Speaking of Our Betters™… meet Mr. Ben Glasson, whose hatred for America and the rest of the Western world (and probably the Eastern as well) that doesn’t believe as he does fairly wafts off the screen. I think they call that…. bigotry? It’s kind of pitiful, actually. He obviously thinks he’s shocking.
It seems to me that much of the pacifistic movement is based on a mistaken reading of human nature. This is demonstrated in the remarks of Hugo Schwyzer, in the comments to his own post on feminism and Abu Ghraib:
I don’t want women in the military because I am troubled by the military
And here, from another commenter on the same post,
With all due respect, doesn’t being trained to kill other human beings with weapons and your hands lead to coarsening or perhaps a better word is desensitizing (even if it isn’t on the “training schedule")? I know that the military does more than kill, but killing the enemy before he/she kills you seems to be a fundamental nature of the occupation.
This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered the notion of pacifists that human beings are by nature gentle beings who must be “coarsened” or otherwise have their natural instincts (as they see it) to be kind and cooperative subverted or stifled, if not outright destroyed, before they can become soldiers. In fact, it seems a central tenet of most pacifism, even that based on Christianity (most pacifist Christians I have encountered seem to focus on the gentle “rabbi” Christ while passing over the Christ who knocked over the money-changers’ tables at the Temple and stated he had come “not to bring peace but a sword” as temporary aberrations if not outright false portrayals shoehorned in by Gospel-writers with an anti-Roman agenda).
The thing is, the pacifists are wrong about human nature, and the briefest observation of a group of two-year-olds could make their mistake known to them, were they not blinded by their own misconceptions and pride. I say “pride” because (again, as the Christians are always pointing out, and this is one of their least popular lessons) human beings like to think well of themselves, and tend to think they are better than they really are. Instead of being natural paragons of sweetness and light that bad old Life, or Society, or Experience, darkens and twists, human beings are only too apt to be quarrelsome, combative, and violent from the get-go, and killing is all too easy for us. If the humans-are-naturally-good crowd were right, neighborhoods full of highschool dropouts would be paradises of comity and kindness instead of places you don’t dare drive through with the windows rolled down and the doors unlocked. Far from turning a man or woman more beast-like in order to “turn them into killers” the military serves the purpose of disciplining and controlling the human killer instinct so that men and women will be less apt to kill or commit other violence indiscriminantly, and any deviation from this course can be laid to the failure of either the recruit to learn or the instructor to teach the lessons of military education.
(Via Sarah.)
So in the comments to this post on Buzzmachine (yes, I was visiting the monkey cage again) I came upon those of one Robert S. He was being dressed down by another commenter for, among other things, calling the president a “cowboy” as a term of disapprobation. Mr. S.’s response was to triumphantly announce that he had dug up the American Heritage Dictionary and found “cowboy” there defined as “A reckless person who ignores potential risks.” Not so fast, kemosabe.
Just because a colloquial use of a word is included in its definition does not mean that the word can or should be used in such a fashion. C.S. Lewis coined a term for this word-misuse: “verbicide.”1 His example was the word “gentleman,” which used to mean merely a member of the landed gentry. Later on, when people wanted to identify themselves with (or as) members of this supposedly exalted class they started to use the term to refer to a man whose manners were polite and civilized. By then the original definition of “gentleman” had vanished, all so it could be used to define something that already had a term for it.
An example of today is “cowboy.” At one time it merely meant a man who helped herd cattle from horseback. Later on, people began to use it to any man from the West who rode on horseback, with or without the big herd of cattle. Now that the idea of the cowboy has been tarnished (mostly by PC whiteman-sucks bullshit) the term can indeed mean “A reckless person who ignores potential risks” – even though in real history a cowboy who was reckless and ignored potential risks wouldn’t have made it through one year on the range. In other words, not only has the word had its definition expanded, it now means the opposite of what it used to mean. Language needs to expand and be flexible, but reversing the meaning of words that once had a very specific and concrete original meaning cannot be a good thing. George Orwell thought* it would be a tactic of the totalitarians in the future; I say it is what leads up to a totalitarian future. Because if the meanings of words can be twisted so easily into their opposites, how can you trust yourself to know what the truth is? Instead power will be given to those who are willing to use brute force instead of untrustworthy words.
Of course, I doubt this will divert or even give pause to the strugglers against the Bushitler!™ Junta. They have too much personal pride** at stake this time.
*PS: this is an odd site – “Instant Essays” it calls itself. I was just looking for a good quote on the famous “War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength” and so on stuff from 1984. Why do I get the feeling that this is one of those websites where students get their plagiarized research papers?
**Common English term used in a futile attempt to drive the word “hubris” off the lips of the mob, who have done their usual other trick of appropriating a word and using it until the entire human race is sick of it.
Note: source of the title, link kept here because you have no idea how hard it is to find lyrics to “Words” by the group Missing Persons on the internet. Try searching with the bolded terms and you’ll see what I mean.
1. In the Preface to Mere Christianity.
Could someone tell me when Vincent of the Insignificant Thoughts weblog became such an unpleasant dipshit? Did it have anything to do with his association with this Sammy Hagar wannabe? Oh wait – it just occurred to me that my last bit of caring died right after I typed in that question mark. Oh well, have fun speculating if you want. I’m calling it a night.
