MORE FREE ADVICE FROM A SHOW-BIZ PROFESSIONAL. From TV Squad:

The writing team who brought Superman back to TV screens in 'Smallville' are set to work their magic on the reboot of 'Charlie's Angels' for ABC.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, hit writers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar are replacing Josh Friedman ('Terminator: The Sarah Connors Chronicles') on the Sony Television Pictures project, which is being developed for a potential pilot order and midseason launch.

Oh, that's a mistake. After -- what was it, seven Charlie's Angels movie? That salt has lost its savor.

But there's one project that's screaming for these guys' revivalist touch: Riverdale. The world has been waiting for a moody, introspective Archie ("What's wrong, Archie?" says Veronica. "Why won't you ever let me inside?") and a Jughead with father issues ("Are you proud of me now, Dad?" he asks, forcing down another burger).

When people get sick of the primaries, Gough and Millar can zoom in on the peripheral characters. By 2013 viewers should be ready for the budding romance between Moose and Dilton.

If they have trouble getting it lit, five words: Mickey Rourke as Pop Tate.

Now, as a reward for wasting your time: Here's the entire Kurtzman/Elder "Starchie" comic. Also: their entire "Goodman Goes Playboy." And while we're at it, Goodman Beaver meets Superman! You're welcome!

ANNALS OF CONSERVATIVE VICTIMHOOD. The recent flotilla-killa mess brought us a new round of All-Youse-Liberals-R-Anti-Semites. It's not entirely fresh, but I wanted to make sure you saw Theodore Dalrymple's contribution to the genre, in his Pajamas Media defense of European banks against a Guardian columnist:

The article in the Guardian was therefore an exercise, not untypical of the genre, in scapegoating, that disregarded both the most obvious considerations and the deeper currents. In days gone by, it would have been the Jewish money-lenders who would have been blamed; to blame the banks seems so much more acceptable, generous, and liberal-minded, but the structure of the thought is similar.

So now, if you speak harsh words about anyone and some wingnut jumps out from behind a bush and yells "Anti-Semite," you'll know where he got it from.

Actually, Dalrymple's blargument closely resembles that advanced by many other conservatives this week: that if you make fun of Sarah Palin you are attacking all womankind.

It's the biggest gun in their arsenal anymore. When one of their young honkies was caught doing black dialect at CPAC, they demanded an apology -- from the reporter who pointed it out. When psychologists frowned on their gay-straightening rackets, they cried oppression. Even making jokes about them is wah, no fair.

Being a conservative these days is mostly about dishing out sob stories of your ill-treatment. They apparently intend to whine their way back into power.

UPDATE. In comments, herr doktor bimler: "So, [Dalrymple] is arguing that 'This banker-unfriendly talk makes me think of Jews and this is the fault of the liberals.' This is mendentious stuff, which is a combination of mendacious and tendentious but more intense than both."

TODAY'S RIGHTWING ALTERNATIVE HISTORY LESSON. In a post about Mitch Daniels' transparently insincere offer of a "truce" on social issues, Ramesh Ponnuru sighs over what might have been with... the Phil Gramm Presidential campaign.

I also can't help but think of Phil Gramm's presidential campaign in 1996. Like Daniels, Gramm was an enthusiastic budget-cutter. Concern about big government was running strong in the years just prior to that election. Gramm had a solid social-conservative record, but consciously chose not to campaign on it; he famously flew out to Colorado Springs to tell James Dobson, "I'm not a preacher." That approach helped to doom Gramm's campaign.

Actually Gramm's campaign was doomed by the fact that he made Boss Hogg look like John Kenneth Galbraith. I recall wondering in 1996 whether Gramm actually thought anyone outside Texas could tolerate him, or whether he was just padding his post-political resume. He was a miserable, unpleasant candidate who received a grand total of 71,456 primary votes, less than even the clinically mad Alan Keyes.

As to his stump style, I regret that I cannot remember the name of the writer who said that the bizarre rictus which overtook Gramm's face whenever he attempted to show amusement was like the stricken visage of a sufferer from gas pains.

And age hasn't improved him any:

PATIENCE MY ASS -- I'M GONNA KILL SOMETHING. "The incompetence of the Mexican government to handle corruption and criminality along the border has led to 'corrective action' before. The Mexicans need to get their house in order before a 21st Century America determines another punitive expedition is in order, and finds their own Patton to to cheer." -- Confederate Yankee on that kid the Border Patrol killed. (Later he says, "I find myself having less and less sympathy for Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereka and his family..." which would be quite a trick.)

When they get back in power, though, I suppose Mr. Lost Cause will content himself with the Iran war he'll get instead.

SHORTER HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Obama and his Big Gummint are making the oil spill worse by usurping the authority of the Fritters, Louisiana Baywatch. The obvious solution is to get Big Gummint out of the way, and bring in the Burkean "little platoons" of the Dutch Government. Oh, and more offshore drilling, of course! (Pockets check.)

INVASION OF THE BULLSHIT SNATCHERS. Obama's approval rating hovers around 46 percent -- about where Reagan's was at this point in his first term. Naturally the Reagan-worshippers consider this disastrous for Obama. At the Wall Street Journal, Dorothy Rabinowitz hears "deepening notes of disenchantment," and attributes them to American's growing awareness that Obama is an alien.

An illegal alien, does she mean? Sort of.

Rabinowitz explains that people are not disappointed that Obama has not fixed the oil spill, but that he did not drape himself in the flag while hollering "Glory, Glory Hallelujah" (or maybe crooning "the oil has slipped the surly bonds of earth") as the poison spread:

For it was clear from the first that this president—single-minded, ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from darkness by his arrival—was wanting in certain qualities citizens have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and presence that said: This is the Americans' leader, a man of them, for them, the nation's voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn't lacking in concern about the oil spill.

And there's a reason he didn't, and never could have done so, says Rabinowitz: Because Obama is not a true American:

What he lacked was that voice—and for good reason.

Those qualities to be expected in a president were never about rhetoric; Mr. Obama had proved himself a dab hand at that on the campaign trail. They were a matter of identification with the nation and to all that binds its people together in pride and allegiance. These are feelings held deep in American hearts, unvoiced mostly, but unmistakably there and not only on the Fourth of July.

See? Obama learned to talk purty, all right, but he can't say the magic words "tax cut," "states rights," or "Rumpelstiltskin."

A great part of America now understands that this president's sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe.

That last bit is very cute (though we could expect no less from a master propagandist who raged and blubbered over victims of 9/11 but, when their widows stopped cooperating with the program, ignominiously cut them loose).

Not for Rabinowitz the trap of Birtherism, or even Birtherism With An Explanation -- for those rely upon phantom proofs which adherents believe reside in some undiscovered vault. No, better to say the President is an alien, which can never be proved or disproved.

You just have to sidle up to such weak-minded marks as read the Journal editorial pages, and say things like "Why do you suppose Obama didn't want the bust of Churchill in the White House?" and "Did you notice that Obama never says anything bad about Islam?" and "Why does he like those Mescans so much?" Never make a direct accusation that couldn't be explained away as a metaphor, should anyone call you on it.

