Twitter quote of the week

Sean Hannity calling Obama a "radical" is almost as absurd as someone calling Sean Hannity a "journalist."

@KeithOlbermann

Twitter quote of the week

Study: The Full Measure of Republican Neuroses

For those of you who read this blog, you'll perhaps know that two of the things I struggle with most are entrenched dogma, and certain people's inability to deal with the myriad grey areas in politics (nuance, in other words), and any corresponding, yet apparently contradictory, principles which claim to underpin those politics (bizarrely, those who claim to be 'principled', in reality, turn out to be some of the most flagrantly unprincipled people you're likely to come across) - and notably, these being two aspects for which the Right, in both the UK and US, can invariably be relied upon to display a supreme comfort.

And whilst perhaps they don't see it in those specific terms, the reason why these personal traits irritate other people is simple: unbeknownst to them, dogma, intolerance and inflexibility were created to confuse and confound their proponents and practitioners - and hence catch them in the web of their own self-donning contradictions. And, frankly, that's where the fun starts as, let's face it, if you ever get the opportunity to de-bag a blinkered-by-choice merchant, it takes a strong person not to want to go for gold!

So, imagine my feelings of manna from heaven when I was sent, via Twitter, the Guardian article, below, from an ex-pat Austrian lady who's been living and settled in the US since 1987 (thank you Irene!)

And as you'll see in just a second: there is a delicious irony here...

This study - by Stanford and UC Berkeley researchers - was conducted in 2003, when president Gump Bush jnr was poste restante in the White House; so it's not like it can simply be tossed-off or dismissed in one of their rote claims of it being a 'leftist trick', or propaganda. Although, true to form, they do manage to carp about the source of funding for the research.

So, whilst no doubt a number of us have had our suspicions over the years, and schoolboy smirks aside, it's somehow reaffirming to have those suspicions confirmed once in a while; and to find that being a conservative/Republican is actually a known condition: and that condition a suitable case for treatment.

Now, one final test: when you read what follows, try and avoid picturing any of those toxic individuals in the above picture. I'll be honest: I couldn't.

Enjoy!

Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve

* Julian Borger in Washington
* The Guardian, Wednesday 13 August 2003 02.33 BST


A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity".

As if that was not enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report's four authors linked Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction.

All of them "preached a return to an idealised past and condoned inequality".

Republicans are demanding to know why the psychologists behind the report, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, received $1.2m in public funds for their research from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

The authors also peer into the psyche of President George Bush, who turns out to be a textbook case. The telltale signs are his preference for moral certainty and frequently expressed dislike of nuance.

"This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic clichés and stereotypes," the authors argue in the Psychological Bulletin.

One of the psychologists behind the study, Jack Glaser, said the aversion to shades of grey and the need for "closure" could explain the fact that the Bush administration ignored intelligence that contradicted its beliefs about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The authors, presumably aware of the outrage they were likely to trigger, added a disclaimer that their study "does not mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false".

Another author, Arie Kruglanski, of the University of Maryland, said he had received hate mail since the article was published, but he insisted that the study "is not critical of conservatives at all". "The variables we talk about are general human dimensions," he said. "These are the same dimensions that contribute to loyalty and commitment to the group. Liberals might be less intolerant of ambiguity, but they may be less decisive, less committed, less loyal."

But what drives the psychologists? George Will, a Washington Post columnist who has long suffered from ingrained conservatism, noted, tartly: "The professors have ideas; the rest of us have emanations of our psychological needs and neuroses."

Further reading:

Psychology Today: Is Political Conservatism a Mild Form of Insanity? 

Study: The Full Measure of Republican Neuroses

Dr Samuel Johnson's review of 2009

If you're not following this guy on Twitter, I recommend you do so: he's very funny!

You can follow him at @DrSamuelJohnson or at http://twitter.com/DrSamuelJohnson

Either way, here's his review of 2009, lifted lock, stock and barrel from today's Guardian newspaper.

