The Unbearable Loathsomeness Of Being David Brooks
Posted on March 1st, 2011 by Tintin
Shorter David Brooks, New York Times:
The New Normal
- Fuck old people. Death panels and cat food for all of them.1
Alternate Shorter David Brooks, New York Times:
The New Normal
- When I said last week that everyone should share equally in the pain from budget cuts, I didn’t mean it. We should hurt old people more.
1For all those who are afraid to click the link, here is the, ahem, money shot from Brooks’s column:
A second austerity principle is this: Trim from the old to invest in the young. We should adjust pension promises and reduce the amount of money spent on health care during the last months of life so we can preserve programs for those who are growing and learning the most.
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™
Yeah lets start with Brooks pension and health benefits
Dammit, Tintin.
I’m shamelessly going to link to this at the end of the last thread, for anyone who’s interested in news about Libya.
And now onto this.
An entire column about reducing the deficit without a single instance of the word “taxes.” I’m guessing his pay is not tied to performance. Since he’s predicting “austerity will be a blessing” I hope the little prick is blessed a thousand times over.
And let the poor rot too while we’re at it, Brooksie. And the handicapped. And children for that matter. All these parasitic buggers just can’t produce.
Death panels?
Okay then!
I’m going to answer this by linking to one of 77South’s posts from months ago;
Nothing sets me off like this kind of bullshit economizing. After 10 years of a “jobless recovery” everyone I know who still has a job is doing the work of two or three people. The American work force is the most efficient it ever has been. The ‘fat’ these people want to cut out hasn’t been there for 30 years.
Almost every big management fad of the last 30 years has been ‘lean’ this and ‘efficient’ that. They want to squeeze blood from a turnip. If instead of squeezing their suppliers and workers and soaking their customers, they had concentrated on making reliable products at decent prices and taking care of their suppliers and workers, they would have all the customers they could dream of, because we would still have a middle class that was healthy and ready to buy.
If instead of racing to the bottom with NAFTA, what if we had had a treaty that guaranteed, minimum wage, working condition, education and environmental standards? You’d have an entire hemisphere of customers to sell to. Now, we have a billion or so peasants in North and South America and only a few hundred million people who are in a position to buy anything at all.
Original text here.
got funding increases no matter how they did. This model is anathema to most Americans, especially those under 40.
In most cases government budget increases are tied to the CPI.
I don’t know too many people, under forty or not, who would call such a thing “anathema.”
“Most Americans” – Who’s he talking about? Not the people getting the paychecks. Maybe the ones signing them, who don’t want to give people a cost of living increase.
Alternative Morally-Neutral Shorter:
Instead of running for office I’ll just fap.
Alternative Anti-Democratic Shorter:
Seniors vote. This is a problem.
And yeah, no mention of taxes, nor of defense spending. Never saw that coming.
“Most Americans” – Who’s he talking about?
g, Brooks means the Americans who count: Brooks and his fellow Village bloviators, and the plutocrats who pay them, and the plutocrats who buy advertising.
~
Has anyone else noticed that David Brooks has tiny little babby teef? No? Just me? Carry on…
Did you see the latest Palin-Fan civil disobedience call to action?
If you kids don’t quitit I’m pulling this car over.
Yep. Sitting in your car doing nothing. That’ll make a statement.
an effectiveness revolution
As long as that doesn’t mean, say, uprooting the shitty health care system and replacing it with something efficient.
By all means, let’s look at better ways of providing government services. How could anyone object to that? Of course, that’s not what he really means – it’s about cutting services.
The bottom 25 percent would have to compete to keep their financing.
Fuck you.
Did you see the latest Palin-Fan civil disobedience call to action?
If you kids don’t quitit I’m pulling this car over.
Yep. Sitting in your car doing nothing. That’ll make a statement.
I don’t think I’ve ever ahem’d before. Time to start.
Actually, what he’s saying wouldn’t be all that appalling if it weren’t for the fact that we haven’t tried, oh, about 10-15 other measures to make things better. We spend the most on health care in the last few months of our lives, and I, for one, am kinda tired of the interests of children and young people being constantly pushed aside because they’re already powerless.
But god forbid we cut corporate welfare and reduce defense spending and provide means-testing for Social Security and stop subsidizing insurance companies through Medicare Part D and stop flushing all our money down the drain with regard to health care in general and tax the ever-living FUCK out of plutocrats and their boot-lickers like Brooks.
Among other solutions.
Even as we struggle to create a society that maximizes America’s competitiveness in the international marketplace, we should never forget that even the most inefficient citizens have value. For example, old people and other underperforming types can be usefully recycled into nutritional food products, soap, and lampshades.
tax the ever-living FUCK out of plutocrats and their boot-lickers
best. campaign. slogan. ever.
I am against Obamacare because Death Panels. Now, let’s cut some pensions!
Is he advocating euthanasia? Death panels?
Fuck! One minute!
No place is hotter than Wisconsin.
um, no. there are lots of places hotter than wisconsin right now…oh.
”
Fuck! One minute!”
Sometimes I need longer than that.
have a lot of problems with President Obama’s tepid budget. But it does an excellent job of linking funds to outcomes, especially in education.
i haz a confoozed…he’s actually complimenting obama? isn’t that against their ‘god damn it he fucking woke up again today?’ campaign? did i take crazy pills today?
Sometimes I need longer than that.
heh…wait until dudeskull arrives…then one minute will be pretty much all you can spare…
Woooo!
Meanwhile, Instapundit pretends that Gov. Walker and Tea Party types are just trying to save the public social services from those mean unions of, um, public social service employees.
Among other solutions.
you know who else had a solution?
He does know that pensions are at least partially funded by workers themselves via deductions from their paychecks while they’re active earners, right? So cutting pensions is actually stealing money they’ve set aside for later use, and/or the compensation they agreed to defer to a later date when negotiating their pay during their working years. What ever happened to conservatives’ respect for private property rights? I think this sets a great example – I’m thinking about having work done on my house. If I get a quote for $10,000, and pay $5,000 up front, I’ll wait for my contractor to finish the work, then simply tell him that paying him the remaining $5,000 as promised would wreck my personal economy, so he’s S.O.L.
he Althouse-and-Meade team has clearly provided the best reporting out of Madison
omfg…
Of course not! That would be unspeakably cruel and immoral, plus you’d have to pay for the lethal injections.
On the other hand, if you simply throw helpless old folks or terminally ill patients out on the streets, that not cruelty – it’s just part of the Effectiveness Revolution. And it costs nothing, except for a tiny increase to the Sanitation Department budget for corpse removals.
Has anyone else noticed that David Brooks has tiny little babby teef?
You know what they say: baby teef, baby
jawskullbraintemperamentPENIS!from the althouse comments:
Yah, street protests are actually the weakest expression of political power. You’d think the polysci teachers would explain this to their union brats.
yah, that mlk…what a loser he was!
He does know that pensions are at least partially funded by workers themselves via deductions from their paychecks while they’re active earners, right?
Not where I work up until last year.
On the other hand, if you simply throw helpless old folks or terminally ill patients out on the streets, that not cruelty – it’s just part of the Effectiveness Revolution. And it costs nothing, except for a tiny increase to the Sanitation Department budget for corpse removals.
well, no…because the poor, homeless leeches can eat the old and the sick. it’s the ultimate recycling! who says conservatives aren’t green? bookmark THAT libs!!!!11111
He knows older people tend to be more conservative, right?
Right?
He knows older people tend to be more conservative, right?
Yeah, I don’t quite get why he’s advocating letting the Republican base die.
Good Lord!! @Chris is correct “Government workers and government programs got funding increases no matter how they did.” go after them for getting us into this mess. I mean, when was the last time we heard about a bureaucrat get fired? So let them sacrtifice now. Let’s focus on them since they got us into this mess.
Also, just read a new book just out about Americans who finally take a stand against this govt. of tyranny. Same issues as before (high taxes, bureaucrats crossing the land & terrorizing citizens, continual foreign wars). With Wisconsin in the middle of the news, this is a thriller that’s so real. I recommend it…
http://www.booksbyoliver.com
Far be it from me to tell you guys how to do your jobs, but Althouse has a post up about Charlie Sheen that is dying to be ridiculed.
street protests are actually the weakest expression of political power.
I know, just ask the Tea Party. Why, their few small groups of old people in silly hats waving signs in public squares on tax day 2009 was covered by the national media for only a couple of
minuteshoursdaysweeksmonthsyears!Is Althouse high on “Charlie Sheen”? Has Sheen been selling “Charlie Sheen,” because that would qualify as drug dealing.
Yeah, I don’t quite get why he’s advocating letting the Republican base die.
To use as an excuse to blame Obamacare? Then again, “old” for Republicans is subjective (Henry Hyde once alluded to an affair he had in his 40’s as a “youthful discretion”).
Why don’t you want to surface into the air and be free — to think about everything, from any perspective, and to find out for yourself what is true and what is good?
unless it’s something i don’t like then shutupandfuckyoui’m telling meade! viewpoint discrimination!
As we all know, the strongest expression of political power is threatening to shoot Democratic congresspersons, and then denying it once somebody actually does so.
That Charlie Sheen post is amazing. Hey, he might abuse everyone in his life, including his wife and his kids and his girlfriends and his boss and strangers and himself, but at least he’s not some fag who thinks about that affects anyone else!
WhiteRose said,
March 1, 2011 at 16:40
1. Context. Ur doin it rong.
2. Go pimp your seditionist bullshit somewhere else.
hey don’t even hear the things that are not the things that they’ve been saying back and forth to each other.
so, sometimes we hear things we know. and sometimes we hear things we don’t know. and sometimes we hear things that we don’t don’t know we don’t know….wait, what?
I’m guessing Brooks is expecting “the young” to stand by and just watch as their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins just starve to death. Not all the young people were raised to be ignorant, obtuse and homicidal as Brooks.
Once we get rid of all this messy and undependable democracy silliness, their political support will no longer be needed.
hat Charlie Sheen post is amazing. Hey, he might abuse everyone in his life, including his wife and his kids and his girlfriends and his boss and strangers and himself, but at least he’s not some fag who thinks about that affects anyone else!
well, DUH…ann doesn’t want charlie sobered up! then people might start looking at her…and her big ass box of wine…and her incoherent ramblings…and they just might start putting it all together…
Dave’s kids probably have this column taped to their fridge, in the scrapbooks, saved in their safety deposit boxes, and will send copies of it to him every holiday with the note, “Great idea Dad!”
To use as an excuse to blame Obamacare?
I think you’re giving him far more credit for pundital strategery than he deserves.
I’m guessing Brooks is expecting “the young” to stand by and just watch as their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins just starve to death.
I won’t stand around. I’ll laugh and point.
I’m sorry. Did I die and wake up in another universe? When did protests become dirty and disgusting? I thought they were as American as Ward Cleaver giving June another pearl necklace while Wally and the Beav obliviously waited outside the bedroom to ask for ice cream money.
I doubt HonkeyRose will be coming back. He’s probably crapping out his feeble spam droplets at every blog he can today. Then off into the night, never to return, like a flatulent and impotent Zorro…
I doubt HonkeyRose will be coming back.
Yeah, I don’t know why I even bothered.
I’m sorry. Did I die and wake up in another universe? When did protests become dirty and disgusting? I thought they were as American as Ward Cleaver giving June another pearl necklace while Wally and the Beav obliviously waited outside the bedroom to ask for ice cream money.
They were. Then November 3rd, 2010 happened.
Yeah, I don’t know why I even bothered.
I don’t blame you — it’s fun and harmless. And you never know, sometimes the spammer notices, in which case it turns into Epic Lolz
Mark Steyn’s back at NRO!!!!!!! Shorter:
Bonus nutpick:
Mmm . . . menace.
