The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Having Persevered Through Those Days of Horse Drawn Computers . . .’

Posted on | May 14, 2012 | 47 Comments

Oh, you were one of the lucky ones who could afford a horse to pull your computer! When I was starting out, we had to pull our computer by hand — uphill! — to work every morning at dawn, then we’d blog all day in Fortran or Cobol, using an awl and a mallet on our punch-cards.

Weren’t none of this here fancy “electronics” back in the old days. We learned our craft on coal-fired computers. Only supervisors at the plant had the fancy high-tech kerosene-burning models.

Little boys and girls were hired to sweep up the chads from the punch-cards, and feed ’em into the stove what heated the Blog Factory . . .

Well, I remember it like it was yesterday, but it’s a sho-nuff wonder that was all the way back in aught-one.

Or was it aught-two? Anyhow, it was near the turn of the century, and folks would toil 12, 14, 16 hours a day, seven days a week. Didn’t have any fancy “PayPals” or “BlogAds” back then.

No sir, bloggers were paid in scrip, at piecework rates, and they’d trade ’em in down at the company store where Old Man Reynolds sold ’em some moldy bread and maggot-infested pork — and they were happy to get it, too! Times were hard back then, after the Dot-Com Bubble swole up and busted. Programmers were living in hobo camps down by the railyard, huddled around bonfires of burning copies of The Industry Standard every night. During the day, you’d see ’em on the street corners, peddling worthless stock options they’d taken in lieu of salary at startups that went bust in the Crash.

Then the War came, and every patriotic blogger enlisted in the Fighting Keyboardist Brigade. Boys came home from the blog-wars all gimped-up, and some of ’em were never quite the same. Reckon that’s what happened to Ol’ Crazy Charley . . .

What? . . . Oh, never mind, kid. You never heard of him, and it don’t hardly matter no how. You’d have to understand there used to be a guy name of Rather, back during the War Years. People got so confused they thought Howard Dean should be president one day, and then the next day you’d turn around and they was claimin’ John Kerry should be president! Anyway there used to be things called “GIF” files . . .

Never mind, son.

My point was, that war done things to people — messed up their minds — and so when you see Old Crazy Charley staggering around with his face all covered with Cheeto dust, ranting about “Belgian fascists” and “Greek Nazis” and so forth, try not to mock and point fingers and make jokes about him, like those mean kids do. The war messed up old Charley’s mind, and then he got obsessed with Pamela Geller, and next thing you know . . . Cheetos.

Or go ask Old Dan Collins, he’ll tell you about it.

UPDATE: Welcome, Old Man Reynolds readers! It may be necessary to explain the referents: Old Ed Morrissey blogged about that spry young whippersnapper Jonah Goldberg, inspiring me to Crotchety Geezer mode, which offended somebody . . . . But danged near everything offends somebody nowadays, it seems. As to Crazy Charley, them there Daedalus fellers can explain it, if anybody can.

UPDATE II: “Gold! They’s GOLD in them thar blawgs!”

UPDATE III: “He’s done told it like it was, fer sure!” Back in the old days, when a man’s word was his bond, and a neighbor would always share a link or two with a feller.

 

 


Category: Blogging, History

Jessica Jung: “It Falls To Me To Make Obama’s Throw Seem Masculine.”

Posted on | May 14, 2012 | 7 Comments

by Smitty

Via Twitchy
A girl who looks like this:

Cute if you appreciate Asian loveliness.

Throws like this:Wow, I hope that was intentional.

Category: humor, Rule 5

Separated At Birth? Einstein and Santana

Posted on | May 14, 2012 | 5 Comments

by Smitty

via Althouse

Incidentally, one of Santana’s signature hits, Oye Como Va is actually a Tito Puente cover.

Category: Music

Edward Klein Was On Hannity On The Drive Home

Posted on | May 14, 2012 | 7 Comments

by Smitty

I had Hannity on Sirius XM while driving home today, and Klein was on, pushing The Amateur.

