NEW VOICE COLUMN UP for Labor Day. Title says it all: "On Labor Day, Rightbloggers Denounce Labor Day, Unions, Minimum Wage, Etc."
No outtakes -- as with the hot dogs many of you will eat at today's picnics, everything went in but the squeal. No, wait -- it was mostly squeal. Or skree, as we say.
Try not to let the collapse of everything we hold dear spoil your day off. I myself will be on the job. This here's a right-to-work state.
Monday, September 06, 2010
Sunday, September 05, 2010
ANNALS OF LIBERTARIANISM, CONT. Libertarian Nick Gillespie, who saw wonderful signs and portents in the Beck event last weekend ("[it's] about restoring a lost sense of America. The people here are somewhat inarticulate on what was lost, but they know they want to gain something back"), comes back for more. "While I think Beck is often massively confused in terms of basic facts," he tells us, "he is channeling a very strong tradition in American with regards to religion and the public square." As I said previously, that combo's gotta work out well.
To be fair, Gillespie isn't completely certain that the TeaBeckers (whom he also observed had a "huge amount of free-floating anxiety about everything" and "were pissed off that their individual actions did not seem to mean much," another winning combination) will be attracted to his free minds 'n' free markets philosophy. But just in case they come a-knockin', he's getting his populist cred in order.
This country is going to shit, but at least it promises to be a fun ride.
UPDATE. In comments, yournamehere: "Next Gillespie will tell us of the right wing revival promised by the Gathering of the Juggalos."
To be fair, Gillespie isn't completely certain that the TeaBeckers (whom he also observed had a "huge amount of free-floating anxiety about everything" and "were pissed off that their individual actions did not seem to mean much," another winning combination) will be attracted to his free minds 'n' free markets philosophy. But just in case they come a-knockin', he's getting his populist cred in order.
The crowd reminded me of Wal-Mart (not being snarky!). I live part-time in small-town Ohio where the local Wal-Mart Super Center is a major third space.I'll just let you savor that bit before we get to Gillespie's notes on his proletarian part-time neighbors' third space. Now, look out Tocqueville!
Over the past few years and contrary to its image as wholesome, the chain has gone serously goth. Check out the T-shirts you can buy there and virtually every other one has skulls and crosses on it. And if something doesn't have stylized chains and blood on it, then it's in Day-Glo colors. The crowd reflected that, with more piercings than I've seen at some rock shows, ZZ Top beards galore, a biker look on many men and women. A noticeable number of the crowd were even wearing inexpensive Faded Glory (Wal-Mart's housebrand) American flag T-shirts. Any number of commentators may have been appalled by the crowd, but check it and see: This is America.Also, did you know that many of the rustics have taken up the radical couture of Ed Hardy? That's a sure sign freedom is in the house!
This country is going to shit, but at least it promises to be a fun ride.
UPDATE. In comments, yournamehere: "Next Gillespie will tell us of the right wing revival promised by the Gathering of the Juggalos."
Saturday, September 04, 2010
SHORTER JONAH GOLDBERG. Barack Obama's socialism becomes clear as soon as you accept that liberalism is socialism. Also fascism! Fart.
[Goldberg gets extra fart points for asserting that liberals exhibit "a loud and growing antagonism to democracy per se," and offers in evidence... Thomas Friedman, whom we are told "speaks for many." Goldberg also asserts that during the health care debate, liberals "rallied around the notion that the American political system 'sucks,'" and offers in evidence... nothing. As we never tire of saying, this article is the stupidest thing ever written, and will remain so until Goldberg writes something else.]
[Goldberg gets extra fart points for asserting that liberals exhibit "a loud and growing antagonism to democracy per se," and offers in evidence... Thomas Friedman, whom we are told "speaks for many." Goldberg also asserts that during the health care debate, liberals "rallied around the notion that the American political system 'sucks,'" and offers in evidence... nothing. As we never tire of saying, this article is the stupidest thing ever written, and will remain so until Goldberg writes something else.]
Friday, September 03, 2010
HAPPY LABOR DAY: REMEMBERING THE TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST SUICIDE BOMBERS. Everyone celebrates Labor Day in his or her own way. Michelle Malkin's is to memorialize "the union movement's violent and corrupt foundations." But the only example she offers is a guy shot dead during a miners' strike* 17 years ago, which incident has lately become the conservatives' go-to citation when they talk about unions.
I am surprised Malkin and her colleagues didn't also highlight some of the other sordid incidents in labor history:
• The The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911, in which Bolshevik operatives suicide-bombed first responders with their own bodies by hurling them out of the upper stories of a useful business owned by wealth producers Max Blanck and Isaac Harris. Some of the operatives set themselves on fire before attacking in an attempt to mask their intentions. Blanck's and Harris' worker-incentive program of blocking fire exits was blamed for the operatives' deaths by the liberal media, as the Bolsheviks had planned.
• The Pullman Strike of 1894, another stunning PR victory for the forces of collectivism, in which Marxist railroad workers complained that their wages had been cut during a recession, a violation of the law of supply and demand which the Federal Government answered with troops, against whose bullets the Marxists viciously threw their bodies.
• The Bisbee Deportation of 1917, an early attempt by Arizona patriots to deal with illegal immigration which liberals, naturally, smeared as unconstitutional.
Why not? It's not as if their readers wouldn't believe them.
* Miners are also known for getting stuck in holes and dying in a deliberate attempt to drum up support for Big Government, whose resources are wasted in getting them out. Comes the day of the Randian superlegislators, miners will not get such handouts, and will be required to pull themselves out of their so-called "cave-ins" (reminiscent of the "love-ins" of the 1960s) by their own bootstraps.
UPDATE. In comments, montag gets in the spirit, helpfully calls our attention to "the propaganda exercise still referred to as the 'Ford Hunger March.'"
As often happens, commenters find people for whom our satirical perspective is their perpetual hallucinatory state -- i.e., libertarians. AJB tips us to one Rex Curry, who literally opens, "The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire of 1911 is often misused as a example of the need for safety codes and child labor laws."
