TUESDAY, MAY 14, 2024
It started with Candidate Hart: Way back in 1987, excitement was building about former senator Gary Hart (D-Colorado) and his "new ideas," or about whatever remained of those new ideas from Hart's 1984 presidential campaign.
According to the leading authority on the matter, Candidate Hart "was the clear frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in the 1988 election" as of the spring of 1987. Then, a journalist hid in the bushes all night outside the candidate's Washington home.
The journalist was acting on a tip. The candidate might have a girl friend who wasn't his actual wife!
Hallelujah! As a result of the night in the bushes, it began to seem that the candidate did have a girl friend who wasn't his wife.
Unless we're mistaken, Hart has always denied the claims about the woman in question. At any rate, interest in his new ideas came to a rather sudden halt. As a general matter, we humans don't care that much about ideas, and we pretty much never have.
From that day to this, coverage of presidential campaigns has frequently been affected by claims about extramarital sex. On the whole, our major journalists don't care about ideas, and they never will.
For ourselves, we don't believe that voters should be encouraged to base their votes on such considerations. On that basis, we've said that Donald J. Trump and Michael Cohen should be awarded the Medal of Freedom for seeing to it that the Stormy Daniels didn't become the latest sexual claimant to interfere with a White House election.
For ourselves, we lost a lot of time today. For that reason, we're offering this capsule account of our attitude about the current Gotham trial.
As with the warriors in the Iliad, so too here! Those warriors from the late Bronze Age were able to care about only one thing. So too with the modern, "well-educated" "people people" you see chatting away, all day and then all night, on your "cable news" screens.
There's much more to say about the recent history of this general matter, dating back to President Kennedy. That said, we lost the bulk of the day today.
With apologies, we return to normal services tomorrow. For purposes of entertainment and distraction, the chatting to which we've referred will continue all night.
ReplyDeleteDaniels' NDA ended Our Democracy ™ . I have no hope.
Trump destroyed every Republican principle, MAGA doesn't care:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQNSZ98FM7Q
"We return to normal services tomorrow"
ReplyDeleteBy referring to their blog posts as services, our host implies that we, the readers, are in dire need of their wisdom—that without their insights, we would be lost, adrift in a sea of ignorance. This is not merely an overstatement; it is a gross inflation of the importance of their own ramblings. We read blog posts for entertainment, diversion, and occasionally, a bit of enlightenment. But let us not deceive ourselves—they are not indispensable.
Yet, here we are, faced with a linguistic abomination that betrays this very essence of our human nature. Our host, in their infinite folly, has taken it upon themselves to refer to their blog posts as "services." Yes, you heard me correctly—services! Let us delve into the depths of this absurdity and examine the profound misstep that has been committed.
"Services," in its true form, refers to actions undertaken to help or do work for someone. It implies utility, a practical function designed to meet a need or fulfill a requirement. When we think of services, we envision the diligent plumber fixing leaky pipes, the skilled mechanic repairing our vehicles, or the dedicated teacher imparting knowledge to eager minds. Services are tangible, necessary, and inherently valuable.
Blog posts, on the other hand, are the musings of an individual, the digital echoes of thoughts scribbled onto the vast, unending canvas of the internet. They are expressions of personal insight, reflections on the world, and at times, delightful rants about the most mundane of topics. They are not, under any reasonable interpretation, services.
To equate a blog post with a service is to fundamentally misunderstand both. It conflates the act of sharing one's thoughts with the act of providing a tangible benefit. It suggests that the mere act of writing and publishing a blog post is somehow on par with the vital, life-sustaining work of those who provide real services to society. This is hubris of the highest order, a delusion of grandeur that borders on the laughable.
This misuse of the term "services" dilutes the value of actual services. It diminishes the efforts of those who work tirelessly to meet the needs of others. It reduces the concept of service to something trivial, something that can be achieved by merely typing a few hundred words and hitting the "publish" button. This is an insult to service providers everywhere, from doctors and nurses to firefighters and social workers. These individuals dedicate their lives to serving others, often at great personal cost. To lump blog posts into the same category is not only inaccurate but also disrespectful.
