Friday, March 27, 2015

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.


Song's been going through my mind for some reason. Weep, sad freaks of a nation.

•    I guess 2012 was the last year I paid attention to "Human Achievement Hour," the annual chest-thump in which the Competitive Enterprise Institute says Fuck You to the World Wildlife Fund's Earth Hour by asking True Sons of Liberty to burn up as much energy as possible in celebration of the stinking shithole we've made of the earth, I mean progress. The event remains hilarious. Got some links from a CEI publicist to "Human Achievement of the Day" posts about how guitars only exist because of capitalism and so forth. My favorite is about bitcoin:
These are still very early days, and bitcoin is still thought more as a volatile store of value rather than an emergent system of property rights, but the prospects for this particular human achievement are incredibly bright, if regulators do not find a way to stifle it (by regulating people rather than the system, for example).
This puts me in mind of Hearst on the trail of The Color in Deadwood, except Hearst's psychosis was not the type that kept him in his parents' basement. Murder and dismemberment were more his thing -- the sort of activities in furtherance of capital that the CEI pencil-necks are more likely to dress up in purty language than directly perform.

•   In the high-decibel world of wingnut blowhards it's tough to rise above the din, but in a column about the Bowe Bergdahl prosecution at PJ Media Michael Walsh amps it up:  In addition to standard-issue slur-slinging -- "the Coward-in-Chief and his deliberate thumb in the eye to the honor of the American military," "pathetic little pansy Bergdahl," "painfully stupid Jen Psaki," aargh,  blaargh -- Walsh bellows:
...it’s a rare instance of the military finally asserting itself against a rogue commander who is imperiling the nation and insulting it as he goes. Unlawful orders do not have to be obeyed, even from Fearless Leader; that’s a principle the U.S. clarified at Nuremberg. 
One imagines Walsh parachuting into Fort Bragg, a cigar in one hand and a pearl-handled revolver in the other, crying PATRIOTS! NOW IS THE TIME! Or maybe not: see, everyone's a disappointment to Walsh:
John McCain and Mitt Romney should both be hanging their heads in shame. They could have defeated him, and they chose not to. But that’s America in the 21st century — it never saw a fight it wanted to finish.
Maybe Walsh can stake out a little corner of his mental ward and declare that The Real America. I'll have to read Walsh more often; I haven't seen anything like him since the heyday of Ralph "Blood 'n' Guts" Peters.

•   The composer John Adams recently remarked at Avery Fisher Hall that Rush Limbaugh exercises "casual brutality toward women" -- which, really, is about as close to an incontrovertible statement as you can get -- and to National Review's Jay Nordlinger this is Hitler plus Big Brother:
To this remark, the audience responded with sustained and robust applause. In 1984, Orwell writes of the two-minute hate. The applause in Avery Fisher Hall did not last for two minutes, but it went on long enough... 
You’re never supposed to analogize anything to the Nazis. That’s the rule. But sometimes I break the rule. And I believe I got a whiff — just a tiny whiff — of Nuremberg in Avery Fisher Hall tonight. Collective hatred, and self-satisfied hatred, based on damnable lies.
I suppose this makes me Genghis Stalin, but Nordlinger is a fucking idiot.

226 comments:

  1. Helmut Monotreme12:00 PM

    Well, at least for one hour a year they're honest about stinking up the great outdoors.

    ReplyDelete
  2. randomworker12:08 PM

    Those crafty Icelanders. First they take all the euro's moneys and put them in "bank accounts" which disappear. Now they are selling steam power to bitcoin "miners" who solve algorithms and create virtual currency out of thin air! Pretty cool! I did that one time by playing Lineage. But after a while even the Chinese scam websites quit buying the "adena" from me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Helmut Monotreme12:20 PM

    Yeah bitcoin is a real winner. Eliminate transaction costs! Except for the computationally intensive task of verifying the blockchain, which as anyone who has ever looked at the air conditioning bill for a server room could tell you, isn't all that cheap. Eliminate payment processors! Except for bitcoin exchanges, which go dark and pull a runner more often than revival tent shows or patent medicine salesmen. Empower cryptography nerds, libertarian utopian early adopters, money launderers and drug dealers! (and every other entrepreneur whose business can't be conducted in the light of day)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jay B.12:20 PM

    The highlighted passage reads like it was written by an algorithm. Of course, this is how libertarians show just how inspired they are by their muses. To gain the hand of a woman, they woo her with contract law and the endless promise of what they have in their survivalist bunker.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bitcoin: The currency of choice among people who think that the erratic currency fluctuations of Depression-era Europe sounded like a lot of fun.

    True fact: There's an art gallery close to me that accepts Bitcoin as donations. They advertise this fact very prominently, and even once did a cryptocurrency exhibit praising the glories of Bitcoin. To be fair, they are a small, relatively new gallery in a part of town that has tons of them, so this just might be a gimmick to draw in the techbro libertarian crowd that doesn't normally appreciate art. Even so, I find it hilarious. If I was a much bigger asshole, I'd print off my own fake money and try and get them to accept it (What? It's a performance piece!).

    ReplyDelete
  6. John Wesley Hardin12:29 PM

    From the article singing the praises of the geeetar, we have this suspiciously non-Randian passage. "Nobody can make a pencil on their own. It takes a network of literally millions of people cooperating to make something you can buy in a store for less than a dollar. The network of human cooperation surrounding guitars is arguably even greater." Collectivist! Skree!

    ReplyDelete
  7. John Wesley Hardin12:31 PM

    Yeah, most of the time their pollution is restricted to the mental or noise variety.

