Remember, you can painlessly show some love for the Althouse blog if you do your shopping beginning here:
I really do appreciate it!
AND: Special thanks to whoever bought the Humminbird 898c SI Combo 7-Inch Waterproof Marine GPS and Chartplotter with Sounder. You gave me 51 dollars. And thanks too to whoever bought the cock soup. You gave me 51 cents... and a laugh.
AND: This is a pretty nice sweater somebody picked out for their guy.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Allowing gays to serve openly in the miliary "would not be the wrenching, traumatic change that many have feared and predicted," said Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates.
At a news conference today, after the release of a 9-month Pentagon study.
He said it was a “matter of urgency” that the lame-duck Senate vote in the next weeks to repeal the law. If not, Mr. Gates predicted fights in the courts and the possibility that the repeal would be “imposed immediately by judicial fiat.”...
... Gates acknowledged the higher levels of “discomfort” about repealing the law among those in the combat branches of the military. He said that those findings remained a concern to him as well as to the chiefs of the service branches, but that the concerns were not insurmountable as long as any repeal was carried out carefully and with what he said was “sufficient time and preparation to get the job done right.”
What Sarah Palin is doing to her children.
The ratings are up for "Sarah Palin's Alaska." Oh, that's so sad for the people who exulted last week when the ratings were down. I skipped last week myself, but I watched this week's show. It was pretty cool seeing the Palins hauling in fish nets, slicing salmon into strips, tying the strips with string, and hanging them up in a smokehouse, with Todd's Eskimo grandmother demonstrating how to set up the fire to get the smoke just right.
I was touched by Sarah's interaction with Trig and with another boy with Down Syndrome (a member of her extended family). It made me cry and it made me think about this post by Andrew Sullivan criticizing Sarah Palin for combining motherhood and a career in national politics:
I was touched by Sarah's interaction with Trig and with another boy with Down Syndrome (a member of her extended family). It made me cry and it made me think about this post by Andrew Sullivan criticizing Sarah Palin for combining motherhood and a career in national politics:
Anyone one who genuinely cared about the privacy of her kids would have either said no [to the vice presidential nomination] or been extremely careful to release the information as soberly as possible....Think of how the press — including you — regards those daughters as off-limits but goes after Palin's daughters.
[S]he parades a special needs infant in front of the press, dangles him half-naked in front of book tour crowds, uses him constantly as a rhetorical campaign prop, and cites him at almost every speech to appeal to pro-life voters....
What Palin has done with her young children is unprecedented. Think of how Obama strictly protects his daughters, and how George W. Bush did the same.
What Palin has done is use her children, having failed to actually rear them. She is still doing it on her reality show. That she has gone so far as to use and thereby abuse a child with Down Syndrome whose interests are clearly in seclusion, careful nurturing and care, and constant parental attention, tells you a huge amount.Seclusion? Is that right, tucking those kids away from the rest of the society? Why not be out and proud?
"If they’ve got money to squander like this – of a crucifix being eaten by ants, of Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her breasts, men in chains, naked brothers kissing..."
"... then I think we should look at their budget," said Georgia Rep. Jack Kingston, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, scaring the Smithsonian Institution into taking down the ants-on-Jesus video. Cowed, the Institution nevertheless defended the artist, whose "intention was to depict the suffering of an AIDS victim." The museum assures us it had no "intention to offend."
Why aren't there any black Senators?
James Taranto reacts to the inflammatory assertion that "Mark Kirk Re-Segregates the Senate." It's true that "of the four blacks who've served in the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction, three of them held what is now Kirk's seat: Carol Moseley Braun, Obama and [Roland] Burris." So a black person's chances of getting elected to the Senate seem best in Illinois, but it didn't happen this year. But why aren't black candidates more successful in running for statewide office? Taranto blames the Voting Rights Act:
In the interest of increasing minority representation in the House and state legislatures, the act mandates the drawing of "majority minority" districts.
On its own terms, this has worked very well. The size of the Congressional Black Caucus relative to the House is within a few percentage points of the black proportion of the population. Seats in state legislatures and the House frequently are stepping stones to statewide office. But because black politicians need not cultivate a transracial appeal to win office in the first place, they are at a disadvantage when they consider a statewide run.
Moseley Braun and Obama are exceptions. (The unelected Burris is irrelevant to this analysis.) Before being elected to the U.S. Senate, both served in the Illinois Legislature from Chicago's Hyde Park, which, although a decidedly left-wing constituency, is one of the most racially integrated in the nation.
Here I am listening — for the first time — to Rush Limbaugh talking about me.
I've got the podcast of today's show, where he's reading from this blog post of mine:
And let me invite Rush to go on Bloggingheads.tv and diavlog with me about the so-called chickification problems that plague our world today.
ADDED: Here's the show transcript including the text of what's in my video clip. Rush continues, with some talk about the Wikileaks leaks, a few paragraphs, and then:
And let me invite Rush to go on Bloggingheads.tv and diavlog with me about the so-called chickification problems that plague our world today.
ADDED: Here's the show transcript including the text of what's in my video clip. Rush continues, with some talk about the Wikileaks leaks, a few paragraphs, and then:
And you have this little sissy, Julian Assange, thrown in the middle of it. Assange is a community organizer on the world stage, and who's his enemy? The United States of America.Ironically, this sounds defensive. Keep thinking about it, Rush. (I want to live rent-free inside his head.)
... I mean, look, to those of you who are offended by my description of Assange as a sissy, would you want him in the foxhole with you?...
Look, the chickification of our culture and society is rampant. We've become defensive. We've become politically correct. We've been overly concerned with everybody's feelings about things...
Depriving people who crave attention from getting attention?
DSM-5 eliminates narcissism as an official personality disorder.
The conflict is nowhere near as amusingly ironic as my post title or the headline at the link suggests.
The conflict is nowhere near as amusingly ironic as my post title or the headline at the link suggests.
Rush Limbaugh just mentioned me.
I'm told (via email). I don't listen until the podcast comes out. Anyone know what he said?
UPDATE: I listen to the podcast here.
UPDATE: I listen to the podcast here.
"WikiLeaks Fallout: Should Hillary Clinton Resign?"
Asks David Corn.
Clinton... signed orders instructing U.S. foreign service officers to spy on the diplomats of other nations....
Diplomats are not spies (though spies do pose as diplomats)....
The administration's strategy -- as is to be expected -- is to focus on the easy-to-demonize messenger, not the hard-to-explain message. But Diplomatgate ought to be a top priority for the oversight committees of Congress....
... [O]ne can expect Clinton to dig in her heels, as the administration decries the leaker and ignores the leaks.
Julian Assange — "He's a sissy; he's a waif, purely and simply an Internet creation."
That's how Rush Limbaugh talked about Julian Assange on his show yesterday. What I'm interested in here is not Assange per se or what Limbaugh thinks of him. I'm interested in the gratuitous disparagement of men whose looks and personal style fail to track the masculine stereotype:
Limbaugh seems to have a general aversion to effeminate men (not to mention mannish women), and he's not processing this rather low reflex into much of anything but the repetition of the word "sissy." I like Rush Limbaugh and have defended him many times, in front of people who tend to hate you if you say anything good about him, so I think my opinion on the subject of Rush Limbaugh has special weight. I think this "sissy" business is beneath him.
There's something in the linked rant that was worth saying. If you read the whole thing, you'll see that Limbaugh was criticizing our government for not being able to catch Assange. In that context, the apparent feebleness of the man is relevant. If Limbaugh wants to say Assange is a weak little man and he's making us look weak, that's fine. What I don't like is the implication that in general men who look small, thin, and weak don't count as real men.
Now, Limbaugh's own critics frequently, gratuitously point out that Limbaugh is fat. I'm sure that creates a temptation for the big man to swing back at little men. I'm not saying he has to resist that temptation every single time, but process it into something better than saying "sissy" over and over. The subject, after all, was strength and weakness, and that was weak comic rhetoric.
UPDATE: I get word that Rush is talking about me on today's show, and, later, I listen to the podcast of the show and respond in real time.
Let's look at Julian Assange. In a contest between Janet Napolitano and Julian Assange, who do you think would win? Big Sis, there's no question about it. Now, if Janet Napolitano, Big Sis, can put her hands down our underwear at any airport in America she chooses, why can't she get her hands on the State Department leaker? Why can't she get her hands around the scrawny little neck of Julian Assange and all the other people at WikiLeaks? This little guy, this little waif, this little Peter Pan, Julian Assange, does anybody really believe that is his real name?...Here's the graphic:
I'm in the mood to listen to a sissy, and we have an audio sound bite here from Julian Assange, who looks like a sissy and is a sissy....
