stuck here with us..."

 

 

Fate worse the death itself.

93

50Classic liberal NYC intellectualism was summed up decades ago when one
of the mavens of the chattering elite said in a surprised voice, "None
of my friends voted for Nixon."


Pauline Kael, NY Times movie review scribbler.
I believe the she was expressing her astonishment at Nixon's 49 state landslide over McGovern. "Nobody that I knew voted for him."

 

---

 

Pauline fucking Kael... the dumb bitch who declared the movie Dirty Harry to be fascist because it showed how cops were handcuffed by "the system" of the 60s and 70s, post-Miranda, in stopping murders.

 

94 84 mike hammer,

remember the right are the xenophobes...


the American moonbat thinks the Soviets failed because dumbass Russians were in charge...unironically.

95 Preparing for a possible air strike into Iran, I imagine. Lot's of IDF special forces activity on the ground as well; several physicists and others associated with the nuke program have been liquidated (I love that word).

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at October 31, 2013 03:56 PM

While Americans are distracted by Shiny Stuff and Squirrels elsewhere, and the current U.S. regime is supporting the Other Side, Israel's gotta do what it's gotta do.

I only hope Choom Boy is out on the golf links or bust at a fundraiser when they hit Iran's nuke facilities. That'll given them a clear shot to do what we should have done years ago.

96 All excellent points, ace. One thing: "...only because they've never been in positions of actual responsibility where their decisions will result in well-defined failure or well-defined success." As the poster you posted the other day showed, "success" is verboten. Success is an evil, terrible thing that should be shunned and stomped out of existence. Only when no one is successful, can we all be equal. The core problem with all of this is that the basic concepts of responsibility, success, or even being defined by one's willingness and ability to do anything is fundamentally evil in their view.

97 J.J. Sefton.  Fake?  Darn it.  But it so neatly encapsulates the parochial mindset of people who portray themselves as being open minded.  Guess will have to fall back to an excerpt from the Decameron then.  Day VI Emilia's Story.

Fresco, then, who could no longer brook her inordinate affectation, replied roughly to her, "Niece, if disagreeable persons displease you so much, and you are willing to be at ease, be sure you never look at yourself." She, however, as empty as a pithless cane, thought she herself as wise as Solomon, understood her uncle's meaning no more than a sheep, but said she would look at herself as well as other people. Thus she remained in her ignorance, and still continues in the same state.

98 They do not know what they don't know Slap a nice coat of "group think" on top of this, mix in a healthy disdain for historical precedent, and you've got a recipe for global clusterfuckage.

99

Israelis just bombed a ship at a Syrian port carrying missiles from Russia

 

seems letting Putin take care of the Syria problem for us has led him to try and change the balance of power in the ME

 

just like Stalin would

100 While the self-proclaimed "elites" deserve our derision, we mustn't forget that many, if not a majority of our fellow citizens also believe--wrongly--that if someone went to a "good" college, he must be very, very smart. It's a two-part problem: Idiot proclaims he's intelligent and other idiots believe him.

101 In Nature simple things following local simple rules can form complicated things that work and evolve. All on their own with no intervention. In economics free markets do a similar thing in a similar way. The Goddess Irony very much enjoys how the Left hates free markets and claims command and control are better while at the same time they claim to accept Natural Selection. Liberals are deeply religious people who can not admit it. That's one reason why I respect Creationists and Fundementalist Christians more than I respect Liberals; I don't agree with them, but they are a lot more honest.

102 In a sane world, half of the people would be laughing at our government, and the other      half would be grabbing pitchforks.  Our government is literally a joke now, and a substantial portion of the   popluation refuses to believe it.

103 95 Posted by: MrScribbler at October 31, 2013 04:00 PM (kaGpp) If they have to overfly Iraq, I hope our troops there (are they still there?) tell the Pentagon to retransmit orders to shoot down any IAF planes. Garbled in transmission. Please re-transmit. 404 error. Heh!

104 Often wrong but never in doubt.

105 I always  just called these  apothetic  types  "immature children". Right before telling them to clean up  their room and put away their toys.

106 "News: Google, Oracle, Red Hat sign on to try and pull Obama's chestnuts out of the fire. Otherwise known as 'collaborators'"

As I've pointed out before, the geek world are operating on the assumption that the only thing that has to be done to fix Obamacare and make it a success is to get the Web site operational.

Which is of course farcically untrue.

Even if the Web site operated with the smoothness of greased silk thread through a Teflon wheel on an air bearing, the fundamental problems with Obamacare are not technological. They are financial, legal, regulatory, demographic, and logistic. And insoluble by technological means.

107

99Israelis just bombed a ship at a Syrian port carrying missiles from Russia

seems letting Putin take care of the Syria problem for us has led him to try and change the balance of power in the ME

just like Stalin would

 

---

 

All of this has happened before and all of this has happened again.

 

The Russians have shipped the Syrians missiles which could be used against the Israelis several times and the Israelis have blown the shit out of them each time.

108 78 mama winger,

I don't need them to be my mother, though dead and addled she taught me to survive.

The left are trying to make the national mom addled and uninterested in survival.

109 Liberals are deeply religious people who can not admit it.

-----------------




Bingo.

110 seems letting Putin take care of the Syria problem for us has led him to try and change the balance of power in the ME


History shows that power vacuums never last for long.

111 I'd like to see some of our guys dispel this "extremism" charge from the left with the gist of this column.

112 97 Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at October 31, 2013 04:01 PM (gMFC1) Pauline Kael's comments aren't necessarily fake' it's just that that quote is only attributed to her, but has never been verified. But yes, the mindset is utterly spot on target.

113

My fear is this.   Ginning up hate for the intellectuals.  Weren't they the first people to get a taste of lead during the Russian revolution?   And didn't it turn around and bite  Lenin/Stalin in the ass when they needed educated people  at the beginning of WWII?

 

Not all graduates of elite universities are pricks, but I'm afraid that they'll be  included on the lists of undesirables if the shit ever hits the fan.

 

Ted Cruz is a Harvard grad.

 

 

114 Not only do they not know what they do not know,they do not believe that they don't know everything.

115 100 While the self-proclaimed "elites" deserve our derision, we mustn't forget that many, if not a majority of our fellow citizens also believe--wrongly--that if someone went to a "good" college, he must be very, very smart. It's a two-part problem: Idiot proclaims he's intelligent and other idiots believe him.

Posted by: RS at October 31, 2013 04:01 PM (YAGV/)

Come take my class.

116 Matlock!

117 Hi! I'm from the dotGov! I'm here to 404 FILE NOT FOUND

118 These "technocrats" with degrees in non-technical fields like journalism and anger studies could not design a P-38 can opener without looking.

119 You've met them?


You have my sympathies.

120 Do you think Barack Obama has ever operated a chainsaw?

I would pay good money to watch him try.

121 If they have to overfly Iraq, I hope our troops there (are they still there?) tell the Pentagon to retransmit orders to shoot down any IAF planes. Garbled in transmission. Please re-transmit.

404 error. Heh! Posted by: J.J. Sefton at October 31, 2013 04:02 PM

I've sometimes wondered about that scenario. I would hope the military would unilaterally disregard that order, and send an armed detachment to take whoever was responsible for it (yeah, him) into custody.

122 One day we will simply have to eat these people for the sake of the human race.

123 113 My fear is this. Ginning up hate for the intellectuals. Weren't they the first people to get a taste of lead during the Russian revolution?

Posted by: Soona: Amiable and fuzzy at October 31, 2013 04:04 PM (oP1/q)

The first purges were of the military officers that disagreed.

Oh, sorta like now!

124 113 Posted by: Soona: Amiable and fuzzy at October 31, 2013 04:04 PM (oP1/q) This is why the "let it burn" mentality is somewhat dangerous. And when it comes, it will not be a controlled burn.

125 They also have a terrible lack of imagination. They cannot envision the reality of ordinary life for the billions of people who have the bad fortune to be born outside the liberal Western umbrella.

So they take it for granted, and plunder its riches for power.

126 They are all a bunch of girly men. These are people that pay other people to walk their dogs, buy their groceries and pick up their dry cleaning. Changing a light bulb would be a traumatic experience.

127 123 The first purges were of the military officers that disagreed. Oh, sorta like now! Posted by: Noam Chumpsky at October 31, 2013 04:06 PM (x3YFz) Good article about this at today's Investor's Biz Daily.

128 I've sometimes wondered about that scenario. I would hope the military would unilaterally disregard that order, and send an armed detachment to take whoever was responsible for it (yeah, him) into custody.

This is why he's in a hurry to pack the military full of gay black lesbians wearing French hats.

129 Give Gaylord Focker an umbrella chainsaw...

130 I say we kick their ass.

131 I wish to reiterate that I have all the hallmarks of Our Betters. By their estimation, I am Elite. Yet, oddly enough, I don't think that I know enough to tell other people how to live their lives. Okay, sure, fine, I tell Boy BFF what to do all the time and then he promptly goes and does the opposite and I Nelson Muntz at him when the obvious occurs. But. But still. As intellectually arrogant as I am, and boy howdy am I, I do not begin to pretend that I know enough to be able to run others lives. Not in reality. Not outside of alextopia. I do not begin to presume to know what values others place as primary in their lives. Others do not know what values I place as primary in mine. As a result, who the hell am I and who the hell is anyone else to dare to think that I or they can run the other's life?