    ReplyDelete
  8. sharculese12:39 PM

    That is some straight high school paper snow job bullshit. Someone got paid for it?

    ReplyDelete
  9. sharculese12:40 PM

    Is there any wingnut celebration that's more thoroughly 'no, you shut the fuck up, dad' than Human Achievement Hour?

    ReplyDelete
  10. sharculese12:42 PM

    Fuck yes we are so too rock and roll for the cool kids!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Bizarro Mike12:43 PM

    Fees are subject to change during actual crisis.

    ReplyDelete
  12. coozledad12:54 PM

    an emergent system of property rights

    More like an emergent system governments will have to cover if enough high roller dipshits fall for the scam and put the world economy in the shitter.
    But I guess the panics of 1797,1807,1837,1857,1873,1893,1907.1920-21 and the Great Depression are human achievements if viewed through the prism of douchebro dialectics.

    ReplyDelete
  13. The sharer reserves the right to de-share the sharee's share.

    ReplyDelete
  14. StringOnAStick1:11 PM

    Douchebro dialectics: I have acquired yet another extremely useful term via Alicublog!

    ReplyDelete
  15. StringOnAStick1:15 PM

    Oh yeah, and the market is flooded with cheap Chinese collectivist-made guitars. That have killed the market for US builders of all but the most expensive guitars. But hey, you can't have a free market utopia without breaking a few eggs (and wiping out yet some more American jobs)!

    ReplyDelete
  16. petesh1:15 PM

    Nobody within earshot may much enjoy my point [guitar playing] ...

    So his human achievement is annoying, cacophonous incompetence! Verily, he standeth on the shoulders of giants and pees down their necks.

    ReplyDelete
  17. coozledad1:25 PM

    I should have gone with "dianetics" because there's something about Scientology and Bitcoin that reminds me of peanut butter and chocolate.

    ReplyDelete
  18. I share Friday music.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d03MsNjx2Js

    ReplyDelete
  19. We've already got pipeline PR proudly saying that the inevitable leaks create jobs.


    In fact, remember some years back the guys who wrote a book about the PR industry called "Toxic Sludge is Good for You"; they chose the title because they wanted something so over the top it was obviously satirical, something no PR outfit would actually say. But by the time the book was out in paperback, that had been used as a PR claim. It's like peak wingnut; you can, it seems, always dig a deeper hole.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Upvoted and agreed in general, but my father has owned a few Chinese-made guitars over the years and there's one he really likes. They're not all garbage.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person1:48 PM

    And in the case of the Chinese guitars, "you can't tune that!"

    ReplyDelete
  22. Oh yeah, the CEI. The chaps who hired the lawyers that found wording that brought the case that has the Supremes deciding the fate of the ACA.

    How competitive! How enterprising! How de-lovely! Why, if Cole Porter were alive today I bet he's write a song about them! Something like this:

    The night is young, the skies are clear,
    But we can change all this my dear,
    It’s de-regulation, it’s de-secration, it’s de-lovely.
    I understand the reason why,
    You’re avaricious so am I,
    It’s de-regulation, it’s de-secration, it’s de-lovely.
    You can tell at a glance,
    What a swell night it is to de-pants,
    And fuck dear Mother Nature.
    It’s just low,
    Not to go with the flow!

    ReplyDelete
  23. The really great thing about Bitcoin is the number of people who are essentially begging--no, DEMANDING--to be defrauded through its use. "Yah, sure--with no regulations or controls whatever, nobody will ever take real money and just run off with it!"

    If the surgery required to have my honesty removed weren't so painful, I'd start selling Bitcoins for gold through a masked server based in the Seychelles. I'd sell those Bitcoins at 20% off the current market rate, pile up a few hundred thou in gold, then vanish like some before re-opening under another name. Those who willingly give me gold for fairy dust will just have to deal with the lack of regulatory agencies to which they can turn for solace.

    ReplyDelete
  24. That funky cold adena.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Nobody can make a pencil on their own.

    Actually, you can make a pencil all by yourself. It just takes lots of skills, tools, and materials that most people don't have. And by the time you're done shaping the wood and the graphite, the pencil you end up with costs $20 or so.

    But this shouldn't be a problem for our glibertarians. What else do they have to do while awaiting the supply boat in the fastness of their seastead fortress?

    ReplyDelete
  26. John Wesley Hardin2:13 PM

    "And neither can you play it, sir!"

    ReplyDelete
  27. Dick Cheney2:18 PM

    "Unlawful orders do not have to be obeyed, even from Fearless Leader; that’s a principle the U.S. clarified at Nuremberg. "


    Nuremberg! Ha! That's a good one!

    ReplyDelete
  28. slavdude2:19 PM

    Here's hoping that they aren't able to reproduce, then.

    ReplyDelete
  29. John Wesley Hardin2:23 PM

    I know the 'no man can make a pencil' bit was born of ignorance and, as soon as someone schools him on lathes and hand tools, our young Mr. Ryan will be out in the garage making his own Galt #1 pencils (#2 pencils are for the ubermenschen) in no time.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Jay B.2:23 PM

    "Baby, it's what Von Mises would want."

    ReplyDelete
  31. XeckyGilchrist2:30 PM

    Double Gitmo!

    ...Nurem-what?

    ReplyDelete
  32. StringOnAStick2:31 PM

    No, they aren't all junk; some are pretty nice. They just cost less than half of an equivalent US instrument since the Chinese laborers get paid crap wages, so the playing field isn't very level.

    ReplyDelete
  33. No, but I bet you could dip actual cotton in peanut butter and chocolate and sell it to glibertarians. Milo Minderbinder was just ahead of his time.