Typically, these tell-all books don’t do much for me. Racey tales of he-said-she-said that don’t amount to much. In the segment I heard, though, Klein related to having 3.5 hours of taped Jeremiah Wright interview. Purportedly, Wright’s acquaintance with the underside of the bus in 2008 was not a happy one. The references to BHO’s spiritual development could prove highly explosive in bitter, cling-on circles. That Billy Jeff called Barack an amateur, the source of the title for the book, is less interesting. What else is WJC going to do? Clinton provides a kind of political Seinfeldian comedy of manners, where the main interest is in the tension between supporting the sitting Democrat President on the

right hand, while reaching around to stab repeatedly with the left.

Over at The Tatler, Stephen Kruiser  picks up on British reporting on another angle in Klein’s book: the Oprah/Michelle tension.

Still, the fact remains that [BHO] was propelled to a landslide win by little more than a cult of celebrity that Oprah and the MSM conferred upon him. If you disagree I will gladly wait to hear any recitation of POTUS-worthy accomplishments he had prior to 2008 you can point out.

It looks like Doug Ross is maintaing a list, which will have to do until Hot Air gets a master Obamaturism list published.

The Obama Administration is morphing into some vast, reptilian beast in a Sword & Sorcery flick which has taken enough damage from the attacking characters to be either royally pissed or mortally wounded. Said beast is entering into a dangerous ‘thrash mode’, where some adventurers are going to get laid out. Whether or not the beast is stricken beyond recovery remains to be seen; Valerie Jarrett is rumored to be a 17th level anti-Cleric with Cthulhu on speed dial. Don’t think this book by Klein spells the end.

Update: Nice Deb has the audio.

Category: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton

Rebecca Traister’s Idiocy: Too Late for National Offend a Feminist Week? UPDATE: She Keeps Losing Arguments With the Voices in Her Head

Posted on | May 14, 2012 | 24 Comments

Instpundit brutally pimp-slaps a Washington Post columnist who evidently doesn’t understand that a succubus, by definition, cannot be “sex-averse.” Alas, National Offend a Feminist Week ends on Mother’s Day, and I didn’t see Rebecca Traister’s column (linked at Althouse) until the annual festival of patriarchal oppression had elapsed.

Sigh.

If only there were some good reason to bend the rules . . .

 




 

UPDATE: Who am I kidding, huh?

There may be other work to be done today — work for which I might actually get paid — but even if nobody hits my tip jar, this verbose bimbo is gonna get smacked around so bad, she’ll wish she’d never even thought about writing that witless screed. Just give me a few minutes to skim through and find the proper angle of attack. While you’re repeatedly hitting the “refresh” button in eager anticipation of the forthcoming viciously misogynistic updates, however . . .

C’mon: $5 or $10 to make it worth my while? Because nothing would so infuriate Rebecca Traister as to know that a shameless capitalist blogger is getting paid to heap more ridicule on her.

UPDATE II: While you’re waiting for me to unleash the hounds of patriarchal hell on Rebecca Traister, let’s point out that embittered humorless feminists are not a stereotype. They’re the unspeakably grim reality that is Michelle Goldberg on MSNBC:

Donald Douglas at American Power: “I’ve written about Michelle Goldberg many times. I was literally sickened when I read her book a few years back, which is a global manifesto for infanticide.”

UPDATE III: Still locking in coordinates for the targeted barrage. While you wait — and c’mon, $5 or $10 — I’ll provide you the guaranteed antidote to Viagra, Michelle Goldberg and Rebecca Traister in a 2008 “Blogging Heads TV” colloquy:

In their spare time, Goldberg and Traister probably volunteer at the local abortion clinic, taking turns plunging knives through the hearts of any infants who manage to survive the procedure.

UPDATE IV: OK, now working feverishly on the main response, and thanks to Shelly in New Mexico for hitting the tip jar. The rest of y’all, c’mon: $5 or $10, and I’ll try to earn it.