More mainstream is R. Porrofatto's discovery, Jeffrey A. Tucker of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, whose advice to unemployed youths to "Work for Free" doesn't seem entirely insane -- sure, if you and your family can afford it, intern and build your resume -- until you realize Tucker is simply an ass-licker who reflexively sides with the boss on everything, as seen in this poignant passage:
I am surprised Malkin and her colleagues didn't also highlight some of the other sordid incidents in labor history:
• The The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911, in which Bolshevik operatives suicide-bombed first responders with their own bodies by hurling them out of the upper stories of a useful business owned by wealth producers Max Blanck and Isaac Harris. Some of the operatives set themselves on fire before attacking in an attempt to mask their intentions. Blanck's and Harris' worker-incentive program of blocking fire exits was blamed for the operatives' deaths by the liberal media, as the Bolsheviks had planned.
• The Pullman Strike of 1894, another stunning PR victory for the forces of collectivism, in which Marxist railroad workers complained that their wages had been cut during a recession, a violation of the law of supply and demand which the Federal Government answered with troops, against whose bullets the Marxists viciously threw their bodies.
• The Bisbee Deportation of 1917, an early attempt by Arizona patriots to deal with illegal immigration which liberals, naturally, smeared as unconstitutional.
Why not? It's not as if their readers wouldn't believe them.
* Miners are also known for getting stuck in holes and dying in a deliberate attempt to drum up support for Big Government, whose resources are wasted in getting them out. Comes the day of the Randian superlegislators, miners will not get such handouts, and will be required to pull themselves out of their so-called "cave-ins" (reminiscent of the "love-ins" of the 1960s) by their own bootstraps.
UPDATE. In comments, montag gets in the spirit, helpfully calls our attention to "the propaganda exercise still referred to as the 'Ford Hunger March.'"
As often happens, commenters find people for whom our satirical perspective is their perpetual hallucinatory state -- i.e., libertarians. AJB tips us to one Rex Curry, who literally opens, "The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire of 1911 is often misused as a example of the need for safety codes and child labor laws."
More mainstream is R. Porrofatto's discovery, Jeffrey A. Tucker of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, whose advice to unemployed youths to "Work for Free" doesn't seem entirely insane -- sure, if you and your family can afford it, intern and build your resume -- until you realize Tucker is simply an ass-licker who reflexively sides with the boss on everything, as seen in this poignant passage:
The first case comes from a job I had in my teens. I was standing around with a few other employees in a clothing shop. The boss walked by and said to my coworker: "Please straighten these ties on this table." My coworker waited until the boss walked away, and then he muttered under his breath: "I'm not doing that for minimum wage."The Ole Perfesser should do his next book about such people, and call it "An Army of Niedermeyers." I mean, forget technocrats and elitists, do we really want to be ruled by dorks?
That comment seared right through me, and I thought about it a very long time. The worker was effectively asking for money up front before working, even though he was employed to do things like straighten ties. This was even worse than insubordination.
ANNALS OF LIBERTARIANISM, CONT. Look what's at Reason:
Nowadays libertarian's just a word to use when you want to say "conservative" but need an extra syllable.
Whether or not Operation Iraqi Freedom was a blunder, only time will tell—as even some strong critics of the war, such as former Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean, concede. But it is not too early to say that Americans are not the villains in this story. That role belongs to the dictator who drove so many of his subjects to welcome a foreign invasion, and to the extremists who unleashed carnage on their own.Wait'll Ron Paul hears about this!
Nowadays libertarian's just a word to use when you want to say "conservative" but need an extra syllable.
OUR FEEBLE EFFORT AGAINST PROFESSIONAL LIARS. As Moscow Gold is not what the rightbloggers would have you believe it is, I must work for my daily bread, and have not all day to deal with the bullshit dished out by high-volume lie-vendors like Glenn Beck's new internet catastrophe, The Blaze.
Nonetheless I will try to handle one of their recent ass-effusions, "KEY OBAMA ALLY WORKS WITH SOCIALISTS FOR GLOBAL TAX."
The overview: AFL-CIO Prez Richard Trumka (helluva guy, saw him at Netroots) is portrayed by Beck as not only a friend of Obama, but also "a friend and close ally with European Socialists."
Keep in mind: Most of us, if we met and liked any Europeans, would wind up being friends with "European Socialists" because they're all socialists, at least by the wingnut definition. Never mind that, though.
Trumka speaks in favor of a tax on speculative financial transactions -- you know, the kind that bankrupted America. This tax is also favored by many other democracies around the world. That's what makes it "socialist" to the Beck people.
The tax Trumka mentioned is described at the "Wealth for the Common Good" site as a 0.25 percent tax "on stock trades and 0.02 on trades of future contracts, swaps and credit default swaps (options would also be taxed at the underlying rate governing the security on which the option is written)," which "would dampen the incentive of short-term speculators, thereby protecting long-term investors." Does that sound bad to you? Or even especially socialistic?
But in keeping with Beck's grotesque misrepresentation, when Trumka suggests democracies "regulate speculative funds such as hedge funds and private equity funds, create a financial speculation tax, or a financial transaction tax, or a Robin Hood Tax, however you wish to refer to it" -- this is how Beck's people show that:
SKREE ROBIN HOOD! Must be a Scandinavian Commie!
Oh, and the activist whose Hitleresque friendship Beck kept using to damn Trumka? He's Poul Nyrup Rasmussen -- the former Prime Minister of Denmark. I know, you thought he was Karl Marx reincarnated.
These dirtbags lie so much, and in so many venues, that I couldn't possibly keep up. But I figured at least I'd nail one before I went to bed. Light a single candle, and all. G'night.
UPDATE. Oops, sorry, Batocchio, you mean like this:
UPDATE 2. Jennifer, in comments: "Funny - they love all other types of transaction taxes -- sales taxes on poor people's food, VAT taxes, etc. -- because by their definition they are the only 'fair' taxes since they shift the burden of taxation to those lowest on the ladder."