132 113 soona,

I'm not planning a pogrom....

Barry is planning DeKulakization.

In essence that is what Barrycare is an attack on the middle class self-motivated.

133 One day we will simply have to eat these people for the sake of the human race.

Bleccch.  Tough and stringy.

Feed them to hogs, eat the hogs.

134 4:05 PM and not one trick or treater yet?

135 Is this the "AmishDude is right" post? Because I could have written that post, exceptfar less entertaining and with stilted grammar and awkward sentence structure.

136 @115 Noam Chomsky is OK in his field of linguistics. He's fool outside of it. It's been my experience with most people with terminal degrees: They believe that their Ph.D. in Sociology means they have expertise in everything from astrophysics to auto mechanics.

137 suckin fock!  get off me!

138 There's an actual name for this: the Dunning-Kruger effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect "The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes." Might as well have Barack's picture next to the entry.

139 Even if the Web site operated with the smoothness of greased silk thread through a Teflon wheel on an air bearing, the fundamental problems with Obamacare are not technological. They are financial, legal, regulatory, demographic, and logistic. And insoluble by technological means. Posted by: torquewrench ------------------------------------ And, it is only about *insurance*. The real-world consequences for *health care* will be much worse than the mechanics of the insurance.

140 Off to the market to buy a fat pig, jiggity-jig. Later.

141

..."people don't know what's best for them."

 

The Progressives count on this, don't they?

Isn't this how Barky won twice?

142

Even if the Web site operated with the smoothness of greased silk thread through a Teflon wheel on an air bearing, the fundamental problems with Obamacare are not technological. They are financial, legal, regulatory, demographic, and logistic. And insoluble by technological means.

---

Those problems may all remain, but they're still in a clusterfuck on the technological side just from the website and the inevitable disaster that the back-end database will be revealed to be.

We haven't even gotten to the part yet where everyone realizes they've just been fucked with that razor dildo from Seven.

 

 

Dammit, this is the third time I've tried to post this.  Did Ace outsource the comment software to CGI?

143 I think Iowa Hawks Ghey spaceman is just WONDERFUL! Look at that outfit! http://tinyurl.com/p7we2c8

144 really ... Harvard and Princeton? Maybe yesterday or yesteryear. Not now.

145 Douchebag Brooks sure seems to have been taken in by the pantleg of one of them. Was it stupidity or the fact that he is a latent?

146 Because I've met them.

Posted by: Ace at 03:39 PM

Fuck....you went to Harvard?

Cancel my Platinum subscription.

147

Ace wrote, "They can't. And I didn't even need to see Healthcare.gov crash and burn in Icarus-colored flames to know it."

 

I don't know what 'Icarus-colored flames' look like, exactly, but that's a nice turn of phrase.

148 Those advocating for planning always imagine themselves the planners -- they never think that they may be the first ones to be lined up against the wall...

149 Because I could have written that post, exceptfar less entertaining and with stilted grammar and awkward sentence structure. But the equations and diagrams would have been worth it.

150 We have many Dr. Amy Bishops in office.  That should give you pause and indigestion.  And maybe projectile vomiting.

151 They believe themselves to be transcendentally hypercompetent, a delusion that they are permitted to cling to only because they've never been in positions of actual responsibility where their decisions will result in well-defined failure or well-defined success, which could lead to their termination or promotion.

FIFY

152 They believe that their Ph.D. in Sociology means they have expertise in everything from astrophysics to auto mechanics. Posted by: RS ----------------- Hey..., screw you.

153 Ivy League Masters of the Universe - I've been calling them that since the crash of '08...

154 Speaking of education and elites, doesn't Brooks have a B.A. in history?

155 140 Off to the market to buy a fat pig, jiggity-jig. Later. Posted by: J.J. Sefton at October 31, 2013 04:08 PM (uf1pv) Wait, JJ has found a Kosher pig? Yum!

156 >>One day we will simply have to eat these people for the sake of the human race. Can't we just use them as a source of cheap, green energy?

157

"As intellectually arrogant as I am, and boy howdy am I, I do not begin to pretend that I know enough to be able to run others lives...:

 

Then it's apparent  you wouldn't  make it as a HOA president.

158 Ace shoots skeet with the elite?

159
Well, actually, most of them didn't go to a Good School (by which I mean a truly elite school like Harvard or Princeton)













I'd take issue with the characterization of Harvard and Princeton being "good schools". The best part of an Ivy League education is the contents of your rolodex at graduation.

As to the more practical side, people fuck up all the time, it's our nature as human beings, but to truly fuck up by the numbers usually requires a Harvard grad. A cursory examination of the last 30 years or so of history makes a pretty good case for it.

160

Chomsky is OK in his field of linguistics. He's fool outside of it.

 

---

 

I'm not even sure he's that competent in his own field.

 

Pretty sure his central thesis of human speech is a circular argument, something like "Humans can speak but apes can't because humans have had that ability."

161 their self-esteem greatly outpaced their level of competency.... -Ace Still incomplete. The missing component is the understanding that Government, like a sledgehammer, is almost always the wrong answer to any given problem. -weft cut-loop You're both right (slapping both on shoulders) - ha hah! And still incomplete. (mounts soapbox) Civilization developed knowledge and reason, a Golden Rule, and the ideal of Self-Government. I'd add, a common 'faith' of mutual religious tolerance. Progressivism is an ironically inverted misnomer, like all their projections and deceptions. Everything "Progressive" actually regresses to those swamps of savage ignorance, superstition, immorality, and tyranny, and, of course, religion of the Elite, from which (some of) human society has barely emerged. (back-flips off soapbox)

162 135 AmishDude,

heh I have been writing this post thirty years.....

Rosetta Stoneneeded or no.

163 This is why the "let it burn" mentality is somewhat dangerous. And when it comes, it will not be a controlled burn. When the employer mandate goes away next year, it will burn. Like we have said, "You can't stop it" Best to get out of the way & protect you & yours.

164

well, to be fair...

 

I HAVE changed a tire

I have NOT hung drywall

I can only give a very limited and vague description of how a carburetor works - all of the cars I've ever owned had fuel injection anyway.

I sort of know why you prime before you paint

I have no idea what glazing compound is

I HAVE operated a chainsaw, but only an electric and not one of those boss gas-powered ones.

 

Suburban upbringing, yo.

165

Elitists have a very annoying problem...

 

Those who think they are smart... are really annoying to those of us who actually are.

 

Just had a friend of mine, who is finishing his PHD in Genetic Engineering spout off about how if we just quit paying to Spy on people (NSA) we would be able to balance the budget... when I posted the numbers on Entitlement spending vs the NSA budget.... he shut up.... but...

 

And may I point out for the Libertarian Haters?  Elitism is the complete opposite of Libertarianism...

166

83
Tell them the elites broke the system in the first place and they'll look at you like a dog trying to learn particle physics.

 ----

Like dogs, elites identify themselves by sniffing each other's a$$es.

167 Look..., Doctor Jill Biden has told me that Obamacare is good, so, drop dead baggers.

168

150We have many Dr. Amy Bishops in office. That should give you pause and indigestion. And maybe projectile vomiting.

 

---

 

The good thing about them all being in the same place is that they can take each other out when they snap.

169 By some definitions, I could be considered and elitist. After almost 20 years of doing countless things, my job is now to coordinate countless things that I can no longer do as well as the people I employ to do them. I know about drywall, and carburetors. I've baited hooks, but I am a terrible fisherman.To be perfectly honest, I really suck at most of the things that folks here mentioned. Here's the difference, as I see it. I have a profound respect and admiration for the people that are good at these things. I know my limits but I also know that I am very good at seeing the value and potential of lots of things and creating the means to fully realize potential. On the other hand, you have Joe "I'm a lawyer, not a tech geek" Biden, who thinks that you can legislate something into existence. Joe, it's within your power to create a law that requires everyone to own a Skittle Shitting Unicorn. That doesn't make them exist, doesn't make them affordable, and doesn't mean that anyone has any use for them.

170 113 >> Ted Cruz is a Harvard grad.
 
Yes soona, and a pariah to them as well. Don't forget that part.

171 @152 Bill "Mechaical?"

172 OT: from the Jerusalem Post: "it is unclear why the US would leak such information as it could put more pressure on Syria to retaliate against Israel."

It's perfectly clear! As teh One likes to be. "Hello, Israel? Get under that bus."

173 The mere fact that the conclusion was theirs is enough for them to declare the conclusion is absolute truth.

174 Obama majored in Political Science in college which makes him an expert in government and nothing else, yet he doesn't seem to understand how laws work or the concept of "separation of powers". Basically he's a failure in the one aspect of governance he's studied.

