The usually-unspoken problem with the “download my brain” idea is that YOU STILL DIE. So you make a copy of yourself? Big deal! The copy laughs at you as your organs fail, then goes off and makes love to your spouse: this is progress?
I don’t hope to live forever, but I DO hope to live long enough for the aliens to show up. Maybe they’ll zap me into atoms, but I’ll be on top of the skyscraper with the exotic dancer, waving the “Welcome Aliens” flag. And if they’re not of the “Independence Day” variety, I’ll hitch a ride and never look back. I mean, where better to die beneath a naked girl avalanche than on the distant pleasure-planet of Orgasma-7?
Chuckles Johnson over at Killing an Arab has his bike shorts in a bunch. Why? Well, because that’s what he does. He sits around waiting for something, preferably involving a darkie, to cross his computer screen that he can be offended by.
The proximate cause of his recent valve-closing, however, was the reaction of local merchants in Belgium to an attention-whoring right-wing politician coming around to put up a street sign reading “NO JIHAD STREET”. (Apparently, they found it somewhat provocative and distasteful.) I can see what Chuckles is so mad about, though; you wouldn’t believe the hysterical reaction I got from the neighborhood association when I wanted to change the name of my street to “I’M AGAINST THIEVING, LAZY MEXICANS LANE”. What’s the big deal? I didn’t say I was against all Mexicans, just the thieving, lazy ones! Sheesh.
As is always the case with LGF, come for the racism and stay for the craziness: not a moment goes by that some commenter on their threads doesn’t say something nuts. Pick your favorite!
EDIT: I guess image-control-enthusiast Charles “Digg is Part of the IslamoNazi Conspiracy” Johnson has blocked the link, because the free exchange of ideas demands that no one make fun of him. Anyway, here it is, if you care:
I would like to ask the corporate bosses what they are thinking when they look at this garbage and say, “its a great idea”.
Why ask them? You’ve answered your own question in the previous paragraph:
[B]ack in my youth, I would have eaten this sort of thing up – hot looking chicks dressed up in brazen sexuality and singing songs suggestive of a willingness to get horizontal; oh, yeah!
Above: Democracy whiskey sexy
As prostitutes, pornographers and proprietors of ex-gay ministries have learned, it’s relatively easy to separate a horny person from his money:
At 15, however, I was not in full possession of a mature mind able to easily separate out fact from fantasy – at that age, I was reliant upon adults to understand that there are things they shouldn’t do to an impressionable mind, lest such an immature mind take the message at face value and go out and try to live an impossible, and possibly deadly (in the larger, theological sense of the word), life.
Like Wolfowitz and Libby, poor Conrad Black is also a completely innocent victim of corrupt and hateful accusers. That’s why Jonah Goldberg said: “I am all in favor of defending Conrad Black.” David Frum has told us that Black is “brilliant and brave, generous and learned,” and regularly posts links to articles attacking his prosecutors. He recently promoted a lengthy defense of Black movingly entitled “The Tragedy of Conrad Black.”
Frum’s father-in-law, Peter Worthington (step-father of Frum’s wife, Danielle Crittenden) is so obsessed with the Black trial that he writes daily dispatches defending Black and attacking the prosecutors. He tells us that everything was just fine until overzealous prosecutors went after the innocent Black: “”the reality in the Hollinger case is that it was a thriving, viable company until the prosecutors took aim on Conrad Black.” Identically, Mark Steyn is live-blogging Black’s trial, mocking the prosecutors and its witnesses and vigorously arguing for Black’s innocence.
I recently obtained financial records that showed that in late 2000 David Frum, the former speechwriter for President Bush, received monthly payments of $16,667 from Conrad Black’s Hollinger International. Black, the media magnate, is currently on trial for fraud and racketeering in Chicago. Prosecutors allege he used Hollinger as his personal “piggy bank�[...]
$16,667 a month for ‘consulting fees’ — not a bad gig if you can get it, especially since there’s no evidence that the Hollinger ‘internet publication’ project that Frum supposedly worked on was ever for real:
The payments are also noteworthy because they are typical of the way that Black spent shareholder money on whatever suited his fancy. I asked a former Hollinger employee about Frum’s explanation of the payments. “If there was a good idea for an Internet publication that would make money, there’s no issue,� she replied. “The trouble for all of us was there were no business plans for any of these ‘internet investments.’
