Kthug touches on one of my favorite topics:
What I found myself thinking about, however, is the way the inequality debate illustrates some typical features of many debates these days: the way the right has a sort of multi-layer defense in depth, which involves not only denying facts but then, in a pinch, denying the fact that you denied those facts.
Think about climate change. You have various right-wingers simultaneously (a) denying that global warming is happening (b) denying that anyone denies that global warming is happening, but denying that humans are responsible (c) denying that anyone denies that humans are causing global warming, insisting that the real argument is about the appropriate response.
I’m not sure there are three levels (yet) on inequality, but we definitely have (a) right-wingers denying that inequality is rising and (b) denying that anyone is denying the rise in inequality, but attacking any proposal to limit that rise.
I also like the various fall-back positions: “even if global warming is happening, that’s not bad, ask people in Buffalo!”, “income inequality is good because it makes the lucky duckies want more than a gubmint hand-out”. And then “even if liberals are right, do they have to be so shrill about it, Real Murkins don’t like that kind of talk”. Then “liberals only believe this because they hate America/freedom/capitalism/Joos.”
Even the liberal Slate/New Republic say that sure, a five degree increase in world temperature seems like a problem, but once you get past the conventional wisdom of our hippie overlords, you may be surprised to learn that blah blah blah. My new favorite (an Easterbrook special) is that conservatives are poised to fix whatever the problem is (even though they deny its existence at various levels, as above) because only Nixon could go to China.
I defy you to name even one issue where this dynamic — multiple layers of conservative denialism, with a creamy name-calling filling, topped with the icy frosting of neo-liberal contrarianism and general smart-assery — doesn’t effectively dominate the national discourse.
arguingwithsignposts
The reason it does so is because there is no penalty in the village for being wrong about every damned thing every damned time (see Kristol, Bloody Bill as only the most obvious example of many).
If just once, everyone would say “enough, Sen. McCain, you have no more credibility on this issue” maybe things would begin to change.
MattF
There’s also simply redefining terms, e.g., fascism, class warfare. So, raising taxes on the lucky-duckies and lowering taxes on deserving-and-hard-working-creators-of-wealth is only justice, whilst any mention of the consequences of increasing levels of inequality is Marxist rubbish.
The Dangerman
There is no demerits for inconsistency if the argument presented at any point in time pisses off Liberals.
Lit3Bolt
There’s no way for a conservative to lose credibility because he always represents the status quo, even if (especially if) the status quo is amazingly, catastrophically wrong.
“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong” – Voltaire
MikeJ
One side in the argument has only the facts to argue with. The other side can say anything they want and be taken just as seriously. Of course they have multiple stories. They aren’t constrained by reality.
Villago Delenda Est
@arguingwithsignposts:
Prezactly.
Once you’re in the Kool Kids Klub that is The Village, being wrong is not a sin. Pointing out that a fellow Villager is a piece of lying, fact ignoring shit is, however, a mortal sin.
West of the Cascades
What good is global warming to Buffalo if you’re going to play football inside a freaking dome in freaking Toronto anyway?
On-topic: energy policy is a debate that’s not characterized by the conservative defense-in-depth largely because there’s been a paradigm shift in the last couple of years for people who want to get rich quick from energy production. For years we’ve heard about energy independence, need to wean ourselves off reliance on cruel dictators, drill baby drill blah blah. As China and other Asian nations have driven up demand for fossil fuels, you have many new proposals for exporting coal and liquified natural gas popping up, and the companies and politicians involved in those projects have gotten quiet about energy independence but haven’t yet found a talking point to cover “we just want to get rich off of shipping US-produced fossil fuels to China.”
Also as some existing energy companies, and new start-ups, have seen the benefits of pretending to believe in global warming and suck up federal and state subsidies to invest in renewable energy development. Companies that see renewables as a new source of significant income probably are at odds with companies that want to develop fossil fuel sources for the domestic market, but might be aligned with companies seeking to export fossil fuels. But for the moment there’s no single coherent message from the Job Creator class on this issue because the incentives point in a dozen, often-contradictory directions.