But the marks whose minds have been roiled by this bullshit will take it as was intended to be taken. So what if no Kenyan birth certificate can be found? They'll know it explains the unsettled feeling they've had since they saw that un-American-looking guy take the Oath of Office.

True, the uninitiated won't get what they mean when they say Obama is an alien, but at least no one will call them a racist. (At least, no one who doesn't know them will.)

ARGUMENT FROM PATERNITY. Power Line:

William Shawcross is the son of Winston Churchill's lawyer, the prominent former Nuremberg prosecutor and Labor MP Sir Hartley Shawcross. He thus provides something of a living link to Churchill whom we are especially proud to claim as a friend of our site.... [skree, libs hate Jews, etc]

Two words come to mind: Paris Hilton.

I've always known that, though they like to pretend they're anti-elitist, they really just prefer a different kind of elitism. But I hadn't realized they meant it to be hereditary. Now cometh the time of the Reagan Grandchildren!

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP, about the flotilla killa mess. My main insight is that the rightbloggers are even crazier than usual about this, Because Israel, which I think is a subset of Because Jesus.

You'll have to click over to get the full effect. In any case, they're sloppier than usual, throwing accusations of Israel hatred at Obama in the ripest terms and on the flimsiest pretenses.

I don't think they're even paying attention to what they're saying anymore. It's like that scene from Bukowski's Post Office:

One night I was assigned to the stool next to Butchner. He didn't stick any mail. He just sat there. And talked. A young girl came in and sat down at the end of the aisle. I heard Butchner. "Yeah, you cunt! You want my cock in your pussy, don't you? That's what you want, you cunt, don't you?" I went on sticking mail. The soup walked past. Butchner said, "You're on my list, mother! I'm going to get you, you dirty mother! You rotten bastard! Cocksucker!" The supervisors never bothered Butchner. Nobody ever bothered Butchner. Then I heard him again. "All right, baby! I don't like that look on your face! You're on my list, mother! You're right there on top of my list! I'm going to get your ass! Hey, I'm talking to you! You hear me?"

It was too much. I threw my mail down. "All right," I told him, "I'm calling your card! I'm calling your whole stinking deck! You wanna go right here or outside ?" I looked at Butchner. He was talking to the ceiling, insane: "I told you, you're on top of my list! I'm going to get you and I'm going to get you good!" O for Christ's sake, I thought, I really sucked into that one! The clerks were very quiet. I couldn't blame them. I got up, went to get a drink of water...

Buk had a point. Why am I letting them get to me like this?

UPDATE. Maybe this is why: "The latest ship to be stopped by Israel's blockade, the SS Rachel Corrie, was escorted to an Israeli port without incident. Too bad Israel doesn't have a seagoing bulldozer." I'm always a little surprised at people who are proud of being douchebags. See also celebrity douche RS McCain.

EVERYBODY'S A TERRORIST! The Pixies have cancelled their scheduled Israel concert -- presumedly, though not announced to be, in reaction to the flotilla mess.

Well, their body of work, their choice, one supposes. The rightbloggers have been surprisingly slow to react, but an Israeli promoter is instructing them in the appropriate victimhood schtick:

Israel is falling victim to "cultural terrorism," a top music promoter charged on Sunday, after US alternative rock group The Pixies cancelled their first-ever gig in the Jewish state.

Promoter Shuki Weiss also says the Pixies and other cancelled acts are "robbing" Israeli music fans "of a handful of hours of joy, adrenalin, and culture."

I almost approve, because I assume Weiss is motivated not by politics, but by a healthy, cynical desire to exploit the situation to get big acts to sign with him to make a contradictory political statement, thus generating income from the foolishness of others.

Oh, wait a minute -- maybe that's the same thing as politics, these days.

UPDATE. A GayandRight commenter moans, "Why not perform in Palestine where HAMAS live or are they too Chichen sh*t to do so." Maybe they can't get enough electricity over there to power their amps.

THE NEW WAVE IN REPUBLICAN SEX SCANDALS. I see that Michael Gerson has taken up the Republican sex-scandal defense championed by David Frum and others during the great imbroglios of 2006 -- that is, that hypocrisy is okay if you're a Jesus Republican, because Jesus.

Yet moral liberals have something to learn as well. The failure of human beings to meet their own ideals does not disprove or discredit those ideals... I would rather live among those who recognize standards and fail to meet them than among those who mock all standards as lies. In the end, hypocrisy is preferable to decadence.

The problem with making this argument to "moral liberals" (whatever the fuck he means by that -- since I'm a liberal with a mean streak, I'll take it to mean me) is that we have been watching Republicans and their co-conspirators in the evangelical Christian movement run their Moral Majority bullshit for years, and have coldly recognized it as bullshit from Day One. This is because we have some understanding of human nature, from the works of Shakespeare, Moliere, and Somerset Maugham, and from direct experience, and we know the randy preacher routine backwards.

When that scam devolved into a pile-up of naked and sometimes wet-suited or diapered Republicans a few years back, we did not mourn that these awful people had failed to live up to their "standards," because we knew that they never really had any standards, except "don't get caught" and "never give a sucker an even break."

At first I couldn't figure out why Gerson even bothered, except as a favor to his old friend Mark Souder. But then it occurred to me that he had been inspired by the Nikki Haley case.

In that case we have seen something remarkable but little remarked upon: a political sex scandal in which the controversy does not fit the Moral Majority template. Haley is either the victim of opponents' smears, or has had extramarital affairs, or both. Most of the reaction from the liberal side has been ha-ha, but as Haley is being man-handled, not by Democrats, but by her fellow Republicans, it is the GOP reaction that is most relevant, and so far I haven't seen many of them burbling on about the Sanctity of Marriage. Haley's opponents are mainly saying that she lied, and Haley is saying that her opponents are lying. It's a plain political media power struggle, with no hint of Jesus in it -- which may be why one SC Republican douchebag called her a raghead like President Obama: He was frustrated that the punters weren't going Biblical on her, and sought to stir their religious mania by other means.

But that doesn't seem to be working either. And how awful this must be to Christian types like Gerson, whose whole schtick depends upon people acting (and voting) like extras from Inherit the Wind.

UPDATE. In the Washington Times, Robert Knight helps prove my point. He is stung to the quick that George F. Will and Charles Krauthammer -- no one's idea of bleeding hearts -- have abandoned, on behalf of mainstream Republicans, the word of the Living God when it comes to gays in the military. Knight raves about the "Creator of the Universe" and "God's moral code that has undergirded Western society for more than 3,500 years." And he suggests at the end that they and all infidels will be sorry one day when they end up in the Lake of Fire:

Perhaps the answer lies in the Book that they now find quaint: "Professing to be wise, they became fools ... who exchanged the truth of God for a lie." (Romans 1:22, 25)

Someday, the smartest folks in America will wonder how they could have been so foolish.

Damnation -- the Hail Mary pass of all moral hucksters who have discovered that Bible-waving no longer has a hypnotic effect on their subjects.

IT'S ALWAYS SOMETHING WITH THESE PEOPLE. Wingnuts are super-excited because, in addition to it being National Doughnut Day (when they have a National Cheetos Day, there'll be riots), Paul McCartney insulted George Bush. So they're having a contest to see who can get the most worked up and say the stupidest thing about it. So far, by several lengths: Warner Todd Huston.

