Pope Spoke About Imminent Market Collapse Back in 1985

Pope Benedict XVI predicted a global market crisis back in a paper he wrote in 1985. Bloomberg reported:

Pope Benedict XVI was the first to predict the crisis in the global financial system, a “prophecy” dating to a paper he wrote when he was a cardinal, Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti said.

“The prediction that an undisciplined economy would collapse by its own rules can be found” in an article written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became pope in April 2005, Tremonti said yesterday at Milan’s Cattolica University.

German-born Ratzinger in 1985 presented a paper entitled “Market Economy and Ethics” at a Rome event dedicated to the Church and the economy. The future pope said a decline in ethics “can actually cause the laws of the market to collapse.”

Pope Benedict in an Oct. 7 speech reflected on crashing markets and concluded that “money vanishes, it is nothing” and warned that “the only solid reality is the word of God.”

Here is the full text of Pope (then Cardinal) Benedict’s essay on a free market economy and ethics from 1985.
Although, it is not so clear that this was an actual “prediction,” this section of the essay sticks out on the dependence of a free market economy and a definitive ethical system:

It is becoming an increasingly obvious fact of economic history that the development of economic systems which concentrate on the common good depends on a determinate ethical system, which in turn can be born and sustained only by strong religious convictions. Conversely, it has also become obvious that the decline of such discipline can actually cause the laws of the market to collapse. An economic policy that is ordered not only to the good of the group — indeed, not only to the common good of a determinate state — but to the common good of the family of man demands a maximum of ethical discipline and thus a maximum of religious strength. The political formation of a will that employs the inherent economic laws towards this goal appears, in spite of all humanitarian protestations, almost impossible today. It can only be realized if new ethical powers are completely set free.

Right, okay. And then if you actually look at Cardinal Ratzinger’s paper, you see that he kept using the words ‘Marx’ and ‘Marxism’ as though he were somehow aware that this idea — the idea that unregulated markets will tend to cycle into periodic collapse — comes directly from Karl Marx. Indeed, it seems that the Cardinal miraculously predicted that this very idea has long been considered common sense throughout Europe and pretty much the entire world, especially in the wake of the Great Depression of the 1930s.

But then, ‘pretty much the entire world’ leaves out certain enclaves of fundamentalist free-market purism, of what used to be a sky-hooting, pie-eyed, right-wing cult sainted by weirdos such as Hayek, Rand, and Von Mises, but is now — after decades of argument, propaganda, argument, people talking and talking on television and radio, and hundreds of millions of dollars of generous contributions by wealthy business interests — known to many Americans, including Gateway Pundit, by the shorthand term of ‘the laws of economics.’

In this milieu, Das Kapital is assumed by people who haven’t read it — because why would anyone ever want to read it? — to be a book like Mein Kampf, describing Marx’s evil plot to enslave Russia and the world. Chillingly, Cardinal Ratzinger seems to favor certain features of Marxism against the free-market orthodoxy he criticizes in the paper, suggesting that the Pope is literally a murderous Stalinist made of Hitlers, i.e. is associated with terrorists.

But hey, if Gateway Pundit wants to launder commonplace Marxian insights through miraculous Papal utterances from the 1980s, at least that’s better than the post directly underneath, as in right under, as in the exact previous post from less than an hour earlier:

“Obama Factor” Weighs Heavy in Market Crash

The stock market continued its horrible post-election crash Thursday:

The Dow is down nearly 20% since Barack Obama won the presidential election. This is the largest post election stock market sell off in history.

Doug Ross tracked the Obama factor in the current market slide in this very interesting blog post–

“Barack Obama and the Wisdom of Crowds”

If we zoom into the September-to-November timeframe, we’ll see something very enlightening. By late September it was increasingly clear to Intrade.com bettors that Obama was going to win the election. From 9/28 to 9/29 Obama’s Intrade price went from 57 to 61, which represented a huge jump… Around September 29th the market began its collapse.

