WHERE I'M CALLING FROM. I declined to mention where the Company was sending me for a few reasons. First, I try not to make this thing too personal, aside from the medical reports, which I believe journalists would agree constitute "health & wellness reporting." Second, it's embarrassing: I'm taking pictures of sales representatives at a resort in Cancun. No, I'm not a photographer, but they were short a man and the field operations manager learned that I have opposable thumbs.

I have never been to a resort of any kind, and longtime readers will not be surprised to learn that the suburban-sybaritic experience has filled my head with an endless film loop of Death in Venice as interpreted by Aaron Spelling. Also The Gentleman from San Francisco: "...nor did any one who know what lay deep, deep, beneath them, on the very bottom of the hold, in the neighborhood of the gloomy and sultry maw of the ship, that heavily struggled with the ocean, the darkness, and the storm..."

If my mouth weren't full of overcooked food I would scream. As it is, I wait helplessly for the Mexicans to rise up and murder us all. I know they have machetes. I'm seen them used to trim bushes.

They seem cheerful, and less acute minds than mine might imagine they prefer wearing clean linens and fetching margaritas to subsistence farming or starving in dusty hidalgos. But like all bright minds, I have been dreaming of apocalypse for the past several decades, and my luck's got to change sometime.

Excuse me now, I have to get on a tour bus and read name tags.

ANOTHER DAMN INTERRUPTION. The tedious demands of work (cannot these philistine employers realize I better serve the commonwealth as a synapse in the giant processing brain of the blogosphere?) cause me to travel for a few days. I'll try to get to the "business center" to post when I can. Meantime patronize the lovely people who populate my blogroll. Or read idiots yourself, and have your own special processing fun in comments!

UPDATE. Christ, comments are smarter than me! I would give up, but the doctor says I gots a obsession com-pul-si-ble synthdrum, real bad.

THIS SORT OF EXPLAINS EVERYTHING. In their lengthy, imbecilic "debate" about the importance of fathers (coming up next: was "The Flintstones" a total rip-off of "The Honeymooners"?), John Derbyshire says:

To take your last point first: Are you suggesting that if I hold a certain opinion about politics and society, and if I then read a sheaf of research studies that seem to me to be sound, but that contradict my opinion, then I should hold on to my opinion and ignore the science? Sorry, no sale.

Jonah Goldberg replies:

Yes, to a certain extent I am asking you to have your politics shape your opinions and frankly, I am at a loss to see how you should think otherwise, let alone why you should be so boastful about it.

As always, Goldberg's weak verbal skills leave his gist less than clear, so it's hard to tell whether he has totally missed Derbyshire's clear reference to fact-based information, or has acknowledged but refused to address it.

But his dudgeon speaks volumes. The idea that politics is the measure of everything on God's green earth is the central fallacy of National Review conservatism. As we never tire of pointing out here at alicublog, in their universe, movies, music, TV shows, football teams, and even sex are judged by their conservative correctness. So of course Goldberg is outraged. How could one of the comrades allow himself to deviate on so crucial an issue as the Meaning of Fatherhood? That's almost as ungood as failing to enjoy The Passion of the Christ.

Remember Godard's famous question, "How can I hate John Wayne for upholding Goldwater and yet love him tenderly when abruptly he takes Natalie Wood into his arms in the last reel of The Searchers?" That such an idea would never, ever occur to any of this lot -- indeed, it might cause their synapses to fuse like overheated electronic circuits -- really explains, more than their various political idiocies, why they are wrong.

UPDATE. Jay Brida in comments thinks we might be onto something: "Dare I say it might be the string theory of wingnuttia? It explains their culture, their beliefs and their oddly discordant strategy of appealing to fat libertarians and dominionists at the same time." Actually, I always thought that what brought these factions together was the all-you-can-eat shrimp bar. But that was an ignorant superstition. Science will bring us to the truth!

UPDATE. My wider point to one side, the Goldberg/Derbyshire mental-pygmy wrestling match has devolved to the hilarious. Derb here argues that sometimes abused children have it coming:

Rich would say (I mean, on the basis of his column, I suppose he would say) that THEREFORE parental abuse causes adult aggressiveness.

