Watching All The Goons Go By
Just because James Lileks has spent most of the last six years being terrified by Arabs doesn’t mean he doesn’t have time to be terrified of teenagers. When they’re not giving him insufficiently deferential service at Taco Bell, they’re menacing his neighbors by hanging out in the alley smoking their devil weed:
I did not encounter roving bands of youths, as had been reported by a neighbor this morning – she had the gall, the cheek, the pure flaming presumptuousness to think she could drive her car down the alley; little did she know that four youts from the neighborhood high school had decided it was 4:20 time, and they would just stand in the middle of the alley and huddle around a joint. They did not move for her car. She persisted. They parted. Later she observed them entering a neighbor’s car parked in the alley, and she shouted a warning. They slunk off, muttering something about the alley being public property, and declared her to be a Bitch.
This insolent behavior, unprecedented in the history of teenagers, prompts Li Li to wish for less criminals this Christmas, after which he goes totally off the rails and accuses Norman Pohoretz of being sober. But I’m not here today to share with you the Man from Fuddles’ concern about the stoned teens skulking around in our residential alleyways; my topic today is the gangs of dangerous middle-aged men, drunk on their own sense of entitlement, hanging out on the Corner.
Like most liberals, I hate myself, and when I’m feeling especially down on myself, like if I’ve spent the last three days reading a deranged ex-cheerleader heaping abuse on a handicapped 12-year-old, or if my real father won’t return my calls no matter how many chickens I slaughter, I punish myself by reading the National Review‘s group blog, the Corner. All day long.
And, because like most liberals, I hate other liberals, I’m going to make you all suffer with me.
I started drinking just after midnight…
Peter Robinson: The father of one of my co-workers is a genius.
Peter Robinson: No, really, he’s an unalloyed genius. A titan of intellect. The greatest man since Michaelangelo.
Kathryn Jean Lopez: Seriously, you guys, go buy his book and maybe we won’t have to smell John’s pizza feet any more.
K-Lo: And speaking of geniuses, how about that Clarence Thomas? You’ll love his new book, unless you are some sort of touchy bitch.
K-Lo: Another damn liberal activist judge is preventing the DHS from doing its job just because their actions might be illegal.
K-Lo: That patronage system is still workin’ out pretty well for us.
Michael Rubin: Iran is bad and they should feel bad.
K-Lo: I am interpreting an extremely reluctant series of comments by a NARAL spokeswoman as a ringing endorsement of Rudy Giuliani.
K-Lo: Maybe if we get Barack Obama on our team he’ll stop making us all look so bad.
Jonah Goldberg: Hey, guys! I’m back! From my trip! I…guys? I’m back! I got you these t-shirts that say “MY AWESOME BEST FRIEND JONAH WENT TO MR. ROGERS’ NEIGHBORHOOD AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT”. Guys? Hello?
K-Lo: Some broad I never heard of won an award or something. How do I set my Google News alerts to “I don’t care”?
Mark Steyn: I would prefer my politicians to know as little about politics as possible.
K-Lo: I think we should give the long-dead John Edwards infidelity story some more attention, because the unimpeachable National Inquirer is standing behind it.
Pantload: If that guy from Law & Order is such a great actor, how come he never co-starred with a monkey?
John Hood: In a debate, it’s much more important to seem calm and reasonable than to be right or to really care about your opinions or crap like that.
Pantload: Hey, guys, I wrote some doody jokes! Do you want to hear them, guys? One is about how the French are stinky! Remember before, when I said that joke about the French, from The Simpsons? Guys?
Pantload: I really like how this one guy has dug up the sole historical analogy that would make Hillary Clinton look like a political loser. It really speaks to me.
John Derbyshire: My delightfully reactionary views on so-called ‘modern art’ are ever so witty. What a saucy bun am I.
Pantload: You know who’s great? Lobbyists. Hey, guys, where does the apostrophe go? I lost that little card you gave me. Guys.
Pantload: Guys, you know what I think is that dogs are better than cats. Don’t you think so guys? Guys? Are you all still mad because I make more money than you? Seriously guys, dogs are way better than cats.
Mark R. Levin: Behold, as I use the words “respect” and “Meese Justice Department” in the same sentence!
The Derb: Heartland yokels equipped with 50-year-old joke books have written to confirm that I am the cleverest thing on two legs. Pip pip for me!
Ramesh Ponnuru: Stock market insiders are never wrong, and they say Obama hasn’t got a prayer.
Punani: It seems like they execute a lot of people in Texas, but more people are hit by lightning than are executed. Wouldn’t it be great if that fact was in any way relevant?
Levin: Hey, does anyone but me care about the line-item veto? No? Okay. Because, you know, Ronald Reagan. Still no? Okay.
K-Lo: I like this story because it involves Clinton-bashing and someone stuffing things in his pants.
