Floyd the Chimp

Fuck This Shit

2004-07-27T16:24:00.000-07:00

Man, I am sick of Blogger fucking with me. It's almost enough to make me go back to using MT. Too lazy for that too, though, so I guess is me going away for a while.

2004-07-26T19:18:00.000-07:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Uh, It's Like Art and Life... 'n Stuff. You Know What I'm Talkin' About

2004-07-26T18:26:00.000-07:00

Feed me, Steyn, feed me:

The other day, [Kerry] attended a glitzy fundraiser at which Whoopi Goldberg did a little riff comparing the Bush in the White House to her own, ah, pudenda.

The senator, in his own anatomical response, said these celebrities represented the "heart and soul of America".

Afterwards, asked about his apparent enthusiasm for the potty-mouthed has-beens, he replied thus: "When I talked about the heart and soul, I'm talking about the artistic expression. I'm talking about sort of the, I mean, I believe in the arts. I think that there's a great expression in it, and there's always this struggle. You know, does life imitate art or art imitate life? Which comes first? It's a little of both."

I'll be sure and remember that the next time I have a discussion about chickens and eggs.

Now, since I'm such an unnuanced thinker and all, lacking Kerry's ability to see in 16 million technicolor greys, I humbly request some help in distingushing the above incoherent rambling from those Bush quotes that people dutifully whip out as proof positive that the graduate of Harvard business school is a dim-witted simpleton.

No need to rush. I'll just be here waiting.

He Wishes for the 24/7 Teresa Channel

2004-07-26T08:28:00.000-07:00

A love poem for Teresa Heinz Kerry, by George W. Bush

Had I my very own media empire,
Bristling forth with its glassy eyes,
The mics, and the cables and swell
Anchors in sharp-looking suits,
I would pitch its gaze on you 24/7;
But I, being president, have only the local news;
I have spread your husband's campaign under your feet;
Tread heavily, for you are an obnoxious cow.

Via Steve H.

"I'm Gettin' Too Stupid For This Shit"

2004-07-25T17:49:00.000-07:00

Danny Glover, A.N.S.W.E.R. mainstay, was caught saying something insipid enough to actually hold Ben Affleck's attention... at least in that "This is me being concerned and engaged" sorta way.

Act (Up) Now Against War

2004-07-25T17:21:00.000-07:00

You know how you can tell that angry political organizing has really arrived? When its advertising starts to look like a rave promotion.

But that's where we are, apparently. For a few days now, I've been seeing another iteration of those glossy post-card sized flyers flitting about the halls of the house. If you've ever seen them, you know what I'm talking about. They're usually decorated with brightly colored fractals or other vaguely psychedelic imagery, and breathlessly list the plethora of DJs to be appearing at the revelry in question. Normally the names are of the "SphinX," "Hera-CLY-tis," or "TK-421" variety. You know, like what 14 year-olds call themselves in chat rooms.

Anyway, this most recent flyer is a little different. An ad for this site, it declares "COME STAND UP TO THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION."

EMPIRE is the framework for global control (accelerated, but not begun by the Bush Administration), combining US military dominance, corporate globalization, and domestic policies that promote fear, attacks on immigrants, and racial scapegoating, as well as undermine civil liberties, while transferring the world's wealth from the majority of the people in the world to big corporations and a rich minority.

Oooh, lemme just pull out my homemade "Smash Capitalism!" t-shirt, and I'll be good to go. This'll sure cheez off all the squares real good.

Overheard Conversations

2004-07-25T10:04:00.000-07:00

Hippie: (reading newspaper) Ugh, look at this nanotechnology stuff. That's so evil. They're like... perverting everything in Mother Nature. It's exactly like genetic engineering, you know.

My Girlfriend (molecular bio major): (finally losing patience) What? Exactly how in the hell is naotechnology "exactly like" genetic engineering? Huh? Care to enlighten me?

Hippie: ...

Girlfriend: ...

Hippie: They both use molecules.

The Perfect Recipe

2004-07-24T08:44:00.000-07:00

What do you get when you add together just about every logical inconsistency, moral absurdity and ethical hypocrisy with regards to the state of Israel and the ever-important notion of "world opinion," and wrap them all up in healthy dose of Swiftian wit and verve?

Why, you get this post.

'Bout Damn Time, Sez-eye

2004-07-23T22:10:00.000-07:00

The thing that pisses me off about this is that it is only now happening after all this time, while for so long intellectually empty and visually soporific cartoonists like this guy are allowed to embarrass themselves on the broadsheets as a quotidian annoyance to humanity.

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Blows to the Head

2004-07-23T17:26:00.000-07:00

Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards gesures at a rally in New York city, displaying his pants in which he assured the audience there was party and to which he pledged they were all invited.

I Could Kick Glenn Reynolds' Ass

2004-07-23T17:05:00.000-07:00

Wanna know how I know that?

He has a cat named "Precious."

I mean, Christ, that's like standing on a street corner with a sign reading "Will work for wedgies."

Paul Simon Explains the Inexorable Fragility of Modern Romantics

2004-07-23T10:46:00.000-07:00

You're kind
You're so kind
You rescued me when I was blind
And you put me on your pillow
When I was on the wall
You're kind, so kind, so kind

Why you don't treat me like the other humans do
Is just a mystery to me
It gets me agitated when I think that
You're gonna love me now indefinitely

So goodbye, goodbye
I'm gonna leave you now
And here's the reason why
I like to sleep with the window open
And you keep the window closed
So goodbye, goodbye, goodbye

Suitable for IQs 70 and Below

2004-07-23T10:38:00.000-07:00

So Dowdy's got herself a new book.

Also sprach Insty: "Dowd's book is, basically, a bunch of her columns sorted by topic. If you like her columns, you'll like the book. If you don't, there's not much value-added."

Translation: If you're of the idiot persuasion, this will be a welcome collection to your menagerie of small shiny objects.

Living In a Co-Op Is...

2004-07-22T22:51:00.000-07:00

Part of a continuing series

...not attending the Naked Crisco Twister party.*

*I never thought I would have to say that again.