No, I just don't like the guy in general principles. I don't like the name. I don't like the way he looks. I don't like the way he sounds. He's a sissy; he's a waif, purely and simply an Internet creation.
Limbaugh seems to have a general aversion to effeminate men (not to mention mannish women), and he's not processing this rather low reflex into much of anything but the repetition of the word "sissy." I like Rush Limbaugh and have defended him many times, in front of people who tend to hate you if you say anything good about him, so I think my opinion on the subject of Rush Limbaugh has special weight. I think this "sissy" business is beneath him.
There's something in the linked rant that was worth saying. If you read the whole thing, you'll see that Limbaugh was criticizing our government for not being able to catch Assange. In that context, the apparent feebleness of the man is relevant. If Limbaugh wants to say Assange is a weak little man and he's making us look weak, that's fine. What I don't like is the implication that in general men who look small, thin, and weak don't count as real men.
Now, Limbaugh's own critics frequently, gratuitously point out that Limbaugh is fat. I'm sure that creates a temptation for the big man to swing back at little men. I'm not saying he has to resist that temptation every single time, but process it into something better than saying "sissy" over and over. The subject, after all, was strength and weakness, and that was weak comic rhetoric.
UPDATE: I get word that Rush is talking about me on today's show, and, later, I listen to the podcast of the show and respond in real time.
"It's my theory that this chap Meade is the arch-criminal and he's behind the whole thing."
"Meade" is in 210 phrases in 30 movies (with a lot of repetitions in "Gone With the Wind"), but "Althouse" is in none. I'm especially enjoying the Meades in the 1942 movie "Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror."
Meade has led us to the Voice of Terror.Go ahead, use the movie/TV search tool to find your own name.
Go ahead!
Jump!
Via Metafilter, where I also found out (via email from Jaltcoh) about this amazing website where you can search for phrases in movie and TV scripts. So, for example, it found "Go ahead! Jump!" — or things quite close to that — in 27 phrases from 25 movies, including "Diva" ("Go ahead, jump."), "Back to the Future Part II" ("Go ahead, kid. Jump."), and "Mean Streets" ("Go ahead. Jump out the fuckin' window.")
Oh, I know what I'm going to search for. That line I've heard is in every movie. "2987 phrases from 2252 movies and series..." LOL. Hundreds of movies have it more than once.
Via Metafilter, where I also found out (via email from Jaltcoh) about this amazing website where you can search for phrases in movie and TV scripts. So, for example, it found "Go ahead! Jump!" — or things quite close to that — in 27 phrases from 25 movies, including "Diva" ("Go ahead, jump."), "Back to the Future Part II" ("Go ahead, kid. Jump."), and "Mean Streets" ("Go ahead. Jump out the fuckin' window.")
Oh, I know what I'm going to search for. That line I've heard is in every movie. "2987 phrases from 2252 movies and series..." LOL. Hundreds of movies have it more than once.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Did Oklahoma single out Muslims for disapproval?
A federal judge bars the state's Save Our State Amendment pending further proceedings.
“While defendants contend that the amendment is merely a choice of law provision that bans state courts from applying the law of other nations or cultures, regardless of what faith they may be based on, if any, the actual language of the amendment reasonably, and perhaps more reasonably, may be viewed as specifically singling out Shariah law, conveying a message of disapproval of plaintiff’s faith,” the judge wrote.
... Scott Boughton, an assistant attorney general for the state, defended the measure, saying it was only intended to keep Oklahoma judges from looking at the legal principles of other nations and cultures in applying state and federal law. When the judge asked if that had ever happened in Oklahoma, Mr. Boughton acknowledged that he did not know of an instance in which Shariah law had been invoked by the courts....
"Would you ever in your wildest dreams imagine Chris Matthews flatteringly comparing Sarah Palin to former President Bill Clinton?"
Noel Sheppard asks before speculating:
But the press liked McCain, I think, because he was relatively liberal. Palin isn't. Palin is good at getting all the attention, and I worry that it will prevent better candidates from getting the early support they need to survive the caucuses and primaries.
As for Chris Matthews, I suspect he's just desperate for ratings and knows how many viewers he could get if Sarah would bring her celebrity-power to his little show.
Are Obama-loving press members trying to orchestrate an outcome by giving an abundance of attention to the person they hope Obama will face in November 2012?That's basically what they did in 2008, he notes.
But the press liked McCain, I think, because he was relatively liberal. Palin isn't. Palin is good at getting all the attention, and I worry that it will prevent better candidates from getting the early support they need to survive the caucuses and primaries.
As for Chris Matthews, I suspect he's just desperate for ratings and knows how many viewers he could get if Sarah would bring her celebrity-power to his little show.
Things we talked about here over the weekend.
If a retired Supreme Court Justice is going to publish an essay in a classy literary tabloid, he should do better than this.
If an erudite Kenyan goes on a lesser Sunday talking heads show, he needs to call bullshit.
Don't let your bleeding heart bleed for geese.
And by "bleeding heart," I mean Dane County (as in Madison), but you Danes (as in Denmark) have problems of your own, even if that bleeding-heart radio organization thinks you are the exemplars of happiness.
Black Friday shopping links for Althouse-tested items.
I'm a snob about what I'll drink but I defend your right to drink what the government is prying from your numb, shaky hands.
Irradiating irrationality.
Oh, those young people, so irony-oriented and lameness-avoidant... how it hurt to fall in love with Obama!
If you want respect, don't demand it from teenagers.
This is the time... this is the moment... for pie!
If an erudite Kenyan goes on a lesser Sunday talking heads show, he needs to call bullshit.
Don't let your bleeding heart bleed for geese.
And by "bleeding heart," I mean Dane County (as in Madison), but you Danes (as in Denmark) have problems of your own, even if that bleeding-heart radio organization thinks you are the exemplars of happiness.
Black Friday shopping links for Althouse-tested items.
I'm a snob about what I'll drink but I defend your right to drink what the government is prying from your numb, shaky hands.
Irradiating irrationality.
Oh, those young people, so irony-oriented and lameness-avoidant... how it hurt to fall in love with Obama!
If you want respect, don't demand it from teenagers.
This is the time... this is the moment... for pie!
"... Sinatra was a singularly fluorescent vocal phenomenon."
No, of course that's not what the NYT review of that new book about Frank Sinatra says. It says "Sinatra was a singularly incandescent vocal phenomenon."
Do you see my point? Incandescent means something. There is feeling and beauty in the concept that is missing — to the point of comedy — in the word "fluorescent."
Or maybe you are on the extreme end of the spectrum that has feeling and sensitivity to aesthetic details at one end and whatever it is you are on the other — logical, medicinal, remorseless. Maybe you are like those people who want to take away my incandescent light bulbs. What will it take to convince you that your perceptions are not the same as everybody else's?
Bonus literary reference:
Do you see my point? Incandescent means something. There is feeling and beauty in the concept that is missing — to the point of comedy — in the word "fluorescent."
Or maybe you are on the extreme end of the spectrum that has feeling and sensitivity to aesthetic details at one end and whatever it is you are on the other — logical, medicinal, remorseless. Maybe you are like those people who want to take away my incandescent light bulbs. What will it take to convince you that your perceptions are not the same as everybody else's?
***
Bonus literary reference:
Look, Mother, do you think I’m crazy about the warehouse? You think I’m in love with the Continental Shoemakers? You think I want to spend fifty-five years down there in that - - celotex interior! with -- fluorescent tubes?! Honest to God, I’d rather somebody picked up a crow-bar and battered out my brains -- than go back mornings! But I go! Every time you come in yelling that Rise and Shine! Rise and shine!! I think how lucky dead people are! But I get up. I go! For sixty-five dollars a month I give up all that I dream of doing and being ever!
"All right. I've read the entire Wikileaks dump. And there's nothing in it."
Overheard at Meadhouse.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Althouse in 1970.
Yes, it's me, age 19, sitting under a Norman-Mailer-for-Mayor poster:
(Enlarge.)
Just something I ran across as I work on restoring that photo archive. And yes, do the math. I'll be 60 soon. In less than 2 months. I can't think of anything to do about that.
(Enlarge.)
Just something I ran across as I work on restoring that photo archive. And yes, do the math. I'll be 60 soon. In less than 2 months. I can't think of anything to do about that.
Spooning with the robot pillow.
Funktionide Part II from eltopo on Vimeo.
Is it sad? I mean... I'm not asking if the blob itself is sad. But is it sad that there is — if there is — a need for things like this?
