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Dr. Psycho
Corvallis, Oregon
Visit http://doctorpsycho1960.blogspot.com
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Now, now, DrDick. They themselves aren't a terrorist organization. They're just an organization made up of admirers and cheerleaders and enablers of terrorism.
Yarb
Feck.
Thaumaturgist, you are mistaken.
Saying "shit" is merely obscenity.
Saying "holy cow-pies" is blasphemy, a much more serious matter for anyone seeking to keep the Ten Commandments.
Holy Cow-pies!
Here is a crap sentence. Tim Pawlenty formally launched his campaign for president on Monday with a straight talk message explicitly geared to tackle sacred cows in Iowa, Florida, New York and Washington. Justice demands that the person who wrote this sentence be compelled to spend a long day pl...
Waaaaaay too real....
Affordable Trends in Anxiety
This is an interesting artifact. The author, a Reagan era coprolite, says that you should hate your elderly neighbors on Social Security because they are thieving swine. Readers may recall the 1950s TV show, "The Millionaire," which portrayed stories of individuals who were given a "no strings a...
Okay, here is my input: torture is NEVER justifiable, period, paragraph, page, chapter, book. Put it on the shelf.
Next question.
Torture Logic
Shorter Mini-Patterico: It's infantile to argue about whether or not torture works. Of course it does! This scene from Dirty Harry proves it. Yes, that's really his argument. Mini-Patterico, verbatim: So let’s please stop the childish claim that waterboarding—hell, even torture—cannot be effecti...
I remember the first time I heard a Christian complain of persecution.
I was eighteen years old, and had questioned the plausibility of a worldwide flood.
Answers Questions
Steve Benen asks a question as to the ridiculous Gary Bauer: I continue to marvel at why folks like Bauer wallow in self pity. Because it makes them rich. This is Bauer's careeer; he makes pots of money as a professional resentful Christian, and it makes him famous and Important. Sure, this is...
Yes, the origins of the Yule tree have long been obscured, but my point is still valid, that the Yule tree is not inextricably Christian in the way that, say, the Sacred Heart of Jesus is. So it is foolish for Christians to try to claim the Yule tree as "theirs" and to object to calling it a "Holiday tree" or a "Hanukkah bush" or a "Solstice gnomon".
The forest beyond the trees
photo by flickr user EveMBH; licensed under creative commons. Every year at this season the subject rises up again. This year you can find it in Slate, where Mark Oppenheimer and Jessica Grose debate Should Jews Own Christmas Trees? Or Andi Rosenthal's essay Tree of Life, which asks "why one ...
Jimi Hendrix opened for the Monkees....
I don't think I had ever heard of this song or this artist before. Thanks for the opportunity.
Weather Patterns
Some jokes told here. Anyway, was Copper Blue so damn long ago? (Checks) DAMN. This record could have came out yesterday. DADT is why I thought of this video. But this still sounds new! To me, anyhow. Wow. It had never occurred to me that this record would age, and it has not. Fascinating. ...
In recent years, as Christians have raised objections to the term "Holiday Tree", I have become quick to agree with them, and demand that it be called by its proper name: Yule Tree.
I have only once in all my life seen a reference to anything to make the Yule Tree explicitly Christian, except for the interesting (and note, secretive) practice of the Christmas Nail: http://www.booksofthebible.com/p3140.html
-- Dr. Psycho
The forest beyond the trees
photo by flickr user EveMBH; licensed under creative commons. Every year at this season the subject rises up again. This year you can find it in Slate, where Mark Oppenheimer and Jessica Grose debate Should Jews Own Christmas Trees? Or Andi Rosenthal's essay Tree of Life, which asks "why one ...
I liked the part where he said that transitions in energy technology take decades -- therefore we shouldn't start doing it.
Muddy to a War
Jonah Goldberg! Things! Says! Brilliant! Smart! Things! Underpants! Tight! Crack! Ass! Oxygen! Depleted! The real problem with the White House's attitude toward oil, and energy generally, is how deeply ideological it is. Few presidents have talked a bigger game about pragmatism while pursuing a ...
Wow, I love this!
I grew up hearing my father playing Scottish war songs on his bagpipes, playing Spanish Civil War marching songs on his guitar, and if I were really lucky, a number out of his uncle's IWW Little Red Songbook.
By coincidence, my wife and I are just now listening to The Little Red Box of Protest Songs (which she bought me for my birthday).
I cherish the photocopy my father allowed me to make from my great-uncle's IWW songbook. And now I have this .pdf to print out tomorrow morning :{ )
It's Sister Jenny's Turn to Throw the Bomb
I was once a teenage pinko— but did you know I was a SINGING punk-folkie-adolescent-Marxist, to boot? My old picket-line buddy, Joel Levine, sent me a copy of a little mimeographed book I treasure: The Socialist Songboook. This is a piece of Berkeley ephemera you have to love. Here's your ver...