Cynthia McKinney Explains Her Father's Remarks

2004-07-21T23:34:00.000-07:00

"Sure, but when he done said I lost the primary because of 'the J - E - W - S,' he was tryin' to say that it was O.J. Simpson's fault. You gotta understand, he's, you know, a little slow and don't spell too good."

Getting Ugly

2004-07-21T15:20:00.000-07:00

I suppose the reasonable thing to do is be outraged by this, but God help me, I'm all outraged out.

I've already gone through the motions on this one. Talking about killing the president in serious, apparently earnest tones? I got you beat by four months, at least. That was when I heard someone (a resident of my house) yearn out loud for an opportunity to kill Bush. I admit, she was the only one I actually heard say it (though I don't seek out the conversation of people - I have more constructive and rewarding things to do, like counting toothpicks), but the people listening either agreed or were silent.

It's not like this kinda thing is unprecedented. I wouldn't be surprised if, 35 years ago, this same building I live in housed a good number of people for whom "Off the pigs" was one of their rhetorical standards. The difference today seems to be that back then, the mainstream media and political establishment didn't often tolerate that sort of thing, to say nothing of obsequiously indulging or fetishizing it as some kind of relevant, important voice of discourse.

Late into the night of the 2000 election, when most of media was officially calling it for Bush, several other house members were going around the house excitedly saying that people were assembling for a riot on Telegraph in response to Bush winning. If memory serves, the rage of the Berkeley street failed to materialize as anything more dangerous than a bunch of people standing around in the street occasionally trying to start up chants that quickly degenerated into simple dissonant shouting from a lack of cohesion.

True, they didn't do anything really threatening. And the motivation was likely as much about coming up with an excuse to go out late at night and have a party, if not to fuck shit up and stick it to the Man.

But they were still out there by the hundreds. And this was before they and their ideological bretheren had rallied around the mantra of a STOLEN ELECTION, when Bush was merely a silly chimp, not BUSHITLER, or the man who KNEW ABOUT 9/11, or the meat-grinder of American youth and Iraqi children in a WAR FOR OIL, or the rapist-murderer of ABU GHRAIB, or the filthy puppet of a ZIONIST CONSPIRACY, etc. etc.

Maybe Michele was right. Maybe there're Days of Rage ahead. Maybe if Bush is re-elected, there are going to be burning cars and smashed windows in quite a few places. I'm not convinced that's the case, but I wouldn't be surprised, either.

Living in a Co-Op Is...

2004-07-21T11:02:00.000-07:00

Part of a continuing series

...the occasional taste of penicillin in your fruit. Them's good eats.

Good On Ya, Mates

2004-07-20T22:58:00.000-07:00

Australia, that spineless lapdog, bucks almost the whole fucking world and votes for what's right. Yup, flaccid cowards, they are.

Extreeeeeme John Kerry!

2004-07-20T14:11:00.000-07:00

"I didn't fall down. I never fall down. That sonovabitch dolphin knocked me down. Tuna, anyone?"

Madison Avenue Is Toying With Me

2004-07-19T18:58:00.000-07:00

What the hell am I supposed to do now?

I just saw a commercial for this drug that's supposed to save my life, in which the cardiologist was the same guy who played the evil tobacco company executive in those Truth.org anti-smoking ads.

So how am I supposed to decide which advertising avatar to place my trust in? Huh?

There has to be some sort of social compact that's applicable here. I agree to naively swallow whatever shallow garbage is spewed from the glowing, one-eyed chumbucket, and purveyors of said garbage agree to maintain some modicum of consistency so my lowered IQ doesn't get confused. Is that too much to fucking ask?

Useless Linkage

2004-07-19T10:17:00.000-07:00

An exercise in being adrift upon the internet.

This is a completely unremarkable Flash animation and not worth linking to aside from the fact that the main character bears an uncanny and unacknowledged resemblence to Harry Knowles.

Sloganeering

2004-07-19T09:57:00.000-07:00

"George W. Bush: skankslayer!"

Suggested Comics

2004-07-19T09:27:00.000-07:00

Since I recently reformatted after a nasty computer bug (long story short: didn't have to put the old girl down, but I'm afraid she'll never race again), and I'm still in that nice clean glow of new, unsuillied OS, I've been systematically rebuilding my bookmarks in Firefox. One of my folders is reserved for my comic reads. As I was happily bookmarking, I recalled Lileks complaining recently that there aren't any newspaper comics worth your time anymore aside from Get Fuzzy. And you know what he's talking about: that drifting ennui as you open the comics page and realize within a few seconds of scanning that the best you can hope for is a slight smile.

Mostly, he's right. I don't have much to add, since my personal stuffiness about what a good comic leaves meager pickings. However, I can happily offer a couple selections:

1) 9 Chickweed Lane. The only paper I've ever seen this in has been the LA Times (not that I've exhaustively sampled the nation's broadsheets), so I think it might be comparatively unknown.

2) Sheldon. I only found this one a few days ago online. Never seen it in a paper before. Looks promising.

Update: Oh, I forgot to mention Family Circus. Nothing encapsulates the cultural zeitgeist more devastatingly. I mean, "where's Jeffy?" Seriously, where?

A Night With Move On

2004-07-19T07:58:00.000-07:00

Last night, my co-op hosted a viewing of the short movie, Outfoxed, the latest tantrum from MoveOn. I only watched a few minutes, as I had other, more intellectually stimulating things to do (there was some paint that needed watching as it dried, for instance). However, I did see enough to notice they recycled one of the lame lies in Fahrenheit 9/11: that FoxNews tricked the country and every other media outlet into believing Bush won in Florida when every other election and news organ had pronounced Gore the winner. Cue heads bobbing fervently and shaking in anger.

George Lakoff was there. Apparently he's an outspoken member of MoveOn. Color me so not surprised. You may remember him as the Berkeley linguistics professor who, shortly after 9/11, wrote that the reason the attack was so traumatic to Americans was becuase we were all distressed by the phallic metaphor of the towers being brought down. He specializes in saying things that only an academic could be dumb enough to believe.

