3.30.2007
3.29.2007
God still undefeated in minds of fans
Dennis Prager used as floor mop in debate with Sam Harris; declares victory.
This thing is pretty hilarious. I long ago stopped debating religion with people despite my hardcore atheism, because there's no percentage in it and the two sides are rarely even arguing the same question (which is evident in abundance in the article above), but Prager is the perfect punching bag this time around: he completely fails to respond to any substantial point made by Harris, exhumes the old "arrogant disbeliever" trope again and again, and makes a fool of himself to anyone who's paying attention.
At some point, Prager makes this ridiculous wager:
Harris rightly jumps all over this, saying that if you define "religiously active" as "believing in God and the basic tenets of the fath", he'd take this bet in a second and win -- as would I, and Dennis can afford a lot more than I can. Since a very substantial majority of Americans self-identify as Christian (and a tiny minority as atheist), it's a sure thing that a majority of any given subset of Americans -- say, murderers and rapists -- are also Christian. Even leaving aside the stupendous implication that without belief in the Jewish sky-god, you are far more likely to be a murdering rapist (so, then, what accounts for the lower rate of murder and rape in Japan?), this bet betrays a total ignorance of statistics and demographics.
Then there's this gem of false certainty. Dennis:
Let's ignore the fact that all sorts of things could prove God's existence in a heartbeat, if he really existed and wasn't determined to stay as invisible as D.B. Cooper. Let's instead focus, as Sam Harris does, on the utterly botched syllogism. Harris:
Finally running out of ideas, Dennis resorts to yakking up his 'Jews and Christians invented every good thing that humanity has ever done' argument even though it is patent nonsense. I mean, just look at this:
No. That would be the Greeks.
No. Greeks again.
This is nonsense on many, many levels. Does he mean "universally applicable"? If so, why doesn't everyone adopt them? Or does he mean the Christians/Jews were the first people to come up with standards they believed should be universally applied? If so, that's obviously not true.
Which, of course, allowed many of them to reject Christianity.
Nope. Greeks.
Well! Nothing to argue against there.
Even if you argue that the founding of America had nothing to do with ethnos (a contention some black people and Indians might want to explore a bit more thoroughly), many of the Founding Fathers remain obnoxiously non-Christian.
Oh, we have equality of the sexes now?
Dennis is utterly full of shit here, deliberately conflating Westerners -- that is, products of a more or less Judeo-Christian society -- with actual believing, faithful Jews and Christians. He knows full well that the progressive developments that he cites like democracy, scientific method, feminism, plurality, etc., all tend to come from nonreligious Westerners who, while raised in Judeo-Christian cultures, are the ones who bristle most against religious teaching. And he also knows full well that in those parts of society where Judeo-Christian belief is strongest, things like women's rights, democracy, plurality and respect for science are at their lowest. Knowing these things but acting as if he doesn't makes him what? That's right: a liar. And lying is what? That's right: a sin. For which he will burn in Hell for all eternity, unless I'm right and there is no God. So there's something atheism can take credit for: saving Dennis Prager's lying ass.
This thing is pretty hilarious. I long ago stopped debating religion with people despite my hardcore atheism, because there's no percentage in it and the two sides are rarely even arguing the same question (which is evident in abundance in the article above), but Prager is the perfect punching bag this time around: he completely fails to respond to any substantial point made by Harris, exhumes the old "arrogant disbeliever" trope again and again, and makes a fool of himself to anyone who's paying attention.
At some point, Prager makes this ridiculous wager:
I bet you whatever sum we each can afford that the vast majority of murderers and rapists in this country were not religiously active during the time they committed their violent crimes. I would make a second bet that you won’t take that bet.
Harris rightly jumps all over this, saying that if you define "religiously active" as "believing in God and the basic tenets of the fath", he'd take this bet in a second and win -- as would I, and Dennis can afford a lot more than I can. Since a very substantial majority of Americans self-identify as Christian (and a tiny minority as atheist), it's a sure thing that a majority of any given subset of Americans -- say, murderers and rapists -- are also Christian. Even leaving aside the stupendous implication that without belief in the Jewish sky-god, you are far more likely to be a murdering rapist (so, then, what accounts for the lower rate of murder and rape in Japan?), this bet betrays a total ignorance of statistics and demographics.
Then there's this gem of false certainty. Dennis:
You are right that this moral clarity and courage among the predominantly religious does not prove the existence of the biblical God. Nothing can prove God’s existence. But it sure is a powerful argument. If society cannot survive without x, there is a good chance x exists.
Let's ignore the fact that all sorts of things could prove God's existence in a heartbeat, if he really existed and wasn't determined to stay as invisible as D.B. Cooper. Let's instead focus, as Sam Harris does, on the utterly botched syllogism. Harris:
No, Dennis, this moral clarity is not a “powerful argument,” or even an argument at all; please keep your x’s straight. If humanity can’t survive without a belief in God, this would only mean that a belief in God exists. It wouldn’t, even remotely, suggest that God exists.
Finally running out of ideas, Dennis resorts to yakking up his 'Jews and Christians invented every good thing that humanity has ever done' argument even though it is patent nonsense. I mean, just look at this:
Suffice it to that Judeo-Christian values alone gave humanity the notion of the sacredness of human life
No. That would be the Greeks.
linear history and therefore the idea of moral and scientific progress
No. Greeks again.
universal standards of good and evil
This is nonsense on many, many levels. Does he mean "universally applicable"? If so, why doesn't everyone adopt them? Or does he mean the Christians/Jews were the first people to come up with standards they believed should be universally applied? If so, that's obviously not true.
the scientific method
Which, of course, allowed many of them to reject Christianity.
the development of democracy
Nope. Greeks.
the greatest music ever composed and the greatest art ever drawn
Well! Nothing to argue against there.
the greatest experiment in non-ethnicity-based society (America)
Even if you argue that the founding of America had nothing to do with ethnos (a contention some black people and Indians might want to explore a bit more thoroughly), many of the Founding Fathers remain obnoxiously non-Christian.
equality of the sexes
Oh, we have equality of the sexes now?
Dennis is utterly full of shit here, deliberately conflating Westerners -- that is, products of a more or less Judeo-Christian society -- with actual believing, faithful Jews and Christians. He knows full well that the progressive developments that he cites like democracy, scientific method, feminism, plurality, etc., all tend to come from nonreligious Westerners who, while raised in Judeo-Christian cultures, are the ones who bristle most against religious teaching. And he also knows full well that in those parts of society where Judeo-Christian belief is strongest, things like women's rights, democracy, plurality and respect for science are at their lowest. Knowing these things but acting as if he doesn't makes him what? That's right: a liar. And lying is what? That's right: a sin. For which he will burn in Hell for all eternity, unless I'm right and there is no God. So there's something atheism can take credit for: saving Dennis Prager's lying ass.