175 It is why such thinkers hate the constitution. I love the Constitution ... of South Africa.

176 "Chomsky is OK in his field of linguistics. He's fool outside of it. It's been my experience with most people with terminal degrees: They believe that their Ph.D. in Sociology means they have expertise in everything from astrophysics to auto mechanics.

Posted by: RS at October 31, 2013 04:07 PM (YAGV/)

"The basis to Chomsky's linguistic theory is that the principles underlying the structure of language are biologically determined in the human mind and hence genetically transmitted"

linguistics?  seriously?  And how has this genius transformed linguistics, exactly?  Rhetorical question.

The best part is he's a jew who reinforces the nazi theory of eugenics.  Irony called and said "I got nothin'"

177 But they are certain, oh are they ever so certain, in the moral correctness of their cause.
---

They are morally certain it is OK to kill babies and not OK to use plastic bags.

178 What is interesting is that the technical types (Google, Microsoft, Apple execs.) just figure the lawyer types in Washington know what they're doing as well as the technical types do. Everybody on the Left was just assuming this would work. Why wouldn't it? Except the lawyer types didn't worry about implementation or details, they just set goals and everybody else has to meet them.

179 Has anyone noted that Affirmative Action has consequences, yet?

180 Will they abide with someone else making decisions for them who are even More Elite Than They Are? Yes, I think they will. TheyÂ’re very hierarchical and understand jockeying for position. They recognize that there are people who speak Elite better than they do and that those gifted speakers will rise higher.

181

"The basis to Chomsky's linguistic theory is that the principles
underlying the structure of language are biologically determined in the
human mind and hence genetically transmitted"

 

---

 

Hence what I said earlier... circular fucking argument.

182 Google (GOOG), Red Hat Inc. (RHT), Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and other companies are contributing dozens of computer engineers and programmers to help the Obama administration fix the U.S. health-insurance exchange website.






May they all rot in hell for their collaboration on this

183 the Israelis have blown the shit out of them each time.

Posted by: Brandon In Baton Rouge at October 31, 2013 04:03 PM (/Crba)

The Israeli Jooos can't just leave well enough alone and march meekly to the showers.

They have this heightened sense of survival that is just so distasteful.

184 They aren't "elites."  Elitists is closer to appropriate, but it still assumes status they do not have.

Egotists is a far better term to use when referring to these people.

185 >>> Because of that, I am constantly amazed and saddened that someone like Conor Friedersdorf collects a paycheck for writing while Ace is stuck here with us. why thanks, jwest! But I'm not "stuck here" with you. Although a steady paycheck is a nice thing, I have to say, it's very cool not having a boss. Well, I do have readers, who are "bosses" in a way, but only in a way. Thanks for your kind words.

186 I've met a couple of truly brilliant people in my life.  One or two exceptionally genuinely brilliant people.  The thing that comes to mind when I recall them is their humility and kindness.  There is a vast difference between knowledge and wisdom.  Wisdom, I think,  is strongly gentle in its nature. 

187 "I flew to close to the sun on wings of  Pastrami."

188 "Mechaical?" Posted by: RS ----------- Prima facie evidence that Nye is emblematic of the problem.

189 For more historical disconnect, just remember there are elites who blame IBM for helping Hitler with the Final Solution.

190 "Ginning up hate for the intellectuals."

But these dopes are not intellectuals. A Harvard degree that daddy or Uncle Faisal  bought for you does not make you a great thinker. Mostly it exposes them to the premises and  proximity to observe and ape intellectuals which is all these dopes do. Taking a course does not make an expert.

191 163 rickb223,

well it's a comfort to those who need the illusion of control to decry those of us who notice we have a smile with a body behind it juggling with flares over a pool of napalm.....

I'm not the burner.

192 I've been waiting decades for Nemesis to smite these people and yet, they fail upward all around us.

193

my daughter was telling me the other day how Natalie Portman must be smart.  I asked why.  She said because she went to Yale (I think).  Anyway, I said not necessarily.  I pointed out that Ms Portman was famous before she went to college, so she may or may not be smart but her going to that school does not make it so.  She was shocked. 

My hubby went to a very good graduate school.  Very good.  But there were some students there, and it was obvious who they were, who were enrolled because of their status and connections.  They were poor students.  The other students had to carry them on group projects.  They still got the same good grades as everyone else.  With zero effort.

 

the elite schools are a meritocracy only for some, not for all

194 hhhmmm....  heated pastrami....

195 "Elitist technocrats are also the ones making you buy pasteurized milk and buy cars with seat belts." ******* And there's no reason anyone would not want pasteurized milk or cars with seat belts, right genius? Pasteurization removes beneficial bacteria from raw milk. The process also weakens protein chains in milk and diminishes vitamins and minerals. The pasteurization process completely eliminates vitamin C from milk. The lactic acid fermentation bacteria present in raw milk is helpful to the human body because it inhibits the growth of harmful bacteria and aids in digestion. This allows the body to absorb more nutrients. Also, because the pasteurization process changes the chemical nature of milk, pasteurized milk can trigger more allergic reactions in people. As for seat belts, thousands of people have been killed because they were wearing seat belts and were trapped in their cars after their cars crashed or caught fire or went into a lake or river. Thousands more have had more serious crash injuries than they otherwise would have sustained because they were wearing seat belts. There are always trade-offs. That is the simple fact about our complex lives that these shit-for-brains "elite" fools can't ever seem to grasp. There are no "one size fits all" answers, which is why people need the freedom to make their own decisions. Raw milk is a better choice for some people than pasteurized milk, and sometimes not wearing a seat belt is a better choice than wearing one. In any event, the person who will bear the consequences of the decision -- good or bad -- is the one who should be making the choice, not some arrogant government bureaucrat who thinks he knows better than everyone else.

196

For more historical disconnect, just remember there are elites who blame IBM for helping Hitler with the Final Solution.

 

---

 

Why?  Because they sold him adding machines?

197 Posted by: tangonine at October 31, 2013 04:12 PM (x3YFz)

And your lack of capitalization for "Jew" is oddly appropriate, because Chomsky is about as good an example of a self-hating Jew as one can find.

His vitriol with respect to Zionism and Israel is breathtaking.

198 Ace hangs around these so called "elites" to enhance his own self-esteem. And to deliver the occasional upper-decker

199 @ 176 Tangonine I didn't say he was correct. I meant his background gave him a basis to opine on language. It doesn't make him the possessor of all wisdom, such that we should listen to him on anything else. That's the problem Ace highlights. Somebody with an M.A. from Princeton in Public Policy thinks they know everything about Risk Management.

200 >>>Can't we just use them as a source of cheap, green energy?

I'm working on a patented process that will convert them into fossil fuels, thereby solving both the energy and the entitlement crisis in one go.

201 One other thing I find fascinating about progressives is their tendency to claim the past triumphs of civilization (e.g. pasteurization) as vindication of their own worldview. Pasteurization happens to be a good idea, and people would probably do it in much of the world even if it were not required by law. It's not really a credit to one's intelligence to be in favor of it in retrospect. Being in favor of a good idea does not necessarily bless a person's other ideas by association, either. The American communists of the 20th century were strongly in favor of civil rights; this didn't improve any of the other deeply crazy things they also believed.

202 178 What is interesting is that the technical types (Google, Microsoft, Apple execs.) just figure the lawyer types in Washington know what they're doing as well as the technical types do.

Posted by: AmishDude at October 31, 2013 04:12 PM (xSegX)

Brother, you nailed it.

The funny part is people go through their daily lives with the misbegotten assumption that the people running this fucking clown show are smart.

Now there's some scary smart folks out there, for sure.  I've put 45 trips around the sun under my belt and I've met exactly TWO (2) geniuses.  Out of (what's the statistical average... carry the 4, divide by 7...) what 800 thousand people I've run across?

They're not the people in charge.  Trust me on this.  The truly smart people avoid shit like running governments because there are too many unknowns.

203 Google (GOOG), Red Hat Inc. (RHT), Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and other companies are contributing dozens of computer engineers and programmers to help the Obama administration fix the U.S. health-insurance exchange website. Oooooooh. More unfamiliar fingers to fuck it up!

204 Those advocating for planning always imagine themselves the planners -- they never think that they may be the first ones to be lined up against the wall...
---

I express this thought as they see themselves wielding the whips, not being whipped.

205 123 The first purges were of the military officers that disagreed.

Oh, sorta like now!
Posted by: Noam Chumpsky at October 31, 2013 04:06 PM (x3YFz)

Good article about this at today's Investor's Biz Daily.

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at October 31, 2013 04:06 PM (uf1pv)

 

 

--------------------------------------------

 

 

Correct.  But the intellectuals were shot or gulaged shortly after. 

 

I understand  the points Ace is making.  It's the self-proclaimed busy body elitists in government (and in the  universities) that are causing all the problems.  But don't we sometimes get the same snobbish attitudes from people who graduate from MIT?  Where does the elitist sphere stop?

206

Ace hangs around these so called "elites" to enhance his own self-esteem. And to deliver the occasional upper-decker

 

 

Say what you want about their politics...I'll bet their trash is sublime.

