NEWSFLASH !!! MEN LIKE SEX

Ya think?

Now that I have your attention, head on over to GM's Corner for a tour of all the psych bloggers!

AND LIKE A GOOD NEIGHBOR, IRAN IS THERE...

We all know that the mullahs of Iran just wants peace, and that must be why they are ratcheting up the rhetoric:

Six hundred Iranian Shihab-3 missiles are pointed at targets throughout Israel, and will be launched if either Iran or Syria are attacked, an Iranian website affiliated with the regime reported on Monday.

"Iran will shoot at Israel 600 missiles if it is attacked," the Iranian news website, Assar Iran, reported. "600 missiles will only be the first reaction."

According to the report, dozens of locations throughout Iraq, which are being used by the US Army, have also been targeted.

The Shihab missile has a range of 1,300 km, and can reach anywhere in Israel.

On Sunday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that the nuclear Iranian crisis forces the world "to prepare for the worst," and said that in this case it "is war."

And, if you remember, they've been helping out in Gaza and Lebanon, too. What a bunch of swell guys! The left loves 'em (at least in comparison to the warmongering "psychopathic personalities" of the West--wink,wink, you know who they mean!)




Professionally, I can't decide which group is more psychotic and out of touch with reality --the Iranian mullahs or reality-biased left....

A folie a deux is certainly not out of the diagnostic picture.


All they are saying, is....

FOR SALE, USED BLOG

My blog is worth $617,606.76.
How much is your blog worth?

Anyone interested in buying?

How do they determine these things anyway?

THE IMPOSITION OF LEFTIST SHARIA

Definition: Leftist Sharia - the dynamic body of leftist quasi-religious dogma that dictates suitable behavior for everyone...or else.

--------------------------------------------------------
Betsy has an example of the "new feminism" of the political left. It's rather ironic that it is pretty much indistinguishable from the behavior of the old sexist 'pigs' of the 60's and 70's--but in this new and improved version, women of the left unashamedly exploit their sexual connections and obtain power through their association with a male.

Along the same lines, this and this exemplify the left's "new civil rights" philosophy. They have the right to ridicule, trash and denigrate any black person who dares to stray from the approved party line.

Furthermore, this and this represent the "new gay rights" agenda of the left, where it's OK to be gay as long as you follow their rules, believe as they believe, and behave as they dictate you should.

Funny, isn't it, how much all this resembles the most pernicious sort of tyranny?

Three examples of what the Democrats REALLY think of their "rainbow" base of support.

Do you imagine these attitudes now displayed by the political left show respect for "diversity"?

Think back. Do you entertain the idea that John Edwards and John Kerry compassionately brought up Mary Cheney's sexual orientation in 2004 in order to show their "respect" for Vice President Cheney and his family? Or that Ted Rall and Jeff Danziger are proud of black achievement?

Ann Coulter wrote about this aspect of the left's intellectual and moral bankruptcy in a FrontPageMag.com article some time back:

...So now liberals are lashing out at the gays. Two weeks ago, the New York Times turned over half of its op-ed page to outing gays with some connection to Republicans. There is no principled or intellectual basis for these outings. Conservatives don't want gays to die; we just don't want to transform the Pentagon into the Office of Gay Studies.

By contrast, liberals say: "We love gay people! Gay people are awesome! Being gay is awesome! Gay marriage is awesome! Gay cartoon characters are awesome! And if you don't agree with us, we'll punish you by telling everyone that you're gay!"

In addition to an attack on a website reporter for supposedly operating a gay escort service and thereby cutting into the business of the Village Voice, another Times op-ed article the same day gratuitously outed the children of prominent conservatives.

These are not public figures. No one knows who they are apart from their famous parents. I didn't even know most of these conservatives

Do you think that a Black woman in one of the highest political offices in the land deserves to be ridiculed for her achievements because she is Black and a Republican? Or because she is possibly gay and Republican? Do you think she'd get some respect if she were a Democrat?

In the left's obsession with "diversity", it is interesting, is it not, that they have completely omitted the concept of diversity of thought as being worthy of inclusion into their little multiculti religion?

That is because when there is a tolerance for diversity of thought, it is much harder to claim that you have been "victimized" by others. They are free to mock you, just as you are free to mock them.

All this is evidence that the left has become a party promoting political sharia; and as such, they reserve a special punishment --or 'fatwa"--for any member of their "protected" victim groups who dare to escape from their "protection."

The left is capable of thinking about these issues only in terms of the 'Marxist dialectic', where everyone is either "oppressed" ,or else they must be an "oppressor" (except, of course, for the leaders of the left who consider themselves "champions of the oppressed").

This framework allows them to continually fan the fires of class warfare and thus continue a self-fulfilling prophecy. And the left's victimhood scam has become a remarkably convenient intellectual and moral tool to keep that rainbow base of support in line with the dogma.

In fact, this strategy is precisely at the heart of the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the Left today.

The faux concerns regularly expresesed by the left about the “erosion of democracy and free speech” are striking--particularly when you consider that their own ideological constructs (e.g., "multiculturalism" and "political correctness") are the most serious threats to free speech and intellectual freedom.

This is the leftist sharia that has been imposed upon all of us. If you are female, black or gay and dare to reject their religion, they will brand you apostate and issue one of their fatwas, intent on exposing your "hypocrisy" (the worse kind of sin in their eyes is if you go against the one, true, religion).

