bleeding heart

You didn't provide a link...nor did you say if the stated conclusions were the results of the studies, or rather a third party's take on the results of the studies.

Yeah, I thought that a slightly odd response.

Anyone who gets as rich as these folks are wantonly foolish if they blow all their money. They're sanely average if they don't. Nothing more. Jeez...I can manage to avoid financial devastation, on far less....and you have yet to inform me of how smart I am.....

No, I attacked her philosophy as well. Go back and read it. And I could attack it at length, if you liked. Except you don't like, do you? Further, I posted a very lengthy review of Atlas Shrugged by someone else...and you went after "the left" for its criticism of her ideas. Further, I suggested that her "Great man" theory, with its unrelenting egoism and perfect lack of worry about what "society thinks" is directly related to explicit comments she made about her hero...the child murderer. As well as edging into sociopathy even without the child-killer reference. Did you miss all that? No, her ideas are flawed all on their own...and you know I believe this, so why the pretence otherwise? Further, we shouldn't dignify it by calling it a "philosophy." This is absurd. By definition, if I were to applaud Rand and say how great she is...this exact same criticism would apply. Which means it applies to you.

You two fellows know less about women than you do about politics. I'm going to say that's your own fault....and not the fault of your crazed, overly-emotional mothers.

Not for ol' Rush, if you'll remember. But yes, they should be left alone, I agree.

The climate scientists? ok.

Then I'm more glad than ever that Maher is included in the "Awful Atheists" list I posted eslewhere.

Yes, I was responding to Squid directly, but also alluding to those asserting about jerkoff, provocative behaviour. My only point being that the murders (and attempted murders) are quite a bit worse than any non-murderous, jerkoff behaviour. And that this extrapolates generally. So we probably don't disagree, my possibly confusing response aside.

Dig all you like...or stick to the actual topic to which I was replying: that is, the sexualization jokes of candidates' children. For example, the joke about Sasha and Malia in a porn film called "White House Whores."

"Rationality"? Does that include her fawning admiration for notorious child killer William Hickman? According to the "rational" Ms. Rand, Hickman was This last line is an explicit endorsement of sociopathy...even if you decouple it from its subject. (Which only makes her remarks that much worse.) Hickman's credo was apparently, "what is good for me is right." Rand's assessment of this is "the best and strongest expression of a real man's psychology I have heard," she wrote. So, yeah....good stuff. A "real man," gushes the little murderer-groupie. She's the precedent, it seems, for thsoe women who write love letters to serial killers in prison. The majority of humanity, Wild Bill. Certainly yourself, unless you are a closeted wealthy and powerful "superman." Yes, it's done remarkably well, which says nothing about the quality of the writing. VC Andrews has sold a jillion books...and continues to after her death, even though they're now all ghost-written. Danielle Steel has sold eight hundred million books. More power to her...but her writing sucks pretty hard. People with a taste for good books and a distaste for sociopathy don't think much of her.

Meh. Elementary finances. If they went broke, they would be silly. Not going broke doesn't then determine that they're smart. And I don't think Hilton and Kardashian children are going to go broke, a al MC Hammer, no matter what they do. There's lots of money to back them up.

Ah. Thanks, AW. But it's a terrible example, and a poor comparison. (Not lecturing you on this, of course.) Whatever one thinks of the Fey bit, an SNL skit is hardly the same as the implicaton about "the mainstream media" saying similar things about "other candidates' children"; and I would think the differences in the target's ages is more than significant, as well.

That's a...pretty vague citation. A little help might make it easier.

Then the implied thesis that I, bleeding heart, am personally some sort of ad genius is appreciated in spirit; but I hasten to add that I don't consider that work to be anything especially to be proud of, so the compliment is misapplied, whatever its good intent. Heck, I once received a $5000 bonus for, literally, thirty seconds' worth of work. This, I'm educated repeatedly on this board, constitutes "merit"...and, now, being "smart." Ad agencies never fail because of a lack of creative smarts (which is precisely the component of it that we're discussing here). They fail for other reasons: other bad business decisions, presumably, sometimes, bad luck. I know this because advertising is not, generally, very smart. As you know full well from many years' personal experience, most of it is garbage. Do you pay attention to the ads and marketing messages around you? They're aggressive; certainly. They're ubiquitous (usually the primary point); obviously. And, very rarely, very occasionally, a really good, creative, insightful idea crops up. Here and there. But those rarities don't symbolize the whole. They're exceptions. Most of it is crude, uninspired garbage. Which, to be fair to advertisers, is what most clients want. But that doesn't alter the fact of their repellent inferiority as creative and cultural artifacts. We're obviously differing on what constitutes "smart." It isn't "smart" not to run into traffic; it takes far less than average intelligence, insight and wisdom to avoid it. I get what you're saying; but since you're advocating that we respect the marketing "smarts" of people for whom we have no evidence have any actual "smarts," then the word is becoming misused. And to clarify: I don't begrudge these women their success. There's clearly an appetite for useless, uninspiring entertainment, three steps down from "Full House" or The New Kids on the Block. But why defend their savvy, when their success is all about the families they've come from, and the inherent advantages that come with that, including the very sources that allow them to "market themselves" [sic]? I'm not saying they shouldn't do it; I'm wondering why we lower our standards of human capacity and creative insight by throwing accolades over the perfectly banal. No, the minions, as you call them, did it all. And they're not demonstrably "smart" either. Certainly less intelligent than you are, for one example out of perhaps four or five billion.

Why labour organizations in this system would be fighting for better wages and conditions? You're right, it sounds not only rational, but perfectly....capitalist! So it's interesting from which direction most of the hatred emanates.

Not at all. If you're aware you're "debating" with a troll, and you don't let him or her (usually him, interestingly) rile you up...then you are not part of any grotesque Victory to which he may be striving. Now, many people say it's better all around to ignore trolls. Maybe they're right, I dunno. Both American woman and Cybercoma have recently offered me similar advice, and so I will take it seriously. But as for trapping me, no. Trolls are notoriously foolish, so aren't smart enough to do so.

Where?

Now I'm starting to realize why Mark Steyn thought it prudent to discuss Sandra Fluke's "metaphorical" position as Obama's..."courtesan"! When your boy starts to lose....time to bring out the unsavoury sexual innuendo.

Hey, it's O'Leary's formulation, not mine. I don't hold to some specious view of a single, magical component of human endeavour that should be free from moral concerns. He does, or says he does.

Anyone who makes fun of you for this is a lowlife. Sorry for your hardship, by the way. In fact, your story is exactly why I keep insisting that posters shouldn't, in anger or frustration, accuse other posters of being pedophiles...it's bound to be hurtful to somebody. It has nothing to do with the left wing--if anything, arguably it's leftism that first brought attention to the scourge of child molestation. More to the point, no one is defending convicted child rapists. The only defense has been of people inclined towards pedophilia but who never act upon their desires.

I'd inform my wife of this fact, but she'd probably get so emotional that she'd irrationally disagree with me.

Unfortunate or not makes no difference. It's never going to happen. It doesn't help the cause that Albertan separatists don't tend to be taken seriously. I serve in Christ.

So did the CEOs of Citibank and IBM I'm starting to think it ain't that special....

It's certainly obviously true that Western states don't behave this way. And that they'd never "get a pass from you and your ilk."