While alicubi.com undergoes extensive elective surgery, its editors pen somber, Shackletonian missives from their lonely arctic outpost.
Monday, April 26, 2010
NEW VOICE COLUMN UP about the state of rightwing opinion journalism as shown by those National Review writers who beat up a colleague (Jim Manzi) for betraying his class.
It's a little incident that says a lot -- especially when seen through the ever-shifting kaleidoscopic lens of Jonah Goldberg, whose history of gaseous emissions about the intellectual awesomeness of his movement might lead some readers to expect he'd be embarrassed by this whole sorry affair at his own magazine. Connoisseurs of Goldberg's style, though, will enjoy his particular method of evading reality in this instance.
I probably should be inured to such breathtaking hypocrisy by now, but it's kinda like life itself: However convinced you are that you've heard all the stories, they keep coming up with new angles.
P.S. There's something very special about Reliapundit calling Stephen Hawking an idiot, too -- especially when he points out that Hawking "was WRONG about black holes and admitted it," which the blogger seems to take as a sign of his own intellectual superiority.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
I DON'T USE THE WORD "HERO" VERY OFTEN, BUT I AM THE GREATEST HERO IN AMERICAN HISTORY*. I see glibertarians are also pissed about the South Park Mohammed incident, and are doing a Spartacus -- that is, massing to diffuse the wrath of crazed jihadist nuts with a Draw Mohammed event. The promotional illustration they offer -- showing the Prophet as common household objects, at which no reasonable person could take offense -- shows that they have no guts at all compared to me.
I fully expect that when the fatwas come down, these pussies will say, "What about Edroso -- we were just being free-speechy in a harmless way, but he made fun of religion, which we of course don't endorse!"
THE REICHSTAG FIREFOX. It's a neat trick that Darrell Issa has managed, making the proposed reform of securities oversight all about federal employees looking for porn. Scared Monkeys makes the desired (if not quite logical, nor literate) connection:
It is comical an absurd for government to even consider pointing the finger at private business when it comes to scandal, waste, fraud and abuse... Who knew that SEC government financial “oversight” was a porn site? By the way who is going to monitor the monitors?.. Is it any wonder why used cars salesman know rate above government officials?
Statism plus porn equals propaganda gold! Or so it's hoped -- after the sex scandals of 2006 that helped rip them out of government, the GOP would love to put the shoe on the other foot.
I explained at the time why this sort of thing is unlikely to work, but times may have changed sufficiently that they will: Maybe after a few years of recession, the average citizen will be jealous that federal workers have jobs at which to surf for porn.
UPDATE:Althouse: "I have no end of respect for Stone and Parker. What brilliant artists! What political heroes!" Jesus, Professor, where's my encomium? I got the guy farting and smoking a cigarette!
SHORTER GAY PATRIOT*: Michael Steele's no good at being black. Here, I'll show you how it's done.
* UPDATE. Specifically, Nick aka "ColoradoPatriot from an undisclosed secret HQ," and no wonder.
A commenter to the site suggests Steele be replaced by Alan Keyes: "Not too welcoming of gays, but that’s not a problem in today’s GOP; it’s a plus." This, at a site called Gay Patriot. I've grown accustomed to conservatives embracing identity politics, but when are they going to get good at it?
DOGS RETURNING TO THEIR VOMIT. Remember, way back in early 2008, when conservatives were trying to disqualify Obama because he had "terrorist buddies"? One of the second-string names they threw around was that of Rashid Khaladi, not a mad bomber but a pro-Palestinian Columbia professor whose connections to Obama excited the ire of the Right.
But no one else gave a shit, and Obama was elected.
Now Roger L. Simon and the Ole Perfesser are trying to revive Khalid as an issue. Simon is demanding the L.A. Times release the Kraken videotape of a 2003 (!) dinner party for Khaladi which Obama attended.
