HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN. Obama suggests national service for the young. At National Review Jim Geraghty talks about the "Obama Youth," etc.

I'm wondering about the President using federal funding to coerce schools into requiring community service for middle and high school students. Community service is (often) a noble act, but Obama appears to be very close to echoing John Kerry's Orwellian call for mandatory volunteerism. Notice it's always those who are old who are calling for mandatory time and energy commitments of the young.

Later, Geraghty offers a veiled comparison of Obama to Hitler. This reminded me of something, so I went online and found an excerpt from William F. Buckley's Gratitude: Reflections on What We Owe to Our Country, in which the founder of National Review argues for something very similar, powered by incentives and "sanctions":

It is feared by many opponents of national service that the use of state power in whatever form, even in a voluntary program, is nevertheless an effort, even if half-hearted, in that direction: an effort to change the human personality, and for that reason to be resisted categorically... Milton Friedman, my hero, was quoted as finding in national service an "uncanny resemblance" to the Hitler Youth Corps.

This last occasions only the reply that by that token, all youth programs, including the Boy Scouts, can be likened in the sense that they have something in common, to the Hitler Youth program, plus the second comment, that because Hitler had an idea, it does not follow that that idea was bad. (Albert Speer is said to have reflected, soon before his death, that it was a "pity that Adolf Hitler disliked Picasso.")

...Some libertarians will never agree with the Founding Fathers that a responsibility of the polity is to encourage virtue directly, through such disciplines as service in the militia, reverence for religious values, and jury service -- the kind of thing Prime Minister Gladstone had in mind when he proposed "to establish a new franchise, which I should call -- till a better phrase be discovered -- the service franchise." Opponents of national service must establish, to make their case, that national service, unlike the state militia, or jury service, or military conscription in times of emergency, is distinctively hostile to a free society.

Funny, just a few weeks ago they were blubbering over the sainted Buckley. Now he's a liberal fascist.

I'm not keen on either Buckley's and Obama's proposals myself, but I'm less worried about them these days, thanks in large part to the influence of the Boy Who Cried Hitler. I suspect most normal people would react similarly.

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP. Jesse Helms this time. The impulse to speak well of the dead is fine, but I was stuck by the brethren's defensiveness about Helms' civil rights record, especially in view of their late and much celebrated reassessment of Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott in 2002. We might just say that those were different times -- that is, Thurmond and Lott were after an election, and Helms is before one.

UPDATE. Fixd tiepo, thanx boney.

UGLY BEAUTY. Before attending Die Soldaten at the Armory Saturday night, I hadn't been to an opera in years. I usually plead budget, but I could always get rush or standing room tickets at the Met. Frankly, lacking much background in the form, I've chosen to cultivate a lazy indifference instead of a taste for it, to my discredit.

Die Soldaten got through to me, though, perhaps by brute force. For one thing, there's the 110-piece Bochumer Symphoniker blasting away at the obviously difficult 12-tone Zimmermann score. Then there's the grim story -- girl forsakes lover to make an advantageous marriage within the warrior caste; madness, rape, murder, desolation result -- with its class tensions and sexual panic starting at red alert and proceeding to full-on Sturm und Drang. And there's the Robert-Wilson-Meets-Pirates-of-the-Caribbean staging in the Armory's gigantic Drill Hall, with the actors spilling from an extra-wide stage down a 220-foot runway, along which the entire audience is sometimes slowly locomoted on railroad tracks.

It's all a bit much -- at one point the music is supposed to suggest thunder, and I was a little confused: hadn't the percussion-heavy score been thundering all along? And the everything's-awful modernism is pretty relentless: look, here's a ceramic bog -- I wonder how it looks on the side of the stage where the chorus is taking a piss! But the excess is mesmerizing, and often makes brilliant theatre: a rape scene in which assailant and victim are multiplied by supernumeraries who enact it in a savage ballet along the length of the runway; a bathhouse suggested by garishly-lighted holes; the slow march at the end of Marie's father into the distant floodlights, and of Marie the other way toward the frigid mountains of exile.

