Wednesday, November 06, 2013

SAVOR THE MOMENT.

Since de Blasio's Communist putsch, I feel as if conservative commentators, whether sad or enraged, are just sending me gifts. At AIM, Cliff Kincaid is still crying about a media conspiracy -- which now apparently includes Rupert Murdoch:
If you think Barack Obama has gotten a free ride from the press, consider the case of Bill de Blasio. 
The New York Post revealed at the last minute that the Marxist frontrunner for mayor of New York City visited Communist Russia in 1983. But the paper’s bizarre cover headline, “Back in the USSR,” complete with a hammer-and-sickle, seemed to make a mockery of the discovery. 
International communism, which claimed more than 100 million lives, is not a laughing matter, nor just the subject of a 1968 song by the Beatles.
The reason the Posties "seemed to make a mockery of the discovery" is because none of them was dumb enough to believe it would make the slightest bit of difference; calling de Blasio a commie in 2013 has about as much resonance as calling him an Albigensian. They're just throwing boob bait to out-of-town wingnut true believers. While Kincaid suspects counter-counter-revolutionary tendencies, I'm sure most of them are just adding a few more guns to the dens of their McMansions and lighting an extra candle to Joe McCarthy.

UPDATE. Jonah Goldberg phones it in:
But for those of us born and raised in pre-Giuliani New York, he can also conjure images of Charles Bronson in Death Wish, the gritty vigilante flick that symbolized the city in that era...

Hollywood may have exaggerated the extent of New York’s Stygian gloom, but you can only exaggerate the truth. And anyone who lived in New York City in the 1970s and 1980s can recognize that while Death Wish may have been a caricature, like any good caricature it captured the likeness better than the subject would have wanted.
If you need to explain the quality of Goldberg's writing to anyone, remember this: Rather than describe his own actual experiences, Goldberg mentions a shitty old movie. Which he also can't be bothered to describe.

In case you weren't already assuming this, Goldberg also can't explain why New Yorkers would embrace a candidate like de Blasio. Here's his running jump:
A city with a better memory would still surely be liberal, but it would not be defrosting someone like de Blasio.
If only New York had been taking its gotu kola, it would have elected Christine Quinn.
[di Blasio] would be impossible without the successes of the Giuliani administration (and Bloomberg’s willingness to sustain them), just as Giuliani would have been impossible without the accumulated failures of his predecessors.
This is like saying that the socialists couldn't have won in Spain were it not for the years of Francoist repression that came before. Which, come to think of it, is a pretty good analogy!

129 comments:

  1. Mark_Bzzzz12:36 PM

    Dammit, it's been 12 hours and the bankers have not been loaded into tumbrels yet. This is the worst putsch ever.

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  2. Gromet12:38 PM

    Now that Kincaid mentions it, it IS weird that the Post didn't treat a candidate's vacation 30 years ago in the staid manner of dispassionate logical analysis that is typical of their reportage. It's like Sara Palin said that one time: "If the lame-stream media doesn't more thoroughly contextualize current sociopolitical events, we simply won't attain the basis for logical conjecture that any nation requires in order to devise its future wisely." I say this with the solemnity the Post SHOULD have used in reporting how diBlasio was a tourist that one time.

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  3. BadExampleMan12:49 PM

    The tumbrel shortage will be addressed in the next Five-Year Plan, comrade.

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  4. Mark_Bzzzz12:54 PM

    Spasiba, tovarisch!

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  5. Total victory is ours, Comrades!!!!!

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  6. Haystack1:12 PM

    The fact that di Blasio won a landslide victory in a free and fair election and has no plans to open gulags, collectivize agriculture, nationalize industry, create a secret internal police force or cause a shortage of toilet paper kinda does make it a laughing matter.

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  7. Jay B.1:21 PM

    International communism, which claimed more than 100 million lives, is not a laughing matter...


    Somewhere in Branson, Yakov Smirnoff reflects on a life lived in shame.

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  8. My favourite bit was the last line of that drivel:
    "Pamela Geller, a New Yorker, comments that the kind of
    journalism that we saw in the mayoral contest “is not just irresponsible; it
    endangers us all.”



