Too Much To Dream

Talking Turkey

What my father used to call the "Peanut Gallery" is still trying to push the lie that Bush was lifting about a plastic turkey when he went to visit the troops in Iraq over Thanksgiving. Indefatigable dumbass Greg Easterbrook does them one better -- he not only repeats the lie that the turkey in question was plastic, he claims that it was brought over to Iraq as some sort of sinister political prop. I swear to god; here is the complete entry (in case Easterbrook or his editors try to deep six these words -- and I've also saved it as a screen capture, haha):

AND ABOUT THAT FAKE TURKEY: The "decorative turkey" in George W. Bush's hands in the Thanksgiving pictures from Baghdad should in fact make people angry. Hundreds of American dead, thousands of Iraqi dead, and the White House is staging phony photos on Iraqi soil? The occupation of Iraq may be justified, but White House use of the war as a political prop is becoming unseemly. And think: somebody had to fly a fake turkey to Iraq. Voters are not stupid; this sort of thing may backfire on Bush.

Good lord. Every single untruth about the event and then some is included therein. I'm surprised he didn't start babbling (or whatever is the word for the keyboard-using equivalent) about Bush forcing the men to bow down and worship his evil Turkey Gods. By the way, this post is dated December 10th. I skimmed the subsequent posts; there is no indication that Easterbrook has read any of the news articles that put paid to the plastic turkey/staged photo op myth. Loser.

(Via a commenter to this Tim Blair post.)

Update: Oooh. Now I've done it. BTW, I wouldn't describe my reaction as "disappointed." I've not expected much out of Easterbrook for quite some time.

Unfunny papers

Tom Tomorrow's Veteran's Day cartoon has got to be the least funny cartoon I have seen in a long time. It's not cretinously evil, like Ted Rall's digestive-tract leavings; or rancid and moldy like the stuff Gary Trudeau yanks from the back of his refrigerator and sends to his publisher; it's merely unfunny, in a really stupid, juvenile way. The horde of sycophants that were compelled to come to the defense of their beloved here see deep, meaningful political commentary in these panels. But all I see is that same old dull taunt from the grammar school playground: "Bookworm (Fatty, Skinny, Four-eyes, whatever) is a big chicken!" Nice going, Mr. Liberal.

When a fool speaks

I have one question for Michael Moore:

What foreign languages do you speak, you fucking hypocrite?

(Via Jeff Jarvis. This post of Michael J. Totten's is also worthwhile, and not just because I asked for money so I could go to Europe and be "cured" of my "ignorance." See, I just don't want to be an embarrassment.)

Troll for dinner

See troll post obnoxious comment on website he or she doesn't agree with. See troll get cyberkicked in the virtual nads. See troll tattle to site's webhost. See troll make fool of self when it is revealed that the author of the website he/she complained about is also one of the webhosts.

Via Right We Are!

Greg Easterbrook, Boy Guru

Yeah, it's this guy again. Film criticism has apparently having lost its luster, he has chosen a new subject on which to pontificate. And it is... is... Well, I'm not sure what it is. Some kind of wafty, etherish blither about "spiritual planes" and "billions of dimensions" and some more stuff about science, or at least a (not very convincing) facsimile thereof. He reads here just like that scene in Animal House where the professor and the two college kids are smoking pot and waxing philosophic about tiny little solar systems in their thumbnails.

But I'm not going to get down on him for having silly new-agey ideas. I'd much rather kick him in the shins for writing about it and then posting it where people could read it and then get a really bad headache. I wonder about this guy -- and more, I wonder about all these Constant Readers he apparently has. I keep coming upon blog posts by Easterbrook fans who were shockedyesshocked at his recent verbal faux pas, wherein they keep flogging his otherwise killah mad writing skilz. But everytime I am introduced to yet another instance of Easterbrook prose I am struck by his adamantine mediocrity. Oh well -- I had never heard of him before, and I haven't read everything he's written. Maybe he saves his genius for his sports columns, or whatever it is he is best known for. Maybe he needs to stick to sports.

(PS: yes, I know it's just a post on a blog -- a blog his bosses at TNR set up for him and pay him to post to -- and I know that blog posts that jump all over the place and contain non-sequiturs, idle musings, and such are the rule rather than the exception, but where is the evidence of talent that should at least occasionally break through the anti-writer's block exercise that this blog/column thing of his resembles?)

(Via inappropriate response.)

From the water is wet stuff dept.

Via dipnut comes this (unintentionally) hilarious example of Deep Political Thought, Berkeley-style. Short synopsis: did you know that conservatives use (gasp!) language to communicate their ideas in order to "dominate" political discourse?

Now, now -- calm down, I know this is a shocking idea. (Quick -- someone administer smelling salts to Oliver Willis.) I know that the traditional way to dominate political discourse has always been the way the "left" has done it -- by putting out awful teevee movies that "subtly" dis conservative icons and holding badly-attended parades featuring large papier-maché puppets. I mean -- language, ideas -- (shudder)... what horrid Dead White Male Europpressor (from Bad Old Europe, not New, Good Europe) concepts. What on earth is the "left" to do?

Update: link to Ollie's site fixed. (I'm sure he won't mind me calling him Ollie. He's a liberal! They're tolerant!)

America sews socks that smell!

