16
Nut Graf
This isn’t funny, because when I looked in the fridge just before, the big, oblong Tupperware container with ‘giant sandwich!!!’ written on it was gone.
Above: The SadNo breakroom fridge
Less funny still, the crisper was full of Dafydd ab Hugh:
The Pentagon’s New Map – Simplified
I just realized I can boil down much of what Thomas P.M. Barnett writes in his book the Pentagon’s New Map to a single pair of sentences. This drops all the fine detail, of course; its advantage is that it makes the central point as clear as a nutshell.
You know, there’s a lot to say about Barnett, and about ab Hugh’s reading of Barnett. (The point for ab Hugh, as usual, is that we’re fighting The Ultimate War to Save Civilization from the Klingon Empire Eternal Muslim Conspiracy, and the sooner we get down to ethnic cleansing, the better.) But Ab Hugh is a formidable stylist as well as a first-rate thinker, so in order better to explicate this key insight for the slower students among us, we’ve prepared a set of visual aids.
Fig. 1: The central point
Fig. 2: Is as clear
Fig. 3: As a nutshell
Barnett divides the world into two regions: the Functioning Core and the Non-Integrating Gap. And I can define those two thus:
The core is in the middle, and the gap is…a gap in the core that’s in the middle? Word, yo: I’m totally quitting now before that Last Mimzy stuff starts happening.
bargal20 said,
March 16, 2007 at 12:18
I just replaced my contacts with those clear, clear nutshells all the smart bloggers are talking about.
javaphil said,
March 16, 2007 at 12:20
When you’re the only gay in the village, I’m sure you spend a lot of time thinking about the non-integrating gap and desperately hoping for the functioning core.
Poor guy. Somebody should get him a sandwich.
Teh Giant Sammich said,
March 16, 2007 at 12:54
I’m free, you fuckers!
N. C. said,
March 16, 2007 at 14:12
So, Barnett divides the world into the FC-ers, and the … uh….
Doodle Bean said,
March 16, 2007 at 14:16
You guys need to clean your fridge!
jsmdlawyer said,
March 16, 2007 at 14:39
Clear as a nutshell, huh? Somebody get Dr. Krauthammer on the phone, stat! We have a bad case of mangled metaphor here. I diagnose Wingnut Metaphor Disease (WMD), but I am sure Dr. K will have something interesting (and insane) to say.
thelogos said,
March 16, 2007 at 14:43
Give the guy a break, he’s just sad after the Giant Sammich escaped
Marita said,
March 16, 2007 at 14:50
The core is in the middle, and the gap is…a gap in the core that’s in the middle?
Oh, come on, you know, the Non-Integrating Gap. Like where you bought jeans in the segregated South.
I need more sleep.
jonathan said,
March 16, 2007 at 14:55
And here I thought that “immanentizing the eschaton” meant bringing about the end of the world, something which would appeal to crazy jesus freaks but which the rest of us would find distasteful, if only because once the world ends it’s hard to get chinese takeout on saturday nights.
boy do i feel like a sucker
steve_e said,
March 16, 2007 at 14:59
Dafyyd had something else in mind when he wrote that metaphor. He was hankering for some honey roasted peanuts.
Cambridge Kid said,
March 16, 2007 at 15:55
So… you have one group of people who are anti-war and in favor of improving education, providing health care, and guaranteeing a living wage so that people can live longer, more prosperous lives.
Then you have another group of people who want to squeeze every last penny out of anyone who is dumb enough not to be rich, ban most forms of sex, force women to have babies, electrocute criminals, and bomb every country that looks at us funny into the stone age.
Is that what he’s talking about here when he says some people want to live “la dolce vita” and others worship death? Is his irony light blinking?
teh l4m3 said,
March 16, 2007 at 16:25
Can Dafydd look down and see even his own single pair?
Qetesh the Shaved Abyssinian said,
March 16, 2007 at 16:42
Cambridge Kid, not only is his irony light blinking, his irony orchestra is playing the 1812, while his 7 irony dwarves are banging their wee hammers on his noggin.
All to no avail, alas. The man’s an idiot.
Qetesh the Shaved Abyssinian said,
March 16, 2007 at 16:43
Oh, and guys, that’s not a fridge, that’s your basic primal soup you’ve got going there. Do something before it starts holding free elections.
Sarcastro said,
March 16, 2007 at 18:45
I just realized I can boil down much of what Thomas P.M. Barnett writes in his book the Pentagon’s New Map to a single pair of sentences.
“This is stupid.”
“Really fucking stupid.”
