Sunday, February 24, 2013

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP...

... about the "Day of Resistance" for gun nuts. Now please excuse me, I'm watching the Oscars (and doing okay with predix, and live-tweeting).

UPDATE. Oh speaking of Oscars, attend this especially Zhdanovite horseshit from Mark Joseph at National Review called "Lincoln’s Lost Opportunities":
First, there was the team that brought forth this film about the president who founded the Republican party, a team led by the blue-state heroes Steven Spielberg, screenwriter Tony Kushner, author Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Daniel Day-Lewis....
Oh wait, it gets better:
There is another surefire way to keep traditionalist audiences away from a movie, and the makers of Lincoln played that card as well: bad language...
“Sadly, the movie also contains about 40 obscenities and profanities, including four ‘f’ words and more than 10 GDs,” noted MovieGuide, a site that a good number of traditionalists consult before attending movies...
And another thing: What was all that anti-businessman talk in Citizen Kane? No wonder America hates Hollywood!

UPDATE 2. Jesus, Nate Silver knows everything.

UPDATE 3. Post-Oscar whining commences; I assume tomorrow there'll be plenty of rightwing argh-blargh about Michelle Obama's appearance. (Here's an early return from Todd Starnes on Twitter: "Tonight was supposed to be about Hollywood - but Mrs. Obama made it about herself." The concern of a Fox News shouter for the noble traditions of Hollywood is touching.) Meanwhile at National Review, somebody named Gina R. Dalfonzo:
Whatever one thinks of the movies being honored, and however fervently one roots for one’s favorites, there’s a depressing sameness to the annual Oscar ritual these days.
"These days"?
Chris Loesch was tweeting about how conservatives need to quit “belittling” pop culture, and start recognizing “the importance of engaging in and making good art.” He made a very good point. But the engaging would be so much easier if, on occasions like these, Hollywood’s best and brightest would give us something to work with.
The Oscars gets a billion viewers worldwide every year. Why would they give a fuck what conservatives think? See "market, free."

Still -- do read my Voice thing. They beat us if we don't deliver traffic.

UPDATE 4. Also at National Review, Wesley "Make Sure to Include My Middle Initial, I'm a Pompous Ass" Smith:
Can you imagine the Oscars allowing anyone to host the big show who had mocked defenseless minorities? No? Well, think again. This year’s host, Seth McFarlane, created Family Guy, a show which castigated the late Terri Schiavo as a “vegetable”...
I await Smith's denunciations of those who wring humor from the tragedy of people slipping on banana peels.

185 comments:

  1. Fats Durston9:56 PM

    "I believe that with the mathematically inevitable collapse of the
    worldwide currencies, this new monetary demand will push silver through
    the sky... all of humanity will be crying out for real money as they try
    to recover from the fiat something-for-nothing dream."


    Mmmmm: tasty, nutritious silver. Also, any potential lycanthropic apocalypse will be stillborn.

    After civilization collapses, my currency is gonna be koku, salt, and cacao beans.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Scott Slemmons10:00 PM

    I do love how the gold and silver nuts never seem to consider how limited the quantities are of that stuff, and how quickly any moron flashing that around is going to get heisted...

    ReplyDelete
  3. M. Krebs10:15 PM

    I'm gonna start hoarding guitar strings and vacuum tubes. Solder, too.

    ReplyDelete
  4. tigrismus10:33 PM

    "if the Rabbit People are frightened over the exposure of a single fake book reviewer, this announcement of a large scale public protest by gun owners should have them seriously popping pellets," cheered Vox Day.



    I know what all of those words mean and yet still can't interpret it. As for the protest, I saw one guy who'd magic markered the back of a piece of a flat screen TV box. Underwhelming.

    ReplyDelete
  5. ...Harry C. Alford, CEO of the Black Chamber of Commerce...told us that "the National Rifle Association was started, founded by religious leaders, who wanted to protect freed slaves from the Ku Klux Klan....

    Uh...huuuh. Let's suppose that were true. The Catholic Church was founded by religious leaders who wanted to protect children from Roman pedophiles. How's that working out for them?

    If an organization feels it needs to be judged by what it was a hundred or a thousand years ago, clearly its problems go deeper than just bad P.R.

    ReplyDelete
  6. montag210:38 PM

    Umm, couple of notes... it's "Yakima," Washington. And, buried in the second page is a quote that beggars description: "Even on a grey, datwitchydees stood on the stairs of the [New Hampshire] State House and filled the plaza in front," while the Granite Grok quote actually reads, "Even on a grey, dark day with intermiteant ]sic] spitting snow (thankfully,
    the snow held off almost until the end of the rally), approximately 400
    attendees stood on the stairs of the State House and filled the plaza in
    front."


    Now, I think "datwitchydees" might make a suitable epithet someday, but, ol' Granite Heinlein Fan might object to being misquoted.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Spaghetti Lee10:51 PM

    To hell with gold and silver. If you really want to be king in the post-apocalypse, stock up on toilet paper, cigarettes, and bottled water.

    ReplyDelete
  8. AngryWarthogBreath10:56 PM

    "if the Rabbit People are frightened over the exposure of a single fake book reviewer"

    I don't know who the fake book reviewer is supposed to be, but Gamma Rabbit isn't frightened. Gamma Rabbit is slightly puzzled, but in the end, still tolerates these people's bizarre right to be bizarre, bizarre people, when they're not hurting others.

    ReplyDelete
  9. montag210:57 PM

    Beyond that, want to see the economy collapse overnight? Just indulge the gold bugs and watch it happen. These idiots think that their fifty bucks worth of gold coins will magically become $50 million. Hell, they might, but bread will be $100 million a loaf.


    Do these guys not understand how little gold there is in federal reserves today? Do they not understand that the gold standard was making the Great Depression even worse (which is why FDR's administration partially removed us from that standard early in his first term)? Do they not understand the concept of agreed-upon value?



    All rhetorical questions. Of course they don't.

    ReplyDelete
  10. tigrismus10:58 PM

    I think maybe "trigger-fingers" was meant, too.

    ReplyDelete
  11. sharculese11:02 PM

    Owning physical silver is a form of protest and resistance to the paper system that has been forced on us for so long.