Expect at some point a Perfect Storm here: climate change isn’t real, but if it is we don’t know if it’s people causing it, but if it is people causing it we need to develop renewable energy (with massive subsidies), and to do that we need to sell our fossil fuels to China as quickly as possible to drive up domestic prices and make renewable energy seem more economical. Sure, there are gaps in that logic (if China is the problem on global warming, why are we falling over ourselves to ship more carbon-based fuel to them?), but they’ll eventually figure out a layered message on that.
PeakVT
The dynamic is a little different with education because they’re on the offensive. “Here’s a smidgen of evidence that teachers are the problem, now let’s tear down the public education system!” The outcome is still crappy policy.
Observer
You say that as if you think staying on message is a bad thing for a political party.
You do realize that all major political parties across the world, with one notably rare exception, manage some semblance of message cohesiveness and media manipulation in service of the interests of their base.
DougJ
@Observer:
They don’t really stay on message, though, they attack with several, different, contradictory messages. Is that so common?
gnomedad
From 1984: forget then forget the act of forgetting.
Villago Delenda Est
@gnomedad:
The irony of the modern “conservative”: 1984 is not a warning, it’s an instruction manual.
gnomedad
The Daily Show exposes the science scam.
Violet
@MattF:
Intense interrogation, friendly fire…this list is endless.
@arguingwithsignposts:
I still maintain that someone could have a killer show on Sunday mornings debunking the crap that pundits spew on the other Sunday shows. Just a quote and a red buzzer — WRONG! Done right, it would be really funny and probably popular. The “three strikes you’re out” rule should apply, along with various discussions of why the pundits are still taken seriously.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
This is because hippies are wrong, always, by definition. If the facts say that the hippies are actually right about something, the facts must be flawed. If they’re not flawed, they’re being read wrong. If they’re not read wrong, then FUCK YOU HIPPIE, SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU HATE AMERICA!
It’s not a debate. It’s a stalling tactic. And sad to say, it’s fucking working.
KG
@DougJ: Wasn’t that in Art of War? Confuse and distract, attack from multiple vantage points?
gnomedad
There is no truth and falsehood; there is only The Narrative. When you’ve ceased to care what’s true, you don’t have to lie.
arguingwithsignposts
@Violet: I like that idea. Someone get CurrentTV on the phone, stat!
mk3872
Careful, Doug! You are treading on the Reagan Economic Doctrine here, which tho shalt not deny!
Conservatives have won big in the economic debates BIG since 1980s and with the help of the media, have put a complete lid on exposing the income and tax inequities of the past 30 years.
Well, OWS & Obama’s newly-found populist tone has exposed the fraud of Reagan and the conservative regressive taxation and income inequality.
But you can surely expect that AEI, Koch and Grover Norquist to use their media proxies like David Brooks and WSJ to hit back HARD against these arguments as “class warfare” and “envy”.
In fact, it’s already started …
Lit3Bolt
@Observer:
I assume you’re referring to the Democrats in the United States, which does indeed have some measure of incoherence. The majority of that I believe has to do with Republicans branding themselves as the “pro-business” party in any and all circumstances. This affects advertising dollars, the media, Wall St, donations, etc. This is why you have people calling themselves “libertarians” who are nearly insanely socially liberal but are so economically conservative they’d personally kill every last owl in the forest before one red cent of profit is lost.
Fortunately for Democrats the religious right is doing a great job of imploding the Republican party on its own. Because everyone knows that the Statue of Liberty is a demonic idol, right?
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Recombobulated.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@KG: Indeed. These folks have taken bits from Art of War and 1984 and combined them into a superbly effective propaganda machine funded by the Koch Brothers and Rupert Murdoch. Its messages seem contradictory to those of us who insist on logic and coherence, but work fine for the unthinking folks who want the be told what to believe. It’s the American way, sadly. It’s not the cowboy way, but where did that get Townes Van Zandt?
(I’m aware that I’m mixing and mangling metaphors, but I wanted to try something new at the end of October.)
Mino
I noticed a new term, consequentialist, replacing the tired pragmatic. Our side is doing that, though.
dslak
@Mino: ‘Consequentialism’ comes from ethics, where it describes an ethical approach focused on the outcomes of actions. It would be a mistake to treat it as synonymous with ‘pragmatic,’ if someone is doing that.
Mino
@Observer: in service of the interests of their base.
What you think the base and what they think the base may not be the same.
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet:
“Enhanced interrogation techniques” is a term that was coined by the Gestapo in 1937.