Punani: Let me clarify that, despite my earlier fatuous argument, I am actually against the death penalty.
Punani: Hey, check out this awesome new tax plan! Bob Novak likes it, so you know it’s designed to fuck a lot of poor people. But I think, with a little tinkering, it can be made to fuck even more poor people.
K-Lo: Michael Totten is dreamy.
John Podhoretz: I would seriously consider giving up my ancestral faith if someone gave me enough money.
Richard Brookhiser: Contrary to the Derb’s claim that all modern art is bad, I believe that there was at least one good modern artist, although he has been dead for over 50 years.
John O’Sullivan: I don’t think we’re spending nearly enough time talking about the slow suicide of the great white race.
K-Lo: Rudy Giuliani is dreamy.
Larry Kudlow: Hey, all you broke-ass suckers who bitch about the economy, keep it up! You’re just making me richer and richer.
Lisa Schiffren: I would like to respond to the Derb’s claim that all modern art sucks by noting that a lot of 19th-century art also sucks.
Pantload: Those dirty liberal traitors at The Prospect want to cut and run. Hey, who wants Arby’s for lunch? Guys? Jamocha shake? Arby’s?
E.M. Zanotti: If I may, I would like to amplify Ms. Schiffren’s comments about the Derb’s belief that all modern art sucks. Ms. Schiffren, while I agree with you that a great deal of 19th-century art sucks, I believe you’ve neglected the fact that all art since the Enlightenment sucks.
K-Lo: I think expressing yourself is a lot less important than learning a bunch of arbitrary rules of grammar.
Mark Krikorian: Being an illegal immigrant isn’t the same as being a murderer, wink wink. Also, if liberals don’t like something, it must be good.
Hoodie: Cats are better than dogs and Jonah is a big fat farthead.
Pantload: I have a lot of trouble believing any story that suggests someone in America might be racist.
Kate O’Bierne: Lynne Cheney lost respect for Jimmy Carter in 1991, when he opposed invading Iraq. She remembers because at the time her husband worked for George H.W. Bush, who opposed invading Iraq. But he was a Republican so it was okay.
K-Lo: Okay, Mark, for Christ’s sake, here’s something about the line-item veto. Now will you come out from under my desk and stop crying?
Pantload: Guys, I’ve thought about it, and dogs are still better than cats. I know, Hood said the other thing was true, but I totally think he should change his mind. Does anyone want the rest of my Jamocha shake? I only drank half because there’s too much potato cakes in my belly. I didn’t backwash. Guys? Any takers? Dogs are better than cats I think.
Iain Murray: Al Gore should shut up about global warming because a British judge, who might also be a scientist you never know, said he was totally wrong.
Hoodie: You know, one of the most important things about the line-item veto is…ha ha, no! I’m just fucking with you guys. Cats are still better than dogs.
J-Pod: Al Gore is a dirty Communist.
K-Lo: Hmmm, let’s see. How can I get these two morons to quit arguing about dogs and cats? Oh, I know. Hey, Jonah! Look! Star Wars!
K-Lo: This old statement I found from Hillary Clinton doesn’t say we should go to war with Iraq. But still, the message is clear: Hillary is a big fat hypocrite for saying we shouldn’t be at war with Iraq.
K-Lo: McCain says we aren’t on the brink of war with Iran. Darn it.
K-Lo: Here’s an article that says if you work too hard you can give yourself a heart attack. Someone read it to Jonah when he gets back from his two-hour afternoon bathroom nap.
K-Lo: Shocked, I am, SHOCKED that Hillary Clinton appeared on TV with that sadistic monster Keith Olbermann.
The Human Steyn: Oh, white people. When will the world ever see your like again? Where are the tears for your fading pale glory? Surely the fact that so few people want to discuss this with me is a sign that our noble race is doomed.
Peter Robinson: Ramesh, it sickens me that you question certain aspects of the new tax cut plan, when clearly we should always favor any tax cut of any kind for any reason without ever thinking about it.
Punani: Although it seems certain that I will be murdered in my bed for saying so, I do not favor every conceivable tax cut. For example, I don’t think that you should get a tax cut for buying dirty, dirty smut. The high price is what makes it sexy.
David Freddoso: I clearly created a mistaken impression yesterday when I said that conservativism was all about guns, babies and taxes. I should have thrown something in there about darkies, too. And maybe homos.
Punani: I can’t believe that someone called our dear friend Chris DeMuth a scumbag just because he is one of the biggest lobbyists in Washington. Lobbyists are the salt of the earth, unless they are liberals.
Peter Robinson: Hey, crazy foreign guy, how do you spell your name again?
Peter Robinson: A question for Norman Podhoretz: why are you such an awesome genius?
Christ, I need a smoke.
wish for less criminals
wish for fewer criminals
Yep. Same old story. I was previously employed as a security guard at a mental hospital. It’s sad. Hanging out in the parking lot smoking weed during break was necessary.
