Thursday, February 07, 2013

...THAN SCHMUCK FOR A LIFETIME.

OK, remember when The West Wing was on TV and everyone thought this was liberals' way of having a fake president to console and tide themselves over until Bush was out of office? Well, at least The West Wing had snappy dialogue and good acting. Bill Whittle's Mr. Virtual President has -- well, go look. If you can't bear the video, which rather reminds me of Rupert Pupkin's basement broadcasts, you can read the transcript of Whittle's Inaugural Address, in which he alludes to Louis C.K.'s "Everything's amazing and nobody's happy" bit and then proceeds to give us the upshot  that LCK was too busy being funny and interesting to reveal:
We’re not happy, because everyone knows that the giant mushroom cloud of debt that hangs over this country will eventually destroy our economy and the world’s economy... And we’re not happy because we’re told time and time again by the people here in Washington, that we are not entitled to individual happiness. We’re not happy, because more and more, every day, this magnificent experiment in the power of the individual is being remade into yet another giant collectivist, faceless, mindless, soulless state...
Later he tells us "we’re not allowed to be prosperous anymore," and compares citizens in our welfare state to captive animals. I tell ya, Mr. Virtual President needs some new virtual speechwriters.

Whittle has now been responsible for alt-wingnut movie studio Declaration Entertainment, alt-wingnut fantasy community Ejectia, and this. He should enlist the guys working on that gun nut planned community The Citadel, PopModal ("the conservative alternative to YouTube"), PJ Lifestyle and other such simulacra, pick up Rod "Benedict Option" Dreher while he's at it, and they can all fuck off to some remote land where they can recreate a new paradise far, far, far from us. They can start here.

188 comments:

  1. XeckyGilchrist10:53 PM

    The wingnutz are never going to get a handle on this whole "Show, don't tell" thing, are they.

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  2. XeckyGilchrist10:55 PM

    ...oh, right. *Declaration* Entertainment. Got it.

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  3. sharculese10:59 PM

    So... in the wingnut fantasy universe where they won the election, they're still oppressed by liberals.


    Sounds about right.

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  4. bekabot10:59 PM

    "I tell ya, Mr. Virtual President needs some new virtual speechwriters."



    Bet he's a bootstrap guy who writes his own stuff.

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  5. XeckyGilchrist11:05 PM

    I don't have to see it, Dottie. I *lived* it.

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  6. The Virtual President: Because if there's anything YouTube was lacking, it was people standing in front of green screens ranting about their personal beliefs.

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  7. "we are not entitled to individual happiness"

    What the hell does that mean? Is he pissed that people are trying to prevent Wall Street and insurance companies from plundering the economy again? Or is he pissed that the politicians haven't quite destroyed SS, medicare, or unemployment benefits and Obamacare is still moving forward; because his individual happiness comes from seeing the poors & minorities suffering? Or is he unhappy that the multimillionaires and corporations haven't been fully exempt from paying taxes yet?

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  8. AGoodQuestion12:04 AM

    This is exactly the kind of tone-deaf, surly lecture you'd expect would be written by a man who doesn't catch how much "Ejectia" sounds like some kind of oozing physical discharge.

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  9. I'd like to take off my snark hat for a moment. At around ten minutes into the video (which is about as far as I got, by the way), Whittle pulls out this charming little anecdote about caveman discovering the wonders of capitalism. Coming as it did after a long section about communism and how collectivism killed millions, I found that very funny. You see, the concept of trade - including barter - is a lot more recent than most people assume. According to many anthropologists, the system that was found in early human settlements was what they call the "gift economy." Each band, tribe or village was based around a central store of material goods, to which everyone added what they could and took what they needed. There was no concept of personal ownership, or even "ownership" in general. Even once trade began to spread, many individual settlements (including a lot of religious societies) continued to practice some form of the gift economy.


    TL;DR - Cavemen were communists, at least as far as guys like Whittle are concerned. I wish some of these guys would read a non-Regnery book now and then and realize that, no, not all communitarian societies were/are left-wing.

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  10. That's pretty typical in a lot of self-published literature from the right side of the aisle. The setup is always the same - the self-insert Mary Sue protagonist comes out of nowhere, breaks all the campaign rules, wins in an unprecedented landslide, spends the rest of his career fighting off rivals who are threatened/jealous/corrupt.


    The only difference is that in this case, the protagonist is a literal self-insert.

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  11. AGoodQuestion12:31 AM

    I wish some of these guys would read a non-Regnery book now and then


    Rumors of these "non-Regnery books" are sometimes whispered on the compound. Can such things be?

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  12. Indeed, pretty much all anthropologists know what pretty much all economists choose to ignore: that barter only comes naturally to people who are already accustomed to a system of currency. It's hardly the most efficient way to handle day-to-day allocation of resources.

    David Graeber goes into this in detail in Debt, which I won't get into because I suspect I'm far from the only person here who's read it. (If you haven't read it, though, do that. Do it now.)

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  13. mortimer12:48 AM

    I've yet to read, watch, or hear anything from Bill Whittle (especially the videos) that wasn't four times as long as it needed to be, tediously insane, and just plain embarrassing. (Like this video at 1:15, where he gets all dramatic -- the whole thing is nuts and, of course, endless.)

    Who is the audience for this shit? Even if you agree with all the whackerooba, who finds this entertaining? Or even tolerable?

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  14. I've yet to read, watch, or hear anything from Bill Whittle


    If you'd just stopped right there you'd be a much happier person.

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  15. According to many anthropologists, the system that was found in early human settlements was what they call the "gift economy." Each band, tribe or village was based around a central store of material goods, to which everyone added what they could and took what they needed.

    see also:

    "Community, The Early Christian"
    "The Viking Age, Scandinavia in the" and,
    "North America, Pretty Much Every Fucking Native American Tribe in"

    Whole swaths of the planet have not been capitalistic throughout history. Where do they find these sad bozos who don't know that? Do they all effectively possess only eighth-grade educations?

