Crush-Porn Staycations “Erasing My Soul,” Phrased-As-A-Question Sobs Goldfarb?
Posted on June 4th, 2009 by Gavin M.
Michael Goldfarb, The Weekly Standard:
Does Obama Speak Arabic?
- If Obama claims not to speak Spanish, but once slipped and admitted not being good at speaking Spanish, then might not such a concealer of language-speaking be covertly fluent in Islamic Hate Babble? The only real clue is if I punctuate phonied-up quotes with spooky organ music while yinking my eyebrows up and down — yet it is the White House that calls Obama a Muslim, while unjustly are conservatives smeared for alleged ‘smears.’
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™
The Anti-Christ is fluent in all languages. I thought everyone knew that.
If Obama claims not to speak Spanish, but once slipped and admitted he is not good at speaking Spanish, then might not such a concealer-of-languages be covertly fluent in Islamic Hate Babble? The only real clue is if I punctuate phonied-up quotes with spooky organ music while yinking my eyebrows up and down — yet it is the White House that calls Obama a Muslim, while unjustly are conservatives smeared for alleged ’smears.’
It looks like English yet it’s charmingly incomprehensible. And yet I know that were I to click through and read the original, it would somehow manage to make even less sense!
So by this rational, I am fluent in Chinese, because I picked up some swear words from Firefly, and everyone in the US can speak the native language of Hawaii because we all know the word ‘aloha’
I know we make our jokey jokey and all, but sometimes it just gets fucking old that the nation’s discourse is represented by such god-awfully stupid, detestable morons.
Does Obama Speak Arabic?
The answer is on his birth certificate, the long-form, vault copy one. You betcha.
Well, that shorter is completely nonsensical, which is why I’m going to take your word that it accurately reflects what Goldfarb wrote.
Goldfarb hand-book:
Na Zdrovie –> Commie
Shukran –> Terrorist
Oui, Merci –> Fag
Gracias –> Illegal
Namaste –> Call center guy
Jambo –> Mugabe-ist
Gutentag –> Nazi
Shalom –> Obama-hater
I studied Frenc for seven years.
35 years ago.
So I would never in a million years claim to “speak French,” because, you know, people sometimes call you on that shit.
But I find myself on occasion speaking to a French person and answering in fairly grammatical French.
But I do not speak French. I know some of it, and can fake a bit, but it would insult the French to say je parle le francais.
7 Strange Coincidences. Or are they?
They need to see his character sheet to know for sure whether he gets Arabic as a racial bonus or if it’s a skill he’s put taxpayer points into.
(Hey, wait a minute, this isn’t right. I’m supposed to be speaking what? Och, gówno.)
I think he’d interpret it as ‘self-hating Obamabot and/or that Podhoretz guy who keeps asking why I never call’.
Och, gówno
Please don’t spit here. That’s what the spitoons are for.
Yes, Obama’s pretending to be unable to speak Spanish because the Latino vote is virtually worthless to the Democrats. And he was able to memorize a phrase in Arabic that Nicholas Kristoff thought sounded authentic. Very suspicious.
The really good arguments – “maybe Obammie speaks Arabic” – are so good that they can only be countered with a devilishly complex counter-argument, such as – “so what if he does.”
I made it a point to learn how to say, “What’s up, gorgeous?” in Polish with a passable accent. It paid off really well, but I would never claim to be able to speak the language. I also know the words to Kleine Cafe aan de Haven for those occasions when I’ll be drinking with Nederlanders. Suomi? Not a word, though I can think of someone who does.
Back on topic, what the hell is wrong with these people. They sure didn’t lambaste Dubya for busting out in butchered Spanish (or English, for that matter).
So in just 200 years we’ve gone from having anyone who didn’t at least speak French being too much of an illiterate buffoon to even be considered for the presidency to ANY foreign-language knowledge, no matter how rudimentary, being a DISqualification for office? What’s that about the intentions of the Founding Fathers again?
Suomi? Not a word, though I can think of someone who does.
*sipping herbal tea quietly*
Huh?
The presidint is edumacated! This cannoot stand! prezidunts should go to ivy leegue schools to drink, not to get no fancy book larning!
peepule who knows more than me scares me.
OT but Awesome.
Breaking News !eleventy! This is no joke people! Wake Up!
Hip-Hop Hijacked by Freemasons! Oh Noes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3a9c3eeb8E&feature=related
It is already too late for Rhianna but perhaps others can be saved.
Yeah, Websense doesn’t want to let me read The Weak Standard.
I assume this is about Barry Hitlestalissein daring to greet Arabs in their own language. Just a further data point in my assertion that wingnuts literally think Ay-rabSpeak is inherently evil and you can’t study or speak it without BEING CONTAMINATED, unless you have the special Ayrab-resisting talent folks like Daniel Pipes possess.
Yeah, that one Finnished me, too…
I can order a beer and ask where the toilet is in multiple languages. Behold, I am like the whole UN wrapped up in one little person. I also like organ music, even spooky-sounding. COINCIDENCE?
Pere,
I think it’s more about Barack HUSSEIN Osama being sekritlee Ayrab.
Breaking News !eleventy! This is no joke people! Wake Up!
Hip-Hop Hijacked by Freemasons! Oh Noes!
Dammit, why do you people always bust out with the excellent insanity when I’m behind the Iron Curtain of Websense?
I think it’s more about Barack HUSSEIN Osama being sekritlee Ayrab.
Wow, so he’s a Kenyan Arab Muslim Atheist Christian Black Separatist Oreo Fascist Communist Iron-Fisted Wimp.
Backwards ran sentences, until reeled the mind.
Is it just me, or does Michael Goldfarb look like Jeff Healey?
I bet he’s just as blind, too.
I find it useful to memorize certain key phrases in the local dialect, like:
“Don’t shoot! I’m Canadian!”
He looks like Andre the giant, only not as smart
Since I live in midtown Manhattan, I’ve learned to give directions to the Museum of Modern Art in about 6 languages I don’t speak. Multilingual tourguide!
I’ve learned to give directions to the Museum of Modern Art in about 6 languages I don’t speak.