Remember Matthew Engel? The guy whose furious complaint about a bad meal at Olive Garden, which was supposed to be some sort of indictment or something against American culture, merely gave the impression that he didn't know how to use an American phone book to find a decent restaurant? Not content to show how stupid he is when it comes to dining out in Amerikkka, now he displays, in this frothing spiel, that he knows nothing at all about the country that was gracious enough to approve his work visa, despite apparently having lived here for a number of years. There are too many of us. Our buildings are too tall. And he waxes hysterical about the environment in a manner straight out of the seventies; which makes me think that he must be too terrified to leave his apartment (except for that one fear-filled journey to Olive Garden), and that he thinks Soylent Green is a documentary. Oh well, let's not disabuse him of his fears! I figure he serves a useful purpose in keeping many foreign moobats* too frightened to come over here.

(Oh, and side note to Mr. Engel: if you do venture outdoors again and you want to find a "discreet place to take a pee" in, you might want to look for these things we have called "restrooms." I know you have them in England; I've been there. So you know how to use a urinal, don't you?)

(Via The Edge of England's Sword.)

Update: and here's the Guardian's forum on this column.

*Really late update: "moobats"? what on earth are those? Perhaps they are what happens to cows after vampire bats have been feeding on them.

Protest stew

These pictures are so dying to be Farked.

(Via Random Nuclear Strikes.)

Update: here's my little effort (hey, it's the best I can do at 6 in the morning -- click for larger):

Why I am not a libertarian

Because I really don't care to associate with a group that has so many nasty shitsouls belonging to it. At least, that seems to be the sort of "libertarian" creature that feels compelled to seek me out. They all have three characteristics, all of which this latest 'droid, who calls himself "24601," displayed in fluorescent colors in the comments to this post and this: 1) they think that calling me "stupid" because I don't immediately offer to fellate them for their deep intellectual insights is a brilliant argumentative tactic; 2) they are ostentatious about their libertarianism (note to NuLiberts: it's not really necessary to go around shrieking "Ha! I'm a Libertarian and you're not!" because, well, no one cares, and it just makes you look like you picked Libertarianism to piss off your Marxist ex-girlfriend); and 3) they are the most cynical, misanthropic little fucks on the face of the universe. Compared to this 2468419704 -- whatever -- bloke, Saddam Hussein was a people person. (To my rather obvious statement that the only way to stop terrorists is to stop them -- ie, to kill them dead -- he went off on a froth about how that's all too expensive and just an excuse for [SCREAM]The State™[/SCREAM] to take our money, yesss Precious we must never let them have it never!!!)

In any case, at first I didn't even think this dweeb was a real libertarian, and that he was just using "libertarian.org.au" the way other trolls used "whitehouse.gov" or "georgebush.org" as fake urls in the comment headers. Then I decided to visit said site, and lo and behold 248976352211154.507^1212135478 is a main member of this apparently respectable blog. So I sent a little email to Mr. John Humphreys, the "executive" of this organization. Go straight to the top, I say.

Just as a PS to those who might be thinking that I am being a wimp for complaining about this, I repeat that when people like this "contact" me and claim to be libertarians (or Libertarians -- whatever), it certainly does not give me a favorable impression of libertarians in general. Instead, it puts me into the sort of frame of mind I get when I find out someone I like or admire is a Marxist -- "Oh well, I guess I can still like them despite their reprehensible political associations. I guess."

Keeping them confused

I'm a right-wing fascist. I'm a typical leftie. The dingbats can't seem to make up their minds. My plan continues to wreak havoc... Muahahahahahaha!

Flying Pigs

Okay, just this one little thing set off a synapse: via Astonished Head I discover this product for toddler-liberals to toss across the room for imagined slights against Their!Civil!Rights!™: a copy of the Bill of Rights printed on a piece of metal, designed specifically to set off metal detectors in airports, thus setting off a manufactured crisis that will give the diaper-brains carrying them the Center of Attention moments they all crave daily. It is marketed by these tools. I think I have seen my Christmas Present for Assholes. An owner of one of these cute things wonders if he should "leave it behind," before he starts moaning about the awfulness of this "thing" we have "done to ourselves." Terrorists? What terrorists? As far as noodleheads like this guy (and Web Presence™ Cory Doctorow) are concerned, the only terrorists that have ever existed and will ever exist are the nineteen guys who died in their attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Since they are dead, obviously there is going to be no more terrorism, so what are we all doing this security stuff for? It's such a bummer, having to face up to your mortality every day, isn't it, Mr. Liberal World Traveler?

Philadelphia Freedom, I don't love you

I think Elton really meant: "You want to know why I hate Americans? Because so many of them say my career jumped the shark after Rock of the Westies." (Via Porphyrogenitus, who has been driven to near-despair by the intractability of the self-hating Western liberal intelligentsia. And -- full disclosure, I first left this comment here, but I wanted to share. And -- yeah, Elton John was my he's-all-that back when I was in high school. But that thing he did with Kiki Dee, what was it? Whatever -- and then the Sassoon jeans commercial were it for me. Westies was the last album I ever bought of his.)

Branding irony

In order to protest their disapproval of of Corporate Hegemons™ and the advertising industry in general, Adbusters have taken out... an ad.

By the way, "adbusters.ws" and "adbusters.us" are still available. I'm sure they wouldn't mind someone else registering that domain name. It's not like they are a "brand" or anything.

(Pointed out by Michele.)

A waste of pixels

Oh look, another pointless load of crap disguised as a column in a pro media publication. Someone needs to tell the people at the Guardian (and every other pro pub) that there is no need for filler bits on a website like there is in a dead-tree edition.