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  16. DocAmazing12:55 AM

    Look, there have been plenty of right-wing artists--Celine, Pound, Johnny Ramone--who could produce quality product that had nothing to do with their politics. What has happened? Why are wingnuts in the culture industries these days doomed to bringing forth dreck?

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  17. There may still be plenty of good right-wing artists, who just don't feel the need to whine about the national debt and the welfare state every time they're in the vicinity of a camera or a keyboard.


    Plus, you still have artists like Justin Bieber, who manages to do an okayish job keeping his politics and morals out of his art. I think it's safe to say that Justin Bieber would be exactly as shitty an artist even if he were the leftiest of the lefties. Can you imagine what his cover of "The Internationale" would be like? (Bad. It would be bad.)

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  18. If you can't bear the video, which rather reminds me of Rupert Pupkin's basement broadcasts,

    if you want a vision of conservatism imagine rupert pupkin showing jerry langford a picture of his pride and joy, forever.

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  19. Spaghetti Lee1:18 AM

    I think it's because 'right-wing artist' has been defined down to 'makes nothing but propaganda for the Republican Party's goal of the moment.' Seriously. As far as decent conservative artists of yore go, I retain an affection for Chesterton and CS Lewis, and I'm sure some people here don't, but I think you've got to say that they were at least trying to make something bigger than the some of their personal gripes, and that could connect with people even who didn't agree with it, which the current madhouse can't even conceive of doing. It's been said before-for them, art is a weapon, not a passion.


    I also think it's got something to do with all this 'The Right-Wing alternative to Hollywood/YouTube/Wikipedia' crap: the more feverish right-wing artists not only want to eliminate even the most outside chance of criticism and make the least challenging, contemplative mentality for creative work imaginable. Publishing through Regnery or writing for PJM or Bill Whittle isn't an artistic statement, it's a political one. For most of the audience, that's all they need. The artistic quality comes second, if at all.

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  20. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard1:19 AM

    By "self-insert", you mean the dildo that's shoved up the rectum before the two wetsuits are donned, right?

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  21. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard1:23 AM

    Verily, they are sometimes used as tinder to burn nongoodthinkers and jezebely jezebels.

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  22. DocAmazing1:34 AM

    http://klaxon.tv/musik.htm


    Scroll down a bit for Maxx Klaxon's version of The Internationale. Not bad, really.

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  23. The very existence of people who believe and live differently than white Christian conservatives is a form of oppression, you see.


    Individual freedom! To be a white Christian conservative!

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  24. Don't be silly. Not writing your own speeches is only a sign of low intelligence when a black president does it.

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  25. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard1:55 AM

    The artists you cited were artists first, right-wingers second. If your primary concern is your politics or your culture war, you'll produce stuff like this.

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  26. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard1:59 AM

    We’re not happy, because more and more, every day, this magnificent experiment in the power of the individual is being remade into yet another giant collectivist, faceless, mindless, soulless state...
    FACT: There are no happy people in Europe.

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  27. Tehanu2:18 AM

    The Firesign Theatre had a robot Mr President in "I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus," and he sounded more human than Bill Whittle does.

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  28. Spaghetti Lee2:40 AM

    Also, why the need for a conservative YouTube? YouTube is the conservative YouTube. Seriously, read any video's comment section.

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  29. AngryWarthogBreath3:06 AM

    You know the thing about experiments? Sometimes they don't work. And in that case, you record a failure and change the experimental parameters. That's, of course, if you're performing an experiment, rather than abiding by a strict dictum.

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  30. smut clyde3:52 AM

    Whole swathes of the planet would not be inhabitable with capitalism. Capitalismis a luxury, unsustainable in marginal environments.

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  31. montag24:21 AM

    It's a strange fixation, isn't it? It's a distinctly authoritarian trait that the utterly talentless shits are the very same ones with all the dreary dreams of remaking the culture in their image.


    What's the rule here? Lose big on the Gong Show and start a conservative web site?

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  32. True, the sheer, massive wastefulness of capitalism (which wastefulness being a feature, not a bug) is the real elephant in the room when it comes to all the capitalist apologia we're inundated with. Only a select few people (rightbloggers, for example) are stupid enough to actually claim that this planet can yield its resources indefinitely, but the rest of the developed world's population just sort of sticks their fingers in their ears because they don't want to think about it.

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  33. Marcus6:34 AM

    Shhhh! Nobody tell him that mushroom clouds in and of themselves do not actually cause all that much damage. I mean, sure, if you walked through one it would probably be pretty bad, but still.

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  34. Prolly has something to do with guns.

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  35. Well, that's when fantasy economics advanced from conservative caveman to fairy tale.


    "Oh, you're about to be murdered by your new husband the king unless you get some capital investments in the way of spun gold but don't have anything to trade right now? How's bout I advance you the gold and you give me your first born child? We'll call it a loan. Just sign right here--no background check required."

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  36. well, except for all the radioactive fallout and such.

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  37. fraser6:54 AM

    You're overthinking it. What it means is Communist Faceless State, therefore Obama bad!

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  38. True that. For instance, there's something about Bieber's smartass smirky face that makes me want to smack it, regardless of his politics (if he has any--dunno).

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  39. Bizarro Mike7:41 AM

    According to our scientists' top comic books, Cole, you develop super mutant powers from fallout. Nothing to be afraid of.

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  40. Then breathe deep the gathering gloom...


    I still want the power to become invisible, so I can sneak into the girls locker room. fuck saving the world

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  41. Ahhhh...here comes the snow. See y'all on the other side of storm Nemo. I have some snow play to make up after this dreary New England "winter" this year.

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  42. Derelict8:25 AM

    Why is it that conservatives need to have their own special places? Wikipedia? No, they need Conservapedia. YouTube? No, they need PopModal.
    It must be one powerfully reasoned belief system to crumble on contact with anything that might gainsay it.