And all the singing and acting is great. If the music purposefully evokes ugliness, craft and commitment make it beautiful. In a scene featuring Marie, her sister, and the Baroness, their voices made me think of exotic birds trilling in a jungle above the roars and grunts of the other beasts. As Marie, Claudia Barainsky makes a physically specific progress from schoolgirl to climber to outcast; as her lover, Claudio Otelli nurtures his desperation into a sort of semi-catatonia that looks harmless to his intended victims and terrifying to us. And that band -- excuse me, orchestra -- is really tight.

Muscially I'm pretty unsophisticated, and an evening of serialist opera wouldn't normally be on my to-do list, but for me this production made great sense of the unaccustomed sounds. I don't know how much Die Soldaten educated me, or if I'll be better able to appeciate La Bohème or Schönberg or anything else because of it, but I'm certainly more inclined to pay attention.

UPDATE. A dissenting opinion from the Washington Post. "The vocal level was that of a respectable regional production" -- wicked burn! Clearly I have a ways to go before I know classical music well enough to be snobby about it; having fond memories of the days when I was that much of a n00b about everything, I will cherish every moment.

DEFINING FASCISM DOWN. Roger L. Simon reacts to the news that Obama's Convention acceptance speech may be moved to a larger venue:

I’m not going to indulge in the obvious comparisons. But I am disturbed by this development. 76,000 people blindly screaming “Yes, we can!” in a giant stadium is not an image I relish seeing in a free society.

First some semantic notes. "I'm not going to indulge in the obvious comparisons" is a lousy preamble to an indulgence in comparisons. If he's going to obfuscate his intentions like that, he should start with a phrase like "Far be it from me" or "I'm not one"; the extra verbiage promotes deniability and helps confuse readers. You'd think a professional writer would know this. Also, the assumption that whenever liberals raise their voices the result is a "scream" is much overused and perhaps losing effectiveness; "shriek" is a little fresher, at least, and better supports the imputation of effeminacy. ("Bellow," "holler," and "roar" are more suitable to the Nuremberg analogy, but perhaps more butch than Simon would like. Someone at the central office should send him a backgrounder on Ernst Röhm.)

As to content, I've pointed out before that these guys have started using fascism as a synonym for popularity, especially now that nobody likes them. This suggests that they don't expect anyone outside of a hardcore cadre to read their stuff. Especially with an election coming up, I wonder that they don't try harder to reach beyond their base.

Adding to the humor, Simon posted this on July 4, when normal people are least likely to imagine themselves shadowed by fascism's heel. I hope you're all enjoying the blessings of liberty this weekend, and preparing to make more of them.

START THE WEEKEND OFF RIGHT! Crunchy Rod Dreher:

The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, writing from the magazine's Aspen Ideas Festival, chaired a panel yesterday in which experts put the chances of a nuclear attack on US soil, probably on Washington or New York, in the next 10 years as fifty-fifty....

Do you ever think about it? I mean, really think about it? If Joe Cirincione et alia really do believe that chances are as high as 50 percent that terrorists will set off a suitcase nuke in DC or NYC, then why do they still live there?

Because it keeps us far away from pants-wetting little shits like you.

KEEPING IN TOUCH. Sometimes, if it's been a while since I've heard from them, I look up my old wingnuts. Whatever happened, I wondered this morning, to Kieran Michael Lalor? We first encountered this Iraq War vet, director of the Eternal Vigilance Society ("With the keyboard as our sword, Eternal Vigilance Society will work tirelessly to defeat those candidates..."), and yeller at protestors in November 2005, when he was complaining in the New York Post that Pace Law School was teaching him treason. We found this very funny, as Lalor had previously attended Pace Law School, complained in the Washington Times they were teaching him treason, gone off to war, then come back to Pace Law School to be taught more treason and to complain about it again.

Such wonderful memories. So I looked around and found that Lalor had not been letting the grass grow under his boots. He's been doing wingnut welfare make-work gigs, including contributions to The American Thinker, which holding tank for fledgling wingers we've noticed before. In March Lalor announced at the Thinker that "Democrat control must end for the sake of the nation's security," and that he had founded yet another group to that purpose: Iraq Vets for Congress. This coalition of Previously-Enlisted Congressmen and would-be PEC boldly stands for "Portraying our Troops Fairly and in a Positive Light," and "Advocating for Veterans and Their Families," though they understandably fail to mention Jim Webb's GI Bill.