Feed my eyes, can you sew them shut

Eric Muller is mad at Glenn Reynolds for briefly posting a photo of one of the people who fell or jumped off the World Trade Center two years plus one day ago. Here is my open letter to Mr. Muller (I was going to post this in the comments but I decided it was too long for Haloscan):

Dear Mr. Muller:

At the end of your rant, you say: "I'm arguing that a responsible journalist (of Instapundit's sort) ought to give his readers at least a measure of control over when, and under what circumstances, they see such an image." This sentence, an updated addendum to your post, has so many things wrong with it that I hardly know where to begin. Let's start here:

With all due respect, what the hell are you talking about? There's this thing in most browsers called a back button. You use the mouse thingie or use the trackball or pad thingie to put the cursor thingie over said button, and click. The bad web page will go away. You can also close the browser entirely, or you can avoid all media including the internet. That way you will never be bothered by any bad news that is not under your "control."

I'm really not understanding your position here. You are angry at someone for posting a picture of something everyone commenting on your site has already seen? (You don't mention never having seen pictures of the people falling from the towers. If you have not, then maybe your shock is understandable.) Can we say "misplaced anger"? What about focusing your anger at the proper target -- at the terrorists who made those pictures possible by causing the event so pictured, and at their many fans, supporters, and apologists?

Oh, but I see that you already have a position on that. You think that blogs, like newspapers, need an editorial board akin to that of a newspaper. And you somehow -- by some twisty thought process that I can't fathom -- think an elite group (which is what an editorial board is) deciding what goes into a paper somehow gives its readers control over the content of that paper. Right. Does that mean that I can call up the Orlando Sentinel and demand that they run whatever story I want to read? Because that would be really cool.

No really, this is ridiculous. Massive readership or not, Instapundit is a personal blog. There is no way you can demand or expect him or any other blogger to dumb down, pretty up, or safety-net any of the content of their personal blogs beyond whatever anti-pr0n rules their hosting services demand. Reynolds is not a "journalist" -- he writes opinion columns for some publications, and links to news he feels is of interest on his own website, but he is under no obligation to post or not post anything at anyone else's demand. I can only echo the sentiments of most of the other people who were so mean to poor little you, and tell you that if you really can't stand the idea that you might go to someone's website and be confronted with something that is shocking and disturbing, then you need to stop going on the internet.

You may now re-assume the fetal position. Everyone else visit Jessica's Well.

Update: even better said.

Last update I swear: here is Glenn Reynolds' post on the matter. He has links to even more articles -- some featuring The Pictures.

Flypaper

And the dummies just keep on coming. What am I, the Iraq of blogs? Oh well, you send 'em, I'll destroy 'em.

Looks like this is a job for Obviousman

Okay, I have had it with the apparent plague of stupidity that has rendered people unable to grasp the very simple and (I thought) obvious points I have been making in my last few posts. And now I find that not only are some people not getting the points of my individual entries, they are not even understanding what this website is all about. Case in point: one "cj" leaves this comment in the previous post:

Nonetheless, your comments seem to proscribe certain "sensitivities" based on your personal likes or dislikes.

After calling me a wanker to boot. Well, I'd rather be a wanker than a total numbskull. Allow me to expand upon this for the slow:

FOR THE LAST TIME -- YEAH, RIGHT, EXACTLY, IT'S MY OWN OPINION BASED ON MY OWN LIKES AND DISLIKES. NO FUCKING SHIT, EINSTEIN.

Jesus, people are stupid. Do they actually come here thinking I give a shit about what they think and do with their own lives? What, am I supposed to be Ann Landers? Hello, this is my personal website diary thingy. It's all about me. ME, Andrea Harris. I never thought of this website as more than a venting place, a place where I could practice my typing and my web-stuff, and blow off steam.

Sure, I think the world would be a peachy-keen place if everyone thought like me. Yeah, we should all be middle-aged spinsters who spend too much time indoors on their asses. You know, I never thought of my blog as the the Holy Sepulchre of the Church of Spleen, and that I was the purveyor of the Truth that will lead to mankind's salvation; this idea comes from somewhere else, maybe the dumb saddoes who are earnestly lecturing me that I am only expressing my own opinion. Yeah, and water is wet, fire is hot, and you shouldn't drink Draino. Who knew?

What goes around goes around and around

Crooked Timber mocks this choice bit of blog buffoonery (bloffoonery?) from YACB (Yet Another Conservative Blog -- sorry, but they are no longer an amazing and rare phenomenon) Right on the Left Beach:

Lefties just cannot stand back and take an honest look at their agenda and supporters and admit the truth — they would rather be living under Stalin’s Soviet Union than the United States headed by President George W. Bush — they will defend without logic any lefty miscreant that supports the lefty agenda. Lefties crave power at all costs."

Heh heh, yeah, that is pretty stupi--

Uh oh, what do we have here, from the comments to the Crooked Timber post (scroll down to "anna's" comment):

Actually, I doubt that we should even be called lefties. We’re not actually “on the left”. I just think that we have the ability to take a few steps back and see the whole picture. That is probably the only generalization about conservatives that I am willing to make, they cannot (or perhaps just don’t want to) see the whole picture.

Never mind.

The terrorists have another fan

You know, it's really sad when you see someone proudly wearing the Hat of Ass. Well, no, actually, it's hilarious. It's been a long time since I saw someone write something as sanctimonious yet retarded as:

But the instituions that comprise the American government, that's a different matter. They've committed far to many crimes to be forgotten. Literally millions dead at their hands, entire countrysides laid waste and baren due to their presence, sovereign nations and cultures interferred with to suit American purposes.

