First described by Professor William Jacobson, Blogger Mood Disorder can have strange and unpredictable effects. Lately, Carol’s hilarious graphics have been getting . . . well, I don’t want to say weird, but you tell me:
Obama as Tina Turner? I always thought he was more like Ike. (And I don’t mean Eisenhower.)
Elephant butt? There’s probably some kind of Freudian symbolism involved there.
So you see that there were telltale warning signs. And then Saturday came the most ominous portent that Blogger Mood Disorder had finally taken hold of Carol.
The State of the Union, or FMJRA Gumflap, was a well-written and -delivered piece of rhetoric. As long as its relationship to reality remains a separate topic, we can keep things peaceable. The POTUS can stand there and say “We may be incompetent, but we’re all you’ve got” only as far as the next election. No one but Christopher Walken needs more cowbell. Finally, when the Justice who didn’t bark gets as much press as the Preshizzle who barked for over an hour, you know someone is deep in the hurt locker.
Around the Sphere quotes CJ, apparently enumerating reasons for torching strawmen that exist in his own mind: “A right-wing blogosphere that is almost universally dominated by raging hate speech (see: Hot Air, Free Republic, Ace of Spades, etc.)” This blog would bear mention in this list as a badge of honor, but can’t muster the interest to feel miffed at the omission.
Gateway Pundit: LGF “reads at times like a blog version of ‘Animal Farm’.”
After reading through the articles and posts linked by Stacy, I confess to being fascinated by Johnson’s implosion. I was particularly taken by the references (I think it was in the NYT’s piece) to the handful of “lizards” who are so strangely, slavishly devoted to him – although it would seem that few, if any, have ever actually met him. Johnson truly seems to have created a cult of personality – perhaps the first of its type in the blogosphere.
I’m no psychologist, but it seems to me that Johnson is, to use the technical terminology, nuts. I know next to nothing about Barrett Brown, save for what I read today, but he puts me in mind of someone – knapsack over his shoulder, unbathed for a week – who shows up at the Manson ranch after the murders and asks to join the club. A hyperbolic analogy, perhaps, but you get what I mean: seems a little late, and not a little fatuous, to be hooking up with Charles Johnson at this stage of his mental collapse. Hugely ironic considering that both men pride themselves on their “skepticism”.
Is Ellie Light several people at Media Matters? Is it Robert Gibbs? Is it a clumsy intern at MSNBC? Who knows? But whoever Ellie is, he/she is not very good at appearing plausible.
I wouldn’t accuse Gibbs of having enough sack to try such a stunt. He picked us up again in a second roundup.
Cold Fury links us in a rant about voter registration.
There are a large number of people who believe we are in The End Time, that the End Of Days is not too far off. Many of them believe this is the age when the Antichrist will rise. I’m one of those who leans heavily against this notion, but I like to keep my options open. While I don’t see this as the age of the AntiChrist, I do think we may have witnessed the appearence of the Anti-Galt.
His Vorpal Sword linked us amidst the most psychedelic post I’ve seen since… wow…was that WordPress or Pink Floyd? The post may have been a lengthy discussion on the difference between sockpuppets and astroturf, but the crazy diamond shining on was too bright.
Cynthia Yockey chides RSM’s editorial acumen: “I have to say your headline announcing Vodkapundit will be drunkblogging the SOTU is, um, so very ‘dog bites man’.”
The Camp of the Saints: “I’m glad you asked…No, I will not be watching Julius Obamacus Caesar’s State Of The Empire Union speech tonight. Believe me, I would like to, but, unfortunately, duty calls and I have to go watch some paint dry.”
The case has been made quite well who the real racists are, they live in the mid to far left in America and never let anyone forget the color of their own skin, and if you succeed with OTWS (Other Than White Skin), you owe the Democrat party your allegiance or you are an IgnorantUncleTomStepNFetchItHouseBoy™.