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  43. But where are all the awesome conservative videos?


    Suppressed by the lieberals, no doubt!

    ~

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  44. synykyl8:46 AM

    ... they can all fuck off to some remote land where they can recreate a new paradise far, far, far from us. They can start here. ...


    I pity the poor penguins.

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  45. coozledad8:51 AM

    It costs too much money to keep right wing artists in liquor and drugs. The volume consumed by Audey Murphy, Alan Ladd, Errol Flynn and Spade Cooley ate up a couple of small fortunes. Spade's humble contributions to art just don't justify his sins- beating his wife Ella Mae to death and giving Ronald Reagan free airtime in the infancy of his political career.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgzeLlBjD6Q

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  46. Doghouse Riley8:57 AM

    Who is the audience for this shit?


    Didn't you watch that video? He must'a drawn 200,000 to that speech.

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  47. Provider_UNE9:21 AM

    I will take this sage advice. Thank you, gentleperson.


    ...

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  48. satch9:40 AM

    "...especially the videos..."

    I got out of the boat and swam over to where the video was, and then decided to speed things along by reading the transcript instead. When "Page Not Found" came up, I discovered I was immediately much happier. Thanks, Bill...

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  49. BigHank539:44 AM

    There are two ways to become a big fish in a small pond. The traditional one is to have talent and work hard. With a bit of luck: success! The other way to do it is to make the pond smaller. And smaller, and smaller, until you look like a big fish.

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  50. BigHank539:46 AM

    Don't let the deacons find out you can read, you fool.

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  51. Halloween_Jack10:10 AM

    One of the things that always disappointed me about the versions of Star Trek that feature the holodeck is that the scenarios and fantasies that people live out are fairly mundane, sticking to standard genres of today. Even the ones in which are basically an interactive porn movie (and, with some of the skeevier characters, porn that features some of the female characters that they can't score with in real life), tend to be set in some boudoir or Robin Hood LARPing thing or something. At least once, they could have hinted at really bizarre bespoke holoprograms, like living in an animated cartoon (for the twenty-fourth century equivalent of bronies, or literally returning to the womb for an hour, or in the case of aliens with different emotions and/or sensory equipment, virtual worlds that would be utterly incomprehensible to us. Real David Cronenberg stuff.

    This post made me think of this because of how mundane and sad this power fantasy is. Little Billy Whittle puts on his best suit and tie and strides to the podium--and thousands cheer! He's got the nuclear football, motherfuckers! (I'll give you a minute to come out from under your desks. Alrighty, then.) He can ride on Air Force One and munch those M&Ms with the presidential seal on them! He gets to test-drive the big-ass mecha suits that the military is building in their secret base in South Dakota! Who hasn't had that fantasy? Hell, I have. (Although, once I think things through for about a minute, I decide that my inaugural speech should also be my resignation speech and I should just turn things directly over to Vice President Elizabeth Warren. Shit, I can barely keep my sock drawer reasonably organized.)

    And that's kind of the problem. Dude's supposed to be in charge of his own entertainment company, and he's falling back on a bog-standard power fantasy (and a hell of a lot less picturesque than the one I have about being Ming the Merciless, tell you what). I realize that he probably thinks that he's a media big shot (he had a video go viral on YouTube!), but really, this is his A game? At least Herman Cain's campaign videos were original, albeit in a staggeringly crazy way.

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  52. David Vitter's Wet Nurse10:22 AM

    It's always more fun when someone else does the insertion, or so I've been told.

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  53. zencomix10:24 AM

    He can't hear you, he has a "banana" in his "ear".

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  54. "We're not happy, because for the first time in our history, we're not allowed to be happy."

    Oh tateleh. Poor baby. So it's come to this? From rugged individualism to "we're not allowed to be happy"? Jesus Christ, Whittle, go have a sandwich, drink a glass of milk, do some fuckin' thing.*

    * Dennis Farina line from Midnight Run I've been dying to use.

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  55. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard10:34 AM

    The GOP solution to this is to eliminate funding for social science courses.

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  56. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard10:40 AM

    Just don't mention what kind of play you engage in after a shitstorm.

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  57. Then "breathe deep the gathering gloom..."

    Oh, an intellectual, huh?

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  58. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard10:46 AM

    (for the twenty-fourth century equivalent of bronies),
    In defense of a mundane holodeck, I imagine that neurosurgery and genetic engineering in the 24th century would be good enough that the 24th century equivalent of bronies would actually be bug eyed little ponies which can talk and fly.
    Also, I imagine anyone who'd pass the psychological screenings put in place by starfleet command would be pretty practical. The real freaks would be wallowing in their obsessions on dedicated orgy planets.

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  59. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard10:48 AM

    There's the rub- "do some fucking thing" would, in order to make him happy, involve oppressing a woman or minority. He can't do that these days, therefore, he's unhappy.

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  60. whetstone11:28 AM

    At first I misread the sentence and thought Roy was dropping some elaborate vocabulary to describe Whittle's idea as resembling some kind of oozing physical discharge, or perhaps prescription oil of ipecac.

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  61. catbutler11:41 AM

    The Happiness police came by my house and killed my kittens.
    True story.

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  62. whetstone11:45 AM

    I'll stick up a bit for Bieber--I admire his devotion to an earlier era of song-and-dance spectacle. If he existed in the '80s, he'd be Michael Jackson's Pat Boone, but as it stands he's something of a classicist. Never give up! If future me told past me that one of the dudes from Backstreet Boys would do a Busby Berkeley number to a Killers song in an arcade while drinking Old Milwaukee in a bizarre indie movie, I'd think we were about to pass into an alternate universe.

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  63. "What the hell does that mean?" Yup. I want quotations and/or links.

    Though, come to think of it, I can think of an example, though I admit I have no links yet: I used to hear on NPR that Americans think they're entitled to public schools and good jobs with benefits and pensions and shit. But the postwar World War II prosperity was a glitch, it can never happen again because we can't afford it. Americans are just going to have tighten their belts and suck it up and expect to hold two (or more) jobs forever. Sorry about that.