Dr Samuel Johnson Photograph: Corbis

Pop culture 2009: The year in lists

The Guide's review of the past 12 months starts here, as legendary man of letters Dr Samuel Johnson sharpens his virtual quill pen to look back

@drsamueljohnson The Guardian Saturday 19 December 2009

✒ The Americkan Populace now coronate Mister OBAMA, for he has solemnly promis'd not to be Mister BUSH

✒ Tis the Fashion for the Dandy to stride around dress'd as a Hudson Bay Lumber-Jack, wielding a Man-Bag in place of an AXE

✒ Bedlamite Harlequin Lady GAGA is oft dress'd as Mister Thos. TELFORD'S Iron-Bridge

✒ Celebrated Trollop Miss JORDAN and unremarkable Hellenic Troubadour Mister ANDRE separate in Publick, just as they met, lived and FORNICAT'D

✒ The League of Champions is 'pon us: has Almighty GOD carv'd Mister Wayne ROONEY's Face from a POTATO?

✒ After the Appt. of Sir Alan SUGAR as Govt. Emissary, I beseech that militaristick Actor Ross KEMP should be Secretary for WAR

✒ Glastonbury (n.) Farmer's Field wherein OAFS enact the Battle of Marston Moor accompany'd by Musick & OPIATES

✒Mister Andy MURRAY scampers round a cover'd Green-House for five Hours and is declar'd a national HERO

✒ Whiggish-mind'd People do flock unto the electronick-Theatre to see Mister BARON COHEN play affeckted Hapsburg Molly BRÜNO

✒ Great Alarmum greets the Govt's Swinish-Flu Hotline, whereby Hystericks can procure Patent-Medicine thro' BESEECHING & LYING

✒ Footpad & Highwayman Mister Ronnie BIGGS escapes the Gibbet & is Free to ROB other disabl'd Octagenerians

✒ Froz'n Costermongers ICELAND dismiss Portly Slattern Miss Kerry KATONA; she will find Employ in Mister HOGARTH'S Gin Lane

✒ Pugilistick Cave-man Mister Noel GALLAGHER abandons the OASIS minstrel-Troupe after sixteen Years & one SONG

✒ Great Hordes of Saxon Gold found in Stafford-Shire; as if pagan Warriors once dress'd as Fool-Pitier Mister BARACUS

✒ Pie-fac'd Rag Doll Mister Dominic MOHAN supports the Tories, as direct'd by Boy King MURDOCH & th'opinion Polls

✒ X Factor: another Saturday ruin'd by Tear-stain'd Orphan-Protector Mister Louis WALSH & his Retinue of singing URCHINS

✒ Hateful Crone Miss Jan MOIR uses her Quill not to write but to pin all Manner of CALUMNY 'pon the Body of poor Master GATELY

✒ At Autumntide, the mawkish Revel of Children-In-Need does tend to Infants in Want of Care & Adults in Want of ATTENTION

✒ England to play the Americkan Colonie in the World-Cup: I shall take Mister Benj FRANKLIN with Mister STANLEY'S Knife: "Who Art Thou?, Who Art Thou?"

✒ Copenhagen (n.) Parlour-Game wherein Ambassadors do ask their Neighbour to place less Coal 'pon the Fire, oft in VAIN

Dr Samuel Johnson's review of 2009

This week's Twitter gags

My carpenter is so fastidious, he manicures his nails.

Peter Serafinowicz

I know my celeb status has dwindled but after 15 yrs to be dropped from switching on the Xmas lights in my own home...

 David Schneider

I'm not a real mathematician; I'm just pi-curious

Michael McKean

Monopoly rules updated to allow banker to pay themselves £20,000 bonus each turn

David Schneider

New FIFA rulling means in International matches, all players must have a translator playing alongside them.

Armando Iannucci

"I just want silence. Jesus, it doesn't mean I don't like you. It just means right now, I like silence more."

shitmydadsays

This week's Twitter gags

The Week's Best Twitter Gags

A "Palindrome" is a stadium that looks the same both ways... completely empty.

Peter Serafinowicz


Listening to my favorite Neil Young album, "You Make Me Neil So Young".

Michael McKean


I never liked Macaulay Culkin's early films, but that doesn't make me a homealonaphobe.

Peter Serafinowicz


I have never opened a Can of Whupass. I have however enjoyed a fine bottle of '82 Fell Down the Stairs.

Michael McKean


Am in LA. Passed a sign saying "Museum of Tolerance Next Exit."

