Reindeer Games

emmett_flintstone.jpg

ABOVE: R. Emmett “Bob” Tyrrell is often
mistaken for Fred Flintstone


Christmas has come and gone, but not without R. Emmett “Bob” Tyrrell reporting on this year’s winners and losers in the War on Christmas. As you might imagine, Bob sees the latest annual skirmish as one where the Christians only barely survived extermination by the grinchy liberals who ran even more amok than usual, burning Nativity scenes, lynching Christmas carolers, poisoning fruitcakes, pissing on snowmen and shooting flying reindeer out of the sky.

I have followed these disputes assiduously and watched an ever-wider array of Christmas decorations become malum prohibitum. At first, it was the Nativity scene …. Other traditional Christmas decorations are on the way out, too, though their religious content is often nil. Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer has been the subject of disputes, and Santa Claus, too.

This, of course, is a smelly pile of reindeer hooey. The only dispute I know of involving Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer is whether there is another reindeer named Olive or not.

Apparently Bob has the idea that Rudolph is under attack not because of any actual evidence of that but merely because he didn’t happen to see any reindeer decorations in Chicago this year:

I was in Chicago a week or two before Christmas and found that these time-honored Christmas symbols have been replaced by tin soldiers, Raggedy Ann dolls and mysterious conical trees covered with colored lights [I believe they call these Christmas trees, Bob — ed. note]. In three days, I saw not one Rudolph and only an occasional Santa. … Ever the provocateur, I feigned mild indignation over a squad of tin soldiers deployed in the lobby of a posh hotel. The concierge deferred to me immediately, tremulous with alarm. I suspect he feared that I might be a member of America’s powerful anti-war movement, ready to charge him with militarizing “the holidays.”

Er, no, Bob, the concierge understandably thought you were a crazy person when you started shouting about tin soldiers and reindeer in the lobby of an expensive hotel. Sane people have conversations with the concierge about the best place to dine, which is the concierge’s job, and not about the hotel’s Christmas motif, which isn’t.

Bob’s little essay on how the liberals stole Christmas, however, is just a little amuse-gueule before the main course, which is Bob’s discussion of why liberals are unprincipled monsters:

The liberal activist aspires to be an agent of “progress.” In fact, the liberal activist, whether male or female, often calls himself a progressive. Yet through the years, you will spot no coherent system of political values motivating liberal reforms.

But lacking an editor, a memory, a conscience, and enough sense to take a bath without drowning, Bob immediately contradicts himself:

There is, however, one political value that can be discerned motivating every one of their legendary reforms, from the ambitious (world peace) to the trivial (the criminalization of trans fats). That value is to disturb one’s neighbor, to disturb the peace. In all civilized criminal codes, such behavior constitutes a misdemeanor. Yet it is at the heart of the liberal project. Disturbing the peace is, I believe, at the heart of rendering Christmas controversial.

That’s right. Liberals want world peace in order to disturb the peace of people like Tyrrell and other neocons who want to be able to make war on other countries in peace. And if our criminal code were civilized, liberals would be thrown in jail for disturbing the peace of those neocons and trying to interfere with their plans to invade other countries. And since we can’t actually achieve our goal of disturbing the peace of the neocons, we’ve decided to annoy our neighbors by attacking Christmas instead.

Does anyone else think that this column was ghost-written for Bob by Michael Medved?

 

Comments: 321

 
 
 

In fact, the liberal activist, whether male or female, often calls himself a progressive.

There’s a pathology here that I’m ill-equipped to diagnose.

 
 

By this logic, any attempt to change anything is disturbing the peace. Reagan was disturbing the peace when he agitated against welfare programs. Bush is disturbing the peace any time he says the words “social security”. Trying to undo Roe v. Wade is disturbing the peace.
Disturbing the peace is fascist, dontyahknow.

 
 

There was a time not so long ago in which Tom Tomorrow could depict conservatives as complaining that any restriction of their ability to smoke cigarettes was exactly the same as Nazi Germany, and it was supposed to be a political cartoon which exaggerated right wing idiocy.

It is too bad that such a fine comic is no longer a satirical commentary, but a documentarian’s tool.

 
 

In theory Tyrell and his ilk are in a snit because nebulous “liberals” are trying to take the Christ out of Christmas. But here’s the thing, I’ve read the bible (several different versions actually), and I’ve been to church a time or two, hell I even watched “It’s a Charlie Brown Christmas” every year, and no where in any of them, do I find references to Santa, or Reindeer, or (with the exception of Charlie Brown) even pretty trees.

Just once I’d like these pinheads to admit it – This has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus, or even Christianity – It has to do with them wanting to play the victim. To show how “The Man” is just trying to keep them down. All this “culture of personal responsibility” is crap, they want to be able to cry, and whine, and show just how mistreated they are.

Hey Bobbo – You really want to celebrate Christmas? How about following the example of the Guy that it’s named for? How about caring for your fell man? What about going down to an outreach clinic and donating some time? Or maybe go to a food bank and help give too little food to too many people? Thats how you could celebrate Christmas and Christ, because, and I’m just guessing here, I’m willing to bet that the Big Guy doesn’t give a shit about whether their are Santas in your favorite hotel.

 
 

Disturb the peace? You mean, like someone who, fancying himself “ever the provocateur,” might “feign mild indignation over a squad of tin soldiers deployed in the lobby of a posh hotel”?

 
Compulsive Copy Editor
 

And since we can’t actually achieve our goal of disturbing the piece of the neocons, we’ve decided to annoy our neighbors by attacking Christmas instead.

Eww. I can’t think of any neocons whose pieces I want to disturb.

 
 

“In fact, the liberal activist, whether male or female, often calls herself a progressive.”

There. Fixed Mr. Tyrell’s gender-specificity confusion.

 
 

“Fellow” man not “Fell” man. D’oh! Another good rant spoiled…

 
 

Does anyone else think that this column was ghost-written for Bob by Michael Medved?

I dunno about that. There’s nothing about Bigfoot in the article, is there?

 
 

the criminalization of trans fats

Is Mayor Bloomberg a progressive liberal activist?

 
 

Objectively, I mean, not in comparison to Mr. “more human than human” Tyrell.

 
 

Surely Tyrell is attempting a feeble joke with his Tin Soldiers remark. Surely he realizes the hotel was employing a Nutcracker Suite motif & that no liberal (or otherwise sane person) would interpret the Tin Soldiers as symbology for war-mongering.

Of course the usual rank hypocrisy is on display as well. Tyrell claims the left’s method of choice for advancing their agenda is “disturbing the peace”. This just shortly after admitting he pretended to be an anti-war liberal in order to stir up some trouble because he’s “ever the provocateur”. Sorry to break it to you “Bob”, but ‘provocateur’ is just a fancy way of saying douchebag shit-disturber.

Way to self-fulfill “Bob”… by pretending to be a shit-disturbing, anti-war liberal, you perpetuate the myth that liberals are anti-war shit-disturbers. Well challenged sir… well challenged.

 
 

“ever the provocateur”

–which, if my high school French doesn’t fail me (although I took Spanish), means “as always, a self-regarding, pompous nitwit who has, from the beginning, confused archness with wit, tedium with depth, and a self-parodic fussbudget-y style with being ‘literary.'”

 
 

The Truth is, that liberals are out to destroy Christmas every other symbol of Christianity in this Country. Nothing in the world pisses me off more than a store clerk or a television commercial saying happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas!!!

I just want to punch out the idiot store clerk or throw the remote ate the tv whenever I hear the blasphemey of happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas.

And another thing, those idiot television commericals change the words to Christmas songs around. Remeber the song “We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year”, but now the retarded politically correct tv ads changed it to “We wish you a happy holiday”!!!

That just fucking pisses me the fuck off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would like to find whoever is responsible for such blasphemy and put a bullet in his fucking skull!

 
 

MrWonderful — while your definition of provocateur is as eloquent as it is elegant, for pure economy of words I’ll stick with my “douchebag shit-disturber”… at least as it applies to Tyrell.

 
 

In fact, the liberal activist, whether male or female, often calls himself a progressive.

In fact, the human, whether male or female, often calls himself a person.

Woe-weee! Stop the motherfucking presses!

 
 

Shorter Ty-rell: In my day Jesus, Mary and Joseph went door to door handing out presents!

Is there anything these delusional nutsacks won’t whine about? And what the fuck do they intend to do besides whine? I hope it involves a letter drive to every Congresscritter demanding a certain ratio of Rudolphs, Frosties and Santas on every street in the US of A.

The concierge deferred to me immediately, tremulous with alarm.

Urk! This sounds like the opening sentence of a B & D scene. Do. Not. Want.

 
 

And another thing, liberals are a bunch of food nazis for wanting to ban transfats. That just pisses me off!!!

If I want to eat trans-fats, carbs or anything else I should be allowed to.

It pisses me off that resturants are bowing to the pressure of liberal fascists and banning trans-fats from their menus. They should let their customers choose whether or not they want trans-fats, everything else is just big nanny state totalitarianism!

And another thing, Michael Bloomberg is a fucking idiot, I thank God I live in Texas instead of NYC, in Texas we are allowed to eat whatever we damn well please.

 
 

As Christianity, a very inclusive religion, opens its arms to embrace others of different faiths, some of the religious symbolism is altered, or put aside. But the underlying message “Peace on Earth and Goodwill toward ALL” is the same. Or should be. (PS: I just took 10mg of Vicodin)

 
Smiling Mortician
 

I like the can’t-lose flowchart system of wingargument.

1. Is there a Christmas tree? If yes: I’m being oppressed! There’s no baby jeebus!! If no: I’m being oppressed! There’s no treeriffic symbol of the reason for the season!

2. Is there a Santa? If yes: There’s no tree! If no: But Santa demonstrates the reason for the season!

3. Is there a Rudolph? If yes: Where are the elves, dammit? If no: Nothing shows the reason for the season more than Rudolph!

etc.

 
 

Heh. AudiR10 comments

Marching Mommies Uber Alles
I have labled these people Marching Mommies but they could be called Busybodies too. They are the types who believe that the world can be Babyproofed and that their sole purpose in life is to make it that way. They want to stride the earth yelling NO NO! and slapping things out of our informed adult hands. Yet they strive at the same time to make it unnecessary to ever do the same to their children who are running amok in every situation creating havoc and shrieking like bats.

On a personal level they are the strangers who tell you in Wal-Mart that we would look so much better if we would let our hair grow, dye it a different colour, lose forty pounds or quit doing whatever we are doing — and who feel it incumbent upon themselves to predict that we will be sorry some day that we did not marry, have children, buy property, invest in plastics, or send our children to France with their Grade 8 class.

And sadly they teach their children to whine, tattle, sass back and develop an odious familiarity.

My own opinion is that we have made life too comfortable for most people, who are incapable of finding absorbing hobbies or reading Great Books, or even playing Game of the States with their kids, much less learning to play piano, planting and tending a garden, reading the Bible or understanding the Constitution. The time that used to be spent simply taking care of their homes and families is now devoted to annoying their neighbours. What to do about this I do not know. Homicide frequently occurs to me.

Oh, dear.

 
 

And what the hell is “Game of the States”? Football, baseball, oppressing women and minorities?

 
 

*shakes head in disbelief*

The ninth reindeer, Rudolph, was the invention of a Montgomery Ward advertising copywriter named Robert May. For years, Montgomery Ward had distributed coloring books at Christmas as a promotional gimmick.

If hunting high and low for an advertising gimmick is all Bob Tyrell worries about he should be counting his lucky stars.

I hate to ruin his illusions about Christmas rituals but here’s some dirt on Christmas trees .

 
 

And another thing, what is it with this public desplay for ramadan but not for Christmas?

America is a Christian Nation not a muslim nation.

The muslims should practice their religion in private while we Christians should be embracing our Religion in the Public Square.

 
 

there is no busy-ness more bodied than motherfuckers that want to tell me how to live based on their stupid religion. none. that is the ultimate–body by jake, ness by loch, busy by the bees.

it makes me feel like…like…like….
http://anothergreenworld.blogspot.com/2007/12/im-not-going-to-lie-to-you.html

that.

 
 

I would like to find whoever is responsible for such blasphemy and put a bullet in his fucking skull!

Sounds like a typical right-wing Christian expressing their joyousness for the holidays. “Praise Jesus! Shoot a heretic!”

 
 

They want to stride the earth yelling NO NO! and slapping things out of our informed adult hands.

I assume this person is talking about the fRightWankers who want to slap my boyfriend out of my informed adult hands and replace him with a wife and 2.5 kids.* Or maybe the ones who go into a Gale Force 8 Conniption when at the thought of an informed adult lighting up a joint. Could be a reference to the dipshits who pop out of a crack in the sidewalk and try to talk to me about accepting Jesus as my personal savior if I don’t want to spend eternity in Satan’s convection oven. Perhaps s/he is even referring to the evil twats who want to get rid of that dirty old Constitution so we don’t get paper cuts from islamofascists.

If the writer is not referring to that group of mommies, s/he/it can fuck off and die.

*Not meant as an insult to women or children. Especially the poor little .5 tyke.

 
 

What year were businesses and window-dressers and Christmas decoration designers supposed to have stopped updating Christmas decorations?

 
 

There is, however, one political value that can be discerned motivating every one of their legendary reforms, from the ambitious (world peace) to the trivial (the criminalization of trans fats). That value is to disturb one’s neighbor, to disturb the peace. In all civilized criminal codes, such behavior constitutes a misdemeanor. Yet it is at the heart of the liberal project.

Pantload should have consulted this dood before wasting all that time scribbling his opus. Here in one concise sentence is the definition of liberal fascism: That value is to disturb one’s neighbor, to disturb the peace. Liberal fascism = “saying or thinking stuff I don’t like.”

Torture is a fraternity prank. Corporate control of government is efficiency. Spying on citizens is national security.

See, it all makes sense.

 
 

I would like to find whoever is responsible for such blasphemy and put a bullet in his fucking skull!

Sounds like a typical right-wing Christian expressing their joyousness for the holidays. “Praise Jesus! Shoot a heretic!”

Here’s another one:
I am glad that the people are finally fighting back in the war on Christmas. Let’s not wait until 11/08. Attack today!

 
 

29. Dinesh D’Souza

Charges: Wrote a book blaming 9/11 on — who else? — liberals, because if we didn’t live in a free society, then fundamentalists wouldn’t dislike us so. Even conservative nuts blasted D’Souza’s empathy for poor al Qaeda. Lately, he’s been engaging prominent atheists in debates, revealing himself to be a pseudointellectual ass, and then declaring victory. D’Souza’s master plan for attacking atheism is the ridiculous Pascal’s wager: Atheists could be wrong, and then they’d go to hell, but if the religious are wrong, then they suffer no ill effect — aside from living their lives in delusion, of course. And possibly going to someone else’s hell for believing the wrong religion. D’Souza seems to think that if he speaks more loudly and rapidly than his opponent, he is winning, but his arguments are weak and idiotic, and he never even attempts to truly debate the existence of any god, which is the ostensible point of these debates. Instead, he likes to compare body counts — Stalin and Mao killed more than the religious leaders of their time — rather than actually debate whether there is a God, or for that matter a Jesus. This, of course, is because there is no case to be made.