207

198Ace hangs around these so called "elites" to enhance his own self-esteem. And to deliver the occasional upper-decker

 

---

 

"You can do that... but first you will give me a blumkin while I stand over this tank!"

208 "Google (GOOG), Red Hat Inc. (RHT), Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and other companies are contributing dozens of computer engineers and programmers to help the Obama administration fix the U.S. health-insurance exchange website. ... May they all rot in hell for their collaboration on this"

Well, it's not as though they themselves are going on the exchanges.

The GOP House could cause major pain in Silicon Valley with a few simple tax law changes.

Oh, and also, a little rider on an appropriations bill that says privately owned aircraft can no longer be stored at or operated from federal airfields save in an emergency.

That would evict Google's executives from Moffett Field in Sunnyvale, which they have come to use as their own private airstrip. To the extent of being allowed to buy hundreds of thousands of gallons of discount jet fuel for their personal jets at government pricing.

209 Seat belts were an option long before they became mandatory. Kind of like helmets.

210 Brandon, yep.

Just as a thesaurus does not make a writer, getting a piece of paper from a very expensive institution that purports to instruct in the arts of higher education does not make a learned person.

211 >>>How did I know that their self-esteem greatly outpaced their level of competency?

Simple: Because I've met them.

ANECDOTES OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN.  Seriously, Ace, entertain us with tales of prattishness.

212 For more historical disconnect, just remember there are elites who blame IBM for helping Hitler with the Final Solution.

Hitler of course got the idea for the Final Solution from the Mufti of Jerusalem.  People like to forget that now, especially the "justice for Palestine!!@!" types.

213

146 " Because I've met them."

Posted by: Ace at 03:39 PM

 

That is the haunting line, isn't it?

 

Doesn't this bring to mind a picture of Ace standing outside  in the rain, looking into  a window of a trendy NY restaurant with this collection of untalented hack writers sipping champagne while gorgeous Swedish models  hang on their every word?

 

Then he turns slowly and walks back to the hovel to eat cold soup out of a can while composing his next epic article.

 

Classic tragedy.

214 They do not know what they don't know.
=======
They are very stupid people and they don't want to know what they don't know.

In five minutes, I can find a high-school graduate or less who can make them an utter fool.

I merely have to walk to the nearest mechanic shop to put them to shame: "Fix this engine. There's a whole wall of books in the office there, I'm sure you'll have no problem."

Reminds me of a story I think Ray Bradbury told.

It went something like this (going from memory):

I went to my mechanic the other day and he asked if I'd like to hear a joke. Sure. He began, A deaf man went to the hardware store needing some nails. Going to the counter, he makes a hammering motion with one hand and a nail with the other, then points to that and motions. The clerk surmises what he wants and says, "you need nails?" The deaf nods "yes" and the clerk gets some nails. Next, in comes a mute, needing a hammer. He walks to the counter and makes a hammering motion with his hand and points to the hammering hand. The clerk is quick and asks, "you need a hammer?" The mute nods "yes" and the clerk rings up a hammer. Finally, a blind man comes in needing scissors. "How do you suppose he asks for them?" says the mechanic. I answered by making a cutting motion with two finger on my right hand. The mechanic laughed at me raucously. "No," he says, "he asks for them. He's only blind!"

215

I did an internship a few years ago as part of an education reform fellowship. I was one of the only non-Ivy Leaguers in the fellowship. They were very dear, very bright people.WHO KNEW NOTHING ABOUT CHILDREN. They didn't have kids. They didn't live around kids. Yet their policy recommendations are being heard by people we all read about in the newspapers.

I told them as much. "You all have more data and more analysis than anyone I have ever met. You also have more worthless conclusions from that data. Teaching children to read does not require linear regression." The whole room stared at me for a full five seconds. Then one said, "I disagree." She then cited some "expert" on childhood development, and the whole room went back to normal.

216

I guess economic stewardship is no longer in vogue as a metric of things presidenty, but what is going to happen when the already self insured have to fork out more money for a lesser product? This is a sizable cohort of responsible people. They will have to curtail their budget to afford Obama largess and compassion. So what happens in 2014 economically? Obama has never seen a full 2% growth to date, so is something sub 1% going to be ignored at election time?

I know, the imminent pivot is forthcoming, but again, squeezing discretionary spending going into an election may backfire of the best and brightest.

217 Oooooooh. More unfamiliar fingers to fuck it up! More fingers with a very high opinion of their own skills and the need to be in charge. I predict a rolling pile of football-fucking monkeys all screeching at the top of their lungs.

218 One of the most rabid 'progressives' I (unfortunately) know has a sky-high estimate of his own brilliance and ability to understand the world while explaining how it works to the dimmer people in the world, i.e., everybody else.

He's also lived with his parents for the last 35 years because his brilliance has been unappreciated by the world. You'd think being in your sixties and still living in the room you taped model airplanes to the ceiling thereof would make you a little bit, well, humbleabout yourself; you would be wrong.

219 There are always trade-offs. That is the simple fact about our complex lives that these shit-for-brains "elite" fools can't ever seem to grasp. There are no "one size fits all" answers, which is why people need the freedom to make their own decisions. Bicycle helmets. We never had them growing up. Many wipeouts. And I turned out just - oooh look! Bunny!

220 Seat belts were an option long before they became mandatory. Yeah, remember “secondary enforcement only”?

221 4:05 PM and not one trick or treater yet? Oh my, they come that early? All I have, unless I run to the store right now, is alcohol and roofies to give the little boys. Guess I'll have to make do with that.

222 There's a reason that many of the most successful businesses have people in charge who, at one point, have done the work of those now employed by them.

Flawed organizations have many things in common, but this one is apropos: in nearly every case, managers and directors have no actual working, practical experience in the roles that they are supervising and directing.  So, advancement and reward can never be on the merits.

In fact, in most cases, an accomplished "worker bee" is more of a threat.  If you're ever wondering why complete imbiciles are promoted while accomplished employees are not, this is why.  Somewhere, up the chain, someone insecure was put in charge of employees without knowing how to do their jobs.  It spirals downward from there.

223 210Brandon, yep.

Just as a thesaurus does not make a writer, getting a piece of paper from a very expensive institution that purports to instruct in the arts of higher education does not make a learned person. --- Do these same people believe that Bruno Magli is an unindicted co-conspirator in the OJ murders?

224 213 JWest,

not when the Ewok has Rubio's garbage and the knowledge the gilded rings line in the pub is doing a mummer's dance around the clap tree.

225 Eagle Scout. I can do pretty much any job or tell you how to do it. First Aid, check, EMT, Rewire your house, check, fix your plumbing, check. Fuck your wife? Give me an hour an a blue pill. Now I defy anyone to explain what radio waves are and how the fuck we can have 5.4 gig radio transmissions.

226 "Elitist technocrats are also the ones making you buy pasteurized milk and buy cars with seat belts."
...........
What pisses me off the most about this attitude is that it tries to justify any stupid idea they come up with..

"You like pasteurized milk, right?  It's a good thing, right?  So, trust us.. our health insurance will be dandy!"

They use the same argument for big government when they always throw out policemen and firemen and teachers as an example for more federal taxes- completely ignoring the fact that all those services are locally funded and controlled and not very many conservatives have any problem with locally controlled police and fire and roads.

227 Don't sensible nations just send this wretched class into the fields to plant and harvest...?

228 Ian S you mean the Grand Mufti that the British put into office because it was a family thing.  Never realizing what a monster he was?  The same Mufti who raised an SS Division from Bosnia?  That Mufti?

229

Posted by: mama winger at October 31, 2013 04:14 PM (P6QsQ)

 

US Navy Enlisted Nuclear Power School.... the largest collection of uneducated Geniuses on the planet...

 

REALLY an eye opener... as it was not what I expected... it seems that high intelligence makes you more likely to be on the extremes... either REALLY a nerd... or really Cool...

 

High IQ Rednecks???  Were more Redneck... (think Duck Dynasty)... D&D Nerds?  were even more so ( one guy was using Calculus to figure the diminishing return on Spell Effect vs. Power)....

 

But.... luckily... I had a roommate who ALWAYS seemed to have good looking women hanging around... was always at the parties... who told me the secret is that Social Life is all a Game, you just need to figure out the rules...

 

But you would not find an Elitist in the bunch... as that is something you LEARN...

230 >Bleccch. Tough and stringy.

Feed them to hogs, eat the hogs.

Posted by: HeatherRadish™ at work with a migraine at October 31, 2013 04:07 PM (/kI1Q)<

Migraines make you funny.

231

Posted by: thunderb at October 31, 2013 04:15 PM (zOTsN)

 

 

Did you tell her to watch "Back to School" with Rodney Dangerfield, where the Dean says "But it was a really big check."

232 Beautiful post. Pitch perfect Clarity. Way to pick them, too. Gosh, just love ya, Ace. Glad you hung around today. This is golden.

233 I'd take issue with the characterization of Harvard and Princeton being "good schools". The best part of an Ivy League education is the contents of your rolodex at graduation. It depends on your field of study. If you look at something like Math (Hi AmishDude!), Harvard and Princeton's Math departments are top-notch. Personally I went to BYU. I paid something on the order of 2K per semester in tuition. BYU's not a top-tier school, but I came out with an education that has served me well with ZERO student loans.

