Heh.
Category Archives: Humor
How Do We Tell The Stupid From The Smart?
Some useful thoughts from Frank J.:
How smart do you have to be to tell if someone else is smart? Hopefully not very smart, because a lot of life — and especially politics — involves asking people to separate the bright from the dimwitted. We can’t figure out or do everything ourselves, so we need to know who the smart people are so we know whom to listen to and entrust with important jobs. But if we incorrectly think morons are smart and listen to them and put them in charge, that would be a disaster.
You could also call it election year 2008.
For some reason, many people thought certain other people — who we can now clearly see are idiots — were smart and should be in charge. So how do we prevent such an error from happening again?
Actually, it was clear to some of us at the time.
Smart people, really smart people, understand the limitations of their knowledge. The tragedy of stupid is that it renders one incapable of recognizing how little they know. One of the endearing features of Forrest Gump was that he understood his limitations. One of the most appalling features of Joe Biden is that he really thinks that he’s the smartest guy in the room (as he told one congressional witness) when it is clear that he is an idiot.
You know how I know that someone is a few ears short of a bushel in the smarts department? When they brag about their IQ. And tell us all how smart they are. To paraphrase Forrest, smart is as smart does. And fortunately, a lot of “smart” people are going to have to go out and get a real job in January, if the voters do what the polls say they will.
Kind of tough being out of work in this economy, though. Particularly when you’re not as smart as you thought you were.
[Update a couple minutes later]
OK, I posted the link and wrote the above before I Read The Whole Thing. So I wasn’t really plagiarizing Frank on the “smart is as smart does” thing (seriously, how dumb would one have to be to plagiarize from a linked article?). It’s just that great (or, errrr…some kind of) minds think alike.
[Late afternoon update]
This discussion (and Ken Anthony’s comment) reminds me of an interesting question that I read once from a conservative (probably over at The Corner). If you had to make a choice (and not to imply that it must be one), which would you rather — that your child be good, or smart? This was a, if not the, major theme of Forrest Gump. It’s also one of the reasons that people who criticized Sarah Palin for not aborting her son are so off base. I have little personal experience, but I’ve heard that sufferers from Down’s Syndrome are generally very nice people. Again, though, not to imply that there is an implicit choice.
Weird Campaign Sign
We were driving through San Anselmo this morning on our way back to LA from Stinson Beach, and I saw a sign that said:
Behar
Water Board
I have to confess that my immediate thought was “Waterboard Joy Behar? Someone after my own heart.” But after seeing several more of them, and realizing that this was the heart of Marin County (where she’s probably a heroine), I finally figured out that someone (else) named Behar was running for the board that oversees local water issues.
Birds Of A Feather
Iowahawk has the transcript of the meeting between the “progressive” bloggers and the president. But remember, he’s a moderate!
It’s pretty funny (as would be expected).
I Worked So Hard
Call Me Senator from RightChange on Vimeo.
Let’s work so hard to take it away from her.
Obamadinejad
This is pretty funny. And I agree that this comment is bizarre:
I admit it’s humorous but it’s not really a good nickname for Obama since Ahmadinejad is a far right conservative.
It’s a good demonstration of how useless the phrase “right wing” is for political discourse. What in the world does this mean? That Ahmadinejad wants lower taxes? Smaller government? Choice in public schools? No gun control?
What?
Kos, Pwned
I’m capturing this history quiz here for posterity, before it scrolls off Twitter (not a permalink, which is why I’m doing it):
# #KosHistoryQuiz US const. establishes which 3 branches? (a) Exec, Judicial, Legislative (b) EPA, IRS, Sesame Street (c) Obama, Obama, Obama less than 10 seconds ago via web
# #KosHistoryQuiz who wrote the Marshall plan? (a) George Marshall (b) Penny Marshall (c) Josh Marshall (d) Marshall Law 5 minutes ago via web
# #KosHistoryQuiz Boston Tea Party was a protest against (a) taxes (b) tuition increases (c) insensitivity against the Founding Muslims 13 minutes ago via web
# #KosHistoryQuiz “1773” is (a) teabagger racist code (b) Chicago area code (c) L33t H4x0r code 24 minutes ago via web
# #KosHistoryQuiz how many lefty bloggers does it take to screw up a Palin-is-Stupid meme? (a) 1 (b) 1773 (c) how many do you got? 36 minutes ago via web
# #KosHistoryQuiz 1773 is (a) year (b) street address of Palin Derangement Clinic (c) Kos’ new nickname forever and ever 40 minutes ago via web
# #KosHistoryQuiz which party occurred in 1773? (a) Boston Tea Party (b) Boston Red Sox World Series party (c) Boston album release party about 1 hour ago via web
# #KosHistoryQuiz outline these Supreme Court decisions (1) Brown v. Board of Education (2) Plessy v Ferguson (3) Palin v Voices in Kos’ Head about 1 hour ago via web
# #KosHistoryQuiz which phrase is not is the constitution? (a) separation of chuch and state (b) right of privacy (c) ummm (d) potrzebie about 1 hour ago via web
# #KosHistoryQuiz what is the significance of 1773? (a) Boston Tea Party (b) year when GOP invented slavery (c) sales of Kos’ last book about 1 hour ago via web
# Bring a blue light and disinfectant. @DLoesch I’ll be on Parker/Spitzer tonight about 2 hours ago via web
# #tweetsfrom2009 Dear Lord, please give me more money than Suge Knight and a bigger package than Bret Favre about 2 hours ago via web
# MelissaTweets RT @TheSenator: For @pbsgwen, et al: http://tinyurl.com/2cw8fz2 #fail #eyeroll | LOL about 2 hours ago via TweetDeck Retweeted by iowahawkblog and 3 others
# @jimgeraghty if all those swing district Dems lose, the ones left in DC will be some heretofore unknown level of super-concentrated idiocy. about 3 hours ago via web
# ridiculers of Sarah Palin’s “1773” reference respond http://t.co/YFMHcnT about 4 hours ago via Tweet Button
# MattOrtega @RevDrEBuzz @tahDeetz @iowahawkblog You people are fools. I wasn’t questioning the date of the original Tea Party. about 4 hours ago via TweetDeck Retweeted by iowahawkblog and 5 others
# @MattOrtega mmm hmm. And you can see 1776 from your house. about 4 hours ago via web
# @jtLOL Will the following students please report to remedial history class @pbsgwen @markos @mattortega about 4 hours ago via web
# @pbsgwen What kind of wallpaper did Palin choose for her rent-free apartment in you head? about 5 hours ago via web in reply to pbsgwen
# #KosHistoryQuiz sum year of the Boston Tea Party and # of US states. Divide by latest MSNBC Nielsen rating. (a) infinity (b) math is hard
For those who need a little background on how Markos “don’t know much about history,” Bryan Preston has a good summary and links. Of course, Kos is the guy who thinks that Turks are Arabs.
And I’ve never been as impressed with Gwen Ifill as my supposed intellectual betters expect me to be.
He Obviously Doesn’t Understand This Game
Barack Obama’s Beltway Adventure.
Iowahawk’s Carbon Day
It appears to have been a huge success.
Pedagogy
An amusing XKCD.
That was the question I always had when people explained how wings worked and the Bernoulli Effect. The answer, of course, is that there are lots of ways to get lift, but that this is the most efficient one with the least drag. You can get lift from a barn door. Stick your hand out the window in a fast car, and you can get lift by just increasing the angle of attack, but the L/D is terrible. So when aerobatic planes are upside down, they have to keep nose up (down, from the pilot’s perspective) and up the thrust quite a bit to maintain altitude.