This from a guy whose entire songwriting career is well known to be as deep as a thimble philosophically speaking. And this is not to even mention that this is from a guy whose country voted Neville Chamberlain into office once upon a time!

Plus Macca is also a traitor to his own Hitler-loving country, which his boyfriend Obama grievously offended by giving the Queen "discs that cannot play on a British DVD machine" and other similar indignities.

And Beatle-wise, Huston pretends to be more into "John Lennon's dark cynicism." I can easily imagine him bellowing "Sarah don't go/Reagan come home" in the middle of the night with his shirt off, which is one of the drawbacks of a fertile imagination.

It'll take a lot to beat Huston. Dan Reihl tells McCartney to die, but that's just him being his usual lovable self.

UPDATE. "To quote Mr. Darcy: My good opinion once lost, is lost forever," says Nice Deb. As if that weren't newsworthy enough, she further reports that "large numbers of Americans are reeling in disgust by his behavior," though sadly she doesn't post video evidence. That'll show that rich British peer.

Does the CDC keep statistics on delusions of grandeur?

SHORTER JONAH GOLDBERG: There's this guy who wants to cure millions of Americans of depression, chronic pain, and sleep disorders. This is exactly what I was warning against in my book Liberal Fascism.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? A PEEK IN AT ACE O. SPADES. It's like blogger drunkdialing! Hadn't paid attention to the site in months, so I looked today and saw some guy posting a map of the places where English is the official language, then commenting:

So when you're choosing your apocalypse bolt-hole, you might want to consider which lingua the locals sprechen. And yes that little blue speck in Central America is Belize which speaks English thanks to its history as a British colony. Here's some info on fleeing retiring to Belize as an American. Of course there's also Guyana to the south, but it seems a little far from the US and a little too close to Venezuela. Next best options would probably be some of the Caribbean islands.

Belize. The guy thinks he's going to Belize. I doubt that Delta allows customers to pay for their flights with Cheetos proofs of purchase.

Ace really hasn't been the same since he went softcore.

DON'T CHANGE JIM JOYCE'S CALL. Apparently the Commissioner is considering changing the umpire's call that cost Armando Galarraga a perfect game.

No. Human umpires are part of baseball, and if you're going to have them, you're going to have blown calls. And human though they are, their rulings have to stand. Why? Because to challenge their authority is to throw the whole premise of baseball into chaos.

Baseball is not supposed to be a quasi-mechanical Thunderdome affair like football, with everything from the players' muscle mass to the video review delegated to state-of-the-art science. It is, as George Carlin memorably observed, a game played in a park. The vagaries, oddities, and lapses in judgement -- and there are plenty in a 162-game season -- are part of the pleasure. I once saw Benny Agbayani take a fly ball he'd caught and toss it into the stands, thinking he had made the third out; he had in fact made the second, and the ground-rule double cost the Mets the game. That sucked, but nobody thought the result should be reversed because that wasn't what he should have done.

Umpires fuck up too, yet we've decided to treat them like God: Their word rules even if everyone in the park disputes it. And only the ump himself can reverse the call. Maybe you would prefer that there should be Baseball Courts of Appeal or The Guardians of the Universe or some shit, but them's the rules, and games without rules are only fun for people who've taken too much acid.

If you want to put in video review -- an abomination, I still believe -- then you can avoid these kinds of problems in future games of the thing you will call baseball and I will call bullshit. But only then.

UPDATE. Let me add something else: A ballgame is not a court of law. Our judicial system is convoluted because human lives are at stake. In Major League Baseball, the only thing at stake is some millionaires' future trade value.

I think Billy Martin said it best.

UPDATE 2. And if me and Billy haven't convinced you, be aware that one of National Review's biggest idiots -- John J. Miller, sort of Jonah Goldberg on training wheels -- wants the call overturned.

Speaking of National Review idiots, Daniel Foster:

In a weird way, it is like the BP spill. Those of us who oppose instant replay in baseball, like those of us who support domestic drilling, correctly (I think) point out that catastrophic failures of the status quo are so unlikely that worries about them shouldn't guide our policy thinking. But then Deepwater Horizon blew up and Jim Joyce blew a perfect game.

I've never seen Foster so maybe he really is 10 years old and a lot of things in life that we adults take for granted are brand new to him.

THEY DON'T MAKE CAPITALISTS LIKE THEY USED TO.The Anchoress interrupts a rant about Obama Hitler socialism for a personal complaint, which she believes is relevant to her point:

I feel like my relationship to my son’s college is a microcosm of our relationship to the government. Every year tuition goes up appreciably, even though our salaries have gone stagnant. There are union workers on campus, you see, and they must get their raises, even if services to the students must be cut to ensure them. So, it’s cut services or bleed the students, and either way the cafeteria has too many carbs. The scholarships don’t go up, but the tuition does. We’re trying to keep his student loan debt down to about $30,000, so our contribution, year after year, just gets bigger and bigger.

I think I see the relevance: A degree from the college of her choosing is something The Anchoress believes she should have, and if the price goes up to what its administrators think the Free Market will bear, this is not capitalism in action, as it might seem to the uninitiated, but socialism, because all the money over and above what The Anchoress wishes to pay for this sheepskin will be going to communist union janitors; she just knows it.

If only she could strike a bargain with the professors -- have them come over to the house and teach Buster, free from the constraints of the unions! She could in recompense bake them a pie. They could call it Galt's Gulch Community College!

It's astonishing that these people achieved adulthood without ever realizing that the Invisible Hand is not Casper the Friendly Ghost.

UPDATE. The Anchoress amplifies in comments that her husband (who already has a profitable engineering degree) and her sons agree that university educations are worthless, which makes it even harder for me to understand why she hasn't taken the kids out of school yet and used the savings to buy gold, shotguns, and a generator in preparation for the End Times, and maybe some church raffle tickets. Also, why in the first place is she exposing these innocent young minds to the evil liberal professors who, her commenters assure her, will just try to convert them to Marxism? They'll be safe from that kind of brainwashing at barber college.

Using the kind of fantasy problem-solving she also exhibits in her subsequent, why-isn't-Obama-doing-this-thing-I-heard-about-in-the-Gulf post ("Is this something that is possible? I have no idea, but let’s find out! Seems like something the government ought to already be aware of"), The Anchoress dreams up (via the medium of one of her children) an alternative educational regime -- sort of a rightwing Montessori:

My Elder Son has made a very strong case for the de-emphasizing of degrees in favor of true competency certification (based not on education credits but true proficiency) for educators, the social sciences and business degrees, and artists--whether in fine arts or music--should be able to study as apprentices, journeymen, etc.

These certificates, which I'm sure would be covered with gold stars, would also no doubt be accepted in lieu of diplomas from accredited colleges by the Bigbrain Randian Wealth Producers who have Gone Galt. And aren't they the only sort of people by whom Buster and Boomer or whatever his name is would consent to be employed? Don't dream it, The Anchoress, be it! Let your Galt schools be the monasteries of the new Dark Ages!

SHORTER ABIGAIL THERNSTROM: Why did Artur Davis lose in Alabama? Because he defied Obama. Or because he's good friends with Obama. Something to do with Obama, anyway. But whatever it was, it certainly had nothing to do with race.