Exhibit A: “[Atheists] are God-haters… I don’t believe in unicorns, but then I haven’t written any books called The End of Unicorns, Unicorns are Not Great, or The Unicorn Delusion.” But what if everyone you met did believe in unicorns, and not only that, but worshiped a unicorn, held a book about unicorns to be the divine truth of the universe, invoked unicorns in political contexts, and speechified about how non-believers were indecent people waging a war on morality, which could only be predicated on the unquestioning belief in unicorns? Then, maybe, D’Souza would think about writing that book. But of course, that’s not really true, because if that was the world we lived in, then Dinesh D’Souza would believe in unicorns.

Sentence: Spanish inquisition.

from the buffalo beast most loathsome list. awesome.

 
 

Bastion Booger — I’m kinda new here, so I’m not sure if your rants are supposed to be sincere or parody, but do you wanna know what pisses me off? It’s somebody suggesting that I can’t possibly be a ‘good person’ if I don’t believe in a particular god… that I can’t possibly determine right from wrong without guidance from a supreme cloud-being or the words of a 2000 year old fairy-story… that I should be treated as an immoral degenerate just because I’m not a member of your club. This is made all the more intolerable when pious gasbags get exposed for the rank hypocrites they are for secretly engaging in the exact “deviant” behaviour they continually rant against… bloody hell, the Catholic church is rife with pedophiles, for god’s sake.

I you want to ‘put a bullett’ in someone’s brain, I suggest you save it for whomever, tacitly or implicitly, greenlighted a policy of turning a blind eye to rampant child-rape with in the Catholic church’s ranks.

 
 

and thirdly:

i think we should start a trend where the war on christmas begins on…

9/11.

three hard months of trench warfare. maybe we could begin by dumping all our trans-fats into boston harbor or something.

 
 

three hard months of trench warfare. maybe we could begin by dumping all our trans-fats into boston harbor or something.

Y’know, the other day I was thinking about dumping petroleum products into Boston Harbor to protest the high price of gasoline… but something tells me that won’t go over well with a lot of people.

 
 

Lalala:

A NINE-YEAR-OLD boy was banned from his school Christmas party because he does not believe in God.

Douglas’s mother, Dawn Riddell, was informed that he was unwelcome at the celebration because she had withdrawn him from religious education classes at Cluny Primary School, in Buckie, Banffshire, earlier in the school term.

Ms Riddell, 38, said the headteacher, Ian Davidson,had told her that as the youngster had no interest in religion, he could not celebrate the birth of Christ.

The kid was eventually invited after the teacher was educated about Christmas being a secular holiday.

 
 

That value is to disturb one’s neighbor, to disturb the peace. In all civilized criminal codes, such behavior constitutes a misdemeanor. Yet it is at the heart of the liberal project. Disturbing the peace is, I believe, at the heart of rendering Christmas controversial.

Short Bob:
“You liberals get off my lawn! You’re disturbing my peace.”

 
 

Looks like the cult of victimhood has claimed another member.

 
 

When the War on Christmas started, most of us were young. Young in spirit, if not in body. God we were stupid. We thought the world would last forever. That every day you could walk out of your house and look at the sky in hope, not in terror.

And then they brought it, brought it down on our heads like a thundercloud burst all at once into flaming tires raining at us from every direction. The first shots took out most of us. Those of us lucky enough to have lived for one moment more realized in that first dazed glance that we did this, we did this to ourselves, we let it in like a bunch of drunken house guests, first with the “Happy Holidays” and later with the “Season’s Greetings” and “Festive Celebrations”.

Even so, they’re not gonna win. Sure they took out most of us, but the ones of us left got enough grit and enough anger that we are going to take back every single creche and each carol and every evening service around the country.

If the day comes where all that’s left is to shove a crucifix down the last secularist’s burning throat, well, I’m just saying, I wanna be there.

 
 

As someone who has been arrested for disturbing the peace on many occasions, I’d like to say that I am offended by this Tyrell fellah’s broad and unfair characterization of said offense. Typically it goes together with “D&D” (Drunk and Disorderly) or “PI” (Public Intoxication) and is used to either enhance the fine/punishment of the offender or to manage that actual disbursement of the funds gained from the fine to the more local entities, ie the muni rather than the county or the state.

Usually the liberal fascist judge drops the multiple charges and convicts on a single charge.

Time served.

See ya next time…

mikey

 
 

Y’know, the other day I was thinking about dumping petroleum products into Boston Harbor to protest the high price of gasoline… but something tells me that won’t go over well with a lot of people.

Some folks did it in SF bay a couple weeks ago. It turns out to be a very bad idea, and a nasty mess at that…

mikey

 
 

One tin soldier rides away.

 
 

I have assiduously read this post and have determined that R. Emmett “Bob” Tyrrell Esquire is making much ado about nothing, zilch, zip, nadda… I have also determined that if “Bob” wants to claim that there are no Rudolph’s in the entire city of Chicago, then he is in fact a farging liar.

(Filed under pissant)

 
 

Someone get what’s-his-asses address and we’ll ship all the transfats to his house. A lifetime supply. Would that make him STFU about it? I’d personally shop for lard,lard and more lard if that would ease his soul’s suffering. I’ll throw in all the white flour as a bonus too.

Where,seriously,WHERE in the hell was Christmas banned in the US this year? As far as I could tell,no one cut back on the decor,the mall crowds or the general “get the fuck outta my way,I want that sweater”-ness of the holiday(short for Holy Day for those dipshits too stupid to figure it out)season. I see no difference in this year than the 47 other Christmases I’ve lived through except the gifts have become more technologically advanced for the most part and people spend more.

I’m a filthy hippie heathen living in the ‘burbs and even I celebrate Christmas. Why? Because I like giving presents. I like big family dinners and my husband being home from travelling for his job. I like seeing my son be thrilled with his gifts and calls from my grandbabies who couldn’t be here because they live so far away.

Who ARE these people and WTF happened to them to make them so fucking nasty and mean? Christ,I wish I had the TIME to go looking for shit to be pissed off about. I’m kinda busy living a life and raising a family.

 
 

Have yourself a nervous little breakdown
let your madness be light
until gravity corrects you
may your triviality’s be out of sight

Oh have yourself a merry little breakdown
may the right side tide keep gay
from now on reason will be miles away

Here we see you in your assuming ways
happy in changing gold for love
faithful gelt a friend so dear to yours
rather brawny consistency than warm love

Through the years
hung with contradictory trials
as if fates caving callowly
hang easy with reason
instead of insanity

Have yourself
A merry little breakdown , now

 
 

“Yet through the years, you will spot no coherent system of political values motivating liberal reforms.”

Is it possible that this is because you lump everyone to the left of Dennis Hastert in the same category, as if everyone who isn’t a lifetime member of the GOP shares precisely the same ideology? The with us/against us thing?

 
 

anangryoldbroad — You are looking for sense where there is none. These are the 23 percenters who still support Bush. Youare also mistaken if you think that their complaints are based on real life injustice, or even on real misperceptions of injustice. That isn’t how they wrok. They start with their sense of victimhood “I have been wronged! Argggg!” Then they go out and search for ways they can validate that feeling. If they can’t find any, which is most of the time, they just make shit up.

“Who ARE these people and WTF happened to them to make them so fucking nasty and mean?”

Remember how in years past there used to be at least one old curmudgeon on every block? Well now he has a PC and the internet.

 
 

Is he sure that the absence of Rudolphs isn’t due to angry conservatives bitching about non-religious Christmas displays?

 
 

Also, dear troll:

When “one commenter” starts every comment with “the fact is …”; “another” commenter starts many or most comments with “the bottom line is …” and yet a “third” commenter starts many comments with “The Truth is …” – well, I understand that you have to figure out some way to keep your multiple identities straight, but that’s a little too formulaic. Maybe you need to come up with a wall chart of suggested insults or somethign.

 
 

From one of the deep thinkers over at ClownHall:

T.C. writes: Thursday, December, 27, 2007 7:44 AM
Yearly Battle For Christmas.
All over now, but come November 2008 the process will begin again. Bet on it!

Like the Christmas Holiday itself, the battle is now a tradititon.

Uh…the only thing that’s starting to become a “tradition” is the predictable annual whining that Christmas is under attack, as the institution itself becomes more unavoidable for longer and longer periods of time each year. Which is to say, the imaginary “War on Christmas”, if it did exist, is proving to be every bit as effective as the “War on Drugs” and the “War on Terra”. With only another 25 years of pissing and moaning, the stores will start putting up the displays and playing the music at the end of August.

 
 

Like the Christmas Holiday itself, the battle is now a tradititon.

I personally am readying myself for next year’s re-enactment of the 100 Santa brigade charging Golgotha hill. Should be one of the best ever.

 
 

Santa, in ripped red reindeer parka, sleeves torn off, biceps bulging and cigarette dangling from his sneering lips, CAR60 spitting 7.62NATO in SuperSexySloMo, ejecting brass cases while links disintegrate, his haunted eyes, permanantly fixed in a thousand yard stare search for targets and the 150 round belt is consumed in the purifying fire….

War on Christmas.

Shiiiiit…..

mikey

 
 

Thank Mikey. Nothing cleans a monitor like a mouth-full of SoCo and cranberry juice.

Whattamess.

 
 

Who ARE these people and WTF happened to them to make them so fucking nasty and mean?

Voting Republican causes premature aging. Your skin develops an unhealthy sheen, your face puckers unpleasantly, your hair thins, your mammaries sag & your genitals wither. All these changes make you cranky & whiny & very unpleasant to be around.

At least, that’s the rumor I’m going to start on FaceBook. And there’s not a single Repub “spokesperson” whose appearance contradicts me!

 
 

On a personal level they are the strangers who tell you in Wal-Mart that we would look so much better if we would let our hair grow […]

Yes, Wal-Mart is pretty much the liberal’s natural habitat.

 
 

As we come to the close of another year in the Bush Disaster, there is hope. Our progressive movement has become more spectacularly cohesive than I would have imagined it would be by 2012, even by 2016. But Comrade Kos has shown us the way. Indeed, our successes have begun to alarm the entrenched power elites, to the point that idiots like this guy and like Our Doughy Pantload Hisself are spewing out diatribes with wild abandon, attacking Progressives and Progressivism with whatever weapons are at hand. (Fortunately, the only weapons at hand seem to be their puny, ineffectual brains). Why even Bill Kristol (far right nutjob) has made peace with the New York Times (center-right greedy entitled whores), so that they can do battle against us more efficiently together.

What shall our next steps be? Should we outlaw Christianity altogether? Clamor for minarets on every streetcorner? Burn all women’s clothes and force them go about nude? How about Borg-style collectives? (Oh wait, the Goopers have that already, nevermind).

And while I don’t have the time or the educational background to explain why there are no reindeer in Chicago this year, I suspect it is a secular-progressive plot to keep the likes of “Bob”Tyrrell, Todd Seavey, Michelle Malkin, and Doughy Pantload from molesting the noble beasts again this year. I can point to no source for such a rumour, but let’s just say that “it’s out there”.

Happy Holidays, fellow revolutionaries! God loves you as he loved Jacob.

 
 

Voting Republican causes premature aging. Your skin develops an unhealthy sheen, your face puckers unpleasantly, your hair thins, your mammaries sag & your genitals wither. All these changes make you cranky & whiny & very unpleasant to be around.

So that explains it. Why at almost 45 I’m still regularly guessed by people who don’t know better to be almost 30. Either that, or the extra pounds are filling out the wrinkles that would be there otherwise.

 
 

I think mikey’s onto something. After all, the old time christians, seeing their nascent religious movement stalling out against tradition, appropriated all the mid-winter trappings of the pagan rituals to help the appeal of their beliefs.

It’s only sensible that old man Kringle, now known as Santa, might want to disassociate himself from this modern pack of slavering xenophobes and whiny-ass-titty-religionists.

It’s not a belief system, but we might be able to work out a development deal with Spielberg:

“Santa’s back, and IS HE PISSED!!” Don’t worry about coal- This Angry Old Elf might just leave a FULL CAN OF WHOOP-ASS IN YOUR STOCKING!!!”

 
 

I hope it involves a letter drive to every Congresscritter demanding a certain ratio of Rudolphs, Frosties and Santas on every street in the US of A.

Fascist.

If I want to eat trans-fats, carbs or anything else I should be allowed to.

Booger Boy: I agree. Please, proceed to eat many many trans-fats. Many. Now!

 
 

“Santa’s back, and IS HE PISSED!!” Don’t worry about coal- This Angry Old Elf might just leave a FULL CAN OF WHOOP-ASS IN YOUR STOCKING!!!”

Wasn’t there a Simpsons episode that had a TV commercial like this? The one where Bart gets caught shoplifting…Bonestorm, the video game…wasn’t it?

 
 

He may look like Fred Flintstone, but if you’ve ever heard him on TV or radio, he sounds more like Barney Rubble.

 
 

Tin soldiers and Tyrell’s whining
Haranguing the concierge
For Jesus he says he’s pining
It’s only a rightwing urge

Gotta get down to it
Wingnuts have got to get tossed
Should have been done long ago
Everyone knows that they’re
Just a big albatross
Wish they’d all just go blow.

 
 

As to that AudiR10 comment: someone’s bitter!

“The liberal activist aspires to be an agent of “progress.” In fact, the liberal activist, whether male or female, often calls himself a progressive.”

What’s up with that “whether male or female” thing? Also, if female they wouldn’t really be a “himself” would they? Is this some weird slam on the supposed androgyny of progressives? Christ, this guy fucking stupid! Where the hell do they get these people?

 
 

“Wasn’t there a Simpsons episode that had a TV commercial like this? The one where Bart gets caught shoplifting…Bonestorm, the video game…wasn’t it?”

Buy me Bonestorm or GO TO HELL!!!

 
 

I believe that the hotel concierge episode was ghost-written by James Lileks.

 
 

Gundamhead: He should have recast the sentence. He got himself into trouble by delineating “male” and “female” at the beginning. A better writer would have said something like “Liberal activists often call themselves progressives.” But he’s a dumbass, and a douchebag. No gender aspersion intended whatsoever.

 
 

I’m betting ol’ Bob Tyrell didn’t even have Rudolph on his lawn or roof this year.

 
 

You all can mock, but the Lower Hudson Valley front is slipping out of control as we speak.

NEW CITY – Maria Hanos and her children came home from Christmas services yesterday and found the birthday baby missing from the family’s manger.

A foot-long Baby Jesus figurine had been stolen, leaving Joseph, Mary and the angel alone inside the nativity scene outside the Strawtown Road house.

“It’s very upsetting for my children and for all of us,” Hanos said. “Taking the Baby Jesus is just wrong.”

And the Baby Jesus theft wasn’t the first one this holiday season or during Christmas years past.

Some of the thieves are honest enough to return the Baby Jesus statues.

A 9-inch-long Baby Jesus was returned to the Hastings-on-Hudson creche in Westchester County yesterday morning. Police don’t know who took it or returned it.

