STILL ONE OF OURS. The Ole Perfesser does his bit for comity, using the recent Coulter affair as a stick to beat "lefties," whom he terms angry, theatrical, prejudiced against white people ("The lefties seem mostly upset about her use of the term 'raghead,' which is racist and offensive, but more or less akin to the term 'cracker,' which doesn't seem to bother a lot of lefties"), and tending to spit on outstretched hands, none of which, it is obvious, belongs to the Perfesser.
Ditto Michelle Malkin. After allowing as how "Ann says many deliberately provocative things," Malkin laces into "smug," "in denial" liberals, and insists "we don't need your prodding."
This approach seems to work for other subjects, too. Dick Cheney shooting a guy is either "a wash or a slight bump up for the administration," says Andy McCarthy at The Corner. "Why? Because the media and the most partisan Democrats can always be relied on to turn opportunity into damage... transparently partisan hyperbole... compare Clinton and Cheney... Dem bomb-throwers etc."
Also at The Corner, Jonah Goldberg brags that conservatives are quite capable of criticizing their own. As well they might be, because at the end of the day even when conservatives err they are still innocent of liberalism, and that is really all that matters.
Monday, February 13, 2006
A VERY MODEST PROPOSAL. "We'd call the words 'United Nations Commission on Human Rights' an oxymoron, but that would be too kind... it's time to create an alternative. The United States should lead efforts to found a new institution devoted to the protection of human rights, and involving eligibility requirements that would limit member states to genuine liberal democracies." -- National Review editorial, February 13, 2006.
The American Organization for International Human Rights and Responsibilities suffered another setback today as it was rebuffed in an attempt to file suit at the International Court of Justice in Den Hague. The Court’s Clerk informed the delegation that it had no standing to sue "The Universities of the World" for "failing to sufficiently diversify" their faculties with conservative professors, as the AOIHRR does not represent any sovereign State.
The delegation briefly demonstrated outside the Court, crying "Shut it down" and singing Twisted Sister’s "We’re Not Gonna Take It," before adjourning for lunch.
Since its inception in 2006, the AOIHRR has failed to attract international support despite lavish funding from Richard Scaife, the Forbes Foundation, and the Unification Church.
After an initial flurry of interest, including an offer from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to house the Organization "in one of my villas," the AOIHRR lost much of its public support when it became clear that no nations would sign its Charter or send delegates to its frequent "special sessions."
The Organization had high hopes that the government of Iraq would sign on, and spent much of its budget on "incentives" lavishly distributed in Baghdad. But each introduction of a membership bill to the Iraqi Parliament has been thwarted by procedural objections, fistfights, or gunfire.
AOIHRR Secretary-General Michael Ledeen’s announced strategy of "using the power of blogs to shame Western nations into compliance" appears to have been entirely unsuccessful, and even the website Instapundit recently removed its "I’m the AOIHRR" banner without comment.
Many observers say the last straw for the Organization’s hopes was its disastrous "Global Gun Court," held last month in Phoenix, Arizona to prosecute nations whose gun laws the AOIHRR found insufficiently lax. The boisterous event, to which none of 325 named "defendents" sent a representative, was broken up in its second day by local police, who confiscated a large weapons cache. AOIHRR Self-Defense Commissioner John Lott, Jr., is still awaiting trial on charges of inciting a riot, and Phoenix has refused to acknowledge Lott’s claim of diplomatic immunity.
After the Den Hague incident, Ledeen was unavailable for comment, but at the delegates’ luncheon Special Deputy Jonah Goldberg proclaimed that "you can’t break an omelette without laying a few eggs" before initiating a food fight.
The American Organization for International Human Rights and Responsibilities suffered another setback today as it was rebuffed in an attempt to file suit at the International Court of Justice in Den Hague. The Court’s Clerk informed the delegation that it had no standing to sue "The Universities of the World" for "failing to sufficiently diversify" their faculties with conservative professors, as the AOIHRR does not represent any sovereign State.
The delegation briefly demonstrated outside the Court, crying "Shut it down" and singing Twisted Sister’s "We’re Not Gonna Take It," before adjourning for lunch.
Since its inception in 2006, the AOIHRR has failed to attract international support despite lavish funding from Richard Scaife, the Forbes Foundation, and the Unification Church.
After an initial flurry of interest, including an offer from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to house the Organization "in one of my villas," the AOIHRR lost much of its public support when it became clear that no nations would sign its Charter or send delegates to its frequent "special sessions."
The Organization had high hopes that the government of Iraq would sign on, and spent much of its budget on "incentives" lavishly distributed in Baghdad. But each introduction of a membership bill to the Iraqi Parliament has been thwarted by procedural objections, fistfights, or gunfire.
AOIHRR Secretary-General Michael Ledeen’s announced strategy of "using the power of blogs to shame Western nations into compliance" appears to have been entirely unsuccessful, and even the website Instapundit recently removed its "I’m the AOIHRR" banner without comment.
Many observers say the last straw for the Organization’s hopes was its disastrous "Global Gun Court," held last month in Phoenix, Arizona to prosecute nations whose gun laws the AOIHRR found insufficiently lax. The boisterous event, to which none of 325 named "defendents" sent a representative, was broken up in its second day by local police, who confiscated a large weapons cache. AOIHRR Self-Defense Commissioner John Lott, Jr., is still awaiting trial on charges of inciting a riot, and Phoenix has refused to acknowledge Lott’s claim of diplomatic immunity.