At the end of the movie, they passed around a petition that demanded! the the FCC disallow FoxNews from using the trademark "Fair and Balanced." Not a bad idea, I guess. While we're at it, could we also try to get the government to not let NBC use the phrase "Must see TV"? We have to stop them from insinuating nefariously to the pliant sheeple that they must watch, robbing them of their free will and preventing all those important Bill Moyers PBS documentaries from getting their justly deserved ratings.

In the end, you almost have to admire the MoveOn folks. Their ability to soldier on, foam-mouthed, against the withering onslaught of all common sense or perspective grows on you after a while.

Fahrenheit 9/11 - A Minimalist Perspective

2004-07-17T21:47:00.000-07:00

My review: That Michael Moore guy should really lay off the fatty foods.*

*Oh, also: he's a dishonest fuck.

Cuz You Deserve to Know This Stuff

2004-07-17T21:28:00.000-07:00

You know that feeling when you've eaten like twenty pears and then in a little while your lower torso is like, really ready to get moving?

Umm... yeah, me neither.

Objective and Subjective Laws; Equal Protection and Equal Benefit

2004-07-17T20:32:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the somber, non-jackass tone of this post. Stupid shit will resume post haste.

Unlike Andrew Sullivan, Den Beste is able to frame the gay marriage debate in logically consistent terms. He articulates the issue as between "objective" and "subjective" laws. He's right, but I think there's also a simpler and better way of actually naming the dichotomy, especially since so often pro-gay union folks (including Sullivan in the instance Den Beste responds to) invoke principles of equal protection.

Den Beste would say that not allowing gay unions is objectively fair to all, since gays can legally marry a person of the opposite sex with no more legal impediments than exist for a straight. It is subjectively unfair, however, because, for obvious reasons, they simply have no desire to (in most cases). Since our system of laws is based almost entirely on objective fairness, not allowing gays to form a union between themselves and call it a "marriage" is logically consistent.

The way I (and others, though not nearly enough in my opinion) always thought about this can be stated simply as: "Equal protection under the law does not imply equal benefit."

Den Beste understands this, since he quotes the classic tongue-in-cheek example of this principle: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

Often, this kind of formulation strikes people as callous and just plain mean-spirited (which is likely why it's not often used, I think). For instance, after making an equal protection argument that he should be able to get married like everyone else, a gay acquaintance was stunned into exasperated, angry silence when I replied simply with, "You can. You can marry a woman just as easily as every other man." He thought I was just being glib and hurtful. I can't really blame him for that. I think it takes some detatchment to see all of this clearly, and this is a charged debate for most gays.

However, the brutal and unavoidable truth is that, as the quote about paupers and rich men illustrates, often the law varies wildly in the benefit it bestows to different groups. But that's not necessarily an argument for changing it.

Accordingly, the most important thing to realize is that "You can marry a woman as easily as any man" is also not an argument against gay marriage. It is merely a means of framing the actual question that the same sex marriage debate has to answer: whether we want to create a new right that has not previously existed for gays to marry each other.

Regardless of people's particular substantive beliefs about whether same-sex couples should be made legally able to marry, I think it's hard to disagree that both sides need to first address the issue from this angle. It's fallacious and distracting to argue that equal protection means gays already should already have the right, and it is only a matter of official legal recognition of that right (in the courts, for instance). They should be taking their case to the people as a legislative matter, asking for the granting of a new right under a new law, not making the argument that present laws mandate the right being bestowed.

The reason this hasn't happened, of course, is because the public is still overwhelmingly opposed to such a thing (if I'm up on my poll numbers), and such a legislative measure would surely fail. If you're in favor of same-sex marriage, that means you need to convince the electorate to agree with you. It doesn't mean you should make a judicial end-run around them.

With Popular Appeal to a Multitude of Demographics

2004-07-17T00:22:00.000-07:00

I'm quite sure that this new fad will be catching on soon across the nation amongst such diverse groups as women, men who are gay, men who are gay but don't know it, men who are gay but are in the closet, men trying to make women think they're gay so they can seem more attractive and then "discover" they're only bi, and men who are just gay (you know, not homosexual, but just like, totally gay, man).

In the Parallel Universe Where I Have Slightly Less Self-Control...

2004-07-17T00:12:00.000-07:00

...I'm currently sitting in the county lockup after my booking for the aggravated assault and battery of the most recent gutter punk to ask me for spare change to buy beer.

Cult of Death, Cult of Pup Tents

2004-07-16T23:30:00.000-07:00

Over the several years I've been here, I've found that Berkeley is useful for several things. For one, it provides a congregating spot for gutterpunks and bums (especially of the mentally disturbed variety - you know, the kind that tear out their dental fillings to get Joan of Arc's dog to stop telling them to kill), to the benefit of other urban areas. Another is a future testing site to ensure the reliability of America's aging nuclear arsenal.

But most frequently, Berkelely is a good place to be if you want to be reminded on a regular basis of the barking idiocy that seems to pass as wit or cleverness amongst the collegiate Left.

Today for instance, someone posted a series of downloaded and printed pictures, examples of the recent Palestinian trend of dressing little kids or babies in mock-suicide belts for their family photos. Posted nest to that was a page torn out of an American camping gear catalogue which featured young kids wearing overalls, coats, hats, etc. with a camoflauge print.

I challenge anyone wishing to parody the now-stark-raving-mad cult of moral equivalence to create a better example than that.

Babies dressed up in suicide bomber fantasy garb juxtaposed with kids out camping wearing clothes with camo prints. All the same, you see. Death cults, both of them! Except of course, it must be pointed out that the cult of death more commonly known as the killbot factory... oh, excuse me, "the Army"... has killed far more innocent people than any other, as well as raping the natural world, creating untold economic suffering and preventing every person from being given a puppy. [/Noam Chomsky]

Sixty Minutes 9/11

2004-07-15T19:24:00.000-07:00

Richard Carleton is a child molester. He also kills kittens for sport. And only the cutest ones. Owned by orphans. That he's molested.