Just sayin’.
Mino
@dslak: I’d certainly question where ethics enter governing in this climate. Pragmatism would seem to excuse consequentialism.
Loneoak
@dslak:
Actually, not necessarily that big of a mistake. Insofar as pragmatism does not commit to a single principle, it has a strong affinity for consequentialism. Also too, pragmatism is likewise a moral philosophy.
Mino
Pancho was a bandit boy
His horse was black as polished steel
He wore his gun outside his pants
For all the honest world to feel.……TVZ
Linda Featheringill
@Villago Delenda Est: #26
And then there was “special handling.”
dslak
@Loneoak: Except one can be a principled consequentialist. This is the case with utilitarianism, which takes the view that actions ought to maximize overall happiness. There is a form of pragmatic ethics, but pragmatism as an overall philosophical programme is more about theory and method.
The issue I took Mino to be raising is that the common use of ‘pragmatic,’ that is, sacrificing ideological purity in order to accomplish a good closer to your goal rather than accomplishing nothing, is not always synonymous with ‘consequentialist.’
Reality Check
Ironic, since I’m about to get several inches of Global Warming in my driveway. In October.
What say you, Warmists?
mcd410x
Despite contracts, Republican National Convention officials tell Tampa Bay-area hotels they want cheaper rooms. Bloody soshulists!!
The stupidity offends me.
Mino
@Villago Delenda Est: So was “Homeland” a Godwin favorite. Seems appropriate to the mindset.
Reality Check
I mean, really, a Global Warming post on a weekend with a major snowstorm IN OCTOBER? You should have at least waited a week.
Loneoak
@Reality Check:
Man, what a perfect fucking example of the nonsense KThug and DougJ are talking about. “OMG, the weather is so weird and unexpected. It must mean that the climate is exactly the way it has always been!”
Some people are too dumb to exist.
cathyx
@Loneoak: I think balloon juice hired him to make these comments here to keep the discussion going.
Reality Check
@Loneoak:
Which is it, Warmist? Does this not matter beacuse “WEATHER ISN’T CLIMATE!” or is it “THIS PROVES WE WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG!!! WE’LL CALL IT ‘CLIMATE CHANGE’ NOW!!”
Pick a flavor of bullshit and stick with it, though you might want to check out what your
Holy Scriptures“Climate Science” was saying about future snowfall just a few years ago.Villago Delenda Est
@Reality Check:
The utterly predictable cretinous stupid.
It burns!
Loneoak
@cathyx:
If his next comment is about how fat Al Gore looks in a snowsuit, I’ll probably be convinced of your theory.
Marty
@Reality Check: So what you are saying is that you don’t understand what climate change is about? Don’t be shy about asking someone to explain it to you. I think there’s some info on the internet as well.
Reality Check
Also
Harold CampingAl Gore said we have “10 years left” before it’s “too late” on January 27th, 2006, so only four more years to go beforeThe RaptureTHE EARTH COOKS!!!!Reality Check
@Marty:
Why don’t you check this out to start with, Marty?
Villago Delenda Est
@Loneoak:
Yup, the sniveling little shit is right on schedule, which opens up the always definite possibility, again, that this troll is a parody troll. Poe’s Law, it’s what’s for lunch on the Intertubes today.
WereBear (itouch)
@mcd410x: They show, over and over, that they don’t understand business at all.
arguingwithsignposts
Oh, shit. He’s back.
Someone must have fired up the batshit signal.
Reality Check
Arguing with Warmists really is just like arguing with Christians. “We only sound ridiculous because you’ve never read our wondrous works of theological scholarship!”
J. Michael Neal
@Villago Delenda Est: I find that this particular stupid generates more of a slightly irritating rash more than an actual burn. Less serious than poison ivy, but a bit more than a non-malaria carrying mosquito.
Linda Featheringill
“Warmist” is a cute term and I wouldn’t mind being called that. :-)
However, my opinion doesn’t matter a whole lot. What matters is what climate changes are actually taking place.
And I guess the next item in order of importance is whether we have the agility to cope with changes.
arguingwithsignposts
@J. Michael Neal:
Like herpes or HPV?
J. Michael Neal
@arguingwithsignposts: I refuse to believe that Reality Check can manage to transmit anything sexually.
