stuff

[jazzfish]

Ow my head. I feel much better about my writing now.

Why does George W. Bush still have an approval rating around 40%? Because about 40% of the American people are ignorant dumbasses:

"Do you think Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was DIRECTLY involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, or not?" Taken Sept. 2-4 [2004 -ed].

"Yes"=42%

"No"=44%

"Unsure"=14%

(This is without even getting into Gallup's unrelated polling wackiness.)

And, beating out the Hon. Alex Kozinski's "The parties are advised to chill" (Aqua vs. Mattel Corp, aka "the 'Barbie Girl' case") in the category of Coolest Judicial Statement Ever, we have the following, sadly anonymous, trademark opinion:

When the undersigned accepted the appointment from the President of the United States of the position now held, he was ready to face the daily practice of law in federal courts with presumably competent lawyers. No one warned the undersigned that in many instances his responsibility would be the same as a person who supervised kindergarten. Frankly, the undersigned would guess the lawyers in this case did not attend kindergarten as they never learned how to get along well with others. . . .

The Court simply wants to scream to these lawyers, 'Get a life' or 'Do you have any other cases?' or 'When is the last time you registered for anger management classes?' . . . In the event it is not clear from the above discussion, the Motion for Reconsideration is DENIED."

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Semester eating me alive, as expected. I have (most of) a cast for my directing scene, and I think I'm actually no more than a week behind in all my classes now. Saw the rain and decided not to bother leaving the house yesterday, which I think was a good call.

Lord, I can use this weekend. At least I'll have Donkey Konga to chill with. And maybe I can finally finish Strange & Norrell. And get the booklog caught up. And do some work on my second playwriting play. And and and.

Comments

[narquelion.livejournal.com]

As a stickler for honesty, I'd like to point out: There's the truth and then there's the whole truth so help me God. Substituting the former for the latter might not be lying, but it's "encouraging misinterpretation," which is pretty much the same damn thing. Well, except for the liars acting self-righteous and outraged about it.

Okay, there's chemical weapons in Iraq. In the same vein, is there lead paint in my house? Almost definitely. In fact, there's probably even chemical weapons. I don't know where the chemical weapons are, nor do I intend to use them as such. The lead paint I'm speculating exists is on some sort of decorative vase or antique in a box somewhere, not on the walls or anywhere a small child could ingest. So, the answer to the questions people generally mean to ask is no, even if the literal answer is yes, or probably, or I don't know.

Presumably, the majority of the people polled interpreted that question as "Did we ever find the WMD the US claimed knowledge of?" (The original is not the clearest poll question in the world, but it's hard to be literally complete but not leading. I'd say my replacement encourages more biased answers, even if it is literally more accurate.)

It is possible that some of those polled didn't interpret the question in that manner. However, assuming that a third of the population is very intelligent, as literal as a computer or a legal team, and very well informed is probably less reasonable than jazzfish's original explanation that a third of the population is stupid and ignorant. Unfortunate but true.

On a more random note, I notice we've dropped the stupid 'WMD' designation for purposes of this thread. This is a good thing for you, I must say, because I don't see how "mass" applies here. :)