After the Den Hague incident, Ledeen was unavailable for comment, but at the delegates’ luncheon Special Deputy Jonah Goldberg proclaimed that "you can’t break an omelette without laying a few eggs" before initiating a food fight.
CONSERVATIVES REVIEWING MOVIES THEY HAVEN'T SEEN IS THE NEW BLACK. Roger L. Simon explains what's wrong with Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, based on his own ignorance ("I haven't seen Brooks' film") and the talking points of the day ("traditional Hollywood libs like Brooks don't seem to have the guts for satire anymore... The Brooks crowd [all of them] are more worried about seeming 'nice' these days then telling the truth"). Oh, and on "reviews," though if Simon really put such faith in critics, he'd have blown his brains out after Scenes from a Mall.
These guys are getting so used to reviewing movies by their trailers and posters -- and sometimes just by what their ideology demands -- that I wonder if they go to movies at all anymore. Why bother, when the Politburo will tell them what is good and double-plus-ungood?
It gets clearer all the time that culture warriors are actually making war on culture, not for it.
These guys are getting so used to reviewing movies by their trailers and posters -- and sometimes just by what their ideology demands -- that I wonder if they go to movies at all anymore. Why bother, when the Politburo will tell them what is good and double-plus-ungood?
It gets clearer all the time that culture warriors are actually making war on culture, not for it.
I CALL FOR LILEKS' ASSASSINATION! But I'm doing it with my "usual acidic sarcasm," so you really can't get upset about it.
BTW, does anyone know what the fuck that poolhall story meant? That it's okay to call someone a nigger and run over him in your car, so long as you're pretty sure you'd take him to a hospital afterward?
BTW, does anyone know what the fuck that poolhall story meant? That it's okay to call someone a nigger and run over him in your car, so long as you're pretty sure you'd take him to a hospital afterward?
Friday, February 10, 2006
WORLDS APART. I could have easily dismissed this Althouse schtick with a Shorter. It is classic psuedo-moderate malarkey in the manner of Roger L. Simon and Michael Totten, etc, and follows their formula explicitly:
Yes, rather than to link to a bunch of people who agree with me, I choose to mock those who maladroitly disagree with me.
The main reason is: it's fun. Don't forget, I'm doing this for free, and there has to be some percentage in it. Ditto for my readers.
I don't see the harm. I am not picking on retards or children here, but grown men and women (some with teaching positions at major universities!) who have offered their thoughts for public delectation in a medium that is widely advertised as "self-correcting."
But Althouse seems to think this is a bad thing. Her argument is that I and others like me should be "engaging" her, with a view toward changing her mind, as if this were a romantic comedy in which she plays the lonely heiress who needs the touch of a real man's intellectual argumentation.
I think she seriously mistakes my mission. I'm not trying to engage, convince, or convert anybody. I figure I'm talking to adults and if they're vacant enough to be swayed politically by a fucking blogger, they're probably not bright enough to get my jokes.
Though I have political beliefs, I'm not a political operative. I'm closer to a satirist. There's less Howard Dean than Dean Swift in me.
I don't write to change the world, but to create one on the page. I write for my own pleasure and illumination, and invite whosoever might also enjoy to come read it. I may not have the largest constituency on the web, but they're a smart bunch and more fun to hear from in comments than a bunch of PoliSci nerds (even the ones who are, technically, PoliSci nerds).
Althouse's misconception about my mission may have to do with the way she looks at the blogosphere, or, more to the point, what her experience has led to her to believe about it. She has been made famous within this tiny world by the linkage and adulation of other pioneer conservative bloggers. Hence, she sees the blog world as a social circle, and writes the way a hostess makes conversation: as a way to keep the party going.
Whereas for me writing is not primarily a social act -- though it sometimes becomes one, usually most circuitously, in the almost grudging, semi-conscious hunt for an audience.
If you don't like that sort of thing, well, then stick with your daisy chains. We who have free souls, it touches us not.
UPDATE. Professor Althouse seems to have read some other writer and attributed his or her sentiments to me. I used to think her misreadings were deliberate, but I now realize I was just chivalrously inflating my estimate of her intelligence.
- standard "I'm a moderate" assertion;
- highly negative characterization of liberals ("looking for heretics," "curl up with your little group of insiders");
- unflattering comparison of liberals to conservatives, who "perceive me as a potential ally";
- several reader quotes about what deluded totalitarians liberals are (and comments which endlessly reiterate this theme);
- mild qualifying statement ("I don't think all the irrational blogging is on the left"), for cover;
- "I find it terribly, terribly sad."
What I've noticed, over and over, is that the bloggers on the right link to you when they agree and ignore the disagreements, and the bloggers on the left link only for the things they disagree with, to denounce you with short posts saying you're evil/stupid/crazy, and don't even seem to notice all the times you've written posts that take their side. Why is this happening?I can speak only for myself. And I will speak as if her comments were directed specifically at me, because one of my New Year's resolutions was to be more egotistical.
Yes, rather than to link to a bunch of people who agree with me, I choose to mock those who maladroitly disagree with me.
The main reason is: it's fun. Don't forget, I'm doing this for free, and there has to be some percentage in it. Ditto for my readers.