    In fairness, this was the corporate/NPR axis talking, but it seems to have gone bipartisan since then. You sure aren't going to hear anything different from the Republicans when they control the government.

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  64. BigHank5311:49 AM

    Only if he counts his own intestinal bacteria.

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  65. RogerAiles11:52 AM

    Lets say there’s a hunter tribe, up in the mountains. Since they hunt, they make terrific spears: strong, yet flexible and light, with razor-sharp stone spearheads and they fly straight and true. But, they don’t gather much, so their baskets look like bird’s nests.

    Now, down by the seashore is a gatherer tribe. They try to spear fish
    occasionally, but their spears are just wobbly sticks that break half of the time. But they do a lot of gathering, so they know how to weave baskets so tight they can hold water.

    Now one day, a guy from the hunter tribe meets a guy from the gatherer tribe in the midlands, and he says, basically, “Sir, I think that is the nicest basket I have ever seen.” And the gatherer says, “well, allow me to retort! That is one magnificent spear.” And so the hunter trades his top-notch spear for the gatherer’s awesome basket, and they both turn around and go back home. Now the question is… which one goes home richer?

    They both do!

    Isn't Wingnut 101 that the hunter kills the gatherer with the spear and steals the baskets, therefore we need to spend 3 trillion dollars to invade the seashore, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.

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  66. 'the self-insert Mary Sue protagonist comes out of nowhere, breaks all the campaign rules, wins in an unprecedented landslide,'

    Good point, but, um, isn't that a standard Hollywood fantasy for liberals too? The little guy Speaks Truth to Power and ends up in Washington overnight despite the machinations of the corrupt plutocrats, whether by an election or by some quirk of fate (Dave, The Campaign)? He gets the votes of ten because his heart is pure? It's been a while since I've been Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but isn't it roughly the same story? No wonder the Right believes it -- it's Hollywood!

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  67. KatWillow11:59 AM

    Everything is propaganda to them.

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  68. KatWillow12:04 PM

    "Power of the individual"? Last time I looked, the Constitution said "We, the PEOPLE".

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  69. whetstone12:05 PM

    Say what you will about Bill Whittle, but who among us would not have enjoyed Barack Obama's second inaugural address more if it included the phrase "a free bear is a happy bear"?


    I'm guessing he didn't get that from reading Thomas Hobbes, but it's a great phrase.

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  70. KatWillow12:05 PM

    The comments are shockingly ghastly. Why do they even have them?

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  71. sharculese12:09 PM

    "Free Bear" is my favorite song by musical recording artist Leonard Skinnard.

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  72. KatWillow12:09 PM

    Invisibility? Mind-reading? Pah! I want the power to FLY. If I were a billionaire, I'd pay every penny for the ability to Fly. Sigh.

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  73. KatWillow12:12 PM

    It was supposed to snow here (Reno). But NOOOOO. It never does. Reno seems to have its own personal high pressure system, emanating from the sad, shabby downtown casnios I daresay. Yep, even the most severe storms split and go around us. I'm bummed, but the feral cats are relieved.

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  74. sharculese12:13 PM

    It kind of rules tho that in Bill Whittles mind even cavemen talk like poncey try-hards.

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  75. sharculese12:17 PM

    If I were wager what percentage of PopModal's videos were snatched from youtube and reposted, I would guess 100.


    Also, too, someone needs to explain to this dude that 'pop culture' doesn't mean occasionally punctuating your clips of shouty cable news personalities with super bowl commercials.

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  76. You must have one of those left-wing copies. Mine is the original unsullied version, as written by Jesus, consisting solely of the Tenth Amendment and the second clause of the 2nd Amendment. Yes, in that order, because stop oppressing me.

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  77. Hey, you know who else was intellectual?

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  78. "We, the People (not the individuals) of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union (UNION, Billy), establish Justice (for all), provide for the common defense (not a bunch of roaming armed wingnuts), promote the General Welfare (Whittle's head explodes), and ensure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity (sounds like a group to me), do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

    Why does Billy hate the Constitution?

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  79. The real freaks would be wallowing in their obsessions on dedicated orgy planets.

    Or running a restaurant in which potatoes are still scrubbed by hand.

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  80. Because he's an American conservative?

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  81. Bill Whittle obviously always pays full sticker price for his automobiles.

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  82. DocAmazing12:32 PM

    Free beer? I can get behind that idea!

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  83. And the gatherer says, "well, allow me to retort! That is one magnificent spear."

    And then the bad jazz music starts up.

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  84. AGoodQuestion12:34 PM

    O'Sullivan's law states that "All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing." Of course assuming this might be true, they never spend much time delving into why that might be.

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  85. DocAmazing12:37 PM

    You know who else made unoriginal watercolor paintings...

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  86. Most telling of all is that he reaches for a caveman metaphor as an exemplar of human interaction. These reactionary jackasses think every advancement since fire is a commie plot against good old traditional values (of hitting things with a rock) and they won't be happy until they've rolled culture back to the stone age.

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  87. You're free to be a white Christian conservative. Everyone else must pay.

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  88. AGoodQuestion12:43 PM

    Actually it's one of the dudes from 'NSync who did that whole surreal Busby Berkeley thing.

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  89. We are snug at home watching it come down. Just made tomato soup (with orange, rosemary, and thickened with a little goat cheese) and corn bread. About to put raisin challah in the oven. School's canceled. Everything's canceled. Now I'm discovering that, horror movie fashion, the mess in my life is generated by me--its coming from inside the house!!!!

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  90. It's a little sad that I know this, but one of the Trek spinoffs (Voyager maybe?) actually did feature an orgy planet. They never actually used the term "orgy" (or "sex," for that matter), but they made it clear in that PG-rated "nudge nudge, wink wink" way they always dealt with sexuality on those shows.