Nonetheless I will try to handle one of their recent ass-effusions, "KEY OBAMA ALLY WORKS WITH SOCIALISTS FOR GLOBAL TAX."
The overview: AFL-CIO Prez Richard Trumka (helluva guy, saw him at Netroots) is portrayed by Beck as not only a friend of Obama, but also "a friend and close ally with European Socialists."
Keep in mind: Most of us, if we met and liked any Europeans, would wind up being friends with "European Socialists" because they're all socialists, at least by the wingnut definition. Never mind that, though.
Trumka speaks in favor of a tax on speculative financial transactions -- you know, the kind that bankrupted America. This tax is also favored by many other democracies around the world. That's what makes it "socialist" to the Beck people.
The tax Trumka mentioned is described at the "Wealth for the Common Good" site as a 0.25 percent tax "on stock trades and 0.02 on trades of future contracts, swaps and credit default swaps (options would also be taxed at the underlying rate governing the security on which the option is written)," which "would dampen the incentive of short-term speculators, thereby protecting long-term investors." Does that sound bad to you? Or even especially socialistic?
But in keeping with Beck's grotesque misrepresentation, when Trumka suggests democracies "regulate speculative funds such as hedge funds and private equity funds, create a financial speculation tax, or a financial transaction tax, or a Robin Hood Tax, however you wish to refer to it" -- this is how Beck's people show that:
SKREE ROBIN HOOD! Must be a Scandinavian Commie!
Oh, and the activist whose Hitleresque friendship Beck kept using to damn Trumka? He's Poul Nyrup Rasmussen -- the former Prime Minister of Denmark. I know, you thought he was Karl Marx reincarnated.
These dirtbags lie so much, and in so many venues, that I couldn't possibly keep up. But I figured at least I'd nail one before I went to bed. Light a single candle, and all. G'night.
UPDATE. Oops, sorry, Batocchio, you mean like this:
UPDATE 2. Jennifer, in comments: "Funny - they love all other types of transaction taxes -- sales taxes on poor people's food, VAT taxes, etc. -- because by their definition they are the only 'fair' taxes since they shift the burden of taxation to those lowest on the ladder."
Thursday, September 02, 2010
THE BARREL HAS NO BOTTOM, PART 699,020. When I heard there was yet another oil-related disaster in the Gulf (platform, fire), I wondered if rightbloggers would go there. Now reader teh mantis has alerted me and I know: Yes, they would and they have, on jet skis.
Melissa "The Chiropractor" Clouthier:
Anything's possible, I suppose. But think about it: When they heard about a second oil disaster in the Gulf, their immediate thought was: I bet liberals blew it up.
Or maybe it wasn't their immediate thought -- maybe they first considered several options, and then went with this. Which is even worse.
Melissa "The Chiropractor" Clouthier:
...I have a theory about the unfolding explosion on another Gulf Oil Rig today. It has to be an environmental wacko. I mean, they've been getting out of hand recently. And as the James Lee guy demonstrates, these people do tend to be given to violence.Shannon Love of Chicago Boyz:
We went 31 years without a major oil spill in the Gulf prior to Deepwater Horizon. Now we have a second explosion so soon. Meanwhile, some Greenpeace “direct action” types are attacking an oil rig off Greenland.Left Coast Rebel:
Hmmmm,
There’s no evidence of any human agency in either explosion. Still when you look at the utter frothing hysteria directed against drilling and the oil industry in general, it’s pretty easy to imagine a group deciding that a little violence now will save a lot of lives later.
What do you think? How long do you think that it may take for the investigation behind this to prove that it is a case of eco-terrorism? Perhaps one of the 13 workers that were saved may provide insight into the cause of the Vermillion 380 oil rig. Does James Jay Lee have a friend that works on oil rigs?Making this extra adorable, LCR later complains about liberals rushing to judgement on the Vermillion Bay fire ("Can you believe the communist nutroots?").
Anything's possible, I suppose. But think about it: When they heard about a second oil disaster in the Gulf, their immediate thought was: I bet liberals blew it up.
Or maybe it wasn't their immediate thought -- maybe they first considered several options, and then went with this. Which is even worse.
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
QUICKIE. Republican consultant Josh Trevino at the HuffPo: "Why the President's Partisans Talk Down Islam," about the grave offenses committed by Democrats against Muslims (that is, when they're not helping the Muslims build their Victory Mosque right on top of Ground Zero).
We could go through the whole tendentious thing, but this line captures both its spirit and tone so perfectly that we don't need to:
We could go through the whole tendentious thing, but this line captures both its spirit and tone so perfectly that we don't need to:
As it happens, the President does share many goals with Muslims who believe in shari'a and its expansion, and it's not a slander upon him to say it.If only they were all this easy.
LIVE BLOG, APPLE MEETING. What the hell, I have a few minutes.
10:01 PT: Jobs looks skinny but by now I just assume it's the yoga. Does he always sound so Eddie Haskellish? I thought his voice was deeper. Maybe I was mixing him up with Larry David.
They're opening a second store in Paris. "A beautiful old building that we restored." But it's their new store in China -- "a 40-foot-high glass cylinder" -- that gets the applause. The Apple Corps understand unity! Also, new store in Covent Garden. Their 300th store.
10:05: More about stores. Lots of people in stores. Lots of lessons taught. Nothing about how much they buy.
10:06: 120 million iOS devices shipped! (iTouch, iPad etc.) 130,000 new activations a day! 6.5 billion apps!
iOS 4.1! Bugs fixed. "All the bugs that we get mails on." HD video over wifi, TV show rentals, Game Center.
Also "High Dynamic Range Photos" standard. What? Tap a button and it "takes 3 photos in rapid succession," with a range of exposure calculated by "some pretty sophisticated algorithms."
Basically, it's an equalization feature.
10:10: Game Center lets you play with friends and "if you don't have any friends they can match you up with some." Laughs from the room full of former and present geeks.