Our host, in their misguided quest for self-aggrandizement, has committed a linguistic atrocity. They have taken a word with a specific and valuable meaning and twisted it to suit their own ends. This is a classic case of semantic inflation, where words are stretched beyond their original meanings until they become meaningless. By calling their blog posts "services," our host has rendered the term "services" hollow and devoid of significance.
In the grand tapestry of language, let us strive for truth, clarity, and respect for the words we use. Let us reserve the term "services" for those who truly provide them and not for those who merely seek to elevate their own musings. And above all, let us remind our host that while their blog posts may be many things—informative, entertaining, even thought-provoking—they are not, and never will be, services.
So, dear host, I implore you: cease this linguistic folly. Return to us the rightful meaning of the word "services" and save your blog posts from the ignominy of being misclassified. For in the grand scheme of human communication, let us uphold the sanctity of our language and the precision of our words.
100% Chance that your text is generated by AI
DeleteAnonymouse 3:35pm, and here I thought Bob was craftily leading the public into chucking democracy on behalf of Lord Putin, and now you’re saying that his services are about as meaningful a d meandering as your file cabinet of future posts.
DeleteThat depressed sort of attitude from coming from you is alarming and I trust you’ll contact your mental health center if you feel more de energized and unmoored.
You have been suckered by an AI Cecelia.
DeleteWell, suckering people is what AI is about, but then so are anonymices.
DeleteI am a genuine anonymouse. I am not a chatbot. I am not "AI" -- whatever that is. I love Cecelia.
DeleteThe biggest suckers are Republican voters.
DeleteAnd they got suckered by a failed real estate investor from Queens.
SMDH.
Al Capone built a vast criminal empire of bootlegging, gambling, prostitution, and murder. Law enforcement failed to build a case against him for any of those criminal activities. They finally nailed him on a tax charge.
ReplyDeleteTrump has compiled a long list of crimes, dodges, and deceptions including withholding military aid authorized by Congress to coerce a foreign government into digging up dirt on his opponent, orchestrating fake electoral college votes, and sending a mob to bust up the Capitol.
The mechanisms that were designed to protect us from such behavior have failed. If a tawdry sex scandal is what finally trips him, that's not optimal, but it's sufficient.
Meanwhile, Trump *is* a defendant in a criminal trial in New York. Witnesses in the trial are giving their testimony and their stories involve a sexual liaison between the former president and an adult film actor and director.
DeleteOur news organizations would be remiss not to report on this trial and the testimony offered under oath. If they did so, they'd be guilty of "averting their gaze" from a historic tial.
Here's another story:
DeleteOnce upon a time, Uncle Joe couldn't build legitimate cases against his political opponents, so he got them with show trials. Not perfect, but effective.
Don't forget his campaign manager gave polling data to a Russian spy which Russia used to target voters in battleground states which eventually swung election to his favor..
DeleteUncle Joe prosecuted his enemies, his friends, and people who were neither friends nor enemies. In his own way he was even-handed.
DeleteDrinking, gambling, and whoring shouldn’t be illegal.
DeleteI heard that Uncle Joe only prosecuted those threatening His Democracy ™ .
DeleteTrump's campaign manager met with Assange in London three times, including in the spring of 2016 to plan the spread of disinformation.
DeleteTrump encouraged attacks on journalists and social workers.
DeleteYes, Trump withheld military aid authorized by Congress to coerce a foreign government a number of years ago. Biden is doing that very thing right now.
DeleteDavid, if someone feels the Netanyahu government is acting immorally, how can they express that without being accused they are implying all Israelis are immoral?
DeleteWasn't he coercing a foreign government by withholding the aid authorized by Congress in 2015 already? To fire the prosecutor investigating the company his son was "working" for. And then bragged about it, publicly.