(Seriously, what the fuck is the matter with people? Is the entire Blogocosmoversistan on the rag or something? Take some effing Aleve then. I’m serious, quit serving up the five-turd-high shit sandwiches. I mean, do you all talk to your mothers with that mouth?)
(My mother could cuss the paint off a Navy battleship, by the way. Could yours? I don’t think so.)
Update: shyeah, Vinnie, like I’m going to approve that lame comment. By the way, I see you’re one of the I Think The Internet Revolves Around Me Because I Saw My Name Mentioned On Someone’s Web Page people. Well, I’ll just make sure you won’t be able to even see my site, lest you be caused more pain. I do care just that little teensiest bit.
History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men.
(Via cut on the bias.)
PS: “Jeffery Godsick” – I love that name, it’s hilarious. I don’t believe it for one minute, though, it’s just too Wodehouse to be real. But I love it.
I know I said at some point that this would be an election-matters-free blog but I can’t resist pointing out yet another good reason to not vote for Ravingloon Democrat Party candidate (and former minor cartoon character) John “I was in Vietnam but never My Lai!” Kerry: torture was a-ok as a terrorist-nabbing device the last time the Dems were in power. And we have it on the good authority of Our Betters™ in the media that torture is bad, nasty, and awful. Right?
Looks like I won’t be watching the Olympics this year. Not that I bothered the last time they were on either, but while the last Olympics all I had to avoid were the endless gooeysoft sob stories about how all the athletes had to overcome all sorts of “personal dramas” (death of parents, death of favorite teachers, not enough jelly on their pb&js) this time I’ll get to avoid the spectacle of the athletes being told to not fly the American flag or wear their colors because “We’re not the favorite kid in the world right now.” Well, hey, guess what, Bill Martin, you aren’t my favorite person right now either. Gee, hope that the corruption, steroid abuse and bribery don’t interfere in the fun too much this year.
Always a a bridesmaid, never a bride.
First objector to the nuptials: Kathy Shaidle.
I don’t know what frightens me more, the fact that Jeff Jarvis says Berlin is his favorite German city, or the fact that he thinks there is something wrong with the fact that Americans generally are not in favor of people gallivanting about in the public street mother-naked, and certainly aren’t about to use taxpayer money to fund a special “Love Parade” – which event, per Jarvis, features lots of public nudity and sex. I am trying to connect this attitude, which apparently is endemic to a certain older generation, to the fury of outrage at the Abu Ghraib video nasties, and failing. Then again, maybe I’m not. It is the twisted reasoning of some people that persons such as Lynndie England are “forced” to become skanky sluts because of our sexual repression. To hear them say it, we are still living in the age of Cotton Mather.
Oh wait – the most frightening thing of all: naked Germans. Just think about it. 
(I except the communities of Berkeley/San Francisco, which I am sure will be on top of this Sex Love Parade thingie like white on rice ASAP. Heh heh, I said “on top.")
Here’s the url to the video of monsters sawing off the head of a tied-up, helpless American, as he screamed:
http://isntapundit.com/images/iraq2vediow.wmv
For all our lives we’ve let the television, newspaper, and radio media control the flow of information. I’m willing to bet the majority of us have even taken for granted that we are getting the truth, or at least some form thereof, even as we wax cynical about the “lying, biased” media.
I haven’t watched tv news in months.
I open the paper, skim the editorials, spit, and go right to the recipes (on Wednesday), the car stuff (Thursday) and the ads.
I don’t listen to talk radio and the only radio news I listen to is the weather and the traffic; the rest I ignore as background noise.
I get most of my news from blogs, where other people with stronger stomachs and better skills at sifting the wheat from the chaff sort through the news for me.
In other words, I do my best to ignore the bullshit, ever more blatant and open and in our face, that passes itself off as the “news of the world.” But still, I do see news reports every now and then, and of course there are the internet versions of the tv/deadtree/wireless giants. And I don’t go into a huge skeptic-fest; I generally accept what I read is what the so-called reporter saw, heard, and felt. Of course, some things are more report-worthy than others, aren’t they?
First we had the images of the people jumping from the World Trade Center, which were a no-no, because people might get all upset and sad (or worse, upset and mad). Now there is the butchering of Nick Berg by orcs disguised as humans. Wouldn’t we, Precioussss, prefer instead to watch the Abu Ghraib video nasties over and over again? Watching a fellow citizen have his head sawed (not chopped or cut – sawed) off by some man-shaped piece of sewage might get us all angry at other people, which is a no-no. (Unless those Other People are George Bush and crew. It’s okay to get mad at them. Just don’t get mad at any foreigners. Foreigners, especially ones who hate us, are Our Betters™. They know we don’t deserve to live.) Watching some grinning female diddling a prisoner in a hood is good, because it makes us feel all crawly and disgusting, and people who are paralysed by self-disgust can’t do anything to defend themselves.
This is all to lead up to tell you to read everything from here down, and to download, and upload to your own site if possible, the video* that Nanny News Media doesn’t want you to see. Because it might make us angry, and we might damage all of her cute little preconceptions.
(Note: give dipnut’s site a chance to rest. I tried to get the video and the download cacked out on me. I’ll try again later.)
*Update: hotlink removed. Also, if you have a Hostmatters blog, you won’t be able to host it on your site. It’s a server-killer, probably due to the perverts. Maybe the perverts will rupture their organs of reproduction this time and die of gangrene so we won’t be bothered by them anymore. Hey, a girl can dream.