That might seem a little unfair, but I fully stand by it, because I oppose Carleton's views on the war. So fuck him.

Tigers and Protesters and Me, Oh My!

2004-07-15T16:30:00.000-07:00

Via Steve H.

Man, do I ever love shit like this.

In short: Weirdo lets pet tiger escape. Pet tiger tries to maul animal control officer. Officer shoots tiger dead. Weirdo and assortment of people from among the bottom dodecatile of human intelligence make public asses of themselves expressing anger over fact that officer didn't try to first lull tiger to sleep with a violin concerto rather than shooting it.

You know, while the tiger was lunging at him.

State wildlife officials defended themselves against an onslaught of criticism Wednesday for killing Bobo, the nearly 600-pound tiger that made international headlines by escaping from a former Tarzan actor's home.
Since the shooting, which happened a few hundred yards from the 5-acre C Road compound where Steve Sipek lives with five other exotic big cats, local residents have harassed wildlife officers about Bobo's death. The agency has received thousands of irate e-mails and calls from around the globe.

I guess the animal control officer is lucky we never signed on to the ICC. Otherwise, he might be facing charges of crimes against felinity. I'm sure Belgium will still indict him.

As well-wishers visited Sipek Wednesday to offer condolences and express their rage and frustration with state wildlife authorities, he fought back tears while offering
his account of the killing."
They murdered him in cold blood," Sipek said. "They killed a poor, defenseless animal. They killed him deliberately."

Eh. Most people wouldn't consider shooting an animal that is about to eat your face off as being "in cold blood." Also, tigers have done a remarkable job on the natural selection ladder (you know, feared predators, top of the food chain and all) for being poor and defenseless. I always thought tigers were kind of tough or dangerous or something. But I'm sure this guy knows better. He's an animal expert (though his expertise at keeping the things chained up seems to be waning).

"I'll get 50 more tigers. They think Tarzan is crazy, but he's not," he said. "They've been trying to get rid of my animals for 35 years. I'd like to see them do that now. I'll die with my babies."

I don't think Tarzan is crazy. I do think a guy who once played Tarzan and still refers to himself in the third person as such is a fucking nutter, however.

The best part of this story is the gaggle of maroons who have descended around Sipek to denounce the animal control authorities for being big meanies and killing the cute widdle iddums who only wanted to eviscerate that grumpy ol' officer. On the news page linked above, there's a video segment of a woman complaining that the officer didn't try to first use a tranquilizer before resorting to a rifle.

Tranquilizers take 6 minutes to work on a tiger. By which time the tiger would be polishing off his second helping of the guy's entrails, just in time for a post-snack nap. Stupid bitch.

I have nothing but the most generous helpings of contempt for these unthinking simpletons, not least because I encounter similar viewpoints all the time where I live. To them, a tiger is rare and beautiful, pure, innocent and representative of the natural beauty of the Earth Goddess. Humans on the other hand are numerous, boring, fat, ugly, drive mini-vans and eat at McDonalds. They'd side with the tiger any day.

A little over a year ago, I recall there were a series of news stories about a grizzly that was being hunted down because it had killed a human. One of my housemates was upset that the poor dear was going to meet his end. After all, bears are endangered. Humans are fucking everywhere, so really, what's a few people compared to this wonder of Nature?

So I mauled him.

Cease and Desist Order

2004-07-14T23:01:00.000-07:00

Ok, Hewitt, I bought your damn book already. Now, per our agreement, kindly stop sending me advertisements in Morse code through my fillings, goddamit.

Enough is enough. Really.

Update: Welcome, visitors from Hugh Hewitt's site. Excuse the mess. Lemme tidy up a bit here...

Hmm. This is gonna be harder than I thought. This place really sucks.

Ah, screw this. I think there's some half eaten pizza in the fridge. Have a party.

Punk 9/11

2004-07-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

Via Tim Blair, we get further confirmation that joining the ranks of punk rockers requires a full frontal lobotomy, as the bassist (aka in punk music: the guy who plays the same note for 3 minutes really fast and considers that his "chops") from Blur, a band whose name I've heard at one point or another reviews F-9/11:

The genius of this most American of films is that it has turned politics into a blockbuster subject. It's the first punk rock movie: it must have cost less to make than The Blair Witch Project, and yet he's managed to distil reality and come up with something more powerful.

I am perfectly willing to grant that F-9/11 is a "punk rock movie." That sits quite well with me. In fact, I think that should be its new surname: "Fahrenheit 9/11: A Punk Rock Movie."

This Alex James guy is really on to something here. Punk music is ignorant, angry in an intensely shallow and unthinking way, lacking in any artistic depth or skill and, most importantly, dependent for its success on the stupidity and cluelessness of its fans.

Ultimately, it's not even music. And note: I don't say that primarily as an insult, but rather as a descriptive assessment. "Punk," much more than a musical form, is just an attitude (a childish and reactive one at that), a pose that one takes, and the "music" is just a prop for that pose.

So, F-9/11 is the perfect movie counterpart to punk music. It, likewise, has no argumentative depth, only disconnected, facially contradictory assertions. It's tone is always one of fist-shaking outrage over... whatever you got, man. And only people so stupid that they aren't allowed to use adult scissors could come away hailing it as some kind of artistic or political masterpiece.

So, yeah. Peas in a pod, they are. In the end, they deserve each other.

Kiss My Ass, 16th Amendment

2004-07-14T08:33:00.000-07:00

In my Libertarian youth (when I was actually registered as a party member before I realized the party was composed principally of the criminally insane), one of things that I remember becoming very excited about was the idea of a consumption tax as the only form of taxation. At the time, I filed that away in the same folder marked "Masturbatory Pipedreams" in which every other Libertarian fantasy for the Perfect World seemed to permanently reside.

But faith and begorra, I just yesterday heard of what sounds like a serious movement to make such a thing actually happen.

Of course, that organization has been around for a while and introduced several bills for debate over the years, but it seems that the current Fair Tax bill has much stronger legs than any of its predecessors.

Here's hoping.