"I'm so old I can remember when senators from Nevada and former governors of Alaska didn't tell religious organizations in New York where to build their buildings. Is it really too much to ask that we revert to those times"
They say that you tend to become more conservative over time. I know that as the years go by, I wish more and more that this country would rediscover the wisdom of our ancestors on subjects such as religious liberty, graduated income tax and many other things, so I guess it's true.
Adult Supervision Required
by Jacob Davies I'm looking at this Cordoba House business and I really cannot endorse the United States as guarantor of global freedom* if we're going to run things this way. Aren't there some aliens that can step in or something? This is the stupidest thing since Terri Schiavo, and that was re...
"We should agree that, above some multiple, the marginal tax rate should be 100%."
Oh, I wouldn't go quite that far.
But how about if over $1million, it's 90%, and over $10M, it's 99%, and over $100M, it's 99.9%, and so on?
A Quick One, While He's Away
by Jacob Davies Paul Krugman takes on some of the issues with the effects of higher marginal taxation that I talked about in an earlier post. He hits some of the same points and comes to roughly the same conclusion: So the way I see it, even quite high marginal tax rates on high earners — even r...
I have sometimes regretted that I wasn't an authentic red-diaper baby (my father having left the Party quite a few years before I was born). In my time I have been a Socialist, a Libertarian and an Anarchist. I seem to be a Democrat at the moment.
The way I heard this business of a person who lacks either a heart or a brain does not identify "liberal" or "conservative", but said, "Anyone who is not a RADICAL at twenty". I am definitely less radical than I used to be. I was once a burn-it-down extremist. In my defense, that was when I was nine years old. These days, I have some idea of just how hard it is to make anything better, especially without side-effects that are worse than the problem you have solved.
The kitty with a rifle is definitely what drew me here. I stayed for the posts and comments.
I grew up in Oregon and have pretty much stayed here, except for some time in the Navy. I would definitely be interested in a Pacific Northwest ObWi gathering, and would be willing to travel to Portland, maybe Seattle in a pinch, but I'm lazy, so make it easy for me, people.
I'm a Quaker, I think, except for that tricky believe-in-God part, but I know I want to be counted as at least a friend of Christ, and I have been gathered to the Light a time or two, whatever the experience really means.
I've been married for 26 years (my wife was twice my age when we met, but I am catching up to her), have raised four children, and may yet begin raising a fifth. At fifty, I look back on my life and conclude that I have really gotten everything I could reasonably ask for, except a successful career, and I think I still have a few years left for that.
Introductions
by Jacob Davies Back on the Well (in the stone age of the Internet), there was a tradition of having an introductions thread when a new forum was opened. The hosts and the regular users would introduce themselves and invite any new members to do likewise. The nice thing about it was that even if...
Oh, and re PTSD: Both men also said they had never really recovered from that day.
The Greatest Generation, Minus One
by Robert R. Mackey All, First, sorry it has been a bit since I last posted. Work has been heavy, and my son is getting ready to start at George Mason this fall. Unlike his wastrel father (BA, Political Science), the boy is somewhat more motivated (Applied Computer Science, Simulations Design). ...
I will not soon forget the 24-hour period during which (in the course of my duties as a caregiver) I sat all night at the bedside of a Pearl Harbor survivor, and then discovered I was sitting across the breakfast table from a different one.
The Greatest Generation, Minus One
by Robert R. Mackey All, First, sorry it has been a bit since I last posted. Work has been heavy, and my son is getting ready to start at George Mason this fall. Unlike his wastrel father (BA, Political Science), the boy is somewhat more motivated (Applied Computer Science, Simulations Design). ...
I always thought that Iron Man was one of the more ideologically clear characters, at least as originally conceived: Howard Hughes in powered armor.
And I can't take seriously the claim that the movie's Tony Stark was derived from Orson Scott Card's precocious (and cancerous) thrill-seeker. He strikes me as being much more like the original character, and thank Ghu for that.
But what I really can't forgive the film for is that it didn't have a proper place for the classic rock song (which, not actually being about Tony Stark, would not have threatened the fourth wall), since it worked so well in the first movie trailer.
On ideological incoherence in Iron Man.
I feel vindicated by the revelation that Iron Man went into production without a shooting script, if only because now I know the reason Robert Downey Jr. had so few quality lines is that he and director Jon Favreau were making up the dialogue as they went along. This approach works when you can...
Roni sat parked by the side of the road, too prudent to talk on the phone while driving.
"You...did not just say that. I'll give you one chance to un-say that. All right, fine. Goodbye."
Roni sighed with disgust and closed her phone. She'd known for days that she and Laura were headed for this kind of break, but Laura's gratuitously insulting comments were the last straw.
Roni wanted to throw away the phone, but then she wouldn't have it, and the phone was not at fault, Laura was. So instead she upended her purse and dumped out its contents on the seat and sorted through it for anything of Laura's, flinging them out the car window as she came to them.
