ELECTION DAY MESSAGES FROM AMERICA'S LEADING IDIOTS.

The Ole Perfesser: This country has a serious problem with voting fraud -- except when the Democrats complain about it, heh.

Michelle Malkin: This country has a serious problem with voter fraud -- all caused by Democrats! (Except the robocalling -- that's bi-partisan.)

Ann Althouse: If you win you lose. You hear that, Democrats? I said if you win you lose. Dogstar! Stagecoach!

Kathryn J. Lopez: I'm the leader of the show, keepin' you on the go, but I know I can't live without my radio... (as the door slowly opens, screams and curls up in a corner)

Ace of Spades: Imagine the Democrats' defeat! Taste the tears of Chris Matthews! Ahhhh, that's good, yes that's good you little bitch... (as the door slowly opens, screams and curls up in a corner)

James Lileks: Gee, I love old crap. Old people, on the other hand, can go fuck themselves. Muslims will kill us all in the end, thanks to Democrats. I take comfort in memories of telling off that little socialist bitch... ooh, that little bitch... (as the door slowly opens, screams and curls up in a corner)

Brendan Miniter: To become competitive nationally, Republicans have to spend more money in Albany, New York.

Neo Neo-Con: The Democrats must be defeated, because they won't follow the honorable withdrawal methods of Richard Nixon, which led to this Cambodian anecdote I will now use against the Democrats.

The Anchoress: Jesus Eurabia lampost stagecoach Bobby brickbat wahoo abba dabba dabba doo cabbage.

UPDATE. I am much too ill, unfortunately, to drunkblog this year's festivities. And fever delirium and codeine are much too precious to waste on politics, anyway. I look forward to waking up on a different planet, whatever the agency of removal.

UPDATE II. Just woke up! What'd I miss? The grotesque electronic head of the Perfesser crying, "Where are my robowhores? Bring me my robowhores!" And Ann Althouse:

... I just realized I'm on camera... looking like a blogger blogging about the election, but I'm blogging about Britney Spears, ha ha, no one knows...

The cameraman startled me when I glanced over and saw the camera a foot and a half from my face. He's really good at sneaking into a space and getting a shot. Either that or I'm so absorbed while blogging that I lose touch with the real world.

Well, now that she's on TV, I guess the 21st Century has found its Mrs. Miller.

STOP THE PRESSES! Althouse goes Republican! Who saw that coming?

Her commenters are a joy, especially when they're riled by dismissive Democrats. My favorite, so far:

As I've said countless times before, even if we'd done everything according to Monday-morning quarterbacks like you, we would have made a whole new set of mistakes...

Now, without the benefit of hindsight whats the Democrat plan?

Being right is just being wrong in an alternate universe! And no fair peeking at current reality when composing your bogus "plan," Demonrats!

I suppose I'd look pretty funny, myself, if I'd had such unmerited electoral success for so long that my argumentation skills had become totally vestigial. So, by the commenter's logic, I have no right to laugh at him. Yet I do -- further proof of Democrat perversity!

THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING. Although tracking the fever chart of American Conservatism can be tedious work, there are compensations. Such as laffs. For example, Orson Scott Card is pulling his ancient "As a Democrat, I hate Democrats" routine, with the assistance of the Ole Perfesser. We remind readers that Card's distinguishing characteristic As a Democrat is his announced belief that "Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books... to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society."

But wait, it gets better. The Perfesser, perhaps showing a heretofore unnoticed sense of humor, points us to one of the few commentators still taken in by Card's masquerade: gay American Eric Scheie. Scheie is inspired by Card's post, and says

I'll vote for the Republicans despite their alleged closets. I'll take their closets over the Democrats' closets. Closets are based on shame, and while I don't think homosexuality is worth being ashamed of, defeat in a war is very definitely worth being ashamed of.

When Scheie is notified that Card doesn't just want to put him in a closet, but in a prison cell as well, he shrugs, "hearing more about him makes this process more interesting. (Whether I agree with him on other issues is irrelevant.)" There's a patriot, folks -- a man who believes in the cause so deeply that he'll stand shoulder to shoulder with someone who, placed in such proximity to him, would take the opportunity to grab his arm and shout for a policeman.

It may be that Scheie has a sense of humor, too. Just a week ago, he said, "anti-gay bigots deserve same sex marriage in pretty much the same way that the Republican Party deserves to lose the election." Who knew at the time that this meant, "not at all"?

Is it any wonder that I can't stop watching them work, despite my best instincts?

ASSHOLE BUDDIES. As the rats exeunt the flotation-challenged U.S.S. Mission Accomplished, we hear by way of a horrifying Vanity Fair article their excuse that no one could have expected shipwreck with such fine men at the helm. Kenneth Adelman:

I just presumed that what I considered to be the most competent national-security team since Truman was indeed going to be competent. They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the post-war era. Not only did each of them, individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly, dysfunctional...

I've worked with [Rumsfeld] three times in my life. I've been to each of his houses, in Chicago, Taos, Santa Fe, Santo Domingo, and Las Vegas. I'm very, very fond of him, but I'm crushed by his performance. Did he change, or were we wrong in the past? Or is it that he was never really challenged before? I don't know. He certainly fooled me.

Over at The American Scene, Ross Douthat is similarly puzzled by the performance of the Best and the Brightest:

If you had asked me, circa 1999, to pick out a group of senior GOPers who I would have wanted at the table in a national-security crisis - well, I'm not sure I could have done better than Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and Donald Rumsfeld, with (in theory, though of course it didn't turn out that way) Brent Scowcroft whispering in Condi's ear, and George H.W. whispering in his son's. This is how the Bush Administration was sold to people, on foreign affairs at least, and I remember watching television after 9/11 and being so relieved to have Powell around, and Cheney, and Rummy, instead of, say, Anthony Lake or Madeleine Albright.

In the immortal words of "Seinfeld"'s Elaine Bennis: well, that's because you're an idiot.

I am but a shabby poetaster who don't know nothin' about nothin', yet I've had a bad feeling about this thing from the beginning, and continued to express that bad feeling throughout the days when the current former war fans were calling us all traitors.

So what did I catch that these geniuses missed?

I like to think that it was mainly common sense. Rome could subdue, enslave, and Romanize far-flung populations for decades. On the other hand, America's style has mostly been to cut and run and let the United Fruit Company sort things out. A great exception was World War II, which was run by a crew very different from the lot that has presided over the Iraq debacle.

Vanity Fair's neocons grumble that their dream of pacifying the Middle East at the point of a gun was deferred by mere screwups. Yet Cheney, Rumsfeld, et alia are not screwups -- on their own terms, they've been marvelously successful. They have made the GOP a War Party exuding strength, confidence, and animal vitality. This has won a few elections and may win another on Tuesday. Perhaps more importantly, they have managed to siphon from the U.S. Treasury a considerable amount of cash for their buddies, and they are in the process of kicking over their traces so that We the People will not get a chance to take some of it back. When it's all over, Rumsfeld will be able to buy himself five more homes, at least.

So maybe, despite my failings, I have managed to obtain in the course of a long and checkered life some skills that these professors and pundits failed to pick up: I can spot a scumbag at ten paces. I can smell bullshit. I know that the laws of the universe will not necessarily be reversed because I so very badly want them to be. And though I sometimes find that I have left a store counter with short change, I certainly know better than to patronize that establishment again.

Hopefully a few voters out there have acquired the same skills.

NOTHING'S SHOCKING. "Astonish me," Diaghilev told his auditioners. Would he were alive today! We are lately seeing such breathtaking leaps (albeit of logic) as would send him into raptures, and make Nijinksy step back with his hands on his hips and go "Day-um!" or whinny jealously or whatever he did.

As Thatcher once told us there is no such thing as society, David Frum now tells us there is no such thing as hypocrisy. Read his essay on Ted Haggard if you have time to waste and a strong stomach. It floored me; I am still on the floor, typing from there, so forgive any misspellings. Frum's opening made me think he was just going to show sympathy for a fallen sinner; later, I thought he would be content to tag on some contempt for a liberal media pile-on; but eventually I realized to my horror this man, a professional writer who had once been employed by the President of the United States, was rejecting a taboo as old as human society:

Consider the hypothetical case of two men. Both are inclined toward homosexuality. Both from time to time hire the services of male prostitutes. Both have occasionally succumbed to drug abuse.

One of them marries, raises a family, preaches Christian principles, and tries generally to encourage people to lead stable lives.

The other publicly reveals his homosexuality, vilifies traditional moral principles, and urges the legalization of drugs and prostitution...

...the first man may well see his family and church life as his "real" life; and regard his other life as an occasional uncontrollable deviation, sin, and error, which he condemns in his judgment and for which he sincerely seeks to atone by his prayer, preaching, and Christian works.