Call it a crisis of confidence. Call it a Fannie-inspired meltdown. Call it what you will, but the markets appear to have reacted to Obama’s promises of economic “fairness”, “spreading the wealth” and raising taxes on the job creators of society.

Read the whole thing here.

For more fanny-inspired meltdowns, watch the constantly evolving, self-contradictory, heat-seeking blame-missiles of rationalization accumulating in teetering stockpiles at sites such as Gateway Pundit (traffic: 25,000 souls daily). Message: Everything is all your fault in a way that we will soon figure out.

The National Book Awards 2008

• Although I have not read any of the books nominated for this year’s Book Awards, I am certain that they pale in comparison to the intellectual dynamo that is Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism, not to mention the fine efforts by such first-rate minds as Andy McCarthy and Douglas Feith.

Why Guns Are Better Than Butter

• America is sliding toward becoming a communist state and the only way we can only stop it is through starting more wars.

Gavin adds: Does it ever seem to anyone as though Glenn “Porkbuster” Reynolds, the small-government libertarian, plays his readers for rubes?

Mark “Daddy Bear” Steyn must be afraid that his den of bear cubs will run off and find other daddy bears on eHarmony, because there is no other explanation as to why the agreement of eHarmony to provide its services to teh gays would have him so worked up:

This doesn’t seem an encouraging development:

The Pasadena-based dating website, heavily promoted by Christian evangelical leaders when it was founded, has agreed in a civil rights settlement to give up its heterosexuals-only policy and offer same-sex matches.

…

“That was one of the things I asked for,” said Eric McKinley, 46, who complained to New Jersey’s Division on Civil Rights after being turned down for a subscription in 2005.

I don’t know Mr. McKinley’s taste in men, but this would have been a less predictable case had he attempted to acquire a Muslim boyfriend at, say, singlemuslim.com.

Apparently, Steyn believes that if you are gay and try to join a Moooslim site, not only do they refuse your membership, but also they send an imam to your house to push you off a cliff. Well, as we say here . . . Sadly, No!. Gays apparently can post profiles at singlemuslim.com

[T]he eHarmony settlement is like a meat-eater going to a vegetarian restaurant and demanding a ribeye.

Or a black person going to a white restaurant and asking for some chicken wings.

The “tolerance” enforcers are jeopardizing the very possibility of any shared societal space.

Because under the settlement all straight people on eHarmony are now going to be forced to have at least one gay date complete with butt sex and interior design tips.

Cruise Review [Jonah Goldberg]

Many thanks to Katie at KabukiVillage for her very flattering write-up of the NR Cruise and yours truly. There are pictures from the sea, for those interested.

Oh right, it’s time again for the National Review Cruise, a font of humor that comes often to the leftward side of the Internet and that, I’m sorry, is simply never any less funny than the time before. Pirates! Lifeboat cannibalism! Stewards slinking from K-Lo’s cabin with shoes in hand! The pool scene from Caddyshack!

Johann Hari’s piece on the July, 2007 cruise is currently the one of record, and personally, as such things go, my favorite National Review Cruise is always the next one. But let’s see what Katie-at-KabukiVillage has to say.

Laugh, and the world laughs with you….and it is just more fun

When I bought Jonah Goldberg’s book, Liberal Fascism, months ago, it would have been much easier to buy it in suburbia. But I waited…waited until I knew I would be in Manhattan for the day…a day when I could purchase it at the book store at Grand Central (making sure to ask the clerk where it was even though it was on a table in the center of the store…just because I knew it would drive the guy nuts) and could then carry it throughout my day of meetings.

Passive aggressive? You betcha (h/t Gov. Palin); and a whole lot of fun. Yes, yes, I would keep Freud very busy.

Whoah, not so fast there! For those who didn’t catch the reference, ‘Freud’ is the psychology guy who liked to figure out crazy people. It’s great to spice up your lingo with trivia references, but fair or not, people do judge you by the words you use. And confusing is never effective! So before you drop an apple core in the trash basket and say “Watch out, Sir Isaac Newton,” you might want to “get a brain, Einstein,” and let your audience off the bang I just shot myself through the head.