Oh no, gamer stuff ("Project Sword!")! I'm going to just fade away here awhile...
10:15: They played a game and everyone went "woo."
Back to iOS 4.1: Wireless printing. AirTunes becomes AirPlay because it's not just music anymore. Jobs puts Pandora on, and is now multi-tasking -- an exciting new concept for mobile! -- by looking at the Web. Coming in November.
iPods will be the "entree." First more boasting: 275 million sold. It's digital McDonald's!
"Every year we try to improve iPods and this year, we've gone wild."
A new design for every model. Like the Shuffle: "People missed the buttons." So they have some. Plus it's tiny, see? And provides 15 hours of music.
iiPod Nano HAS MULTITOUCH! IT HAS MULTITOUCH EVERYBODY! And it too is very tiny. And has 24 hour battery life. Starts at $149.
10:30: Jobs is talking about how the touch screen turns upside down if you want it to. "Photos look pretty good on it as well." Especially when projected many times over their real size.
Apparently they're doing something similar with the Touch. "Some people call in an iPhone without a phone. It's also an iPhone without a contract." Well, that's a plus. And Touch is not only their most popular mobile, it's also the biggest game player in the world.
The new one is: "More thin," hence "more beautiful." Also the "retina display" and front-facing camera/FaceTime that were the big come-ons for iPhone 4G. And 4 hours of music playback. And now iPhones and Touch communicate with one another. Starts at $229 -- next week. Vrroom!
10:30: New ads. iPod ads emphasize wearability due to size, clip. Touch ads tout gaming, FaceTime.
Oh, and iTunes 10. They've "ditched the CD" from the logo, because no one uses those anymore. Just notes in a circle now. Also, Discovery: "How do you find out about new stuff?" Something better than email? Solution: "Facebook and Twitter meet iTunes." They call it Ping -- "a social network built right into music." Click the Ping button, you see friends, stars, posts, etc. You sign up to follow people and find out what they're listening to, what concerts they're going to. "All the information on the people we follow will be delivered right to us." You can also set up a "Circle of Friends" option whereby you get to exclude the losers from following you. You can look at an artist's photos, post comments on them, etc. Great for kids and bloggers!
Oh God, a personal video message from Lady Gaga to her "beautiful monsters." She sounds weak and stoned. No applause.
In a way it's weird. It seems like a walled garden version of... the whole internet. On the other hand, the interface lets you listen to other iTunes users' music -- which is a previously missing piece that could be big.
10:50: Wait a minute -- Apple TV? Those few people who use it want on-demand -- "Hollywood TV and movies." And HD. And lower prices. "They don't want a computer on their TVs. They have computers." They don't like syncing. They don't like noisy mechanisms. Hard for computer people to understand, says Jobs -- but "easy for consumers to understand."
Solution: AppleTV 2nd Gen. And it, too, is mini. ("I can hold it in my hand.") Basically it's like TiVo only smaller, and it has WiFi and streaming. There are no longer any purchases -- you rent your shows -- and thus, no storage issues. But even if you rent the same content several times, Jobs claims, it's still cheaper than buying.
You rent from iTunes. First run rental movies, $4.99. (And you can see the Tomatometer!) TV shows, 99 cents. (ABC and FOX are the partners, and they think the other producers will "see the light" soon.) And you can stream off your computer. And get Netflix. Jobs keeps saying "simple," which they must have perceived was the problem with AppleTV. (And "tiny little box," because that's today's theme.) UPDATE: $99!
And... that was an hour. I promised myself I'd stop then. In sum: Everything is smaller and touch-ier, and that's it -- except that, thanks to Ping, you can listen to other people's iTunes from home, which -- since iTunes is so cheap -- will probably lead to a buttload of new iTunes sales.
UPDATE. Gwyneth Paltrow's husband performs. I take it all back: Apple sucks.
UPDATE 2: Sorry, I just had to replay these two comments from the Endgadget thread on Ping: "Apple just created a social network which is only available to Apple customers. Thank fuck for that." "Yes thank fuck indeed. I like to think of it as more of a douchebag hipster quarantine."
UPDATE 3: Thanks, comrades, for spelling tips. I haven't done this liveblog thing since I was blogging regular at the Voice. So much multitasking! No wonder I have a twitch.
10:01 PT: Jobs looks skinny but by now I just assume it's the yoga. Does he always sound so Eddie Haskellish? I thought his voice was deeper. Maybe I was mixing him up with Larry David.
They're opening a second store in Paris. "A beautiful old building that we restored." But it's their new store in China -- "a 40-foot-high glass cylinder" -- that gets the applause. The Apple Corps understand unity! Also, new store in Covent Garden. Their 300th store.
10:05: More about stores. Lots of people in stores. Lots of lessons taught. Nothing about how much they buy.
10:06: 120 million iOS devices shipped! (iTouch, iPad etc.) 130,000 new activations a day! 6.5 billion apps!
iOS 4.1! Bugs fixed. "All the bugs that we get mails on." HD video over wifi, TV show rentals, Game Center.
Also "High Dynamic Range Photos" standard. What? Tap a button and it "takes 3 photos in rapid succession," with a range of exposure calculated by "some pretty sophisticated algorithms."
Basically, it's an equalization feature.
10:10: Game Center lets you play with friends and "if you don't have any friends they can match you up with some." Laughs from the room full of former and present geeks.
Oh no, gamer stuff ("Project Sword!")! I'm going to just fade away here awhile...
10:15: They played a game and everyone went "woo."
Back to iOS 4.1: Wireless printing. AirTunes becomes AirPlay because it's not just music anymore. Jobs puts Pandora on, and is now multi-tasking -- an exciting new concept for mobile! -- by looking at the Web. Coming in November.
iPods will be the "entree." First more boasting: 275 million sold. It's digital McDonald's! "Every year we try to improve iPods and this year, we've gone wild."