Standardized testing has embarrassed teachers into facing the fact that they've been grading kids for compliance and pleasing.
That's what I extract from this pretty garbled NYT op-ed. And by garbled I mean stuff like this:
ADDED: I'm told that the Week In Review pieces like this are properly referred to as news "analysis," and not "op-eds."
“Over time, we began to realize that many teachers had been grading kids for compliance — not for mastering the course material,” [middle school principal Katie] Berglund said. “A portion of our A and B students were not the ones who were gaining the most knowledge but the ones who had learned to do school the best.”....How did the word "exclusively" get into that last question? It seems obvious to me that schools should give achievement in learning the primary place it deserves and should also demand appropriate behavior. Students need to be decently well-behaved, diligent, and organized, but it's wrong to treat teacher's-pet-type students as if they are the best. That drives many smart kids into rebellion. And, frankly, it's likely to create unnecessary problems for lots of boys. And it doesn't do girls any favors either, since real careers aren't about handing in all the homework and pleasing the authority figure.
As test scores fast become the single and most powerful measurement by which educational outcomes are being judged, more schools might find themselves engaged in what has become a pivotal debate: Should students be rewarded for being friendly, prepared, compliant, a good school citizen, well organized and hard-working? Or should good grades represent exclusively a student’s mastery of the material?
ADDED: I'm told that the Week In Review pieces like this are properly referred to as news "analysis," and not "op-eds."
Madison needs to deal with its vermin - the geese.
At the Isthmus, Bill Lueders — remember him from last week? — seems disturbed by the proposal to kill the geese that are ruining our beautiful public lands.
Parks Division spokeswoman Laura Whitmore notes that the city is soliciting public input on goose management, after the brouhaha at Warner. (The eradication plan there is on hold pending further review.) One public hearing has already been held, on geese and golf courses, and another is planned, on goose management in general parklands.I'm sure the people who want to spare the geese will honk loudest, so I hope those of you who, like me, think the geese should be treated the way we treat rats will speak up too.
"We want everyone's opinion," she says, "not just a few."
Justice John Paul Stevens writes about the death penalty in the New York Review of Books.
The book under review is David Garland's "Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition." The review itself is much more of a straightforward summary of the book than the usual NYRB essay. Toward the end:
To be reasonable, legislative imposition of death eligibility must be rooted in benefits for at least one of the five classes of persons affected by capital offenses.That's all he says about the victims! They're already dead. As if making murder a heavily punished crime doesn't prevent some people from becoming victims. Recent research undermines the convenient old assumption that the death penalty has no deterrent effect. Stevens says nothing about that because, I suspect, Garland doesn't.
First, of course, are victims. By definition murder victims are no longer alive and so have no continuing interest.
Incandescent light bulbs.
Stock up!
UPDATE: Shining the harsh light of journalism on Arianna Huffington:
UPDATE: Shining the harsh light of journalism on Arianna Huffington:
The light bulbs are the first incongruity I spot waiting for Arianna Huffington in the photo-laden living room of her Brentwood home, the one she bought for $4.1-million (U.S.) as an infamous new divorcée in 1997. The bulbs are old-time incandescents, not the compact fluorescents you might expect of someone who ran for governor of California against Arnold Schwarzenegger with the slogan “the hybrid vs. the Hummer.”
"Normally when we think of happiness, we think of money and status, but Denmark teaches us the opposite lesson."
"There, you have a place where you are taxed to the mean. A cultural norm reminds everybody that they are no better than everybody else, so you're not going to choose your career path based on status. You're in a place where a garbage man makes as much as a lawyer. So what you have are 4 million people who excel at things like furniture design and architecture."
More from NPR.
More from NPR.
I thought we'd finally hit the year when efforts to use "tryptophan" in Thanksgiving jokes had ended.
But hoary old NPR is still purveying them. Christmas is coming up, so I'm steeling myself for jokes about how no one actually likes fruitcake.
Pay $1 million or Lady Gaga (and other celebs) won't do Twitter and Facebook anymore.
It's Digital Life Sacrifice.
"It's really important and super-cool to use mediums that we naturally are on."
Presidential biographer Edmund Morris to Bob Schieffer on "Face the Nation": "That's a fucked up question." [UPDATED: "That’s a bullshit question!"]
Schieffer's question was: "What would Teddy Roosevelt think of today’s politics?"
Cat Kenyan:
UPDATE: My original link goes to Politico, which records Morris as saying "That’s a f----- up question!" But here's the video and, although the bleep is there, it seems that Morris said "That’s a bullshit question!" That would correspond to what Marisa Tomei said:
Strangely, I was motivated to call bullshit on Morris and go on to discuss "bullshit" in that other movie ("Network").
“You keep asking these presentist questions,” said the Kenyan-born, British-accented historian.Kenyan-born...
“As the immortal Marisa Tomei said in 'My Cousin Vinny,' ‘That’s a f----- up question!'” Morris said, relishing over the word as network censors bleeped him out.Yeah, it's a fucked up question, but I bet Doris Kearns Goodwin would answer it. I mean, she'd whip out a juicy anecdote that would seem to answer it. Come on, Edmund, cast off your Kenyan-born, British-accented attitude and play the media game.
“You cannot pluck people out of the past and expect them to comment on what’s happening today,” he continued.
“I can only say that what he represented in his time is what we hope for in our presidents now, what we look for in our presidents now and what we’re increasingly disappointed by. He understood foreign culture, recognized the dignity of the United States. He was forceful yet dignified. And what I really feel these days is, we’ve become such an insular people.”Bullshit... as the immortal Peter Finch said in "Network."
Good evening... this is my last broadcast. Yesterday, I announced on this program that I was going to commit public suicide, admittedly an act of madness. Well, I'll tell you what happened: I just ran out of bullshit. Am I still on the air? I really don't know any other way to say it other than I just ran out of bullshit. Bullshit is all the reasons we give for living. And if we can't think up any reasons of our own, we always have the God Bullshit. We don't know why we're going through all this pointless pain, humiliation, decay, so there better be someone somewhere who does know. That's the God Bullshit. And then, there's the noble man bullshit — that man is a noble creature that can order his own world. Who needs God? Well, if there's anybody out there that can look around this demented slaughterhouse of a world we live in and tell me that man is a noble creature, believe me, that man is full of bullshit. I don't have anything going for me. I haven't got any kids. And I was married for 33 years of shrill, shrieking fraud. So I don't have any bullshit left. I just ran out of it, you see.More from Morris the
Morris went on to criticize the American people, who he said “are insensitive to foreign sensibilities, who are lazy, obese, complacent and increasingly perplexed as to why we are losing our place in the world to people who are more dynamic than us and more disciplined.”So... like... the terrorists? They do maintain more slim and toned bodies. Man, he just came out and called us fat! He ran out of bullshit!
UPDATE: My original link goes to Politico, which records Morris as saying "That’s a f----- up question!" But here's the video and, although the bleep is there, it seems that Morris said "That’s a bullshit question!" That would correspond to what Marisa Tomei said:
Strangely, I was motivated to call bullshit on Morris and go on to discuss "bullshit" in that other movie ("Network").
New Wikileakage — "a secret chronicle of the United States’ relations with the world in an age of war and terrorism."
The NYT passes along the "brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats."
¶ Gaming out an eventual collapse of North Korea: American and South Korean officials have discussed the prospects for a unified Korea, should the North’s economic troubles and political transition lead the state to implode. The South Koreans even considered commercial inducements to China, according to the American ambassador to Seoul. She told Washington in February that South Korean officials believe that the right business deals would “help salve” China’s “concerns about living with a reunified Korea” that is in a “benign alliance” with the United States.Much more at the link.
¶ Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of “Let’s Make a Deal.” Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in a group of detainees, cables from diplomats recounted. The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be “a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe.”
Hey, thanks to the person who bought the Shun Ken Onion Serrated 5-Inch Utility Knife and used my Amazon search box.
That knife costs $139.95. I don't have a knife like this myself, but I assume the reader knew what he or she wanted. And my point — my sharp point — is that the reader didn't pay anything extra for that knife he wanted, but I'm getting $9.80 of that. Think how cool it is that you can compensate me for my writing here if you just remember — when you're going to Amazon anyway, to buy something that you want to buy — to begin your search at my blog:
You don't have to come back to this post to find the box. There's also an Amazon search box in the sidebar. I don't want to be too annoying doing posts like this, but I would really appreciate it if regular readers who want to encourage me had it in their heads to go to Amazon through this blog. It really does encourage me!