I thought for sure I’d trip you up with Outer Albanian…
“I thought for sure I’d trip you up with Outer Albanian…”
What! They speak a foreign language in mid-state New York now? Will the Buffalonians get there own language next?
Since I live in midtown Manhattan, I’ve learned to give directions to the Museum of Modern Art in about 6 languages I don’t speak.
Thank FSM that obscene gestures tend to be universal!
And every time I give the directions, it crosses my mind that they might have asked something else.
I can order a beer and ask where the toilet is in multiple languages.
The Tigrismus School of Languages — Belch your way across Europe.
I know we make our jokey jokey and all, but sometimes it just gets fucking old that the nation’s discourse is represented by such god-awfully stupid, detestable morons.
It is depressing, and by rights after both 2006 and 2008 a sane media would have said “the country just repeatedly decisively rejected these guys, let’s not pay attention to them…” but somehow we still have President Gingrich on TV more than the freecreditreport.com guy.
Was it like this in 1933? Was Hoover’s VP given ridiculous amounts of airtime to bash FDR?
I’m not saying exactly when, but I got a tape that will stop Obama from getting elected. I’m going to release it sometime in the next 4 days^D^D^D^D^Dweeks^D^D^D^D^Dyears.
Will the Buffalonians get there own language next?
“Beef on weck” isn’t a sandwich, you know…
…and on the tape he’s speaking Norwegian.
And every time I give the directions, it crosses my mind that they might have asked something else.
Think of all the hawt sexx you may have missed out on.
Ha! Somebody stuck Goldfarb’s eyelids together with Super Glue.
Now he’s a talking corpse.
Does Goldfarb speak “Idiot”?
And every time I give the directions, it crosses my mind that they might have asked something else.
Think of all the hawt sexx you may have missed out on.
Drop your panties, Sir Villiam, I cannot vait until lunsh!
Och, gówno.
While gówno = shit, it doesn’t work as an exclamation. Consequently, “aj kurwa” or “oj cholera” would be much better choices.
Belch your way across Europe.
Not just Europe; it really is a universal language.
You’d be surprised how much they aren’t, actually. The intent, emotion, and context usually does a pretty good job of translating; besides a few odd cases of gestures meaning the exact opposite of each other, the cross-cultural issues are mainly limited to a gesture being unrecognized but still found a mixture of offensive and funny, found humorous in its innocent offensiveness, and confusing.
-A Chinese person trying to imply that you enjoy paying money to take it up the ass would involve a gesture indistinguishable from a thumbs-up (and oddly enough so would an ancient Roman);
-the peace sign means something offensive in England when faced wrong;
-the gesture we would use for “OK” would tell a Brazilian “hey, look, everyone, it’s a vagina!” (you have no idea how useful this can be in Brazil!);
-there’s the many variations of va te faire foutre which didn’t make it here;
-the Finger doesn’t carry universally offensive intent (see the Pueblo sailors appearing in propaganda photos from their North Korean captives giving it, and passing it off as a Hawaiian good luck charm), being used frequently for pointing and counting;
-If you find yourself in a situation where a modern southern Italian or baroque Englishman wants to convey something unspeakably obscene about your anal habits (and who doesn’t), you would be forgiven for believing they are trying to steal your nose;
-and finally the mother of all gestural bombshells, the corna – they look like devil horns and are used like hook-em horns, and they’re used for two not entirely complimentary purposes: warding off bad luck and jovially (or not so jovially) suggesting that someone cannot keep their significant other loyal with their pathetic sex skills. (‘Cuckold’ has a horned connotation in many languages, and the gesture is pretty gender-neutral these days.) You can understand why the ready ability to mistake ‘knock on wood’ for ‘Ha ha, you couldn’t sell your ass for fresh fruit’ might lead to difficulties. (More unambiguous uses also cause trouble – among the many insane things Berlusconi has done is making the corna at state functions in an Italian equivalent of bunny-ears, and a former President (PM?) got in a whole shitload of trouble over making the knock-on-wood corna when shaking hands with people in a city recently struck with a plague.
-On the subject of obscene gestures, a favorite stupid wingnut trick is to obsess over the Bellamy Salute (a result of common classicist academies in the Franco-American tradition of republican symbiology and the nascent Germanic symbiology of volkist monarchy), goose-stepping (drilling is pretty silly no matter how you do it), and so on and so fuckin’ forth. In fact:
-In some wacky mixed-up countries, characterizing the worst thing the Nazis ever did as how they set up rallies, drills, and salutes is regarded as offensive. Can you believe that shit? Hell, the Czechs won’t even use ‘Western betrayal’ to mean Yalta instead of Munich! Those zany foreigners.
-Very important, on a serious note: while generally you can go a long way with a positive intonation and listener anticipation, the way people say “yes” and “no” with gestures actually differs significantly between cultures. One of them – I believe Hungarians, but I could be wrong – use a nod for “no” and a lateral shake for “yes”. No wonder they love Colbert so much. (Oh, and evidently ideological alignment doesn’t predict popularity of Stephen Colbert so much as it predicts willingness to believe that Colbert is pretending to be a right-wing gasbag. Yes, he is popular among Republicans who actually think he’s being serious. The mind boggles.)
Sure you weren’t Lapping it up? Because I’m pretty sure you were.
I think if Bush could manage to say one or two words of Arabic, they’d treat it as proof that he was an A-1 genius. They genuinely are impressed by something you can train a bird to do. Besides, only a terrorist would know how to say “thank you” in terror-ese.
Don’t tell him about Pashto. It would only blow his mind.
“Suomi?”
I hardly know you!
alec,
One of them – I believe Hungarians, but I could be wrong – use a nod for “no” and a lateral shake for “yes”.
Close, but no cigar. Bulgaria and Greece.
The “och” was a complete stab in the dark too, I’ll admit. You wacky Slavs’ moon languages continue to frighten and anger me in new ways every day.