Dietary Whimsy of the Day

2004-07-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

Hmmm, I think today I will eat only... raw oats. Yes. That's a good idea.

Update: For future reference, raw oats expand in your stomach. Like, seriously.

Hatred

2004-07-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

Warning: Long-winded, self-absorbed serious post ahead

Steve H. once asked me how I can stand to live in Berkeley and not simply walk around all day punching every third person I meet.

The answer is that I don't allow myself to get angry very often. I never was one much for seething, and I don't own a rifle or high-powered scope, so the whole clock-tower-afternoon-of-terror was always right out. Also, it's usually more enjoyable to take it as moment for egotistical self-reflection. When you hear someone, for instance, casually remark that the most offensive symbol in the world is the American flag, it can actually be very satisfying. You don't have to respond, but just sit back and think to yourself, "Wow, that person is an unthinking idiot." Keep track long enough and you'll start to find that you're one of the smartest people around.

But the bottom line is because Berkeley stupidity, no matter how ugly, offensive or inhuman it may be, simply isn't worth making yourself miserable over. As Lileks once put it, just letting these people be themselves is punishment enough.

Take tonight for instance. At our weekly house council meeting, we were discussing what newspapers we wanted to buy. Someone who calls himself "Mao" (and insists others call him that as well) wanted to buy a subscription to the Revolutionary Worker. Let me just repeat that so it can sink in: He calls himself "Mao". He further says that he'll be going to Nepal soon because of the Maoist guerilla group fighting there. I'm not sure what that means he'll be doing there.

This is a giy who reveres the person most singularly responsible for the greatest amount of misery visited on the largest number of people in human history. He represents hatred for the freedoms which make this country the greatest on Earth. If he had his way, we would live in a society where I and everyone I cared about would be forced into re-education camps, or simply shot as enemies of the revolution. He stands for the proposition that no amount of brutality or bloodshed is too high as long as you have as your goal some vague sense of social justice (and it's no matter if most people aren't interested in your particular vision of what "social justice" happens to be).

So in his case, I'm willing to suspend my usual rule. I hate the bastard in a conscious, deliberate way. It's separate from things like contempt or disgust (though those are present too). To me, those are involuntary reactions, not an active decision. I actively hate him in a way that runs the gamut from my gut to my brain. I hate him in a way that I reserve for true agents of evil. I sincerely hope, should he actually provide material support to the kinds of people he admires, that he meet an ugly end in the manner that is only too appropriate for the aiders and abetters of murderers.

I don't take a decision like that lightly. Hatred is unpleasant, but deceptively so. It's like a kind of low-level, internal violence. I have only gotten in real physical fights a few times in my life. I was never cornered or forced to fight. It happened because I allowed it to happen, always at least partially due my own antagonizing. Each time, I only let it escalate to fists because the other person had amply demonstrated that they deserved a good beating, and I felt they needed to be stood up to. Twice it was school bullies. Once it was my brother.

In each case, in the moments before the actual fighting began I was always filled with a kind of electric excitement, an intensely physical sensation, like the second before you sneeze. Your whole body is concentrated on an explosion and every tensed muscle wants nothing more than to just do it NOW. I'm sure that if I asked her, Michelle could tell me all about what was going on in my body at the molecular level, about the hormones flooding my system or the neural pathways becoming active or the alteration of the chemisty in the brain, all the mechanistic explanations to describe the how and the why. But knowing that's not really necessary. Anyone who's ever experienced that kind of fear-anticipation-exhiliaration already knows what I'm talking about in a much more fundamental way.

And the thing about it is this: each time, the moments leading up to point when the first fists were thrown were undeniably pleasurable. The excitement, a kind of buzzing intensity, was better than any thrill ride could manufacture.

But then, when it was over, often in less than thirty seconds, the excitement always gave way to a kind of heavy nausea that sat in the pit of my stomach, and a kind of involuntary regret. It wasn't that I felt bad for the other person. It was still just as clear to me after the fight as before that the few lumps they recieved were less than what they deserved. Instead, it was merely the simple fact of my own actions that somehow made me feel sick. I suppose it's possible to also chalk this feeling up to simple automatic physical processes - the coming-down off of a big adrenaline high. But whether it was my conscience or my hormones, the undeniable fact was that this after-period was very real, very strong, and lasted a lot longer.

I think hatred is alot like that, only less intense and more prolonged. The feeling is satisfying at first. It's the deliberate action that quenches or somehow temporarily resolves the emotional dissonance arising out of an involuntary reaction of disgust or anger or outrage. But in a short while, it tends to feel like it's eating away at you, sapping your energy, stealing your focus from other more worthy, constructive things. Most of the time, it's simply not worth the effort. But sometimes it is, just as sometimes it's still worth all the negative effects to get in a fight with someone if they sufficiently deserve it.

This guy, I think, fits the bill well.

Muslims and Sensitivity

2004-07-12T17:43:00.000-07:00

Mark Steyn reiterates one of his familiar (and necessary, and oft unheeded) tropes in this article about David Blunkett's ban of "vilification" of Islam. The tale is a familiar one if you read Steyn religiously (as I do): in the West, Islam has wholeheartedly embraced and appropriated the hyper-sensitive multiculturalist attitude that rallies in outrage whenever Islam is disparaged or attacked, but only when muslims or Islamic doctrine is on the recieving end of the criticism, remaining only too eager to enagage in insane militant proseltyzing and fatwa-fying against all other faiths and indeed the West itself.

A typical example:

As for "Our Children Our Future", when it comes to children, the imam certainly has the future all mapped out: as he has said, "Israelis might have nuclear bombs but we have the children bomb and these human bombs must continue until liberation."

And yet the government seems to think the really pressing issue is to make sure no one says anything that might hurt muslims' feelings.

