jump to navigation

NOTE: The spam filter is being unusually aggressive. If you comment does not immediately appear, it has simply been placed in moderation and I will approve it as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience.

"Murphy was an optimist!"

Of Grasshoppers January 30, 2010 5:30 pm

Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Of Grasshoppers, Philosophy
, add a comment

Student: I was very happy until I was told I wasn’t.
Master: With great effort, we climb to heights from which it is so easy to be knocked down.

add a comment

My Snowy Saturday…working January 30, 2010 12:45 pm

Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Daily Life
, add a comment

The children are playing in the snow and taking breaks to warm in front of various video games from killing zombies, to fighting a Legoized Darth Vader, to playing songs with the Beetles. In the meantime, I’m day dreaming of working on the house while pounding keys on the computer. I just overcame one of my weekend’s technical hurdles. I think that calls for a lunch break. After lunch, I return to programming.

add a comment

BBC explains why people vote against their own interests January 30, 2010 9:40 am

Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Politics, Touchy Subjects, United States
, 1 comment so far

The BBC has delivered some excellent commentary on what we are living in American politics. These quotes hit the nail on the head:

[Thomas Frank] believes that the voters’ preference for emotional engagement over reasonable argument has allowed the Republican Party to blind them to their own real interests.

Right-wing politics has become a vehicle for channelling this popular anger against intellectual snobs. The result is that many of America’s poorest citizens have a deep emotional attachment to a party that serves the interests of its richest.

[Source, BBC, Why do people often vote against their own interests?]

…whatever disadvantaged Americans think they are voting for, they get something quite different:
"You vote to strike a blow against elitism and you receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our life times, workers have been stripped of power, and CEOs are rewarded in a manner that is beyond imagining." [Source, BBC, Why do people often vote against their own interests?]

And here’s my favorite. One for the history books:

"It’s like a French Revolution in reverse in which the workers come pouring down the street screaming more power to the aristocracy." [Source, BBC, Why do people often vote against their own interests?]

1 comment so far