Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Bored now.

I've been away for a while.

I got something like a promotion at work, and now I'm busier overall. And then there was that hailstorm that totaled the family car. Fortunately, our insurance company is taking care of us. And we also have a little one on the way. Who knew finding a name for our little girl would be so time-consuming? I'm not making it to the gym nearly as often as I should. And I still suffer from this growing lack of faith in the very mission of this blog.

Lori Ziganto last posted something on her blog back on June 22. (I hope she's had an epiphany and her lack of output isn't due to some crisis or difficulty. Judging from the Twitter feed running alongside her posties, however, she doesn't appear to have gotten any wiser.) Here's the first paragraph:
“America, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home,” said President Obama during his speech outlining his plans for troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. First, I’m not the President of the United States and all, but I’m pretty sure we’ve been a nation for a good long while. And as Jonah Goldberg said on Twitter “Just get it over with and declare Tom Friedman the King’s Hand.” But, I suppose we should at least give President Obama credit for his honesty in admitting that he can’t handle the job; I mean, shouldn’t a President be able to multi-task? Shouldn’t the leader of the free world be able to handle domestic issues and foreign policy, you know, at the same time? What happened to that whole ‘I can answer that 3:00 am call’ thing? They must not teach that in Community Organizing seminars.
How does one point out everything that's gone wrong in this single paragraph without sounding like a pedantic Leon Wolf admonishing a political enemy for imagined crimes against the English language? I'm not sure that it's possible, but I'll give it a try:
  • When the president says that "it is time to focus on nation-building here at home," what he means is that we ought to divert funds from the war in Afghanistan to domestic programs. Ziganto understands him to be saying that it is time to focus on becoming a nation because we are not a nation now. Lori, this makes you look either incompetent in your use of the language, hysterically partisan, or racist. (Sorry, but I'm done giving people like Ziganto the benefit of the doubt. Disagree with Obama if you like. But if you really hate the president that much, you're probably a racist, because our centrist president simply hasn't earned that much hatred from anyone. Just freaking admit that you're racist and get some help.) 
  • Ziganto also infers from the aforementioned statement that the president cannot multitask. This is coming from that wing of the Republican Party that constantly incorrectly insists that we're broke and bitches and moans about the federal deficit. The president is obviously saying that we need to be more selective in our use of tax dollars, in response to your bitching and moaning. If we need to cut spending, and we have to choose between spending on domestic programs and spending on the war in Afghanistan, we ought to end the war in Afghanistan to save money. That's the idea. This isn't about multitasking. The meaning of the President's remark is actually quite plain; if you really are a genius, Ziganto, stop pretending to be a moron. 
That's how much I can say about a single paragraph of Ziganto's writing, and I didn't even mention every problem in it.

But you know what? I'm bored with this post now, and I doubt that I'm the only one. I think that's all I want to say about Lori Ziganto's posties for the rest of my life. To her fans, I say this (even though they're not listening): I suppose that reading Ziganto's posties is somehow therapeutic for you, because they confirm your most cherished beliefs. And perhaps you take pleasure in the fact that the person writing those posties has a compulsive need to remind you every time you visit her blog that she possesses a pair of breasts. (Unfortunately for Ziganto, her photographic reminders neither mesmerized me nor distracted me from the flawed content of her posts.) But as I have shown here, her blog is not a reliable source of information and it is foolish to think that it is.

Anyone who is willing to take the time to understand my criticisms of Ziganto and other merchants of conservative propaganda doesn't need me to convince them that it is bullshit. They already know. And anyone who needs to be convinced that it is bullshit will not take the time to understand my criticisms of it. So what the hell am I doing this for? It used to be therapeutic, but It's probably no accident that I am losing passion for this at the same time that conservative bullshitters are losing their audiences. I am bored with this, and that is why I think I will try a few other things here. We'll see.

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It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. ---W.K. Clifford

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear. ---Thomas Jefferson