THE CALIBER OF OUR OWN PROFESSORS: Professor Jamieson’s failure to serve!

FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015

Part 5—Our tribe’s epistemic capture:
The nation’s professors have never seemed as sad as they do this morning.

When we awoke, the analysts handed us this full-length report in the New York Times. It describes the decades our professors have spent exploring the happiness gap, which is said to be “small,” or may not exist at all.

Yes, that’s right—the happiness gap! The possible gap in happiness between our red and blue tribes!

We’ll summarize the professorial foolishness, foolishness which Erica Goode reported with a straight face:

For decades, the professors had concluded that liberals were happier than conservatives, though not by a large amount. But uh-oh! According to Goode, it turns out that this “well-established” finding was based on a weak methodology:

Those professors! They’d simply asked large numbers of people to say how happy they were!

Who ever thought that this constituted a sound analytical method? The nation’s professors, that’s who! But now, rebel scholars have authored studies which are “raising the possibility that although conservatives may report greater happiness than liberals, they are no more likely to act in ways that indicate that they really are happier.”

What sorts of studies have pointed to this utterly useless conclusion? According to Goode, the professors have “examined two behaviors linked to happiness: smiling and using positive language.”

In one of their studies, they examined photos of members of Congress, “finding that conservative politicians were less likely than liberals to display smiles involving facial muscles around the eyes.”

And not only that! “Liberal-leaning politicians, the researchers found, were more likely to use positive words and no more likely to use sad or negative words.” Put that in your hash pipe and smoke it!

Don’t get the professors wrong! By the end of this morning’s report, Professor Ditto is telling Goode “that the studies could not definitely answer the question of who was happier.”

Indeed, “It would be a mistake to infer from our data that liberals are ‘objectively’ happier than conservatives,” this professor and his colleagues have written, in an important new article in the journal Science.

An obvious question comes to mind at this point. Are these people really professors? Could they be part of some make-work project left over from the New Deal?

Who knows? Perhaps this is really a project designed for patients spending their final years in an upscale residential facility. Where nurses once supervised easy crafts projects, elders are now led to believe that they are engaged in “research!”

Given the many important topics on which our professors have failed to instruct us, the sheer inanity of this project beggars description. That said, the New York Times will always rush to lend credence to such marginalia.

Is there really such a thing as a “sad” or “happy” word? Can we really count such words, thus learning if people are happy?

Two weeks ago, John Tierney explored a similar, implausible project in a full-length report for the Science Times section. The analysts rolled their eyes that day. This morning, they dreamed of the ledge.

Might we make an obvious statement? These professors are basically wasting their time in pursuit of useless, chimerical “knowledge.”

Our nation badly needs professional help understanding a range of important topics. Routinely, our professors are absent concerning such questions, much like The Seventh Seal’s God.

Instead, professors spend decades on the happiness gap, and the New York Times is right there to report it. This makes us think of Professor Jamieson, who has failed, again and again, to show us our real world.

What happens when liberals don’t understand the real world? When we submit to epistemic capture?

For one thing, we write the letters which appeared in yesterday’s New York Times. But first, consider a sensible-sounding suggestion which got big play this week on the liberal web.

The suggestion came from Armando Llorens (Big Tent Democrat) over at Talk Left.
In a slightly more rational world, his suggestion would make perfect sense.

Armando said a primary challenge to Hillary Clinton would force “the Media” to drop all the pseudo-scandal crap. A primary fight would make them talk about important issues, he said.

Armando explained his point quite clearly. In a rational world, his analysis would make perfect sense. Over at Washington Monthly, Ed Kilgore reposted the bulk of Armando’s presentation. We’ll do the same, right here:
LLORENS (3/11/15): The Media doesn’t actually care about policy. Partly because it’s hard to report on policy. Partly because they don’t really care about policy. The only way they do is if a political opponent raises the issue...

Do you want to hear about income inequality and how Clinton would try to attack the problem? Don’t hold your breath waiting for the Media to cover that. It will require a primary challenger to do this.