JONAH GOLDBERG, HARD ON THE JOB, LATEST IN A SERIES*. 9:21 am: Look, funny video!

9:40 am: This flotilla thing -- anybody know anything about it? Cuz you can't trust the lamestream media, y'know. They hate Jews.

5:31 pm: W00t, wingnut welfare gravy train now boarding! Come on, it'll be fun, like college.

5:36 pm: More video!

5:40 pm: I got to judge a conservative beauty contest! Fart. I mean, "Fart."

7:55 am: Ooooh, I got in trouble lookin at the purty girls. Fart. Speaking of which, wingnut welfare!

8:00 am: That big hole in Guatawhatchamacallit sure is big. Like something out of a scary movie! Haw! This is almost as good as Hurricane Katrina.

Etc. * Compiled by Instaputz and Tbogg, among others.

HOW YOU GET A BP. What I and perhaps many of you have been grumbling under our breaths for years, Nancy Nall eloquently lays out in complete sentences, in the course of a lengthy gripe about her shitty bank:

Oh, why bother with this? You all have your own tales of pain and woe, if not with banks, then with health insur­ance com­pa­nies, mort­gage hold­ers or whomever. Here’s what amuses me most about them — how, in our allegedly per­fect market-based sys­tem, our cus­tomer expe­ri­ence should be improv­ing year to year. In some ways, it has, although I credit tech­nol­ogy (the ATM) more than man­age­ment. But mostly, bank­ing — and many other allegedly service-based busi­nesses — has only become more Soviet with time, more mono­lithic, less sen­si­tive to cus­tomer com­plaint, more frus­trat­ing to deal with. Yes, I enjoy check­ing my bal­ance online or over the phone. No, I don’t like being nickel-and-dimed — or ten-dollared and thirty-dollared — to death over every lit­tle thing.

I still hope to get past the muttering stage on this important topic someday, but Nance has it good and broken down already.

I will add this: Any of us, if we think about it for more than a few minutes, can see that our largest and most powerful institutions are increasing treating us, their customers, like sub-humans.

They do it in Washington, with monstrosities like the nightmarish 2005 Bankruptcy Bill, and they do it in the day-to-day, by socking us with every hidden fee, added surcharge, delayed payment, automatic renewal, and designed-to-discourage phone tree they can dream up to separate us from more of our money.

I don't suggest there was ever a golden age when businesses didn't try to get more of our money, but I've been walking around this civilization for quite a healthy span of years, and I've never spent as much time as I do now fighting with corporations to keep or get back my money. I don't recall, in the allegedly less enlightened past, a bank insisting that I still had a credit card with them years after I paid off the balance and told them repeatedly to close my account. I don't recall being told that it didn't matter when I sent in my payment, it only mattered when the bank decided to accept it, and if it wound up being late they could raise my rate and fuck up my credit. (BTW thank the Democrats for fixing at least some of this shit.)

It's true that in the old days, I didn't have internet, and I often had to physically approach a service desk to get satisfaction. But those desks were clearly marked and manned. If they were run like the byzantine "support" features at many company websites now, they would be available only by rope ladder at the bottom a 30-foot shaft, and their agents would fend me off with pikestaffs.

Yet as plain as this is to us normal people, conservatives and libertarians (but I repeat myself) are insensible to the situation. They generally tell you, hey look, you got iPods and diet pet food, you never had it so good. And if you're suffering, it's your own damn fault for being a littlebrain. If you go through, say, a typical Megan McArdle post about bank shenanigans, you'll find the comments filled with the counsel of Randian supermen who have never had any troubles getting loans themselves, and don't understand how any decent person would ("When it comes down to it, if a person lives responsibly, chances are they won't have to worry").

And there's always someone like Cassy Fiano to blubber that the banks are the ones getting screwed by their customers and how dare they etc.

Which brings us to the depraved indifference shown by those BP ratfucks toward actually cleaning up (as opposed to covering up) their disastrous pollution of the Gulf of Mexico. For a while I was actually in sympathy with them -- when you fuck up that bad, you might be forgiven for using a psychological strategy to distance yourself from the enormity of your guilt, if only just so you can function. But after watching them at work awhile, I have decided that they are incorrigible. To put it politely.

And why shouldn't they be? See it their way: In this country, in this time, if you want the big money you don't give the suckers an even break. You brass it out. Fuck the regulators, fuck the press, and fuck the paupers who think they have some say in what washes up on their beaches -- we got people, we got money. And most of all, we got the right of way. Because for decades now, wherever some herkimer-jerkimer objected that our business was coming on a little too strong for their precious "community," we had the answer that never failed: Step aside, buddy, you're standing in the way of the Free Market.

It never failed before. Why should it fail them now?

IT WON'T FLOAT. As an old-fashioned Democrat who would really like to support the Israeli government, I remain open to any good justification for boarding an aid flotilla (even an embargoed one of suspicious political provenance) in international waters [!] and killing and kidnapping several of its passengers. So far I haven't heard any -- only shrill blood-libel crap like Jennifer Rubin's.

Anytime you find yourself writing something like this --

When the Israeli commandos were set upon as they were lowered from a helicopter, they acted to defend themselves.

-- and it isn't meant as satire, you should know that you aren't making your case, and in fact are strongly giving the impression that you don't have one.

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP, about the rightblogger reviews of Sex and The City 2, and how they've changed their minds about the franchise since they found the new film talks smack about Arabs. It also contains what may be my favorite Rod Dreher quote of all time.

A NEW LOW. Big Hollywood is your one-stop shopping place for the conservatism of petty personal grievances, with its constant surveillance of movies, TV shows, and Some Silly Liberal Who Was Mean to Me for evidence of wrongthink. They're so good at it that I long ago stopped trying to think of ways to top them. After they attacked Sesame Street for failing to make up affectionate nicknames for Fox News reporters, I knew no one could embarrass them better than they regularly embarrassed themselves.

And here's proof: In a million years, could you have come up with a parody Big Hollywood headline to rival this one?

Elayne Boosler ‘Unfriended’ Me on Facebook for Being Conservative.

Yes, the guy's actually complaining about this, though he adds, "You want to be narrow minded and intellectually lazy so you don’t have to defend your opinions, that is your right as an American." Generous of him! Next he'll grudgingly defend your right to shoo him off your porch when he shows up singing "The Ballad of the Green Berets."

Eventually he cites Some Silly Liberal Who Was Mean to Him, and then gets to the inevitable veiled accusations of Hollywood McCarthyism. "I look at folks like Dennis Miller, a guy who I have admired for years, and Drew Carey," he says, "and wonder what their brash conservatism has cost them." Gee, I don't know -- maybe the lead in Cast Away?

A few months back I suspected one of the BH guys of being a ringer. Now I'm starting to think they're all putting it on.

UPDATE. Typo fixed, thanks Nance. Any others? My MBP is at the shop and I'm using Mary's PC, which makes me clunky on the keys.

A CRAZE, IN A SENSE. That Go Galt thing lives on -- in rightwing campfire stories! Today's is from Dan Kennedy at Townhall:

During a conference at which I just spoke, the owner of several companies showed me a pair of cufflinks he’d just had custom-made, engraved with the words “Who Is John Galt?”