But that needs proving, and the mere correlation doesn't prove it. Two alternative explanations come to mind at once. (1) We have an aggressive adult from an aggressive parent (he beat the kid, didn't he?) Maybe aggression runs in this family. It doesn't even have to be genetic. It could be dietary, or religious. (2) The kid was obnoxious and difficult from the start. (Some are. Believe me.) The parent, who was perfectly average in aggressiveness, was driven to distraction (read: abnormally aggressive reactions) by the kid's intransigent naughtiness. So we're not looking at a parent-to-child effect at all; we're actually looking at a child-to-parent effect! Yet I am pretty sure I have never read a headline saying "Difficult Kids Provoke Parents to Abuse, Study Shows." Why not? Because our popular culture, and even big swathes of our academic culture, are Freud-soaked...

I imagine Joel Steinberg reading The Corner, and exclaiming, "That's what I've been trying to tell you people! The little cunt was staring at me!"

Meanwhile Goldberg just keeps bringin' the breathtaking:

I will simply say up front: I do not believe the science Derb is referring to or purporting to refer to. Perhaps I'll end up with apple cider in my ear, but if it means what Derb suggests it to mean then I just don't believe it.

If brains were dynamite, these guys couldn't blow a fart.

A WASTE OF TIME. Redstate emits one of those "Republicans must reclaim environmentalism" discussions.

In the wake of Al Gore's movie/political call to arms, I think that it is crucial for the Right to adopt the issue of environmentalism for its own. Politically speaking, stealing a popular, headline-generating issue from the other side is generally a very good idea. Policywise, it is an important step on the way towards imprinting one's own stamp on the substance of a particular issue...

...It seems to me, therefore, that a much bigger megaphone ought to be given to the free market environmentalist movement by Republicans, both as a means of shaping and preserving a victorious governing coalition, and as a means of having an important and prominent seat at the policymaking table...

As you may imagine, hilarity ensues in comments. Here is a nice prècis:

Environmentalism IS a conservative issue
By: Ed54
I never understood why we cede care of the environment to the Left. What could be more conservative than preserving and wisely using our public lands? What could be more evangelical than being good stewards of the world God made for us? What NRA member doesn't love to hunt in pristine woods or fields? What student of national security doesn't recognize that our gas money finances islamic extremism?
The Dems simply have built more credibility on environmental issues over the last 30 years, so they are taken more seriously when they argue the case for global warming. If we were to start seriously fighting to preserve the world we have, instead of mocking environmentalists as loony green lefties, our counter-arguments on Global Warming and Kyoto would gain more traction...

(sniff) (sniff) Anyone else smell Troll?
By: DAHmich
There seems to be an infestation tonight!

Also, much talk about how great it will be when global warming destroys New York and San Francisco, etc.

The biggest laugh, for followers of this particular scam, is the reversion to "free-market environmentalism." "Environmentalism is practiced by hunters, fishers, and the military," says a typical advocate. "Environmentalism was taught to me by the army. Environmentalism is not about hemp-wearing hippies chaining themselves to trees."

Hippies would seem here to stand for government intervention, which is so disgusting to Redstaters that they can barely bring themselves to even mention it, let alone endorse it. And this allows them to ignore the plain fact that the important environmental improvements of the past half-century -- and badly needed they were, too -- came from government intervention.

These fellows like to think themselves tough-minded, yet they cling to the childish fiction that corporations with no financial incentive to do so will, once freed of the government yoke, magically turn into "stewards of the environment," and that the free market will heal the earth, sky, and water. ("If enough people were bothered enough by the air quality in these cities," writes one such, "the problem would take care of itself as people moved away" -- another subscriber to the Perfesser's notion of America as one giant urbless Suburb.)

In fairness I should note that Redstate is all about getting Republicans elected, and that there is no real reason for them to concern themselves with environmentalism, as all that is needed to return their champions to power is a big pre-election ballyhoo about fags getting married and Democrats being traitors. But I guess that leaves them a lot of time to kill, and a large online diary for those who have a bad conscience (or a conscience at all) to fill.

FEEL THE LOVE. The Perfesser mentions "OUTMIGRATION FROM NEW YORK," and my ears perked: At last! How soon can we return to those days of high crime, low rents, basement performance art and open containers I miss so much?

Then I read the actual Times article and realized it was about OUTMIGRATION from upstate New York, not the City. What a disappointment.

