The Other McCain

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

A Comment On Comments, Served Up As A Post

Posted on | April 1, 2012 | 26 Comments

by Smitty

Breitbart has a post concerning their comment system. That’s not terribly notable, except that it’s the same one this blog has used for a year-ish. So maybe Stacy will give me a little credit for technology choices, and even ponder some of my other suggestions, for example, TweetDeck.

Third party comment systems like Disqus facilitate more comments by making it trivial to log in using Twitter or Facebook accounts. I commend the use of such systems to all bloggers who would like more comments on their posts. In fact, I’ll venture to the bulk of the WordPress blogs that you’re taking it on the chin. Blogger is a bit less tedious, for me, as it lets you log in with a Google account. I would share more of my vibrant wit with any number of WordPress blogs, but YetAnotherBleedingLogin has all the attractiveness of Arianna Huffington sporting a three alarm hangover.

Then again, you might consider fewer one-liners from me a feature.

Update: Daily Pundit wants inline (non-nested?) comments. I think you can set that, in fact.

Category: Blogging

I Had Never Really Felt Any Need to Learn to Speak Japanese — Until Now

Posted on | April 1, 2012 | 19 Comments

Maetenloch at AOSHQ posted this video, and suddenly I had a reason — no, wait, make that two reasons — to take an interest:

In unrelated news from the Pacific Rim: You know that stereotype about Chinese being lousy drivers? Totally false.

Category: China, Japan, Video

No Bowlder Man Than Dennis Walcott Ever Lived

Posted on | April 1, 2012 | 13 Comments

by Smitty via Hot Air

New York City Department of Education Chancellor Dennis Walcott has published a list of 50 words that should be expunged from standardized tests. Let us celebrate bowdlerization with a meditation on why Progressivism is cranial rectalitis at its finest using all 50 words/ideas that Walcott finds objectionable, in what is an excerpt from an internal memo:

The Orwellian abuse inflicted upon our culture at the hands of us Postmodern, Progressive–let’s just put it out there–Godless Commies, while actually worse than all of the alcohol, tobacco, and drugs assailing the culture, is a necessary evil to bring about Utopia. From birth (if we deem you fit, in our  Sanger-esque milieu), Progressives must mold formerly free people into our precise little geometric forms, even down to the level of bodily functions.

Truly, we Progressives are the scourge of liberty, but, then, what good has liberty ever done? No catastrophe can occur, for example, Hurricane Katrina, or even a tragic death like Trayvon Martin, without us mining it for propaganda value against the likes of George W. Bush or Rush Limbaugh, yet conservatism won’t die! Celebrities like Morgan Freeman or Janeane Garofalo are told to speak the stupidest things imaginable. Sean Penn defies the imagination. Truly, this is a higher form of humor.

The destruction of the family has, necessarily, meant the crushing of childhood. Children have to matriculate a course in sex and drugs and rock’n’roll just to survive kindergarten. Cigarettes are the least of their worries. Computers have invaded every corner of life. Kids are carrying Android phones to school. You do realize that Android is Linux based? The language used in the source code comments is a threat to the children! Fnord. Progressives celebrate divorce, its liberating effect upon feminists, and its helpfully destructive effect upon the family. The question becomes: how to make divorces uglier, to maximize the negative effect upon children?

The trick would be to mix Evolution into the equation. Tell the children that, by unfortunate accident, they were created by genetically inferior parents, but that the State can help them. While they will be afforded all the hedonistic outlet they can imagine, and then some, by the State. Continuous sexual gratification is, after all, part of the Third Bill of Rights. Not to be confused with reproduction, however. Parenthood, like all expensive gifts, vacations, and prizes, is something that must be rationed by the State, to make it ‘fair’. Running away is to be encouraged, both for its immediate deleterious effect on the family, and for the increased hopelessness it breeds. This drives mangled youth to be more malleable by the state.