Armando Iannucci


@AIannucci Go in. Test the receptionist. Try and make them take Euros. Test them. It's the Museum of Fucking Tolerance. Test them.

David Schneider

The Week's Best Twitter Gags

The Ballad of Paul Clarke's Shotgun...

In the last few days, places like Twitter and other blogging sites have been jumping with the news of, and subsequent discussion about, the treatment of one Paul Clarke: a former soldier in the British Army, who, apparently, found a discarded shotgun and handed it in to police. Sadly for him, neither the police to whom he took the gun, nor the Crown Prosecution Service*, believed his 'just found it' story at face value, and consequently arrested and prosecuted him for possession of an illegal (i.e. unlicensed) firearm.

[*the CPS, the body responsible for recommending whether a case is in the public interest to warrant any prosecution or not - the US equivalent would be the District Attorney's Office].

Not that I want to turn this into some for-or-against gun lobby affair, but some readers will already be aware of the (certainly by international comparison) draconian gun-ownership laws under which we operate here in the UK.

In short, what this means is that, in applying for a firearms license, unless you can meet a long list of stringent safety and psychological interview & evaluation criteria - you aint getting a firearms licence; and being found to be in possession of one without a license renders said possession a criminal offence. These laws were introduced by successive UK governments after tragedies like the Hungerford Massacre, and that at Dunblane.

No doubt, after reading the above local newspaper coverage of the case, you may feel Mr Clarke was harshly treated - opinions, certainly legal opinions, differ on this point; and so it's at times like this that I've found no better source of sifting through the voodoo and blather to cut the chase on a given case than Jack of Kent's blog on UK legal matters: an oasis of calm in the heat of "but what about...!" type debates and contentions.

Finally, and pulled straight from Jack's blog on this very case, is the tale, as retold by 'Ivan', which perhaps more than anything gives a clear indication as to the straits faced by someone entering the UK whilst already being in possession of firearms, say from a country where obtaining a firearms license is a less taxing affair.

Enjoy!

['Ivan' wrote]: A friend of mine once had approximately the following conversation with a work colleague who had just come to Britain from South Africa. This took place before the latest change in the law which brought in such draconian penalties for possession.

(South African): "I hear on the grapevine you are quite a crack shot at clay pigeon. I wouldn't mind having a go at that."

(My Friend): "Of course. I'll introduce you at the club, and you can hire a gun and have a go."

"Well I could just bring my own. I've got a nice shotgun."

"You've got a gun? How did you get that? It took me ages to get a licence."

"I just put it in the container of furniture and other stuff I sent over from South Africa. How do I get a licence?"

"I think what you should do is take the shotgun around to the police station, explain the situation, and they'll probably look after it for you while you install a gunsafe, apply for a licence, and all that."

"Does that go for my handgun too?"

"No. You aren't allowed to keep a handgun at home, but you can keep one at a gun club. Change my first idea. Don't take them to the police station. Call the police, and ask them to come round to you."

"And my sub-machinegun?"

"Oh dear. Better idea. Don't call the police at all. I'd go out after dark and drop them all into the canal if I were you."

The Ballad of Paul Clarke's Shotgun...

Even more Twitter gags

Russia launches a nationwide campaign 2 curb excessive drinking plaguing the country. Step One: Raise the legal drinking age from zero

Saturday Night Live (SNL)

20 years since the Wall came down. On this auspicious day our thoughts go out to every member of Pink Floyd

David Schneider

Michelle Obama on Sesame St 40th anniversary show. Gets a little tense as Bert & Ernie ask why her husband's dragging his feet on gay marriage

Conan O'Brien

I like to imagine that weird flattened parting in Simon's hair is created by a lackey violently farting across it backstage before each show.

Charlie Brooker (on X-Factor's Simon Cowell)

Investigative journalist help request No:2453. Anyone got a RT on their timeline of @GaryDelaney's "Old MacDonald had Tourette's ee-i ee-i c*nt"?

David Schneider

[Carrie] Prejean sez she's been "Palin-ized", which may be defined as "having been exposed as a self-worshiping nobody with delusions of adequacy".

Michael McKean (Spinal Tap's 'David St Hubbins')

"A mule kicked Uncle Bob once. Broke his ribs. He punched it in the face.. My point? You have an ingrown fucking toenail. Stop bitching."

shitmydadsays ('Shit My Dad Says' - Justin Halpern)

Even more Twitter gags

Twitter's shitmydadsays gets own TV show!