A new design for every model. Like the Shuffle: "People missed the buttons." So they have some. Plus it's tiny, see? And provides 15 hours of music. iiPod Nano HAS MULTITOUCH! IT HAS MULTITOUCH EVERYBODY! And it too is very tiny. And has 24 hour battery life. Starts at $149.
10:30: Jobs is talking about how the touch screen turns upside down if you want it to. "Photos look pretty good on it as well." Especially when projected many times over their real size.
Apparently they're doing something similar with the Touch. "Some people call in an iPhone without a phone. It's also an iPhone without a contract." Well, that's a plus. And Touch is not only their most popular mobile, it's also the biggest game player in the world.
The new one is: "More thin," hence "more beautiful." Also the "retina display" and front-facing camera/FaceTime that were the big come-ons for iPhone 4G. And 4 hours of music playback. And now iPhones and Touch communicate with one another. Starts at $229 -- next week. Vrroom!
10:30: New ads. iPod ads emphasize wearability due to size, clip. Touch ads tout gaming, FaceTime.
Oh, and iTunes 10. They've "ditched the CD" from the logo, because no one uses those anymore. Just notes in a circle now. Also, Discovery: "How do you find out about new stuff?" Something better than email? Solution: "Facebook and Twitter meet iTunes." They call it Ping -- "a social network built right into music." Click the Ping button, you see friends, stars, posts, etc. You sign up to follow people and find out what they're listening to, what concerts they're going to. "All the information on the people we follow will be delivered right to us." You can also set up a "Circle of Friends" option whereby you get to exclude the losers from following you. You can look at an artist's photos, post comments on them, etc. Great for kids and bloggers!
Oh God, a personal video message from Lady Gaga to her "beautiful monsters." She sounds weak and stoned. No applause.
In a way it's weird. It seems like a walled garden version of... the whole internet. On the other hand, the interface lets you listen to other iTunes users' music -- which is a previously missing piece that could be big.
10:50: Wait a minute -- Apple TV? Those few people who use it want on-demand -- "Hollywood TV and movies." And HD. And lower prices. "They don't want a computer on their TVs. They have computers." They don't like syncing. They don't like noisy mechanisms. Hard for computer people to understand, says Jobs -- but "easy for consumers to understand."
Solution: AppleTV 2nd Gen. And it, too, is mini. ("I can hold it in my hand.") Basically it's like TiVo only smaller, and it has WiFi and streaming. There are no longer any purchases -- you rent your shows -- and thus, no storage issues. But even if you rent the same content several times, Jobs claims, it's still cheaper than buying.
You rent from iTunes. First run rental movies, $4.99. (And you can see the Tomatometer!) TV shows, 99 cents. (ABC and FOX are the partners, and they think the other producers will "see the light" soon.) And you can stream off your computer. And get Netflix. Jobs keeps saying "simple," which they must have perceived was the problem with AppleTV. (And "tiny little box," because that's today's theme.) UPDATE: $99!
And... that was an hour. I promised myself I'd stop then. In sum: Everything is smaller and touch-ier, and that's it -- except that, thanks to Ping, you can listen to other people's iTunes from home, which -- since iTunes is so cheap -- will probably lead to a buttload of new iTunes sales.
UPDATE. Gwyneth Paltrow's husband performs. I take it all back: Apple sucks.
UPDATE 2: Sorry, I just had to replay these two comments from the Endgadget thread on Ping: "Apple just created a social network which is only available to Apple customers. Thank fuck for that." "Yes thank fuck indeed. I like to think of it as more of a douchebag hipster quarantine."
UPDATE 3: Thanks, comrades, for spelling tips. I haven't done this liveblog thing since I was blogging regular at the Voice. So much multitasking! No wonder I have a twitch.
LET'S SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE AND JUST SAY I'M RIGHT. At Pajamas Media, someone called Zombie slicks down his hair, puts on a nice smile, and tries to act reasonable about the Texas schoolbook debacle. Some of us were tipped off by the first part of what Zombie has promised will be a five-part (!) essay. There, Zombie said:
In Part 2 -- excuse me, "Part II" -- Zombie admits that the Christers have some "ideological baggage," but the ObamaMarxists have some too: for example, they don't approve the newly-inserted praise for that great American Joe McCarthy. "Perhaps McCarthy’s tactics haven’t been vindicated," explains Zombie, "but his claims have." Similarly, the witch-hunters of old Salem may have overstepped, and like the McCarthyites punished many innocent people, but they knew Satan was real and fought against him, and that's the important thing.
Finally even the patience of Zombie of the Five (I Mean V) Parts is exhausted, and he goes for the money shot:
But what you won’t find is anyone willing to say that BOTH sides are unacceptable. (Until now, that is. I’m saying it.)Wait -- if one side is Jesus freaks who don't go for no separation-of-church-and-state nor ee-volution nohow, and who got the school board to change Texas schoolbooks to reflect those and other prejudices, then the other side would be the side championing actual U.S. history and science, right? No, only Zombie in all the wide world supports that. The other side he characterizes thus:
However grotesque Texas’ twisting of facts may seem at first glance, it’s positively mild compared to what’s going on coast-to-coast in the rest of the country’s classrooms. That’s because the Texas curriculum wars are not happening in a vacuum — they’re happening in response to a complete perversion of the American educational system that has taken place right under our noses over recent decades.In case you don't get what he's talking about, he includes a helpful cartoon of Obama and Karl Marx trying to wrest control of a schoolkid from Texas and Jesus. No, I'm not kidding.
In Part 2 -- excuse me, "Part II" -- Zombie admits that the Christers have some "ideological baggage," but the ObamaMarxists have some too: for example, they don't approve the newly-inserted praise for that great American Joe McCarthy. "Perhaps McCarthy’s tactics haven’t been vindicated," explains Zombie, "but his claims have." Similarly, the witch-hunters of old Salem may have overstepped, and like the McCarthyites punished many innocent people, but they knew Satan was real and fought against him, and that's the important thing.