    ReplyDelete
  34. XeckyGilchrist2:33 PM

    I saw a casino in Las Vegas advertising that they accepted Bitcoin. That struck me as just the sort of business that Bitcoin enthusiasts would dig.

    ReplyDelete
  35. They do reproduce--they just do so asexually.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person2:34 PM

    the prospects for this particular human achievement are incredibly bright

    Only if you stack 'em up and burn 'em with thermite, like a Terminator...

    ReplyDelete
  37. I keep hoping that the UN starts International Stop Suicide Day.

    ReplyDelete
  38. C'mon, Meanie-meanie--the only reason the prospects are bright is because the audience is so dim.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person2:37 PM

    Point taken...

    ReplyDelete
  40. mrstilton2:42 PM

    Adam Smith wrote more or less the same thing, oh, more than two centuries ago. But we really can't fairly expect Walsh to understand that. It's not so much that Smith used pins rather than pencils as his example, alhough that probably would have been a fatal stumbling block for our hero. Rather, it's because the sort of glibertarian gobshites who wear ties decorated with Smith's head are usually entirely innocent of any familiarity with what Smith actually wrote.

    ReplyDelete
  41. If a person receiving applause by mocking an unpopular person in front of a sympathetic audience is like 1984 and Nazis, then CPAc is a regular Hitlorwellapalooza.

    ReplyDelete
  42. I'm picturing a pit boss dragging some guy off because his exchange server crashed.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Hitlorwellapalooza

    I want lawn seats to this.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Jay B.3:10 PM

    And I believe I got a whiff — just a tiny whiff — of Nuremberg in Avery Fisher Hall tonight. Collective hatred, and self-satisfied hatred, based on damnable lies.



    Yeah. People at Avery Fisher Hall hate misogyny and cheer those who oppose it. THOSE MONSTERS.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Adams is a good composer, and this violin-and-orchestra piece is a skillful work (as I will write in a later review). But even if he wrote music as good as Mozart’s, he would not measure up to Rush Limbaugh.

    Rush’s compositions include “The Slutty Fluke,” “Eine Kleine Viagramusik,” “Masturbation Mass” and “Strung Out Quartet #9.” His “Requiem,” still unfinished, will call for the largest Flatulence Choir ever assembled. Limbaugh says he would like to conduct this when it’s first played with Jay Nordlinger’s head stuck as far up Rush’s ass as possible, which he will expel with great force as the coda.



    Great art only comes to those willing to be vulnerable.

    ReplyDelete
  46. I want to buy the entire family library of this comment (for three easy payments of $19.95).

    ReplyDelete
  47. Harry Rumbold3:23 PM

    The author conveniently omitted the fact that Gibson agreed to pay $300k for illegally importing endangered wood.

    ReplyDelete
  48. M. Krebs3:27 PM

    Here, let's try this. https://imgflip.com/gif/jerjl

    ReplyDelete
  49. Ripley3:31 PM

    What are you rebelling against, Johnny?


    Whadda ya got?


    Um, well.. some folks are turning their lights off for an hour this weekend to bring attention and reflection to the impact our society can have on the environment. It's really more symbolic than anything and-


    Yeah, that's what I'm rebelling against.


    Taking a moment to consider our impact on the environment?


    Yeah, fuck that, man!


    Damn, you're a badass, Johnny.

    ReplyDelete
  50. "the Coward-in-Chief and his deliberate thumb in the eye to the honor of the American military"Yeah, nothing screams disrespect like refusing to abandon one of our soldiers, then leaving it up to the military to investigate and determine if charges are warranted. Meanwhile, this Walsh asspimple thinks it should have been left to Islamist terrorists to act as judge, jury, and executioner for our troops. At times like these, I really wish Merriam-Webster had recalled all those dictionaries that completely fucked up the definition of "patriotism."

    John McCain and Mitt Romney should both be hanging
    their heads in shame.Yeah, I agree, they should.

    ReplyDelete
  51. I see it now. It look vaguely like the x-rays they took of John Hurt after the facehugger attached itself to him.

    Are you sure you're feeling okay?

    ReplyDelete
  52. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person3:42 PM

    Rebel without a cause clue.

    ReplyDelete
  53. BigHank533:42 PM

    One can purchase earplugs (or as I like to call them, "brain condoms") in case you're ever stuck in an elevator with a libertarian.

    ReplyDelete
  54. Aha! I thought it was one of the prime numbers of the Zeeman series.

    ReplyDelete
  55. You could have bypassed the first part of your comment. The optics would have been better if your reply hadn't ballooned so much.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Smurch4:20 PM

    It's two! two! two frauds in one!

    ReplyDelete
  57. Smurch4:30 PM

    I want to take this comment on a trip to the moon on gossamer wings.

    ReplyDelete
  58. DN Nation4:40 PM

    Wingnuts would've rather left Bergdahl to rot than recall No One Left Behind and bring him back to be tried in court. You know, like a civilized nation would do.


    Or: Wingnuts would've rather whatever the opposite of what Obama did, for everything forever.

    ReplyDelete
  59. I want to plagiarize this comment and sell it in a dozen different books and articles.

    ReplyDelete
  60. John Wesley Hardin4:59 PM

    It takes a village to make a wingnut pundit.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Yo, man--just chelate!

    ReplyDelete
  62. But even if he wrote music as good as Mozart’s, he would not measure up to Rush Limbaugh.


    And Jay Nordlinger is supposed to be a classical music critic. No wonder people dismiss classical music as irrelevant, with people like Nordlinger reporting on it who think that pundits trump composers any day (And incidentally, Michael Walsh started out as a classical music critic...)

