Speaking of idiots...

Here we have video of John Wiley Price's apparently racist rant, plus an interview where he decries terms such as "angel food cake" and "devil's food cake" as racist:



The Dallas Fox affiliate had an online poll up on the page where they showed this video on their website. The question was, "Is the term "Black Hole" racist?". Last I looked before it was pulled, the vote was 97.5% "no". Most lopsided online poll I have EVER seen. LOL.

It's good to know that Mr. Price's primary concern as a county commissioner is looking out for the best interests of his constituency as opposed to his hangups over differences in skin color and culture.

Just for funsies...

I'd like to share this video of Criss Angel's steamroller illusion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7gl8nNsDMA

I could have embedded this, but I chose not to because what I really want you all to see is the raft of comments that has been posted to the video. Here we have a cross-section of some very intelligent people... people who will most likely voting for our next President. Makes you feel warm and fuzzy, doesn't it? Restores your faith in humanity, no?

I wasn't going to address the issues contained within, but this is the sort of thing that happens when those that put their unsubstantiated beliefs up against those who refuse to suspend their realism long enough to enjoy the "unreal". Great unwashed, indeed.

To clarify for everyone concerned: Criss Angel is billed as an illusionist. That would literally mean "one who deals in illusions". Of course he wasn't really run over by a steamroller on the asphalt surface... it was an illusion. Anyone who actually believes that this was real is an idiot, and so is anyone who can't appreciate this fantastic illusion for what it is. That would cover 99.9% of the commenters to that video.

Well... they're no rocket scientists, are they?

Once again, a tale of people so preoccupied with perpetuating racism that they are ignorant of even basic science.

As reported by the Dallas Morning News, Dallas Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield (white) , said it seemed that central collections, "has become a black hole" because paperwork apparently was lost in the office. Another Dallas Commissioner, John Wiley Price (black) erupted with a loud, "excuse me!", followed by him correcting Mayfield by saying the office has become a "white hole." Then Judge Thomas Jones (black) demanded an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive remark.

You have GOT to be kidding me. I have to find these geniuses on YouTube. And here they are:

In 1999 when a white DC staffer resigned amidst criticism for using the word "niggardly", which means "miserly", to describe a business dealings, I could almost understand the confusion, considering that "niggard" and its derivatives have fallen out of common usage. But even people educated in gubment schools knows what a black hole is: an object so massive that it's gravitational pull doesn't let even light (hence "black") escape (hence "hole"). Hell, Disney made a movie about one back in the early 1980's.

For those that don't know, a "white hole" is quite the opposite of a black hole: it's a point that nothing can enter; it casts material forth with force analogous to a black hole's ability to suck it in.

But to Price and Jones, that doesn't seem to matter. It's apparently a HUGE priority to trot out their hangups with differences in race because it's overwhelmingly more important than what's being discussed in a public meeting. In my humble opinion, if the public that they "serve" is any smarter than these two bozos, they'll show them the door at the earliest opportunity.

Looks like I'll be buying a book soon...

From page 409 of "The Bad Boy of Baltimore", a biography of H.L. Mencken by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers:

"By the mid-1930's, thanks to the New Deal, all that self-reliance had changed, prompting Mencken to declare: 'There is no genuine justice in any scheme of feeding and coddling the loafer whose only ponderable energies are devoted wholly to reproduction. Nine-tenths of the rights he bellows for are really privileges and he does nothing to deserve them.' Despite the billions spent on an individual, 'he can be lifted transiently but always slips back again.' Thus, the New Deal had been 'the most stupendous digenetic enterprise ever undertaken by man.... We not only acquired a vast population of morons, we have inculcated all morons, old or young, with the doctrine that the decent and industrious people of the country are bound to support them for all time. The effects of that doctrine are bound to be disastrous soon or late.'

When someone asked, "And what, Mr. Mencken, would you do about the unemployed?" He looked up with a bland expression. "We could start by taking away their vote," he said, deadpan. Mencken was not surprised when the majority disagreed. "There can be nothing even remotely approaching a rational solution of the fundamental national problems until we face them in a realistic spirit," he later reflected, and that was impossible so long as educated Americans remained responsive "to the Roosevelt buncombe."

While I think that the downfall of America began with the ratification of the 17th Amendment, which nationalized the Senate, this is pretty spot on.

Like we need another reason to hate

So, part of my job is to write grants. I'm not particularly fond of this, considering it brings me into contact with a ridiculous cross section of government lunacy. The latest result: being told that my last grant application was rejected for funding because the grant applications that my agency puts together are "too good".

How ridiculous is this?! Is there some sort of sweet spot that we're supposed aim for? The goal of a competitive process is to achieve success by being the best performer. There is no "too good", only "the best", who should come out in first place. What is this, college football?

Leave it to government to reward the anti-achievement mentality by buying votes from the grasshoppers. As long as we continue to enable those who choose not to perform, we grow weaker as a society.