Is it any wonder they feel a mystical kinship with a certain medieval and fanatical religion?

CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITIES

Time for the weekly insanity update, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). So, if you want to remain sane, the best thing is to poke some fun at the more egregious absurdities.

Send all entries for next week's carnival to Dr. Sanity by 8 pm ET on Saturday for Sunday's Carnival. Only one post entry weekly per blogger, please. And you might read this before submitting an entry.

**NOTE: I am now getting many more submissions than I can possibly include in the weekly Carnival. Please don't be offended if your submission is not used (oh, okay, be as offended as you like) as it only means that for a variety of reasons I wasn't able to fit it into the "flow" as I put together each Carnival.

REMEMBER, THERE ARE SO MANY INSANITIES AND SO LITTLE TIME!!!

1. All your Islamophobic joke are belong to us! A tour de farce! Analysis of terrorist logos.

2. Osama bin forgery? Fake fake fake. Popular in Pakistan, despite being dead. The laundry service will know. Whatever, he's the new champion of the left!

3. Jihadist doctors' hypocritic oath: First, Do Harm. Some interesting scientific correlations....

4. Collateral damage in righteous payback...

5. Fideling while Havana churns. Tell us another story, Uncle Fidel.

6. Yeah, they support the troops, all right. Do it now! For the sake of the 2008 election. They coulda, should, woulda won....but oops! the election is actually over. Isn't this taking polls a little too far?

7. Saving the planet, one vacuum bomb at a time!

8. It's all about a woman's right to Hsu's. Or maybe it's that willing suspension of disbelief that constitutes Clintonian faith.

9. Neo-Nazi Jews? Neo-non Jewish Jews?

10. Global warming=Nuclear war. Yes, it's come to that. And, along those same lines, can legislation of this sort be that far off in the future?

11. Patent denied! Allah be praised! Hey, Moveon...he can beat the NY Times discount rate!


12. It doesn't get much better than this: getting paid for sex--for the good of the country, you know :-)

13. Huggable chinese internet police icons. The chimp makes a friend?

14. The winner of his own "Worst Person in the World" Award? If only he had the insight and courage to award it to himself!

15. Enrollment down, costs up. This is elementary economics... And, how could anyone forget those magical high school years?

16. A different kind of brain or the same biased research?

17. What's next? Even worse, I'd imagine. Maybe chocolate viagra?

18. A cat with issues. Dirt is not a male issue.

19. Personally, I think revenge is sweet...saccharine sweet.

20. Just in case you think you need professional help....






***************************************
Carnival of the Insanities can also be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival and at the BlogCarnival.

If you would like to Join the insanity, and add the Carnival of the Insanities button to your sidebar (clicking on it will always take you to the latest update of the Carnival), click on "Word of Blog" below the button to obtain the html code:

Heard the Word of Blog?

TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY

I am in Toronto to participate in filming The Discovery Channel's "EARTH to MARS:The Great Space Debate" and will be busy most of the day! But I'll always have blogging, and tomorrow is another day...

To maintain your mental health in my brief absence, be sure to check out the other members of the Sanity Squad: Neo, Shrink, and Siggy. We will be back podcasting up a political storm next week....hopefully!

And if your life would be completely meaningless without that touch of therapeutic blogging in it, there's always One Cosmos, Dr. Helen, and GM's Corner to keep your psyche occupied.

Consider this an open thread to discuss life, the universe, and everything!

CAUTION: SUPER-SIZED EGOS AT WORK

What can you say about a serious (very serious) presidential candidate who retains a national security criminal as her national security advisor?

This is a story about a buffoon who became one of our nation's top national security officials, and then became a confessed national security criminal. His probation ended last week, and he still can't be given access to classified documents or information. But he's once again part of the "triumvirate" of senior officials advising She Who Would Be President on foreign policy matters.

I find this absolutely stunning. Is she going to give a key ambassadorship to Norman Hsu when he gets out of jail?

The fact that the MSM gives this a complete pass is even more stunning. Do you want to know how this information came out? In an article about Hillary and Obama competing for the 'best and brightest'!!

Give me a sexually ambivalent Larry Craig any day over this sort of deliberate, calculated and absolute contempt that these narcissistic, power-hungry wannabe despots have for America's national security.

Let's review. Regarding Sandy Berger:

For Berger to risk jail and disgrace, to then give up the right to practice his profession merely in order to avoid having to answer questions, he must be hiding something important. And if it is that important to him, it is also important to us.

The most likely explanation is that the material Berger destroyed points to a terrible mistake by Berger himself, by President Clinton, or by both. In dealing with al-Qaeda, did they overlook a critical piece of information or miss a chance to stop 9/11? Did the Administration's failure to take a more aggressive posture encourage al-Qaeda's later attacks?

When Fox News' Chris Wallace raised the possibility that Clinton's Administration might have done something more to prevent 9/11, Bill Clinton went into an inexplicable rage on national television. Wallace touched a nerve. So did the DC Bar.

Knowing what information Berger destroyed also might alter views of the current Bush Administration. Was the early support from both Bill and Hillary Clinton for going to war against Saddam based on something we don't know yet that was available to insiders in the Clinton Administration? Was it something that could come back to haunt Hillary and ruin her chances of winning Bill's third term?

