Apocalyptic Waffles

Ah waffles. The great thing about waffles are the little holes that hold the syrup and other goodness. Without those wonderful holes, waffles would just be square pancakes.

Waffles are also great because of the term: waffling. Wikipedia says that waffling was originally "defined as language without meaning; blathering, babbling, droning." You know it as nonsense. Also according to Wikipedia, the term waffling comes from originally from: "waff[1], a 17th-century onomatopoeia for the sound a barking dog makes, similar to the modern woof. Although the relationship between a dog's bark and indecisiveness is unclear, the inference is that waffle words have about as much meaning as the noise made by a dog barking."

Yes, waffling means 'barking nonsense'.

Waffling also means changing your mind to curry favor. Politicians waffle as often as the public opinion poles change. Waffling is about popularity. The best way to win an election is to appear to have the same opinion as a majority of your constituents. But that's a subject to cover in The Boys Book of Politics, commming soon. We want to use waffling today to talk about Cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance, is when the brain figures out it is an idiot and takes action. There are only two types of action, either you accept you are an idiot or you come up with some reason to defend remaining an idiot. No matter how much evidence is against your world view, you come up with some rationalization that lets you feel ok with being an idiot and having the same beliefs.

You might wonder why someone would rationalize their continuing to be an idiot. The answer is simple: We don't want to look like idiots. Soft of like eating waffles when you are type II diabetic. Waffles are bad for you, but that's ok because they taste so good!

In other, and totally unrelated to waffle news, Harold Camping says the Apocalypse he predicted with much hand waving was invisible. Sort of like the Grand Convergence of the planets and other predicted ends of the world, it isn't about what happens, rather how you feel when the world doesn't actually end. Harold calls it a "spiritual' apocalypse.

If May 21st 2011 isn't an apocalypse you can touch, when do we get the real 3D experience of the end of the world? According to Harold, October 21, 2011. Four months from now, we can all skip paying the utility bills, not show up to work, or leave the toilet seat up. nobody will care because nobody will be on Earth.

Here at Boys Books, we think the world ending in October, instead of May, is a good thing. We now have four months to eat those delectable waffles.