The ceramic doll was taken Thursday from the manger outside the Veterans of Foreign Wars post on Warburton Avenue in Hastings.

But the Nyack nativity scene off Main Street remained without its star attraction on Christmas, Orangetown police said yesterday.

Whoever stole the Baby Jesus in Nyack last week had not returned it on Christmas Day. A baby doll was placed where the Jesus figurine had lain.

In 2005, the Baby Jesus statue was taken in Nyack, but a man was found with it and arrested. In 2004, the statue was stolen but was returned on New Year’s Eve with a note of apology.

Somebody get a GPS in that foot-long Baby Jesus now! Or as soon as they find it.

 
 

Why shy away from the obvious, christianists? You KNOW what you have to do.

Yep.

Strap a righteous suicide vest onto the baby jesus.

When these infidel motherfuckers fuck around with the christ child, squeeze the detonator and spray them all over the nativity! What the fuck are you idiots waiting for. Your book tells you what to do, so light it up and lets get this party started…

mikey

 
 

The fact is, I need a Bill Kristol post/evisceration.

mikey, you are a gem.

Jennifer, lets have drinks.

Bill Kristol, go drink some blood. You’re getting (even more) pale. Time for some lifeblood, literally, for you. Or go play some sort of war game and beat off.

Emmett, try not to be such a public retard. Jesus, I LIVE in/near Chicago.

 
 

Bill Kristol, go drink some blood. You’re getting (even more) pale. Time for some lifeblood, literally, for you. Or go play some sort of war game and beat off.

I don’t think that’s what you meant, but be real careful about throwing around Jews drinking blood.

 
 

Tried to read the whole article- yuck!
“…the once-unexceptional Nativity scene has become X-rated.”
Anyone have any idea what that means? Are Mary and Joseph now shown as trying to make a baby of their own or what?
This moron is getting paid for writing this mish-mash of various types of shit? What a shame.

 
 

Taking bets on how likely the posh hotel is to abandon the tin soldier decorations next year in the hopes of not offending someone like Bob again. Side bets accepted on how many words it will take Bob to express his disgust with the liberal fascists who are responsible for the lack of tin solider decorations in said hotel.

 
 

John 3:16 v2

For God so loved the world he knocked up Joseph’s girlfriend.

 
 

If we’re looking for a Kristol evisceration, just send mikey’s Santa friend….

 
 

For God so loved the world he knocked up Joseph’s girlfriend.

makes you wonder if maybe the translation is slightly inaccurate on that one.

“For The Lord screwed everyone, and Joseph’s girl got preggers…”

 
 

Christ, not only do I not care about Kristol’s religion or cultural identity, I forgot about it.

I guess I’m stuck in that ol’ fashioned, “American” paradigm.

Seriously no offense meant, Ed. For someone who thinks the “personal” is a way underrated factor in all of life, that was a mistake on my part.

However, AIPAC can also go fuck themselves.

Foreign policy made easy: For every one of our innocents, or those of our allies, we will kill 100 of yours. That way we’ll know when to stop, which we sadly forgot over the last 7 years.

We’ll use our best estimates.

 
 

I have a hard time taking people seriously who think that Christmas begins when Walmart puts up their decorations.

Someone tell these idiots Christmas isn’t about decorations – you’d think they’d know that, being all Christian and shit.

 
 

One theory has it that Jesus learned everything he knew from traveling in Asia during his “lost years,” where he learned about Buddhism. Too bad he fucked the message and got killed for his efforts and all.

 
 

Seriously no offense meant, Ed. For someone who thinks the “personal” is a way underrated factor in all of life, that was a mistake on my part.

None taken, that was just a heads up.

Years ago, I was being given an earnest version of the Israeli international lawyers version of what UN SCR 242 meant. If you have never seen this it involves pointing out where certain commas are and using some incredible black-is-whiteism based on parsing the english translation in a certain way to make the thing become an endorsement of Israeli annexation of the West Bank and Gaza.

I described this argument as “talmudic”, and to this day I don’t there is any other english synonym that could define what was wrong with the idea. I got a shitstorm out of that. Bill Kristol as a vampire is a pretty apt metaphor but you get the right people to make an indignation rally out of it and it doesn’t matter if it’s apt or not, they will make you want to crawl under the covers.

 
 

“malum prohibitum”

Hey, that’s fucking Latin, right? This dude must be tres (that’s fucking French) smart.

 
 

The reason liberals and the pc crowd say happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas is because they hate God, they hate His Son our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and they hate Christianity. That is why “happy holidays” offends God-fearing men such as myself and many other Christians because the only reason lieberals say it is because they want to remove every vestige of Christianity from American Society. May those who oppose God and His Christ burn in hell.

 
 

Gundam–isn’t that also when Milhouse became “Thrillhouse”, or different episode? I just love that, Thrillhouse.

Bad news, Bush is vetoing yet ANOTHER pay raise for the troops, thus bolstering my argument in my crappily made speed-production video. What the fuck do people have to do in order to not get screwed over by this President?

More bad news, Pamela has about 2000 more views on her titty video about the troops than mine does. I guess the experiment will prove after all that she was wrong and indeed did get all of the views just because she’s her and not because of the bikini! How’s THAT for using the scientific method? OTOH, that would prove her original theory to be false.

 
Tim (the other one)
 

“malum prohibitum”

If I chew on a coupla Tums, that shit gets cleared right up.

 
 

The fact is, God did not ‘knock up’ Joseph’s girlfriend. She was auto-knocked up.

 
 

If you liberals think you’re going to ban Christianity, I’ve got news for you, its already been tried, ever hear of the Emperor Nero? See how far he got?

 
 

I’m objectively anti-boogers. In fact, just reading that Bastion Booger handle is making me want to toss up the lovely beer cheese soup, salad and Guinness I consumed for dinner. If we can’t ban Xmas can we at least ban boogers?

The fact is, God did not ‘knock up’ Joseph’s girlfriend. She was auto-knocked up.

The fact is, then, that Joseph’s girlfriend got screwed without a kiss.

 
 

Ummmm Candy! arrrgggglllll!

 
 

Don’t fall over faint with surprise, or choke yourself to death clutching your pearls, but Bastion Booger just happens to have exactly the same IP address as the alleged Orthodox Rabbi Saul. Of course, Saul couldn’t get all whipped up about the War on Christmas so he became the good Christian Bastian Booger. Saul/Bastian Booger lives in Atlanta, so his inability to find something to do on a Saturday night other than to troll a blog is, frankly, understandable.

Get a date/life/hobby/book to read, Saul/Bastian/jjj/whoever.

 
 

Booger–man, now you got me….

 
 

Is Saul/Bastion/et al also the Blogger Formerly Known as Kevin, Clif?

Kevin, as incredibly annoying as he was, did seem to be marginally smarter than Saul, so I’m guessing not.

 
 

I’d be shocked to learn that saulie the boogerman was also annie angel/shoelimpy.

I mean you could knock me out with a featherduster.

 
 

Wow, anyone see “dig!”. The documentary about the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols?

There was that scene where the junked out lead singer from the Brian Jonestown Massacre made a point of firing the rest the band and playing all their parts into his four-track and mixing it all to show everyone who the genius was. Saul/Boogers is kinda like that except the band was always imaginary. Well, that and in his case the songs always sucked.

Ok, it has nothing to do with “Dig!”. It’s orders of pathetic lower than than that. Orders of magnitude lower than a junkie, attention whore, egomaniac who probably had schizophrenia. Get help, whoever you want to be tonight.

 
 

I don’t know, ifthethunderdontgetya, Annie too seemed considerably brighter than Saul. I hate to admit it, but stacked up to the “heartland, the fact is, and the fake rabbi act,” in retrospect at least she seems downright coherent.

I wonder if Annie’s pink petals web site still exists. I don’t care enough to go look.

 
 

I wished my agnostic family a Merry War on Chirstmas. We celebrated our victory over the Christians by exchanging presents, decorating vegetation with lights, and otherwise making like our Northern European pagan ancestors did at Winter Solstice, for many centuries before a Jewish revolutionary ran afoul of his Roman overlords.

For a sympathetic, yet skeptical, version of The Greatest Story Ever (Endlessly Re-)Told, please read “The Jesus Dynasty” by James Tabor. The author’s wrestling with reality vs.Bible stories could inform many a wingnut, should they ever bother to read.

 
 

But some of my best friend are Jewish, Ed!

LOL.

As anyone who has read much of my writing knows, I don’t much give a shit about those ol’ commas. And, come to think of it, anyone who takes comma placement as some sort of larger politiphilosophcultural issue is an idiot.

Night, all. Glad I can post again, even if you’re not.

 
 

Candy, I wondered the same thing myself not too long ago, and yes AA is spewing her venom. Why I looked I do not know. It took several days to recover.

 
 

Felix, I just remember how creepy that site was. I know what you mean about taking days to recover. (shudder)

 
 

Bastion can’t be Saul because Saul told us he was from the Heartland. Falls Church, Va. Remember?

He can’t be from both Atlanta and Falls Church. Ipso facto, Bastion Booger can’t be Saul.

Unless he’s lying … I guess that is a possibility.

 
 

Bad news, Bush is vetoing yet ANOTHER pay raise for the troops, thus bolstering my argument in my crappily made speed-production video. What the fuck do people have to do in order to not get screwed over by this President?

Oh, that’s nothing. The tests just proved the m-4 is a piece of shit that will get you killed in a desert environment. That information isn’t going to trump Colt. No way are we going to buy a bunch of HK product when there are good, ole, Americans with a pack of lobbyists willing to sell us trash.

So what if their guns jam up, they can’t vote for the other guy anyway because they would get smoked out if they did, and afterword sent out on death duty.

Bastards.

 
 

No no no, Hoosier, Bastion says he is a Texan. See Teh Booger at 1:25.

It’s really hard to keep it all straight.

Let’s see . . . Kevin was from Alabama? Or was it Louisiana? Annie was Canadian.

No, obviously they can’t be the same loony. Maybe they just share a collective unconscious.

Damn I’m tired. I should crash. I can’t read me own typing.

 
 

I am not Saul, I am who I say I am, I am from Texas. You must be mistaken Clif my dear liberal friend, either that or there are more than one of the same ip addresses out there. I am a Christian, I attend an Independent King James only Baptist Church. Clearly myself and our Rabbi friend cannot be the same man.

 
 

Someone fact-check me on this:
Rudolph was a 1940’s era department-store promotion, and is still protected from the depredations of anti-Christmas crusaders by international trademark law.

 
 

Also I know Saul personally, we are good friends. We have each others cell phone numbers and we hang out whenever we are in the same area. He is a very nice intellegent Conservative man and a Patriot. He also has a very good sense of humor. He is from Falls Church Virginia as he says and I am from Waco Texas.

 
 

And myself and Saul also post on each others blogs regularly and have nice civil discourse about the issues of the day.

 
 

Saul is actually in town right now, he is spending the night over my house. We are going deer hunting together tomarrow morning.

 
 

And we collect Hello Kitty items and have ever so much fun watching Shirley Temple movies on TV in our jammies while one of our Mommies makes coca.

 
 

Shalom gentlemen.

I am posting from my friend Bastion Booger’s home in Waco Texas and we are indeed good friends.

My friend Bastion is actually a Sherrif’s Deputy a very tough and Patriotic Carrer I would say.

 
 

Jeez. Talk about jumping the shark….or snark as it were.

 
 

You see Saul spends alot of time over my house and I at his, which is why Clif probably saw we have the same ip address;

 
 

Well myself and Rabbi Saul are off to bed now we have to get up early to go deer hunting so good night our liberal friends.

 
 

And we both know that Hello Kitty has no mouth because she speaks with her heart.

 
 

Well, that was unfunny and embarrassing, thanks saulbooger. You are very sad. Please go away.

Do I have to be the first?
I don’t even like sports much…

16-0.
woot1!

 
 

Um … OK.

You heard it here …

Straight from the Heartland.

 
 

JUST MOVE ALONG, NOTHING TO SEE HERE.

(I wonder if the stupid lieberals bought it . . . .)

IGNORE THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN.

(Geez, that was close! I should have posted from work.)

NOBODY HERE BUT US CHICKENS.

 
 

On the contrary, Humor Me, that was the best giggle I’ve had in a long time.

Hey, wingers! Just so you know, there is a thing known as trying too hard. See above.

 
 

No, really, Saul is a totally separate person from me! I swear! I mean, Booger! Booger is a totally separate person! And we are the bestest of friends and we do manly things together all the time! Like killin’ stuff!

And I’m a sheriff’s deputy and he’s a rabbi. I mean, I’m a rabbi and he’s a sheriff’s deputy! And one of us is from a synagogue in Okla.

Pinkie-swear!

 
 

One day Bastion Booger’s wife is going to leave a note in his hunting gear, but he’s not going to notice it.

 
 

STH, quite. But unintentionally funny, for sure, and humiliating would have been a better term.

Could this be the beginning of the end for the saul-thing?
He’ll have to reinvent himself as another incoherent embarrasment. It’ll be fun spotting him.

Shalom Saul. Here’s your chance to rework the Bastion Booger idea. It was so close.

 
 

That latest version of Saul needs a little work–spelling’s too good. I swear I’ve seen Saul misspell “synagogue” in the past.

 
 

You don’t suppose one of the Sauls was Saul pretending to be somebody pretending to be Saul?

 
 

Whoever stole the Baby Jesus in Nyack last week had not returned it on Christmas Day. A baby doll was placed where the Jesus figurine had lain.
I trust that the Baby Jesus will be sending a series of postcards reporting on his travels around the world.
A Flickr site for his photographs would also be good.

 
 

What’s this? Teh Baby Jaysus was stolen by an extremely hot and charmingly kooky French chick?

 
 

… I feigned mild indignation…

I think that sums it all up rather neatly.

The secret’s out, O’Reilly. There’s a traitor in your ranks.

 
 

America’s powerful anti-war movement

If only…

 
 

As anyone who has read much of my writing knows, I don’t much give a shit about those ol’ commas. And, come to think of it, anyone who takes comma placement as some sort of larger politiphilosophcultural issue is an idiot.

What does a comma do.
I have refused them so often and left the out so much and did without them so continually that I have come finally to be indifferent to them. I do not now care whether you put them in or not but for a long time I felt very definitely about them and would have nothing to do with them.
As I say commas are servile and they have no life of their own,and their use is not a use, it is a way of replacing one’s own interest and I do decidedly like to like my own interest my own interest in what I am doing. A comma by helping you along holding your coat for you and putting on your shoes keeps you from living your life as actively as you should lead it and to me for many years and I still do feel that way about it only now I do not pay as much attention to them, the use of them was positively degrading.

from Gerude Stein, Lectures In America

 
 

damn I’m sure glad I work alone.

 
 

Gertrude Stein

 
 

Dear Boob, I mean, Bob,

Rudolph is hiding in a cave near Tora Bora with Osama bin Laden, plotting to destroy a pony ride in Kentucky that was left unbudgeted for in Michael Chertoff’s last budget request.

 
Smiling Mortician
 

One day Bastion Booger’s wife is going to leave a note in his hunting gear, but he’s not going to notice it.

