Image via Wikipedia

No, none of this is logical. It’s petty and silly. But it is why ad hominem attacks on everyone from Michael Moore to Sarah Palin are so enduringly popular.

Logical types who are caught up in Robert’s Rules of Order and all those ancient boring and frankly arbitrary rules for debate and rhetoric just don’t get it; the average person doesn’t care about your elaborate arguments and statistics and clever quotations, which are probably read only by people who more or less agree with you already.

They just know Al Gore seems like a fat pushy scold with too much money, and Sarah Palin has too many kids for their liking, and Ron Paul is as cuddly as a rusty bear trap, and I have an ugly voice and frown all the time.

They’re too busy living ordinary lives to spend hours reading Ayn Rand or Koranic apologists or William F. Buckley or to find out that the number of Catholic priests who’ve abused children is about 0.1%. They make judgements based on the evidence of their senses, then rush off to the next thing.

It’s all very shallow. Most of us are.

More

(for the record I consider myself a libertarian and would legalize pot in a heartbeat even though I don’t and won’t partake in it. - I also don’t smoke or drink but wouldn’t make it illegal for others to do it either.)

Popularity: 16% [?]

“Women aren’t going to stop wearing make-up,” regardless of the economic environment, says Joshua Strauss, portfolio manager of the Appleseed Fund

That and a whole lot of other interesting reasons Why Avon’s Stock Could Double in a Year at SmartMoney.com

Popularity: 6% [?]

Not one but rather two quotes both on the Cramer vs The Comedian thingy. I had been meaning to write about this but these two articles sum it up much better than I could.

But rather than attacking just Cramer—who does seem to be an unreliable source of financial information—why not go after Barney Frank who, also in 2003, argued that “these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis.” As the Washington Post reported, Frank “said the [Bush] administration’s position [on tighter regulation of Fannie and Freddy] is driven by concerns about the financial safety and soundness of the companies ‘to the exclusion of concern about housing.’” To the exclusion of concern about housing. But here is a potential difference: Frank hasn’t attacked Barack Obama’s stimulus plan as “causing the greatest destruction of wealth I have ever seen by a president,” as Cramer recently did.

From:Hit & Run > Defending Jim Cramer - Reason Magazine

AND:

Jim Cramer ran a show on trading. You can say it might have been nice if he’d run a show on financial regulatory theory, but there’s no reason to think that he would be any good it it–the guy’s a trader, not a regulator, not a crack investigator. The skills that make someone a good trader, like a short attention span and an appetite for risk, are not what makes someone good at economic theory or managing regulation. We lost precisely nothing, as a society, when he decided to tout stocks instead of take a dive into public policy.

Individuals, of course, did lose something by following his advice. I’m sure a number of his viewers stuck with Bear and regretted it. On the other hand, I’m sure a number of his viewers sold out of the stock market in October on his advice and saved themselves a bundle. Do you know whether he has cost viewers more than he made them? I tend to suspect he has, but I have no actual data on which to base that conclusion, only a general belief that ordinary investors can’t beat the market and shouldn’t try.

No, neither Jim Cramer nor CNBC created this mess. They focus mostly on stocks, and though people tend to think of the stock markets as synonomous with the financial system, they just haven’t had much to do with the current problems. And thank God, really. I’d rather not hand over the responsibility for the US financial system, or even my retirement account, to a guy who goes on camera to bite the heads off of plastic bulls.

The problem with Jim Cramer is the problem with the Jonas Brothers: what he does simply isn’t much good, for all that people seemingly have a large appetite to consume it. And he encourages people to pursue a destructive activity, trading their own portfolios, when most economic research shows they’d be better off in an index fund.

From: What’s The Matter With Jim Cramer

Hat Tip: Instapundit

Popularity: 6% [?]

“Marxists claim that Marxism is a science. It is not. It is today little more than a form of mental illness.”

I’ve always maintained that Marxism and socialism are forms of mental illness. This sounds I know somewhat outrageous and over the top however my reasoning for this is that most pschologists will tell you that the degree of someones mental health is often directly related to how much control he or she feels they have over their world. Mentally fit people believe they have the ability to control their lives and their destiny. They don’t blame their problems on everyone else. They take responsibility for their actions and the consequences of those actions.