JPL
@arguingwithsignposts: Yup.. Best to ignore it though.
Loneoak
@Reality Check:
Haha, you got me there. I had rested my confidence in many decades of meticulous scientific research on a 11-year-old opinion article written a British newspaper by a non-scientist. Oh well, we all make mistakes.
And now that you have tied me up in confused knots of speculation, I guess I will never be able to understand that theories of global climate change don’t predict specific weather events, but they do predict that severe and uncommon weather events are more likely over time. It’s a much too complicated proposition for warmists like me to understand, so I guess I will just have to accept that the continued existence of winter disproves global climate change.
kindness
The one topic liberals equal conservatives in their denial/accusal passive/aggressive response is whether President Obama is worst president ever because he’s either incompetent or because he is a sold out whore to ‘the machine’.
I will admit to having said bad things about Obama, and corporate whoring is one of the charges I’ve leveled, bu I don’t go to the ClownHall/FDL level (that much).
gnomedad
@arguingwithsignposts:
[spit-take]
fleeting expletive
OT, but late last night my PBS channel showed an old Dr. Who episode Planet of the Ood. The first time I saw it I was mainly intrigued by the Oods’ appearance. But it seemed remarkably prescient last night as cause and documentary of the Occupy movements.
If I were attending an Occupy camp and held up my sign saying “We are (Scr)Ood!! Would anyone get it, you think?
agrippa
@Reality Check:
I mean, really, a Global Warming post on a weekend with a major snowstorm IN OCTOBER? You should have at least waited a week.
well played.
you win the smart ass of the second metal, 14th class.
Mike in NC
Enjoy shoveling, asshole!
agrippa
@Reality Check:
Arguing with Warmists really is just like arguing with Christians. “We only sound ridiculous because you’ve never read our wondrous works of theological scholarship!”
You lost the argument with that remark.
fail, again
Chris
@MattF:
Say what you want about the cures Karl Marx proposed for society’s ills, and I could say plenty. But his diagnosis was pretty spot-on.
I know it’s impossible to say that out loud, because the mention of Karl Marx makes all of society jump like an elephant in front of a mouse, but we could definitely use some Marxian analysis when looking at the consequences.
Reality Check
Yeah, Chris, except for the whole “surplus value” thing being a complete crock of shit rejected by 99.99999 percent of all other economists, which was the entire basis of his theory, we was spot on!
Steve
One of my favorite incoherent talking points is the claim that liberals switched from “global warming” to “climate change” in order to cover up their shame at the fact that temperatures aren’t going up, when (1) it’s indisputable that global temperatures have been rising for years, so there’s no reason for anyone to be ashamed of the term “global warming,” and (2) “climate change” was in fact a Frank Luntz focus-grouped term all along. But people who make a living out of denying reality have no problem denying silly little facts like that.
Observer
@DougJ: Well yes, they really do stay on message. Anything not in the best interests of their Galtian overlords is attacked with an amazing and unmatched amount of frenzied energy.
@KG has it exactly 100% correct. According to Sun Tzu “All warfare is based on deception.”
So, yes, attacking with multiple contradictory messages is quite common. Even the liberal Sun Tzu agrees.
cathyx
One would think that an early snowstorm would prove the concept of climate change, not debunk it. But oh well.
Shlemizel
I’m old enough to have seen this crap played out on cigarettes.
Doctors recommend this brand
There is no link between smoking and cancer
There are studies showing no link between smoking and cancer
There is doubt about the research linking smoking and cancer
Maybe there is a link but not everyone that smokes gets cancer so its not a sure thing
OK so smoking is linked to cancer but smoking is not addictive so just quit
Smoking is a choice and smokers are adults
Ah, LOOK OVER THERE!!!
That covers 50 years of delay & foot dragging. On the global warming issue that is probably enough time to kill the majority of species on Earth including the majority of homo sapiens.
Chris
@Observer:
Hannah Arendt said something once about how no totalitarian follower actually believes the shit their spokesmen shovel out to the broader public (things like the Munich treaty and all of Hitler’s “guarantees”). They understand that they’re at war with the rest of the world and in the pursuit of that, you say whatever you have to.
Applies to the whole moving-goalposts and multiple positions thing the right has going on global warming and really politics all around.
