Gaslight Theater

"[The TARP program] repaid taxpayers every dime and more of what my administration invested in you."

Then Obama leaves Michigan and flew to Phoenix to talk about housing in terms responsibility and recklessness empathizing with responsible folks that fell victim to forces beyond their control, the "market plummeting ." While somebody else was acting irresponsibly, poof, there goes the next paragraph in smoke.

"Weather on Wall Street, or folks who weren't responsible in terms of how they were dealing with their real estate -- ordinary families got hurt bad ."

Empathy.

Filling up the room with empathy.

Then off to Knoxville Tennessee to a State Community College to speak about the centerpiece of his education agenda, as you know, to make community colleges free because a quality education cannot be a thing reserved for a few.

I used to think that. If having degrees is so important then a degrees really should be free to the young person getting it but not free to society, because they ae expected to use it is some way or another upon graduating. So yes, pay for it and when the person continues on to  employment their debt becomes repaid. It's an investment in educated citizenship. I used to think that.

I still kind of do. I thought we are doing it already. There is a weeding out process that determines if one is up to it. And teaching can be a lot less expensive and probably will be.  Obama would like to see federal government changes that put federal government in the central role while changes in education occur elsewhere. There is a lot you can learn online. Plus people like to explain things. I can find pretty much any answer I want because all those people out there like to explain things. They give it to you for free.

When the Oreck portable overheated last night due the intake tube being jammed with styrofoam bits my first instinct is ask the internet how to fix it. That was after my first instinct was ask the internet how to put the bag replacement door back on, expecting a diagram.

I could be a plum-uh!

I passed thirty semester hours by taking exams. Certifications will replace traditional degrees. A boss is going to want to know if a person can do something and certifications give that assurance.


All this is on the American Elephant written by The Elephants Child, a group of some 11 writers. In a column titled Practicing up For the State of the Union Speech!

State of the Union?!


I'm invited? To watch the State of the Union? Thank you. This is such an honor.

*mops bathroom floor instead*


The writer at Elephant mentions but does not specify where the claims are made, here and there that Obama says 2014 was a breakthrough year with 240,000 new jobs. The group disputes this. They question his motives and they describe his behavior in unflattering terms.

The piece begins stratghtforwardly, "Obama is out campaigning and making speeches, his favorite thing to do, in preparation for the upcoming State of the Union Speech.

I visualized Joe stuck in Phoenix airport, his flight disrupted by Obama's plane. He had just told me.

There were thirteen planes lined up for takeoff and held back so out there on the tarmac in queue then second from front, the pilot realized he hadn't enough fuel so  turned back. Stuck as passenger in the fuselage for so long and having his appointments in Denver disrupted. Today he mentioned the traffic to the airport before all that, with streets blocked off.  I asked how many passengers on the plane. He said 138 and I imagine the ripples of disruption he described multiplied by that many, and then by the other planes full of people all going somewhere and payed for it that didn't have to return for more fuel but were still disrupted, to make way for a president's plane -- with one man and his posse. Wherever a president goes the ripples of disruption emanate like rings by his presence, as if with every single footstep disruption ripples outward.  Disruptions he cannot imagine all at once with each footstep, if even anecdotally, even away from everybody else out there a tarmac.  At the peak of Joe's irritation he talked about giving up flying altogether knowing full well that will not happen and I could tell even then he was put off by the president just a wee bit pleased to have a good story. Because I heard it twice.

Gaslighting

Jay Carney said, "Time and time again we've heard these stories trotted out and time and time again they've been proven not true." He was backing up the effrontery delivered by Harry Reid earlier. Jay Carney is spokesman for the administration, no? Then the administration follows Reid's lead and proclaims their reality at odds with reported reality, that their version is the real one.

Not so.

Bozo. I feel abused. Abused by government. Disputes about basic things like Constitutionally protected rights, enumerated powers, misappropriation of resources, Departments run amok, racism kept alive and fanned, borders, federalism and the like, truth, reality.

I don't care to be an expert on psychological disorders, nor misled with bad information, but what does wikipedia say about gaslighting? It's different from limelight isn't it? Neon is a gas. Maybe gaslight is neon.

Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse. False information presented to make victim doubt thier memory, perception and sanity. Ranges from simple denial to staging bizarre events to disorient.

... the term was further popularized in Victor Santoro's 1994 book Gaslighting: How to Drive Your Enemies Crazy, which outlines ostensibly legal tactics the reader might use to annoy others.

Clinical examples

Sociopaths frequently use gaslighting tactics.
Sociopaths consistently transgress social mores, break laws, exploit others but are typically charming convincing liars who consistently deny wrongdoing.

Gaslighting involves the projection and introjection of psychic conflicts from the perpetrator to the victim. This imposition is based on a very special kind of transfer of painful and potentially painful mental conflicts.

Projection and Introjection, not just rivers in Egypt. So there you go. I have come to understand more clearly now with this little dip into how the disturbed mind operates, yes, wikipedia has helped this time.

Clouds Are The New Greenhouse Gas?

Drudge has linked to Al Gore's latest thoughts on global warming. In typical polemic style, Drudge calls attention to Gore's equating "warming deniers" with racial bigotry, homophobia, supporters of Apartheid, and the Tea Party in general.

I was more alarmed by Gore's use of the difference between 32 and 33 degrees Fahrenheit to make a point about small differences in degrees leading to large differences in kind. Is he ignorant about phase change energy diagrams and latent heats of fusion for water? It would be pedantic to call a layperson on this ignorance but this man is supposed to be savvy about such things. And to think that I voted for him in 2000 (shudder).

Also, I found his alarm over 4% more water vapor in the air than 30 years ago as portending a future when water vapor will be as demonized as CO₂.

gaslighting

Already looked that up. It does not mean acting on stage in front of gaslights. It's in words file.

a form of psychological abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making a victim doubt his or her own memory, perception ...

Oh yeah, there was a movie about that.

Bryan Preston, pjmedia via Instapundit 

Obama's pernicious week

(pro tip:  press "view as single page" to pick up the dangling paragraph. Let me see if I'm right. Nope. Wrong. Nine more paragraphs.)

Preston says, "Worst Elizabeth Warren-esque riff ever to grate in a presidential address, here is Obama as history teacher.

And by the way, this isn’t a Democratic idea.  Republicans built a lot of stuff.  This is the Land of Lincoln.  Lincoln was all about building stuff — first Republican President.

Maybe president as George Carlin. 

It is a review of the things that annoy us . With additional seething at a comparison of Ho Chi Minh with American founders and Declaration of Independence with theirs of 1945.