Not just a president, mind you, but the president of several companies! He probably owns a mansion and a yacht.

This business owner said the cuff-links were the last item other than absolute necessities that he would buy until Obama was an ex-president. He said he was sending out a letter to the restaurants and shops he patronized, his dry cleaners, the service companies that tended his lawns at his homes – over 200 different business owners – letting them know that President Obama had determined he was making too much money and was too rich for reason. Therefore, he was going to cut sales and production at his companies by half, himself work but one day a week, cut business spending to the bone and personally buy nothing – other than vacations out of the country – until the president exits.

Apparently Elmer J. Fudd also rules a feudal community, where the dry-cleaning vassals rely upon his custom to feed their children.

Each man to his own kinky fantasy, I say, but I wonder what the thrill is here. Do they imagine the underlings will say, "Wow, that rich guy means business -- I better vote Republican but pronto"? Or -- as the old "No tipping, we're Galt" routine suggests -- do they just like the idea of stiffing service employees and blaming it on politics?

Or maybe they're trying to sell the punters these. Only $50, yet just like what the Lord of Several Companies wears! Now there's capitalism I can understand -- the sort that never gives a sucker an even break.

GENIUS, I TELL YOU. Kaus has this thing sewn up. My only question: Is that Ann Althouse in the front row?

(From the Stephen Kaus Weblog; h/t Farley at Lawyers Guns & Money)

SPIN-OFF. I don't know if you've noticed but I have a link on the sidebar for my tumblr page.

I took it up last year, didn't know what to do with it, and let it lay. But a couple of weeks ago I started using it for the sort of cultural stuff with which I used to irregularly seed alicublog. Fond as I am of themed tumblr pages, I haven't come up with a Big Idea for one of my own yet. But it seems a nice format for quick shots on neat stuff.

I think I'll keep that going a while, so stop by if that sort of thing interests you.

THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS. Regular readers may already know about Dave Weigel's problems with Palin fans who are enraged by his perfectly sane observations on the former Alaska governor's latest public complaints.

The sad thing is, in a different context we might be able to rationally discuss Joe McGinniss' decision to get a home near that of a former politician/current TV celebrity on whom he is writing a book. Is it more invasive and less ethical than the near-constant presence of reporters outside the less bucolic homes of other public figures?

But Palin is reliably full of shit and a professional victim, so as with the idiotic David Letterman fuss she stirred up last year -- claiming against common sense that Letterman was intentionally attacking her underage daughter -- Palin has ended all chance of rational debate by accusing McGinniss of looking at her tits and suggesting that he might want to ogle her 9-year-old.

Weigel squawked, and here's a sampler of what ensued:



But what else can we expect? Rush Limbaugh's black fill-in Walter Williams is advocating secession from the perspective of the Confederacy. I like to think I'm pretty creative, but I don't think I could have made that one up, though maybe Sam Fuller already did:



This country has already gone nuts. Now it's all about waiting to see what entertaining means the patient will use to do harm to herself.

MAYBE I'M GETTING OLD. but the whole time I was watching this video preview (warning: incredibly NSFW), two questions kept crossing my mind: 1.) Who is Kendra Wilkinson? and 2.) Please, God, can you make Kathryn J. Lopez and Maggie Gallagher write about it?

UPDATE. In comments Leonard Pierce explains: "Kendra Wilkinson is one of Hugh Hefner's exes, which makes her appearance in a porn video about as shocking a headline as 'GOLDBERG DICKS AROUND IN OFFICE, POSTPONES WORK.'"

SHORTER WEASEL ZIPPERS: Sputter sputter, I hate fags.

SHORTER TIGERHAWK: Remember, if you do anything to punish BP, their employees will suffer. Think of them as moral hostages of the Free Market!

JONAH GOLDBERG, HARD ON THE JOB, LATEST IN A SERIES*. "The reason I have not commented on the series finales of Lost and 24 is that I have not been able to watch either yet. I will not read or respond to email on these subjects either until I've had a chance to catch-up. I know this reflects a shameful lapse on my part."

Christ Jesus, Goldberg is now too lazy to watch TV.

Also: "What's David Brooks Trying To Say?" in which Goldberg suggests Brooks is making a couple of connections not supported by the actual Brooks column (including one to himself), then concludes, "I have to assume that's the case, but Brooks just doesn't make it clear." One of the non-legacy-pledges at NR picks up his slack.

Goldberg also prints a bunch of reader letters, and has enough energy left over to link to BP propaganda.

* Compiled by Instaputz and Tbogg, among others.

SARAH PALIN ACCUSES AUTHOR OF LOOKING AT HER TITS. As R. Crumb once drew himself thinking in a comic jam about the apocalypse, I always hoped I wouldn't be alive for this.

THE BITTEREST PILL (THEY EVER HAD TO SWALLOW). A week ago at National Review, in honor of the 50th Anniversary of The Pill, Kathryn Jean Lopez came waving a celebrity news hook:

If you need a quick primer on the birds and the bees, on how a culture has been misled, and on why Carrie and her friends from yet another Sex and the City movie have had miserable, not-so-pretty lives...

(Yeah, that "conservative cause celebre" thing is really gonna happen.)

...the woman once declared “Most Desired Woman” by Playboy can help you out.

Surprise, it's Raquel Welch! Bless her, Rocky has a book out and says she's seen how contraception "has altered American society for better or worse" -- while it "made it easier for a woman to choose to delay having children until after she established herself in a career," it also made people less likely to get married, presumably by obviating the time-honored tradition of the shotgun wedding.

Though Welch is four times married and obviously didn't let child-rearing slow down her own career, K-Lo swooned. "What she writes knocks the glimmer off the rose of so-called 'sexual freedom,'" wrote Lopez. Also, "Raquel Welch echoes another pope when she talks about sexual explicitness in the culture." The crime of the Pill, in K-Lo's view, was that it turned women away from something they really wanted: "Motherhood is at the heart of what it means to be a woman, and, for decades now, the pill has been trying to deny that reality."

Later Lopez claimed her column "seemed to strike a nerve." But she only cited in evidence a couple of Catholic blogs, and there is no sign that in the wide world women started burning their Ortho Tri-Cyclen in response.

So Maggie Gallagher dropped by to both raise the stakes and change the subject: The Pill wasn't bad because it worked, but because it sometimes didn't:

If we had truly separated sex from reproduction, why would we need abortion?

It was the failure of the Pill to reliably separate sex and reproduction that led quickly to Roe v. Wade.

"The problem is not the Pill," Gallagher added later. "The problem is the idea, which promoters of the pill introduced and promoted with great fanfare, that we have separated sex from reproduction." Because we haven't -- "If you spend ten years being unmarried and sexually active, the odds you will get pregnant, or get someone pregnant, are quite substantial."

Apparently Lopez had been too idealistic: The kids weren't going to stop using birth control because it was morally wrong -- they could only be scared out of it. Pregnancy was not to be used to lure them to virtue, but to terrorize them out of having sex.

K-Lo agreed as much as pride would allow: "That pill alone was not the poison that made a mess between men and women, but it sure was a contributing factor."