What I am saying, is that America (the governent) has waged war upon the world for a long time now, and America (the people) have done nothing about it. I'm saying that it's not surprising that religious and extremist groups are starting to do to America...exactly what America has done to them.

Michele isn't amused, though. And actually, I'm not really amused either. This kind of malicious lie-mongering (which is all this complete disregard for reality is) can't remain unchallenged. Every time some yutz like this opens his yap, some terrorist asshole somewhere smiles.

The back of him

I tried to read this bilious, anti-American good-bye letter by some bloke named Ed Vulliamy but I find bad writing (and people who think that the Allman Brothers are "cool" because people who worked for the Clinton administration listened to them) boring. Doesn't the Guardian/Observer have editors?

(Via BuzzMachine... by Jeff Jarvis.)

Update: hee hee hee hee!

Rules are for the peons, pt. 244788

Proof that rightwingers are just as susceptible to Iamthecenteroftheuniversitis as any of the hated Babyboomer tribe, NRO's Jonah Goldberg recounts his tribulations and sufferings on a jaunt to a national park, where he was forced to submit to -- horrors! -- rules and regulations governing speeding and unleashed dogs, just like all the little people. After this I expect silence from Mr. Goldberg on the subject of how the lack of personal accountability in today's society is all the fault of those evil liberals.

(Via Scott Chaffin.)

Melting brains

Britain, and I assume the rest of Europe, is suffering a heat wave, with temps in Florida-summer-range. Apparently the heat is taking its toll on the ability of people to think clearly, if the predictions of the country's breweries are accurate:

...parched Britons are working up a big thirst, with breweries saying an extra three million pints will be consumed over the weekend.

And boy are people cranky when they get a little toasty: when I in turn predicted (in the comments to the above-linked post) a rise in episodes of dehydration and heatstroke that will be the result of this extra consumption of alcohol, a citizen of the UK took umbrage, thinking that I was dissing British beer. What-ever.

Gasbag on Blogs

Rush Limbaugh is still a big, fat idiot. And he inspires idiocy in his more sycophantic members. And his website design does suck -- but it resembles the standard ad-chocked, busy-menued newsmedia site, so maybe that's the reason behind the chaos. I'm being nice here, just because Lileks' compliment on the look of Tim Blair's blog gave me a nice warm glow. Not that I can take much credit for the design; all I did was tweak one of Movable Type's standard templates a little. But anyway, take that, Rush, you gassy windbag! Neener. ;P (Yeah, like he's ever going to read this site.)

Trashing the victim

When Michele asked me to fisk this person I blithely agreed, but I've been sitting here for an hour or so wondering just how to properly approach this particular example of idiocy. First, some background:

Michele commented on a post on Merde in France about some buttmunch by the name of Frédéric Beigbeder who has written one of those "controversial" novels the French are so (in)famous for. (In this case "controversial" means "lots of people having sex while babbling on pretentiously about the meaning of life. The word "voluptuous" is a staple, as is the scene where someone cries "The meaning of life is nothing!" -- which sounds so sexy in French. Kind of like one of those Zalman King movies in novelette format.) This time the setting of the "controversial" novel is not the coast of France in the off-season or Algeria during one of its civil wars but the restaurant that was at the top of the World Trade Center on the day that complex was destroyed by the sort of people who would gladly put a bullet through the clever, postmodern brainettes of pseudo-artistes like this monkey. The conceit of Beigbeder is that the people in the restaurant met their fate not, as is well known, by calling their loved ones on cell phones to say goodbye and then either dying by jumping out of the windows or when the towers collapsed, but by having "furious sex." No doubt this will be interspersed by a great deal of psychotically abstruse and pointless philosophizing.

Once France was known, and deservedly so, for being home to the culture of reason and civilization. What they seemed to lack in strength and innovation they at least made up for by having the most exquisite society, cuisine, and literature in Europe. But by all reports this reputation has not been deserved for some time. I suppose the rot started after World War 2, or maybe it was the Sixties that ruined the country. But the French seem (or at least their artistic, intellectual, and political elite seems) to have backslid to their French-Revolutionary-era crudity.

But enough of this fellow. The reaction of most people in Michele's comments, unsurprisingly, has been distaste and anger. September 11th was not some happening back in the mists of time; it occurred less than two years ago. We know what the people in the towers were really doing in their last moments, and it wasn't having "furious sex." That this novel was written merely to attract attention to yet another overgrown toddler in grownup clothes who wants praise for the painting he has made with shit pulled out of his own diapers is obvious. If this does become a bestseller, even for a brief time due to the curiosity of the crowd, it only means that people are crass all over, not in the US.

Lilli Marleen, however, has had a reaction to this that is bizarre, bizarre. For some reason she has decided that it is "self-centered" of Americans to be upset about what happened on September 11th and to take umbrage about some foreigner trashing the event for his own aggrandization because -- get this -- we made tv series like Hogan's Heroes and something called "Cowboy Comedies" that "made fun of Native Americans."