And, surprise! Lalor's not just the founder, he's also a client. From an understandably elated Daily Kos:

Some great news. Local Republicans in NY's 19th District have now tapped wingnut Keiran Michael Lalor to take on John Hall in November, with the likelihood of a sweeping win by Hall...

I'll say. Any District that elected a former Orleans guitarist and anti-nuclear activist to Congress is not likely to dump him for a guy whose campaign strategy is to denounce Volkswagens, Susan Sarandon, Bonnie Raitt, and Pete Seeger and show off his thousand-mile stare. But who knows? I'll be watching the race with interest henceforth. And maybe later I'll go look up Melinda Ledden Sidak.

NOW THEY GOT WORRY. Barack Obama is black, his opposition is relentless, and McCain could easily win this election. Still, it's pleasing when the wingers panic. From National Review, ladies and gentlemen, here to do his rendition of "Stranded in the Jungle," please welcome Victor David JoHanson:

It is not hard to see why and how the middle classes, the poor, and the union members would like to see larger government programs and greater taxes on the wealthy, but why are so many in the upper-upper middle classes so vehemently pro-Obama?

Oboy, rightwing intramural class war! Let's go to the Trans-Lux and hiss Bill Gates!

After talking to and observing lots of Bay Area affluent and staunch Obama supporters, I think the key to reconciling the apparent paradoxes is done in the following ways...

I can well imagine VDJoH's journalistic approach: "talking to" = VDJoH asking, "Are you crazy? Can't you see that that man is a ni?" and receiving an unsatisfactory response; "observing" = glowering at the stylish jeans of rich hippies.

Many enjoying the good life worry that their own privilege in some sort of way comes at the expense of someone else, or they fret that their present lifestyle in ecological terms is hardly sustainable. That concern does not translate into much concrete action. SUVs (Mercedes rather than Yukons) are no rarer in Palo Alto than in Fresno, while such progressives are just as likely, or more so, to abandon the public schools...

How dare they share VDJoH's privileges while rejecting his politics? Yessir, there's no class war like Republican class war.

Somehow an Obama sticker, sign on the lawn, or a lapel button has become the equivalent of a crucifix around the neck of a prosperous 16th-century burgher: easy fides of inner good and a valuable totem in reconciling the apparent irreconcilable.

And it's even better when they get so mad that they diss Christianity, too.

NatRev has run out of room, so let's sneak over to VDJoH's dressing room for some of the good stuff:

I spent some time speaking in San Francisco recently. In crude and exaggerated terms, it reminds me of H.G. Wells Eloi and Morlocks... smartly dressed yuppies, wealthy gays... What is missing are school children, middle class couples with strollers, and any sense the city has a vibrant foundation of working-class, successful families of all races and backgrounds...

So no one picks up the garbage? But the city looks so nice. Maybe when the wealthy gays come home from the clubs, they sweep. In contrast, VDJoH's hometown has a lot of farms, owned by such as VDJoH, and a lot of Mexicans, so we can guess how they git-r-done.

All in all, I got a strange creepy feeling that whatever was going on, it was unsustainable –- sort of like an encapsulated Europe within an American city.

And these doomed, encapsulated Europeans are funding Obama! With such quasi-foreign influences in play, the citizens of Hansonland will have their work cut out for them, rejecting Obamamania in favor of a continued Bush boom. Assuming, of course, they see it the same way as he.

INTRO TO GOLDBERG. National Review lists Jonah Goldberg as an "editor," but he doesn't seem to know what people with that title normally do. This post is a fine example of his argumentative style: aggressively desultory, like a Tasmanian Devil with its head stuck in a pail.

The idea that "science won't allow" absolute categories between animals and humans is pretty silly in its plain meaning. And I don't think you should show it as much deference as you do.