And so it goes: Tactical debates among cultural warriors whose cause is long, long lost. They might as well be arguing about why the invention of washing machines turned the innocent women of their great-grandmothers' time into flappers, and what can be done about it today.

But keep pitching guys! Maybe the environmental angle will "strike a nerve" somewhere.

UPDATE: In comments, good point, PGE: "Wait a minute... It doesn't work, plus women don't REALLY want it. How has it survived the miracle of the free market?"

THE FILM'S NOT OUT, BUT THE PROJECTORS ARE ALREADY RUNNING. The Hollywood Reporter reviews that Sex and the City sequel and imagines that its jokes about Arab sexism are "politically incorrect," which makes it "proudly feminist and blatantly anti-Muslim, which means that it might confound liberal viewers."

This notion that liberals approve of Arab sexism is so dumb only rightwing law professors would buy it:

Oh! Poor liberals! Beset on all sides. Even "Sex and the City" has turned on them.

"The exit question I never thought I’d ask," says Allahpundit,"Is 'Sex and the City' about to become a conservative cause celebre?" Well, the first SATC film sure was -- and the conservative consensus then was that it was liberal evil because it made women want to have sex.

If Cassy Fiano's meltdown last week ("Sexual empowerment is a myth. Slutting around like Samantha on Sex and the City does not bring you love or happiness or freedom") is any indication, we can expect the same thing all over again. And when they get to the bit where the Arab ladies step out of burqas, under which they are dressed up all glam, it may reignite their hate-on toward Muslim-American Miss USA Rima Fakih. How can they be sure the Muslim tootsies aren't actually sleepover cells?

UPDATE. FilmDrunk caught up with this half-assed meme:

I hear in a scene after that, Samantha twists the top on a Bud Light bottle and like magic, all the burka ladies are magically transformed into bikini models and Bon Jovi starts playing, and an old snake charmer in a turban turns into Tyson Beckford with his shirt off and his huge wiener hanging out. I think it might’ve been product placement.

In other words, these guys have failed with smart-alecky 14-year-olds, and when you've lost them, the conservative movement is finished.

SHORTER ALLAHPUNDIT. Why didn't Obama misuse the power of the Federal Gummint like the fascist we know he is to stop the oil leak?

JONAH GOLDBERG, HARD ON THE JOB, LATEST IN A SERIES*. "Maybe one of my fellow Cornerites can explain to me why, exactly, it's a scandal (or would be) if it's proven that the White House offered Joe Sestak a job to abandon his race against Specter.

"Update: Ah, well, these are the perils of blogging after a long day. I meant to save this post and finish it later, not publish it publicly..."

* Compiled by Instaputz and Tbogg, among others.

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP about that whole Rand Paul thing. (If that link doesn't work, try this one.) In trying to keep it a reasonable length, I had to peel off some of the humdingers. For instance, BitsBlog, who was mad that Michael Steele had the temerity to speak against Paul's Civil Rights Act reservations:

As to the success or failure of such government-based attitudes about minorities, Steel should perhaps look at the long-term implication of our government only wanting to help the American Indian.

Yeah, think if we'd tried to integrate them; what a disaster that would have been! Then there's Jacob G. Hornberger, who thinks liberals are hypocrites because they allow racism in private residences but not in businesses. Could there be a Constitutional reason for this? Ha:

I suspect that the answer lies in the long-time, deep antipathy that liberals have to the free market — to free enterprise -- to capitalism -- to profit.

But my favorite is this scary-looking dude who explains that his Randism stems from the night he and a buddy accidentally went to a black-people bar. They were treated civilly -- which for some reason convinces him that the proprietor should have the right to throw them out for being white, which in turn proves that white people should be able to throw someone else out for being black. The bottom line: "the elements of peoples' heart & mind character in which matters like racism abide are not available to your steel-patchouli do-goodery." This is as unanswerable as one of Mr. T's Commandments, though not as much fun.

SOMETIMES I THINK THE INTERNET IS NOTHING BUT A RIGHTWING RETARD FARM. Sonora in northern Mexico is, according to Wikipedia, a big tourist destination for Arizonans:

Sonora is a premier tourist destination, especially for visitors from neighboring Arizona.

Recently, Sonora has experienced a boom in tourism, especially in the city of Puerto Peñasco, due to its being the nearest beach to many population centers in Arizona.

So the Sonoran Tourist Bureau recently made an ad that said, "In Sonora we are looking for people from Arizona..." showing a guy in camo with binoculars. But surprise! It's a teaser, followed by (I learn from, of all people, a commenter at Free Republic) a follow-up that says, "...who want to have a great time."

The obvious message is that Mexico may be seen as a fun destination rather than a threat, as the Arizona anti-immigrant laws seem to suggest.

The rightwing reaction (ginned up by the madman Joe Arpaio) is that the Sonoran tourism board is threatening Americans. No, really:

Mexico Running Threatening Ads in Arizona Newspaper…

Threatening Ad from Mexican Tourism in Arizona News Paper... Newsflash, to get people to come and visit … maybe you do not want to threaten them!

Threatening American tourists. There’s a brilliant idea, Mexico. But, then again, I’m sure the Democrats will give you a standing ovation for this, too.

You'll find more of this all over the rightwing blogs today. Will they relent when someone tells them what's actually going on? Doubtful; when Repubx saw the follow-up, he interpreted it thus:

The Sonoro Tourism board has amended their advert, by putting a more friendly face on it (?) Perhaps the outcome of backlash stemming from complaints. To little to late. IMO What is done, is done.

And when you think about it:

So much better! Now you just have a sniper eying innocent people on the beach…LOL

The creme de la crackpots is supplied by Ironic Surrealism 3.0:

Personally I find it to be threatening. Very much so. Intentional or not.

These people probably shit their pants when George Lopez comes on the TV.

UPDATE. Duke Stern called the Sonoran tourism and they explained that a printing error kept the follow-up from being seen in at least one edition of the Arizona Republic. But Stern isn't so sure:

Maybe it was an error. The AZ Republic, which opposes the new Arizona immigration law wouldn’t purposely jeopardize the ad revenue of a client simply to cause a stir. Or would the rag actually do that?

The simpler and more logical explanation would be that it was a mistake, but alas, simple and logical explanations seem to have gone out of fashion.

UPDATE 2. Wingnuts, I got another one for you! From "Anytime you vacation, you’ll find friends in Sonora," a tourism pitch from a local writer appearing at Inside Tucson Business:

The chances of your having a bad experience in Sonora are no different than what we Mexicans have by crossing the border into Arizona.

Skree! He's defaming the Homeland, comparing it to his own stinky country! It's the Maine all over again! Do your duty and spread the outrage!

SHORTER MATT WELCH: Talk smack about libertarianism, will you? It just so happens we've been proved right about civil rights     deregulating banks     deregulating Wall Street     food safety     environmental protection     airline prices.

JONAH GOLDBERG, HARD ON THE JOB, LATEST IN A SERIES*. "...I think this is one of those rare, nice, moments in American politics where pretty much all-non hacks agree for the right reasons. I haven't been paying that much attention, but just going by the editorial pages and the like..."

* Compiled by Instaputz and Tbogg, among others. Thanks to Nom de Plume and Commie Atheist in comments.

