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I’m worried that one day I’m going to point out something like this — and no one is going to have the slightest idea what I’m talking about.
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September 29, 2005
WB: Down the Memory Hole ++
Comments
Kind of why I thought the “cheating” in the 2004 election didn’t get more play. Both sides probably cheated, Republicans much moreso. Leading Democrats were probably concerned that a cheating witchhunt would only result in Democrats getting caught and punished…
Posted by: bcf | Sep 29 2005 7:01 utc | 1
Gay Republican eyed to become House Whip But was Dumped Because …He’s Gay.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 29 2005 7:42 utc | 2
Who cares how corrupt our leaders are as long as they’re tough on crime… use to be funny. Sigh.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 29 2005 7:48 utc | 3
“Leading Democrats were probably concerned that a cheating witchhunt…”
What do you think Martha Stewart was all about.
Posted by: eftsoons | Sep 29 2005 8:07 utc | 4
What do you think Martha Stewart was all about.
I thought she was prosecuted to a large extent for her politics. What’s your point?
Posted by: bcf | Sep 29 2005 11:44 utc | 5
Dreier (R-Closet) –LOL
I just have to also point out this study that backs up numerous sources, such as the UN Best Places to Live/Quality of Life study, for one, that point out the “Christian Paradox” of American life.
And the UK press takes pains to point out to their readers (and the U.S. press takes pains to hide)…
In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.
The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.
I feel like we need a McCarthy hearings “Sir, have you no shame” moment for the Talibornagains in the U.S.
…but of course, we don’t mix church and state here…
cough, bullshit, cough,
Posted by: fauxreal | Sep 29 2005 12:58 utc | 6
In re the Washington Post: Beware she doesn’t hit you with the bag of quarters.
Posted by: ken melvin | Sep 29 2005 14:30 utc | 7
The trouble is that America is hell bent on making every other country just as dysfunctional.
Posted by: Noisette | Sep 29 2005 14:38 utc | 8
here’s the journal of religion & society report to go w/ fauxreal’s link : Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies
Posted by: b real | Sep 29 2005 15:05 utc | 9
I didn’t read the whole report.
It is based on correlations, and doesn’t address cause, although it vaguely skirts around the issue, and gives the overall impression (to me anyway) that ‘religion’ or ‘a belief in a creator’ is bad for society.
I would prefer, first, to also mention the other possibility: Societies (in what we think of as the developed or developing world today) with very poor health, crime, etc. statistics tend to be fundamentalist. People seek out and adopt religious belief as compensation for ill treatment and ‘bad luck’, as explanation of it, and through a need to give and receive love, be it in an exchange with non-material entities, or possibly with their group of co-religionists.
Second, I would refer to economic organisation, as another correlate. Here, the report falls down. It is true that US health care is the most expensive and the most ‘inefficient’ (that’s hard to measure of course, beyond mortality rates etc.) in the developed countries – but how this might be tied to (correlated to, linked to, even explain, etc.) other characteristics is not discussed.
Posted by: Noisette | Sep 29 2005 16:11 utc | 10
Yes, it was quite strange to read about Dreier one moment, leave to get some tea, come back to the office, and read about Blunt in the next. I have never seen a movie where an actor disappears suddenly from the screen and is permanently replaced by another with absolutely no flicker of a segue or foreshadowing. It doesn’t appear to work in even a Dadaist way. (But who knows? Such a technique might prove groundbreaking in some future school of cinema.) No public official or party organ left even a clue, leaving the mystified observer to draw upon his or own hunches and form likely, albeit personal, conclusions.
Posted by: Trilby | Sep 29 2005 16:53 utc | 11
Heh. You forgot Darrin from “Bewitched” — of course that was TV, not a movie…
Posted by: rune | Sep 29 2005 20:35 utc | 12
Re: “Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies”
The graphs are fun. It is no surprise to me that the US is an outlier on almost every social index in the paper. That has been obvious to the casual observer since Alexander de Toqueville.
The prevalence of fundamentalist religious belief is only one of these differences. The paper is clearly not able to draw inferences as to causality, but hints all around the subject in a way I found distasteful. One could as easily infer that widespread access to handguns is responsible for churchgoing. The data set is also just too small to draw any useful conclusions – the “prosperous developed democracies” effectively includes two data points, the US and Europe.
Nevertheless, it clearly illustrates that Europe is way ahead of the US on almost every social index, including reliance on the opiate of the masses.
Posted by: PeeDee | Sep 29 2005 21:46 utc | 13
It seems to me that the reason the demopublicans are making no headway and hardly trying to rock the boat isn’t because they are concerned about their own dirt which they are, but since elected officials anywhere appear unable to keep their hands out of the cash drawer, that’s no surprise.
The chief problem is that underneath it all the dems share the core values of the repugs.
Anything else they articulate is just the result of studying focus groups as in one of Billmon’s links:
“In a July 19-25 poll, Democracy Corps, a liberal survey outfit, asked voters to assess whether they would be more likely to vote for a Democrat who claimed that Dems “will be bold reformers and will limit the influence of lobbyists and corporate interests in Washington.” In response, 45% said they would be more likely — but 51% were not.
“
These guys don’t have beliefs or opinions they just have pollsters who encourage them to only do enough to seem a bit different.
I sound like a bloody stuck record again but as long as Amerikans believe that their leadership should be the province of white middle class, middle aged, males with a sprinkling of women and other races who can all do a better imitation of a white middle class, middle aged male, than most of the genuine product can, nothing is going to change.
One of the major obstacles is this armaggedon mentality that presupposes that unless immediate action is taken right now thgen the world is condemened to hell in a handbasket.
Of course that means people run around re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic instead of working at the community level and evolving change.
Yeah its hard work and makes me tired just thinking about it but there’s no other way.
Part of me hopes that the repug pigs do sling mud back only instead of all Amerikans throwing their hands up in despair they actually do something.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Sep 29 2005 21:55 utc | 14