Nothing sets me off like this kind of bullshit economizing. After 10 years of a “jobless recovery” everyone I know who still has a job is doing the work of two or three people. The American work force is the most efficient it ever has been. The ‘fat’ these people want to cut out hasn’t been there for 30 years.
Almost every big management fad of the last 30 years has been ‘lean’ this and ‘efficient’ that.
Except for in upper management.
Yes, educating our children must take priority. Now, if you’ll excuse him, Davey has to shit all over schoolteachers some more.
The menance of what the country was facing was palatable”
*headdesk* I believe the word you’re looking for here is “palpable.” Jesus Christ.
Seriously. Maybe I just need to sell my soul for wingnut welfare.
I don’t even want to know.
Hey, nothing enobles the peasantry like some good, old-fashioned medieval suffering. This is America! Brooks and his ilk need a higher grade of serf than your average plutocrats.
News reports usually describe protests as dirty and disgusting unless the protesters are in favor of tax cuts that would benefit the owner of the news organization doing the reporting.
“A second austerity principle is this: Trim from the old to invest in the young. We should adjust pension promises and reduce the amount of money spent on health care during the last months of life so we can preserve programs for those who are growing and learning the most.”
Wow. He actually wrote that? I’m not getting out of the boat. I’m NOT getting out of the boat.
I don’t even want to know.
Shorter Malkin: “Don’t mind me, just beating my children.”
Shorter Malkin: “Don’t mind me, just beating my children.”
That goes without saying. I was more disturbed by the “MILFistan” part…
Smack is an essential ingredient in coping with the Malkin household.
Except for in upper management.
Well, of course. The people who make the rules will always be immune as long as there’s no check on their power.
That’s why collective bargaining rights literally were to economics what the right to vote was to politics. Until we understand that and act accordingly, the economy will continue screwing over most of us. (Course, there’s plenty of conservatives these days who think voting is a “privilege” that should be restricted based on your income, so maybe the analogy’s still valid and we’re just heading backwards all around).
I was more disturbed by the “MILFistan” part
I clicked on the rest of her feed. I don’t really know how to use Twitter with all its #s and @s (ok, I guess I know what the @ means but the # confounds me), but I imagine this one explains it:
Also, for those asking about Actor, this joke came from a commenter on one of his posts yesterday:
“A public union employee, a tea party activist and a CEO are sitting at a table with a plate of a dozen cookies in the middle of it. The CEO takes 11 of the cookies, turns to the tea partier and says, “Watch out for that union guy he wants a piece of your cookie.””
I’ve haven’t visited in weeks, but ASW delivers some of the best stupid:
“if the Chinese wanted to create economic mayhem in America […] All they need do is call in their bonds.“
He’s actually right, it would cause mayhem… were we to suddenly discover the Chinese not only have no fucking clue what rights they have as bondholders, but also no idea they can’t call bonds unless they had issued them.
In other words, the world would be pretty screwed if China were run by the sort of fools who bring you ASW.
I’ve haven’t visited in weeks, but ASW delivers some of the best stupid:
“if the Chinese wanted to create economic mayhem in America […] All they need do is call in their bonds.“
He’s actually right, it would cause mayhem… were we to suddenly discover the Chinese not only have no fucking clue what rights they have as bondholders, but also no idea they can’t call bonds unless they had issued them.
In other words, the world would be pretty screwed if China were run by the sort of people who bring you ASW.
Even as the British fearfully waited for the expected Nazi invasion, their mouths watered at thoughts of bratwurst and pfannkuchen.
You know, I found that quote. It’s not fair to make a better joke out of it.
Game? This was never meant to be a game!
Also from Steyn:
Back in the old days WC Fields would steal candy FROM babies, now we give candy TO babies. IT IS HELL.
The first is about honor and duty, the second is about passing an affordable housing bill.
What could be less honorable than helping people get affordable housing, indeed?
Watching The King’s Speech and The Social Network and their mutually incomprehensible worlds
I’m confused. Is he saying that The King’s Speech = honorable past and The Social Network = immoral present? Because conservative websites for the most part either attacked Aaron Sorkin for trying to make Zuckerberg look bad, or cheered on the movie as a film about a heroic Galtian sticking it to the Harvard e.g. liberal elite.
The recent lack of world wars shows that we’re headed in the wrong direction.
The first is about honor and duty, the second is about passing an affordable housing bill
No honor or duty in working for one’s least powerful and most disadvantaged constituents.
Some in Steyn’s comments also realizes that Dave actually is quintessentially Tea Party despite the Macguffin being liberalish legislation. It says, after all, that any old moron can go to Washington and with a little common sense and elbow grease solve all the problems that those bureaucrats just can’t wrap their pointy heads around. And that, more than anything else, is the raison d’etre of the Tea Party and its avatar, Sarah Palin.
The recent lack of world wars
I thought the US was promoting quantity of wars rather than quality.
The social network is a strange movie.
Strange in the sense that all the characters are pretty much loathsome, yet not in an interesting way, more like a “why?” kinda way.
And what it is about is essentialy dumb and/or dull.
The acting, however is fine.
It just seems like a movie with reason to really exist.
That should be “no reason”, obviously.
its avatar, Sarah Palin.
If you haven’t already copyrighted pictures of Palin blue, dressed in feathers, and having hair sex with a dragon, I suggest you do so before the fapping starts.
Freals, does anybody know of the Times has ever fired one of its opinionistas for being a loathy jackbunger?
Brooks has gone so far over the horizon in the last five years it’s weird they still keep him on staff. Who the hell reads him? His audience can’t be much larger than a few hundred aging trust funders on the old money side of Long Island, at this point.
Compare what he’s doing to any Reneg America or Red
TesticleState contributor: the writing isn’t any better, and the idears are absolutely on par. The only thing Brooks has that those yokel-baiting creamhorns don’t is an account at Brooks Brothers.He used to have a Hart, Schaffner, & Marx account, too, until he found out President Barack Hussein Abu Ishak Che Guevara Al-Nakkash Rasputin Al-Zirikli Hussein Hussein Hitler Obama wore their suits… you know, because of the ‘Marx.’
“The menance of what the country was facing was palatable”
Sulfur chicken IS delicious!
New idea.
Mash up The King’s Speech and The Social Network, plotline naturally is Palin learning to use Facebook.
I hated it. It was richly conceived, brilliantly directed, the acting was superb, the writing was fluid, naturalistic, intelligent, and pitch-perfect. But this grizzled radical feminist couldn’t help noticing all the women in the movie were either ravening fuck bunnies or knit-browed onlookers (and there were only two of those, and they only exist to respond to the BOYYYYZ). “I got into Princeton [or wherever it was] because me so horny!”
And to top it off, the unassailable ramparts of cloying privilege made me want to puke. Which is not the filmmaker’s fault, but hey.
I’m guessing Brooks frots himself senseless to this movie whenever he sleeps on his side and gets a boner.
GOP Perv News: Rev. Grant Storms
Pr0n name/real name
~
I’m sorry, but you can’t have real devotion to duty and honor without a suitable backdrop, and all these tedious little modern bloodbaths just don’t have the sweeping cinematic style of thousands of panzers rumbling across the border of the Soviet Union.
Does Bobo even have an ideology, or does he just write whatever comes into his pretty little head when he sits down to “work” on his weekly column?
Chris: Enjoyed both your posts at the end of the last thread.
Finally followed the link:
I recommend the pursuit of every American citizen by genetically engineered Furies.
I’m sorry, but you can’t have real devotion to duty and honor without a suitable backdrop, and all these tedious little modern bloodbaths just don’t have the sweeping cinematic style of thousands of panzers rumbling across the border of the Soviet Union.
Of course, millions of Russians marching the other way in 1943-44 was uninspiring – cinema-wise – as well.
Does Bobo even have an ideology
Kiss wealthy ass.
Rinse.Repeat.Spengler, that’s basically what my friends said, too.
If anyone has some extra motivation they don’t need today, could they please pass it along to me? I could use it.
If that’s really Michelle Malkin, everything is now understood. Smack, of course. Glad she’s trying to kick.
thunder, this commenter sums up my feelings perfectly:
“And… this shocks no one here.
When will the rest of society figure it out: The more someone freaks out about sex (especially gay sex) the more they are into creepier, really dirty and freakier sex (notice I didn’t add the or.)”
Snorghagen –
That may have sounded like I was snarking on you. I was not: I am fed up with Hollywood’s obsession with excluding the Russians’ effort on the eastern front.
If anyone has some extra motivation they don’t need today, could they please pass it along to me?
“Motivation” – is that what the kids are calling it now?
I’m sorry, but you can’t have real devotion to duty and honor without a suitable backdrop, and all these tedious little modern bloodbaths just don’t have the sweeping cinematic style of thousands of
panzersAmerican GIs rumbling acrossthe border of the Soviet Unionthe beaches of Normandy.Fixed. Nobody cares about the Soviet Union, and most find it embarrassing to be reminded that they inflicted about three quarters of the Wehrmacht’s casualties and won the war by any rational analysis.
The Fenwickians: my posts and I thank you.
I recommend the pursuit of every American citizen by genetically engineered
FuriesFurries.Fiqqst. In general.
When will the rest of society figure it out: The more someone freaks out about sex (especially gay sex) the more they are into creepier, really dirty and freakier sex (notice I didn’t add the or.)”
Always reminds me of William Shatner’s line on Boston Legal (when he’s being interviewed as a possible Republican candidate):
“Our records show you enjoy spending time with prostitutes.”
“Who doesn’t? I like sex. I like women. I’ll hump anything in a dress. I’ll even get down on the floor with you if they’ll turn out the lights. But know this: the American people will find it refreshing to finally get a Republican candidate who isn’t a moralistic, sexually repressed, crusading hypocrite who cruises airport men’s rooms late at night.”
That’s because the Russkies weren’t decked out in those snazzy SS uniforms.
Snorghagen –That may have sounded like I was snarking on you. I was not: I am fed up with Hollywood’s obsession with excluding the Russians’ effort on the eastern front.
Don’t you know that World War II was entirely won by AMERICANS!?!?!?
(Seriously, though, I understand and agree.)
Apologies for being serious, but in regard to “partially funding” pensions…
http://tax.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/UBEN-8EDJYS?OpenDocument
“I recommend the pursuit of every American citizen by genetically engineered Furies Furries.”
Are you trying to tell us something, N_B? You can, you know. This is a safe place.
“Motivation” – is that what the kids are calling it now?
Yes. And I am doing what the kids are calling “whining” these days, so I’ll cut it out.
Yes. And I am doing what the kids are calling “whining” these days, so I’ll cut it out.
Tends to be the kids’ parents rather than the kids who call it that, let alone view it negatively.
Are you trying to tell us something, N_B?
Yes, that I would pay good money to see some teabaggers chased down the street by guys dressed as sloths and ocelots.
I don’t think it’s “whining” if it’s in the low baritone register.
hi everyone, what a great blog. I just discovered it but now I plan to stick around.
Question, I know this is a political humor blog but is there an opening here in the comments section for a painfully earnest prat (say, Earnest Prat would make a great alternative nym, don’t you think?) who doesn’t let a lack of knowledge on any given subject stop her from doing lots and lots of explaining? If not, how about a pointless parody of such a commenter? Or is there some other possible niche I can fill? I’ll be patient while you all formulate your answers but I’d appreciate hearing back within the next 15 minutes. Thanks!
“Yes, that I would pay good money to see some teabaggers chased down the street by guys dressed as sloths and ocelots.”
I do not have any animal costumes, but I will chase teabaggers for money.
I don’t think it’s “whining” if it’s in the low baritone register.
You’re the same age as Spengler, aren’t you?
You’re the same age as Spengler, aren’t you?
Mentally? Yes.
The Explainer said,
March 1, 2011 at 18:26
That’s my niche, lady! Well, that and whining.