Finally even the patience of Zombie of the Five (I Mean V) Parts is exhausted, and he goes for the money shot:
Since I hate each side’s main course, I have to look to see what else they have on their trays...The tribute vice pays to virtue and all that, but I don't like it when they pretend to be reasonable, especially when their message boils down rather efficiently to OBAMA MUSLIM PERVERT OUR KIDZ SKREE. It takes too long to get to the crazy, and who's got that kind of time?
It all comes down to a matter of intent. WHY does each side mutilate the truth? To what end?
In the case of the left, the ultimate goal is to overthrow the United States as we know it.
In the case of the right, the ultimate goal is to preserve and strengthen the United States.
What choice do I have, therefore, but to support the conservative side as the lesser of two evils?
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
BUGS. The Ole Perfesser hears about the resurgence of bedbugs, and blames Obama:
Public service department: The Perfesser has in the past declared DDT is a cure for bedbugs ("Bringing back DDT would solve this problem"); here he lets a quote from the Times about DDT hang without comment. Confusion on this issue is sometimes found on political sites where commenters try to spread the word that Rachel Carson, in addition to being a mass murderer, condemned us all to life with bedbugs.
So let's hand it off to the folks at New York vs. Bed Bugs (h/t reader Hob), who know what they're talking about:
"...The reasonable course, Dr. Goddard said, is to recognize that we are, in effect, back in the 1920s ‘Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite’ era. People should be aware, but not panicky.”He also quotes a reader:
They told me if I voted for John McCain, America would be taken back to the 1920s. And they were right!
What a horribly defeatist article. The “future is grim” and we are “back in the ’20’s ” with no proffered solutions? Parsing the lines, apparently there are some pesticides that work, but we are not told what they are. I guess we are supposed to not ask questions and suffer through this plague. This is a perfect metaphor for the Obama age.These guys suffer badly from Susan Smith Syndrome.
Public service department: The Perfesser has in the past declared DDT is a cure for bedbugs ("Bringing back DDT would solve this problem"); here he lets a quote from the Times about DDT hang without comment. Confusion on this issue is sometimes found on political sites where commenters try to spread the word that Rachel Carson, in addition to being a mass murderer, condemned us all to life with bedbugs.
So let's hand it off to the folks at New York vs. Bed Bugs (h/t reader Hob), who know what they're talking about:
In a March 2008 Bedbugger interview, Texas A & M research scientist James W. Austin noted the continued resistance to DDT (emphasis added):It's not just about global warming denialism -- conservatives treat science like they treat everything else: As an occasion to work on their lying skills.While screening multiple populations of bed bugs against various insecticides we have found virtually all populations were 100% resistant to DDT. This is not a surprise given that the first observances of DDT resistance were noted almost 50 years ago. It is a little surprising that they continue to be so completely resistant to DDT.
Monday, August 30, 2010
NEW VOICE COLUMN UP about Beckapalooza. The distinguishing features of the rightblogger coverage, I found, were 1.) a conviction that this allegedly apolitical demo proved America was on their side (and no one was really buying the apolitical angle, as press coverage showed; it was universally acknowledged as a ploy, which made the rigor with which the fake neutrality was observed especially fascinating); and, 2.) an unshakeable awareness that, despite their best efforts, no one is buying Beck as the new MLK and teabaggery as the new civil rights movement, which irritates them no end, and reanimates their rage over the many unfair advantages enjoyed by black people in this country, even dead ones.
I did watch Beck's speech and I have to say, America's taste in demagogues has deteriorated. He comports himself like an overgrown child, all appetite, talking about dark days and civil wars and other bleak subjects but bouncing around like he just shotgunned a packet of Kool-Aid and now hopes to talk the crowd into giving him cake. That anyone would follow him to Washington in August says more about the parlous state of the nation than anything in his incoherent speech.
I did watch Beck's speech and I have to say, America's taste in demagogues has deteriorated. He comports himself like an overgrown child, all appetite, talking about dark days and civil wars and other bleak subjects but bouncing around like he just shotgunned a packet of Kool-Aid and now hopes to talk the crowd into giving him cake. That anyone would follow him to Washington in August says more about the parlous state of the nation than anything in his incoherent speech.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
SHORTER RICK MORAN: Some say Glenn Beck is no Martin Luther King. But I have here Zombie MLK, and he tells me he hates affirmative action and Jesse Jackson. No, no quotes -- you'll just have to take my word for it.
[In fairness, MLK did advocate a guaranteed income, and I'm sure many of today's Restoring Honor attendees are on some form of government psych disability.]
UPDATE. I must commend in comments Kia Penso's peroration on Beck himself, whom she classes "a huckster, a person who gets the hell out of town before his customers wake up and discover that the hair restorer doesn't work. It's not even that what he peddles is shit to sane people, it's shit to his people too. But Beck's audience can't even recognize that, they think shit is what they are supposed to get..."
[In fairness, MLK did advocate a guaranteed income, and I'm sure many of today's Restoring Honor attendees are on some form of government psych disability.]
UPDATE. I must commend in comments Kia Penso's peroration on Beck himself, whom she classes "a huckster, a person who gets the hell out of town before his customers wake up and discover that the hair restorer doesn't work. It's not even that what he peddles is shit to sane people, it's shit to his people too. But Beck's audience can't even recognize that, they think shit is what they are supposed to get..."
Friday, August 27, 2010
WHEN THEY SAY "NON-DEMAGOGIC," HOLD ONTO YOUR WALLET. At National Review, Avik Roy tries to explain in "A Non-Demagogic Disquisition on Death Panels" how conservatives are perfectly right to worry about this non-existent phenomenon because the Brits kill grannies and conservatives just know that American liberals will start killing grannies the second the money runs low. Let the healing begin!
Not adding to the versimilitude: Roy throws in as a supporting example the end-of-life counseling document "Your Life, Your Choices" used by the Veterans Administration for years before Obama walked in the door. Roy thinks this example shows that the state can't handle such delicate matters without trying to get veterans to kill themselves.