3.28.2007
Talk is cheap...
...and tough talk is the cheapest of all. That's why the Naughty Girl has it in such vast quantities: it doesn't cost her anything.
A key element of phony tough-talk is standing fiercely against paper tigers: either loudly opposing things that everyone already hates ("I am AGAINST child molestation in ALL ITS FORMS!") or taking a brave stance against things that aren't actually happening ("I will do everything in my power to prevent Hugo Chavez from invading the United States!"). That way, you get to pat yourself on the back for being a real bad-ass straight-talker while incurring no risk whatsoever, as opposed to, for example, joining the Army or hooking up with Doctors without Borders.
Having fiercely defended the Vietnam Memorial against the nonexistent threat of being defaced by rampaging legions of hippies, Michelle now turns her fierce warrior-woman instincts towards the kind of evil Muslim scumbags who might sue you for racial profiling. Because, really, the true victims here aren't the clerics, who were arrested, detained, and forced to miss their flight even though they didn't do anything wrong: it's the innocent freedom-loving Americans who patriotically flipped out when crazy mixed-up Muslims prayed in a menacing fashion. Sure, the Muslims were also Americans, and they were exercising their freedom, but they didn't do it in an acceptable way, like buying a venti double macchiato or lecturing strangers about their bad parenting: they did it in a scary foreign way, by worshiping a scary brown god.
Anytime anyone uses the word "manifesto", you just know there's a big smelly cloud of flatulence floating in the air just ahead, and Michelle Malkin loaded up on red beans and rice before writing this so we wouldn't be disappointed. There's just so many things to love about the John Doe Manifesto:
Well, that about covers all of them, doesn't it?
I am in your base, killing your dudes.
How about your employee? HA HA, no, no, seriously.
My child will not be one of the millions who have been converted to Islam in the public schools. I'm against things that aren't actually happening!
Acting like a tough guy on the internet, eh, Hadji? Well, a million can play that game!
I will ignore people's right to behave as they choose in their private businesses and homes, and will make up fictional examples of forcible imposition of sharia in public spaces where they haven't actually taken place. (The halls of Congress? What the fuck? National monuments?)
I will make sure that you, however, can be censored in the name of security.
I am Michelle Maglalang. And if anyone were to racially profile me (say, on the basis of several most-wanted-terrorists being Filipino) and make me miss a plane, I would sue the living shit out of them.
But that's different.
A key element of phony tough-talk is standing fiercely against paper tigers: either loudly opposing things that everyone already hates ("I am AGAINST child molestation in ALL ITS FORMS!") or taking a brave stance against things that aren't actually happening ("I will do everything in my power to prevent Hugo Chavez from invading the United States!"). That way, you get to pat yourself on the back for being a real bad-ass straight-talker while incurring no risk whatsoever, as opposed to, for example, joining the Army or hooking up with Doctors without Borders.
Having fiercely defended the Vietnam Memorial against the nonexistent threat of being defaced by rampaging legions of hippies, Michelle now turns her fierce warrior-woman instincts towards the kind of evil Muslim scumbags who might sue you for racial profiling. Because, really, the true victims here aren't the clerics, who were arrested, detained, and forced to miss their flight even though they didn't do anything wrong: it's the innocent freedom-loving Americans who patriotically flipped out when crazy mixed-up Muslims prayed in a menacing fashion. Sure, the Muslims were also Americans, and they were exercising their freedom, but they didn't do it in an acceptable way, like buying a venti double macchiato or lecturing strangers about their bad parenting: they did it in a scary foreign way, by worshiping a scary brown god.
Anytime anyone uses the word "manifesto", you just know there's a big smelly cloud of flatulence floating in the air just ahead, and Michelle Malkin loaded up on red beans and rice before writing this so we wouldn't be disappointed. There's just so many things to love about the John Doe Manifesto:
Dear Muslim Terrorist Plotter/Planner/Funder/Enabler/Apologist,
Well, that about covers all of them, doesn't it?
I am traveling on your plane. I am riding on your train. I am at your bus stop. I am on your street. I am in your subway car. I am on your lift.
I am in your base, killing your dudes.
I am your neighbor. I am your customer. I am your classmate. I am your boss.
How about your employee? HA HA, no, no, seriously.
I will challenge your attempts to indoctrinate my children in our schools.
My child will not be one of the millions who have been converted to Islam in the public schools. I'm against things that aren't actually happening!
I will combat your violent propaganda on the Internet.
Acting like a tough guy on the internet, eh, Hadji? Well, a million can play that game!
I will resist the imposition of sharia principles and sharia law in my taxi cab, my restaurant, my community pool, the halls of Congress, our national monuments, the radio and television airwaves, and all public spaces.
I will ignore people's right to behave as they choose in their private businesses and homes, and will make up fictional examples of forcible imposition of sharia in public spaces where they haven't actually taken place. (The halls of Congress? What the fuck? National monuments?)
I will not be censored in the name of tolerance.
I will make sure that you, however, can be censored in the name of security.
I am John Doe.
I am Michelle Maglalang. And if anyone were to racially profile me (say, on the basis of several most-wanted-terrorists being Filipino) and make me miss a plane, I would sue the living shit out of them.
But that's different.
3.27.2007
ANN ALTHOUSE WILL DESTROY YOU
Do not call Ann Althouse a sexist. YOU are the sexist! Ann Althouse is a great woman who understands the truth about your monstrous Clinton. You are a liar! Ann Althouse is not angry! YOU are angry! With your breasts! Your dirty sexist breasts that make Ann Althouse SO ANGRY!
Stop making fun of Ann Althouse or Ann Althouse will BAN YOU!
Stop making fun of Ann Althouse or Ann Althouse will BAN YOU!
3.26.2007
Who's going to rake my leaves?
Burt "I'm Not a Racist; I Just Want to Call Black People Niggers" Brelutsky on California's first annual Cesar Chavez Day celebration: aren't Mexicans lazy enough already, without giving them a whole special day to be lazy on? This is just like that phony "Labor Day" swindle, where we celebrate working-class people who actually do things by giving them the day off. I think they should have to work twice as hard!
Rocket Fuel
Butt Propulsion Laboratories: You get to 'add your comments on the energy issues that the site addresses' (because you are 'seriously engaged' with them, just like David Copperfield was seriously engaged to Claudia Schiffer), and we get some of that sweet, sweet petrodollar ad money! It's win-win!