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  91. No, no, no...the meme is that America won the lottery after WWII and then spent it all on a giant block party, drugs, hookers, and NBA season tickets, instead of investing wisely.

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  92. This comment is just so good I don't even have any snarky compliments to pay it other than: damn! You are good.


    Fred Clark at slacktivist actually has made this point quite a bit about the LARPIng aspect of the Evangelical subculture as explored in the Left Behind series. The point where his observations crosses yours is that when you get right down to it the Mary Sue figures in Left Behind exhibit an utter paucity of imagination about themselves and their own desires. They want to consider themselves the heroes in a grand drama--a world ending in destruction or salvation drama--but all they can produce is a projection of their own smallmindedness. The "action" of the books appears to consist mainly of phone calls, withheld information, sexism, cheap gibes at women, car chases, and flying around from airport to airport.

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  93. Southland Tales - the perfect film to watch if you've ever wondered what it was like to have a brain injury.

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  94. Halloween_Jack12:54 PM

    That would be Risa, which is sort of the designated Club Med/Hedonism planet, yeah. (And the setting of a DS9 episode which features a bunch of killjoys that a 24th-century Kathy Jean Lopez would join in a heartbeat.)

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  95. Halloween_Jack12:58 PM

    Unfortunately, genetic engineering in the Federation is a no-no, thanks to Khan. In a less-restrictive space opera such as Iain M. Banks' Culture novels, they'd absolutely have MLP:FIM people.

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  96. aimai1:04 PM

    Or having the love of a real mother instead of a test tube. Or choosing some other life entirely other than the one they've got.

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  97. Spaghetti Lee1:07 PM

    I don't know much about Star Trek but it doesn't surprise me at all, psychologically speaking, that people in a do-anything future would have fantasies about the past. We've got a lot of that now, with period dramas, medieval high fantasy, steampunk, what have you. And there's nothing wrong with that-for most people the point is that it's just a sort of mental vacation, and they're glad they don't have to live there. For some on the right, the tragedy is that they can't force us to live there.

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  98. The BackNSync Boys?

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  99. I'm not talking about everyman stories. The one's I've read are more on par with the "None of the Above" campaign in Brewster's Millions, but even more ridiculous. Some dude (clearly the author) goes on the air, says "Politicians are out of touch! I know what real Americans want!" and the next day, he's got 80% of the vote. And then once he sweeps into office, his policies instantly turn the US into a utopia with no drawbacks. I don't doubt that there are liberals with the same fantasies, but they aren't churning out dozens of ebooks a month on the subject.

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  100. Coolio...thanks, Halloween_Jack.

    ReplyDelete
  101. But if you spent all your billion on flying, you'd be poor and have to fly coach.


    conundrumy

    ReplyDelete
  102. just old

    ReplyDelete
  103. sharculese1:20 PM

    OTOH when I think of some of the body swaps/modifications that have happened in Culture novels (that guy in excession, the dude with fifty dicks in his new one) I wonder if they wouldn't find MLP unbearably tame.


    "You can be anything in the world, and you choose cartoon horse? Okay, whatever."

    ReplyDelete
  104. Reno? I used to live on Roberts St.

    ReplyDelete
  105. I've always loved "snow days," whatever the calamity that brought them on, because things slow down and people seem nicer. Kinda reminds us of all the stress that modern life hangs on our shoulders the rest of the time.

    ReplyDelete
  106. sharculese1:24 PM

    iirc, the bieb actually caused a minor third-stringer skree because he told a reporter that as a canadian, he couldn't imagine what the problem was with instituting universal health care.

    ReplyDelete
  107. Fats Durston1:34 PM

    "We're not happy, because for the first time in our history, we're not allowed to be happy."


    What do you mean we, white man?

    ReplyDelete
  108. coozledad1:39 PM

    Hey, here's a budding right-wing artist. A reg'lar guy's Balthus.


    http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/bush-family-emails-hacked?ref=fpblg

    OK. Maybe not.

    ReplyDelete
  109. Yeah, right? Who could possibly want to live in the ongoing Stalinist nightmare that is Denmark?

    ReplyDelete
  110. Gromet1:46 PM

    Right?? How is YouTube leftwing?? What could be more rightwing than an open, unrestricted market wherein what becomes most popular is whatever is deemed by the citizenry to be most appealing and useful. I mean really now! Rightwingers can only be angry that when their principles are applied to a marketplace, they work very well--and expose their fantasy of death panels to be much less appealing than Maru the cat.

    ReplyDelete
  111. I'll be damned (see what I did there?) if I'll read even recaps of the LEFT BEHIND books but could I get a tl;dr about who the protagonists are? Rapture's already happened, right? And we're following protagonists who've been 'left behind', yeah? Doesn't that make them, by at least a few definitions, damned dirty sinners who weren't Good Enough to be lifted up to Heaven? Why would good folks want to read about them? Help me, somebody!

    ReplyDelete
  112. Gromet1:52 PM

    Holy moley, I just googled O'Sullivan's Law. Did you guys know the reason rightwing organizations become leftwing is that rightwingers always openly embrace leftwingers, listen to them and hire them -- and then once a leftwinger gets into the organization this way, he (or she!) ruthlessly clamps down on any dissent from leftwing ideology? THAT'S JUST HISTORY FACT AND NOT GRAND PARANOID DELUSION. LET'S ASSUME.

    ReplyDelete
  113. wileywitch2:00 PM

    It has happened in modern times in the West even. A wonderful woman/writer/editor I used to work for had an essay written by someone in one of her writing classes who lived in Germany during and after WW II. There was time in which no one could trade anything for food. A handful of rubies was worthless. All that was wanted was food. Her description of hunger was magnificent.


    I think it would be a good idea for anyone who is healthy enough to do it to fast for four days. It really brings home the value of having food every day, and puts our values into perspective. The drive not to starve is far more powerful than any economic incentive.