Not long after 9/11, one of my housemates started wearing a green armband wherever he went. When I asked him what it was for, he said it stood for being "against racial scapegoating and demonization of muslims." I had to stop myself from responding with, "Because of all those people demonizing Islam and scapegoating muslims, right?" I couldn't help but find his armbandery a little funny back then, considering this happened not long after Bush (the prototypical Christianfundamentalistcrusader in like-minded Berkeleyans' opinions) had been practically falling over himself emphasizing how Islam was a religion of peace, a tolerant faith, not our enemy, etc etc. And yet his response, after a group of muslims had most emphatically declared by word and devastating deed that they wanted us all dead, was to focus his attention on the urgent problem of muslims being slandered.

I wonder, when kids asked their grandfathers what they did during the war against the Nazis, did any of them say, "Well kiddo, I made sure that no one said anything mean-spirited about the Germans. Anytime someone used the term "Hun" I made sure to report them to the local Office of Racial Sensitivity."?

Ebert and Roeper: Jackasses (again)

2004-07-12T17:00:00.000-07:00

It seems like complaining about Ebert and Roeper is becoming a weekly staple, but then, it's not my fault they make jackasses of themselves week after week.

So on last night's iteration of of this developing theme, they reviewed America's Heart and Soul. Ebert gave it thumbs down, because he said the whole thing was like watching a cheesy corporate commercial for America. You couldn't help but note that he didn't have any actual reasons as to why this was the case, aside from the fact that it was unabashedly pro-American, and at one point he plaintively asked, (I'm paraphrasing from memory) "Where are all the people living paycheck to paycheck or the recent immigrants or the ones without healthcare?" I suppose offering the defense that this is a movie that is up-front and honest about its point of view and which makes no claims of objectivity isn't sufficient in this case for some reason I'm probably too stupid to fathom. So, I guess, in Ebert's world, you're not allowed to make a movie that is pro-American unless you also go out of your way to show various reasons why America sucks. OK, I got it (you moron).

Roeper, on the other hand, gave it marginal thumbs up, calling it "shamelessly corny" at the same time, but still liking the interesting stories enough and not being put off too much by the film's patriotism to recommend it. However, he couldn't help but join Ebert's stupidity brigade for the night by declaring that he thought "America's Heart and Soul" and "Fahrenheit 9/11" were, in their own ways, equally patriotic.

As for myself, I haven't seen the movie. It may well be unpalatably saccharine for all I know. I do know a lot of people besides Ebert certainly have been saying as much. You get a steady stream of those kinds of criticisms when reading online reviews, such as at the IMDB comments section. Do give them a gander. They're notable not only for their raging, sputtering bile ("It was pathetic seeing a movie that makes me sick to be an American....The HATE OF America came through LOUD and CLEAR. [Hatred? an over-sanitized "yay America!" commerical? -Ed] It covered a biased cross section of American experiences. It was not worth seeing. You will leave the theater with a terrible ache in your heart. It is the politically correct wannabe of Fahrenheit 9-11. My friends hated it. Another Disney piece of crap. You will want to burn it again and again."), but also chiefly for their complaints of over-sentimentality or corniness that repeatedly don't have any specific examples to point to other than the general crime the movie makes of wholeheartedly praising America. This is strictly verboten, apparently, and the degree of contempt that oozes to the surface in response to such praise will be sure to nauseate.

So I don't know if the movie is good. Medved liked it, and I'm much more inclined to trust his opinion over Ebert, Roeper or a guy who seems to love F-9/11.

Only So Much Kant

2004-07-12T08:39:00.000-07:00

SelectSmart.com's new Ethical Philosophy Selector is like most online surveys: it's a somewhat interesting exercise in self-absorbtion, yet yields mildly puzzling results.

My hierarchy of ethical philosophers, for example:

1. Kant (100%)
2. John Stuart Mill (97%)
3. Aquinas (96%)
4. Ayn Rand (85%)
5. Epicureans (83%)
6. Jeremy Bentham (76%)
7. Jean-Paul Sartre (75%)
8. Aristotle (74%)
9. Ockham (74%)
10. Prescriptivism (70%)
11. Spinoza (64%)
12. St. Augustine (64%)
13. David Hume (56%)
14. Plato (47%)
15. Nietzsche (38%)
16. Stoics (38%)
17. Thomas Hobbes (38%)
18. Cynics (22%)
19. Nel Noddings (0%)

Kant? I don't think so. Besides, they didn't even include Popeye, Barney, or John Blutarsky, and I'm pretty sure all of those would be in the top five at least.

Via Gene Expression

I Suppose a Cow Would've Been Better

2004-07-11T12:08:00.000-07:00

Based on the surprisingly strong reaction regarding this, I wonder if it'll affect Bush's plans to adopt a toilet and name it "France?"

Via Tim Blair

Look at Me, Love Me!

2004-07-11T11:52:00.000-07:00

I'm postmodern and oh-so-sophisticated!

The whole thing is rather embarrassing throughout, but it's only when the author unironically uses the phrase "European sophisticates" that this article really jumps the shark.

Visitors from Europe have arrived and, after having marvelled at the winter sunshine and extolled the harbour, they ushered me into a cafe, ordered espressos all round, coughed politely, and asked me the question I had been dreading. Would I be so kind as to explain my country's foreign policy?

Being your typical multilingual European sophisticates, they had quickly grasped Australia's sycophantic attachment to the US.

You can almost see the stinklines of cultural self-hatred, insecurity and shame emanating off her words, can't you? To me, she sounds like a freshman sorority sister at the first big kegger of the semester, eager to drop her draws for the first senior fratboy that deigns to offer her some beer and rufies in one of those big plastic cups.

Via Andrea Harris

Because I Feel Like It

2004-07-10T13:37:00.000-07:00

"Mummy, a naked American man stole my balloons."

"What?"

Look Ma, No Talent!

2004-07-09T12:39:00.000-07:00

Ah, excellent.

Yup, all the essential elements are incoherently thrown in at random:

Oil - Check
Signs of American military hegemony - Check
Cowboy reference - Check
Innocent victims of American aggression - Check
Bible - Check

The thing that really annoys most about this kind of silliness is not the idiotic or aimless political argument, but just the sheer laziness of the execution. I've seen 4th grade collages that melded their concepts more deftly than this garbage. I'm frankly a little surprised that the "artist" didn't just go for broke and start glue-sticking words cut out of magazines like "Halliburton," "empire" and "collateral damage." Had he done so, he'd be sure to get the coveted "check plus" and smiley face sticker.