Ha!
You don’t suppose one of the Sauls was Saul pretending to be somebody pretending to be Saul?

Ow.

One theory has it that Jesus learned everything he knew from traveling in Asia during his “lost years,” where he learned about Buddhism.

Hey, MzNicky, have you read Christopher Moore’s Lamb? Fun stuff.

 
 

Shalom, gentlemen.

I’m voting for Falls Creek. It explains the idiotroll visitor I have showing up on my Site Meter from there. Actually, comments have ceased, so I don’t know if it’s an idiotroll.

Re: this post, I will admit that some on the left are not as “progressive” as it would seem, but rather a bit stuck in the late 60s (no Mom, it’s not just you). That hardly constitutes all libruls, nor is it any reason to jump ship and start agreeing with Jonah. BTW, who came up with “Pantload”? I’m liking that one.

 
Phil Moskowitz, Lovable Rogue
 

Gundam–isn’t that also when Milhouse became “Thrillhouse”, or different episode? I just love that, Thrillhouse.-

It was actually THRILLHOU, the other letters wouldn’t fit on the screen. I love that episode too, catfeesh?

 
 

BTW, who came up with “Pantload”? I’m liking that one.

It was Norbizness. Google “doughy pantload” and the original entry that started it all is the first result.

 
 

Hey, MzNicky, have you read Christopher Moore’s Lamb? Fun stuff.

Smiling Mortician: No, I haven’t. I’ve heard of it though. Satire?

Seriously, a lot of what Christ tried to tell people has Buddhist grounding. Perhaps he was a bodhisattva.

 
Smiling Mortician
 

MzNicky: buy yourself a little after-Festivus gift then. Moore has a fun, snarky style but he’s ultimately kind-spirited. His tale of what could have happened during the lost years is both entertaining and, well, plausible. Plus you’ll laugh out loud every 3 pages or so.

 
 

Smiling Mortician: I’ll check it out. Thanks for the tip! I could use an every-3-pages-laugh-out-loud right about now.

 
 

I could use an every-3-pages-laugh-out-loud right about now.

You’ll get better mileage than that out of Lamb. Maybe it is the topic but I think this is Moore’s funniest book and he is always a riot.

The only thing about the book that surprised me was the lack of OUTRAGE(R) from the TheoCons. I kept waiting for blood-thirsty yowls from the Talevans and … nothing.

Maybe they were too busy burning Harry Potter books to notice.

 
 

I read that book…it’s the story of Jesus’ lost years as told by his best friend Biff. Seriously, it is.

 
 

I love the smell of candy canes in the morning. Smells like victory.

My family/brigade has hit upon a terrific way to strike a blow in the War on Christmas: We had our family Hanukkah gathering on Christmas Day. Latkes, presents, the blood of Christian babies (supplied by a mail-order house — we’re not barbarians!), all the trimmings. This year, it was just a matter of scheduling — that was the first day we could all get together — but I’m thinking of making it a tradition.

 
 

Just back in from deer hunting we caught ourselves a big eight-pointer. Gonna make a nice venison chilli out of him.

 
 

You’ll get better mileage than that out of Lamb. Maybe it is the topic but I think this is Moore’s funniest book and he is always a riot.

I concur. Damn’ good book.

 
 

Good bye.

I’m going to turn myself into the disturbing the peace police.

 
Smiling Mortician
 

The only thing about the book that surprised me was the lack of OUTRAGE(R) from the TheoCons. I kept waiting for blood-thirsty yowls from the Talevans and … nothing.

I wondered about that too. I tried to convince myself that they just couldn’t attack it because ultimately it’s a rather sweet and respectful imagining of their savior . . . but then I remembered who we’re dealing with here. Sweet and respectful don’t do much to ward off Talibangelical wrath. So, yeah. I still don’t get it.

 
Worst. President. Ever.
 

Disturbing the peace— like when you go to a public restroom and there’s some liberal in there next to you, waving his fingers under the divider and rubbing his foot against yours?

Yeah, I hate that too.

 
 

Fred Flintstone?!?!?! That guy’s picture should be captioned “Fruity Pebbles”!

 
 

You liberals still can’t come up with anything against about what the other author said with his words about Christmas decorations have become the codex alimentarius. You just want to spend all your time praising the monosectionals.

 
 

Tyrrell’s writing make much more sense if read aloud in the voice of Jonathan Quayle Higgins III.

 
 

Hooo-ee! Been awhile since we had a full-screener.

 
Worst. President. Ever.
 

Tyrell and his fellow lunatics’ job is to beat their feet in the market square to raise a cloud of dust so that what Bu$hCo is really doing remains carefully hidden from the rubes.

As Jeb Bush put it in 1986:

“The truth is useless. You have to understand this right now. You can’t deposit the truth in a bank. You can’t buy groceries with the truth. You can’t pay rent with the truth. The truth is a useless commodity that will hang around your neck like an albatross — all the way to the homeless shelter. And if you think that the million or so people in this country that are really interested in the truth about their government can support people who would tell them the truth, you got another think coming. Because the million or so people in this country that are truly interested in the truth don’t have any money.”

“Bushwhacked: Inside Stories of True Conspiracy” by Uri Dowbenko
Paperback: 384 pages; $19.95

 
 

Today’s Krop of Konservative Kristians are merely trying to ‘lock in’ their ill-gotten gains. Historically, it’s a fact that Jesus was *not* born on December 25th, and that the early Xtians copped on to Saturnalia, and the pagan rituals that were historically held around the Winter Solstice.

 
 

I think the “Theo-cons” (I like that one) and their ilk are all still savoring this lovely take on the Democratic Party. (You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll say “WTF?”)

 
 

Actually, I’ve noticed fewer Christmas displays in general this year. Fewer lights, mostly. I put this down to a scary, shitty economy, and people not wanting big electricity bills.

 
 

Dave Bowman said, December 30, 2007 at 20:10

Today’s Krop of Konservative Kristians are merely trying to ‘lock in’ their ill-gotten gains. Historically, it’s a fact that Jesus was *not* born on December 25th, and that the early Xtians copped on to Saturnalia, and the pagan rituals that were historically held around the Winter Solstice.

You liberal cynics don’t understand that God via His best representatives here on Earth and now in America have the power to make December 25th into His birthday and the other past stuff doesn’t exist anymore. As evidenced by the fact that the Roman Empire doesn’t exist anymore yet Jesus appears every year on the 25th to deliver worthy children presents and help many automobile dealers reduce their harmful overstocks.

 
 

El Cid, no check my link above. See, there is a nice two-in-one late War on Christmas gift. The “Democrats are Racists” book will be a lovely complement to the Pantload of “Liberal Fascism”.

Oh yeah, and I declare at this moment that the Roman Empire yet again exists. Please make a note of this come tax-time.

 
 

El Cid is rocking the parody troll genre. Oscar-worthy.

 
 

If the Roman Empire does exist, it means that the liberals are once again trying to conquer the Earth and enslave people by making politics a religion but also by trying to go beyond politics, and you can be sure that they will also be the ones to be the Fifth Columnists who will undermine and make the Empire fall apart so that their friends the Muslim cave barbarians will take us over.

 
Homophone Detector
 

Well myself and Rabbi Saul are off to bed now

Booger and Saul are homos.

 
Smiling Mortician
 

Grossly simple pre-new-year Sunday pointless observation: if the Democrats actually were the Left, I would be infinitely less prone to grit my teeth and drink too much every time I encounter punditry.

And yes, it’s entirely possible that El Cid’s finely wrought Roman Empire faux comment prompted my vacuous truism but that doesn’t make it any less true. Or vacuous.

More likely it was the Jeb Bush quote (thanks, WPE). I mean, they say this shit out loud and for publication.

[checks watch]

Yup. Way too early to start drinking.

 
 

Isn’t it a bit early in the day (in Texas, where Booger and Saul are shacked up) to be off to bed?

Dudes, I got the coolest thing for Xmas – it’s an analog-digital converter. Right now I’m recording Funkadelic’s Let’s Take It to the Stage to my computer. Kick ass!!!

 
 

Smiling Mortician: As my mother always says, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere.

 
 

Actually, I’ve noticed fewer Christmas displays in general this year. Fewer lights, mostly. I put this down to a scary, shitty economy, and people not wanting big electricity bills.

No, no, no. It’s the Librulfacscist Christmas Crushing Crusaders acting on orders from Hitlery and NATO! They come down from their pink helicopters, steal the lights and Baby Jesuses and replace them with midget porn!

 
 

Smiling Mortician, make sure you don’t read Dave “Wanker Emeritus” Broder’s latest ode to bipartisanship.

Unless you’ve got something good in your glass.

 
 

I love Christopher Moore. Lamb is hysterical. Plus,Jesus says Fuck,twice. What’s not to love? The Stupidest Angel is pretty funny too.

Lamb would make an awesome movie.

 
 

Lamb would make an awesome movie.

I think you’ve hit on the silence of the talevans regarding the book.

Recently they made a ruckus over the Golden Compass for alleged anti-Godness of some sort. I heard nothing when the books came out (years and years ago) so I put it down to grasping at things to squeal about. At the risk of seeming uncharitable it could just be these numbnuts never read so a lot of books fly under the radar.

 
 

At the risk of seeming uncharitable it could just be these numbnuts never read so a lot of books fly under the radar.

Yes. The only time they ever notice books is when one of their kids mentions something they’re being asked to read in school. Then they look the book over, bird-dog something they don’t like, and start a book-banning campaign.

 
 

[…] Via Sadly No!, Emmet Tyrrell has an article reviewing Christmas: Other traditional Christmas decorations are on […]

 
 

Venison CHILI, BB?

What kind of savage are you? Good venison goes into steaks, chops, and the lousy meats go into sausage.

Using it for chili is a waste of good ammunition.

 
 

At the risk of seeming uncharitable it could just be these numbnuts never read so a lot of books fly under the radar.

There ya go. Someone they agree with has to read and denounce the book first. Frankly, it’s the only explanation for Jeff Long’s continued existence. His first book is about the existence of hell as a series of unexplored caverns, and puts forth the theory that the Bible was written by Satan. His second book brings us a literal Jesus clone and a relic-fueled pandemic. You could argue that both of these are more thought-provoking and ultimately more useful to developing one’s understanding of Christianity than, say, the Left Behind books–but I wouldn’t try it in a room full of PMDers. My best guess is just that they’ve never heard of him and so he goes uncondemned.

 
 

Yum.

Venison Loin Chops and Eggs over easy with biscuits for breakfast on the rocky shore of the pacific, or maybe Tenaya Lake, with grated potatoes with onions, now you’re talking one of those moments you keep in your heart forever, the way the meat sizzled over the crackling fire with the crisp pine and strong camp coffee and sharp clear air.

Oh, man, those were good days….

mikey

 
 

“Me” brings up something else I noticed — around this area, blue-collar suburbs north of Boston, there are a lot fewer & smaller outdoor light displays this holiday season. When I pointed this out to the Spousal Unit, he thought it might be a side-effect of Thanksgiving falling so early (around here, ‘Black Friday’ is the semi-official start of the light-strings and plastic creche season) but I noticed the local chain stores started offering clearance specials on inflatable Santas and artificial xmas trees a good two weeks earlier than usual. These displays are an important part of the “Christmas experience” to the people who set them up every year, and I definitely worry that so many families decided to ‘sacrifice’ them this year…

Or maybe I’ve been unduly influenced by Joe Kennedy’s new TV commercials promoting low-cost heating oil assistance. There are several different ads with impeccably Deserving Poor individuals (white rural family who’ve been bankrupted by medical bills, older African-American pastor who used to run her church’s heating-assistance program) and Joe’s voiceover saying that “some people say we shouldn’t be accepting oil from Venezuela” but to him, “what’s really un-American is leaving fellow Americans out in the cold.” Joe’s always been a camera hog, but his program’s credentials are sterling, and these new commercials are a lot more Strident and Un-Centrist than any I can remember over the past 15 years. The very fact that they’ve been accepted for broadcasting by the thoroughly not-leftist local news media seems to indicate a certain change in the prevailing winds. “Ordinary” people are more scared about the economic future than I can remember from previous “corrections”, including the late 80s-early 90s slump that cut local housing costs by 30%, and it’s beginning to remind me of the Great Jerry Ford Recession, when I was scrambling for my first jobs in Michigan just as Dick Cheney’s original White House cabal started hollowing out American industry as a deliberate policy.

 
Smiling Mortician
 

ITTDGY, thanks for the warning. I am now armed with a martini (it’s 5:01 p.m. here, thankyewverymuch) and off to read Broderella . . . Glarf!

[sip. breathe. sip. breathe.]

Gngna!

[sip it slowly now . . . ]

No. It’s no good. One would expect Republicans at this point to start concern-trolling about can’t-we-all-just-get-along, but I want Boren and Nunn pilloried in the public square for this: Partisan polarization is preventing us from uniting to meet the challenges that we must face if we are to prevent further erosion in America’s power of leadership and example.

WTF is wrong with these Democrats? I’m not sure I can even count the stupid assertions made in that single sentence.

[sip. breathe. sip. breathe.]

 
 

Well I’m perfectly happy to point out that you don’t need to be college educated to see that this economy cannot be sustained.

Of COURSE people are scared. Nobody gives a fuck about them. The government is vetoing help for them while it demands stupid money for foreign conflicts. Jobs are available, sure, but on the terms of the company, not on the terms of the worker. You give up your rights to health care, to security, to any promise of a future, for nothing more than the promise of ONE more check. There’s no leverage, no strength, and we’re all one bad event from homelessness.

The other morning I got up, made a cup of coffee, and since I like the rain, I went upstairs and watched the raindrops fall from my spare room. A woman, hell, she coulda been my mom, walked into view, and started going through the dumpsters in the rain. She was hungry. Fuck man, what kind of a country are we when a 50-something woman needs to eat fucking garbage in the rain to survive?

I ran down barefoot in the rain to give her twelve dollars, all the cash I had, but jeezus christ, folks, what is it we have built, and what exactly are we supposed to be proud of?

mikey

 
Smiling Mortician
 

Exactly, mikey. And meanwhile, via the Broder column referenced above, we have a bunch of former Dem senators singing kumbaya with men who should by all rights be their sworn opponents and leaving whatever principles they may once have had at the door in order to preserve, what? The general welfare of the people? Bzzt! The Constitution? Bzzt! Oh, no, wait. I know what we have to preserve! America’s power!

Christ. There’s not enough gin in this martini.

 
 

mikey: You need to put that on John Edwards’ blog. He’ll be talking about it. I guarantee you.

 
 

Someone they agree with has to read and denounce the book first.

Makes sense. Plus, books don’t get advertised on TV (I guess??) so there are fewer chances a book will raise a Red Alert. I don’t recall any shriekout over that Anne Rice book where Satan turns out to be Jesus’s little helper.

Alternate Theory: Pay offs to the Talevan. When they get wind of a book that they could froth over they send large goons to visit the author. “Nice little book ya got here. Be a shame if something were to happen to it, knowwhatimean?”

Alternate Alternate Theory: Payoff to the Talevan II. Authors who want a lot of publicity send a sack of cash and a copy of the book to Fuckus on the Family.