    ReplyDelete
  114. sharculese2:05 PM

    I stopped reading Clark's Left Behind posts for this very reason: I realized that I was skipping all of the actual book and just reading his criticisms, but basically, yeah, all the people who were perfect and godly got raptured already, but some of the ones who got left behind have realized the error of their ways and form a resistance army against the evil one world government (the UN, naturally)

    ReplyDelete
  115. Thanks for the info, but is the idea that you can Come to Jesus post-Rapture a real thing among true-believing Dispensationalists? Or are the Left Behind books a seemingly endless series of Revelations fanfics?

    ReplyDelete
  116. Bitter Scribe2:19 PM

    I think Bill Whittle should go back to squeezing the Charmin.

    ReplyDelete
  117. wileywitch2:22 PM

    You mean "bow chicka wow", don't you?

    ReplyDelete
  118. aimai2:30 PM

    I finally got bored this year with Fred's recaps but up until then I found them really very philosophically profound, in an anthropological sense. You see the original books are written from a vantage point that is so perverse that words like heroism, generosity, manliness, pleasure all have a meaning that is completely foreign to normal people. And yet very signficant for understanding these people--to the extend that we are stuck in a political system in which their crazy ideas about the normal matter. I don't mean obvious differences like homophobia or non homophobia I mean things like agency, humanity, virtue.

    ReplyDelete
  119. MikeJ2:30 PM

    Not much of a resistance though. The Antichrist's pilot never once thinks to drive his plane into the Chrysler building.

    ReplyDelete
  120. That's, uh, that's not capitalism you're describing there, buddy. Even in the socialistest of socialist worlds, different communities could trade between each other. I've net met anyone who thought it practical to turn the entire planet into one big socialist commune.


    Step one in engaging in capitalist apologism: know that the fuck capitalism is. (Most rightbloggers don't. But that's pretty much their thing: loudly defending things they don't have a clue about.)

    ReplyDelete
  121. And? The Bieb is also a homophobe and a right-wing Christian. There's nothing particular liberal about Canada's healthcare system. The opposition to it in the US doesn't derive from principles, but from people going into vapors over the thought of non-white and working-class folk having a decent quality of life.

    ReplyDelete
  122. sharculese2:57 PM

    Yikes, I didn't know any of that shit about him.


    I was just offering it up as an example of wingnuts not being able to deal with an artist having a non-wingnut opinion.

    ReplyDelete
  123. About to put raisin challah in the oven.

    You're supposed to be making French toast.

    ReplyDelete
  124. Yeah, I'd totally be spending all my free time on Risa ... trying to finally read Ulysses.

    ReplyDelete
  125. bmaccnm3:15 PM

    I'd never heard of Spade Cooley before. My life is not richer for knowing of him now, except that he beat his wife to death for having an affair with Roy Rogers- while he was lawfully wed to Dale Evans. That sure ays somethin' about them OC values, duunit, Trigger?

    ReplyDelete
  126. tigrismus3:22 PM

    Now that you both mention it, it is a little surprising how well-oiled those mustachioed gentlemen are.

    ReplyDelete
  127. but is the idea that you can Come to Jesus post-Rapture a real thing among true-believing Dispensationalists?

    Well, as with everything else, opinions vary. There are those who believe that salvation isn't possible after the Rapture, except possibly for a remnant of the Jews. But Tim LaHaye is of the slightly less illogical group which suggests that the presence of 144,000 witnesses, Moses and Elijah returning as prophets, the martyrs of the fifth seal, etc, means that people can still "come to Christ." Otherwise, why not just skip the whole Great Tribulation and go straight to Judgment, do not pass Go?


    And of course, the postmillenial / amillenial groups, also known as every Christian who ever lived prior to the 19th Century, plus folks like CS Lewis, presumed that there's no magical Rapture for believers, who would have to go through any time of great tribulation (and no, insurance coverage for contraception doesn't count). So maybe we shouldn't be expecting too much internal consistency from people who embrace a "rapture" doctrine pulled out of deranged defrocked Anglican's ass a century and a half ago, or who constantly seek portents in a book of the Bible that was too freaky for John Calvin.

    ReplyDelete
  128. tigrismus3:27 PM

    Harvey Leonard makes repeated references to the Blizzard of '78

    AEEEEIIIIIII!

    ReplyDelete
  129. aimai3:27 PM

    Oh, come on, that's like accusing a puppy of having political opinions about piddlign on the carpet.

    ReplyDelete
  130. I was saving that for your comment on the other thread about how "vagina obsessed men would be spending their nights sweating profusely ... ."

    ReplyDelete
  131. aimai3:29 PM

    That is priceless, wish I'd known:

    Low: No storm predicted. Harvey Leonard sighs and looks dour on the evening news. Go about your daily business but consider buying second refrigerator for basement, diesel generator. Good time to replenish stocks of maple syrup, cinnamon.

    Guarded: Light snow predicted. Subtle grin appears on Harvey Leonard's face. Check car fuel gauge, memorize quickest route to emergency supermarket should conditions change.

    Elevated: Moderate, plowable snow predicted. Harvey Leonard openly smiles during report. Empty your trunk to make room for milk, eggs and bread. Clear space in refrigerator and head to store for an extra gallon of milk, a spare dozen eggs and a new loaf of bread.

    High: Heavy snow predicted. Harvey Leonard breaks into huge grin, can't keep his hands off the weather map. Proceed at speed limit before snow starts to nearest supermarket to pick up two gallons of milk, a couple dozen eggs and two loaves of bread - per person in household.

    Severe: Nor'easter predicted. This is it, people, THE BIG ONE. Harvey Leonard makes repeated references to the Blizzard of '78. RUSH to emergency supermarket NOW for multiple gallons of milk, cartons of eggs and loaves of bread. IGNORE cries of little old lady you've just trampled in mad rush to get last gallon of milk. Place pets in basement for use as emergency food supply if needed.