I don't see the harm. I am not picking on retards or children here, but grown men and women (some with teaching positions at major universities!) who have offered their thoughts for public delectation in a medium that is widely advertised as "self-correcting."
But Althouse seems to think this is a bad thing. Her argument is that I and others like me should be "engaging" her, with a view toward changing her mind, as if this were a romantic comedy in which she plays the lonely heiress who needs the touch of a real man's intellectual argumentation.
I think she seriously mistakes my mission. I'm not trying to engage, convince, or convert anybody. I figure I'm talking to adults and if they're vacant enough to be swayed politically by a fucking blogger, they're probably not bright enough to get my jokes.
Though I have political beliefs, I'm not a political operative. I'm closer to a satirist. There's less Howard Dean than Dean Swift in me.
I don't write to change the world, but to create one on the page. I write for my own pleasure and illumination, and invite whosoever might also enjoy to come read it. I may not have the largest constituency on the web, but they're a smart bunch and more fun to hear from in comments than a bunch of PoliSci nerds (even the ones who are, technically, PoliSci nerds).
Althouse's misconception about my mission may have to do with the way she looks at the blogosphere, or, more to the point, what her experience has led to her to believe about it. She has been made famous within this tiny world by the linkage and adulation of other pioneer conservative bloggers. Hence, she sees the blog world as a social circle, and writes the way a hostess makes conversation: as a way to keep the party going.
Whereas for me writing is not primarily a social act -- though it sometimes becomes one, usually most circuitously, in the almost grudging, semi-conscious hunt for an audience.
If you don't like that sort of thing, well, then stick with your daisy chains. We who have free souls, it touches us not.
UPDATE. Professor Althouse seems to have read some other writer and attributed his or her sentiments to me. I used to think her misreadings were deliberate, but I now realize I was just chivalrously inflating my estimate of her intelligence.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS. I don't have much to offer about the Grammys, other than an endorsement of Sly's decision to walk off the stage (fuck Rick James, he's Sly Stone, bitch!) in the middle of that god-awful, caterwauling, alleged "tribute" to his music, and a reiteration: corporate rock still sucks.
For in-depth analysis you can go to The Corner, where K-Pro shows a picture of some geezer apparently too drunk to lift the skirt of an overweight boudoir-photography customer before trying to eat her out, which KP considers "a pro-life moment." (She also thinks AP's sympathetic treatment of Mariah Carey proves that "their bias isn't just on politics!" while Tim Graham emits a comment on Barack Obama's grammy, and two minutes later returns to sniff it again.)
I imagine a room full of industrial safety wonks sitting around watching the Grammys and saying things like, "That Mariah Carey is a real Level Two!"
For in-depth analysis you can go to The Corner, where K-Pro shows a picture of some geezer apparently too drunk to lift the skirt of an overweight boudoir-photography customer before trying to eat her out, which KP considers "a pro-life moment." (She also thinks AP's sympathetic treatment of Mariah Carey proves that "their bias isn't just on politics!" while Tim Graham emits a comment on Barack Obama's grammy, and two minutes later returns to sniff it again.)
I imagine a room full of industrial safety wonks sitting around watching the Grammys and saying things like, "That Mariah Carey is a real Level Two!"
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
WHEN YOU THINK YOU'VE LOST EVERYTHING, YOU FIND OUT YOU CAN ALWAYS LOSE A LITTLE MORE.While I was off looking at softcore pornography, the Corner managed to get even stupider:
Why doesn't he just go to the video store?
VIDEO STORE CLERK: Can I help you?
BENNETT: (with great seriousness) Yes. Do you have any films about the war we are in now, the fight against the barbarians?
VIDEO STORE CLERK: Uh, do you mean, like, the war in Iraq?
BENNETT: Yes! Yes!
VIDEO STORE CLERK: Sure. Fahrenheit 911.
BENNETT: (shoulders up around his ears) Saints preserve us! (runs out of the store, screaming)
VIDEO STORE CLERK: It's a living! (canned laughter)
MOVIE BLEG [Bill Bennett]:It sounds like something out of one of those Corner parodies.
Has anyone seen, does anyone know of, a movie depicting the war we are in now, the fight against the barbarians? We've had movies about the first Gulf war, and a morally ambiguous fiction about something or somewhere called Syriana -- but anything about our over-four- year- old fight for civilization against the Islamist barbarians, based on fact? Anything? Anyone?
Why doesn't he just go to the video store?
VIDEO STORE CLERK: Can I help you?
BENNETT: (with great seriousness) Yes. Do you have any films about the war we are in now, the fight against the barbarians?
VIDEO STORE CLERK: Uh, do you mean, like, the war in Iraq?
BENNETT: Yes! Yes!
VIDEO STORE CLERK: Sure. Fahrenheit 911.
BENNETT: (shoulders up around his ears) Saints preserve us! (runs out of the store, screaming)
VIDEO STORE CLERK: It's a living! (canned laughter)
NOW, BACK TO THE IMPORTANT SUBJECTS. Xan Brooks is amusing, and onto something, concerning the new Vanity Fair cover:
Alas, Ms. Johansson appears to have been made up for the shoot with pastry flour, and to be posing for a Hummel figurine. That such a beautiful woman, unclothed yet, could be made to look unsexy! Now I'll have to recast Even Though I'm A Movie Star... with one of those women I brush up against on the subway.
