This Is The Reason We Can’t Have Nice Things
Whenever I do the blog thing, after a while — and it’s happening again — I inevitably get sucked into an Althousian vortex of distracting bugfuckery and I end up with a half dozen incomplete drafts; not, I think, because I have ADHD but because, unlike George W. Bush, I’m curious about too many things. So many psychopaths fascinate, are fascinating.
I was gonna complete a piece on how wingnuts suddenly love Europe — first because of austerity and now because formerly cheese-eating surrender monkeys are bombing the shit out of Mali — but then I saw an article in the Slimes about how the DOJ is contesting Anheuser-Busch’s acquisition of Modelo. Oh, I thought, that totally reminds me of a great blog-fossil, Oligopoly Watch, now sadly dead; I chased its ghost to webarchive, found the goodies I was looking for.
Which tangentially got me to thinking about another internet Mary Celeste, General Glut’s Globblog, written by a type we sorely need, an anti-neoliberal economist. Unlike, say, Dr J. Bradford DeLong, the General was a real social democrat when it came to economic policy instead of a self-deluded (if sometimes charmingly so) conservative falsely advertizing himself as other, more left. Alas, the General was more, how you say, Christian Democrat when it came to the culture war, and while his posts on the subject were infrequent and incidental, it was enough to cook his goose as it were with the movement. Also it didn’t help one’s modest ambitions for a place in the progressive movement at the time to, as the General did, perfectly describe the ignorance, grossly immodest ambitions, and concomitant wishy-washy hackitude of such pundits as Kevin Drum, Ezra ‘I’m not so much a liberal as someone who enjoys fapping to spreadsheets’ Klein, and the egregious Fatty Woodchuck. (Should I dig into IOZ’s archive? No, it’s too good; I’ll get even more lost and, besides, I’m already reading through A Tiny Revolution.) Then there’s the nuclear-option subject of what is and is not tolerated in the is-it-big-or-is-it-little tent of the movement, the implicit hierarchy of values of a culture which is quite open-minded on the subject of how many extranational brown people it’s ok to murder or how much oomph is to be put into the kick aimed at the poor’s teeth, but is far less heterodox regarding the culture war and identity politics. Should I try to dig up that Alex Cockburn essay on the general reaction to Billy Graham’s raving on the Nixon tapes? Nah, leave it. Hey, I just found this which relates how Tom Frank has been aggravated by the same thing and is nothing but an old worthless asshole because of it. Leave it, too.
Simultaneously, while youtubing and inspired by rewatching Oliver Stone’s masterpiece Nixon last week and thinking about going back to work on the long, encyclopedia-type post on Gordon Liddy I’ve been fussing over for years (I think Liddy is unfairly passed over as a relic and generic talkshow host when actually his influence on the drug war is unique and his notions of authoritarian masculinity nicely epitomize modern wingnuttia’s fucked-up super machoman complex), I get derailed by a complete taped version of Nixon’s farewell address. I’d seen parts of it before and had read it, agreed with C. Hitchens that it was lame and rambling and on paper it still is, but in complete video form it’s not. Self-serving, yes — and even uglier, it’s self-pitying; but it’s also affecting. And look at Julie and Tricia, as cute as buttons. Hah and the camera lingers briefly on young Ben Stein whose mad scientist hairdo has to be seen to be believed. I thought it took Stone’s genius as a filmmaker to make me pity the ol’ bastard RMN but there it is in real life. This, in turn, made me think of doing something on the Elvis-Nixon Meeting, a highly-medicated congress of paranoia and resentment I’ve never before written about or indeed thought much about, despite having lived in Memphis for many years and having a fanatic Nixon-worshiper in my family. The poster version of the famous picture is a big seller in the tourist traps on Beale Street though I don’t recall seeing it much at the even bigger tourist trap of Graceland, though that’s a long time ago now.