Marxism/socialism is a system of beliefs that holds the opposite to be true. You have no control over your ability to be successful. If you are poor it is because someone is oppressing you not because you have any control over it. And if you have been born poor then you might as well forget it you are stuck there without any way out because capitalists have taken all your money and exploited you like some,…. some…. hmmm the only metaphor I can think of involves prostitution for some reason.. maybe I’ll come back to that.

At any rate an entire system of political thought that is based on preaching helplessness and despair as opposed to self reliance and control over your own destiny sounds pretty much like mental illness to me.

The quote above is from this interesting (but in need of some editing) piece over at American Thinker What is Marxism?

Popularity: 6% [?]

Impregnable? Probably too young to remember the Harris era when there were actual Conservative ministers from Toronto serving in the provincial cabinet. John Tory’s recent resignation and this gentleman’s personal ad on Cragslist are the two biggest reasons to believe the tide might be starting to turn.

Via Tim Blair

BTW Craigslist dude. If Asian culture is so superior why do they so readily become entrepreneurs if given the chance? Hardly ready converts to the Liberal/NDP/Green tribe if you ask me.

UPDATE: Fixed link. Sorry about that.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Writing from prison where he has some first hand research on gun control:

Readers will be aware that I am at the moment, technically a criminal in the United States, thanks to the perversities of the country’s justice system. I can attest that distributing AK-47’s to all the residents here, on their release, would not raise the crime rate whatsoever. Those few who might want an AK-47 will lay hands on one whatever the federal government thinks about it.

The rest: Conrad Black: Americans face the most important election choice since Ronald Reagan

Popularity: 5% [?]

From Guy White Most Muslims live quiet lives. But if a Muslim becomes famous, it’s always because he just went “alalalalala Alahu Akbar” … boom!

Via Kathy Shaidle who also brings to my attention this gem! Diet lemon meringue pie! We need more movies like this on the idiot box! Capiche?

Popularity: 12% [?]

As a long time subscriber to the Economist I have felt as of late that the writing has slipped. However the obituary of Charlton Heston reads like the economist of 10 years ago:

SOME said it was the nose: high, majestic, aquiline, magnificently broken in a high-school football game. Some said it was the jaw, rugged as Mount Rushmore and packed almost too full of white, clenched teeth. Or the eyes, blue and far-seeing, as if they measured out panoramas of Western mountain and desert. The body matched: tall, muscled, buffed, bronzed. In Charlton Heston, a whole American landscape seemed to have heaved itself into human shape, stretched out its arm, and received from God the tablets of the Law[…]

Read the rest

Popularity: 9% [?]

Tyler Durden on Kirstie Alley’s latest project:

When you’ve put on 800 pounds in the past ten years, you probably shouldn’t create a club called the “Super Power Expansion Project”. Yeah, we get it, you’re fat. When asked for a comment, the Amazing Eat A Box of Donuts Society and the Spectacular Disappearing Ham Foundation said they thought her club name just came off as bragging.

Those disappearing hams wouldn’t be coke-hams would they?

Popularity: 7% [?]

“I’m in the memory business,” he said while visiting the Journal. “When a [veteran] dies without his story being told, that’s like a library burning down.”

Ken Burns on his new documentary on WWII. I hope it is as good as his documentary on the Civil War - that’s one of my favorite programs ever.

Popularity: 5% [?]

From Anne Coulter:

Has anyone else noticed the nonexistence of a charitable organization known as “Lawyers Without Borders”?

Popularity: 4% [?]

From Kathy Shaidle

My male colleagues in the peace movement included a date rapist, a wife beater and guys with the most hair trigger tempers I’ve ever encountered.Scratch a “progressive” male and you’ll frequently find a poorly adjusted, passive aggressive bully.

As one who swam in that particular cesspool (the “protest movement”- not wife beating and date rape, I had neither a wife to beat or a date to rape in those days) during my time in the Hardcore Punk movement in the 80’s I can certainly vouch for Kathy’s statements. At least the skinheads were overt in their sadistic violence - you could see them coming a mile off. The tendency of the socialist movement to attract disagreeable anti-social types probably explains the 800 variations of Marxist organizations that seem to populate it.