‘When will the rest of society figure it out: The more someone freaks out about sex (especially gay sex) the more they are into creepier, really dirty and freakier sex (notice I didn’t add the or.)”’
But it’s better if you do add the ‘or.
I do not have any animal costumes, but I will chase teabaggers for money.
Hmm. Maybe, but only if I’m allowed to unionize. My union will negotiate about the animal costumes.
That’s my niche, lady! Well, that and whining.
I think I whine, don’t I? I mean, I’m not trying to take over anyone’s niche here, but I think I’ve posted enough rambling rants bitching about this or that conservative to qualify as somewhat whiny.
Would someone please link to the Booboos in Paradise article from … Philly mag/week/something? It is mandatory in any Bobo thread but I’m on iPhone so it’s too much effort for me just now.
That’s odd … why am I thinking of J. Load?
Yes, that I would pay good money to see some teabaggers chased down the street by guys dressed as sloths and ocelots.
Approved!
~
I think it’s ok to take any niche you want save the damp one, ‘cuz that one is taken.
“And… this shocks no one here.”
But, I for one, am shocked that a reference was made upthread to Ward Cleaver giving June a pearl necklace and not a single inner Beavis pounced upon it. Is our children growing up?
You know who else dismissed Russian capabilities?
-The menance of what the country was facing was palatable-
zrm?
Is our children growing up?
No, it’s just that Leave It to Beaver slashfic is old news to the jaded deviants of S,N!
~
Especially since I did everything but put quotes around “pearl necklace.”
Never fear, smedley. I’m still here. I’m still an idiot, and I still have the maturity of a pre-teen.
You know who else dismissed Russian capabilities?
Dorothy Hamill?
Rocky?
Brooks is advocating the Soylent Green solution. I watched it again recently and I was really struck by how many of the things in the movie are happening now; oppressive heat, overpopulation, food shortages, dying oceans. Of all the apocalyptic movie scenarios this seems to be the one we are on course for, with all the Mad Max action out in the hinterlands.
“Grampa, you actually saw a whale?”
HA!
But, I for one, am shocked that a reference was made upthread to Ward Cleaver giving June a pearl necklace and not a single inner Beavis pounced upon it.
I saw it. I just figured someone else would go for the obvious joke.
Trim from the old to invest in the young.
Lead by example, Bobo. Volunteer for a pay cut so the NYT can hire a decent young columnist.
“I do not have any animal costumes, but I will chase teabaggers for money”
you MUST acquire these first. http://i.imgur.com/bhRrK.jpg
o
m
g
My shoe fetish just went to a new and scary place.
I would have also accepted Jet Propulsion Laboratories and Dub?ek.
T&U, you really do need motivation, huh? Okay. Pick the smack up.
I would have also accepted Jet Propulsion
That, sir, is not respecting the sanctity of marriage.
Oh, boo WordPress. Dubcek, then.
David Brooks would look cute in those shoes.
hi everyone, what a great blog. I just discovered it but now I plan to stick around
Hiya Explainer. I missed your 15-minute window, but I hope you check back. Your speculations are all accurate. This place boogies all over the map: music, film, politics, reading, food pr0n, science. The unifying theme is pouncing on the worst reichwing sites, rending the slow and weaker animals into hamburger, then leaving the carrion in the sun for vultures.
I was a lurker here for several years, before I stepped out of the shadows and tried posting. Behind the snark, the people here have been kind and patient. S,N is a wonderfully addictive site. Bookmark it and come back!
With income distribution that would make 1960s Brazil blush, insisting on speading the pain is more confirmation of your psychopathology than it is pragmatic – the net contribution to the economy per capita is also uneven as hell: the huge swath of the ultra-rich who invest their dividends overseas while producing little-to-zero tangible benefit to society at large are the REAL “useless eaters” of the American economy, as are all the tens of thousands of troops sitting around in far-off bases that haven’t had a real reason for existence since 1990. Unless Antarctica gets The Bomb & joins the Axis O’ Evil, there will never be a sane reason for having so damn many bases & warships way down yonder, & they can never pay for themselves – about the only thing they can do is accidentally start a war. Yet the “everybody” who Bobo insists must hurt magically never includes the
Corporate High Tech Free Lunch SmorgasbordPentagon.This sudden concern for the young: I think it is appearing a tad late. The future not only doesn’t have a union – it’s laying in a fucking bathtub full of
icehungry stoats, bleeding out with most of its internal organs missing … turns out maybe we ought not to have tried getting the yummies out of that Heritage Pinata with a flamethrower after all. OOPS. If you seriously think a few more bucks for the Puberty Posse is going to cut it in this context, put down the mega-bong & crawl away before you forget how to breathe.Hmm … I wonder – will this “effectiveness revolution” require no power on odd-numbered days, like it has in Baghdad?
It’s kind of self-evident that you’ve gone from trimming fat to slashing muscle & bone when you have municipalities tearing up paved roads & turning off streetlights to try & pay the piper. To respond to this kind of civil malaise with “MOAR PAIN PLZ” isn’t “Beltway Wisdom” – it’s a fucking cry for help from the men in white coats.
Austerity in a torpid economy is a guaranteed footbullet, & the only reason it’s such a Hawt Topic right now is that the fat-cats are already jonesing for yet another round of scamming free payouts from governments (it’s literally money for nothing, after all) but for some mysterious reason the trough seems to be empty. Come on, peons! Reload that loot-bag or you might make the Baby Goldman Sachs cry! I hear catfood tastes just like caviar!
As usual, the comments ripping Bobo to shreds are more worth reading than he is. Pity he gives such good
blumpkinsinterview facetime, or someone might notice he’s been full of shit his entire career & wonder why anybody pays attention to his faux centrist whoring.Larkspur said,
March 1, 2011 at 18:53
David Brooks would look cute in those shoes.
The Mickey Kaus pumps?
~
More for Explainer: Also feminism, architecture, beer, zombies, LGBT rights, history, demented haiku and suchlike, razor-sharp wordplay going back and forth, bouncing around like pinballs. And serious stuff. For example, I’m sort of dialed into the Mideast, right now.
S,N is a nifty rollercoaster. Welcome aboard.
Yup, Mickey Kaus has just surpassed Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik in the pantheon of to-die-for shoe makers. (Willie is dead.)
You will notice that he said “Trim from the old to invest in the young” and NOT “Trim from the feeble-minded to invest in the smart.”
That would pretty well fuck his base.
Jim, I wish to bedizen your naked thighs with pearly romance dew.
Beware: we always deploy the Fenwikians to lure in the innocent and unwary.
Sorry, Jim, I wish to congratulate you on your most agreeable analysis.
I wonder who sent Brooks his Talking Points this week, the Kochsuckers?
we can preserve programs for those who are growing and learning the most.
Of course, the multinational corporations are growing and learning the most… shit, they’ve grown over the past 30 years, and boy have they learned a HELL of a lot.
Who the hell reads him? His audience can’t be much larger than a few hundred aging trust funders on the old money side of Long Island, at this point.
Sadly, no.
Many millions of
intellectual pygmiesReasonable Centrists hang on his every brainfart … & Bobo is who the wonks in China read to see what Americans are thinking.Distribution & marketing, baby!
So I sort of have an unhealthy obsession with the stupidity and pretensions of Powerline’s Scott Johnson. He so “palatably” thinks he’s the heir to William F. Buckley’s erudition and wit, but his flaccid jokes and mangled history reports make him come across as a foppish Jonah Goldberg.
Anyway, I was just reading the old Powerline and came across this incredibly disgusting Johnson musing:
I know he’s being sarcastic, but I think it’s pretty creepy to browbeat a politician over his tribute to a murdered little girl.
Sorry, is there someone new here? To comment, you must first NUZZLE THE INFINITE TOAD.
Speaking of which, there’s been a mild cry that the meedyer stop characterizing Wisconsin Dems as having ‘fled,’ which is a good point. They didn’t flee, they maneuvered. Did we already ruin this subject?
damn you wordpress, I said BLINK.
Fopping the Goldberg
him come across as a foppish Jonah Goldberg.
Baby, you misspelled “fappish”.
Scott Johnson: Can Obama make an argument without false premises, without false conclusions,or without begging the question? You have to wonder. Coming from the most fiscally irresponsible president in American history, Obama‘s criticism of Governor Walker is, shall we say, ironic.
Hee hee.
Spengler Dampniche said,
March 1, 2011 at 19:06
EWWWWWWWW, thanks.
Wow, the wingers are in good form today. Shorter Mark Krikorian:
Hmm. Well, yes. Unfortunately for you,
Well, yes. And that makes them American citizens, period. The fact that their culture and language don’t match yours doesn’t mean shit: there is no official language and no official culture in the United States, and no law whatsoever establishing this as a WASPocracy. They’re Americans. Get over it.
Not REALLY Americans, though, you know? I mean, uh, not, um, well, you know what I’m saying right?
Herewith the Philly Mag evisceration of Bobo:
http://www.phillymag.com/articles/booboos_in_paradise/
(I suck at the fancy linkies y’all do — so sue me.)
Sorry, Jim, I wish to congratulate you on your most agreeable analysis.
HOT!
Puerto Ricans don’t have strong, American names like Johnson and Adams and Washington. Wait, not that last one. Er, Krikorian?
I DEMAND THAT INFANT BE PUNCHED.
Holy shit.
I hate David Brooks like a long golf game that interrupts my Saturday morning cartoons…but even this is over the top for his unbelievable Right-makes-Right buffoonery. Insanity. Chicanery.
Isn’t it funny how tough love is always for somebody else?
Essentially, put the old into workhouses so I have a nice able workforce – but for God’s sake you better not increase my taxes. That’s just too cruel for discussion.
“I DEMAND THAT INFANT BE PUNCHED.”
First of all–rofl
Second of all…punching the infant
By reducing funding for programs that keep elders from penury, giving it instead to the young so that they can advance, we saddle them with the task of caring for their elders out of pocket. It’s a hydra of an upside: The hoipoloi have their assets tied up in elder care, this self tax reduces the burden on the investing class who’ll have more to spend on gaming the system, and we can assure that, eventually, each of them will suffer the indignity of being a burden to their children and see the hopes of those children for a better life shattered by the need to care for their parents.
David Brooks would make a good Hellraiser Cenobite. Photoshops demanded.
Will there be enough ice floes to go around?
Oh crap. Do I have an afternoOn project?
YES.
Well, yes. And that makes them American citizens, period. The fact that their culture and language don’t match yours doesn’t mean shit: there is no official language and no official culture in the United States, and no law whatsoever establishing this as a WASPocracy. They’re Americans. Get over it.
Puerto Ricans have had a proud tradition of serving in the military that Krikorian no doubt fetishizes. They are good citizens, as Chris noted.
That being said, Chinga a este cabron Krikorian con un platano muy grande en su culo!
Substance: well he is a pinhead, so that does fit.
Will there be enough ice floes to go around?
Not for my taste.
The specific statement Brooks made (“…reducing pensions and money spent on the last months of care…” is half merited. The first half (reducing pensions) is completely without merit. However, reducing money spent of the last months of life has some merit. Specifically, here we’re talking about care that extends life by mere months. Reducing the use of extreme measures to extend life for terminally patients will save a lot of money. Also from a care perspective, it makes a lot of sense.
Puerto Ricans have had a proud tradition of serving in the military that Krikorian no doubt fetishizes. They are good citizens, as Chris noted.
It’s always fun to read the war records of unappreciated groups like this. As I recall, German Jews contributed gloriously to the war effort in World War One and were damn proud of it. I imagine the reaction when they were accused of “stabbing us in the back” was much the same as the outrage/disgust/WTF that American Muslims are going through now.
So does restriction of paper-clip use from 50 a month to 48.
Lemme guess, corey, you work on a deth panel don’t you?
That being said, Chinga a este cabron Krikorian con un platano muy grande en su culo!