Want to hear about Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy views? Want her hawkish ideas challenged? Don’t count on the Media for that. It will take a primary challenger.

I don’t think any fair person can challenge Clinton’s commitment to women’s rights. But just yesterday she gave a speech at the UN on the 20th Anniversary of her famous “women’s rights are human rights speech,” the chances of prominent coverage would have been nil but for the chance to ask about eGhazi.

Without a contested primary, no important issues will be covered.

Democrats need a contested primary.

Hillary Clinton needs a contested primary.

Because our Media is simply terrible.

We’d love to see a contested primary. We’d likely vote for some Democrat other than Clinton if a viable hopeful appeared.

That said, we don’t think a primary challenge will lead the press to discuss important issues. We say that because we can remember the debates which went undiscussed in the past.

Would a primary fight lead to the discussion of issues? Crackers, please! Let’s recall the primary fight between Candidates Bradley and Gore.

In 1999, Candidate Gore—the Democratic front-runner—was challenged by Candidate Bradley, a well-known, highly respected political figure. By the fall of that year, the hopefuls were staging a spirited debate about their health care plans.

That was an important issue. Do you remember what happened next?

On Wednesday, October 27, 1999, the candidates staged their first debate, at Dartmouth College.

In some detail, the hopefuls discussed their dueling health care plans. But so what? On Sunday, October 31, 1999, Mary McGrory reviewed the debate in her column in the Washington Post.

McGrory, a former Pulitzer winner, was still a major figure in the insider press corps. This is the appalling way her horrible column began:
MCGRORY (10/31/99): Vice President Albert Gore came to his fateful encounter with newly menacing challenger Bill Bradley carrying heavy baggage. He was wearing an outfit that added to his problems when he stepped onstage at Dartmouth College: a brown suit, a gunmetal blue shirt, a red tie—and black boots.

Was it part of his reinvention strategy? Perhaps it was meant to be a ground-leveling statement—"I am not a well-dressed man." It is hard to imagine that he thought to ingratiate himself with the nation's earliest primary voters by trying to look like someone seeking employment at a country music radio station.
In a slightly more serious democracy, “journalists” of this type would be frog-marched to re-education camp. But our point today is different.

Mary McGrory had no intention of talking about important issues! She opened her column with a discussion of one candidate’s allegedly comical wardrobe, a hot topic in the guild at that time. Her effort slid downhill from there.

Let’s refresh our recollections:

By this time, the press corps was up to its ears in its twenty-month War Against Candidate Gore. Over the course of several months, they discussed every aspect of his clothing—his boots, hit suits, his polo shirts, the height at which he hemmed his pants.

The color of that one suit (brown). The number of buttons on his suit jackets (three).

The reason he was wearing those polo shirt (to pander to female voters). The reason he dressed one way at certain events, a different way at others. (Al Gore doesn’t know who he is!)

Indeed, it was on that same day, October 31, when McGrory’s guild started their gruesome, month-long assault on Naomi Wolf, who had supposedly directed Gore to wear earth tones. The blood and misogyny ran in the streets as they advanced this inane attack against Wolf, with no evidence offered.

The liberal world just stared into air. So did Professor Jamieson.

Might we recall another point about that Dartmouth debate? In the aftermath of that debate, three journalists described astonishing conduct inside the Hanover press room.

How had our journalists comported themselves during that first debate? “The media groaned, howled and laughed almost every time Al Gore said something,” the Hotline’s Howard Mortman reported on his influential org’s little-watched cable program.

Jake Tapper, then of Salon, seemed to describe the same conduct. “The reporters were hissing Gore, and that’s the only time I’ve ever heard the press room boo or hiss any candidate of any party at any event,” he said on C-Span's Washington Journal, though not until December. In Time magazine, Eric Pooley made it three:

“Whenever Gore came on too strong, the room erupted in a collective jeer, like a gang of 15-year-old Heathers cutting down some hapless nerd.”

These scribes were describing astonishing conduct on the part of the press. The nation’s professors let it go, Professor Jamieson included.

