The two-sided carrot-and-stick Jeckyl and Hyde yin-yang of life and death dualisms.
Posted by Chris 8:46:48 AM    

Spring is a two-sided coin with a sharp edge that cuts both ways, much like the Aristotelian dichotomy of "a little bit country" and "a little bit rock-and-roll." In their famous Lincoln-Douglas-style debate, Donnie and Marie illustrated the tension between these schools of thought:

Marie: I like that peaceful easy feeling of a laid back country song.

Donny: And when I sing my rock n' roll, I can sing it all night long.

Here's the thing: while Spring is a season of renewal and hope, it is also a time of pure existential dread, which Kierkegaard described as a deep-seated condition of insecurity and despair in the free human being. My proof? Commercials for a new prescription drug called "Levitra." The spots feature a greying, middle-aged fella, who, after a few near-misses, tosses a football through a tire swing. DISTURBING.

As empirically proven by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, things can only continue to get worse, and sure enough, right around the Super Bowl, a new series of Levitra commercials cropped up featuring famous sportsman Mr. Mike Ditka. In the new commercials, we see Mike Ditka toss a football through a tire swing. Let's all stop for a moment, and chew our gum, and really think about that: Mike Ditka. Throwing a football. Through a tire swing.

This is unprecedentedly awful, as the most horrible thing I can imagine is Mike Ditka tossing a football through a tire swing. In fact, I seem to have a hazy childhood memory of my mom sitting me on her knee and telling me very sincerely that as long as I lived, I'd never, ever have to see Mike Ditka toss a football through a tire swing, and now I know my mom was lying. So thanks a lot for destroying my trust in my mom, GlaxoSmithKline. And you, too, Mike Ditka. And also the advertising sales departments of ESPN, CNN, ABC, FOX, NBC, and CBS. And come to think of it, thanks a lot, FCC, for selling off the entire broadcast spectrum in the first place. Can I ever learn to trust again?

The answer is yes, thanks to my unguarded optimism and faith in human nature, and also my belief that where there is a little bit of country, a little bit of rock and roll must fall. Facing the prospect of a new onslaught of Levitra commercials sending me to bad visual places previously explored by Benny Hill with shots of flabby 50-year-old men ramming train engines through inviting tunnels, driving their plows, and launching rockets and what-not, I talked to my therapist. Due to the vagaries of having no money, and also a cheap Liability health insurance policy which only covers damage to anyone I collide with or fall on, I've been having weekly sessions with an A.L.I.C.E. chatbot.

>Alice, I'm suffering from existential dread.

ALICE: Um, I hope that you feel better soon.

>I've got that weird feeling you get from Todd Solondz movies.

ALICE: How did you get it Where did you get your that weird feeling me get from Todd Solondz movies? I have 128000000 bytes of RAM.

>I saw Mike Ditka throw a football through a tire swing.

ALICE: What did it look like to you?

>It was horrible, like waking up next to Ernest Borgnine.

ALICE: Is that your opinion?

>Indeed it is.

ALICE: " Ahem."? is?

>Can you help me?

ALICE: What kind of help would you like?

>Tell me a story.

ALICE: Edvard Munch and Joyce Carol Oates began to resemble each other over time. Both of them were inclined to cocoon themselves in an inner world. But Edvard Munch's inner world was very different from Joyce Carol Oates's. The mental life of Joyce Carol Oates was highly abstract but seemed curiously devoid of emotional content. Even though Edvard Munch is very sensitive and emotional, the two of them share an imaginary life filled with symbolism and meaning.

>And then did Joyce Carol Oates fire off twelve books in rapid succession?

ALICE: Good reasoning. I'm not certain whether I can give an accurate reply or not.

>Ballpark, then. Am I ok?

ALICE: OK. I think you are.

>Thanks, Alice!

ALICE: Don't mention it.

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Math Broken
Posted by Chris 2:03:02 PM    

My tendency is to avoid mistake-intolerant occupations, like mathematics and testicular cancer research, and approach life with the carefree joie de vivre of computational slop. There are people way smarter than me working on both mathematics and testicular oncology, producing market-ready products and services like the X-Box and saving my testicles. Therefore, I can stay curled up in my own ball of ignorance like a baby bunny fetus curled up with its eighteen brethren inside the mommy bunny's womb.

The razor-thin margin of error afforded to statisticians is a four-lane blacktop highway to Semi-Inquartile Range City, compared to the wiggle room we allow testicle doctors, who have to unwind with bourbon shots and hydrocodone tabs after a long day of suppressing the urge to shield their own groins with their hands in reflexive empathy. All statisticians have to do to maintain their fancy, mortarboard-wearing air of professionalism is tell you exactly how wrong they might be after tendering their results, i.e., "Margin of sampling error plus or minus three points."

A recent Salon article had this to say w/r/t moderate Republicans supporting the candidacy of John Kerry:

So if moderates are disenchanted, why isn't that showing up in the polls? In part, it's because moderate Republicans as a whole are a rapidly diminishing species in most of the country. According to Zogby, 80 percent of Republicans self-identify as conservative. Asked about the role of moderates in the party, Rick Shaftan, a conservative Republican pollster in New Jersey, says: "It's not that many individuals you're talking about in terms of votes." (emphasis added by me)

Sweet fancy Moses. If we allow that the old, analog Standard Deviation hasn't been replaced by a corrupted new Diebold-manufactured Standard Deviation, the only reasonable conclusion is that the word "Conservative" can mean anything you want it to, like the entire Bible, or all the lyrics ever recorded by New Wave band The Fixx.

There's just no way that eighty percent of Republicans sincerely believe in euthanizing koala bears or forcing toddlers into death-match pit-fighting, or whatever crazy deal they're cooking up at the National Center for Public Policy Research. Like, according to Zogby -- and assuming you're counting by Ann Coulters -- eight out of any random grouping of ten Republicans are considering methods of cooking and eating your kidneys. Although if the remaining two Republicans are Log Cabin Republicans, you can make your escape while the majority noisily devours them.

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