234 220 Seat belts were an option long before they became mandatory. My dad had a pilot's license, we never owned a car without seat beats. Even in the early 60's.

235 I can't respect a man who's never had a real job, whether he's a basement dweller, rich kid or President. (Same for his wife.)

236 Hell, even us "elites" throw an interception now and then.

Sometimes six a game (shrug).

237 209 Seat belts were an option long before they became mandatory. Kind of like helmets.

Posted by: Mike Hammer at October 31, 2013 04:18 PM (aDwsi)

There was a car flippy thing (alcohol involved, of course) about two weeks ago here.  Crossed the median at 95 MPH, flipped, all 4 (2 men, 2 women) were ejected from the vehicle.  Driver was the only survivor.

Sometimes you see stuff like that and just shake your head.

238 Bill Maher is another one of the "elite" assholes  who is only a member because he is willing to consistently walk in front of a camera and blow those in the senior circle of his liberal tribe. 

He's an English/History major who hasn't cracked a book since he left Cornell in 1978 but yet he's considered a "deep thinker" and political pundit by all of the liberal mouth-breathers rather than what he is:  an unfunny, bitter, little turd homunculus who has to pay for sex.

239

They use the same argument for big government when they always throw out policemen and firemen and teachers as an example for more federal taxes- completely ignoring the fact that all those services are locally funded and controlled and not very many conservatives have any problem with locally controlled police and fire and roads.

 

 

---

 

 

They also like to throw out labor laws regarding wages, hours, and child labor as reasons for unions to stick around, regardless of the fact that these things were all put in place 100 years ago and that unions have done little of benefit since then.

240 I personally believe pasteurized milk steals my purity of essence, so I avoid. Go straight for the teet, when possible.

241 My fear is this. Ginning up hate for the intellectuals. Weren't they the first people to get a taste of lead during the Russian revolution? And didn't it turn around and bite Lenin/Stalin in the ass when they needed educated people at the beginning of WWII?

Not all graduates of elite universities are pricks, but I'm afraid that they'll be included on the lists of undesirables if the shit ever hits the fan.

Ted Cruz is a Harvard grad.

Posted by: Soona: Amiable and fuzzy at October 31, 2013 04:04 PM (oP1/q)

 

Your fear is baseless, I think. We're not talking about intellectuals here--although the label 'intellectuals' has become muddied in meaning beyond all hope of redemption, in my view. I think we're talking about educated people in the broader sense, which brings to mind the Teddy Roosevelt quote, "To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society."

 

Ace once referred to universities as 'Marxist seminaries', which I thought was pretty much on-the-mark. If we hire America-hating radicals to educate our children to hate our country and its values, then most of those children will grow to adulthood hating our country and its values. The solution would be to fire those people and let them find their way in the private sector, working as truckstop hookers and mopping bath house floors.

242 Keep your morals off my body!!.  My body my choice!  The govt has no place in my vagina!

(That is only for abortion/sex of course.  Otherwise we kind of like some govt tyranny of our bodies)

243 I worked at Columbia and therefore I could take classes there. Excited rube I, here with the elites. Some brilliant people, some dumb as a bag of rocks. Astronomy class. Double period. fucking way to long. Gravity and the relationship between two, then three bodies. Copious notes. Complex shit I thought would take hours to comprehend. Class is ending. Any questions?  "If there is no gravity on the moon do the astronauts have to wear special boots? " Swear to God. shockingly stupid.  Bonus; crapped on the test, first one at an Ivy. 30 something grade. Curved into the 90s thank you very much. and to think Barack was only  a C student there....

244

245 Thomas Sowell nailed the mindset  of  the  self-declared liberal "Elite" in his book,  "The Vision of the Anointed Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy".    If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it! 

246 Brandon, what about the OJ trial?  Frankly I was never that interested in that local crime story.  Just as I am not interested in the Amanda Knox story.

247

Our elected leaders screwed us all when they set up agencies that they should have been voting laws on (HHS, EPA,IRS,  OSHA)

Nameless, faceless, dickless, spineless, clueless, nonothingless ass wipes run our country. For every action there is a reaction unless you are a gubmint employee.

 

Anyone going to lose a job at IRS (Tea Party Scandal) anyone going to lose a job at HHS (Kathleen Syphilis?)

 

Man, if I were president for a day.........the alphabet soup agencies would be shit canned. Their rules and regs for the serfs would apply to the elites/monarchy.....

 

 

248  186 I've met a couple of truly brilliant people in my life. One or two exceptionally genuinely brilliant people. The thing that comes to mind when I recall them is their humility and kindness. There is a vast difference between knowledge and wisdom. Wisdom, I think, is strongly gentle in its nature.

Posted by: mama winger at October 31, 2013 04:14 PM (P6QsQ)

 

 

Mama, my son is exactly this.  He had a perfect SAT score, in the top 2% of MCAT scores in the country, great grades, captain of his high school football team, county all-star in football and lacrosse, graduate of Notre Dame - and yet he is so modest.  He always says there are very many people in the world much smarter than he.  He doesn't think he's a special snowflake. 

 

Proud mom that I am, though, I say he's much wiser than TFG and Clinton - combined. 

249

Personally I went to BYU. I paid something on the order of 2K per semester in tuition. BYU's not a top-tier school, but I came out with an education that has served me well with ZERO student loans.

 

---

 

Same here, with Southern Miss in place of BYU. 

 

I scored in the top 10% of all business students taking a national "exit exam" covering a variety of business topics (management, economics, accounting, etc.) the year I graduated on a tuition that probably cost me as much for my whole education as theirs did for one semester.

250 I have milked a cow, screwed the pooch and chocked the chicken. All in one day.


Damn right wing nut jobs.

251 Simple: Because I've met them. lol After one of my brothers met Dick Morris, he needed a shower to wash it all off.

252 >>>"Obama majored in Political Science in college which makes him an expert in government and nothing else, ..." ... I disagree on one point. Majoring in anything does not make anyone an expert in anything. Not even close. The only thing it proves it that their check cleared. In Obama's case, since his check was written solely on the basis of Affirmative Action, the problem is compounded. I am all for education, but I know a LOT of people who have all sorts of initials after their name but can't actually produce anything of tangible value in their chosen field. I can read every book available on fixing an engine. I can understanding what I read fully and pass all available tests. If I felt like spending the money, I could repeat this process for the requisite number of years to get a PhD in internal combustion engines from somewhere. The fact remains that I'd be equally likely to chop my hand off in the fan as I would to fix the engine, no matter how many degrees I had. On the contrary, I know a lot of people who never graduated high school and who's classroom was a shade tree under the tutelage of dad and can fix any motor in existence, despite the fact that they don't know the French word for "motor" nor have any information on how the motor impacted the struggles of 18th century women.

253 That quote from Davy Brooks is precious. The essence of conservatism is not "epistemological modesty." The essence of conservatism is the desire to protect what which is of value from the predations of progressivism. This guy goes around yakking about Burke without having the slightest idea what he's about.

254 231 There's a great scene in back to school where the practical business man(Rodney) corrects the elitist professor about how a construction project works in the real world.

255

To no one's surprise, Barkyskins is pivoting once again to "creating good paying jobs for the middle class, because made in America" and "just imagine how wonderful life will be when we fix immigration and millions of fine immigrants do the jobs that the middle class won't". Oh, I'm fooking giddy.

And, someone please tell me why the cool, hip technology geek that disrespects America daily, couldn't open his laptop to take a gander at the shining signature achievement of his legacy, to wit, his obamacare website when it rolled out.

256

Proud mom that I am, though, I say he's much wiser than TFG and Clinton - combined. -Marybeth.

 

Congrats Marybeth, but I also know several feral cats and rodents that are much wiser than the "men" you mentioned.

257

246Brandon, what about the OJ trial? Frankly I was never that interested in that local crime story. Just as I am not interested in the Amanda Knox story.

 

---

 

In case you're serious, the deal is that a footprint found at the crime scene was determined to be that of a Bruno Magli shoe matching a set OJ owned, though he claimed he'd never own such a pair of "butt ugly" shoes.

258 Posted by: Damiano the Economic Traitor at October 31, 2013 04:11 PM (j0wOO) Humility doesn't mean thinking you're nothing. It means being grateful for your own gifts but also appreciating the gifts that other people have and recognizing your own lack of them. In many leftists there's an attitude of nobody else knowing things that are important, as well as an air emtitlement-that you should feel privileged in doing things for them. Gratitude is a quality that is often missing.

259 It depends on your field of study. If you look at something like Math (Hi AmishDude!), Harvard and Princeton's Math departments are top-notch.

Posted by: bonhomme at October 31, 2013 04:23 PM (sByIH)

...to an extent.  Math is math.  Unless you're a doctoral candidate (and in many cases, even that doesn't matter), the equations don't change. 

You can only rediscover the wheel and fire so many times.

By saying they're "top notch" what do you mean?  They draw perfectly formed line integrals on the white board?  It's just fuckin math.