Yet it is the first man who will if exposed be held up to the execration of the media, while the second can become a noted public character - and can even hope to get away with presenting himself as an exemplar of ethics and morality.

How does this make moral sense?

Because, you hoser, human society depends upon at least a rudimentary concept of justice. We can forgive inconsistencies, and even admire trying and failing, but when someone amasses power from us based on his personal superiority, and is proved a fraud, he has broken the basic bargain of leadership. We mock him not out of meanness, but out of a communal survival instinct.

When such a concept is assimilated, Tartuffery of Reverend Haggard's sort* is immediately and viscerally perceived as unjust. And hilarious.

It's not possible that a functional adult could be as ignorant as Frum portrays himself here. I have to believe that he's just desperately trying to defuse a worrisomely familiar culture bomb. For big-time conservatives on the eve of a big election, it may be that the Haggard case makes a sinister bookend to the Foley case: both instances of sexual scandal that are not really germane to any political issue, but which may excite feelings among the rest of the tribe that our leaders, with their Family Values crests and credos, are not everything they claim to be.

In such circumstances, an outrageous moral lecture on behalf of a hypocrite could be worth a try. If you confuse or cow them, they might stop giggling.

*UPDATE. I hadn't noticed this before, but while Frum and many of his fellow travellers have talked about all this as if it were proved that Haggard had sex with Mike Jones, this is not the case, though Jones insists it is. So I don't know that Haggard has been hypocritical, and apologize for even peripherally carrying the imputation forward. I should know better than to follow NRO's lead on anything.

SHORTER CRAZY JESUS LADY: To lift America above the rancorous partisanism of our time, we need more true progressives like Rick Santorum.

A NEW LOW. The New York Times reports on the Government's attempts to leverage Iraqi documents on the internet to its own advantage. The report mentions some old documents about Saddam Hussein's pre-1991 attempts to gain nuclear power.

The immediate response from the right is that the Times report proves, in some way not discernible by ordinary logic, that Saddam was on the verge of wiping us out in 2003, and that the Times only printed this information (which, if it actually existed, would be injurious to their beloved Democratic Party) because they are crazy and/or stupid.

They don't know which dark desire they want to indulge more -- their hatred of the Times or their wish to be vindicated on Iraq -- so they try both at once, which works as well as would an attempt to sing opera while eating a pie. Actually, I guess it does work, in the sense that this sloppy performance will yet stir traditional enmities and ardours in the people such guff usually works on, though it leaves the rest of us wondering why we ever bothered learning to read.

UPDATE. More detailed analysis than I have time or talent to make by David Weigel.

FIGHTING THE LAST CAMPAIGN. I'm actually disappointed that The Big Stiff apologized. I took him at his word as to the meaning of his jest, but even if he had a different one in mind, he had a right as a veteran to make it -- God knows we've heard more pointed cracks from men who served. For a while I thought he'd tough it out, but once a soldier always a soldier, and he did his bit for the higher echelon. In 2004 he expected as much from others, as I noted at the time:

In a day of tactical evasions, John Kerry talked down a MoveOn.org anti-Bush ad, apparently in solidarity with John McCain, who had talked down the Other Swift Boat Guys' anti-Kerry ad. I see the political usefulness of this for the Big Stiff, and invite him to denounce my own ravings as well if it will help him defeat the fascist scumbag space-alien freak Illuminatus Bush.

Now Kerry himself takes one for the team. Were I of a cynical turn of mind, I might suspect that this was the idea all along. Now Kerry, who is not running for office, has become the heat sink that draws all the savage denunciations ("a man who remembers everything and learns nothing," "Mister Nuance," "forlorn loser," etc) that might otherwise be expended upon those who are.

In fact, I don't know why I bother to provide post-specific links, as the folks at The Corner and other such blather outlets will be hammering this into the next decade. Remember, the blogosphere thing is just a bubble, and its skin, like that of the paramecium, is only semi-permeable: news may enter, but outrage mostly stays inside, which is of course the secret of both the blogosphere's growth and its ineffectuality: it swells without discharging.

"Folks," roars The Corner's current rookie dead-ender, "I do NOT agree with letting Senator Aristo-Slacker off the hook for his plainly delivered insult to the troops." That's fine, Mario: keep the old standard aloft, while the busy world bustles without.

I still think this will all end badly, as the Republicans have rigged the voting machines, but as far as the old-fashioned politics go, this is only today's news, and tomorrow is upon us. Let us keep our keep our eyes and ears open for the latest meaningless outrage.

UPDATE. In the discussion, some commenters object to the allegations of a fix, and Steve notes that "the utopian fantasy where every vote gets counted once and only once has never existed." Quite so. I have been rereading with pleasure Luc Sante's Low Life, and have just come to the Tammany boss' directions for getting four votes out of a single vagrant by shaving bits of his facial hair between trips to the polling station.

While Republican fixers currently enjoy the advantages of electronic voting machines, it may be that, by the time the wheel of fortune turns the Democrats' way, they will have the benefit of wi-fi-assisted cerebral cortex jamming devices.

Hopefully I won't be so depraved by then as to defend them. The whole time I've been operating alicublog, the Democrats have been a disorganized rump; should they obtain something more than the power to harass, I may have to start paying more attention to them. That may cure me of politics for good, which is as fine a reason as any to root for them.

NEXT: HOW HERBERT HOOVER WAS ACTUALLY AN ANARCHO-SYNDICALIST. If Kerry really did say, "I hate idiots like me who served in the military," then I suppose Rick Santorum can be a libertarian, right?

Fresh from explaining how her sex-loathing somehow made her unpopular with her "fellow" libertarians, Jennifer Roback Morse explains at National Review why Senator Man-on-Dog -- a guy who actually said out loud that Democrats are "anti-responsibility" because "their entire agenda is, 'I should be able to do whatever I want to do as long as no one gets hurt'" -- is the logical choice for Pennsylvanian libertarians.

After all, she tells us, Santorum likes tax cuts -- you guys love tax cuts, right? -- and he is beloved of the Family Research Council, who loves a lot of the same things libertarians love, including parental notification for abor-- um, tax cuts!

Morse acknowledges some libertarians may reject Santorum because of the whole make-sodomy-illegal thing -- but:

If you’d vote for Bob Casey Jr. over Rick Santorum because of their respective positions on gay rights, you’re not a libertarian. You are a single-issue gay-rights voter.

Or, to use the colloquial: you're not a libertarian, you're a fag! And here endeth the lesson.

I have speculated more than once that many National Review articles are written on a bet -- you know: Hey, Lowry, two large says you can't write a thousand words on how a billion-and-a-half dollars for marriage lessons is "conservative"! But even in these bagatelles, there is normally at least a collateral benefit to the conservative movement. Morse's piece, outside of its bookmaking potential, is perfect in its uselessness. Who at the Review gives a damn about pleasing libertarians anymore? Haven't they all caught on by now?

Things must be going worse for them than I thought. (Still holding onto my bet, though! Diebold, people!)

THE GOP'S HAIL KERRY PASS, AND MY COMING ANOINTMENT AS A POLITICAL GENIUS. They must think Kerry's remarks will help them in the election, to judge by the way their most reliable web propagandist is beating it to death.

And also by how they beat their own when they don't get on board. At The Corner, John Derbyshire takes the perfectly reasonable view that Kerry was, as he claims, insulting Bush, not Our Fightin' Men, and his mates turn ugly. "You're just wrong, wrong, wrong," says John Podhoretz. "Guess when Senator Kerry was talking about dimwittery he should have been talking about me too then," says K. J. Lopez. (Yeah, guys, I know, but I'm in a hurry.)

But such blog-froth is, after all, good only for a few days, and affects only the hotheads and shut-ins who regularly avail this medium. That Bush himself has gone front and center to attack the Kerry remarks indicates that the national Party has been prepared for a last-minute offensive on similar themes, but has accelerated its schedule, and shifted its specific target, to suit events.

This and the President's recent references to gay marriage support my prediction that, in the last ditch, the Republicans would paint the opposition as gay traitors to win the election.

My casual slur having been proved prophetic, I will go further and predict that in this final week of campaigning, you will see many otherwise incomprehensible attempts by Republicans to -- well, not even associate; to juxtapose Democrats with notorious sodomites and turncoats. "Harold Ford wears a shirt and slacks -- just like the men who raped and murdered Jesse Dirkhising!" "Hillary Clinton gives a regular radio address -- just like Tokyo Rose!" You can take that to the bank.

As for the election results, I see no reason to prognosticate, because everyone knows it's fixed.

UPDATE. Lileks, of all people, takes Derbyshire's view, though by the time he gets to it he has exhausted himself in rage against that damned snot-nosed punk Mort Sahl.