Now I am not going to defend that tacky tv show -- though I will note that it was made about forty years ago and people today can hardly be blamed for its existence. As for the movie genre she refers to; from her comment about Little Big Horn, she seems to be referring to Little Big Man, which if she were not so -- I was going to say stupid, but I realize that she is foreign, (she's German) so I will say if she were not so unused to American humor -- would realize is a satire attacking the stereotypical Good-Cowboy/Bad-Indian western, and far from a vehicle meant to "make fun" of Native Americans. It even used real Native American actors to play the Native American roles, unlike many standard Westerns of the old school. But all this is to say, what the fuck do old movies and tv shows have to do with the continued trashing by foreign so-called "artists" of the events of September 11th? Is she actually trying to imply that the horror of bad American tv and movies outweighs the actual deaths of real living people that this cretin is making light of with his tarted-up trash novel? Is she indignant over the admittedly silly stereotypes of Germans perpetuated by Hogan's Heroes? Does her indignation weigh more, or equally, than what a wife, husband, or child of one of the people who died on September 11th 2001 will feel when they find out what M. Beigbeder has done to the memory of their dead relatives? I don't fucking think so.

Incidentally, this is not the first time Lilli Marleen has displayed evidence that all she knows about America is what she gets from exported tv series and movies. I learned about Germany and other cultures the old fashioned way -- by studying its history in school, taking the language, reading reports, and so on. I have seen more than a few German movies. But if I were to base my knowledge of Germany on just what I had seen on the screen, I'd think they were all Vampires with red-dyed hair running as fast as they can to stop their boyfriends from holding up a factory in which the workers all had to turn a giant dial and then there was a female robot who danced and the cellars flooded and everyone lived in a submarine which really sucked. Fortunately, I can tell the difference between fiction and non-fiction.

PS: here is the list of September 11th victims. Unlike certain French "novelists" I try not to get my jollies -- oh, excuse me, make "important philosophical and cultural statements" -- about an atrocity by making up scenarios in which the victims have an orgy. I guess I'm selfish that way.

Update: because of constant harrassment by some pathetic, small-penised fool (IP addresses used so far: 208.184.25.41, 64.124.162.136, 210.50.201.45, 210.50.112.64, 210.50.216.165, 210.50.203.245, 216.110.36.120, 66.150.0.245, 210.50.112.64) comments on this post are now closed.

I am the internet!

So, bloggers are self-absorbed and narcissy... narsa... narcotic... narsil... self-involved, according to Ye Auncient Webbe Gooroo John Dvorak, speaking to us (or at least, the crowd at Gnomedex, as well as to the two or three persons who still brave the thickets of pop-up ads to read his columns) from his vast store of wisdom gathered over the decades. As to that I say, yay us. So we are only interested in ourselves, and have big egos, and so on and so forth, and this is supposed to drive us into what, a pool of introspective guilt? At least we are honest about our egotism, unlike people who would actually type the following with apparent sincerity in the comments to Tom Bridge's post:

If blogging isn't self-absorbed or self-aggrandizing, what is it? Is it selfless? Is it a public service? Are the lives of the poor enhanced, are the sick healed, is the world a better place? Come on!

Oh please, you care so much about the poor and the sick. Give me a break.

(Via A Small Victory.)

Everyone sucks but me

In the Middle Ages, at least the flagellants used to use real whips on themselves; at least they provided non-participants with an entertaining spectacle. Modern day wielders of the holy scourge prefer to take the leather strap to others rather than themselves. Today's target is Americans -- excepting, of course, those citizens of that nation who have Removed Their Blindfolds™ and have therefore been able to see The Truth™ that the rest of us still deny:

We subscribe to nothing. We have no attention span, no sense of history, no sense of posterity.

Arrogant, indifferent, disconnected, aimless, self-absorbed, our lives are arranged around familiar pastimes ... and the occasional search for new pastimes.

Can you feel the love? Favorite quote from the comment thread, from someone fakenamed 'M. Aurelius': "Imagine, a nice warm cup of coffee in one hand, and in the other a joystick with a trigger being pulled to send hot metal shrapnel through the bodies of little brown people half a world away."

I'm not sure that the original M. Aurelius would have put it that way.

(Via Marduk's Babylonian Musings.)

Seeds of Our Demise, Part 8996

These eyes have just beheld the most interesting (I use that for want of a better word) example of anti-religious bigotry yet. It occured in the comment thread to this post. One "Zeke" wrote:

All those good men you mentioned are dead because there are Islamic fanatics that hate us and everything we stand for. I don't pretend to understand them, or feel anything for them except the need to destroy them. But U. and Q., for all their despicable qualities, were not religious fanatics.

Then someone named "Valencia" chimed in:

I agree with Zeke. While I liked this piece overall (especially the bits about the firehouse, which I thought were very touching), I thought it conflated a lot of disparate elements under the Islamic extremist banner. I don't think the reason Hussein & crew were so nasty to their people had much to do with religious extremism, whereas the attack on WTC certainly did

So being raped, tortured, and killed by a religious fanatic is worse than having same done to one by an agnostic thug. Mm-hm, I see.

Adult children, childish adults

Stephen Pollard is a fucking snob.

I don't care how expert he is in whatever area of Important Grownup Hey I Said This Is Important Will You Kids Sit Still and Listen to Me? Hey! Hey! Where Do You Think You Are Going?! shit he writes about. Anyone who has the gall to tell people that they should "be ashamed of themselves" for reading a so-called "children's book" in public has invalidated themselves in my eyes as anyone whose opinion on any subject I should care about. So he "worries" for adults who read books he doesn't approve of, does he? Paternalistic swot.

Yes I am just a little sick of these people.

