A Celebration of Blissful Ignorance

bliss |blis|

noun

perfect happiness; great joy : she gave a sigh of bliss. See note at rapture .

• something providing such happiness : the steam room was bliss.

• a state of spiritual blessedness, typically that reached after death.

PHRASAL VERBS

bliss out [often as adj. ] ( blissed out) informal reach a state of perfect happiness, typically so as to be oblivious of everything else : blissed-out hippies.

ORIGIN Old English blīths, bliss, of Germanic origin; related to blithe .

rap-ture |ˈrap ch ər|

noun

1 a feeling of intense pleasure or joy : Leonora listened with rapture.

• ( raptures) expressions of intense pleasure or enthusiasm about something : the tabloids went into raptures about her.

2 ( the Rapture) (according to some millenarian teaching) the transporting of believers to heaven at the second coming of Christ.

she gazed at him in rapture: ecstasy, bliss, exaltation, euphoria, elation, joy, enchantment, delight, happiness, pleasure.

PHRASES

go into raptures the crowd went into raptures over Carreras's rendition of "Some Enchanted Evening": enthuse, rhapsodize, rave, gush, wax lyrical; informal go wild/crazy/mad.

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If ignorance is bliss and bliss is rapture, that may explain why so many Americans seem to be enraptured by their own ignorance.

The following is a self-scoring intelligence test. You'll know if you passed at the end.

1. "Them" -  A God-Awful Story That Ends with a Breath of Fresh Air

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2. Coming Soon to Reality TV - A Preview

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3. Artificial Intelligence

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4. Monetizing Ignorance - An Object Lesson

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5. Justifying Today's Blog Post - The raison d'être

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6. Did you pass?

Sunday Funnies 150419 & 150426

The Sunday Funnies word of the week is procrestinate:

pro-cras-ti-nate |prəˈkrastəˌnāt; prō-|

verb [ intrans. ]

delay or postpone action; put off doing something : it won't be this price for long, so don't procrastinate.

DERIVATIVES

procrastination |prəˌkrastəˈnā sh ən; prō-| noun

procrastinator |-ˌnātər| noun

procrastinatory |-nəˌtôrē| adjective

ORIGIN late 16th cent.: from Latin procrastinat- ‘deferred until tomorrow,’ from the verb procrastinare, from pro- ‘forward’ + crastinus ‘belonging to tomorrow’ (from cras ‘tomorrow’ ).

I kept putting off compiling the April 19 edition of Sunday Funnies until it was too late, so this week's edition includes a double dip of the comics and cartoons that tickled my funny bone.

1. Seniority

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2. Tax Day Finale

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3. Whatever

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4. Exercising Restraint

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5. Conservative, Belief-Based Science

In the happy world of conservative certainty, there's neither room nor need for theories or experiments. Everything anyone needs to know can be culled from what they've been taught to believe to be true by their leaders.

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6. The New Populisn

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7. A Perfectly Logicl Conslusion à la Conservative, Belief-Based Science

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8. E - I - E - Uh-Oh

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9. It takes guts to publish a cartoon like this.

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10. Never give a forum to the self righteous? I guess the '16 GOP convention is off.

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11. Pass the Popcorn!

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12. Break out the lawn mower!

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13. Dogbert borrows a page from the GOP campaign handbook...

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14. and he knows a thing or two about the ignorant masses.

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15. Dogbert borrows a page from John McCain's 2008 campaign playbook.

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16. Meanwhile, back on the real campaign trail...

Everyone knows that Dogbert is a fictional character. What folks may not realize, however, is that as candidates Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and Rand Paul are also fictional characters. They are actors reading scripts written by political strategists and designed to convince the ignorant masses that they are really just like you. They're not, of course, but it makes for a better story. 

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17. Much Ado About Nothing - literally, since there is no lead in a lead pencil.

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18. Just Because!

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Sunday Funnies 150412

The Sunday Funnies phrase of the week is this questrion: Are you putting me on?

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Sunday Funnies 150405

The Sunday Funnies phrase of the week is hysterical inaccuracy:

1. The folks at the Creation Museum would disagree.

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2. It looks like Mom blew it this time.

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3. The snow globes add a touch of déjà vu, don't you think?

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4. Let's see the politicians of the future deny that global warming.

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5. And they keep voting against their own best interests.

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6. Do you remember The Jailhouse Rock?

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7. Ideological Incarceration

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8. Render unto Caesar...

By exposing the true nature of "Christian" Conservatism, the Indiana freedom of religion fiasco may ultimately prove to be beneficial. Of course that depends on whether American voters are willing to allow truth to penetrate the walls erected to preserve ideological purity.

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9. But Indiana Republicans are working hard to protect voters from this threat.

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10. Testing 1, 2, 3. Testing... (from the Garbage In; Garbage Out Department)

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11. Secretary of State, John Kerry, Plays The Trump Card

Works for me!

I'm in favor of any agreement that thwarts the efforts of those who want apocalyptic politics to drive national policy. They do so in order to hasten the return of Jesus and thereby justify a reactionary, narrow-minded, and thoroughly ignorant, literal interpretation of the Bible.

People who understand the meaning of metaphor know that, like the parables ascribed to Jesus, the entire Bible tells stories designed to teach lessons to help people live, and live more abundantly. 

Advocates of apocalyptic politics, in contrast, pervert those stories to enact policies designed to bring death to millions. In fact, they work to hasten the end of the world as we know it.

Whatever your religious or non-religious beliefs may be, think about this on this Easter Sunday, a holiday which celebrates the continuation of life in the face of death.

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12. ...and we're back to where we started.

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Play Ball!

Baseball season starts today, and once again hope is alive that this year the Cleveland Indians will field a winner.

To celebrate both the season opener and the playoff drought for Indians fans, I offer these cartoons:

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