Wednesday, May 21, 2008

If it's good enough for Nancy Reagan...

If you want to make something sound serious enough for Joe Sixpack and Suzy Sofaspud to accept as indisputable fact, take a Greek or Latin root word and paste "-ology" on the end of it. Folks have used this to swallow all manner of pseudosciences: phrenology, cryptozoology, Scientology, sociology, psychology and, in this case, astrology.

Here, an article at AOhelL claims that several astrologers have looked at planets, taken calipers to skull bumps, measured tea leaves, weighed life lines, and whatever other nonsense it is they use, and determined that a young charismatic offering a Rorschach-campaign with a content-free message of hope and change can out-demagogue an aging, wavering weathervane with all the charisma of a tub of cold library paste.

5 comments:

Cybrludite said...

Don't know if it's just my Asperger's acting up or what, but I really fail to see what's so charismatic about Obama. He sounds almost as wooden as John F'ing Kerry.

Brad K. said...

It makes sense. Stand the Three Stooges in a line, and one of them will be in front, for a time. By the end of the show, though, who really cares?

Anonymous said...

Perfect nonsense! The Weekly World News (before they folded) called the election for the "Jin, the World's Biggest Baby" months and months ago.

What's the matter with you, listening to a bunch of Johnny-Come-Lately's like that?

Seriously, Tam, I'm quite disappointed in you. You know how important it is to stick to trustworthy and responsible sources.

gvi

Arcadia Iris said...

all manner of pseudosciences: phrenology, cryptozoology, Scientology, sociology, psychology and, in this case, astrology.

For some reason or another, I was looking at the Wikipedia article on Jason Lee the other day, and where it said he's a member of the Church of Scientology, the link led to the Wikipedia article on insanity. I thought, "And I thought people say Wikipedia is inaccurate!" Sadly, it had been changed to direct you to the article on Scientology by the time I went back to show it to my husband.

Matt G said...

You know, it occurs to me that I haven't sat down and written a proper discussion on the real stupidity of astology, yet.

An oversight, that. Maybe I could collaborate with Marko.