    Having coins in your pocket is literally the least you can do for the revolution.

    ReplyDelete
  12. DocAmazing11:06 PM

    The Republican Party was once the foremost defender of the rights of African-Americans.



    I was once blessed with a full head of hair.

    ReplyDelete
  13. montag211:07 PM

    Might be a reference to this:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/rj-ellory-fake-amazon-reviews-caught_n_1854713.html

    ... as an example of how absorbed the "Rabbit People" (i.e., liberals) are with the trivial, when the manly men of the Tea Party are out defending real important stuff, such as their surrogate penises.

    ReplyDelete
  14. DocAmazing11:10 PM

    the mathematically inevitable collapse


    which he has demonstrated using geometric logic.

    ReplyDelete
  15. jimbo31611:10 PM

    Ok I'm watching Iron Chef America, Will catch result of the 1000 hour Oscars episode tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete
  16. montag211:15 PM

    Umm, but, Col. Bat Guano sez, "d'ya think I'd go into combat with loose change in my pockets?"

    ReplyDelete
  17. jimbo31611:16 PM

    This is the same Congressional District as the highly radioactive Hanford Nuclear Plant. A reocurring problem for this district.

    ReplyDelete
  18. The Mujahideen were staunch anti-Communists! Lets invite them to our Chamber of Commerce luncheon!

    ReplyDelete
  19. montag211:20 PM

    Yes, I know it well. I used to live *shudder* in Moses Lake.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Fats Durston11:31 PM

    So that gravatar is really you?!

    ReplyDelete
  21. montag211:33 PM

    Well, the NRA was formed in 1871, the same year that Grant signed the Enforcement Act of 1871, an anti-KKK bill, so make of that what one will. Still, as DA suggests, past performance is not a guarantee of future returns, as they say on Wall Street.


    And, given the frothing at the mouth among the gun nutz that Obama's election has induced, it's rather apparent that there's been, ahem, a racial component to the NRA's current round of bombast.

    ReplyDelete
  22. AGoodQuestion11:42 PM

    That's why it's a little difficult for me to laugh at this article of Roy's. These people talk like they're ready to give up on elections and public pressure and just start shooting random brown people.

    ReplyDelete
  23. AGoodQuestion11:44 PM

    Vox Day's contribution reminded me of what Strong Sad said to Coach Z. "I rarely know what you're talking about."

    ReplyDelete
  24. AGoodQuestion11:50 PM

    You'll never learned this in BLACK HISTORY MONTH!


    You certainly won't haven't.

    ReplyDelete
  25. DocAmazing11:58 PM

    The truth might shock you.

    ReplyDelete
  26. bulletsarepeopletoo12:20 AM

    What's a traditionalist audience? Do they watch only silent movies or something?

    ReplyDelete
  27. edroso12:27 AM

    I use cut and paste, so I suspect Granite Grok cleaned it up in post. Nonetheless I'll fix it, thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  28. edroso12:29 AM

    You too, thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Budbear12:33 AM

    Vox Day (Vox Dei, yuk, yuk, get it?) is well known on the science blogs for trolling threads, ranting incoherently about atheists, and the dangers of wimmen who refuse to be content as the Lord's baby factories and them colored folks who refuse to know their place. He'd regularly get his ass handed to him and then leave declaring victory. I always pictured him strutting around like a pro wrestler bad guy in a lucha libre costume.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Halloween_Jack12:42 AM

    Yeah, he recently got his ass handed to him by SF author John Scalzi, and had the same reaction.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Halloween_Jack12:44 AM

    Start spreading the meme that Waltz really won (for the second time!) for Djesus Uncrossed, unless you're afraid of losing your best crystal to the inevitable skreeing.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Michelle Obama announcing the Best Movie Oscar will probably produced enough bile for next week's piece, Roy.

    ReplyDelete
  33. JennOfArk1:09 AM

    His guest, Gun Owners of America president Larry Pratt, told Obama through the camera that if he "starts playing the massacre game the way you did at Waco, well, you're going to get surrounded, you won't be able to go home safely, your family won't be safe."



    You know, I had completely forgotten that Obama was president in 1994 and ordered the murder of David Koresh and all his nutbar followers. It must be old age getting to me....

    ReplyDelete
  34. Spaghetti Lee1:11 AM

    Given the context, I'm assuming 'Moral Majority' needed some dusting off. Note, however, that they're not even claiming 'majority' anymore.

    ReplyDelete
  35. I think it's great that Clayton Cramer wound up working for the Idaho Department of Correction. And he's got some very impressive credentials!

    ---

    I am leading development of a proper branching and release scheme using Subversion... I am leading the effort to install MyEclipse on the Suse Linux workstations to enable debugging...

    ReplyDelete
  36. D. Sidhe1:16 AM

    Is there any bigger marker for a sucker than people who buy vaguely metal coins from companies going on about fiat money? It's like a big "Scam Me" sign on their mailboxes. "This," thinks the world at large, "is a person I can cheat out of their old jewelry with a pre-paid mailing envelope and the promise of a moneyback guarantee, and then call them later to offer to get their jewelry back from that deceitful Buckz4Gold company if they'll just cover my expenses."



    I know I feel so much safer knowing they're armed.



    (You'd think there wouldn't be much overlap between the mail-my-great-aunt's-wedding-ring and the collectible-coins-can't-be-confiscated-by-the-OWG crowds, but you'd be wrong. These people, based on political rants at big family dinners, are not smart.)

    ReplyDelete
  37. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard1:29 AM

    First, there was the team that brought forth this film about the president who founded the Republican party, a team led by the blue-state heroes Steven Spielberg, screenwriter Tony Kushner, author Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Daniel Day-Lewis....
    Seeing that Lincoln is a blue-state hero, this is only proper.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard1:30 AM

    Who needs currency? I'll just guard my wild raspberry bushes with extreme prejudice.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Spaghetti Lee1:32 AM

    But the engaging would be so much easier if, on occasions like these, Hollywood’s best and brightest would give us something to work with.