“Kurwa” would be what, “cunt”? The more obvious one is interesting – I used to think it was unique to Dutch or something, but it shows up in a lot of places (just with particular enthusiasm in Dutch malediction), so unlike our absence of an equivalent of Quebecois sacre it’s legitimately questionable why we don’t have a tradition of wishing horrible diseases on people or things except in the crudest, most literal sense. We’re also pretty lacking in conventional ways of describing incest, but at least the glorious word “taint” is ours and ours alone. I think it ought to go on English’s tombstone the way the religious protection clause of the Virginia State Constitution did on Jefferson’s. Remind people we’ve done something for the world besides exterminated a good half of the world’s evolved languages.
I had to click and read, dammit. Saying one word of a foreign language is the hurdle for whether you’re fluent?
Shit, I know lots of languages then.
I speak spanish best, I just add -o at the end of the english word.
For example:
Goldfarb-o is-o a-o giant-o douche-o.
As far as I’m concerned, Bulgarians are just Moldovans who refuse to bathe. Just saying what everyone’s thinking here.
Even something as simple as idicating “three” with your fingers. For Americans, it’s index, middle, ring fingers. In Italy, in my experience, thumb, index, middle. (So when an American indicates “two” with index and middle, Italians often count the thumb and think “three”.) In Germany I saw people who indicated three with middle, ring and pinkie, but that looks like “zero” to some Americans (closed index and thumb).
I speak spanish best, I just add -o at the end of the english word.
For example:
Goldfarb-o is-o a-o giant-o douche-o.
If you change those to “a”s and then shrug your shoulders a lot, you’re speaking Italian!
If you change those to “a”s and then shrug your shoulders a lot, you’re speaking Italian!
Adda ita toa da lista!
Does anyone know any offensive stereotypes about Slovakians?
Just trying to
rark up Bulbulkeep the conversation alive.alec,
“och” works fine, just for some reason, the Poles seem to prefer “aj”.
“Kurwa” would be what, “cunt”?
“Whore”, actually. Poles are somewhat on the fence regarding that line which divides Europe into shit territory (most of Western Europe – Scheisse, merde etc.) and cunt/prick territory (Eastern Europe, Russia, Finland – pizda, vittu, chuj etc.), so “cunt” isn’t used much.
Try the links in here for some taste of what it looks like east of that line.
If you change those to “a”s and then shrug your shoulders a lot, you’re speaking Italian!
And throw in a “cazzo”, which literally means PENIS, but I was taught to use it like the adjective form of “fucking”.
alec,
I have the feeling you’re going to like this.
Also, the proper version is “Macedonians/Moldovans are Bulgarians/Romanians who refuse to bathe”.
Clyde,
you need to ask some Czechs. Or Hungarians 🙂
I had not concieved of such a line before, and it seems like a beautiful little concept. (Although as always both the French and ourselves get it a little backwards – compared to its equivalent in Germany, con isn’t that offensive and cunt is used a lot more enthusiastically.)
My favorite east-of-the-line expression is “pounding down pears with my prick” for being bored while Russian. I guess you just had to be there, and also not a big fan of pears.
Since we’re stuck on central europe…”dupa dupa dupa doo PAH” for all those Poles.
If you change those to “a”s and then shrug your shoulders a lot, you’re speaking Italian!
And if you flail your arms like a drowning man fending off sharks, you’re speaking Sicilian!
BREAKING!!!!!!
Obama mispronounced “hijab” as “hajib”!
If saying one word in a language X makes you a speaker of that language, then mispronouncing another word in that language negates all that.
Glad we settled that.
Does anyone know any offensive stereotypes about Slovakians?
I got one:
Slovaks are so insignificant, they never rated stereotypes.
Major Kong: in Russian it would be Nye strelya! Ya Kanadietz! (phonetically of course, the intricacies of typing in Cyrillic on a US keyboard are beyond me) It is the one useful phrase of Russian that I know, and always is good for a chuckle whenever I meet someone that speaks the language.
If you change those to “a”s and then shrug your shoulders a lot, you’re speaking Italian!
And if you flail your arms like a drowning man fending off sharks, you’re speaking Sicilian!
And if you throw in a few throat clears, you’re speaking Greek!
I swear, I never knew that the Greek alpahbet included the letter “phlegm”.
(apologies to Jeff Dunham)
OmLET DU froMAGE!
my experience with slovakians, having worked in bratislava, is that they are a) tall b) good looking and c) cool in a cold mitteleuropeannicelydesignedfurniture kind of way.
beautiful city, bratislava, though of late has been overrun by ryanair flying drunken brits on weekends, just like everywhere else in europe.
on a separate note, the word for michael goldfarb’s comedy is: recursive. escher-esque.
The weirdest obscenities I ever heard of in French were:
baiser = “to kiss,” but je l’ai baisée means “I fucked her,” not “I kissed her.”
queue = “tail” or “line,” but also “cock.” So if you’re mystified by where the line to check out in a store is, don’t ask an employee “Où est votre queue?” unless you want him to flash you.
Of course, English obscenities probably sound just as ridiculous to foreigners. As Geroge Carlin said, “You can prick your finger, but don’t finger your prick.”
As for Goldfarb, he is exhibit no. 1,743 on how wingnuts actively hate knowledge.
Remembering my stay in Greece, I went looking for the name of their favorite gesture. It is #3 on this list:
http://www.languagetrainers.co.uk/blog/2007/09/24/top-10-hand-gestures/
I have a shirt which says in Russian, “Evil penises are forbidden.” Not many people can read it, but to those that do it sure is a conversation starter.
I was aiming for ‘no dickheads’ but that doesn’t translate with the online translators.
That reminds me: troll Mary Grabar. She’s Slovenian, but a slov is a slov.
Obama mispronounced “hijab” as “hajib”!
If saying one word in a language X makes you a speaker of that language, then mispronouncing another word in that language negates all that.
Obviously, this was a code-word, telling the Islamofascihomoxican hordes that President Hussein X’s ACORN thugs were in the process of poisoning the pork products so beloved of true God-fearing ‘Murkins.
Slovaks are so insignificant, they never rated stereotypes.
As long as you leave us alone, I’m fine with that.
they are a) tall b) good looking and c) cool in a cold mitteleuropeannicelydesignedfurniture kind of way.
Fuck my Hungarian and German genes.
Dammit, why do you people always bust out with the excellent insanity when I’m behind the Iron Curtain of Websense?