 
Smiling Mortician
 

Arky wins the multi-thread Golden Fuckabulary Award for the following:

Fuckus on the Family

and

Post hoc ergo stupid fuck

 
 

ya know, we used to call people “cobag” round these parts. It seems to me as if that should be brought back for Mr. Tyrell.

 
 

Good on you, mikey. I’m with El Cid. And I’m also hoping that Edwards does well enough to shake up the cocktail weenie crowd.

He scares them.

 
 

Fuck a whole bunch of that Thunder.

I just saw John Edwards on CSPAN from the goddam giggling goat diner.

And all I could keep thinking is “I WANT this man to be my president”.

For one shining moment, it wasn’t about picking the one I hated least, the one who would do the least harm. It was about a positive vision of the future, and a chance to catch it before it all runs through our fingers.

Gawd, I don’t know what to do, or how to do it, or what to wish for, or what bargain to make, but if there is hope for the shattered dream and ugly, rusted execution that used to represent America, it IS John Edwards.

And therefore, one can only assume, once again, that all that matters, all that can be counted, everything that might make a difference is doomed, wasted, and victimized in the vacuum of power politics and moneyed interests…

mikey

 
 

A woman, hell, she coulda been my mom, walked into view, and started going through the dumpsters in the rain.

In the poorest few blocks of my city – a community wracked with drug addiction, homelessness and despair – the city’s decided to remove the dumpsters. Yep, this is their idea of making the area look a little better.

Oh, add to that the free needle exchange and a couple of rooms where crack addicts can shoot up with some nursing assistance.

Social housing? No.
Treatment Centres? No.
Restoring welfare? No.
Drug courts? No.
Improving security in the ports where the crack’s coming in? No.
Increasing the jail time for dealers and traffickers? No.

Just remove the dumpsters.

Oh yeah, and I understand their setting up self-cleaning port-a-potties so the homeless have somewhere to go to the bathroom. It beats building housing!

 
 

Smiling Mortician, I apologize. I started swearing late in life (honest) and have been trying to catch up ever since.

I promise. No more F bombs until next year.

 
Smiling Mortician
 

Nononono, Arky! That wasn’t a slam. I’ve spent the last hour trying to figure out how I’ll ever teach my freshman comp students about post hoc fallacies again without giggling . . .

 
 

Smiling Mortician, I apologize. I started swearing late in life (honest) and have been trying to catch up ever since.

I thought I knew how to wield the foul language with aplomb, but I learned so little on the coast, with a surfboard or a motorcycle defining the the language. Then, all at once, without any warning or protection, I met sergeants. Sergeants know how to use the language to define, describe and manage your pitiful existence. If you’d like to live until tomorrow, you will learn how to do so from sergeants, and it is the seargeants who will keep you alive and send you home. And if you can’t understand how this works, and who bestows life and who manages existence, then you cannot be trusted to keep your life and the lives of those you are responsible for.

Sorry. You lose. Good night….

mikey

 
Smiling Mortician
 

Wait, mikey. Hold up a minute.

First: I don’t have TV so didn’t see Edwards on CSPAN. What happened? What did he say? It must have been pretty powerful to get such a reaction from you and I’d love to hear more (or be sent to a link — is there a transcript?)

Second: Why assume there’s no hope for Edwards to become president? He’s consistently in the top 3, he’s got boatloads of money, and the worst they can throw at him seems to be that he has really nice hair.

If he’s convinced you that he’s the real deal, why not work for him? Why not do your damnedest to convince everyone else to work for him?

 
 

I really want to like Two and a Half Men but it’s so hard to buy Charlie Sheen as a worthless sleazebag.

Oh. Carry on.

 
 

Hi, all.

Just kicking around a little before I head off to bed. Gotta be at work tomorrow at seven-AM-sharp, which means up and shower’d by 5:15, set up the coffee tonite, etc etc.

Have caught up on this thread, and it looks like many are safe in their homes, have eaten, etc. Good to know, glad to hear it.

We’re lucky, indeed.

Yesterday I caught up with a thread on the successor blog to Steve Gilliard’s, prompted by a piece in the NYT mag that talked about Steve in the context of looking back at who died this past year.

As luck (!?) would have it, I stumbled across a pathetic wingnut thread touching on this same topic, which in turn prompted my own most recent post here.

Thanks for the clicks, I get most o’ my visits from S,N! which seems only right, as youse guys provided me wit teh drive to take my own shot.

Anywho, stay safe and warm, and love to all.

 
 

If he’s convinced you that he’s the real deal, why not work for him?

I’m preparing myself to switch sides away from Obama, but I’ll tell you the number one reason Edwards isn’t the real deal. This is reason number one, I could take a very casual poke around his short Senate career and the thing is a long list of red flags.

I don’t know if people can’t remember the days of yore back in 2004 or not, but Edwards got up in front of the national convention and delivered this line “and we are going to win in Iraq!!”. This is not 2003, this isn’t him screwing up, he’s not stupid enough to actually think that would be an applause line at the convention (although some dutiful dems in attendence managed to cheer for that, it was delayed a bit as they realized belatedly it was supposed to be an applause line).

Change of heart, my ass, he figured out afterwords that wasn’t going to get him anywhere in the primary and started doling out some red meat to the base. Now if I believed he wanted to be a good politician and stay bought by the base, I could care less what he thinks as long as he behaves well.

If he wins the primary, he doesn’t need us anymore, and John Edwards is going to be addressing the convention 2008 and I am 98% positive he’s going to tell you “We are going to win in Iraq!!”.

 
 

So let’s see if I have this right… Over there in the US, you have
(A) A large body of opinion among economists & politicians that your national infrastructure is under-invested, under-maintained, and in need of a program of public investment — on a scale with the Public Works Administration — to bring it back up to par; and
(B) A sudden spate of revisionist attacks on Roosevelt (whose popularity was apparently a ‘cult of personality’), arguing that the Public Works Administration was Fascism Incarnate.
Just coincidence?

For entertainment value you also have (C): the slightly smaller body of opinion that public investment is a Good Thing, as long as it is limited to space elevators.

 
 

I can’t find it on the t00bz, Mortician. Seems like the giggling goat would be easy to find, but even on CSPAN’S site there’s nothing. Maybe tomeorrow they’ll have it, eh?

Why do I think M. Edwards and his populist message will be crushed?

Karl Rove. Dogwistle politics.

He’s a “socialist”. Now, there’s nothing in the context as to why that’s bad, but its WORDS, and words are all it takes. The white WOMAN, the BLACK man or the SOCIALIST.

Gawd, I HATE this shit. If we could actually talk about the shit that matters, without the stupid identities, maybe we could start to fix shit. But it honestly seems that a major plurality of our nation is not interested in fixing anything, only in taking away rights and preventing groups from enjoying equality, where the granting of rights to one group somehow costs them something, where merely recognizing the humanity of people somehow dehumanizes other people, where the very act of loving humans is subversive and must be punished, and we have nowhere to go but to fight.

As I’ve said before, I’ve been fighting for decades. I’ve been fighting when I didn’t even know what I was fighting about. But chaos and horror is my home, and I’ll be delighted to play this game out to it’s logical conclusion. But its sad, really. ‘Cause there’s just no need for it, and no reason why we should fight.

Oh, except for the hatred and fear….

mikey

 
 

I’ll be there caucusing for John Edwards on January 3rd. I will do my best to make sure he is the nominee. He’s ahead here in Iowa now. It is my passionate hope that he’ll come out of here the winner, with serious momentum. He’ll make a great president.

They’re going to come after him hard though. It’s already starting. The corporatist media doesn’t like him atall. You’ll be hearing “hedge fund” this and “big house” that. But if everyone gets together and backs him, if those who are going to wash out here on the third would throw their support to him, we could make it happen.

I don’t know when I’ve been this enthused about a candidate. Never in my voting lifetime, although I have been pretty proud of Senator Harkin from time to time.

 
Smiling Mortician
 

Over there in the US, you have

Best possible measure of what’s happened to my country in the last 7 years is that with every passing day, I come closer to really wishing that I were the one saying that . . . and oddly enough I could be. My spousal unit has an EU passport and our only child is 20 and on his own, so we could pack it in.

But for now at least I think I’ll just hang out at the barricades. Scooch over, mikey. Here. I’ve got some Laphroaig in my canteen. Well, OK, it’s really a flask, but still.

 
 

Goddam, Mortician, if we’re gonna sniff us up some tear gas and mix us up some exotic variations on the molotov, sir I’d be honored to hold that line with the likes of you and yours. And if there’s a sip of the Islay on the barricades, well, all the better, and bring it the fuck ON!

mikey

 
 

Best possible measure of what’s happened to my country in the last 7 years is that with every passing day, I come closer to really wishing that I were the one saying that

Just seems odd to me that JoBerg and the other hacks are denouncing policies that benefited the US economy in the past, and will traduce history and fight tooth-&-nail* to prevent any repeat of these policies, simply because they were brought about by a Democrat.
Nose, meet knife.

*so long as the teeth & nails are metaphorical, and do not involve personal effort or risk.

 
 

Well, Mikey, at least some members of the Vast Not-Political Middle are beginning to consider the idea that mouthing slogans like “all politicians are the same” and inventing narratives about how progressive candidate X is “insufficiently serious” or throwing around labels like “socialist” are actual weapons against any change to the status quo. We spent Thanksgiving doing the college-friends geek-gathering that’s been going on for so long that some of the original fresh graduates have college kids of their own, and even the resolutely quasi-libertarian-slash-anarchist individuals are looking up from their 80-hour-a-week contracts and their extended-family commitments and their online-gaming addictions to start asking about various candidates’ actual *policies*, as opposed to acting like electing the next President was just another seasonal entertainment event like the World Series or the Superbowl. During one very noisy discussion, I said I thought John Edwards should propose a Work Projects Administration for the new millenium, and an old friend who’s never taken an interest in politics later than the Renaissance said “If he did that, he’d take the Rustbelt states in a landslide.” And another person who used to ridicule “treehuggers” added “As long as Edwards keeps talking about government support for green technology, he’ll be hard to beat in Michigan, because we can’t keep strip-mining our resources as well as our industrial base.” So… I will be out on the barricades with you and the honorable Mortician… and I’ll even trade my share of the Laphroaig for your share of the good chocolate {grin}.

 
 

malum prohibitum actually means ‘prohibited apples’, I think he meant to say ‘malus prohibitum’, unless its some new anti toffee apple crusade on the right.

I ran down barefoot in the rain to give her twelve dollars, all the cash I had, but jeezus christ, folks, what is it we have built, and what exactly are we supposed to be proud of?

Your a good man, mikey, but that story leaves me stunned. This is happening right now in the US, I just cannot comprehend…….

 
 

Important Message of the Day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WB2IMFNPoc&feature=bz303

That is all.

 
 

Supreme Court of the State of Washington

State of Washington v. Thaddius X. Anderson

Criminal offenses can be broken down into two general categories – malum in se and malum prohibitum. The distinction between malum in se and malum prohibitum offenses is best characterized as follows: a malum in se offense is “naturally evil as adjudged by the sense of a civilized community,” whereas a malum prohibitum offense is wrong only because a statute makes it so. State v. Horton, 139 N.C. 588, 51 S.E. 945, 946 (1905).

I don’t know why the Supreme Court of the State of Washington would be trying to prohibit apples. Seems like that would be bad for Washington’s apple business.

 
 

I caught the malum = apple thing right off, wondering if this were some reference to the evil queen in Snow White. Alas, no.

The article is a typical collage of sound and fury with no moral basis other than a grand inflated pomposity.

Indeed, is this fellow unaware that the Christmas Juggernaut will roll right over any standing in its way, whether they be oppponents or supporters?
He feigns this ignorance and makes an empty case…unless, of course, there is indeed extensive legal literature on this apple business; something like the famous US vs. Appleseed.

 
 

This has been a test of the Emergency “OH MY GOD CHRISTMAS HASN’T BEEN THE SAME SINCE I WAS TEN” Broadcast system. The whining tone you just heard was a pathetic cry for a new teddy bear and some cookies.

 
 

But for now at least I think I’ll just hang out at the barricades.

Yes please. Think of how sad you’d feel if you could only watch us lowering various Admini-goons into a big vats of tar followed by a quick dredging though a mound of feathers.

How much can you lift? We’re going to need a lot of help carrying Cheney on that splintery rail.

 
 

…in the story of Adam and Eve the apple became a symbol for knowledge, immortality, temptation, the fall of man into sin, and sin itself. In Latin, the words for ‘apple’ and for ‘evil’ are similar in the singular (malus — apple, malum — evil) and identical in the plural (mala). This may also have influenced the apple becoming interpreted as the biblical ‘forbidden fruit’, although the word malus for apple comes from the Hittite mahla meaning “grapevine, branch” and has nothing to do with malum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_(symbolism)#Apples_in_the_Bible

It shouldn’t be difficult to confuse the troops along the Christmas Maginot Line with this.

 
 

“malum prohibitum”

Hey, that’s fucking Latin, right? This dude must be tres (that’s fucking French) smart.

No, he just heard Victor Garber use the phrase in the first “Legally Blonde” movie.

I should point out that Victor Garber is a Canadian, and, therefore, a Communist. This will give Tyrell something else to whine about.

 
 

Well, I happen to be posting from a posh hotel in Chicago, and I have to report that Emmett is correct, there is no Rudolph in the lobby. Although checking my list, there is a conical tree, several evergreen garlands, glass balls, tiwnkle lights, and tinsel.

However, he’s wrong about the tin soldiers. From my window I can clearly see they are in the Apple Store, and they are Nutcrackers with Ipod headphones in their little tin ears.

What the fuck is wrong with these people? Rudolph = Christmas, but tin soldiers = anti-Christmas?

Are we going to calibrate our politics through interior decoration now? If I use the appropriate bright primary red for my Christmas bows, I’m a proper Christian, but if I use the Godless heathen shades of maroon or even mauve, I’m attacking Christmas?

And thank you, Bastion, for so nicely articulating the Right Wing position on Christmas – you’ll kill someone if they wish you well unless they use the words of your choice.

Best Wishes of the Season to you!

 
 

Gundamhead:
“What’s up with that “whether male or female” thing? Also, if female they wouldn’t really be a “himself” would they? Is this some weird slam on the supposed androgyny of progressives?”

MzNicky:
“Gundamhead: He should have recast the sentence. He got himself into trouble by delineating “male” and “female” at the beginning. A better writer would have said something like “Liberal activists often call themselves progressives.” But he’s a dumbass, and a douchebag. No gender aspersion intended whatsoever.”

Surely this is clever grammatical joke combining the bravest of resistance to the tyranny of gender-feminist assaults on the male generic pronoun with nimble allusion to the well-tried truism that all progressive liberal fascist females are lesbian bulldykes who hate men because they are ugly! (The bulldykes, not the men.) Can’t you just feel his quickening pulse as he uses the guise of simple dumbass douchebag to distract attention from his true identity as the sly wordsmith whose elegant way with language is matched only by the sophistication of his bidet?