You don't have to come back to this post to find the box. There's also an Amazon search box in the sidebar. I don't want to be too annoying doing posts like this, but I would really appreciate it if regular readers who want to encourage me had it in their heads to go to Amazon through this blog. It really does encourage me!
"I just wanted to let you guys know that the more replies you people post, the more business and the more hits and sales I get. My goal is NEGATIVE advertisement."
Cheating and enraging customers so they denounce you on the web... as a business model, thanks to Google.
Now, one reason the eyeglass business is playing this negative game so well is that people are Googling the brand names of eyeglass frames, and the negative comments against the company talk about how they believe they didn't get the brand they ordered. They say they got fakes. Let's think about what's going on here. Who buys expensive brand-name eyeglasses without trying them on? I bet most of these customers have tried them on — in local eyeglass stores. Then, instead of paying the price the shopkeeper wants, they go to the web to find a better deal. At that point, they are doing a search for a particular brand name. They see the price and jump at the notion that the local shopkeeper is cheating them. Aha! They think they're being smart when they are being very dumb.
If you read far enough into the (long) article, you get to the part where the reporter — David Segal — interviews the businessman — a guy named Vitaly Borker:
Online chatter about DecorMyEyes, even furious online chatter, pushed the site higher in Google search results, which led to greater sales....The linked NYT article begins with a story about a businessman who sounds like has crossed the line into making frauds and threats. The scheme fails if you get arrested! So strain out the vivid example that bulks up the article and imagine a business that just has crappy products and nasty customer service. Would that play Google so well? Should Google be saving these eyeglass customers from their own failure to check out the business before they order? They'd easily find the complaints.
[T]he owner of DecorMyEyes might be more than just a combustible bully with a mean streak and a potty mouth. He might also be a pioneer of a new brand of anti-salesmanship — utterly noxious retail — that is facilitated by the quirks and shortcomings of Internet commerce and that tramples long-cherished traditions of customer service, like deference and charm.
Now, one reason the eyeglass business is playing this negative game so well is that people are Googling the brand names of eyeglass frames, and the negative comments against the company talk about how they believe they didn't get the brand they ordered. They say they got fakes. Let's think about what's going on here. Who buys expensive brand-name eyeglasses without trying them on? I bet most of these customers have tried them on — in local eyeglass stores. Then, instead of paying the price the shopkeeper wants, they go to the web to find a better deal. At that point, they are doing a search for a particular brand name. They see the price and jump at the notion that the local shopkeeper is cheating them. Aha! They think they're being smart when they are being very dumb.
If you read far enough into the (long) article, you get to the part where the reporter — David Segal — interviews the businessman — a guy named Vitaly Borker:
“Look,” he says, grabbing an iPad off a small table. He types “Christian Audigier,” the name of a French designer, and “glasses” into Google. DecorMyEyes pops up high on the first page.
“Why am I there?” he asks, sounding both peeved and amazed. “I don’t belong there. I actually outrank the designer’s own Web site.”...
Despite the fear he has inspired, Mr. Borker doesn’t regard himself as a terror. He prefers to think of himself as the Howard Stern of online commerce — an outsize character prone to shocking utterances....
“People overreact,” he pshaws, often because they’re unaccustomed to plain speaking, New York-style. Anyway, he adds, if somebody messes with you, and you mess back, “how is that a threat?”...
“The customer is always right — not here, you understand?” he says, raising his voice. “I hate that phrase — the customer is always right. Why is the merchant always wrong? Can the customer ever be wrong? Is that not possible?”
The Christianist in the White House — he's President of Jesusland.
Instapundit turns the tables on the Democrats and, in the process links to a post I wrote 6 years ago — not because I was doing 6-years-ago political nostalgia yesterday, but because linking to an old post of mind called "About 'Jesusland'" was a way to get to Ken Layne's original "Jesusland" rantings (which are no longer to be found on his old website).
Bonus: Ben Folds sings "Jesusland." A nicely done video, which I'm linking rather than embedding because it starts with a commercial. I'm not sure what I think about that song. Something about a young guy looking judgmentally at his society seems pretentious and annoying... but isn't it that what Jesus did?
I've never had a problem with actual conservatives ... But I've got a big problem with Jesusland. If you want to worship the ghost of a jew from the Roman Empire, that's cool. Enjoy it! But when you people and your bizarre mystery cult claim the goddamned president as your prime convert who rules by the voices in his head, I call bullshit.That's Ken, not me. I add some commentary that may or may not have relevance to present-day politics.
***
Bonus: Ben Folds sings "Jesusland." A nicely done video, which I'm linking rather than embedding because it starts with a commercial. I'm not sure what I think about that song. Something about a young guy looking judgmentally at his society seems pretentious and annoying... but isn't it that what Jesus did?
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Photo blues.
Oh dear...
You know what that is? It's the first digital photograph I ever took. I'm uploading it to Flickr tonight along with 2,000+ other photographs from 2004 to 2005. These were all pictures I originally uploaded to Mac.com, before I started using Flickr. I just discovered that when Apple started Me.com, all the photographs on Mac.com stopped displaying. I can still download them, but then I need to re-upload them, and they will have different code at that point, which means every blog post that originally displayed those photographs will need to be redone.
I have to go through all the old posts to find the ones that had photographs, open them up for editing, and enter the new code for the old photographs. Part of the process will be figuring out which photos belong in the post, which will not be easy. Maybe you think it doesn't matter what's in the archive 5 or 6 years ago, but it matters to me. A lot.
I'm so annoyed at Apple for doing this. I've paid every year to have a Mac.com account, mainly only to preserve those old photo displays. I have sometimes thought of putting the pictures on Flickr so I can stop making those annual payments. At least now I can stop paying, but I'm disgusted that after making all those payments to Apple, it saw fit to wreck all that work of mine.
By the way, thanks for using my links — my Black Friday gift selections — to buy things on Amazon. It really is nice to get the support from readers. I'm saying this here in case you're wondering what that book on the table is. It's "Strong Opinions" — and if you buy it at that link, some of the money will pay me for tending this blog, including the massive — 20,000+ posts — archive. It also works to use this search box:
You know what that is? It's the first digital photograph I ever took. I'm uploading it to Flickr tonight along with 2,000+ other photographs from 2004 to 2005. These were all pictures I originally uploaded to Mac.com, before I started using Flickr. I just discovered that when Apple started Me.com, all the photographs on Mac.com stopped displaying. I can still download them, but then I need to re-upload them, and they will have different code at that point, which means every blog post that originally displayed those photographs will need to be redone.
I have to go through all the old posts to find the ones that had photographs, open them up for editing, and enter the new code for the old photographs. Part of the process will be figuring out which photos belong in the post, which will not be easy. Maybe you think it doesn't matter what's in the archive 5 or 6 years ago, but it matters to me. A lot.
I'm so annoyed at Apple for doing this. I've paid every year to have a Mac.com account, mainly only to preserve those old photo displays. I have sometimes thought of putting the pictures on Flickr so I can stop making those annual payments. At least now I can stop paying, but I'm disgusted that after making all those payments to Apple, it saw fit to wreck all that work of mine.
***
By the way, thanks for using my links — my Black Friday gift selections — to buy things on Amazon. It really is nice to get the support from readers. I'm saying this here in case you're wondering what that book on the table is. It's "Strong Opinions" — and if you buy it at that link, some of the money will pay me for tending this blog, including the massive — 20,000+ posts — archive. It also works to use this search box:
"That Fat Lip Might Give Obama Some Street Cred."
An NPR headline for a Scott Simon piece:
I wonder if having a larger scar wouldn't actually fortify President Obama's profile, as he contends with Kim Jong Il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Vladimir Putin. Imagine a president with a gnarly, vivid scar telling the rulers of China, "Nice country ya' got here. I'd hate to see something happen to it if you didn't stop foolin' around with the value of your currency. Know what I mean?"Uh... I think the reason he got 12 stitches was because they were very tiny stitches so there won't be a visible scar. But here's NPR trying to rise above its wimpy reputation.
The last football Saturday of the year.
If you've got something to say about it, say it here.
ADDED: And now, it's on to the Rose Bowl. But first... pick up that trash:
(Thanks to Chip Ahoy for animating my photo.)
"I have an old-fashioned rubber bicycle horn that I thought I'd stuff down into my junk before the pat-down."
"Hilarity ensues! Besides, anything that increases my junk profile has to be a good thing, right?"
No video of this actually happening at a real TSA groping at the link. Just some (genitalia-free) artwork.
No video of this actually happening at a real TSA groping at the link. Just some (genitalia-free) artwork.
"A U.S. Border Patrol spokesman says country singer Willie Nelson was charged with marijuana possession after 6 ounces was found aboard his tour bus in Texas..."
