Who’s stupider, Confederate Yankee or Dan Riehl?

Why am I tempted to answer, “both of them?”

Old Yeller got sent to a farm outside of town, where he could run around.

No, no, Gavin. You’re just being unfair. I know, for me at least, when I’m trying to understand complex mathmatical concepts like statistical demographics, Computational Fluid Dynamics or Inflational Cosmology, I turn first to Hot Air. Those people are most likely to give me clear, understandable explanations for that sort of dificult idea, and they do so in an honest, fair, well thought out manner…

mikey

Who let mikey up off the couch in his condition? Would somebody please put the cool cloth back on his forehead and hum him a comforting tune?

It’s OK, mikey, the hallucinations will stop once the fever breaks.

/Old-Yeller-induced ’50s movie flashback

Why, I wouldn’t shoot an old man in the face, much less a rabid dog, only once!

Seriously. He calls himself “Confederate Yankee.” His grip on complex and subtle is tenuos at best.

Riehl and Yankee, brothers under one Republican, inheritors of the same mutant gene, a single blob of vile putrefaction if you will. If you were going to paint them you’d use shit brown and piss yellow.

I don’t know why he uses the term “Confederate Yankee”: either “Copperhead” or “Traitor” is shorter and means the same thing.

Confederate Yankee?

I get it. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Oh, wait. Now I”m reading, and the guy’s a serious tool.

Carry on.

You do not know the story of Old Yeller. You are thinking of something else. The dad didn’t shoot the dog, among other things you have wrong.

Did Gary change his name?

Fine. The kid shoots the dog.
Irregardless.
Don’t make me have to start breaking out the “Babe” analogies.

“That’ll do, Pig. That’ll do…”

mikey

Am I the only person in the Western hemisphere who hasn’t seen “Babe”?

Could somebody supply a link to a rebuttal of Steven Moore’s claims to have demolished the validity of the survey- As somebody who hasn’t had to do matho homework for many years, I have no idea whether his arguments about cluster points have any obvious flaws to a statistician.

Ahh, dood, yer kiddin! Just typing those words and I teared up. Hella fun movie…..

mikey

Nope, Mort.

Never seen it.

But I’m willing to bet I’m the only one who’s never seen an episode of Friends

Pop culture wasteland? What?

Smiling –
I also have never seen it.

And Jillian, while I have seen many an episode of Friends, I am proud to say that I’ve never seen an episode of 90210 or Melrose.

never mind- i found a rebuttal of moore here:

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/10/les_roberts_responds_to_steven.php

OK, I can top that (I think). I have actually never heard Rush Limbaugh’s voice.

But I do intend to put “Babe” on my netflix list, since it’s got mikey all verklempt just thinking about it.

Could somebody supply a link to a rebuttal of Steven Moore’s claims to have demolished the validity of the survey-

Wha???

I’m sorry, the validity of the….??

Jeez, the obscenity just gets more obscene. So now we’re going to argue about how many people died needlessly in America’s illegal, aggressive invasion and occupation of Iraq? Why? Does some kind of sick vindication live in the numbers, somehow?

If we only killed 100,000 innocents in an unnecessary and illegal war, are we to be congratulated? That would make us the “good guys”? If we killed 200,000? 300,000? What would we be then? Supporters of the war have a problem with a finding of over 500,000 innocent dead. Why is that? Why can you feel good about an undertaking that results in the death of 200,000 innocent civilians, but the same undertaking is somehow qualitatively different if the civilian death toll was twice that? What kind of moral relativism is at work in this calculation?

mikey

Could somebody supply a link to a rebuttal of Steven Moore’s claims to have demolished the validity of the survey…

Here’s a BBC Link>BBC Link, presenting both sides.

I’d just like to step in and ask people to consider the credibility of “both sides”.

There are people who said Iraq had WMD, was connected to 9/11, would greet us as liberators. And said we are bringing Democracy to the Iraqi people. And anyone who remembered recent history was an al Qaeda surrender monkey islamofascistcommieliberal. (For instance, anyone remember that Iraqi oil would pay for the reconstruction?