For those of you who've perhaps not yet seen it, or don't use/bother with Twitter, you will have missed this.

There is a 'Twitterer', Justin Halpern, whose Twitter profile name is '@shitmydadsays' (shit my dad says) and who, as the name suggests, posts the barbed retorts and sangfroid observations of his father - and it has to be said that these invariably deadpan and litotes-laden laments are, by and large, utter gems.

Any way, it transpires that it's just been given it its own TV show on CBS in the States.

Here's a selection of the Tweets:

"Son, no one gives a shit about all the things your cell phone does. You didn't invent it, you just bought it. Anybody can do that."

"Just pay the parking ticket. Don't be so outraged. You're not a freedom fighter in the civil rights movement. You double parked."

"Does anyone your age know how to comb their fucking hair? It looks like two squirrels crawled on their head and started fucking."

"I didn't live to be 73 years old so I could eat kale. Don't fix me your breakfast and pretend you're fixing mine."

And here's a frank and funny interview with Justin Halpern, in which he explains the relationship and growing up with his father.

Enjoy!

Twitter's shitmydadsays gets own TV show!

Recent great Twitter Gags

It's a tribute to just how shallow I am that I get a real thrill when an application tells me my password is strong.

David Schneider

Oprah may end her TV show after 25 yrs. Accountant sez he must still crunch some numbers but thinks she can safely retire by 1983

Conan O'Brien.

"Sometimes a fart is so substantial, it is itself capable of farting." Stephen Hawking

 What's my favourite element of the periodic table? The font.

Peter Serafinowicz

Recent great Twitter Gags

The Michael Jackson Seance

Just culled this from Twitter:

@DavidSchneider: "How's the #mjseance going? Is it true that as a ghost he's shaped like Caspar but ironically getting gradually blacker?"

And here's comedy you just couldn't write if you sat down and planned it:

The Michael Jackson Seance

Twitter seance, 'contacts Michael Jackson and Kurt Cobain'

You really do have to wonder, sometimes, just what kind of meds are required to corral those who believe in this voodoo into keeping a straight face: Twitter seance, 'contacts Michael Jackson and Kurt Cobain'

So we're apparently now to believe, as conveyed from being post restante on the other side, that Kurt Cobain rates Dave Grohl as a "good drummer"?

Which just begs the question: did Cobain have this same opinion when he asked Grohl to join Nirvana, back in 1990; or is this flash of post mortem largesse a direct result of him attempting to interior decorate his living room with this owns brains and a 12-gauge shotgun? I mean, just how reliable are the afterlife ramblings of people with a lamentably lax attitude to their own shotgun's safety catch?

Which still leaves us with two unanswered questions: what language do ghosts speak? And how do you like your séance? I like mine medium.

Twitter seance, 'contacts Michael Jackson and Kurt Cobain'

Stephen Fry ponders leaving Twitter

Just read this story on the Beeb website: Stephen Fry ponders leaving Twitter site 

Now at first glance, Fry's (now blocked) protagonist didn't appear to be being unduly aggressive or deliberately intimidating - although perhaps a little rude - in his "I admire and adore" Mr Fry, but that he found his tweets "a bit... boring... (sorry Stephen)" comment. 

The problem comes when you apply or direct what, to most of us, would ordinarily be a throwaway comment to someone with Fry's broadly publicised condition of Manic Depression (what in the US is called Bipolar Disorder). 

And as anyone who watched Fry's excellent and very frank two-part BBC programme on its effect on him and others will know, there's no use at all in thinking or requesting that Fry simply pull himself together, as might be the automatic response by some - it's not merely a case of  "Oh, is the poor luvvie in a strop? Wanting attention?" When the black dog of depression descends on its victims, no amount of 'trying to cheer them up' will work. Not that I'm a sufferer, thankfully, but I do know others who are, and it's an utter bitch to see people you love so circumscribed by an inability to 'snap out of it'.

As for Twitter, whilst I use it occasionally, I have seen some celebrities who simply camp on the damned thing and 'Tweet' just about every thought and momentary activity in their day - including their visiting the loo. 