Whatever it was, it's likely that what Berger destroyed could have helped us understand what led to the most tragic terror attack in our nation's history and perhaps also help us decide what course - and what Chief Executive - will best to protect our future. The fact that Berger has been able to avoid revealing that information is a scandal of its own.

The only person who knows what information was lost is Sandy Berger. And he isn't talking.

*******
What is at stake is more than what we think and say about Sandy Berger. It is more than the legacy of Bill Clinton and of George W. Bush. It is more than the prospects for Hillary Clinton becoming the Democrats' presidential nominee and ultimately the President. All of these, of course, are wrapped up in this story.

Our security and vitality of the rule of law in America are at stake as well.

Amen.

The two things most remarkable in that excerpt (and read the entire thing) are the instructive psychological responses made by the people most involved in this deception; and both responses are extremely suggestive that they are desperate to hide something terribly important and that they know and understand how important it is.

One is "protesting too little", i.e., willingly giving up his license to practice law without a fight in order to avoid answering any questions; and the other is "protesting too much" by flying into a rage at a reasonable question. Both are more interested in their own personal legacies than they are in their country's best interests; and their behavior demonstrates that narcissism very clearly.

"Public servants"? What a joke. This country is plagued by narcissists cut from the same cloth as the two discussed above--narcissists who regularly use their position of public trust for personal aggrandizement and the most base self-gratification. This is what our politics became in the age of Clinton and that will forever be his legacy, whether he likes it or not.

I would rather a thousand money-grubbing William Jefferson's who stupidly hide $90,000 in freezers and who unabashedly bribe their way to wealth, but who are just run-of-the-mill thieves and criminals; I would rather have ten thousand Larry Craigs with their wide-stance sexual ambivalence, than any more William Jefferson Clinton types who, with the help of their trusty minions are ready, willing and able to sacrifice their own country on the altar of their super-sized egos.

The former behavior in any public servant is bad enough; but the country cannot survive an entire political party devoted to the proposition that feeling good about themselves is far more important than protecting this country from Islamofascist terrorism.

I just wonder how much of this denial and delusion the American public is willing to tolerate? How long can half the population of this country pretend that there is no real threat to our country and --if there is a threat, then it is because of Bush/Cheney and American imperialism or corporate greed--or both. How long will they willingly to let themselves be conned into accepting the safe and rather comforting belief (at least it is safe and comforting in comparison to the reality) that all the evil in the world is Bush/Cheney/America's fault?

I have more than a professional interest in the answer to those questions.

WHAT PRESIDENT BUSH SHOULD SAY TONIGHT

Scott Ott at Scrappleface has the "leaked" copy...and here's a brief excerpt:

Below is the unedited text of the speech scheduled for delivery later this week.

THE PRESIDENT: My fellow Americans, a handful of you this week have listened in on what passes for Congressional hearings. You’ve endured the speeches of politicians who arrived with their minds set in concrete, as bulwarks against the truth. You have watched as one of our nation’s brave, devoted, valiant soldiers was ignored and described (in so many words) as a liar.

These broadcasts brought joy to the caves of al Qaeda, the halls of al-Jazeera, and to the streets of places where 9/11 is celebrated with dancing as the day America was devastated.

If you have watched or listened to these hearings, you can bear witness now that many so-called ‘representatives of the people’ have no clue what the people believe.

These sessions should have brought the nation together to focus on victory and to sound a warning to our enemies that we are united — committed to defend freedom and to defeat freedom’s opponents.

Read it all. If only he would say what Ott has written! Otherwise, I tend to agree with this assessment, though his addres tonights could be a positive-- if he comes out swinging.

TAKE THAT, BIN LADEN !

From a post at The Corner from Larry Kudlow, titled "Free Market Capitalism 10, Jihadism 0":

Since September 11, the economy hasn’t suffered a single down quarter. In fact, it has notched 23 straight quarters of economic growth … Overall, the American economy is, adjusting for inflation, $1.65 trillion bigger than it was six years ago. To put that gigantic number in some perspective, the U.S. economy has added the equivalent of five Saudi Arabias, eight Irans, 13 Pakistans, or 15 Egypts, depending on your preference. And while 9/11 did cause the stock market to plunge, the Dow is 37 percent higher than it was on Sept. 10, 2001, creating trillions of dollars of new wealth for Americans. What’s more, the unemployment rate is 4.6 percent today vs. 5.7 percent back then. Not bad at all.

Indeed.

Humans are clearly well-suited to some economic, political, and religious systems and not to others. Some systems--such as Islamic jihadism with its recycled socialist and communist politics -- are nothing more than a Procrustean bed of torture, as they try to adjust human nature to fit their "perfect" religion and the will of their bloodthirsty god.

In every case where totalitarian ideologies are put in place, whether they are religious or not, the result has been either catastrophic human misery and death (when the ideology is applied ruthlessly and viciously) or stagnation and decay (when applied nonchalantly and accepted passively).

Bin Laden saves some of his most vicious rhetoric for capitalism and corporations, and in this he is following the traditional Marxist mode. All you have to do is consider the Middle East, and you can see just how "effective" the anti-capitalistic mentality of the Islamists has been. No where on earth is there more poverty and mind-numbing ignorance. If that part of the planet had not been serendipitously blessed with oil (praise Allah!), then there would be no interest whatsoever in the goings-on of major thugs like Bin Laden and his sidekicks, or even minor ones like the Saudi royal family. That the former live in caves and the latter in palaces is a matter of personal choice. In either case, however, the cave is the more appropriate symbol of their Marxist-inspired rule.