I stare at the picture, stare at their vacant stares. Both are broken in a weird way; they are insomniacs; Nixon’s probably hungover and already eaten a handful of dilantin (IIRC recommended to him by the crackpot publisher of Reader’s Digest, a rag by the way — and to go back to my original subject of curiosity — that for many years was Ronald Reagan’s only voluntary reading material). Elvis is probably bombed on tuinal and ‘ludes and God knows what else. Both despise dope-smoking hippies. One has the Madman Theory, the other makes a fetish of Taking Care of Business. Both are warped in a tragic but also ugly sense by their powerful mothers’ intense Protestantism; and though Gladys Presley’s Assembly of God Pentecostalism is more familiar to me, Hannah Nixon’s Quakerism is preferable. Through the religious channel both men owe a debt to African-Americans: Elvis by making their music he probably first heard in church “safe” for white people, Nixon’s own undeserved and entitled sense of self-righteousness built on his mother’s family’s justifiably proud background as abolitionists. Yet Elvis made millions while black musicians starved and Nixon struck electoral gold with the Southern Strategy. Both in their increasing disconnection from reality become obsessed with finery, Elvis single-handedly inventing a more ostentatious kind of kitsch in decorating the Jungle Room, Nixon frittering away hours on end designing new livery for White House footmen. Both are as obnoxiously opinionated about music as any insufferable hipster, Nixon convinced of the world-changing genius of Richard Rodgers’s emetic score for Victory at Sea while hating the Beatles to the point of legal vendetta. According to Stephen Davis’s book on Led Zeppelin, before the band met The King they were sternly instructed to not try to discuss music with Elvis lest it upset him (Plant, Jones, and Page recently told David Letterman an entirely contradictory version of the story, however). Finally, in a point of difference, while part of Elvis’s genius was his comfort in his own skin, his incredible sex appeal, Nixon was notoriously other; whether on a boat in Florida with Bebe Rebozo in the halcyon days or walking on the beach in San Clemente in disgrace, Nixon was always awkwardly formal and weirdly sexless — in a word, uptight. Ok, I’ll shut up.
See what I’ve done? I’ve got nothin, yet I wanna say so much. I could have posted several funny shorters and maybe even a semi-substantive post in the time it took to write this crap. As a good Moloch-worshiping, gay abortion-having, Muslim-appeasing Liberal Fascist, I hate crapitalism’s fetish for specialization. As a wannabe history nerd I admire in the Founders’ generation the ability, of many if not all, to self-educate in the broadest sense, becoming if not expert then at least literate in nearly every subject. I’m the type that compulsively reads the backs of shampoo bottles in the shower (“…another with sodium lauryl sulfate!!”) It’s not my goal to mentally download the entire WingNet but that’s what I always end up trying to do. Argh. Umberto Eco, citing a Borges character, tells me I’m a fool and he’s right:
I like the notion of stubborn incuriosity. To cultivate a stubborn incuriosity, you have to limit yourself to certain areas of knowledge. You cannot be totally greedy. You have to oblige yourself not to learn everything. Or else you will learn nothing. Culture in this sense is about knowing how to forget. Otherwise, one indeed becomes like Funes, who remembers all the leaves of the tree he saw thirty years ago. Discriminating what you want to learn and remember is critical from a cognitive standpoint….
If culture did not filter, it would be inane—as inane as the formless, boundless Internet is on its own. And if we all possessed the boundless knowledge of the Web, we would be idiots! Culture is an instrument for making a hierarchical system of intellectual labor. For you and for me it is enough to know that Einstein proposed the theory of relativity. But an absolute understanding of the theory we leave to the specialists. The real problem is that too many are granted the right to become a specialist.
Sorry for the shit post. I’ll try to make the next one a snarky shorter, but obviously I can’t make any promises.
Also, too: Roy is probably the expert at sorting and synthesizing vast quantities of wingnut blargery. How does he do it, how does he stay focused? Is it via some CT technique or surrender to the will of the midichlorians or vyvanse in an IV drip? Dude has my respek.
The long-form snark satisfies a deep need.
you are a scholar and a gentleman. i too have a wandering mind, prone to sniff at, dig into, and often fall through every rabbit hole in the field. other than copious amounts of industrial grade cali weed, or pills of the sort i don’t like to take, there’s nothing to be done except read yourself to sleep and hope that THOUGHTS don’t wake you in the middle of the night.
anyhoo, a HTML Mencken post always makes the world a better place, so i’ll take what i can get.
Hi, Robert, I was hoping you still visited occasionally. Those damn rabbit holes aside, I hope all is well with you. Cheers
Can’t speak for anyone else, but I certainly get a kick out of the long stuff. It reminds me of those days when I thought blogging was awesome.
Einstein favored gray pullover sweaters because “the fewer buttons and decisions the better”.
I’m the type that compulsively reads the backs of shampoo bottles in the shower (“…another with sodium lauryl sulfate!!”)
Dear god,…I thought I was alone!
Yowsa.