At least we believe in something WORTH destroying the planet for
Up in Fuddles, MN, Lileks saves the best for last:
Stupid dystopian cynics! Thinking it was the act of destroying an entire planet that was important, and not the reasons for doing it! As in the future, where the innumerable corpses will molder and crumble happily if they know they were all killed for a good cause, so it is today, where all the American dead in their thousands and the Iraqi dead in their hundreds of thousands rejoice from their graves because they know they died for freedom, and not at the whim of some petty dictator. IED, sniper, car bomb or ordnance dropped from miles overhead: none of this matters to the decaying cadavers. What matters to them, and to their grieving families, is that our motives are pure and just; that's what makes it all worthwhile.
I hated post-apocolypse [sic] stuff; I always did. That’s one of the miserable things about the 70s, and its lurid indulgence in these fantasies. Beneath the Planet of the Apes, for example, not only adheres to the requirement of the time that all movies must end with the hero’s death; it not only posits the existence of a nuclear weapon that still works after many centuries (and sheds huge amounts of smoke when powered up, if I remember correctly), but it kills the entire planet for its conclusion, after which an omnipotent voiceover tells us that "a green and insignificant planet is now dead." Roll credits.
I wonder now: who started it, back then? Who started the war that managed to destroy everything? Might their motivations, their morals, their ideas, be held more responsible than the instruments of destruction they used? I know this: that was the least important detail to the dystopian cynics then, and probably now as well.
Stupid dystopian cynics! Thinking it was the act of destroying an entire planet that was important, and not the reasons for doing it! As in the future, where the innumerable corpses will molder and crumble happily if they know they were all killed for a good cause, so it is today, where all the American dead in their thousands and the Iraqi dead in their hundreds of thousands rejoice from their graves because they know they died for freedom, and not at the whim of some petty dictator. IED, sniper, car bomb or ordnance dropped from miles overhead: none of this matters to the decaying cadavers. What matters to them, and to their grieving families, is that our motives are pure and just; that's what makes it all worthwhile.
3.23.2007
Sure, Al Gore is a nut, but where's the part about Michael Moore being fat?
Town Hall's Mary Katherine Ham (of HamNation fame) hams it up for the hamera in this ham-fisted attempt at humor. Displaying all the skills required from a gifted comic actress (standing next to things, pointing, giving a thumbs-up, smiling, and shrugging), Mary Kate has finally eclipsed Ashley. Look out, Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin -- there's a new right-wing Vanna White in town!
Doughy Can'tload
In case you haven’t been following the events surrounding the any-day-now publication of Liberal Fascism, the long-delayed book by sci-fi-nerd-turned-right-wing-gasbag Jonah Goldberg, Timothy Noah at Slate has vouchsafed us the information that there’s yet another hiccup. Jonah hasn’t actually finished the book yet, which, since it’s being put out by an actual, legitimate publishing house instead of Regnery, might be causing his editor some small dismay, as well as generating a few sternly worded e-mails regarding the disposition of his advance.
Not that I am eagerly looking forward to its publication – I’m sure it will be as worth reading as everything else he’s ever written, which is to say slightly less so than the publication indicia of a desk calendar – but I must say I feel for Jonah. Obviously, he’s been under a lot of pressure to deliver a book that was supposed to have been published two years ago and that he hasn’t bothered to get around to writing yet, and that pressure is starting to get to him.
I’m here to help. As a semi-professional freelance writer who has never missed a paid deadline, I’m willing to step in with some words of advice for a man who, unlike most writers, never had to go through the learning curve experienced by those of us who don’t have rich parents who lined us up with our cushy jobs. So, Jonah, here’s some things to think about while you work on that swell book of yours.
1. In the future, think about actually completing a significant portion of the book before you take the royalty check. I know that you were made to understand that your fame as a professional blowhard would insulate you from the requirements of stuff like professionalism, quality and originality, but you do actually have to write the book at some point, and maybe two years after announcing its publication is not the best time to start.
2. Speaking of making announcements, try and clear these with your publisher beforehand. So far, you’ve made seven public announcements of the book’s imminence, which, had you checked with the people at Doubleday, you would have discovered might have been better timed if they had come after the completion of the book.
3. I am not one to judge people for their hobbies. After all, I contribute to five separate blogs and/or message boards, and only two of them pay me to do so. So I’m not one to scold you for spending approximately seventeen hours a day online exchanging speculation with John Podhoretz at the Corner about whether or not Adama is a Ceylon. Then again, I am not going around telling everyone how I can’t make deadlines on my book because I’m just too busy. Maybe, since your book is only 272 pages long, you should spend some of the time you’d usually use for ragging on Kathryn Jean Lopez for not being able to identify all of the bridge crew of the starship Enterprise by their first names on writing Liberal Fascism instead. You’d probably be able to crank it out in a week with that substitution alone.
4. Blaming your inability to complete your work on the birth of your daughter is a tiny bit chickenshit, considering that she was not even conceived at the time the book was originally scheduled for publication. Also, “work distractions” is a whole lot of chickenshit: if you accepted money to write this book, which I’m guessing you did, then it is work. It’s only a hobby if you don’t get paid for it, and saying your ‘real’ work got in the way is pretty insulting to the people who paid you to write the book.
5. Speaking of insulting your publishers, your claim that the book “isn’t what the Amazon description says” is a bit odd, considering that Amazon’s description came from the publisher, and the publisher’s description came from you. What you’re really saying is that your book is not what you say your book is, which, honestly, wouldn’t surprise me.
6. Finally, while I’m glad that unlike most writers, you have maintained the necessary objectivity to claim that your book is “a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care”. However, you might wanna get that message to Doubleday, who believe that your book is on a level of serious thoughtfulness that deserves this on the cover.
Not that I am eagerly looking forward to its publication – I’m sure it will be as worth reading as everything else he’s ever written, which is to say slightly less so than the publication indicia of a desk calendar – but I must say I feel for Jonah. Obviously, he’s been under a lot of pressure to deliver a book that was supposed to have been published two years ago and that he hasn’t bothered to get around to writing yet, and that pressure is starting to get to him.
I’m here to help. As a semi-professional freelance writer who has never missed a paid deadline, I’m willing to step in with some words of advice for a man who, unlike most writers, never had to go through the learning curve experienced by those of us who don’t have rich parents who lined us up with our cushy jobs. So, Jonah, here’s some things to think about while you work on that swell book of yours.
1. In the future, think about actually completing a significant portion of the book before you take the royalty check. I know that you were made to understand that your fame as a professional blowhard would insulate you from the requirements of stuff like professionalism, quality and originality, but you do actually have to write the book at some point, and maybe two years after announcing its publication is not the best time to start.
2. Speaking of making announcements, try and clear these with your publisher beforehand. So far, you’ve made seven public announcements of the book’s imminence, which, had you checked with the people at Doubleday, you would have discovered might have been better timed if they had come after the completion of the book.