No? What’s that you say? Oh, pooh, Occam’s Razor be damned (grumble)…

 
Smiling Mortician
 

How much can you lift? We’re going to need a lot of help carrying Cheney on that splintery rail.

Actually, I have kind of a bad back and I need to be careful about . . . ah, hell. Count me in. I’m stronger than I look.

 
Smiling Mortician
 

Gundamhead, MzNicky & GoToCoventry: regarding the gendered pronoun issue, if you refer back to the very first comment on this post, I assert that Tyrell’s use of “himself” with the gratuitous phrase “male or female” is indeed intentional. He thinks he’s impugning something about progressives and gender — it’s just not clear where the insult may actually lie.

Note to Teh Proprietors: This sort of anal-retentive feedback loop is exactly what happens when you don’t feed us a new post for, like, two whole days. Just sayin’.

 
 

(Lex) Skink Tyree (Azagthoth) :
Re: this post, I will admit that some on the left are not as “progressive” as it would seem, but rather a bit stuck in the late 60s (no Mom, it’s not just you). That hardly constitutes all libruls, nor is it any reason to jump ship and start agreeing with Jonah.

Interestingly, JG seems to be on the verge of catching up with the corporate liberalism thesis of the New Left ca. 1959-1965 (Notes on the Left, William Appleman Williams, Martin Sklar, Free Speech Movement & all that). Can it be long before he issues his call for us (or them) to throw our/their bodies onto the gears to stop the corporatist liberal fascist death machine? First time tragedy, second time farce … now where have I heard that before?

 
 

I assert that Tyrell’s use of “himself” with the gratuitous phrase “male or female” is indeed intentional. He thinks he’s impugning something about progressives and gender…

I remain convinced of my Dumbass/Douchebag theory.

 
Worst. President. Ever.
 

I just saw John Edwards on CSPAN… And all I could keep thinking is “I WANT this man to be my president”.

Well, Mikey, we do agree on something anyway.

(Well, personally I’d prefer Kucinich, but would be more than happy to settle with Edwards or Al Gore.)

 
 

I remain convinced of my Dumbass/Douchebag theory.

Isn’t it only a theory until it’s proven with evidence?

 
 

Isn’t it only a theory until it’s proven with evidence?

No. A theory is tested and retested, using different variables, to see if it can be proved false. So far, my theory holds up remarkably well.

 
 

Isn’t it only a theory until it’s proven with evidence?

While that may fit the “classical” definition of evidence, this is actually central to my point.

 
 

Arguing about phrase “the liberal activist, whether male or female,” ? It’s hard to decide if it’s dumbassery or an unclear insult.

I, whether male or female, do know it’s something that should be examined and applied to a variety of subjects – and the right,whether male or female, can play along as well – because I know when she reads that part she was nodding her heads in agreement as if to say “hmm, he’s right, the ‘liberal activists’, whether male or female, ARE either male or female”.

Rudy Guiliani, whether male or female…
Ann Coulter, whether male or female…
Other human beings, whether male of female…
Europe, whether male or female…
God, whether male or female…
Getting totally shitfaced tonight, whether male or female…

Examining it from an objective perspective one, whether male or female, must admit it adds a certain touch of authority, and in fact makes the point one, whether male or female, is making virtually inarguable, that, being central to my point.

 
Smiling Mortician
 

He’s a dumbass! [slap!] He’s a douchebag! [slap!] He’s a dumbass! [slap!] He’s a douchebag! [slap!] . . . He’s a dumbass and a douchebag!

 
 

Smiling Mortician: Chinatown? Or that SNL skit: “It’s a floor wax! It’s a dessert topping! It’s a floor wax—AND a dessert topping!”? What with all the slapping, I’m guessing Chinatown.

 
Worst. President. Ever.
 

Happy New Year, fellow Sadlies!

In retrospect, it’s been a long depressing year… as one comedian noted, the only good thing about Bush and Cheney is their magical ability to make time stand still.

If you need a laugh, the Jonathan Goldstein story below is pretty damn funny. I espcially enjoyed the part where all the sidekicks get together to bitch about their superhero…

http://rebootgp.code45.net/index.php?site=rebootgp&page=gp_article&id=14

 
 

How much can you lift? We’re going to need a lot of help carrying Cheney on that splintery rail.

No no no. I’m sure that amongst us we possess enough Legos&#174 to construct a hoist or some sort of gantry that could easily handle lifting Shooter, Doughbob AND that fat fuck from Exxon/Mobil simultaneously.

 
 

stoopid tags. I swear, the registered trademark thingey showed up in Preview.

 
 

Perhaps someone’s made this point already, but has this guy even read his Bible? I’m not a Christian and I know enough about the Gospels to know this is hooey:

Disturbing the peace is, I believe, at the heart of rendering Christmas controversial.

Umm … isn’t Christmas, as the fundies always are telling us, supposed to be about Jesus? Then what about Matthew 10:34ff? Jesus was, um, a peace disturber. Perhaps maybe he was a liberal?

*

Anyway, the reason why Christmas is “controversial” is because it celebrates the birth of Christ and not all of us are Christians, and it is against the spirit of our nation that we all should be Christians. Since bakeries serve bread on Passover, do I go around ranting and raving about the anti-Semitic War on Passover? No … I let the Goyim be Goyim … live and let live. Ain’t that part of keeping the peace?

No, the people disturbing the peace (not that there is anything wrong with it, according to Jesus) are those who insist on making a public display of their religion (with which there is something wrong according to Jesus) and deciding to “feign outrage” for theatrical stunts when others don’t show the same desire to make or like those tacky public displays of religiosity.

Hey … I got an idea: why don’t gay men make out in front of this guy? I bet he’d be outraged about their public display. Ya know Bob? Some people feel the same way about tacky Christmas displays. And what did Jesus say about doing unto others?

 
 

Just because the Bible is completely and literally true does not mean that God has not chosen certain people in our country and our time to select the parts which are important right now and how to interpret them. You liberals never recognize this.

 
 

Yep. That’s what we liberals are about, disturbing the peace.

From some liberal peace disturbing fascist who has something to do with this whole war on Christmas thing:

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

Matthew 10:34-36

 
Smiling Mortician
 

You got me, MzNicky. I was thinking of both SNL and the best movie ever made (yeah, that’s right, I said it and I’ll stand by it). In the end, Faye Dunaway won. Um, won a place in my comment. Didn’t win in the movie, dammit . . .

 
 

OT – not that it matters much at this juncture – but the polls are as I predicted a while back. Caucus statistical dead heat, Edwards and Romney slightly ahead.

I said Edwards would take Iowa, and I’m standing by that. It may be a squeaker, but I’ll go waaaay out on a limb and say that Edwards will have a five point margin. I think the Kucinich and Dodd people will mostly go over to Edwards. I also said I thought Romney would take Iowa. That was, however, before Huckabee’s bizarre surge. (Rudy was never even in the game here.) Huckabee could still take it away from Romney; however, the suburban anti-tax crowd doesn’t dig Huckster at all, and there’s more of them than there are poor rural social conservatives. Look for Romney to squeak it.

Note: If I’m wrong, I’ll take my crow lightly braised, with long-grain rice on the side and a nice pinot grigio.

 
Arky - Fascitanata
 

Hey … I got an idea: why don’t gay men make out in front of this guy?

Why? Why you say? I’ll tell you why. Based on the behavior patterns of fRightWank males there’s a 64% chance he’d try to join in, that’s why.

 
 

…must have…new post…….can’t…..hold on….much….longer….

(channelling Superman)

 
 

I’m waiting for bruce to show up.

 
 

Re: FDT and WPA

In simpler times, back before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the implosion of the Soviet Union changed everything before 9/11 changed everything all over again, a self-respecting, self-satisfied right-wing hack like Goldberg would have called FDR and the WPA communist without having to enter into much explanation or elaboration. But St. Ronald single-handedly slew the beast Communism with his vorpal blade, hence that label won’t do today—how could the regulatory and redistributive role of the welfare state be communist and the people who support it communists if it’s dead. So now we have the elaboration of the Goldbergian spectrum of politics, which places state intervention in economic and social dyanmics, fascism, and totalitarianism on the left end and minimal state intervention (except in the construction of Space Elevators and other contractual relations with private security firms), democracy, and freedom on the right end. By extending this argument to its logical conclusions, one finds that not only was FDR a fascist, but his trust-busting and parks-founding cousin was too.

Today Goldberg has this:

Vox Day on Liberal Fascism
Cutting through a lot of oddly backhanded compliments (I like Vox) we get to the meat of it, and the meat is good:

[Goldberg] has written the most ideologically significant work of political non-fiction since Allan Bloom’s “The Closing of the American Mind.”

Goldberg, paragon of humility that he is, left this out:

“Liberal Fascism” shows that Jonah Goldberg fully merits his position as the most widely syndicated columnist of his generation and provides fair warning of his development into a significant intellectual figure of the future on the American right.

Congratulations, Jonah. You’ve garnered coveted Vox Day imprimatur!

 
 

Damn it, make that Re: FDR and PWA.

 
 

…[Jo’Berg’s Liberal Fascism: But I Like The Underwear I Always Wear] provides fair warning of his development into a significant intellectual figure of the future on the American right

Fair warning taken.

 
 

“a significant intellectual figure of the future on the American right”

If he was Mensa material, he’d know he gave a good review to complete bullshit. Not that I know who the fuck Vox is, indeed, that is central to my point.

 
 

I think the comment should be taken literally. Jo’berg is what will pass as a “significant intellectual figure” in the American right, and “in the future” because he is relatively young and is likely to continue his cradle-to-grave right wing affirmative action program.

 
 

That could be it, I’m just amused he didn’t do Mensa any favors by noting he’s a member.

Not that I hold Mensa in very high regard, it’s not like it takes a genius…

 
 

Bored passersby, looking for new SN! material, might chance on that “XHTML” link on this page’s very last line.

Hmm. The w3c validator says
Failed validation, 202 Errors

 
 

“Liberal Fascism” shows that Jonah Goldberg fully merits his position as the most widely syndicated columnist of his generation and provides fair warning of his development into a significant intellectual figure of the future on the American right.

Vox, you forgot to mention how long and thick Jonah’s book is, how heavy it felt in your hands, how it throbbed powerfully, etc. and how the ideas spouted forth in hot streams of protein wisdom.

And you might want to mention how hot Lucianne is, just to be safe.

 
 

I give.
I’ll write the damn review of LibFasc for the Guardian Online tomorrow.
Must get the proper context a broader, more official platform.
If any S,N!er, Jillian esp cuz of her being all good with the history n shite, has any notes they’d like to share, plz feel free. I have a general structure of the piece in mind, but if there’s any specific nits anyone wants to pick…
If I can find an acceptable way I want to credit S,N! in the piece, regardless.

 
 

a different brad said, December 31, 2007 at 21:11

If any S,N!er, Jillian esp cuz of her being all good with the history n shite, has any notes they’d like to share, plz feel free. I have a general structure of the piece in mind, but if there’s any specific nits anyone wants to pick…

My only suggestion is to begin by making a simple outline of the book and each section’s argument, just like you would do in a basic high school or college book report. This is the kind of thing that Jo’berg would find to be liberal fascism.

Also, develop a list of his actual definitions of what fascism is. I think the sum total list might be highly amusing.

 
 

Best of luck with that ADB.

Do you focus on the doughy prose or the pantload of ‘reasoning’?
Can you call out the Doubleday editors, fact checkers, etc. for their stellar contribution to the effort?

“After 4 years of constipation, JG finally was able to relax the bowels of his mind and push out his landmark treatise….”

 
 

Those who are in the trenches defending Christmas are not to be feared. The terrorists should be the ones we fear as we approach this New Year. The terrorists would have all of us fearing them. But we will not succumb to fear in the coming year. But, but, as I say, in my altered Blue Oyster Cult song:

Don’t Fear the New Year
Dr BLT altered cover of Blue Oyster Cult classic
http://www.drblt.net/music/DontFEARDem2.mp3

Don’t fear me either. I’m just here to:

Spread Some New Year Cheer
Dr BLT
copyright 2007 Frosty Rock Records
http://www.drblt.net/music/SpreadDemo2.mp3

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Dr BLT

 
 

There once was a website
A website called Sadly, No!
And if you ever saw it
You would know it really blows.

 
 

This thread is now visible from the space elevator.

 
 

Don’t fear bad links either. Sorry, try this one:

http://www.drblt.net/music/DontFearDem2.mp3

 
 

OH NOES! NOTZ A POEM!!!

Gay Rumppert really zingin’ SN now. Fatal blow, perhaps.

 
 

Dr. BLT claims to be an “Ex-Troll”…Yet he continues to pimp bad songs on this website.

Dr. BLT, wrong on recording quality. Wrong for America.

 
 

I think Gary Ruppert has a good idea in making fun of SN! but it is too dangerous for good patriot American conservatives to talk a lot about blowing. There are temptations which are felt by good American patriot conservatives which is necessary and or to pray.

 
 

A Haiku for Ruppert:

Gary Ruppert Blows
Goats, Sheep, Mules, Swine, What have you
Heartland values rule

 
 

Following the philosophical example of Jonah the Magnificent, allow me to state that all “conservatives” are commies (“Conservative Communism”, my tome on the subject, due out in……shall we say, 2018?).

 
 

Did you notice any Boxing Day decorations anywhere this year? No. While the conservatives were getting all het up about Christmas, the liberal stealth plot to destroy and utterly obliterate Boxing Day was put into action, and it was very successful. Ha ha ha ha! In your face, conservatives!

I’m sure Christmas is next, but I haven’t gotten the memo yet.

 
 

I don’t know guys, Gary is an expert on blowing.

He’s not gay, he’s just a fan of the “manly art of Spartan-style wrestling”, like our beloved General.

 
 

Gary Ruppert for President! He puts the mojo into Sadly, No!

As for the liberals, they love to hate my music, yet they are the ones who have made cult classics out of songs like You’re Not the Kind of Ho that Santa Had in Mind. All press is good press, even from liberals who are bad critics, because of their political bias, like this one:

“Dr. BLT claims to be an ‘Ex-Troll’…Yet he continues to pimp bad songs on this website.

Dr. BLT, wrong on recording quality. Wrong for America.”

I welcome lemons and sour grapes. It makes for some awesome lemonade and some terrific vintage wine. Of course, there are those who would disagree, with a sentiment strong enough to compel them to write actual reviews and formally publish them:

http://mtdalton.blogspot.com/2007/12/phantom-tollbooths-rock-doc-goes.html

 
 

Gary, the Heartland paid troll
Had a very tiny brain
The fact is that if you saw it
You would sure agree it’s lame

All of the other paid trolls
used to laugh and call him gay
They never let poor Gary
Blow goats in any serious way

Then one fascist christmas night
Decider guy came to say
Gary you write so badly, though
I’d still like you to troll at Sadly, No!

Then all the Sadlys loved him
Or at least learned to put up with his crap
Gary, the Heartland paid troll
Sails off with a resounding “Fap…”

mikey

 
 

Following the philosophical example of Jonah the Magnificent, allow me to state that all “conservatives” are commies (”Conservative Communism”, my tome on the subject, due out in……shall we say, 2018?). – Element 5

I believe I have already suggested such things. I’d be asking you for a share of the royalties, should you write such a book, but then Non Nato would want a share of my cut.