As a wannabe history nerd I admire in the Founders’ generation the ability, of many if not all, to self-educate in the broadest sense, becoming if not expert then at least literate in nearly every subject
Don’t beat yourself up- there is just so much more subject matter at hand than they ever had. They only had to concern themselves with a limited number of historical narratives from one continent, and a paucity of scientific and philosophical writings. Compared to the information they had available to them, we have so much, much more… being a polymath is that much harder.
Agglomerative. That’s the word I was looking for.
This was nice. I love both Cerebus’ nine-page detailed take-downs, and Tintin’s quick slash-and-burn pieces, but this was… conversational, almost. One sided, of course, but I made it into a conversation in my head.
Otherwise, one indeed becomes like Funes, who remembers all the leaves of the tree he saw thirty years ago.
No-one told me that this was a bad thing.
I really enjoyed this. I like long rambling discourses and diatribes on the nature of things. It’s how I talk, if given my head. I try not to let it tip over into soliloquy or monologues too often, but the internet is perfect for both.
Present for HTML!
Present for HTML!
We can have nice things after all!
Oh. Where was this thread hiding?
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/339003/president-obama-commemorates-senseless-holocaust-eliana-johnson?1
Shorter: Stupid Obama said the holocaust was bad. Here’s why it wasn’t.
HTML sounds like he’s afraid he’s coming off like Jeremy Hilary Boob, Ph.D. (Who? Eminent physicist, polyglot, classicist, prize-winning botanist, hard biting satirist, talented pianist, good dentist, too!)
Don’t sweat it. Just sharing the stuff you notice (and your links) made for a rewarding read.
I dunno, HTLM, can you fault someone for liking this?
Agree!
Wow, thanks for that link, Pupi Max!
It’s quite obvious, after sensing it coming for years, that the the far right wing has finally hit peak crazy. To go so far opposing Obama that they find some asshat way of defending the Nazis, holy shit, they are fucking way more nutso than ever.
HTML: One of the nifty side-effects of your return is the return of commenters that I’ve rarely encoutered in Sadlyburg. You surely draw out veteran Sadlies lurking from the shadows; it is delightful to encounter them again…or the for the first time. I’m glad you returned!
Well aren’t we a big tease then?
Yikes. Obviously any number of right-wing small fry could make that argument…but Heil National Review!
I was gonna complete a piece on how wingnuts suddenly love Europe — first because of austerity and now because formerly cheese-eating surrender monkeys are bombing the shit out of Mali
Oh, it goes far beyond that. See their concerns for “Eurabia” for all of the last decade and, in some circles (cough Samuel Phillips Fucking Huntington) the decade before that. As a Euro-Yank half-breed, I’ve always found it fascinating how much they loathe and despise all things about European culture, yet feel so heartwarmingly compelled to worry about us and even protect us from the Savage Arab Hordes at our doors.
I’m sure skin color has nothing to do with it, though.
That national review article really puts the win in Godwin doesn’t it? I feel dirty for giving them a pageview. In order that others don’t have to, the author objects to Obama’s statement that the holocaust was senseless violence, because a lot of Nazis thought it was totally sensible.
“instead of a self-deluded (if sometimes charmingly so) conservative falsely advertizing himself as other, more left.”
Now, now. Brad is his father’s son, and you must make allowances for that.
That was beautiful. Welcome back.
Based on the comments the NRO has very few conservative readers. I found this comment interesting.
Thanks Mr. Goldberg!
HTML, love your shorters, longers and musings. It’s all good.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/339003/president-obama-commemorates-senseless-holocaust-eliana-johnson?1
Wow, leave it to National Review to claim that killing Jews and Americans constitutes sensible violence.
Sorry for the shit post.
Nothing to apologize for. That middle section on Elvis and Nixon was actually a fascinating read.
I’ll admit, I share your ADD-related love of reading as a generalist instead of a specialist; on the other hand, where I only occasionally dip a toe into the far-right end of the blogpool, you marinate in the stuff, and you have my respect.
I’m coming to terms with a terrifying new reality. The fascists are back. The same ones who wiped out 18% of my birth nation’s populace. Except, now they live in America, and call themselves Republicans. This is what Republicans today have become.
I came to terms with that about four years ago. Might be more of a commentary on when I came to political awareness than anything that happened then, but the rise of the Tea Party Movement… yeah.
Maybe it’s the word “violence” they object to. Maybe they want more euphemism…”senseless lack of civility”, perhaps.
By the way, their standard reaction to those sorts of comments is to claim that they’re “liberal plants” trying to discredit good peaceful law-abiding hard-working conservatives. Same thing they did every time a racist sign popped up at a Tea Party Movement protest.