Regarding that last bit, Erick Brockway is encouraged to Set The Java Down.
Rightofcourse linked us, but has apparently been watching too many ‘Downfall’ clips:
There are two instances in the speech where things get really weird. First, the Senate recently blocked the appointment of a committee proposed (and presumably selected) by Obama. Comrade Obama tells them they no longer matter because he will write an executive order to appoint zees committee anyvay. Zis iss goot, yah?
Later, he lashes out at the Supreme Court for not interpreting the Constitution in a manner that suits him. Since they don’t agree with him. He vill go around zem, yah? He orders Congress to come up with a bill to go around the recent ruling of the Supreme Court. Heil.
That’s Right: “Wait…I thought it was us wacky teabaggers that were doing all the in-fighting. You mean the Democrats are having some family issues as well? Well color me…not surprised at all.”
Da Tech Guy links us while following up on the Scott Brown fallout:
Other Coakley supporters also expressed surprise: “I can’t see how he can credibly support the Massachusetts Healthcare plan and oppose the national one when they are basically the same thing.”
To that Mass. resident: what does Amendment 10 mean to you?
No Sheeples Here has some thoughts on Stacy’s wardrobe management.
Come to think of it, there are many things you might not want to discuss during the Super Bowl – such as torn ACLs, concussions, cracked ribs, and crazy singers getting their bras ripped off during the half time show (remember the Janet Jackson debacle?).
But Marx forbid that the inspirational life story of a football player be broadcast during the Super Bowl.
Da Tech Guy links us and amplifies the situation. Da Tech Guy is also strongly pro-life. Me, too, with the bit of nuance that I think the Federal government should not interfere with individal Americans. Thus, even though I abhor the slaughter of the innocent, I would not support, for example, a Consitutional ban on abortion. States rights, for all murder is clearly murder.
Left Coast Rebel caught me on Google Chat, pursuant to the Ellie Light case. I did precious little, but forward LCR to somebody whom you irritate at your peril. LCR and I rambled a bit, and he’s tidied the output into a post.
Meanwhile, I have to get the FMJRA done before RSM flogs me.
Dealey, a U.S. News contributor, is based in Washington, writing on national and foreign affairs. Besides contributing to Reader’s Digest, he writes frequently for publications such as GQ, Details, and The New York Times. Dealey has also reported from Africa for CNN and PBS’s NewsHour With Jim Lehrer. He is a media fellow at the Hoover Institution.
The Dallas native was a reporter for The Hill newspaper, an editorial board member at The Washington Times, and assistant managing editor of The American Spectator.
I’ve never met Dealey, and have no reason to doubt that he is everything he is cracked up to be. On the other hand, he’s only 36 and nothing in his biography suggests extensive managerial experience in a daily newspaper environment.
That was really the problem that sank Dealy’s predecessor, John Solomon, who had built his career as a reporter for the Associated Press and spent a year at the Washington Post before taking over the top job at the Times shortly after I left in January 2008. Whatever else his qualifications, Solomon had little managerial background and no experience of the distinctive culture of the Times.
Running any daily newspaper is a tremendous managerial challenge, and the Washington Times is certainly more challenging than most. D.C. is a very competitive news environment and being the underdog paper, going up against the Post every day, requires an extraordinary degree of mental toughness. Former editor-in-chief Wes Pruden’s long tenure in the job was as much a testimony to his cast-iron temperament as to his journalistic ability.
No matter what, Dealey starts off on the wrong foot with the newspaper’s staff. Bringing in an outsider to run the Washington Times newsroom — Dealey was on the editorial board of the paper, but never on the news staff — is an implied putdown of the guys who’ve been in charge of the daily news operation since Solomon quit in November.
All of which is to say that Dealey’s got his work cut out for him. I wish him luck. At least he’s not a damned Postie. That’s basically what prompted me to resign when I did. It had just been announced they’d hired Solomon from the Post, and one of my colleagues remarked, “If I’d wanted to work for a Postie, I’d have applied at the f—ing Post.”