For the record, the press corps actually did discuss the Gore/Bradley health care debate, but they did so in a predictable manner. They kept insisting that Candidate Gore was lying about Bradley’s plan.

For twenty months, the GORE LIAR script controlled all their discussions. In their approach to those dueling health plans, they followed that script to a T, ignored almost everything else.

(In January 2000, even the press corps largely renounced the claim that Gore had been lying about Bradley’s health plan. When they did, they moved on to their next bogus claim—the claim that Gore was lying about his past stance on abortion.)

This is the way the press corps reacted to the challenge by Bradley. Almost surely, this is the way the corps will react if someone challenges Clinton.

To the extent that a challenge involves important issues, the press will force their discussion into pre-existing frameworks about Clinton’s troubling character. This is the way the press rolls.

If anything, Armando was much too kind in his description of the press. It isn’t that “they don’t really care about policy.” The actual truth is much worse.

In truth, they refuse to discuss important issues; our press corps hates the discussion of issues. If important issues do get raised, they adopt one of two approaches:

They may ignore the debate altogether. Or they shape it to their pre-existing scripts about who has bad character problems.

Why don’t liberals understand these things? Why did Kilgore present Armando’s analysis without recalling these past events?

In part, it’s because of the Professor Dittos and their endless diversions. More directly, it’s because of Professor Jamieson, the academic world’s top dog concerning the nation’s press.

For decades, the press corps has dragged Professor Jamieson out to offer soft soap about their work. Because we liberals can’t see who she is, we become the helpless victims of “epistemic capture.”

For unknown reasons, Professor Jamieson forgot to tell us about those booing, jeering journalists. She averted her gaze from the ugly misogyny which was directed at Wolf. From the inanity of the attacks on that one candidate’s clothing.

Thanks to the work of professors like this, we liberals continue to shamble along. We still don’t seem to understand the way certain candidates get treated. We may even think that a primary challenge will force a discussion of issues!

Armando is smart and decent. He’s also much too kind. Nothing will stop the national press from pursuing their scripts about Clinton’s Clintonian character—from inventing silly pseudo-disputes which help “prove” their various notions.

Because of our epistemic capture, we the liberals don’t seem to understand this. We haven’t been told what was done to Gore, or to Clinton and Clinton both before and after that.

For that reason, it’s easy for us to get swept along in the latest manufactured scandal. That helps explain the letters which appeared in yesterday’s New York Times.

The first letter writer is “a lifelong Democrat who is leery at the prospect of a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidency.” Her handling of those emails “reeks,” this very first writer said.

That said, it’s the second letter writer who really tells the tale. Clueless in Los Angeles, the fiery Dem says this:
LETTER TO THE NEW YORK TIMES (3/12/15): Hillary Rodham Clinton should turn her email server over to the State Department to stop this nonsense. Until that happens, the Republicans will not let up. I believe her explanation. Her personal server may have been more secure than any government server.

I can understand her caution, but she needs to let an impartial party review all the emails on that server. Please, Hillary, end this now!
To us, this Angeleno seems to be in full capture. She actually thinks that Clinton can “stop this nonsense,” “end this now” by handing over her server.

(She also thinks the scandal is driven by the GOP, not by the mainstream press corps.)

The person doesn’t seem to understand the way the world works. People! Nothing ever ends these discussions, which are designed by script.

What will happen if Hillary Clinton hands over her email server? The third letter writer helps us see the answer:
LETTER TO THE NEW YORK TIMES (3/12/15): There are many questions left after Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledged that she had deleted about half her emails from her years as secretary of state:

When she left office, why were the government-related emails not transferred immediately to an appropriate place like the State Department or the National Archives?

When were the emails deleted?

Who deleted the emails?

Who decided whether emails were government-related or private?

If there was a mix of government issues and private issues in an email, what happened to that email?


Why would the private emails be deleted, and in such quantity?

For the government-related emails, didn’t the recipients question why they were written with a nongovernment email address?
This (basically endless) list of questions shows us the nature of these scandal adventures. There is no way to “end this now” or to “stop this nonsense.”

In all such episodes, as soon as any one question is answered, ten more will be invented. These new, extremely important questions will be bruited across the land.