Anyway, it’s a good idea. I just wanted you to know that, as the Good Book Says, there is nothing new under the sun. Interestingly, a while back in Rhetoric of Reaction, Albert O. Hirschman made an argument which never before had been so carefully made, &c. (and this time, unlike in Jonah’s case, there need be no double-speak … Prof. Hirschman did make a rather novel argument quite carefully): that Lenin was quite influenced by (Southern Italian) conservatism. And let us not forget the intellectual history of the neo-con movement.

As I said — it’s a good idea for a book. The case that conservatives (as we know them today) are Commies is much stronger than the case that any liberal (other than that late bete noire of the religious right, HG Wells) is a fascist.

Indeed, the way conservatives treat Christianity as something to be invoked rather than lived makes their mentions of Jesus seem almost like a certain kinda Commie talking about Marx or Lenin.

 
 

The war on Christmas went so well this year I think we should kick off the campaign for Easter.

March 23, 2008 Zombie Appreciation Day!

Dress up as your favorite dead deity.

 
 

Liberals tried to crucify Al Barger, when he placed a Dr BLTune at number 8 on his list of the best 40 songs of 2006. Though they worshiped the ho song, liberals hated this song, (Neil Young, Have You Forgotten) simply because, while praising Canadian crooner, Neil Young, it also gently questioned his motives for releasing Impeach the President:

http://www.morethings.com/music/best_songs_2006.htm

Gary Ruppert rules!
Those who oppose him are fools. And bad for America.

Wimps like me come and go because we can’t take the liberal beatings. But Gary continues to offer his finest gems of wisdom here, even though most of you here allow bias to interfere with appreciating and benefiting from his wisdom.

Want to have a great 2008? Then pay attention to Ruppert’s pearls of wisdom!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 
 

The War on Boxing Day was such a success because the Left stole all the Baby Boxers from all the Boxivity scenes across the country and shipped them off to the FARC in Colombia. Their fate is now in the hands of Hugo Chávez, who is currently negotiating their release.

 
 

Yawn, war on Christmas. Some conservatives over here have tried running with it. This is one US export we don’t want, thanks!

 
 

Here’s a music video to go with mikey’s shout out to Gary the Ruppert.

 
 

There’s no Sadly, No without Gary Ruppert. I’ll admit it. I’m pretty thin-skinned and can’t handle criticism very well. When I’m attacked here, I have to seek comfort in those unbiased critics, like this one who placed my song at #8 on his list of best 40 songs of 2006:

http://www.morethings.com/music/best_songs_2006.htm

Gary Ruppert on the other hand, boldly and confidently handles criticism, even the most churlish of comments coming from liberal extremists who visit this site.
Yes, I brag too much and so I bring on many of the attacks, but you don’t even have to brag. Your wisdom speaks for itself.

How do you do it, Gary? I can only handle coming around here a few times per year. You are my hero! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

BTW those who say I’m pimping my songs are pimping their own opinions, the only difference is, I put my opinions to music.

I must also thank you liberals, for you made You’re Not the Kind of Ho that Santa Had in mind an underground cult Christmas classic.

 
 

Do you focus on the doughy prose or the pantload of ‘reasoning’?
Can you call out the Doubleday editors, fact checkers, etc. for their stellar contribution to the effort?

The passive style of plausible deniability deserves a mention. Make or imply an outrageously offensive claim — but then immediately retract it (“that is going too far”), to leave a lingering taint, for which the author can deny any responsibility. I don’t know whether there’s an impressive Greek name for this rhetorical device.
It’s the language of unaccountability.

Then there’s the whole business of papering over unsupportable claims with words like “Undeniably”, “no-one would deny”, “indubitably”.
I have this mental image of Jonah Goldberg as General Mireau from ‘Paths of Glory’ sending his words into battle (“Hello there, soldier. Ready to kill more Liberals?”), knowing that they face overwhelming odds and have no artillery support.

 
 

Make or imply an outrageously offensive claim — but then immediately retract it (”that is going too far”), to leave a lingering taint, for which the author can deny any responsibility. I don’t know whether there’s an impressive Greek name for this rhetorical device.

Not Greek, Latin: Tuckerus Carlsonitis

 
 

Gary the redneck trollbot
Had some Cheeto dust with Saul
And Jolt Cola, which he often spit out his nose
All of the other trollbots used to laugh and call him names.
They never invited Gary to any of the bierhalle goes

 
 

stryx said,
December 31, 2007 at 21:05
Vox, you forgot to mention how long and thick Jonah’s book is, how heavy it felt in your hands, how it throbbed powerfully, etc. and how the ideas spouted forth in hot streams of protein wisdom.

And how you don’t even need a Sorbee to clean up when you’re done.

 
 

More for ADB. Here’s a comment from an earlier thread about the role of figures of speech in Jonah’s prose… he doesn’t know what they mean, or care whether they mean what he thinks they mean, since their purpose is simply to provide a sense of oratorical gravitas; to create the impression that argumentation has occurred. The only way I can cope with a page of Jonah’s writing is by reading it in an Inigo Montoya voice.

I repeat it here in an attempt to push this thread up to 300 comments.

In particular, imagine that some writer were to claim that the intellectual descendants of the French Revolution “would have to be seen as the fruit of this poisoned tree”.
You see what he did there… the legal concept of “Fruit of the poisoned tree” (where the point is that if a tree has been poisoned, it can’t bear fruit) has been mixed up with that biblical business of knowing a corrupt tree by its corrupt fruit. Two semi-digested clichés have been regurgitated together.

 
 

…to create the impression that argumentation has occurred.

And here I thought the Pantload was being paid by the word.

 
 

Jo’berg apparently believes now that he has a “thesis” which we crazy DFH’s have failed to “disprove”.

Maybe someone ought do that old fashioned science class or argument construction lesson where you talk about how in order to set out to “prove” something, you got to also establish (a) logical consistency, and (b) a way of “disproving” said thing.

Here are a couple of questions that while they might not be asked by liberal fascist grade school teachers might be asked by liberal fascist middle or high school teachers:

Using Jo’berg Goldpants’ text, how could we tell if fascism were not “from the left”? Also, if it were not, what would be different???

If there is zero difference between your arguments and their opposite, there is hardly an argument being made.

 
Worst. President. Ever.
 

Ah, but Jonah’s rigorous logic is rigorously based upon the following equation, El Cid:

L= F

where L= “whatever Jonah wants to call liberalism”

and F= “whatever Jonah wants to call “fascism”

**************

For example, let L= “Liberals drove Volkswagens in the sixties”

And let F= “Nazis drove Volkswagens in the forties”

And voila! L = F.

You just can’t argue with proof like that.

 
 

And here I thought the Pantload was being paid by the word.
Well at least we’re being paid by the word.
Aren’t we?
Oh buggeryfuck.

 
 

Now you’re almost making me want to buy the book just so’s I can go through it and list out the definitions (fascism is making a religion out of politics) & every causal chain claimed. And then hang them on the wall with arrows pointing between them, and take a photo of the resulting mess.

 
librulsarefascists
 

There is only one reason there have been 15,000 posts and 290,000,000 comments about Goldberg’s book:

IT HITS YOU WHERE YOU LIVE. IT IS RIGHT ON THE MONEY.

That’s the reason Braddy and Gavvie are in “methinks thou doth protest too much” mode. They know that they are fascists at heart and they can’t even sleep at night because Goldberg’s book has cut them to the quick. Goldberg’s book barely even registers outside the blogosphere, but Braddie-boy and Gavvie-Wavvie have obsessed over it as if it was a 40-week NYT best-seller. More proof that I’m RIGHT.

You liberal morons are totalitarians at your core, as long as YOU are the ones in charge. You and your mentally-ill fellow travelers literally wish death upon red-staters, as evidenced by that punk who hopes that global warming disasters kill the “deniers” and by any random thread at HuffPo or DU whenever Cheney’s heart acts up or Tony Snow’s cancer returns.

YOUR CHARACTERIZATION OF CONSERVATIVES AS FASCISTS IS NOTHING MORE THAN A CASE OF CLASSIC PROJECTION THAT WOULD MAKE FREUD PROUD.

You’re a bunch of PUNKS, AND STUPID, UNFUNNY PUNKS AT THAT.

 
librulsarefascists
 

See? A post about R. Emmett “Bob” Tyrrell, which has NOTHING to do with Goldberg has 200+ comments about NOTHING BUT Goldberg.

I am laughing at you weasely little pukes. Want some tea and sympathy, sister-boys?

 
Smiling Mortician
 

I’m a little curious about why nobody publishes a review of the DoughBook consisting entirely of an authorititative definition of fascism — like, say, this one (although really you could choose one from just about anywhere):

American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
fascism [(fash-iz-uhm)]

A system of government that flourished in Europe from the 1920s to the end of World War II. Germany under Adolf Hitler, Italy under Mussolini, and Spain under Franco were all fascist states. As a rule, fascist governments are dominated by a dictator, who usually possesses a magnetic personality, wears a showy uniform, and rallies his followers by mass parades; appeals to strident nationalism; and promotes suspicion or hatred of both foreigners and “impure” people within his own nation, such as the Jews in Germany. Although both communism and fascism are forms of totalitarianism, fascism does not demand state ownership of the means of production, nor is fascism committed to the achievement of economic equality. In theory, communism opposes the identification of government with a single charismatic leader (the “cult of personality”), which is the cornerstone of fascism. Whereas communists are considered left-wing, fascists are usually described as right-wing.
Note: Today, the term fascist is used loosely to refer to military dictatorships, as well as governments or individuals that profess racism and that act in an arbitrary, high-handed manner.

Of course, the response would likely be that the American Heritage people are all liberal fascists anyway . . .

 
 

Goosestep with me, my fellow liberals in charge!

One Two!
One Two!

 
 

Now that’s the kind of troll I like!

All caps is the sign of a true believer. The correct grammar and punctuation is a nice touch.

Do I smell DUmmyFUnnies?

Here we come 300.

 
 

Hee hee. I like that new guy. He’s got us right on the money. There is no way we can stop from bein’ askeered by that super-jeenyus Goldberg. I’m askeered right now jes’ thinkin’ about him tellin’ us agin that he done out-thunk us! Eek!

And that’s even with my red-state born, well-water raised, rural Baptist-church attending as a ‘ute, military serving *ss which is what that damn big head thinker Goldbutt is goin’ after!!! I gotz no dee-fenz!

 
Smiling Mortician
 

Here we come 300.

Yeah, but we’ve had a solid 48 hours to get here so it’s a bit of a pyrrhic victory.

New thread? Please?

 
 

Do I smell DUmmyFUnnies?

Actually I’m betting this one has the same IP as Kevin.

 
Smiling Mortician
 

I dunno, Sam, the name-calling and schoolyard bullying do have a certain hound-a-guy-on-his-deathbed feel . . . my money’s on that PJ creature.

 
Worst. President. Ever.
 

IT HITS YOU WHERE YOU LIVE. IT IS RIGHT ON THE MONEY.

Or maybe we’re just upset because this book is the most fraudulent rewriting of history since the Dolchstosslegende and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion .

 
 

There is only one reason there have been 15,000 posts and 290,000,000 comments about Goldberg’s book: IT HITS YOU WHERE YOU LIVE. IT IS RIGHT ON THE MONEY.

So, basically the same reason that the wingnuts are always frothing about Hillary Clinton.

 
 

Here we come 300.

We wouldn’t want the ensuing surge of reichwingers.

Regardless, 300 will likely be a masturbatory experience for the Ann Coulter crowd.

That’d be a lot of splooge to clean up.

 
 

We wouldn’t want the ensuing surge of reichwingers.

Maybe we could do like they do with elevators not having a 13th floor, and just not have a 300th post.

Probably have to skip the 911th one too, though only the A-listers usually have to worry about that. Except for when TBogg used to get a live wingnut meltdown in his comments.

But to do this up properly FDL-style, someone should post “Thred!” as the 300th post.

 
 

Well…. I dont know! “librulsscarefascists” didn’t use hardy any !!!!!111s. I’m not convinced.

 
 

I don’t know why that guy’s so ticked off about MY mentally ill fellow travelers. I’m the one who’s gotta deal with a station wagon full of schizophrenics belting out “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” so what’s it to you, dude?

 
 

Too much Loadpants, troll?

This was from last New Year’s Eve EST or so:

There is now an all-too-predictable attempt to distort our reports. Read. Them. In. Their. Entirety. For. Yourselves.

Good times….

 
 

Reporting in from the front lines of the War on Christmas – our troops are assembled at Gate E8 in O’Hare, waiting to depart from Chicago. Tyrell’s lament that the Librul Fascists have vanquished the noble Christian icon, St. Rudolph of the Red Nose has been disproven. I can’t provide the evidence until I arrive back at headquarters and download the photos, but it is undeniable that Rudolph is prominently displayed in the Near North end, just off Michigan Avenue.

Although – it’s possible Rudolph has been captured by the Libruls and subjected to torture such as waterboarding – he is a “green” display of recycled bottle caps, and has been displayed in Barney’s window, to his shame.

 
 

That’s the reason Braddy and Gavvie are in “methinks thou doth protest too much” mode.

Methinks you protest too much.

A question. If someone shrieks at liberals IN ALL CAPS because they’re such a bIG bUNch of FASCISTS, and accuses them of PROJECTION, doesn’t that make the poster a liberal fascist?

 
LiberalsScareFascists
 

!! AND ANOTHER THING 111!!

!!111 YOUR NOT REALLY LAUGHING @ GODLBEGR, YOUR SCREEMING IN FEER!111!! BeCASUE he has YOUR ### !!111!

Thats more lik it

 
 

Here in Little Beirut (Portland, OR) we have a ginormous St. Rudolph every Christmas. Scroll about halfway down this page to see it http://laurabush.info/photo.html (great name, non?).

Anyway, Portland Oregon, home of true heartland values: Gay marriage, assisted suicide, medical maryjane, and Rudolph!

Happy new year, one and all. I, for one, will be happy to put ought-7 in the rearview and step on the gas!

 
 

YOUR CHARACTERIZATION OF CONSERVATIVES AS FASCISTS IS NOTHING MORE THAN A CASE OF CLASSIC PROJECTION THAT WOULD MAKE FREUD ROVE PROUD.

Fixed.

 
 

The WAR began in 1979 when Jerry Falwell declared a “culture war” on the United States of America, and established the “moral majority”…which he later admitted was never a majority (i.e. Falwell started his WAR using deceptive advertising).

The result:

1) U.S. citizens being terrorized (and even murdered) by right-wing religious zealots hell-bent on tearing down the constitutional wall separating church and state. (Who do you think sits at their kitchen table sprinkling powder in envelopes to mail to liberal individuals and organizations? Hundreds of thousands of these “terrorist” letters have mailed to liberal individuals and organizations since shortly after the 9/11 attacks.)