Stick something very big up that asshole Krikorian’s ass? I’m guessing “chinga” from context, and, is “platano” a kind of tree?
platano
That’s a hot stack o’ wax.
Years ago, I trolled over at Marvin Olasky’s Jews for Jesus place. I gave it up because I finally realized that you just can’t have a rational debate with those people. What finally pushed me out was the utter certainty of the majority of their posters and commenters that every person with a Spanish surname was in America illegally.
Ah. Google Translate informs me that “chinga” = “fuck” and “platano” = banana. Okay, that works.
Banana.
Braking news from PuffHo: Gaddafi’s been beaten off.
Aaaaaand, nymfail.
Too slow.
Gaddafi’s been beaten off.
Moomahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
/Red Sox fan
Op-ed from the Director General of Al Jazeera: We saw the Arab revolutions coming, the West did not. There’s clearly an element of self-publicity, but I think he’s justified.
“Gaddafi’s been beaten off.”
But not yet spurted?
Right. Just ship’em off some place.
Are those ignorant Asiatics unaware of David Broder?
Hold on there – palliative and hospice care _are_ fine ideas. There is a saying: “The most expensive day of your life is the day you die.” It’s true. an enormous amount of money is spent on extending life by a months, weeks, days. No one gives much thought to the quality of life during that time. GOD COMMANDS THAT YOU SUFFER AS LONG AS POSSIBLE. Or something like that.
My mother died about two weeks ago, in hospice care at my sister’s. She was 93. She hadn’t been to a doctor in many years. She came down with pneumonia a couple months ago and, when she just couldn’t avoid it any longer, allowed sis to take her to the doctor. Where they noted she had cancer all over the place.
“Nope,” she said, “I don’t want any tests. Nothing is going to go in me and for damn sure you’re not taking anything out.” She accepted antibiotics, oxygen, pain meds. I found myself once again despising the church that had her so indoctrinated that she couldn’t even imagine just slipping off the O2 mask one night. At the same time, I admired the hell out of her (yet again) for being so pragmatic in refusing all that hugely expensive but only marginally useful treatment that she would have had, had she not refused it.
We should be encouraging people to think about end-of-life options. Not for the money but money should not be excluded from the consideration.
Hold on there – palliative and hospice care _are_ fine ideas.
True. Very, very, very true.
We should be encouraging people to think about end-of-life options. Not for the money but money should not be excluded from the consideration.
Agreed 100%. I was trying to say that earlier, but I FAILED.
Our current attitude toward death in this country is to delay it as long as possible, no matter what the implications. That’s what doctors do by default. It’d be nice to switch from a “stop people from dying” model to a “help people live a good life” model. I don’t know why the former is so prevalent here, but for much of the world, the latter attitude is more common. I chalk it up to this country being founded by religious zealots and our immaturity in general.
Also, my condolences, PM. Sorry I didn’t state that the first time around.
It’s important to distinguish this from David Brooks wanting people nickel-and-dimed to an early grave because MAKE EVERYBODY HURT.
Blinking the Toad?!?!?
At Sadly No the toad blinks you.
And, really, the money shouldn’t be a consideration except that, you know, Americans are fucked when it comes to health care.
The Chinese, in general, don’t trust bald men.
When the DreadIslomoFacistPirate Obama suggested in his MarxistLenninistShariaBased health care plan that the government aid with the cost of end-of-life planning it was rightly denounced as brainwashing grandpa to go in the cart.
SMcG is right again. It’s hard to unpack individual aspects of US health car from the whole whacko clown car the system has become.
Condolences on the loss of yer mom PeeJ.
car = care (for some values of car)
I hate to say this, but resources (ie, money) are *always* an issue when it comes to health care, no matter where you are. Right now, resources are allocated to the economically privileged. If we were to equalize the field and allow all people of all economic backgrounds to have equal access to health care, we’d have to use some other metric to determine how to allocate health care resources.
A specific example that comes to mind is that when Mass Health took effect, there was a serious problem with the lack of primary physicians to cover all the new patients that resulted–at least, in a reasonable amount of time. That’s an issue under the current system, and it will only worsen if/when more people have access to primary care.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that the solution is to deny people access to primary care, but to make it more economically feasible for med school graduates to go into the field. Also, a sustainable and efficient insurance system (FUCKING MOTHERFUCKING SINGLE-PAYER) would free up a lot of physicians’ time to take on more patients and/or make the field of primary care more appealing to recent graduates.
Nevertheless, there is still a finite number of physicians and a finite number of care facilities, and not everyone is going to be able to get the care they want in the time frame that they want it. The solution isn’t to make sure that everyone gets what they want (that’s unpossible), but to make sure that we can serve the greatest amount of people in the most efficient manner possible.
Very sorry PM. I always seem to stick my foot in my mouth. My mother is 84. I dread the day.
It’s important to distinguish this from David Brooks wanting people nickel-and-dimed to an early grave because MAKE EVERYBODY HURT.
Word. And that’s this article of Brooks’ ever-present Trojan horse of reasonableness, wrapped around a phalanx of corrosive calumny.
The specific turd hidden in this twinkie is: make everybody hurt but **don’t** just raise taxes back to Clinton levels – that would make *rich* people hurt. That really makes the baby Jesus cry.
Charlie Sheehan has more logic than this. And more polygamous drug-soaked sex, which also puts him ahead in, uh, my friend’s opinion.
Oh, and also, Jesus CHRIST we would free up resources if docs didn’t have to do all sorts of unnecessary bullshit to confirm with insurance companies that YES THE PATIENT NEEDS THIS PROCEDURE YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES.
Tort reform ain’t shit next to that behemoth of inefficiencies that the private insurance industry creates.
Only tawdry Serbian latex gimp-suit smut involving Mr. Ed and Donna Reed can sting my sin-dulled senses back to life.
Agree with TU with one important distinction: if there isn’t enough care to go around, a just system means the rich can’t just jump the line.
Even if British or Canadian systems treated just as many people for the same amount we spend – which they don’t, they apparently cover vastly more people for 1/2 the cost – at least one’s health or survival isn’t solely dictated by their bank account.
Our current attitude toward death in this country is to delay it as long as possible, no matter what the implications. That’s what doctors do by default. It’d be nice to switch from a “stop people from dying” model to a “help people live a good life” model. I don’t know why the former is so prevalent here, but for much of the world, the latter attitude is more common. I chalk it up to this country being founded by religious zealots and our immaturity in general.
Shorter most of this country: You MUST reborn and you may die only when we can’t keep you going any longer. Note that any notions of “youness” being bound by having a functioning brain will not be considered. (I shall elide the reference to the unspeakable acts of the Frist’s. Oops)
FYiPad: you must be born…
They’re an issue where people don’t wanna pay for ’em, and a geographic issue. The money exists to conquer pretty much every crisis you wanna mention in the US and Canada.
So yes, I get that in the non-ideal world we unfortunately live in that my dad can bankrupt the family with his next heart attack, and that maybe resources devoted to keeping him alive might be better spent on the vaccination of a few thousand kids. But, you know, how many football stadiums do you guys need to pay for with public money?
Substance and The Biebs agree!
Agree with TU with one important distinction: if there isn’t enough care to go around, a just system means the rich can’t just jump the line.
Agree. That’s what I was trying to say–that if there’s not enough care to go around, the determination as to who gets it should be on who has the best possible outcome while utilizing the fewest resources possible.
It’s obscene that there are people who can’t get basic care while other people are getting all sorts of bloodwork and MRIs done for when they have a fucking case of shingles.
PENIS. And such as.
It’s no Gaudi.
Sort of on-topic, I just read this very interesting OpEd bit about doctors and stuff
http://theportlander.com/2011/03/01/op-ed-dream-big/
They’re an issue where people don’t wanna pay for ‘em, and a geographic issue. The money exists to conquer pretty much every crisis you wanna mention in the US and Canada.
We could have enough money to cover the needs of every American to a reasonable extent. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, Americans don’t like death very much, and we also LOOOOOOOVE technology. There are going to be people denied certain kinds of care simply because it doesn’t make sense. I just want to avoid the idea that single-payer can completely provide the exact quality/quantity of care that people seem to expect.
mango
Sort of on-topic, I just read this very interesting OpEd bit about doctors and stuff
I fucking love it.
BWAHAHAHAHA
I wonder how much longer he will be the AFA’s attorney.
http://www.goodasyou.org/good_as_you/2011/03/video-even-afas-general-counsel-finds-doma-indefensible.html
Well, there’s health care to a “reasonable” standard that most folks can agree with. No naked slaves fanning you as you sip martinis and so on. Certainly I have my own complaints about certain aspects of health care delivery but, you know, with half a billion dollars spent on a roof I am unconvinced that the powers that be can’t pony up the dough for relatively cheap and effective treatment.
And yes, I didn’t address the nursing shortage that we have in the US. It’s baaaaaaaaaad, guys, and it’s going to get worse. We’re going to have to face some decisions with regard to allocating care one way or another.
Smart people with strong stomachs go into health care.
Sorry, I was commenting six feet upthread. It would have been funny.
Pupenius, my condolences.
You’re all waiting for the ghastly remark, aren’t you.
I am unconvinced that the powers that be can’t pony up the dough for relatively cheap and effective treatment.
Oh, I don’t disagree with you on that at all. There are plenty of resources for everyone to get adequate health care.
Fuck! One minute!”
Sometimes I need longer than that.
Dammit, woman, I’m not a machine!!
I can haz?
at least one’s health or survival isn’t solely dictated by their bank account.
But then how do they know who deserves it?
The Chinese, in general, don’t trust bald men.
To be fair to them, in about eight months, the reason for the ban will become clear.
FROZETTA.
Pup, my condolences as well.
“The Chinese, in general, don’t trust bald men.”
Bald where?
where?
in China, der.
Down der.
“in China, der.”
Lol…smartass.
Only tawdry Serbian latex gimp-suit smut involving
Mr. Ed and Donna ReedFlipper and Emma Peel can sting my sin-dulled senses back to life.Talkin’ bout my generation.
Maybe Gentle Ben and Barbara Eden.
in particular, Sheer Dong Province.
NEWSBUSTERS!
Newsbusters apparently believes this stands on its own as an indictment…and I guess it does.
Y, B4, para chingar, los platanos no sirven. Quizas un agave piña.
If anyone has some extra motivation they don’t need today, could they please pass it along to me? I could use it.
this was basically my fb status this morning and still is…i only hope malkin doesn’t hear the whine and come smack us around…
pm…sorry about your mum…my dad battled cancer for 15 years, but at the end (in fact the day we took him to the hospital for the final time, he was actually pissed off that he had woken up that morning) when the docs were saying, ‘we can give you this, and this and this.’ i just looked at him in his confusion and said, ‘dad, you don’t have to take anything you don’t want to.’ he died about 6 hours later surrounded by all his children…sad as fuck–he was only 60–and i miss him every day, but we couldn’t see him suffer any more…end of life options are indeed what we should be focusing on.
okay…this made me feel marginally perked up today. from my local *news*paper: ‘the penalty for dogs caught chasing deer can be death.’
also this: beating off the gadafi…
Quizas un agave piña.
AY!
Y, B4, para chingar, los platanos no sirven. Quizas un agave piña.
O un nopal, con aguila on sin aguila- no es importante
“Quizas un agave piña.”
Mezcal’s on me!!!!!
Alright, I’ll wipe it off myself.
Alright, I’ll wipe it off myself.
Sorry, I only do body shots on girls during spring break for the benefit of male attention.
Mezcal’s on me!!!!!
Better get it off, that stuff will burn.
Tengo cicatrices que hacerian los piedras llorar.