I had no idea there were that many liberals who were that fixated with them. Huh.
hmm
Hey, pal, I can stop ANY TIME.
Since when did the American Right ever dislike the Nazis? Prescott Bush happily did business with them, right up until he ran afoul of the Trading With The Enemy Act. Had Corporal Hitler not unilaterally declared war upon us, they would have prevented our participation in the European theatre, thus ensuring Joe Stalin’s absolute dominance thereafter. Much of their subsequent red-baiting was to cover their shame after the camps were liberated.
They’ve always been willing to shove us into the ovens. Buckley was too patrician to dirty his own hands, and Pantload is too goddamned lazy.
I object. Buckley wasn’t patrician, he just talked through his nose.
It will be interesting to see whether the NRO will claim Ms. Johnson is a liberal mole. I guess they could also claim they were hacked.
Oops. Looks like the Farkle Fairies are on it.
Shorter: Stupid Obama said the holocaust was bad. Here’s why it wasn’t.
last night i ignored pup’s link, thinking it surely couldn’t be so…but you know me…curious like a cat! so, of course i had to look…and then read the comments…which made me realize just how relevant this is…
I object. Buckley wasn’t patrician, he just talked through his nose.
and his ass…
Jimmy O’Queef helps kill voter fraud investigation he touched off.
I kan haz obstruction charges plz?
So how long will it be till the gun companies start selling belt-fed semiautomatic weapons, arguing that a loose belt of ammunition is totally different from an extended clip?
So… did anybody grab a screen capture of that NRO post? I have a strong suspicion it’ll be shoved down the memory hole real soon.
So how long will it be till the gun companies start selling belt-fed semiautomatic weapons, arguing that a loose belt of ammunition is totally different from an extended clip?
so, last night hubbkf and i had a bit of a ‘discussion’ about guns and banning the assault rifles and whatnot…it started because i was watching teh daily show was mumbling about what a twatnozzle that gail trotter was and hubbkf said that ‘derp, a shotgun is what you want for home defense.’ this led into him telling me that shotguns are just as deadly if not more so than semi-automatics because their shells have lots of pellets that scatter over a wide area…he said that you can get extended tubes for shotguns that hold a bunch of shells and you could effectively wipe out a lot of people in a short time…
this gave me some pause, but i still argued that the assault rifles and whatnot should still be banned because civilians do not NEED them…he reflected for a moment and said they would be pretty handy for shooting coyotes and other predators…but agreed that nobody really ‘needs’ them…
somewhat amusing highlights from this ‘discussion’ include hubbkf trying to tell me what the second amendement means and getting totally shut down by me with the well regulated militia bit and that in a democracy, we don’t have to worry about tyranny and that, no…hitler actually expanded gun laws, but the jews couldn’t pack heat because they had no rights whatsover…i usually don’t get to shut him down like that, so yay me…also, the sex was good…
Just heard Ed Koch has died. As much as I have contempt for that overhyped, corrupt*, self-serving hack, I’ve got to say this: he wasn’t a wingnut.
*Not money corrupt. Power and ego corrupt.
the nickname ‘cooter’ was just used in a funeral announcement on the raydio…
Koch was like Ghouliani, but his antics were harmless and more entertaining. You could tell he never really believed the b.s. he shoveled, whereas Rudy fell for his own crap over and over and over, never once learning what the rest of us considered totally obvious: never trust Rudy.
Oh, and I stand corrected: Buckley was a tiresome snob with a large, inherited bank account, who thus mistook himself for a patrician. Me bad.
Just heard Ed Koch has died. As much as I have contempt for that overhyped, corrupt*, self-serving hack, I’ve got to say this: he wasn’t a wingnut.
He had a mixed legacy, to be sure, but he’ll always be the quintessential New York City mayor to me.
The most famous mayor in my neck of the woods is Marion Barry. Therefore I am forbidden from commenting on other mayors unless they:
a) Are more offensive than Barry and/or
b) Run for President.
he’ll always be the quintessential New York City mayor to me.
You’re dead to me.
I was too young to remember the little flower. I did, though, work as a stage electrician on a production of the musical Fiorello! presented by the Village Light Opera Group.
Since when did the
AmericanRight ever dislike the Nazis?FTFY.
Alas, poor Ed Koch.
One of these people whose existence I only discover when their death puts them in the papers…
Oh for the love of Pete and bunnies.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2184980/
Because what Amuricuh needs right now is more misinformed drivel on mental illnesses.
