‘grace of time’

April 25, 2013

Escher-DetailBottomHigh fog, or low clouds this morning with just a hint of cool as we start off Thursday here on California’s north coast — and it’s a snap in summer’s direction, too.
Yesterday was the hottest yet this year, and a new record for Eureka — about 10 miles south of myself — and at 70 degrees, knocked two degrees off the old high set way back in 1913.
We’ve had some most-beautiful days this week, warm and sunny, which are unusual up here. Folks are amazed, and nearly dumb-struck by the sweetness outside, and jokes flowed –  is this Honolulu or what?

Meanwhile, down Texas way this afternoon, folks will also be dumb-struck and cry, is this reality or what?
It’s all up the down staircase for the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

(Illustration: Detail of M.C. Escher’s ‘Relativity‘ found here).

Of course, presidential libraries are bullshit — self congratulations on shit that was totally fucked-up in real time in attempts to “rehabilitate” their reputations. In this particular case, the named-library guy should be in jail.
Not much chance of that, however.
Deputy director of the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, Amy Williams: “I think we look at everything a little differently with the grace of time.”
No shit.
Saying grace doesn’t make the dinner less ugly.

Americans are short-sighted: Forty-seven percent of Americans say they now approve of the former president, while 53 percent disapprove, according to the poll, which surveyed 1,000 adults from April 17-21. Mr. Obama’s approval rating also stands at 47 percent.

Bullshit don’t walk — it runs.
An indication there’s a problem with the live feed from American’s people is the seemingly dumb-ass intelligence of the great wad of citizens. I think they’re just being lazy and not looking at the fine print. Or letting time heal a nasty cancer.
Apparently, not even with people killing each other with guns, and doing it at an alarming rate — yet.
Via the Christian Science Monitor:

On the surface, the poll released by The Washington Post and Pew Research Center made no sense.
Only 47 percent of respondents said they were “disappointed” or “angry” that the Senate last week failed to advance a bill to expand background checks to gun shows and online sales.
Yet in February, a Pew poll found that 83 percent of respondents supported an expansion of background checks to cover gun shows and all private sales – measures that would actually be stricter than what the Senate rejected.

“This poll basically validates the NRA’s take-no-prisoner approach, where they lump everything together as antigun, and where this reveals that the public must have, for the most part, bought that – that’s the only way to make sense of that many people being happy with the outcome,” says David Canon, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and co-author of the upcoming book, “The Dysfunctional Congress? The Individual Roots of an Institutional Dilemma.”
“That’s why I see this as more disturbing than a validation, because public opinion did get misled on this with false rhetoric about how people couldn’t give guns to family members without a background check, which was taken out as part of the compromise” bill in the Senate.

Mediaite looked at the poll, and found it too loose with the verbiage:

Universal background checks have consistently polled at around 90 percent (86 percent in a recent WaPo poll), but those same polls have consistently shown a disconnect between those who favor specific gun laws and those who favor “gun control” broadly.
In this case, Pew polled a group of people who presumably also support background checks at around 90 percent, yet only 47 percent of them were displeased that the Republicans killed the background check law.
That means that a great many of the poll’s respondents were “happy” or “relieved” that a law they supported did not pass.
What the hell?

Still, that doesn’t seem like enough to cut support for background checks in half, does it?
It’s also possible that the “relief” felt by some was a result of misinformation that was spread about the bill, specifically the specter of a gun registry, which the bill actually would have made more illegal than it already is. It’s also possible that many of these respondents still think existing background checks are tougher than they are.
Finally, they might all just be idiots.

And most idiots maybe can’t tell if it’s rain or piss falling from the sky.
George Jr. is by far the worst president in US history, and it should be no surprise as he was followed by the most disappointing one.

George Carlin, in a view of time, asks: “Do you ever look at the crowds in old movies and wonder if they’re dead yet?”
Some are, but seemingly don’t know it.

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