Williams, 83 when his heart stopped, was brought to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation July 5, 2002. For now, and likely for decades, perhaps forever, he remains housed in desert country, in a cookie-cutter, single-level commercial building nestled among dozens like it at the Scottsdale Airpark…
According to one expert, the day when the Williamses might be reunited could come later this century. For now, Ted and John Henry are among only 161 people worldwide — all but four of them stored in three US cryonic facilities — who await their rebirth in the deep-chilled state of cryostasis.
Former Alcor employee Ben Best, now president of the Cryonics Institute in Clinton Township, Mich., emphasized in a recent phone interview that little has changed in the science the last five years. Nonetheless, experts and devotees believe technological advances will have people such as Williams and his son back walking among us in the next 50-100 years.
“I’d say 100 years, maximum, but a lot of people believe it will never happen,” said Best. “Of course, if I believed that, I wouldn’t be doing this.”
Me no get.
I, for one, would like to die someday. Preferably not tomorrow, but by the time I’m wetting my pants and popping Cialis, I should be ready to go. And when I do, I hope that I die in a comical way that will provide some brief, fleeting amusement to the living. I’m thinking of just falling down a manhole or something- that could be pretty funny.
Add Joseph “Behold My New Mustache!” Farah to the ranks of those who believe what’s missing in Iraq is a lot more violence:
I’m not talking about a little “surge” in military forces in Baghdad, mind you. I’m talking about taking the handcuffs off our troops. I’m talking about Jack Bauer-style interrogations of captured enemy combatants. I’m talking about carpet-bombing the rug makers in Persia who are manufacturing the explosive devices killing out troops. I’m talking about getting our hands dirty to achieve victory.
Maybe the US can sprinkle a little Agent Orange as well. (No no, not Brent Bozell. Not Rusty Staub either.) Getting our (!?!) hands dirty? Carpet bombing? Have you driven a Kissinger lately?
So Powerline turned 5 today. Dean Barnett gushes: “… John, Paul, and Scott pioneered a new form of journalism.”
Not to be outdone, Hugh Hewitt commenter Doc has this to say:
Powerliners are Modern Day Ben Franklins
The Powerline Guys are not Bloggers, the coined term for People who have a Web Log. They remind me of the Franklin Brothers, James and his apprentice brother Benjamin(under the pseudonym Silence Dogood) who were the Founders of The New England Courant. This was truly the first Colonial Paper after Benjamin Harris’ “Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick”, was suppressed in 1690 after only one issue under a 1662 Massachusetts law that forbade printing without a license. This is exactly what the Liberals in Congress, Dinosaur Networks and Paper Media Giants want to do to New Media types like the Three Scholars of Powerline. Dean Barnett is right, Blogging does not adequately describe this Trio of Renaissance Franklinesque men. Powerline is New Media’s “Pennsylvania Gazette”, the News Paper Benjamin Franklin took over and transformed into an the Journalistic Catalyst that helped the Colonies unite against the Crown and gave voice to the quest for freedom from Government and provided a vessel that helped create our system of Government by and for the People which the old guard would like to limit like the Crown did with the First Newspaper killed after its first Publication. Ben Franklin could not be stopped and nether this Trio of smart, well informed, capable and fearless Musketeers of New Media whose Journalistic lines are giving Powder back to us the American People..Congratulations and Thank you all for your hard work and inspiration to us “web loggers” to write and contribute to what Hugh Hewitt succinctly describes the New Information Reformation. Felicitations and continued success and praise for your amazing work which is much more in line and reminiscent of American Journalistic Tradition founded by the great Ben Franklin in contrast to that of the Old Media and its minions……
Kudos and Felicitations..Doc! Gobsmacking putridity does not adequately describe the Unlettered Slab of sycophantic doggerel You have penned! The laughable Notion that John Hinderaker et. al. would NOT have been Tories had they dwelled in Boston circa 1690…………………fills My Bodkins with Mirthful Spasms of Involuntary Flatulence!
Truly, Sir……….You are a fearless Assketeer of New Media!
Richard Cohen discovers something some of us on the right have been saying for a while: if you hold your head just so and look at Bush from the right angle, he looks an awful lot like a liberal.