...therein lies the problem with this Vanity Fair fleshpot. It is neither arousing enough to sate the masturbators, nor artistic enough to appeal to the aesthetes.As a masturbator and an aesthete, I say hear, hear! I was eager, not to say anxious, to get a load of Scarlett Johansson naked, if only to establish a more vivid mise en scene for that play I've had running in my head since I was 13, Even Though I'm A Beautiful Movie Star I Can't Keep My Hands Off Roy Edroso. (The production has undergone some changes over the years -- when it opened it was a wispy, sensitive bildungsromance, but now it has more of a Bukowski feel, and certainly more cursing -- and some of America's top starlets have done their best work in the lead role.)
Alas, Ms. Johansson appears to have been made up for the shoot with pastry flour, and to be posing for a Hummel figurine. That such a beautiful woman, unclothed yet, could be made to look unsexy! Now I'll have to recast Even Though I'm A Movie Star... with one of those women I brush up against on the subway.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
HE'S JUST SAYING WHAT WE'RE ALL NOT THINKING! I rool. While other blogs just yapped, growled, and heh-indeeded about Mohammedian censorship, I gave the cartoonophobes something to jihad about.
Yet thanks to their Good Old Blog network connections, those fake freedom fighters still get all the attention, while I labor here in obscurity -- probably a good thing, as my fatwa has come through: "Oh, a wise guy?" wrote one Latrell X in a note that came covered in white powder (which our lab has determined to be Desenex); "Why, I oughta..." Here the note ominously trails off.
Ah well; this story, like all blogospheric proclamations of Clash of Civ endtimes, will not last long. Soon the self-soothing that'll-show-those-Europeans gurglings will lull their authors into the next news cycle, which I understand is all about tapping phone calls made between the U.S. and Batavia, New York.
But there is no soothing (self- or otherwise) our old friend Twelve-Star General Ralph "Blood 'n' Guts" Peters, who, while giving the back of his hand to maniacal Muslims, plants his bayonet in the belly of the real beast -- European godlessness!
And you know what his problem with these here Yurrupeans is? Not just that they're a little light in the Birkenstocks -- but that they ain't got God ("Today's Europeans consider religious belief as beneath their sophistication"). And without God, you can't have the sort of war the General's been practicing his whole life for: a total, orgiastic, scimitar-versus-bunkerbuster, real rain that'll wash all the scum off the streets.
This is partly why, after a long fun run with the General, I don't quote him so much anymore. He has no agenda other than his own madness, while the usual targets of our wrath are more calculating and dishonest. You will see their freedom flags dip, as their "Support Denmark" flags have already started to do, once we go back to talking about American citizens again. The General, bless him, never shifts tactics.
UPDATE. If you get tired of brainless wreckers like me, one of the very, very few intelligent discussions of this subject is at Sisyphus Shrugged.
Yet thanks to their Good Old Blog network connections, those fake freedom fighters still get all the attention, while I labor here in obscurity -- probably a good thing, as my fatwa has come through: "Oh, a wise guy?" wrote one Latrell X in a note that came covered in white powder (which our lab has determined to be Desenex); "Why, I oughta..." Here the note ominously trails off.
Ah well; this story, like all blogospheric proclamations of Clash of Civ endtimes, will not last long. Soon the self-soothing that'll-show-those-Europeans gurglings will lull their authors into the next news cycle, which I understand is all about tapping phone calls made between the U.S. and Batavia, New York.
But there is no soothing (self- or otherwise) our old friend Twelve-Star General Ralph "Blood 'n' Guts" Peters, who, while giving the back of his hand to maniacal Muslims, plants his bayonet in the belly of the real beast -- European godlessness!
The Danish newspaper that first published the cartoons last September was not standing up courageously for freedom of expression. The editors and cartoonists were so oblivious to any reality beyond their Copenhagen coffee bars that they just thought they were pulling an attention-getting prank.One of the things we love about the General is his tendency to sprint -- usually naked, frothing, and waving his pearl-handled pistol -- off the reservation: while the Malkins of the world have to make believe (thanks, I believe, to some ancient treaty with the glibertarians) that they care about freedom and stuff, the General just hears the word "Yurrup" and visions of limp-wristed espresso-drinkers start bonking around inside his helmet.
They got attention, all right. As did the papers elsewhere in Europe that reprinted the offending cartoons last week. In the name of press freedom, of course.
The problem is that with freedom comes responsibility, a quality to which Europe's become allergic (nothing is ever a European's fault). Breaking a well-known taboo of Islam was irresponsible. No other word for it.
And you know what his problem with these here Yurrupeans is? Not just that they're a little light in the Birkenstocks -- but that they ain't got God ("Today's Europeans consider religious belief as beneath their sophistication"). And without God, you can't have the sort of war the General's been practicing his whole life for: a total, orgiastic, scimitar-versus-bunkerbuster, real rain that'll wash all the scum off the streets.
This is partly why, after a long fun run with the General, I don't quote him so much anymore. He has no agenda other than his own madness, while the usual targets of our wrath are more calculating and dishonest. You will see their freedom flags dip, as their "Support Denmark" flags have already started to do, once we go back to talking about American citizens again. The General, bless him, never shifts tactics.