260 Sometimes you see stuff like that and just shake your head. Posted by: tangonine at October 31, 2013 04:23 PM (x3YFz) The only person that survived the Princess Diana crash at 95 MPH in a MB 600SL? The bodyguard who was the only one with his seat belt on.

261 Icedog, one of my favorites from Vision of the Anointed: “Systemic processes tend to reward people for making decisions that turn out to be right—creating great resentment among the anointed, who feel themselves entitled to rewards for being articulate, politically active, and morally fervent.”

262 Proud mom that I am, though, I say he's much wiser than TFG and Clinton - combined.

Posted by: Marybeth at October 31, 2013 04:25 PM (Ks0w4)

------------

It sounds like you raised a good man.  Not that easy to do these days - to raise men.  You have every right to be proud.

263

After one of my brothers met Dick Morris, he needed a shower to wash it all off.

 

 

Dick Morris is a piker.

264 Posted by: Damiano the Economic Traitor at October 31, 2013 04:11 PM (j0wOO) Forgot to add that I very much appreciated your comments. Your post was very well expressed showing both self knowledge and appreciation fort the gifts of others,

265 6 So what will be our apotheosis? Posted by: Paladin at October 31, 2013 03:45 PM (E1aoU) Conservatives don't have one. They tend to be rather skeptical of the man-god scenario.

266 No job, no insurance, economy in a shambles, the world hates us... Everything the Democrats told me about voting for Romney is coming true!

267 256

Congrats Marybeth, but I also know several feral cats and rodents that are much wiser than the "men" you mentioned.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at October 31, 2013 04:27 PM (HVff2)

 

 

I'm sorry - I forgot I say that to liberals. 

 

 

268 I forgot to note that I liked ace's post, it was thought provoking and rich.

269 263 After one of my brothers met Dick Morris, he needed a shower to wash it all off. After I met Karl Rove, I needed a fucking steam AND a shower.

270 Conservatives don't have one. They tend to be rather skeptical of the man-god scenario.

Posted by: Caliban at October 31, 2013 04:29 PM (DrC22)

Please explain that.  I'm kinda slow.

271 Another quality that Obama lacks is emotional Intelligence He doesn't understand how other people feel, nor does he want to, all qualities of a narcissist.

272 Migraines make you funny.

I like meat.

273 "Mama, my son is exactly this. He had a perfect SAT score, in the top 2% of MCAT scores in the country... ... Proud mom that I am, though, I say he's much wiser than TFG and Clinton - combined."

I would absolutely love to watch Obama and Clinton -- and frankly all of the liberal chattering classes -- sit the MCAT. Or any other hard science, engineering, or math test you care to name.

274 The progressive-socialist elites subsist on magical thinking. "I so decree the world operates thusly!"

275 That guy used the word, "thusly".  Fuck that guy.

276 I forgot to note that I liked ace's post, it was thought provoking and rich.

Add this one to the e-book of essays which we will purchase.

277

"They believe themselves to be transcendentally hypercompetent, a delusion that they are permitted to cling to only because they've never been in positions of actual responsibility where their decisions will result in well-defined failure or well-defined success."

 

 

This is the definition of the chattering class.  Famers fail, people starve. Businessmen fail, jobs are lost.  Doctors fail, people die.  Soldiers fail, battles are lost.  Journalists, academics and politicians fail with no consequence. They can't be wrong.  It's your fault, go shop around.

278 231 There's a great scene in back to school where the practical business man(Rodney) corrects the elitist professor about how a construction project works in the real world.

Posted by: steevy at October 31, 2013 04:27 PM (zqvg6)

*

Great movie, favorite part is the triple lindy dive scene.

We call my boss' son Thorton Melon Jr.

279 And here we go. >>Americans who sign up for Obamacare will be getting a big surprise if they expect to access premium health care that may have been previously covered under their personal policies. Most of the top hospitals will accept insurance from just one or two companies operating under Obamacare. http://tinyurl.com/ortv7rj Elites. Is there anything they can't do?

280 272 Migraines make you funny. I like meat. Call me.

281 Proud mom that I am, though, I say he's much wiser than TFG and Clinton - combined.

Posted by: Marybeth at October 31, 2013 04:25 PM (Ks0w4)

-------------

After I got a hug from Scott Walker, I didn't change my clothes for two days.  

282 Caliban, I think that Brooks' quote is dead on. How do we determine what is of value? Because we are not all-knowing, we have to consider that people who came before us knew something we did not, and made their judgments accordingly. The reverse is very much true of progressivism, which has been responsible for atrocities such as brutalist architecture, Helvetica, and scrap metal sculpture largely because they deliberately discarded the advice of prior generations.

283 they are only smug because we allow them to be so. See the Simpsons episode in which Sideshow Bob in which a pie to the face is that much more funny because of the assumed dignity.

284

Great movie, favorite part is the triple lindy dive scene

 

---

 

My favorite is the book report on Kurt Vonnegut and the aftermath of him turning in the report to his professor.

285 Elites. Is there anything they can't do? Posted by: JackStraw

Is it worthwhile?  An elite can't do it.

286 I had a great mechanic for about 20 years. Humble, wise, efficient, never raked me over the coals for repairs. He knew his stuff. The VERY, VERY last time I went to see him I arrived early, wandered around checking out the calender with the hot chicks bent over the front end of a muscle car, then noticed it around the corner out of customer view. Dirty, and covered in dust. A diploma. From a nationally renowned college, degree in engineering.

287 Ace, you're forgetting the entire point of Progressiveism; removing power from the reach of the electorate.  By definition Obama and Biden are not elite (in this technocrat, control the little people sense).  Their non-responsibleness for the technocratic outcome is a feature not a bug.

288 Add this one to the e-book of essays which we will purchase. Posted by: HeatherRadish™ at work with a migraine at October 31, 2013 04:31 PM (/kI1Q) No doubt. I'd buy a few, just to help him out.

289 "To no one's surprise, Barkyskins is pivoting once again to "creating good paying jobs for the middle class"

For once he may not get away with this BS.  Not when millions are finding they have to cough up several hundred dollars a month more for insurance.   Not that he won't try but I think even the lapdog MSM might join in the mocking this time. 

290 The only person that survived the Princess Diana crash at 95 MPH in a MB 600SL? The bodyguard who was the only one with his seat belt on. Where is 95 mph legal?

291 Sorry  - that Scott Walker reference made no sense, did it?  I was trying to follow on the heals of the Dick Morris, Karl Rove meetings, and failed miserably.


I'll try to drink more,  maybe that will help.

292 If our late friend Apotheosis were still around, he'd make you take that back.

293 Damiano, #252: "Majoring in anything does not make anyone an expert in anything." This brings up a peeve of mine: People, and this includes classmates and friends, whose first job out of college is "consultant." I used to think consultant was something you do later, after you go out and gain some real-world experience that makes your judgments valuable.

294

@261, Sowell's books are full of gold nuggets of wisdom.  I love watching  the  multiple  vids  of him completely destroying liberals and dismantling their  lifelong  beliefs in   mere seconds.  

 

Unfortunately, there haven't been any liberals in years who will challenge him in public. 

295 "23 I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University" Boston or Harvard? I don't know, pretty much the same these days. Pick another city somewhere in the middle of the US.

296

Where is 95 mph legal?

 

---

 

Montana, the Dakotas, and probably some parts of Nevada and Idaho.

297 Why yes, I am one of the masters of the universe.

298
I like meat.

Posted by: HeatherRadish™ at work with a migraine at October 31, 2013 04:30 PM (/kI1Q)

Call me baby!

299 284 Brandon in BR,

I liked it when he dived into the volcano.....

//Gerg

300 Conservatives don't have one. They tend to be rather skeptical of the man-god scenario.
---

I saw Steven Mansfield discuss his book Lincoln's Battle With God on CSPN.  He used Lincoln's two inaugural address to support his theory that Lincoln became more religious in the White House.  The first inaugural used language suggesting that man was in charge of the outcomes of events.  The second inaugural used language indicating that he knew man could not control events and that he must rely on God.  It was very interesting and I'll have to read that one day.

301 After I met Lexi Diamond I had to thank Jesus.

302 This is 'just' healthcare.  The progressive apotheosis in most historical experiments has been when they fuck up the production of food.

303 Where is 95 mph legal? Posted by: rickb223 at October 31, 2013 04:34 PM (KvM9d) Nowhere I know, but they were trying to outrun a motorcycle in a tunnel in Paris and hit the wall at 95.

304 It makes sense the brilliant ones never seek public offices. They are too busy building the world, and making it a better place. progressive mindset = hypocrisy 101

305 I would absolutely love to watch Obama and Clinton -- and frankly all of the liberal chattering classes -- sit the MCAT. Or any other hard science, engineering, or math test you care to name. I'd settle on watching them balance a checkbook.

306

This brings up a peeve of mine: People, and this includes classmates and friends, whose first job out of college is "consultant."

 

Almost as bad as some fucktard  - with zero accomplishments -  putting out,  not one, but two autobiographies...before the age of 40. 