Meanwhile, ask yourself: Why can’t Michelle Goldberg or Rebecca Traister ever find anything to say about a case in which police are accused of ignoring pedophile sex-traffickers?

UPDATE V: Having pored over Traister’s self-consciously “intellectual” essay – studded with SAT words and other such aren’t-we-so-smart advanced-placement gestures – I see exactly what Professor Althouse meant by “a silly collection of words.”

There isn’t really an argument, except between Traister and her selected strawmen, or perhaps among the screeching voices inside Rebecca’s demon-filled head. (“My name is Legion” – somewhere, a herd of swine awaits.) Her intent is to celebrate the humor of various other liberals, to whom she attributes an aptitude she conspicuously lacks herself. No one has ever accused Rebecca Traister of being intentionally funny and, if “the personal is political,” her politics is either intensely secretive or utterly empty. Careful observers of Traister’s work cannot help but notice how guarded she is about herself, seeking always to have us focus on whatever idols she reveres or scapegoats she demonizes.

There is something about Rebecca that Rebecca doesn’t like (a self-loathing she externalizes by attacks on others), and her “feminism” is less a philosophy than an attempt to distract herself and others from her own emotional desperation.

One suspects she has a history of suicidal thoughts. What sort of anti-depressants has Traister been prescribed, and in what dosage?

It doesn’t matter: She is not funny, because there is nothing funny about her own lonely and joyless existence. For this plight, she somehow irrationally blames conservative Republicans she’s never actually met and who wouldn’t even know she existed — admit it, you had never heard of her before now — if she hadn’t committed that stupid miscomprehension of “succubus.” (Can the Washington Post no longer afford to employ college graduates as editors?) At any rate, here is the conclusion of Traister’s column:

The hairy harridan of yore isn’t totally vanquished. She’s too useful for the right. Without her, it becomes clear that Republicans are fighting not some made-up monster but women themselves. Contemporary activists who have recently replaced the yellowing cartoon of feminism with a living, breathing, nuanced version of what women’s liberation means in 2012 must keep fighting with humor and zeal if they ever want to finish off the old bat.
Perhaps someday they’ll even avenge her by hoisting a banner of their foes as fogeyish, woman-hating, humorless prudes and carrying it into future battles.

Unfortunately for Traister, she can never escape her own worst enemy, whose unforgiving gaze penetrates her every time she looks in a mirror.

Category: American Power, Ann Althouse, Feminism, Instapundit, National Offend a Feminist Week

Our ‘First Gay President’ Now Losing Support From Black Christian Pastors

Posted on | May 14, 2012 | 51 Comments

“Ouch, that’s going to leave a mark“:

A Texas pastor who once led the Southern Baptist Convention in introducing a resolution that recognized Obama’s historic achievement has voiced his displeasure with the president’s support and approval of gays, reports the Associated Baptist Press.
Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, wrote in a blog on May 9 that Obama’s statement is worthy of incurring wrath of biblical proportions. . . . “President Obama has betrayed the Bible and the Black Church with his endorsement of same-sex marriage. The Bible is crystal clear on this subject. . . . The moral impact of this day and decision is equal to the military impact of al-Queda when they attacked the Twin Towers on 911.”

(Hat-tips: News One and Fox Nation.) This is something I think most secularists don’t understand about us “bitter Bible-clingers.” We are People Of The Word, servants redeemed by unmerited grace who therefore owe as a sacred obligation the duty to defend the Word. It is not our own mere “belief” we defend, but the Word, which is eternal, a truth that will endure no matter what any liar may say against it. There are such things as Neutral Objective Facts, and we will not surrender the truth, for that would be a betrayal of the blood that was shed in order that we might know the truth.

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness . . .
On Christ the solid rock I stand.
All other ground is sinking sand.