    When you close with a scold from Pam Fucking Geller you
    know you’re french kissing the bottom of the bottom of the barrel.

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  9. deggjr1:33 PM

    Especially now that Rupert Murdoch marches with us! (That was some deep cover.)

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  10. trizzlor1:36 PM

    Described by CNN as the “unabashed liberal,” de Blasio is actually to the left of Barack Obama

    Unimaginable! Is it even legal to be that far left?

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  11. Mark_Bzzzz1:40 PM

    So, he's what we would have called in the early 80s a moderate, then?

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  12. lawguy1:47 PM

    So you are telling me that di Blassio is an Albigensian. Had this only been known before now.

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  13. gratuitous1:54 PM

    Cold-eyed, we survey the world. There is chaos under Heaven and the situation is excellent.
    Le chevalier frappé à minuit . . .

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  14. humanoidpanda1:57 PM

    You know who else traveled to the Soviet Union in the ealry 1980s? Charles Koch, that's who! http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/the-battle-for-cato/indexp2.php
    The rot runs deep, fellow defenders of the American way of life.

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  15. Mark_Bzzzz2:06 PM

    I worked in the 80s in NYC as a photographer, and I have a fairly good ouvre of the mean, garbage-strewn streets. And while they were somewhat garbage-strewn, they weren't all that mean. Yes, I tripped over a junkie once or twice leaving my East Village apartment, but on the whole, people were friendly and helpful, and there were lots of great things to do back then. And the art scene was AMAZING. I haven't been back recently, but from what I hear, it's a whole lot more boring and homogenized than it used to be.

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  16. Howlin Wolfe2:10 PM

    Here's his running jump:
    Can the Pantload even run or jump?

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  17. KC45s2:20 PM

    "...but you can only exaggerate the truth." Says a man who negates this statement every time he sits at a keyboard.

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  18. tigrismus2:29 PM

    That really is one of the dumbest things I've ever read. Does he really think you can't exaggerate untruth? Because not only do I have a bridge to sell him, it is the most beautiful bridge ever made, knit by fairies out of unicorn hair, and it goes straight to Cheetoh Heaven.

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  19. Mark_Bzzzz2:34 PM

    You can't fool me, you don't actually own the fairy woven unicorn hair bridge to Cheeto heaven. Sarah Palin already bought it.

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  20. calling all toasters3:10 PM

    We have to wait until the tumbrels sell out of falafel.

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  21. dstatton3:10 PM

    I look for breathless reports on Fox about every single crime committed in the city starting the day after the election.

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  22. glennisw3:20 PM

    And anyone who lived in New York City in the 1970s and 1980s can recognize that while Death Wish may have been a caricature, like any good caricature it captured the likeness better than the subject would have wanted.
    Uh, no. We thought it was hilariously overblown.

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  23. glennisw3:21 PM

    You're joking, but this is their new programming plan.

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  24. glennisw3:25 PM

    I lived in lower Manhattan from 1975 - 1979. Lucianne probably scared Jonah so bad he was afraid to go south of 14th Street.

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  25. glennisw3:27 PM

    the kind of journalism that we saw in the mayoral contest “is not just irresponsible; it endangers us all.”
    Well, I get it that Murdoch's papers were pretty bad, but....oh wait, what?

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  26. glennisw3:28 PM

    He was never vetted! Doncha know.

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  27. tigrismus3:30 PM

    You mean Mr Hilter, the National Bocialist candidate?

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  28. Bigby3:31 PM

    My family visited NYC every year from about '71-'79 (from Philly). I was wee to a teen in that time. I thought NYC was the awesomest place on earth. I don't even remember dirt and grime (because, meh, "Filthadelphia", amirite?). Even now I go back 2-3 times per year. I guess if I'd gotten attacked by CHUDs, got lost on the 6 and ended up at Fort Apache with Paul Newman, or ran into Patrick Bateman, I might feel differently (though I doubt it), but fuck that squab.



    Shorter Doughy: OMG, let's not go back to the NYC where even famous people like John Lennon could be gunned down (even though the fuckin' hippie deserved it)!

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  29. KatWillow3:33 PM

    Hollywood may have exaggerated the extent of New York’s Stygian gloom, but you can only exaggerate the truth.