3. I am not one to judge people for their hobbies. After all, I contribute to five separate blogs and/or message boards, and only two of them pay me to do so. So I’m not one to scold you for spending approximately seventeen hours a day online exchanging speculation with John Podhoretz at the Corner about whether or not Adama is a Ceylon. Then again, I am not going around telling everyone how I can’t make deadlines on my book because I’m just too busy. Maybe, since your book is only 272 pages long, you should spend some of the time you’d usually use for ragging on Kathryn Jean Lopez for not being able to identify all of the bridge crew of the starship Enterprise by their first names on writing Liberal Fascism instead. You’d probably be able to crank it out in a week with that substitution alone.
4. Blaming your inability to complete your work on the birth of your daughter is a tiny bit chickenshit, considering that she was not even conceived at the time the book was originally scheduled for publication. Also, “work distractions” is a whole lot of chickenshit: if you accepted money to write this book, which I’m guessing you did, then it is work. It’s only a hobby if you don’t get paid for it, and saying your ‘real’ work got in the way is pretty insulting to the people who paid you to write the book.
5. Speaking of insulting your publishers, your claim that the book “isn’t what the Amazon description says” is a bit odd, considering that Amazon’s description came from the publisher, and the publisher’s description came from you. What you’re really saying is that your book is not what you say your book is, which, honestly, wouldn’t surprise me.
6. Finally, while I’m glad that unlike most writers, you have maintained the necessary objectivity to claim that your book is “a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care”. However, you might wanna get that message to Doubleday, who believe that your book is on a level of serious thoughtfulness that deserves this on the cover.
Do Russians love their children too?
April Fool's Day has come early at Killing an Arab! Even though past experience teaches that the commenters at LGF can't go five seconds without hoping that we nuke Mecca, that hilarious jokester Chuckles Johnson has us on by pretending that kind of thing is an abberation. It's all part of a fun new April Fool's Day joke-meme that's sweeping the right-wing-blog nation, where they pretend that left-wing blogs are full of foul-mouthed, disgusting, bloodthirsty creeps, while the conservative blogs are peopled by gentle, loving saints who would never, for example, call for a constitutional amendment to ban Islam or imply that a teenager would prefer to die in a car crash than grow up alongside a fruity-seeming father.
Now, Chuck has always had a very subtle sense of humor, and you might not know he was kidding just by noting that, in other posts this week, he calls Islam a "death cult", mocks the death of Rachel Corrie for the ten millionth time, and uses sure-fire punchline words like "disgusting", "ominous", "obnoxious", "violently bigoted", "disgraceful", "nihilistic", "debased", and "evil" to crack hilarious jokes about people who don't agree with him. But here's how you can tell it's all just a big prank: immediately after this post, there's another post about how Elizabeth Edwards has cancer. And while no one wishes for her to die (since she's not running for anything), that "tiniest of tiny fractions" of troublemakers -- who are, of course, immediately shouted down by their higher-minded peers -- does have a few things to say about her husband:
- "disgusting"
- "a jerk"
- "an idiot" (first three posts)
- "sad"
- "continual disgust for him"
- "disgusting"
- "speaks badly of him"
- "his vanity and ego are going to rob them all of what time she has left"
- "I doubt a lot of this sincerity from the nutroots"
- "his priorities are skewed"
- "If he really cared, he would drop outta the race"
- "the libs are thinking we're just being nice to make them look bad"
- "misguided"
- "a cad"
- "it goes to show what kind of decision maker Johnny Breck is"
- "idiot"
- "a slug"
- "a black hole of greed and ambition"
- "people are mouthing platitudes that they don't really feel at all"
- "fucking tool"
- "shallow"
- "impressing very few people, I fear"
- "milking this"
- "making an attention-whoring parade out of it"
- "I still cannot stand her husband"
- "There are Two Americas: The America that stands by its family and loved ones, and the America that lusts for power"
- "She has much Class, he, however, does not"
- "i don't think it's coincidence that in every liberal marriage the wife is the dominant partner"
- "disingenuous"
- "despicable to the nth degree...a cold blooded bastard"
- "he's in some way trying to milk this for political gain"
- "condescending"
- "I have no pity or sympathy...these people are destroying the last refuge of freedom on the earth"
- "Edwards is putting himself before his wife"
- "a complete tool"
- "psychopath"
- "ludicrous"
- "pathological narcissist"
- "I don't trust him as far as I could throw him"
- "piece of shit"
- "a creep and an opportunist of the highest order"
- "the living definition of a charlatan"
- "I wouldn't call [Elizabeth Edwards] warm, caring, or particularly fair...she's no angel and a rabid leftie"
- "politically retarded...sleaze-ball"
- "such men...would sell the gold teeth out of their dead mother's mouths"
- "I cannot hope or pray for a man I despise"
- "I lost all sympathy for him when I heard his comments today"
Then there's this high-larious bit of unintentional irony:
...aaaaaaaaand, just so you don't think the exterminate-the-brutes crowd can't find some way of blaming absolutely everything on the Muslims, there's these two:
TAKE THAT, MOHAMMED
Now, Chuck has always had a very subtle sense of humor, and you might not know he was kidding just by noting that, in other posts this week, he calls Islam a "death cult", mocks the death of Rachel Corrie for the ten millionth time, and uses sure-fire punchline words like "disgusting", "ominous", "obnoxious", "violently bigoted", "disgraceful", "nihilistic", "debased", and "evil" to crack hilarious jokes about people who don't agree with him. But here's how you can tell it's all just a big prank: immediately after this post, there's another post about how Elizabeth Edwards has cancer. And while no one wishes for her to die (since she's not running for anything), that "tiniest of tiny fractions" of troublemakers -- who are, of course, immediately shouted down by their higher-minded peers -- does have a few things to say about her husband:
- "disgusting"
- "a jerk"
- "an idiot" (first three posts)
- "sad"
- "continual disgust for him"
- "disgusting"
- "speaks badly of him"
- "his vanity and ego are going to rob them all of what time she has left"
- "I doubt a lot of this sincerity from the nutroots"
- "his priorities are skewed"
- "If he really cared, he would drop outta the race"
- "the libs are thinking we're just being nice to make them look bad"
- "misguided"
- "a cad"
- "it goes to show what kind of decision maker Johnny Breck is"
- "idiot"
- "a slug"
- "a black hole of greed and ambition"
- "people are mouthing platitudes that they don't really feel at all"
- "fucking tool"
- "shallow"
- "impressing very few people, I fear"
- "milking this"
- "making an attention-whoring parade out of it"
- "I still cannot stand her husband"
- "There are Two Americas: The America that stands by its family and loved ones, and the America that lusts for power"
- "She has much Class, he, however, does not"
- "i don't think it's coincidence that in every liberal marriage the wife is the dominant partner"
- "disingenuous"
- "despicable to the nth degree...a cold blooded bastard"
- "he's in some way trying to milk this for political gain"
- "condescending"
- "I have no pity or sympathy...these people are destroying the last refuge of freedom on the earth"
- "Edwards is putting himself before his wife"
- "a complete tool"
- "psychopath"
- "ludicrous"
- "pathological narcissist"
- "I don't trust him as far as I could throw him"
- "piece of shit"
- "a creep and an opportunist of the highest order"
- "the living definition of a charlatan"
- "I wouldn't call [Elizabeth Edwards] warm, caring, or particularly fair...she's no angel and a rabid leftie"
- "politically retarded...sleaze-ball"
- "such men...would sell the gold teeth out of their dead mother's mouths"
- "I cannot hope or pray for a man I despise"
- "I lost all sympathy for him when I heard his comments today"
Then there's this high-larious bit of unintentional irony:
I just had it out with my moonbat bro who tried to make a moral equivalence between conservative and liberal blogs. I told him 99.9% of gutter and hate talk comes from their side. Vicious anarchist assholes they are.