    Among the nominees this year were a biopic of the first Republican president, a movie that ends with two young people marrying and starting a restaurant, and not one but two movies about American military-types triumphing over Muslim bad guys. If these guys want material for 'Actually, Hollywood is all about conservative values if you think about it' articles, they should have had a field day with a very small-c conservative lineup (compare 2006, when it came down to Brokeback Mountain, Crash, Transamerica, Syriana, and Good Night and Good Luck., let alone any vintage New Hollywood year in the '70s). But they're not big-c conservative, conservative at the expense of art, drama, and nuance, conservative in the sense that the only purpose they serve is to advance contemporary Republican goals.


    In other words, they're not propaganda, and the only thing these whiners would be happy with is propaganda. For the most far-gone among them, it's all they can understand. That's why they always feel shut out. It's not because they're offering conservative ideas, it's because they're not offering ideas, period. Lots of filmmakers already use conservative ideas, they just do more with them than 'rah rah, go team, vote Republican.' That's why they get the Oscars, and these guys are left wondering why their latest attempt to 'engage the culture' died like a wet fart in a crowded room.

    ReplyDelete
  40. montag21:41 AM

    Maybe they're the ones that liked Walter Huston better in D.W. Griffith's version of Abraham Lincoln. Or, perhaps, they're the ones who think the current version is inauthentic, because the word, "fuck," was invented by hippies in 1968.

    ReplyDelete
  41. montag21:43 AM

    Ah, they're just confused because Bill Clinton was the first black President.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Spaghetti Lee1:48 AM

    "Dear Vox Day, how do you type with boxing gloves on?"

    ReplyDelete
  43. montag21:53 AM

    "... their latest attempt to 'engage the culture' died like a wet fart in a crowded room."

    Umm, that would be "An American Carol," right?

    ReplyDelete
  44. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard1:58 AM

    But the engaging would be so much easier if, on occasions like these, Hollywood’s best and brightest would give us something to work with.
    Typical moocher, looking for a handout.
    Hollywood owes you nothing, Loescher!

    ReplyDelete
  45. smut clyde2:01 AM

    “Sadly, the movie also contains about 40 obscenities and profanities,
    including four ‘f’ words and more than 10 GDs,” noted MovieGuide, a site
    that a good number of traditionalists consult



    So "traditionalists" would like their period dialog distorted to fit contemporary language codes? I am surprise.

    ReplyDelete
  46. D. Sidhe2:01 AM

    This. This is what gets me. The guys who have guns so no one will take their stuff are perfectly willing to just hand over their stuff to anyone who agrees that guns are cool. Come the revolution, when you run out of ammo because you were buying precious metals or NRA memberships, a silver-clad coin with a picture of a gun on it isn't going to keep someone with a pointy stick from stealing your food.

    ReplyDelete
  47. montag22:04 AM

    Yeah, we'll just sort of skip over all that Gilded Age, Republicans handing out corporate cash on the floor of the Senate, Teapot Dome, Republican Roaring Twenties boom and big, big depressing bust, commie-hunting blacklist, Army-McCarthy hearings, Allen and John Foster Dulles tag-team matches against every desperate, destitute country throughout the `50s, Nixonian skulduggery, Ronnie Raygun war crimes, high crimes, misdemeanors and runaway debt, GHWB's manufactured wars, GWB's manufactured wars, torture, domestic surveillance and runaway debt and general fuckwittery, we'll skip over all that bullshit, and concentrate on how we should have been the ones to make a movie about Lincoln, the Republican, because, y'know, Republican.


    Sheesh.

    ReplyDelete
  48. smut clyde2:07 AM

    there’s a depressing sameness to the annual Oscar ritual


    If you're expecting novelty in a ritual, you may be unclear on the concept.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard2:13 AM

    The 'baggers would poop their pants if they went up against the rabbit people"

    ReplyDelete
  50. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard2:15 AM

    Blessed? HA!

    ReplyDelete
  51. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard2:35 AM

    Racial component? Unpossible!

    ReplyDelete
  52. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard2:38 AM

    That time-travelling Obama sure gets around.

    ReplyDelete
  53. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard2:50 AM

    They might not be smart, but they know what the queers are doing to the soil</a.!

    ReplyDelete
  54. AngryWarthogBreath3:49 AM

    Man, maybe if we got right wing bloggers a subscription to Have Most Edge times, showing that it's edgy to cut a hole in your own floor and stay in it for a few days, we could finish our noveliques and/or just have a few happier days.

    (I'm not cruel; I recommend providing them foot-stomp casserole and gasoline.)

    ReplyDelete
  55. Anonymous5:38 AM

    7 WCLΗ ( Format: Collegе Radіo Wilkes Unіversity's radio station plays mostly alternative rock, but Mondays have seemingly always been "Metal Mondays. Many people will be happy with replaceable batteries for home use and occasional outings. A MOBILE APP GIVES THE STATION A DIRECT MARKETING CHANNEL TO COMMUNICATE WITH THEIR LISTENERS.

    Look at my blog Highly recommended Reading

    ReplyDelete
  56. Pope Zebbidie XIII5:45 AM

    Why don't they stock up on uranium?

    ReplyDelete
  57. You know who was an austrian, too?

    ReplyDelete
  58. montag26:11 AM

    Because they can't buy it at the gun store?


    Because looking for it would actually entail, y'know, work?


    Because Glenn Beck doesn't have it for sale on The Blaze?


    Because they wouldn't fucking know it if they tripped over it?

    ReplyDelete
  59. smut clyde6:18 AM

    It is immoral to leave fools in possession of their money, D.Sidhe. If they can simultaneously believe that the value of an ounce of gold is intrinsic and universal, and also that the price of gold will increase many-fold after the collapse of world currencies and turn them all into fapocalyptic millionaires, then there is no help for them. Crank Magnetism, how does it work?

    Sounds like selling over-priced gold is a central part of Beck's business model. Has it always been part of the con-man's repertoire? I was under the impression that Gold Standard and no-fiat-currency are right at the centre of the US paranoid style... Why is that? Is it a lightning rod for federalist fantasies and suspicions about central government?