Yet, homelessness must never be mentioned when there is a Democ**t in the Oval Office. Disease, homelessness, and loss of employment, and crime are only reported during conservative administrations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has been infiltrated, and will only announce ‘shiny’ numbers. Also, since Republicans are the party of the rich, homes with swimming pools, hunting, and junk food are of high importance. A pulitzer to anyone snapping a photo of a Bush rigged for the bush, with a shotgun cradled, standing next to his tennis court, mowing down on pork rinds.

Crime of all sorts, of course, will continue to plague society until the entire patriarchal male/female/family model has been finally demolished. Death and disease can be minimized, but until Progressives gain full control, first through ObamaCare, then Single Payer after ObamaCare implodes like the bureaucratice singularity it was meant to be, we will have to continue blaming death and disease upon conservative values and capitalism. Why engage in gambling involving money, when you can do it with peoples’ lives? It is the height of Progressive pleasure, for example, to create scarcity through manipulating markets, to create fear at all times of year, not merely Halloween. Now that is some true crime.

In-depth discussions of sports that require prior knowledge are essential. Sports are the new religion, and thus an opiate for the masses. Sportsmanship, however, must be exposed as a fiction, so that the overpaid prima donnas in garish clothing can be vanguards of societal decay.

Nuclear weapons are a fine source of fear and anxiety, and should be used to generate angst, which can then be focused on conservatives. Occult topics, like vampires and werewolves, can add to the general malaise. Vampires have always had a hedonistic subtext about them, which makes them a good weapon for use to crank up crotch maintenance requirements amongst the godless youth. All forms of witchcraft, sorcery, etc. are in play. Parapsychology and all other non-traditional spiritual topics are fine tools for driving the youth towards a desirable nihilism, while pornography will continue to help degrade and devalue traditional symbols, harden average hearts, and diminish societal joy. Vermin (rats and roaches) are for prominent display, as they underscore the ultimate truth that the common people don’t deserve pretty things.

Poverty is a huge control mechanism, feeding as it does the root envy that drives class warfare. Capitalism makes you want to work your way to join the affluent. Class warfare brings the affluent to the poor. Rap Music, like rock’n’roll, is the anti-rational soundtrack for all that is Progressivism. Rhythm-heavy appeals to the flesh keep the sheep intellectually flocked up. Conflations of ‘love’ and ‘sex’ are encouraged.

Religion is good for Progress, insofar as it can provide fodder for guilt and permit the crushing of individuality under the aegis of nebulous “social justice.” Conversely, anybody feeling liberated from the State through their faith must be punished. The State will not have any other gods before it. So forget religious holidays and festivals (including but not limited to Christmas, Yom Kippur, and Ramadan, though Muslim observances are certainly permissible under the guise of multiculturalism.)

Terrorism, violence, war and bloodshed, traumatic material, and weapons (guns, knives, etc.) are all key tools for jacking up the anxiety level of people of all ages, and turning them into willing putty of the State. Television and video games are a great means of turning otherwise creative people into pudding heads.

Politics in everything, all the time, is what this is about. The control of the state must extend to everything, but slavery can only come up when attached to conservatives. Conversely, individualism must be crushed.

Be it known that the author achieved a self-creep-out while writing this.

Update: linked at The Camp of the Saints.

Category: Hot Air, Progressivism

Rick Santorum And The Traditional Justice System

Posted on | April 1, 2012 | 16 Comments

by Smitty

Jeffery Levin on Twitter points to The Hill, where Rick Santorum seems strangely unconvinced about the wisdom of a national conference on race in the era of Hope’n’Change:

The question. . .was posed to Santorum by talk radio host Laura Ingraham Monday.
“Absolutely not,” Santorum said. “This is either a very disturbed man or circumstances that we’re not aware of that may or may not come out of this case. Let the case play out, and let’s find out what the facts are. As I’ve said—I’ve condemned this. It looks to me as a heinous act. But you know what, let the process work. Let’s find out what’s really going on here. And let’s just focus on the people who are involved.”

In other words, crowd-sourcing our legal system is possibly not the swiftest idea. This whole ‘conversation on race’ piffle is merely a distractor from actual national issues. The propaganda nature of the idea of a ‘conversation on race’ is so blatantly obvious that the World’s Youngest Blogger can hardly halt himself from matching it bile for bile:

Fortunately, the sweater vest helped him hold it together.