…HAHA! TRAITOR!

Those are the people raising doubts about the Lancet report.

That part where Farmer Hogget is singing and dancing is all happy and full of rainbows.

Well, Some Guy, that shiny sparkly moment didn’t last long.

*sigh*

And on a related note, I suspect there’s a relevant reason that the Iraqi government, such as it is, announced this weekend that it would no longer provide any death statistics whatsoever to the UN.

Jeez, the obscenity just gets more obscene. So now we’re going to argue about how many people died needlessly in America’s illegal, aggressive invasion and occupation of Iraq? Why? Does some kind of sick vindication live in the numbers, somehow?

On a related note…has anybody noticed how much Donald Rumsfeld physically resembles Robert McNamara nowadays? It’s creepy as fuck.

Like some sort of real life Willy Wonka, where your outsides eventually start to resemble your insides. Which, sadly enough, makes Keith Olberman an oompa loompa.

Like some sort of real life Willy Wonka, where your outsides eventually start to resemble your insides. Which, sadly enough, makes Keith Olberman an oompa loompa.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’m going to have to think about this for a while . . .

No one gets killed in Iraq, they just stop showing up for work or paying taxes.

Oh, and Mort…..

I’ve never seen Seinfeld. Or Law and Order. Or NYPD Blue.

Or Surivor.

I don’t even know what all the cool kids are watching on TV anymore…all my examples are a decade out of date.

Like some sort of real life Willy Wonka, where your outsides eventually start to resemble your insides.
That possibility, combined with irritable bowel syndrome, explains a lot about Cheney.

I don’t even know what all the cool kids are watching on TV anymore…all my examples are a decade out of date.

The good thing about admitting one’s ignorance about pop culture is that sooner or later, someone will ask incredulously, “Where have you been for the last five years?!”
This is an opportunity for the reply: “Gutters, mainly.”

I hear “the A-Team” is pretty dope, Jillian.

Ha!

I saw the A-Team on reruns the other day and got all excited!

I had the biggest crush on the Faceman when I was about seven.

I’ve never seen Seinfeld. Or Law and Order. Or NYPD Blue.

Or Surivor.

I’ve never seen any of these. Not even once. But then, I did see the very first episode of “The Shield”. I AM a HUGE Buffy fan. And I do own the complete box set of “Sports Night”. So it’s hard to get too snooty…

mikey

Of Jillian’s examples, I’ve only seen Seinfeld. As for Sports Night, I am also a fan. But the box set isn’t all that big, really . . .

Look at HoJo!

The fact is the Old Yeller was shot because he knew the dirty details about Whitewater.

Oh wait, that was Vince Foster.

The only show that is worth watching these days is Numb3rs people… Mathematicians solving crimes using formulas and bad analogies… What could be better than that?

has anybody noticed how much Donald Rumsfeld physically resembles Robert McNamara nowadays?

Yessirree. I’m waiting to see if thirty years down the line someone does a documentary on him, where he’s still trying to justify the war. Because, y’know, history, repeat, doom, etc.

Damn it, if only the music today was better. Some things just don’t repeat.

Wasn’t Hojo the guy who created Sephiroth from Jenova?

BSG, your grace. BSG.

I know they showed the kid shooting the dog in Old Yeller but his positioning wasn’t correct. I seem to remember the dog’s head lurching back and to the left. That’s back and to the left.

Wasn’t Hojo the guy who created Sephiroth from Jenova?

Sadly, I think I know the answer to that question without referencing wikipedia… I believe it is yes.

And BSG is only good if viewed in the original corny starwars ripoff context. All this effort to make it a good science fiction series worthy of watching just sends chills up my spine.

I have nothing to add to this comment thread.

Kathleen! You are holding out on us, non?? Saving your genius for Jesus’ General? Come on, who luvs ya!