Via the idefatigable Tex we are introduced to one Joseph Wakim. This poor child needs his diaper changed or something. I won’t bother quoting his dribble – it basically translates to: “I hate you! I hate you! It’s all your fault! I wont eat! I’ll hold my breath! Give me candy! I hate you! Waaah! Waa waa waaahh!”
Dear Muslims Like This Wakim Person: Grow. The. Fuck. Up. Now.
I was going to paste this in the comments to this post but they have some script-prevention thing that prevents the same person from commenting more than once every two days, or something (I had commented elsewhere on the site) so here is what I was going to say:
You know, I think it is possible to both apologize for atrocities committed by members of our armed forces, while not grovelling to the “we bad, we the worst” school of thought people – but I think that point has been left far behind in the frantic fight to get Dubya Out of Office. A part of me almost wishes Bush would lose to Kerry – the misanthropic part, who wants to sit back and laugh at the fools’ inevitable bungling when they find themselves with this hot potato in their hands.
To “ginny rose":
I might have approved your off-topic, partisan comment even though you left a fake email address and used silly pseudo words like “in-terror-gator,” and if your double-posting clearly indicated that you did not read the comment note on the sidebar, if you HADN’T USED ALL CAPS.
On second thought, no I wouldn’t have. And I don’t care if you are on Rumsfeld’s side.
Oh my. As usual, Robert Fisk’s shrieks-to-text don’t say much about his subject (which is this time, of course, the Abu Ghraib “tortures” – a subject tailor made for La Fisk, he must have nearly passed out with ecstacy when he heard about it). But they do say a great deal about Mr. Fisk himself, all of it rather disgusting. By the way, look for news of the former Robert Fisk donning white robes and changing his name to Rab al-Osama Batt-Kissar, or something like that in the near future – I’d be willing to bet money on his eventual conversion to Islam. Come on – what would you rather be associated with: a nasty, sexuality-obsessed ("the sexuality of the Old Testament” – what did go on in the staid chapels of La Fisk’s youth?) Christianity or a pure, clean religion (that the “sexuality-obsessed” Christianity can only collide with “revoltingly” and “obscenely") like Islam? Besides, that way he can be closer, in spirit anyway, to his hero Osama Bin Laden. (Hey, I don’t even have to infer all this by reading between the lines – Fisk does all but shoot us in the head with his Bin Laden hero worship. Personally, I find that to be “obscene” and “revolting,” but I’m a partisan American so don’t pay any attention to me!)
(Via Tim Blair.)
Phillip Kennicott is only happy when it rains:
But these photos are us. Yes, they are the acts of individuals (though the scandal widens, as scandals almost inevitably do, and the military’s own internal report calls the abuse “systemic"). But armies are made of individuals. Nations are made up of individuals. Great national crimes begin with the acts of misguided individuals; and no matter how many people are held directly accountable for these crimes, we are, collectively, responsible for what these individuals have done…
Here is my noble, civilized response: blow smoke up someone else’s ass, you smarmy, pompous dickhead. Collectively responsible – I’ll bet Mr. Kennicott has recused himself from this “us” – obviously he sees himself as being one of Our Betters. The heck with all the good that we have done in Iraq; instead, against every principle of liberal thought, the actions of a handful of butthead MPs just invalidated over two hundred years of history – nay, the entire two-thousand years of history since the death of Christ – which was, of course, exclusively the fault of Americans.
At this point all I can do is laugh. These people don’t want to live, they don’t want to carry this civilization into the future – they don’t want to give it even as long as the Romans gave theirs. They had 800 years – we don’t even get to make 250? Sometimes I think that the Baby Boomers not only want to spend all the money before they go, they want to take the civilized world down with them. And I am nagged by the feeling that even our government is sliding closer and closer to embracing this viewpoint – witness the grovelling before the entire Muslim world today for something that, should it have been done by military personnel in, say, Syria, would have been considered four-star fine treatment.
And another thing: this should have been between us and Iraq only. What the fuck does Egypt or Al-Jazeera or any other fucking Arab organization have to do with this? Who asked them to jump in? Were the humiliated POWs your imported thugs, fuckos? If I were Bush I’d have told all the other so-called Arab spokesbeings who were not from Iraq to stay the fuck out of this, no one asked you your opinion. I wouldn’t be nice about it either. But you know, once some moron started the “hearts and minds” bullshit, we had to play comfort woman for every single joker in the Middle East except the Israeli Jews.
Let’s get something straight: we will not win the “hearts and minds” of the Muslim world. From what I can see a significant number of them have black hearts and minds rotten with inherited centuries of Jew-hatred and resentment of the way the rest of the world has passed them by in their self-imposed cultural and spiritual prison. Most of the rest of them are either too timid or ignorant for their organs of feeling and thought to be accessible. I am disgusted with the constant backing and filling every time a “Muslim spokesperson” lets out a squeal because he came upon something somewhere that reminded him that there are other ways of thought and living than his own. And I am sick and tired of being accused of “narrowmindedness,” “racism,” “ignorance,” and all the rest of the bullshit because I happen to express my dislike of real examples of the above coming from someone whose ancestry was not primarily European.
No wonder (chorus) They Hate Us. So many of us so obviously hate ourselves and our fellow citizens. Our enemies must be frustrated as all heck right now: if only they had known it would be that easy.
I will probably add to this later; right now I have to go to bed.