Thanks, Richard. You’ve just provided “respectable” intellectual cover for one of the stupidest people in the entire world. I hope you’re proud.
Apparently feeling a little giddy after the three-day weekend, the Corner Boys over at NRO are really pulling out the stops today. First of all, respected journalist Michael Ledeen files this report based on a letter from a friend of a friend of a reader who lives in Canada — so you wouldn’t know her — who swears that Richard Gere put a gerbil in his hiney in Texas, angels come down from heaven and hand out free caramels at the funerals of soldiers. I live in Texas and can easily refute the piece’s title (”Texas is a Better Place,” which is really only true if you are an executioner), but the really curious part of it is this line from the relentlessly truthful Ledeen:
In many places around the country, members of the Sheehan-Reid-Obama-Clinton cult disrupt military funerals, but I doubt they would attempt to perform their disgusting ritual in a fine place as described here.
Huh! Well, I certainly can’t remember Cindy Sheehan, Harry Reid, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or any other leading liberals or Democrats disrupting a military funeral, but unfortunately there’s no way to check on…
[Zeerp] “Hello, dum-dums.�
Hey, it’s the Great Gazoogle! Say, I wonder if he could help us find out who’s disrupting military funerals.
Big Daddy Ezra K has found a Seventeen article that gives teenage girls tips for picking up (WTF is wrong with them?!!?!) blogger dudes:
You don’t agree with all his posts, but they make you think about new issues — and whether he’s as cute as his pics!
Find him at: A friend of a friend’s Top 8 Your first move: Bloggers love having an audience almost as much as they like a battle of wits, so stir up some controversy by telling him when you disagree with a post.
Hidden payoff: An outspoken guy can stir up passions you never knew what you had — and help you figure out what you really stand for.
Years ago, someone coined the term “neoliberal.” I was never sure what it meant, and it has since fallen into disuse, but whatever the case, I’d like to revive (and mangle) the term and apply it — brace yourself — to George W. Bush. He’s more liberal than you might think.
Hoo boy. Another I’m-going-to-be-contrarian-just-to-show-how-above-the-fray-I-am column. This should be good:
You recoil, I know. After all, the conventional wisdom is that Bush is the most conservative of all presidents, an advocate of limited government…
Ah, no. Bush has never been an advocate of limited government. He’s essentially just taken the government and transformed it into the world’s biggest wingnut welfare machine. While this isn’t really a “conservative” thing to do in the traditional sense of the word, I wouldn’t consider it all that liberal either.
…minimal taxes…
But Bush isn’t for minimal taxes; he’s for permanently altering our tax code so that we only tax earned income, all the while letting unearned income, such as inheritances or stock dividends, slide.
…and, when it comes to the quintessentially liberal concern with civil liberties, the man who gave us the twin black eyes of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. It’s an appalling record.
It sure is, Richard. And what’s worse is that… heeeeeey, wasn’t this column s’posed to be about how Bush is really just a big hippee?
Remember how the WingNet was going crazy-mad yesterday about that memo from Iraq that was supposed to be a forgery? Remember, for instance, how Ace was crowing that the Washington Post had yet to answer his charges:
Still no response from the reporter. Her refusal to comment is suggestive to me that she did in fact base her story on this absurd forgery.
…whilst calling Juan Cole a ‘dickhead’ and a ‘fucking idiot,’ and so on and so forth?
Juan Cole, among the bazillion lefties who linked the shoddy document as legitimate, refuses to retract his claim, saying he “[doesn't] accept the reasoning” of LGF’s posts (apparently he didn’t bother clicking to mine) [...]
Hey, dickhead? What more “reasoning” do you need than this?
Still no response from Ace. His refusal to comment is suggestive to us that he’s hiding under the computer desk today with circles under his eyes, bingeing on Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk.
Hey, dickhead? What more “reasoning” do you need than this?
[photograph of figurine eagle]
This is a fucking hummel eagle and flag figurine from a cheesy knicknack vendor, you fucking idiot. What additional “reasoning” do you need?
It’s this [Green Beret and retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Force] Pat Lang character, a lefty buddy of [former CIA analyst] Larry Johnson’s, who’s been passing this obvious sham around. . . .
What kind of idiots do we have in our “intelligence” community, exactly?