Follow the links back and you'll find that the real issue is animal rights, and whether they intersect meaningfully with human rights. Students of Goldberg will understand why he's grabbing such a uselessly narrow handle on the point: this is his version of "What's this on your shirt? Psych," a goofy opening gambit meant to confuse the enemy. Luckily for Goldberg, on the internet there's no one to grab his finger and pull it back till he cries.

Science has all sorts of absolute categories distinguishing between animals and humans. Vertebrates vs. Invertebrates, reptiles vs. mammals, phylum, kingdom, and all of that stuff amount to absolute categories of one kind or another. What Sullivan is really getting at, it seems to me, is that there are some areas where there are more similarities between some animals and humans that are less absolute than many think. That sounds right to me...

Sensing that even National Review readers won't put up with much of this semantic horseshit, Goldberg generously concedes the point -- or as they might say in Chocoholics Anonymous, the point as he perceives it to be. In respect for your delicate sensibilities, I have omitted a Goldberg parenthesis suggesting the horrifying possibility that he will write another book. Onward:

The idea that these things are on a "continuum" isn't all that profound by my lights. Aristotle and that crowd would have bought into that, I would think. The question is, so what? I mean ice and fire are on the same continuum of temperature, but they are very different things.

To recap, (1.) things can be the same in some ways and different in others, and (2.) fart, burp.

But what about animal rights? Goldberg's getting there, but he has to talk it through. You know, kind of like a batter has to step out of the box, adjust his gloves, etc. Except in the big leagues, a batter don't usually wind up in the press box with his bat up his ass:

Anyway, I should say that while I really dislike the language and logic of animal rights, I have no problem with conferring special status on gorillas or lots of other animals. My guess is 95% of Americans agree with me on that.

Again, generous of him, but I don't know why we were bothering before with the disciplines of biology and philosophy when Goldberg could just refer these questions to the will of the imaginary people.

Come to think of it, why does he even need them, when he has himself?

It should be a serious crime to shoot, say, a bald eagle. It should be a routine chore to kill a rat. Killing a dolphin is different from shooting a deer. Whether or not science will "allow" us to draw these distinctions is largely irrelevant because we will rightly draw them anyway and, besides, science has little to tell us about such things.

Stupid science! It's always telling Goldberg things that aren't true, like that his love of his wife is nothing more than "mere electrochemical signals." So why should he let neuroscientists tell him anything when he can just dish out some morality? But then Goldberg experiences another spasm of generosity, and concedes a little somethin-somethin to the whitecoats:

But, again, it's worth pointing out that "science" records all sorts of important differences between dolphins and deer, eagles and rats. Dolphins live in the ocean, deer don't. That's an absolute difference, I think.

I could go on, but life is short. Those who wish to examine the rest of Goldberg's thicket of unsupported assertions ("This is scientifically true, morally true, aesthetically true and politically true"), appeals to emotion ("reduce the relative worth of a staggeringly beautiful creature like a tiger by saying it's just as 'valuable' as a snail darter*"), and, of course, sudden reversals ("*Obviously, some ugly, brainless, species are valuable because of their role in the ecosystem") and the rhetorical schtick Goldberg pioneered, "central to my point" ("But this is just another example of how some species are more important than others"), go with God. Some of us come back from such journeys half-mad.

FRIENDLY ADVICE TO MY MORTAL ENEMIES. Tigerhawk, a gamer to the end, is trying to gin up outrage with a little movie about Obama's pals Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Pessimist that I am, I can't see this having much electoral impact, if that's what he's going for. I seem to recall Jim Hunt trying to make hay of Senator Jesse Helms' ties to Salvadoran death squad macher Roberto d'Aubuisson, and that didn't work out so well. 1968 is in the punters' minds as far away and irrelevant as El Salvador. Helms' operatives did better calling Hunt "SISSY, PRISSY, GIRLISH AND EFFEMINATE." If you're going to go with the classics, go with classics that work!

P.S. Current rightwing laughlines like "question their patriotism" may not be understood by the wider population. You guys may enjoy applying phrases like "under the bus" to "the 'fist-jab'" and such like, but ordinary folks who do not begin their days, as we do, scanning the trades may not get the reference. (They don't understand my inside jokes, either, but I am working mainly to the hipsters at the late show.) Stick with tested tropes like "flip-flop," "San Francisco Democrats," "I have in my hand a list of 206 known communists," etc.

