Indeed. There are a couple of lefty blogs I won’t read any more because this type of commenter has infested all the threads – spouting paranoid follower-crap with a Democratic rather than Republican flavor. I call them “bluenecks”.

Bob Altemeyer’s book is available for free download in pdf here:

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

Can’t recommend it enough.

The speaking in tongues story up thread should go a long ways towards making the average person wonder “what the..” Good, good, more of that please, nothing like the introduction of bright light into a cockroach-infested kitchen. Funny how in the case above it is the roaches that are turning on the lights.

There was a great tavern up a little north of Fremont proper, I can’t recall the name……

My apologies, r. It is my shame to admit that I’ve lived in two regions where “The People’s Republic of _________” is a significant phrase.

No, I never lived in Fremont, but spent some fine times there in the 80′s and early 90′s. When I lived in Seattle, my stomping grounds was Capitol Hill and, later the CD (or, as realtors called it in the heady days of the early 90′s, “West Madrona.”).

The “Peoples’ Republic” I referred to is in Southern California. For you Raymond Chandler afficionados, it was his Bay City. It’s also the place Harry Shearer calls “The Home of the Homeless.”

But then I like watching the swirl of thoughts and emotions involved in politics and socio-political waves. But yes, frankly, anyone who’d just as soon throw either me (on racial grounds) or friends and family (race or being LGBT) can take the tall end and some instructions on where to shove it as far as I’m concerned.

I’d agree it could be regional – I’m from the rightiest of right-wing states in the U.S., which is also completely dominated by a very patriarchal / authoritarian religion. Many of the engineers around here have that local style; they tend much more toward the openly Republican rather than the Libertarian that seems to be common in the rest of the union.

Is it that mathematics attracts the already-weird, or is it the maths that makes them go completely and quietly berko?

Both, I think, but I’d lean toward the former. My brother’s a math geek and has been an oddball for all of his 42 years (he was even born butt-first, Mom says). The other math wizards I know are mostly lifelong weirdos too.

Well you know, Skink, the tail ends of each side of the curve can be strange places

..Is it just me, or does it sound like the author of “The Authoritarians” is just pointing out how each of his classes have a, perhaps over the average, number of self- righteous assholes? And not necessarily republicans or right- wing authoritarians? ..

I mean, you would expect people who are convinced they are certain of themselves, and also completely stupid, to fall for the current “party of strong” and so on. But is it because they’re authoritarians? I’m not completely convinced..

Okay, arrested development in some senses, but that’s kind of endearing. I mean, the kind of guys who get so much fun out of geeky toys, and are maybe a little socially backward, but generally harmless, and mostly completely ignorant of politics.

But that’s down here. And I come from maths, which has so far spawned more than its fair share of murderous nutcases (the Unabomber was an American one, but we had several in my own home town).

Is it that mathematics attracts the already-weird, or is it the maths that makes them go completely and quietly berko? Correlation is not causation, and yet…

Otoh, Brouwers is a fine place to get great Belgian-style ales. Was that you there last night with those sodden Brits? (My favorite kind.)

When I started my blog, I was just ranting against people I’d always been around. The extremists from my own world, and there are enough, especially from my Lawrence years, to have given me plenty of fodder. Them and their reaction to 9/11. But the “fans” I ended up with, well, their attitudes and worldview once I realized what it truly was, is not something I can accept. That and then meeting these people outside of blog-world who are much more adamant and in-your-face about certain issues. After they made it clear what they stood for (and against, more often than not), I just freaked. Wanted no part of it. Still don’t.

It is weird though, the isolation of being a stay-at-home Mom, which is what sort of led to it all. Anyway, I’ll write my memoirs of blog-world someday.