    ReplyDelete
  63. They could have defeated him, and they chose not to.



    They chose not to. What the hell does Michael Walsh expect of an election campaign? (And why the hell should I expect anything else of a classical music critic turned political thriller writer?)

    ReplyDelete
  64. BigHank535:41 PM

    Walsh is about as sharp as a donut, in case you hadn't noticed. I'm willing to bet he believes that if Romney or McCain has just spouted the whole SEEKRIT MUSLIM KENYAN BLACKAMOOR COMMUNIST teabagger list the scales would have fallen away from the public's eyes and it would have been GOP forever, baby.

    ReplyDelete
  65. Bitter Scribe5:49 PM

    John McCain and Mitt Romney should both be hanging their heads in shame. They could have defeated him, and they chose not to.


    NOW we know why McCain and Romney are always popping up nowadays and going on about how incompetent, feckless, etc. Obama is. It was part of their plan all along. They contemplated being President and said, Naw, mang, I'd rather run my mouth on talk shows.

    ReplyDelete
  66. billcinsd5:53 PM

    Maybe, but in many cases the difference in labor cost is fairly minor on a per unit basis (or really the cost of labor is minor to the overall cost). I guess it also depends where and if there are benefits for the worker. Benefit differences are probably more important than paid wage differential

    Overhead reduction, exchange rate variations and transportation costs are also quite important to the cost differences,

    http://www.alixpartners.com/EN/portals/0/pdf/AlixPartners%202009%20Manufacturing-Outsourcing%20Cost%20Index%20HIGHLIGHTS_2.pdf

    ReplyDelete
  67. billcinsd5:55 PM

    eventually there will be some betas and gammas to fill out the ranks of the Pencil Rights Advocates

    ReplyDelete
  68. postmodulator6:17 PM

    I think Milton Friedman originated it. P.J. O'Rourke quoted it in Eat the Rich, his last book to still be sort-of funny.

    ReplyDelete
  69. billcinsd6:23 PM

    one of Westerberg's best lines

    ReplyDelete
  70. billcinsd6:27 PM

    it is not, however, Unknown Pleasures, as that is Krebs' avatar

    ReplyDelete
  71. M. Krebs6:38 PM

    Disqus, you're an asshole.

    ReplyDelete
  72. billcinsd6:39 PM

    Wait, I thought they were so marvelously tunable that they pushed you to retune every few notes. Was I misinformed?

    ReplyDelete
  73. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person6:40 PM

    I believe I got a whiff — just a tiny whiff — of Nuremberg in Avery Fisher Hall tonight

    They really are running out of different ways to reference Liberal Fascism, aren't they?. Now we are not just fascists, but actual convicted, about-to-be-executed war criminals. Hopefully this means this crap has about run its course.
    Then I can have my pony...

    ReplyDelete
  74. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person6:42 PM

    Oh, yeah, you develop a regular tuning fetish...

    ReplyDelete
  75. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person6:50 PM

    Jay Nordlinger is a fucking idiot

    That thing is so unintentionally funny, I have to wonder if it's actually unintentional. Could it be that the rightbloggers have taken to writing for a different audience? Do they now aim their blunderbusses of bullshit a teensy bit to the left, in hopes of drawing a tweet or blog post from Ed, TBogg, Atrios, Thers, Scott C and all the rest? Just to, you know, have something to talk about after work? Man, that'd be a sad life...

    ReplyDelete
  76. billcinsd6:52 PM

    That is more what Bitcoin must taste like. It is close to being the Apple W.A.L.T. of the coin world

    ReplyDelete
  77. gainsayer6:54 PM

    Without villages, there would be no village idiots.

    ReplyDelete
  78. billcinsd6:54 PM

    http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1387749867l/659246.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  79. gainsayer7:00 PM

    Well, you can't be a victim if no one will bully you.

    ReplyDelete
  80. montag27:09 PM

    Maybe this is the defining conservative characteristic of our age--or any age--that right-wingers are predisposed to deny even incontrovertible truths. Look at the list: global warming, aggressive war, institutional racism (with a side order of militarized police), too-big-to-fail banks as a policy disaster, the failure of trickle-down economics, the utter failure of Laffer Curve tax policies, the futility of imperial economic and military war, and, no doubt, the right's ongoing attempt to prop up institutional patriarchy.


    Now, maybe that's not being wrong about everything, but it damned sure is being wrong about most everything of substance.

    ReplyDelete
  81. This is patently untrue.


    Conservatives, especially the religious right, easily paint themselves as victims at very turn. They don't need bullies, or baddies, or even mildly critical folks for them to assume the cloak of victimhood. They wear it as naturally as skin.


    It's what makes them so damn adorable, Bog bless their preciosity.

    ReplyDelete
  82. billcinsd7:14 PM

    the water costs $15 per bottle, the swastika's $10 per patch and eventually you have to jump off Wigan Pier or presrnt an homage to Catalonis with a Catalonian accent

    ReplyDelete
  83. M. Krebs7:21 PM

    Somebody get me some of this.
    https://youtu.be/2bOjuGB_g20

    ReplyDelete
  84. billcinsd7:27 PM

    I prefer Bessie Smith's version

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBzkXFFcBik

    ReplyDelete
  85. merl17:28 PM

    Just like the New Testament and the Constitution.

    ReplyDelete
  86. M. Krebs7:30 PM

    To be fair overly generous, they probably have a good enough grasp of cause and effect to drive an automobile without killing random people... most of the time -- while sober.

    ReplyDelete
  87. M. Krebs7:31 PM

    Right on.