(Via Random Jottings.)
Update: this post of Dipnut’s is highly instructive. Since he says pretty much what I was going to say, I don’t have to add anything more to this entry.
Update 2: one final link – I meant to mention this too – what the hell was it with the picture-taking? The closest thing I can come to is something a co-worker said her husband, who was in the military, told her: “those GIs, they sure do like to take pictures.” Then again, there are sickos right here at home doing sick things – no links, just google around – and not only do they whip out the Polaroid and the camcorder, they get out the digital devices and upload the results for all to see and enjoy. Why? Like Natalie Solent said, it’s not as if these images showed the perpetrators in any good light according to the laws and customs of modern Western society. But when you ask people why they take pictures of themselves doing things that are, supposedly, still considered shameful and disgraceful by normal people, they either equivocate or just look at you. The current impetus is, maybe, the “self-esteem” movement which we can see now has done more harm, or at least as much harm, as it has done good. Sure, people think better of themselves, and are not so crippled by guilt and shame as the psychiatrists – our priests – told us we used to be back in the bad old days – but I haven’t see that this has led to an increase in esteem for others as we were told would be the result of this loosening of inner bonds and focusing on the self instead of others. Quite the contrary.
OK, yet another update: Nelson Ascher has some interesting observations from outside the fray (ie, he’s not an American and doesn’t live here). By the way, it is clear to me that what he means by this being a “conspiracy” is the sudden huge “get rid of Rumsfeld” component to the scandal, not that there were Bush-haters who went to Iraq and planned the whole thing. I did wonder, though, whose idea it was to pass the photos around like candy. (Via Charles Austin.)
And one more: how the photos got to CBS is explained here.* (Though not how they got to Al-Jazeera. Then again, the press is just one big club, whose only membership requirement seems to be “we are beholden to none but our deadlines.") Before they had apparently only been known to “among soldiers and military investigators.” Well we can’t have that – even if disclosure of evidence of wrongdoing to the general public before the investigation is finished might compromise that investigation just as badly as a coverup would, it is important because the Public Has a Right to Know™! Right? (Via Tim Blair.)
*Registration required, though it’s free. Use “laexaminer” for both the password and the id.
I’ve slapped Jeff Jarvis around a lot lately for his wacky Howard Stern mania, but pry his attention away from the Great White Radio Ass and he’s often spot on – as he is here in the critique of a column written by Tom Friedman while deep in the grips of hysteria. I have to copy this sample from Friedman, because it’s just so pathetic on so many levels:
I have never known a time in my life when America and its president were more hated around the world than today. I was just in Japan, and even young Japanese dislike us. It’s no wonder that so many Americans are obsessed with the finale of the sitcom “Friends” right now. They’re the only friends we have, and even they’re leaving.
Good god, is Friedman a grown man or a teenager who yearns to be accepted into the popular group at his high school? So some Japanese people (I doubt he talked to the entire population) expressed some sort of America-hatred. Well damn me, having the Japanese love us is what keeps me going through this vale of tears called life; now that they hate us, I’ve got nothing to live for! Except the final episode of Friends, which I will watch while wearing deepest black because I base my entire life on what Phoebe, Ross, and the rest of the gang whose names I can’t remember because I always find things better to do (cleaning my cat’s litter box, laundry, spackling tiny cracks in my walls, scraping the grease out from the grease trap under the stove and rolling it into symmetrical balls and packing them in neat rows in cardboard boxes which I tie with twine) than watch the show, and now that it’s ending I realize that all that is left between me and the void is the caring and concern that ooze out of nervous nellies like Mr. Friedman, who was once thrilled to bits when a Saudi prince told him he (the prince) had a peace plan that didn’t involve destroying Israel – well, not destroying it all at once, anyway, just sort of whittling away at it slowly until there was nothing left of the Jewish State but something that could be jammed into the bottom of a matzoh box, but in a peaceful way.
Anyway, Jarvis takes Friedman’s trash out to the curb. RTWT.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t get supposed admirers of philosophy and philosophers who get so bent out of shape about a “long post” on the internet. Have these people ever read any actual works by philosophers, or just the Cliff Notes versions?
Equally hilarious is the fury of the commenters (paraphrased): “Augh! I read it! It hurt my brain!” So why did you read it? Did it only hurt your brain at the very end?
(Oh yes – updated to include the observance that of all the bloggers that commented upon Den Beste’s essay, the only one that didn’t seriously respond to Den Beste’s theories was the one at the portentiously named, Kant-invoking, self-consciously cerebral Crooked Timber. Make of that what you will.)
What do you call people who were on the verge of getting what they said they wanted, who then let it go for some trifle?
Speaking of losers – what do you call people who shoot two-year-olds in the head to make sure they were dead? Well, there’s a part of the world that calls them “heroes,” and it’s not just confined to the Middle East. But George W. Bush = Hitler, and Jews are the new Nazis. I see.
And then there is this fellow. It occurred to me once that the phrase “I want to crawl up inside you and die” is a curse more evil than a thousand so-called obscenities. It denotes the state of mind of a certain sort of person – someone, perhaps, like the person who could “ink” this cartoon and then write these words. There is something going on here, but I don’t know what it is – and what’s more, I don’t care.
I think I will now go dig out my tape of Troublegum. I need to clear my head.
No wonder Germans love David Hasselhoff. He was on tv.
