Most of us, come the holidays, end up doing some traveling, long phone calls, etc to catch up with friends we 'always mean to stay in touch with'. For me, it was a chance to reconnect with a lot of old friends from my college and pre-college days and chat with a lot of my war buddies, a large chunk of whom are now in college. Of this latter group, most introduced me to a bunch of their friends, who had a nasty habit of telling me what they think, my general desire to slap the snot out of them has sort of reached a boiling point, since in most cases I felt obliged to spare their feelings in the name of holiday courtesy. Thus I will instead rant at you guys, which is what everything following will be, you have been warned

No seriously, this is like all venom after this, I swear I met a lot of people for whom 'room temperature IQ' would have been a a compliment even when I was outside in the snow grabbing a smoke - in Buffalo.

Probably not surprisingly, most of my friends like to chat science and politics with me, discarding humility, physicists with a tendency to watch C-span are likely to be lively participants in those areas of conversation. This hits the first word of warning in my general diatribe against half-arsed pseudo intellectuals. When about to engage in a conversation on politics and ideology with someone you just met via a mutual friend who warned you about it, and you mention some senator, and their response is “Ah, Senator Blah of Party Blah, from State Blah” this should be interpreted as big signal flare that you are about to get a 'beatology lesson' as one of my friends put it. Whatever their political alignment is, you are going to get a beatdown. It really doesn't matter what the other guy thinks, he or she could be an active member of the communist party or KKK, especially with an audience present you're going to end up looking like you dropped the soap in a prisoner shower. 'Expert' where politics is concerned does not indicate how right the person is, it indicates some horrible reservoir of knowledge they are going to pummel the tar out of you with, even if it's the most bizarre and nutty of conspiracy theories about how aliens steal their socks for genetic analysis. We all think we're smart, take a moment to assume those who are older than you may have actually acquired some knowledge over the age gap. Take also as a warning, that if someone kicks the snot out of you in an impromptu debate, it does not mean you should immediately convert to their philosophy when your ego recovers from the conversational curb-stomping.

So let's start the nasty vicious rant off with moderates. Lot's of people who don't know jack like to pretend they know jack by uttering such comments as 'both sides have a point' or 'I consider myself non-partisan'. This of course, 90% or more of the time, means you're a political nit-wit who knows considerably less about politics than the default glazed-eyed person of whichever political affiliation you despise. Take a horrible moment to consider than Sarah Palin or Nancy Pelosi probably know more about most issues than the majority of people who agree with you.

Probably a good indicator you don't really get politics is if you disagree with this statement (which may be Amerocentric, adjust as appropriate) “Most politicians are pretty good guys, but in many cases are a bit detached from their base, most mean well and do a decent job.” - if you are outraged or disbelieving of this statement, let me be blunt, you're an idiot or insanely paranoid. To add insult to injury, most politicians in higher office are smarter than the average Joe, even, Heaven Help Us, Dan Quayle, alleged IQ 142, 'potatoe' and such.

'Moderate' as Aesop's fables tell us regarding birds and beasts, is not a good position to be in, especially outside of democracies. Primarily because the birds and beasts consider you a horribly ignorant fence sitter who is too lazy to think about anything. There are actually a few moderates who do know what the f they are talking about, but I'm not worried about offending them because they tend to share my view on the average moderate.

Apathy – Yes, you guys are basically responsible for every bad thing that has ever happened. The only reasons everyone else hasn't taken a pause in shouting at each other to butcher you en masse is 1) most of us are apathetic on some things, and 2) You not worth the effort. “I don't care about politics” is the reason why nasty bastards get away with nasty crap, their supporters are nuts and their detractors usually got shoved up against the wall when the revolution came. As an upside, since the major fault in democracy is that some moron picking his nose has an equal say to Kant or Einstein, your failure to vote is probably a good thing. Just as a reminder though, if you're old enough to have voted, and didn't, nobody cares about what you think, and you have proven that your vote doesn't matter. Congratulations on that.

I think I skipped Idiots in there, but don't worry, they didn't notice.

Mass Hysteria – Probably the biggest areas of this today are catastrophes and medicine. As a supporter of the idea of man-made Global Warming it is always a tooth grinding experience for me to have to listen to simpering idiots who if they were given a list of subatomic particles; muon, proton, and moron, would have problems figuring out which was false and invariably proceed to lecture other people about 'scientific consensus'. Stop it. Seriously, if you don't know calculus you're opinion on global warming, fact or fiction, is worth about as much as the Zimbabwean Dollar. And if you didn't catch that reference, add economics to the list of topics you really shouldn't open your food-hole about. I don't care how much you think you know about the matter, if you don't know what the f a temperature gradient is, you just aren't qualified to have an opinion, and citing this or that piece of evidence that you don't know jack about just tells everyone who does know that you're a moron, the subatomic particle produced by the collision of the knowledgeon and the minimungraduatingstandardon.

But there's a consensus! Personally, I don't have a Ph.D. So I could see them skipping me, but a lot the guys I went to school with were postdocs while I was a grad student certainly do, and none of them ever mentioned getting a phone call about it. Oh, but you're a physicist, this is climatology! Well, I advise you to look up what climatology is, you may be surprised.

It's all a hoax! Oh crap. BS, come on, yes scientists lie like everyone else, but rarely about their professional work, especially when others will challenge them out of habit if nothing else. I don't think I could get 9 out of 10 defense attorneys to lie about their clients, do you really think some massive conspiracy is being waged that the vast majority of scientists signed on to?

What's the other big one? Medicine. Look, water doesn't have a memory and some nutter who wandered of to wherever seeking enlightenment really shouldn't be prescribing you stuff, they aren't allowed to, this may be some sort of hint, maybe? Got chest pains? Maybe put down the herbal remedies and see a licensed medical practitioner? Don't rush on my account, the inner-cynic has me today, as far as I'm concerned you're a Darwin Award waiting to happen, another wonderful herbal remedy that used to be popular – mercury. Let me know how that works for you.

Disaster theories in general – Seriously, there are billions of people on this planet whose combined scientific knowledge and industrial capacity rears over previous times like a mountain next to thingy-that-moles-make. They didn't die, so odds are we won't either. Unless you happen to be a Luddite, you should probably except this line of reasoning, and if you are... why are you sitting at a computer? Vigilance? Yes! Bizarre Millenarian Paranoia? Hey, sure, why not? Area 51 thrives on tourism after all.

All right, general rant concludes. For those so inclined, you may now proceed to tell me what an arrogant jerk, corporate tool, or insane denier I am. For everyone else, thanks for bearing through my rant, you are probably a masochist.