[end credits, commercial for Sham-Wow with the young carnival-barker guy wearing the headset, FreeCreditReport.com commercial with the guy on the bicycle, promo for upcoming holiday episode of Stargate: Atlantis, roll opening credits]

Hi, it’s me again. We’re moving too fast. Let’s back up.

But I waited…waited until I knew I would be in Manhattan for the day…a day when I could purchase it at the book store at Grand Central (making sure to ask the clerk where it was even though it was on a table in the center of the store…just because I knew it would drive the guy nuts) and could then carry it throughout my day of meetings.

This is the personality type that voted for Bush in 2000 to “stick it to the liberals,” and then voted for Bush in 2004 wetting their pants over the global foreign Islam terror jihad threat, but then recovered their senses in time to vote for McCain/Palin in 2008, to “stick it to the liberals.”

For in prosperous times when fortune smiles upon the Union, the abiding purpose of the spite caucus is to stick it to the liberals. In times of uncertainty, such as the great and encompassing uncertainty that we now find ourselves confronting, they find ways to blame the liberals for everything bad that happens and devise new solutions by punitively sticking it to them. In their imagined perfect world — i.e., without liberals to stick it to — they would stand around sticking it to them vicariously, while farms ran fallow and airplanes plummeted to the ground and cities fell awash under waves of seawater, as the dollar came to incite thin laughter in Asian bank moguls and as the very furniture was being carted out of their defaulted houses by sheriff’s officers. Others of their tribe would stand on the sidewalk as the tables and chairs filed sadly past, whisperingly accusing the defaulted homeowners of being liberals. The sheriff’s men would eye the liberals on the sidewalk with a mind toward sticking it to them.

Let’s look at this woman’s big day on the town. She created a multi-stage pageant out of buying a copy of Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism — a book devised as though on the spot at a cocktail party, as an insouciant one-liner from a half-drunk Jonah to some cornball editor he was trying to impress (Adam Bellow, let’s imagine), which was then delivered only after years of flop sweat, excruciating mental gymnastics, and probably genuine debilitating mental depression, because as Jonah knew at the time (and as he probably knows still during certain late nights and lonely self-encounters), while its concept is guaran-freaking-teed to make liberals hop-hop-hoppingly mad, it cannot stand as a serious book because it is premised on an absurdity. So here she’s like, “Tee-hee, my plan begins by loudly asking for this book at Grand Central Station, just in case there’s a liberal nearby to whom I’d be sticking it.” It’s like those Mexican guys in Los Angeles with the bouncy cars: On the surface it just looks silly, but then you consider the industry and determination on display — step by step from concept to technical execution — in installing custom hydraulic systems in order to bounce up and down in their car all pocketa-pocketa while scowling at you at a random stoplight, and it’s genuinely sort of terrifying. What sort of people would do this, and by God, what else are they capable of?

Like the other NR chaps, I had certainly read Jonah for ages and marveled at his talent and his ability to absolutely strip bullshit away from ridiculous arguments and eviscerate the opposition.

This is true: Jonah often presents his ridiculous arguments absolutely stripped of bullshit. Or is it the other way around? Either way, he certainly sticks it to the liberals.

And he certainly displayed a similar laid back and approachable demeanor as his fellow speakers. But Jonah, above all the others, was the most successful at doing one thing that I know we all needed….

It’s enough to note the possibilities of this setup, and quietly to move on.

he reminded us all how much fun this should be…that we really are optimists above all else and hanging our heads in worry or defeat, while an option, was really just no damn fun.

What with the tale of her New York rampage, baying through the streets with book awave and with chumps strewn like matchsticks behind her and so forth, she forgot to mention the part about being on the National Review Cruise with real live Jonah. Real live Jonah with cuddle-paw action…

I have read some of the ugly posts about him and the hate-mail he posts. The disappointing news to those of who think that nonsense gets under his skin, it doesn’t. Not even a little. He maintains such a positive attitude and flat out joy at what he is doing that I imagine the Patchouli smelling anti-social moonbat who sends a hate missive would be devastated to see just how grounded and happy he is.