Re the post below on faux-human Micah Wright, here’s an interesting addition to the story offered by Mrs. Spoons.
Shyeah, as if. There’s this dude calls himself “Truthprobe” who has a Blogspot blog (no link – you’ve probably already got the email – subject heading “link me” – or the spam in your comments) he claims is “centrist political commentary.” So I’m curious, I hitch on over there to take a gander… and I see that the subheading says this:
“The probe for the conservative truth never stops.”
Centrist, my ass. Not that I think there is any such animal anyway, it obviously being Leftover-speak for “thinks Karl Marx was too right-wing.”
And here’s a word to antiwar poster-scrawler Micah Wright: saying “I had to keep lying because you believed me!” is not an apology. (Via A Small Victory; further via Jim Treacher.)
(Apropos: Sing along with the Thompson Twins)
Update: here’s why Wright “confessed” – he was going to be outed on the verge of a book sale. Oopsie. (Via Weekend Pundit.)
Update no. 2: what Greyhawk said. (By the way, where does all this acclaim for Wright’s “art” come from? As far as I can tell his claim to artistic fame is based on him adulterating the work of other people – namely, the World War I and II posters he Photoshopped. Frankly, I think it’s ironic that “his” art was cribbed from others better than himself, just like his bio.)
Update no. 3: bwah! If I felt better I’d play with Photoshop myself…
The updates just keep coming: more details, including the fact that he edited his “apology.” Also – Seven Stories has cancelled the publication of his new book. Wright can look on the bright side – at least it won’t ever be remaindered.
Note to Rene Gonzales: “I’m sorry you were offended” is not an apology. I’d have a modicum – very small, but it would have been there – of respect for him if he’d stuck to his position, instead of hiding it behind the skirts of PC catchphrases. “Insensitive” hell – what Gonzales wrote was openly adversarial, not to mention obscene. And towards someone he didn’t even know – what was he to Pat Tillman or Pat Tillman to he? And don’t even get me started on the quality of his writing. I mean, if you are going to go ad hominem on a national hero at least be original about it. Comparisons of soldiers to Rambo was a moldy technique when both Tillman and Gonzales were in diapers.
(Via C.G. Hill.)
Late update: here’s a nice fisking of the creep’s blattings. Enjoy. (Via MCJ.)
On another note re this foofaraw over the Ted Koppel I Can’t Believe It’s Not Vietnam!™-style “tribute” to our war dead on Nightline – don’t want to boost the show’s May Sweeps ratings? Well – don’t watch it then. This isn’t rocket science, people.
I’m afraid my only response to this glum anti-blog article is “then don’t read them, bee-yotch.” See, blogs are bad, ‘cos diaries were intended to be private girl-thought collectors. No, really:
Diaries, since the advent of the Japanese Pillow Book, were designed as secret repositories for, largely, women’s personal, inaccessible-to-others thoughts, hopes, fears, dreams and so on.
Gee, I didn’t know Samuel Pepys was a teenage girl.
Whatever. I don’t know what Ms. Crosbie is grousing about – she seems to think that the next step from blogging is serial killing, or why else is that reference to Paul Bernardo in there? You know, sometimes there are column ideas that should be given the “Um… on second thought, no” treatment, and this was one of them.
Update: I forgot to say, link to the article via Kathy Shaidle.
It’s like a train wreck full of naked old people, I can’t look away… Did you know that before the invention of the television human beings had no capacity for culture, interaction, or curiosity? Yeah, months of no television have turned me into a drooling zombie. Are these “book” things good to eat?
Hound dog male and catty woman
it’s not fair he/she gets more
she shows her tits he revs his engines
she’s got webstats up the yin-yang
he’s got rank on Ecosystem
she’s so cute with dirty talking
he don’t see what’s so wrong with that
she’s up in arms ‘cos he said so
he’s pissed off that she wants mojo
He said/she said you’re a Sexist™!
We’re all fucked in Hell’s last circle
a.k.a. the Blogosphere
Steven Den Beste’s ex-girlfriends get together and trash his character. And they say liberals have no traditions… (Side question: doesn’t a highfahlutin’ big deal “progressive” magazine like The Washington Monthly want to attract a higher level of discourse than this sort of bitchy assbiting? Oh wait, never mind.)
James Lileks spends most of his Bleat explaining why Andrew Sullivan’s “tax gas” idea is really stupid, but he misses a couple of things. One: gas is already taxed, as is just about everything else people buy in the US, with the exception of food and medicine (I could be wrong in thinking those two items aren’t sales-taxed across the entire US – sales-tax rules vary from state to state – but they aren’t in Florida). Two: he doesn’t say anything about Sullivan’s odd statement “The government can eat away at your life with payroll taxes, but because they are usually deducted before you get to see your paycheck, you don’t notice.” Duh-er, homes, I see them. I see them by looking at the statement I get every two weeks, where the taxes deducted from my paycheck are broken down into Federal, FICA, Social Security, and so on. And if I lived in a state with state income tax (Florida has none, thank god) I’d see that too. And I see that my $840.00 paycheck is only $714.00 when it gets to me. I can only guess that Sully – or as I am going to refer to him from now on, Marie Antoinette Jr. – doesn’t get a regular pay statement, or if he does, he never looks at it but “lets his accountant take care of all that stuff.”