Many commenters on the same story at Vodkapundit are less careful readers and, after some very interesting reflections from past and present upstaters, they get down to the business of slagging the City. One, after admitting that "New Yorkers are smart, tough, hard working, and a lot of fun" (he neglects to mention our hip, black clothing, and our habit of lapsing into an Italian accent in times of stress), tells us that down South "Unemployment for educated professionals with a good work ethic is essentially zero" ("good work ethic" presumably means "white face and no desire for health care") and invites us to "Move to Texas. Have a baby. Shop at Costco. Vote for Bush." This sort of invitation to reform never ceases to charm us. In return, I invite the commenter to move to New York and start using hard drugs.

The commenters also notice that we live in small apartments. One compares New York City unfavorably to Miami. Weather seems to be a big factor. "I'm sorry," says one, "but the weather in NYC isn't that good.... better than upstate, but that is like saying a broken toe is better than a broken tooth.... I don't want either." Those of us who came here for the balmy breezes off the Gowanus must be feeling pretty silly.

Personally I'm glad they're back to hating us again. Even Jim Lileks, who enjoys taking pictures of our old buildings, now thinks of New York as a place ripe for riot and rebellion -- ah, would that it were so!And I expect the recent report of a pre-empted poison gas attack on our subways will not excite their former protestations of love and support.

Of course, the 40 percent cut in our Homeland Security funding was a pretty big hint, too.

FIRST RULE IS/THE LAWS OF GERMANY. My reaction to "Hadji Girl" is: fine, go ahead. I'm a free speech absolutist, and I recognize the Sweater Kittenz tune as a worthy companion to "Nigger Loves His Possum," "Pray I Don't Kill You, Faggot," and the oeuvre of The Mentors, Rapeman, and The Goldwaters. (Not to mention the old shanty "New York Girls," which it thematically most closely resembles.)

In return, I don't want to hear any more shit from these people about Michael Moore, the Dixie Chicks, Checkpoint, "All Things Considered," or anything else relating to their long-standing, phony Culture War. Fair's fair.

I don't expect them to take the deal, or even acknowledge that there is a deal. Culture warring requires a constant state of amnesia. In their way of looking at things, newspaper reporting is stark troop-killing treason, but a Marine prosecuted by Marines for his cheerful song about killing Arabs is proof that some imaginary entity called The Left is out to censor them.

What a failure of imagination that shows. In their younger days, no doubt, they emulated schoolyard bullies, and sucked up to the strong as they pummelled the weak; their adult politics certainly reflect this. But let them put a foot outside their customary arenas of power, into places where words are taken more seriously than fists, and they fumble for recourse into the dimmest recesses of their rucksacks for a tattered copy of the First Amendment, which they blunderingly misinterpret in their own defense; and, once the challenge is forgotten, they stuff the scrap forcefully back, and deride all further mention of it, until they again feel the chill breath of disapproval upon their necks.

The White House, two houses of Congress, most Governorships and a healthy chunk of the zeitgeist in their control, and still they bitch and moan that they are misunderstood. What a bunch of pussies.

SHORTER PEGGY NOONAN: The Democratic Party's excellent chances in Virginia prove that the Democrats are finished.

(Extra contempt added for her closing gush over neo-Duce Rudolph Giuliani.)

WHEN TOMORROW IS TODAY, THE BELL MAY TOLL FOR SOME. In the most recent of their many puzzling habits, NRO's Cornerites have started cheerfully citing people who mention John Miller's "Top 50 Conservative Songs" as evidence of the article's influence, even when those sources consider Miller to be utterly full of shit. Just so long as they spell the name right, one supposes.

The latest such link points us to the Financial Times, and for this I am grateful, as FT makes a few interesting points:

But it’s not such an anomaly to speak of rock and conservatism in the same breath, for as a musical form it is deeply conservative. Male-dominated, resistant to change, endlessly reproducing a narrow range of guitar chords, it lost whatever radical creative edge it had ages ago. One of the greatest rock bands, The Ramones, led by the ardent Republican supporter Johnny Ramone, understood its narrow parameters perfectly. Do the same thing again and again. Wear the same clothes. Rock may advertise itself as rebellion but in fact it values tradition and convention as much as any conservative.