As is often the case, Rick seems to have more backbone on the topic than the alternatives.

Update: linked by the Catholic Bandita

Update II: Daily Pundit is having none of Santorum.

Category: Racism, Rick Santorum

Dude, Did You Have to Diss Ann Coulter? Also: Obama Has ‘Certainly Been Massively Disappointing to Young People’

Posted on | April 1, 2012 | 17 Comments

Let’s face it: Ever since Ann Coulter volunteered as head cheerleader for Team Romney, some of Miss Coulter’s longtime conservative defenders have been under tremendous pressure to denounce her.

The problem is that nearly all the people who joined the anti-Coulter movement back in the day — and I’m looking at you, Ace of Spades — are also now on the “Roll Over for Romney” bandwagon. So while I defended her when she called Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a “raghead” and called John Edwards a “faggot,” I should probably be content to let Ace (and Sean Hackbarth, Ed Morrissey, Joy McCann, et al.) defend Miss Coulter now that she’s snuggling up with Mister Inevitability.

Nevertheless, I was irritated when I saw that Matt Lewis cited Ann Coulter as an example of a media “peacock” in a Daily Caller item he posted last week, even while Matt was making a point worth considering:

[On March 16], there was tremendous buzz about a picture of Rick Santorum sunbathing. I’m sure it got a lot of hits, but  it was completely irrelevant, and utterly vapid. I’m sure we probably ran it — we sort of had to. But can you imagine back in the old days if a reporter had  come to a grizzled, old newspaper editor with the idea of publishing that photo?  The old fella might have said, “Son, we’re not going to run that because it’s  not news. We’re not going to run that as long as I’m here. I don’t care if other  newspapers do — we’re not. Now get the hell out of my office!”
Today, that old guy is dead. Or retired — probably pushed out by some  upstart.

Having dealt with a few grizzled old newspaper editors in my day, I very well see the point Matt is trying to make. What is happening is that the news media are being democratized, for both good and ill, so that the readers get whatever the readers want, including society reporters turned strippers and NFL cheerleader sex scandals.

Yet I’ve always said that if I were ever put in charge of a newspaper, I’d run it like the NY Post: Lots of celebrities, scandals, sports and crime stories to pull in the readers, thus to pay the bills for the political coverage and the right-wing op-ed pages.

So if I were the grizzled old editor and some reporter brought me a picture of Rick Santorum sunbathing, my response would be: “What the hell is wrong with you, kid? I said I wanted Ann Romney bikini pictures! Now get to work on it, or you’re fired!”

Part of what’s wrong with the conservative movement — and maybe we can discuss this at “DoomCon 2012” — is a sense of insecurity that manifests itself as a craving for respectability.

This prudishly superficial concern with being “respectable” causes some conservatives to scurry for cover the minute Ann Coulter says “faggot” or Rush Limbaugh says “slut,” so that all liberals have to do is make a big deal about some silly little “gaffe” or “scandal” and they win.

Wake the hell up, conservatives: Are you going to let Politico and Media Matters pick your leaders and spokesmen for you? Remember Breitbart!

OK, so that’s my rant about that. Meanwhile, via the eminently respectable Washington Free Beacon, we have this delightful video:

Obama has “certainly been massively disappointing to young people,” says Stephen Marche of Esquire, a liberal magazine that features lots of pictures of nearly naked women.

Polls show Obama’s popularity among the young “started at 63 percent and I think it’s in the 30s now,” says Marche. “It just continues to fall.”

Good. Now go get me those Ann Romney bikini pictures.

Update: linked by Fishersville Mike.

Category: Ann Coulter, Barack Obama, Election 2012, Matt Lewis, Mitt Romney, R.S. McCain School of Journalism

Think Happy Thoughts!