...aaaaaaaaand, just so you don't think the exterminate-the-brutes crowd can't find some way of blaming absolutely everything on the Muslims, there's these two:
"Cancer is the real enemy of mankind. I wish the muslims would learn that."
"This makes me hate the Islamofacists even more. The money we have to spend fighting their evil death cult could be available instead for research to find cures that give people life."
TAKE THAT, MOHAMMED
3.22.2007
That wine was for ALL our guests, Pam
"This is where I talk about John Bolton! Find your own toilet!"
Once again, it's time for Clown Central Station to provide its most valuable service: word-for-word transcripts of the drunken ramblings of self-deluding plastic surgery disaster Pamela "Atlas Shrugs" Oshry. Sure, Sadly! No might be funnier, and Firedog Lake might bring you more important news and Roy Edroso might update more frequently and spell more words correctly, but none of them -- none of them -- have the iron will, strong stomach and ready access to newly developed pharmaceutical-grade gag suppressants to do what I do. For whatever reason it is that I do it.
This week's Pamelog comes to us from a toilet, a location which most of us have always associated with Ms. Oshry, though perhaps not in so obvious a way. As you may recall, last time we did this, Pammy did not seem to be drunk off her spinal column. I can assure you, that's not an issue this time around.
THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND AS YOU READ:
1. Pam's apparent disdain for Middle America and its correct pronunciation.
2. Pam's frightening discovery of someone "who's willing to vlog me".
3. How Pam interrupts the friendly chat of another partygoer by demanding to know what he thinks of the global jihad.
4. How Pam talks for about five minutes before she is able to come up with the name of a single effective Republican, and when she does, it's John Ashcroft.
5. Pam's scary control-freak behavior with the cameraman.
6. How Pam hogs the only toilet at a party and busts up the shelves just so she can remind her readers that liberals suck.
7. How, even though no one said to her "jihad is a conservative issue", she claims that her comedian suitor said it, and then attributes it to what "the Left is reporting", in the space of 30 seconds.
8. Pam calling Elian Gonzalez a bastard.
9. Pam's seeming delight at the prospect of Scooter Libby being raped in prison.
10. Pam's belief, not in evidence during the Clinton administration, that law enforcement officials using subpoenas and making people testify in criminal cases is some variety of dirty trick.
Let's begin!
(We open on Pammy, seated on a toilet, where she "prepares" her next "column". She begins to speak, her charmingly harsh Lun Guy Lint accent blurred by wine and, I believe, Vicodin, and points at us, hoping that we will catch her gaze and be transformed into statuary.)
Hey! Atlasites! How YOU doin'? I know the thing you…hey, yeah, you haven't vlogged for a while. I have to be honest with you: I haven't been feeling particularly vlogalicous. But I am tonight! And I know you can…what's with the f___in' shower curtain, it…the $14.99 at 'Tar-zhay', or in Middle America, Target, shower curtain? Because I'm into my department, and I'm at this fabby little downtown party now, and the reason that I decided to vlog is that I have a filmmaker who's willing to vlog me, and because I wanted to share a couple of things with you.
First of all, I was pouring myself a little wine, and some guy's chatting on me – you know how it is: yeah, baby! Yeah, baby! And we started talking, and he's all talking about all this, all that, and, he's a comedian. Hello? Um…yeah, all that and a bag of chips. And he's talking about how, you know, this and that…and I said, well, what about the global jihad? He said, "What?" I said, "The global jihad!" He said "Oh, you must be a conservative". (Laughs) As if the jihad was a conservative issue! What is wrong with America?
Now, I want to discuss something else. Um…you bet…stop it! Stop the, the guy having the…you, giving her too much to drink, just stop! Stay where you are. By the way, I'm in the bathroom. The bathroom. I wanted to vlog a couple things. Yeah. so, the jihad is a conservative issue. This is what the left is reporting. Okay? Now, I wanted to discuss a couple things with you. I wanted to discuss destroying an effective Republican. This is a new M.O. of the left. Yeah, baby. The new M…I'm speaking to Tom DeLay, who's gonna be on my show! Atlas on the air, we love that, uh huh. (Makes a hands-over-head gesture and her cummerbund almost falls off. The cameraman turns the camera sideways to make the gesture comprehensible, and Pamela becomes visibly agitated.)
Stop that! Would you? St…(whistles) Stop! Okay? Yeah. They destr…every effective Republican…do you notice this? Every effective Republican, they destroy. Do you notice this? Let's see…who do, who do we have? You wanna chime in? You don't wanna chime in? No? Okay. Um…oh! Uh, another thing to run past my Atlas readers. On the blog! I want you to write in one Republican president the media liked. One. And you're gonna say, uh, they liked Reagan in death. He was dead! Hello? Okay. He was an Alzheimer, old-age-stricken idiot. Savant.
(The cameraman interjects: "Not Lincoln! They hated him!" Pam laughs.)
Listen: they hated Lincoln. And I gotta tell you…oops!
(While flailingdrunkenlydramatically about, Pam, having already hogged the bathroom at a party for the last five minutes trying to remember what she was talking about, knocks over what sounds like a glass and a rack of her host's books.)
Don't…don't…no. This is on film. Don't tell Jack that I was in the bathroom at the time. Listen: they hated Lincoln. They did. Did anyone notice…eh…I…we…did we miss Bolton's speech at CPAC? That was Lincolnesque. That was up there in the, in the, uh, historical great speeches. Notice how no one read it, not C-SPAN 1, 2, 3, not FOX – F-A-U-X…nobody ran that speech. But I wanna, I wanna point something out to you: every effective Republican they destroy. John Ashcroft? Who replaced John Ashcroft? Do you know, behind the camera? Gonzalez! Then they're trying to get rid of him.