Chyron HR
@Reality Check:
Unprepared for heavy snow? That definitely doesn’t happen these days, so you don’t look at all foolish for mindlessly copy-pasting an article that predicted it would.
andrewsomething
I fully expect that a Friedman, or one of his ilk, will endorse Romney using essentially that argument. “He can work with the Republicans in the House. At least he’ll get things done!” Too bad those things will probably be disastrous.
Corpsicle
Is there really any value in allowing fucking retarded trolls to smear shit all over comment threads? Why not get just get rid of them? Does anyone think it improves the conversation in any way?
Cat
Because sophistry is more effective political tool then pedagogy. This is especially true when used by your average person when dealing with the masses. This has been the way of politics since Socrates and I imagine even earlier.
Sometimes I’m not sure why this is news, Political Science is one of the oldest disciplines humans have. You have Indian texts from around the time of Socrates and Plato teaching governance, you have Sun Tzu in China, I’m sure I’m missing lots of others just from BCE times.
gnomedad
U.S. dealt another La Niña winter but ‘wild card’ could trump it
Rafer Janders
@Chris:
Oh, I don’t know. I’ve known quite a few people who lived under totalitarian systems (Nazi Germany, East Germany, USSR) and I’d say that they believed what they said.
Now, maybe deep, deep down they didn’t, but they’d certainly managed to convince their own conscious selves that they were sincere. It’s basic human psychology — we don’t like to think of ourselves as liars, so when we have to continually repeat what we know are lies, we convince ourselves that they’re not lies in order to protect our self-image.
J. Michael Neal
@Corpsicle: You want DougJ banned that badly?
pluege
republicans/conservatives dominating our national discourse since reagan are seriously, dangerously psychologically damaged individuals in need of professional help – every one of them.
This is fact in the dimension of reality and truth.
So then it stands to reason that liberals/progressives trying to rationalize their behavior or expecting to rationally discuss any of the huge number of extremely serious problems that republicans/conservatives singularly as a group caused with their dementia are stupid beyond words.
Liberals/progressives projecting rational thought onto republicans/conservatives is a very big part of the crap conditions and ruination of the country and the American way of life we find ourselves in.
Stop treating republicans/conservatives as rational, cognitive people and start treating them as the violent, ignorant, irrational slugs that they are, and maybe some positive change can happen.
As bad as obama’s corportist, plutocratic agenda is – his most disgusting attribute is his pretending that republicans are rational, cognitive people.
Chyron HR
@Reality Check:
Looks like we have another entry for the big list of people the Tea Party plans to “water the tree of liberty” with:
1) Democrats
2) “Warmists”
3) Abortion doctors
4) Unitarians
5) Teenagers attending summer camp
6) Children within a 50-foot-radius of Democratic politicians
Yutsano
@pluege: Hillary would have TOTES done it different! Yeah! Suck that O-bot apologists!!
Raenelle
What #OWS has demonstrated is that we don’t need to pay attention to the MSM any longer. If they want to talk right-wingese, they can do it amongst themselves. We don’t need to listen anymore. When a right-winger distorts and lies, if no one listens, it doesn’t exist outside their bubble. Poof.
Citizen_X
@Reality Check:
Well, um…it isn’t. And you really shouldn’t base your arguments on your own misunderstanding of basic definitions, else you end up all “ZOMG, a SNOWstorm happening in the Northeast US (ZOMG++!) in late OcTOber?”
PIGL
@J. Michael Neal: How may we deliver your Internetz today?
Svensker
@Reality Check:
Um, the article is about how England is and will be experiencing fewer snowy winters due to climate change. And that, as a result, British people will be unprepared for the occasional heavy snowfall which will still happen.
But then we knew you couldn’t read anyway.
Make me feel happier and tell me you’re a DougJ spoof. Although real people do actually “think” like you do, but it’s so depressing.
Judas Escargot
@Reality Check:
OMG, it snowed in October… SCIENCE IZ BROKEN!