Laura's can of mace -- Laura was such a paranoid. The key ring with duplicate keys to Laura's apartment and her cars -- Laura so often tried to use generosity in letting Roni use her things, to compensate for keeping Roni out of so many areas of her life. The Netflix DVDs she was always bringing over for them to watch together. Laura had used Roni's hairbrush -- it still had some of her long blonde hairs, and some hairs from Laura's nutria-skin coat, so Roni tossed that, too.
Roni paused over Laura's grandmother's glass spoon. It was genuinely beautiful. But it was Laura's, so out it went. She hoped it would break.
Only much later did Roni remember that Laura's Netflix account had been screwed up somehow, so she'd been renting movies on Laura's account. Crumb. But maybe some kind soul would find the disks. She could only hope.
Bite Me: My First "Truth is Stranger Than Fiction" Contest
As you may know, my beautiful new Baudelarian Gothic fantasy book, Bitten, has just been released. I want to give away a few autographed copies, inscribed to my beloveds, so let's have a little contest.... I want YOU to Finish This Story: Yesterday I went out to the car and someone had throw...
Way cool. Wish I had more dreams like that one.
I dreamed I met FDR once, that was kind of nifty.
But the dream that comes closest to this one that I can recall was when I was in the Navy, walking across the base, and I COULD NOT get all of my buttons buttoned all at once, or my belt straight -- a military naked-dream.
My Diastrous Dinner Party with the Obama's
I had a dream last night about the Obama's. They appear frequently in my nocturnal soap operas. This time, they were bringing their kids over for a dinner party. Everything was going wrong. I wanted to wear something nice, but my closet was bare except for a yellow velvet butterfly shirt my da...
I was most impressed with Season 2, specifically the way poor Frank Sobotka's life fell apart. By the time he died, he had lost everything: his union, his workplace, his son...everything.
That kind of tragedy is rare enough in any kind of entertainment, but especially series television.
The Wire
by publius So after years of resisting passionate pleas from friends, I've broken down and started watching The Wire. I'm now through Season 4 about to start 5. And it's absolutely fantastic. To those who haven't seen it -- go start it right now. If you are reading this blog, chances are you ...
Nom, Senator Franken is getting bigger residuals than are any of the participants in, say, "American Carol".
And now he's getting a bigger Senate paycheck than Norm Coleman :-D
Six months
by flory This is to certify that on the fourth day of November, 2008, Al Franken was duly chosen by the qualified electors of the State of Minnesota a Senator So does the certification that he was elected in November mean he's entitled to six months back pay?
On the one hand, I can admire the dedication that allows her to cultivate those nails.
OTOH, all of the comments above (except the rude and pointless one about "skinny jeans"), plus I wonder about the mental state that allows someone to develop such an all-consuming obsession with something as pointless as ridiculous fingernails.
Leopard claws
Longest Fingernails I've Ever Seen (They're Real), originally uploaded by Lindsay Beyerstein. BROOKLYN, NY. A spectator at the Mermaid Parade. Those nails aren't fake and they're not part of a costume, they're her actual fingernails. Her thumbnails are so long they coil like corkscrews. I...
Ahistoricality, Republican goal posts are no longer even dirty on the bottom, because they never stay in one place long enough to be driven into the ground.
Mother Jones and the National Review on the dubious quality of Sotomayor’s prose: “This apple’s the worst orange I’ve ever tasted.”
This past week, the attacks on Sotomayor have turned from what she’s said to how she’s said it. Conservatives began by hammering away at the “weird, unidiomatic constructions and errors of punctuation and grammar [in] her infamous 2001 ‘Wise Latina’ speech.” Now, I advocate writing conference ...
A change in terminology is just a change in terminology, but it's a start, anyway.
After all, the words we use shape our thoughts.
And really, with a heap of dung this big, we can start shoveling anywhere and be making progress.
Drug Czar calls for end to "War on Drugs"
Fun with the use/mention distinction. The WSJ headline says: White House Czar Calls for End to "War on Drugs" Note that Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske isn't calling for an end to the war on drugs, but rather to the phrase "the War on Drugs" to describe America's frenzied militarized prohibition poli...
>O>HUGX>KISS%>FOOTRUB<%
That's "Doctor Jessie" to you
Three Quarks Ball at Flux Factory, originally uploaded by Lindsay Beyerstein. Congratulations to my friend Jessie for finishing her PhD dissertation! Her defense is scheduled for the 27th. Bravo, Jessie. I'm so proud of you.
I'd love to see the Perjury Hall of Fame. It could serbve to honor the lesser lights of corruption who don't quite qualify to have their faces carved into Mount Flushmore alongside Nixon, Reagan and W.
DEA agent indicted for perjury and civil rights violations
A DEA agent is indicted for false statements that led to wrongful charges against 17 people: A federal grand jury in Cleveland charged [Lee] Lucas, 41, of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, in an 18-count indictment that accuses him of perjury, making false statements and violating three...
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