But as I found when I examined the controversy last year, the document in question is nothing like what Roy (and his source, a Bush Administration official who tried to get the VA to use his own document in its place) portray it as; also, that the controversy over "Your Life, Your Choices" was ginned up by rightwing shouters and fist-shakers who have never been anywhere near a "Non-Demagogic Disquisition" in their lives -- including Roy's colleagues Jonah Goldberg and Andy McCarthy. From McCarthy's ravings:
Not adding to the versimilitude: Roy throws in as a supporting example the end-of-life counseling document "Your Life, Your Choices" used by the Veterans Administration for years before Obama walked in the door. Roy thinks this example shows that the state can't handle such delicate matters without trying to get veterans to kill themselves.
But as I found when I examined the controversy last year, the document in question is nothing like what Roy (and his source, a Bush Administration official who tried to get the VA to use his own document in its place) portray it as; also, that the controversy over "Your Life, Your Choices" was ginned up by rightwing shouters and fist-shakers who have never been anywhere near a "Non-Demagogic Disquisition" in their lives -- including Roy's colleagues Jonah Goldberg and Andy McCarthy. From McCarthy's ravings:
This Orwellian “Your Life, Your Choices” questionnaire, in the familiar “push poll” manner, methodically steers the patient toward the notion that he is a malingering near-vegetable causing a “severe emotional burden” for his family. I don’t know what the correct, non-hysterical term for such a process is, but “Grim Government Reaper” strikes me as more accurate than “Your Life, Your Choices"...It's pretty rich to try and pull a fast one like that in the middle of an allegedly "non-demogogic disquisition."
In essence, Democrats want to repeal individual liberty...
I AM THE ONE, ORGASMATRON. I just want to recommend "The Ultimate Escape: The Bizarre Libertarian Plan of Uploading Brains into Robots to Escape Society" by Sadlynaut Brad Reed at AlterNet. It's an update on that whole transhumanist scheme Ole Perfesser Glenn Reynolds and other libertarians are into, whereby they hope to upload their brains into robots and live forever, free from the interference of looters and littlebrains.
One choice bit, involving Bryan Caplan (best known to us as one of the intellectuals who think women were more free in the 1890s than they are now, because of the socialism):
A useful concordance from my back catalogue: Reynolds' Universal Robots.
UPDATE. In comments Jay B explores the sitcom potential in Caplan's clone child: "Me 2: Millionaire narcissist Joseph Marriott (Macaulay Culkin), a self-help guru, realizes his dream of cloning and raising himself using his own 'living strategies'..."
One choice bit, involving Bryan Caplan (best known to us as one of the intellectuals who think women were more free in the 1890s than they are now, because of the socialism):
"Yes, I wish to clone myself and raise the baby as my son,” he confessed earlier this year. “I want to experience the sublime bond I'm sure we'd share. I'm confident that he'd be delighted, too, because I would love to be raised by me.”If you've ever noticed that libertarians don't seem to care about people who do not very, very closely resemble themselves, this may explain a lot.
A useful concordance from my back catalogue: Reynolds' Universal Robots.
UPDATE. In comments Jay B explores the sitcom potential in Caplan's clone child: "Me 2: Millionaire narcissist Joseph Marriott (Macaulay Culkin), a self-help guru, realizes his dream of cloning and raising himself using his own 'living strategies'..."
Thursday, August 26, 2010
A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN. In the National Catholic Register, Kathryn Jean Lopez bids us attend the Passion of Mel Gibson.
It's full of gems, but this is my favorite:
UPDATE. Satch, in comments: "Jeez, K-Lo, Mel Gibson's rant was a month and a half ago, and you're just getting to it now? He probably doesn't even remember it."
But somewhere, in the ravenous appetite for news about the private lives of public people, there is something unhealthy going on. Media laptops and tweets and “E! True Hollywood Story” strategy sessions are a chisel to the lives of human beings, who by nature or surgery are beautiful; their lives now lie in pieces for us all to watch and discuss.If Joe and Jane Schmo get into a domestic violence beef, they are spared this horrible chiseling. Of course, they don't have the millions of dollars either, so there's a trade-off.
It's full of gems, but this is my favorite:
Mel Gibson, presenting that fruit of labor and prayer [The Passion of the Christ], was more of a feminist than any activist in Washington devoting her energy to the destruction of innocent human lives.Well, when you put it that way...
UPDATE. Satch, in comments: "Jeez, K-Lo, Mel Gibson's rant was a month and a half ago, and you're just getting to it now? He probably doesn't even remember it."
THE SQUARES DON'T GET ME. Ann Althouse thinks I missed her point:
She eventually gets to her secondary target, and makes this generous admission:
I'm starting to think they gave Althouse tenure just to shut her up.
Did Edroso even understand my point? I deliberately write in an elliptical style sometimes. You have to think a minute to get it, and I don't think Edroso did. The writing may look simple, but there is a challenge in that simplicity that you'd better be sure you see and meet before you decide you've done the easy reading and are now in a fine position to call me stupid.731 words, folks. Seven hundred and thirty-one words. Not counting the title.
She eventually gets to her secondary target, and makes this generous admission:
I don't think [Savan] wanted to deal in higher level philosophy about individual freedom and autonomy (which is the subject that I went on to talk about, quoting James Madison).Considering Savan was talking about some nut talking about Obama's Muslim seed, yeah, maybe she wasn't heading for the rarified air of higher level philosophy.
So, Roy, imagine that an editor at The Nation had responded to Savan's draft with these direct questions:You can go look. Her prescriptions sound very little like what any editor would write in the margin of any copy, and rather like what someone might write across a blue book if he or she really had it in for the student who submitted it.
I'm starting to think they gave Althouse tenure just to shut her up.
THEY'LL BELIEVE ANYTHING. It appears John Derbyshire got punked:
Turns out the photos are from the once-a-year Muslim Day Parade -- 2009 edition. (Adding to the jest, the photos come from Muslim hater Pam Geller.) They do not represent a weekly event, as Derbyshire's emailer portrayed it.