(The cameraman asks: "Elian?")
They're trying to get rid of…ha ha, Elian! Yeah, what happened to Elian Gonzalez? That poor little bastard from Cuba. They sent him back there. (Sings) No tengo dinero! Ho-o-o-ooo! No tengo dinero! Ho ho ho ho!
I'm not gonna stay on much longer. I just wanna…I wanna…I wanna get to the bedroom. I just wanna tell you that…do not fall for it! They're destroying every effective Republican. Every single one. They're destroying…listen! Where's Perle? Where's Wolfowitz? Where's Frum? They're trying to destroy Rove…with Rove…what are they trying to do with these subpoenas? They're trying to get them on the stand. Why? Because they destroy you with perjury. Hello, Scooter Libby! Hello! Hey, Scooter: make sure they don't call you that in the big pen, because you know what they're gonna do with a name like Scooter. Bada bing, bada boom! (Makes a 'fisting' gesture.)
Okay. I gotta, I gotta cut it off now. There's a line for the bathroom. Listen: Atlas! Who loves you, baby? (Makes disturbing clicking noises with mouth and wanders off to find another jumbo box of wine.)
3.21.2007
Happy pantload!
Today is professional descendent/Star Trek enthusiast/conserva-nerd Jonah Goldberg's birthday. Since Jonah gives and gives to us*, I think it's time we give to him. Suggested gifts:
- $1000 in Fun Bucks at the Star Trek Experience in Vegas
- a personal trainer to get his sorry ass in shape so he can go and fight in Iraq like he really wants to
- a giant mousetrap and some rocket boots so he can finally put into action his brilliant plan to catch Osama bin-Laden
- a fun smiley-face mask with a Hitler mustache on it to wear at NRO's annual Halloween party
- a toothbrush, to clean all the shit out of his mouth
How about you, dear Clown Central Station porters, vendors, and shoeshine gals? What would you get Jonah Goldberg for his birthday?
*: For example, today, he gives us the gift of some snappy patter he's been perfecting on weekends at SCA swordfighting practice:
- $1000 in Fun Bucks at the Star Trek Experience in Vegas
- a personal trainer to get his sorry ass in shape so he can go and fight in Iraq like he really wants to
- a giant mousetrap and some rocket boots so he can finally put into action his brilliant plan to catch Osama bin-Laden
- a fun smiley-face mask with a Hitler mustache on it to wear at NRO's annual Halloween party
- a toothbrush, to clean all the shit out of his mouth
How about you, dear Clown Central Station porters, vendors, and shoeshine gals? What would you get Jonah Goldberg for his birthday?
*: For example, today, he gives us the gift of some snappy patter he's been perfecting on weekends at SCA swordfighting practice:
Damnable Twin Cities! We have been confounded by thy diabolically dual nature! Not knowing anything about where I am, when I talked to Scott Johnson yesterday, I told him I was staying at the City Center hotel, leaving out the crucial detail that I was in St. Paul. He thought I was in Minneapolis because that's where my speech was. But, again, I was not. He went to a different hotel in a different city to meet me this morning, and — fie on the ontological constraints of the space-time continuum — I was not there because I was here. So, now I'm waiting for him to come get me and take me straight to the airport, all because the cheddar-suckling Romulus and Remus of Midwestern cosmopoli have conspired to keep thy humble correspondent from meeting the Nordic blogmaster of the Great Northern Middle Kingdom.
Butt Town
Dean Barnett, previously known for his bold accusations on Hugh Hewitt's blog that the liberal media are focusing on the 80% of Iraq that's engulfed in chaos and violence and totally ignoring the 20% that's relatively calm, is showing up at Town Hall lately as the newest recipient of Richard Mellon Scaife's savings account interest. And, as do most of the razor-keen minds in the Hall, he's got the left's number: we're so obssessed with whether or not Khalid Muhammed is telling the truth that we're ignoring the fact that the things he might be lying about are really super evil.
Elsewhere in Town, the Naughty Girl pens a piece entitled 'The Witch Hunt Against Gun Owners'. This witch hunt doesn't involve blackballing people from making a living, though, like the Michelle-Malkin-supported anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s, or burning, strangling, pressing and stoning of innocent victims like the witch hunts of the 17th century: instead, this witch hunt involves the publication of freely available information, a practice which Michelle Malkin presumably opposes in all its forms.
Finally, the Medfly has finally cracked the code and figured out the bewildering appeal of liberalism: we persist in this crazy fantasy of helping the less fortunate, and there are a lot of losers out there. The left will remain a thorn in our side, crabs the Medfly, as long as people "long to embrace and exalt all those who claim to have suffered from hard luck or oppression: the homeless, single mothers, 'people of color,' homosexuals, AIDS patients, feminists, convicted criminals, Native Americans, atheists, immigrants". I'm glad he added that "claim to have suffered", aren't you? I mean, the last thing we need is homeless people, blacks, gays, women, Indians and people with fatal diseases going around saying that it's objectively true that they've had "hard luck". Get a grip, people!
Elsewhere in Town, the Naughty Girl pens a piece entitled 'The Witch Hunt Against Gun Owners'. This witch hunt doesn't involve blackballing people from making a living, though, like the Michelle-Malkin-supported anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s, or burning, strangling, pressing and stoning of innocent victims like the witch hunts of the 17th century: instead, this witch hunt involves the publication of freely available information, a practice which Michelle Malkin presumably opposes in all its forms.
Finally, the Medfly has finally cracked the code and figured out the bewildering appeal of liberalism: we persist in this crazy fantasy of helping the less fortunate, and there are a lot of losers out there. The left will remain a thorn in our side, crabs the Medfly, as long as people "long to embrace and exalt all those who claim to have suffered from hard luck or oppression: the homeless, single mothers, 'people of color,' homosexuals, AIDS patients, feminists, convicted criminals, Native Americans, atheists, immigrants". I'm glad he added that "claim to have suffered", aren't you? I mean, the last thing we need is homeless people, blacks, gays, women, Indians and people with fatal diseases going around saying that it's objectively true that they've had "hard luck". Get a grip, people!
Black pool party
Over at Butt Propulsion Laboratories, Scott Johnson is incensed at this article in the notoriously liberal Wall Street Journal, which suggests that something should be done about the disproportionately high number of black children who drown every year. Faced with, on the one hand, a large number of dead kids, and on the other hand, the possibility that an infinitessimally small amount of his taxes will go to teaching black children to swim, Johnson says: "Say hello to Davey Jones while you're down there, Negroes!"
Of course, conservativism is about helping people help themselves: it's not that Scott wants the black children to die, it's just that he doesn't want them to get any death-prevention assistance on the public tit. It's only right and sensible that if you could pay one penny to save someone's life, or save the penny and hope that, I dunno, St. Parick's Cathedral jumps in the pool and rescues them, you'd go for the wealth-maximizing option every time, right?