Compare the stagnant economies of the Middle East with Israel. Remember the oppression, death and misery facilitated by the Taliban in their heyday in Afghanistan. How completely laughable that the intellectual and morally bankrupt religious fanatacism believes its values are somehow superior to the evil, capitalist West.

They are only "superior" in their worship of death and destruction.

Many, like Bin Laden, will claim that it is capitalism that destroys humans, spiritually and physically, but they are incorrect; and all the evidence leans to the exact opposite conclusion. In fact, among social, political and economic systems, democratic capitalism is probably the one and only system that is most consistent with human nature in that it allows all aspects of human nature to express itself in socially acceptable ways that can benefit the individual and the society-at-large.

Capitalism does not pretend that those messy and omnipresent negative human emotions can be "stamped out" by adherence to an ideology. It accepts human nature as a given and provides a system through which humans are able to sublimate and redirect those negative emotions to better both themselves and incidentally the larger society.

As economic and political systems go, capitalism is actually a miraculous psychological breakthrough; and it is why capitalism dovetails so nicely with political systems that promote individual freedom and democracy.

And, far from encouraging the "survival of the fittest", capitalism encourages cooperation for mutually beneficial trade as well as for competition. Instead of encouraging war and dominance; capitalism thrives on trust and human cooperation; as well as alliances to maximize productivity and wealth creation.

Far from concentrating wealth in the hands of a few, capitalism makes it possible for anyone to accumulate wealth (contrast for example the number of people who earn over $100,000 a year in the U.S., with those do in Cuba or anywhere in the backward Middle East. The only really wealthy people in those places are the ones in power.

Envy and greed are both real human emotions that will always be part of the human condition, but only in a capitalist system can one transform both envy and greed into socially acceptable actions that improve one's own lot without attacking or destroying others. In totalitarian systems--particularly in the Middle East--emotions like envy and greed are allowed to run amok because they are pushed into the unconscious and given no healthy outlet. Because of that, their destructiveness in those societies is unchallenged and unparalleled. No responsibility is ever taken for failures; instead the blame for any failure is externalized.

Human nature is what it is. This is not at all tragic; it is a simple truth. The biological fantasies of the leftist utopians; and the delusional fantasies of communists and socialists and all their 21st century heirs, have lead to incalculable levels of human suffering all over the world, as the proponents of these theories have tried to force humans to evolve into some sort of "ideal" state.
All such systems have failed the real-world tests in the last century; and all current versions of these ideologies will also eventually fail and fade away. To the extent that they attempt to incorporate some aspects of "human nature" into their failing system, they may last a bit longer as they slowly chip away at the human spirit and work to extinguish it; but it is actually much more likely that human nature will transform the perverse ideology than that the reverse will happen.

What we see in the Middle East today is the fragile re-assertion of human nature after years of being crushed under the oppression of yet another social system that has attempted to rebuild humans along the lines of a religious "ideal", spiked with totalitarian fantasizing. For all the opposition to giving democracy and freedom a chance in Iraq in Afghanistan, the seeds have been planted and there is little doubt that those seeds will grow as healthy human nature reasserts itself after decades of oppression.

Historically, the healthy aspects of human nature have always been vulnerable to being crushed by some ideology or religion that caters to the darker side. As Yoda once commented, this dark side of human nature is not stronger; but it is easier and more seductive to the mind bent on acquiring power.

How much human misery and oppressive injustice will it take before the social engineers of shar'ia --or today's neo-fascist left for that matter, abandon their attempts to force human beings to adapt to their fantasies? When will their "moral awakening" occur? As SC&A noted once, " Utopias cannot be created without imposing tyranny.

In a post titled "Utopian Dreams and Nightmares" I wrote about the differences between today's left who advocate the New!Improved! versions of totalitarian ideologies; and the selfish capitalists they so despise:

The do-gooder leftist in all the various ideological incarnations--the antiwar crowd, the environmental crowd, the communists, socialists, and assorted collectivists--offers the rationale that he does what he does for the "common good" and for "social justice", "peace" and "brotherhood". His high-minded, self-righteous rhetoric justifies (to him anyway) imposing his will and beliefs on others for their own good; and he will not hesitate to use whatever coercive capablity he has at hand to get others to do what he wants and what he says.

The capitalist, on the other hand, is overtly out to pursue his own selfish profit, and understands he must use persuasion. That is, he must convince people that his ideas and the products of his mind are better than all the rest so that they will be willing to part with their hard-earned money to possess them. His desire for power over others is manifested in an indirect manner because people must wnat what he has to offer and believe that they will benefit from an interaction with him.

Bin Laden may be clever, but he does not understand a fundamental truth: imperfect freedom and selfish capitalism will always outperform (in terms of health, wealth, happiness and progress) any culture, religion, or society that is based on enslaving the human mind to some ideal or god.

So take that, Bin Laden! And may you stay dead and buried in your lovely cave; just another in a long line of butchers and tyrants who catered to the dark side of human nature to achieve his tyranny.