    ReplyDelete
  60. Pope Zebbidie XIII6:36 AM

    Like how metaphoric sexual penetration of the body has come to be more acceptable than the actuality. Language as fetish.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Sgaile-beairt7:09 AM

    a surprising amt of people think that!! even ones who shld know better....what do they think went in the dashes, in the yellow-backed adventure novels of Yore??

    ReplyDelete
  62. Halloween_Jack7:14 AM

    That fuckin' Amadeus.

    ReplyDelete
  63. BigHank538:32 AM

    I occasionally joke about converting the retirement fund into canned goods and ammunition; things that might have value once the electricity has been off for a month.

    ReplyDelete
  64. chuckling8:32 AM

    A bit odd there's not been more conversation about "The Master" not receiving any nominations outside of acting. It is an interesting movie that is very different than anything else and works against pretty much any expectations, which I suppose is reason enough to be ignored. But given that it's a grand period film made by a critic's darling with undeniably great acting, it seems that under normal circumstance it would have been up for awards in most of the major categories. It seems not unreasonable to speculate that its exclusion was due to adherents intolerance to anything that can remotely be considered as an attack on their beliefs. And, as is not unusual in these cases, it was fiction and not even a fiction that attacked anyone's beliefs. The leader was portrayed as a complex human being and a couple minor characters questioned his godliness. But in the end, his methods for the most part (arguably) succeeded. If one looks at it as the story of Scientology rather than a work of art, it's not a negative portrayal. Thing is, it's not about Scientology. It's about people.

    Anyway, it's too bad. Oscar nominations and wins tend to result in a second round of consideration for a film. But on the other hand, the academy has a long and consistent track record of not recognizing the best picture(s) of the year. Starting with "Sunrise" through Citizen Kane and past "Apocolypse Now," plenty of great films have been passed over for more forgettable, safer choices. Most Kubrick films were not nominated for best picture and he was never nominated for Best Director.



    So these awards shows are fine as entertainment (morally, if not actually entertaining), but the chances of them recognizing the very best of anything is not particularly good.

    ReplyDelete
  65. BigHank538:39 AM

    Whenever I read a conservative bleating about how none of the entertainment is designed for them, I can't help but think of THX1138 and the TV show he turns on one evening: a context-free beating.

    ReplyDelete
  66. BigHank538:43 AM

    Doing the same thing over and over and somehow expecting a different result is indicative of something, right?

    ReplyDelete
  67. BigHank538:47 AM

    In their defense it's really tough to find a good anti-slavery argument in Atlas Shrugged or anything by W. Cleon Skousen.

    ReplyDelete
  68. There seems to be literally no distinction in the minds of people like Beck, or his religious equivalents like Pat Robertson, between pushing ideological nonsense and pushing blatantly scammy products.

    OBSERVE

    ReplyDelete
  69. Threatening Obama's children. Classy. Was he wearing a white hood while saying this by any chance?

    ReplyDelete
  70. I will always be fascinated by conservative scolds who just tally the number of profanities, nip-slips, sexual comments, and blood spurts in a movie and just leave the list out there as if it serves, on its own, as some kind of point.


    Are these people under the impression that, if one f-bomb will damage their child's mind, four f-bombs will damage it four times as much?

    ReplyDelete
  71. Shorter Roger L. Simon: “Everything changed for me on September 11. I used to consider myself a Democrat, but thanks to 9/11, I’m outraged that Ronald Reagan appeared at the 1981 Oscars."

    ReplyDelete
  72. FMguru9:37 AM

    Well, yeah. The Oscars are famous for celebrating well-made middlebrow horseshit, especially if it pretends to be somehow Important*. Driving Miss Daisy? Dances With Wolves? Crash? Gandhi? Monster's Ball? Forest Gump? Braveheart? Titanic? Weird, challenging, hard-to-place movies never get their due at this ceremony, and that's fine - the purpose of the event is to celebrate and promote mainstream Hollywood, not to honor those films that actually push the medium forward. That's what critical posterity is for.


    * It helps if there's a famous actor directing, or if the lead made themselves look ugly and/or played someone with a mental illness or handicap.

    ReplyDelete
  73. Anonymous9:38 AM

    These five free basketball game apps for the i - Phone will surely help you
    get your game on. WIFI:Als Verbindungsmoglichkeiten ins Internet stehen Ihnen
    WIFI wireless lan zu Verfugung. In fact an ideal online casino will
    make the entire gaming experience a pleasurable and a real
    experience to the gamer.

    Here is my web-site: videos von youtube downloaden
    My website: spiele spielen

    ReplyDelete
  74. "Can you imagine the Oscars allowing anyone to host the big show who had
    mocked defenseless minorities? No? Well, think again. This year’s host,
    Seth McFarlane, created Family Guy, a show which castigated the late
    Terri Schiavo as a “vegetable”..."


    Not mocked defenceless mnorities? I assume this guy has never watched "Family Guy".

    ReplyDelete
  75. Tybalt9:44 AM

    VEGETATIVE-AMERICANS DEMAND THAT OUR VOICES BE HEARD!

    ReplyDelete
  76. wileywitch9:46 AM

    Recently I read that the more Americans go to church the more adamant they tend to be about the Second Amendment as a sacred right.

    ReplyDelete
  77. chuckling9:48 AM

    Yup. It's not unusual, however, for weird, challenging movies from famous directors to at least get nominated, which was my original point. Had "The Master" not been loosely based on L. Ron. Hubbard, I suspect it would have been included in all the major categories. Maybe not, though. It is an uncomfortable experience with no obvious message.

    ReplyDelete
  78. wileywitch9:52 AM

    Hmmm. Isn't the next scare supposed to be the elimination of cash? Replacing it with credits? Bank accounts are pretty much automated in most places. Still, who has a problem with cash?

    ReplyDelete
  79. wileywitch9:59 AM

    Oh. My. Dawg. That almost makes me want to shed a tear for the poor little morons.

    ReplyDelete
  80. wileywitch10:13 AM

    In their defense of Terri Schiavo, they mocked her. She was a woman who wanted to be thin so badly that she purged after eating until her organs failed. So what did those conservatives do for her? They made sure she was shown on television globally, lying like a beached whale in a hospital bed, and they talked about how it would be her choice to feed through a tube.