THE SIMPLE TEST, DEFEATED. I recently ran one of my Ole Grey Perfesser Tests -- that is, I took a page of Instapundit at random and analyzed each post on it for evidence of centrism, libertarianism, and other alleged nutrients. The results vary but little from reading to reading, and show the Perfesser to be a reliable Republican shill with statistically insignificant trace elements of contrarianism added to appeal to young and/or unsophisticated consumers.

Since Ann Althouse has been talking up her credentials as a centrist Democrat, I figure she's about due for a test, too:

Oct. 25, 9:10 am: Lawsuit over penis! Gross!

9:27 am: That Corker ad with the white girl is shameful and perhaps plays to racist feelings.

9:44 am: I like Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

9:50 am: Don't you think we should have sexually segregated schools?

10:19: James Cavaziel, Michael J. Fox -- a plague on both your houses!

3:10 am: I think this court decision in favor of the gay-marriage side is a big mistake. I always say that, of course, which is why I always have to remind you that I'm pro-gay-marriage, too.

Oct. 26, 5:11 am: Bob Dylan Broadway show. Hmm.

5:55 am: Ugh! What a bad poster! Why isn't the hand wearing pants?

6:32 am: Ha ha, Ted Nugent is funny. Why doesn't anyone else write about it? Oh, someone else wrote about it.

6:50 am: Why did I do this on a school night! Now the sun's coming up and I still can't get to sleep.

7:03 am: Mickey Kaus said the gay Jersey court was playing politics. Hmmm.

8:10 am: Those people who say Corker's ads use racism against Ford are being dishonest. I think Ford's people are just as bad!

8:41 am: Now Simon Cowell has me thinking about marriage. I wish I could sleep, or feel my tongue, or stop thinking about not feeling my tongue.

9:13 am: David Brooks says the midwest is the future. That would be awesome.

11:24 am: What's your favorite Supreme Court Justice! SCALIA! He's so fine, he's so fine he blows my mind Scalia! Why don't you like Thomas? It is because he's black? Can I serve you and Barbie some more tea?

8:30 pm: O God it was good to sleep... still tired though... uh, I guess there's something to those dirty stories Webb wrote... politicians always do that you know... Omigod, I wrote a lot of crap! I better add some factual material.

10:07 pm: Ha ha, Camille Paglia sure gave it to those Democrats! What? The thing about Studds is wrong? Ugh, what a drag. I gotta start saving this shit for the weekends.

11:11 pm: If I blog about my radio show tomorrow morning maybe I'll remember it when I wake up, and not just turn off the alarm and go back to sleep like last time.

Oct. 27, 6:18 am: That Bob Dylan show sounds awful.

6:50 am: If I were Kevin Barrett, here's how I would have handled that protest.

7:10 am: It was bad, what the Muslim cleric said about rape. "Clean out the White House" doesn't mean get rid of Bush! God! You're so stupid!

7:36 am: Ha ha! Canada! Ha ha!

8:04 am: Okay I'm about to go on the radio. UPDATE: I was on the radio.

10:01 am: I take pictures.

1:38 pm: Some people have trouble with the blog in their browser. Foxfire! O God that's funny! Fox-Fie-Err. Fox-Fie-Err. Wow.

4:16 pm: Reading about TV is kind of like reading and kind of like watching TV. So maybe we should just read about TV. But then we'd need TV shows to have something to read about. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

4:46 pm: Bes-tial. Bes-ti-al. BESSSSSSSSSSSSssstial. Bes. Ti. Al.

6:06 pm: Wow. This place is awesome.

7:25 pm: No, wait. Wait. No, was it cool to laugh at that? No, because yeah, if it was Hitler because of the Jews. Steve Irwin didn't kill any Jews.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

8:05 pm: You know? Because, you know?

Oh, I can't stand this anymore, I quit. Some things just don't bear close examination.

SHORTER TIGERHAWK. You're in the managerial class? Me too! Boy, don't non-salaried employees suck?

SHORTER JOSH TREVINO. Liberals have BDS so bad it turns them against their own mothers, according to this lifestyle story in the New York Times which I suddenly trust unreservedly. And they say they're for "privacy," whatever that is, but they really just mean Ess Ee Ex. I would pity them if they weren't about to kick my ass.

WITHOUT ALL OF YOU MY CAREER COULD NEVER HAVE GOTTEN THIS FAR.

I'd like to see the Democratic Party become centrist. If they win because they found moderates to run in key districts, I think they'll have a special obligation to please people like me. I'm going to hold them to the bargain.

What bargain? Who are you? Why, it's Professor Ann Althouse, who normally speaks only of Democrats as anti-feminist, whiny losers, to the cheers of her largely right-wing readership. But now that the Democrats stand a chance of winning, Althouse considers herself as indispensible to their success.

Having followed her work a while, I don't see this as simple bandwagoning. I think Althouse believes she actually has something to do with the Democrats' anticipated victory. It's sort of like Divine giving her acceptance speech from the electric chair in Female Trouble: deluded, yes, but with the saving grace of hilarity.

OR A SPORTS CAR. THAT WOULD BE NICE. Fooled by our ignoble retreat from Daylight Savings Time, I wound up watching some of the Sunday morning gibberish. Ben Stein (Ben Stein!) recited a speech he'd written for George Bush, admitting Iraq was a mistake. Then Michael Steele (Michael Steele!) explained that the difference between himself and his Democratic opponent was that he'd wait an extra 60 to 90 days to pull our troops out "if the Iraqis don't want us."

And there's this:

Meanwhile, even as Bush was praising Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as "a smart, tough, capable administrator," endangered Republicans like Kentucky Representative Anne Northup and Ohio Senator Mike DeWine have been joining the increasingly loud chorus of calls for the secretary's ouster.
And pressure for change is not coming only from the desperate and the wobbly. Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison -- a Bush loyalist well ahead in her bid for re-election -- is expressing regret for her vote to authorize the invasion and is advocating partitioning Iraq along ethnic lines. "We have to step back and stop trying to put our American ideas onto this problem," she told the Houston Chronicle.

I should be glad to see the consensus moving the right way, but on the other hand, what the fuck? Many of us have been hearing for years that we were traitors to express skepticism about this adventure, and now I hear Republicans coming out with this shit. Don't we get an apology or a fruit basket or something?

TALES OF ORDINARY MADNESS. We hear today, after a blessedly long hiatus, from Camille Paglia, whose anger at liberal colleagues has made her a surprise hit with folks who would otherwise never listen to a humanities and media studies professor say anything, unless she were reading back their fast-food order. Paglia is still mad at other intellectuals, even when she agrees with them:

The feckless behavior of the Bush administration has been a lurid illustration of Noam Chomsky's books -- which I've always considered half lunatic. Chomsky's hatred of the United States is pathological -- stemming from some bilious problem with father figures that is too fetid to explore. But Chomsky's toxic view of American imperialism and interventionism is like the playbook of the rigid foreign policy of the Bush administration. So, thanks very much, George Bush, you've managed to rocket Noam Chomsky to the top of the bestseller list!

Chomsky's "toxic" view, as explicated by Paglia, has been fulsomely borne out by actual events, yet Chomsky is "half lunatic." In fact, to hear Paglia tell it, President Bush himself is more than half lunatic:

...I've become concerned about Bush's mental state in the past few months. Sometimes in his press conferences or prepared statements (which I listened to on the radio), I heard a sort of Nixonian tension and hysteria. His vocal patterns were over-intense and his inflections impatient, lurching and sarcastic. There was this seething quality to his speech that worried me and that seemed to signal that something major is being planned -- perhaps another military incursion.

Interestingly, despite this startling accusation of incipient Presidential lunacy, Republicans are linking to it.

Lord Nazh is phlegmatic: "Granted she has her hang-ups like any good lefty does... scim the lefty parts if you must." This guy says "A liberal Democrat tells it like it is!"; Fraters Libertas is tickled that Paglia "opines on liberal talk radio." In a long post, one Dr. Melissa Clouthier says of Paglia's warning of a Bush mental breakdown that "If I were him, I might be paranoid. I've mentioned this before. I'd be paranoid because everyone does seem out to get me..." One hopes her Doctorate is not in psychology.

Apparently you can get big play from the right by talking smack about liberals, even if you simultaneously suggest that George W. Bush is one sleepless night away from blowing up Iran to still the voices in his head. This suggests a new definition for the term Bush Derangement Syndrome.

THESE COWS ARE VERY SMALL, BUT THOSE COWS ARE JUST VERY FAR AWAY. I see Republicans are bragging about their poor reading comprehension skills. This is a Virginia election, however, so it might just work.

Here's my favorite report of Webb's novels so far, from noted rightwing news aggregator CNS:

Virginia Senate hopeful Jim Webb was taking flak Friday for what sounded like a child sex scene in his 2001 novel, but critics who have examined the books he wrote over a two-decade period also see a pattern of discriminatory and offensive characterization of women and racial minorities...