You know, I think I have figured out what drives the Bush-haters: what they really don’t like about him is the way he refuses to try to win them over. I think this explains everything about the puzzling reaction of almost rabid hatred these people have for this rather undistinguished, well-meaning politician. I also think that it is no coincidence that many of these people seemed to have an almost opposite reaction to Clinton. (I say “seems” because I haven’t done any in-depth research; it could very well be that there are plenty of rabid Bush haters who are also rabid Clinton haters.) Of course, unlike Bush, Clinton not only had no trouble saying “I’m sorry,” he emitted apologies for anything and everything under the sun almost as regularly as – okay, I’m not going there. Let’s just say Clinton was a serial apologizer. A certain element of Western society likes this sort of thing. That element of society currently feels under-appreciated by a man (Bush) who seems to remind them of that ex-significant other who “never talked to me.”
I have mentioned the subject of flattery before. Now, American culture has come a long way from the days when the line “never apologize, mister, it’s a sign of weakness” was a serious line in a dramatic movie spoken by the hero. I think my opinion of the direction we have taken should be obvious.
Can someone tell me why, out of all the Kennedys that fate or the gods have deigned to remove from this mortal coil, we still have Ted “Leave Her To Drown, It’s Not Like She’s Important” Kennedy among us unhappy mortals? He gets more and more like Jabba the Hut every day, yet each dawn sees him sucking in yet more oxygen. If the loony left really believed its own a-butterfly-sneeze-in-Ohio-starts-a-typhoon-in-the-Philippines all-things-are-interconnected bullshit philosophy they would have had him assassinated like his brothers merely for the countless orphans and old people who starved because Senator Edward Kennedy ate all their food for breakfast. Now I read here that this person has had the incredible gall to use the term “honor” to describe an act of disgusting cowardice. The act in question is dropping Iraq in the middle of what I am sure he’d like to call the current “discomfort,” running like hell, and hoping that the American public will be too relieved that their “children” are home to pay much heed to the sniggers of the French, the North Koreans, and the Iranians floating from across the pond, and that we’ll be too glued to the new upcoming HBO syndicated program Celebrity Bukkake (hosted by Oprah and Howard Stern) to notice that a grinning “Middle-Eastern-appearing” maniac with a jones for Jihad just set off a nuclear device in downtown Winnetka. Dear Senator Kennedy: DIE. Thank you.
(And those of you who are his fans are welcome to go into that good night with him. I’m sick of you taking up space on the same plane of existence I’m on.)
Wonkette’s milkshake is bringing all the boys to her yard, and Michele wonders why. I’m afraid I can’t be of any help here – except to say there’s no accounting for taste. Personally, I prefer my junk food to be some other flavor besides ass, but that’s just me.
Update: even creepier. Ewwwww!
After reading all about the shenanigans of this Kos person (read all about it starting here) I opened up my handy Portable Curmudgeon, which of course I keep right here by the computer (in a mostly unsuccessful attempt to keep my cat from sitting on the CPU case; I fully expect that I will open it up one day and find the thing completely packed with cat hair). Anyway, I found this quote:
The nature of men and women – their essential nature – is so vile and despicable that if you were to portray a person as he really is, no one would believe you. – W. Somerset Maugham
And there are others equally apropos, but this is the first one I came upon when I opened the book at random. That little book, and the Redux one, is as indispensable to me as the Bible is to others.
In the post below I slam a columnist for declaring that the Lord of the Rings trilogy of films have “no lasting value.” Well, don’t take it from me, what about the movies’ herd-thinning capacities? As we speak the dreaded “Mountains of Middle Earth” (ie, of New Zealand) are kicking ass and taking names:
CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (AFP) – A growing number of foreign climbers may die on New Zealand mountains after being lured here by the promise of adventure on mountains showcased in The Lord of the Rings movies, mountain safety authorities warned Wednesday.
The warning comes after a 22-year-old Australian fell to his death on Aoraki-Mt Cook on Tuesday, becoming the 10th person to die in the area in the past four months.
Mountains 10, humans seeking “safe” yet thrilling thrills zero. Hey, that’s more than The Passion of the Christ has offed!
Up next: The Lord of the Rings lures tots to kiddy-pool deaths as they try to “do the Frodo” (fall face-down into the water, as in the scene in the Dead Marshes)! Film was last seen lurking in a shopping mall behind the Gap For Kids store, hissing “Preciousss, Preciousss…” Etc.
The movies might have long been displaced at the box office by Scooby Doo, but there’s apparently still people who want to kick the Lord of the Rings trilogy around for profit, if not for fun – which this Dennis Dutton person does not seem to have at his screenings of the film. I don’t have time to “fisk” this whole thing, so I’ll just say that yet another column complaining that this movie was nothing but a “boy’s own adventure” without any strong female characters bores me as much as the film bored Mr. Dutton. Speaking of “lasting value,” this column doesn’t have any that I can see – but then I apparently use a different criteria for “value.”
Oh yeah. Americans really are going to elect someone who looks like they “are going into a bar in Kansas to drink from the bottle.” My, snobs are stupid.
laugh along with the common people,
laugh along even though they’re laughing at you,
and the stupid things that you do.
Because you think that poor is cool. (Source)
Hang down your head and cry – because famous Bishop-to-the-Stars® Desmond Tutu is coming to visit you on Death Row, and boy, is he stupid:
“You are some of the most generous people in the world – Americans – but I have found that difficult to square with your remarkable vindictiveness,” he said.