That is why it has become a battleground for politicians. Witness a recent Westminster tussle: no sooner did Gordon Brown reveal in a magazine interview that The Arctic Monkeys “really wake you up in the morning” than David Cameron popped up on the radio programme Desert Island Discs to wax lyrical about The Smiths, Radiohead and REM.

Just so we know that he likes rock but not other, more delinquent forms of pop, Cameron later launched a savvy broadside against gangsta rap as glorifying violent crime. This is the to-and-fro of politics in the iPod age, with rock as the favoured musical shuttlecock. Pete Townshend had better get used to it.

I have only one real problem with this. The bit about "creative edge," obviously meant as a slur, is to me an irrelevance: "edge" is only what fans and critics ascribe to artistry, not a central fact of it. Your basic rock clod might think his favorite young idiot doing a recycled 70's riff and/or pose is edgy, because it amplifies his prior, TV-nurtured ideas of same, whereas said clod would think the genuinely adventuresome Charles Ives not edgy, because he's, like, old and in black and white.

The author is correct that rock as a form is conservative (though not nearly so much so as, say, the sonnet). We must stipulate that we use the term "conservative" here as sane people do (e.g., "At a conservative estimate I'd say you owe me ten bucks"), not in the indiscriminate and incoherent manner of culture warriors. And that sublime changes can be wrought within the most restrictive forms.

But the bit about British politicos throwing around rock names the way monkeys fling feces is best of all. I'm sure all these guys are basically spiritual heirs to the minister spoon-feeding Alex at the end of A Clockwork Orange. If rock signifiers are what the punters want, then signifiers they shall have! The strangeness, to our American ears, of hearing The Smiths used in such a way helps us to see more easily that the hipster imprimatur can be applied by anyone to anything regardless of relevance or consequence. Thus these pudgy, pasty pols apply bands like henna tattoos to their personas, in hopes of seeming more natural when strolling through the rougher electoral precincts.

That's the human comedy, folks, all the way down down to Cameron's impersonation of Mrs. Scum. Of course over time, or if overindulged, this sort of thing has a deleterious effect on the brain, which is why those of us who have grown out of it civic-mindedly try to encourage young folk to do likewise. Regrettably, an increasing number of adults refuse to abandon this childish affectation (indeed, they seem to be indulged in it by think-tanks, editors, and vanity presses). If the proportion of such retards exponentiates much further, we will find ourselves trapped in a large-scale environmental production of Wild in the Streets, only with more torture and worse music.

You may do your part by refusing to become a rhinoceros (or, if your perspective is less literary, a dumbass).

IN WHICH GEORGE CLOONEY FRAMES UP KEN LAY. James Pinkerton tries another liberal-Hollywood essay. It is not so offensive as some such. It is silly, for sure, basically twanging the old saw about social commentary closing on Saturday night, and blistered with bizarre cracks (on Tom Cruise: "And conservatives, for their part, needn't complain: Aren't gays supposed to stay in the closet?").

But Pinkerton acknowledges, first, that Hollywood is observably not turning Americans into Bolsheviks, and second, that Hollywood filmmakers try to make money. For these guys, that's an impressive acknowledgement of objective reality.

Naturally conservative critics think Pinkerton has failed to grasp the seriousness of the cultural situation. Larry Ribstein complains:

Of course Hollywood artists like business – after all, they’re in business.  But they like their own particular type of business. What they don’t like is capitalists – the folks who lord it over the artists, and force them to constrain their vision. 

And so what we get in Hollywood films is an unrelentingly dismal view of money, stock markets, and impersonal market forces...

I should think Americans might find impersonal market forces pretty dismal without any help. But no: because filmmakers "have been trained their whole professional lives to manipulate emotions," they can march sozzle-headed citizens into the jury box to "send capitalists to jail" and "levy huge punitive damages against big capitalist firms." And all because some tycoons tried to constrain their visions!

You will be relieved to hear that, despite these depradations, Ribstein is against "regulation of film content," preferring "more business education, and more awareness of filmmakers' perverse take on business." You can get a bellyful of such education at Ribstein's other blog, where he lists anti- and pro-business films: "Although Citizen Kane and the Godfather movies might be seen as the rare films that show what it takes to build a business," he sighs, "they don’t paint a pretty picture." Among his pro-capitalism picks: Do The Right Thing ("Sal’s Pizzeria feeds everybody and is an important binding force for the neighborhood").