Me too. Can the two of us just huddle here together holding hands?
I was specifically aiming for that in reverse, of course. I’m a maverick, see.
See also the Exile’s comprehensive exploration of the subject. (I adhere pretty firmly to ‘you can basically fake French by using the fanciest English synonym for something you know in an accent’, but that’s mainly because there’s a very specific way English words come to be fancy.)
And on the subject of essentialist explanations, I’ve always felt that an essential feature of glibbie fixation on the Ineffable Wisdom of the Classics is the convention by which the ancient-Greek-literate translators make a tedious habit of leaving words intact which mean something completely different in both their non-Greek derivatives and in fact modern Greek. It’s a cheap way of making a work seem more inscrutable and deep than it is, rather like the random spatterings of English, French, German, and Latin you see in horrible anime or the use of German inkhorneries among right-wing academics. (Our weltaanschung in this kulturkampf is established on realpolitik, mein Fuhrer.)
If you cannot do the footwork of translating the misused vocabulary, you’ll be left with an impression that there’s a deep point you’re incapable of getting, which kind of fits with the right’s general modus operandi for learning. And because I’m a horrible, nastily biased man, I would posit that this difference between obfuscatory foreignese and legalistic overprecision, both by the original authors and by their modern students, is the biggest and most indicative thing separating the largely French and credible school of existentialism from the largely German and reactionary school of nihilism. There’s no concievable purpose served by using Sein and Dasein as if the phrases have a Platonic meaning etched in time and untranslatable outside of Heideggrese, but speaking about Heidegger is usually an excuse to display the fact that you have meticulously read his work and are totally willing to believe he wasn’t a fucking collaborator, so.
Hey, before I forget, does Slovakian have the hilarious Philhellene-via-German habit of using “ismus” for “ism” for no evident reason?
Slovaks are so insignificant, they never rated stereotypes.
As long as you leave us alone, I’m fine with that.
You aren’t doing anything with that Bratislav anyway…can we have it?
There’s no concievable purpose served by using Sein and Dasein as if the phrases have a Platonic meaning etched in time and untranslatable outside of Heideggrese, but speaking about Heidegger is usually an excuse to display the fact that you have meticulously read his work and are totally willing to believe he wasn’t a fucking collaborator, so.
Cripes, this is getting all high-brow and stuff. NEEDZ MOAR POOP JOKES
You got a PROBLEM with that, alec? :-p~
Is ” ‘ ” the phlegm mark in Greek? If so, how might that affect the pronunciation of Marie Jon’?
If you don’t know a least a little Arabic, how are you supposed to know when they are about to blow themselves up so you can shoot them with your concealed weapon? Even Jack Bauer knows that “allahu akbar” means “I will now blow myself up because I hate your American freedoms and TV’s with sleeveless women.”
I learned that one from Tom Clancy, and that was before he became a talentless hack with an axe to grind.
How about we do both: I learn from our correspondant that in Slovak hovno is shit, and as it happens there’s a town in Armenia which must be at least close enough to ‘Shitsburgh’ to be worth stealing a sign from now and then.
Oh, sure, and I take if in your world Dubya is mainly known for growing a beard, making a lecture tour that somehow connected Whitewater to abortion, and then inconveniently deciding to convert to Islam in the middle of an already-ridiculous race against Kinky Friedman.
I adhere pretty firmly to ‘you can basically fake French by using the fanciest English synonym for something you know in an accent’
Gotta watch that stuff, though.
I had a friend who, during her first extended stay in Paris, had a craving for strawberry jam. She knew the French for “strawberries,” but not “jam,” but she figured it had to be something like “preserves.” So she went into a store and asked the clerk, “Avez-vous des preservatifs aux fraises?”
What that actually means is, “Do you have any strawberry-flavored condoms?”
The guy just looked back at her and said, “Until now, Madame, I didn’t even know they came in flavors.”
Shit around the world! After you chuckle at the skill-testing question, view the page source.
Prick your finger all you want, just don’t let anyone catch you fingering your . . .
Suomi,
Suomi,
What can you duomi?
I love you!
At least he didn’t say: “I am a jelly doughnut!”
Apropos of nothing in particular: this.
Is ” ‘ ” the phlegm mark in Greek? If so, how might that affect the pronunciation of Marie Jon’
Jesus had such a bad accent when he spoke Koine that his disciples joked about “The phlegmata of Christ”.
Obama bin Hussein X did not mispronounce “hijab” as “hajib” — it was a code word.
Incidentally, I reckon the Catholic Church should have its structure audited by a business-strategy consultant, so we can talk about the Six Sigmata of Christ.
“The phlegmata of Christ”.
Thence the traditional leave-taking in the Eastern church, “Godspitonya”
Obama bin Hussein X did not mispronounce “hijab” as “hajib” — it was a code word.
Oh come on – code words are cool things like “swordfish” or “extreme prejudice” or “BEASTMASTER”, not goofy fake made-up Ayrab-speak languages.
I would further like to point out that “Goldfarb” is roughly* translatable to “urine-colored.” Coincidence? I think not.
*When Humpty Dumpty runs out of money to pay words extra, he pimp slaps them into obedience.
And that’s just why he used it. Obama was actually declaring that he was now ready to be the vizier of the new Ay-rabb Caliphate, and all you people thought he was talking about a sort of scarf.
Did someone lose a ferret?
Obama was actually declaring that he was now ready to be the vizier of the new Ay-rabb Caliphate
Now YOU’RE making up words, and I know cuz “vizier” is like in my car that I put my sunglasses on, not a made-up fake furriner word like your sayin there. AH AM EDUMACTED!
As a fearsome sorceror and small businessman, I welcome this development as a long-wanted boon to our flagging commerce in damask apparatus, domestic time-sands, and the Philosopher’s Stone.
You aren’t doing anything with that Bratislav anyway…can we have it?
Now that we fixed it up nicely? No way.
But tell you what, if you take Buda, we’ll throw in Pest for free.
Oh and back to the moron in the picture:
I spent almost two years trying to explain it to the dumbasses at my previous job, so it’s become a pet peeve. Well, more like a major psychotic break. So here it goes: Bahasa means “language”. There’s Bahasa Melayu = “language of Malaysia*”, also known as Malay, and Bahasa Indonesia = “language of Indonesia”. No one speaks Bahasa, they either speak Malay or Indonesian.