    When people mock Terri Schiavo, they're mocking the conservative side-show that was built around her brain dead body.

    ReplyDelete
  81. I sure would like to know how Family Guy "castigated" someone who was in a persistent vegetative state.

    ReplyDelete
  82. Mr. Wonderful10:41 AM

    "Chris Loesch was tweeting about how conservatives need to quit 'belittling' pop culture, and start recognizing 'the importance of
    engaging in and making good art.' He made a very good point. But the
    engaging would be so much easier if, on occasions like these,
    Hollywood’s best and brightest would give us something to work with.


    This is my favorite: tone-deaf indignation in the service of something that literally makes no sense. "Making good art" isn't something you do once "Hollywood" gives you "something to work with." That's like saying, "Sure, I could be a better cook--if only restaurants would start using quality ingredients."


    You make art (and entertainment), not from what Hollywood "gives" you, but from everything else in the universe, i.e., from what I call "life." As usual, it's both hilarious and faintly dispiriting to have to point this out to the wingnutterati. But one must, because they literally don't know the difference between culture and propaganda, bless their hearts.

    ReplyDelete
  83. Mr. Wonderful10:45 AM

    By which you mean, "because it doesn't make them feel like they have big dicks," right?

    ReplyDelete
  84. glennisw10:56 AM

    think of the pain this must have caused her.

    ReplyDelete
  85. XeckyGilchrist11:32 AM

    if the lead made themselves look ugly and/or played someone with a mental illness or handicap.


    So long as they don't go full retard. The Academy doesn't like that.

    ReplyDelete
  86. XeckyGilchrist11:36 AM

    Yes, and they scream and duck when there's an image of a train approaching.

    ReplyDelete
  87. XeckyGilchrist11:39 AM

    I think the instructive episode was when some looney went into a Librul church to shoot up some libruls and they caught him and sat on him until the cops showed up.

    ReplyDelete
  88. Haystack11:54 AM

    I'll be breeding blue heelers.

    ReplyDelete
  89. Damned if a couple of seconds didn't tick by with me wondering if maybe I was the one who didn't know the meaning of "castigate."

    ReplyDelete
  90. sharculese12:09 PM

    Haven't seen Lincoln so don't know for sure, but if they're using fuck in reference to anything other than actual fucking, it's not period. That's a later linguistic innovation.

    ReplyDelete
  91. It doesn't seem to be occurring to these suckers that the people selling them gold are quite happily accepting large amounts of fiat money in payment for it.

    ReplyDelete
  92. Jay B.12:51 PM

    There is another surefire way to keep traditionalist audiences away from a movie, and the makers of Lincoln played that card as well: bad language...


    My fucking Christ, a boring-ass civics lesson made almost $200 million to date --- $200 fucking million! — Do they even know the mike is on at this point?

    ReplyDelete
  93. John E. Williams12:57 PM

    My mother was a dowager; wealthy, sure, but she turned her wealth and influence towards governance, even helping to select the leader of her home country. The man she chose was a rude, impertinent charlatan, aided by an unscrupulous Italian and an abusive, mute Jew who enjoyed harassing honest street peddlers. These men made my mother's life a living hell on a regular basis, and I can assure you that while some were amused by their antics, my family was certainly not.

    ReplyDelete
  94. mortimer1:18 PM

    Perhaps one of the reasons the Day of Resistance loons didn't set too many mainstream wingnuts on fire can be found in this line from their website:
    In response to these unconstitutional actions by the President, on .223, February 23, 2013 the American people will stand together in defiance to protect the right that protects ALL of our rights, the 2nd Amendment!

    In this and other promotions they deliberately tie the protest to a celebration of the common .223 caliber AR-15 bullet used in the Aurora and Newtown shootings. When you mention this to normal people, most find it just a wee bit abhorrent.

    ReplyDelete
  95. mortimer1:31 PM

    Silver, schmilver. When the apocalypse hits, true wingnuts know the only real currency will be made out of Reardon metal.

    ReplyDelete
  96. redoubt1:43 PM

    this new monetary demand will push silver through
    the sky...

    Um, William Jennings Bryan would like a word.

    ReplyDelete
  97. sharculese1:49 PM

    This plan is prohibitively expensive and might lead to someone's mail carrier getting murdered but is otherwise a foolproof way to troll wingnuts irl:


    1.) Advertise coins with suitably tea party-ish/survivalist imagery.


    2.) When the coins actually arrive, they come stamped with Obama's face on the front and the UN logo on the back.


    3.) When buyers call to complain, act very apologetic but also evasive. Give the impression that saying too much could put both of you in danger.


    4.) Find opportunities to sprinkle the phrase 'be prepared' into the conversation, bear down on it each time. (Ex: We will be prepared to entertain any exchanges or refunds.)

    ReplyDelete
  98. redoubt1:54 PM

    ". . .the president who founded the Republican party. . ."
    Twenty seconds in Wikipedia brought this little factoid.
    (An aside: My sister used to live in Jackson. She was probably the only person in town not working directly or indirectly for the state prison.)

    ReplyDelete
  99. KatWillow1:56 PM

    well, it does come right after the 1st commandment, "Thou shalt not kill". Makes perfect sense.

    ReplyDelete
  100. KatWillow1:59 PM

    We really ought to go back to the "Tally Stick" from Days Of Your. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tally_stick

    ReplyDelete
  101. redoubt1:59 PM

    "Introducing Heinz's 58th flavor: Vegetative American Sauce!"

    ReplyDelete
  102. KatWillow2:03 PM

    He's ignorant of the existence of the Secret Service? Maybe he thinks they just wear Black Suits and stand around with one finger pressed to an ear?

    ReplyDelete
  103. KatWillow2:08 PM

    People did talk funny in the olden days. "Tarnation!" "By gad!" and my favorite "Hells Bells!"

    ReplyDelete
  104. KatWillow2:13 PM

    If any person or group is "behind" these shootings, it'd be the NRA. Always means a boom in firearms sales.

    ReplyDelete
  105. It's like celebrating smoking weed on 4/20, if weed had resulted in the deaths of dozens of children.