    ReplyDelete
  132. aimai3:31 PM

    Why would you need fifty dicks? Wouldn't just mainlining pleasure all through your body be better than risking ED fifty times for every sexual encounter?

    ReplyDelete
  133. sharculese4:04 PM

    It's uh... a performance art thing. He also has three extra hearts to keep the blood pumping.

    ReplyDelete
  134. slavdude4:06 PM

    Can you imagine what his cover of "The Internationale" would be like? (Bad. It would be bad.)
    No. Just... no. Step AWAY from the keyboard, banish the thought, and let us never speak of this again.

    ReplyDelete
  135. willf4:13 PM

    I heard that's just what happened to Susan G. Komen!


    The lieberls took our pink ribbons!

    ReplyDelete
  136. smut clyde5:05 PM

    sensory deprivation tanks, although they never really took off.

    The whole "reverting to a pre-human stage of development" business was off-putting.

    ReplyDelete
  137. redoubt5:53 PM

    The "action" of the books appears to consist mainly of phone calls,
    withheld information, sexism, cheap gibes at women, car chases, and
    flying around from airport to airport.


    Hell, this sounds like Dick Cheney's biography.

    ReplyDelete
  138. redoubt6:13 PM

    "Teleprompters? Where we're going we don't need Teleprompters."

    ReplyDelete
  139. redoubt6:22 PM

    Alternatively--

    Severe: Lose a mayoral election.

    ReplyDelete
  140. Anonymous6:28 PM

    I currently am running two blogs, one is for design & development and that i have a pagerank of 4
    on there and that i have various good articles.
    . And that i have another blog where I have rants, health tips and photography.

    .. Must i merge them or must i keep it seperate?.

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    Stop by my web page - paxil lawsuit settlements

    ReplyDelete
  141. We have an unmatched military without the looming threat of enemy fleets, or tens of thousands of nuclear missiles aimed at our cities. And everything is amazing. And no one is happy.

    [...]

    We’re not happy, because everyone knows that the giant mushroom cloud of debt that hangs over this country will eventually destroy our economy and the world’s economy.


    Can't have a virtual president without a virtual mushroom cloud to panic about. C'mon guy, you NEED that fear.

    ReplyDelete
  142. The Dark Avenger7:18 PM

    Yes, but if you're like Dr Bashir's parents, you just go somewhere else to get your kid worked on, and tell everyone you're going be be away at Risa for a few weeks.

    The ones that don't turn out like he did are depicted as extremely intelligent, undoubtedly talented, and in no way fit to live or reproduce in a civilized society with other people.

    You know, like the contributers at NRO.com.

    ReplyDelete
  143. The Dark Avenger7:24 PM

    Day Million, by Frederick Pohl.

    http://dmznyc.com/html/daymil.01.html

    ReplyDelete
  144. The Dark Avenger7:27 PM

    I was visiting relatives in Rantoul during that time, and the snow was unbelievable compared to what it was in St. Louis, which shut down Washington University, where I went to school.

    ReplyDelete
  145. The Dark Avenger7:29 PM

    I dressed as The Spectre for Halloween when I was a small child, I guess you would say I was an unfriendly ghost.

    ReplyDelete
  146. Me, too. "Gibbs! We examined the ejectia but came up empty. No trace of radioactivity. We're back to square one."

    ReplyDelete
  147. whetstone8:22 PM

    You're correct, AGQ. I should turn in my pop culture card; the overdue fines are really high anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  148. You can indeed Come to Jeebus post Rapture. That's the point. Then you have to wait around for Him to lead the heavenly host against the Antichrist.

    In fact, Satan is only sent to the Abyss for 1,000 years (hence "The Millennial Kingdom of God") --during which people will live for 900 or more years--but will then be released one last time, so that the people born during the Millennium will have the opportunity to choose either him or JC before the final clash. Decisions, decisions.

    These, and other mind-roasting "facts" about the Tribulation, can be read about with minimal pain and maximal laffs here:

    http://tinyurl.com/a4m5ljq


    (This is not blog-whoring. It's book whoring.)

    ReplyDelete
  149. Sgaile-beairt8:42 PM

    except i thought that they wer e AGAINST radical individualism, which leds to selfish hedonism, like birth control, and teh sexxy sexxors on the teevee, an d homosexuals stealing all the weddings, and all of that?!?


    ....or was that last week, & we havea lways been against community uber alles....

    ReplyDelete
  150. Sgaile-beairt8:47 PM

    ....i cant decide if poPmodal sounds more like a OTC stomache medicne, or a sketchy tech start up....

    ReplyDelete
  151. Sgaile-beairt8:48 PM

    or some random guy with a hammer dulicmer playing 18th c pop tunes!!

    ReplyDelete
  152. Sgaile-beairt8:50 PM

    those people in the audience at the superbowl halftime show looked & sounded pretty happy....

    ReplyDelete
  153. Sgaile-beairt8:52 PM

    oh god yes!! i was thinking of stuff violently thrown out by confulsions of the planet itself but ^^^this too!!

    ReplyDelete
  154. satch9:01 PM

    With no people in them...

    ReplyDelete
  155. M. Krebs9:44 PM

    To be fair, one could ask that about at least 99% of all websites. Especially those of "newspapers."

    ReplyDelete
  156. M. Krebs9:45 PM

    Chuck Barris?

    ReplyDelete
  157. M. Krebs9:56 PM

    But then there's geothermal terpsichorean ejectamenta.

    ReplyDelete
  158. Pope Zebbidie XIII10:43 PM

    The dissent is coming from inside the upstairs bedroom! Eeeeeeee....

    ReplyDelete
  159. Pope Zebbidie XIII10:44 PM

    Sounds more like a mispronunciation of pot-pourri.

    ReplyDelete
  160. Pope Zebbidie XIII10:46 PM

    Certainly not the Swedes.

    ReplyDelete
  161. Pope Zebbidie XIII10:54 PM

    Hey, be serious. Where else would he get a job with t health insurance cover of that quality?

