I have no idea why WorldNetDaily is selling this book about the New York Yankees, but I think it proves once and for all that the Yanks are the official team of Satan.
In other baseball news: YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUK!
Now that the whole left-blogohoopdy has gone YouTube crazy, we can post videos with the weighty gravitas of an old bewhiskered grandsire banging his cane on the dinner table. Or some sentence like that; I’m not really in love with the ‘bewhiskered grandsire’ image.
Might as well lead off with the holy grail of Anzac vids. Mi-Sex’s ‘Computer Games’ was a very minor hit in the US for about 3 1/2 days in 1980, but was pretty much a blockbuster in Australia and New Zealand. The band never quite got it together for a followup single, and indeed, their whole thing was basically a ripoff of early Ultravox. But that oughtn’t take away from the pleasure. Interesting things to watch for include the somewhat grizzled bar-band aspect of the band members (they were a bar band before hitting the new wave tip), the vintage video game graphics, the nice guitars that everyone had back then (the gold-top Les Paul with mini humbuckers is super-sweet), and the really toothesomely wonderful film stock, lighting, and editing, expecially in the computer-lab segments. This is a well-made video! Someone did a really good job.
What else we got here? Let’s see….
Oh.
This is just a great little song. It’s sort of a canned ‘great song’ by a band aware of their collegiate-precociousness, and the lead singer is way too indie-attractive to take totally seriously. But isn’t this a great song? That bass she’s playing is a Gibson Grabber or Ripper (they’re the same instrument except for the pickups). Some of them are very heavy and have an extremely nice, deep, confident grand-piano tone, while others, somehow, are feather-light and don’t sound noteworthy at all. I think that’s one of the light ones by the way it hangs. Of course you can never assume with a video that they played the same instruments in the studio. But it sounds like a lightweight Grabber/Ripper in the song. You know, I could just go on about this… But you watch the video and it’s like, ‘Oh look. Those are my friends. Except they wear more sweaters because they’re in New Zealand. Hello friends!’
Split Enz had a whole other career before they started to have hits. Dadaist music-hall. Serious, yo. Blago-bung, blago-bung, hot-cha-cha. Basswatch: That’s a Rickenbacker 4001 or 4003 (identical except for the electronics). You used to have to take out a capacitor to make them sound good, and install different pickups if you were really ambitious. Lemmy Kilmister stuck a Bartolini pickup in his. Ka-whong! Oh yes, they sound so good when you fix them up.
Courtesy of the one-woman Fake-Titty-Randroid-Bimbot-Committee, Atlas Shrugs, where ‘A’ is ‘A’, wank is wank and the wingnuttery is pathological.
Let’s start with the temperate (all things being relative) stuff. Here is a post that references the William Jefferson scandal (as compared to the Abramoff scandal, which she frames as a “half-story”), then goes on to discuss Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.’s scandalized reaction to the Patriot Project’s attack on the scandal-manufacturing Swift Boat Vet creeps. Atlas is pissed that the Repugs aren’t doing more to bash the “Democratic Culture of Corruption” or to help the poor Swifties!!1!!
The Republicans just don’t get it. Who took down Kerry during the Presidential election? The Republicans? No sir. It was the little guy! It was he Swifties. And now there is a concerted effort to take down those very heroes (heroes in Vietnam, and heroes in 2004 – they saved the nation.)
[…]
Now this is truly a culture of corruption, dirty dirty pool. and I am warning, strongly advising the Republicans to get in the game and stop being such dandys. This is war and our lives depend on it. Dolts.
We can not lose in November, the repercussions would be disastrous.
Insanity is a dish best served shrill.
But anyway, it gets much much better (I’m saving the best for last) Read the rest of this entry »
Straight from the nether regions of the Andromeda Galaxy comes Ace of Spades, who’s here to tell us all why we REALLY “hate” Jeff Goldstein! Personally, I love it when people tell me what my true motivations really are- I get learn so much about what a rat bastard I actually am:
Goldstein is, strangely enough, one of the most reviled figures on the right of the blogosphere. LGF may get death threats from jihadists, but actual American lefties seem to despise Goldstein the most.