This is his reaction to the awful fact that we still have the old-fashioned notion that crime should be punished instead of rewarded with lauds from world leaders, casks of fine wine, bags of money etc. But enough of that – I want to know something: how is it that this man lives on a continent where slavery and cannibalism are still being practiced yet he is allowed to come to this country and lecture us? Could someone please put him on a plane before he gives some other lowlife “a lot to think about"?
(Via Kim Du Toit.)
“War is not the answer. An eye for an eye makes the whole world– Hey look, Republicans! Let’s kick some ass!“
And you know, considering the huge mass of denial that leftists (or whatever they are) seem to be operating under these days, I have thought of another reason it is a good thing a stuffy conservative administration happened to be in power when September 11 2001 rolled around: with people as unstable as the current crop of Democrat supporters seem to be, I wonder how many Middle-Eastern countries would resemble Corelle dinner plates right now if it had been a Democrat sitting in the White House when the planes went into the Towers?
(Via a small victory.)
The famous “liberal sense of humor” has got to be here somewhere.
(Via Protein Wisdom.)
The verdict on the commission to find out who we can pin the blame on just what happened to cause September 11th (besides terrorists) so far? “Why the hell didn’t Bush unleash the Psychic Alien-Human Hybrid Team we all know the Shadow Government keeps in a vault in the Appalachians? And what about the Justice League of America? Where were the superheroes, preventing Deadly UV Rays from attacking the semi-exposed breasts of tourists in Cancun? Hello, what are we paying you people for?” (Apropos many of the comments to this post – the one titled “9/11 commissions and books and politicking.” Scroll down – for some reason Jarvis’ MT blog acts like Blogspot when you direct-link.)
No, really. Behold the next Godwin.
(Via Lilac Rose.)
Update: I quite passed over this remark: “If the methods of victims do not differ from that of their attackers, who is to say who the victims now are?” I don’t get it. You want they should have stroked him to death with silk whips instead? What the hell kind of reasoning is that – “He used guns so you can’t use guns to fight him back you have to use lead-weighted nets instead!” One of the dangers of indulging in sanctimony is the way it clouds one’s thought processes. Remember that next time you lecture, mes amis pieux. (Brought to my attention by Mac Swift.)
People are falling apart and having conniption fits and lecturing at each other all across blogland because Spain has dumped its government, apparently as a petulant response to the recent terrorist bombing there. Oh no! cry the cyberpundits, we’re doomed! The terrorists have won! Now they will bomb everybody since Spain has lain down and died (after a real good show of enraged crowd-gathering; I guess they used up all their ire on the streets)! And worst of all – the US has lost another ally!
Well. I say: good riddance.
And who needs ‘em? If this is indeed the case, that the Spanish people think that by electing a less States-friendly government they’re going to get the hands-off treatment by slavering fanatics who blow babies to bits, then who needs these millstones around our necks and burdens on our backs? He travels fastest who travels alone, and after observing the shenanigans of our so-called “allies” (with the exception of the “Anglosphere” countries) over the past two-and-a-half years, I have decided that that goes triple for a country. If the world doesn’t like us… it can stop buying our stuff. No one is forcing you, world, to watch our movies, patronize our transplanted fast food restaurants, to wear blue jeans. You are always bragging that your own food and clothing and toilet tissue and whatnot are far superior to ours, so it’s time to put your money where your mouth and other parts are. Go ahead and drop us. A few Americans will shed a tear or two, but I won’t be among them.
Go ahead, appease the Islamofascistibabykillermotherfuckers. Bow your heads to god their way, cover your women in black sacking, kill your gays. Forbid Jews to hold good jobs, make them wear yellow stars – you know the drill. As the Great Cthulhu says, “You will be devoured last! Yum!” But at least you’ll have shown up those Yankee imperialists! And that’s what counts, isn’t it?
Update: what Steve H. said. “Spain is now ruled from a tiny cave somewhere in Pakistan or Afghanistan, and her rulers will be encouraged to see how many other countries they can take over.” Yup. Even if the “real” reason for the change of governments was some weaselly non-important matter like health care or whatever it is the socialists over there think is worth a few bombs going off every now and then, the terrorists will think they’ve caused this, and they will respond accordingly.
Funny. No one complains about those people who kept pieces of the Berlin Wall.
(Via the Jarv.)
Reason number 784 on why I became a Republican: even Democrats seem to hold members of that party in high esteem – higher even than their own.
(Link to Stupid via isntapundit.)
Update: you should read the previous article by Dipnut too. It’s like, well, like Kryptonite to stupid arguments.
I wonder… where is “Christianity Awareness Month” or “Judaism Awareness Month"? Come to think of it, is there any other religion on the planet – Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Wicca, generic tribal shamanism – that gets its very own “Awareness Month“? You know, I’m not sure if the cute-ifying treatment that Islam is getting from us is a demonstration of the Edutainment Elite’s lack of backbone in the face of people who actually believe their own murderous rhetoric or a display of its embedded contempt for “those exotics and their weird yet charming ways.” Either way, I am guessing that giving Allah the Johnny Carson treatment isn’t going to appease the more rabid infidel haters in the Middle East, but rather the reverse.
(Via relapsed catholic.)
He’s an ass. If you can’t stand the thought of voting for Bush, don’t you have a dog or a favorite film star or a dead relative whose name you can put on the ballot box instead? Heck, you can even vote for Ralph Nader, he’s running again.