But, [Mychal] Massie ["national chairman of the conservative African-American group Project 21"] added, "Speaking as a writer, a person tends to write what they believe in. Even in presenting a fictional writing the author writes from a core philosophy -- an intrinsic philosophy."

Don't tell these people about Nigger Jim or they'll haul Mark Twain's body out of its grave and throw it in the Chemung.

It'd be annoying if an important election turned on this bullshit, but I gotta be honest with you: sometimes I feel as if I've been a little unfair to conservatives, portraying them as illiterate clods and such like, and it's nice to be reminded that I have if anything understated the extent to which their cause relies on plain pig-ignorance.

UPDATE. Of all people, Michelle Malkin shows a grasp of basic literary concepts.

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN. I got to an advance screening of Babel this week. I've never seen Iñárritu's other movies (Amores Perros, 21 Grams), but I can see why he's a big deal. He's really good at showing the undramatic ways in which dramatic events develop. Two brothers, each jealous of the other's claims on their father, wind up shooting a tourist; a young deaf girl seems perfectly well-socialized within her peer group, but when she is casually reminded of the doors that are closed to her, she begins to act out sexually; a Mexican nanny wants to go to her son's wedding and takes a risk that has a good chance of working out -- until her nephew takes a risk of his own that turns everything into a nightmare.

This shows great storytelling craft, but Iñárritu wanted something bigger than a mere story, and mashed a bunch of them up into some sort of thread-crossing statement picture. Unfortunately I don't know what the statement is supposed to be. Communication is obviously a big part of it -- language barriers, deafness, "Babel." But if you want to say that communication breakdowns are the cause of all the problems in the film, you have to define both "communication" and "problem" so broadly that they barely mean anything. If the Americans have wound up in Morocco because they can't talk to each other, does that mean getting shot is a communications problem? And do the boys get to the point of target practice because their conflict resolution skills are imperfectly developed, or because they're boys and have a gun?

Also, the film slows way down at the end, so that we may more fully experience, or wallow in, the agonies of the characters -- but at that point they were still strangers to me, and in fact I cared much less about all but one of them than I had at the outset. Only the deaf girl's story held me -- partly because Kikuchi Rinko's performance is so amazing, but also because her story had suffered the least from distractions: her deafness, and her adolescent simplicity, made it necessary for Iñárritu to focus intensely on her, and we could read a world of details into her silence. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett just can't compete with that, no matter how photogenically they suffer.

It occurs to me that this sort of multi-thread strategy breaks down dramatic interest of necessity, and that it only works if the multiple plots and casts coalesce to suggest a community that we can care about, as in Nashville or Dodes'ka-den. God knows Altman's stars, wannabes, and innocent bystanders chronically talk past one another, but their town still lives because their blind, groping need holds them together; Kurosawa's dump-dwellers have communications problems, too, and there's even a character who doesn't speak (well, maybe because he's really a ghost), but that's just what you expect from people who live so close to one another that each man must jealously guard his identity, or the private pain that is all he knows of it. (Though spouses are interchangable. Damn, that's a beautiful movie; I wish I could watch it right now.)

If there's a community in Babel, it would seem to be The World. That may have been a little too big a target for Iñárritu, at least at this point. But he's got great skills, and he makes Morocco, Tokyo, and Tijuana feel so real in the short spaces devoted to each of them that I wonder what he could do for one place over an hour or so. Let me know when he makes a simpler movie.

ALSO, THEY FUCK DOGS TO MAKE HIPPIES. One of the madmen at Gates of Vienna has written hundreds of words complaining that black people are prejudiced against white people.

So, everybody is supposed to keep their culture, except people of European origins? All cultures are equal, but some are more equal than others? Why is colonialism always bad, but not when my country, which has no colonial history, gets colonized by Third World immigrants?

Also, a bunch of dark people moved into his country, and they steal and rape white women. No word yet on whether they drive Cadillacs to pick up their welfare checks.

I seem to remember hearing stuff like this when I was growing up in a Northeastern American city that was growing less white. (Bridgeport now has a minority majority, I believe, though it's still run by white people). Still, I don't recall hearing, in my childhood or in my adult visits there, that the solution was to wage global war against Southern Baptists, lest we all be absorbed into Dixietude.

The prior post is about the Swedish integration and equality minister, Nyamko Sabuni, who sounds terrific. The author then starts raving about black people who call other black people "oreos" (though there is nothing remotely about that in the text about Sabuni), Jesse Jackson, etc.

The post before that is about veiled women in Europe, and somehow drags in the ACLU and "ghetto gear" ("baggy pants and exposed boxer shorts").

One gets the impression that these soldiers joined the Keyboard War Against Islam to get away from themselves, and are not having much luck.

UPDATE. Comments are... well, here I am reduced to twirling my index finger next to my head:

Fjordman, I think it is time for Swedish and Norwegian patriots to set up governments in exile, just like occupied countries did in WWII...

It seems, at this point, that the choices are between following democracy until it kills us all or, eventually, going for the jugular and staging a coup in (at least) France...

For things to change, whites must strengthen our racial consciuousness, which, reports to the contrary, does exist -- though it is suppressed. And once we act, once we liberate ourselves... I have no doubt whites are waking up, slowly but sirely, but we need to take the thinking to the next step.

Might I suggest we start by issuing our own "fatwas" against Muslim clerics inciting hatred... If the authorities have decided to destroy our countries for whatever reason, they have no legitimacy, and must they not be overthrown?...

So, if any of you white folks out there want to stay alive and have a future for your children... know your enemy and start taking steps to defeat your enemy...

Gates of Vienna appears on the blogroll of Armed Liberal and other fine moderate bloggers.

UPDATE II. At Dean Esmay's site, Mary Madigan says Gates of Vienna is "often maligned as being 'Islamophobic.'" I'd say Islamophobia is the least of their problems.

MARKETING FOR OF DUMMIES. Jeff "Criswell" Jarvis finds something else to love about our hopeless future: a brave new generation called "millennials" who, according to the Jersey Star Ledger,

can text message, listen to their iPods and instant message on their laptops -- all at the same time. They are patriotic and relentlessly optimistic about the future.

They rarely read books for fun and most likely aren't reading this newspaper.

They are the most diverse -- and perhaps the smartest -- generation in U.S. history...

The smartest generation in U.S. History? Do you know any people who take no pleasure in reading, need to be constantly entertained by demotic IMs and crappy pop music, and never believe anything but the best about themselves and the place they happened to have been born in?

I have. They're called morons. In fact I would say that such behaviors and beliefs are pretty much the definition of moronism.

To be fair to the kids, I do not for a second believe that they are as this article describes them -- else they would all be in special-needs facilities, instead of out there tearing up my lawn.

Rather I believe the "popular speaker on the academic lecture circuit" whose press release is breathlessly replicated in the Star-Ledger just seeks to portray them as such -- so that marketers, excited by hints that this latest generation is even dumber and riper for the picking than the last, will hire him as a consultant, hoping to learn the secret codes that will sever the idiot strings connecting the kids' wallets to their $100 jeans.

As for Jarvis, well, he's just interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. He'll probably remain equally enthusiastic about all things New and Happening even as President Jenna Bush is texting OMG I JUST BOMMED IRAN!!!! to her constituents and ROTFLHAO.

For more of my increasingly hoarse denunciations of the notion that one can be smart without knowin' nuthin' except the names of characters on "The Sopranos," see here.

MEANWHILE DOWN AT THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD TV STATION... Paul J. Cella unleashes another Jesus-without-contractions stinker at RedState . The theme this time: atheists have such "shriveled" imaginations that they "can only conceive of divine vengeance as something obvious and inexpressibly cartoonish," whereas in reality God showed his love for America by killing hundreds of thousands of its citizens with gangrene and grapeshot.

One of his commenters points out flaws in Cella's syntax, and his seconds step forward with these defenses:

Those to whom God gives eyes to see will see. Likewise those to whom God gives ears to hear will hear. To all others, even the wisest among them, it will seem as foolishness.

I would suggest that you pray for insight and enlightenment, for it is beyond my power to explain it.
...

We would like to help you understand, but I suspect that the total lack of subtlety, spirituality, vision, and poetry in your heart and soul makes that an impossible task.

"Poetry" they call it now? Back in the day we just called it acid.

Right-wing world has been getting crazier by a minute, but this is a new development: critics who insist on even simple predicate logic are not answered, just told that they lack an inner light that would allow them to "see."

Remember: it doesn't mean they're losing. It only means they think they're losing. But it's still fun to watch.

SHORTER ACE OF SPADES: The better liberals do in the polls, the more I hate them & fags.

(On the other hand, Mr. Spades did recently admit that Tim Robbins was "wise enough to walk away" from comments made by Rosie O'Donnell, a "bridge troll." So he probably qualifies as a Michael Totten centrist.)