Forgive me for repeating myself, as I so often do, in this post. I’ve expressed these ideas before, but, as I so often do, in a sloppy and slapdash form.
We’ve noticed.
I’ve tried to be a little more organized here. And, in case you’re worried, this post isn’t really about Jeff Goldstein; I, for one, cannot imagine a more excruciatingly tedius subject for an essay.
Jeff is excruciatingly tedious, isn’t he?
It’s about the left.
Lucky. Us.
We’re getting a lot of traffic from Reason’s Hit & Run blog in response to Travis’s latest and most-excellent Two-Minute Townhall. (Travis responds to H&R here.)
The guy who posted the link, Jacob Sollum, has a polite kvetch or two to convey and the commenters have seemed pretty nice so far. Which got me to thinking: why let that stop me from mocking them? Like a clown Luther, I stand holding a cream pie saying, “ich kann nicht anders.” And here’s where I lob it at our polite company:
From comments to Travis’s post:
The parody of Jacob Sullum might have been funny if he had ever argued in support of the Bush administration. Sullum’s a libertarian and libertarians are generally disgusted with this administration and its war overseas and at home on the privacy of U.S. citizens.
(My emphasis.)
Which libertarians? And what do you mean by “generally”? Why, I’m tempted to utter a catch phrase! Something like… Regretably, False! Sadly, No!
There’s the Reason endorsement of that noted privacy stalwart Samuel “All Your Uterus Are Belong To Us” Alito, which really pissed me off at the time.
Then there’s Reason‘s position that police brutality against anti-war hippies is a real laff-riot subject. Bwahaha indeed, now let’s go shopping at Brooks Brothers!
And then there is the whole Matt Welch problem.
But maybe I’m being philosphically unfair as well as a rude host. Perhaps I should be more like my friend digamma, who considers the good stuff in Reason to be “libertarian” but the bad stuff, not.
Maybe. But then I’m a social democrat/greenie/scientific-realist type and agree with this characterization of a Reason article, so I can’t be as generous as all that.
Hmmm. A proposal. I’ll be inclined to be a much better host to libertarians if they promise to launch all their html ICBMs against Glenn Reynolds whenever he cranks up that “But I’m a Libertarian!” bullshit again. Deal?
If the wingnuts can have nasty T-shirts, then so shall we!
[beaming innocently]
All in the next couple of weeks. (We’ve been working like little ugly elves.)
UPDATE:
Oh, lots. Here’s another one:
Â
I may be climbing on rainbows but, baby, here goes.
Shorter Ann Coulter: You think you’re angry at illegal immigrants now? Just wait until they’re granted citizenship and are exempted from all the laws you so meekly obey.
Shorter William Perry Pendley: The extremists on the Ninth Circuit Court, like all liberals, wish to promote false gods like Allah and some rock in a national park, while banishing the one true faith of Christianity.
Shorter Megan Basham: It is with great regret that I inform you that X-Men: The Last Stand, one of the most successful openers of all time, cannot realistically be considered a conservative movie.
Shorter Patrick Hynes: Verily I say unto you that evangelical voters care about one issue, and one issue alone – and that’s subjugating gays.
Shorter Walter Williams: Don’t blame oil companies for high gas prices. Blame penguins and Democrats, who are hypocrites.
Shorter Thomas Sowell: The poor would basically cease to exist if the liberal media stopped perpetuating the myth of their existence.
Shorter Jonah Goldberg: A majority of Americans are political extremists.
Shorter Michelle Malkin: It’s unfortunate, if true, that our Marines killed a few Iraqi civilians to prevent the jihadists from killing civilians, as is their wont.
Shorter David Limbaugh: Dictatorial political moderates would allow our nation to degenerate into a third-world cesspool in order to appease liberal extremists. And it isn’t racist to say that.
Shorter John Stossel: Forget Enron. The biggest fraud in American history is the Congressional Record.
Shorter Brent Bozell: Under the cover of darkness, the liberal media have already elected Hillary Clinton president.