Ribstein at least is clear on his own terms. I'm still puzzling over Professor Bainbridge's conclusion:

The problem with Pinkerton's argument is that he conflates how Hollywood portrays class and how it portrays business. Even if we enter an era of cheap high-quality film making through digital technology, the desire to strike it big evident even among the most left-leaning Hollywood types likely will continue to constrain the way films portray class issues. The same may not hold true for how Hollywood portrays capitalism and business. Filmmakers freed by technology from the need for vast amounts of startup capital may well end up making even more anti-business films than they do now.

Is he saying that, the easier it becomes to make a movie, the more poisonous anti-business films we will have? That doesn't speak well of the free market.

None of these commentators seem aware that films are anything more than propaganda for one gang of nerds or another, but what else is new?

"JESUS CHRIST!" QUIPPED THE LIEUTENANT. "WHAT IS THIS, RUSSIA?" CNN:

Three prisoners at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have hanged themselves in what is being called a "planned event," the U.S. military has said.

They are the first confirmed deaths at the compound. Prisoners have attempted suicide in the past.

"Two Saudis and one Yemeni, each located in Camp 1, were found unresponsive and not breathing in their cells by guards," said a statement issued by Joint Task Force-Guantanamo on Saturday...

The suicides should surprise no one because the detainees believe they will be held indefinitely with no chance for justice, said Josh Colangelo-Bryan with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents about 200 of the detainees.

"They've been told that while at Guantanamo they have no rights as human beings," he told reporters during a conference call Saturday.

Colangelo-Bryan said one of his clients told him during a visit to the facility in October 2005 that he "would simply rather die than live here with no rights."

Wait for it... wait for it...

"They are smart. They are creative. They are committed. They have no regard for human life, neither ours nor their own," [Commander of Joint Task Force-Guantanamo, Rear Admiral Harry] Harris said. "I believe this was not an act of desperation, but rather an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us"...

Asymmetrical warfare is when one side uses unorthodox or surprise tactics to attack the weak points of its stronger opponent.

Fox News announced it would refer henceforth to such suicides as "homicide suicides," to let viewers know that they were actually attacks on American self-esteem.

UPDATE. If the self-slaughterers "plannned and coordinated" their own deaths, asks Ann Althouse, "doesn't this support the government's theory that these were warriors maneuvering and not individuals despairing?"

Interesting choice of words, Counsellor! One imagines Althouse grilling the corpses about their so-called despair, and explaining to the judge that the defendants' pre-posthumous state of mind "goes to motive."

Thought balloon over a corpse's head: Well, at least now I'm getting a trial.

THEY'LL KNOW WE ARE CHRISTIANS BY OUR LOVE. Michael Berg, father of Nick Berg (whose head Zarqawi cut off), does an Imitation of Christ:

Well, my reaction is I'm sorry whenever any human being dies. Zarqawi is a human being. He has a family who are reacting just as my family reacted when Nick was killed, and I feel bad for that.

In response, the Ace of Spades does an imitation of Sgt. Slaughter:

The moral vanity of these people is disgusting. Attempting to remake themselves into Holy Angels, they instead make themselves into monsters. Does this asshole really think it's an enlightened human response to feel as bad for the death of your son's butcher as for your son's?

He thinks that attitude makes him better than other people?

I think it makes him less than human, personally.

When he dies (which he will, of course, as we all will; no death threat intended), I hope his son slaps this stupid fuck right in the face.

I don't believe in that "love your enemy as yourself" bullshit, either, but I don't get all bent out of shape when other people go for it. For one thing, unlike the shellfish provisions in the Old Testament, it has zero chance of ever catching on.

UPDATE. Comments at the Ace Theological Seminary enhance the hilarity. The money shot:

Christians are explicitly commanded to defend those who cannot defend themselves, and Christ stated quite flatly, numerous times, that on His return He would lead the armies of Heaven and slay the wicked. Berg's disgusting attitude is fundamentally un-Christian. "Not directly comparable?" It's not even in the same ballpark. Not even close.

Pick up a Bible someday, Michael. It's not the pacifist hippie screed you seem to think it is.

