Feb
29
29
The Buckley Stops Here
Not a Bad Legacy [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
If you ask me, the Right thrives, and it, with all its thinking and pushback and debating, is Bill Buckley’s living legacy.
And it’s no bad thing that Jonah Goldberg’s important book, Liberal Fascism, will be #1 on the New York Times bestseller list next week.
Congrats to two friends. One on a life’s work remarkably well done and another on the work he does brilliantly well today and will continue to through many tomorrows.
gbear said,
February 29, 2008 at 0:29
It also looks like ‘The Jonah Goldberg Story’ comes in at #3 AND #5. What a coup.
Righteous Bubba said,
February 29, 2008 at 0:31
Next on the nut-job order desk - K-Lo is assigned to write In Defense of Disinterment: The William F. Buckley Dig-Up and Skull Brandishment and What It Means For America’s War on Terror.
Gary Ruppert said,
February 29, 2008 at 0:31
The fact is, freedom, gay sex, evil, bias in the media, left liberal hate, anger, anti-USA, tyranny, terrorism, more freedom, hmmpff.
D.N. Nation said,
February 29, 2008 at 0:33
You left out her last sentence. It’s lousy even by K-Lo’s already weak standards of teh grammar.
Jennifer said,
February 29, 2008 at 0:33
SMELL the Jonanism!!!
Blue Buddha said,
February 29, 2008 at 0:38
Yeah, I was going to mention #3 & #5, as their subject is a study on irrationality.
Gavin M. said,
February 29, 2008 at 0:42
Ach, you’re right. I revised it.
Five of Diamonds said,
February 29, 2008 at 0:44
If you ask me, the Right thrives, and it, with all its thinking and pushback and debating, is Bill Buckley’s living legacy.
From my perspective, idiots, as often found in Winger Nation, do, in fact, use too many commas, indeed.
Gloria N. Excelsis-Deo said,
February 29, 2008 at 0:53
#2 might also be relevant, to the extent that it is also In Defense of Giant Sammiches.
Pinko Punko said,
February 29, 2008 at 0:59
In case you missed it, since I know there is a chill on relations vis a vis Liberally Fascist Sadly, No and the equally liberally fascist The Poor Man, calling all toasters made the rest of us look really, really bad with this. You really need to see this. Consider the genius that has been left on the table.
Adam Stanhope said,
February 29, 2008 at 1:02
Jonah beat out “In Defense of Food!”
t4toby said,
February 29, 2008 at 1:03
Parse, please? Is this English or JanusNode? (Which I still can’t figure out)
Righteous Bubba said,
February 29, 2008 at 1:07
Feel free to ask about JanusNode.
A start:
http://righteousbubba.blogspot.com/2008/02/some-janusnode-instructions.html
Nimrod Gently said,
February 29, 2008 at 1:15
*scream of horror*
(although I’m actually quite cheered by the fact that his synopsis, unlike anyone else’s, was in quotemarks, as if the NYT just couldn’t bring themselves to treat his howling bollocksweat as valid)
North Dakota is for PUSSIES said,
February 29, 2008 at 1:18
Jonah’s book will be #1, because the publisher just so happens to own the same right wing book club that makes massive bulk purchases of these shitty titles no one will pay $28 bucks for.
That’s why when you visit shitholes like LGF and Townhall, there are banner ads everywhere for 5 books for 5 bucks.
t4toby said,
February 29, 2008 at 1:28
Much obliged, Bubba. It is a cool toy, but not very intuitive.
SamFromUtah said,
February 29, 2008 at 1:35
Long ago there was a DOS program called Babble that was a lot like JanusNode, but it was a lot easier to deal with and let you supply up to 4 texts as input. It would do some analysis of the texts then emit nonsense that combined the styles of all 4 in whatever proportion you set. I’ll have to see if there’s a modern version of that anywhere.
Gloria N. Excelsis-Deo said,
February 29, 2008 at 1:43
It’s good to see that The Policeman’s Beard is still Half-Constructed,
gbear said,
February 29, 2008 at 1:50
The Age Of Unreason. Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?
It is SO fitting that this book should follow Jonahs (after a food book, of course). Jonahs book is, after all, anti-knowledge; not so much a book that you would own to read, but just own to be able to say you own it. If this ever comes out as a book-on-CD, college republicans are going to set their iPods aside and go buy boom boxes so that they can blast this thing out in every corner. Not so much to listen to it, but to annoy the shit out of everyone around them. Definitely anti-knowledge. Wingnut punk.
Righteous Bubba said,
February 29, 2008 at 2:03
Long ago there was a DOS program called Babble that was a lot like JanusNode, but it was a lot easier to deal with and let you supply up to 4 texts as input. It would do some analysis of the texts then emit nonsense that combined the styles of all 4 in whatever proportion you set. I’ll have to see if there’s a modern version of that anywhere.
Please do.
JanusNode’ll do that in a couple of ways though, one via making textDNA out of whatever’s in the output window (it looks through the brainfood folders you choose and replaces whatever it can find with a variable) and the other is via Markov chaining, which will choose words based on what’s generally followed them before.
a different brad said,
February 29, 2008 at 2:18
I’m sure Jonah will celebrate that Scaife finally got around to buying 100,000 copies, but I’m actually glad for his success. It makes my life, when it involves right wingers, easier in two ways.