UPDATE. If you get tired of brainless wreckers like me, one of the very, very few intelligent discussions of this subject is at Sisyphus Shrugged.
Monday, February 06, 2006
THE RETURN OF MICHAEL TOTTEN'S "PROTEST BABES"! The Cedar Revolution continues! I swear to you, there are a couple of real lookers just out of frame here:
OK, I'm kidding. Totten doesn't like Lebanese riots over those Danish Mohammed cartoons and neither do it. In fact, I dislike them so much that I will show solidarity with the forces of free speech by publishing in this very blog my own cartoon of Mohammed waving "hi" to his fans:
I am told it was the bare fact of the Prophet's pictoral representation that stirred the Islamic nuts' wrath, so it should not matter that my Mohammed is not doing anything sinister (or that I can't draw hands, or much of anything else) -- I am one with my Danish comrades in breaking a taboo. That makes me "politically incorrect," the highest accolade in the rightwing vocabulary. God, I feel brave -- every bit as brave as a Fightin' Keyboarder mouthing off about Brokeback Mountain!
I invite these idiots to stop blaming the cartoon controversy on liberal professors, and to cheer my courage. And -- using their own infallible logic -- if they fail to do so, it proves they are objectively pro-censorship!
This blog thing is ever so much more fun than the real world. P.S. Censorship sucks. Just mentioning it on the very odd chance that you didn't realize that's what we all think.
UPDATE. Readers are not impressed with my blasphemy. "I would not give even a paper cut to your neck," writes Mr. I. Kabibble. "Your death can wait until the coming holocaust." So I have upped the ante by amending my drawing so that it shows Mohammed smoking a cigarette:
I also decided that his hand is turned in that bizarre way because he is dancing, which I'm sure must be very offensive. I probably won't make it to nightfall! Give my love to the Danes, especially Claire.
UPDATE 2. Hey, apparently I love freedom more than Condi "for President" Rice. This encourages me to kick it up a notch: Since, hours after my original entry, I have not received any credible death threats, I will try acting all Danish to see if that's the "X" factor in this case.
How does one act all Danish? I dunno, but aren't they almost the same thing as Swedish? I'm just do my John Qualen impression: Heurney fleurny heurney! Heurney fleurny heurney! Oh, Ethan -- Mohammed's he don't a-smell too good, py Yimminy! Heurney fleurny!
UPDATE 3. Nothing from the Islamofascists, but I did hear from one guy who claimed he was going to replace all my furniture with plain, blond wood modular units.
Stephen Green fantasizes that Hollywood will help him make fun of Muslims. Of course, Green makes fun of Hollywood at the same time, so there is little chance that "the writing staff of Will & Grace" will be rushing to join his jihad anytime soon. So he's stuck with Citizen Satirists like me! C'mon, Steve, let's see if we can't git-r-done:
Hyuk hyuk. "Mr. Egyptian, yer a goddamn liar!" We don't need us no arty-farties nohow. Hell, we can animate this and put it in the Liberty Film Festival!
Whoops, here come my assassins. Gotta run!
OK, I'm kidding. Totten doesn't like Lebanese riots over those Danish Mohammed cartoons and neither do it. In fact, I dislike them so much that I will show solidarity with the forces of free speech by publishing in this very blog my own cartoon of Mohammed waving "hi" to his fans:
I am told it was the bare fact of the Prophet's pictoral representation that stirred the Islamic nuts' wrath, so it should not matter that my Mohammed is not doing anything sinister (or that I can't draw hands, or much of anything else) -- I am one with my Danish comrades in breaking a taboo. That makes me "politically incorrect," the highest accolade in the rightwing vocabulary. God, I feel brave -- every bit as brave as a Fightin' Keyboarder mouthing off about Brokeback Mountain!
I invite these idiots to stop blaming the cartoon controversy on liberal professors, and to cheer my courage. And -- using their own infallible logic -- if they fail to do so, it proves they are objectively pro-censorship!
This blog thing is ever so much more fun than the real world. P.S. Censorship sucks. Just mentioning it on the very odd chance that you didn't realize that's what we all think.
UPDATE. Readers are not impressed with my blasphemy. "I would not give even a paper cut to your neck," writes Mr. I. Kabibble. "Your death can wait until the coming holocaust." So I have upped the ante by amending my drawing so that it shows Mohammed smoking a cigarette:
I also decided that his hand is turned in that bizarre way because he is dancing, which I'm sure must be very offensive. I probably won't make it to nightfall! Give my love to the Danes, especially Claire.
UPDATE 2. Hey, apparently I love freedom more than Condi "for President" Rice. This encourages me to kick it up a notch: Since, hours after my original entry, I have not received any credible death threats, I will try acting all Danish to see if that's the "X" factor in this case.
How does one act all Danish? I dunno, but aren't they almost the same thing as Swedish? I'm just do my John Qualen impression: Heurney fleurny heurney! Heurney fleurny heurney! Oh, Ethan -- Mohammed's he don't a-smell too good, py Yimminy! Heurney fleurny!
UPDATE 3. Nothing from the Islamofascists, but I did hear from one guy who claimed he was going to replace all my furniture with plain, blond wood modular units.