By the way, here's my short review of the Pullman trilogy His Dark Materials, which is another one Rowling/Tolkien-haters are always flogging as an example of "all fantasy should be written this way": first book good, second book eh, third book sucked and blowed. I promise to give a longer review later.

One last thing: apparently Pollard went to see The Two Towers having fuckall idea that it had to do with elves, "monsters" and other sorts of fantasy things, and stomped out in a huff because he expected to see, I don't know, something like The Brothers Karamazov, or maybe the latest Jean-Luc Godard brow-crinkler. (And he also says he "avoided the first movie" -- so apparently he had no idea that he was seeing part two of a continuous film. I can't even begin to understand the sort of mental reasoning behind this.) You know, there's this thing I do before I go see a movie: I read up on it to get a kind of idea of what I am to see. And if I don't, I don't get mad because I didn't see what I thought I would see. But what do I know. I read "children's books," I can't understand all that grownup stuff.

Scroll down this page for some feedback on this entry. Sample:

I wasn't going to jump in on this, really I wasn't, but it struck me that this piece was a glaring example of the fallacy of the excluded middle. (David Gillies.)

And:

So, reading Potter and Pullman, watching Lord of The Rings etc is infantile, less than adult and part of a general downgrading of the cultural life of the country [...] Watching Spurs, on the other hand, isn't. (John Durkin.)

Oh but I say, sport is an important, grown up activity. Chasing a ball around a field helps one memorize Kant, develop new theories in quantum physics, balance one's checkbook, and clears up acne. But reading the wrong books makes baby Jeebus cry and will cause the dead to rise from their graves, cats and dogs to live together, and streams of pink and green ectoplasmic goo to cover the earth!

(Link to Natalie Solent's post, where she was much, much too nice to the guy, found via Sasha and Andrew's Round Table.)

Meals on Wheels

O-kay, someone clearly needs to take a course in efficient time management:

A woman given a ticket for breast-feeding her daughter while driving on the Ohio Turnpike last month could have gone on her merry way with a slap on the wrist and a $100 fine.

And by the way, the hubby's being a real asshole just to avoid paying a $100 fine:

The woman's husband, however, is trying to make a federal case out of it -- literally -- by claiming she is not the real defendant.

He said he is.

He made that claim, citing Mosaic law from the Old Testament and writings from the days of the Founding Fathers because of the couple's ``deeply held spiritual beliefs'' that the husband is ``the sole head of the family'' and the only one who can punish the wife for a public act.

Needless to say, neither he nor his ostensibly god-bothering helpmeet seem to be at all concerned that if the car had crashed mid-suck, their little infanta would have most likely been gruesomely killed. I generally object to most nanny-state laws, but when it comes to laws about infant safety-seats, they exist for a reason, and a good one. (When it comes to adult seat-belt laws I am more sanguine; I say let 'em strap in or not as they please, and let Deity sort them out. And yes, I wear mine.)

(Via The Cranky Professor.)

Crapping all the way to the bank

America, what a country -- we'll not only sell you anything, we'll buy anything, or at least our guilt-ridden, peer-haunted, deep-pocketed liberal elite will. Observe, the shit-artists are at it again:

NEW YORK -- Four years ago, former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani blasted the Brooklyn Museum of Art for hanging a painting of the Virgin Mary that was decorated with elephant dung.

An exhibit that opened at the Whitney this week strikes back - with a portrait of Giuliani that has elephant dung painted on it.

"Libertas, De Te Servent!" (Liberty, May the Gods Protect You!), by Chinese artist Zhou Tiehai, is part of an exhibition about America's global image at the Whitney Museum of American Art through Oct. 12.

I saw a picture of the Elephant Dung Madonna in one of my textbooks. Grant you, I realize that a picture in a book, even if it is in color, is no substitute for the original, but I am still pretty sure it is one of the most hideous things I have ever seen. (Here's an image of the thing: see what you think.)

Anyway, now some Chinese guy has reached into his diapers to pull out a get-rich-quick scheme. Some might say that it takes colossal gall to come from a country where such shenanigans can land you in a labor camp to one where you are given free reign to not only criticize the government, but to (figuratively) defecate on it. Of course, to say that is to risk being labelled a square, a philistine, a (shudder) Republican. Nevertheless, I say it. Mr. Zhou, you may be otherwise talented (if this is the same artist some of his work is quite good) but your latest production should be flushed down the toilet.

Via Right-Thinking.com. By the way, a commenter in the post on Right-thinking points out that the article in the Seattle PI doesn't mention that Giuliani's complaint focused on the use of taxpayer money to fund the the shit-madonna exhibit, but of course to artists and their sycophants even the faintest threat that the American public cash cow might decide to refuse to give more milk is the same as clapping artists in irons and throwing them in jail. As far as the liberal elite artistic community is concerned, the average American is a blight on the landscape, a Disney-worshipping, fast-food-gnawing, teevee-sitcom-watching swine, whose only purpose is to pay artists to throw the equivalent of feces at them. Back in the late fifties and throughout the sixties, the complaint was that Americans didn't like or understand art, its artists were abused, neglected, and worst of all, forced to work mundane "real" jobs and live among those who thought they were "weird." Well, government bodies and committees of the guilty rich were formed, artists were coddled, fêted, given grants and legacies and treated like the kings and nobles we supposedly had cast off in 1776. How strange people act when they get everything they want.

