In the run-up to today’s historic Iraqi moment, the liberal left repeatedly insisted that the January elections couldn’t take place on time. Now that they’ve taken place, that same liberal left is telling us that the elections they said could not take place were the “easy part.”
— Which proclamations, when one deploys the transitive property of equality, express themselves in this simple equation:
Left liberals → can’t be done ← easy part,
or
“Were we left liberals in power, even the easy part of democratizing Iraq wouldn’t have happened, because it is our belief that even that easiest part couldn’t be done.
.
Or, to sum up algebraically:
d/dt (mv) = 0 ; v = const
Wow, I completely understand your logic.
And that worries me.
“Argue for your limitations,
and sure enough,
they’re yours.”
— Richard Bach ‘Illusions’
The left is so busy tallying up the things that can’t be done, they’ve encircled themselves a wall they can no longer see over. The world has changed greatly since 1967, but they know it not.
Jeff:
After declaring the elections could not take place on time, didn’t they also demand that they be canceled? Does that affect the equation, and if so how?
Sure, but that was we what armchair mathematicians call a “phanton variable,” because there was no way Bush was gonna let that happen, and they knew it.
You can express it in the equation by adding the symbol for a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing, depicted thus: [MacBeth].
That does it, now I’m gonna sic an astrophysicist buddy of mine on ya.
To be fair to the Democrats, when they were saying it was impossible to hold elections, they were talking about the type of elections they’re used to running—fake voters, dead voters, voting more than once, lawyers ginning up fake reasons for keeping or throwing out the results.
Now that they saw the type of election intended—one vote per person, checking ID to make sure you’re eligible, etc.—they’ve realized it’s easy.
(Anyone want to push for US vote reforms to have a system like the Iraqis had? Photo IDs and an indelible mark showing you voted? Wanna bet the Donks would scream bloody murder?)
Actually, the modern left presents us with an extraordinary opportunity to solve the ancient question: what happens when an immovable object is hit by an unstoppable force.
All that remains is to find a way to get Michael Moore and Ted Kennedy to agree to sumo wrestle.
Some helpful links for those complaining that none were provided above—as if my laziness to link yet again to naysayers is somehow proof that naysaying hasn’t been going on. Courtesy of a commenter on John Cole’s Balloon Juice:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14266-2004Dec20.html
http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/04/1104832107233.html?oneclick=true
http://www.greatreporter.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=333
http://www.liberaloasis.com/palast2.htm
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4230937
http://www.thebluestate.com/article01-11-05iraq.htm
http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/ohanlon/20050109.htm
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec04/elections_11-29.html
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/509265/
AAAAA! Jeff, you’re not allowed to say the name of that play! Or is that “Hamlet?”….oh, shit.
Uhh, I keep getting a “divide by zero” error.
I wish I could remember who said it but to badly paraphrase it, it was something, “I hate to live in a world where you couldn’t do anything until you could do everything.”
Your formula did it in a much more concise way.
So now that we’ve done the ‘impossible but easy’ part the left will simply say that we are moving on to what will henceforth be known as the ‘double super-duper-impossible’ part. Of course, when that’s accomplished it will be relabeled the ‘not so tough after all stage’.
The left has become Monty Python, without the sense of humor.
Why are we surprised? They did the same math during the war.
“Brutal Afghan Winter” to east part
“Thousands dead in Baghdad-grad” to easy part
“Al-Sadr dominates Falluja” to easy part
I used to think that the PC set were Hippie Stalnists. Now, it’s clear they’re Bourgeoise Stalnists. There’s nothing they can’t denigrate.
Well, v isn’t necessarily constant. The mass could change. Given that most people are probably getting a bit more food than they used to, it probably is.
The collective daily caloric intake of Michael Moore, Teddy Kennedy, and Oliver Wills could feed the city of Ramalla for a day.
”…double super-duper impossible.’
Is that anything like double-secret probation?
Yes, Jeff breached thespian etiquette by naming the Scottish play.
As to Democratic math, we long ago learned of their skill in this area as they deconstructed calculus and equated a decline in a rate of growth, i.e., the first derivative, with a decline in growth. “A miracle occurs here” is the most common response to students in all 300- and 400-level Democratic mathematics classes. And, of course, everyone gets an A—unless you are a Republican or otherwise question their authority.
Well thanks a bunch for planting the seed of Michael Moore as Lady Macbeth: “Out, Out Spam Dot!”
Brilliant, Jeff.