Boy howdy, is he right! Who can forget:

They shall beat their swords into plowshares, then hitch them plowshares to 100,000 oxen and rampage through the enemy like crap through a goose!

And:

Suffer the little children come unto me. I'll teach the little punks to kill with the edge of a rolled-up newspaper!

And:

If someone strikes you on the right cheek, smash the fucker good in the other cheek! Then, the heart punch! Do the eye gouge! Do the hammerlock! Do the hammerlock, you turkeynecks!

Though perhaps the commenter and I are mixing up our sacred texts.

TRAVEL UPDATE. I got through the tests, we'll see about results. I also did a little day-tripping while in DC. The Mall is presently overrun by school trip teens and their minders: fleets of tour buses, harried adults holding up colored signs or folders, mobs of gangly yout's in copy-heavy t-shirts and shorts. The National Museum of Natural History, which I visited, seems made for them: the exhibits and signage are simple and bold, designed for durability and easy cleaning. I took in shows about the Sikhs ("Willy Wonka!" cried one yout), early life on Earth, and Lewis & Clark, in which the signage contained many prompts for an audio tour no one seemed to be taking. I'd never thought much about Lewis & Clark before, but it's a hell of a story, right down to Lewis' pathetic and mysterious suicide. It's almost enough to make me read Thomas Pynchon, were life not so brief.

On recommendations from readers, I also took in the Phillips Collection. It was terrific, and there was hardly anyone there. After a few Target Free Nights at MOMA I had forgotten what a pleasure that can be. I sat and looked at Luncheon of the Boating Party for twenty minutes and two people got in my way, briefly. Even the newer paintings -- including a great, untitled Jake Berthot that looks like a bridge in a mist of smudges, and Howard Hodgkin's ebullient Torso, spilling over onto its frame -- pleased grumpy old me. I was compelled to attend artists who had never interested me before, like Dufy and Braque. The artists I already liked, I had all the time in the world for. Even at full fare this felt like an enormous gift.

Also on recommendation, I dined at Dukem in Adams Morgan. The Doro Wot was fine; still, I'd complain about the price (come on, it's stew poured over weird, grey bread, and six bucks is a lot for a bottle of St. George) were it not for the music. It was my first experience of eskista, so I couldn't tell you if it was good eskista or bad eskista, but I loved the sound: guy beating on a drum with sticks, guy sawing on something that looked like a zither, guy plucking at another zither-thing with a cigar-box soundboard attached, and a girl sitting calmly up front and singing in a high, plangent voice. The rhythm was a little unusual to my culturally insensitive ears (I could count the fours, couldn't quite make out the pulse), but the dance team that came out at the end got into it pretty good.

In other world news, I had the TV on while packing for home and watched the reports on Zarqawi. Much talk about a "turning point" in the War, repeated footage of the Iraqi press corps cheering. And, on the other idiot box, the Perfesser accused the press of "spinning war news to make things look worse than they are, and to hurt Bush." I haven't plowed through the blogs to see if anyone was really sad that the guy who sawed the head off Nick Berg (among many others) got what was coming to him, but it's a big wide wonderful world of opinion, so who knows. Maybe after I clicked off, George Stephanopoulos called for a moment of silence.

Well, I got politics in, now I can take a nap.

ANOTHER DAMN SERVICE INTERRUPTION. You really should go with a more reliable vendor. I am in D.C. for three more days of Von Hippel-Lindau-related testing. This time it's an MIBG scan: they shoot me up with radioactive material and watch it glow in my body over two days. Seriously, that's what they do. (Go ahead and make fun of me for it, though -- I promise not to reveal your identities!)

I am typing this at a Kinko's on K Street. (Two guys tried to bribe me as I walked over here.)

I'm staying at the Washington Plaza, a 60s monolith on Thomas Circle. The management is apparently trying to exploit its retro chic rather than its gigantism and isolation in a weird fish-nor-fowl neighborhood. Locals, please tell me if there's anything to do around here beside visit drug stores and fend off bums.

I imagine I'll get in some culture and bore you all with it at some point, but posting should be light till Thursday night.

CYBERSMART : SMART :: ROAD APPLES : APPLES. Semi-popularizer of the South Park Conservative fad, Brian C. Anderson, says video games are good for your brain. Since he's writing at OpinionJournal, he drops the kind of comments that gets right-wingers excited: Dr. Spock is (posthumously) against gaming -- gaming good! Hillary Clinton is against violent gaming -- gaming good, cut off bitch's head! And the Ol' Perfesser likes it, etc.