And THEY said you was lazy, Grandmaster Pierce.
Damn them to Cthulhu’s Hell!
Jeebus. I read this WHOLE THING. Don’t I get academic credit or something?
Pierce: You’ve written an opera. I am not worthy.
But how do you shut off the voices in your head after you walk away from the computer? Alcohol, drugs–yes, By Any Means Necessary.
Come to LA, my son. We’ll treat you right.
So can I trust you that this is all verbatim?
Leonard: everybody hates you now.
Cats are better than dogs, unless you’re a dog lover, in which case…ah, fuck it! I need some weed.
I am the hated milk machine.
Like most liberals, I hate myself
Leonard, don’t be so hard on yourself. You really need to accept that we’re just mere mortals, and we will never achieve the heights of incredible awesomeness that is D.A., but remember, you did coin the phrase “sexy mouth foam,” and for that, I will always be grateful.
I picked one at random to read for real, and all I can remember from the experience was Peter Robinson calling Margret Thatcher “Mrs. T”, and Ramesh Ponnuru was “Master of the Intellectual Ginzu Knives”…
I need a drink.
( my personal fave, from 3/24/07 )
Parenting Bleg [Jonah Goldberg]
Okay, so my four year old daughter desperately wants me to do more magic tricks. All I can really do for her are variations of “Hey, I found a quarter in your ear” stuff. And even then, the prestidigitation isn’t really up to snuff. If she were five, she’d be on to me. So, I need really simple, stupid in fact, magic tricks that can be done with little skill, that will impress a four year-old. Any suggestions?
( ass, pull finished manuscript out of… )
Is there a video I could watch?
To be fair, I’m 23, and I hate teenagers, too. There’s usually a few sulking about at work before the shift starts, smoking (though prolly not weed), and I just want to smack them all with a 1×2. Nothing lethal, just enough to cause pain and tell them to get a haircut and pull up their damn pants; look like fucking hooligans.
Dear God, is that “Moderate Donkey” post insufferable. Hub bub bub, those dangerous fringe wackos on the far left are sure making us sensible liberals look bad. Perhaps I’ll cast a vote for a unity Lieberman/McCain ticket to balance their dangerous leftist screeds.
Hub bub, &c.
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!!!!
IT BUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!
I object to this. There is no way Michelle Malkin was ever a cheerleader.
Their plan is to render you speechless.
(“What is it about the present environment, exactly, that makes tax cuts a bad idea?”)
Damn it, Pierce!
Did you, or did you not claim you’d be twice as lazy as D. Aristophanes, and post half as much? Huh? Well, this screed looks like it took a tiny bit of effort!!
Stop it!
Stop it right now!
But how do you shut off the voices in your head after you walk away from the computer?
Hey, we got here first! Bugger off, you filthy immigrant voices! We don’t like your sort here!
freddy, that’s really awfully telling, isn’t it. He’s right, you know. Pretty much anybody five or over can tell he’s completely full of shit. It must be horrible to go through life knowing that. I suppose that gives me some solace.
Christ, teenagers these days have gone to the dogs. Back in my day, some old geezer’d start mouthin off about gettin off his stinkin lawn, we’d drag his ass out and show him a thing or three. Kids these days. No discipline, I tell ya.
Mr. Wonderful:
Reading this entire post is worth three credits as an elective (“The National Review Talks To Itself: New Frontiers in Masochism”) from the American Milk Solids Council Home Extension University. It’s accredited in four countries, but none of them are America.
Marq:
I promised to be twice as lazy as Demogenes if all you people toadied up to me. When no up-suckage was forthcoming, I enacted a terrible revenge.
I’m still operating under the assumption that none of these people actually exist.
Legalize: Until recently, very few people had ever SEEN K-Lo, and yet she always seemed to be on the Corner at all hours of the day. Plus, most of her posts consisted of links or regurgitation of standard talking points. I was half-convinced that she was a bot of some sort. She actually appears to be a real human being; she just acts like a drone most of the time. And she’s the *editor*, for heaven’s sake.
Peter Robinson’s posts are hysterical. He simply cannot write about Norman Podhoretz without covering himself in drool, and yet the Podfather has been wrong about nearly *everything* for the past, oh, four decades or so. Not that anyone cares about that.
But this is what remains of the National Review. Anyone with any ability to argue, anyone with any real knowledge, left the building long ago. They’re left with a collection of louts, lunatics, and legacies, not to mention the assorted bit of deadwood or incoherent hack. The most amazing Corner post of all came from Rich Lowry, who said (effectively) that (1) it kind of seems like it’s just possible that Bush almost doesn’t quite understand entirely what’s going on, and (2) gee, this Sunni-Shia thing really is a toughie.