Good Lord, Beck
It is kind of late in the evening for me to have the visuals you induced of al-Moore and Jaba the Kennedy grappling their mawashis
I need to go scrub my brain or something
charles,
don’t knock the Jesus function, man. that got me through a lot of real math classes!
Jeff: Most excellent.
However, one spells the Scottish play’s title with a small “b”…
That’s my nit picked for the day… :spongg:
You’d think my advanced degrees in English lit would have helped out. But alas….and alack.
brilliant
I just call it “moving the goalposts.”
Honestly I was more offended by Yglesias than Willis. I don’t know why you ever link that guy, since his whole mission in life seems to be to troll links.
kantsipr is right… and so one finds that as the mass increases, the velocity must decrease to maintain constant momentum. As mass goes to infinity, velocity will go to zero.
But I’m guessing Kennedy and Moore will explode before they reach the limit.
Math and politics in one post. You know, I used to think this site was easy funny – now it’s like taking the GMAT with every word problem being a joke and I’m supposed to ‘get’ the right punchline (I, II, I or II, I and III, no possible punchline) It’s like the College Math Bowl Team and the Model UN got all fucked up on a combination of MD 20/20, mushrooms, and meth; ran a train on the comedy improv team, and produced this permanently tripping, super-intelligent – yet oddly insisghtful – little child. Well, you assume it’s oddly insightful, but it’s so fucked up all the time you can’t tell if it’s real genius or just stoner ratchetjaw.
But you still laugh anyways.
But if you subtracted 100 from 485, would Michael Moore still be fat?
Jeebus, shank,
You really went all out to get your quote up there on the upper left of Jeff’s site.
You thinkin’ about that one for a while or did it come to you spur of the moment?
Now I’m gonna have to go back to the drawing board for quotes that’ll get up there…
[slinks off dejectedly]
I don’t know where that came from. Maybe I was just projecting. Has anyone seen my big bottle of Wild Irish Rose?
“you can’t tell if it’s real genius or just stoner ratchetjaw.”
What? Val Kilmer is posting here, too, now?
You’d think that, even if they thought the war was wrong, these people would be happy for the Iraqi people, but no. I am so totally disgusted with the Democratic party right now. Even my friends, who I thought were more normal than the lunatic fringe that seems to control their party, spouted the same crap. “how do we know they want freedom?”, “The election wasn’t fair”
What world do they live in, where they think people don’t want to be free? ONly a fat happy idiot who has no idea how the rest of the world lives could possibly spout such an ignorant uninformed opinion.
Their hatred runs so deep, they are no longer “democratic” nor “liberal”. See now it’s even affecting me and I am getting angry and hateful. Argh!!!! To think I used to be one of them. Thank god I wised up!
I took the racial angle for my post: Whites Underwhemingly Respond to Election
Apropos the “racial angle”—I called my aunt in Mississippi yesterday to wish her Happy Birthday. When we discussed the bravery of Iraqis voting, she reminded me that she’d seen black folk face similar intimidation in the Old South in the 60’s. I had to ask myself why limousine liberals don’t feel the same sympathy for Iraqis as for blacks. Is it because helping Arabs doesn’t make them feel as good about themselves?
Or does their hatred of Bush/Hitler blind them? If the Civil Rights Voting Act had been passed under Nixon, would it have been a bad thing?
No additional words needed.
spambuster = support (!)
or I could try linking it instead of quoting the URL
This is what happens when your nine-month-old decides to wake up at 4AM instead of the usual 7:30ish.
But…
Hey, dv/dt=a y’know….
“You can express it in the equation by adding the symbol for a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing, depicted thus: [MacBeth].”
I see. A tale told by an idiot, as it were. No argument here. (Since the only other argument is less than charitable and involves invoking a discussion of human evil masquerading as so-called “liberal” concerns.)
(Oh, and for those concerned about Thespian sensibilities re: the Scottish Play, fuggedaboutit. is this a theater? Are we in rehearsal for something here? ::sheesh!:
Hmmm. To keep Teddy, Mike and Bagdad Blob fed… how many Hardy’s Monster Burgers would that take each day? Could just one Hardy’s kitchen handle it? Or would they each require one?
Oh, and how many wahfer thin meents would they require?
One can’t argue with math (well unless you’ve abanoned all logic, i.e. “a liberal”).
I took the racial angle for my post: Whites Underwhemingly Respond to Election
The term “white” is politically incorrect. Please re-submit your comment using the new politically correct term: “jump-impaired.”