    Huh? Now where ever did he get that notion from?

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  30. Mighty fine talking for an claymation dog.

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  31. Not only is he a heterosexual--he has forced his wife to become one too.

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  32. dstatton3:35 PM

    Only half joking. A very wise man once wrote, "you can only exaggerate the truth".

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  33. So, what you are saying is, the world ended already?

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  34. Still, you've got to give the guy credit for "stygian gloom"--is that the new way to say "there were black people back then?"

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  35. dstatton3:37 PM

    Did you mean National Socialist, or did you make joke I don't get?

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  36. weedcard3:39 PM

    For all their supposed hatred of Hollywood, conservatives not only get their view of the big apple from "Death Wish" movies, but also their foreign policy views from "Red Dawn" and "Rambo" and their views on the criminal justice system from "Dirty Harry" and "Cobra".

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  37. tigrismus3:41 PM

    ;-)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlmGknvr_Pg

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  38. XeckyGilchrist4:01 PM

    Central to his point! To be overblown, something must first be blowable.

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  39. XeckyGilchrist4:03 PM

    Kind of. You don't want to be anywhere nearby when he lands.

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  40. Halloween_Jack4:09 PM

    And Wall Street was a tragedy because Bud Fox grew a conscience.

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  41. Derelict4:22 PM

    I worked night shifts at WPIX-TV from 1978 through 1982, which meant walking from 42nd St. to Penn Station at 1AM or 3AM, depending on the shift. That I somehow managed to survive that without being mugged, beaten to a pulp, shot, or gay-raped must be a source of utter befuddlement to the likes of Jonah the Fail. I'm sure that, even now, Jonah pulls the blankets up a little bit higher when he thinks about NYC in the night.

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  42. Pete Mack4:35 PM

    To be fair to Goldberg, I think he means batman movies. Gotham city is certainly "stygian", with gargoyles absolutely everywhere.

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  43. JennOfArk4:36 PM

    Well, this explains why I've had the urge to hum the Internationale all day.

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  44. Tiny Hermaphrodite, Esq.4:41 PM

    Probably sing it in the original french and the russian version, eh comrade?

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  45. Tiny Hermaphrodite, Esq.4:45 PM

    Shh, if you say the first sentence three times the ghost of Breitbart will show up.

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  46. mortimer20004:45 PM

    Goldberg: just look at the movies born of Lindsay’s efforts: Taxi Driver, The French Connection, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, Panic in Needle Park, and other films depicting a rotting Big Apple

    Dubya's presidency gave us Joe Dirt, Freddie Got Fingered, and a Deuce Bigelow sequel. That's gotta be tons worse than a catastrophe in Iraq and economic collapse!

    Goldberg: [De Blasio] has promised to get rid of the “stop and frisk” policies that helped make New York City the safest large city in the world.

    Faaaart! If only all those other big cities had "stop and frisk" policies, they, too, could experience similar drops in crime!... Um, waitaminnit...

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  47. dstatton4:45 PM

    Got it.

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  48. mortimer20004:46 PM

    Pamela Geller speaking about irresponsible journalism is kind of precious, too. Just ask Anders Breivik.

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  49. mortimer20004:50 PM

    Not to mention that de Blasio was 13 when Death Wish came out. Which is about as meaningless as Goldberg bringing it up in the first place.

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  50. Donald_Dump4:51 PM

    Lucianne Goldberg killed thousands of men and boys with her toxic flatulence.

    Too generous an estimate?

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  51. mortimer20005:00 PM

    The one gratifying thing about Goldberg's post is the old-school New York/New Yorkers hatred in the comments. Talk about a trip down memory lane! Thanks, Jonah!

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  52. Tiny Hermaphrodite, Esq.5:04 PM

    New York or Jew York hatred? I won't certainly go over and read that bilge.

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  53. Tiny Hermaphrodite, Esq.5:08 PM

    He probably still knows absolutely jack shit about the city. Would be too much effort. Fart.

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  54. Tiny Hermaphrodite, Esq.5:10 PM

    And given his age we must now awfully hurry with the socialist revolution. But imagine, all these years undercover. Your sacrifice will not be in vain, Comrade Murdoch!