Posted on | April 1, 2012 | 85 Comments

Today’s headlines perhaps explain why feelings of foreboding have recently overwhelmed my otherwise nearly infinite capacity for hope. In a private e-mail exchange today, I found myself explaining that what may appear to some a transient problem is, in fact, a predictable consequence of long-term trends. It occurred to me that, because I have always considered it foolish to talk strategy in public (the enemy can read our blogs, y’know), few of my readers had ever seen me in deep analytical mode, so I decided to share this excerpt:

For many years, going back to at least 2006, I have considered the problems of the conservative movement not episodic and random, but rather systemic and structural. The way the movement is organized, the incentives built into that organizational pattern, and the types of personalities that exercise influence within the system, are in some sense haphazard, reflecting the gradual accretion of institutional habit. At the same time, however, there is the factor of conscious human action involved, and thus the potential for change, if the people involved would attempt to look beneath the surface of day-to-day events and recognize how the incentives built into the system generate ineffective or counter-productive results. . . .
[T]he movement lacks a conscious, rational and critical understanding of itself from the standpoint of organizational dynamics. . . .
The system resists reform because those who benefit (or expect in the future to benefit) from the status quo are unwilling to admit that the system is flawed. Only when the outcome is clearly a failure — as it was in 2008 — is it possible to get leaders to take seriously the need for reform. Yet on such occasions the tendency is always to make ad-hoc patchwork changes, rather than to look at the deeper structural flaws of the movement in terms of organizational dynamics, and attempt to incentivize genuine success.
A major problem is the difficulty of locating the blame for failure in a system where many of the participants are experts at blame-shifting and only too eager to make unpopular scapegoats bear the responsibility of failure. This was what happened to Sarah Palin in 2008, and I claim no special prescience in saying I saw that coming and tried to warn against it. The Steve Schmidts and Nicolle Wallaces, however, had acquired influence which enabled them to manipulate perceptions in such a way that the crucial failure of the 2008 campaign — John McCain’s panicked reaction to the financial crisis — was forgotten, while Palin was unjustly blamed.
Now we come to 2012 and, if the pundits are to be believed, Mitt Romney is now the “inevitable” GOP nominee, despite the fact that he has to date received less than 40 percent of the vote in Republican primaries and caucuses. If Romney is nominated, therefore, it will be despite the opposition of GOP voters and the conservative movement. Many believe that Romney is doomed to repeat the Republican failures of 1996 and 2008 and, if those prophecies are accurate, there will be a reckoning after the November election, in which the leadership of the conservative movement will have an opportunity to examine the causes of its failures.
God forbid that it should take Mitt’s nomination and Obama’s re-election to force such a long-overdue re-evaluation, as one wonders what would be left for conservatives to conserve in the event of such unprecedented catastrophes. (“Sweet Meteor of Death 2012!”) Maybe the ancient Mayan calendar was right about this year being the end of the world. Nevertheless, if the world endures and we survive the electoral cataclysm, I will be interested in discussing exactly how we got to such a disastrous result as all the omens now portend.
On the other hand, let’s hope that the pundits and pollsters are wrong, that Rick Santorum is on the verge of a world-shocking triumph in Wisconsin, and that this “Roll Over for Romney” bandwagon can be halted before the GOP Establishment once more succeeds in saddling us with a doomed loser who will utterly demoralize whatever remnant of grassroots conservatism survives the looming debacle.

We haven’t yet scheduled “DoomCon 2012,” but if anyone is interested in sponsoring, attending or participating in such an event, holler back.

Category: Election 2012

Flaming, Multitudinous Jeremiads Retard Advances (FMJRA)

Posted on | April 1, 2012 | 8 Comments

Flaming, Multitudinous Jeremiads Retard Advances

by Smitty

This week’s FMJRA celebrates those like #OccupyResoluteDesk or his Raaaaacism Industrial Complex minions, who excel at moving responsibility away from themselves in lengthy diatribes, while never quite reviewing their old and busted ideas.

Leaders are those who can detect the death of a horse and cease flogging it.

The Congressional Affordable Care Act (CACA), or,
Will anything interesting ever happen at the Supreme Court?

Are Nancy Pelosi And Harry Reid Racists, Or Something?

Remember, We’re Paying This Incompetent To Steal Our Liberty

Could The SCOTUS Prove Worse Than Nancy Pelosi?