SHORTER GEORGE SCOVILLE: Having once worked for minimum wage, I understand how bad it sucks to be a minimum wage worker, but those losers just have to understand, it's simply impossible to make any money paying the whole staff more than five bucks an hour. I mean, I sure can't do it. Go Rand Paul!

A RAD NEW WAY TO STOP THE GAY. Family Scholars is sponsored by the wingnutty Institute for American Values. Its mission is to get citizens to marry and procreate unless they're gay, in which case forget marriage because Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children.

A popular favorite! But alas, now that hot Republican gay sex is pretty much an American tradition, the IAV's kind of culture war yap isn't moving units the way it used to. Worse, evil liberals are making fun of them.

"In today’s NYTs, the columnist Frank Rich gets to call me ugly names again," gay marriage obstructor David Blankenhorn wails, because of a connection to luggage-lifter George Rekers which Blankenhorn says is totally bogus. Why Rekers' name appeared in a "lawyer-generated document" attached to his testimony in the Perry v. Schwarzenegger Prop 8 trial, says Blankenhorn, "I haven't a clue."

That's what they all say. Probably Blankenhorn is just sore that his "expert" Perry v. Schwarzenegger testimony turned out to be a hot mess ("Boies went after Blankenhorn’s credibility immediately, noting that he apparently had only one peer-reviewed article to his credit and that was a thesis on a labor dispute between cabinetmaker unions in Britain") and, as you might expect from someone in his line of work, he's projecting his anxieties onto others.

In the face of such disaster, Family Scholars is pursuing new approaches. As these people cannot engender new members and so must recruit, they are trying to make their pitches more kid-friendly.

Blankenhorn’s fellow Values vulture Maggie Gallagher runs over to National Review to pimp a "mind-blowingly new" experiment from their culture-war labs:

An article on the travails of... sperm donor babies.

You think I'm kidding? Get a load of "Taboos and the New Voiceless Americans":

Gay couples are having children. Single women are having children. It’s just that we, the children, haven’t been empowered to vocalize our issues yet. But just wait, the monsoon is coming. All you adults get so mad and upset demanding you have the right to marriage and biological children because you want what everyone else has. Well- us kids want what everyone else has too (a mother and a father). And we’re pissed we’ve been denied them.

The big twist in this saga is that, in addition to being an entitled drama-queen, authoress "Alana S." isn't strictly heterosexual! Or at least she wasn't. "I’ve had crushes on women that have swallowed me whole," she informs her (now undoubtedly uncomfortable, whatever their politics) readers. But then one fine day (wavy lines, lap dissolve):

I used to date them, until one woman I was dating demanded to know why I didn’t want to get more serious. “I just don’t see the point in getting too serious with a woman because I want to marry someone I can have kids with,” is what I told her (anticipation of motherhood is a defining point in my personality). She got really sad for a second (lesbians hate bi women), then it occurred to her that she knew something I maybe didn’t, “You know Alana… you don’t have to have a man in your life to have children.” Oh God, I thought, there’s no way I can continue this.

And this is where the gay menace comes in: In addition to hating bi women, lesbians want to perpetuate the cycle of dadlessness that has left Alana S. a broken husk of a woman. Read deets & weep!

But you know what I am afraid to tell people? I’m afraid to tell them that my dad was a sperm donor. To me, that is creepy. To me, that sounds disgusting. To me, there is something wrong with that. It embarrasses me. So for the most part, I don’t tell anyone. I tell them my dad is dead.

I would be weeping real tears for Ms. S. (rather than my current tears of laughter) except, by a strange coincidence, my dad actually did die when I was little. And oh, how very sad it was. Maybe I should use it to both self-aggrandizing and political effect: "My old man died because we didn't have national health care! Well, not really, but -- boo hoo hoo hoo! On Father's Day I made a card for my creepy uncle! There was no one in the house to tell me there'd never be a center fielder like Tris Speaker, or that my hair was gay! Support National Health Care!"

What made Blankenhorn, Gallagher, and the rest of the kampfers run with this? Maybe they think it's modern. Alana S. does suggest that she made it with chicks, which will get the guys at the Promise Keepers meetings interested. And when she goes on and on about how homosexuals have it easy compared to her, she refers to "my old friends at Tranny Shack," and Lady Gaga.

That ought to get the kids rallying to the anti-gay-marriage cause! Until the inevitable unmasking, when we find out Alana S. is just Ben Domenech in a dress.

YOUR MOMENT OF ALTHOUSE. Just to let you know: Ann Althouse is yelling at the Dalai Lama for being a Marxist.

Sort of puts this whole blogging thing in perspective, doesn't it?

UPDATE. Ha, Whetstone in comments: "Wake me when a law prof who teaches at a private school wants to defend the feelings of the free market."

LAST GO-ROUND FOR RAND. Though Paul the Younger has capitulated, at Reason the libertarians hold aloft the Old Standard:

But this controversy does raise the very important topic of the government’s central role in American racism. First and foremost, Jim Crow was a legal regime, one that relied on state and local laws to restrict the political, social, and economic liberty of African Americans... we’re talking primarily about state action, not about some failure of the free market.

Similarly, slavery was a legal regime. As with Jim Crow, those poor white Southerners had no choice but to obey the law despite their inclinations, which would naturally have had them follow the enlightened, emancipating course of the Free Market -- that is, surrendering their unpaid laborers.

That's why white Southerners rejoiced when Jim Crow was overthrown. Further proof that the gummint that gums least gums best!

What planet are they from, and can they be sent back?

UPDATE. The rightblogger consensus is that Rand Paul was smeared by being quoted accurately -- the liberal media is more nefarious than we knew! -- and that Jonah Goldberg works very short days.

LIBERTARIANS IN THEIR OWN WORDS. This Rand Paul thing just gets better and better. Now Reason's Matt Welch has informed the troops that the expected liberal attack on the Son of the REVOLution has come to pass, "using as prime evidence his recent statements in opposition to the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act."

The comments are fucking delightful. It's like Free Republic for the high school debate team.

First, there's a lengthy discussion over whether or not to buy gold.

When the Wealth Producers get back on track, some -- perhaps hoping like Rand to convince onlookers that they too would march with MLK in defense of his so-called "rights" -- explain that in our modern, racism-free Valhalla, the Free Market would fail to reward segregated businesses: "Even if an owner wanted to run one, nearly all white people would refuse to eat at it, and it would go out of business." One says that if he were black, instead of "not knowing" a racist storeowner is "saying 'damn n-----' under his breath while he serves you, patronize his business and give him money," he'd rather the guy identify himself as racist; then, the thought-experimental black would be discriminated against, but he would live to see his white neighbors drive the racist out of business, perhaps with the aid of Superman. It would make a lovely After-School Special.

They also bitterly lament that, despite their solicitude toward African-Americans, the stupid liberals will call them racists anyway. This I suppose makes them moderate libertarians.

More hardcore commenters just get right to the nut -- if businessmen want a black-free establishment, Congress shall make no law! Some take the logical next step, and argue that the Civil Rights Act should be repealed ("If it is possible that the Civil Rights Act was the right thing to do in 1964, isn't it also possible that things have improved enough in nearly fifty years that we can now go back to respecting personal autonomy and property rights like we did before?").

