I hate conflict pity

[veronica_rich]

You ever read something that, while you actively dislike the person and what they stand for who said it, it's so dumb or embarrassing that you feel sorry for them? Like, oh, say - a well-traveled middle-age man who wonders why airplane windows won't open? (Had it been followed immediately by him saying, "Wait, that's not right ..." I might feel more charitable. But then I'd remember the last bungler we had in the White House and what HE did by not knowing his ass from a hole in the ground, and get pissed off instead.)

Maybe I have an unfair advantage. Maybe taking aviation courses educated me better than the general flier. Or maybe it was the Chris Barrie machines show where I learned the very shape of even fixed windows can cause depressurization in midair. But there've been enough movies and TV scenes depicting what happens when there's an opening or breach in the cabin and a plane is too high up to be in safe atmosphere, that I would think this is known information to someone who wants to run a country.

Well. I say if he gets in in November, we the taxpayers accede to his wishes and pay to install window latches inside Air Force One. I am nothing if not agreeable.

Comments

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

Yes! Wonderful. Thank you. I will stop laughing any day now.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Science is hard!

[a-silver-rose.livejournal.com]

I thought that was math. No, wait, wrong Barbie. *snorts*

[beldar.livejournal.com]

What's going to be more uncomfortable than this display of stupidity, is the verbal gymnastics conservative commentators will make to convince us that what he said was totally not what he said, and shame on us for bringing up something so inconsequential, and didn't Obama/Biden/Michelle/theirdog say something just as stupid? Ouch.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

If they address it at all. My bet is if they do, they'll put his question up as mere scientific curiosity and be all "why can't we find a way? That's how all scientific discoveries started, was by questioning the status quo." Which would be fine, except that conservatism is all about MAINTAINING status quo and not being very curious, scientifically or otherwise.

[kronette.livejournal.com]

Well. I say if he gets in in November, we the taxpayers accede to his wishes and pay to install window latches inside Air Force One. I am nothing if not agreeable.

Why wait? Doesn't he have private planes jaunting him all over the country? I say install a few on those planes just so he can get a taste of it.

Why do we elect stupid people? Seriously; why? HOW?

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

The theory I developed years ago is that people who vote for dumb don't want a leader smarter than they are. They're fearful and suspicious of education that they don't have, figuring anyone smart is going to try to fool or con them out of what's theirs.

If he gets in in November, my standard reply to coworkers or others who say something to me is going to be, I'm glad you got what you wanted - I just hope I don't get what you deserve out of it.

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

Good grief. That's stupidity worthy of Dubya.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Fool me twice ... well, you can't get fooled again. Heh heh.

[bayliss.livejournal.com]

He seriously asked that? Is he honestly that stupid. OMG! Shoot me now.

Maybe somebody should open one of those windows for him midflight.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Or the door. At 30,000 feet. "See, Governor? People skydive from five miles up all the time!"

[bayliss.livejournal.com]

[venusinchains.livejournal.com]

Good God. How the hell is that guy so rich? Did he inherit it or just ride on the coattails of less devious co-workers? I would ask if he's one of those "barely made it out" Ivy league grads, but they teach chemistry and physics in even the cheapest state collages and universities. Or maybe he's trying to prove he's "just like the little people." And as one of them, I'm insulted now, just in case.

Though, yeah, he probably just that ignorant. *insert eyeroll here*

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

There's a good chance his father paid someone to take his tests for him in school. The man by all accounts never wanted to go into a career to create something or even manage and build what someone else had begun - he went immediately into corporate raiding. Grabbing and dismantling what somebody else had worked to create and maintain, and pocketing the cash. That suggests to me a frightening absence of basic human curiosity that drives even the simplest-minded among us to pick up a magazine or click on an article to read about something we don't already know. His comments on the wonderfulness of Israel alone scare the hell out of me, as they don't seem to grasp basic history.

[finding-neo.livejournal.com]

He put a dog on the roof of his car and drove off on vacation! Stupid is as stupid does. He can say whatever he wants about airplane windows, but he's already proven by his actions (what's that thing about him shaving some gay guy's head back in college?) he's a few bricks shy of a load, unless money is involved. He knows how to get that very well.

Bain Capital raped and pillaged dozens of companies. If Romney gets elected, we can expect more raping and pillaging of America, there's still plenty of damage to be done because the rich simply aren't rich enough.

But yet people I consider friends are going to vote for that dumbass because they think so little of "Nobama."

Again, stupid is as stupid does and I agree that I hope we don't get what they deserve.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the airplane thing is really rather minor, joke or not, compared to his overall oeuvre of callousness and cluelessness about matters of real, everyday life..

[bonnie-halfelvn.livejournal.com]

I heard this yesterday. Just wow.

I know about the window shape thing, too. Took them awhile and a few crashes to figure that one out.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I know you can't open up a cabin to the atmosphere when you're in atmosphere humans aren't used to breathing, that's for sure. It's not like parachute-jumping hundreds of feet above the ground.

[beckyblack]

I was just gobsmacked when I read this. I read the snippet over several time to try to be fair and figure out if he wasn't really saying what he appeared to be saying - I mean anyone can garble the sense of what they're saying, though I'd hope for better from a man in his position. But no, I can't see any other way to interpret it. He really is that ignorant. And like you say, how has he not seen the effect of an open window on a pressurised plane in movies and TV? Even if someone doesn't understand all about pressurisation of planes, you'd think they'd have at least picked up "open window on plane = bad" somewhere along the way.

Using an appropriate icon - a pilot facepalming. :D

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

As I told Rose below, in the clip it's possible you could interpret it as a joke, but given what an asshole he generally sounds like and the gutting he wants to do on our government (by his own admissions), I'm not of a mind to find humor in him at this point.

[a-silver-rose.livejournal.com]

Even if you assume he was joking, as the claim is, the situation rendered the joke inappropriate at best.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I saw the clip. He could be joking, but considering everything else that's come out of his mouth that WASN'T joking in this campaign - and before it - I'm not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt or to have a sense of humor about it.

[a-silver-rose.livejournal.com]

I didn't say *I* was assuming it. I've not seen the clip. nor am I inclined to look for it, really. I don't like the man, anyway, and would rather not see first-hand what Dickens wrote about 200 years ago.

[a-silver-rose.livejournal.com]

;-)