UPDATE. MT centrist Dean Esmay* explains that CNN is working for Al Qaeda. If things get any more moderate around here, we'll all be hung as war criminals by Christmas.

*2nd UPDATE. Apparently I can't even spot the tonal differences between Dave Price and Dean Esmay! How insensitive is that? For examples of the actual Esmay's authenticated centrism, see here and here.

REVERSION TO FORM. Hadn't checked out Mr. Moderate Michael Totten for a while -- not since he won some respect from me by declining to agree with lunatics that his Lebanese friends were proud and happy to be bombed by Israel.

So I peeked in:

Producers aren't the only ones bored with the format. How about hiring lots of centrist pundits?... Here are a few places to start. Half of them have been on TV already. Put them on more often!

Go look at his list of "moderates." I warn you: it's pretty much what you expect (though he waits until comments to sort-of-include the Ole Perfesser).

Next week: an expose of that Idiotarian bastard FDR.

UPDATE. Fun comments, in which Michael gamely takes part. Is centrism in the eye of the beholder? I take centrism to mean on-the-other-handism that seeks to split the difference, which I like better in politics (which is largely about splitting differences) than in commentary, where it tends toward warm mush.

Peter Beinart's stuff, for example, seems to a hothead like me like an endless stream of polite requests for everybody to stop being so unreasonable. This is not my cup of gruel, but if you don't care for pistols at dawn, I can see where you might find it soothingly accommodationist. Beinart would probably try to form a T-group in a gang war.

The folks on Michael's list have agendas which can be entertaining, on the mad terms of our poisonous debate, but I can't imagine ordinary people reading, say, Armed Liberal yelling at a newspaper and thinking it an attempt at finding consensus. They'd probably wonder why he was yelling at a newspaper.

Most of us are frankly a little strange.

WHAT KIND OF MAN READS INSTAPUNDIT? "Okay, with about 6800 votes so far, we've got 74% in favor of Republicans keeping both houses, 17% in favor of the Dems taking one house, and 9% in favor of Dems taking both houses..."

I keep hearing all this stuff about how the Perfesser "has never been much of a Republican. He's more a thinking Libertarian," etc. So how come his readership is more Republican than Jesus Junction, Alabama?

I expect someone will explain to me that Republicans are actually more open-minded than Democrats, and that is why they listen every day to the non-partisan stylings of the Perfesser, then go out and support the GOP at approximately twice the rate of the rest of their fellow citizens.

They keep using that word "libertarian" -- I do not think it means... oh, hell, I don't think anyone knows what it means any more.

UPDATE. All respect, of course, to situational libertarians like Loretta Nall, who was harassed by scumbag cops and is now funding a run for Governor of Alabama by flashing. (Hat tip Wonkette. I haven't caught the act, but even if "the biggest boobs in Alabama politics" turns out to be the lame gag it sounds like, I will endorse Ms. Nall for anything she wants, short of a third-party check.)

Whatever beef we may have with sincere and starry-eyed fans of the Articles of Confederation and the law of the jungle, it is as nothing compared to our feelings against suburban douchebags whose only true guiding principle is, as commenter Kia reminds us, "I got mine, don't worry about yours."

WOLVERINES! As I have predicted time and time again, the strategy wizards of the GOP are looking, in these dark late innings, to terrify American voters into electoral submission. "BEST GOP HOPE: SCARE 'EM SILLY" runs the head on Dick Morris' latest ad for his consulting practice, with space generously donated by the New York Post. Per Morris, Republicans "need to sound a note of alarm and fill the airwaves with specifics of exactly what will happen if the Democrats triumph." He suggests a TV commercial in which Islamofascists are left free to kill by bleeding-hearts and their deranged insistence on so-called "rights." Why not just show turbaned terrorists streaming through a revolving door?

This Hail Marianism has only just commenced and greater madness will surely ensue, but it is not too early to call out promising contenders for Craziest Campaign Subterfuge. For your consideration, Ace of Spades, who is strongly pushing a campaign to unmask Ted Kennedy as a Soviet agent. Soon enough will come the details of the threat: Gorbachev seizing power in the "new USSR," tanks on Main Street, Kennedy as Commissar of the Soviet Republic of Amerika! Citizens awake!

FOLLOW THE MONEY. Barron's makes the best possible case that the Republicans will hang onto power in the upcoming election: they have more money.

Is our method reliable? It certainly has been in the past. Using it in the 2002 and 2004 congressional races, we bucked conventional wisdom and correctly predicted GOP gains both years. Look at House races back to 1972 and you'll find the candidate with the most money has won about 93% of the time. And that's closer to 98% in more recent years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Polls can be far less reliable. Remember, they all but declared John Kerry president on Election Day 2004.

Our method isn't quite as accurate in Senate races: The cash advantage has spelled victory about 89% of the time since 1996...

Remember when the Republicans' image problems had more to do with lobbyists and fundraisers than with text messages? Those malfeasances were unphotogenic where revealed, but they showed that the Republicans knew how to work the spigots. Abramoff and Noe went too far, but you can expect that sort of thing when word gets around that there's big money to be made if you show a little initiative. Many others have been as energetic, and not so dumb, as their fallen comrades, and the GOP's money mountains -- and the networks of influence that keep them majestic -- are the result.

Democrats are no pikers, either, and may get (back) their chance at patronage primacy -- K Street, ever cautious, has apparently begun to put out feelers. Which is why I'm confused that their candidates are not thumping economic populism hard -- if you want citizens to help elbow your opponents away from the trough, what better motivation can you offer than some of its contents? That's why I'm a Democrat, certainly. (That and the sodomy.)

I'd say Democratic chances at control of either House are a near thing at best. As I've observed before, the Republicans can, have, and will get out the pitchforks at the last minute, and remind America that Democrats are gay traitors, which should rouse some of the values voters who are alleged to be disgusted with the GOP at present. I would be more optimistic for the Democrats if they would start hollering loud about the full dinner pail, or the full home entertainment center, or whatever, and remind voters that they have something [rubs tips of fingers together] to offer besides ringing denunciations and rainbow coalitions.

Money is the big thing, though it's a real buzz-kill when we're reminded of it.

TO QUOTE ALICE KRAMDEN, "HAR DE HAR HAR HAR." The Ole Perfesser votes Republican! Who'd-a thunk it? Me, of course.

But the Perfesser "split" his vote by endorsing Phil Bredesen, who has no chance of losing, and gay marriage, which has no chance of winning! Yay! We're all moderates! Everyone's hugging!

UPDATE. I should talk. I expect to split my own ticket in a few areas. Anyone as proud of his prosecutorial career as Eliot Spitzer should be be moved further from, not closer to, government power. Rather than support a Democratic Giuliani manque, I will give my vote to Jimmy McMillian of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party. Finally, a cause I can support unreservedly!

I will vote for Hitlery, though. Not that I like her so very much, but for the usual reason: to piss off the rest of the country.

THANKS for your concern, but I'm okay about the NLCS. I took a schvitz yesterday and got most of the poison out -- the previous night's poison, I mean: the wellspring of that fierce indignation which lacerates my heart cannot be touched by sweats.

I have no real complaints. My Mets made it to Game 7, and their defeat, as has been widely noted, came not so much from their pre-playoff pitching misfortunes as from the relative quietude of their batters against the Cards. They just weren't ready. It's hard to remember that David Wright is only 16 years old; maybe when he's had a few more big games, or a woman, he'll react better to playoff baseball. Our other big guns were spottier than they should have been, and that's baseball -- if you don't win it's your own fault. (Conservatives should agree! This makes me a "moderate Democrat"!) So the Cards deserved it. They are, as befits their midwest location, big cornfed guys, and this year their pitching (and the addition of scrappers Spezio and Eckstein) has been good enough to support them. As the baseball parlance has it, you have to tip your hat.

The Cards have beaten the Tigers tonight in Game 1 which is too bad: I want to see Murder City take another Series, because they're due, and because they might have a riot, which would be awesome. I mean, shit, I'm sick of polite clappy-clap corporate sporting celebrations, let's get all Stooges up in here. You wanna have a RIOT, GIRLS? RIOT! Mind you, I would love to see it here, but Detroit's got the know-how as well as the indigenous* angry minority population not bought off by Wall Street runoff money, and the opportunity. And WIN! RIOT!

Also I hate Tony Fucking LaRussa. Even when I'm not drunk (4 am EST-5:15 EST M-F), LaRussa is a fuck. Tonight he's a fuck for taking Reyes out in the 9th: Three rookie pitchers have pitched a complete game victory in the World Series, and if anyone deserved to be the first since the 1950s, it was Reyes, but fucking Tony "I Look Like The Joker on Those Biennial Occasions When I Smile" LaRussa had to protect his 7-2 LEAD IN THE NINTH. He is also a fuck for running the steroid chucklehead A's back in the Canseco days. Also, I mean, he's a fuck. Just look at him.