We’ve now had a dozen years of war because the press corps behaved that way in 1999 and 2000. ISIS is burning people alive because the press corps invented serial lies by Gore and endlessly fingered his clothing.

We’ve explained all these episodes in detail. That includes the booing and hissing which occurred in that Hanover press room. (We got a call from the site that night, in which we were told what had happened.)

Professor Jamieson seemed to know that she mustn’t discuss such things. Liberal pundits also declined to discuss these topics. Within the guild, you don’t blow the whistle on yourself and your colleagues!

As a result of all that silence, we liberals have succumbed to epistemic capture. We can even imagine the national press corps discussing “important issues!”

Alas! Our useless professors refuse to serve. Our “liberal journalists” constantly jockey for (paying) positions within the guild.

In the cluelessness which follows, a letter writer crazily thinks that Clinton can “end this now.” Needless to say, the New York Times is happy to showcase such nonsense.

We understand that letter writer. It’s Armando and Kilgore we don’t quite get.

Which part of “twenty months of script” don’t we liberals understand after all these script-ridden years? What keeps us from telling those letter writers about the real shape of their world?

49 comments:

  1. HRC was emailing more than 100 government officials for four years on a personal account. Nobody in the Obama Administration noticed this, or if they did, didn't have the guts to inform her majesty that it would be better for all (including HRC) if she used the government server.

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    1. Only Ace is being paid for the spaceman persona, Peter isn't. And as far as respect goes for the characters...there will always be only one Spaceman and one Catman, and they will always be Ace and Peter. Not judging the other two, they're great musicians, both very skilled but they'll never be the real spaceman or catman. The band touring nowadays is still Kiss, but not THE Kiss.

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    2. Good point but that doesn't deter me from expressing my love for pie.

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    3. "Put that in your hash pipe and smoke it!"

      The most recent MSM article on hash pipe smoking covered in the Howler was of Jeb Bush when he was a turd at Andover.

      In our view that article suggested he dealt it, too.

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    4. Hash pipe my aspic. Those Anteater academicians have been snorting nothing but gorilla dust IMHO.

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    5. Costco Wholesale Corporation today disclosed net sales of $8.8 billion for the month of August, the four weeks ended August 31, 2014, an increase of ten percent from $8.0 billion during the confusable period dying year.

      For the 16 week fourth quarter, the company reported net sales of $34.8 billion, an increase of nine percent from $31.8 billion in the fourth quarter of financial year 2013, ended September 1, 2013.

      For the 52 week financial year ended August 31, 2014, the company reported net sales of $110.2 billion, an increase of seven percent from the $102.9 billion reported in financial year 2013, ended September 1, 2013.

      Comparable sales were as follows: 4 Weeks 16 Weeks 52 Weeks U.S. 7% 6% 5% Supranational 6% 6% 3% Total Company 7% 6% 4%

      Comparable sales for these periods, excluding pessimistic impacts from gasoline price deflation and extrinsic exchange, were as follows: 4 Weeks 16 Weeks 52 Weeks U.S. 7% 6% 5% Global 8% 8% 7% Total Company 8% 7% 6%

      Additional discussion of these results is visible in a pre recorded telephone message. Costco Wholesale Corporation rewarded shareholders with a positive 9.6% return in the past year. The recording can be accessed by dialing 1 855 859 2056. This message will be easy today through 5:00 p.m. on September 5, 2014. The S&P 500 futures were higher in overnight trading which shows overall bullishness in the market. The stock saw unusually high volume today with over 1 million shares traded so far this trading session versus the regular 1M or so shares traded on an average day.

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    6. In the bodily conception of life one remains in darkness without self-realization, thinking "I am being killed" or "I have killed my enemies". As long as a foolish person thus considers the self to be the killer or the killed, he continues to be responsible for material obligations, and consequently he suffers the reactions of happiness and distress.

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    7. Yes @ 4:25, but as cicero reminds us,

      Regardless of degree of happiness, self perceived or expressed in wrinkles about eyes while photographed smiling, the death rate for liberals and conservatives remains more or less exactly the same. One per person.