Village Light Opera Group
A good friend of mine was involved with VLOG. I still have a Mikado shirt she gave me (circa 1998) and made it up from Maryland to see a performance of Iolanthe.
Shorter: Stupid Obama said the holocaust was bad. Here’s why it wasn’t.
At least it’s an ethos!
I’m catching up. First:
Is a wonderful turn of phrase. And:
I certainly can. Ick.
Also, too: I certainly will not be giving NRO any clicks, but I did click over to teh FARK link and a commenter provides a snippet:
I just… I don’t…
Wow. Just… wow.
Nazism may have been an ideology to which the United States was – and to which the president is – implacably opposed, but it is hardly “senseless.” By the early 1930s, the Nazi party had hundreds of thousands of devoted members and repeatedly attracted a third of the votes in German elections; its political leaders campaigned on a platform comprising 25 non-senseless points, including the “unification of all Germans,” a demand for “land and territory for the sustenance of our people,” and an assertion that “no Jew can be a member of the race.” Suffice it to say, many sensible Germans were persuaded.
I mean, I get the point – just because it doesn’t make sense to us doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense to other people from their own twisted point of view. It’s just… what was the point, of making that point? That criminals usually have their own logic? Yeah, we know that. Anything else?
What startled me (beyond the defense of the indefensible) is that last “non-senseless” point she used.
Whoa, OK lady, fuck you.
Over at LGM we learn that the author is the daughter of Scott Johnston of Powerline.
To look on the bright side, this does suggest that the idea of getting some of these people to guzzle Drano just because Barack Obama told them not to is plausible. Barack Obama got one of them to write an entire concern-troll article about how Nazis weren’t senseless monsters without a redeemable feature by saying the Holocaust was senseless.
Not as much as you might think. A shotgun is quite deadly, of course, at close range. Unless the barrel is shortened to an illegal length, the pellets don’t spread nearly as much as people think.
They also have quite a recoil. You couldn’t fire a 12-gauge shotgun nearly as quickly as something like an AR-15, which has very little recoil.
I’d say the stock answer would be “If a shotgun is just as good then I guess you don’t really need an AR-15”
Well, the opposite of “senseless” is “sensible” so I think it’s pretty damn clear what the author thinks about those “25 non-senseless points” the Nazis campaigned on. And the NRO and its ilk have pretty much convinced themselves that there are “two Americas” and “real/fake Americans” want to “take back the country” and such like. We can see where this is going.
40 Million Hitler Fans Can’t Be Wrong
That sounds suspiciously like you are limiting my SKENDMENDMENT FREEDUMBS!!!!
its political leaders campaigned on a platform comprising 25 non-senseless points
When she proceeds to list three examples of these non-senseless points, and the first sounds sounds vaguely admirable (“unification of all Germans”) while the second has a certain face plausibility (“land and territory for the sustenance of our people”) until you realise that it’s about annexation and ethnic cleansing, we are led to the conclusion that she also picked out the third example because she agrees with it — “no Jew can be a member of the race”.
I hate Illinois Nazis.
Full text so you don’t have to click
40 Million Hitler Fans Can’t Be Wrong
“Just because 40 million people fell for the same bullshit doesn’t mean it wasn’t bullshit.”
– Jean Paul Belmondo, “The Ace of Aces,” re the election of Adolf Hitler. (“C’est pas parce que quarante millions de mecs font la même connerie que c’est pas une connerie!”) A line I like to fall back on whenever voters do something really stupid.
this led into him telling me that shotguns are just as deadly if not more so than semi-automatics because their shells have lots of pellets that scatter over a wide area
i misspoke when i said wide area…what he actually said was you could hit 5 or 6 people standing next to each other with one shot…
I’d say the stock answer would be “If a shotgun is just as good then I guess you don’t really need an AR-15?
thank you for this…why didn’t i think of that last night? while hubbkf is certainly not a gun fanatic, he does lean to the ‘oh no the gubmint is going to take away our hunting rifles’ only because (my opinion) he is most certainly a ‘yeah, well you can’t make me’ kind of guy…which is totally maddening at times…
Suffice it to say, many sensible Germans were persuaded.
also, too…were all of them truly persuaded? or were they members of the nazi party out of necessity?
This sanitized version of events, both past and present, is surely more comforting. It’s also truly senseless.
and what the fuck is this supposed to mean?