After excoriating the author for citing figures out of context, Johnson demonstrates that two can play that game, by quoting some statistics from the CDC just as if they meant something:
Which is relevant to the subject of the article (black children drown at higher rates than children of other races) because, uh, well, because, you see, most of those drowned kids are boys with drinking problems, maybe, why not.
Still, CJ isn't entirely opposed to the idea that something should be done: he's apparently in favor of reanimating Ronald Reagan's corpse and letting him save all the black children from drowning. (Reagan's period as a lifeguard, by the way, cited by Johnson as evidence of the proper approach to the problem if it exists, seems like a strange thing to hang the argument on. Not only is it kinda unconservative -- hinging on letting someone else save you instead of learning how to save yourself -- but it's contingent on the hiring of government employees; Reagan was a lifeguard at a public pool, whose construction and maintenance, like his salary, was paid for by tax money.)
Of course, conservativism is about helping people help themselves: it's not that Scott wants the black children to die, it's just that he doesn't want them to get any death-prevention assistance on the public tit. It's only right and sensible that if you could pay one penny to save someone's life, or save the penny and hope that, I dunno, St. Parick's Cathedral jumps in the pool and rescues them, you'd go for the wealth-maximizing option every time, right?
After excoriating the author for citing figures out of context, Johnson demonstrates that two can play that game, by quoting some statistics from the CDC just as if they meant something:
* There is a large disparity in drowning rates between men and women. In 2003, males accounted for 80 percent of the drownings in the United States.
* Alcohol use is involved in about 25 percent to 50 percent of adolescent and adult deaths associated with water recreation.
Which is relevant to the subject of the article (black children drown at higher rates than children of other races) because, uh, well, because, you see, most of those drowned kids are boys with drinking problems, maybe, why not.
Still, CJ isn't entirely opposed to the idea that something should be done: he's apparently in favor of reanimating Ronald Reagan's corpse and letting him save all the black children from drowning. (Reagan's period as a lifeguard, by the way, cited by Johnson as evidence of the proper approach to the problem if it exists, seems like a strange thing to hang the argument on. Not only is it kinda unconservative -- hinging on letting someone else save you instead of learning how to save yourself -- but it's contingent on the hiring of government employees; Reagan was a lifeguard at a public pool, whose construction and maintenance, like his salary, was paid for by tax money.)
3.20.2007
The Left is Destroying Our Value System By Eliminating the Slaughter Rule
Sometimes, you can't mock Dennis "My Son Has a Black Friend" Prager any better than just quoting his opening paragraph:
Still, the man has a point: when you look at the decline of all the major world powers in history -- Athens, Rome, the Han Dynasty, Timbuktu, the Germans, the French under Napoleon, the Soviet Union, the Persians, even the British empire -- the cause has always been the same: too much compassion.
This past weekend, a friend of mine attended his 13-year-old son's baseball game. What he saw encapsulates a major reason many of us fear for the future of America and the West.
Still, the man has a point: when you look at the decline of all the major world powers in history -- Athens, Rome, the Han Dynasty, Timbuktu, the Germans, the French under Napoleon, the Soviet Union, the Persians, even the British empire -- the cause has always been the same: too much compassion.
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:
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
and
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)
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)
3.15.2007
Give me another of them pit sammiches, I'll give you some mo murders
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whose testimony should totally be believed even though the U.S. government admits that he has been tortured, today confessed to having masterminded the 9/11 attacks. He also confessed to having masterminded the Bali bombings, the killing of a Marine in Kuwait, the previous attack on the World Trade Center, the Richard Reid shoe-non-bombing, the beheading of Daniel Pearl, the bombing of a vacation spot in Kenya, the attack on an Israeli jet in 2002, and pretty much everything else al-Q'aeda has ever been connected with. In further news we should totally believe even though he has been held incommunicado at secret CIA prisons for the last four years, Khalid Mohammed also confessed to masterminding attacks on Heathrow airport, the Empire State Building, the New York Stock Exchange, Big Ben, the Sears Tower, and the Panama Canal*, as well as assassination attempts on Pope John Paul, Pervez Musharraf, and every single living former president of the United States. If anything, the fact that none of these things actually happened proves how totally believable his story is.
Khalid Mohammed's role in the U.S.S. Cole attack, the London subway bombing, the al-Q'aeda attacks in Spain, the assassination of JFK, the disappearance of Judge Crater, the suppression of the electric car, the Black Plague, and the Holocaust is still unclear, as are his operational ties to Chechnyan terrorists, Colombian narcotraffickers, Tamil separatists, and Martian invasion forces. But several things are now certain:
1. Guantanamo is totally awesome and everyone should shut up about it now.
2. Torture obviously gets results.
3. It's a good thing reporters are banned from these tribunals, because they probably would have just laughed at the Sheikh's outlandish claims, the bunch of commie traitors.
4. All the leftists who have been bitching about our failure to catch Osama bin-Laden can shut up now, because we have the guy who really did it so who even cares about bin-Laden anyway?
5. The timing of these astonishing revelations certainly have nothing to do with the fact that Alberto Gonzalez may be shitcanned today, right after all the journalists hit the bars, for his part in the political firings of U.S. government attorneys who failed the Bush administration's ideological test. Nothing whatsoever.
Khalid Mohammed's role in the U.S.S. Cole attack, the London subway bombing, the al-Q'aeda attacks in Spain, the assassination of JFK, the disappearance of Judge Crater, the suppression of the electric car, the Black Plague, and the Holocaust is still unclear, as are his operational ties to Chechnyan terrorists, Colombian narcotraffickers, Tamil separatists, and Martian invasion forces. But several things are now certain:
1. Guantanamo is totally awesome and everyone should shut up about it now.
2. Torture obviously gets results.
3. It's a good thing reporters are banned from these tribunals, because they probably would have just laughed at the Sheikh's outlandish claims, the bunch of commie traitors.
4. All the leftists who have been bitching about our failure to catch Osama bin-Laden can shut up now, because we have the guy who really did it so who even cares about bin-Laden anyway?
5. The timing of these astonishing revelations certainly have nothing to do with the fact that Alberto Gonzalez may be shitcanned today, right after all the journalists hit the bars, for his part in the political firings of U.S. government attorneys who failed the Bush administration's ideological test. Nothing whatsoever.
Money makes the press go 'round
As part of her ongoing quest to prove that the mainstream media are a bunch of liberal fibbers, Michelle "Naughty Girl" Malkin has broken the shocking story that a New York Times reporter paid an underaged youth to help him escape from the world of child pornography.