MORE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES. I see (and he sees) that Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism is gaining some traction. Jeffrey Lord at the American Spectator:

SO LET'S SUM UP what America would look like in an age of Obama.

To start there would be no more driving SUVs. No more Rush. For God's sake absolutely no driving your SUV while listening to Rush. No more eating whatever you want. Definitely no keeping your home as warm or as cool as you prefer. No capital gains cuts because they are unfair. Your guns will be banned. And if you have a different opinion on global warming? All those lofty supporters of rights for terrorists are going to strip every oil executive in America of theirs in a heartbeat, live and in living color...

What do we have when the sole purpose of the government as run by the chilling principles of Obamaland is to "use the political process" to remove freedoms large and small one by one by one?

Someone needs to speak it plainly.

The word is fascism.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the banning of SUVs, Rush Limbaugh, private thermostats, guns, etc, not to mention "a Nuremberg-style trial for oil executives," are extremely unlikely unless the power of the Supreme Court is severely curtailed. I guess that's something to worry about, as in recent years there has been a lot of talk about judicial overreach and proposals to term-limit its Justices and allow Congress to overrule their decisions.

UPDATE. How could I forget Ross Douthat and his proposed Supreme Court Supermajorities? The future of the Republican Party, ladies and gentlemen! Should bring the "Impeach Earl Warren Democrats" back into the fold.

I WANT YOU TO HURT LIKE I DO. Crunchy Rod Dreher is back from vacation -- which was not spent, as I had hopefully fantasized, scouting locations for the New Jerusalem, but in such normal yuppie pursuits as wine-tasting, restaurant-hopping, and driving an SUV. No sooner has he unpacked his cilices that he starts bitching about other educated white people whose attitudes perversely differ from his own.

See, while Dreher enthuses over Jesus and Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, some honkies choose to enthuse over what they call their "vibrant" neighborhoods "where blacks, whites, gays and Hispanics all live together." Dreher thinks they're just trying to make him feel bad:

White people who use the word "vibrant" to describe a piece of real estate on which ethnic or tattooed people live really want to make a statement about their own broad-mindedness or social progressivism (versus the supposed fear and closed-mindedness of suburban white people). This is why I'm so fascinated by the word. It's an elite white-people social marker, a sign that one-upsmanship is being attempted.

It's not that Dreher doesn't approve of or use the word "vibrant." He just doesn't like it when folks use it on multi-ethnic neighborhoods.

How then should we speak of these neighborhoods? Emulating Dreher's own example, we might speak of our Hispanic neighbors as a potential threat to our real estate values ("We are close, though, to a barrio... should I sell my house while I still can, or risk putting up with crime and the degradation of the quality of life in the neighborhood?").

Or of our gay neighbors as disgusting perverts ("I was amazed by how a city park in my neighborhood became a popular cruising grown for gay men seeking sexual encounters after dark... what are the rest of us supposed to think about gay male culture, and the degree to which it self-defines according to behavior that most people rightly find repulsive?").

To be fair, maybe it's not the racial or gender-preferential identity of specific neighbors that bugs Dreher. In a 2007 column he says, "the day will never come when we give [our children] permission to play unsupervised on our front lawn," because his neighborhood contains "halfway houses for sex offenders," "stray dogs," and "dodgy older teenagers from someplace else." Dreher laments that his urban nabe is not like the rural Louisiana hamlet in which he was raised.

You can understand why he'd object to "vibrant," or just about any other positive adjective applied to such places. Poor Dreher just plain doesn't like where he lives. He would prefer to live in Bumfuck or Coon Holler, so long as he could also have access to all the conveniences of a large city. It's bad enough that he can't have it all, geographically speaking. That some people who live in cities are content, even enthusiastic about where and how they live -- well, that just steams his vegetable dumpling.

I really hope he gets to exercise his Benedict Option, not just for the comic potential but also for his own sake. No man can serve two masters, and Dreher's unappeasable yearning to have the bright lights of the big city and the ol' swimmin' hole will eventually drive him crazier than he already is.