    ReplyDelete
  88. M. Krebs7:35 PM

    Adena can mean:
    Adena, Ohio, USA
    Adena, Colorado, USA
    The Adena culture, a Mound-building Native American culture.
    The Adena Mansion, Thomas Worthington's home and estate in Chillicothe, Ohio
    A village in the Logo Anseba district in the Gash-Barka region in Eritrea


    Which one is it?

    ReplyDelete
  89. M. Krebs7:42 PM

    Yeah, except for a little case of the 12-hour ebola.

    ReplyDelete
  90. mtraven7:42 PM

    Really, I can't be the only one whose instantly went here at mention of "Human Achievement Hour".

    ReplyDelete
  91. M. Krebs7:50 PM

    Son of composer Alfred Newman; nephew of Lionel Newman and Emil Newman; cousin of Randy Newman; brother of composer David Newman, Maria Newman; cousin of composer Joey Newman.

    ReplyDelete
  92. M. Krebs7:58 PM

    But even if he wrote music as good as Mozart’s, he would not measure up to Rush Limbaugh.


    Somebody call Jonah Goldberg and tell him he's been topped -- and better get off his fat ass if he's to retain the crown.

    ReplyDelete
  93. montag28:29 PM

    I suspect that's only because one of them has proclaimed driving to be a conservative virtue.

    ReplyDelete
  94. According to the book "Understood Betsey" you can easily make a pencil by melting the lead and pouring it into a pencil shaped trough to cool.

    ReplyDelete
  95. montag28:32 PM

    Don't mistake "honest" for yee-haw-hold-mah-beer-an'-watch-this proud of it.

    ReplyDelete
  96. YNWA405158:47 PM

    Newman!

    ReplyDelete
  97. montag28:49 PM

    There will always be those to whom "one cow = three magic beans" is the formula for riches, and not a fairy tale.

    ReplyDelete
  98. YNWA405159:08 PM

    I have little insight to offer as this new dawn fades. Looks like random disorder, especially with the way the shadows play across the image, sort of the interzone of the thing, as it were. I'd never be a candidate to speak with authority on such matters anyway, for if I ever had any sort of computer-generated religious revelation, I remember nothing of it.

    ReplyDelete
  99. montag29:11 PM

    Which is actually quite funny, since graphite has been used for pencils since the late 16th century, and the modern clay/graphite mixture has been in use since the late 18th century.

    But, then, if you've been whiffing hot lead fumes, you'll believe anything that Dorothy Canfield Fisher says, I suppose.

    ReplyDelete
  100. montag29:20 PM

    Goes well with that other glibertarian hit of Porter's, "Love for Sale."

    ReplyDelete
  101. montag29:26 PM

    Random disorder? Nay. It's a high-speed booger flying out of George W. Bush's nose.

    ReplyDelete
  102. smut clyde9:28 PM

    But I brought my own apidistra!

    ReplyDelete
  103. glennisw9:35 PM

    So now we know what kind of person supports Rush Limbaugh. I was wondering.

    ReplyDelete
  104. BigHank539:45 PM

    There was an essay called "I, Pencil" that Milton Friedman was quite fond of, and provided a foreword for a pamphlet version. It's not bad, actually.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%2C_Pencil

    ReplyDelete
  105. montag29:45 PM

    ... would not measure up to Rush Limbaugh.

    Ah, yes, because Limpballs is a force of nature, a veritable wellspring of understanding of the human condition and a man for all seasons, and not, as most of the country views him, a loudmouthed dirtbag with a microphone, and without that microphone, probably would have been justifiably beaten senseless behind some sleazy dive in Anniston, Alabama, over twenty years ago.

    And, since Nordlinger opened that door, wasn't it Hitler that used radio to stir up the angry, disaffected racist morons of Germany?

    ReplyDelete
  106. redoubtagain9:51 PM

    Masturbation Mass

    Sung by the Dominican Boys' Choir

    ReplyDelete
  107. montag29:54 PM

    Damn, I gotta get me a shortwave radio.

    ReplyDelete
  108. redoubtagain10:02 PM

    "Unlawful orders do not have to be obeyed, even from Fearless Leader; that’s a principle the U.S. clarified at My Lai."


    Fixed

    ReplyDelete
  109. M. Krebs10:15 PM

    If you want a cool but hitherto largely overlooked Les Paul, find a late 70s "The Paul." Solid walnut. A few years ago you could find one for less that a grand.

    ReplyDelete
  110. ken_lov10:54 PM

    Walsh used to be a regular at NRO, but doesn't seem to be there any longer. He must have been Steyned. Maybe the two of them and that Derbyshire guy should start 'Alternative NRO' where REAL conservatives can hang out.

    ReplyDelete
  111. This is Michael Walsh signing off for now, but keep monitoring this frequency... (static)
    "Uh, Mike, why are you making static sounds into that salt shaker?"

    ReplyDelete
  112. Er, not to put a damper on our imminent execution or anything, but I'm pretty sure Nord was referring to the rallies, not the trials. So I'm afraid the sickness has a way to run, yet ... assuming the patient survives.

    ReplyDelete
  113. "Remember, green means go. Red means stop."
    --Barack Obama

    "Thanks, Obama!"
    --The suddenly even-more-overworked EMTs of America

    ReplyDelete
  114. All I know is that the residents are called Adenoids.

    ReplyDelete
  115. AGoodQuestion11:29 PM

    "Wait a minute. I was supposed to DEFEAT the guy? I thought that... well, never mind. Thank you Mr. Walsh, won't let it happen again."
    ~Mitt Romney

    ReplyDelete
  116. montag211:34 PM

    Isn't the alternative NRO that bunch over at deadbreitbart.com?