But even beyond the customary, specious political identification, there is plenty of just plain stupidity in here:

Video games can also exercise the brain in remarkable ways. I recently spent (too) many late-night hours working my way through X-Men: Legends II: The Rise of Apocalypse, a game I ostensibly bought for my kids. Figuring out how to deploy a particular grouping of heroes (each of whom has special powers and weaknesses); using trial and error and hunches to learn the game's rules and solve its puzzles; weighing short-term and long-term goals--the experience was mentally exhausting and, when my team finally beat the Apocalypse, exhilarating.

Anderson seems to have cribbed this notion from Malcolm "Blink" Gladwell, and my response to the knockoff is the same (though less respectful of course) that I had to the original:

It has been my experience as a remedial English tutor that even the brightest students are undertrained in, and often unaware of, the simplest analytic tools -- including grammar, sentence structure, and outlining. These are not nearly so easy to absorb as the [computer gaming] skills Gladwell values, but the fact that he can make himself clear in essay form shows that he has himself mastered them, which makes it rather disturbing to me that he seems not to care much that we make so little effort to wrench our kids away from their entertainment modules long enough to learn how to diagram a sentence or tie three supporting details to a main idea.

...If we don't teach our young citizens to think rather than merely process information, all the video-savvy in the world isn't going to save their sorry asses...

Yeah, so I'm quoting myself. Busy day. Besides, I fought the Battle of Tompkins Square Park for the likes of you! Get off my lawn!

TRY ONE OF THESE JAMAICAN CIGARS, AMBASSADOR. THEY'RE PRETTY GOOD. A "writer living in Washington D.C." explains why drinking California chardonnay is conservative: contrary to "its alleged association with affluent political liberals," California chardonnay is populist (because "influential wine critic Robert Parker" disapproves), and "sexy, muscular and swaggering," and therefore much better than "watery French swill."

Me, I drink Mumblin' Jack Malt Liquor cause it gits ya cozy.

Lest you think the article was written and submitted for publication on a bet, you can also read this authoress (Melinda Ledden Sidak) on the moral relativism of mothers who work and Bob Dole Viagra commercials, and how people who have unmarital sex should lose their jobs, if you are as big a glutton for punishment as me, which I hope none of you is.

FUCK THAT NOISE. HOW 'BOUT THEM METS? I attended the second game of yesterday's twi-night Mets-Giants doubleheader. The evening was cold and damp and as the matinee had suffered a long rain delay, by the second game the crowd was pruned down to about 5,000 die-hards. But the Mets are doing well -- even two months into the season! -- so the faithful were in good spirits.

At least they were in good spirits when they got away from the ticket window. Management decided the make-up game for Friday's rainout should be part of this already-ticketed event; those of us with Friday tickets had to trade-in for whatever slop was left. ("They oughta just open up the gates and let everybody sit wherever they want!" yelled one mook.)

So we started among the upper deck diaspora, watching the white blobs dashing around and the sheets of rain whirling laterally through the floodlight. Folks were scattered across the red seats. A few couples huddled under soaked Mets beach blankets. (There was no liquid warmth available as Shea had turned off the beer taps between games. What is this league coming to?)

Later, as standards relaxed, we went down to the mezzanine, where the population was more consensed, dry, and convivial. Barry Bonds wasn't in the lineup, but the natural wise-assedness of our tribe prompted many rounds of "Barrrr-rrry" (in the sing-song manner of the old "Darrrr-rrryl" chant, and the "Larrrr-rrry" that traditionally greets "Chipper" Jones at Shea). As we went to extra innings the "Let's Go Mets" chant turned to "Let's Go Home."

We responded to events, too. When Lance Niekro came to the plate, some oldtimer yelled, "Throw him a knuckleball!" When Jose Reyes stole second (always a pleasing sight), we serendaded him with the Jose Song (which some Nats fans claim they had first). And when the Home Run King Presumptive stepped up to pinch-hit, the uncrowd went nuts, and went nutser when Barrrr-rrry grounded out. (I didn't hear much steroid stuff. This is just the sort of treatment we give celebrity opponents. Bonds' return under abuse to his dugout was slow and upright, but he's had a lot of practice. I imagine it is less easy for Kaz Matsui, who for poor overall performance was booed reflexively whenever he shifted his weight.)

