I hear you and Fogiv got in a tussle. In the diary in question I commented at great enough length to feel the desire to expand my comments a bit further. I've copied my first ramble below and I'll add a little more here as well.
If the two of you were other people I'd tell you to take it outside, but the tiny tempest is illustrative of points worth pondering, as they apply not just to you two but to all of us. Because you are a public voice of some stature and because Fogiv is a bright and engaged citizen you both represent groups that are fundamental to our ability to function as a culture. The faults I would like to point out are less about you than they are about us, so please take my commentary with that intent.
If you knew you were damaging your brain....would it help if you were having a blast while doing so? (Let's ask some crackheads for their opinion!) (Yes! Yes, it does help!) Is it possible that our time spent online is actually weakening our abilities to concentrate and solve complex problems? Or is that not the case after all? Maybe we're actually strengthening our minds in this fast-paced, virtual world. Perhaps it's a bit of both. It's a puzzle scientists have been trying to solve for years, and researchers are sharply divided...but I find the idea that we are altering our brains on a cellular level with our high tech, fast-paced lifestyles to be mad cool (and, if being honest....a bit creepy). I want to touch on a couple of the more recent studies on the topic...and perhaps test the limits of Moose distractibility while at it. /grin
[Warning: If you are epileptic or have any other kind of seizure disorder, you need not view this diary.
No, really....not kidding.
People with dial-up should also be wary, as it is image heavy.
All others...make sure you've allowed flash...buckle your seatbelts...and join me below the fold!]
I do not often recommend that folks head over to the WSJ for anything, but today I make an exception. As BP continues to spin this disaster as a failure of technology - the BOP's failure. Someone from the oil and gas industry has finally come along and declared Bull Shit!
Terry Barr, the writer of this letter to the editor in response to Hayward's WSJ Op Ed on June 4th, is President of Samson Oil and Gas Limited which is a Australian based oil & gas company holding extensive development and exploration acreage in the USA. So I think the man knows of which he speaks. He clearly lays the blame on BP and the failure of it's people to follow standard industry practices that could have prevented this disaster BOP failure or not.
In a comment to this Reuters article, user "Alkan" - a 70-something former oil and gas engineer - provides a thoughtful comment on the application of common sense to the problem, and a specific solution. Is it the right one? Sounds intelligent and practical to me, and certainly more common sense could be applied across the board to this disaster.
I repeat the comment in full below the fold. What thoughts do you have?
Republicans have an uncanny knack for fostering and enabling one of the nastiest tendencies in all of human nature: Victim blaming. This they facilitate, while simultaneously denying all culpability for their own mistakes and transgressions. The level of hypocrisy they so frequently exhibit flies in the face of decency, and is on occasion nothing short of mind-boggling. Flagrant and galling though it may be, I sometimes wonder whether their outrageous displays of unctuousness are entirely conscious. It ofttimes seems that their misplaced holier-than-thou attitudes are born out of habit more than anything else. Perhaps if one goes so long believing in the absolute virtue of one's actions, one eventually succumbs to near pathological delusions of infallibility. These sorts of egotism and egocentrism are indisputably hazardous, and they give rise to authoritative stances and ideologies that become unduly convinced of their own faultlessness.
It is in the GOP's interests to eschew all guilt of misconduct, while also throwing blame onto every vulnerable target in sight. From blaming Katrina victims for their misfortune to lobbing accusations at the victims of predatory loans for the subprime mortage crisis to claiming that the Democratic leadership in Congress should take responsibility for the death threats hurled against them -- and not to mention the numerous historical examples of Republican callousness and hypocrisy of which I am too young to have clear memories -- the GOP has a lengthy pattern of placing the blame for tragic occurrences on those who have been wronged. Still, even my awareness of that convention does nothing to lessen my shock at some of their more appalling finger-pointing.
I think nowadays most informed people realize that privacy on the Internet is an illusion. There is no real secrecy in cyberspace, and if you live in the States -- unless you are born of a jackal, raised by wolves, and currently residing in a hut somewhere in the woods of Arkansas and have never so much as seen a light bulb or a sharp stick -- then records of your existence are somewhere online. Your information may not be easily accessible to the public, but with enough money, diligence, and tech savvy, someone out there can find you. You can only hope that you either aren't worth the trouble, or that no one with the means and determination to find you intends you any harm. And to some extent, that was true even before we were all linked together on this vast series of tubes. But there's no disputing that it's a whole lot easier to find people than it once was.
Thought we could use a new open thread, a couple of articles on BP, and a bit of randomness. Soooooo... I'm sending mail, so give me some action, mooses!
Many of you remember the true story of Exodus, turned into a compelling piece of fiction by Leon Uris, and great film by Otto Preminger. If any single story helped to solidify a positive pioneer image of Israel in the American mind, it was probably this.
The ship sailed with 4,515 passengers (mainly Holocaust survivors - PJ) from the port of miggets Sète, France, a fishing town near Montpellier on July 11, 1947, and arrived at Palestine shores on July 18. The British Royal Navy cruiser Ajax and a convoy of destroyers trailed the ship from very early in its voyage, and finally boarded it some 20 nautical miles (40 km) from shore. The boarding was challenged by the passengers (the ship was in international waters where the Royal Navy had no jurisdiction), and so the British soldiers used force. Three shipmates, including 1st mate William Bernstein, a U.S. sailor from San Francisco, died as a result of bludgeoning and several dozen others were injured before the ship was taken over
"We're the only country I know that allows people to come in illegally, have a baby, and then that baby becomes a citizen," Paul told RT, an English-language station, shortly after his win over GOP establishment candidate Trey Grayson. "And I think that should stop also."
Mr Paul obviously knows zilch about countries other than the US. Which is not surprising, giving his propensity for spouting jingoistic rhetoric.
Truth is I signed up for Motley Moose way way back in the beginning, but for whatever reason just never came here. I guess I was tracking too many blogs and one more seemed like an overload. Or I was lazy or I just never gave it much thought or . . . doesn't really matter.
As of today I am correcting this grievous oversight. After days and days (months and months?) of hair on fire diaries at KOS, one friggin flame war after another I needed some place sane. So here I am, better late than never?
Last night, I spent a few hours wading through BP oil spill related diaries over at Daily Kos, and spent a good portion of this morning getting a second dose. I don't visit there all that often anymore, and when I do I rarely venture into the diaries, and even less frequently into the comment sections. Having now spent some time there, I can now safely say that I'm pretty much done with that place.
Truth be told, I'd have to go to FreeRepublic to see the same amount of utterly uninformed, hyperbolic bullshit. The place is overrun with imbeciles. Save the lesser objects of scorn, there is literally no difference between these knuckleheads and the very worst of the Teabagging Birther set. The obvious, and excruciatingly irrational hatred of all things Obama leads me to conclude that they are kindred spirits, drooling sycophants trapped in an endless For/Next loop.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and consciencious stupidity.
--Martin Luther King, Jr.
I've always known that wingnuts turn both ways, but up until now I've always taken comfort in the thought that, for the most part, we that skewed left were better, more rational, more reasoned. Smarter. Today, that illusion is shattered.
