Because I'm busy.
1. Presto: Some divine magician is at work in England, because Mark Steyn's column has been made to disappear from that country.
2. The Spirit of Radio: Rush Limbaugh is still a piece of shit.
3. Kid Gloves: ParrotLine gets a grip on Clownhall; let's hope he remembers to wash his hands before handling food or smoking.
4. A
5. Something For Nothing: Kieran Healy rips into the argument that higher Conservative birthrates means an Emerging Conservative Majority. As usual, comments are good. Jim Harrison's is so good I have to quote it:
Quite apart from its possible benefit for their political prospects, many conservatives promote population growth. Some of this boosterism for fertility is theocratic (Be Fruitful and Multiply!) and some of it is based on a secular but utopian faith in the limitless ability of technology to meet any level of need (the Caucasian Cargo Cult). In the not very long run, I think reality is going to have something to say about the feasibility of this sort of thing.
Incontinent breeders will be our undoing, no matter what the libertarian and conservative techno-delusionists may say to the contrary. The Green Revolution has hit the point of diminishing returns (though the advent of Frankenfood has made the opposite conclusion appear true, for now). How many billions are there now on earth? Seven or Eight? Soon Malthusian reality will hit like a ton of bricks.
Anyway, comments are so good that even The Crooked Timber Reactionary Troll (Tacitus Stuffy-Gasbag Division), Sebastian Holsclaw, has something useful to say.
6. Vital Signs: I haven't been happy with the content or effort of what I've previously written on the Danish cartoon mess. How to be in solidarity with the Danes without being "Christopher Hitchens" about it? In other words, unlike Hitchens I will not throw in my lot with a bunch of fascists like Malkin & Coulter nor with a bunch of crypto-fascists like the Neo-conmen. Well, elementropy-reader Vermonster sent me this link and.. and within it is the answer.
Zizek in the Times! Finally, a non-pathological case for atheism vis-a-vis the Muslim reactionaries. Contrast the tone and substance of Zizek's argument with that of Hitchens: Zizek is a reasonable atheist where Hitchens is ..well, basically, a fundamentalist atheist; Hitchens would match Muslim Fundamentalist atrocities tit for tat, and what's worse, he makes common-cause with Christian and Jewish fundamentalists in the process.
7. New World Man: There's a continuum of attitudes to technology. Techno-delusionist fucktards were mentioned above, their antithesis being, oh, super-luddist anarchists like John Zerzan. People in the middle, who are skeptical of tech-for-its-own-sake slant, of damn-the-consequences "innovation", of we-can-fix-all-problems delusion, can still appreciate when technology does come through for humanity, as it appears it might if this story is to be believed. Could be a breakthrough.
8. Red Sector "A": Death Squads lately and now an Air War. Spreading Freedom is so much fun!
9. Entre Nous: I agree with this. I'm really sick of people like Hitchens, and his fourth-rate knock-offs like Totten, playing games with the dialectic. Anti-war people (and, for that matter, environmentalists) are only "reactionary" if your version of the Left and Right of History is frozen in 1848.
10. Circumstances: Ok, the people who threaten kids should have the book thrown at them, but Gilliard had to throw-in with them those who destroy, or threaten to destory, property (often of corporations). Please. Though some may indeed sometimes be the same people the point is that the former is an egregious crime while the other is petty and, often, against the most deserving of victims. This sort of post is par for the course for a propertarian but I expect more from Gilliard.
11. A Passage To Bangkok: Look! You can win a trip to nab your own Third World sex slave with Nick Pistoff! Yes, she'll suck your cock for considerably less than this woman's asking price, and as a bonus you'll be saving her from the horrible sweatshop work that, you'll recall, Kristoff's Free Trade Rocks! advocacy insists is good for her and her country. Gotta love that coercion-desperation model of production-consumption without which international capitalism could not function and Nick Kristoff could not get laid.
But remember, if you really want some guilt-free, Free Trade Rocks! go-go bar pussy, hitch a ride with digamma next time he goes. Word is that when digamma walks into the bar with a wad of propertarian dinero, it's to choruses "me love you long time" while Kristoff usually elicits the more depressing "bad dye job, no pussy for you!"
12. The Camera Eye: Indiana Jones 4 is greenlighted again and might actually get made. On the other hand, the article mentions Spielberg planning to do a biopic of Abraham Lincoln. Starring Liam Neeson. Uh, no. Please don't. Not unless you're going to remake this version of the 16th President's life, the only one ever made that got his character right. And even if Spielberg did remake it, Neeson, who is legitimately great, still can't top Sam Waterston, who was perfect for the role. Presidents make for some difficult casting. Remember what Oliver Stone did to Nixon by casting Anthony Hopkins -- also legitimately great but there ill-suited -- as the jowl-quivering old ratbag. Would that he had chosen Dan Hedaya.
13. Beneath, Between & Behind: They squeal and scurry; they're everywhere! Rats, that is: Glenn Greenwald plays Orkin Man to the moral vermin of the blogosphere, Jeff Goldstein being the Great King Rat of the targeted horde. With strychnine-convulsions and seriously thinking about gnawing his leg off to escape the trap, Goldstein in response wheezes out this cheesy reply:
Because that’s what he’s after: influence.
And of course, Power. In fact, just about everything Glenn writes of late is intended to augment his newfound power as memetic superstar to the administration’s detractors.
Squeak squeak! Aside the stench of envy here, there's also more than a trace of hypocrisy from Pajama's Media member Goldstein, who solicits Instayokel and Hatted Hack links almost as much as he fixates on cock. Sure, Glenn Greenwald is whoring for influence while Jeff Goldstein has been such a busy rat reworking the dolchstosslegende presumably for only his own benefit. Whatever.
Also among Greenwald's targets is one of the Powertools, who dug up a post-Brown John Birch Society slogan, took out "Earl Warren" and replaced it with "Ruth Bader Ginsberg," and presented it to his rodentine audience as a bit of major profundity.
14. Open Secrets: Jerry Falwell gets sectarian, but that's par for the course.
15. Losing It: In the middle of an otherwise fairly offensive post, one Lewis Fein fairly appraises the much-dread Cathy Seipp, which reminded me to add her, along with her porn-critic, Jewish Fundamentalist nutjob (and Dennis Prager stalker) friend Luke Ford, to the enemies list.
Seipp's been busy. Here she makes the fantastically witty observation that Arianna Huffington might be dingy. She pats herself on the back, Instapundit-, See-I-Am-Really-Independent-style, because she thinks Big Love is not the moral abomination that other conservatives consider it to be. Her general themes of self-pity and resentment shine in this post, where she complains that Muslims have been "awarded protected person-of-color status", while Israelis, she alleges, have not. Curiously, she then posts childhood pictures of her very blonde self, presumably to show how "dark" she too is and was, and thus how worthy of "protection", too. Finally, Ms. Seipp provides readers with a real treat: a stern reminder that she disregards all criticism, constructive or otherwise. How's that for certitude?
posted by RETARDO MONTALBAN @ 6:53 AM
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