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  55. Rugosa5:19 PM

    My first attempt to translate that with my >40 years ago high school French was: the horse dances the minuet.

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  56. Bigby5:20 PM

    Wow, there is a LOT of butthurt over at original article! Like a pile of 8 year olds who've run away from home: "you'll be sorry!", "I'll show you!", "sniff, sniff", etc. And wtf is with these Galtian Supermen whining like 2 year olds: "protect me, daddy (Ray Kelly)!"?



    If I posted an article from the 30's about how the fascists in Spain/Italy/Germany were rounding up innocent people and doing horrible shit to them they'd go apeshit (or would they?), yet they eat this up with a fucking spoon.



    It's also funny how they delete/downvote/hide every comment that points out that crime rates were falling everywhere, not just NYC, and plenty of places were doing it without Rudy Mussolini and his Love Bunker.


    Finally, my favorite part is the "proof": "Ray Kelly's Department of Ray Kelly Redundancy Department Report says S&F works, and that's good enough for me!". In other news, Obama says the sky is blue, TeaTards say "nuh-UH".

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  57. Rugosa5:27 PM

    See how effective stop-and-frisk has been? It's reduced crime all over the country - I think they call that the halo effect.

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  58. parsec5:30 PM

    Well now, the original "Death Wish" was not entirely without artistic merit. It featured an apple-cheeked Jeff Goldblum as "Freak #1."

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  59. M. Krebs5:50 PM

    I dunno. I think you may be misunderestimating their capacity for SKREE. Or, put another way, peak wingnut is a lie.

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  60. M. Krebs5:52 PM

    Credit where credit is due. "Stygian" is an awesome word.

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  61. M. Krebs5:58 PM

    Actually, I prefer this one.

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  62. But the paper’s bizarre cover headline, “Back in the USSR,” complete with a hammer-and-sickle, seemed to make a mockery of the discovery.


    I wonder what he thinks of Louie Gohmert's "terror babies" and Sarah Palin's "death panels".

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  63. Give Jonah some credit- at least he's invoking the dour, shitty Death Wish instead of the ridiculous, gonzo Escape from New York.

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  64. whetstone6:19 PM

    Today's sentence that made me want to throw my computer through the cubicle was the Washington Post--in a news story--describing Terry McAuliffe's campaign as "strikingly liberal."


    So, yeah: basically any lower NRA grade than a B means you're a lib.

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  65. whetstone6:22 PM

    Remind me who it was that hired Ray Kelly? Because the NRO sure won't.

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  66. whetstone6:29 PM

    Hollywood may have exaggerated the extent of New York’s Stygian gloom,
    but you can only exaggerate the truth. And anyone who lived in New York
    City in the 1970s and 1980s can recognize that while Death Wish may have been a caricature, like any good caricature it captured the likeness better than the subject would have wanted.



    Yep. It reminds me of that scene in Annie Hall when Alvy Singer blows away a mugger on the subway.

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  67. whetstone6:31 PM

    He does want a small income tax raise on the very wealthy to fund universal pre-K, which is awfully European of him.

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  68. That makes me cry. What a horror show. Nothing can make that funny.

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  69. Well, he is strikingly liberal and he ran as an unabashed liberal (void where not used during an election). He's also an unabashedly corrupt and all around conniving skunk. But he did run as a full on liberal--he was not only anti gun and pro gay but he was even (gasp) willing to campaign with cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood. Even though he's the political figure most likely to be found to have invested in Kenneth Gosnell's abortion and maternal murder mills he at least posed as a liberal.

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  70. You're absolutely right about the fascist angle. 'Cause you know what works even better than stop and frisk at curtailing crime? Random public beatings for trivial offenses, false imprisonment, secret police, and rape and torture rooms. In other words, a right-winger's wet dream. Why stop at stop and frisk in creating a culture of fear?

    I look forward to these sensible security measures being implemented in the cities of Bumfuckistan or wherever these goobers are from.

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  71. To be fair to the littlest Jonah, there probably weren't any public restrooms.

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  72. And now that will be totes legal in Virginia! yay!

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  73. Wait, now we envy those other big socialist cities like London and Paris?