HG tDoR–I have to laugh because every week, scenes for that show Numbers are shot where I work.

But on a weirder, sadder note–probably due to the McNamara and Vietnam references–I just had a thought that gave me pause, and I’m sure I’m not the first to wonder this. People, the Iraq War will end someday (if not the occupation–due to US insistence on, ugh, permanent bases), and what the hell kind of war memorial will there be? At this point, I can only feel nauseated and heartbroken at the idea. Such a mass of confusion, sadness, disgust, dread–all these feelings tumbled together. Just thought I’d share. . . .

How long does it take for a death cult to kill itself off? Will the Republican’s inbred ideology eventually turn its followers into a pile of fecal goo [obligatory allusion to brown and yellow]?

The Iraq War Memorial?

Just a giant porcelain American Standard john, with small floating balls covered with the names of those service people who died there. It would flush twice a day, commemorating the sacrifice of those who bore arms and the deep concern of those who sent them.

I dunno about the toilet memorial – too literal.

Maybe just a deep,dark hole with the faint sound of an occassional distant splash – or ker-plunk.

I do think you nailed the sacrifice/concern ratio.

Oh, no, it needs to be solemn, bronze and dramatic. I offer you a line of women and children, kneeling, facing away, their hands painfully restricted behind their back with FlexiCuffs. Because if anything is to come to represent the whole sordid waste, the crime, the improper usage of a noble force for seamy, unworthy ends, it would be the flexicuff. Industrial mass-produced plastic restraints, inexpensive and useful for many people who are merely asking to be left alone…

mikey

Heh. We could always try to find that Saddam statue…

You know, as I read the updated link, and in particular one commentator who’s entire arguement against the survey is, “It’s a lie. They’re lying liers. Lies. All lies. Evrythign about it, lie, lie, lie. Communism!” and mentions something about wanting to see the 650,000 death certificates (which should be no problem, considering how well the government over there is functioning.) two things spring to mind.
First, it shouldn’t be that hard (tedious, though) to get a rough ballpark from adding up lexus nexus results on attacks/body dumps found.
Second, do you own damn survey, bitch.

Hojo was the guy who created 100 runs a year for the Mets in the late 80s/early 90s (and threw about one ball a game into the stands behind first).

OK, every other year.

I thought Hojo was the Polish cop on Barney Miller.

“…a line of women and children, kneeling, facing away, their hands painfully restricted behind their back with FlexiCuffs.”

Going for the high-concept, I see. Personally, I like it very much.

Trouble is, your design assumes that people actually give two shits about the women and children involved who are, presumably, Iraqis.

Then there’d be the endless and mind-numbing chatter about how many bronze figures should be included (are 500 enough? 5,000 too many?)

Maybe, if my pit idea is a non-starter, we could settle on some crumpled Whopper wrappers, and maybe an empty Desanti bottle or two. I hear KBR gets great margins on those and the other products it dishes out in the desert.

And then maybe someone would come along and just throw it all away.

The Iraqi War Memorial will be a small plastic combination flower/american flag, and it will be sold at McDonald’s in HappyPatriot Meals, and separately for 1.99. This will allow patriotic secretaries/”fun” bosses/people who glue shit to hats to make the whole country a memorial to when we saved the Iraqis from having to live in the fucked up world we’re creating.
With a limited, memorial day only, camouflage flower edition also available.

You all joke about the Iraq war memorial. But we here in Oregon are way ahead of you: we’ve let a pack of wingnuts appropriate public money to start building one already.

Story here.

(Note: the boneheads at Salem-News.com f’ed up the link, which in any case leads to a dead site. I’ve heard that the memorial is going to be horrendous, Toby Keith-style. Only NPR radio reports, though, to prove that.)

Yeah, here’s the money graf.

The design consists of an oval pool with constantly moving water. It is lined with a stainless-steel map of the world and an 8-foot bronze figure of a soldier down on one knee over the United States, with an arm outstretched.