"Religion doesn't do policy. All my decisions were based on policy and so they should be..."
"... and you may disagree with those decisions but they were made because I genuinely believed them to be right."
Said Tony Blair, as if a religious person can think about what what he believes is right without religion being part of the idea of what is right. That Blair blur happened in a debate with Christopher Hitchens, who asked:
(Via Crack Emcee — "Kick Ass: You Believers Are Little Kim Jong-Ils.")
Said Tony Blair, as if a religious person can think about what what he believes is right without religion being part of the idea of what is right. That Blair blur happened in a debate with Christopher Hitchens, who asked:
"Is it good for the world to worship a deity that takes sides in wars and human affairs, to appeal to our fear and to our guilt — is it good for the world?...In the end, the audience got to vote on who won the debate, and Hitchens got 68% — 68% of those who would go to a debate — in Toronto — about whether or not religion is a force for the good.
"To terrify children with the image of hell ... to consider women an inferior creation. Is that good for the world?...
(Via Crack Emcee — "Kick Ass: You Believers Are Little Kim Jong-Ils.")
Remember "Sorry Everybody"?
It was all the rage just about exactly 6 years ago. Americans were apologizing to the world for reelecting George Bush. Remember these people, displaying their sweet faces in an adorable attempt to let the world know that lots of us Americans are so sorry.
"The threat was very real. Our investigation shows that Mohamud was absolutely committed to carrying out an attack on a very grand scale."
The NYT reports on an Oregon teenager's attempt to blow up fake explosives — given him by the FBI — that he thought were real. According to the FBI, he wanted to kill everyone who showed up for a Christmas tree lighting in Portland.
Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested at 5:40 p.m. Friday just after he dialed a cell phone that he thought would set off the blast but instead brought federal agents and police swooping down on him.ADDED: I already had the tag "Christmas bomber," so I used that again. There's a new spin on the "War on Christmas."
Yelling "Allahu Akbar!" — Arabic for "God is great!" — Mohamud tried to kick agents and police after he was taken into custody, according to prosecutors....
[T]he sting operation began in June after an undercover agent learned that Mohamud had been in regular e-mail contact with an "unindicted associate" in Pakistan's northwest, a frontier region where al-Qaida and Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents are strong....
Friday, November 26, 2010
"I am no fan of Ann Althouse, but I had to admit to a shudder of recognition when I read her criticism of liberals last week."
Says Maria Bustillos. She quotes this from me:
What is liberal about this attitude toward other people? You wallow in self-love, and what is it you love yourself for? For wanting to shower benefits on people… that you have nothing but contempt for.Then she says:
This may not be such a very good description of liberals in general but it is an excellent description of J.K. Rowling. In the “touching” climactic scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the house-elf Dobby has been “liberated” by, and now sacrifices himself to save, Harry Potter & co. The house-elves as depicted in the movies are horrifyingly pathetic, small, cringing, grateful; the sad, brave little creature Dobby literally expires with the name of Harry Potter on his lips. It’s like freedom is the gift of the chosen ones to bestow, and those thus benefited can die of gratitude and be “properly buried," which really, there is this long burial scene complete with Harry Potter and shovel. It’s a perfect illustration of the “liberal condescension” that conservatives are always yodeling about, and it made my hair stand on end.I haven't been following Harry Potter. Can anyone explain that?
If the individual mandate is unconstitutional, will the entire healthcare law be invalidated?
Judges Henry E. Hudson (in Virginia) and Judge Roger Vinson (in Florida) will rule on their case soon. Both of these judges were appointed by Republican Presidents. (The federal judge in Michigan who, in a case decided last month, found the mandate constitutional, was appointed by Bill Clinton.)
Assuming one of these judges says that Congress's power regulate commerce clause does not include a power to make private citizens buy insurance, what happens to the rest of the law? The law does not contain a severability clause. That is, it does not explicitly say what should happen to the rest of the law if part of it is stricken down.
Assuming one of these judges says that Congress's power regulate commerce clause does not include a power to make private citizens buy insurance, what happens to the rest of the law? The law does not contain a severability clause. That is, it does not explicitly say what should happen to the rest of the law if part of it is stricken down.
An earlier version of the legislation, which passed the House last November, included severability language. But that clause did not make it into the Senate version, which ultimately became law. A Democratic aide who helped write the bill characterized the omission as an oversight.Well, that's one hell of an oversight! I can certainly see why someone who wants the bill to survive would attempt to portray this as an oversight, but I don't think that's believable. The need for a severability clause is well-known and obvious.
Without such language, the Supreme Court, through its prior rulings, essentially requires judges to try to determine whether Congress would have enacted the rest of a law without the unconstitutional provisions.So the individual mandate is plainly not severable from at least some of the rest of the law.
The Justice Department, which represents the Obama administration, acknowledges that several of the law’s central provisions, like the requirement that insurers cover those with pre-existing conditions, cannot work unless both the healthy and the unhealthy are mandated to have insurance. Otherwise, consumers could simply buy coverage when they needed treatment, causing the insurance market to “implode,” the federal government asserts.
In a hearing last month, Judge Hudson remarked on the difficulty of determining Congress’s intent regarding a law with hundreds of disparate provisions. “This bill has more moving parts than a Swiss watch,” he said.The administration, in arguing for the constitutionality of the individual mandate, has stressed how crucial it is to the success of the entire reform, but that inherently works as an argument against severability.
Black Friday on the Althouse blog.
Okay, I can help you and you can help me. I write for you every day, and you don't have to give me anything. But if you're shopping anyway, a cut of the price you would pay anyway will go to me if you use the links below — which helpfully give you some Althouse-tested gift ideas. If you already know what you want to buy, you can use the Amazon search box in my sidebar and that too will work as a contribution to this blog — again, without raising the price to you. So show some cheap free love for Althouse and click through from here.
Althouse's favorite movie.
Meade's favorite movie.
The Meadhouse blender.
The Meadhouse way to make coffee.
The camera Althouse carries around all the time.
Althouse's favorite Nikon lens.
The chocolate Althouse eats every day.
A device Althouse uses for drawing with the computer.
The book Althouse most enjoyed reading this year.
Possibly the only movie we bothered to see in the theater this year.
The trekking poles we use all the time.
My small-but-nice hydrating backpack.
My too-much-information scale.
The Meadhouse trail stove.
The soil knife Meade planted over 1,000 bulbs with.
The newest old stuff from Meadhouse's favorite artist.
I love my iPad.
The iPhone I'm getting when my old iPhone dies.
Some memoirs I read and liked: Patti Smith, Keith Richards, Hitch, Bush, Franzen, Orwell ...
And one I will read: Mark Twain.
How we squish and heat our sandwiches.
4 new trucks Meade wants to put on AllenS's wish list.
A game for a young person.
A game I like to play.
The original version of the game they'll make me play, which I'm ordering right now, because the wood pieces will give me $22 worth of pleasure over the plastic pieces in the game we have in the house.
So let's get the vintage version of this game I loved as a kid.
The hiking shoes Althouse likes a lot.
The clogs Althouse keeps by the door to step into and then kick off as soon as she's in the car.
The Meadhouse salad spinner.
Althouse's noise-canceling headphones.
Althouse splurges on lip balm.
My all-time favorite TV-comedy.
The official Meadhouse chips.
The official Althouse crackers.
Where we sit.
The Althouse desk lamp.
Expensive, but this has helped me so much and made daily life so pleasurable.
It works for me: night and day creams.
What I picked out when I went perfume-shopping with Palladian.
What Palladian picked out for me based on my love of smoke-flavored things.
The fragrance I picked out long ago based initially on the shape of the bottle and which is actually really great if you like roses.
The Meadhouse drinking glasses.
The Althouse sketchbook.
Gift card!
Lotsa gift cards!
The Meadhouse coffee: espresso ground and whole bean.
Althouse's favorite movie.
Meade's favorite movie.
The Meadhouse blender.
The Meadhouse way to make coffee.
The camera Althouse carries around all the time.
Althouse's favorite Nikon lens.
The chocolate Althouse eats every day.
A device Althouse uses for drawing with the computer.
The book Althouse most enjoyed reading this year.
Possibly the only movie we bothered to see in the theater this year.
The trekking poles we use all the time.
My small-but-nice hydrating backpack.
My too-much-information scale.
The Meadhouse trail stove.
The soil knife Meade planted over 1,000 bulbs with.
The newest old stuff from Meadhouse's favorite artist.
I love my iPad.
The iPhone I'm getting when my old iPhone dies.