See, for instance, his flat-out joy at obsessively arguing with his critics. But if ‘Doughy Pantload’ doesn’t bother him anymore, it might be time to bring back the sobriquet, ‘The Thing From Lucianne’s Vagina.’ We can’t have him getting too comfortable; that’s when he comes up with ideas for books which future historians will regard as a blot on our era.

Comedy night was when he shined brightest for me. He was able to take his deep knowledge of all things political, and deliver commentary in a way that was both tangible and damn funny.

It’s starting to be clear why Jonah linked to this post.

In a setting where Mark Steyn (funnier than Hell) and Rob Long (who is so good at this genre it is his gig) were in their element, Jonah proved to be spectacular. As with Stephen, I wish that more people saw this side of the folks on our side of the aisle.

Who’s Stephen? But never mind. She’s building to a crescendo here.

We are shackled by an this image of a staid, serious old white guy or a twin-set wearing pearl twirling Upper East Sider or a redneck from the boonies. Those are the options. The rest of us, in fact the majority of us, somehow manage to be ignored by the MSM and the crazies on the left.

…Almost like a majority that is silent, or a noiseless quorum or something. It’s almost as if conservatives are marginalized and stereotyped in the manner of minority groups, while yet making up the mainstream of Americans. It’s like this select majority of superior average people is being systematically persecuted, except you would never know it from the liberal mainstream MSM media, which is against them and in the pocket of a tiny lunatic fringe of far-left liberal crazies that dominates the entirety of American political culture by force of numbers.

We’re breaking new ground here. Such a claim of ennobled victimhood has never been made by every single authoritarian movement since the 19th Century. Or wait, has it? Must look this up later on the Internet.

They can’t wrap their heads around us…can’t acknowledge that we are out there because, if they did,

This is unfair, for we frequently acknowledge that they are ‘out there.’

…they might actually have to tackle substance…and issues and move beyond character attacks and their own perverse discrimination. They can not stomach the diversity of our people, ideas, backgrounds and lifestyles.

I wonder if this style of argument would work the other way around? Wait, let me try.

[squeezes mustard all over the wall]

Conservatives cannot face their squeezing of mustard onto this wall.

[squeezes mustard onto the floor until the mustard bottle makes sniffy air-squeezy sounds]

Just because conservatives boast of strangling children and eating them, they think they can squeeze anything they want onto this floor, starting with this mustard.

They can’t even face the fact that we have fun, we laugh. There has to be a reason that the majority of the email I get from angry lefties is almost always from men and almost always uses sexually explicit or pseudo-violent language…projection?

Yes, that’s the word we were groping for, if ‘groping’ isn’t underwear hoedown explicit or pseudo-violent language whoopie biscuits. There’s even a psychological term for when a person projectingly accuses others of projection, although you have forgotten it — or rather, you are accusing me of saying that you forgot it.

Also, America needs a bold nude erection.

Inherent unhappiness or anger? Lack of the ability to submit rational arguments and thus the need to default into aggressiveness? Who knows, who cares.

As if to illustrate her point, a few weeks ago I made a special effort to walk through Jabib, Oklahoma ostentatiously waving a copy of the Communist Manifesto. Ha ha, no, you did that. No, I did, and you’re accusing me of you doing it. Ha ha, you think you’re in a hall of mirrors, but I aren’t.

[gunshot, shattering glass]

Yes, shoot if you like, but which one is the real me? Hahahaha!

One would think (hope) that the feminists these “men” cuddle with would kick their asses if they knew their love monkeys were using these approaches to try to intimidate a woman….of course, when the feminists finally address Clinton’s abuse of women, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I simply marvel at the hate and the anger and the Freudian implications.

I’d keep Freud very busy. No, you would! Hahahaha!