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    8. It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarreled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor they are all equal now.

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    9. Cicero, seriously:

      The opportunities you'll have working at Koch companies are even greater. Here, we strive to help make better food, clothing, technology and other necessities. So what are you waiting for? Take charge of your career and explore the job fields below.

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  2. @ 2:50

    That means JB is a shoe-in for the liberal vote, yes?

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    1. http://www.mlive.com/cooking/2015/03/march_14_2015_is_the_ultimate.html

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    2. Costco Wholesale Corporation today disclosed net sales of $8.8 billion for the month of August, the four weeks ended August 31, 2014, an increase of ten percent from $8.0 billion during the confusable period dying year.

      For the 16 week fourth quarter, the company reported net sales of $34.8 billion, an increase of nine percent from $31.8 billion in the fourth quarter of financial year 2013, ended September 1, 2013.

      For the 52 week financial year ended August 31, 2014, the company reported net sales of $110.2 billion, an increase of seven percent from the $102.9 billion reported in financial year 2013, ended September 1, 2013.

      Comparable sales were as follows: 4 Weeks 16 Weeks 52 Weeks U.S. 7% 6% 5% Supranational 6% 6% 3% Total Company 7% 6% 4%

      Comparable sales for these periods, excluding pessimistic impacts from gasoline price deflation and extrinsic exchange, were as follows: 4 Weeks 16 Weeks 52 Weeks U.S. 7% 6% 5% Global 8% 8% 7% Total Company 8% 7% 6%

      Additional discussion of these results is visible in a pre recorded telephone message. Costco Wholesale Corporation rewarded shareholders with a positive 9.6% return in the past year. The recording can be accessed by dialing 1 855 859 2056. This message will be easy today through 5:00 p.m. on September 5, 2014. The S&P 500 futures were higher in overnight trading which shows overall bullishness in the market. The stock saw unusually high volume today with over 1 million shares traded so far this trading session versus the regular 1M or so shares traded on an average day.

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    3. Wow, Sparky. Just wow.

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  3. A. Cyndi CalhipsterMarch 13, 2015 at 3:08 PM

    Let’s refresh our recollections:

    What sorts of studies have pointed to this utterly useless conclusion?

    "According to Goode, the professors have “examined two behaviors linked to happiness: smiling and using positive language.” " Somerby

    "What sorts of studies have pointed to this utterly useless conclusion?

    "According to Somerby, the professors have “examined two behaviors linked to school achievement: vocabulary size and encouraging vs. discouraging words." Commenter

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    1. I went to a psychology conference today. One session discussed new methods of training executive control in working memory to enhance treatment of depression and anxiety, major sources of disability. Another session described lie detection based on new techniques for identifying contents of memory. Yet another discussed differences in the TIMMS and the PISA for evaluating gender differences in different countries, ways of controlling for GDP and theories about how such differences relate to culture. All of these talks were about issues with major social consequences. So, I resent Somerby's generalization of a trivial study selected for its entertainment value to the entire field. I understand that he is frustrated by Jamieson but it is unfair to take that out on all professors. Academics pursue research because they are curious, not for practical purposes. Usually that results in helpful advances, but not always. Pretending there are never useful findings is wrong. The finding about the importance of talking to babies long before they can talk back is an excellent example.

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    2. "I understand that he is frustrated by Jamieson"

      That seems to be an understatement. Jamieson is in the headline. Jamieson is mentioned at least five times. Unfortunately Somerby neglects to mention anything about Jamieson other than his favorite negative title of late, Professor, that Jamieson is a female, and that Jamieson is a dog. A top one at that.

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    3. You made me curious. In the entire archives of the Howler, and only in the pre-2011 editions, Jamieson has only been mentioned five times.

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  4. Nothing is more preposterous than pseudo media covering dead professors' private language discussing pseudo-science.

    Therefore to interject professional help with the Seventh Seal's God we resume our discussion of Al Gore and segue to letters to the New York Times. If that doesn't make Big Tent Democrat look like a silly piece of baggy canvas I'll bet seventeen useless years of crying analysts on it.