Nazism may have been an ideology to which the United States was — and to which the president is — implacably opposed
I like the statement that the US as a whole has moved on, and is no longer opposed to Nazism… it’s only the President who’s stuck in the past, still going on about who killed whom.
Eliana Johnson has no frame of reference here.
So, what range is the target? What choke, if any, are you using? Bird shot? Buck shot? Slugs? Rock salt?
Folks, when you don’t know what yer talkin bout, don’t talk, k?
I like the statement that the US as a whole has moved on, and is no longer opposed to Nazism… it’s only the President who’s stuck in the past, still going on about who killed whom.
especially since he IS a nazi…
Here, have an instructive search.
http://www.google.lv/search?q=site%3Anationalreview.com%2Fcorner+%22senseless%22&ie=UTF-8&nfpr=1
After someone compared US wingnuts to the Weimar Republic’s Freikorps, I’ve been reading up on the history of the Nazi Party.
It’s clear that Eliana Johnson (and the editorial staff of NRO, and most every wingnut in general) have never bothered.
Regurgitating the stereotypes and fallacies that splatter about the echo chamber appears to be the only qualification to be a right wing journalist these days. It’s like an eternal game of pelican drinking with these nutters, except with fallacies instead of cheap beer.
also, too…were all of them truly persuaded?
Slightly more than 27% were persuaded, despite the best efforts of various industrialists and right-wing-establishment types to fund the new “grass-roots Heartland uprising” party.
(“C’est pas parce que quarante millions de mecs font la même connerie que c’est pas une connerie!”)
But that’s French so who cares!
It’s like an eternal game of pelican drinking with these nutters, except with fallacies instead of cheap beer.
Stealing that.
So, what range is the target? What choke, if any, are you using? Bird shot? Buck shot? Slugs? Rock salt?
Folks, when you don’t know what yer talkin bout, don’t talk, k?
oh, hubbkf knows from what he’s talking about…he’s been hunting since he was a tot…he did go into detail about the different shells and shot and whatnot, but me being me, i cannot recall all the details…so that’s my bad…it’s all theoretic since each situation is different, but i do find it plausible that by firing one shot from a 12 gauge, you could hit more than one person…
Also, because this is the National Review, this had to be linked to.
Fuck yeah, William F. Buckley! Fuck yeah, fascism!
But that’s French so who cares!
Touché.
Write the Liddy survey!
what he actually said was you could hit 5 or 6 people standing next to each other with one shot
Across a room, the pellets from a shotgun will spread to maybe a few inches, depending on the length of the barrel and what type of “choke” the barrel has.
The advantage of using a shotgun for home defense is that you don’t have to aim precisely and the pellets don’t penetrate walls like a rifle bullet will.
I’ve put rifle bullets through 1/4″ steel plate – they’d go through your walls as well as your next door neighbor’s like they weren’t even there.
Speaking of tired old NRO tropes . . . Mona Charon would like Beyonce to stay the hell off her lawn.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/339435/not-august-inauguration-mona-charen
Do most people use a Holland & Holland double nitro express to defend their homes?
The advantage of using a shotgun for home defense is that you don’t have to aim precisely
this was precisely what he said…blah…i just dislike all guns and even discussing what they can do gives me the heebies…
My home defense technique involves screaming real loud, reflexively throwing something and running out of the door that is not blocked by the bad guy.
Sorry, I know me. Fannying about with the gun safe would be stupid and a waste of good running away time.
Oh, only that oppressive. Cool, never mind then.
What an insightful fellow that Fubuckly was.
Sorry, I know me. Fannying about with the gun safe would be stupid and a waste of good running away time.
that would be me as well…except running is not my strong suit…i would likely have to play dead…
Aside from his accepting help from both the Nazis and the Catholics to gain power, executing and imprisoning his political opponents, turning a blind eye to the Spanish Catholic church’s decades long practice of stealing the newborns of single mothers to be adopted into good catholic homes, while telling the mothers their child was stillborn, was Franco really that bad?
Mona Charon would like Beyonce to stay the hell off her lawn.
wow…she is NEVER going to get over the second inauguration, is she…also, too…she does realize that some of our favorite classical composers weren’t appreciated in their own time and also, wouldn’t the ones that were…uh, popular be considered pop stars?
This just in: General Francisco Franco AND William F. Buckley are still dead.
Clearly their “ideas” live on.
was Franco really that bad?
obviously not since he only killed alive people he thought were mean old poopie heads and didn’t abort any fetuses…
a platform comprising 25 non-senseless points
Has NRO considered recruiting writers who speak English? Johnson means “a platform consisting of 25 non-senseless points”.