[gunshot, shattering glass]

Why are me shooting you at me? Hahahaha!

[gunshot, shattering glass]

As for Jonah? He is a force to be reckoned with…a killer combination of intellect, wit and joie de vivre…and I for one look forward to laughing alongside him in the adventure ahead.

Us too, and Jonah’s wife doesn’t have to worry that we’ll show up at his office naked under a fur coat.

Mad Max and the Meltdown: How we went from Christmas to crisis

• I am the only man in America who is brave enough to reveal the ironclad link between our current financial crisis and the Left’s 50-year War on Christmas.

Via.

I’ve read so much gobshite retarded wingnuttery over the past… God, how many years has it been? Anyway, the point is that I’ve read so many stupid arguments in my lifetime that it takes a lot to surprise me. Henninger’s attempt to link the financial crisis to the War on Christmas actually did surprise me and I hope to God that Bill O’Reilly and Michelle Malkin start talking about it soon.

What to do About Piracy?

• Say, y’know what’d be awesome? If the US government paid a bunch of old sailors to be vigilantes and gave them a bunch of ’70s era battleships so they could go cruising around the high seas attacking pirates! Avast, ye scurvy dogs!! And, and, and they would be outside the Navy’s chain of command!!! And, and, AND they would be entitled to half of the ransom that the pirates were asking for!!!!!! AndandANDandand, they wouldn’t be obliged to follow any of the wimpy-assed “laws” that liberals have set up, so they could easily torture the pirates without fear of recourse!!!!!! I DON’T AT ALL SEE HOW THIS CREATES ANY BAD INCENTIVES, WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK!?!!?!!?!! SERIOUSLY, WHAT COULD GO WRONG!?!!?!!!?!!?!

Only Supply is Dampening The Run On Guns

• Obamee’s a’comin’ t’ git our guns!! T’ git our guns!!! Stock up all th’ ammo y’can!!!! WOLVERINES!!!!!!!

Above: Is it me, or does “Goldwater supporter”
always seem like some weird swinger euphemism?

Slummin’ with Barry

• Allow me, among other things, to make the Jeffersons “we’re movin’ on up” reference that you’ve been dreading.

* “Winner, 2007 Illinois Press Association Award for Original Column.” (Cf.)

They are begging for money again at America’s Shittiest Website™ and it appears to have caused a bit of an uprising among their target audience of call-center employees, gun collectors, survivalists, and under-medicated paranoid schizophrenics. A number of potential contributors this year have objected strenuously to sending any more of their monthly disability payments to K-Lo, the Pantload, and those other exemplars of erudition over at National Review just to be wasted on cruise ship cocktails and shore-leave tequila bashes.

But K-Lo is not going down without a fight:

I’m getting a number of e-mails from people who complain that we have some nerve asking for money after spending [sic] on a cruise last week. I totally understand how that looks bad.

But the RNC paid for the cruise and we’re like totally not keeping it, and we are going to take it back to the store. Tomorrow. So send us your money!

But here’s what you need to know: The reason we do these cruises is they bring in money. It’s another fundraiser. And rather than tanning in the Bahamas, we do work — panels, interviews, dinner, lunch, and other discussions.

No one is allowed to leave the boat. Ever. And K-Lo only left her minuscule cabin to feed on a few meager crumbs from the boat’s paltry buffet and to hear the late-night comedy stylings of Mark “The Mooslims Are Coming!” Steyn.

I tell you that not to whine — its a nice thing to work with a little sun in the cabin window vs. the usual Lexington Avenue noise.

[Cue "Tomorrow" . . . ♫♫The sun'll come out tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there'll be sun!♫♫]

Just to illustrate K-Lo’s point, here’s a picture of The Doughy Pantload working his ass off next to an ambiguously gendered fan.

Here’s another Pantload pic, again with the same boy-girl fan, who I bet looks totally hot naked.

And what K-Lo post would be complete without one of her trademark drive-by shootings of the English language?

And like I said in my pitch today, National Review in all its forms has always and I suspect will always, rely [sic] on readers. Thank you again.