But if he wins, he and his Cardinals will deserve it. Just as, if the Democrats don't do so well in November, America will deserve it. The fucks.

RIOT!

*UPDATE. A commenter points out that "indigenous" is the wrong word, and he's right. Big words give me trouble. Should be "local."

SHORTER CRAZY JESUS LADY. With our politics so mired in corruption and ineffectuality, what America needs now is more bullshit.

RECPA. Motherucking cocksuckr. Ypoy kids didn;lt throw any batteries., What the fuck is wromng wioth you. The Cradinals plauyed rhard and desrvbe the win. Goddman shit.

UPDATE. whyyou didnl;t throw bnatteris

UPDATE II. Go toiggers

LATE DRUNK LIVEBLOGGING GAME 7 NLCS, 9TH INNING, SECOND HALF: ALRIGHT LETS GO LETS GO START THROWING BATTERIES SHEA PUNKS! WHERE"S YOUR RPDIE?

VALENTIN DON'T LOOK SO FUCKING DULL GET JUICED! GOD MOTHERUFCKING DAMNINT BREATHE SOME AIR!

Alright alright alright alrigt aligt.

DOOON'T BUNNNT! DONNNT BUNNT! Tim McCarver doesn;t know what the fuck he's talking about. ALRIGHT THE CROWD IS BACK INTO IT! START THRWING BATRTERIES!

1-1.

AWWWRIGHHTTTT

Pleae don;t be choking please don';t be choking plkeae don;'t be choking.

FIRST AND SECOND

MAZZEROSKIIIIIIIIIIIII'

Oh fuck Cl;iff Floyd. Willie I hope you have a pipelione to God.

Woo big cut.

This is hard weather to hot a homer in. CK! Borderline putch indeed.

Throw to first is a good move, didn't work.

The crowd is screaming of course but at this stage no player hears. This is the center of the storm.

STRIKEOUIT!

THROW BATTERIES!@ Good pitch.

OK I got the sound off.

jose jose jose jose hose

SHIOT

OK yuh big lug,,, all up to you...

bases loaded

Wainwright Molina on the mound

Beran wiping his bat

Praying in the stand s (Borougjh of Churches)

0-1

0-2

shit

LATE DRUNK LIVEBLOGGING GAME 7 NLCS, 9TH INNING, FIRST HALF: "If you don't have a job, you shouldn't be watching TV." FUCLK YOU. I'll NEVER buy whatever your fuicking gum is called. Whats it caleld? I just won't buy any gum. I got a fucked up bridge anyway. I'll tell other people not to buy whatever you are. YOU HEAR ME? I HAVE A BLOG! WE ARE THICK IN THE STREETS!

Heilman in on Edmonds. I forget, do we hate him or -- OH FUCK YEAH! FUCK YOU FUCK YOU SIDDOWN!

Oh shit Rolen. Willie Boy, I hope you know what you're doing. Can't be easy juggling pitchers like this. Rcik Peterson!

GODDAMNIT GET THIS FUCKER OUT! OH SHIT!

OH FUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

GODDAMAN MITHERUYCKJ SHIT OK let's focus. Crowd is going "rhubarb rhubarb" in very low tones. Fuckin Molina. Pimch hitter! Come on, Shea people., show some fuckng spirit. What the fuck did you pay for these tickets? I mean besides the corproate fucks. Get the fuck off your seats yoy -- oh three out.

COME THE FUCK ON!

LATE DRUNK LIVEBLOGGING GAME 7 NLCS, 8TH INNING: Oh crap Aaron Heilman, this guy worries me. But he's roaring. Oh shit, Spezio on deck? Mookie's nephew out of the game. One out.

Fucking dyed-patch fucker, he can be trouble. Heilman looks fresh. Maybe he likes the rain. I bet it feels kinda nice after all that time in the stinky bullpen, jacket buttoned up to your chin. Fans look into it, roaring. History! 2-2. SIDDOWN! Oh fuck, Pujols waiting.

That guy always looks like he's hitting fungoes. Bat up high. THAT WAS NOT BALL THREE. Alright, ufck it, put him on.

BIG CUT. Play to first. You think the fielders were tight before the rain? OH YEAH he crossed. 0-2.

What's with the homer hankies? This the Metrodome?

SIDDOWN!

OK, nice variation in the Chevy "Gas Pumps Hate Us" campaign. Can we get these gas pumps into the Nissan commercials? Can they stangle the little fuck? Stretch it into a :90.

Mets half:Suppan again? That's guts. Chirst the crowd is hot. 3-1. TAKE YER BASE!

Suppan's a motherfucker, he could have stuck, but the managers are doing great work and this is where they earn their money and you can't question them. Yet.

Let's blow up Mobil stations.

Let's blow up Sharp TVs.

Let's blow up VISA check cards -- nah, let's kill -- oh shit, I feel sick.

Mets half. Sign says: Sacala! Boricua! Delgado! I love New York. The mooks are dancing in the rain.

Hit somethin you fuck. Oh keep walking him back you -- what's your name again? Fuck you.

2-2. "A light mist"? I can see the streaks. Nice flail on it, 3-2. FUCK. Flores, his name is? Good job.

Goodamn, our fans look manic out there. Keep them audio stings coming. Help them keep warm. 2-1 Wright.

Just wait on it Davey! This guy is getting waterlogged. STRIKE TWO BULLSHIT! EVEN FOX FUCKJING NEWS SAYS BULLSHIT! STRIKE THREE! MOTHERFUCKING SHIT!

Alright Shawn Green you skinny motherfucker SHIT

LATE DRUNK LIVEBLOGGING GAME 7 NLCS, 7TH INNING: QUIT SHOWIN ME CAR COMMERCIALS I CAN'T DRIVE.

Perez out. God bless him, he looked like a high-school player, slightly worried, puffing out his cheeks between pitches like "Here goes nothing, whoosh." Bradford you sidearming motherfucker. Molina fights him off. Tough guy. OK, finessed that.

How do they field so good in the rain? Two out.

How bad is the weather in Flushing? It ain't raining in Greenpoint. Three out.

I already hate this Nissan guy. Oh where you driving to, Chevy Chase? "A little funk under here"? We could plant you under a weeping willow and your body would still repel funk like a giant Tetracyclene lozenge you little shit.

Mets half: Goddamn now what foul off Michael Tucker's foot? Like we don't have enough bullshit? IT'S RAINING! He's batting hurt. Of course he's fouling off, his bat's slippery as a quarterback's cock Homecoming Weekend. Ah shit, flyout.

Jose Jose Jose. Yer out yer out yer out.

Alright you big lug -- splat.

Get some snorkels.

LATE DRUNK LIVEBLOGGING GAME 7 NLCS, 6TH INNING: ENDY CHAVEZ! FUCK YOU JIM EDMONDS YOU MUSCLED-UP STRIKE-ARGUNG COCK YOU DOUBLED UP!

Mets half: Bullshit that was strike two on Delgado. Yeah walk him, you cunt.

Alright Wright you pussy hit something -- OH SHIT that's NOT THE TIME to swing at the first pitch.

Rolen must be tired. Well shit we're all tired. Bases loaded.

WALK SHAWN GREEN? Crrr-rafty. OK Jose II show yer shit. Shea shows the Network video; crowd is nuts. Infield is back.

Whoa nice curve, strike two.

Lots of sound cues. Fuck, look at that rain. SHIT strikeout and now here's the Glove Boy Chavez bases loaded.

Oh FUCK ME.

Well played Cards.

TRY THIS SIMPLE TEST. "[The Ole Perfesser's] blog is compulsively readable because it's not predictable and it's not partisan." -- Althouse.

This comical fiction about Perfesser Reynolds is apparently hard to kill, but as we have in the past and for the benefit of our younger readers, we will open the current page of Instapundit and analyze the contents of the postings (this morning’s only -- I don’t have all day or an iron stomach):

11:26 am: Liberals are asking Bush to intervene in Darfur just so they can attack him for doing so.

11:18 am: Science fiction nerd stuff.

11:15 am: Idiosyncratic French defamation trial result spurs common Perfesser trope suggesting that liberals hate free speech.

11:11 am: Shitty digital snapshot.

10:15 am: Perfesser’s wife sends trolls to alicublog because liberals hate free speech.

10:11 am: Liberals also hate homosexuals.

9:59 am: Being a law perfesser is easy and fun.

9:49 am: Taxes R Bad.

9:22 am: Incredibly shitty video clip.

8:52 am: OpinionJournal thinks torture bill is a twofer -- allows torture, slaps tyrannical liberal judges. Perfesser thinks it’s just a onefer.

