...because I relished voting against Andre Carson, even if only as a sort of fruitless performance art, like few other things in the futile farce that is modern American politics. Hell, the opportunity to vote against Andre Carson is almost single-handedly what got me voting again after a long sabbatical. I scratched that #2 pencil in the little circle with rage that burns like the hearts of a billion suns at the blatant nepotism that parked this practically uniquely unqualified boob in the chair vacated by his career machine politician grandma once things got a little too Weekend At Bernie's on the House floor.
This genial ex-liquor cop's head is emptier than than a vegan restaurant at a cattleman's convention but because he had the right pedigree his gradually widening backside is parked in a chair on the House Committee on Financial Services, which is like... comparisons fail me... which is like putting me in charge of the Large Hadron Collider ("Hell, Doc, just turn up the juice and see what shakes loose.")
Madrassas as inspirational sources of, and I quote, "innovation and ingenuity"? Seriously, what innovation or ingenuity has come out of a Madrassa except innovative ways of packing more nails into your semtex jock strap for an ingenious fragmentation effect? (...and don't say "algebra", because what have you done for me lately?)
.
There're some questions about that whole "algebra" thing, anyway. A lot of the arts and science that Islam takes credit for, or is given, seems to involve converts. As in, people who thought that their heads looked just fine where they were, so sign me up for the mosque.
ReplyDeletePicture a world without Islam.
Mike James
I sometimes wonder what would have happened to Islam if Laurence of Arabia had followed his first instincts and left well enough alone?
ReplyDeleteBring it, you sonofabtch, and see how fast we plug you with bacon-greased bullets!
ReplyDeleteIt is generally accepted among anthropologists that Islam got Arabic numbers and algebra from India, filed the serials off and passed them off as their own. I'm not aware of any major contribution to science from Islamic culture.
ReplyDeleteArab knowledge and learning seems to have come to a screeching halt just about the time Mohammed got on a roll.
ReplyDeleteAnd has he cleared his new educational plan with the NEA?
ReplyDeleterickn8or part one for the win.
ReplyDeleteEven there, the best of the Arabs, educated in the Greek and Roman mold, didn't do much but tweak a Greek invention, and all their reduction was numerical. In plain Anglo-Saxon, they did a few hours of arithmatic for each calculation, cutting and fitting until the numbers matched.
Rene Descartes singlehandedly invented analytic geometry,gave us notation, and was the first to change an arcane art to a quick means of finding things by introducing scientific method.
The man who boiled it all down and gave us what we use today to figure out where to drill the hole or how to put a man on the moon was George Peacock, a Pommie and Cambridge man.
Lots of dilletants have dabbled with it over the millenia, but it took modern European objectivity to seperate the squabbling children, sort the wheat from the chaff, and produce the elegant system we have now.
If that makes me a bigot, so's yer mudder. The sad thing is, the best of these "European" thinkers are increasingly found in Korea, Japan, and parts of China, while the Europeans watch television and tweet each other.
I thought Indiana was not Commie?
ReplyDeleteI've voted against some real gems in my day. My first couple of elections I got to vote against Ted Kennedy. Then I moved to CA and voted against Barbara Boxer in her first Senate run. Actually saw her speak once, she has a special kind of dazzling stupid that draws people in who can't connect dots.
Then I moved to NJ. Turns out that my instinct to move as far from population centers as possible put me in a hardcore Republican district. While my Congressman (Scott Garrett) is a libertarian / Liberty Caucus guy, I have voted against Jim McGreevey, Jon Corzine, Bob Menendez, Frank Lautenberg, and Bob "the Torch" Torricelli. A more disgusting group of corrupt statists doesn't exist.
I will get to cast a vote for eliminating the town government this fall. About the only thing motivating me.
ReplyDeleteBram,
ReplyDeleteIndiana's reddish purple. Farmers and manufacturing.
But that has nothing to do with Andre Carson, whose district is largely inside I-465.
At least Andre can pronounce most of the words in the English language without aid. His grandmother on the other hand was almost totally incomprehensible to me.
ReplyDeleteTo put butter on the sunburn, for me the clip was fronted with the Anti-Romney Bain attack about outsourcing jobs based on the WaPo article on the 21st, the one that hasn't been fact checked by the paper but they are pretty sure is right, maybe.
I bet Romney's heckling tour bus was made in America. And I bet his annoying callers are based in the US as well.
"Hell, Doc, just turn up the juice and see what shakes loose."
ReplyDeleteHey now, that's a perfectly legitimate technique in mad science! :P
In my day I have voted against Louis Stokes, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, and Dennis Kucinich.
ReplyDeleteMy given name is Kenneth, but for the purpose of this particular exercise one may call me Cnut. It's more illustrative. ;-)
"Hell, Doc, just turn up the juice and see what shakes loose."
ReplyDeleteApparently, that's exactly what they are doing over there, so you appear qualified:
http://vimeo.com/41038445
If you want to vote negatively as an art form, just move up here to Minnesnowta. In particular, try living in the center of the hive here in MInneapolis. I've been able to vote against such stellar twits as:
ReplyDeleteKeith (Muhammed X) Ellison
Water Mondale
Hubert Humphrey
Amy Klobuchar
Mark (keep his meds updated) Dayton
Good grief, the mind boggles at the number of collectivist statist idiots I've been able to vote against in this split-personality state. I just have to remember to put my back to the wind while doing it, 'cause a better example of p!$$ing into the wind you won't find anywhere.
Yes, Mr. Carson an asshat.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, due to the magic of redistricting, come November, I'll be able to vote against Maxine Waters instead of against Janice Hahn. I live among the insane.
I thought that the last words of famous physicists were, with finger poised over the GO switch, "Let's see what happens."
ReplyDeleteI have always lived by the principal of "if you can't say anything good don't say anything at all."
ReplyDeleteTo say the least I will not be voting for "my" congresscritter in this general election.
Mike
Because the electronic voting machines have a "reset" button which allows you to cancel or change a vote before you finalize your ballot, I was able to vote for John Kerry before I voted against him.
ReplyDeleteOne of the highlights of my voting career.
MichigammeDave
lets keep importing millions more who think just like him. what could possibly go wrong?
ReplyDeleteMy parents got redistricted into Rep Carson district as well. I had to endure Dad's two hour tirade re the above.
ReplyDeleteBeing from Illinois and pointing that out to dad didn't seem to pacify him until he finally ran out of steam.
I, on the hand, got to vote against our last two Governors (prior to their convictions)I'm to have strap on the wookie suit and pulled the lever for Alan Keyes over our current POTUS when he was merely wanting to be my senator, but I got a chance to vote against him again for POTUS.
Sad how many I've voted against, without success....
And most of what has been claimed to have been invented or discovered in the Arab world was stolen from Mediterranean world prior to Mohammed screwing up the region with his religion.
ReplyDelete