For a pretty accurate example just check out ZombieTime’s latest photo caption of a 9/11 “truth march to power” in San Francisco. There is a surplus of booths for all kinds of communist organizations none of whom can stand each other enough to actually form a united party. That movement might be about collectivism but they sure hate co-operation. And if you don’t believe me read a history of any communist party. The great majority of it will be devoted to schisms and splits and ostracization - followed by disgruntled exiles forming their own “true” version of the party.

The only movement that has more fragmentation is Heavy Metal.

Update: Welcome 5 Feet of Fury crew! For the record I am a former lefty AND former Vegetarian (but still insecure and pushy).

Popularity: 8% [?]

The news blogs many of you read? The people running them know the same thing. Every site is in a dogfight for traffic (even if they don’t run ads, they still measure their success by the size of their audience) and so they carefully pick through the wires for the most inflammatory story possible. The other blogs start echoing the same story from the same point of view. If you want, you can surf all day and never swim out of the warm, stagnant waters of the “aren’t those bastards evil” pool.

Read the whole thing here

Via 5 Feet of Fury

Popularity: 6% [?]

I Don’t Like You In That Way on the Clive Davis/Kelly Clarkson spat:

During his 40 year career, Clive Davis discovered and/or signed such artists as Pink Floyd, Aerosmith, Whitney Houston, Janis Joplin, Alicia Keys and Christina Aguilera. During her career, Kelly Clarkson won a karaoke contest. Under Clive Davis, CBS doubled its market share in three years. Kelly Clarkson doubled her caloric intake. It’s no wonder these two giants of the music business clashed. They’re just too much alike.

Popularity: 8% [?]

“Hey, I’m one of the weaker players physically in the whole league, and there’s nothing I can do about that,” (Kyle Wellwood Maple Leafs forward)

Ummm, Kyle you know that big building you play in called the ACC? It has something called a weight room. You might want to look into it.

Source: TheStar.com - Sports - Blake gives Maurice options at forward

Popularity: 4% [?]

The Superficial on Paris Hilton’s sudden release due do “psychological” problems:

So the big medical reason that got Paris Hilton released was that she wasn’t happy in prison. Which, I always thought, was sort of the whole point. Was she expecting to ride on unicorns and dance under waterfalls? It’s fucking prison. I’m pretty sure the inmates who get daily anal rapings are pretty upset too, but nobody’s letting them go home. The moral of the story is: if you’re ever put in prison just put on a frowny face and they’ll let you go. Oh, and make sure you’re Paris Hilton. That last part’s pretty important.

Technorati Tags: Paris, Hilton, Prison, celebrities, hollywood

Popularity: 3% [?]

Brendan of WWTDD on Madonnna’s latest adoption:

Just once it would be nice if a celebrity wasn’t completely insane. I’m being ridiculous of course, because attention whores like Madonna have always treated impoverished nations like the zoo, and their orphanages like the gift shop. Except, instead of bringing home a penguin snow globe or giant pencil, you bring home a human being.

From: What Would Tyler Durden Do

Popularity: 11% [?]

Memo to liberals: you’re a root cause.

Tim Blair

Popularity: 3% [?]

From Ann Coulter:

Catholics aren’t short on rules, but they couldn’t care less if non-Catholics use birth control. Conservative Jews have no interest in forbidding other people from mixing meat and dairy. Protestants don’t make a peep about other people eating food off one another’s plates. (Just stay away from our plates – that’s disgusting.)

But Muslims think they can issue decrees about what images can appear in newspaper cartoons. Who do they think they are, liberals?

Via Relapsed Catholic

Oh and one other thing did you catch the phrase right at the beginning of the quote. Catholics couldn’t care less.. Now stop with that “could care less” crap.

Technorati Tags: Ann Coulter, Muslim, cartoons, Mohammed, Quran, Koran

Popularity: 4% [?]

Paul Martin defends his record on the military:

“I’ve probably put more money into the military than almost any prime minister,” said Martin, in his most comprehensive remarks regarding defence during this campaign thus far.

Got that? Let’s read it again once more:

“I’ve probably put more money into the military than almost any prime minister,” said Martin, in his most comprehensive remarks regarding defence during this campaign thus far.

Sure.

Via Neale News

Technorati Tags: Canada, election, Paul Martin, Stephen Harper, Neale News

Popularity: 7% [?]