Good point. I submitted my resignation the next day. My colleague stayed — and got laid off right before Christmas last year, along with dozens more who didn’t see the writing on the wall soon enough.
One of the volunteers on Brown’s campaign is now running for Congress in Alabama, and emulating the “straight talk, no BS” theme. Rick Barber, a small businessman and ex-Marine, is challenging Democrat Rep. Bobby Bright in Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District and was featured in an ABC “Good Morning America” segment on the impact of the Brown campaign.
“If there ever was a time in our political landscape that really an everyday guy like myself could get into Washington at the congressional level, this would be the year to do it,” Barber told ABC.
Many others see the same opportunity and, as the Associated Press notes, this has resulted in a crowded field of contested primaries nationwide. . . .
Please read the whole thing. Speaking of crowded primaries, Adam Andrzejewski’s Tea Party-backed gubernatorial campaign — which the legacy media are trying to ignore — got an unexpected boost yesterday when Barack Obama made a joke about GOP establishment candidate Kirk Dillard:
As I told you Thursday, Kirk actually appeared in a 2008 campaign ad for Obama:
Libertas et Memoria captures succinctly the tactical problem for the POTUS: the irresistible force of the Left, verses the immovable object of the Right, coming together as gently as a tsunami and a city for the administration.
However, the real feeling of doom in the air, in my opinion, has more to do with the opposing tectonic plates out to sea whose gymnastics provide the tidal waves. The Democratic and Republican plates progressively grind against each other, and the debt effects continue to mock any attempt to discuss reform. Cthulhu laughs.
In defense of elected officials, it is up to the people, specifically the Tea Parties, it seems, both to demand reform and support the ensuing disasters. Furthermore, what will be desperately required is forgiveness. We really can’t bicker and argue over who killed who:The political gravity will see us all enjoy a hearty *splat*. I was explaining to my colleague, a Naval Reservist and Obama voter, that incorporating any Reserve pension in retirement planning is unwise. Just expect nothing out of the Reserves or Social Security, I said. She was indignant: “They can’t fail to pay on that stuff!” My other colleague, a self-proclaimed independent, said “See, he’s telling you the same thing I did.”
Musical chairs, played properly, are a software fencepost error turned into a game. So long as we deem it morally correct to engage in deficit spending and pass on debt to the next victim, and the music is playing, life is good. Thus, until we’ve improved the moral perception, the situation remains intractable.
The Iron Law of Bureaucracy remains an ugly truth, but I had an interesting idea. What if all entitlement programs had an expiry? In Smitty USA, no entitlement program could outlast the POTUS who signed it into law. In other words, I would require a Steel Law of Bureaucracy such that, periodically, the entire organization must be scrapped. All of the databases archived, all of the staff thanked for their interest in civil service, all of the recipients re-enrolled in the follow-on program, which begins from scratch, headquartered in a physically different location. The usual 10th Amendment argument against Federal implementation of entitlements applies. However, there may need to be a series of smaller steps in the effort to unwind the NewBad Deal.
The motive for such an overtly draconian regime would be to mimic Winter. Winter is a crucial season for rejuvenating nature. Elections provide a similar turning of the compost heap called Capitol Hill. Mandating infrequent transitions to wholly new bureaucratic systems would be one way to capture that natural cycle in the Executive Branch. Otherwise, the prostate-like growth of bureaucracy remains be unchecked.
Coming full circle to the POTUS, there is little indication that the gentleman even perceives the problem, much less has the character to repudiate his past theoretical approach. This administration is the political equivalent of a Jack London story.
President Barack Obama has blown $10 million on drunken White House parties, Washington insiders tell GLOBE. This week’s Special Report rips the lid off the Commander-in-chief’s outrageous antics, including boozy conga lines and dinners featuring $150-a-pound Japanese beef! It’s must reading for every American.