    At any rate, to contemplate the comments section at a site for NRO rejects is to glimpse madness.

    ReplyDelete
  117. AGoodQuestion11:46 PM

    Obviously, John Adams knows nothing about Rush Limbaugh. It’s a good bet he has never listened to Rush’s show or read an article by him.

    ...

    But even if he wrote music as good as Mozart’s, he would not measure up to Rush Limbaugh. He apparently has nothing like the decency or goodwill of my friend Rush.



    When trying to establish the decency and goodwill of His Rushness it might be good to, I don't know, think of some examples maybe? Perhaps some pull quotes from the EIB broadcasts that might counter John Adams' impression of him? That is if you actually have listened to the show and doing so has given you reason to believe that Adams is wrong. Because right now Nordlinger seems to be trying to bluff without holding any cards.

    ReplyDelete
  118. AGoodQuestion11:47 PM

    The network of human cooperation surrounding guitars is arguably even greater.
    So "you didn't build that" is fine if you're talking to Bruce Springsteen.

    ReplyDelete
  119. ken_lov11:51 PM

    I have to share the two latest comments on Nordlinger's post.

    'emag • 3 hours ago

    He may be a good composer, but he sounds like a total idiot.
    I am trashing his CD's. Funny, his music doesn't interest me any more.'

    'waelse1 • 5 hours ago

    (Removing John Adams' music from my IPod.)'



    Let's all totally not listen to John Adams ever again for saying bad things about Rush! Conservative principles in action!!

    ReplyDelete
  120. AGoodQuestion11:57 PM

    John Adams is a minimalist/avant garde composer who first broke through with an opera about Nixon's official visit to China. I'm not going to say that nobody on the face of the Earth has his music on their iPod, but such listeners are rare enough that when an anonymous NRO commenter claims that he bops around to John Adams' tunes BUT NO MORE! it does make me go "hmmm" Arsenio style.

    ReplyDelete
  121. ken_lov12:04 AM

    Hey, he used to bop along to 'Short Ride in a Fast Machine' every time he took his 1968 Studebaker out for a spin, but since reading Nordlinger's post, he just doesn't enjoy it any more.

    ReplyDelete
  122. AGoodQuestion12:13 AM

    Hello, Jerry.

    ReplyDelete
  123. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person12:22 AM

    I am trashing his CD's
    (Removing John Adams' music from my IPod.)



    Riiiiiight....

    ReplyDelete
  124. So.... sLimebag is better than Mozart! Whoda thunk it!

    ReplyDelete
  125. Do you have any examples of something they have been right about? I can't think of even one.

    ReplyDelete
  126. Klinghoffer Lives!

    ReplyDelete
  127. I was wondering about that too. Nuremberg? Where they tried the Nazis for war crimes? Or maybe it was Kristall-bagh he is thinking of, you know, the time all the LIE-berals smashed up sLimebag's windows, or something

    ReplyDelete
  128. That's a silhouette of DARTH VADER, smoking or waving a glow-stick; yep, one or the other.

    ReplyDelete
  129. badJim1:25 AM

    I literally ran into John Adams at a performance of the L.A. Philharmonic. I was rushing out to get my wine and smoke and he was running toward the stage, and we tangled ankles, both about the same size, same age, same trim white beards.

    ReplyDelete
  130. montag21:59 AM

    Not offhand, as least as it concerns the post-Goldwater variety, which I suppose is what we're predominately dealing with these days. But, then, they're a bunch of scared children with guns--literally and metaphorically--who see anything beyond their ten-year-old child's world view as a threat. Let's face it--when you've reduced yourself to defending a radio blowhard of no redeeming value, no one's rightly going to take your judgment at face value.

    ReplyDelete
  131. smut clyde3:26 AM

    Nordlinger used to be dismissive of the rules of war and the quaint provisions of the Geneva Conventions. I have no idea what has changed since then.

    ReplyDelete
  132. smut clyde3:29 AM

    Dude needs to shut up and play.

    ReplyDelete
  133. smut clyde5:53 AM

    "Minimalist/avant garde" makes Adams sound all user-hostile, but the same label also fits Michael Nyman, who writes soundtracks for horror movies. Adams' music is pretty accessible -- it has a good beat and you can dance to it. He draws a lot of inspiration from American demotic music, though even so he is probably off Ted Cruz' play-list now.

    ReplyDelete
  134. smut clyde5:56 AM

    They chose... badly.

    Remember the rule about Conservatism and 'failure'.

    ReplyDelete
  135. smut clyde6:36 AM

    Now I want to open a pub called "Saloon des Refusés".

    ReplyDelete
  136. smut clyde6:43 AM

    You’re never supposed to analogize anything to the Nazis. That’s the rule.
    It's not a rule... more of a warning that if you do analogise yourself to the victims of the Nazi regime, you risk coming across as a WATB.

    ReplyDelete
  137. And Douchebro Diuretics...

    Followed by the Bropocalypse...
    ...

    ReplyDelete
  138. Emily689:02 AM

    I read a whole book about the history of the pencil. I learned that pencil lead (a.k.a. graphite) is called lead because actual lead is what they used before graphite was discovered in the late 16th century. Lead worked some better than nothing in making a line that could be seen but also erased, but graphite worked WAAAAAY better.
    Plus in the early days of pencils, carpenters made them, probably all on their own, in their shops.

    ReplyDelete
  139. BigHank539:31 AM

    Wait until he tries to play "Stairway to Heaven"--you'll wish he was peeing in your ear.