UPDATE: An interesting op-ed piece in the CSM regarding Bin Laden's "new" image:

Projecting a younger look, Mr. bin Laden gives his most ideological address since the early 1990s with an assault on capitalism and liberal democracy loaded with Marxist and socialist terms. Indeed, this new bin Laden sounds more like Che Guevara, the Marxist revolutionary, than some of his rifle-toting Al Qaeda cohorts....

In the video, bin Laden addresses Americans and rails against the ills of economic exploitation, multinational corporations, and globalization. He tells them to liberate themselves from "the deception, shackles, and attrition of the capitalist system." Similar to his incitement of Muslims against their oppressive, "apostate" rulers and the meddlesome West, bin Laden now seems to be trying to galvanize Americans against their own harsh socioeconomic and political system.

"Poor and exploited Americans, unite against your capitalist laws that make the rich richer and the poor poorer," the former multimillionaire businessman tells the camera. Never before has bin Laden utilized the grandiose language of Marxism in his statements to the American people. And yet, he says, Muslims and Americans are alike; they are both victims of the capitalist system, which "seeks to turn the entire world into a fiefdom of the major corporations under the label of 'globalization' in order to protect democracy."

While in the past bin Laden emphasized the clash of cultures and religions as the basis for confrontation, he now talks about commonalities of victimhood and suffering. He blames the global system of capital and class for the tragedies in Iraq and Afghanistan, the poverty of Africa, and "the reeling of many [Americans] under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes, and real estate mortgages." According to the new bin Laden, big capital, class interests, and multinationals – not religion or culture – are responsible for perpetuating war and killing.

Osama Bin Laden--just another Marxist tool.

DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIES FOR COPING WITH PETRAEUS

DENIAL:



PROJECTION:




PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE:



RAGE:




SUICIDAL :



HOMICIDAL:

THEY ARE THE VERY MODELS OF POSTMODERN ARMY GENERALS

Thomas Sowell makes an excellent point about all the amateur experts on military matters we have in Congress these days:

Sometimes I feel as if I must be one of the few people left in America who is not a military expert.

For example, all sorts of politicians have been talking about all sorts of ways we ought to "redeploy" our troops. The closest I ever came to deploying troops was marching a company of Marines to the mess hall for chow.

But people who have never even put on a uniform are confident that they know how our troops should be redeployed. Maybe this is one of the fruits of the "self-esteem" that is taught in our schools instead of education.

Read it all, of course.

Meanwhile, a little Gilbert & Sullivan to celebrate the Democrat Generals seems appropriate:

They are the very models of postmodern Army Generals,
They think the troops are just some crazy, unrequited criminals;
They know Iraq is lost, and so accept defeat so gracefully,
Insisting that the war be fought in manner very tastefully.

They're very well acquainted, too, with how the troops should be deployed
And there's not a single ad by Moveon they have not enjoyed;
They love The New Republic and just ate up Beauchamp's sick story--
Because it offered many ways to offset BushHitler's victory!

Because it offered many ways to offset BushHitler's victory!

They're very good at sensing every advantageous calculus,
But if they win a battle it would surely be miraculous!
In short, in matters treasonous and criminal,
They are the very models of postmodern Army Generals!

In short, in matters treasonous and criminal,
They are the very model of postmodern Army Generals

They're comfortable with conflict and tolerating ambiguity;
They ask their silly questions with such vacuuous acuity;
They quote Noam Chomsky and support all peoples who are downtrodden--
And celebrate true heroes like Hugo, Che and Bin Laden.

They all speak French, although it lately hasn't really meant the same;
They simply cannot figure out how Nicholas got in the game.
They have a healthy knowledge of all anti-military ettiquette
And their contradictory discourses could never make them be upset.

Indeed, in matters treasonous and criminal
They are the very models of postmodern Army Generals!

In fact, when someday they can understand "enabling the enemy";
And when they finally gain insight into their anti-war mentality,
And realize they've been infected with a sinister insanity,
And that they've sold their country out for smug. self-righteous vanity;

When they have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery
When they know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery
In short, when they've a smattering of elemental strategy
Postmodern Army Generals will sing more than nihilistic elegies!

Postmodern Army Generals will sing more than nihilistic elegies!

For their military knowledge is quite close to zero, zilch and nada--
They'd rather nibble cheese and wine than win the whole enchilada;
But still, in matters treasonous and criminal
They are the very models of postmodern Army Generals!

In short, in matters treasonous and criminal
They are the very models of postmodern Army Generals!

9/11

Don't think that I have forgotten 9/11...

I choose to remember it every day. Scroll down my sidebar and you will see the graphic on the right.

God Bless America-- today, and every day.

UPDATE: A must read: Why The Left Must Deny 9/11:
When 9/11 happened, half the political world woke up. But not the other half, on the Left. The Left can't be wrong. If the facts on the ground contradict what's in their heads, the facts must be wrong.

That's not just true for the Mooney Left, but even for the Hard Noam Chomsky Left. Because the Chomsky Left is only the Mooney Left grown more verbose. Like Chomsky, the Hard Left believes that ordinary people are easily suckered by the Big War-Mongering Corporations, just like the ad campaigns for Coke and Pepsi. Chomsky calls is "manufactured consent". That just means that normal people can't be trusted to think for themselves. They are constantly suckered by the Big Evil Corps.

Reality is too painful for these folks. It's too scary. They protect themselves by a powerful, invisible shield of psychic Saran Wrap. It's just like the miracle of plastics.

CRAPTACULAR NONSENSE...