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  5. Meanwhile, in the finest Howell Raines tradition of "shout the lie, whisper the retraction" where the Clintons and Gore are concerned, the NYT is slowly walking back the whole thing, but hoping that nobody really notices in real time:

    http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/03/13/the-new-york-times-reverses-course-on-clintons/202894

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  6. Hillary Clinton is already discussing issues and will certainly discuss plenty of issues once she announces her candidacy. I plan to vote for her again. I admire the way she keeps pursuing her goals no matter how unfair her opponents are or how ridiculous the complaints. She has done nothing different with her email account that other male cabinet members haven't done, including Colin Powell. There is no excuse for this fuss and Obama should be defending her. No surprise that he is saying nothing. If Somerby takes an "anybody but Hillary" position, he will deserve what he gets, just as those who supported Obama deserve what they've gotten from him (no surprise to anyone paying attention).

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    1. I was paying attention, and the extent to which he has walked away from generally progressive campaign proposals surprised me. I was very surprised and suspicious when he appointed Emanuel, and was surprised at his cluelessness in "government is like a family" speech. I have continued to be surprised at how little the Obama people care about the Democratic Party. They really do not care a vbit, and would prefer to distance themselves from it as far as possible.

      You could see it if you paid very, very close attention, but a lot of the "told you so" people were not telling us in real time.

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    2. I was and it got me banned from several liberal blogs. I learned a lot about politics in 2008.

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    3. I really wish Hillary has done more to speak out against the vicious press conspiracy against Gore. I can understand Bob's concern.

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    4. @ 4:01
      When have you ever voted for HRC in a presidential election?

      Powell did not do what HRC did with a private server located in her Chappaqua home. POTUS Obama didn't defend HRC in the beginning because she criticized Obama's foreign policy in "Hard Choices." She now has rebuked Sen. Tom Cotton's webpage letter to Iran at her U.N. press conference in an effort to get the Obama Administration to cover for her bizarre email selection out of "convenience."

      " I can’t speak to a — Mrs. Clinton and what she should do now. That would be inappropriate.

      What I did when I entered the State Department, I found an antiquated system that had to be modernized and modernized quickly.

      "So we put in place new systems, bought 44,000 computers and put a new Internet capable computer on every single desk in every embassy, every office in the State Department. And then I connected it with software.

      But in order to change the culture, to change the brainware, as I call it, I started using it in order to get everybody to use it, so we could be a 21st century institution and not a 19th century."

      former Sec. of State Colin Powell ABC’s This Week,

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  7. "This morning they dreamed of the ledge."

    Here's hoping that tomorrow they take the leap, to reside forever in neo-lib heaven..

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    1. It's called figurative language and rhetorical device. Only you would take him literally.

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    2. More figurative language:

      "ISIS is burning people alive because the press corps invented serial lies by Gore and endlessly fingered his clothing."

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    3. ISIS got a foothold because of disruption related to climate change. Expect more of the same.

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    4. 11:36 should be strung up by his thumbs and horse whipped to within an inch of his life.

      Of course, that is only a rhetorical device, and I am only speaking in figurative language.

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  8. HA,HA,HA,HA,...and a mordant chuckle or two

    "McGrory, a former Pulitzer winner, was still a major figure in the insider press corps. This is the appalling way her horrible column began:

    (Cut and paste)

    In a slightly more serious democracy, “journalists” of this type would be frog-marched to re-education camp. But our point today is different."

    Bob Somerby

    My point today, in Somerby's own words: Let’s refresh our recollections.

    Bob Somerby, age almost 70, envisions frog-marching an 81 year old woman to re-education camp.

    Bob Somerby philosophizes fondly about a democracy taking a journalist, whose Pulitizer had a quarter of a century's dust on it by the time she wrote about the Gore-Bradley debate, and sending her off somewhere?