No, K-Lo, thank you. I’m almost tempted to send a contribution. Do you take credit-default swaps by any chance?

A Decline in Erudition?

• Nuh-uh. The New York Times obviously doesn’t know that we still use big words. For example, look at my link here where the Word-o’-the-Day cited our use of the word “execrable.” That word has four syllables and only our really smart perspicacious readers even know what it means.

Vice president, former AG, state senator indicted

A South Texas grand jury has indicted Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in Willacy County’s federal detention centers.

The indictment criticizes Cheney’s investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and “at least misdemeanor assaults” on detainees by working through the prison companies.

Gonzales is accused of using his position while in office to stop an investigation into abuses at the federal detention centers.

There aren’t enough ponies in the world for things this awesome.

Just Saw an Ad on TV

And it was for commemorative Obama plates.

The people who are so enthused about Obama are starting to disgust me. Never in my life did I ever think I’d see some of my fellow Americans acting so servile to a politician…this nauseating flattery really has to stop. Get off your knees, Obamaniacs!

That’s now. This was then:

Presidential Press Conference

We’ll have a transcript up when one is made available, but I just wanted to put out my main observation: The MSM is getting more stupid by the minute.

The first question out of the gate was along the lines of, “two months ago you said we were winning, now you say we’re neither winning nor losing, what made you change your mind?”. Do these nincompoops in the press understand even the first thing about being President in war time? [...]

The job of President in war time is to lead the country to victory - not endlessly rehash the past or issue continuing mea-culpa’s for mistakes real or imagined. In leading the country to victory, one doesn’t dwell on setbacks, but keeps oneself firmly fixed on the goal of victory. [...]

As far as I’m concerned, the President should just give up press conferences as a bad job - the members of the press are too hostile and/or too stupid to even do their jobs properly. Much better, for instance, if the President were to just invite a selection of radio talk show hosts and bloggers into the White House for a chat - we’d see to it that the word got around, and the press could steam and stew and just take the story as we gave it to them. Anything has got to be better than the President of the most powerful nation on earth being questioned by ignoramouses.

While I’m not a big fan of cheesy presidential merchandise, I think buying an Obama plate is a far less servile act than volunteering to be his personal propagandist.

Just sayin’.

INCONVENIENT FACT: THE IRAQIS DON’T LIKE US

[...]

Thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions in taxpayer funds have been expended to provide Iraqis the opportunity to live freely. And this despite the facts that (a) the U.S. interest in Iraqi democracy remains tenuous (our interest was the elimination of Saddam’s terror-mongering, weapons-proliferating regime), and (b) Americans were assured, when the nation-building enterprise commenced, that oil-rich Iraq would underwrite our sacrifices on its behalf. Yet, to be blunt, the Iraqis remain ingrates. That stubborn fact complicates everything.

Of all the weird beliefs that neoconservatives have, the weirdest by far is the idea that foreigners should actually enjoy having their countries invaded and occupied. I mean come on, ungrateful Iraqis, only it’s not like anyone has been killed during this glorious liberation! Christ, the way these whiny jerks tell it, you’d think that millions of them had been forced to flee their homes and that millions more have been forced to live without access to potable drinking water!

THE TRAGIC PREDICTABILITY OF THE JEWISH VOTE

• The majority of my fellow Jews are Israel-hating anti-Semites.

Above: The Obama thugs have gotten Chief Editor Korir

Oh wait:

Urgent Update

African Press International is under attack by those trying to shut down the Cerifi-Gate investigation. Earlier today, there was a fire at the phone exchange in Norway that services API’s offices, and, less than an hour ago (as I write this on Sunday afternoon), WordPress has shut down API’s site for supposed “Terms of Service” violations. I have read WordPress’s TOS, and, in my opinion, API had committed no such violations. All of this took place while Mr. Korir was en route from Norway to the UK regarding arrangements for release of the Michelle Obama Tapes.