Stephen Green fantasizes that Hollywood will help him make fun of Muslims. Of course, Green makes fun of Hollywood at the same time, so there is little chance that "the writing staff of Will & Grace" will be rushing to join his jihad anytime soon. So he's stuck with Citizen Satirists like me! C'mon, Steve, let's see if we can't git-r-done:
Hyuk hyuk. "Mr. Egyptian, yer a goddamn liar!" We don't need us no arty-farties nohow. Hell, we can animate this and put it in the Liberty Film Festival!
Whoops, here come my assassins. Gotta run!
Friday, February 03, 2006
DUMP YOUR PAJAMAS MEDIA STOCK! I'm no kind of financial reporter, but I do notice the Ole Perfesser pitching to Craigslist:
I haven't heretofore spoken to the issue of Pajamas Media because why would I: it's a bunch of crappy writers ganged up to exponentiate their crappiness. Their claim to fame is that they're all pioneers in one of the Century's first big fads -- as if there were some merit in being the new Shipwreck Kelly. Smart guys like the Perfesser are hedging their bets by exploiting their notoriety to sell old-fashioned dead-tree products; others will be absorbed into the Republican journalism machine; most, alas, will wind up haunting gin mills and blind tigers, occasionally puffing out their chests and crying Don't you know who I am? Try Googling DeathtoLiberalsWI59, mortal!
Eventually I'm sure the franchise will be bought by Murdoch or Moon or some such, festooned with Page Six "protest babes," and trawled downmarket. Whether that will be counted a victory for blogism in general or PJM is particular, I neither know nor care; among the vanities, this doesn't even rank with the crackling of thorns under the pot.
Still, it is interesting to see the Perfesser pushing it at people like Craig Newmark, especially given what Newmark wrote on Wednesday:
Next stop: Maxim online, for whom the Perfesser can review gadgets.
Perhaps Craigslist should consider a local-franchise model that would incorporate local news content, something that -- as far as I know -- they're not doing. That would still kill off a lot of local weeklies that are nothing but vehicles for classified ads now, but so what? They're doomed anyway. At least it might add something.Of course, when the Perfesser says "local-franchise model," it's like when he says "Libertarian" -- window-dressing to get the rubes on board for what he's actually selling. And that's the value-add we're all looking for in a classified-ad service: right-wing political bullshit. If this were a good idea, surely Buy-Lines would have picked up Ed Anger's column by now.
I haven't heretofore spoken to the issue of Pajamas Media because why would I: it's a bunch of crappy writers ganged up to exponentiate their crappiness. Their claim to fame is that they're all pioneers in one of the Century's first big fads -- as if there were some merit in being the new Shipwreck Kelly. Smart guys like the Perfesser are hedging their bets by exploiting their notoriety to sell old-fashioned dead-tree products; others will be absorbed into the Republican journalism machine; most, alas, will wind up haunting gin mills and blind tigers, occasionally puffing out their chests and crying Don't you know who I am? Try Googling DeathtoLiberalsWI59, mortal!
Eventually I'm sure the franchise will be bought by Murdoch or Moon or some such, festooned with Page Six "protest babes," and trawled downmarket. Whether that will be counted a victory for blogism in general or PJM is particular, I neither know nor care; among the vanities, this doesn't even rank with the crackling of thorns under the pot.
Still, it is interesting to see the Perfesser pushing it at people like Craig Newmark, especially given what Newmark wrote on Wednesday:
PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISM IS A BIG DEAL: Looks like I can't say this enough, since it's forgotten in both the excitement for citizen journalism and the stress of competition.High standards! Fact checking! Separation of church and state (even as a metaphor)! The doubleplusungood San Francisco Chronicle! Looks like a very bad fit for PJM.
Professional journalism involves high standards of writing, fact checking, editing, and research.
Journalism ethics includes "separation of church and state", figuratively meaning that marketing and financial concerns are separate from editorial matters and reporting.
Professional news organizations recognize that we all have freedom of choice when it comes to selecting what news operations, etc., that serve the community best.
A special tip of the hat to the San Francisco Chronicle, which has greatly impressed me with its adherence to ethical standards. thanks!
Next stop: Maxim online, for whom the Perfesser can review gadgets.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
NOW HERE'S A MAKEOVER I CAN GET BEHIND. From the Washington Post today:
Maybe Will prayed, "Give me lips, God -- I don't care what it takes!"
Maybe Will prayed, "Give me lips, God -- I don't care what it takes!"
SHORTER JEFF GOLDSTEIN: You pathetic liberal jerks, I was joking when I said cuff Sheehan to a radiator! You just can't perceive my strenuous and sophisticated humor, you stupid -- hey! I said I was joking! You must have very tight assholes because you are not laughing at my jokes, idiots! Etc.
SHORTER CRAZY JESUS LADY: I am tired of being a wall-flower. I go to be young with the young! Everybody: The Democrats are unhinged! The Dem-- what's that? You need proof of my loyalty? I must denounce Wendy Wasserstein? B-but wait -- I can imply she was right-wing, then there'll be no need... Oh. I'm sorry, comrade: yes, I meant prove she was right-wing.
EASY MONEY. As we have previously observed, conservative culture cops have gotten comfy reviewing films they haven't even seen, so why shouldn't National Review's John J. Miller pick up an easy extra buck at OpinionJournal reviewing the unreleased Curious George movie?