2) Rock and Roll under attack. (This assault is one that most people don’t even know is occurring). Battle Cry concerts where Christian cult rock crap is played and teenagers are indoctrinated into hating anything or anyone identified by their Falwellian handlers as “liberal.” Clear Channel buying up over a thousand radio stations so they can dump “secular” Rock and Roll and replace these great tunes with Christian cult rock crap, in an attempt to proselytize listeners. Deep-pocket right-wing religious fanatics establishing recording studios whose specific mission is to pump out more Christian cult rock crap. Strategically-placed Christian cult rock deejays being given playlists approved by their Falwellian masters, playlists that not only include this Christian cult rock crap, but also include older Rock and Roll songs with certain “Christian-themed” catch-words involving heaven, hell, God, Jesus, angels, devils, spirit, chapels, whatever.

3) The bogus war on Christmas. What the religious terrorists among us are really saying is that they own the public marketplace of ideas…and national holidays. Public spaces belong to them and only them. No one else is welcome. No other values are welcome. No other ideas, other than their own, are welcome. These crazed religious zealots (on a par with the crazed religious zealots in al Qaeda) are saying that the streets of our democratic nation belong to them, and anyone getting in their way will be run over, backed over, and run over again (kind of like the message sent by bin Laden’s cutthroat religious gang on 9/11).

Anyway, Falwell died recently, but his war against our democracy, and all of our democratic institutions and documents continues unabated. And most people aren’t even aware of this insidious and evil assault on our nation…from within…by a bunch of freaky religious zealots hell-bent on forceably converting our democratic nation into some kind of warped, theocratic hell-on-earth. What would Jesus do? I doubt that Jesus would do anything that these religious fools are doing…or claiming to do in his name. Why? Because Jesus said his kingdom was not of this earth, which directly contradicts what these religious fools are trying to do, turn our democracy into a theocracy. I’m not fooled. Just as I’m certain Jesus wouldn’t be fooled by these religious fools who claim to be his followers.

 
 

Anyway, Falwell died recently, but his war and went to HELL.

How do I know there is a HELL? I had to drive to Dayton for work this year, and there was a big billboard sign.

P.S. I do not know if this was the sign I saw (I was on I-70), but it’s close enough. So obviously, HELL IS REAL, and qed, Falwell is there.

 
 

Clear Channel buying up over a thousand radio stations so they can dump “secular” Rock and Roll and replace these great tunes with Christian cult rock crap, in an attempt to proselytize listeners.

Oracle, I hate to tell you but I don’t hear much in the way of “great tunes” on Clear Channel anyway. What’s being played on mainstream radio is pretty much crap, it isn’t much of a loss.

 
 

Oh looks, it’s the old “your denials only prove your guilt!” line of reasoning.

Let’s write down what actually made the Nazis Nazis. Not stuff like “liked dogs” or “had college roomates who smoked pot” but defining characteristics:

1. Believed in pre-emptive war.
2. Masters of propaganda
3. Believed the Constitution should be suspended in the face of vague threats and that things like freedom from search and seizure only got in he way of fighting the bad guys.
4. Believed in the theory of the unitary executive, believed the executive should be able to write legislation and render irrelevant the legislative branch.
5. Employed powerful iconography and symbol worship – flags, armbands, uniforms, etc.
6. Portrayed those who disagreed with them as traitors.
7. Believed in overwhelming military force.
8. Locked up their own citizens without trial.
9. Could justify anything by appealing to invented imminent threats.

Gee…who does that sound like? But wait, Hitler loved oat bran so therefore liberals must be Nazis!

To steal a phrasing from one of our trolls: The fact is the conservative ideology of today is fighteningly similar to Nazi ideology. The beliefs are the same, the rationale is the same, the tactics and methods are the same.

If you take the Reichstag Fire Decree and replace “communists” with “Islamofacists” what you have is something pretty close to US policy. I went into further detail on my blog.

I think Nazi comparisons are a bit trite in general but Godwin’s law no longer applies when someone writes a book with a Hitler smiley face on the cover.

Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.

Sound familiar?

 
 

The passive style of plausible deniability deserves a mention. Make or imply an outrageously offensive claim — but then immediately retract it (”that is going too far”), to leave a lingering taint, for which the author can deny any responsibility. I don’t know whether there’s an impressive Greek name for this rhetorical device.

There is:

Apophasis (also called praeteritio or occupatio) asserts or emphasizes something by pointedly seeming to pass over, ignore, or deny it. This device has both legitimate and illegitimate uses. Legitimately, a writer uses it to call attention to sensitive or inflammatory facts or statements while he remains apparently detached from them:

* We will not bring up the matter of the budget deficit here, or how programs like the one under consideration have nearly pushed us into bankruptcy, because other reasons clearly enough show . . . .
* Therefore, let no man talk to me of other expedients: of taxing our absentees . . . of curing the expensiveness of pride, vanity, idleness, and gaming of learning to love our country . . . .–Jonathan Swift
* If you were not my father, I would say you were perverse. –Antigone
* I will not even mention Houdini’s many writings, both on magic and other subjects, nor the tricks he invented, nor his numerous impressive escapes, since I want to concentrate on . . . .
* She’s bright, well-read, and personable–to say nothing of her modesty and generosity.

Does the first example above make you feel a little uneasy? That can be a clue to the legitimacy (or lack of it) of usage. If apophasis is employed to bring in irrelevant statements while it supplies a screen to hide behind, then it is not being used rightly:

* I pass over the fact that Jenkins beats his wife, is an alcoholic, and sells dope to kids, because we will not allow personal matters to enter into our political discussion.
* I do not mean to suggest that Mr. Gates is mainly responsible for the inefficiency and work blockage in this office, just because the paperwork goes through him. . . .

 
 

It is horrifying, the Hatred expressed towards Muslems, and much too reminiscent of Hitler’s condemnation of Jews. It seems a lot of folks on the Right have been convinced all Muslems are our enemy, out to destroy the USA. I suppose that makes the invasion of Iraq perfectly understandable, a good thing, to them. But why they give Bush a pass on the ClusterF**k in Afghanistan I can’t figure out.

 
 

O Crap I spelled Moslem wrong. Sorry sorry sorry!

 
 

How can you heathens be so heartless as to post frivolous comments on this god-forsaken thread while Baby Jesus is still missing in Nyack?

 
Smiling Mortician
 

Sorry, Snorghagen. I for one was just attempting to soldier on through my grief. But I won’t let it happen again.

 
 

I think there is a new genre a-birthin’.

“You might be a liberal fascist if…”

…if you saw “Idiocracy” but did not think it looked like a great place to live, then…

…if you watched a servin’ President land a jet plane on a aircraft carrier and hop out in a commander guy outfit, and you did not jump up all a’cheerin’, then…

 
 

Baby Jesus?

Don’t you know the cervid is the reason for the season?

Praise His Shiny Nose!

 
 

Baby Jesus still missing? My money is on it being one of those child-custody disputes where the estranged parent runs off with the kid.

 
 

Speaking of sorry, on that particulary trip I was on my way to Cincinnati, not Dayton (I’ve driven to Dayton, too, out here in the heartland). Thus, I was on I-71, not I-70.

So that sign probably is the one I saw.

 
Righteous Observer
 

The real difference between wingnuts and humanity is the level of self-absorption. These imbeciles would much rather define “Happy Holidays” as an attack on Christianity, and hence themselves, than to admit its’ real purpose, namely as a sign of respect to the traditions of others. They simply cannot accept that it is not about “them”.

 
 

Baby Jesus still missing? My money is on it being one of those child-custody disputes where the estranged parent runs off with the kid.

The corporeal or the incorporeal parents? It it’s the latter, will the City of Nyack dare to take legal action against the All-Powerful Creator of the Universe? If they could get Roy Cohn out of Hell, he’d probably be willing to drag God’s ass into court.

Can you call out the Doubleday editors, fact checkers, etc. for their stellar contribution to the effort?

As someone mentioned in a previous thread, Goldberg’s Doubleday editor (Adam Bellow) recently published this creepy piece on himself in the New Yorker. He’s edited The Bell Curve and crap by Dinesh D’Souza, and he claims he’s proud of it. Bellow loves this sort of garbage, or so he says.

And a happy new year to all you mutants.

 
 

And here I thought the Pantload was being paid by the word.

Jonah’s misfortunate “research assistants”, aka “ghostwriters”, were paid by the word. Jonah himself is paid by the pound. Not by the weight of his manuscripts, but by the weight of his Doughy Pantload.

 
 

I’m sure K-Lo would like three men on her end.

titty-boom!

To figure out what that means, you’ll all to see Clif’s brand new sparkling new years eve postie.

 
 

Maybe this is blatantly obvious to you all, but have you ever wondered if Bush & Company started fucking with the Middle East because they might believe in premillenialism? “Hey, why don’t we start a war in the Middle East so that Jesus will come again and reign over us good Christians in peace!”

 
 

From Snorg’s link about Jonah’s “editor”:
The son of a famous writer, I attended an exclusive private school along with the children of other distinguished people: writers and actors, musicians, politicians, art dealers, and editors of the New York Times.

What’s funny is that he’s not proud of his work as an editor but instead measures success by how much shit gets stirred up, using a familiar logic:
Attacks by the Times and the Washington Post provided proof that the liberal media were trying to strangle the book in its cradle, and this fueled sales among conservatives, driving it onto the New York Times best-seller list, where it stayed for fifteen weeks.

Why am I not surprised.

 
 

These imbeciles would much rather define “Happy Holidays” as an attack on Christianity, and hence themselves, than to admit its’ real purpose, namely as a sign of respect to the traditions of others

And, you know, a friendly wish for someone to have a happy holiday…

 
 

Well that really pisses me off. Not only did I go to great lengths to attack Christmas, but I even titled my posts “War on Christmas™” so there could be no doubt. The fact he ignored me is scandalous.

 
 

Dagoril has the right idea. Minarets on every street corner, yay!
We’ll drive those hip-hop folks right out, maybe to the middle of the block or even further. What music shall we use? I was just listening to the one from the 2nd Orchestral Suite, but that’s hard to dance to. And please, not the little one from the Anna Magdalena book, not after Sarah Vaughn turned it into How Gentle Is the bleedin Rain. Best would be from the Jupiter Symphony — how cool would it be to dance with Wombles on the street corner?

Hm? Oh, those Muslim tower things? Never mind.

 
Worst. President. Ever.
 

Here’s a question for anyone who has the LadenHoser’s book—

Does “Libruls R Fascists!!!” have footnotes, so we can find out if “facts” such as “the French Revolution was a fascist revolution” were pulled out of Jonah’s own ass, or somebody else’s?

 
 

The table of contents shows it has endnotes.

 
Worst. President. Ever.
 

Thanks, J—-. It’d be interesting to know what those endnotes actually contain.

From what I’ve seen here so far, the “fact” that “the French Revolution was fascist” seems to be one of the main foundations of Goldturd’s thesis.

It’d be real interesting to see if there is any support for that casually mentioned argument among, you know, people who actually know anything about history.

Speaking as a non-historian, I’d say that casually throwing out an argument such as ““the French Revolution was psychedelic” would be just as logical…

 
 

The notes and the acknowledgments are the two parts of the book I really want to look at. For the rest I’m happy with Sadly, No!’s samples.

 
 

librulsarefascists said,
January 1, 2008 at 0:47

There is only one reason there have been 15,000 posts and 290,000,000 comments about Goldberg’s book:

IT HITS YOU WHERE YOU LIVE. IT IS RIGHT ON THE MONEY.

Or it could just be so monumentally stupid and easy to pick that even the amateurs are taking potshots.

 
 

I believe I have already suggested such things. I’d be asking you for a share of the royalties, should you write such a book, but then Non Nato would want a share of my cut.

I guess we’ll need to form a queue of some sort….as the same title is going to be repeatedly “re-invented” by those who follow and who haven’t read all of the preceeding threads.

****************************************************************************************************
You liberal morons are totalitarians at your core, as long as YOU are the ones in charge.

One of the more stunning aspects of the Bush years has been the ability of the Right to abandon virtually everything they screamed about during the Clinton years and their embrace of the polar opposite. As curious as that is, they seem blissfully unaware of any of this, as though all of that talk about “fiscal responsibility” never happened (meanwhile 15 billion bucks a month is pretty much just loaded on pallets and handed out in bundles, out Iraq way) and, of course, we were going to have a non-nation building (and “humble) foreign policy (but let’s not even go there…). The funniest thing though, is hearing those on the Right that support eavesdropping on all Americans, the destruction of the Constitution, widespread usage of torture and the voiding of habeus corpus calling Liberals “totalitarian”. You’ve really got to wonder about the internal wiring of these guys and even in a liberal, understanding and compassionate society, whether people who are so removed from reality and so detached from their own actions, should be gently restrained so that they might find treatment, rather than become progressively more dangerous to themselves and society?

It’s interesting that the segment of society that argues so strongly against universal health care should turn out to be the one most desperately in need of it! Liberals are totalitarian? Add to that “Liberals are Fascists” and the whole notion of “up is down” is displayed to it’s utmost, as though the little boys who were so enamored of Superman comics when they were tiny lads that they decided to rebuild our world as the “bizarro world” of those crudely inked pages. Whilst there may be some perverse thrill in labeling everything you see with it’s opposite name, actually believing that this is how reality is represented is manifestly disturbed, to the point of actually endangering civilization (when those so deranged end up with the reins of civilization).

While I am capable of envisioning the scientific principle of the “alternative” or “parallel” universe, I don’t particularly want to live in one. The fact that an entire segment of our society has broken under the strains and stresses of life and has opted to live in a world where “up is down” would be fine with me, IF they actually disappeared to that world. Unfortunately, they continue to inhabit OUR existing world, and increasingly, insist that we accept their altered (read: deformed) perception of the universe as our own. It is one thing for us to attempt to integrate those who are ill and unable to deal with reality into our society, but it is beyond the pale that we should be expected to adapt to madness and embrace it as our new reality. Yet, this is what they are demanding.

If we actually have legitimate elections this year, a Democrat will be elected. When that happens, the “bizarro world” folk will insist that all of the presidential power that was *so* necessary under a Republican be dismantled lest it be used by a Democrat. It makes no difference what the actual political philosophy of this Democrat will be (indeed, Bill Clinton was the most useful “Republican” president that party ever had), the important thing to the bizarro world folk will be that there is a (D) next to their name, so “the folk” will spin on a mental dime and demand all of their legal rights back, howl about governmental eavesdropping, rail against a meddlesome foreign policy, in short, a disassembling of all “Cheney rules” until a Republican can be re-installed in the White House.

Our country simply can’t keep going through these kinds of systemic shocks simply because a given fraction of our citizens are mentally ill and have a pathological fear of certain words (whilst deriving a perverse satisfaction from psychotically insisting that certain concepts are precisely the opposite of what they’ve always been). I can fully understand the mechanism by which the Right’s guilt about Fascism and Totalitarianism would be projected on those that they paranoiacly view as their “enemy”…but to expect the rest of us to adhere to this pathology is not only unacceptable, it also presents the rest of us with a terrible dilemma: how do you “treat” someone who’s mentally ill and will not accept treatment?

 
 

What Element 5 said…

 
 

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