S. cerevisiae
It’s cloudy out so therefore the sun is a myth.
jwb
Does any single RW hold these positions simultaneously? Because this has the structure of a series of intellectual fallback positions. The only difference is that none of the positions is ever wholly abandoned. Some are left to defend the forward positions as others take up the positions further back. But then the fight is taking place at all levels simultaneously, making it very difficult for someone who stumbles upon it to make any sense of it. I’m sure that’s the larger strategy: make the intellectual terrain difficult to map, so that most people simply won’t have the time to sort through the series of arguments. That way you can actually lose each of the intellectual battles individually, and fairly decisively at that, but still make it look like a considerable degree of doubt remains, a sort of fog of intellectual war.
danimal
The irony of unReality Check moaning about snow on his driveway the SAME WEEK THAT THE KOCH-FUNDED BEST PROJECT CONFIRMED GLOBAL WARMING IS HAPPENING is beyond parody. Hey, asshole, perhaps you should take the global warming models that predict increased precipitation (even snow!) a little more seriously.
Any time I see one of these idiot say “It’s cold outside so that debunks global warming,” I know I’m looking at a propagandist (or troll) and not someone looking for truth. Crawl back in your hole. Your denialism endangers people.
DougJ was absolutely right-on with this post.
J. Michael Neal
@S. cerevisiae: The Gophers held Iowa scoreless for a quarter! I haz a stunned.
Fortunately, we do have one campus in the UMN system that knows how to play football.
S. cerevisiae
@J. Michael Neal: Really? I may have to tune in, but that would certainly jinx them.
Tyro
Hey, Realty Check, every sigle right wing belief you’ve parrotsd has been proven to be a lie, perpetrated by a morally vacuous hate group known as the republican party, and you’re consistently wrong about everything you’ve advocAted, so why the heck do you think your remarks have any relevance. You’re nothing but a torture loving science denying Bush following doofus. Your opinions and your false ideology isn’t worth squat.
J. Michael Neal
Woo hoo! Wisconsin is up 4-1 on BU in the third after beating them yesterday, and UMD is ahead of North Dakota 2-0 in the second. If those hold up and the Gophers finish a sweep of Bemidji tonight, it will have been a good weekend of hockey.
On a related note, there is nothing to do in Bemidji on a Saturday afternoon. I’ve been sitting in a bar for five hours, since my hotel had an 11am checkout and the game doesn’t start until 7pm.
On another related note, the Beavers is an unfortunate name for a women’s sports team.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chyron HR:
You left out “ten year olds with medical conditions who live in a dwelling with granite countertops.”
@J. Michael Neal:
Actual headlines in the sports pages of the Portland Oregonian in the 70’s, in reference to Oregon State University sporting competitions:
“Beavers unimpressed by Trojans”
“Beavers dismount Cowboys”
Triassic Sands
Rick Perry’s response is pretty simple — income inequality either doesn’t matter or, more likely, is a good thing.
You see, the rich are the job creators. The richer they are, the more jobs they create. That’s why — and historical data make this clear — as income and wealth inequality have increased in the US, the job creators have created record numbers of jobs (especially since 2001)…at least fifty of which have been in the US.
birthmarker
@Shlemizel: Other issues where the same type arguments were used–just off the top of my head.
Equal Rights Amendment
DDT
Air Bags
C A F E Standards
Water and Air Pollution
If it costs a corporation a dollar, it must be vigorously fought.
I don’t think of it as layers of a cake. I have always thought of it like throwing pasta on a wall-throw it up there and see what sticks. Different arguments resonate with different people.
J. Michael Neal
Bulldogs up 3-0 after two. Wisconsin wins 6-1, completing the sweep over what I think is the best team in the east.
Give BU this: they don’t wuss out when making a schedule. They’re 5-3-1, but the losses are to an unfortunately good North Dakota team and a sweep in Madison. I wish more of the good eastern teams did this. I’m looking at you, Cornell.
Triassic Sands
@arguingwithsignposts:
Hey, if that’s all it takes, then we’re doomed for sure.
On most issues, I’d consider it a huge breakthrough if even two or three members of the MSM accused a Republican liar of having no credibility. Even one would be remarkable.
Villago Delenda Est
@birthmarker:
You left out one of the big ones:
The link between cigarette smoking and cancer.
The entire utterly phony and bogus “there’s a controversy” thing was given the trial run on that particular issue.
gnomedad
@Citizen_X:
What, that fact again? (rolls eyes) Come up with new ones or you lose! After all, I come up with new lies all the time.