Very classy.

It is lined with a stainless-steel map of the world and an 8-foot bronze figure of a soldier down on one knee over the United States, with an arm outstretched and his middle finger turned upward, in the direction of the Middle East.

and his back to North Korea, naturally.

“The design consists of an oval pool with constantly moving water. It is lined with a stainless-steel map of the world and an 8-foot bronze figure of a soldier down on one knee over the United States, with an arm outstretched.”

Is the arm holding on to a post, and is the soldier vomiting?

I’d like to learn what Maya Lin has to say about that one – lady knows her memorials, though I hear she hates to be thought of in only that way.

Hey, Jillian, if you liked Dirk Benedict (and who didn’t, back in the day?), there was a crappy TV movie he did that you just gots to check out: SSSSSSS . Low=rent mad scientist Strother Martin is hellbent on turning a man into a giant snake. Unfortunately for Dirk, he’s teh man. Of course, the main reason to watch it, other than the cheesy makeup effects, is that Dirk spends a substantial amount of time semi-naked. And he was pretty tasty back then. So, not a “good” movie, but a “good-bad” movie.

Aside from warching reruns of The Simpsons and Are You Being Served?, I only watch two shows regularly:

The Daily Show (which I watch in the afternoon before going to my job as a copy editor at an evil right-wing newspaper)

Drawn Together

Ooh, Marq, I’ve seen that!

I loves me some baaaaaad science fiction films, and that is truly a classic. Right up there with Night of the Lepus.

BTW, everybody, the #1 return for a Google search for shrieking harpy is a couple of Sadly, No! posts which use that phrase in the title. Pammy’s blog comes in at #2, so everybody keep linking using the phrase shrieking harpy!

The Iraq War Memorial? An image did flash into my mind, of vast numbers of worn-out keyboards set into a huge monolith of perspex, to highlight the personal sacrifices made by the Keyboard Commandoes. But then the thought of rather large excess-mortality figures shamed me into silence.

The Iraq War Memorial: A pile of the skulls of the people who started it

“Who’s stupider, Confederate Yankee or Dan Riehl?”

That sentence is plainly an insult to stupid.

Does anybody else pronounce “Numb3rs” as “Numbthreers,” or is that just in my house?

And a different brad’s proposal for the Iraq War Memorial puts me in mind of one of “Godhopping” by Dogs Die In Hot Cars*, the lyrics of which begin:

Oh, you’ll find so many people like to smile a lot
Smile because they’re having so much fun
Even when they know they’re not
They’ll wear some funny little hat and they’ll feel good
They’ll feel good ’cause a hat is silly
And silly means that their time is good.

*A Scottish band, very reminiscent of early XTC. I’m loving their stuff.

OT, but up the local alley: Another installment in the John Spencer Lose Explosion—Hillary used to be ugly.

“‘You ever see a picture of her back then? Whew,’ said John Spencer of Clinton’s younger days.”

The fact is that these elections are going to be very turbulant.

Democrats will be shown as winning back the House and Senate, but it’ll be though the obvious fraud. Then those elections will be invalidated, and the Democrats will take to the streets to riot and try to steal the elections, but they will fail.

The fact is that the Republicans will win these elections.

the Democrats will take to the streets to riot and try to steal the elections, but they will fail.

Damn, Gary. Taking to the streets and rioting worked for the GOP in Florida 2000, so why shouldn’t it work for the Dems?

Gary? Is that really you? Sounds like a lot of backpeddaling and ass-covering. Why, just a couple days ago you were predicting a Republican victory outright. Now you’re predicting a Democratic victory, but through fraud! What will it be tomorrow? Will you be encouraging more Republican congresscritters to get it on with teenage boys? I’m a little disappointed in you, young man…

mikey

The fact is that the Republicans will win these elections.

You’re going to come back here after the elections doing your best Baghdad Bob impersonation so we can quote you on all of this stuff to make you look like a retard, right?