The original LAT story reports some guests at the party spoke critically of Israel. "No word of the details of how Obama reacted..." says Simon. Perhaps the tape will show him giving the Israel critics a big thumbs-up, or raising the roof, or doing the Humpty Dance. (Or maybe he'll just look somnolent. They can always get on him for that!)
Also, the story's sole Obama quote "contains an ellipsis in the middle." Maybe he started screaming "Death to Israel" or "Crucifixion ain't no fiction/So-called chosen frozen/Apologies made to whoever pleases/Still they got me like Jesus."
Simon compares the videotape, which he acknowledges is neither government nor public property, to the Pentagon Papers, and demands it be delivered unto him. "Sometimes I want to yell and scream," he writes. Why don't you, buddy? It certainly won't affect your reputation.
UPDATE. Now how could I have forgotten the inevitable next step, of which commenter aimai reminds me -- a revival of the Michelle Obama "Whitey" Tape! Come on, guys, make me proud! I know you're hot on the Israel angle, but the fanciful MO audio file has always been way more popular than ol' Khaladi's among your who-us-racist-no-sir fans. And there's plenty more where that came from!
UPDATE. Of course, the usual claims of conservative victimhood can still be made as you celebrate getting someone fired, as such tactics are not meant to convince the general population, who might find them unseemly, but to lift the spirits of other conservatives, who are unlikely to notice the obvious contradiction.
TODAY ON BIZARRO WORLD, Chris Matthews "comes out a buffoon" for his ridiculous claim that the Republican Party purges are "Stalin-esque," says... the author of a book called Liberal Fascism.
GUARANTEED VERBATIM. I see Bookworm Room has a post about how his stupid liberal friends (who, incidentally, all regret voting for Obama) won't listen to Rush Limbaugh. It even has dialogue!
Me: I challenge you to listen to Rush for a half hour.
Him: No. He’s an idiot.
Me: Have you ever listened to him?
Him: No.
Me: Then how do you know he’s an idiot?
Him: He is. He’s a wacko. He doesn’t know anything.
Me: How do you know that?
Him: Are you trying to make me mad?
Ho ho, such stupid liberals! Now who's intolerant? Heh indeed. (I wonder if they were all cab drivers.)
But wait! From my own verisimilitude labs, a conversation with a silly conservative who refuses to clean the poop out of his pants:
Me: Won't you just try it once? You'll be more comfortable and people will stop running from you in disgust.
Him: No. I fear change.
Me: Wasn't life better when you didn't have poop in your pants?
Him: Yes.
Me: Then wouldn't it be worth it to clean the poop out your pants?
Him: Scream, wail, you're oppressing me etc.
Does anyone believe these things? Even his fans must know it's made up.
Which reminds me: What's Alan Bromley up to these days? (Besides -- heads up, readers! -- a suspected malware site? Sample Bromley representation of Presidential dialogue: "Hey, Abbas, how ya doin', this is Hussein, yeah President of the USA… wazz up?" Bless him, he hasn't lost his touch! )
Monday, April 19, 2010
TODAY ON BIZARRO WORLD. A former two-term President decries extremist violence, and is told he "still doesn't understand the heart of the nation he led" by a guy who calls his site Confederate Yankee.
NEW VOICE COLUMN UP, following the recent Tea Party epiphenomena. The massive thing about this, to me, is the distance between the Partiers' reality and their self-image. They achieved something with their large, multiple public events on April 15, and didn't need to do much more than publicize the facts to make an impression. But the rightbloggers, for whom reality is never enough, had to push and shove their cause and make it ridiculous -- at least, with the help as such as I. I would feel kinda bad about it, if they weren't evil.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
CUE "DUELING BANJOS." New York busted some gang bangers this weekend. Now, how can this be stretched into a rightwing screed? Whatever you're thinking, it's not crazy enough:
Thank goodness police broke up this evil plot by crazed militia types no doubt influenced by the wild-eyed tea partiers.