The tragedy is, as Fry found out to his cost, that if you "put yourself out there" (to lapse into the naked parlance of Californian psychobabble for a second) there is a price to pay. I know through experience, through close friends who've 'made it', in 'the Biz', that you do, in our celeb-obsessed culture, give up the right to a certain amount of that which you once, as an unknown civvie, valued like a prized possession: the freedom of your former anonymity.

Stephen Fry ponders leaving Twitter

Top Twitter Gags

Leno: NYTimes laying off 100 newsroom employees. Publisher sez theyll be hired back if this Internet thing turns out to be a fad

Leno: More abt that Tex woman who lived 7 days w/her dead boyfriend. She finally suspected something when his grip loosened on the TV remote

David Schneider: Just met 1st girl I ever snogged. I remember I'd been practising so long on my hand it felt wrong not tasting a thumb

Leno: Pentagon generals worry the White House is spreading itself too thin, fighting 2 wars at once----Afghanistan and Fox News

Top Twitter Gags

shitmydadsays on Twitter

For those of you who've not yet experienced this Twitterer, 'shitmydadsays' you have to get a bag of it, as it's hilarious.

shitmydadsays on Twitter

Twitter - A Beginner's Guide

Whenever I approach some new Web-based gizmo, gadget or toy, I don't just jump straight in and press the 'Go' button: I generally like to have a mooch around, see how the thing works, and then ease myself in gently - that way at least I don't end up looking a prize twat when I make some honking schoolboy error, at which others are then free to have fun at my expense - and being the Web, invariably, any mistakes you might make are then there forever; immortalised for generations to snigger at.

That said, the attention-span of a lot of Twitter users is only 140 characters, so I guess I should really stop worryi...

One of the first things I did notice about Twitter, and one backed-up by an article on the BBC website, is that at least 50% (and I can say that's a conservative estimate!) of what you can read on it is utter "babble" (at least that's the BBC's polite description - although mine also begins with a 'B'); just another outlet for the celebrity-obsessed and 'da yoot an ting' to wax poetic about the raft of inanities and trivia with which they underpin their lives. Oh, and if I read the word "awesome!" again, used entirely glibly, out of context and in relation to anything from a list of the most underwhelming and inconsequential Z-list US soap actors, then you may just find me sitting atop a clock tower with a scoped rifle in an effort to redress the balance. ;)

The other thing I noticed was the sheer speed at which the porn industry has managed to latch on to the obvious shop-front which Twitter presents; the porn industry and the Web having been long-time bedfellows, and ones which have found increasingly inventive ways in their efforts to spread its love around, so to speak.

So, no sooner had I 'Tweeted', than I had 12 new 'followers' - none of whom I knew and all directing me to "look at my profile!"; all of which turned out to be some form of porn, adult dating or 'naughty' flirting site. And as with virtually all spam, they get paid just by dent of you hitting their URL link and viewing their site.

Needless to say, I felt obliged to respond with something in-line with the format which Twitter imposes on all its users, and so posted:

"Twitter: the Web's latest amateur porn outlet - where a vocabulary of only 140 characters is considered verbose!"

Now I can't for a second claim that this next move came as a result of my Tweet, but only a few days later, one of Twitter's 'trending topics' was the news that it has introduced a 'Report Spam' function for just this sort irritation.

What I can say I learnt is that if you try and impose any form of sense or ability to keep up with Twitter, dont': you'll go crazy - it's just not designed for that. And do not randomly try and see what's going on, either - you'll end up all over the map with your head spinning.

The approach I'd recommend for newbies to get you underway is that you choose just a small number of people you either know, or whose stuff you know you're going to want to follow (10 will keep you more than adequately occupied for an introductory period whilst you find your feet); mine are all comedians and journalists I read regular, so it's quite manageable.

Like all these things, it's not going to be for everyone: it tends to be favoured by those who can afford to camp on it all day (so it's big with 'slebs' and journos); you just have to be realistic and ask yourself what you want from it.

The only thing which surprises me, what with Twitter being so new and popular, is that Gordon Brown hasn't yet announced a 'Twitter Czar' to keep us safe from it - either that, or announced that he's going to introduce background checks on us all to ensure we're not all closet paedophiles...

Mind you, the day aint over yet...

Twitter - A Beginner's Guide