Some memoirs I read and liked: Patti Smith, Keith Richards, Hitch, Bush, Franzen, Orwell ...
And one I will read: Mark Twain.
How we squish and heat our sandwiches.
4 new trucks Meade wants to put on AllenS's wish list.
A game for a young person.
A game I like to play.
The original version of the game they'll make me play, which I'm ordering right now, because the wood pieces will give me $22 worth of pleasure over the plastic pieces in the game we have in the house.
So let's get the vintage version of this game I loved as a kid.
The hiking shoes Althouse likes a lot.
The clogs Althouse keeps by the door to step into and then kick off as soon as she's in the car.
The Meadhouse salad spinner.
Althouse's noise-canceling headphones.
Althouse splurges on lip balm.
My all-time favorite TV-comedy.
The official Meadhouse chips.
The official Althouse crackers.
Where we sit.
The Althouse desk lamp.
Expensive, but this has helped me so much and made daily life so pleasurable.
It works for me: night and day creams.
What I picked out when I went perfume-shopping with Palladian.
What Palladian picked out for me based on my love of smoke-flavored things.
The fragrance I picked out long ago based initially on the shape of the bottle and which is actually really great if you like roses.
The Meadhouse drinking glasses.
The Althouse sketchbook.
Gift card!
Lotsa gift cards!
The Meadhouse coffee: espresso ground and whole bean.
"Across the country, Four Loko 'vigil' parties have ... been held to say goodbye to the drink."
The FDA — with pressure short of an actual ban — has driven the product off the market. Four Loko combines one cup of coffee's worth of caffeine with 4 beers' worth of alcohol.
So, without Four Loko, what will you do? Let alcohol have its effect without the offsetting effect of a cup of coffee? Eh. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that you can drink coffee with your alcohol. I'm sure simpler approaches easily occur even to drunks. You could take a big swig out of a can of Red Bull or DoubleShotEspresso and top it up with vodka. Or you can do what I observed Ohio State fans doing here last month:
And, in honor of Black Friday, here's a Christmas present idea: a nice case of Jolt Caffeine Energy Gum. Or: Penguin Caffeinated Peppermints.
The fight against Four Loko has led many consumers – especially young ones – to defend their favorite party pop – and stock up....It's hard to believe the government gets involved in such matters. It's almost a kind of snobbery. It's not a classy product, by design. It's like Smucker's Goober. Some people think you seem like an idiot not being able to get peanut butter out of one jar and jelly out of another... and why are you eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches anyway? Why don't you make a sandwich with thinly sliced turkey and fresh greens? You... goober!
"Every time I drank a Four Loko, something terrible happened," one person told the website Gothamist at a tribute march to the drink in New York City. "And each time I grew from it."
Facebook groups, petitions and even YouTube videos have also sprouted up in support of the drink.
"Get the government out of my Loko!" wrote one petitioner.
So, without Four Loko, what will you do? Let alcohol have its effect without the offsetting effect of a cup of coffee? Eh. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that you can drink coffee with your alcohol. I'm sure simpler approaches easily occur even to drunks. You could take a big swig out of a can of Red Bull or DoubleShotEspresso and top it up with vodka. Or you can do what I observed Ohio State fans doing here last month:
They drink beer and guzzle 5-Hour Energy in berry and grape flavors. Run yourself down with alcohol and then pep yourself up again with that awful glop?See? I'm a snob. "Awful glop." But I'm not the government enacting my snobbery into law. I'm just insulting your taste, exercising my free speech. It seems to me that if I can sip French-press coffee with a single-malt Scotch, you should be able to slug Four Loko.
And, in honor of Black Friday, here's a Christmas present idea: a nice case of Jolt Caffeine Energy Gum. Or: Penguin Caffeinated Peppermints.
"I felt like Neo from 'The Matrix.' I began hearing voices and feeling powerful."
"They were asking about the difference between mom and mother. It was a sign."
I don't think that a mentally ill person facing a murder charge should be giving — be allowed to give? — a press interview. Perhaps I shouldn't be interested in reading this.
I don't think that a mentally ill person facing a murder charge should be giving — be allowed to give? — a press interview. Perhaps I shouldn't be interested in reading this.
His mother ... knocked on the door and asked him to go to the kitchen and pour water from a pot in which she was cooking three chickens. "I looked at these chickens lying dead in the pot and a voice told me it was a sacrifice. It was black magic," he said.
Brea left the chickens alone and went back to his room. When his mother asked why he did not do what she had asked, he said she spoke with a different voice.
"She had the voice of the demon. I opened the door with the dagger at my side and the sword," he said....
"To you it might sound silly, but in my culture demons are very real."
Thursday, November 25, 2010
At the First Ice Café...
... oh, it's cold...
... but we're not crusted over yet...
... share the last glow of warmth here tonight.
Irradiating food. Irradiating people.
Irradiation is a great way to improve food safety:
If we're overcautious to the point of irrationality about radiation, why then are we at all willing to let the government irradiate our bodies?
Bacteria, viruses, and everything else are all sterilized by the radiation. Ionizing radiation is used because it's high energy, and is extremely dangerous to living tissue.... [T]he food coming out the other end — be it bread, milk, meat, fruit, or cheese — is absolutely sterile and, if properly sealed, will last longer on your shelf than virtually anything else in the supermarket....But Americans are too freaked out by it:
The circular green logo along with the words "Treated with irradiation" are so terrifying to much of the American public that the process has been put virtually out of business. Most Americans would prefer to accept a few E. coli deaths....Even though there is absolutely no radiation in the food that we would buy:
Food irradiation... does not place radioactive material onto the food. The food is placed in the radiation field, and then it's removed. Run a Geiger counter over it, and it shows zero. Food that's been irradiated is not radioactive.But we're too scared of this radiation to use it to protect ourselves from the very real bacteria in food that can kill us.
If we're overcautious to the point of irrationality about radiation, why then are we at all willing to let the government irradiate our bodies?
In April, four scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, wrote a public letter to the White House warning that the government may have underestimated the dosage of ionizing radiation delivered to a person's skin from a backscatter machine by one or two orders of magnitude. The scientists, who have expertise in biochemistry, biophysics, oncology, and X-ray crystallography, pointed out that the government's estimate was based on radiation exposure for the entire body. During scanning, the majority of radiation will be focused on the surface of the body, meaning a more concentrated dose of radiation is delivered to the skin....
Ed Nickoloff, professor of radiology at Columbia University and chief hospital physicist at Columbia University Medical Center, says the data isn't yet clear either way. "At this point, until I knew more information, I'd tell people to take the pat-down," he says.Is it that we are not only irrational, but we are also irrational in our choice of what to be irrational about? I don't think so. Food radiation was something that businesses were permitted to do, but they stopped because we avoided buying the product. The government isn't asking us whether we want our bodies irradiated if we want to travel by plane. It's not like going to the grocery store and picking one package of hamburger instead of another. We still get our hamburger. We don't have a choice of flying with radiation or without radiation. The only choice the government gives us is not to fly or to accept a groping.
In the UK, a 15-year-old girl is arrested for burning the Koran — and posting a video of her conduct/speech on Facebook.
This is happening in the U.K.!
It is thought the girl, who lives in the Sandwell Council area, was allegedly filmed setting the booklet alight while other pupils watched.Booklet?
It is understood that the group who published that version of the Koran have since been to the school to talk to pupils.Were Korans distributed by public school officials? Under what circumstances? If you want a book to be treated with respect, don't hand it out free to teenagers. Maybe the school officials should be arrested.
Bob Badham, Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council cabinet member for education, said he had visited the school and believed the atmosphere was generally good among pupils. He added that he did not believe there was a "deeper problem" in the area.Is contempt for religious indoctrination a "deeper problem" that government should concern itself with? I think the deeper problem is that government officials in the U.K. seem to have lost touch with basic principles of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
These kids today are so afraid of looking stupid that they won't get serious, collectivize, and change the world — declaims Mark Ames, spittle flying.
Stephen Green (via Instapundit) calls attention to this Mark Ames article (from October) "The Rally to Restore Vanity: Generation X Celebrates Its Homeric Struggle Against Lameness." Green cherrypicks a remark that appears at the very end:
But let's look at Ames's whole article — and not be distracted by the terrible practice of spitting on libertarians. (I will not be side-tracked into blogging about what the lefties would say if the spit were flying in the opposite direction.)
Ames was reacting to the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert rally, which to him was the manifestation of the younger generation's need to keep an ironic distance from politics — an effort to avoid lameness. Ames wants young people to rediscover liberalism, which was "once devoted to impossible causes like ending racism and inequality, empowering the powerless, fighting against militarism, and all that silly hippie shit." (Ames himself is 45, by the way, too young to have been a real hippie, but older than the people he criticizes.)