I doubt he will ever realize that sensible people figured this out over five years ago. Meanwhile, Victor Davis Hanson is still doing his “Finally, things are looking up!” schtick, which he’s deployed at regular intervals throughout the entire course of the war.
Mr. Leonard Pierce: Everyone else, including yourself, may indeed hate you, but I — I think I love you.
Also, Some Guy: 23 years old and already with the geezer wheezin’s? Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight a long damn time.
I don’t know your daddy, but you look like Dwight Schrute’s evil twin.
I was half-convinced that she was a bot of some sort.
For my part, I am fully convinced she’s Jean Teasdale‘s evil twin.
*sigh* and then Jonah Goldberg goes and posts something sensible:
“Ronald Reagan is dead, and he’s not coming back. I wish more conservatives could come to grips with this relatively simple fact….The Reagan moment is over. Nisbet once wrote that nostalgia is at best the rust of memory, at worst it is a disease. I would argue it’s also a bit narcissistic. ”
http://author.nationalreview.com/latest/?q=MjE5NQ==
Dammit. Debaser’s comment wasn’t there, I swear. What does it mean when a person redundantly evil-twins a thread? *shudder*
Trilateral Chairman: I also refuse to believe that Rich Lowery is not a cyborg sent here from the future to destroy history.
Ronald Reagan is dead, and he’s not coming back. I wish more conservatives could come to grips with this relatively simple fact
*Relatively* simple? Conservatives are graded on quite the curve…
Wha..?
All of Reagan’s relatives are dead?
So what. I’m going back to whatever it was I was doing…
Is that lazy bastard Pierce ever gonna post anything again?
mikey
Holy Christ on welfare, did they slip antipsychotics into the coffee over at NR?
Goldberg: “…the Democratic Party is not in fact saturated with Jihadi sympathizers, al Qaeda spies and radical Muslims….the moment we’re in now is very, very different at home and abroad from the moment at the dawn of the Cold War.”
Then Lowry: “Jonah,” says Lowry, “I agree with your column today [on the end of the Reagan moment] wholeheartedly.”
Gawd, that’s *two* NR hacks who are saying that Republicans should stop waiting for the second coming of the Gipper, and that’s *two* partially sensible comments from Goldberg–IN A ROW.
The end times have come.
Trilateral: One can dream, but methinks it’s just the stopped-clock effect. Kind of like how every once in a while, Pat Buchanan makes sense.
Give it a few minutes, and the normal universal balance will be restored. And if not, well, that might not be all bad…
When will their heads start exploding over Al Gore & the Nobel? If it’s suspiciously quiet over there, it means they’re franticly typing away, smoke wafting out of their ears. I expect some awesome screeds will appear in a couple of hours.
Yes, g. If by “awesome screeds,” you mean liquid monkey poop splatters, I agree with you.
Ah, there we go. Lopez is still snarfing down the Kool-Aid:
“On the same wave as Geraghty and Hanson today, Rush Limbaugh just called on Al Gore to hand over this prize to ‘genuine agents of peace: General Petraus, the U.S. military, and its commander-in-chief.[‘]
But we won’t take the case to Court.”
When will their heads start exploding over Al Gore & the Nobel?
Soon, I hope.
Meanwhile, Confederate Wankee and some other assorted nuts are already on the case.
May I add, by the way, how very proud I and the three other liberals in the glorious border state of Tennessee are of our homeboy Al. (We call him Al.)
When will their heads start exploding over Al Gore & the Nobel?
Add michellemalkin.com and Hot Air, always reliable.
“They decided it was 4:20 time.” who wrote this column? My mom? Neither her nor this douche seem to realize 4:20 is already considered a time. At least my mother is smart enough to not use slang that she is not “hip” to.
I love this, and the two-minute Town Hall.
It really is astounding that this is the conservative brain trust. Err, I meant painful.
Poor summarization. Needs about 5X more K-Lo posts to be an accurate reflection of the Corner. After all, quanity > quality. Or, if you can’t bedazzle them with brilliance, bury them in bullshit.
Spokane Moderate said,
October 12, 2007 at 17:34
Ronald Reagan is dead, and he’s not coming back. I wish more conservatives could come to grips with this relatively simple fact
*Relatively* simple? Conservatives are graded on quite the curve…
and Spokane moderate wins the comment thread!!
Does it make me a racist because I hate rAmEsh POnnerrU best??11!!11It Burns…
I like that Steyn manages to expound on the fact that Ireland is being overrun by “single-source” immigrants, without quite getting up the nerve to point out that that source is….Poland!
Yep. white Catholic skilled workers are spreading over the Emerald Isle, blatantly munching their filthy perogies all over the place. The poor Irish are doomed.
Wellp, thass OK.
I suspected as much, and didn’t bother reading the entire thing.
.
.
.
.
Not until after I’d posted my first comment, anyway.