    ReplyDelete
  140. BigHank539:34 AM

    Maybe if we vote to repeal Obamacare one more time....

    ReplyDelete
  141. "I’d like to make a couple of points."

    Nordlinger proceeds to make zero points.
    ~

    ReplyDelete
  142. Well there is the one on his head.
    ....

    ReplyDelete
  143. "Do you have any examples of something they have been right about?"


    No. But unfortunately, there have been several notable fiascos that they have been able to talk the Amurrkin People into in vulnerable moments.

    ReplyDelete
  144. Can we fit that many spotlights into Avery Fisher Hall?

    ReplyDelete
  145. Sin Nickel11:14 AM

    "But even if he wrote music as good as Mozart’s, he would not measure up to Rush Limbaugh."

    Right. Let's not forget Rush's operatic masterpiece, "Der Slutspieldirektor."

    ReplyDelete
  146. StringOnAStick12:44 PM

    Yeah, my husband sold all his Gibsons, except for a solid body electric. The collector's item he owned from the 1960's played well and was a perfect hollow body jazz machine, but the pickups buzzed like crazy, and if you change them out, now you've lost the "collector's value". He decided he'd rather own something that doesn't require extra theft insurance, and that actually played and sounds better. The Gibson name adds a lot of cost.

    ReplyDelete
  147. StringOnAStick1:06 PM

    OK, Kreb's gets an upvote for the comment attached to his avatar.
    Maybe someday I'll get me an avatar....

    ReplyDelete
  148. StringOnAStick1:15 PM

    The decency and goodwill of Limpbaugh? Holy fuck, did those words just lose all meaning?

    ReplyDelete
  149. I admit my first thought on reading about McCain's selection of Palin as VP was along the lines of, "huh, I guess he's given up."

    ReplyDelete
  150. M. Krebs3:11 PM

    This reminds me of a "review" someone wrote at iTunes of some Arvo Pärt record. It was basically a rant about how horrible "minimalist" music is. Weird.

    ReplyDelete
  151. stepped pyramids3:25 PM

    It's Yul Brynner reminding you to buckle up.


    And not to smoke.

    ReplyDelete
  152. billcinsd3:55 PM

    Hayek her? I barely even know her!

    ReplyDelete
  153. billcinsd4:32 PM

    I went to the Tao offo Steve

    Dex:
    Doing stuff is overrated. Like Hitler. He did a lot. But don't we all wish he woulda just stayed home and gotten stoned?

    Syd:
    Oh, I see. So you're only options are to get stoned or commit genocide?

    ReplyDelete
  154. billcinsd4:33 PM

    you could go with

    ReplyDelete
  155. billcinsd4:37 PM

    in the love will tear us apart during the transmission of our dead souls

    ReplyDelete
  156. mgmonklewis5:42 PM

    I don't even get what the Fearless Leader insult is supposed to be. A reference to Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons? If he's trying to paint liberals/Democrats/whoever as mindless followers, shouldn't he be using Dear Leader? Then again, he thinks polite disagreement is Just Like Nuremburg, so who knows.

    Jesus, these people think the entire world is just a private psychodrama for them and their Lego toys.

    ReplyDelete
  157. mgmonklewis5:47 PM

    Yes, but only Rush could've written the magnum opus "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fondler," set in the Dominican Republic.

    I have no idea what I meant by that.

    ReplyDelete
  158. mgmonklewis5:50 PM

    By extension, doesn't that mean Leni Riefenstahl is the best composer of all time? I don't quite follow the logic, but I think that's where we end up.

    ReplyDelete
  159. mgmonklewis5:52 PM

    Quoting Foghorn Leghorn: "That boy is about as sharp as a pound of wet leather."

    Alternate: "That boy is about as sharp as a sack of wet mice."

    ReplyDelete
  160. mgmonklewis5:53 PM

    Bravo! Yet I'd be more entertained if Walsh's Iron Curtain persecution aria had a better beat and were easier to dance to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eabefjsJsAQ

    ReplyDelete
  161. mgmonklewis5:56 PM

    Being wrong about everything is their defining characteristic. Their defining motivation is free-floating butthurt.

    ReplyDelete
  162. mgmonklewis5:57 PM

    I want to spend the night with this comment lying in the gutter but looking at the stars.

    ReplyDelete
  163. montag26:13 PM

    Neither do I, but I'm betting it was opera buffa.

    ReplyDelete
  164. "But even if he wrote music as good as Mozart’s, he would not measure up to Rush Limbaugh."

    From a certain point of view, Limbaugh measures higher on a scale of human worth. Mozart died poor, buried in a pauper's grave. Limbaugh is fabulously wealthy.

    I'll just leave that there.

    ReplyDelete
  165. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person6:38 PM

    His "music" hasn't gone out of style. Yet...

    ReplyDelete
  166. Gabriel Ratchet6:41 PM

    Heck, they think being asked to be minimally polite to people different from them is the functional equivalent of martyrdom, so victimhood is pretty much baked into their sense of self-identity to begin with.

    ReplyDelete
  167. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person6:43 PM

    <Teal'c>
    Indeed...
    </Teal'c>

    ReplyDelete
  168. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person6:48 PM

    He apparently has nothing like the decency or goodwill of my friend
    Rush.


    Sounds to me like the whole anecdote was an opportunity to drop Rusty's name, and suck up to it.

    ReplyDelete
  169. LittlePig6:54 PM

    aka 'Barnum was a pessimist'.