Oh, wait, it was the Crips and Bloods, those naughty Democrat constituents? Move along, nothing to see here. Well, I just hope they filled out their Census forms before they all were rounded up.
"Naughty Democrat constituents"? Man, that cracker dog whistle never loses its attraction for these assholes, does it?
SILVER LINING.Michael Moynihan does an I'm-trying-to-be-reasonable post at Hit & Run in which, while praising the Tea Parties, he admits that the participants include "a handful of people who desperately need someone to elucidate the differences between liberalism, social democracy, socialism, and communism."
Then his commenters mass to affirm that there is no such difference, especially when it comes to that damned Obama. Samples:
Jerry | 4.16.10 @ 7:10PM|# Liberalism, Socialism & Communism all want income redistribution. Obama is the distributionist in chief.
Juan Peron | 4.16.10 @ 9:51PM|# I'm liking this Obama.
The Libertarian Guy | 4.16.10 @ 11:29PM|# Howzabout Obama =/= Mussolini OR Hitler?
But he's still a socialist.
Groovus Maximus | 4.16.10 @ 9:14PM|# ...Quite frankly, you ARE saying that tea partiers are potential terrorists.
Janet Napalitano and Reno have done their evil work well.
It seems this week everyone's got their positive-side-of-the-tea-parties angle. I was going to write about the upside of the close Ron Paul-Obama poll, which suggests at least a slim chance that these stealth Republican rallies aren't telling the whole story, and that some of the aargh-blaargh people are ready for real change. Then we could go ahead and get that collapse-of-America thing over with, and spare ourselves the nerve-wracking tension of waiting for it.
But after reading this thread, I'm more inclined to give thanks for the imminent collapse of that "liberaltarian" bullshit instead. Where did people get the idea that libertarians gave a fuck about the freedom of anyone except themselves and of anything expect capital? Libertarians watched the Republicans team up with Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson for years and no alarm bells rang for them. They clearly believe that all the liberty they need can be bought with more business tax cuts and deregulation.
Along with Megan McArdle's claim that rightwing academics are the new Freedom Riders and Jacob Hornberger setting the Wayback Machine for the libertarian paradise of 1880 (seconded by Bryan Caplan, who reminds women especially of how much freer they were then), the H&R thread reminds me what libertarianism is really about: Rightwing dorks who don't want to get caught sneaking off to YAF meetings. (Why do you think McArdle supported Obama, then acted surprised when he came up with a health care plan? Inattentiveness?)
I was going to wait until they started telling me that Mitt Romney actually comes out of a Mormon tradition of tolerance or some shit, but I figure they can just go fuck themselves right now.
UPDATE. This never gets old!
Friday, April 16, 2010
BUT YOU JUST WAIT, THEY'LL FIND YOU YET, AND WHEN THEY DO THEY'LL PUT YOU IN THE ASPCA, YOU MANGY MUTT! For "the happiest people you would ever want to meet," Tea Partiers sure get mad when you don't kiss their ass. Obama suggested they should be thanking him for cutting their taxes, and a bunch of them went apeshit. Their consensus, as articulated by Don Surber, is that "Obama mocks the people," because mass demonstrations are a reliable measure of the pulse of a nation -- or have recently become so (back when Iraq War protesters were having them, of course, they meant only treason).
My favorite so far is Scared Monkeys. "Do you ever remember a President being so flipped and condescending?" he roars. Actually Scared Monkeys seems to be the one who's flipped, fantasizing Obama saying, "Yes, the peasants should be thanking me and kissing my ring" and, every couple of sentences, declaring the Kenyan pretender will get his:
Mock the Tea Party and We the People all you want Obama … We will Remember in November!...
I wonder just how amuzed you and your ilk will be come this November after the midterm elections? Think you will be laughing then President Obama? Or wondering what political tsunami just hit you?...
...a super majority of Americans think you waste their tax dollars.... [Hey, he quoted me!]
