Archive for » September 3rd, 2009«

a simple majority…

03 Sep 2009 by admin

i’m so frustrated with the current legislative branch. i’m was really pissed at the democrats for being so weak willed while the repugs were in charge. i understand that for most of the 8 years, they were a minority but not as severe a majority as the repugs are now.

and yet…the dems are allowing the repugs to dictate what will or will not happen in congress. unfortunately, the repugs are more concerned with derailing any democratic plan than with actual governing. i hate that a simple majority no longer works in congress. to me, this seems like a permanent filibuster. it’s no longer just a threat, it’s permanent. nothing, NOTHING can pass congress without a republican on board at this point.

how in the hell did we get to this point?

i think the dems hated much of what went on during the bush years and yet rarely stood up and did anything about it. the filibuster was threatened mainly to stop the appointments of alito and roberts and even that failed miserable and has probably set back the US for the next 30 years.

why now is it that only 60 votes will allow anything to happen. will dems use this standard when and if repugs are back in charge? probably not and not just because they can be weak and mealy mouthed at times but because they recognize the need to act in a bipartisan way for the good of the country in a way repugs just don’t understand.

i heard in the past couple of weeks that a republican senator said that he would like to see a vote of 70 to 80 senators for this health care bill. is he dreaming? his party is holding this up with no real ideas of their own put forth. i think his statement was just another way of saying they won’t allow this to move forward. and it seems that he’s resetting that line by which a party could hold up legislation.

i’m sick of this stand still that is our congress. 60 votes should, as it’s written, be an extraordinary vote necessary to pass contentious or controversial legislation not something used everyday for most of what’s done in congress.

i think we need to drop back to reality. we need to hold these repugs accountable for their roadblocks to getting work done in congress.

Category: congress, opinions and thoughts, politics, repugs, senate  Tags: , ,  Leave a Comment

dunning-kruger effect…

03 Sep 2009 by admin

i was stumbling on the internet this morning and stumbled across this entry on wikipedia. after reading the first paragraph (below) i was amazed that there was actually a term to describe fox news and far right commentators! it almost (almost, but not) makes me feel bad for the righties. maybe it’s not o’leilly’s fault that he has a hyper-inflated ego. he can’t help it! this can also be applied quite accurately to creationists and evangelicals and their feeling of superiority over atheists.

“the dunning–kruger effect is an example of cognitive bias in which ‘people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it’. they therefore suffer an illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average. this leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than relatively more competent people. it also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. “thus, the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.”

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect

1. Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill. (george bush, glenn beck, michelle malkin, ann coulter)

2. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others. (again, all of the above and i guess you could include most of the republican congress)

3. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy. (this one perfect describes the bush administration. pretty much totally incompetent from beginning to end.)

4. If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill. (i think we would be dreaming to think that any of these people named above could be trained.)

Category: Uncategorized, atheism, opinions and thoughts, religion  Tags: , , , , , ,  Leave a Comment