...is my response to the the latest report on the so-called differences between "liberal" (i.e., leftist) brains, versus "conservative" brains....of college students--and therein lies the fundamental flaw of the study.

Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work....

Participants were college students whose politics ranged from "very liberal" to "very conservative." They were instructed to tap a keyboard when an M appeared on a computer monitor and to refrain from tapping when they saw a W.
M appeared four times more frequently than W, conditioning participants to press a key in knee-jerk fashion whenever they saw a letter.

Jules Crittendon in his usual astute fashion hones in on this rather enormous hole in the liberal euphoria about what differences in information processing as measured by EEG actually mean:

The study was done among college students. I’d throw out all results on that basis alone. We’re talking about immature people for whom being open to everything is a rigid position, and for whom rigidity represents a form of nonconformity. Study also does not address actual reaction to life experience, which can turn lefties into righties and righties into lefties.

But at the risk of being considered open-minded, I’ll say these are interesting results. But a little too rigid. Let’s make it more interesting. Open it up a little. I’d like to see how it breaks down among, say, union autoworkers and Wall Street executives. Cuban government officials and GOP campaign volunteers. Heck, let’s go all the way. What’s the mostprogressive country in the world? North Korea! What country is the right-wing den of capitalist evil? Us! Let’s do North Korean party members vs. Imperialist American Running Dogs.

I’d also like to know if having an open mind is more likely to make you trend conservative with age and experience, and if having a rigid one is likely to make you turn left. Let’s see some questionnaires and brainscans on the same people 20 or 30 years from now.

Indeed. One might say that liberals have a quintessentially adolescent mindset (keep doing those studies on college students, guys!) while conservatives possess more of an adult (or at least, grown-up) mindset.

How well has the left been able to tolerate the ambiguity that is Iraq? (Can you hear their screeches and hysteria over the Petraeus testimony to congress? Or their childish attacks on the man? Or the scientific ambiguity that exists about global warming and its etiology? For that matter, how well has the left been able to tolerate differences of opinion within their own ranks (ask Joe Lieberman, for instance).

If you answered, "Not at all" to all the above questions, then you can be considered a true reality-based person...as opposed to the wishful-thinking-rigidly- adhering-to-the-party -ine type of person subsumed in the Borg mindset of the left. Do you call such hysterical behavior "tolerance for ambiguity and conflict"? Or, do you call it infantile with a desperate touch of rather mindless obedience to an ideology that is threatened when someone says or thinks differently from you?

Why don't you read Petraeus' testimony in full ; and then watch the video of the pink lefty who tried to disrupt it and decide for yourself which one of the two individuals is able to tolerate ambiguity in the real world; and which is the postergirl for intolerance, deliberate stupidity, and exaggerated emotionalism?

But perhaps that is the trilogy of personality characteristics that characterizes an alternate interpretation of the data from the numerous studies trotted out by the left on a regular basis to prove what great guys and gals they are. My home town newspaper, The Ann Arbor News even had the results as the headline on its front page! Clearly they know and understand their readership.

I am full willing to believe that there are biological differences in information processing between liberals and conservatives, but I suspect that it has more to do with choosing to give precedence to emotions and wishes far more than those emotions and wishes deserve. The left, to put it bluntly, don't merely tolerate ambiguity, they worship it-- and even deliberately seek it out even in situations where it doesn't exist! Just listen to those 9/11 Troofers who will not be dissuaded from their conspiracy theories by any rational argument. In a way, ambiguity means never having to face reality.

Narcissists, psychopaths, and paranoids are "tolerant of ambiguity" in pretty much the same way.

What is even more troubling to me as a psychiatrist is how my profession is in the vanguard of all this postmodern psychological hype and nonsense; and that many mental health professionals have become the gurus and pimps for the new leftist religion.

Jonah Goldberg at The Corner reprints a reader's letter, that should make you shake your head at the pop "feel good" psychology and "the absolute stupidity" that passes for mental health treatment these days":

Hi Jonah,

God bless Bart Simpson for that brilliant turn of phrase (well, the first time *I* ever heard "craptacular" was on the Simpsons).

Anyway, a few years back I decided to go see a psychiatrist. This was after 9/11, though my depression was more about finding work during the deflation of the technology boom. I'd just had two startups die under me, and was having a lot of self-doubt.

I showed up to see the doctor, and the first thing he did was ask after my political views. Deciding I was conservative, he gave me a long talk about how he was going to free my mind from the shackles of the conservative mindset. According to him I'd be better able to see the possibilities and happiness of life when I acquired a more liberal mindset.

I paid my fee and never returned. For me, that one interview really holed psychiatry below the plimsoll line. "Craptacular nonsense" sums it up perfectly.

Oh, and a couple of years later I'm back at a technology startup, where it looks like we'll do well.

The craptacular political spin on the brain study and the comments from one of many clueless psychiatrists are breathtaking in that they go a long way to explaining the ongoing integration of [junk] science as a means of justifying political insanity.

I would suggest readers check out the entire LA Times article linked to above discussing the brain study; and then to insert the word "black" for "conservative" and "white" for liberal in the analysis. Now, imagine the uproar that would occur if this had been a study that impugned the intellect, or "information processing" of black people.

This is just another clever way of manipulating science and the scientific method to shore up the self-esteem of the left and denigrate anyone who doesn't subscribe to their beliefs.