*Not really, but whatevs.
then there’s the joke about the American businessman visiting Japan. That night he hired a hooker and tried doing it doggy style as a little something different. The woman kept yelling in Japanese to encourage him, so he redoubled his efforts. The next day he was playing golf with his Japanese business partner and when the Japanese man hit a beautiful drive to the green the American decided to encourage him and shouted out the phrase he heard so often the night before. The Japanese businessman turned around, puzzled, and said “What do you mean, ‘Wrong hole?”
thank you, I’ll be here all week, enjoy the buffet!
Uhh…
I don’t get the organ music. What’s going on?
Oh, and this is the only site that ever goes Suomi.
And that’s good.
Whilst the rest of the world struggles to shake off the effects of the last President whom, we are assured, spoke English, the American Bean-dip- for- brains pundits continue their public jerking off.
This is progress.
NEEDZ MOAR POOP JOKES
Not exactly a joke but Ms. Maddow shared this small pile of poopy awesomeness on Twitter earlier.
From RB’s Dictionary o’ Shit:
Now that is rude. Like taking a big old Nixon.
Glad The Very Rev. &tc. noted JFK’s foray into German. He was just like Hitler too.
I think baiser as a verb means “fuck” & as a noun means “kiss.” “Donne-moi un baiser,” par example, ne veut pas dire “Give me a fuck.”
[/pedant]
President Obama has in the past few days indicated that Iran certainly has reason to develop nuclear energy. After all, they are the world’s second largest oil exporter. And he will not set any artificial time frames, by the end of which he seeks an Iranian response to his outreach efforts and attempt to dialogue with them. He has said he would like to see “progress” by the end of the year. That makes sense, I guess, since current estimates are that Iran will have completed all the steps to have a nuclear bomb by the end of the year.
The latest outreach effort is a notice sent to all our foreign embassies and consulate offices to invite Iranian officials to their hot dogs and hamburgers party on July 4th. So carrots and sticks for Iran: carrots in the form of pork hot dogs, sticks: well, none yet.
And then there is Israel: Obama and Clinton have laid down their markers: no settlement growth of any kind in the West Bank, and maybe in Jerusalem as well (the Obama administration has been a bit vaguer on this one), though it has stated that Jerusalem must become the capital of a Palestinian state.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, recently chosen as Israel’s Prime Minister after a free election in the only democracy in the region, has said that Israel will continue to allow natural growth in existing settlements. Bibi has letters exchanged by former President Bush and former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, suggesting that natural growth of settlements should not be a problem, since the US accepts in these letters that the 1949 armistice lines will not be the permanent boundaries of Israel if a peace settlement with the Palestinians, were to be achieved .
Of course Chrysler bondholders can tell Netanyahu how much respect the Obama administration has for such legalisms
Obama has now indicated he expects an Israeli response to his demands on settlements, meaning they accept his terms (and his legitimacy as Israel’s sovereign), in 4 to 6 weeks.
So too, the New York Times has hinted that the US may pressure Israel to accept its terms on settlements by withdrawing support at the United Nations, and no longer blocking resolutions that are unfair and dangerous to Israel. The last President who did this was Jimmy Carter.
Given some mild push-back from a few Jewish Democrats in Congress (this tells you they are hearing complaints from their constituents) — Gary Ackerman, Anthony Weiner, Shelley Berkley, and even Obama lapdog Robert Wexler, Obama made a brief visit with Ehud Barak yesterday in Washington and even smiled, which is allowed in the presence of Israel’s Labor party leader. Obama even reassured one Jewish group (the Jewish Council of Public Affairs) that all is still well in the US Israel relationship, and that US policy on settlements is consistent with the roadmap. There are of course many parts of the roadmap (some of which call for reciprocal steps by both Israel and the Palestinians) that the Palestinians have totally ignored and about which Obama seems unconcerned. To give Obama credit, he has asked the Palestinians to “reduce” their incitement level against Israel. That “demand” will be pretty easy to comply with (say a 2% reduction), all the better to then pressure Israel to meet Obama’s total (100%) settlement freeze demand. But hey, I know and you know that Obama means well.
So what is behind this madness — sleepwalking as Iran completes its nuclear bomb program, and treating Israel as the problem child in the neighborhood?
Increasingly, Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel appears to be masterminding the effort to force Israel’s hand, or better yet, force Netanyahu from office, so as to get a more compliant and fearful Israeli leader into the prime minister’s office, one who would be ready and willing to give away the store for nothing.
Rahm was part of the Clinton administration, which did not get along with Netanyahu in Bibi’s first term as Prime Minister from 1996 to 1999. Rahm has said of Netanyahu recently, “He is a bullshitter”. Respectful, at least. Of course, anyone with even a modest understanding of Rahm’s take-no-prisoners history (how would he really feel about water-boarding Bibi?) should not be surprised at the new tough” love” for Israel. For this is the kind of regime change Obama favors — certainly not getting rid of a mass murderer and enemy of America, (and Israel, and Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia) such as Saddam Hussein, but driving from office a freely elected leader of a once-strong ally.
I recall in the months after the 2008 election, receiving multiple copies of emails listing all the Jewish people with key roles or influence appointed by the new administration. Rahm Emanuel led the list. After listing all the names, the email asked: “Is this a Cabinet, or a minyan?” This is what counts as humor on the Jewish left. Of course, Rahm is not a Cabinet member. But to Jews who love to count the Jews in any audience, and feel better with lots of company, this line qualified as touching, heartwarming, and rip-snortingly funny.
In reality, Rahm gives cover to Obama’s dramatic policy shift towards Israel. That new reality is that Israel is no longer an ally of the United States. It is, rather, an obstacle in the way of better relations with the Muslim world, and the Arab nations in particular. In essence, Obama has swallowed the message of “The Israel Lobby”, the recent book by Professors Steven Walt and John Mearsheimer.