Or “25 non-senseless points comprising a platform”.
I figure that I can afford to be pedantic on this occasion and no-one will call me a Grammar Nazi.
I didn’t notice the grammar error because my brain got stuck on “She’s defending Nazis!” When confronted with really bizarre shit my editorial skills fail.
well done, madge! in news other than penis or poop, i give you vomit!
was Franco really that bad?
In what respect, Charlie?
Do most people use a Holland & Holland double nitro express to defend their homes?
It was actually an 8mm Mauser round.
Much as I’d love a Holland & Holland for when “Nigel” and I go on safari – they’re a wee bit pricey.
in news other than penis or poop, i give you vomit!
bbkf has lied to us — the article does mention poop.
bbkf has lied to us — the article does mention poop.
FINE…here, have some POOP
FINE…here, have some POOP
Eeeeeeeeewwwwwwww!!!!!
“He had a mixed legacy, to be sure, but he’ll always be the quintessential New York City mayor to me.”
Plus, there’s this. The heck with Bill Monroe; this had Ed Koch!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h5ydMEfnJI
Also, too, terrific article – wide-ranging, flitting like a Beautiful Butterfly from topic to topic, stimulating masses of responses, just the way I like them. Incidentally, if you like SDS (Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate, aka Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, commonly-used lab detergent), you might also want to check out mouthwashes. Especially Listerine. That stuff is more machine than man now.
“He had a mixed legacy, to be sure, but he’ll always be the quintessential New York City mayor to me.”
I used to like him, until I heard a clip of him on NPR today. He was endorsing GWB and saying “The Democrats don’t have the stomach to take on terrorism.”
That pretty much seals the deal for me. One “Oh shit!” cancels a hundred “Attaboys!”
JohnR: totally awesome tuber of Mr. Bill and the Shaggmeister
“Guys, the TMZ report is a total f***ing lie,” he wrote. “I got jumped by three 250 pound bouncers. They knocked me out and beat me for several minutes.”
“I would never say or do the crap they are reporting. Have faith in me. The truth will come out and you will see,” he continued. “Some guy thought I was hitting on his girl and had me jumped.
hahahahaha Yeah, THAT would happen. He’s as stupid as he is … er, stupid.
They knocked me out and beat me for several minutes.”
several minutes…
from the moana link:
Stupid stupid stupid; attacking a rendition of the anthem not because of any aesthetic concerns but because the singer committed the dreadful sin of being almost universally popular. The proper test of artistic merit is whether or not those unsophisticated proles in the hinterland like it; opera singers, being crashingly unpopular outside those true bastions of culture that are lower Manhattan and Chicago, are clearly REAL artists; what a stupid, elitist, liberal way of looking at things.
Also, about the reference to Shakespeare; I hate that people put him on this ludicrous pedestal. He wrote crowd pleasers! In the middle of his Serious Play about Jews he has two clowns come on and do five minutes of fat jokes! His plays, including that Most Serious Play, are choked to the gills with genitalia jokes; we just don’t notice them because the slang has changed. If he were around today he’d be Christopher Nolan or Andrew Lloyd Webber, not bloody Richard Maxwell.
what’s this dude on?
Why do people think Shakespeare was so great? His plays were full of cliches.
what’s this dude on?
The Internet.
The NRA enemies list is out. Check to see if your name is on the list of over 500 which includes Mr Spock and FIVE Zappa’s.
http://nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=15
Why do people think Shakespeare was so great? His plays were full of cliches.
His historical plays are full of crazy conspiracy theories just like an Oliver Stone movie.
The Internet.
heeey-o!
The NRA enemies list is out. Check to see if your name is on the list of over 500 which includes Mr Spock and FIVE Zappa’s.
hmmmmm…mcguyver is anti-gun…who could have guessed? also, too…linda dano…i have not thought of her in years…
Why do people think Shakespeare was so great?
All the sex and violence.
Alternet has up a survey of teh crazy along with a bit of prognostication that I don’t see as very implausible:
We aren’t gonna see peak wingnut until these nutters’ fears become self-fulfilling and they start a shooting war that someone has to put down.
Fixxorated. Peak wingnut will forever and always be one additional step beyond the latest level of crazy. Endlessly.
Hm. Hadn’t noticed alternet’s Frank Schaeffer columns before, but they’re an interesting read. A bit alarmist but that’s not without merit.