307 Just think about the military: the one part of it that is growing is the JAG Corps. A bunch of lawyers controls what we can do militarily. It doesn't work. Go to any meeting of lawyers and listen to them talk about, oh, just about any topic.

308 Sowell's books are full of gold nuggets of wisdom. I love watching the multiple vids of him completely destroying liberals and dismantling their lifelong beliefs in mere seconds.

Unfortunately, there haven't been any liberals in years who will challenge him in public.
---

They consider him to be a house n-words while, I assume, they consider themselves to be field n-words.

309 The arrogance of ignorance.

A person that knows of what a task entails (i.e. experience) will always approach the task warily. They know all that can go wrong. People with no experience assume the task will be easy because they are simple.

310 181 "The basis to Chomsky's linguistic theory is that the principles underlying the structure of language are biologically determined in the human mind and hence genetically transmitted" Actually the basis of Chomsky's argument is that Skinner was wrong. The rest is backfill.

311


These types do run the world, and they are fucking shit up...

But then, is that a natural progression...is this how it works, we just lose it.

312 I personally believe pasteurized milk steals my purity of essence, so I avoid. Go straight for the teet, when possible. Posted by: Dr Spank at October 31, 2013 04:24 PM (9jLim) Strategies http://www.lolbrary.com/lolpics/526/superior-magic-the-gathering-strategy-6526.jpg

313 My favoriteis the book report on Kurt Vonnegut and the aftermath of him turning in the report to his professor.

Posted by: Brandon In Baton Rouge at October 31, 2013 04:33 PM (/Crba)

*

Sam Kinnison having the Vietnam flashback.

314 Nowhere I know, but they were trying to outrun a motorcycle in a tunnel in Paris and hit the wall at 95. Yet the gov has deemed it that I have to wear one doing 20 in a school zone. For my safety.

315 I don't think 95 is legal anywhere in the USA. Montana enacted speed limits on the interstates a few years ago. Even the fucking Autobahn has a speed limit now.

316 303 Nip Sip,

the SAS, MI 5, and Cub Scouts hid that wall there....

//moonbat

317

Montana, the Dakotas, and probably some parts of Nevada and Idaho.

 

 

Not anymore, unfortunately.  The days of Montana's 'reasonable and prudent' speed limit are gone.

And you don't speed in the Dakotas or Idaho.  They take that shit seriously.

318

315I don't think 95 is legal anywhere in the USA. Montana enacted speed limits on the interstates a few years ago. Even the fucking Autobahn has a speed limit now.

 

---

 

Must have been recent because they had no daytime speed limits the last time I heard.

319 238-You forgot to add: "Who Wayne Brady could knock the shit out of".

320 noooder.

321 9 The arrogance of ignorance. A person that knows of what a task entails (i.e. experience) will always approach the task warily. They know all that can go wrong. People with no experience assume the task will be easy because they are simple. Replacing a 30 yr old faucet with just the tools suggested on the box.

322 This applies here:

"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing."

323 I can't respect a man who's never had a real job, whether he's a basement dweller, rich kid or President. (Same for his wife.)

Posted by: Dr. Varno at October 31, 2013 04:23 PM (bYRF2)

 

 

-------------------------------------------

 

 

This is probably the main problem with the "elite" in government.  Rush sums it up best.  They only know textbook theory and  tidbits of information they picked up in deep discussions  over drinks in the faculty lounge.

 

 

324 "Government By Those Who've Never Successfully Done Anything Before Without Their Parents' Lawyers, Guns and/or Money."

325 Posted by: artisanal 'ette: dim sum and tapas > halloween candy


Hah!

326 @318 You haven't been out there in a long time. Montana Speed limits. http://tinyurl.com/4cekku

327

306 This brings up a peeve of mine: People, and this includes classmates and friends, whose first job out of college is "consultant."

Almost as bad as some fucktard - with zero accomplishments - putting out, not one, but two autobiographies...before the age of 40.

----

Double fucktard in having to hire a ghost writer to write your two autobiographies.

328 @FenelonSpoke I'm flattered. Thank you. To me it all can be summed up in participation trophies. Before participation trophies and the like, as kids, we tried everything we could put our hands on and failed... a lot... and it sucked. The value of the experience was not in feeling good about trying. It was in slowing figuring out what our innate talents are and learning to admire the talents of others that exceed our own abilities. Failure is the most necessary and most valuable thing in life. Unfortunately, every aspect of our society is now designed to disavow failure and shun success. Sorry. We are not all equal, no matter how hard we might try to be. My total inability to dance without looking like a spastic monkey or give birth to a child is proof.

329 It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so. Will Rogers These people believe their knowledge is both wider and deeper than it is, and buy into far too many "everyone knows" myths. Because thinking, especially when math is involved, is painful. Why else is economics called the "dismal science"?

330 BTW, why in the hell is Israel still telling Obama anything about their military strikes given he's rapidly approaching provably on the side of the Islamists?

331

I like to tell people I am a recovering elitist.  Daughter of a successful doctor, got the undergrad degree in economics, the graduate degree in Public Policy from Harvard, went to work in Washington to change the world.  I really thought that smart conservatives like me could fix what was wrong with a lot of our government programs, end dependency, etc. etc. 

 

But then I got a good dose of the reality of how government works.  And an even better dose of reality about how Washington works.  And how much fucking up is done there every single day by elitists with no actual skills. 

 

I got the hell out of DC 9 years ago and moved to the real world, with a real job in the private sector - which I lost in the Great Recession, another brtual lesson in how elitists fucked up everything with their Affordable Housing Goals and Community Reinvestment Act and, on the flip side, the MIT quants on Wall Street making up bullshit formulas that they claimed could take all the risk out of mortgage lending and securitizations.  Now I work for a company that is having the shit regulated out of it and spending millions and millions of dollars on lawyers and compliance people and risk managers. 

 

Pretty much everything that is wrong with America right now was caused by elitists who don't know shit about the real world but are hell-bent on fixing it.

332 one more point, Obamacare is not the apotheosis of liberalism, it's the single payer pipedream of the international left as best implemented by a bunch of corrupt monkies who managed to shove whatever bill they could draw up through Congress. As if it has anything to do with elites or whatever. The elites, as they've always been, are just windowdressing for whatever totalitarian thug they hold court for.

333

cool. a new word. "Apotheosis".

i will use it correctly in conversation some day. hopefully while drunk at a christmas party.

 

thanks, ace!

now to read the rest of this essay...

334

The GOP House could cause major pain in Silicon Valley with a few simple tax law changes.

Oh, and also, a little rider on an appropriations bill that says privately owned aircraft can no longer be stored at or operated from federal airfields save in an emergency.

That would evict Google's executives from Moffett Field in Sunnyvale, which they have come to use as their own private airstrip. To the extent of being allowed to buy hundreds of thousands of gallons of discount jet fuel for their personal jets at government pricing.

----------------

 

Don't worry.  I'm sure Sacramento would pick up the slack for the Silicon Valley execs.

 

335 270 Conservatives don't have one. They tend to be rather skeptical of the man-god scenario. Please explain that. I'm kinda slow. Posted by: tangonine at October 31, 2013 04:30 PM (x3YFz) No, you're not. Just a lot of fancy words. Think of it this way: the libs thought Obama was "the one." That's apotheosis. Do you know any conservatives who thought George Bush was "the one"? No, they don't think that way.

336 "Google (GOOG), Red Hat Inc. (RHT), Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and other companies are
contributing dozens of computer engineers and programmers to help the

So the most especial sooper kidz self selected and jammed into a failing bureacratic mess.  Actually sending Joey B in with a copy of  FORTRAN for dummies might work better.

337 Where is 95 mph legal? Anywhere the highway patrol isn't.

338 282 Caliban, I think that Brooks' quote is dead on. How do we determine what is of value? Because we are not all-knowing, we have to consider that people who came before us knew something we did not, and made their judgments accordingly. Posted by: LUO at October 31, 2013 04:32 PM (qcpc2) Agreed. The question is essence. Brooks claims that the essence of conservatism is epistemological modesty. It's a natural attribute of conservatism, but it is not the essence. Brooks cannot understand the essence because he is not conservative. And to claim that Burke was about "epistemological modesty" is just plain clueless.

339 Posted by: rickb223 at October 31, 2013 04:38 PM (KvM9d)

I think anyone who doesn't wear a safety belt is a fucking retard, but the idea that the government should stick its dick in what is a private decision makes me want to throttle every politician in the country (of course; everything makes me want to do that).

340 Obama majored in Political Science in college which makes him an expert in government and nothing else, Not even that. Let's face it. My old dirty socks have enough organic matter to get a Ph.D. in political science.

341

you ain't shittin, ace. lookie what i found in the amazon political forum:

"This just in:
Tech titans Oracle, Google and Red Hat will help fix Healthcare.gov, the federal website for Obamacare, according to an oracle spokesperson.

The smart people are helping to implement the plan.
The dump people are still whining about obama care.
The smart people are putting it in place.
The dumb people spend their time regurgitating propaganda. "oh a woman's health care premiums in FL are on the rise" Well, there you have it "I knew there was something fishy about the obama care"

Useless dumb people. GO carry hoses, or tie some wires together, or sell insurance, or used stuff on the internet. you are not needed.