    ReplyDelete
  106. John D.2:38 PM

    I've seen the Family Guy episode in question, and Smith's recollection of it is, shall we say, not exactly true. They weren't mocking poor Schiavo, they were mocking the circus sideshow that had sprouted up all around her, courtesy of the same reactionaries that Wesley Smith presumably approves of. Hell, he's one of them.
    Not that I'm a fan of FG these days. I enjoyed it for a while there, but it eventually fell into the same trap that claimed South Park, i.e. substituting out-and-out cruelty for humor. Still, an inaccurate claim is an inaccurate claim. Smith doesn't know what he's talking about here. Either that, or he's deliberately lying.

    ReplyDelete
  107. smut clyde2:59 PM

    Haven't followed the link. Does the National Review nimrod genuinely believe that a Hollywood collaboration did their best to drive a potential audience away from their movie? Or is this just random grievance-mongery and ressentiment?

    ReplyDelete
  108. MRC2103:13 PM

    You have to admit that they fought for your mom's honor, which is more than she ever did.

    ReplyDelete
  109. tigrismus3:18 PM

    Call me corn because I am ALL EARS!

    ReplyDelete
  110. Anonymous3:38 PM

    Hmm is anyone else experiencing problems with the images on this blog loading?
    I'm trying to find out if its a problem on my end or if it's
    the blog. Any feed-back would be greatly appreciated.



    Check out my website - http://wallinside.com/post-3066109.html
    My web page: omerta city of gangsters

    ReplyDelete
  111. Yukon Cornelius3:46 PM

    Don't forget the cornmeal, ham hocks, and gunpowder!

    ReplyDelete
  112. wileywitch4:31 PM

    Sounds communist. Seems to me that if world currency collapsed for some inexplicable reason, that the last thing you would want to be is a capitalist. Or do they think that the U.S. currency will fail all by itself? It's hard to keep up with their imaginary catastrophes.

    ReplyDelete
  113. whetstone5:09 PM

    My favorite bit of Mark Joseph's Zhdanovite horseshit:

    "a team led by the blue-state heroes Steven Spielberg, screenwriter Tony Kushner, author Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Daniel Day-Lewis. To understand the message that the makeup of this team sent to Lincoln’s natural fan base, one would have to imagine the reaction had the gay community learned that Milk, the biopic about one of the most beloved members of its community, was going to be directed by Clint Eastwood, star Mel Gibson, be based on a book by David Barton, with a screenplay written by Dinesh D’Souza."

    OK, I get the objections to Spielberg (a Democrat), Kushner (gay), maybe Kearns Goodwin (the subtitle of "No Ordinary Time" wasn't "when we had a Marxist in the White House," like Amity Schlaes's better-regarded work).



    Daniel Day-Lewis, though? Is there something liberal about cobbling that I missed at the fellow-travelers meeting? Is Joseph confusing him with Sean Penn?


    They're so weird. In an alternate universe where Clint Eastwood directed Lincoln, I can't imagine reacting in any other way than "that sounds like something he'd do." And if it starred Mel Gibson, I know that my first reaction would be "I bet his accent is going to suck."

    ReplyDelete
  114. whetstone5:14 PM

    Dude, here in Illinois we're so over Lincoln. That's one of the things I miss about being from the Republican red states down south: the almost sacred regard with which Lincoln is held.

    ReplyDelete
  115. Jay B.5:18 PM

    I'm surprised Eastwood didn't direct it. Gibson might have been an interesting choice too. Both are actually very talented people who happen to be conservative and actually half-crazy (but not because they are conservative, they just seem a tad screwy these days). Gibson's Lincoln would have avenged his son's enlistment though by killing Grant with his bare hands, but he would have brought something to the role.


    His choice of source material and screenwriting, of course, would have made the effort laughably bad. And this is where they just don't get it.

    ReplyDelete
  116. smut clyde5:26 PM

    Feckin' Wittgenstein.

    ReplyDelete
  117. smut clyde5:28 PM

    To understand the message that the makeup of this team sent to Lincoln’s natural fan base

    "Natural fan-base"? So no-one who is not rigid conservative is even allowed to admire Lincoln?

    You have to admire the attempt to stake a claim on the guy as the exclusive intellectual property of NRO readers.

    ReplyDelete
  118. Anyone checked out Big Hollywood today? Christian Toto has completely lost it over the Michelle Obama appearance.

    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2013/02/24/obamas-hijack-oscars

    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2013/02/25/macfarlane-conservative-media

    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2013/02/25/heroes-not-props-flotus-oscars

    ReplyDelete
  119. Another Kiwi5:31 PM

    "More than 10 GD's" Jeeves get the fainting couch out, I feel a greatness askearedness coming on.
    I keep wondering if this isn't some sooper sekrit coad which I don't have the key too. It has been 5 years now that they have been blathering about B. Hussein Malcolm X Kenyan Debbil Obama like this and yet it seems that none of what they have been predicting has even begun to start to begin.

    ReplyDelete
  120. whetstone5:34 PM

    For a plausible writer I can sort of picture Mamet, though with Eastwood/Gibson/Mamet doing Lincoln you're starting to get pretty weird... not weird bad necessarily, just weird increasing box office risk.

    Mamet would have written a wonderful melancholy Lincoln: "There's an absolute morality? Maybe. And then what? If you think there is, go ahead, be that thing. Bad people go to hell? I don't think so. If you think that, act that way. A hell exists on earth? Yes. I won't live in it. That's me. [PAUSE] You ever take a dump made you feel like you've just slept for twelve hours?"

    ReplyDelete
  121. Another Kiwi5:39 PM

    The Adult Diaper Association of America is booking that skiing holiday in Switzerland right now. Profits are assured!

    ReplyDelete
  122. smut clyde5:55 PM

    I mocked a defenseless Minorite once. Does that count?

    ReplyDelete
  123. smut clyde5:56 PM

    Feckin' Wittgenstein!

    ReplyDelete
  124. AGoodQuestion6:08 PM

    He was also president in 1965 when we stopped coining quarters out of silver. Dude is one busy time traveler.

    ReplyDelete
  125. Spaghetti Lee6:09 PM

    Jeely Cly!

    ReplyDelete
  126. AGoodQuestion6:10 PM

    So they're distancing themselves from John C Fremont like they do all their losers?