I wonder just how much trash this low rent President will be talking when he finds out election eve November 2010 that Republicans swept the elections in a landslide...
Personally, I say provide Obama with a thank you in the midterms and 2012 elections. A message to Barack and the Democrats … We will remember in November!
The punch line appears early in the post:
One thing is for certain, Barack Obama cannot take criticism.
SUPERMAJORITY. I've found a possible explanation for the certainty of Tea Partiers that they represent "The People" even though their candidates lost badly in the late elections. Rick Pearcey, "Former Managing Ed of Human Events & Assoc Ed of Evans-Novak Political Report," tells readers why the recent federal court ruling on the National Day of Prayer must be resisted by any means necessary:
It is important to recognize that the defining mainstream of America -- as set forth by the Declaration and Constitution -- is that of freedom under God, not restrictions under decisions handed down by secularized courts that have lost their way...
This ruling is an example of a by-definition extremist federal court that has reached a decision in the oppressive secular mainstream but not in the liberating American mainstream. That's why courts like this, decisions like this, and organizations like the Freedom From Religion Foundation (which filed the case) must be resisted and overcome if America is to repeal tryanny and replace it with freedom.
"Oppressive secular mainstream" -- now that has potential. It suggests that there can be a "mainstream" that is illegitimate, and which must be resisted in favor of a "defining mainstream" that is definitionally more legitimate no matter what its size.
The allegedly non-existent organizers of the TPs ought to hire Pearcey to explain this to reporters, perhaps with electoral maps showing where the liberating-mainstream districts are located.
Oh, and yes, the color-codings are in the original.
Read All About It: If you liked this Pearcey piece, you may also enjoy his "‘'Faggot'’ Easy to Defend." It has Ann Coulter, a claim that since you liberals are all relativistic you can't get mad etc., and great thickets of authentic rightwing gibberish. For connoisseurs only!
You forget that there are enough people out there with this utterly distorted sense of grievance -- this notion that Hollywood is a branch of the government and, like all the other branches, is constitutionally obliged to fulfill the desires, not of its paying customers, but of an agitated "patriotic" minority filled with alleged boycotters of its product, or be crusaded against -- to sustain a website.
But it occurs to me that this is kind of how the Tea Party operates, too. Its members' notions of their own importance come from the attention of the same MSM outlets they usually profess to hate and disbelieve. The government is not taxing most of them very differently from the way they've been taxed for years, but now that Democrats are in office they're suddenly mad as hell about taxes.
And though they're railing against officials who were democratically elected by majorities or pluralities of their constituents, they are not surer of anything than that they represent the true will of the people. It's normal for the defeated opposition to feel confident of victory in the next election, but these people seem to believe that they won the last one.
That's probably why they go for the Revolutionary War get-ups; they honestly think the elected government wasn't elected, at least by any voters they would recognize as fellow citizens, and that the people voted in a year and a half ago are usurpers -- from Kenya or wherever.
Democrats were alleged to have felt that way about the contested 2000 Presidential election results, but they never behaved anything like this.
WHO WAS TODAY'S BIGGEST ASSHOLE?Ben Domenech, gay-judge-hunter? (Or the CBS News exec who published his stuff?) Or the Cali financial planner who took to the Wall Street Journal to revive the old Go Galt schtick, only with even more whining?
Ah, let's give it to Dreher. He's always a safe choice.
JOLLY GOOD SHOW. Watching what I guess amounts to the PM Debate in Britain. The moderator is running a tight ship, but that and the jarring intro make this look too much like a game show. Will the Leaders Debate losers hug the winner at the end?
First module is on immigration, and while all three contenders agree immigration is a good thing (Mark Steyn is screaming at his telly, "TALK ABOUT THE DARKIES!"), Cameron wants a cap; Clegg says he wants to make sure hospitals and football teams can still get immigrants, and Brown says he's handling it.