    Bob Somerby, with 16 years of hindsight, tells us poor old Mary McGrory was "still a major figure..." and then "McGrory’s guild started their gruesome, month-long assault on Naomi Wolf, who had supposedly directed Gore to wear earth tones. The blood and misogyny ran in the streets as they advanced this inane attack against Wolf, with no evidence offered."

    If you ask me, re-education camp would be too nice for this octogenarian inspiration for blood an misogyny. At least in a slightly serious democracy. But I guess that makes me like Rachel Maddow.

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    1. It's called figurative language and rhetorical device. Only you would take him literally.

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    2. Never, ever criticize Somerby on his choice of "figurative" language. His education is apparently so lacking that he can only reach for violent rhetorical devices when writing "figuratively." Besides, his mother probably didn't talk to him enough when he was a baby.

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    3. It's an ugly vision of the future that Somerby advocates. We must resist before it is too late.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRNKmje-Abs

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  9. IMHO happiness is indeed important, and there are experts. Successful creators of popular novels and movies know how to make their audiences happy, so that they keep coming back for more. Consciously or unconsciously, they produce what pleases their readers and viewers.

    The problem is that the professors aren't experts in happiness. Creating a survey and then doing a statistical analysis isn't useful. There's no way to show that the professors' criteria really measure happiness. And, the statistical correlation doesn't do much to explain why some people are happier than others. Surveys and statistical analyses are mostly just good for getting journal publications.

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    1. You don't know anything about research in the social sciences.

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    2. It is one of the many strengths from which he argues.

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  10. A. Cyndi CalhipsterMarch 13, 2015 at 11:28 PM

    "Conservatives are happier than liberals, or so decades of surveys that ask about life satisfaction would suggest.

    The existence of a so-called ideological happiness gap is so well established that recently social scientists have mostly tried to explain it." Erica Goode...NYT

    "....Erica Goode reported with a straight face:

    For decades, the professors had concluded that liberals were happier than conservatives, though not by a large amount. But uh-oh!" Bob Somerby Reporting back-assward

    Bob's ending expression of concern was unnecessary. His following failed to notice the error. No need to follow the master's links.

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  11. Libs are usually dour and unhappy. They tend to be chronically negative and concerned with whether others are thinking the wrong thoughts. Libs are unsettled internally and thus usually rebelling against something or someone, even inventing villains when necessary.

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    1. It's the influence of sharia law. Now that they have shed communism.

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  12. This might have been an interesting post if Somerby had skipped the opening graphs bashing Goode and the professors. I guess that kind of things makes him happy these days.

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  13. For all the ugly behavior directed at Gore during the run up to the New Hampshire primary he seems to have done pretty well. And as I recall, when all was said and done in November, 2000, he got more votes than Bush.

    Funny how Somerby fails to mention that when discussing the power of the press. You know the press, They are the guys who DID have Nixon to kick around some more. And that guy got elected President twice.

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    1. He got more votes than Bush, but still not enough. But for many factors, including but not limited to the abysmal media narratives, he undoubtedly would have gotten more Florida votes, and also in NH and perhaps other states, so that the situation that did arise in Florida would never have happened. Just because he got more votes nationwide, though by a narrow margin, doesn't refute that the negative image bored into the voters' consciousness by the constatnly reiterated phony narrative, did not give Bush the presidency.

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    2. You are right. The press is responsible for ISIS burning people alive. Because MISOGYNY! Plus blood in the the street. And NO, liberals are not more happy. Look at how trolls make the
      analysts cry and mask the esteem in which Somerby is held.

      I wish we had gatekeepers and the press wrote about Camelot.

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    3. Liberals are happier because after years of solid proof that conservatives are happier, it has been discovered that there are more eye wrinkles in photos of liberals.

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    4. BOTOX® pretty much invalidates that theory. You have obviously never seen a pic of 74 year-old Nancy Pelosi.

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    5. cicero®...for those who know size doesn't matter even for the thinking man.

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    6. @ 4:08

      Nancy, how nice of you to join us.

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  14. TL;DR

    Uncontested:

    -Professors waste time on crap.

    -The press wont cover issues, even if there is a contested primary.

    But Somerby has typos and hates women!!!!

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