    ReplyDelete
  127. Spaghetti Lee6:12 PM

    The punchline, of course, is that if you ask them whether he was justified in invading the South during the Civil War, the respect begins to disappear mighty quick.


    They like him as a mascot, I guess. As a politician, not so much.

    ReplyDelete
  128. Jay B.6:13 PM

    I don't really know/care. The thing was titled "Lincoln's Lost Opportunities" and he wrote about how the language drove some of the audience away. An audience, not for nothing, that has some Hollywood producer trying to figure out how to make a sequel out of it as we speak. Probably a prequel or a reboot or something 3-D or showing the soldiers who couldn't remember the Gettysburg Address getting blown up, only to be avenged by the black guy who could, or something. It might even have to do with robots. Or Grant. Or nothing. Or a freed slave who seeks revenge against slave society. Oh, wait.

    ReplyDelete
  129. Spaghetti Lee6:14 PM

    And the ADAA was, of course, one of the biggest contributors to Obama's re-election campaign! Dots, sheeple, etc.

    ReplyDelete
  130. AGoodQuestion6:26 PM

    From your links I jumped to the front page of Big H'Wood. Lot of bylines from Ben Shapiro and some guy named Wynton Bell. What I didn't see were any of the brave conservative actors they used to boast about. So apparently Dwight Schultz is still capable of embarrassment.

    ReplyDelete
  131. smut clyde6:34 PM

    VEGETATIVE-AMERICANS DEMAND A CELERY INCREASE

    ReplyDelete
  132. That is funny on so many levels, not least of which is that it is possibly true.

    ReplyDelete
  133. Also Lincoln wasn't played by Chuck Norris.

    ReplyDelete
  134. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard6:55 PM

    He thinks the guys in suits are Obama's "hipped (sic) hop posse".

    ReplyDelete
  135. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard6:58 PM

    Sounds like selling over-priced gold is a central part of Beck's business model. Has it always been part of the con-man's repertoire?

    Smut, old chum, the "gold brick" scam is such a treasured (heh) part of the grifter's repertoire, it passed into the U.S. lexicon a long time ago.

    ReplyDelete
  136. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard7:05 PM

    Alright, which of these spiky weirdos is you?

    ReplyDelete
  137. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard7:06 PM

    Lettuce have a seat at the table!

    ReplyDelete
  138. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard7:10 PM

    Lincoln 2: This Time it's Personal
    "You shoot a man in the head, Booth, you'd best be prepared to finish the job!"

    ReplyDelete
  139. chuckling7:19 PM

    Eastwood would never make such a stupid casting decision based on the politics of the actor. He may be some kind of conservative, but he's not an incompetent movie-making conservative. See "Mystic River," and probably everything else he's done.

    But if he ever does go full retard and feels the need to answer Speilberg's Lincoln, I'd vote for David Zucker and Kelsey Grammar as the best possible writer and star. Niles could play Lee Harvey Oswald.

    ReplyDelete
  140. smut clyde7:43 PM

    * Frantically trying to remember more vegetative-american puns from the Jolly Green Giant chapter of 'Bored of the Rings' *

    ReplyDelete
  141. Spaghetti Lee8:00 PM

    I think the nuttiest among the goldbugs really do think that Goldline et al are taking 'worthless' paper money in exchange for gold because they're trying to give the real American patriots a hand, out of the goodness of their own heart, and are resigned to going utterly bankrupt because of it. And they say we don't understand capitalism!

    ReplyDelete
  142. They like him because he's popular and Republican. There is literally no other reason. They certainly don't like him for the reasons that he's popular.

    ReplyDelete
  143. See I didn't even know Dwight Schultz was conservative even though I'm a big fan of Howling Mad Murdock and Reginald Barclay, which is fine, because I don't know the political inclinations of 90% of actors, even the ones I like. Because I like them as actors. I can admire their talent even if they have a stupid opinion about the capital gains tax.


    Conservative bloggers need to work on making that distinction.

    ReplyDelete
  144. Tehanu8:31 PM

    You forgot "Gadzooks!" and "Zounds!"

    ReplyDelete
  145. Jay B.8:43 PM

    WE'RE HERE! WE'RE STILL HERE! GET USED TO IT!

    ReplyDelete
  146. tigrismus8:59 PM

    Eleven o'clock, surely.

    ReplyDelete
  147. Another Kiwi9:55 PM

    I grow tired of the Lincoln fans hanging around with the stove pipe hats, etc.

    "Hello" one says to them
    "Four score and seven years..." they say back.
    Then it's all folky aphorisms about caulking mixtures and mules.
    If I didn't have the Gettysburgers and Fries franchise, I'd chase them off.

    ReplyDelete
  148. tigrismus10:06 PM

    Be careful, they write those aphorisms on the backs of shovels.

    ReplyDelete
  149. BigHank5310:12 PM

    Every single last one of those rat-bastard Von Trapps.

    ReplyDelete
  150. ckc_not_kc11:09 PM

    ...did you cross your legs?

    ReplyDelete
  151. D. Sidhe12:34 AM

    Actually, quite a few of them collect jars of... Actually, I'm pretty sure this joke is going to make me sad. As you were.

    ReplyDelete
  152. D. Sidhe12:36 AM

    D'oh! *scribbles reminder to herself on post-it and sticks it to screen* Scroll all the way down, then don't post anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  153. D. Sidhe12:49 AM

    I would split firewood for this comment's winter.

    ReplyDelete
  154. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard1:09 AM

    Gibson's John Wilkes Booth would be a sinister-looking Jew, and his Lincoln would have a fifteen minute speech about freedom before exipring.

    ReplyDelete
  155. smut clyde1:33 AM

    The juxtaposition of this sub-thread and the earlier one about Terry Schiavo is apt. Big Hollywood's responses to environmental stimuli also seem to be purely spinal reflexes.

    ReplyDelete
  156. RHWombat1:43 AM

    Bloody Hayek

    ReplyDelete
  157. Schultz has written for Breitbart, but not for a while.

    http://www.breitbart.com/Columnists/Dwight-Schultz

    My favorite is the column where he's shocked and surprised Paul Newman actually was NICE TO HIM despite being a dirty commie monster.