S. cerevisiae
@J. Michael Neal: Thanks for the updates, it’s hard to get real time scores. Go Dogs!
As for Oregon State, there is a salon near campus that advertises “Get your beaver waxed”
J. Michael Neal
If this Penn State/Illinois game goes into overtime, I think they’ll have to let each team start on the five yardline if they hope to get one of these teams to score.
First down Illini! A breakthrough!
Anonymous37
humans are responsible is copyright the New York Times Corporation.
J. Michael Neal
@S. cerevisiae: The WCHA website is your friend. The scores aren’t quite live (Mankato is notorious for not sending in updates), but pretty close.
S. cerevisiae
Meanwhile, in the world outside our trolls backyard you have historic flooding
Seebach
I love this idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JlxbKtBkGM&feature=youtube_gdata_player
J. Michael Neal
Oh, my! Illinois scored.
UMD 5, North Dakota 0
I don’t particularly like rooting for Duluth’s women’s team, but I’ll do it easily against the Fighting Sux.
Lojasmo
@Reality Check:
I think you should go drifting sans seatbelt.
Your “reasoning” indicates you are a waste of oxygen, save the carbon dioxide you emit.
Svensker
@Lojasmo:
In a credenza!
Odie Hugh Manatee
@J. Michael Neal:
That’s what happens when all you have is ‘palmistry’ to work with.
At least it won’t replicate and thrive.
J. Michael Neal
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Unfortunately, I think they reproduce by fission these days, like all bacteria.
J. Michael Neal
Dogs win. Meanwhile, Minnesota State and Ohio State remain clueless as to how to put the puck in the net. 0-0 halfway through the third, after the Buckeyes won 2-1 last night and the two teams combined to be outscored 28-2 over four games last week.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
@Steve: Completely unlike the concerted and carefully planned switch from “Creationism” to “Intelligent Design” because shut up that’s why.
J. Michael Neal
How in the world is Iowa managing to lose this football game? They need to convert 4th and 15 from their own 20 just to keep themselves alive.
Of course, the Gophers specialize in giving up first downs here.
Edit: But they don’t. We’ve got 2:23 to kill and Iowa has one timeout.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Citizen_X:
What Surreality Unchecked is missing, as many deniers are, is that the weird weather goes on until we run out of ice. That Futurama episode where they are mining a planet for ice to cool the earth and end up mining it dry comes to mind. One day we are going to run out of ice and then things are going to get real hot.
I’m sure that they would argue that there will still be cooler places on the planet. Damned hot but still cooler than the real hot spots! Think of the potential for air conditioner sales and capturing that heat to make more energy to run them!
The ice losses at the polar caps are ignored by these idiots. That these losses could be causing the strange fluctuations, along with natural weather events (El Nino and La Nina), totally escapes them (or they outright ignore it). They ignore this information and do so not only at their own peril but that of everyone on the planet.
Ignorance destroys and kills. It always has and it always will.
Villago Delenda Est
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
I think that we should test the meaning of the word “theory” by testing the Theory of Gravity in this way: chuck an “intelligent design” adherent out of a helicopter hovering say 1000 feet over a packed football stadium on any Saturday or Sunday, and observe the results.
Then we’ll see just how “theoretical” (in the wingtard sneer sense) the Theory of Gravity is.
Corpsicle
@J. Michael Neal
Sorry for the delay, but I bow down before you, oh mighty ruler of the internetz
suzanne
@Reality Check:
It’s over 90 degrees out in my backyard. In October.
cleek
6 5 5 4 3 2 2 1
6 5 4 3 2 1 layer cake.
best band ever.
cleek
6 layer cake
Kaleberg
It always reminds me of the old law school jokes in which a sharp lawyer’s client is charged with breaking a vase he had borrowed. The usual reply is that:
1) He had never borrowed the vase.
2) The vase was broken when he borrowed it.
3) The vase was intact when he returned it.
I gather the technique is so old and well known that it has a name. It is called “arguing in the alternative”. Guess who went to law school. (Not me, but all those Republican lawyers.)
Jebediah
@Reality Check:
Hey there troll – you do realize that a) global warming doesn’t mean winter never happens anymore and b) warmer oceans and warmer atmosphere mean more water in the air, which comes down as more snow, right?
In other words, are you pure troll or troll mixed with retard?