(Some BS about Wisconsin.) Ann Althouse has more. (Some BS about Wisconsin.) Ann Althouse has more. (Some BS about Wisconsin.) Ann Althouse has more. (Some BS about Wisconsin.) Ann Althouse has more. (Some BS about Wisconsin.) Ann Althouse has more. (Some BS about Wisconsin.) Ann Althouse has more. (Some BS about Wisconsin.) Ann Althouse has more. (Some BS about Wisconsin.) Ann Althouse has more. (Some BS about Wisconsin.) Ann Althouse has more. (Some BS about Wisconsin.) Ann Althouse has more. (Some BS about Wisconsin.) Ann Althouse has more. (Some BS about Wisconsin.) Ann Althouse has more. (Some BS about Wisconsin.) Ann Althouse has more. (Some BS about Wisconsin.) Ann Althouse has more. (Some BS about Wisconsin.) Ann Althouse has more. (Some BS about Wisconsin.) Ann Althouse has more.
In a sane world, this would unite pro-choicers the way Gov. Walker has united workers. I mean, what further evidence is required to show that abortion foes see women as just a baby-carrying vessel? What if the woman carrying the fetus doesn’t want to show up at the capitol?
los piedras
Is “los piedras” slang? ‘Cause…ouch…
“Fucking” can be an adjective, as in “You’re a fucking crank,” “Watch out for the fucking crab,” or “I can’t believe you’re serving fucking corn again,” but in the Bono boast, it’s a fucking adverb.
this is the brilliance althouse is serving up…god, she is the coolest law prof evar!
smedley, jebus fucking crisp.
Um.
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?
What if the woman carrying the fetus doesn’t want to show up at the capitol?
i’m pretty sure in this case she would, cuz she is proud to be a birthin’ machine!!!
I hope that fetus knows how to flip the bird.
Is “los piedras” slang? ‘Cause…ouch…
“Huevos” is the preferred slang, as far as I’ve known.
Yeah, only it’s “las” piedras. The language is allusional enough without errors.
“Huevos” is the preferred slang, as far as I’ve known.
That’s what I thought, too, but my Spanish is rusty and all college elitist-y. (In other words, I only know a few ways to curse).
Maybe it’s just me, but these recently attacks on reproductive rights have felt especially…personal. Maybe it’s because they’re escalating it? I don’t know. It’s like the misogyny is palatable!
It’s like the misogyny is palatable!
mmmmm…i will have the misogyny on rye, please…
Yes, it’s like they’re not even trying to hide the fact that they HATE women. Unless those women are Sarah Palin or Michelle Duggar.
Michelle Duggar
isn’t there another family trying to top them on the teevee? i really want to start a reality show about child hoarders…
Yes, it’s like they’re not even trying to hide the fact that they HATE women.
Exactly. It’s always been present in the “pro-life” movement as a whole, but it feels like legislators are being more blatant about it. It’s scary and it hurts, in a way.
A fetus has been scheduled as a legislative witness in Ohio on a unique bill that proposes outlawing abortions after the first heartbeat can be medically detected.
What if the put-upon fetus says “kill me now?”
Yes, it’s like they’re not even trying to hide the fact that they HATE women.
and children outside of the womb…i would have the utmost respect for this twatnozzle who is staging the fetus testimony if she instead focused on something more important like, oh the hundreds of thousand unwanted children living on the streets, orphanages and foster homes…
I saw a “God is Pro-Life” sticker the other day. I love those. They make no fucking sense whatsoever.
Smart people with strong stomachs go into health care.
I hope they don’t expect decent wages.
“isn’t there another family trying to top them on the teevee?”
Please tell me they aren’t.
Please tell me they aren’t.
i swear to god i read it somewhere…hold on…brb
The term “pro-life” sticks in my craw like nothing else. I REFUSE to use the term. It’s inane. Everyone is by default pro-life. SO FUCKING STUPID.
“Forced birth” is a good one.
Thanks for the kind words, all.
Regarding Ward, June and the necklace, it never eve occurred to me that the original post was about literal jewelry. Why else were Wally and the Beave waiting in the hall, after all?
I’ve been reading too much SadlyNo.
“Forced birth” is a good one.”
I need to train myself to replace “anti-choice” with that.
I saw a “God is Pro-Life” sticker the other day.
Except that when he tells you to kill the Amelekites, he means ALL the Amalekites, including the cows.
“I’ve been reading too much SadlyNo.”
Congratulations. You are now a jaded pervert.
oh, god, I wish I had my pretty mind back!
isn’t there another family trying to top them on the teevee?
I would watch that.
smut, goddammit. Quit making me laugh. THIS IS SERIOUS.
I saw a “God is Pro-Life” sticker the other day.
Then why does every fucking living thing on the planet end up dead?
Then why does every fucking living thing on the planet end up dead?
DA DING DING DING DING DING!
I guess it’s the bitch’s fault for listening to that snake.
Then why does every fucking living thing on the planet end up dead?
God hates fucking.
damn, i can’t find it, but anyhoo, my favorite euphimism is now is ‘women who were denied their motherhood.’
A fetus has been scheduled as a legislative witness in Ohio
Rep. Lynn Wachtmann, the guy who’s calling on the fetus to testify.
Wachtmann’s less repulsive identical twin.
Rep. Lynn Wachtmann,
He’s just mad he has a girl’s name.
“‘women who were denied their motherhood.’”
Eh?
Eh?
The abortion industry sold them a billa goods!
Eh?
yeah, pretty awesome, huh? it was on a show on a religious whackdoodle channel and a lady was crying because while working for planned parenthood, she lied to millions of women when she told them that their feti don’t feel a thing during the procedure…then she had to watch one and the fetus moved and she saw her daughters face and then she was cured of wanting to work for planned parenthood…
Mmmmmhmmmm.. Sure. I’m sure it went down exactly like that.
He’s just mad he has a girl’s name.
i thought he was a girl until i saw the picture. so i take back calling him a twatnozzle because i can’t imagine any woman letting him put his you know what you know where…
I like “abortion stops a beating heart,” too. (I should do a coffee table book of anti-abortion signs). So does hunting. And slaughtering chickens. And smushing bugs. So the fuck what, hypocrites?
Perhaps a dead Afghan kid could testify before congress.
“abortion stops a beating heart,” too
and we can’t forget, ‘choose life! your mother did!’
Perhaps a dead Afghan kid could testify before congress
NOPE! outside the womb…doesn’t count! now if you could drag in some afghani feti, THAT would get them going…
More Lynn Wachtmann goodness.
This guy makes me damn proud to be an American.
I like “abortion stops a beating heart,” too.
If Edgar Allen Poe wrote anti-abortion stories…
More Lynn Wachtmann goodness.
that is NOT his face?!?!?
How the fuck are we ever going to get the Rapture if you keep killing all the baby Jesuses?
Because, as the old parable goes –
“A man once knelt in prayer and asked the Lord Heavenly High Father Figure – ‘Why Hitler?’
And one of Jesus’s angels fluttered down, to whisper in the man’s ear – ‘Because you aborted the abusive husband that would have killed his mother. Also, I hate Jews.'”
And so it was written.
more lynn wachtmann
A pregnant teenager is sitting in the waiting room of Planned Parenthood.
“Mommy, I’m scared” her unborn child whispers.
“How do you think I feel?” The woman retorts, “I have to face that mob outside by myself.”
“NOPE! outside the womb…doesn’t count! ”
Also brown. Double doesn’t count.
Also brown. Double doesn’t count.
little bastid should have known better than to be born in afghanistan, when amurka is just over yonder…
Also brown. Double doesn’t count.
Are they brown in the womb (convection oven) or do they turn brown when they come out (cut apple)?
More Lynn Wachtmann goodness.
Familiar from somewhere.
You have aroused Lynn Wachtmann’s three snakes!
Are they brown in the womb (convection oven) or do they turn brown when they come out (cut apple)?
i’m going with convection oven…hence the term ‘bun in the oven…’
Trim from the old to invest in the young.
Sadly, their surplus organs are generally worn out, and they don’t have so much body fat.
FREEDOM FEST 2011!!!
Getcher tickets now!!
Dear Stupid Jerk:
You & some of your buddies shouting into a laptop is not a radio show.
Hell, I could do that.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Amercian
Testiculos: otros ejemplos son, pelotas, bolas, nueces. Pues, si hay varios nombres, pero generalmente le dicen huevos. Cuando se habla de todo, es el equipo, como el bate y las dos bolas. Para referirse a una mujer, se llama bicho, animal, empanada, panucho, o, simplemente, el pan.
I am humbled to write that Yours Truly has been selected to act as emcee.
rick amato: son of john travolta and jan michael vincent…
empanada
winner
to vet U.S. Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates so that the RNC understands which candidates the grassroots Tea Party nation supports
so….wouldn’t it just be easier to slap a sticker on them that says “ENDORSED BY TEH TEA PARTY”?
and ooooooooooh…
Should the Republican party choose to ignore the message, they will do so at their own risk.
what are you going to do, shoot them? oh, wait…
o, simplemente, el pan.
We have already done the bread puns. Thank you.
“Are they brown in the womb (convection oven) or do they turn brown when they come out (cut apple)?”
They are infrawaved.
M., I LOVE that picture. All the tokens are out front!!!
“God is Pro-Life”
Wow.sounds like SOMEbody skipped every single lesson in Sunday school.
I like “abortion stops a beating heart,” too. (I should do a coffee table book of anti-abortion signs). So does hunting. And slaughtering chickens. And smushing bugs. So the fuck what, hypocrites?
Also too capital punishment, which those dudes typically lurve.
and we can’t forget, ‘choose life! your mother did!’
Oh come on, ONE TIME she let one slip through.
Perhaps a dead Afghan kid could testify before congress
NOPE! outside the womb
Aborted fetus ends up outside too, so that can’t be it. Must be the brown thing.
“rick amato: son of john travolta and jan michael vincent…”
I was thinking he looks a tad like Eric MacCormack.
Awesome. I will put one million percent of my waking effort into counting attendees.
Freedumb Fest!!!one!!11
1 million grumpy old white folks in the same place at the same time. Does anyone know how has the tri-corner hat concession, yet?
a sampling of amato’s commenters from mb’s link:
Now we will be in control of our destiny !
“They drew a line in the sand, and the winds of change have shifted that line…to be redrawn by the Patriots who wish to save our Country!”
— Me
This is exactly what WE THE PEOPLE need to bring our country back to what our founding fathers envisioned! I’m sick and tired of seeing the same Repub names thrown out there! (Think Romney, Huckabee, Gingrich, etc.) The last thing our country needs is another Rhino (McCain) impersonating conservatism!
Any prospective and self-proclaimed candidates beware– if you think the “lamestream media”‘ ‘s “candidate anal exam” is rough, you ain’t seen nuthin’ til you’ve had a TEA PARTY exam–
The ONLY person of note that I can see as being “Tea Party Ready” to pursue the nomination as a viable candidate for President is US Rep. Colonel Allen West (FL) Sorry Paulettes, but we need now more than ever, a guy with actual combat military experience–
a tad like Eric MacCormack
YES! i knew i had seen that faux serious/pout thing before!
Destiny, destiny
No escaping that for me!
Over 1 million people are expected to attend
Har. I completely glossed over that one. Some of this shit just does not register. Does that mean I’m still sane?
t we need now more than ever, a guy with actual combat military experience
Because we hope for a treasonous coup.
He’s kind enough to include a picture of a million people right in his article.
Over 1 million people are expected to attend
That’s precious, teh Wikiwakiwoo puts the total population of the greater Topeka metropolitan area at about 125,000.
Any prospective and self-proclaimed candidates beware– if you think the “lamestream media”‘ ‘s “candidate anal exam” is rough, you ain’t seen nuthin’ til you’ve had a TEA PARTY exam–
And they bitch about being called Teabaggers.
He’s kind enough to include a picture of a million people right in his article.
Per the Slayer of Vacuums, that must be the million-token march.