The smart people take care of business.

Working like a man
Working like a man."

 

posted by 'Mr. Jumps'. he appears to have said it seriously.

342 "57 The funny thing is the leftist elitists will argue that government needs to control the choices of us little people because we're human and fallible; but they never ONCE consider the fact that they, too, are human and fallible -- so why should their opinions and choices be any better than ours?

Posted by: elaine at October 31, 2013 03:54 PM (GNZ0/)"

Their opinions and choices are better than ours because they are the elite.  And they are the elite because their opinions and choices are better than ours.

You see how that works?  It's kind of like Brawndo.  It's got what plants crave.  It's got electrolytes.

343

Hey Ace - you need to add a link to Daniel Henninger's WSJ column "Progressive Government Fails" to this post.  He expounds on your point very well, with some very choice phrases.

 

He also makes a good point that Obamacare is actually more progressive than a single-payer system would be.  Under single payer, government simply pays the bills for everyone's crappy health care.  Obamacare promises the same great health care to everyone that we have now, but with mandates and subsidies and payoffs to progressive causes and constituencies and hyper-regulation of private business. 

344
No, you're not. Just a lot of fancy words. Think of it this way: the libs thought Obama was "the one." That's apotheosis. Do you know any conservatives who thought George Bush was "the one"? No, they don't think that way.

Posted by: Caliban at October 31, 2013 04:47 PM (DrC22)

Solid copy.  I apologize I've been up for like 4 days straight with nothing but caffeine, nicotine and hate fueling me.  It's to the point that I couldn't sleep even if I wanted to.

This is the part where the hallucinations begin, so I don't want to sleep through that, I've come too far!

345

It's hard for me to understand how people can think of themselves as elite when they are blindsighted by epiphanies that the Tea Party warned about years ago.

 

I love it when my LoFo Sister-in-Law mentions some "new" scandal that I have been aware of for months, while she was protected from it by the media.  I just tell her "Oh I've known about that for months, because you see, I read the all news you read, AND all the news you will NOT read, too.

346 I think it is a safe bet that the same "elites" think war is too important to leave to the generals.

347 "315 I don't think 95 is legal anywhere in the USA. Montana enacted speed limits on the interstates a few years ago. Even the fucking Autobahn has a speed limit now.

Posted by: Nip Sip at October 31, 2013 04:39 PM (0FSuD)"

At least a couple of years ago when I was there, there are areas of the Autobahn without speed limit but there are a lot more that have speed limits of 130 km which is 85 mph.  I think there are some sections of I-10 in west Texas with that speed limit.  The thing that really limits speed on much of the Autobahn is the number of trucks on the road and the large areas of construction.  For some reason, Europe has done the reverse of the United States where we transport most of our freight by train and most of our people by motor vehicle. 

348 Let me rephrase my previous for fuller effect--these Progressives will, on the social issues they favor, demand you listen to experts in field, then turn around and tell you war is too important to be left to generals, and thus no counter-insurgency effort can ever win--because they just read a Mother Jones article saying so.

349 What is the difference between an American "progressive" and a used up old dirty European "socialist"?  Is progressive just sort of new, shinier, hipper "Amerikan"?  Cause it looks and smells like same old, same old.

350 ..." but they never ONCE consider the fact that they, too, are
human and fallible -- so why should their opinions and choices be any
better than ours?"

That is no way to speak of the Diadochi, peasant!

351 Wow. That's the best definition of "conservative" I've ever seen. I also love the CS Lewis quote. There are over 350 comments here, so I didn't look at them all. Should I be surprised that all the ones I did look at seemed to have ignored the wisdom of that quote? Neither party is free of that most dangerous delusion. That's why we all need each other - as a kind of natural check and balance. This is why the crowd consistently "thinks" better than any one person. I get this site and the people who comment regularly gain solidarity from disparaging progressives. It's no different on progressive sites: they love lambasting the conservatives. What surprises me about both is that neither side seems to understand that continued division only weakens those who should actually be standing side-by-side. Strange. Indeed.

352 There has been a whole study done on this phenomena... http://www.damninteresting.com/unskilled-and-unaware-of-it/

353 What I call them is Over Educated and Under Skilled.

354 Ace: "They believe they are masters of the universe, but in fact are masters of almost nothing at all, not even the narrow range of material they studied before immediately going into a career of government work or government agitation."

Which just goes to prove that they wasted tens of thousands of dollars (or more, and probably someone else's money at that) and several years of "study" to not grasp the most fundamental lessons of college: 1) Learn how to learn, and 2) Understand exactly how ignorant you really are.

If you come out of college without learning those, you're dumber than a fencepost and not damn nearly as useful.

355 For some reason, the thought that leapt to mind when I read this post was "target rich environment".

356

As to the Israelis: here is what I think happened.

 

The Russians didn't deliver until they got paid cash. IN FULL.

 

Then they tipped off the Israelis as to the location of the goods. Ivan knew what was going down. The Israelis have probably been helping Putin for years with his Islamic Fascist problem.

357 For the last 5 years, every time someone says "But the President said that wouldn't happen", I am reminded of the penultimate scene in "Rustler's Rhapsody" where the 2 "good" guys have to fight each other (watch the movie - can't find a link to that scene) and damn if Biden doesn't nearly quote it.

358 "Elitist technocrats are also the ones making you buy pasteurized milk and buy cars with seat belts."

What a Rorschach test of a sentence.  Which part does the reader focus most upon?  Elitist? Technocrat?  Pasteurized milk? Seat belts?

For me, and hopefully many others here and elsewhere, it's the verb 'making' as in mandating, forcing under threat of punishment with no due process.

Remember the crescendo of tragic, very real stories about children being killed or injured by passenger air bags?  The 'good idea' that became mandatory was directly responsible for the casualties.  Liberal heroine Joan Claybrook, champion of the airbag, assumed the usual position of a liberal whose do-gooderism backfired:  she hid under her desk.  To the probable relief of Claybrook and the greater nanny state, 9/11 happened and the media dropped the subject altogether.

But a scientist was responsible for pasteurization. Engineers designed seat belts.  Beyond their authoritarian mindset, technocrats have sharp elbows and are happy to use them to jump to the front of the line as they claim credit for others' ideas and achievements.

359 Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a health care system is insignificant next to the power of the Force.

360 But a scientist was responsible for pasteurization. Yes, and his name entered into our lexicon as a result. But his initial efforts at pasteurization was aimed at saving the French beer industry. The technique was found useful for other things as well.

361 What is going on here is that a cadre of people who have a very narrow skill-set -- primarily law or some public policy degree which featured very little math, and that math was Math for Liberal Arts Which probably topped out at college algebra. Maybe. Or maybe some sort of entry level geometry class. I'll lay down 100 quatloos that most if not all of our "betters" have never set foot in or opened a book for a calculus class. -- have decided that they can comprehend the workings of everyone else's job in America, simply because they went to a Good School. No, that's not it. They share this hubris with managers who manage work they themselves have never done. The hubris is in fact as follows: I've never done that, but it must be trivial. Anyone can do it. There's a Dilbert cartoon that illustrates this very well. The Pointy Haired Boss is laying out a timeline for a project to Dilbert, and states (building some ridiculously complex system from scratch), 3 minutes to complete. I forget what the complex system was specifically, but it would be like the Amazon shopping system, or a world-wide peer-to-peer network. Worse yet, they won't listen when subject experts tell them it can't be done in that time frame. And the contractors who bid for these jobs? they're Pointy Hairs in their own right, and will not turn down a job because of the time frame. As we like to say in the tech world, there's never enough time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over.

362 I look forward to living in this Mike Judge "Idiocracy" where these "PhD's" consist mostly of cat picture referencing jackasses.

Exactly what good has the Buzzfeed / Journolist set produced in the world except some extremely crappy photoshops of cat lists and a healthcare system that is screwing our country?

This is truly the worst collection of humanity ever assembled and then celebrated.

Any generation before would have be ashamed... but hey let's keep listening to some a-hole who's daddy got them a job or likes to make cat lists.

I'm sure we can screw up the other 5/6ths of our economy their e-mail list talks about next.

363 Greetings. When I said change the world, I never said it would be better. Grandpa said I was a genius, that's why dad left. Uncle Frank said I could change the world to make it fair so nanny nannynoo Hoo.

364 "It isn't just that life is complicated-- though it is. What is going on here is that a cadre of people who have a very narrow skill-set -- primarily law or some public policy degree which featured very little math, and that math was Math for Liberal Arts -- have decided that they can comprehend the workings of everyone else's job in America, simply because they went to a Good School." Agree with everything said, with the following observation: I was an undergrad math major who followed up with an MA in public policy from a very well-known school. The MA program I took involved a heavy exposure to statistics and econometrics, which they called "quantitative methods for policy analysis". I had a difficult enough time with it despite my undergrad math, so you can imagine how my classmates, with their degrees in history, sociology and political science,were struggling. And this was 40 years ago!