I guess he ran out of time when the recess bell rang.

Update: Oh, memo to Josh Micah Marshall, you left your Batman lunch box in the cafeteria.

Via John Cole

I Discover My Love For Michael Moore

2004-07-08T19:37:00.000-07:00

In an effort to balance out all the gleeful Moore hatred of recent, I've been trying to find something good to say about him and his work. I was coming up empty for a while, but after listening to people in the dining room extol the man and movie's virtues, I figured out something the fat tub of mendacity is good for: he's the ultimate idiot barometer.

All those people calling the movie "awesome"... well, I always suspected they were idiots not worthy of paying attention to, but I didn't want to absolutely conclude as much without more conclusive evidence, and finding out that kind of stuff on my own would've been a bigass hassle. Now I know for sure.

It's like I have a little clipboard with two boxes: "Idiot" and "Not an Idiot." Anyone who thinks Michael Moore is the bees knees of political discourse, or that F-9/11 is a devastating takedown of Bush or the war just proudly made their mark in the idiot box, and I can proceed to completely disregard their opinion on anything even remotely related to politics.

So thank you, Michael Moore, diviner of morons, revealer of dumbasses, all-powerful labeler of shit-for-brainers, you've done your country a great service.

"Spamalot"

2004-07-08T12:39:00.000-07:00

... is to be the moniker for the new Broadway musical version of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." Or, as the show will be alternatively titled, "Eric Idle Rapes the Corpse of Monty Python Yet Again."

Like I Need Another Thing to Have Nightmares Over

2004-07-07T22:14:00.000-07:00

Can't sleep, weird young/old man will eat me

Well, let's see. We have clowns, sock puppets, Barbra Streisand, and now this guy:

Shudder.

Oh, thanks a lot Six Flags. Thank you very much. You've officially given me a further addition to my Irrational Yet Crippling Phobias file.

Jerks.

Now if you'll excuse me, there's a closet and a security blanket with my name on them.

Next Kerry Will Start Making Jokes About "the Help"

2004-07-07T22:04:00.000-07:00

Man, that Jeff G is just really freaky, man.

I'll Be Seeing This in My Dreams Tonight

2004-07-07T14:41:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why, but I have a vague feeling there is something highly erotic about this picture:

Freaky Little Dwarf or Athletic Ubermensch?

2004-07-07T14:32:00.000-07:00

Well of course he did. All the balls that didn't go straight to the green were denounced as counter-revolutionary running-dogs and summarily executed.

Via Ace

My Allowed Bigotry of the Week

2004-07-06T19:26:00.000-07:00

Wherein I make prejudiced pronouncements regarding subjects of which my personal attributes make me unassailable:

"All lawyers are dirty fucking liars and bloodsuckers, therefore John Edwards is a dirty fucking liar and bloodsucker."

Tune in next week when I call someone a "stupid wop dego," or perhaps a "filthy kilt-wearing sheepfucker."

Captioneering

2004-07-06T19:12:00.000-07:00

"Hmmm, now let's see here... got all his fingers and toes... responds to external stimuli normally... Well this just won't do. This kid hasn't got a single birth defect! What the hell am I supposed to tell the jury? That he's retarded? All babies act like they're retarded, for Christ's sake! Babies are fucking stupid. That's why they're just babies!"

"Try the caviar. It's top notch!"

Living in a Co-op Is...

2004-07-06T09:34:00.000-07:00

Part of a continuing series

Having to suggest to a housemate that cooking naked is somehow impolite and/or inappropriate.

Things That Confuse and Enrage Me

2004-07-05T23:21:00.000-07:00

AKA, the "Hulk" series of posts

Why all stupid NPR-people talk with predictable, nasally cadence? They all like, "Ooh, look at me! Me real reporter who put idiotuselesspauses in sentences!" Why does voice go up then down on last phrase same way every time?! Why!?!

Make Floyd MAD! Floyd SMASH radio!

Blogging Officially Resumed...

2004-07-05T23:19:00.000-07:00

THEN.

Blogging To Officially Resume...

2004-07-05T23:18:00.000-07:00

NOW.

Things I Didn't Know Existed Before Today

2004-06-29T00:49:00.000-07:00

# 75: Pet Acupuncture

I know. But there it was, right on the side of the car. And apparently they have an office and a logo and all that good stuff which means they're on the up and up.

Well, I'm sold.

What's that? No, I'm sure he's trustworthy. He's an expert pet acupuncturist. That's not the kind of thing you can learn in an hour. I'll bet that takes at least a solid afternoon of watching a training video to earn that title.

Stop being silly. Of course he's not the same guy you read about who went to jail 10 years ago for torturing squirrels. That guy was like twenty-five. This guy is clearly in his mid-thirties. Now stop being so cynical and distrusting and let the wild-eyed man stick pins into your dog.

No, no, that's completely normal. Yeah, really, I read somewhere that pet acupuncture is supposed to use only rusty railroad ties and hammers. Something to do with the unique energy signatures of animals' shakras or someshit. Now let's do this thing.

Uselessly Irrelevant Pop Music Reference of the Day

2004-06-28T23:16:00.000-07:00

WILSON! King of Prussia, I lay this hate on you
WILSON! Duke of Lizards, I beg it all trune for you

You got me back thinkin' that you're the worst one
I must inquire, Wilson, can you still have fun?
Wilson, can you still have fun?
Wilson, can you still have fun?
Wilson

Gourmand of the Radio Dial

2004-06-28T22:48:00.000-07:00

Drove down to LA with Michelle today. It turns out that almost half the radio stations in the California central valley are Spanish, another near-half are religious, and the remaining are probably Spanish and religious. Also, it seems that there is no local NPR broadcaster recievable along most of the I-5, but for some reason you can get crystal clear Radio Pacifica the whole way.

And thank goodness for that! Otherwise, I never would've known about this thing called "A Boo Grabe." Have you heard of it?