That’s precious, teh Wikiwakiwoo puts the total population of the greater Topeka metropolitan area at about 125,000.
The lines on the Metro are going to be unbearable.
“This is exactly what WE THE PEOPLE need to bring our country back to what our founding fathers envisioned”
If they knew anything about what the Founders were really like, they’d suck those words right back into their stubby fingers.
teh Wikiwakiwoo puts the total population of the greater Topeka metropolitan area at about 125,000.
Hoo boy, that’s gonna strain the plumbing if they do get a million dumbfucks out there for a Stupid Anger party.
Hoo boy, that’s gonna strain the plumbing if they do get a million dumbfucks out there for a Stupid Anger party.
Until someone invents a chemical toilet that you can drive a scooter into, this problem will clog our national
arteriesbowels.More and more I catch the stench of Hoveround-envy here at S,N. I just wish you all would cop to it.
I’m holding out for the flying hoveround.
See, that proves you’re a smart guy who’s always using the old melon. The sexy vampiric melon.
Fucking lump of dogshit.
I was just watching that on MSNBC. Boy, he can’t go batshit right fast enough.
The million moran march. I bet they will be lucky to get 2% of that.
Puerto Rico is a foreign country that became a colony of the United States in 1898, no different from the French colony of Togo or the British colony of Uganda (or the U.S. colony of the Philippines)
Congress granted residents of the island U.S. citizenship during World War I
Incidentally, does Krikorian explain why a group of US citizens should suddenly be declared non-citizens?* Is there an actual Puerto Rico Problem requiring a Final Solution? Or is it simply the internal logic of eliminationism, which requires new groups to be assigned to the Outgroup at regular intervals, for fear of losing the impetus of the process?
Perhaps they could be chosen by a kind of lottery.
* Not going to follow the link.
using the old melon. The sexy vampiric melon.
IT SEDUCED ME with its vampiric mind-clouding powers. I was not to blame.
Ooh. That explains the hole.
The hole in the melon is where you pour the 151.
The colon’s connected to the melon hole
The melon hole’s connected to the rum shot
The rum shot’s connected to the shin bone
The fact that their culture and language don’t match yours doesn’t mean shit: there is no official language and no official culture in the United States, and no law whatsoever establishing this as a WASPocracy.
After we finish with the Reconquista, we should deport these dumbasses back to Europe.
Reconquista
That never fails to bring to mind an image of a black-haired, black-eyed dominatrix.
The million moran march. I bet they will be lucky to get 2% of that.
Numbers have a liberal bias.
Someone already typed my comment.
a watermelon ain’t no beast.
The true underlying concerns about GE foods are revealed at last.
Phew, this paragraph’s got a lot of mangoes.
The ONLY person of note that I can see as being “Tea Party Ready” to pursue the nomination as a viable candidate for President is US Rep. Colonel Allen West (FL) Sorry Paulettes, but we need now more than ever, a guy with actual combat military experience–
Allen West? The piece of shit who really does think we’re at war with Islam? And thinks that because Keith Ellison’s a Muslim, he represents “the antithesis of the principles upon which this country was established?” Yeah, sounds exactly like the kind of candidate America’s proto-fascists could live with.
(And it’s nice to know that while there are indeed black bigots, they have to run on the Republican ticket to make it as far as he has).
“This is exactly what WE THE PEOPLE need to bring our country back to what our founding fathers envisioned”
If they knew anything about what the Founders were really like, they’d suck those words right back into their stubby fingers.
That, and again, there’s an inherent contradiction between being a populist (phony or otherwise) and invoking the Founding Fathers. The system these guys set up was elitist enough to make most people on both sides of the aisle shudder; wasn’t just minorities and women who were excluded, but white men too if they weren’t above a certain income level.
All told, I think the number of Americans who actually had a voice in Founding Father America was something like twenty percent. If the FFs came back today, I suspect they’d be much more interested in taking the country back FROM the people, Tea Party Movement or otherwise, than in giving it back to them.
I’ll be squeezing my Bobo in no time!
This a hot damn thread, but I just can’t get started. I lurk this day.
Simple test for joining local Tea Party chapter: Name the seven men who are considered the Founding Fathers.
Name the seven men who are considered the Founding Fathers.
Jesus, George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan, Patton, Colonel Sanders. That’s seven.“The system these guys set up was elitist enough to make most people on both sides of the aisle shudder; wasn’t just minorities and women who were excluded, but white men too if they weren’t above a certain income level.”
Well, and I think they were concerned about idiotic, aimless, anti-intellectual populism, too. I’m pretty sure the Founding Fathers would find the teatards appalling.
That’s seven.
You forgot Margaret Thatcher.
a different mikey said,
December 30, 2008
I thought when one changed one’s name all the posts you made under that former name vanish forever. You mean that’s not true? And whatever happened to that Righteous Bubba feller anyway?
Jesus, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan, Patton, Colonel Sanders. That’s seven.
Pretty good. Welcome to the Tea Party. Pick any gun you like…
God, “Rhino” never fails to make me laugh.
Hoo boy, that’s gonna strain the plumbing if they do get a million dumbfucks out there for a Stupid Anger party.
Huh?
We shit in ditches out here in flyover country.
Puerto Rico & the right can be summed up by: Statehood = Two more Democratic Senators, & swarthy ones at that!
If a million people come to Topeka, they’re surely going to spill over into Lawrence. I’d better tell my little brother he’ll be working a double-shift at the hotel restaurant that day.
This a hot damn thread, but I just can’t get started. I lurk this day.
Seconded.
He went down commenting.
Are you saying that most of the supporters of the Revolution were elitist and anti-populist? That’s very far from the truth.
In any event, what the Revolutionary Era guys thought is immaterial to the teabaggers. The wingnuts just make shit up, claim that they’re following the sacred teachings of the Holy Founding Fathers, and condemn anyone who disagrees as a blasphemous traitor. The teabaggers don’t have the slightest idea what people were actually fighting for 235 years ago, and don’t really care. The Ronald R. Cherry link in the previous thread is a fine example.
Also from the “Whatever Happened to?” File: tigrismus
A republican wisconsin state senator just referred to the protesters as “slobs”. Swear to fucking god. He also said they were all college people partying and unemployed people.
tigrismus, heck of a guy.
and unemployed people.
That’s Phase II.
Or that eerie Herr Doktor Bimler character…
You forgot Margaret Thatcher.
Oh, right. Also William Wilberforce, who was a white male CHRISTIAN, not that SOME people ever show any gratitude.
“That’s Phase II.”
Yeah, he also got in a dig about the building smelling RIGHT before he called them slobs. My head about shot off my neck.
Why not a Million Melon March? Then a million Tea Party Patriots will truly come.
Or that eerie Herr Doktor Bimler character…
I miss Retardo Montalban and his prophetic persecution of Trig.
Yeah, he also got in a dig about the building smelling RIGHT before he called them slobs. My head about shot off my neck.
Holy fuck.
Is there an actual Puerto Rico Problem requiring a Final Solution?
We have to get out of the boat, they have all the mangoes.
Also from the “Whatever Happened to?” File: tigrismus
I think he got his own blog.
Smut wounds.
They’re not real citizens. Congress could just kick them out without causing a massive Supreme Court case or a constitutional crisis or anything.
“March 2, 2011 at 3:24
Smut wounds.”
This is what we call the holes he puts in the watermelons.
So the picnic is off, I take it?
This is what we call the holes he puts in the watermelons.
My heart goes out to the Frau Doktorin.
So the picnic is off, I take it?
Nah. I just recommend you avoid the watermelon.
And the coleslaw.
And probably the potato salad, just to be on the safe side.
I don’t think I would attend any picnic where both smut and defenseless melons might congregate.
I don’t think I would attend a picnic with any of you degenerates.
I dont blame you one bit. We’re all pretty disgusting. And some of us have B.O.
And some of us have B.O.
It’s nice of you not to name names.
This is what we call the holes he puts in the watermelons.
Well let’s see you nail a watermelon to a cross, if you think you can do any better.
T&U, did you return my toenail saw?
It’s nice of you not to name names.
That is one redeeming quality for us. We may have sex with our food, and we do have terrible B.O., and the homophones are re-pun-gnant, and we do name names, but we are NOT communists.
Uh oh.
T&U, did you return my toenail saw?
Yes, thanks for letting me use it. Those hedges were getting out of control!
Speaking of, could I borrow your nose hair trimmer?
Someone has borrowed either my ear wax bulb or my enema syringe. I can never remember which is which.
Oh, I gave that to VS for a shower gift. I thought it was one of those little snot-remover things for Dudeskull.
Well… I am a card-carrying member of the Slothist Party, a dedicated antiStakhanovite cadre, and a resolute supporter of the Principle of Permanent Revolutionary Lethargy.
Well… I am a card-carrying member of the Slothist Party, a dedicated antiStakhanovite cadre, and a resolute supporter of the Principle of Permanent Revolutionary Lethargy.
Splitter!
I am a card-carrying member of the Slothist Party
Where do you stand on ocelot furries?
Speaking of the Slothists, we now know who’s buying all the hoverounds.
I don’t think I would attend any picnic where both smut and defenseless melons might congregate.
Rule 34
They are reactionary bourgeois anarcho-adventurist Bogdanovite saboteurs who must be reeducated in anthropomorphic Slothist labor camps.
Slothist labor camps
Clean-up on aisle two: oxymoron on the floor.
Principle of Permanent Revolutionary Lethargy.
Solidarity.
——
Like Spengler & D-KW, I’m mostly in lurker mode on this thread. The wimmin Sadlies conversation on forced-birtherism, its bumper stickers, and its mind-set was illuminating.
Also I have no Spanish…and not enough time to translate the posts to get the jokes. (Actually, I have no language except English. That assertion has been challenged, btw.)
Pup: I’m saddened to hear about your mother, and saddened by your loss.
I noticed that you have been posting very sparingly in the recent weeks…but–until today–assumed it was caused by getting settled into your new digs.
S,N needs moar food pro0n! The standard notiiceably declined while you were away. Whenever you’re ready, I’m looking forward to drooling on my keyboard again….
Not at all. They’re just languid labor camps, where the back-breaking work is undertaken in a relaxed, laid-back manner, assuming we get around to it at all.
All the fatuity, breezy callousness and contempt for accuracy that make Brooks so despicable are concentrated in this poisonous little kernel of a sentence:
The future has no union.
Let’s think about that a moment, shall we?
He’s saying that we are shortchanging the future because it doesn’t have a “union” to protect it.
Yeah, David, it’s a good thing the future doesn’t have a union. Because if it did, the crooks, criminals, enviro-rapists, thieves, serial abusers and exploiters and psychopaths who manage to avoid actually breaking the law (or getting caught) whom you write so adoringly about, whose interests you unfailingly seek to protect, would have done to the future what they’ve done and are doing to the unions: buttfuck it and carve it into little pieces.
Are you saying that most of the supporters of the Revolution were elitist and anti-populist? That’s very far from the truth.
By the standards of the time, maybe, but the fact is that the system they set up excluded the vast majority of people, not just along race and gender lines but class lines as well (if you didn’t own X amount of property, you couldn’t vote).
No one knows what the Founding Fathers would do today. I’m just saying that the system they did set up was pretty un-populist by modern standards, just in the most basic sense of how many people were allowed to vote. The freedoms we enjoy today are due just as much to the people who came after them and improved on what they’d built, as to the Founding Fathers themselves. And I’m saying that bringing back the America 1.0 that they created would likely leave a lot of us with less representation, not more, in the system. (Probably including more than a few teabaggers).
In any event, what the Revolutionary Era guys thought is immaterial to the teabaggers. The wingnuts just make shit up, claim that they’re following the sacred teachings of the Holy Founding Fathers, and condemn anyone who disagrees as a blasphemous traitor. The teabaggers don’t have the slightest idea what people were actually fighting for 235 years ago, and don’t really care. The Ronald R. Cherry link in the previous thread is a fine example.