Crap, last one is just a phrase.
noen said,
March 16, 2007 at 18:57
I’d never heard of this Dafyyd goon before. What the hell is all this lizard crap onn his site? The man is nuts.
Why do these clowns always imagine themselves to be towering intellectual giants when at best they have an eighth grade education?
SamFromUtah said,
March 16, 2007 at 19:44
“Clear as a nutshell…” Jesme wept.
It’s bad enough to write articles that are just stereotypes glued together with cliches. Is it so much to ask that they have some idea what the cliches actually mean?
I bet this bozo is going to write “For all intensive purposes” some day, if he hasn’t already.
Dan Someone said,
March 16, 2007 at 19:59
I bet this bozo is going to write “For all intensive purposes� some day, if he hasn’t already.
Sadly, I remember that particular episode of “Eight is Enough.”
J— said,
March 16, 2007 at 20:15
The point for ab Hugh, as usual, is that we’re fighting The Ultimate War to Save Civilization from the
Klingon EmpireEternal Muslim Conspiracy…with fronts in the Congo, the Korean Peninsula, and Haiti. That’s right, Haiti, because poverty and extremist Islamic fundamentalism are basically the same thing.
Smiling Mortician said,
March 16, 2007 at 20:17
Although I have a shamefully high level of recall regarding “Eight is Enough,” y’all have stumped me with this reference. Do not think, however, that this means you can blindside me with any obscure allusions to Cousin Oliver, ’cause I’m all over that Brady Bunch action.
SamFromUtah said,
March 16, 2007 at 22:00
Sadly, I remember that particular episode of “Eight is Enough.�
Heh, I’ve never seen “Eight is Enough”. I’ve heard actual people say “for all intensive purposes” and it makes me crazy.
Righteous Bubba said,
March 16, 2007 at 22:13
I’ve heard actual people say “for all intensive purposes� and it makes me crazy.
I just got “it’s a mute point” and it’s awfully hard to resist saying “yes it would be if you’d shut the fuck up.”
SamFromUtah said,
March 16, 2007 at 22:20
Mute point – ha! I’ve never heard that one spoken aloud, but I see it all over the t00bz.
All these manglings drive me nuts. Often they’re spoken / written by just the sort of would-be-clever mouthbreather that …well, that would speak or write like Dafydd ab Hugh.
For any who are interested, there’s an extensive collection of similar misuses here.
Gavin M. said,
March 16, 2007 at 22:32
“Same-oh, same-oh.”
SamFromUtah said,
March 16, 2007 at 22:36
“Same-oh, same-oh.�
AAAARGH!
…samelight come an’ me wan’ go home…
J— said,
March 16, 2007 at 22:45
Come, Mr. Talleyrand, tally me banana.
Righteous Bubba said,
March 16, 2007 at 22:54
Hide the deadly black Taranto…
millsapian87 said,
March 16, 2007 at 23:26
“It’s a question of whether we’re going to go forward into the future, or past to the back.” — Dan Quayle
kth said,
March 17, 2007 at 0:14
As Alexander Pope once said, there’s nothing funny about a fat guy. But a fat guy who adopts the persona of a Highland warrior, that’s funny.
Marq said,
March 17, 2007 at 5:37
[central point... as clear... as a nutshell... best... visual gag illustration... EVARH!!1! ]
But, don’t worry about teh “Giant Sandwich” missing from teh icebox, Gavin. It was a comedy relief sandwich, suitable only for photoshopping into pictures of
fattyplus-sized wingnutz, shrieking harpies, and the like. Or did I mean “ilk?”thelogos said,
March 17, 2007 at 14:21
I think I figured out the lizard motif. They could be clever allusions to “I heart Huckabees”, wherein Brad’s brother has a fixation on geckos.
Nullifidian said,
March 17, 2007 at 14:27
Oh, and guys, that’s not a fridge, that’s your basic primal soup you’ve got going there. Do something before it starts holding free elections.
The primal soup will start holding free electrons? That’d be ionic, don’t you think?
Nullifidian said,
March 17, 2007 at 14:27
Apparently, it interpreted as a real tag.
Nullifidian said,
March 17, 2007 at 14:29
Sigh. Just sigh.
Nullifidian said,
March 17, 2007 at 14:37
As Alexander Pope once said, there’s nothing funny about a fat guy. But a fat guy who adopts the persona of a Highland warrior, that’s funny.
And misspells his own name. In Welsh, the patronymic should be ap Hugh, not ab Hugh. It drives me crazy every time I see it.