Re: Franco Spain
when I was a girl, many eons ago, my Dad was in the Air Force. We were stationed in Franco’s Spain, on the island of Mallorca. (Beautiful place and lovely lovely people). This was about 1960. The USAF maintained a radar site there on the top of mountain Puig Major. Well, ahem………so one day my Dad was driving through downtown Palma, my sister and I were riding along (mom was not with)…….we stopped at a stop light and noticed this commotion going on up ahead of us. There was an old Gypsy man whose donkey had decided to get stubborn, sit down in the middle of the road and block traffic.
The old Gypsy man couldn’t get his donkey to move and people were getting impatient. The Guardia Civil showed up, that is to say Franco’s storm troopers with the triangular hats, always very lovely and obsequious to Americans, they used to be just adorable and nice to us little blonde girls.
So they get in this conversation with the old Gypsy man, it gets heated, he mouthed off to them, next thing you know, they shot his donkey, dragged it off to the side of the road, took the old man off to the side of the road, beat him to death, and tossed his body in the ditch. Right in front of us kids. OMFG.
Then the one Guardia Civil guy comes back to our car and APOLOGIZES to my Dad for the delay. These are the same guys that would talk nice to us kids and give us little treats when they saw us.
My Dad drove on and didn’t say much, but he looked pretty green and was very quiet. So were we.
I suppose a lot of Tea Partiers would applaud that. I’d say I would like to make them watch something like that, but they’d probably enjoy it.
Also, my Dad, who has been a life-long moderate Republican, voted for Obama both times. And the same year we witnessed the murder of the old Gypsy man, he took a months leave, grew a beard, and went to a Halloween party as Fidel dressed in some old fatigues of his. Interesting, except for his very blue eyes, he was a dead ringer for Fidel.
what a stupid, elitist, liberal way of looking at things.
First Liberal Fascism, now Leftist Aristocracy.
Re: Shakespeare
When Mom was a HS student in Wichita Falls TX, back in the 1940s, she had an English teacher who taught the class Elizabethan English (enough to understand Will, anyway), then got permission to take the class into The Big City (Dallas, I think) and watch one of his plays performed. So you had a theater mostly full of people very seriously absorbing Culchah and these HS students rolling in the aisles ’cause they were getting all the dirty jokes.
So few? Given that the Guns’ Rights crowd is all but calling for an end to any sort of wait period and claiming Americans can use any weapons they want to defend their homes, I would expect a few sets of commas and zeroes after 500.
It’s only kinda sorta in alphabetical order, so it’s a little hard to tell, but it’s missing some organizations that probably meet their criteria. IOW, it looks really amateurish. Think they could get better quality, but maybe they don’t think they have to pretend anymore that they give a shit about what people think.
The NRA’s public relations efforts have been one popcorn moment after another since Sandy Hook. All they’re doing is marginalizing themselves further with every attempt.
I’d say give ‘m all the ammo they need to shoot themselves in the dick, but then they don’t have much in the way of dicks… thus the guns.
His plays, including that Most Serious Play, are choked to the gills with genitalia jokes; we just don’t notice them because the slang has changed. If he were around today he’d be Christopher Nolan or Andrew Lloyd Webber, not bloody Richard Maxwell.
I know, I keep telling Andrew, “Enough with the dick jokes,” but does he listen?
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/339583/senseless-violence-eliana-johnson
That dictionary doesn’t help much, does it?
[Recycling joke already made at LGM]
I look forward to the day when the farm lobby adopts this policy and issues its own Enemies List of nutritionists and food purists and anyone else opposed to adulterating everything with food-based products such as HFCS.
There will be jokes about them issuing a trans-fatwah.
According to Merriam-Webster, “senseless” means “destitute of, deficient in, or contrary to sense: as: unconscious,” or “foolish, stupid,” or “meaningless.”
Good Lord, she certainly doesn’t think Obama meant the Nazis were unconscious… so, if she objects to “sensible” does she accept “wise, smart,” or “meaningful?”
I honestly thought they’d ignore austerity in the EU, wht with it proving Krugman and to a lesser extent Obama right and all.
“concomitant wishy-washy hackitude of such pundits as Kevin Drum, Ezra ‘I’m not so much a liberal as someone who enjoys fapping to spreadsheets’ Klein, and the egregious Fatty Woodchuck.”
the suckitude of their hackitudedness is truly remarkable…great liberal bloggers *eye roll*
Great post HTML, thanks for the good read.