    ReplyDelete
  170. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person6:55 PM

    If you've never actually met any, it's an experience definitely to be missed. I have known several Conservatives I'd call friends, and only one was a Dittohead. The others ranged from "he's too negative" to "he's fucking nuts". That last from a guy I've know for decades, who bought a couple AR15s in late '08 because Obama was gonna outlaw 'em.
    Limbaugh coined a very stupid-sounding word back in the '90s that describes his own self better than the people he thought he was talking about: "Scumswill".

    ReplyDelete
  171. LittlePig6:58 PM

    Nah, that's the time to start reminding them that elevators are built by the lowest bidder...

    ReplyDelete
  172. LittlePig7:01 PM

    "Mein Furheur! I can say the N-word!"

    ReplyDelete
  173. LittlePig7:02 PM

    Nice boy but he's got more nerve than a bum tooth

    ReplyDelete
  174. LittlePig7:05 PM

    I saw a...snail...crawling along the edge...of a...straight razor...

    ReplyDelete
  175. The applause in Avery Fisher Hall did not last for two minutes, but it went on long enough... And clapping to show agreement with a comment someone makes is exactly equivalent to systematically planned out and executed genocide.

    ReplyDelete
  176. Tom Parmenter8:25 PM

    But did you keep it flying?

    ReplyDelete
  177. M. Krebs8:47 PM

    I had no idea that would end up there. It was just a response to some personal question, like what is your age or something.

    ReplyDelete
  178. Tom Parmenter8:57 PM

    No need for Billie and Bessie to fight. Billie never sounded happier and Bessie, well, "25 cents! I wouldn't pay 25 cents to go in no place!"

    ReplyDelete
  179. M. Krebs8:58 PM

    In case there are any chemists out there, that's a model of the Belousov-Zhabotinski reaction run amok.

    ReplyDelete
  180. M. Krebs9:10 PM

    FLASHBACK

    ReplyDelete
  181. M. Krebs9:12 PM

    Never mind that. How many holes does it take?

    ReplyDelete
  182. tigrismus9:30 PM

    Jesus Christ, maybe if that hateful fuck did anything worth even half a shit we could compare him to some skilled person with actual accomplishments.

    ReplyDelete
  183. M. Krebs9:39 PM

    Or unskilled person with no accomplishments.

    ReplyDelete
  184. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:59 PM

    His chosen instrument is, of course, the Schlockenspiel...

    ReplyDelete
  185. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person12:00 AM

    As afraid-of-their-own-shadows as they demonstrably are, it might be fair to say they bully themselves...

    ReplyDelete
  186. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person12:11 AM

    That's really all that line can mean. In Conservative Fantasy World, they can't lose unless they choose not to play. No frickin' way in *hell* is an uppity damn darkie gonna beat both a war hero and a hero of Capitalism unless that's what they want. I'm just surprised we haven't heard more conspiratorial rumblings in this regard. Maybe, just maybe, back in a dark corner of the Conservative id, there's a spark of rationality that stops them short of that. And that's a shame. Why do Conservatives hate the popcorn industry?

    ReplyDelete
  187. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person12:19 AM

    He expects a landslide every time. All Republican candidates are Reagan, and all Democrats are Carter. And yes, 50.7% is a landslide. They have the math! Well, and the EC...

    ReplyDelete
  188. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person12:31 AM

    An out-take from one of Tom Lehrer's albums, I believe...

    ReplyDelete
  189. smut clyde6:01 AM

    As any fule kno, graphite pencils are another side-benefit of the arms industry, in that the primary use of graphite -- and the reason why the Tudors started mining it on an industrial scale -- was its military application, in lubricating cannon-ball moulds.

    ReplyDelete
  190. coozledad8:34 AM

    Have mercy upon me
    Blot out my perceptions

    purge me with clorox
    pour it on my brain
    wash me, wash me
    use the Brillo pad

    ReplyDelete
  191. tigrismus9:32 AM

    Not the bile-ophone? Oh well, as long as he's behind bars, that's a material detail.

    ReplyDelete
  192. Now, maybe that's not being wrong about everything, but it damned sure is being wrong about most everything of substance.

    Welcome to modern America! We have evolved beyond the need for success--indeed, we have come to view success as a real negative. Whether we're talking policy (trickle-down economics, war in Iraq), politics (Palin as VP pick, repealing Obamacare 60 or 70 times), or business (pocketing tens of millions in performance bonuses for driving your company into the ditch), nothing spells success like complete fucking catastrophe in modern America.<br
    Conversely, note that most of those who spoke out against the great Iraq adventure, those in the GOP who spoke out against Palin as VP, those in business who decried the practices of the banks and investment houses prior to 2006--nearly all of them have been driven from the public discourse, scourged and shamed, shunned by their friends because they were right. And today, there can be no greater black mark on your record than having been proved correct.

    ReplyDelete
  193. "It's an interesting dynamic with conservatives. No matter how much
    success they encounter at the ballot box, the whole democracy thing is
    just way too uncertain, inconvenient, and (ultimately) unfair for them."


    Barney Frank was on MSNBC this morning talking about his book and things he's learned in his career, and one of the many things he said that rings true was this: "When progressives get mad, they march, when conservatives get mad, they vote."

    ReplyDelete
  194. Sadly, very true. I have a niece who is apparently going to college to learn how to protest. Or, at least it seems like all she does is protest--she's been in every newsworthy march from Ferguson to NYC and spends so much time protesting that the school has contacted her parents about her absenteeism.

    Yet, she's never learned how to drive and she does not vote. She views both of those as pointless and boring.

    ReplyDelete
  195. "Look, Balok, I don't want any of your fuckin' tranya, so there! And if your brother Opie shows up, I'll kick his ass, too."

    ReplyDelete
  196. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A65N3Efnn0

    ReplyDelete