Yes, I know I wasn’t going to talk about politics. But I really can’t stand dumb people who think they are smart.
But Jeff, I thought you saw the movie? You know, the one where his enemies gang up on Stern and drag him through the street and spit on him and then they flog him in slo-mo for hours and then they nail him to a wooden thing (a cross I think) and he dies (v. sad scene, esp. with crying girlfriend or mother or whoever the lady was) but! at the end he comes back to life, ‘cos you can’t keep a good shock jock down!
Update: extensive research has confirmed the fact that the movie in question was not, in fact, called “The Passion of Howard Stern.” It was, in fact, about some other guy entirely. My bad. Never mind!
If you would like to watch a sublime event of a troll getting his posterior handed to him, go here.
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is funny, but the reaction of uptight Canadians to being insulted by a puppet is hilarious. Canada should change their motto to “Inadvertent Comedy Capital of the Western Hemisphere.”
By the way, it is especially amusing that Colby Cosh is writing a “lighten up” commentary. Amusing to me, anyway.
I will have you know that I have my capture software set to auto-capture at thirty seconds. I started the software up about fifteen seconds after I opened the page. After I captured and saved it, I had to close the browser window as the page still hadn’t finished loading.
DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE. DIE SITEMETER DIE.
UPDATE: AND TAKE THIS MEME WITH YOU.
You know, it’s a mixed blessing having Glenn Reynolds link to you. (Sorry, Glenn.) There are so many egos, armed with their mad internet-debate-club logic skilz, jostling to take what they imagine as his place on top of the Blog Heap, that anyone he links to is an automatic target for overblown rhetoric. For instance, I woke up this morning to have this person’s ponderous pronouncements on my WMDs observation dropped like a twenty-pound weight on my toes. Post hockey ergo propter hockey indeed.
Awww…. widdle James A C Joyce, writing on �ber-pretentious techy forum Kuro5hin (motto: “we’re too kewl to use the letter ’s’") doesn’t like blogs, and blogs using Movable Type in particular. See, darnit, bloggers don’t trend their writing to please Mr. Joyce, and furthermore, everytime he types “naked dwarf hot sex monkey-poo with whip cream” into Google’s search engine, he keeps getting some darned blog talking about Lord of the Rings or the blogger’s pet monkey. I feel your pain, Mr. Joyce! And it feels wonderful – I hope you continue to suffer using an internet that is not specifically set up to please the tastes of one James A C Joyce.
Man, I love the smell of envy in the morning. It smells like… shit.
Via Pixy Misa.
I have added Wonkette to my list of links over yonder, not because I particularly care for “Washington Insider” hoo-ha, but to keep this asstard from linking to me. It’s an unlikely event, I know, but one must stand ever vigilant! (Via Photodude. And for more memories of asstard’s asstardery, read the first sentence of this old post of mine.)
Woah! Better get antic and fast, or Aaron Haspel will tell you you’re not as funny as a Latin-speaking dead European guy named Max, or something. Note to Aaron: it just might be that Lileks et al are only “sometimes funny” because they aren’t, you know, always trying to be funny. But what do I know – I’m not a professional Funny Person and neither is anyone else slammed by Haspel, except for Margaret Cho, who for some reason is included in this list because she happens to have a blog – and whaddaya know, despite the paychecks she gets for her standup, she hasn’t been funny in years. I thought it was just because I had heard her “my Korean parents and their amusing ownership of a porn store” shtick one too many times, but I realize it must be due to her blogging. Blogging destroys comedy! Aaagghhh! (Via the always funny Jim Treacher.)
Dear Loser With No Imagination at IP address 66.14.148.200 from Irving, Texas: shyeah, right, like I was going to approve that.
What the fuck? What the fucking fuck?
Can someone tell me why I’m getting flamed by this cretin for this post? Hah? Can someone tell me what this has to do with anything I have ever posted? Here are his bizarre messages:
Interesting. Where were all the goyim during the Holocaust?
And:
Allow me to elaborate. Did the non-Jewish world do all it could during the Holocaust? Not even close. Six million Jews went to the slaughter like lambs. A direct result of the Holocaust is a new breed of Jew. One who is unwilling to stand idly by while the non-Jewish population of the world swallows the Palestinians’ bullshit. And it makes a lot of goyim uncomfortable to see such assertive Jews, doesn’t it? We are no longer willing to act like unwanted guests in someone else’s house. Get used to it.
What the fuck? is all I can say. Why do I get this kind of treatment? Does jerkoff actually think I approve of the Swedish freak “art” that was destroyed? Hey, “Kats,” are you fucked up on crack?
According to the IP address this fuckstick lives in or near Oakland, California. No, I’m not going to tell how I found out; go ahead and guess, tough guy. Hey, you know, you can take your macho “new Jew in town” bullshit and shove it so far up your rectum that it bangs into your molars. I don’t give a shit what your problem is, or who the fuck you really are hiding behind the cute fake name and the cute fake “yid@aol.com” address. As far as I’m concerned you’re in on my shit list along with the psycho Muslims, the freakass Chomsky cultists, and all the other asswipes who’ve trolled any of my sites. I wouldn’t wipe my ass with people like you.
I don’t like trolls.
Iowahawk does snide anti-Lileks lefty better than the original lefty. Go read. Though best put-down of Perrin’s hissy fit goes to Mr. Lileks himself. Lileks owns.
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