When they give you an intelligence test, do they require you actually fail to get the job? Or at least post a not-too-high, not-too-low score somewhere between “average intelligence” and “borderline imbecile who sits in the corner all day clapping and masturbating”?
Here’s Ace today:
While Gleen Grenwald [sic] is crying vindication, it seems to me he’s jumping the gun a bit. For one thing, among the possibilities I mentioned was that there was in fact a real memo, but the “memo” being circulated was not the actual memo itself, but a Microsoft Word created facsimile. I didn’t want that to be the case — I was hoping for full snookerage of the WaPo just for the embarrassment — but it’s a a little childish of Gleen to pretend that I denied that could be the case.
Unless we’re imagining things, Ace’s ass-covering seems to have changed a bit since we first saw it this afternoon. (We remember the original exculpatory argument having been that the breaking-news!1!! must-credit-Ace!!1! emails that he volcanoed out to the right-wing media included some kind of caveat about the story not being totally confirmed yet).
It’s impressive, though, to see Ace regaining form so quickly, inventing a whole new reality in which he never said what everyone just heard him say. He goes on to claim that this incident only goes to show that it’s really liberal critics of Ace such as Glenn Greenwald who are crazy and wrong, then adds a bravura flourish by accusing them of projection for criticizing him.
Also: I could point out that the Yankees are now trailing my Red Sox by 12 and a half games, but I know it won’t last much longer. I am, however, enjoying it whilst it lasts.
Pax.
Seb adds: Nothing to add actually, just checking some tech stuff. Carry on please.
Every few months we discover inconsistencies in a trivial news story on Iraq, allowing us to spend the rest of the time high-fiving and sneering at accurate news stories on Iraq.
Why do people like this hold vast influence over American foreign policy? Can someone please explain it to me?
Is Sky Falling on America?
By Victor Davis Hanson
The suicide-murders and roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan sicken Americans. Soon-to-be nuclear Iran seems loonier than nuclear North Korea. American debt keeps piling up in China and Japan. And we think of angry Venezuela, the Middle East and Russia every time we fill up – if we can afford to fill up.
Then listen to Al Gore on global warming. Or hear Jimmy Carter on the current president. The common denominator is American “decline.”
Well, duh. 72 percent of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. While the Republicans deserve most of the blame for this, I’ll be the first to acknowledge that the Democrats have done jack-shit to make things better. The only difference is that they seem to send Bush mean letters before they rubberstamp his war policies.
Books by liberals assure us that our “empire” is kaput. Brace for the inevitable fate of Rome. Conservatives are just as glum. For them, we are also Romans – but the more decadent variety, eaten away from the inside.
Here’s a question, Vic- why do we want to be an empire in the first place? Empires are all about subjugating other people, stealing natural resources from other countries, and generally acting like bullying creeps. Why, why, why is this something we want to take part in?
Please, please, please stop writing about vaginas. I know you have major hang-ups about them, and I know they freak you out, but us normal heterodudes like them rather a lot. So just stop it. Por favor. This is the most honest statement I’ve written in my entire life.
Bowing to President Bush, the Democratic-controlled House and Senate reluctantly approved fresh billions for the Iraq war on Thursday, minus the troop withdrawal timeline that drew his earlier veto.
The Senate vote to send the legislation to the president was 80-14. Less than two hours earlier, the House had cleared the measure, 280-142, with Republicans supplying the bulk of the support.
Five months in power on Capitol Hill, Democrats in both houses coupled their concession to the president with pledges to challenge his policies anew. “This debate will go on,� vowed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, announcing plans to hold votes by fall on four separate measures seeking a change in course.
And in the end, you’ll cave like spineless wimps. It happens every goddman time.
Over at Lawyers, Guns & Money, the management thinks it’s going to sneak this by without us noticing:
I was happy to see that the annual Fistful Of Euros Satin Pajamas awards were up–I’m always happy to be introduced to new European blogs I wouldn’t otherwise see. I was then surprised and gratified to see that L, G & M has been nominated for best non-European weblog (although I think it was my French name that put me over the top.) Make sure to check it out.
But who is listed first on the ballot over there? Is it Tristement, Non!* Mais oui!
So let’s be sure we show that Frenchman “Scott” what the wrath of Sadly, No! looks like. Gentlemen, start your voting.