Harry Potter vs. the Fundies

I left a version of this as a comment in this post of Tim's reporting the shenanigans of a "conservative Christian" school's administration re: the Harry Potter books. I've no beef with Christian fundamentalists, in general, but I have had it up to here with this "Harry Potter's magical powers = real witchcraft" garbage. I will first offer these caveats:

• I do not believe in witchcraft or magical powers.


• I am not a member of any religious faith.


• I do not care about anyone else's children -- that is the job of their parents. My parents had a couple of great lines for dealing with my desire for exposure to things they did not think I was ready for: "When you're older," and, "No." They did not ask anyone else to do this for them. It never occurred to them to do so. Likewise they did not think it necessary to confine the rest of the world in a padded cell along with their fragile, impressionable kiddies which seems to be the attitude of so many people these days from Christian anti-Potter hysterics to fear-crazed Safety Nazis.

That being said, here is what I have to say to the actions of the "Maranatha Christian College" and so many others, including some commenters to Tim's post who compared J.K. Rowlings to such luminaries as Larry Flynt Jr. and Karl Marx:

I am going to only say this once: the "magic" in the Harry Potter books is NOT REAL, nor does it correspond either to the rituals and practices of pre-Christian pagan peoples, to the supposed remnants of those rituals and practices engaged in by people accused of being witches and sorcerers in Europe and America's past, nor to the rituals and practices of the various contemporary pagan faiths (for instance, Wicca, Magick, the "Old Religion," and so forth). As a matter of fact, the "magic" and "witchcraft" in the Harry Potter books come straight out of popular culture's idea of such things -- aka Disney, Warner Brothers, Hollywood, and thousands of children's stories and fairy tales. And furthermore, as has already been pointed out but I'll repeat it here, the "magic" is a literary device -- actually, a metaphor, for something that Rowlings is trying to say about being a kid and growing up and dealing with life, albeit in a light-hearted manner.

And last of all, the Harry Potter books are FICTION. Yes: FICTION FICTION FICTION FICTION. They are not: manuals for casting magical spells on people, calls to join an evil, godless -- excuse me, Godless -- cult, or any of that shizzat. Jesus H. Christ, will you people get a grip?

Update: and if it isn't the religious nuts, it's the "grownups shouldn't read childrens' books" cretins. Let me add this final caveat: I don't believe in segregating books by age group or by any other group. I will read what I damn well please. Your fear of being considered uncool, or whatever it is that drives you, is not my problem.

The Campaign to Remove Fun From All of Life, cont.

"Drowning pools"? Jesus H. -- oh, forget it. Why don't we just nail peoples' doors shut? Then they can't leave the house and possibly get hurt and sue somebody.

(Via this guy marc, okay. Curses, foiled again...)

A media moron complains

And journalists wonder why people hate them: in this article, BBC world affairs editor John Simpson whines that the deaths of journalists in the recent battle in Iraq were all the US military's fault, and guess why:

Simpson blamed the deaths of many of the journalists - what he called "the ultimate act of censorship" - on the system of embedding, which meant that journalists operating independently of US and British troops became "potential targets".

(Emphasis mine.) Jesus H. Christ, the military is damned if they do and damned if they don't, aren't they, you whinging, puling twat? As a commenter in Jeff Jarvis's post on this pointed out, the news media complained during the first Gulf War on how they weren't told anything, didn't get to go to the battle, yadda yadda blah blah blah. Now this dickhead comes along and starts grousing about how being put in the middle of the battles as they requested got some journalists killed. Guh. What I should have said was (thanks to Angie Schultz for alerting me to my gaffe) : he starts grousing about how embedding reporters in the war somehow endangered all reporters especially -- somehow embedding a reporter in one place caused the deaths of others not so embedded. Well, dopey, you had a choice: some reporters get to go to the front, or no reporters get to go to the front. No, they all couldn't go to the front. I'm sorry of that sounds too much like your grammar school teacher telling you that you couldn't get a hall pass, but tough. And I'm also afraid that there never will be any special protection for any journalist who puts themselves into a warzone; at least, not any more than any other noncombatant gets. Yeah, gee, media passes aren't bullet and bomb deflectors, so whaddaya know! Asshole.

Also, I just wanted to add that it's too bad reporters got killed, but he basically seems to be claiming that the US military deliberately targeted reporters they didn't like. Yeah, better have some evidence to back that up, newsboy.

Stupid British Comic Book Guy

I was enjoying this article by a comic-book-writer's preoccupation with the late Princess Di's "strange, mutant powers." But it is in the Guardian, so of course there was this bit near the end:

Being one of a small but influential bunch of British writers working in the very American world of comics and superheroes, it is nice to be able to inject something peculiarly British into the comic melting pot. In a sense, we're doing a public service, helping to drag some Americans out of their insularity.

Like an anchovy in a custard flan, it ruined the rest of the column for me. My mood of convivial amusement instantly changed to sour irritation at this example of, well, British insularity. Once again someone from across the big salty shows his blithe ignorance of the fifty states where his fellow comic artists probably get most of their income. I would like to say to this person -- one Peter Milligan -- that right off the top of my head the two comic book writers that I-- no huge comic afficionado -- can name are Allan Moore (V For Vendetta, hello?) and Neil Gaiman. They were British the last time I checked, though Gaiman at least now lives in the US. But I'd have to think a bit longer before I could name the American ones. But Americans are insular because, I can only guess, we made Moore's and Gaiman's names household words (at least in the comic world) instead of Milligan's. Winner of this Week's Honorary Ass Hat Award.