8:44 am: Oooh, army mens! When can we invade?

8:34 am: Liberals hate free speech.

8:25 am:: Pharma-nerd “If I take enough pills with weird number-letter combination names I can live forever" bullshit.

8:20 am: The only real problem with our invasion of Iraq is that we haven’t invaded Iran too.

8:05 am: Ha ha! Democrats will lose. Ha ha!

7:58 am: Liberals hate homosexuals, privacy.

7:51 am: Clinton likes torture, so liberals are hypocrites.

This test works with any page of Instapunditry, even those that include the semi-regular Fourth Amendment and gay marriage defenses that are his sole fig-leaves.

I used to think that Althouse, the Perfesser, and other conservatives denied their orientation because they were ashamed of it, but time has proven that they are strangers to shame. My current operating analysis is that they're attempting to normalize wing-nuttery -- that is, if a popular writer can be identified as "not partisan" though 95% of what he professes is right-wing boilerplate, folks who are new in town may take that to mean that ordinary, untainted-by-politics people are supposed to believe exactly what right-wing political operatives believe.

It's nice work if you can get it, and you can get it if you lie.

UPDATE. Links fixed. I hate how Word for the (blech) PC manages text almost as much as I hate free speech, homosexuality, and America.

YOU CAN'T TALK TO ME THAT WAY! Dr. Mrs. Ole Perfesser is sending trolls to alicublog and elsewhere. Their mission:

Post comments around on various lefty blogs such as FireDogLake, The Daily Kos or Alicublog. These comments should disagree with the view of the host or view of the blog or diary; for example, state that you support Israel at the Daily Kos, wonder if feminists who are against sexual harrassment should support Bill Clinton at FireDogLake, and/or politely stand up for colleagues at Alicublog who you feel have been treated unfairly just because they disagree with the views of the host. Now, check back to evaluate scores for these paragons of openness for their ideas, actions and feelings. If your comments have been troll-scored by the Kossacks, deleted by Jane Hamsher, or ridiculed by whoever runs the Alicublog, give an openness score of zero. Negative bonus points if you are called a douche, told to stay in your place so as not to "assail your betters," or have a racial slur thrown your way. [emphasis mine]

That's right -- if someone comes to my own site and challenges me, I'm not supposed to make fun of them or I'm a fascist.

My great temptation is to tell Dr. Mrs. to take the bone out of her nose and call me back, but I will patiently explain things to her and whatever minions may be stopping by:

alicublog is not a teahouse, nor a group hug, nor a simulation of a League of Women Voters debate. It is a place for me to spout off and for such as wish to join me to do so. I have never banned anyone, though one troll, after irritating me with his anti-Mets comments, has pre-emptively banned himself ("You're threat of censorship has won"); but I reserve the right to do so, just as conservative bloggers who have comments features (which of course leaves out the Ole Perfesser hisself) do all the time. Really, anyone is welcome to come over, at least at first, even tards and mouth-breathers.

I hate to break it to the Doctor and her friends, but there's really no foolproof way to keep from being "ridiculed," here or anywhere else in the world. Though they could reduce their risk of being ridiculed by not being so fucking ridiculous.

WHEW. Tomorrow will be a nail-biter with Jeff Suppan pitching on good rest. If we win, the MVP is Rick Peterson. Met pitching entered the series in tatters and got to Game 7. Now Oliver Perez, who a few weeks ago was nobody on his way to nowhere with a 6.55 ERA, has a chance to win his second NLCS game. They came into the Series favored, but tomorrow they'll have to play like inspired underdogs. This is of course a Mets equity. To quote the motto, and William Holden in The Wild Bunch, let's go.

PLENTY OF THIS AROUND THESE DAYS: Another conservative explains that liberals hate homosexuals because some of them are telling non-homosexuals that conservative homosexuals are homosexuals.

The joy is all in the comments, with mentions of "that group of people who profess to be 'liberals'" (as opposed to the real liberals, who will all vote for conservative candidates) and the genius phrase "Faux Liberal Left," which I guess means that, as the real liberals will all be voting for conservatives, and the liberals won't vote for liberals because they're not really liberals (no word as to who we are voting for -- Satan, I guess), nobody will vote for the liberals, and America will be saved. After all, as J. Peden remarks, "Apart from Dhimmis and Parasites, it's in no one's interest to vote Democrat."

Seeing what "real" and "Lieberman" liberals are like, you have to wonder how we ever passed the New Deal.

UPDATE. John Cole breaks it down. We all Deeply Regret the Politics of Personal Destruction, &tc. But if you think Republicans are the party of clean politics, you have a very bad gas leak and you should call 911 before you pass out.

GO-BAGS FOR CO-BAGS. Maybe you have known someone who, after he or she read The Late, Great Planet Earth or The Population Bomb, or saw An Inconvenient Truth, went nuts and started digging a fallout/pollution/global warming/zombie shelter in the backyard. I certainly haven't, thank God, nor had I even heard of such a thing before the Ole Perfesser's column about what he perceives from his suburban panopticon as a wave of "lefty apocalypticism":

Where once people on the right were worried about the shock troops of the socialist New World Order or the breakup of America into racial enclaves, now it seems like it's mostly lefties worrying about self-reliance in the face of collapsing unsustainable technology, and the dangers of suburban extinction in the face of high oil prices. As with some of the righty books from the 1990s, there's a curious push-pull here: Though these are warnings of catastrophes to come, there's a sense that to some extent those catastrophes involve society getting what it deserves for its sinful ways, perhaps coupled with an opportunity for purification in the wake of the crisis -- with the virtuously prepared having the upper hand, of course.

I don't know where these commie survivalist camps are located, but if they have Free Love, I'm in!

All this is of course projection of the most pathetic sort, as The Perfesser is himself kind of a freak about preparedness:

I've got this emergency radio and it seems to be pretty good...

Personally, I also keep a copy of my old Boy Scout Handbook in my kit...

Yes, I took an advanced first aid course years ago -- it was more like bush medicine, really...

No plausible government program could prepare us adequately for the kind of unlikely cataclysm [some stupid scifi potboiler he likes] employs -- but, in fact, if we should ever find ourselves needing people who can construct a lorica segmentata we've got them...

...here's a family survival kit for $50 and it's pretty good. Most poor people in America can afford food (that's why so many poor people are fat)...

Etc. The Perfesser has even envisioned a day when ordinary citizens will take over the chores of Homeland Security:

Aside from reporting any potential terrorists you might run across at strip clubs, you can maintain situational awareness, especially in public places like airports, shopping malls, and so on. Jeff Cooper's book, Principles of Personal Defense, contains a number of games and mental exercises designed to promote that sort of awareness...

...presumably including that 3-D chess Spock and Kirk used to play.

Christ Jesus, what a dork. What a bunch of dorks, as Army Man Preparedness games seem to be a right-wing blogger affliction. Check out this guy --

After Tom died, his widow -- a woman he loved and married in his final weeks -- was going through various things and came to his car. He hadn't used it for some months. When she began to clean it out she noticed first that the front seats had been rigged so that they could flatten backwards. Then she noticed that the back seat had been rigged so it would pop out easily enabling you to crawl into the trunk. Opening the trunk she found blankets, a number of military issue MREs, containers of water, a folding shovel, a long crow bar, two hundred feet of rope with knots tied in it every two feet, and three small but powerful hydraulic jacks...

...and the genitals of his victims in the freezer. Oh, and look who pops up in comments:

I have a Go-Sack, a Go-Bag, and a Go-Box. The Sack is in the closet, and contains requisites necessary for a trip from here to there, God forbid. The Box is in the garage, and can be thrown in the car in a second; it has food, electronics, fire, cooking tools, wind-up radios, pointy things, all that Coleman crap you can buy at Target. The Bag has all the digitized histories. Worst comes to worst: one, two, three, and we're off.

I often feel foolish for having these things, let alone updating them from time to time. Until I read entries like yours. And the comments! I'll add a notebook and a book to the Box.

Tomorrow. Or one of the days that follow. Hell, next week. What's the ru

Yes, it ends just like that -- old Jimbo Lileks musta got them "twinges" in the middle of his sentence. But from time to time he elaborates at the Bleat:

Me, I have three bins, and they have everything required for a two-day trip to Fargo by back roads, should the worst case scenario arise and the tripods burst from the ground. Why Fargo? You ask. Because my family has a gas station, that’s why, and it’s loaded with food and fuel. They have a generator the size of a VW bus and underground tanks full of petroleum. No, I’m sorry, you can’t come. There’s not enough Coleman™ shower-in-a-pouch personal wipes for everyone. Get off the running board! Honey, close your eyes.

Then I made an open-faced peanut butter sandwich.