Shorter Ben Shaprio: The alleged killing of civilians by Marines may be horrible, sure, but it certainly isn’t newsworthy.
Shorter Tony Blankley: This is no time for the president and congressional Republicans to fall out of lockstep on political issues (urp), or even so-called constitutional ones.
Shorter Terence Jeffrey: It is a supreme irony that we’re importing Mexican workers to fill a shortage created by legalized abortion.
Shorter Linda Chavez: Now that you mention it, Hawaiians do have skin as brown as any Mexican’s.
Shorter Jacob Sullum: As much as it pains me to say it, I think Congress should be concerned about the president violating the Constitution in the name of national security.
Shorter Frank Gaffney: I’ll bet we can bring Iran to its knees by withdrawing American investment. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll just bomb them.
Shorter Paul Greenberg: Like any business-related topic, all you need to understand high gas prices is a cursory knowledge of Economics 101.
[Note from the management: Post republished June 1 on account of WP weirdness. The content has not been changed.]
Powerline asks the musical question:
 
Why, it’s actually better than people think, isn’t it?…Aha! But that’s not what S.P.E.C.T.R.E. wants you to think. Take it away, John!
Read the rest of this entry »
Back at the end of April, Scenes From a Pajama wrote:
Although it underscores what we already knew—that Glenn Reynolds (whose book is selling much better) has remarkable respect in the blogosphere for his integrity and intelligence—I must say I am surprised at the relatively pathetic sales figures for Markos Zuniga’s book Crashing the Gates. It could mean one of several things: 1. Kos’ audience has heard it all already; 2. Kos’ audience is not “bookish�; 3. Kos’ audience is not as big as it’s cracked up to be; 4. Kos doesn’t write particularly well; 5. Kos doesn’t have anything new to say. 6. People are tired of all this political blather anyway. (Hinderaker thinks the latter).
(For earlier reactions, check out Making Light, LG&MÂ and Glenn Greeenwald.) And now?
An Army of Davids : How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths (Hardcover)
Average Customer Review: based on 27 reviews. (Write a review.)
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #9,087 in Books (See Top Sellers in Books) Yesterday: #6,513 in BooksCrashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics
Average Customer Review: based on 81 reviews. (Write a review.)
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,920 in Books (See Top Sellers in Books) Yesterday: #1,489 in Books
Anyone got the latest Bookscan results?
Michael Hirsh, writing in Newsweek:
Talk to any responsible official or officer in the military, intelligence or diplomatic community. Most will tell you that Bush got most of the war on terror wrong (at least after the Taliban fell), that he invented a war of choice in Iraq and failed to finish the war of necessity against Al Qaeda. The toughest hombres in the country—not least some recently retired generals—are saying the “war president� has no clothes, that he has been, in effect, a disastrous war president. This is what I hear every week now as a reporter, from officials who identify themselves as Republican, Democrat or independent. It is what the facts, sadly, bear out: look at where the precipitous war in Iraq has brought us, and the new violence that is arising out of the unfinished business against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yet the vast majority of Democratic leaders cannot bring themselves to say this—Hillary most prominently of all.
Yep. It’s time to repeat, over and over again, that Bush’s war on terror has been a collosal flop.
It’s not just that the war has been executed poorly, but that its entire premise is false. The Bush administration didn’t see 9/11 as the evil actions of murderous religious fanatics; rather, they felt it was a symptom of a broader sickness within the Arab world that could only be cured by American military power. This assumes that all Arab cultures are a monolithic whole that conforms closely to the fundamental beliefs of al-Qaeda. This is, of course, nonsense. While many aspects of various Middle Eastern cultures do in fact (to steal a phrase from my esteemed colleague Retardo) suck slimy green goat balls, none of them are anywhere near as bad as the death-worshipping nihilism of al-Qaeda. In other words, al-Qaeda are to Islam what Operation Rescue are to Christianity- very dangerous and violent sects, to be certain, but not symbollic of a broader belief system within the entire religion. The sooner more American policy makers understand this and stop trying to re-make the entire Middle East through military force, the safer we will become.