I'VE SEEN THAT MOVIE TOO. Wesley Clark suggests that life as a POW is not necessarily relevant training for the Presidency. McCain fan Andrew Sullivan, among others, angrily accuses Clark of "swift-boating" McCain.

To protect himself, McCain engages a "truth squad" starring one of the original Swift Boat guys, who still insists that "The Swift Boat 'attacks' were simply revelation of the truth."

This reminds me painfully of a scene from Costa-Gavras' Z, in which an indicted Greek fascist general is asked by a reporter, "Are you a martyr, like Dreyfus?" The General angrily replies, "Dreyfus was guilty."

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP -- rightwing blogwatch redux, with a Gay Pride teaser, post-Heller recoil, and the threat to America that is Wall-E.

SEVEN WAYS TO DRIVE YOUR TRAFFIC WILD IN WEB. Dr. Mrs. Ole Perfesser is really trawling here, but I am powerless to resist -- much like this fellow:

Can a Man Be Raped by a Woman?

Here is one man's story -- let's call him Mike -- (other identifying data has also been changed) about a rape that happened to him over 17 years ago that he still can't forget...

In the narrative that follows, "Mike" (a Marine!) goes to a motel to sleep off a drunk with his buddy's pregnant girlfriend, and

I woke up about 2 hours later -- still destroyed by the alcohol -- to find my clothes removed from the waist down and the girl on top of me wailing like a banshee and quite roughly enjoying herself. She had apparently brought me to erection -- not hard as I'm one of those men who can hold one for hours, awake or asleep, sober or drunk.

One would expect a Marine (particularly one who reads DMOP) to immediately extricate his entrenching tool with extreme prejudice, but what chance has the pride of the USMC against a pregnant chick who "sternly warned me to 'be quiet' and 'not be forceful' [! -ed.] and made it clear that she would cry rape if I tried to stop it." So he was forced to submit to the whole horrifying ordeal...

If you're wondering why I'm not yelling "Letters to Penthouse!" it's because Dr. Mrs.' readers beat me to it. Yes, the story is such bullshit that, even when plied with the sort of misogyny and invitations to self-pity that normally excites them, her usually docile fanboys rebel. Some, of course, keep their perfect faith in DMOP, and denounce the female man-rapist ("She could have masturbated; instead, she chose to play a power trip on that poor guy knowing he wouldn't do a thing against her"). Others believe the Marine, though they smack him for a "metrosexual" and tell him to "get over it." But a couple actually recognize that this absurd story is absurd.

For this bunch, that constitutes progress. But they're still a long way from the final breakthough: the acknowledgement that they are really being played for chumps, not by women, big media, society, or even the Marine, but by Dr. Mrs. Ole Perfesser. When that day comes, they are invited (after they stop crying) to join me in a class-action suit. For hasn't DMOP's irresistible scam injured us both -- by wounding their male pride, and wasting time I could have better devoted to Shorter Lilekses? This could be the mother of all men's rights cases! Hell, maybe we can get her old man to sign an amicus brief!

UPDATE. Someone claiming to be the Marine contributes to DMOP's comments. He tries to make the important point that real men seek therapy, and those who don't are pussies ("A real man [not an immature little wimp of a man-child like some of these posters] knows when he needs help rather than bottling it up until it explodes onto some innocent bystander..."). I wonder if this is how they do it in basic training now: "YOU HAD BEST UNLEASH YOUR FUCKING INNER CHILD, PRIVATE, OR I WILL UNSCREW YOUR HEAD AND SHIT DOWN YOUR NECK, AND THAT'S JUST FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING, THIS BARRACKS IS YOUR SAFE SPACE." "SIR, I HEAR WHAT YOU'RE SAYING, SIR!"

Using belligerent language to scare people into believing a weak story has long been a winner for these people, but when you can't convince punters on their own sites, the game may be up.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES. The New York Sun clues me as to my new rights:

Regarding gun carrying, Heller might, arguably, mean that New York City would have to follow a similar policy to Connecticut (and 39 other states): issue permits to carry a concealed handgun for lawful defense if the applicant is over 21, and passes a fingerprint-based background check and a safety class.

