The Illogical Human

I've been treated to a double-dose of idiocy today. Aren't I lucky? First, there's this Times' review of Dennis Miller's new CNBC show, which admittedly I never expected much of but which is apparently really bad. It seems Dennis is a "Sept. 11 conservative" (not that this "champion of the white male" with "frat-boy humor" could have been much of a liberal to begin with) who spends most of the show engaging in fawning interviews with his favorite conservatives. And when he's not metaphorically drooling, he's making his classic obscure references that, even when you get them, just aren't all that funny. But that's the key to Dennis Miller's success, isn't it? Styling himself a comic and then making everyone afraid not to laugh at the jokes they don't get for fear it will look like they don't get the reference. It's a form of psychological tyranny, isn't it?

And then, of course, there's the Daily's Forum page, a sad, sad display of how bratty and unintelligent (or perhaps just dense) Northwestern's elites really are. The first letter to the editor today featured some kid giving a conservative counter-rant to some column that apparently dissed the Bush space plan. (Note: While my conscience aches on many levels in doing so, I can't help but think that going to Mars would be supercool. Heck, I've been gunning to go myself since at least ninth grade.) He decried the "lost liberal left" (let's take apart that phrase -- "leftists," I'm sure, are gasping with horror at being called "liberal," and mainstream "liberals" are probably already forming a mental argument distancing themselves from the "left" -- but beyond that, when will there be a "found liberal left"?) for hampering technological process in the name of funding something so ridiculously unnecessary as, say, education. I quote his parting blow:

But alas, short-run logic seems to be the mainstay of the liberal platform, as evidenced by their failure to recognize that both social security and Medicare will soon be bankrupt and dumping oodles of money into education is like putting money through a paper shredder.

Needless to say, that's probably the first place Miller would spend NASA's budget.

Wait, saying he'd spend billions of dollars on education is supposed to make readers not like the op-ed author? Somehow I doubt this letter-writer isn't a graduate of a private or overfunded suburban public school, so you'd think he'd make the connection between "lots of money" and "good education."

And then, of course, there's the Firing Squad. You're probably better off not reading that unless your eyes are in need of some exercise.