First, it’s such obvious bullshit that it doesn’t take any effort to discredit the “thesis”.
Second, it reveals anyone who supports that “thesis” as so obviously an idiot that no one around them will take anything they say from then on the least bit seriously.
Thanks to my parents partially retiring to Florida I’ve known actual evolution deniers, but even they wouldn’t swallow this.
I want Jonah to succeed, the same way that back in the good game seven in ‘03 I, and everyone else in Yankee Stadium, wuz yelling at Grady Little to leave Pedro in. Jonah’s success makes my life as a lefty easier. I’d much rather have to argue against him than someone intelligent, informed, and thoughtful.
Uncle Mike said,
February 29, 2008 at 3:19
The fact that the book was published, plus making the list, plus being #1 is probably what killed Buckley.
Anne Laurie said,
February 29, 2008 at 3:46
Wingnut punk.
Aren’t they all?
Lakeesha Shaidle said,
February 29, 2008 at 4:13
It’s #1 with a pantload!
SamFromUtah said,
February 29, 2008 at 4:25
Righteous Bubba - I poked around and didn’t find a new version of Babble, but I did find a page that has the old DOS one (look for bab200 and rename the file to something.zip when you save it off). It appears to work under a WinXP DOS window, if that sort of thing flips your cookie. YMMV with other OSes.
JanusNode sounds very powerful and I should just sit down and learn it. I’ve written a few little things along these lines for classes, which make entertaining output but don’t have any kind of usable interface (strictly command-line Unix stuff).
gbear said,
February 29, 2008 at 5:00
#1 with a pullet?
Smiling Mortician said,
February 29, 2008 at 5:14
#1 with a mullet.
Jon H said,
February 29, 2008 at 5:24
Nabob isn’t actually an insult.
Susan of Texas said,
February 29, 2008 at 5:37
Oh god, she thinks they are having intellectual debates. On the other hand, it’s going to be really funny to see Jonah try to be a public intellectual.
moondancer said,
February 29, 2008 at 6:37
Jon H
Not even a nattering nabob?
Ruthie said,
February 29, 2008 at 7:08
Trees were sacrificed for this crap?
Jon H said,
February 29, 2008 at 7:12
“Not even a nattering nabob?”
The insult is the nattering. The ‘nabob’ part, I think, referred to the prominence of the media figures who were alleged to be nattering.
nabob:
1. A governor in India under the Mogul Empire. Also called nawab.
2. A person of wealth and prominence.
My understanding is that employees of the British East India Company would come back rich from India, and obtain social status and seats in Parliament, and became known as Nabobs.
Jon H said,
February 29, 2008 at 7:15
Indeed, to the extent that Doughpants *can* be called a ‘nabob’, it is a stinging indictment of American society.
Hoosier X said,
February 29, 2008 at 10:06
Does anyone know where I can get a copy of “Moderate Nabobbery: The Secret History of the Center from Warren G. Harding to Hannah Montana”?
OB-GYN Kenobi said,
February 29, 2008 at 15:59
–Conservative mode ON–
The NYT is a lyin’-ass librul rag that’s not fit to line catboxes or parakeet cages.
Yay! Jonah’s book is #1 on the NYT bestseller list!
(head explodes)
–Conservative mode OFF–
histrogeek said,
February 29, 2008 at 18:49
I’m trying to find any bright spot to Jonah’s catbox liner being #1 on NYT bestseller and it just isn’t coming. I suppose it means the bar on history writing has dropped so low that you don’t even need access to a library or Wikipedia to write a best-seller. Nope, not making me feel better.
On the other hand, it’s called “an alternative history” a name usually reserved for speculative fiction. Hmmm, maybe it’s some kind of ultra-Nabokov, unreliable narrator fiction written about a world were the quality of political writing and historical thought has dropped so low that blatantly stupid arguments pass as serious. Nope, still not working.
Tone In DC said,
February 29, 2008 at 19:10
I can’t even joke about his book rising to number one on the non-fiction list. Yes, the book clubs are buying copies at a steep discount. Yes, Americans read less and less, so the sales probably aren’t as strong as Scott Adams’ first “Dilbert” tome.
But, uninformed people might actually believe some of the irrational, illogical and downright fanciful stuff in the Pantload’s book. When they could be buying Jeremy Scahill’s book, or Glenn Greenwald’s or John Dean’s.
Malignant Bouffant said,
February 29, 2008 at 22:06
Good review of LF in the latest
New Republic.
Righteous Bubba said,
March 1, 2008 at 8:32
JanusNode sounds very powerful and I should just sit down and learn it. Istuff).
I’ve been trying to be helpful with that.
Part of the problem is that JanusNode on both Mac and Windows is clunky and weird and every goddamn program wants to turn every quote into a smart quote’n’shit. But if you have some Unix behind you JanusNode should be pretty easy.
Fozzetti said,
March 2, 2008 at 0:32
I am eagerly awaiting Jonah’s suing Doubleday for selling his book in bulk at 1/10 the cover price, and complaining about making 1/10th of his percentage, or whatever.