    ReplyDelete
  162. Pope Zebbidie XIII10:54 PM

    And they resist by getting jobs with the anti-Christ and doing absolutely nothing to help anyone, warn anyone, or actively obstruct acts of evil.

    ReplyDelete
  163. Pope Zebbidie XIII11:00 PM

    What a coincidence - I was just contemplating the terpsichorean muse and I came over a mite peckish. Do you have any Wensleydale?

    ReplyDelete
  164. jtomlin009411:03 PM

    “Now
    the question is… which one goes home richer?

    They
    both do!“



    Aren’t
    they both poorer? By a lot



    Hunter
    guy need a top of the line spear to take down an Irish Elk or he don’t eat ...
    he now has no spear and a well-made basket



    Gather
    guy’s life depends on having a well-made basket to transport and store his food
    … he now has no basket and a top of the line spear

    ReplyDelete
  165. Pope Zebbidie XIII11:08 PM

    "“It’s everyone’s own decision to [be gay].
    It doesn’t affect me and shouldn’t affect anyone else.”.
    ”I really don’t believe in abortion. I think [an embryo] is a human. It’s like killing a baby.”
    He is not very well read, but he is not what you say he is. He is very young.

    And FFS he has successfully kept a pop career going for 5 years. He has got talent and even though it may not be what we like, we come off as snobby, dour music purists for attacking him for not being 'Nurse with wound'.

    ReplyDelete
  166. tigrismus11:17 PM

    Three hearts for 50 dicks? Because one heart doesn't seem to be able to support concurrent function in a brain and a single dick as far as I can tell.

    ReplyDelete
  167. Why would you need fifty dicks?


    Ask George Washington.

    ReplyDelete
  168. (This is not blog-whoring. It's book whoring.)

    Damnit, Levy, Levy, Weiner, and Davilman, an inside track to the batshit world of premillenial dispensationalism was supposed to be my ticket to the big time. May you all find armored flying scorpion locust people in your beds, and not in a good way.

    ReplyDelete
  169. So, religious American conservatives, then.

    ReplyDelete
  170. M. Krebs12:20 AM

    Oh, yeah. The cheese alarm is ringing.

    ReplyDelete
  171. commie atheist12:42 AM

    Personally, I'm not happy because I don't have a fucking job, and I have a fucking mortgage to pay for. But yeah, freedom.

    ReplyDelete
  172. DocAmazing1:53 AM

    With fifty dicks, you wouldn't be able to tell if you're coming or going.

    ReplyDelete
  173. Spaghetti Lee2:02 AM

    as it stands he's something of a classicist.



    Jesus Christ we're all fucking doomed.

    ReplyDelete
  174. Darkrose2:56 AM

    "Ooh, honey, I love your 'basket' if you know what I mean AND I THINK YOU DO!"

    ReplyDelete
  175. AngryWarthogBreath3:22 AM

    And then the two cavemen get caveman gay married, share their spears and baskets (and "spears" and "baskets") communally, and bring the two tribes together to work communally in OH DEAR I THINK HE MIGHT HAVE GIVEN THE WRONG IMPRESSION HERE.

    ReplyDelete
  176. Haystack12:01 PM

    Rantoul?? Have you met <a href="http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/13994.html#comment-719111>Lonny Martello</a>?

    ReplyDelete
  177. Haystack12:07 PM

    Thanks. Disqus. Thanks a lot.

    ReplyDelete
  178. billcinsd1:26 PM

    what do they talk about?
    Pop, pop, pop, popModal

    ReplyDelete
  179. Holy lord, that was goofy.

    ReplyDelete
  180. "And FFS he has successfully kept a pop career going for 5 years."


    No. The people marketing him has.


    "He has got talent
    and even though it may not be what we like, we come off as snobby, dour
    music purists for attacking him for not being 'Nurse with wound'."


    I haven't met your wounded nurse, or heard of her, but raw talent used for bland poop is wasted. At a party a lifetime ago, I was asked why I hated some boyband of the time, and I said it was because they where shit. And the people I was talking to, a brother and sister pair, argued that, yes, they were shit, but they were good at it. And I replied that "If all you're good at producing is shit, that makes you an asshole". Yep. That's my zing. It was a semenstained moment. Wait... seminal...

    ReplyDelete
  181. Anonymous9:25 PM

    Should I begin a blog or website for addiction/recovery related information?


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    ReplyDelete
  182. Jeffrey_Kramer2:43 AM

    It IS a fact! I just got an email that says all the Swedes commit suicide.

    ReplyDelete
  183. BigHank5310:00 AM

    Why do they even have them?


    Because it turns out that people who like smearing their own shit on the walls REALLY REALLY LIKE IT. A LOT.

    ReplyDelete
  184. It's almost like they're all wearing rabbit ears on their heads!
    ~

    ReplyDelete
  185. brian_x5:46 PM

    You want to see one of 'em blow a gasket? Tell them Ayn Rand didn't understand capitalism. It's beyond most wingnuts' capacities to understand that the people Rand was condemning -- the opportunistic corporate leeches that take her as gospel -- were the true capitalists, and her heroes were a bunch of marks looking for a scammer.

    ReplyDelete
  186. tensor7:01 PM

    If these conserva-prop fools were around a century ago, they'd be the Bolsheviks who founded Protekult, dedicated to the idea that every sausage-machine operator was a-hankering to be the next painter, poet, or intellectual, but The Man was holding him down. So, they got a number of workers (including a Tsarist police spy!) working on Workers' Kultur. Surprise, surprise: the art made was derivative and uninspiring. (Hint: real wanna-be artists do whatever they can for the sake of their art; they don't wait for radical intellectuals to come save them.)

    Of course, if they were around a few years after that, they'd be decrying "degenerate art" with the same fury. As we've noted on many occasions, the idea that art can exist outside of politics or kulturkampf simply does not exist to these bozos.

    ReplyDelete