Deletehttps://youtu.be/UXA--dj2-CY?t=25
Delete@5:45 -- No, you have the facts wrong. What you are talking about is Russian disinformation.
DeleteGood question, @5:43. It's entirely hypothetical, since Netanyahu's war on Hamas is being conducted with unusually excellent protection of innocent civilians.
DeleteBut, what if a government is, say, committing genocide. That was real during the Holocaust. Did condemning the Nazis mean condemning all Germans? One factor was that many Germans apparently were not really aware of the extent of the Holocaust. But, for those who were aware, should they be condemned because of Hitler's awful policies? Another factor is whether the German people approved of Hitler's policies.
It's not hypothetical. Some people feel like Netanyahu's war on Hamas is immoral. Which is their right. And of course they have the right to express that whenever and however they want. I'm just asking because you said the people that do that are automatically calling all of the citizens of Israel immoral when they do. Which doesn't make any sense. You never explained the reasoning for that claim. And I can see now that you never will. Pathetic. You are as passive aggressive as they come!
DeleteLet the record show your claim that people that criticize Netanyahu's government as immoral are calling all Israeli citizens immoral could not be backed up.
Including hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens.
Delete“…Netanyahu’s war on Hamas is being conducted with unusually excellent protection of civilians…”
DeleteGo ahead and cite references. A kill ratio of 30:1 civilians by IDF vs Oct. 6 Hamas terrorists does little to bolster your unsourced claim here. 2,000 lb bombs with kill radii of 1,000 feet do not advance the argument that this war has been surgical. So here’s a homework assignment for you: compare the number of such bombs dropped in this war with the number of such bombs dropped in the US war on ISIS. That latter number, to give you a leg up on your assignment is 1. Crater analysis after the first month of Netanyahu’s war on Gaza was consistent with over 500 such bombs dropped, and over 5,000 such bombs have been acquired by Israel from the US. A former State Department analyst studying civilian casualties, Larry Lewis, stated that the bombing of the Jabalya refugee camp on October 31 was “something we would never see the US doing”. So much for your excellent civilian protection. The kind of rubbish we have learned to expect from you.
8:58,
DeleteThe Right calls Americans immoral, because Obama gave them the ACA.
David's psychotic claim at 8:34 is truly disturbing.
DeleteHopefully David does not own any weapons, he is likely at risk of harming himself or others.
Maggie Haberman collaborated with Michael Cohen to use her reporting as a mouthpiece for Trump’s lies.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/05/wake-up-maggie-i-think-ive-got-something-to-say-to-you
On which stories is exactly?
DeleteAsk Michael Cohen.
DeleteOr Donald Trump.
DeleteSo you can't back up the headline above?
DeleteJust asking because the world's biggest idiot Campos didn't back it up either.
DeleteIt's like saying there is something in the United States Constitution that allows the government to limit immigration. You can say it, but there is no proof.
DeleteIsrael’s intention is no secret: settle in Gaza and drive the Palestinians out.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.eschatonblog.com/2024/05/maybe-if-they-say-it-louder.html?m=1
Apparently, no one wants to discuss Gary Hart. I read his book, but I'm not sure Somerby did. His problem with the reporter who hid in the bushes was that the reporter was pissed at him for deliberately lying to him. Catching him doing things he claimed he wasn't doing was just to show Hart that lying to the press was a bad idea. Yes, his supporters were disillusioned, but that is what happens when you pretend to be something you are not. If Hart didn't like that invasion of his privacy, he wouldn't have liked being president. I think he himself reached that conclusion. It is easy to suggest that this destroyed his career, but he wasn't at the point where it was clear he would be the candidate and he basically didn't survive the "vetting" and didn't have sufficient support to overcome the scandal.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to discuss Gary Hart.
DeleteRed Lobster is bankrupt.
ReplyDeleteThe Republican Party has been morally bankrupt since Reagan.
DeleteThe moral decline of the Republican Party began during the Grant administration.
DeleteBecause people got fed up with the diarrhea.
Delete