Gary, did you see today’s Mallard Fillmore? He’s talking to you, sugar buns.

And to himself as well, because like you he’s also never been right about anything. It’s kind of tragic, actually.

Night of The Lepus. good call but:

Don’t make me bring up Plan Nine From Outer Space

Just want to throw this out there for the record, even if it is slightly off topic: if the US government were actually trying to keep acurate records of how many civilians were killed in the war, you wouldn’t have to rely on underfunded, under-supported scientists coming up with ranges like “between 8,000 and 198,000” and there would be no debate about cluster sizes or demographics. And you wouldn’t have a president who has no idea (or seemingly interest) how many human beings were killed in a war that he started. i’m pretty sure when the Huns sacked Rome, they probably kept better casualty records that the US is keeping about Iraq.

So, any time some right-winger tries to discredit the Lancet study, just ask them why we are relying on medical journals to count our dead for us.

Just sayin’.

There was a leader some sixty-odd years ago who went forth across the countryside in conveyances with curtained-off windows so as not to witness any of the destruction he had brought upon his beloved father… er, homeland. The records also show that this leader was very much a stay-the-course kind of guy.

Confederate Yankee – I believe the proper term is “Treason In Defense of Slavery Yankee.”

The fact of the matter, Gary, is that winning by margins too big for Diebold to manipulate without being noticed is not election fraud.

There remains something unsettling about Bush’s calm, tho. Reminds me too much of election night in 00, and how the Bush camp never seemed to believe that Gore won Florida.

Which one of those guys is stupider? ConfederateYankee is gonna be tough to beat. In a post containing a mere half -dozen of his own sentences, he’s managed to come up with this gem:

Were these letters sent out to kindly remind Orange County voters not to break the law, or were they sent out to intimidate voters? I’d guess “yes,”

I’ll never know what Riehl had to say ’cause you can’t make me read his puffing & honking. Ever again! From now on when I want to hear what a clueless, amoral shit-sack has to say I’ll…Well, talk about a target-rich environment.

Miss Emily, I had the same reaction to that stupid “I’d guess yes” thing. Actually, I had a similar reaction to the entire question of who’s stupider. It reminded me of that weird not-quite-joke that my dad and others of his generation used to offer when I was a kid: Which is farther, to Detroit or by bus?

Iraq War Memorial.

they’ve built it. It’s in Houston. It looks like this.
http://local.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=1401+McKinney,+Houston,+TX&ie=UTF8&z=15&ll=29.756517,-95.361328&spn=0.015499,0.041027&t=k&om=1

it’s called Halliburton Corporate HQ. it’s really nice. marble (italian), nice wood paneling, some terrific views. also, i’m guessing here, giant pallets of gold bullion stashed in the basement.

and as for tv, if you aren’t watching adult swim on Cartoon network, you are missing the best writing on tv. last night was wall to wall genius, particularly “metalpocalypse”.

Who’s stupider? Confederate Yankee or Dan Riehl? Is this a trick question? I think they’re both demented fuckwits, but CY has the edge in nastiness and cruelty. Riehl is more on the delusional side of stupidity, IMO. So, I suppose it’s a tossup. Stupid and cruel, or stupid and crazy.

I’d still cross the street if I saw either one of them walking toward me, needless to say.

Gary Ruppert have you found a therapist yet? Don’t wait till November, you need the help now. Because you are a loony. Do you like being a loony? Wouldn’t you rather learn to act more like sane people, leave your Mom’s basement occasionally, and have friends and stuff? Get some help before it’s too late and they bin you.

“Which is farther, to Detroit or by bus?”

Ok, maybe it’s not a real joke, but it still made me laugh at the end of a long, crabby day. Thanks.

How about this for an Iraq War Memorial: US soldiers pulling down an enormous statue of Saddam, oblivious to the fact that there are thousands of tiny Iraqi figures standing in its shadow about to be crushed.

“Who’s stupider, Dan Riehl or Confederate Yankee? ”

Yes.