Today's pervasive craptacular nonsense promulgated by lefty politicians, educators and scientists is designed to "Free your mind of shackles", all right.

The despicable shackles imposed by objective reality.

NOT LISTENING AT ALL

After hearing just the opening comments by the Democrats "eagerly" waiting to hear (yeah, right) from General Petraeus, I have to acknowledge that Siggy is absolutely correct:

Like the Democrats that hounded Abraham Lincoln and sought to foil his every move in fighting the Civil War, this crop of Congressional politicos have dome everything could to usurp this administration’s efforts to bring democracy and human rights to region utterly devoid of them. There is no pretense that the efforts to undermine Mr Bush are anything but politically motivated. Where are the Democrats who say, ‘We differ with the administration on tactics, but we too are determined to bring democracy to the Middle East no matter the cost.’

Like their predecessors that fought with all their might to keep American blacks politically, socially, economically and educationally disenfranchised for decades after the civil war, this generation of Democrats will be remembered for abandoning Arabs to continued tyranny and slaughter if they get their way.

Symbolic of the "eagerness" to listen (and the openess of the left's minds) is the fact that when finally, the General was asked to begin his testimony, the microphones in front of him did not work.

The microphones in front of the congressional members worked just fine. I suspect that the "message" from the majority party to the General is pretty obvious:

"We really don't need to hear what you are going to say"- with or without the microphones.

MOVING THE GOALPOSTS

Today's Democratic Party group activity:



(More Eric Allie cartoons can be found here)

CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITIES

Time for the weekly insanity update, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). So, if you want to remain sane, the best thing is to poke some fun at the more egregious absurdities.

Send all entries for next week's carnival to Dr. Sanity by 8 pm ET on Saturday for Sunday's Carnival. Only one post entry weekly per blogger, please. And you might read this before submitting an entry.

**NOTE: I am now getting many more submissions than I can possibly include in the weekly Carnival. Please don't be offended if your submission is not used (oh, okay, be as offended as you like) as it only means that for a variety of reasons I wasn't able to fit it into the "flow" as I put together each Carnival.

REMEMBER, THERE ARE SO MANY INSANITIES AND SO LITTLE TIME!!!

1. Female porn.

2. When the left cares, and when it doesn't...Ted Kennedy: Victimized! Where did these families go wrong? Another victim group in the offing? CNN is on the case!

3. Global warming trip blocked by...ice! Busted!! The evolving nomenclature.

4. Do the political minions of the left need hospitalization? See a therapist immediately...hoist by their own petard (heh heh). What will they do in 2009?

5. Ewwwwww! It's like The Fly!

6. Dude, he's on Marx's tomb...what does he have to do to make you understand where he's coming from? Consider this reality, sicko. Venezuelan democracy (and freedom), RIP

7. Osama Bin Laden (Democrat, Afghanistan)--or is he a muppet? Personally, I think its his corpse or a muppet!--he may be dead, but he's still the life of the Al Qaeda party. Or, is he really Keith Olberman?

8. A Rock garden press conference. Where's Helen?

9. Chastity without a veil... or much else.

10. They don't think like us, do they? But some people are always hopeful.... Eliminated from the pages of history? ? That's ok then. The internationals love 'em!

11. A Pyhrric victory?

12. Some suggestions for Redacted sequels.

13. Justice can be windy...or, it can be very very cold.

14. Bush goes into gaffe overdrive!

15. The Gay Libertarian! Could it be a new musical?

16. This really smells ....and doesn't make scents.

17. Meanwhile, kiss freedom of choice goodbye.

18. Princess Di, the perfect symbol for Globalization !

19. Let them eat...cats?

20. Does “alliteration” act as an actual accentuating asset in literature? Always.

***************************************
Carnival of the Insanities can also be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival and at the BlogCarnival.

If you would like to Join the insanity, and add the Carnival of the Insanities button to your sidebar (clicking on it will always take you to the latest update of the Carnival), click on "Word of Blog" below the button to obtain the html code:

Heard the Word of Blog?

IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN !

My superstar goalkeeper daughter is playing in a soccer tournament this weekend, so we are in lovely Petoskey , Michigan. I have brought my trusty laptop along...but blogging will be fairly light today because of soccer games and sightseeing.

The Carnival will be up as always on Sunday morning; and things will be back to quasi-normality on Monday.

Petoskey is a small resort town nestled on the shores of Lake Michigan's Little Traverse Bay, and is probably best known for the unusual stone that can be found along the beaches of both Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Not surprisingly it's called a "Petoskey Stone".



UPDATE: Well the team won both games today (1-0, 4-2) and if they win tomorrow morning they will go to the finals tomorrow afternoon. Wahhh-hoooo.

A SHORT REPLY TO BIN LADEN'S TALKING POINTS

In-between spitting out almost all the Democrat's and the left's talking points, OBL inserted this little tidbit, which all Americans should consider very carefully (hat tip: Bright and Early):

"There are two solutions to stopping it [NOTE: he is referring to the war- PS]. One is from our side, and it is to escalate the fighting and killing against you. This is our duty, and our brothers are carrying it out," bin Laden said.

"The second solution is from your side," he said. "I invite you to embrace Islam."

Even the dimmest bulb on the left should be able to catch his drift: Convert to Islam or we'll kill you.