Well, right. As with Jesus, it’s not what they stood for, it’s just the ability to invoke their name as an appeal to authority.
It’s nice of you not to name names.
It’s me. No hot water since Saturday.
Scribe’s got my vote for Teh Winnah of the thread.
*in gospel voice* Righteousness! Testify, brother!
Right now I am reading Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World by David Brion Davis. There is so much I didn’t know. From a casual American education, a person such as moi could get the impression that slavery in the U.S. South was a creaky anachronism from the get-go, instead of the highly profitable enterprise it was, in some ways anticipating mass-production, assembly-line industries. And how crucial it was to exploit the racial specificity of New World slavery, so that unrest and resentment among the non-black working class could be deflected by (a) the idea that however homely your circumstances, at least you weren’t black, and (b) if it all were to change, enfranchised black people will steal your jobs. So: let’s you and him fight. Again.
Also, an acquaintance of mine wondered recently what it was about Haiti that kept it so thoroughly, historically, and apparently permanently screwed. I’m beginning to get an idea, from this book.
In boob news, y’all are gonna love this thread:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/03/01/otto-titsling-open-thread/
Lurkers: I’ve had a truly chaotic nym history here. In the last ten weeks I have been….
Ice Nine
Snidely Whiplash
Ice Nine & Snidely Whiplash and The Variants Thereof
The Variants
The Fenwickians
Fenwick
I lurked here for a few years and laughed my fool head off. Stepped out of the shadows and I’ve had fun ever since.
Although I have been in possession of a very fine pair of boobs for decades, I cannot compete with a general discussion of them. I retreat now to my bunk, where I am for to be planning and plotting and possibly scheming. I will be terse. Possibly laconic.
Let’s face it, we’re all just jealous of Brooks. His entire life has been a golden handjob. He’s made effete, upper-class pseudointellectualism into just about the cushiest gig it is possible to imagine — the only way he could have it any softer is if baby goats licked cream off his balls all day. He is ceaselessly lionized for his wit and insight when the guy is objectively about as insightful as a fucking condolence card with a twenty tucked into it. His only equal in sheer good fortune is his colleague, the king of mixed metaphors, the Thomas Kincaid of the written word, Mr. T Friedman. In short, I wish I was David Brooks.
I’d have lived a genteel, worry-free life of continual positive reinforcement, I would never have experienced a moment’s self-doubt, and I would believe my existence was something important, a blessing to the species. Instead, I’m pissing and moaning in this fucking place, the shadow of eternity already falling like a crow’s wing over whatever tiny contribution I imagined I might someday make in the world.
But at least I can still get an erection without shoving a golf club up my ass.
Larkspur: Many people are unaware of how slavery underpinned the economy of the South. As you say, it was a highly profitable enterprise. Not only did slaves work the fields, they also produced more slaves.
Haiti is an intriguing case for speculation, especially considering the Haitian Revolution and this remarkable man.
S. cerevisiae: LMAO.
Fuck You WordPress. The link-text looked perfect in Preview. You odious oatmeal-brained piece of worthless shit. FYWP, with a snowshovel.
So here’s the link (I hope):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toussaint_Louverture
David Brion Davis likens the effect of the Haitian rebellion and revolution to Hiroshima.
Nerd alert: a long, tedious history rant follows.
But modern standards really don’t apply. The 18th century was a radically different world and to understand it at all you have to largely take it on its own terms.
In any event, don’t underestimate the level of popular political activity. Before the Revolutionary Era, the social structure was very hierarchical by our standards, but even then, a much larger percentage of the population in the American colonies was able to vote than anywhere else I’m aware of at that time. Even with property qualifications, most heads of households could vote, as I recall.
And with the coming of the Revolution, political activity became very widespread and intense. One study I read on Concord, Massachusetts, (which was a pretty typical rural New England town) found that nearly all adult males put their lives on the line and voluntarily took up arms against the British at one time or another in the first years of the war.
Sure. I admire the people who were active in the Revolution, I admire the people who were active in later years, and I admire the people who are active today. It’s all part of humanity’s never-ending struggle against bullshit.
A piece of trivia: Wikipedia, which is always an utterly and totally dependable source of information, claims that the phrase ‘Founding Fathers’ (which I’ve always found annoying) was originally coined by that great scholar of 18th century history, Warren G. Harding.
Didn’t know that pseudo-religious Founding Fathers crap was from Harding.
Back in my day, before that new-fangled stuff caught on, they were known as the Framers (probably a Masonic reference) of the Constitution, not the founders of the national gene pool.
Unless you wanna go w/ the broad Wiki brush.
Chris, are you saying that the Founders weren’t too keen on the ladies and teh gays? I find this disconcerting. Should I refudiate (h/t Sarah) the whole of 18th century democracy because of this? [this means representative democracy i.e. REPUBLICANISM so don’t have a fit trolls mkay]
Snorghagen not Chris I mean. Verbosity + lack of penis joke, does not always = Chris I am told.
OT – this guy is a hero:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/28/tim-dechristopher-trial-oil-gas
It’s too late to do anything about the verbosity, but allow me to rectify my failure to include a penis joke with a spectacular 30 DICK penis reference found in this well-known and accurate biographical piece on a Founding Father.
…a radically different world and to understand it at all you have to largely take it on its own terms.
Perhaps the largest challenge for a historian.
Also , and too, it bears repeating — whenever some nimrod like Dinesh D’Souza starts wittering on about slaves being chattels, and therefore treated well like chattels — that the Caribbean slave plantations in Haiti and afield were death camps. On a par with Auschwitz. The processes for growing and extracting sugar and indigo were not compatible with human life.
S. cerevisiae, hero yes, but perhaps a foolish one.
I can’t think of a bigger penis joke than Dinesh D’Souza. You win Smut.
That might explain why things have been sounding like shit.
In a just world, Brooks and D’Souza would pass each other on the street one day and be irresistibly sucked, face to anus together in some sort of twin reverse ouroborotic bowel inhalation, spinning ever faster until they disappear into a point-source singularity of ass with a resounding finger-in-cheek pop.
Never to be heard from again.
Well, that thought should help me sleep better.
The processes for growing and extracting sugar and indigo were not compatible with human life.
Sugar, coffee, tea, cocoa. Dessert crops were death for the slaves involving in working them and were a way for factory owners in Europe to not worry so much about real food for their laborers. If your industrial work staff feels fed because they’ve had tea with sugar, who cares if they’re actually slowly dying of malnutrition.
Nerd alert: a long, tedious history rant follows.
I’m the last person who gets to complain about that.
But modern standards really don’t apply. The 18th century was a radically different world and to understand it at all you have to largely take it on its own terms.
You know that, I know that… the teabaggers don’t. Modern standards do apply when you’re being told in the year 2011 that 1) we need to go back to the America 1.0 the Founding Fathers created and 2) that means more power to the people rather than less.
Appreciate the lesson on political activity during and right after the Revolution, which I didn’t realize was that widespread. I was mostly going off of books and articles I’d read stating that when the property requirements were abolished, much of the old guard that had been there since the FF days was aghast by the idea that their civilized and educated republic was being replaced by mob rule (especially after Andrew Jackson’s election and inauguration).
Also , and too, it bears repeating — whenever some nimrod like Dinesh D’Souza starts wittering on about slaves being chattels, and therefore treated well like chattels — that the Caribbean slave plantations in Haiti and afield were death camps. On a par with Auschwitz. The processes for growing and extracting sugar and indigo were not compatible with human life.
I hate, and I mean hate, the phrase “house n____r,” and usually cringe whenever I hear it; if there’s one person who was born to personify it, though, Dinesh D’Souza’s got to be it.
For armchair historians learning about the effects of slavery I recommend “Slavery By Another Name; the Re-Enslavement of Black America from the Civil War to WWII” by Douglas Blackmon. The apparatus that was cobbled together to industrialize the South during reconstruction included a policy of arresting young black men and renting them to corporations as labor. Logging, mining, iron making and similar dangerous work were manned by blacks that were worked to death for pennies paid to their Sheriffs and county governments. Harrowing book that documents the scale of this little known aspect of post-Emancipation history.
History isreal!
,,,but even then, a much larger percentage of the population in the American colonies was able to vote than anywhere else I’m aware of at that time.
Except France. But that led to Robbespierre and the Reign of Terror. Context, as usual, is
Kingl’État.Some notes from Wikipedia mining:
England
We’re going to look at New York State, because that’s where early numbers are available.
10,725 citizens voted in the House elections, 38,818 voted for Preznit. The population of New York at the time was 340,120 – meaning 11.4% of the population voted for George Washington and 3.2% voted for their congressman. i.e. a small step, but not a huge leap towards universal suffrage.
Related.
Mark Steyn’s got jokes! Colonel Gaddafi is a “queen” with “fabulous gowns.” The only thing funnier than calling someone a fag is calling a Mooslim a fag, amirite?
We’re going to look at New York State, because that’s where early numbers are available.
10,725 citizens voted in the House elections, 38,818 voted for Preznit. The population of New York at the time was 340,120 – meaning 11.4% of the population voted for George Washington and 3.2% voted for their congressman. i.e. a small step, but not a huge leap towards universal suffrage.
We know women were denied the right to vote, so that their uterii did not distract men from serious business. So the base voting group is 50% of population. From the 1790 (1st) census, NY had 83,700 free (not slaves, not indentured) white males over 16. So 46% of them voted. How many were excluded by the propoerty clause is hard to say from the census data alone.
Some interesting enhancement in a Fox News report on the Wisconsin strike– didn’t know you had palm trees there:
Sorry it’s a Facebook link; that’s all I could find.
Well yeah, all that &c. I was shooting for a fries to chips comparison with England’s 3% of the population in 1780 stat.
Also, eligibility =/= actually voting. Don’t know what turnout numbers were for the first election. Finally, what of all the hanging chads that go thrown out?
It’s a ballpark estimate based on Wikipedia numbers – i.e. not good enough to count as actual research, but way moar work than goes into an op-ed in the Wash Post or NYTimes.
Ballpark estimate meaning three significant figures. Yeah, maybe I shoulda rounded off a little.
D-KW: Sure. My point, as much as I have one, is that about half the free, adult, white male pop (the only voters that were counted anywhere back then) voted. The NY slave pop was a little over 21,000. If we count half of them (a conservative move since some were kids, even though we’ve excluded those unvotable women), the percentage of adult men who voted is still 37%. I’d argue that’s a pretty good voting percentage.
Heh-heh-haroo
a person such as moi could get the impression that slavery in the U.S. South was a creaky anachronism from the get-go, instead of the highly profitable enterprise it was, in some ways anticipating mass-production, assembly-line industries.
Ayup. It’s truly appalling to hear white people tell black people to “get over” slavery. Not only because it was a fucking evil, vile practice that is still glossed over and minimized, but also because this country was FUCKING BUILT ON SLAVERY. We cannot escape that fact, even those of us who live in the north and whose ancestors were northerners (or not even in the US prior to the Civil War). A large part of our early economic prosperity was due to slavery (and the stealing of American Indian land and resources).
And how crucial it was to exploit the racial specificity of New World slavery, so that unrest and resentment among the non-black working class could be deflected by (a) the idea that however homely your circumstances, at least you weren’t black, and (b) if it all were to change, enfranchised black people will steal your jobs. So: let’s you and him fight. Again.
Yes. There is something brewing in the back of my mind about physical coercion vs. economic coercion, and while they’re not the same, the results are similar, especially in context of colonialism…
Also, an acquaintance of mine wondered recently what it was about Haiti that kept it so thoroughly, historically, and apparently permanently screwed.
White people.
I’d argue that’s a pretty good voting percentage.
It’s sure a helluva lot better than zero, which is what held throughout most of the world at them time.
