Newt Gingrich is…

img by DonkeyHotey

 "… probably one of the most dangerous people for the future of this country that you can possibly imagine. He's Richard Nixon, glib. It doesn't matter how much good I do the rest of my life, I can't ever outweigh the evil that I've caused by helping him be elected to Congress."


quote of the week via MoJo

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 42

Devil beard

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 41

Goodbeard

So did any of you see my blog post about Pink Floyd and the Neural Lace?

Dude.

If so, don't admit it! 

I find that when posting certain items related to futurism and transhumanism, the blog always implodes. In this case, the whole of Blogspot ate itself soon after I posted. They have restored "almost all" posts, but not mine.

It's just a damn shame that--for cover, I guess--they had to take one of Bill's beard-pop posts with it into the void.

Here is a totally unrelated item to distract the sheeple and/or the bots in black.

The head of the IMF, and former about-to-be-leader-of-France, was arrested yesterday for allegedly raping a member of the cleaning staff at his hotel in New York.

If true, that's Kobe/Tiger stupid.

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart - Special Week-end Free Edition

Free beard

RIP Paul Kossoff

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 40

Crooked beard

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 38

Grateful beard

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 37

New Orleans beard

Okay, who broke America?

Kevin Drum asks,

Who's to blame for our fiscal problems of the past decade? Paul Krugman says elites deserve a lot more of the blame than the general public, but Dan Drezner disagrees: the public, he says, was in favor of tax cuts and in favor of the Iraq war, so they deserve a big chunk of the blame too.

Drum then presents Drezner's data, and concludes:

But guess what? Despite this broad support, nobody was crying out for either huge tax cuts or invading Iraq until George Bush and the rest of the GOP started talking them up. Without that, the public would have continued to vaguely think that taxes were too high and Saddam Hussein was a bad guy before switching the TV to Monday Night Football and forgetting about it.

It's true that public support was probably necessary in order to pass the Bush tax cuts and invade Iraq. But the polling evidence is pretty clear that it was far from sufficient. Nothing about public opinion changed in 2001. The only thing that changed was the occupant of the Oval Office. The public isn't blameless in all this, but the polling evidence makes it pretty clear that it was a minor player.

I'd say that there's plenty of blame to go around. It's easy (and right) to assign a lot of blame to the so-called "elites." As Stan Lee continues to teach us, with great power comes great responsibility. Drum and Krugman are indicting not only the Bush administration, but also the elite institutions (the New York Times, etc.) that didn't forcefully present the opposing view. No pun intended, but that's a drum worth banging. Success in the public sphere often hinges on how well the referees have been coached.

However, I'm really uncomfortable with Drum's assertion that the public is a "minor player" because, he basically says, they are always willing to go along with certain dumb ideas. His sentiment is, well, elitist.
The public is made up of all of us (elites and not so elite), and we ought to expect more from ourselves, one and all. And we should take the blame when policies we support turn out to be stupid.

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 36

Rasta beard

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 35

Brotherly beards

So there was a republican debate tonight

I'm so high right now

And like an idiot, I watched it.

 Lessons learned:

• By applause, Ron "We Buy Gold" Paul was the clear victor. Who (other than the powerful) doesn't love Ron Paul? He articulates a clear, consistent philosophy. Even though the philosophy is pretty dumb, it's still super refreshing. 

• Luntz and his focus group were absolutely crazy for Herman "The Godfather" Cain. I've never even heard of this guy, but now I can say: You, sir, are no Ross Perot. That he did so well in Luntzville is just further proof that Republicans are crazy.

• Santorum was a delightfully frothy mix. Luntz's focus group gave him second place. 

• T-Paw was smooth, and he really could be a contender. And I love that he embraces the appellation. It's fratty, but still pretty cool… for a presidential candidate. I'm hoping Obama embraces "B-Rock."

• Luntz's group thought, to a person, that Barack Obama is a socialist, even when challenged by Luntz. 

• Luntz's group was heavily populated with mouth-breathers (there's video evidence). 

Did you watch? Who is your guy or gal in the republican field? My pick is clearly Gary "Smokey" Johnson.

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 34

Haggard beard

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 33

Long Haired Country beard

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 32

Heathen beard

(Austin Beard IV)

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 31

Split Lip beard

RIP Kirk Rundstrom

One Hit Wonder

I'll leave the announcement to the incomparable John Cena: