Quotes, Trays of Rotting Reanimated Helmeted Skulls Edition

[T]he problem with all the "science deniers" is they think the argument is about power and "we" think it is about what reality is.
-- uncle frogy, Pharyngula, comments

Analysis: We tried it your way. Now fuck you. We’ll do it our way. We know it works. 1945-1979 were some pretty fucking good years all told.
-- slippy, Sadly, No!, comments

When Big Government is captured by the corporate intrests, why don't you blame the corporate interests calling the shots instead of the tool that they used? What a stunning display of cognitive dissonance.
-- Tao Jonesing, Hullabaloo, comments

Our niece and nephew are aged five and eight. Even without brainwashing from games, they have picked up messages about gender roles from the culture at large already. My niece recently informed me that "only men can be mayors". When I asked her who told her that, she replied, "nobody told me--I just know it already!"* My nephew and I had a discussion after he told his sister that only men can be doctors, and so she had to be the nurse in their surgery game. He had this idea in spite of the fact that his pediatrician at the time was a woman.
-- SKM, "This is a Real Thing in the Wal-Mart," Shakesville

My real problem with putting all our problems onto God's shoulders isn't even so much that my agnostic tendencies get in the way, it's that it's ineffective. Cosmic Boyfriend Jesus is not gonna show up and cure anger, hatred, violence and death, not to mention the enduring habit of treating the poor like less than dogs. She's forgetting that Jesus, no matter which vaguely historical account or mystical fortune-teller's tale you believe, tried that before, and the people he was trying to help nailed him to a tree for it. He was like, "Fucketh this," at the end, "Dad, why are people such bitches?" Jesus didn't have the answer to this eternal question either. He's had a couple millennia since to ponder, but I think if he'd come up with a better response before now he'd have sent us an e-mail.
-- Athenae, "This Will Fix Everything," First Draft

I had a friend who used to say that if you were expecting a kick in the nuts and got a slap in the face, then you had a good day. That’s my philosophy on the Obama Administration.
-- D Johnston, Sadly, No!, comments

To work, the Randian model requires that the rich adopt a level of morality and self-control that they have never had. Indeed, they are always the most corrupt segment of any society.
-- dcnataro, Hullabaloo, comments

The Overclass will keep the national carcass on life support forever. The rubes don't care. After all, Jon & Kate & Tiger!! Whats not to like about America!
-- Proud Socialist, Southern Beale, comments

Ann Rand's Air Traffic Control would keep the skies completely clear, because only those superhumans who could actually flap their arms and fly would be allowed to have access to them.
-- Tommmcatt, Sadly, No!, comments

[T]he Rushevik Party commissars say to their constituents that the problem of unemployment is that people want too much money for their labor, that if people would simply accept less money they could find employment. Of course, in our real universe things are different, but they live in a fictional universe where all markets are perfect and where there is no lower bounds to the marginal cost for human labor because in their universe (unlike ours) human beings willingly starve to death if they do not possess sufficient market value for basic subsistence. Of course, in this universe, there is a lower bounds on the wage that a human being will accept, thus the notion that the solution to our unemployment problem is lower wages is nonsense. If a wage is below the subsistence level needed for basic survival, the person will not accept it because the way a human being works in this reality is that if you're going to die, you might as well die doing something useful like storming Congress with pitchforks and torches demanding assistance.
-- Badtux, "The right-wing mindset," Badtux the Snarky Penguin

[I] wish I had become a wingnut. They put the “intellectual giant” bar so low that I could have cleared in in high school, then I too could be raking in that sweet, sweet cash. Unfortunately, I am cursed with a conscience, and so must compete in the marketplace of ideas with people who can actually think.
-- Lurking Canadian, Sadly, No!, comments

This idea that journalist should should give equal time to all sides and passively report is, quite frankly, why much of the news media is shit.
-- Feynmaniac, Pharyngula, comments

I lived in Port Huron for a summer way back. OK place I suppose but still refer to it as Port Urine and nobody ever catches it. Pretty funny.
-- rapier, Hullabaloo, comments

The illusion of a solution is immeasurably worse than no solution at all.
-- Athenae, "This Will Fix Everything," First Draft

We gave the South Vietnamese government enough money to pay the troops, but the paymasters tended to embezzle the money into their Swiss bank accounts rather than paying the troops with it. There's many a restaurant here in the USA that was started with money that was intended to be paid to ARVN soldiers.
-- Badtux, "The Taliban pays better," Badtux the Snarky Penguin

[Y]ou should see our guys negotiating trade agreements - if we can't unilaterally screw you over, there's no deal.
-- MadScientist, Pharyngula, comments

[W]e used to call it the “tinkle-down theory” when we where young & unemployed in the 80s.
-- Shell Goddamnit, Sadly, No!, comments

The only reason I obtained citizenship was to bypass the garbage that greencard holders suffer. Doesn't say much for a country does it. "Why did you become a citizen?................ So I wouldn't have to suffer so much crap at the border." Notice, not a mention of 'land of the free, home of the brave'. It just boiled down to...... 'stop hassling me'.
-- Bollox Ref, Hullabaloo, comments

[T]here should be cartoon confessionals where we could go and say things like, 'Father, I have sinned – I have drawn dinosaurs and hominids together in the same cartoon.
-- Gary Larson, quoted in the Wikipedia entry for "Thagomizer"

We don't have broadcast journalism in the US. We have corporate bludgeoning. US TV exists for one reason and one reason only. To take money from those who have less of it and transfer it to those who already have too much of it. US TV has only one product. Your eyeballs. It exists to sell your eyeballs to advertisers. The programming is simply the bait. Early on the sociopaths thought reasonable quality would be a better bait, but lately they have discovered that they can actually use the bait to make your eyeballs a better product. They can use the bait to make you stupid, to make you confused, to bludgeon you into senselessness and make you better prey. They can even use the bait to get the cattle fighting amongst themselves, to get some of the cattle to proudly herd the others into the slaughterhouse before they themselves march in. It's an immoral, sick, evil enterprise, and immoral sociopaths ..., who in a sane society would be ostracised or institutionalized, line up to profit from it.
-- Jafafa Hots, Pharyngula, comments

Incremental change we can just barely believe in.
-- Michael Bérubé, Sadly, No!, comments

I am developing an argument at my personal blog that Conservatism generally (which here would emcompass the traditional Church as revived by Pope Benedict) believes that Perfection lies in the Golden Age, which is to say the past (Eden, Christ). Whereas those movement which rose out of Englightenment (which odd includes even fundamentalist Protestants) believes that Perfection lies in the ultimate future (Heaven after Apocalypse, Communist Utopia, psychiatrically balanced society). That is the fundamental split is not between left and right or authoritarianism and liberty, but between past and future. Conservatives not only not looking for 'Change we Can Believe In' they really don't believe in Change at all which can only lead you away from Original Truth.
-- Bruce Webb, Hullabaloo, comments

Unemployment is not going to bounce back like it did after previous recessions. In fact, unemployment is following the same flat-line trajectory as business investment. Too many high-paying jobs have been shipped overseas; too many businesses have moved offshore. Free trade has changed the economic landscape dramatically. If Obama doesn't take decisive action now, the wealth gap will widen, double-digit unemployment will be the norm, and a permanent underclass will emerge in America. The social unrest that this will generate, will be significant. It would be wiser to avoid potential disruptions and preemptively address the minimal needs of ordinary people in distress. That means jobs, lots of jobs.
-- Marshall Auerback, quoted at distributorcap NY

If you are ever time-travelling, consider giving poor old Thomas Paine a pity-fuck. The man genuinely deserves it.
-- st alec, Sadly, No!, comments

What wonderful Hegelians these Republicans are. Too bad they are evil.
-- Li, Hullabaloo, comments