Is it something in the water?

I wonder, what happens when someone signs on to write a column for the NYT? Does the paper filter the list of candidates to make sure no one with any reasonable cognitive ability is dismissed? Do they only accept columnists from an approved Party list, in effect serving as the propaganda arm of the [use your imagination] Party, without having to consider the commercial, logical, ethical, or journalistic impact of their content? Or maybe they hire normal people, and through a hazing period of tiger cages, Clockwork Orange-style indoctrination, and massive doses of LSD turn them into barking lunatics?

For example, reading anything written by Paul Krugman SHOULD result in a reaction of "Paul, what the fuck is wrong with you?" But yet, he gets to keep devaluing the NYT, journalism, and the Nobel Prize with crap like this piece pining for Richard Nixon's economic policies. Nick Gillespie at Reason wrote a critique of Krug-nonsense here, but frankly a critique could be written weekly about Krugman's inane rambling. But he writes on.

Or this week, when "The World Is Flat" author Thomas L. Friedman, who also writes a column for the NYT, conjured up a screed about how China is better governed than America. Allow me to quote Matt Welch's piece from Reason's Hit & Run column:

The next time anyone tries to tell you that Thomas L. Friedman is a serious
thinker, or a tribune for global democracy, or even a good columnist, or
basically someone who isn't worth sending on the next slow boat to Shanghai,
please refer him to this despicable column from today, then ask: Do you, too, prefer Chinese governance to American democracy? No really, Friedman says that:

There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.

Then there's the recurring fun and games of Maureen Dowd's convulsing gibberish, and Roger Cohen's "reporting" of how happy the Jews of Iran are.

I don't understand - who pays for all this nonsense?

A wise Latin woman once said...

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur - "what is asserted without reason may be denied without reason"

Pet Burmese Python Strangles Toddler in Bedroom - ABC News

So, you all thought it was hyperbole? You thought I was nuts for ranting about pythons eh? Well here you go.

Pet Burmese Python Strangles Toddler in Bedroom - ABC News

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Ignorance perpetuates itself

Wikiquote quote of the day:

Ignorance perpetuates itself just as knowledge does. Men write false documents, they preach false doctrine, and those beliefs survive to inspire wickedness in later generations. ... Conversely, some men write and teach about the truth, only to be declared heretic by the wicked.
In such cases evil has the advantage, for it will do anything to suppress truth, but the good man limits what he will do to suppress falsehood.

One might almost make a rule of it: "Whoever declares another heretic is himself a devil. Whoever places a relic or artifact above justice, kindness, mercy, or truth is himself a devil and the thing elevated is a work of evil magic."
--Sheri S. Tepper
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sheri_S._Tepper>

Wisdom from the "Velvet President"

Speaking on Iran:

"What is possible and what I would repeatedly warn against is the policy of
compromise and the notion that if we don't provoke evil, it will just go away by
itself," Havel said. "On the contrary, that would just make it stronger."

--Vaclav Havel

The rest here.

You are no Jedi

Buying a cup of coffee in Newark; there's a beggar next to me.

Beggar: would you buy me a soda, please?
Me: No!
Beggar: but I'm not a beggar though!
Me: whatever.
Beggar: I'm not! (Huffs away)
Coffee guy: effing beggars!

This is an Ex-Groundhog

So we have one - maybe two - groundhog(s) living on our property. We can't determine the exact number because, let's face it, groundhogs are fungible and we've never seen more than one at a time. Instead of shooting it, or calling animal control, my wife named him/them "Gilbert". My kid asks about Gilbert and points to "Gilbert's house" in the corner of the yard.

Yesterday, Gilbert appeared to be taking the dirt nap in the middle of our suburban street, most likely hit by a car or a stealth bomber or something. My kid said "Gilbert needs a band-aid". Sorry son, Gilbert's way past band-aids now.

This morning, Gilbert was gone. I'm fairly certain he wasn't the promised messiah of groundhogs, who just sprung up from his death like the Narnia Jesus-lion. And since animal control/the roads department wasn't available to clean him up last night, I'm wondering if the turkey vultures "cleaned him up" during the course of the night. Do they work that fast? Does anyone know?

In any case he's gone. Nature is cruel. Hopefully there was only one, and if there were two the other one will be freaked out enough to leave.

In Pace Requiescat, Gilbert.