Ames found the Rally to Restore Sanity "depressing and grotesque" — like "some kind of sick funeral party for Liberalism, in which Liberals are led, at last, by a clown." (Aw, come on, Ames. The liberals have been led by a clown before. Just not a very funny clown.) Ames is disgusted by the way the rally-goers take pride in how smart they are because they "don’t take themselves too seriously":
Ames has a great insight into "why so many Gen-X/Yers turned against Obama": "he made them look stupid." They took Obama seriously. They believed. And that set them up to look.... lame!
Ames writes many paragraphs trashing E. A. Hanks's "Dear The Left: A Breakup Letter." (She's Tom Hanks's daughter!) Hanks seems to want to separate herself from political movements and embrace something like libertarianism. Ames declaims:
Ames boldly palms this off as constitutional interpretation. The "more perfect union" in the Preamble isn't the reallocation of powers between the federal government and the state governments to deal with the problems that arose under the Articles of Confederation. No, Ames's big, serious lie — and you should worry that you're a dumb fuck if you don't believe it — is that the Constitution compels us to set aside our individual pursuit of happiness and dedicate ourselves to the collective.
Anytime anyone says anything libertarian, spit on them. Libertarians are by definition enemies of the state: they are against promoting American citizens’ general welfare and against policies that create a perfect union. Like Communists before them, they are actively subverting the Constitution and the American Dream, and replacing it with a Kleptocratic Nightmare.Green — without noting that the Ames's whole article is about lameness — snarks that spitting is "lame." Instapundit grimly labels it "The Descent of the Left."
But let's look at Ames's whole article — and not be distracted by the terrible practice of spitting on libertarians. (I will not be side-tracked into blogging about what the lefties would say if the spit were flying in the opposite direction.)
Ames was reacting to the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert rally, which to him was the manifestation of the younger generation's need to keep an ironic distance from politics — an effort to avoid lameness. Ames wants young people to rediscover liberalism, which was "once devoted to impossible causes like ending racism and inequality, empowering the powerless, fighting against militarism, and all that silly hippie shit." (Ames himself is 45, by the way, too young to have been a real hippie, but older than the people he criticizes.)
Ames found the Rally to Restore Sanity "depressing and grotesque" — like "some kind of sick funeral party for Liberalism, in which Liberals are led, at last, by a clown." (Aw, come on, Ames. The liberals have been led by a clown before. Just not a very funny clown.) Ames is disgusted by the way the rally-goers take pride in how smart they are because they "don’t take themselves too seriously":
That’s why they’re following a clown like Stewart, whose entire political program comes down to this: not being stupid, the way the other guys are stupid–or when being stupid, only stupid in a self-consciously stupid way, which is to say, not stupid. That’s it, that’s all this is about: Not to protest wars or oligarchical theft or declining health care or crushing debt or a corrupt political system or imperial decay—nope, the only thing that motivates Liberals to gather in the their thousands is the chance to celebrate their own lack of stupidity! Woo-hoo!It's a liberal trope that I've been following over the past week, after Isthmus reporter Bill Lueders wrote a piece called "The Triumph of Stupidity," in which he triumphed over getting UW polisci professor to say the voters are "pretty damn stupid." It's that "What's the Matter with Kansas?" notion that liberals have — that people who don't vote for liberal candidates are too dumb to know where their own interests lie. Ames is looking at the other side of that phenomenon: Liberals themselves are caught up in their self-image of not being the stupid ones, and, Ames is saying, this obsession of theirs undercuts the old-time, serious liberal project of remaking the world in pursuit of big, broad ideals like equality.
Ames has a great insight into "why so many Gen-X/Yers turned against Obama": "he made them look stupid." They took Obama seriously. They believed. And that set them up to look.... lame!
Ames writes many paragraphs trashing E. A. Hanks's "Dear The Left: A Breakup Letter." (She's Tom Hanks's daughter!) Hanks seems to want to separate herself from political movements and embrace something like libertarianism. Ames declaims:
If the ruling class has enormous amounts of money and power and collectivizes in a variety of billionaires’ unions and special interests unions, and your answer is, “I’ll go it alone, at least I won’t look stupid” then you’re just fucking stupid.So it is all about not looking stupid? Anyway, after much verbiage, which I'm skipping, including the part about Bob Dylan — marvel at my restraint! — he gets to his point, which is that liberals need to cast individualism aside and get collectivized, even though that's not distanced and ironic and unserious:
Collective action is the only possible way to change shit. Large numbers of collectivized nobodies rallying to demand what they want–a better cut of the pie...Pie! Michelle said we could have pie!
... and a better world to live in. It’s the only thing that power-elites fear and the only way to get them to negotiate.... You’ll have to stomach being around people who are lame, and who say lame things, and you’ll feel lame—so you’ll have to decide which is lamer: the fear of being lame, or forming an alliance with people lamer than you in order to struggle against people far meaner, far more greedy and destructive than the lame people you hate—people who have no qualms about being lame when they collectivize, so long as they destroy you and grab everything they want.In other words, don't mock the Tea Party. Get out there. Be like them. Be mockable. That's the first of 3 prescriptions Ames ends with. The third is the one Green quoted: Anathematize libertarians. (The metaphor is to spit.) And the reason for anathematizing libertarians is Ames's second prescription: liberalism needs a big, serious goal to collectivize about and that goal is the redistribution of wealth:
[P]eople need money. Then if they have money, they need Life. Then they might be interested in “ideals” set out in the contract that this country is founded on. Ever read the preamble to the Constitution? There’s nothing about private property there and self-interest. Nothing at all about that. It’s a contract whose purpose is ... a “more Perfect Union”—that’s “union,” as in the pairing of the words “perfect” and “union”—not sovereign, not states, not local, not selfish, but “union.” And that other purpose at the end of the Constitution’s contractual obligations: promote the “General Welfare.” That means “welfare.” Not “everyone for himself” but “General Welfare.” That’s what it is to be American: to strive to form the most perfect union with each other, and to promote everyone’s general betterment. That’s it. The definition of an American patriot is anyone promoting the General Welfare of every single American, and anyone helping to form the most perfect Union—that’s “union”, repeat, “Union” you dumb fucks.Ames is still playing on his audience's fear of being the stupid ones — even as he spews some crazy shit he wants us to hear as brilliant. Don't be a dumb fuck, believe me when I tell you: This individualism is a trick the billionaires are playing on you. Come together, live as One.
Ames boldly palms this off as constitutional interpretation. The "more perfect union" in the Preamble isn't the reallocation of powers between the federal government and the state governments to deal with the problems that arose under the Articles of Confederation. No, Ames's big, serious lie — and you should worry that you're a dumb fuck if you don't believe it — is that the Constitution compels us to set aside our individual pursuit of happiness and dedicate ourselves to the collective.
Food writers hate Thanksgiving because they have to write once again about basically the same meal.
Hey. I see what you did there. You had to write about Thanksgiving again, so you wrote about hating to have to write about Thanksgiving again. What will you do next year? Write about writing about having to write about Thanksgiving again? You're not going to be able to keep up that meta game.
"This is the time" — I hope you're thankful.
I hope you made it to your destination okay. Or, if you're staying home, that you're warm and cozy. Feel free to eat pie: Michelle Obama has given us a dispensation to eat pie.
I liked this shopping-for-Thanksgiving story Chip Ahoy told in the comments at last night's Lake Dusk Café:
Well, maybe I once made a pie — maybe even 2 pies — on the Wednesday. Did I tell you it's officially okay in America today to eat pie? Our national mother has said we may.
I liked this shopping-for-Thanksgiving story Chip Ahoy told in the comments at last night's Lake Dusk Café:
The grocery was crowded tonight. Everybody is in high spirits and eager to engage. I encountered two guys picking out a GIGANTIC turkey that barely fit into their cart. The turkey was frozen solid. I remarked on its size and they were filled with glee and good cheer, pleased with their choice. I suggested they might consider an ostrich and they laughed like they just met a hilarious stranger. I did not have the heart to tell them there is no way that thing is going to thaw by tomorrow. No way. I can see it all now; they will cook it anyway. Guy are like that. The outside will be charred and the inside will still be ice. The sequence of events is set, there is no escaping the inevitability, their turkey will be a complete disaster. Years on they will recall tomorrow as a favorite Thanksgiving coming of age fiasco story.Are you cooking anything? Or did you cook everything already? I'm told real feast-masters do the Thanksgiving cooking before Thanksgiving, and by that standard, I've never cooked a real Thanksgiving dinner. I'm thankful that I've made it nearly to the age of 60 without ever going on the guilt-trip that my Thanksgivings were not sufficiently Thanksgiving-y because I didn't start the preparations days in advance.