What a horrible scandal! Certainly no legitimate journalist has ever paid off a source for information before, and condeming the young man to further years of sexual exploitation would have been a small price to pay for the reporter to keep Michelle Malkin's trust in the sanctity of journalistic ethics. As she says at the end of the article:
Yes, Michelle, that would be terrible. Why, if anyone else did such an unethical thing, you would be wise to never listen to anything they said again. The only thing worse than a columnist paying money to a source would be...oh, I don't know, maybe a columnist taking money to defend a source, or maybe a columnist taking outside money to promote a particular viewpoint. Luckily, that sort of thing almost never happens, and on the rare occasion when it does, the culprits are immediately banished from the profession of journalism and are never allowed to appear in the pages of respectable publications again.
As for Michelle herself, I'm sure if she ever found out that she shared space with the vile practitioners of this sort of pay-for-play journalism, she would resign immediately, or at least write a column where she placed the blame squarely on the guilty columnists, and not on the people who bought them off. Because Michelle has a little thing called...ethics.
What a horrible scandal! Certainly no legitimate journalist has ever paid off a source for information before, and condeming the young man to further years of sexual exploitation would have been a small price to pay for the reporter to keep Michelle Malkin's trust in the sanctity of journalistic ethics. As she says at the end of the article:
Can you imagine how loudly the media ethics mavens would moan and snicker if anyone other than The New York Times provided such convoluted justifications for checkbook journalism?
Yes, Michelle, that would be terrible. Why, if anyone else did such an unethical thing, you would be wise to never listen to anything they said again. The only thing worse than a columnist paying money to a source would be...oh, I don't know, maybe a columnist taking money to defend a source, or maybe a columnist taking outside money to promote a particular viewpoint. Luckily, that sort of thing almost never happens, and on the rare occasion when it does, the culprits are immediately banished from the profession of journalism and are never allowed to appear in the pages of respectable publications again.
As for Michelle herself, I'm sure if she ever found out that she shared space with the vile practitioners of this sort of pay-for-play journalism, she would resign immediately, or at least write a column where she placed the blame squarely on the guilty columnists, and not on the people who bought them off. Because Michelle has a little thing called...ethics.
3.13.2007
Michael Ledeen: still not dead
Via the always-amusing HTML Mencken at Sadly, No!, we learn that fearless prognosticator and top-notch journalist Michael Ledeen has taken Henry Kissinger, father of a nonexistent generation of Cambodians and Laotians, to task for being insufficiently hawkish.
Following the sage advice of former Nixon Museum curator Hugh Hewitt, Ledeen knows that the important thing isn't reaching achievable goals, or practicing the art of realpolitik, or finding common ground with your ideological opponents in order to forestall disastrous violence. Politics, to Ledeen, isn't the art of the possible; politics is the art of listening to the craziest bullshit some foreign ideologue can yank out of his pocket, swallowing it whole without an iota of realism or skepticism, and preparing to bomb the shit out of his whole country because of it. Let's let Fasterplease Theatre speak for itself:
Well, sure! That is so goddamn insightful there is totally no way that it wouldn't work. The best way to prove that Allah isn't on their side is to hand them a crushing defeat in war! BRILLIANT! I mean, look how timid and meek the Germans became after their humiliating defeat they were handed in WWI! Look at the United States after the Twin Towers fell on 9/11 -- people stopped believing in American exceptionalism, and the religious right, who had always taught that God was on our side, completely withdrew from national politics! And you sure haven't heard a peep from the Taliban since we spanked their asses in Afghanistan! You're the greatest student of history ever, Michael Ledeen.
Following the sage advice of former Nixon Museum curator Hugh Hewitt, Ledeen knows that the important thing isn't reaching achievable goals, or practicing the art of realpolitik, or finding common ground with your ideological opponents in order to forestall disastrous violence. Politics, to Ledeen, isn't the art of the possible; politics is the art of listening to the craziest bullshit some foreign ideologue can yank out of his pocket, swallowing it whole without an iota of realism or skepticism, and preparing to bomb the shit out of his whole country because of it. Let's let Fasterplease Theatre speak for itself:
Only the defeat of the Islamic Republic can accomplish that goal, because that would demonstrate that the mullahs do not have divine support for their global jihad.
Well, sure! That is so goddamn insightful there is totally no way that it wouldn't work. The best way to prove that Allah isn't on their side is to hand them a crushing defeat in war! BRILLIANT! I mean, look how timid and meek the Germans became after their humiliating defeat they were handed in WWI! Look at the United States after the Twin Towers fell on 9/11 -- people stopped believing in American exceptionalism, and the religious right, who had always taught that God was on our side, completely withdrew from national politics! And you sure haven't heard a peep from the Taliban since we spanked their asses in Afghanistan! You're the greatest student of history ever, Michael Ledeen.
Neither was Jesus' General
Dennis "My Son Has a Black Jesus-Worshiping Friend" Prager, America's foremost Jewish authority on what Jesus believes, disagrees with actual Jesus-worshiper John Edwards on whether or not Jesus was a leftist. No way, says Den-den.
Well, that's true, insofar as Jesus rarely gave any advice about the life of nations. Jesus, being a utopian anarchist, gave less than a shit about what nations did, and probably wouldn't have suggested, as Dennis claims leftists would later in the article, that after Pearl Harbor, Americans offer up another American city to bomb. In fact, Jesus might very well have had something to say about the tragedy of all the lost life, or the necessity of getting one's soul right with God. The pussy.
Dennis doesn't address other, more flagrant examples of Jesus' lefty teachings, like, oh, say, Matthew 25:31-46, or Matthew 19:16-30, or Matthew 5:9-12 and , or Matthew 7:1-2, or John 2:13-17, or Luke 14:7-14. But hey, that Matthew guy was a known liberal infiltrator, and John and Luke were probably just quoted out of context by some latte-sipping reporter.
This is based largely on one of His most famous statements: "Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."
The flaw in interpreting such statements as policy statements on how a nation should behave is that Jesus was speaking about the life of the individual -- the micro -- not about nations and the macro.
Well, that's true, insofar as Jesus rarely gave any advice about the life of nations. Jesus, being a utopian anarchist, gave less than a shit about what nations did, and probably wouldn't have suggested, as Dennis claims leftists would later in the article, that after Pearl Harbor, Americans offer up another American city to bomb. In fact, Jesus might very well have had something to say about the tragedy of all the lost life, or the necessity of getting one's soul right with God. The pussy.
Dennis doesn't address other, more flagrant examples of Jesus' lefty teachings, like, oh, say, Matthew 25:31-46, or Matthew 19:16-30, or Matthew 5:9-12 and , or Matthew 7:1-2, or John 2:13-17, or Luke 14:7-14. But hey, that Matthew guy was a known liberal infiltrator, and John and Luke were probably just quoted out of context by some latte-sipping reporter.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