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  74. 'Cause you know what works even better than stop and frisk at curtailing crime? Random public beatings for trivial offenses, false imprisonment, secret police, and rape and torture rooms. In other words, a right-winger's wet dream. Why stop at stop and frisk in creating a culture of fear?


    The right-wingers already did this, it just hasn't come home in a big way yet (though isolated reports of anal probing and strip searches come in from the hinterland every now and then).

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  75. XeckyGilchrist6:51 PM

    To be fair, it's hard to make a mockery of something that started out as a mockery.

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  76. He ripped it off from a Robert E. Howard story, or an Edgar Rice Burroughs yarn... more likely a comic book adaptation. "Cimmerian darkness" would have been a suitable substitute.

    Of course, the trope is, as TV Tropes would put it, older than dirt, which is funny, because it's being used by a guy who wrote "The Tyranny of Cliches".

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  77. During the 80's, when I was in high school, one of my uncles and I would stop every Saturday afternoon at Morrone and Sons bakery on 116th St, the heart of Spanish Harlem, and get a fine pane di casa and the best cracked-pepper freselle I've ever had in my life. Nobody jumped us, or challenged us to a dance off, a la Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.

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  78. Once you go DeBlasio,
    Never ever back you'll go.

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  79. redoubt7:09 PM

    Operation Rolling Thunder II: Napalm Sriracha Boogaloo

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  80. You know who else was awfully European...

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  81. redoubt7:20 PM

    Goldberg: Hollywood may have exaggerated the extent of New York’s Stygian gloom, but you can only exaggerate the truth.


    Duly noted.

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  82. BigHank537:22 PM

    What, you haven't heard how safe Tulia, Texas, is now?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulia,_Texas

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  83. AGoodQuestion7:40 PM

    Whatever you're French kissing at that point, you'd better like Hep C.

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  84. AGoodQuestion7:44 PM

    Maurice Chevalier?

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  85. Mr. Wonderful7:45 PM

    My band broke up in '73, I worked at Strand, listened to WBAI, and had a small 3-room railroad on 73rd and York for $150. I'd invite Jonah to go fuck himself, but only if he promised not to enjoy it.

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  86. coozledad7:51 PM

    Hollywood may have exaggerated the extent of New York’s Stygian gloom, but you can only exaggerate the truth.

    This. I remember asking one of the docents at the Met if the cafe served martinis, and she collapsed my jaw with a sock full of quarters.

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  87. William Pitt the Elder?

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  88. The rot runs deep, fellow defenders of the American way of life.


    When it comes to the Kochs, yes, yes, it does.

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  89. I hadn't heard of it and now I'm even a little more stabby than usual. Jesus Christ, what is wrong with people?!?

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  90. I think sociologists call it the "broken finger" effect.

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  91. XeckyGilchrist8:19 PM

    I'd say you were right if wingnut memories were anything like normal people's. They can forget what their current hero said two setences ago so don't notice the contradictions. And yet, they can be pissed about Chappaquiddick for eternity.

    Ends of the world must be in the quick-forget column.

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  92. "I thought you were dead."


    That, CHUD and The Warriors…those were my NYC. Instead of the circus, I dreamt of running off to that New York as a kid.

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  93. realinterrobang8:35 PM

    For a moment, I thought that headline had something to do with Toronto, which would be kind of off-topic here, although when is right-winger buffoonery every really off-topic here?

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  94. FlipYrWhig8:39 PM

    I think Laurence Fishburne is in one of the Death Wish gangs too.

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  95. parsec8:56 PM

    According to the imdb an uncredited Denzel was in the movie with Goldblum. Fishburne appeared in DWII.

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  96. I was reading Conan before Conan was cool, with the Frazetta covers and before, by Crom. Darkness was always stygian, sward was always crimson. I was just talking about how Howard always said that the great thing about Conan was you didn't have to think of anything clever for him to do--he'd just hack his way out of every problem.

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  97. BigHank539:16 PM

    No, let him show up. I'd like to find out if it's possible to be fat and drunk in the afterlife....uh, for a friend.

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  98. BigHank539:20 PM

    Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette, without whom we'd probably still be coughing up reparations to the English monarchy?

