HOT ACTION IN FUDDLES!

Poor Jimmy Lileks has been so busy with his book lately that he's scarcely had time to bloviate on political issues. But this weekend, damn it, he made time, attending his first-ever war protest!

Or, rather, war counter-protest. For as you know, Jimmy is great guns for the war, caring deeply as he does for the plight of the Iraqi people who have suffered so much under the bloody burden of Islamist terrorism ever since Saddam Hussein was overthrown. And since we clearly have to support our troops in their efforts to combat a problem that we caused, the man from Fuddles headed downtown with a group of likeminded patriots to check out the opposition.

Whenever Lileks talks about the anti-war movement, he says something like this:

Let me be clear: There are serious, reasonable critics of the war whose arguments deserve attention and consideration.

In fact, he says exactly that, and goes on to completely ignore all of those arguments in deference to making a lot of cheap jokes about crazy hippies with their Che t-shirts and wacky conspiracy theories and bizarre idea that the U.S. government has any interest in the oil economy. If you cruise on over to the link above, you'll find a bunch of pictures of the war protesters: they're a little bit kooky, they're a little bit fruity, they're a lotta bit into hollow empty slogans and a complete lack of the intellectual refinement that is the hallmark of James "Look At This Funny Matchbook" Lileks. Just more hot air for the Wurlitzer, as you might expect: Lileks intersperses his zany photos of the Twin Cities' finest fruitcakes with high-larious Harper's Index-style comments like

Number of guys who threw his weight into a much larger counter-protestor then screamed the F word in front of two little girls while shouting about his eight years of military service: one

and

Explanation offered by kind nice middle-aged lady who was asked why she was beating on that drum: it gathers the energy, and provides a beat and a focusing point.

The odd thing, though, is that he leads off his article with a photo of the counter-protestors -- with, in other words, a snapshot of his people, of the crew he had come there with -- and somehow neglects to provide the same sort of commentary for them.



Here, Jimmy, I'll help:

Number of counter-protestors who were overweight, balding, bearded white guys in ill-fitting blue jeans: 3

Percentage of counter-protestors who were overweight, balding, bearded white guys in ill-fitting blue jeans: 75%

Sole exception: J. Lileks, 40something, of Fuddles, MN (not pictured)

Degree of serious, reasonable argument that deserves attention and consideration represented in signs carried by counter-protestors: zero

Apparent ratio of pro-war to anti-war marchers needed for the latter to be deemed a "counter-protest" rather than "three dipshits hanging around on a street corner": 1:25

Ratio of paragraphs Lileks spends deconstructing hollow, idiotic slogans sported by the left to paragraphs Lileks spends deconstructing the slogan "Freedom Is Not Free": 2:0

Degree to which, having allied himself with a man bearing a sign that reads "Support Our Troops = Support Their Mission", Lileks would approve of the idea "Support Your Wife = Support Her Robbing a Convenience Store": unknown

Credence Lileks gives argument that war protestors are hypocrites for driving their cars to an anti-oil war protest vs. credence Lileks gives argument that pro-war counterprotestors are hypocrites for failing to serve in the military: 100%:0%

Number of times that Lileks claims that critics of 300 hate it because it lacks a sense of irony, when in fact it merely portrays a pre-ironic world: one

Time and place first historical references to irony appear: Greece, 5th century BC (exactly concurrent to events of 300, by Socrates, often in reference to Sparta)