QOTD- Human Resources

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As for the others, well, I cover politics for a living, and I don’t know what the silver spoon thing is. I found out about “Cookiegate” this morning. I was about eight hours late on the dog stuff and, when I asked someone who tweeted about it to explain what they were talking about, they literally didn’t believe that I could possibly be ignorant of such a consequential topic. After I learned the story, I felt a little worse about myself for being in any way involved in the tornado of idiocy that is American politics.   -- Ezra Klein, Washington Post, April 20th, 2012


MY COMMENT: Nothing amazes me more than the sheer number of quite intelligent people in our society who follow this election stuff full-time and make a living at it.  I'm not picking on Ezra Klein because he tends to have substantive columns most of the time, but the silliness of silly season seems to be getting more pronounced with every election cycle. Maybe it's a testament to the huge productivity gains in modern western civilization that we can afford such human resources expended to cover a candidate's latest Malaprop or perhaps another candidate's eating habits from 4 decades ago.


Most of political coverage is concerned not with meaningful dissection of the issues but rather of the personal peccadilloes of those running for office. We develop a cult of personality for every election.  Is this because our system of government is so finely tuned that any candidate can function within the office thus rendering careful study of the different office-seekers unnecessary? Or has modern civilization become too comfortable with the manufactured "pop culture" of politics, with elections becoming more like a reality show than a civic duty?  It's unlikely both of these scenarios can exist together.


Which leads us to another quote:  "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute talk with the average voter."?  - Winston Churchill  (h/t GH)


 ...or a five-minute perusal of modern political coverage. 


  

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"I tend I to believe that religious dogma is a consequence of evolution. Religious belief and the firm adherence to it—and the intense dislike of apostates, people who abandon it—has a very important biologic origin, probably through natural selection, namely the cohesion of the group and the persuasion of people to be more altruistic."  --- E.O. Wilson, biologist.

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"The truth is, we know so little about life, we don't really know what the good news is and what the bad news is."    ------ Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

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 I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different. 


--- Kurt Vonnegut

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A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.


~ William James

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A two-fer....


 “Excuse me, I’m just trying to catch my breath from that."


---Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC, in response to:


“This contraception thing, my gosh, it’s so inexpensive.  You know, back in my days, they’d use Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.”


--- Foster Friess, billionaire backer of the Rick Santorum presidential campaign,  Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and various Koch Brother political action funds, as well as humanitarian philanthropic projects.

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"There's been a lot of bragging in the 2012 primary about candidates that have 'real world' business experience, and how that translates into an effective ability to govern. That logic is horses**t. Being president is a fundamentally different job than being a CEO -- because countries are not corporations." 


---Dan Drezner, Professor of International Politics, Tufts University

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What happened to Komen is what happens when you hire wingnuts in the hopes that they'll protect you from other wingnuts. -- @KagroX , via Twitter.

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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.

Bertrand RussellBritish author, mathematician, & philosopher (1872 - 1970)

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"There are three things I like about being on an Italian cruise ship. First their cuisine is unsurpassed.  Second their service is superb.  And then, in time of emergency, there is none of this nonsense about women and children first”  --Winston Churchill, remarking during his retirement why he frequented Italian cruise lines.

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Quote of the day. Happy birthday edition.

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin, born January 17, 1706

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“We need a tax system that takes very good care of people who just really aren’t as well adapted to the market system, and to capitalism, but are nevertheless just as good citizens, and are doing things that are of use in society."   -- Warren Buffett, January 2012

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“I don’t believe Iowa is representative of America." It is “91 percent white and 90 percent Christian. They have never elected a woman to the Congress or Senate or as governor. The largest city is 200,000.” "You have [Mitt] Romney and [Rick] Santorum claiming victory when they only have 30,000 votes. What is this? It’s nothing. That’s not representative of anything. Iowa is a small state that is losing one representative. This is crazy.” --Stephen Bloom, professor of journalism