Favorite isolated incidents:

[Joe] Scarborough sounds more like a liberal the longer he hangs out at MSNBC.

So Rand Paul thinks that it is okay to ask minorities to help support businesses with their taxes (to pay for police/court protection, roads, infrastructure, etc.) yet be prohibited from being able to patronize them?
They PAY taxes? News to me . . .

This is one of those things that is better left alone. Just lie about an answer and be done with it.

That last cowboy seems to have caught on. It remains to be seen if Rand has. (UPDATE: Apparently!)

I doubt this will scuttle Rand's campaign -- it is, after all, Kentucky. But if the incident informs more people of what libertarianism's really about, it will have been worth it.

UPDATE. James Joyner pitches in. Sure, maybe things were bad for black people back then....

The problem, circa 1964, was that there really was not right to freely associate in this manner in much of the country... More importantly, it meant that, say, a black traveling salesman couldn’t easily conduct his business without an in-depth knowledge of which hotels, restaurants, and other establishments catered to blacks.

...but now we have the internet, so we can get rid of the Civil Rights Act and make something like Yelp for black traveling salesmen seeking Jim Crow accommodations. Maybe we can call it HALP!

UPDATE 2: The Poor Man has the transcript of "Rand Paul’s speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Birmingham, Alabama in April, 1963 (hypothetical)."

NOW ASK HIM ABOUT BROWN VS. BOARD OF EDUCATION. I'm mildly surprised about the Rand Paul matter. I'm not surprised, mind you, to learn that Paul is against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- and don't let his hemming and hawing fool you, he is against it; if the government doesn't have the authority to enforce the law, it's meaningless.

Nor am I surprised that Paul's supporters would try to play the victim, as if asking Paul about it were a dirty trick.

No, I'm only surprised at how few of them feel obliged to say they disagree with Paul on the Civil Rights Act but support his candidacy anyway. They're going all in -- saying, yeah, what do we need this gummint interference for, anyway? They must really believe that Tea Party thing is magic and will sweep out all evil, socio-molistic ideas, including desegregation.

A special prize should go to Another Black Conservative:

Here is the Catch 22. If Paul says he fully supports how the feds forced the private sector to end segregation he loses libertarian street cred, but by only supporting the results of the Civil Rights Act and not the actual legislation, Paul gives the left room to paint him as a racist.

That's a neat trick -- supporting what the Act achieved, but not the "actual legislation" used to achieve it. That's like saying you like milk, but disapprove the manipulation of cow teats. (ABC is finally reduced to suggesting "boycotts and the free market" as an alternative. Yeah, those lunch counters would have desegregated in a jiffy if, instead of sit-ins, those guys had gone to those lunch counters and said, "We refuse to patronize your establishment and are going back to Columbia University.")

Dan Riehl dishes out the "tough mope," telling his followers yes, it was "unfair" forcing Paul to dance around the question of whether the force of law should be used to prevent racial discrimination, but "this is politics," dirty as it is, and Paul has to learn to lie about it.

The Constitutional battle was fifty years ago. It was lost.

Which side of the battle do you suppose Riehl was on?

UPDATE. A Paul defender* agrees that boycotts and would have ended discrimination, because whites-only businesses "must have suffered significantly for their policies," and would have caught on to this fact sooner or later. Touchingly, he speculates of blacks who left the Springfield, Missouri area after the 1906 lynchings: "Wherever they choose to live after 1906, their economic influence guaranteed that they would be served equitably by businesses."

UPDATE 2. Mediaite gives it the old college try:

Except, regardless of what he may privately believe, Paul hasn’t publicly expressed outright opposition to the Civil Rights Act– or, at least, the part of the Civil Rights Act it would be scandalous not to support.

He's against using the power of the law to require businesses to desegregate. What part is he in favor of? The let's-feel-good-about-it-existing part?

*UPDATE 3. The "Paul defender" mentioned above says in comments that his post was a parody. I want to believe him, but I can't be too hasty -- so many people got badly burned believing Joe Lieberman was a Democrat. Still, his other material suggests he's telling the truth.

I hope that doesn't mean I have to go through the rest of them and see whether they were kidding or not. I frequently get the feeling that Liberty Pundits has to be shitting me.

YOU'RE STILL DOING THINGS I GAVE UP YEARS AGO. Ah, the Reason Draw Mohammed contest has commenced. Nick Gillespie delivers the "tell":

Our Draw Mohammed contest is not a frivolous exercise of hip, ironic, hoolarious sacrilege toward a minority religion in the United States (though even that deserves all the protection that the most serioso political commentary commands). It's a defense of what is at the core of a society that is painfully incompetent at delivering on its promise of freedom, tolerance, and equal rights.

This signals to conservatives (whom Reason seems of late dedicated to attracting) that this is no airy-fairy liberal enterprise, done for silly aesthetic reasons or shits and giggles, but a manly anti-jihad.

So if you're the kind of guy who supports, for example, the recent shut-down of the Tarleton State University production of Terrence McNally's gay Jesus play Corpus Christi, you can still spit-ball the Prophet; that Jesus play was at a state university, after all, and would have been paid for by gummint money, which should not even exist, and if it does exist should only fund endeavors which might be supported by a plebiscite of local farmers and tinsmiths. Whereas Reason is supported by a Foundation, which is more libertarian because its funds are not stolen at gunpoint by gummint stormtroopers, but contributed by the rich people who would in a perfectly Randian world be our natural leaders.

For those of us who were drawing insulting pictures of Mohammed years ago, this is all very 2006.

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. With Robert Stacy McCain, it's pretty predictable. Covering the Burns-Critz race for the late John Murtha's Congressional seat, Sunday:

I’ll be back to update in a little bit. However, I must not end without reminding you of this quote from February 2009:

If we are doomed to destruction, as least let it be said that we died fighting. But those who never fight, never win.

In a word . . .
WOLVERINES!

On election day, McCain gives us a story about a Gold Star Mom voting for Republican Burns; then, hopeful news for Burns ("The Burns people are encouraged by what they’ve seen, and cautiously optimistic... Roughly 30% turnout can be expected, which is good for the Republican candidate") and suggestions of Democratic election fraud ("OK, yeah, sure")...

...then, just three hours after "the music in the grand ballroom right now just hit Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 'Gimme Three Steps.' That’s a good omen," Burns concedes.

This is very like McCain's drill during the late hours of the Doug Hoffman NY-23 campaign last year: Predictions of a Hoffman "revolution", and laughing off the "'GOP divided' spin job" until, undone by a GOP divided, Hoffman conceded. (In that instance, though, McCain waited 'til after the election to start talking about election fraud.)

Who knows if McCain "lost it" at any point during the Burns campaign, or if he'll come back later to tell us, "BURNSMANIA LIVES!"

Maybe it's because I'm born to lose and a Mets fan, but though I prefer winning, I'm not inclined to count chickens before they're hatched, nor to feverishly whoop up everyone else to count them with me, as McCain does. Perhaps this is a psychological weakness on my part. Certainly, aside from the occasional episode of blind rage, McCain seems to suffer no ill effects from his fantasies, which in any case must be more pleasant than forebodings of doom. Of course he doesn't seem to learn any lessons from them, either, but who wouldn't rather be happy than educated?