    Schultz is currently on David Horowitz sidekick's Jamie Glazov's... thing. http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UUqCK5RFjwgmx2z4sOjqd-kQ&feature=plcp

    ReplyDelete
  158. ColBatGuano2:31 AM

    And I still believe that. Also, if you commit any preversions you'll have to answer to the Coca Cola company.

    ReplyDelete
  159. D. Sidhe6:11 AM

    They're like Christians. (Okay, many of them are Christians, but hear me out.) It's not that they think these people are acting out of the goodness of their hearts, it's that they believe in an afterlife and you don't. As in, "These guys want my fiat money now because they know they don't have what it takes to survive the coming race war/OWG/whatever, so they plan to do that grasshopper thing where they party all summer and fall over dead in the winter.

    Meanwhile, you, you wise non-bullion allegedly precious metal collector and gun hoarder, are the ant. You have prepared yourself for the upcoming tribulations, and you know that you are saved, by dint of your superior character and skillset and airproof non-hybrid seed vault. There is a place reserved for you in the afterlife (or lives, anyway, of all those people who don't have your training or balls or iodine tablets or hand-loading equipment) and in the heaven that is your bunker, stocked with emergency rations and slightly musty surplus blankets and Uno decks.

    This is why the folks at the U(nited) S(tamp) Mint are willing to bet on the present and trade you your eventually worthless fiat money for their eventually valuable Limit Forty Per Customer collector proofs with a sticker bearing the likeness of Ronald Reagan on the back.

    It's all down to when you want to live and how. If you want to be happy now and possibly miserable after you die, you are probably some kind of atheist commie who will not survive the first six months because you will insist on sharing any supplies you may have on hand. If you want to sacrifice now to survive later, you are probably one of Richard Viguerie's favorite marks.


    (Yes, I do spend a lot of time listening to these people. It sort of goes along with belonging to support groups for paranoid schizophrenics.)

    ReplyDelete
  160. Halloween_Jack7:53 AM

    See also: Adam Baldwin. (It helps that the two roles I know him best as--Jayne from Firefly and that guy in Chuck--are kind of thugs anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  161. Halloween_Jack7:57 AM

    Mel Gibson's Lincoln would have been on a par with Mel Gibson's Hamlet.

    ReplyDelete
  162. Halloween_Jack7:59 AM

    That unruly hair disguised the fact that JWB only winged him, and they chase each other across the West.


    ...hold on, I think we've got something here.

    ReplyDelete
  163. XeckyGilchrist11:06 AM

    No one will ever carrot all.

    ReplyDelete
  164. XeckyGilchrist11:10 AM

    Effin' Schwarzenegger

    ReplyDelete
  165. tigrismus11:11 AM

    For scrapple that fights back!

    ReplyDelete
  166. XeckyGilchrist12:21 PM

    As may be, but describing Schiavo as a "minority" has got to be nonstandard.

    ReplyDelete
  167. YouKnowNothingJonSnow1:57 PM

    The context of the movie's single F-bomb (I've seen it twice and they are completely making up three of them) is a guy saying "Well, I'll be fucked."

    ReplyDelete
  168. YouKnowNothingJonSnow2:02 PM

    Is this one of those "make $7000 from home" things?

    ReplyDelete
  169. smut clyde2:10 PM

    Steal a few scenes from 'Seraphim Falls' and you're done!

    ReplyDelete
  170. smut clyde2:11 PM

    The Juice are running Hollywood, you know.

    ReplyDelete
  171. TGuerrant6:20 PM

    But see, since they're On A Mission, they can watch all the vile filth they want without fearing God's wrath.

    ReplyDelete
  172. TGuerrant6:29 PM

    Victoria Jackson as Mary Todd. Perfect.

    ReplyDelete
  173. TGuerrant6:33 PM

    Mamet's Lincoln would have a 15-minute deathbed speech championing Booth's 2nd Amendment rights.

    ReplyDelete
  174. Marilyn Merlot8:42 PM

    It'd be like smoking weed on 4/20 if Hitler created weed

    ReplyDelete
  175. RogerAiles8:51 PM

    Eastwood's J. Edgar was kind of gay.

    ReplyDelete
  176. RogerAiles8:53 PM

    Did your stepfather take it out every once in a while?

    ReplyDelete
  177. Anonymous9:51 PM

    Thiѕ рiece of writing will assist the іnteгnet uѕers for buildіng uр new weblοg
    or еven a weblog from start to end.

    Αlso visіt my web site; Engagement Rings

    ReplyDelete
  178. AngryWarthogBreath11:03 PM

    It's seriously not even subtle. It's a step away from "An accident might happen. An accident with a gun. An intentional gun accident. ...I'ma shoot you."

    ReplyDelete
  179. bjkeefe7:17 PM

    Worth noting for the record: Wesley Middle Initial Smith "is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism ..."

    ReplyDelete
  180. slavdude3:56 PM

    Frickin' Freud!

    ReplyDelete
  181. Anonymous6:54 AM

    I every time spent my half an hour to read this website's posts everyday along with a mug of coffee.

    Take a look at my homepage :: http://phen375-canada.tumblr.com

    ReplyDelete
  182. Anonymous3:59 AM

    Excellent blog here! Additionally your web site rather a lot
    up fast! What host are you the use of? Can
    I am getting your affiliate link in your host? I
    wish my website loaded up as fast as yours lol

    Here is my homepage :: buy semenax

    ReplyDelete
  183. Anonymous1:41 AM

    I think this is among the most vital information for me.

    And i am glad reading your article. But should remark on some general things,
    The web site style is wonderful, the articles is really
    nice : D. Good job, cheers

    my homepage - breast actives

    ReplyDelete
  184. Anonymous4:52 AM

    Thank you, I've recently been searching for information about this subject for a while and yours is the greatest I've came upon till now.
    However, what about the bottom line? Are you positive concerning
    the source?

    my homepage - Http://Www.Lesdejantes-Agny.Org/Modules.Php?Name=Your_Account&Op=Userinfo&Username=CoreyBrya

    ReplyDelete