It pains me to admit this, but I've never been arrested. As far as anyone can tell, I'm a good citizen. I can't wait until this shit gets sorted out. I meet all manner of idiots in my wanderings, and a shoulder-holster full of firepower can only add to my advantage. Especially when I've been drinking!

I've been praying for anarchy to restore my City to its former glory, but it now occurs to me that I need not only dream of such a restoration; I can also be its agent. Rudy Giuliani isn't around to disarm me. In the name of Tony Scalia, let's get it on!

NEW FRONTIERS IN THE CULTURE WAR. John J. Miller, the genius behind "The 50 Greatest Conservative Rock Songs," is digging harder than ever to extract political messages from popular music. His latest find comes from Sigur Rós album credits:

Anyway, I was distressed to see that parts of With a buzz... were recorded in Havana (along with New York, London, and Reykjavik). The band isn't especially political, at least not to my knowledge. I suspect they didn't know any better. When it comes to Cuba, Europeans tend not to. That's too bad.

Clearly he's a man on a mission, and it won't be long before he discovers a new band using a wah-wah pedal and connects it to the failed policies of the Carter Administration.

UPDATE. Fixed spelling, diacritical. Oh, missing word too! Also there was a nail sticking out of a floorboard so I pulled it out so no one would get hurt.

I'D LIKE TO KNOCK OFF EARLY TODAY... NEED SOMETHING EASY... LET'S TRY REDSTATE. One of the right's most serious advocacy blogs has identified the most pressing issue facing America today: Bill Delahunt's lame joke.

If you do not call your Congressman today and demand the House of Representatives, at the very *least*, censure Congressman Delahunt, well damn us all. We have no right to carry on our fight...

When you call your Congressman, you should make sure he knows an apology from Mr. Delahunt will not suffice. Delahunt clearly is lying about and denying his statement. "I'm sorry" would just be more of the same.

Commenters take the hint, suggesting resignation and execution ("There is a tree down the road from me mbeck where Major Andre met his end. Just thought you may like to know that").

Please please pleeeeeease go the Republican National Convention in great numbers and stand in front of the cameras in 18th Century costumes and scream about treason please please pleeeeeease.

I ought to devise some sort of Low Hanging Fruit Award for service to alicublog, and put these guys on permanent shortlist. See ya!

JUST AS LONG AS THEY SPELL THE NAME RIGHT. The tiresome work of heaping blame for everything on the media never ends. Today's weary shovelman is Patrick Ruffini. He claims that the "3-to-1 ratio" of Obama-only to McCain-only stories on Google News proves Routine 12, aka media bias in favor of Democrats ("the media made an in-kind contribution of tens of millions of dollars in 'free' media to Obama"), with an online-media-spend angle to add both a modish sheen to the old gambit and a hint of quid-pro-quo corruption.

Stories easily found at Ruffini's Obama-Google link include "Obama's policy pirouettes lead him toward the center," "Michelle Obama Receives Lukewarm Reception for Lukewarm Position on Gay Marriage," "Obama-Clinton joint appearance faces skeptics," "Muslim Americans Feel Shunned by Obama," articles that call Obama "opportunistic," and editorials by such devoted Obama supporters as Charles Krauthammer (who, hilariously, talks about how the press is giving Obama a free pass).

We should also consider that many seemingly neutral Obama stories, such as the ones about Obama's support for gay rights, may be perceived negatively in some jurisdictions (cue "Dueling Banjos").

If Obama is paying money for this treatment, I hope he also gets a heavy damaged-merchandise discount.

I don't begrudge Ruffini the Google journalism per se -- in fact, I've used it myself, when I pointed out that the top rightwing bloggers much prefer to talk about Obama than McCain. Clearly Obama is more interesting to everyone, including his mortal enemies, than the old fart he's running against. If that's media bias, Ruffini's next job should be to rip the mask off the press' corrupt bargain with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.

THESE ARE THE JOKES, FOLKS! Peggy Noonan seems to want another campaign job. In today's Wall Street Journal she pleads for the Republicans to release the real McCain, highlighting "the antic part of his nature, his natural wit... That's why the boys on the bus loved him in 2000. That's why the Republican base rejected him in 2000."

