Dumb As A Box Of Hair

“When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it."* 

This article leads off with a description of a miscreant who was arrested soon after he robbed a bank, in broad daylight,  wearing no mask or disguise.

Astonished was he when the cops nabbed him in short order, as he had rubbed lemon juice on his face assuming it would conceal his image from cameras.

This is the kind of thing that makes the words "jury of your peers" scary. 


*Justin Kruger and David Dunning, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties of Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-assessments,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1999, vol. 77, no. 6, pp. 1121-1134.

When Toilet Paper is Outlawed....

... I predict Tam will be leading the resistance.

Folks, you can take my light bulbs and I'll grumble, you can make me smoke outside and I'll sulk, but listen to me now and believe me later, little pencil-necked environmentalist man: You had damned well better take my guns before you take my Charmin.

Nice one.

Me, I have a septic tank and the comfy toilet paper clogs it up good. So in my house we use the recycled stuff that would make an refugee from the Soviet gulag tear up and have flashbacks.

Climate Change Activists Freeze Asses Off At DC Protest

I don't want to start another debate on global warming. Well, not today, anyway.

Still, its amusing that the folks from Capitol Climate Action -- currently engaged in a protest against a DC coal plant -- posted this on their blog:

"People are bundled up in their warmest coats and staying active by chanting."

Also on the same page, one of the intended participants writes:

"I don’t want to travel to DC from Frederick in the snow today."

I wonder if just a couple of them are thinking "A little warming would be OK, right about now."

Don't Be A Grass-Eater

"If your first reaction to a law being horrifyingly broken is “we gotta make more laws”, you might be a grass-eater. If you believe in angels — or the Just World hypothesis — you’re probably a grass-eater. Both of these delusions indicate a desire to give up responsibility (and, therefore, freedom) to a faceless “higher” power. Grass-eaters are perfectly happy to give up liberty for a little safety — even if the only safety they get is from the consequences of their actions."
-Blunt Object
H/T to Smallest Minority, who found it on Atomic Nerds

Favorite Quotes

"It is not enough that I should succeed. My friends must also fail." -- Francois duc de La Rochefoucauld

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." -- Alexis de Tocqueville

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." – Samuel Adams

"If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an out-right ban, picking up every one of them... 'Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in,' I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren't here." -- Senator Dianne Feinstein on banning guns.

"We suffer most when the White House busts with ideas." – H.L. Mencken

Tikki Tik-tik!

One of the discussion forums I'm on asked us for our favorite quotes. I responded with:

"It is easy enough to say that poverty is no crime. No; if it were men wouldn't be ashamed of it. It is a blunder, though, and is punished as such. A poor man is despised the whole world over."
- Jerome K. Jerome

"If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast."
- William Tecumseh Sherman

"He that always gives way to others will end in having no principles of his own."
- Aesop

"If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, and blaming you. The world will be yours and everything in it, what's more, you'll be a man, my son."
- Rudyard Kipling

"Run and find out!"
- Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

In no particular order.

This is Brilliant. And Funny.

"Give Obama his due: It is an exceptional politician who can win the support of Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, and Kenneth Duberstein, former chief of staff to President Reagan; of William Ayers, an unrepentant terrorist, and Christopher Buckley, son of William F. Buckley, founder of modern intellectual conservatism; of Rashid Khalidi, an Israel-hater, and Edgar Bronfman, former head of the World Jewish Congress. Here’s a not-very-bold prediction: A year from now, someone is going to be sorely disappointed."

--The Change You'll Get by Clifford D. May