Ah, Cameron's talking about "people who don't want to work." Steyn has risen! And telling stories about a homicidal burglar who "could be out of prison in four and a half years." Ooooh, was he a sooty?
Not that I know shit about shit, but I would think Brown benefits (yes, I know only his own constituents vote for him) by being called "Gordon" by the others. It does more to humanize him than the poor man can do for himself.
Anyone else watching this?
UPDATE. Aw Jeez, Clegg tells a story about a guy whose house was burgled while he attended his father's funeral. He should have brought out a little music box and played sad music.
UPDATE 2. Liveblogs! Libs here. Funny Socialist Scots here. WSJ here. Dr. Samuel Johnson (in period drag!) here.
UPDATE 3. "Right of recall"? "A House of Lords that is elected rather than hereditary"? What a wrecker this Brown is! Has he ever held office before?
UPDATE 4.Ha! "I met a young lady the other day who said she was sick of being used in madeup anecdotes."
UPDATE 5. Dear God: Gordon Brown talks for two minutes about supporting the troops. First the pubs started selling Budweiser, now this! America ruins everything!
IT'S A FAIR COP. BUT SOCIETY'S TO BLAME!
You know I'm the last person to want to cut the Catholic Church any slack over clerical child sex abuse.
But it must be said, especially these days, that it's not only Catholic bishops who have failed to halt the sexualization of children. We are all complicit. As awful as the Catholic bishops have been on protecting kids, children would be far better off in a culture run by the moral convictions doctrines of the Catholic bishops than the one we have, run by the moral convictions doctrines of commercial interests.
If only we had the theocracy Dreher desires, priests would stop raping little boys.
Oh, wait, it gets better:
As awful as the 1950s church was, with abuse of children going on behind a veil of sacred secrecy, is it really true that kids back then were worse off than kids today, in terms of the moral environment?
You know, he's got a point. Even if your little boy was caught by one of the chickenhawk priests and fucked in the ass, he still wouldn't have heard a single rap record.
Better still, the update: After the expected, "Don't you n00bs know I was personally agonized over this thing, and that trumps any number of tore-up little-boy anuses?*" he gets to the money shot:
We sexualize our children, then are shocked, shocked when people treat them like sexual objects.
Why he didn't just call the post "Whores! You're all Whores of Babylon!" I'll never know.
(* Not a direct quote.)
UPDATE. Commenter Aaron Baker correctly points out the similar and similarly idiotic argument of Ross Douthat, ably plunked by Henry Farrell here. The Right's Catholics and Catholics Emeritae are accustomed to pin all sex crimes on Dirty Fucking Hippies. And they don't bother to change strategies when the fault obviously lies closer to home. Infallibility will do that for you.
SHUT-INS. For a bunch of people who claim -- and have claimed every year since the invention of blogs -- that the Main Stream Media is in its death-throes and soon everyone will get their news from Instapundit and Jeff Goldstein, they sure do spend a lot of time harassing newspapermen.
My favorite part of the post is Scott Johnson's straight-faced observation, "If you have been following the underlying controversy with any care, you know that Mr. Farrell has the better of this exchange," which is rather like saying, "You will notice that no one has refuted the arguments of the homeless man yelling at Fifth and Main." Also amusing are the entreaties of the poor Washington Post ombudsman, trying to get Farrell to recognize that he is not talking to a gigantic straw man named MSM but a real person with a specific job ("The McClatchy story is of no interest to me. As ombudsman for The Washington Post, I am concerned solely with the journalism of The Washington Post").
Forget journalism -- if you've ever worked in customer service of any kind, you will probably recognize Farrell's type. It was once hoped the internet would rechannel the energies of such people from the phone lines of working people to the electronic void, but it appears their need is, like the universe, ever-expanding.
NEW VOICE COLUMN UP about the state of rightwing opinion journalism as shown by those National Review writers who beat up a colleague (Jim Manzi) for betraying his class. 