Oh, and we won! Lastings Milledge executed a lovely hook-slide to evade a tag at home in the 11th. Big cheers, loud music, and a hasty retreat to the 7 platform.

Plus I got money back on my ticket. And they brought back the Howard Beale tape ("I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell -- LET'S GO METS!"). A good night all in all.

WHAT I SAW AT THE DEVOLUTION. Perhaps attempting to put fire in the bellies of their discouraged constituents, the Corner guys talk about how Disneyland and Scotland have gone communist.

The Scottish thread is particularly rich. "Thatcherism never really penetrated far into Scotland, despite some of her most fervent admirers being Scottish," says Iain Murray. Another guy blames his inability to make money there on Scottish prejudice against the "Yank Capitalist." Cliff May is upset that a "talented and beautiful" Scottish folk musician played a John Lennon song. (No, it wasn't "Lassie is the Nigger of the World.") Derbyshire exhumes Dr. Johnson's famous crack, indicating that patience is exhausted, and invasion is the inevitable next step.

On the other hand, there is this:

As you can imagine, I don't get much help from mainstream media in promoting my music and values...

Boy, can't we all relate! John J. Miller urges you to buy the man's tunes, and those of other "rockcon" artists who speak truth to powerlessness.

I wish them well. I'm a lot more favorably disposed toward this Top Conservative Songs thing now that it's a marketing scam that might get some musicians some play. Swindle, comrades!

WHAT DO YOU CALL JEFF GOLDSTEIN WITH A Ph.D.? (ALERT: inside baseblog)There have been some complaints about disrespectful treatment of Jeff Goldstein. In the aforelinked cases, Goldstein’s use of MLA blather (with jokes, though -- you can tell 'cuz they're in all caps) is alleged to cause his critics jealous outrage that "one of us" has turned to the dark side.

Are Goldstein’s critics really academics? I never got more than a Baccalaureate (in Fine Arts, swish swish, so I didn't have to read much), and I work for a corporation. Tbogg works for a corporation, too. Atrios is a political activist, and we all know they don’t know from semiotics. Majikthise is kinda schoolly, but I’ve had beers with her and she never once spoke of the signifier and the signified. And Jane Hamsher's a movie producer -- they are all self-made types given to ignorant spoonerisms and big cigars, and think college-professor stuff is strictly the bunk.

Maybe we just think the guy's comedy gold.

As alerted, this is all bloggity-blah, so its significance is nil. Still, you have to wonder why Goldstein's seconds are so incensed that people are making fun of some guy known for making fun (semiotic fun, mind you) of some other guys. Even the normally sane John Cole says, "they do not like his politics, so they simply want to destroy him. It is that simple."

Christ Jesu, I never dreamed we had such power! I'ma get me a cool helmet like Ian McKellen's in "X-Men" and destroy all my enemies with the unstoppable force of paste-eater jokes!

P.S. Michael Moore is fat. (Unless that was some sort of Levi-Straussian jest I am simply too unlettered to grasp.)

JESUS IS MY MANAGER, AND HE'S DOING A REALLY SHITTY JOB. Michelle Malkin is excited to hear from USA Today that the Colorado Rockies are a religious cult:

Music filled with obscenities, wildly popular with youth today and in many other clubhouses, is not played. A player will curse occasionally but usually in hushed tones. Quotes from Scripture are posted in the weight room. Chapel service is packed on Sundays. Prayer and fellowship groups each Tuesday are well-attended. It's not unusual for the front office executives to pray together.

Next time they talk to Jesus, they should ask him how to get the fuck out of fourth place in the NL West.

LATEST CONSERVENTIONAL WISDOM: Innocents Slaughtered at Haditha; Rightwing Bloggers Hardest Hit.

For perspective, see here.

The idea of a "morally irrelevant" war atrocity is new, and I hope the Perfesser and his allies get full credit for it.

UPDATE. Anyone remember when Winds of Change was the "liberal" warblog? Get a load of this.

The current post at Winds of Change at this writing is against the Jacobin Terror. Hilarious, under the circumstances.