 

As it is written, “the truth shall make you free.” How then can anyone suppose that a people who, in answer to prayer, have been miraculously brought out of Egypt — for such was the understanding of their ancestors’ faith — should now turn their backs on He who redeemed them, to abandon the march toward Zion, and to surrender that salvation which so many suffered to gain?

Some people say it would take a miracle to beat Obama, so if “The First Gay President” soon becomes The First Black Ex-President . . .

Well, you can believe what you want to believe, I guess.

Exit Question: Why do liberals hate black Christians?

 

Category: Barack Obama, Gays, Neutral Objective Journalism, Religion, Texas

VIDEO: Jon Kyl Defends Defense

Posted on | May 14, 2012 | 30 Comments

In case you’ve forgotten the debt-ceiling deal, if Congress can’t do something to reduce our escalating deficits — and Harry Reid’s Senate Democrats haven’t even produced a budget in three years, so we’re probably doomed — then “automatic sequestration” is supposed to happen, a potential catastrophe for the Pentagon:

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has been among the Senate’s strongest proponents of a robust national defense. In his role as Republican Whip, he is now leading the charge against efforts to shortchange our Defense budget, and warning of potential dire consequences for national security. . . .
Asked . . . what might happen if the impending automatic sequestration cuts slash $500 billion from the defense budget — in addition to the $487 billion dollars already slated to be cut over the next ten years — Kyl said it would amount to “shooting ourselves in the head,” a reference to a metaphor first offered by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

Here’s the video from Alison Meyer and Lachlan Markay at the Heritage Foundation’s new “Scribe” blog:

Category: Arizona, Budget, Military, Senate

Is Mr. Quick Arguing Against Freewill?

Posted on | May 14, 2012 | 61 Comments

by Smitty

Are we really having this argument?

Is it your contention that homosexuality is a choice? If so, I disagree. I would further contend that the weight of scientific evidence is on my side of the disagreement, leaving you in the position of arguing that something RSM might call a “neutral objective fact” is otherwise.

Yeah, I’ll see your ‘scientific evidence’ and raise you some Anthropogenic Global Warming, Bill. Are you implying that gayness is a genetic defect?

I have actually studied a bit of Biochemistry, and I’m confident that the Gay Grail, or “Grayl” which you seek just doesn’t exist. In terms of the OSI Stack, I’d venture that sexuality is a Layer 1 implementation, and homosexuality is Layer 7. Taking your argument, then, are you really going to treat gayness as a birth defect? Really?

“Form follows function?” If you’re an engineer, tell me again what a penis is designed to do, formwise?

Given the set A={‘penis’, ‘anus’, ‘vagina’}, and a few centuries, my utilitarian argument is that there is exactly one pair of two items from A capable of producing sustained societal value. I’m sure that I’ve missed something. Oh, I’ve probably missed much. But that’s what the Internt’s for, no? Emphasis mine here:

And what I’d like to get from you, Smitty, is your thoughts on whether admitting the existence of homosexuality as a reality, not a choice but as much a part of some humans as skin color is of others, is “political correctness?”

Homosexuality is something people do, in the same vein as shooting heroine. I guess that was a vain attempt at injecting humor into the thread. Please, needle me about how I’m injecting “sinful” notions into what is intended as a dispassionate, sober inquiry.

But let’s check out your slippery slope, Bill. If you’re going to argue a ‘Sexual Calvinism’, and contend that people are prisoners of their groins, then why do we maintain this façade of representative democracy? Why don’t we just suck up ObamaCare, and every other Postmodern, Orwellian bit of nonsense intent on destroying Western Civilization?

Maybe there is a middle ground I’m missing here, but it seems that we are either arguing for liberty or against liberty. People can jump through any hoops they want and label it ‘marriage’, but if I lose the right to say ‘marriage means what it has meant across time and societies’, then we’ve lost much, indeed.

In closing, when the Postmodern, PC wrecking ball has fully destroyed meaning, it is my intention to marry a pound of bacon. Because, at that point, why not?

Category: Bill Quick
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