Of course, if you really want to believe the Mooslims are taking over, why bother to open Google and possibly lose your hate-on?
UPDATE. Derbyshire catches on: "Apparently the city enjoys a Muslim Day Parade," he sniffs (God God! First the Irish, now this!) -- but he leaves the original post as is. Expect your grandma to email you the link in a couple of months, or years.
UPDATE 2. Derb denounces this special parade for Mohammedans -- "To the best of my knowledge... the only one currently dedicated to celebration of a religious, as opposed to national, heritage" -- and is informed that New York has many such parades. (He does have the good grace, I must say, to observe, "today must be Show Up Derb’s Ignorance Day.")
But then he asks:
An e-mail correspondent (Orthodox Christian) sent me the four pictures below, with this message:I thought something was fishy when I saw one of the pray-ins was filling up Madison Avenue. I've been away from New York for five months, but I knew things couldn't have changed that much.This is an accurate picture of every Friday afternoon in several locations throughout New York City where there are mosques with a large number of Muslims that cannot fit into the mosque. They fill the surrounding streets, facing east for a couple of hours between about 2 & 4 pm....I have no idea if my correspondent is correctly relating the facts behind these pictures... I move around New York City a fair amount, and haven’t seen such things; but then I’m rarely there on a Friday. Can anyone shed light?
If this kind of obstruction of roads and sidewalks is really going on in Nurse Bloomberg’s city — where a restaurateur can get a four-digit fine for placing a chair on the sidewalk without the proper permit — it’s a disgrace. But give me the facts, someone, please.
Turns out the photos are from the once-a-year Muslim Day Parade -- 2009 edition. (Adding to the jest, the photos come from Muslim hater Pam Geller.) They do not represent a weekly event, as Derbyshire's emailer portrayed it.
Of course, if you really want to believe the Mooslims are taking over, why bother to open Google and possibly lose your hate-on?
UPDATE. Derbyshire catches on: "Apparently the city enjoys a Muslim Day Parade," he sniffs (God God! First the Irish, now this!) -- but he leaves the original post as is. Expect your grandma to email you the link in a couple of months, or years.
UPDATE 2. Derb denounces this special parade for Mohammedans -- "To the best of my knowledge... the only one currently dedicated to celebration of a religious, as opposed to national, heritage" -- and is informed that New York has many such parades. (He does have the good grace, I must say, to observe, "today must be Show Up Derb’s Ignorance Day.")
But then he asks:
So can we get the Orange Parade re-started?Why rely on the bloated socialist State to sanction you, Derb? You and a couple of yer mates should just get a permit and march through Woodside singing "The Sash My Father Wore." I can name a few bars for you to visit along the way where you will undoubtedly receive a bracing reception.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
WHAT THEY DO WITH THEIR BRAINS INSTEAD OF THINKING. At The Nation's blog, Leslie Savan mocks the eminently mockable Franklin Graham ravings on Obama's Muslim "seed," and points out that "Regardless of what the Muslim world may or may not believe, this whole seed fixation is profoundly un-American."
Ann Althouse's response:
The Old Perfesser hehndeeds, and soon all the cool kids will be laughing about the silly liberal who must be pissing herself with fear because she inadvertently offended her Muslim masters.
You can follow the rest of Althouse's dribblings ("Another point. Graham didn't 'claim that Obama is a Muslim.' So ironically, it's false to say that he did... And I'm wondering who did say Obama's a Muslim?") if you want to really, really feel profound gratitude that you were never stuck in one of this woman's classes.
Ann Althouse's response:
Is the author of this piece — Leslie Savan —paying enough attention the the way she is expressing contempt for Muslim beliefs? I didn't know you could do that in The Nation.Tee hee. Because libs are so cowardly they cannot dispute Muslim articles of faith. Which Savan proves by just having done so.
The Old Perfesser hehndeeds, and soon all the cool kids will be laughing about the silly liberal who must be pissing herself with fear because she inadvertently offended her Muslim masters.
You can follow the rest of Althouse's dribblings ("Another point. Graham didn't 'claim that Obama is a Muslim.' So ironically, it's false to say that he did... And I'm wondering who did say Obama's a Muslim?") if you want to really, really feel profound gratitude that you were never stuck in one of this woman's classes.
LIBERTARIANS IS THE CRAZIEST PEOPLE. Where else but Reason would you read this:
If you still wonder why libertarians exist, this will help show why: Because someone's got to make the ridiculous arguments that even Andy McCarthy is too embarrassed to sign his name to.
UPDATE. Walker contends fairly in comments. You will be unsurprised to learn that I still disagree with him!
UPDATE 2. I really have to thank commenter commie atheist for pointing to this TPM list of Democratic Senators and Representatives who have spoken in support of the mosqueteers. Really, the idea that there's no meaningful difference between the two parties on this issue just doesn't make any sense.
Khan does not show, incidentally, that the Republicans have lost the Muslim vote for good. It's not as though the Democratic Party has been making Muslims welcome.Written in the midst of a Republican-led nationwide Klan rally against the New York mosque, this is beyond rich. But the author, Jesse Walker, hasn't ignored the issue entirely:
More recently, Republicans may have taken the lead in condemning Cordoba House, but relatively few elected Democrats have risen to defend the project.They hardly need to -- the Liberal Media, as some like to call them, have done an excellent job of carrying the GOP message that only liberal Democrats think those wretched Muslim-Americans, who would re-bomb Ground Zero given a close enough coat factory, have the same rights as everyone else.
If you still wonder why libertarians exist, this will help show why: Because someone's got to make the ridiculous arguments that even Andy McCarthy is too embarrassed to sign his name to.
UPDATE. Walker contends fairly in comments. You will be unsurprised to learn that I still disagree with him!
UPDATE 2. I really have to thank commenter commie atheist for pointing to this TPM list of Democratic Senators and Representatives who have spoken in support of the mosqueteers. Really, the idea that there's no meaningful difference between the two parties on this issue just doesn't make any sense.
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