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  99. whetstone9:22 PM

    I guess it's a matter of degree/context: I like "unabashed" better than "strikingly." He's about what I'd expect from a Clintonian, if said expected candidate didn't tuck his tail between his legs (which he deserves credit for). Maybe I just wish that wasn't striking. (Ken Cuccinelli also deserves plenty of credit for being the creepiest serious candidate in my memory. Now he can go subpoena climate scientists full-time.)



    Plus it seems like he wants to support public higher ed and community colleges; my mother teaches at one of the latter in VA, so I'm hopeful on that count.


    He is a conniving skunk, but he wouldn't be the first conniving skunk to accomplish some worthy policy goals, so I'm not pessimistic.

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  100. you didn't have to think of anything clever for him to do--he'd just hack his way


    Sounds like Jonahn of Cinnabonia, all right.


    (Also, +1 for "by Crom.")

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  101. And now Laurence Fishburne lives in New Rochelle. Coincidence?

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  102. Nobody jumped us, or challenged us to a dance off, a la Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.


    The former is a relief; the latter, a disappointment.

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  103. badJim11:10 PM

    The film score, by Herbie Hancock, was pretty tasty

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  104. XeckyGilchrist11:10 PM

    Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through the afterlife, son.

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  105. BigHank5312:34 AM

    Holy crap. You're planning on spending eternity sober?!

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  106. smut clyde12:37 AM

    NOT FUNNY.

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  107. PersonaAuGratin12:52 AM

    "Dow Down 12"


    How quaint.

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  108. sigyn2:18 AM

    Not funny, no. But she deserves to have her name linked with her like-minded friend every time she's mentioned.

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  109. Mutaman2:18 AM

    I remember New York back in the 70's . That's when we used to have something called the middle class.

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  110. GabrielRatchet4:09 AM

    "At least as we know it."
    "You're darn tootin'!"

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  111. MikeJ6:04 AM

    And that's exactly the sort of scum Republicans want to keep out.

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  112. Stop and frisk: beloved of those who will never experience it.

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  113. Helmut Monotreme8:42 AM

    Except for the lack of break dance dance-offs that does sound like a good time.

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  114. Helmut Monotreme8:55 AM

    Ahh the heady days of the go-go '70s and '80s; when even the docents at the Met could afford a sock full of quarters. It's been years since I've been struck with even a sock full nickels, now, mostly its socks full of gravel.

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  115. mortimer20009:48 AM

    Wasn't trying to be funny. I find Geller to be one of the most loathsome specimens on the Internet. After the massacre she posted this comment: Watching CNN and BBC coverage about Norway, I found very disturbing to hear the number of times they use the word “Christian.”

    One would expect Pamela Geller to be a bit more disturbed to hear the number of times the madman who slaughtered a hundred innocent people used the words “Pamela Geller” in his lunatic manifesto. One would be mistaken, of course.

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  116. Halloween_Jack9:50 AM

    12 what?

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  117. Halloween_Jack9:53 AM

    Or that scene in Manhattan where they're at Elaine's and Isaac tells Mary, "Leave the gun, take the cannoli."

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  118. Halloween_Jack9:54 AM

    Hey, I was living in Chicago at the time The Warriors came out, and wondered if the gang problem were exaggerated, because we didn't have guys running around in baseball uniforms and clown makeup.

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  119. gfburke10:58 AM

    They're DELIGHTED to be able to hate us again after 9/11 had to make them pretend they loved New York for a solid decade plus.

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  120. whetstone11:18 AM

    Tulia is a great book. Well worth reading.

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  121. whetstone11:20 AM

    "I have Marshall McLuhan right here."


    [McLuhan appears behind the theater patron with a piano wire garrote]

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  122. BigHank5311:42 AM

    Oh, try living in a red state. When the museums are even open the staff can't afford socks. Mostly they just threaten to sic a mime on you, which is why it's a good idea to bring a big dog with you.

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  123. Glock H. Palin, Esq.1:16 PM

    They used Quatloos back then, right?

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  124. witlesschum1:58 PM

    Not every time. Jonah can't even do that well at failure.

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  125. redoubt2:29 PM

    we didn't have guys running around in baseball uniforms and clown makeup.

    Au contraire.

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  126. smut clyde2:45 PM

    It only *feels* like eternity.

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