If we only count free, adult, white males – I’m sure England’s 3% number would be a lot higher – depending on how indentured serfdom counts in terms of being “free”. IOW, the birth of American democracy is certainly an important event, likely set a new high score in terms of representation – BUT it’s not like the change was from TOTAL DESPOTIC RULE EVERYWHERE. It was just another step in a long and gradual process – and (IMO) not even the biggest one at that.
Except France. But that led to Robbespierre and the Reign of Terror. Context, as usual, is King l’État.
There wasn’t any real voting in France during the USA’s Colonial era. The first constitution in 1791 set up voting rights, dividing people into passive and active citizens with only the active citizens (property owners like here) eligible to vote and even then in indirect elections. Only the Electors (very rich people) voted directly and they made up only a small percentage of the active citizens . Women didn’t earn the right to vote in France until 1944 if you can believe it.
BUT it’s not like the change was from TOTAL DESPOTIC RULE EVERYWHERE. It was just another step in a long and gradual process – and (IMO) not even the biggest one at that.
Yup. And it only took 230 years to cycle back to TOTAL DESPOTIC RULE.
Women didn’t earn the right to vote in France until 1944
Slackers.
re: France
Again, going by Wiki – so caveat, &c.
So, yeah indirect elections and only a small subset of the population. Even if you only count PENIS-havers. And since indirect, I haven’t found any numbers for how many people actually voted. And also, what with the seizing of lands and the random killings during the Revolution, conditions weren’t exactly the best in terms of fostering democracy.
All of that. But still, French (employed or property owning) people (with PENISes) were voting for their government and the basic idea that being some dude what was born to some other dude was all one needed for supreme executive power was challenged. i.e. the shift from Divine Right to Consent of the Governed – not a product solely of the US Constitution.
That’s all I’m saying. That yes, most of the world was still ruled by hereditary monarchs or some other totalitarian autocrat – but Democracy did not all of a sudden start out of nothing with the words “We The People”.
According to fr.wikipedia.org, which has a little more information on the subject, universal male suffrage in France was theoretically granted in 1848 (the year the Second French Republic was established), then “limited” in 1850, “reestablished but controlled” under Napoleon III, and then finally really granted during the Third French Republic (which came to power in 1870).
“Universal” being a relative word. Women didn’t have the right to vote until 1944 (two decades after Britain and America); the voting age wasn’t lowered from 21 to 18 until 1974; and in French Algeria, I think the rules still excluded many or even most Arabs from voting.
Democracy did not all of a sudden start out of nothing with the words “We The People”.
Pics or it happened.
Back to the English wikipedia, my God, this is interesting:
Well done Corsica! I had no idea it was them.
And already back then, we had Scandinavia leading the race. I didn’t know that either but am completely unsurprised.
universal male suffrage in France was theoretically granted in 1848
The 1795 National Assembly was elected by any PENIS having resident of France who paid taxes. And wasn’t an enemy of the Revolution.
Pics or it happened.
Okay.
Only the Electors (very rich people) voted directly and they made up only a small percentage of the active citizens
Not to be an ass here, but technically only 538 people vote for the U.S. president. I know, it’s a vestigial feature at this point (we’ve discovered much more effective ways of limiting full democracy) but it was designed for exactly the same purpose as in France.
Well, I was just exercising my universal pedantry rights by pointing out that during the time Snorghagen was talking about there wasn’t any voting at all in France but according to Wikipedia the Electors consisted of the 50,000 richest members of the Third Estate.
As for democracy growing out of ‘We the People,” no, but as for the American Revolution being the most momentous step, it was the single most momentous step since Athens or the establishment of the British Parliament. No American Revolution and who knows how long it would have taken the French to have theirs. Or for reform to start happening throughout Europe.
As for democracy growing out of ‘We the People,” no, but as for the American Revolution being the most momentous step, it was the single most momentous step since Athens or the establishment of the British Parliament. No American Revolution and who knows how long it would have taken the French to have theirs. Or for reform to start happening throughout Europe.
Enlightenment ideas had already traveled far and wide at the time. I think it’s safe to say that had the American Revolution not happened, there would’ve been another spark to light the democratic revolution.
I like Brie.
I can’t believe we forgot Poland.
WE’RE NUMBER ONE! WERE NUMBER ONE!!!
DAAA DAA DA DA DA DA BUH BUH DA DA DAAAA
Late to teh thread, comme toujours, but in listing the founding fathers, you also forgot Nathan Bedford Forrest
I like Brie.
Me too.
Why are y’all so serious today? I need some PENIS, you guys.
Wait. That didn’t come out right…
Enlightenment ideas had already traveled far and wide at the time. I think it’s safe to say that had the American Revolution not happened, there would’ve been another spark to light the democratic revolution.
But there was an American Revolution followed soon after by the French Revolution. I don’t know how to compare its impact to that of theoretical events. And its impact on political history went well beyond voting rights.
I need some PENIS, you guys.
Sorry, that brie comment set off an irreversible chain of events that culminated in a Jacobin terror and a military dictatorship. That is, I would lend you my PENIS but it is in the brie. Which is warm.
Mine is called “the Truth” because it’s too much for most people to handle.
Very bold, I know. It has to be an exceptionally warm day.
That is, I would lend you my PENIS but it is in the brie. Which is warm.
I do not posses a PENIS, but I have to say, that sounds quite lovely.
I need some PENIS, you guys.
Wait. T&U is Rosario Dawson?
From melon boffing to cheese shagging, SN!, where food sex is always on topic.
As to Bobo “Appleby’s” Brooks, that’s a pretty low bar. Probably reminds him of his salad days though.
YOU HAVE AROUSED THE THREE SNAKES!!!
Wait. T&U is Rosario Dawson?
Normally I ask first.
Enlightenment ideas had already traveled far and wide at the time. I think it’s safe to say that had the American Revolution not happened, there would’ve been another spark to light the democratic revolution.
This is why it was so important that proponents of slavery continue to racialize the institution. In order to justify continuing to hold people in permanent bondage, during a time when people were considering the rights of man, you had to make slaves not-men. In the ancient world, your slaves were your unfortunate former adversaries who lost the battle or war. They could look like anyone. They could look like you. This is where Christianizing proved so valuable. It was okay for black Africans and their descendants to be owned as slaves, forever, because (a) they weren’t 100% human, and (b) their bondage afforded them the opportunity to learn about Jesus and become Christians, and that surely was a light in their dim, savage lives, yes? And white Europeans were the ones who made this possible.
Jesus, of course, wept.
I quite like this Rosario Dawson. Good for her.
It’s true that there was growing European disenchantment with the autocratic ancien regime and growing desire for popular participation in politics. The old system would have broken down sooner or later. But the American Revolution sped things up and shaped what people envisioned might be possible. Big, big influence, no question.
Another way the American Revolution affected European events was via Louis XVI’s unwise decision to intervene in the American war without raising taxes, George W. Bush style, which directly brought on a financial crisis that the monarchy’s primitive fiscal apparatus couldn’t handle. This forced poor Louis to call the Estates General in 1789 in order to revamp the tax system, and from there… Ka-Boom!
Not to mention PENIS.
From melon boffing to cheese shagging, SN!, where food sex is always on topic.
We are well known, among those those who know us, for our food pr0n. But … but, my dear pedestrian friend, PENIS cheese is neither food nor pr0n. Damn you for making me think of it.
Why am I always broke?
Are you afraid of Batman’s Muslim “friend?”
PENIS cheese is neither food nor pr0n. Damn you for making me think of it.
Don’t blame me, blame the dirty goyim.
Listen, just because I have B.O. is no reason to call my shiksappeal into question. SIR.
I would lend you my PENIS but it is in the brie.
I am bringing all my own food to the picnic.
Yuck.
Good thing I didn’t mention casu Marzu, eh?
Good thing I didn’t mention casu Marzu, eh?
Ewwwwww. Ugh. I was already nauseated.
Oh for pity’s sake. The conversational topic is now smegma? Actually, it is a funny word. Onomatopoetic, I would guess. Okay. I think I will go scrub grout; you know, have some fun.
There are exceptions to every rule, even when you wish there weren’t.
Whatever. Anything that steers us away from the foreskin apocalypse. We were veering dangerously close there.
Or larva cheese. I’m not sure which is worse.
There are exceptions to every rule, even when you wish there weren’t.
Why? Why? WHYYY???
Pretty cheesy, eh?
I was working on some sort of pun combining smegma and sphygmomanometer. Something to do with squeezing the bulb. But you know what? Just describing the thought seems better than any punchline I could come up with.
Oh dear. I just did an image search for ‘smegma porn’ and now I have nothing to live for. No, really. It’s time to end it all.
Speaking of
foresnakeskins, I’m working on one today, only the second I’ve cured. Anybody done this? It developed some folds in the curing liquid and I’m really tempted to iron it. Alternately nailing it flat on a board in the sun.Why? Why would you guys do that?
I’ll bet you sniff things when people say “EWWWW, smell this!!!” And you probably secretly like it.
it only took 230 years to cycle back to TOTAL DESPOTIC RULE.
We have always been at war with
the poorEastasia.I thought I was looking green before, but that was just pre-puce to how I look now.
Well, to be fair to the senatorial douchebag way upthread, the building has smelled vaguely of unwashed humans for quite a few days. Overlaid, mind you, with a soupcon of Ian’s Pizza, but not enough to knock it all the way down.
I dare you to search for booger pR0n.
Manquécito, use a softening solution. They have it at Van Dyke’s Taxidermy, among other places. You can make your own but I don’t remember the formula.
Don’t ask me how I know this.
Let us not forget the Mayflower Compact:
Haveing undertaken, for ye Glorie of God, and advancements of ye Christian faith, and the honour of our King & countrie, a voyage to plant ye first colonie in ye Northern parts of Virginia; Doe by these presents, solemnly & mutualy, in ye presence of God, and one of another; covenant & combine ourselves together into a Civill body politick; for our better ordering, & preservation & furtherance of ye ends aforesaid; and by vertue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just & equal Lawes, ordinances, Acts, constitutions, & offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete and convenient for ye generall good of ye Colonie; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.
My own nutshell education in a Southern classroom revealed Democracy as having sprung from these hardy men of God, the Pilgrims.
“.. in ye presence of God, and one another; covenant & combine ourselves together into a Civill body politick…”
Thank goodness for new thread, but considering the post title, it may not hold the smegma talk off for long.
“Well, to be fair to the senatorial douchebag way upthread, the building has smelled vaguely of unwashed humans for quite a few days. Overlaid, mind you, with a soupcon of Ian’s Pizza, but not enough to knock it all the way down”
Oh, I’ve no doubt the place is ripe. It’s just that the fuckface used it as a dirty hippy jab. Nevermind that it would probably smell just as bad if it were overstuffed with plump white republican Christian women decked out in their finest Quacker Factory ensembles.
The thing with Brooks is that so many of the things he says are at least superficially reasonable. We spend a lot of money on health care the last few months of our lives, and, it turns out, very little of that extra spending helps in terms of quality of life or quality of death. Spending a small fraction of that money instead on palliative care would really be better for everyone involved.
Of course, to go from that to “YOUR KIDS WILL BE ILLITERATE BECAUSE ALL THE MONEY IS GOING TO THE OLDS” is to be somewhat disingenuous, a shill, liar, for reasons we’ve discussed at length.
Incidentally, does Krikorian explain why a group of US citizens should suddenly be declared non-citizens?
Well, they’re suspiciously brown and they speak Messican…
You know, I’ve spent time in places crowded with actual hippies, and I’ve been in a crowded Catholic church on numerous Easter Sundays, and I much prefer the hippies, because less perfume (yes, counting patchouli).
“Speaking of fore snakeskins, I’m working on one today, only the second I’ve cured.”
Curiosity compels me to ask: cured of what?