We have spoken over the phone with API Chief Editor Arap Korir, and offered our assistance in carrying the API site on our server until he can make permanent arrangements. We have also spoken with Phil Berg to advise him of this situation.

Fortunately, we have PDF file duplicates of most of the API material we have linked to here, are are working on replacing the links to the now-disabled site with links to our PDF files.

Earlier this week, I said this is starting to read like a bad spy novel. That novel has now come to life in a very real, very ominous way.

Is this the “Change” many of you voted for? If there is nothing to hide, why all the herculean efforts to hide it?

—————————————-

API wishes to thank MarchReport for the offer but decline to accept. API will now get its own permanent Website with its own WWW domain. Enemies who are jealous to see API grow managed to create lies and fed WordPress with them, misleading them to take action by closing us. I would like to state that we loved Wordpress and will still do so, because this problem was not created by them by lies envious of us. Now they see us continue to grow.

By Chief Editor Korir

This seems reasonable. We can expect to hear the tape shortly.

At National Review, a Threat to Its Reputation for Erudition

• Due to groupthink, blind partisanism, and a capitulation to a coarseness of discourse that has been brought by the Internet, the National Review may have lost its reputation as the cradle for conservative intellectuals and the home for the erudite and well-mannered debate that was prized by its founder, the late William F. Buckley Jr.

The NYT On The Corner, NR, etc.

• Har-har and farty-fart-fart. This piece was better than what I expect from the liberal New York Slimes — it was only wrong and laughable. Whether Arango is uninformed and lied, or whether his ignorant, dishonest sources were lying to him, I have no time to consider, for I am busy doing something far more important. [toilet flushes] I shall say, however, that it is demonstrably false that we have lost our reputation as the, uh, unanimously supported George W. Bush on literally every single, solitary particular, no backs, infinity — which I believe only strengthens my point. Fart-fartiddy-fart-fart, fart-fart. P.S.: PALIN 2012!!1!one!! P.P.S.: Heh heh Arango, hope you’re not an illegal immigrant. I say good day, sir! [toilet flushes]

Bonus (verbatim) Mark “Erudition” Levin:

re: The Times

I have now read the New York Times piece re: National Review (I can’t tell if it’s about the magazine or the website, but no matter). Frankly, it’s silly. With all due respect to David Frum and Kathleen Parker, their disgruntlement does not reflect the nature of either the magazine or the website. They were (are) provocative in what they wrote, they knew it, yet feign discomfort with the reaction and now wear the face of victimization. I find it all annoying and distracting. (You want to see hate mail? Try being a talk show host for about five minutes. You deal with it.) NR the website is a forum for input and debate, but for the occasional official editorial. Given the intelligent people around here, the debates will often be intense — just as they were from the day William Buckley founded NR magazine and thereafter. And, of course, throughout it all, there were those who took their pens and paper and went elsewhere. It happens — even at the New York Times.

A suggestion to Mr. Levin in regard to material published in the National Review, whether print or online: With style in mind, begin each paragraph with the phrase, “You know what really grinds my gears?” End each paragraph with the phrase, “And that’s how I see it!”

A New Voice Rises In the Red States

• I was talking to my friend at Eagle Publishing about, okay, Obama victory: good for Republicans, and she was like, “you so totally ought to talk to Patrick Ruffini, no wait, no wait, he doesn’t work for us, hang on a sec, Robert Bluey is busy this week, crap, hang on,” and the next thing I knew, she had connected me with Erick Erickson of RedState.com, the young, hip grassroots organizer who collected more than 3,400 signatures on a recent e-petition.

Bonus Shorter Newsweek:

Is Obama the Antichrist?

• As is the case with so many things, there are reasonable people on both sides of the question.

I can imagine a bunch of outraged Pistols fans screaming “SELL OUT!!1!!”, which is actually what makes doing a butter commercial the most punk rock thing anyone has ever done. Seriously, what could be more punk than dressing like a middle-class wanker and telling your own fans to sod off?

Consider this a Sunday open thread.