Dennis Ross, a key Obama supporter during the campaign (and also listed on the Jewish minyan email as an advisor on Iran today), has a new book coming out, which argues that the Israeli Palestinian conflict is not so central to all the problems America has in the Muslim world, and certainly is not the crux of the issue with Iran. But Rahm, told a few hundred AIPAC bill-fold heavies in DC last month that the two issues — progress on Iran (fewer hot dogs will be served without meaningful progress) and progress on the Israeli Palestinian track — are inextricably linked. And the Israeli Palestinian track comes first. And it is Israel that needs to offer the big concessions.
Obama has pulled back on Guantanamo, and on releasing torture photos, after meeting resistance, and reading the poll numbers on these issues. Obama remains popular personally. But many of his policies and new initiatives are not. Will he fold on Israel? I doubt it. And holding out hope that this will occur certainly tells you all you need to know about Obama and Israel.
Those who shilled for the great leader on his pro-Israel credentials during the campaign will have a lot to answer for.
the last President whom, we are assured, spoke English
Him spoke English?
Notice how I blamed America and Jews for everything in today’s speech?
Follow my next steps on my Groveling Tour!
OT, but do any ambitious Sadlynauts need a project? Someone made the mistake of sending a not-entirely-polite e-mail to this douchebag at RenewAmerica from their work address. Not only did said douchebag print the guy’s name and employer, he e-mailed the employer to inform them of the content of the e-mail (which wasn’t even that bad), and then bragged about in his column.
He then made a point of saying that he “reserves the right” to print the name and e-mail address of anyone who sends him an e-mail he doesn’t like (which is, of course, lame, but not as douchey as actually e-mailing someone’s employer).
So my question is, given the thread with prank names from a week or so ago, is there anyone out there who feels up to sending an e-mail or two (from a spoofed address, natch) to try to trick this asshat into printing your “name” in his column? I’d love to see Aida Bolladix’s name in print over at RA.
Reading-comprehension-challenged troll is challenged.
Did someone lose a ferret?
Harry P. Ness should certainly fire off an indignant missive to said douchebag.
Jennifer, troll may have fine reading comprehension. Trouble is, troll did not read the speech– at all. Or listen to it in its entirety. Someone else told him what to think about it.
?? ?? ??????? ??-????????!
Also, I am aware of all Ineta-traditsii.
Chyort wordpress and its lack of support for Cyrillic.
Someone else told him what to think about it.
Or perhaps troll reproduced a complete post from American
ThStinker as scroll spam. Lame.We may need more than 1,000 Supreme Court justices if we expect justices to decide cases the way President Obama wants — by drawing on their “empathy” and “heart.”
As President Obama said when talking about Justice David Souter’s retirement:
I view that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles, as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes. (May 1, 2009).
Although then-Senator Obama said that John Roberts was qualified to decide 95 percent of the cases coming before the Supreme Court, he voted not to confirm him as Chief Justice because he believed that Judge Roberts lacked the requisite “empathy” and “heart”:
… what matters on the Supreme Court is those 5 percent of cases that are truly difficult. In those cases, adherence to precedent and rules of construction and interpretation will only get you through the 25th mile of the marathon. That last mile can only be determined on the basis of one’s deepest values, one’s core concerns, one’s broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.
… in those difficult cases, the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge’s heart. (Congressional Record, September 22, 2005, p. S10366; )
It’s not merely a concern for, and desire to help, other people in general that President Obama expects justices to draw upon when making decisions. Instead:
We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old — and that’s the criteria by which I’m going to select my judges. (July 17, 2007 answer to a question from Dessa Cosma following his speech before the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.)
President Obama’s emphasis on empathy and heart in judicial decision making flies in the face of tradition. In fulfilling their role of interpreting laws they did not make and determining whether those laws are constitutional, Supreme Court justices until now have been expected to set aside their personal feelings and preferences and make decisions that may be personally disagreeable. As Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., one of the great Supreme Court justices, wrote in a letter dated December 23, 1921 to Felix Frankurter, “I loathed most of the things I decided in favor of.” (Robert M. Mennel and Christine L. Compston (eds.), Holmes-Frankfurter: Their Correspondence (UPNE, 1996), p. 133
By contrast, President Obama wants Supreme Court justices to embrace their personal feelings and preferences. Forgotten are bad Supreme Court decisions made by justices who did just that when ruling in favor of people who looked like them and lived like them and against people who didn’t look like them or live like them.
The role of Supreme Court justices has been likened to that of umpires and referees, who interpret rules they did not make and try to apply them consistently. Just as we would not want an umpire or referee to manipulate the rules or make up new ones to help one person achieve victory over another, neither have we wanted Supreme Court justices to interpret the laws or make new laws to award victory to litigants or causes that they personally favor.
Encouraging judges to adhere to the rule of law and set aside their personal feelings and preferences has made it less likely that people will be treated differently depending on who their judge is. President Obama’s empathy-and-heart standard will make it more likely that decisions will depend on who appears before the court and the backgrounds of the justices. It also will encourage Supreme Court justices to make new laws, a task they’re not constitutionally assigned or prepared to do.
Justices having their heartstrings tugged by homeowners burdened by a loan gone bad and guided by President Obama’s admonition that justices stand up for the weak against the strong (Congressional Record, September 22, 2005, p. S10366) may manipulate the laws to rewrite the homeowners’ loan. Sticking it to lenders is always popular, but the result — more people denied a mortgage loan and everyone charged increased interest rates — would not be good for the country.
Manipulating the laws to keep businesses from laying off workers would be popular. After all, who likes businesses who lay off employees? However, the result — forcing some businesses to close, making other businesses reluctant to hire new workers, and forcing some businesses to raise prices for their goods and services — would not be good for the country.
Despite the greater resources available to help them analyze the prospective effects of legislation, legislators often overlook unintended consequences of the laws they enact. Fortunately, they can more quickly correct their mistakes than the Supreme Court.
If we were to agree with President Obama that it’s important for poor Hispanics to have a Hispanic justice who understands what it means to be poor and Hispanic, shouldn’t it be equally important for other litigants to have someone who empathizes with them? Shouldn’t Asian-Americans be represented by an Asian-American justice? Shouldn’t there be a justice who has a physical disability? A mental illness? Shouldn’t there be openly gay and in-the-closet justices?