He actually does okay for a while, poking around the famed monkey's biographical data, but Miller knows he has to get to the right-wing money shot sometime, so about halfway down he tells us that "the first book (Curious George) violates our modern codes of political correctness," implying that the film, being a product of Hollyweird, has corrrr-rected that. And those trained to heed the PC dog-whistle lean forward, expecting news of some absurd liberal whitewash.
But Miller reports that, based on his close reading of the movie's trailer, while the original Man in the Yellow Hat was "a gun-toting poacher" who kidnapped George from his African home, he is now "an unarmed naturalist." Also, movie George does not smoke and drink, as did first-book George.
At this point even conservative parents are probably scratching their heads, thinking, Gee, we hates us some goddamn librul PC, but do we really want little Ayn and Whittaker to admire poachers and a cute little monkey who smokes and drinks? It is a children's movie, after all.
"Perhaps these revisions are an acceptable bowdlerization," admits Miller. Realizing with horror that he has hundreds of words to go, he casts about for ways to hurl George at liberal heads. The best he can do is, "Today's Hollywood probably would be more comfortable making the Man in the Yellow Hat an out-and-proud homosexual than an exploiter of the animal kingdom," before concluding that Hollywood shouldn't fool around too much with the classics. How I wish I could show this garbage to the ghosts of Hazlitt and Dryden, and then, after they had stopped whirling and asking God why they had been flung into Hell, arm them with billy clubs (or, failing that, pen and ink), so they could express to Miller their feelings about the perversions he has performed on the art of criticism.
He actually does okay for a while, poking around the famed monkey's biographical data, but Miller knows he has to get to the right-wing money shot sometime, so about halfway down he tells us that "the first book (Curious George) violates our modern codes of political correctness," implying that the film, being a product of Hollyweird, has corrrr-rected that. And those trained to heed the PC dog-whistle lean forward, expecting news of some absurd liberal whitewash.
But Miller reports that, based on his close reading of the movie's trailer, while the original Man in the Yellow Hat was "a gun-toting poacher" who kidnapped George from his African home, he is now "an unarmed naturalist." Also, movie George does not smoke and drink, as did first-book George.
At this point even conservative parents are probably scratching their heads, thinking, Gee, we hates us some goddamn librul PC, but do we really want little Ayn and Whittaker to admire poachers and a cute little monkey who smokes and drinks? It is a children's movie, after all.
"Perhaps these revisions are an acceptable bowdlerization," admits Miller. Realizing with horror that he has hundreds of words to go, he casts about for ways to hurl George at liberal heads. The best he can do is, "Today's Hollywood probably would be more comfortable making the Man in the Yellow Hat an out-and-proud homosexual than an exploiter of the animal kingdom," before concluding that Hollywood shouldn't fool around too much with the classics. How I wish I could show this garbage to the ghosts of Hazlitt and Dryden, and then, after they had stopped whirling and asking God why they had been flung into Hell, arm them with billy clubs (or, failing that, pen and ink), so they could express to Miller their feelings about the perversions he has performed on the art of criticism.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
THE SLEEP OF REASON BREEDS BULLSHIT. It's fascinating to watch the birth of an idea, even a competely retarded one. In the American Spectator, Mark Gauvreau Judge posits such a thing as "metrocons," well-read conservatives who disdain rowdy entertainments such as muscle-car rallies.
Folks who share my unhealthy fascination with this sort of nonsense will recall that, in the 90s, Judge was pushing swing-dancing as a conservative credential, and when mass Lindy Hopping did not break out all across America, he retreated to the usual tired culture-war crap for his living, till this new, Gestaltifying idea came upon him.
His fellow derechos are not, so far, having it, to judge by these responses. But I give them no credit for that, because they argue against the metrocon idea for a variety of countervailing doctrinal and political reasons, rather than dismissing it outright as bullshit, or whatever word Father Neuhaus uses instead of "bullshit."
By bullshit I mean, in this instance, that the idea is produced, not by the logic of the true student of human nature, or even of the sociologist, but of the marketing consultant. Like the promoters of Crunchy and South Park variants of conservatism, Judge is just looking for an angle that will make his name in the psuedo-science of conservative taxonomy. It offers nothing to stimulate serious thinking or political action; it is the apotheosis of the old saw, "The personal is the political" -- an adage formulated years ago on the Left, but lately adopted whole-heartedly by the Right.
Judge's concept is not worth even such discussion as I have given it here, but it is genuinely interesting to see how far such useless ideas as his can get in the current environment; The New Criterion deigning to discuss metroconservatism is like the Pope issuing a Bull on the selection of American Idol winners.
We have all seen what happens to some people who enjoy great success without doing anything to merit it: very few of them can simply relax and enjoy their good fortune; they crack up their Ferraris, they descend into drug addiction, they take up Scientology or some other crackpot creed to explain to themselves that there is no giant foot trying to squash them. Conservatives got a big Lotto jackpot with the War on Terror, and have since been laying about the mansion, engaging in increasing dorm-like bull sessions, inventing ever more sophisticated sophistries -- shrinking government while their Congressmen and contributors plunder the Treasury, converting Arabs by blowing them up, and so forth.
Next I suppose they'll be inventing conservative haircuts and ways of wearing their breeches. And after that -- well, we all know how that goes.