Rutherford B. Hayes Responds To Pelosi

Yeah, Raaaaacism Industrial Complex, yeah:

Trayvon Martin Case Discussed by Noted Civil Rights Leader … David Plouffe?

Black Panthers Offer A Cool Million For Someone Named Zimmerman

What If The Left Threw A Race War, And No One Came?

Another Liberal Narrative Gone Wrong

‘Those Festering Stereotypes’

The Riot Ideology

Trayvon Martin Rashomon

#OccupyResoluteDesk and his sidekick MuttlyJim Moran, remain a wonder to behold:

#OccupyResoluteDesk Meets Strongest Allies. Someone Named ‘Abovetheirweight’ Hardest Hit.

Carpet Dime

Not Even #OccupyResoluteDesk’s Most Athletic Supporter, ‘Gentleman’ Jim Moran, Voted For BHO’s Budget

The Brain Drain Campaign:

Newt Campaign Death-Watch Begins

Roll Over for Romney?

Why Was NY Times Reporter Jeff Zeleny Doing Romney Campaign’s Bidding?

Since You Asked, Mr. Quick. . .

When Did Newt’s Campaign Become Unsustainable? And What Was the Result?

Rubio Unqualified For VP?

Rick Santorum: It’s About a Movement

NEWT MET SECRETLY WITH MITT BEFORE LOUISIANA PRIMARY

Newt Ally Says We’re Doomed

The Rest of the Story:

You’re Darn Right I Bought A VW TDI Diesel Jetta

Hey, Lefties, It’s Sunday: Are You Finding Joy In Life?

Rule 5 Sunday: Bad

Big Fake Boobs

@Soledad_OBrien’s Unpopularity Destroys Morning Ratings for CNN

Forget WI Lt. Gov. Kleefisch: She May Be A ‘Man With Breasts’

Twenty Percent Plus One

I Write for Money

John Hinderaker, Optimist

In Response To The Recent Unpleasantness

Bizarre NFL Sex Scandal

Mandatory Whittle

Shocking Republican Sex Scandals!

‘Hot Mic’ Admittedly Not As Hot As Conservative Women, Yet Still Toasty

The Worlds Youngest Blogger: ‘Relax’

Olbermann’s Career: The First Time as Tragedy, the Second Time as Farce

‘Due to Her Excellent Reputation Among California Democrats …’

In closing…:

A hearty thank you to the Wombat, both for his great Live at Five work, and for taking over the FMJRA and Rule 5 Sunday features. Especially now that I’m dealing with the World’s Youngest Blogger, the additional manhours are essential.
LIVE AT FIVE – 03.26.12

LIVE AT FIVE – 03.27.12

LIVE AT FIVE – 03.28.12

LIVE AT FIVE (CDT) – 03.29.12

LIVE AT FIVE (CDT) – 03.30.12

Update: linked by Ol’ Skull’n’Bones himself!

Category: FMJRA Award

It Is Not Often One Locates An Oversight In Professor Jacobson’s Reasoning

Posted on | April 1, 2012 | 7 Comments

by Smitty

The Card Game is a great feature over at Legal Insurrection, and last night’s was no exception.

This is cold fusion on the race card (h/t American Power):
“The new racism is denying racism.”

And, a little further on:

Thanks to Bill Maher, of all people, we finally have a simple, effective, and self-perpetuating theory of racial grievance used for political purposes, in which not only racism is racist, the denial of racism is racist, so the charge of racism cannot ever be defeated because to deny it is to confirm it.
Unless of course the charge of racism is made by a Republican or conservative or Tea Partier, in which case the new racism rules do not apply.

And so we need a new term for this Schrödinger Card, and I have a suggestion:

Erasism, noun: (1) The Orwellian attempt to mask one’s own racism by continuously accusing members of an out-group of exactly that, while strenuously denying one’s own habitual DNA-driven thinking.
(2) A masterful blend of Postmodernism, hypocrisy, and racism.
Example: “That Bill Maher is one erasist pig.”

Update: Daily Pundit likes the usage, and Obi’s Sister also approves.

Category: American Power, Legal Insurrection
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