I don't see how the Perfesser failed to notice that we lie-berals all cluster in big coastal cities so that, comes the apocalypse, we can all die quickly, and be spared the ensuing road company production of Lord of the Flies in which, after a moment of cheerful solidarity over the death of the Left, conservative bloggers become crazed by pixel deprivation and express their Will to Power-Strips by jousting with Coleman™ lanterns and loricas segmentata.

CARDS 4, METS 2. Buck up, citizens: we've been here before.

THE DEPAHTED. Well, that was bracing. Scorsese got a hell of a good script and directed the shit out of it. This is not a bloated obsessional gig like the last couple -- it's a lean mean one, with a crackerjack cast and Ballhaus and Schoonmaker and Shore on deck. You can feel the pleasure of the material in every artist's hand.

Since Scorsese left the old neighborhood, film-wise, his strength in milieu details has become more obvious and admirable to me. I always expected him to catch Little Italy and the Lower East Side -- indeed recognized them in his movies -- but he also showed a similarly obsessive feel for the plug hats, blind tigers, and all-sorts barrels of Gangs of New York, and for the airplane hangars, nightclubs, and richie haunts of The Aviator. Boston gang- and cop-life are equally well-limned here: smoking old moms with oxygen tubes, Southie hood bars and candy stores (even when actually filmed in my own neighborhood), and claustrophobic command centers all have the flavorful stink of life, as does Scorsese's direction of dialogue in those supercharged environments, especially in the tart cursing banter of Alec Baldwin and Marky Mark. They may or may not be true, but they feel just right.

As for the tale, we have two undercover men -- one for the mob, one for the cops -- pursuing parallel missions through the mean streets. What it all amounts to is open to debate. Something attracted Scorsese to the Hong Kong resolution of this Mexican standoff -- tribal blood being thicker than divergent streams of moral water, and all that. Dignam's character is the most interesting element (not to say he's the most interesting character) -- from his harsh reactions to both protagonists, we get the feeling that he has the bone-deepest feeling for the real game, and his resolution confirms it (abetted by a glimpse of a rat scuttling across our view of a gold dome). Is that it, then? All intrigue is equal, and all are punishèd?

There can be no debate on the playing. Nicholson does less Jacking off than usual, which does not muffle his dazzle; what a fine, human villain he makes. Everyone else gets top marks, even Vera Farmiga, if only for struggling gamely through another functionary Scorsese female lead role. We may measure the gap between The Departed and the very highest screen art in the distance between Valli's screen cross at the end of The Third Man and Farmiga's here. But it's still close enough to merit the price of admission.

SOMEHOW I ALWAYS KNEW: "Personally, I agree with Donald Trump: Handshaking is unsanitary, and we should replace it with something else... Next time, I'm taking a big pump-bottle of Purell."

A germ phobia, synesthesia ("falling rain 'looks' like polkadots...Electric guitars look like multicolored spaghetti.."), and a strong desire to become an immortal robot lawyer... yeah, I'd say he suits his constituency right down to the ground.

NOT A FUN DATE. I think we'll be looking in on S. T. Karnick a lot. Best known for his National Review gig of scanning TV shows for Jesus-friendly content, he also maintains a blog showcasing his fist-shaking and finger-wagging skills. Here we get Karnick's ravings against an advertising slogan:

Even so, the notion that one can run wild without any consequences to the state of one's mind and soul is truly repulsive. Casting aside your morality for a few days may seem to be just a temporary matter of "blowing off a little steam," but that's just a convenient excuse: human beings are not steam engines.

To think that one can indulge in extramarital affairs, long hours of gambling, or binge drinking and not expect to carry home some reinforcement of the urges that brought the person to Vegas in the first place is incredibly naive and truly stupid.

And note the words used in the ad: what happens in Vegas. These things simply "happen" in Vegas, you see. You're not responsible for your choices; they simply happen. So of course there should be no consequences—it wouldn't be fair for you to be punished for something that simply "happened" to you.

What a wretched message to send to people.

Also, "Winston Tastes Good Like a Cigarette Should" promotes bad grammar, and "Does She or Doesn't She?" totally caused the sexual revolution.

I'm always surprised when I see pictures of these people and they appear older than 12.

SEE YOU IN GITMO. Scrolling through the logs, I find that my site was recently visted from wdcsun27.usdoj.gov and tias-gw2.treas.gov. I also found a similar usage pattern here, which suggests that I am on some government nut watch list.

My questions are:
1.) Does this kind of thing ever happen to you? and
2.) Which one of you ratted me out?

BULLSHIT LIBERTARIANS REDUX. Jennifer Roback Morse is best known to us as the B-list sex scold responsible for bon mots such as these:

The Left hates sex. Do not be deluded by the fact that the Left is hyper-active about sexual activity. Far too many on the Left are profoundly uncomfortable by any evidence of sex differences between men and women...

And make no mistake about it: men do sometimes go over the line and become obsessively jealous, even dangerously jealous. But, one thing is for sure. A woman knows that she matters to a guy who gets jealous...

For many people in modern America ...sex is a recreational activity, and a consumer good... the sexual partner has become an object that satisfies [one] more or less well.

Some heterosexuals believe they are entitled to unlimited sexual activity without pregnancy... Some homosexuals, particularly the professional activists, find it incomprehensible that sexual activity could be anybody's business but the two parties involved. So these activists can make common cause with heterosexuals who hold these views.

It's hard to pick a favorite out of so rich a trove, but a sure contender would be, "The feminist movement introduced an unbelievable amount of tension into the relationships between men and women." She also hates Plan B and, weirdly, artificial insemination.

Would you classify Roback as your garden variety Jesus freak? Well, guess again!

I suppose some people now consider me a social conservative, even though I never intended to be any such thing. I still consider myself a minimum-government libertarian, who has thought through the implications of the family for the size of government. I have come to the conclusion that you simply can’t have a minimum government without a robust institution of marriage.

They sure aren't making libertarians the way they used to -- if they ever did.

To be fair, when Morse brought out her anti-gay-marriage, anti-contraception, anti-fornication libertarianism, "Much to my disappointment, my libertarian and economist friends seemed uninterested." (Later, when, "much to my surprise," Roback "spent the next five years talking to social conservatives," she was amazed at how much she -- a libertarian, remember! -- got on with the Christers. "I appreciated the fact that they’d talk to me." As well she should have.)

This isn't so much a dig at true libertarians -- if there are any -- as a further demonstration that the most common use of libertarianism is as a cloaking device for right-wing nuts.

NO EXPERIENCE REQUIRED. Some days this gig is easy. All I really have to do is show you a post by a noted buffoon...

More: Gay Troop Leaders Can Take Teenagers Camping, But Gay Republican Congressmen Can't: The Democrats and MSM are determined to root the boy-lovin', disease-spreadin' faggits out of the Republican Party.

Thank God we have a party willling to fight the Pink Menace.

...and, if you have a better than 8th grade reading level (60% of my readers do!), you will see immediately what is stupid about it. I don't even have to think up a joke line like "His sense of irony reached full flower when he told his Mom 'Yes, Hitler' at age 10." Or make any observations about how he sure talks a lot about gayness for a he-man right-wing chest-beater. Or double back with something like, "But of course I would say that, because my liberal secret & counterintuitive hatred of gays means that I cannot accept the bitter truth that this he-man right-wing chest-beater is totally OUT and PROUD."

But I do anyway, because I'm an asshole.

SEVEN RUNS IS NOT ENOUGH. Another slugfest, this time going our way, thank God, but I am still worried. Fox ran a ten-second clip of the '86 Mets tonight, and it reminded me that our boys back then were observably on speed -- whether metabolized via "the high hard one" previously mentioned by commenter Reginald, or by adrenal surges owing to alcohol or nicotine withdrawal (as when Keith was barred from smoking in the vommies), we can't be sure. But those Mets were juiced, and juice is what's needed in the post-season.

Despite tonight's offensive Wachet Auf, our present crew looked almost as fat 'n' happy in the dugout as they looked fat 'n' unhappy the night before. Hell, before the runs started raining, they seemed positively glum. You may read that as professionalism and confidence, but I see it as lack of drugs. The reflexive awakening of muscle memory alone can explain tonight's laugher. Tom Glavine pitches tomorrow on three days rest; keep laughing. Or recognize that winning teams can make mistakes just as easily as losing teams, and this series can turn on a dime -- or a dime bag.

St. Lou is a cowtown, but surely the Mets' team doctor has underworld connections somewhere in the Midwest. Let's go into the tie-breaker, not just psyched, but psychotic. Most of our muscled players won't even feel a jab in the ass. Some might not disdain to inhale a pharmaceutical "antihistamine." LET'S BLOW, METS!

All credit to the adequate Mr. Perez (thankyouGod, thankyouGod), the hot bats, and Jose Reyes for that little sleight-of-hand in the third -- the umps didn't like it but the rest of us were tickled to death.