(Via Ghost of a Flea.)

Upside the head

Some guy who runs a company (no link from me) has been sending people with blogs cease and desist letters, claiming he invented the "brand" of the term "clue-by-four." You know what? I think that guy needs to be hit by a clue-by-four. He needs to be hit by several clue-by-fours. Or should that be clues-by-four?

Clue-by-four, clue-by-four, clue-by-four.

Look, ma, no trademark!

Asshole.

Here's another link to someone who got a letter from Mr. Clue-deprived. Excuse me, Mr. Clue-By-Four-Deprived.

(Via The Blog of the Century of the Week.)

Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest

So. According to Janeane Garofalo, only dumb, mean people join the Republican party, "use the word evildoer with a straight face" (I will never get why the words "evil" and "evildoer" are such stumbling blocks to some people, by the way -- I wonder what they would call someone who wanted to ban abortion? or someone who lit up a cigarette in public?), "love patriotism," and so on. Whatever, lady. Garofalo has obviously lost the ability to be funny, so she's decided to go the bitter crank route instead. She freaked out that dude from Scarborough Country, but it just makes me yawn.

About her series that Fox ABC dropped, supposedly because of her scary political views. I think that if the studio did that because they were afraid of getting hate mail, they are jerks, but that's par for the course for the Hollywood machine. It wouldn't surprise me if it were true. Of course, it was a stupid move on their part, because now they have given her a bigger axe to grind than if her show had been given a chance and failed on its own merits. But for all of the liberal views of the actors and other people that it employs, the Hollywood industry is conservative, not politically, but financially. The bottom line rules. As soon as a studio smells problems of any sort, its first instinct is to protect the bank account. They don't care what political views an actor holds so much as they care that the actor isn't going to make them trouble because of it. Middle-of-the-road actors like Garofalo, who probably does not make a great deal of money, are the ones who usually get the worst end of this deal. She has little influence despite her mouthing off, unlike more influential (and dangerous) people such as Barbra Streisand, Tim Robbins, and Susan Sarandon. I almost feel sorry for her. But she is obviously not smart enough to realise that her antics are alienating more and more people, and that unlike the celebrities mentioned above, she really can't afford to do that.

(Via Boycott Hollywood.)

A sorry example all right

When someone who has been "downing Smirnoff vodka and tonics" for two hours murders someone with whom he had had a verbal disagreement, what would you call that person? Well, someone named Niall, commenting over at Hot Buttered Death calls him an "example of the sorry state of your average American's psyche." He also blames this supposed state on the Bush administration, as if Dubya and co. had the power to magically control drunks from a distance. Funny, I always thought I was a pretty average American, but I've never killed anyone over a disagreement. Once I chased my sister around the house with a broom because she had been bugging me, though. But that was way before either Bush administration held Amerikkka in its iron grip. In fact I do believe the sisterly combat episode occurred during the Carter administration. Can I blame my murderous impulses towards my sister on Ole Jimmeh?

(Via Tex.)

The world is not a pie

Robert Prather confronts someone calling him or herself "nobody," who insists, among other things, that the U.S. will suffer if Europe starts getting wealthier and more productive. ("Nobody" also thinks that is a good thing, as if it would be wonderful to have another populous, poor nation in the world.) Of course, "Nobody" assumes that the economic might of the U.S. is based on keeping the rest of the world down economically. What people like "nobody" don't realize is that on the contrary, we don't want the rest of the world to be poor. We want everyone to have wealthy, productive economies.

Poor countries are a drag and a burden. Time and money that should be put to productive use is diverted to keep poor nations from starving to death. Unproductive countries are a strain on the global economy. They are black holes that suck in everything and give nothing back. They aren't just speed bumps on the road to a better world, they are axle-destroying barricades.

The more a country produces, the more wealth it generates. Everyone benefits. I have almost no grasp of economic theory but that little bit is, or should be, obvious to anyone who is not on a shelf in the morgue. But these theory-steeped children, these marx-heads and foucault-fools, think that "production" means an Oppressed Worker turning a crank for twelve hours a day. They neither know nor care what it takes to get them that heated home with indoor plumbing and electric lights. They think it's a kind of magic -- and that every time someone in a highrise penthouse turns a switch, a light goes out in some African hovel. These are the people, of course, who are loudest in the anti-capitalist, anti-globalist, anti-anything-but-sitting-on-their-asses-chanting brigade. Everyone else is too busy working to waste time doing crap like that.

Amerikkka!

Now this is satire:

Most of all, America doesn't feel like America any more. The climate of militarism and fear, similar to any totalitarian state, permeates everything.

Oh, LOLOLOL, ha ha! America as a totalitarian state! So funny!

Oh. Wait. He was serious??

(Via A Small Victory.)

All the little people

It just occurred to me -- Bill O'Reilly has become this decade's Leona Helmsley.

Bill O'Reilly on the internet

That sound you hear is the sound of thousands of "right-wing" bloggers changing their tv channel from Fox News to... anything else. (Via James Lileks, who got it from Instapundit.)

Update: hey! I've been GlennReynolds.commed. Scroll down to read the bit mentioning me. Skip all that other boring stuff -- heh heh! Just kidding. Thanks to Alert Reader and fine Blogperson Mary of Exit Zero.

Dissenter-ed

Wow. Bizarro World sucks. Poor John Naughton. Can't someone go through a wormhole or a stargate or something and rescue him from the Evil Alternate Universe?

(Via Tim Blair.)