Shouldn’t there be men and women from each religion and ethnicity? An atheist? An agnostic? Men and women from each region of the United States? Someone who has been a stay-at-home mom? Career women with children and without? A woman who has had an abortion? A teenage mother who reared her child or gave up her child for adoption? Someone from each type of occupation? An undocumented alien? A former prisoner? For that matter, even a current prisoner?
Nothing in the Constitution limits the number of justices who may be appointed to the Supreme Court or restricts who may be appointed.
If we’re going to have at least one Supreme Court justice who understands what it’s like to be any possible litigant, is the president really the person best qualified to make the choices? We know that President Obama is qualified to nominate a justice to represent people with a multiracial heritage who were educated at private schools and elite universities. But is he qualified to select representatives for other groups?
The principles of rule of law and equal protection of the law were fine ones while they lasted. But the party controlling Congress and the Executive branch has obviously decided they are outmoded.
Eew, what is he doing! Eew, I can’t see what he’s doing with his hands! Eeew! Eeew!!
Speaking of stupid, crazy. Has anyone seen McMegan’s latest? How come she can’t tell the difference between total numbers and percentages? Say how 200 out of 350 is a bigger percentage than 500 out of 1,000.
Heads up people. Cut-and-paste job at 3:16,
at 21:18 gocart mozart said,
gocart mozart, those videos are express trains to Loonyland! There’s an ongoing plot in Hollywood to help the Illuminati merge humans and robots! The Illuminati sacraficed [sic] Heath Ledger. Beyonce is probably devil-possessed! For some reason we must be upset because Madonna stole imagery from Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” for her “Express Yourself–Blonde Ambition” tour.
Jeffrey Saul openly admits on CNBC that the Illuminati run the country!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oKLAoVd4Nc&feature=related
The wingocsente may appreciate the final Hal Turner email on Maimonidis GOS diary:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/2/737915/-Updated:-Hal-Turner-Still-Wants-to-Kill-Me-(And-Democracy!)
And OT, let me admit right now, that I’m a big sucker for Obama’s Odysseus schtick.
Does Goldfarb even have eyeballs? I’ve never seen ’em. Not once.
He has two smaller mouths instead.
The Pandoranon just played Ocasek’s “Something to grab for.”
Coincidence? I. Don’t. Think. So.
FYWP!
He has two smaller mouths instead.
FYWP!
How come nobody ever fucks MovableType? It gets lonely, too, you know.
Must not… start… 80s-music… thread…
Is it Friday yet?
Dude speaks Arabic, that’s obvious. But how to prove it once and for all to all the doubters and haters out there?
Here’s how. We suspend a piano over the door at the White House. Then, just as Obama is walking out, we have someone yell out in Arabic, “Hey President Obama, watch out for that piano!” Then we cut the cable.
That ought to separate the Arabic speakers from the non-Arabic speakers quick fast in-a-hurry.
Happy Valley News Hour
Hey, Mega-Supreme Court dude! Send me a dollar and I’ll show you how to make hyperlinks.
Is it Friday yet?
It is here.
He has two smaller mouths instead.
See also. And also.
I amused myself replacing Goldfarb’s eyelids with 60%-size copies of his mouth; it made surprisingly little difference. Can’t be arsed doing it frame-by-frame to a video clip of him talking.
Um, kamper?
Yeah, that’s a great idea. Awesome. But I’d just like to draw your attention to the teenytinytinyteenytinyteenytiny little insignificant detail of the Secret Service busting half a million caps in your ass before you cut the wire.
It’d kinda harsh your mellow, dude.
I know you mean well, but maybe we could strategerize a tiger team of stakeholders to effectuate a best-in-class exit strategy. Have your people call my people.
SeewhatI’msayin’?
I just wish Obama would announce that he watched William Shatner in Incubus over the weekend and that from now on he’ll be speaking entirely in Esperanto.
Obama speaks ARABIC? Oh, man. I guess that makes him gay, since Arabic linguists are gay, which is why the Armed Forces are running out of translators. HEY. He’s the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces! He has to be discharged immediately under DADT!
The really good arguments – “maybe Obammie speaks Arabic” – are so good that they can only be countered with a devilishly complex counter-argument, such as – “so what if he does.”
Wins the thread. And totally being stolen by me.
Coming late to the linguistic theme, I’d like to offer the news that, among the plethora of languages I apparently speak, I am fully fluent in Macedonian.
The evidence: I am able to say “G’day, mate”, “Give me money” and “Kiss my arse” in Macedonian. They express everything I will ever wish to say in Macedonian.
Alec said:
“-Very important, on a serious note: while generally you can go a long way with a positive intonation and listener anticipation, the way people say “yes” and “no” with gestures actually differs significantly between cultures. One of them – I believe Hungarians, but I could be wrong – use a nod for “no” and a lateral shake for “yes”.”
Indians as well, particularly those from the south (Kerela, etc.). Something about not showing the top of the head to others, as it offensive.
But even between Angle speaking types there is confusion. On my first trip to the US, the bizarre use of the word ‘fanny’ shocked my Brit peculiarities..
shit, sorry, that was me….
oh, and POOP
“G’day, mate.
“Give me money.
“Kiss my arse.”
They express everything I will ever wish to say in Macedonian.
An entire conversation. Really, all one should ever say, at least to strangers.
OK, “Where’s the (insert your own colorful local term for evacuation facility)?” can go on the list.
I would further like to point out that “Goldfarb” is roughly* translatable to “urine-colored.” Coincidence? I think not.
Nearer ‘gold-money’, but the implication is the same…
Macedonian is a language??!
I thought it was an Australian real ale.
Yes, Smut, Macedonian is a language. How do I know? Because my life is a B-movie, briefly entitled “I married a Macedonian”.
Now it’s a B-movie entitled “Shut the fuck up and get off my lawn”. With extra aliens.
M Bouffant, I find that mime usually suffices, especially when accompanied by some frantic grimacing. At the very worst, it amuses my interlocutor so much that they need to seek the sanctuary of the littlest room for their own purposes, and I follow along behind. So to speak.
insert your own colorful local term for evacuation facility
Relocation camp?