Appeasement ain't gonna work.
Pretending the Islamic fanatics aren't a threat ain't gonna work.
Believing that George Bush and Dick Cheney are the real threat ain't gonna work.

Either put on your burka, ladies; or prostrate yourselves on that prayer mat, gentlemen--or else.

Got it?

Here's my reply which remains unchanged and unyielding toward all the psychopathic tyrants of Islam:

THE MISRECKONERS

I can't overemphasize the importance of understanding what William F. Buckley writes about in this editorial about Norman Podhoretz' new book, World War IV, which highlights a sobering reality--one that the left would prefer not to recognize:

What do the Islamists have to compare with the Wehrmacht or the Red Army? The SS or Spetznaz? The Gestapo or the KGB? Or, for that matter, to Auschwitz or the Gulag?"

A thoughtful answer to that question is sobering. The Islamists have:

"-- A potential access to weapons of mass destruction that could devastate Western life.

"-- A religious appeal that provides deeper resonance and greater staying power than the artificial ideologies of fascism or communism.

"-- An impressively conceptualized, funded and organized institutional machinery that successfully builds credibility, goodwill and electoral success.

"-- An ideology capable of appealing to Muslims of every size and shape, from Lumpenproletariat to privileged, from illiterates to Ph.D.s, from the well-adjusted to psychopaths, from Yemenis to Canadians."

Add to the above "a huge number of committed cadres. If Islamists constitute 10 percent to 15 percent of the Muslim population worldwide, they number some 125 million to 200 million persons, or a far greater total than all the fascists and communists, combined, who ever lived."

Recognition, then, of the scale of the pretensions of the Islamist enemy has to precede substantial measures against it. In the matter of Iraq, for instance, the ambiguity of our engagement and the enlarging political cry against it would alter dramatically if one accepted the premises of the Fourth World War so ineluctably spelled out in Podhoretz's little volume, which takes time here and there to demolish such arguments as were mounted in protest against President Bush's mention in his 2003 State of the Union address of yellowcake hunting in Niger.

Those critics who insist that it is only a small war-party faction of the Islamists that we have to fear might have been asked a generation ago if it was not merely a small number of Germans and Russians we were properly exercised about. Sixty million people were dead after that misreckoning.

Let us catalog the misreckoning, as the cycle of misinformation and deceit go round once again on the left, in preparation for General Petraeus' report due out next week:

We have Sidney Blumenthal revisiting the tried and true meme that Bush knew there were no WMD's in Iraq when he attacked, or "Bush Lied, People Died". This meme alternates with the one that Bush was stupid enough to believe that there were WMD's in Iraq as late as 2006.

Here we have one of those contradictory discourses that are so prevalent on the left, and which beautifully demonstrate the chaotic state of their cognitive processes. You, dear reader, must believe simultaneously that Bush is a lying clever manipulator AND a stupid, dumb-ass idiot moron!

You begin to see why the left manages to win all political arguments--contradictions in you logic are perfectly acceptable.

The Washington Post wants to make sure we know that "experts" doubt the drop in violence reported by the Military in Iraq. On the same day, they are careful to include their interpretation of the Jones Report to publicize that the, "Iraqi Army Is Unable to Take Over Within A Year". and that the GAO Criticizes Homeland Security's Efforts to Fulfill its Mission.

Kevin Drum in The Washington Monthly assures us that Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is just a "myth"; and not surprisingly even the left's winter soldier, John Kerry, comes out of the decaying woodwork of the HuffPo to spout his usual anti-American, anti-troop bull.

Continuing in a long line of Democratic twits, Dennis "the menace" Kucinich has helpfully met with Syria's president, while bashing his own.

The Washington Times can't help but notice that the Democrats are already dissing the Petraeus Report in advance of its publication:

Congressional Democrats are trying to undermine U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus' credibility before he delivers a report on the Iraq war next week, saying the general is a mouthpiece for President Bush and his findings can't be trusted.

"The Bush report?" Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin said when asked about the upcoming report from Gen. Petraeus, U.S. commander in Iraq.

"We know what is going to be in it. It's clear. I think the president's trip over to Iraq makes it very obvious," the Illinois Democrat said. "I expect the Bush report to say, 'The surge is working. Let's have more of the same.' "

The top Democrats — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California — also referred to the general's briefing as the "Bush report."

And, when we hear more threats from the psychopathic deviants of Al Qaeda, look for it to be downplayed and minimized (and even completely ignored by the IQ-challenged morons who call themselves 9/11 "truthers"--9/11 idiots, more like).

For the Misreckoners, it's all in a day's work.

DELUSIONAL NATION

Honestly, you'd think that people would have more sense. But that's what happens when a highly neurotic psychological defense mechanism sweeps the land. Like mass hysteria, this group phenomenon is a form of neurotic denial. But it is denial nonetheless.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.




UPDATE: Be sure to check out the comment thread because Salon has sent in the clowns; and these funnymen just can't bear to see anyone in touch with reality. Check this out:
"The Bush Crime Family is indeed the greatest threat to our nation at this time. You are self-deluded."

You've got to hand it to them, unlike the poor paranoid patients I have to deal with all day, these moonbat truth[fuck]ers came by their paranoia the hard way: they earned it; and like a trophy they will will lift it up proudly as the train of reality runs over them.

I am busy today, so I'll just let them prove everything I've ever said about their dysfunctional mental state. Talk about "misreckoners"....