Folks who share my unhealthy fascination with this sort of nonsense will recall that, in the 90s, Judge was pushing swing-dancing as a conservative credential, and when mass Lindy Hopping did not break out all across America, he retreated to the usual tired culture-war crap for his living, till this new, Gestaltifying idea came upon him.
His fellow derechos are not, so far, having it, to judge by these responses. But I give them no credit for that, because they argue against the metrocon idea for a variety of countervailing doctrinal and political reasons, rather than dismissing it outright as bullshit, or whatever word Father Neuhaus uses instead of "bullshit."
By bullshit I mean, in this instance, that the idea is produced, not by the logic of the true student of human nature, or even of the sociologist, but of the marketing consultant. Like the promoters of Crunchy and South Park variants of conservatism, Judge is just looking for an angle that will make his name in the psuedo-science of conservative taxonomy. It offers nothing to stimulate serious thinking or political action; it is the apotheosis of the old saw, "The personal is the political" -- an adage formulated years ago on the Left, but lately adopted whole-heartedly by the Right.
Judge's concept is not worth even such discussion as I have given it here, but it is genuinely interesting to see how far such useless ideas as his can get in the current environment; The New Criterion deigning to discuss metroconservatism is like the Pope issuing a Bull on the selection of American Idol winners.
We have all seen what happens to some people who enjoy great success without doing anything to merit it: very few of them can simply relax and enjoy their good fortune; they crack up their Ferraris, they descend into drug addiction, they take up Scientology or some other crackpot creed to explain to themselves that there is no giant foot trying to squash them. Conservatives got a big Lotto jackpot with the War on Terror, and have since been laying about the mansion, engaging in increasing dorm-like bull sessions, inventing ever more sophisticated sophistries -- shrinking government while their Congressmen and contributors plunder the Treasury, converting Arabs by blowing them up, and so forth.
Next I suppose they'll be inventing conservative haircuts and ways of wearing their breeches. And after that -- well, we all know how that goes.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
SOTU WHAT? There's not much to say about tonight's State of the Union address. As President Bush sees it, there are no Constitutional concerns with the NSA, Gulf hurricane victims need school vouchers, and homosexuals shouldn't be allowed to get married. This we knew. As for the "addiction to foreign oil" bit, I am old enough to remember the promise of hydrogen cars in the 2003 SOTU, so I know it means nothing.
I might ask why the list of countries to which we will inevitably deliver democracy did not include Cuba, but what's the point? Apart from the grisly image of aged and infirm Coretta Scott King embracing MLK with his throat shot open, this speech had no literary substance whatever. Leave it for the dogs to pick over.
I might ask why the list of countries to which we will inevitably deliver democracy did not include Cuba, but what's the point? Apart from the grisly image of aged and infirm Coretta Scott King embracing MLK with his throat shot open, this speech had no literary substance whatever. Leave it for the dogs to pick over.
SITUATIONAL ETHICS PART 399,045. Hugh Hewitt finds a Democratic Congressional candidate who was mean to a Republican decorated veteran, and asks
Where are the Democrats who should be denouncing this? The ones who, rightly, slammed the comments directed at Congressman John Murtha's service?Wow, I didn't know Hewitt was against those comments directed at John Murtha! And there's a good reason I didn't know it: because he said something entirely different at the time:
Every Democrat who attempted to charge the Republicans as attacking Congressman Murtha's patriotism was instantly revealed as a fraud...The wolf is never so disgusting as when he's pretending to be Grandma.
SHORTER CULTURE-WAR NUTS: What! No nominations for Jesus? This is the most left-wing Oscars ever! Giving awards to small movies, rather than multi-million-dollar epics like Marty amd Chariots of Fire? Further proof of liberalism! Real people will boycott Oscars in favor of Justice Monday! Reese Witherspoon's inevitable Oscar is the exception that proves the movie-traitor rule! And that's the trouble with these artist-people -- they politicize everything!
Monday, January 30, 2006
THE POLITICIZATION OF EVERYTHING, PART 988,098: Michael Novak at The Corner:
I eagerly await responses from the objectively pro-Seahawks crowd.
UPDATE. Shortly thereafter: "K-Lo suggests that Kiefer Sutherland's win in the SAG awards might be a case of Hollywood finally catching up on the war on terror."
Anyone remember that old Peanuts strip where Violet bragged to Charlie Brown about her "new hi-fi bracelet," leaving CB to wonder, "How can a bracelet be hi-fi?" I think about that one a lot these days.
GO STEELERS! So it's steeltown America on the rise, the rough and the ready, not a rich team but always fighting and always playing smash-mouth, and running hard, and slashing... and I love it that their opponents this year will be wearing the colors of --hard to comprehend this -- Hamas! Couldn't be a better opponent, who will probably be favored. .... Pittsburgh is the city of the Deerslayer, and the American flag, and always the highest casualty rates in American wars...I guess it could be a joke, but at The Corner how does one tell? (I do smell bourbon, though. Oh wait, that's just me.)
I eagerly await responses from the objectively pro-Seahawks crowd.
UPDATE. Shortly thereafter: "K-Lo suggests that Kiefer Sutherland's win in the SAG awards might be a case of Hollywood finally catching up on the war on terror."
Anyone remember that old Peanuts strip where Violet bragged to Charlie Brown about her "new hi-fi bracelet," leaving CB to wonder, "How can a bracelet be hi-fi?" I think about that one a lot these days.
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