Toilet?
It speaks to Barack Obama’s diabolical intentions and Machiavellian machinations that he is the first person in the history of the world to understate his foreign language ability.
Naah, he’s not lying. He can read a Spanish script aloud very well, but you can’t construe that as speaking Spanish.
Anybody have an audio or video link to his “speaking” Arabic?
It needs to be said that only in Greater Wingnuttia, US of A, is speaking multiple languages seen as a negative thing.
Even in England, where the primary language is, well, you know, and the natives have a naughty way of deliberately mispronouncing French words (i.e. caff instead of caf-ay for café), people tend to pick up a decent command of French thanks to the years of required classes in school. And we don’t shy away from furriner languages, either, even going as far as using their motto on official Brit stuff (the cover of my passport, for example, has a gold crest under which it reads Dieu et mon droix–“God and my right”). Many Brits of my generation have a decent command of Latin, too (so very useful–you never know when you’re going to run into a stray Vatican escapee!)
But here in the south of the States, where we’ve got an incredible mix of different nationalities, if you speak Spanish in someplace other than the lower half of Florida, you may well draw stares and comments. I don’t get it.
Hell, English itself is an amalgam of various different languages, some of which are the very languages reviled by these anti-foreign-language people (who oddly enough have the same faces as the anti-science people).
Breaking News !eleventy! This is no joke people! Wake Up!
Hip-Hop Hijacked by Freemasons! Oh Noes!
Yeah, I finally get around to actually being able to click on the linky and what do I find?
Aaaaaaand an Alex “Batshit Insane” Jones fan to boot. Ayup, that’s some primecrazy right there and I haven’t even gotten around to watching the video yet!
my life is a B-movie, briefly entitled “I married a Macedonian”.
Not only a B-movie, but a New Zealand-made B-movie. I bet you feel bad about that.
Now it’s a B-movie entitled “Shut the fuck up and get off my lawn”. With extra aliens.
needs moar zombeez.
Now it’s a B-movie entitled “Shut the fuck up and get off my lawn”. With extra aliens.
needs moar zombeez.
Sandra Bullock is busy, sorry.
Nearer ‘gold-money’, but the implication is the same…
Goldfarbe means “gold-color” i.e. gilt. I think “gold-money” would be something more like “Goldgelt.”
Is “crush-porn” like hate-fucking?
I used to think our lefty “911 was an inside job” conspiracy theorists were sad and pathetic.
Now I realize I’m just jealous. The right wing’s conspiracy theorists make ours look like they have such limited imaginations.
Jennifer said,
June 5, 2009 at 0:13
“Apropos of nothing in particular: ”
Jennifer, that video is apropos of EVERYTHING!
Bush could mange to say one or two words of English and they treated that as proof that he was an A-1 genius.
He also said “E Pluribus Unum” in his. Dude masters Latin as well!
I would like to have a rock wall built on my property but I don’t want to pay any money. Does anyone know where I can find a good freemason?
Yes. Either way, it’s an excellent German rap name.
I would like to have a rock wall built on my property but I don’t want to pay any money. Does anyone know where I can find a good freemason?
Don’t hire those guys – they’ll predictively program your mind and the next thing you know you’ll be running drugs for the British Royalty.
Oh, and Goldfarb’s debut single: Nihilingual.
running drugs for the British Royalty.
I think you mean Lyndon LaRouche. I forgot about him. What ever has he been up to lately? Kicking the crazy old school I assume.
http://www.larouchepub.com/
“Since his visit to hug the wicked little Queen in London, President Barack Obama no longer pretends to be the person he only seemed to be, briefly, during that preceding, initial, short “honeymoon” phase of his Presidency. To a certain degree, I can account for certain exact evidence of his current behavior, both as to its character, and to its, presently threatened, horrid outcome for the world, if that pattern is allowed to continue without a sweeping reversal, very soon, of every policy he has put forward since that pilgrimage to worship at the shrine of imperial Buckingham Palace. The real story is the terrible things which will take over the world, things which might seem to strike sooner than you could say “Adolf Hitler,” unless certain very specific, and very radical changes which I propose are made very soon.
Under these present circumstances, when I must dare to tell the truth about this matter, no matter what, I have an awesome, relatively unique moral responsibility to tell you the following. . . . ”
Also, I noticed this
“The fact is, that with the election of President Obama, we, and the world at large, have been swindled by the highest-priced, bought-and-paid-for Presidential election in modern world history.” Blart, Blart Soros etc.
Is Gary Ruppert really Lyndon LaRouche?
Nihilingual is probably already the title of a Goldfrapp album, and you don’t want to know what that translates as…
needs moar zombeez.
Ain’t that always so?
“Dear God,
While we were delighted to be the publisher for your first book, we note that sales remained confined to a narrow audience. In the sequel, have you thought about including more zombies?”
Are you serious? Sure, the first section only has three or so zombie doings, but the last bit is all about the zombie.
SOOOOO HHHHHHHUUUUUNNNNNGGGGGRRRRYYYYYY … SOOOOOOUUUUUUUULLLLLLLLLS … SSSSOOOUUUULLLLLLLS …
(*shuffles forward menacingly*)
Freemason rappers – F to the T to the mothafuckin’ W.
Are you serious?
I was thinking “first book” = “Old Testament”.
Gotcha. Still, Elisha and Elijah did some zombie-making, and Ezekiel raised up a whole zombie army, so in numbers(but not in Numbers) you’d have to admit the first part has the edge.
Lazarus was the first zombie. Raised from the dead was he by Jesus himself.
Jesus of course was the second and greatest of all zombies. Praise be to Jesus. Amen.
Heck, Lazarus wasn’t even Jesus’s first zombie; Jairus’s daughter and the son of the widow of Nain came before Lazarus, who was zombiefied only a month before Jesus’s own self-zombification.
Typical New Testament zombie fans.
Heretic.
Goldfarb is part of the right-wing paranoid machine. I mean doesn’t he realize that millions of Christians speak Arabic: http://www.loonwatch.com/2009/06/the-weekly-standard-implies-that-obama-is-a-secret-arab-speaker/
Peace.