Well, maybe I once made a pie — maybe even 2 pies — on the Wednesday. Did I tell you it's officially okay in America today to eat pie? Our national mother has said we may.
Michelle Obama has granted permission for all of us to totally forget anything she says about eating 'cause it's Thanksgiving. It's okay [today] to go ahead and have pie. It was in her interview with Barbara Walters. It's Thanksgiving, eat whatever you want. But on Friday you gotta get back to what Michelle says you have to do.Oh, yeah, she said:
"Don't worry about how much you eat. Just enjoy it.... This is the time. Have pie."This is the time. Our time to turn the page on the abstemious diets of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new appetite to the piled-high platters we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the food we love. The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. We face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of our own limitations. But we also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide pie for the sick and pie to the jobless; this was the moment when the tightening of the belts began to slow and our gluttony began to increase; this was the moment when we ended our self-denial and secured our yummies and restored our image as the chubbiest humans on earth. This was the moment—this was the time—when we came together to remake this great dinner so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals. Thank you, God. And God bless the United States of America.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
"It's kind of like a turkey version of 'Dancing With the Stars,' except the stakes for the contestants was much higher."
"Only one pair would survive and win the big prize: life."
Obama turkey pardoning joke with a hint of cultural relevancy and a possibly accidental implication of ill will toward Bristol Palin. Hey. Wait a minute. That reminds me...
Memories!
Obama turkey pardoning joke with a hint of cultural relevancy and a possibly accidental implication of ill will toward Bristol Palin. Hey. Wait a minute. That reminds me...
Memories!
"To tell you the truth, I'm not 100 percent certain America is made up of states. We might be living in a fiefdom, for all I know."
"Am I spelling that right? 'Wisconsin.' It looks weird written out.... Ladies and gentlemen, isn't it time you elected someone who only learned five minutes ago that there are three branches of government, not 14?... Russ Feingold could point out Washington, D.C. with his eyes closed, and I have never quite grasped the difference between a map and a light-up globe. That is the difference I bring to the race, and that is the kind of leadership we need.... What we don't need is Russ Feingold, who is a Democrat capable of conjugating verbs and composing thoughts in sentence form. I'll be honest, I have absolutely no clue what I've been saying here this entire time. What is time? Where am I? Who are you? How do telescopes work, and why am I writing this right now? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Because I am an outsider and Russ Feingold is a man with dark hair. Furthermore, overspending, the left-wing media, tax cuts, class warfare, Muslims, Obamacare, Nancy Pelosi, corporate giveaways, socialism, Nancy Pelosi. Washington, D.C. Voter-people of Wisoncassinn, my name is Rob Jameson, and I want to be your congressman or Parliament or surgeon general or whatever the hell it is I'm running for. Thank you."
Just ran across that Onion shredding of Ron Johnson. It's really funny. Especially now. The voters are pretty damn stupid.... ha ha ha.
Just ran across that Onion shredding of Ron Johnson. It's really funny. Especially now. The voters are pretty damn stupid.... ha ha ha.
"Is it just me, or is George Bush the worst President in the history of the United States?"
UPDATE: The video went dead. It showed the comedian Neil Hamburger saying that line, listening while the audience cheered and hooted anti-Bushily, and then saying: "Which makes it all the harder to understand why his son, George W. Bush, is in fact the best president we’ve ever had." Ha ha. I love that.
The iPhone captures an antique look.
"The essence of Progressivism, the narrative behind the Wisconsin Idea, is that the 'experts' on Bascom Hill would instruct their lessers..."
"... especially legislators popularly elected by the rabble, to scrape the manure off their boots before they enter the State Capitol.”
Says David Blaska, having his say on the Charles Franklin dust-up.
For nonWisconsinites: "Bascom Hill" means the University of Wisconsin—Madison and "The Wisconsin Idea" means this.
Says David Blaska, having his say on the Charles Franklin dust-up.
For nonWisconsinites: "Bascom Hill" means the University of Wisconsin—Madison and "The Wisconsin Idea" means this.
"This is the old 'bitter clingers' (or 'What's the Matter With Kansas?') argument reduced to utter incoherence."
James Taranto quotes Gov. Ed Rendell...
By the way, I love Taranto's Best of the Web. This, from the same link, had me in hysterics:
[P]eople don't always vote on logical reasons. Emotion drives voters particularly when they have reason to be angry and frustrated. If you lost your job or lost your house or lost your 401k, you had every reason to be angry and frustrated and when you are, you have a tendency to blame the people who are in office...... and — via me — UW polisci professor Charles Franklin:
I'm not endorsing the American voter... They're pretty damn stupid.Taranto — being much nicer to Franklin than Rush Limbaugh was — includes the self-defense Franklin wrote in the comments to my blog:
... [V]oters embraced Ron Johnson before they knew much about him. . . . The race wasn't about specific details of Johnson vs Feingold, it was a rejection of Democrats more or less regardless of what voters knew about the GOP candidate... [D]espite not knowing the details of Johnson's policy positions, the voters did NOT make a mistake in choosing Johnson as the more conservative candidate and certain to be more favorable to cutting government....Taranto finds this incoherent: "In other words, the electorate was smart. So why did Franklin call them stupid?"
***
By the way, I love Taranto's Best of the Web. This, from the same link, had me in hysterics:
Such as: What the Heck Is Tomosynthesis?
"Breast Tomosynthesis on Verge of U.S. Approval, but Questions Linger"--headline, DotMed.com, Nov. 24
Matt Bai identifies "the central theme of Mr. Obama’s presidency: America’s faltering confidence in the ability of government to make things work."
He begins with the example of the the new get-naked-or-groped TSA policy and goes on:
From stimulus spending and the health care law to the federal response to oil in the Gulf of Mexico, Mr. Obama has continually stumbled...I add my longtime blog tag "Obama stumbles" to this post.
... blindly, it seems — into some version of the same debate, which is about whether we can trust federal bureaucracies to expand their reach without harming citizens or industry....Bai notes that during the Reagan and Clinton years, America turned away from "the era of big government," but then:
[T]he unraveling of the second Bush administration and the 2008 election... persuaded a lot of long-dispirited liberals that their philosophy, and not simply their party, had been restored.What a delusion!
"The Most Hilarious Piece You'll Ever Read About Gays in the Military."
Choire Sicha points at a really, really bad effort at satire:
D.C. comedy site "The Daily Caller" has a hilarious piece today, extremely Swiftian and sophisticated in its humor and irony! It is by a former Tennessee District Attorney, named Joe Rehyansky. It goes like this: "I have never encountered my eminently sensible proposal, one that protects the patriotic urges of some homosexuals as well as the national interest on the basis of 'force readiness' arguments which should govern the thinking of those charged with implementing the defense of our country: Lesbians should be allowed to serve, gay men (hereafter 'gays') should not."...
"Obama's looking weak for re-election in 2012."
According to a new McClatchy-Marist poll:
Nearly half of his own base — 45 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents — want someone to challenge him for the Democratic nomination...The strategy for Obama is obvious: Make more liberals!
And, assuming he wins re-nomination, barely more than 1 in 3 voters, or 36 percent, said they'll definitely vote for him, while nearly half, 48 percent, said they'll definitely vote against him....
Among groups lining up against Obama early:
Whites, by a margin of 57-27Those planning definitely to vote for him rather than against him:
- Men, 55-31
- Independents, 50-30
- Midwesterners, 51-35
- Southerners, 54-32
- Westerners, 47-41
- Minorities, by a margin of 57-28
- Northeasterners, 39-36
- Liberals, 74-17
"[T]he very essence of old-line Democratic feminism is to reject feminine appeal."
Claims Glenn Reynolds, responding to Elizabeth Wurtzel who calls Democrats "total morons for not finding their own hot mama."
Hey! What about Hillary? She'slikable hot enough.
Hey! What about Hillary? She's
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Bristol Palin: "Going out there and winning ... would be like a big middle finger to all the people out there that hate my mom and hate me."
"Fox News Commentators Caught On Camera Mocking Sarah Palin's Show."
Interesting clip, but I note that there are 5 commentators, and 3 sit silently while 2 do all the talking. The 3 are all men. The 2 are women. I'm picking up a real female-against-female vibe in this clip. It's not just what the women say and how they say it, it's the way the men sit back and maintain steely silence.
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