Well, that seems a mixed outcome at best, but maybe even the base will be won over by such sure-fire material as this:

[He] volunteered that Brooke Buchanan, his spokeswoman who was seated nearby and rolling her eyes, 'has a lot of her money hidden in the Cayman Islands' and that she earned it by 'dealing drugs.' Previously, Mr. McCain had identified Ms. Buchanan as 'Pat Buchanan's illegitimate daughter,' 'bipolar,' 'a drunk,' 'someone with a lot of boyfriends,' and 'just out of Betty Ford.'"

Ha... huh? "That's the McCain his friends love," Noonan confidently tells us, "McCain unplugged."

I have to ask, will these Friars' Club Roast routines be used only on friends, or are they also meant for the press pool ("Helen, you brain-damaged old whore! Remember when you sucked me off behind the statue of William Borah? I felt like the Lion of the Senate all day") and the debates ("Let's be honest, homes, if I may call you homes. Puffy Combs is still mad about J-Lo, and if he finds out you were tappin' that back in '99, you can stop worrying about white people for the rest of the campaign and perhaps your life. In fact, maybe you should just grab a Bronco right now and do an OJ, while you still have your balls")? That would be a bold move, certainly.

Or maybe McCain unplugged should direct his schtick toward the voters: "Yeah, you had a nice time drinkin' beers and clearin' brush with George Bush, didn't you? I notice Prozac consumption is up. Maybe if you pillheads could come down long enough to see what a mess this country's in, I wouldn't have to worry about you voting for the other guy because you thought he did a good job in Men In Black. See these medals? I didn't win them in a debate competition. You want a tongue job, we'll get the missus out here. That ain't my bag. You people are fucked and it's gonna take a crazy, half-senile old sailor to get you unfucked. Now, somebody tell that cunt to come up here for the grip-and-grin, or as we call it in my house, the money shot. Thanks, morons, and try the veal."

THE MOSQUITO COAST. Erin Manning continues to fill in for Rod Dreher at the Crunchy Con blog. Today she considers the Benedict Option -- Dreher's notion of Christians going off the grid and starting their own autonomous communities, far from evil Western culture -- and finds a sticking point: lack of easy ways for neo-Benedictines to "[sustain] themselves and their families apart from the reality of 24/7 corporate employment, which in most cases is only located in or near major urban areas."

One possibility involves the presence of a university which would be a source of jobs and income for many in the community. Some small Catholic colleges in relatively rural areas have seen this kind of thing flourish spontaneously. But I think the key is that the community should arise on its own; the planned community of Ave Maria in Florida seems like something that could easily be a disappointment to those who choose to settle there, for reasons that are beyond the scope of a single blog entry.

If you follow the link you can see a few obvious drawbacks at Ave Maria: they've already contracted with the Publix supermarket chain and BP. Since these businesses market goods from the godless outside world, there's always a possibility that residents may find the near occasion of sin in a sexy magazine or tomato can label. And isn't consumerism part of the problem? Won't the bounty of big-time supermarket shelves corrupt the souls of the anointed?

For centuries "autonomous" communities sustained themselves -- and some monks, zealots, and survivalists still do. Why can't the Crunchies till the land, bake bread, fetch water, and read the Bible by candlelight, if this is what the Lord has called them to do?

The obvious answer is they don't really want to. From comments on this post, and the blog generally, there seem to be an awful lot of Crunchies who expect to keep a desk job in the New Jerusalem.

I look forward to the day when some fundamentalist billionaire gifts Dreher and his crew with some arable land. Within weeks there'll be big fights around the Talking Stick, as public relations executives and journalists explain why someone else should hammer nails. Eventually Dreher will have to announce that an angel has told him the location of some magic tablets or something. And the great thing is, there'll be plenty of knowledge workers on hand to document the collapse.

UPDATE. Commenter FMguru reminds us that "the traditional conservative Christian way to deal with this problem is to import menial labor from far away, transported in the packed, sweltering cargo holds of specially-built sailing ships."