You know, one might think that after 5 hours, one would get tired of of a steady diet of national self-hatred, braised in a subtle sauce of snide contempt for the vast majority of the country. Not me, though! Oh, and waiter? Another splash of this delicious -what do you call it?- Ah yes, "Michael Moore."

Ugh, I'll bet this is going straight to my hips.

Thought For the Day

2004-06-27T20:55:00.000-07:00

"Man, raisins are good. I mean, they're just darn good."

America's Racist Shame

2004-06-27T20:45:00.000-07:00

"Today I am feeling strongest racisms against the religion of the Prophet and the One True Faith - sincerely, a typical member of the American Zionist Entity"

...When You're Young At Heart

2004-06-27T12:02:00.000-07:00

Sure, he may be a wizened 62 years old on the outside, but on the inside he's still a sprightily clueless 18 year old college freshman.

"I think Michael Moore's agenda is to get Bush out, but I think it (should be) about more than Bush," said Reingold, an independent, on Saturday. "I think it's about the capitalist system, which is inequitable. They're laying people off, cutting off health care, and the few people on top are getting more rich and powerful."

You're a shining example for all people who yearn to remain a mental teenager, Mr. Reingold.

Bloggus Suspensus

2004-06-27T08:48:00.000-07:00

Exploring the outer limits altered human consciousness. Back later. How much later, I'm not sure. Time dilation is a bitch like that...

Update: Journey to the center of your mind has been delayed indefinitely.

Internal Dialogue

2004-06-26T18:53:00.000-07:00

Hey, how come you post so much on Saturday when no one is reading blogs?

Because no one reads this blog anyway, so it doesn't make much of a difference, does it, Fuckface?

You promised you would stop calling me that.

That was before you started actually getting your face fucked, and hence making the term only too appropriate.

You can be so cruel when you split your personalities.

Compounding Their Shame

2004-06-26T17:46:00.000-07:00

You can't help but feel embarassed for Ebert and the Other Guy when they feel the need to revisit their unintentionally hilarious commentary on Fahrenheit 9/11 from a previous week (audio file) to defend their opinions against "conservatives" who apparently didn't take too kindly to the abject ignorance and stupidity offered as a literate review. Once again, they smugly proclaim that F-9/11 is an important film because it's powerful and doesn't pull any punches, and isin addition beyond criticism because Moore admits that his viewpoint is a biased one.

Congrats, boys. You've once again made fools of yourselves by either being unable or unwilling to recognize the actual issue: that the movie is unfair and not worthy of anything but contempt because it is a calculated exercise in falsehood and dishonesty, not because its auteur is making a polemic against Bush. Boys, friendly advice: just shut up. It's simply too painful to watch you triumphantly heaping accolades so high when you're so utterly clueless about... well, everything.

In the kindest interpretation possible, one might only fault you for being too ignorant to be aware of the omissions and background info that would reveal Moore for the lying lipidinoid he is, but after reading about the movie's own patent internal contradictions, one seems unable to conclude anything but that you guys are just not very bright. So please, do yourselves and the world a favor: just shut your idiot traps, 'kay?

Bring on the Pork

2004-06-26T12:27:00.000-07:00

Screw the Israeli bullets. As far as I'm concerned, that's only barely a good start. Barely. I want me some pig ammo.

I'm sure American ingenuity can come up with some sort of fragmenting round that contains rendered hog fat. Try getting your 72 virgins then, you superstitious bastards!

Thought of the Day

2004-06-26T12:18:00.000-07:00

"Did I leave the iron on?"

--Me, five minutes ago

Photo Roundup

2004-06-26T11:38:00.000-07:00

It's a sad state of affairs indeed when your hat can express the sum total of your political philosophy.

These boots are made ~~for walkin'~~ from environmentally-friendly synthetic fibers and promote equitable living-wage sustainable development,
And that's just what they'll do;
One of these days these boots
Are gonna ~~walk all over you~~ form a broad coalition that will break the hold of the two-party system in this country and signal a significant shifting in the national socio-political dynamic.

Bill Clinton shakes hands with a well-wisher a book signing. And is probably doing that creepy finger thing.

While schooled in the arts of insurgent warfare and propaganda, Iraqi militants nonetheless seem ignorant of the fact that white is not a slimming color...

...See? That's the idea. Of course, Moore is aided by the fact that his mass is sufficient to bend trap light, rendering his appearance significantly smaller to the naked eye.

And finally, in international news, Korea was looking increasingly like Florida to me today, prompting me to try to come up with some sort of peppy mnemonic to tell them apart.

Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap

2004-06-24T19:19:00.000-07:00

When you bake pot cookies and put them out for your housemates, it would be nice to label them as such

Crap crap ate toomanycookies mmm they were good tho my leg cant stop bouncing now now now im gonna be hyper for the next three hours of the night or the morning whatever ill be up for awhile dammit blogging too hard too hard no coherent thoughts but i guess thats not too different ami right or ami right or ami right right right

Wherein Our Intrepid Hero Makes Stuff Up Because He's Bored

2004-06-24T15:54:00.000-07:00

So I was thinking about the Olsen twins (in a completely legal manner... and yes, as a matter of fact I do have a lot of free time; how did you know?), and I figure I have the whole anorexia thing figured out.

It's clear to me now that one of them is feeding on the lifeforce of the other, in a vampiric, or possibly... body snatchers type way.

I mean, twins can do that, right?

Another Nothing Issue Desperately Blown Out of Proportion

2004-06-24T12:15:00.000-07:00

I think this whole "seven minutes" thing, given prominent attention in Fahrenheit 9/11, is an interesting phenomenom to examine from both sides of the aisle.

On the one hand, you have Michael Moore, devoting a large portion of the seven minutes of screen time to showing Bush continuing to read to school children after he's been told of the attacks. Apparently, this is an accusation that Bush was either 1) criminally unconcerned with the fact that America was under attack, 2) too stupid to know what to do, preferring to sit there like a deer in the headlights, or 3) aware that the attacks were coming, evidenced by his lack of surprise. I've heard arguments advancing all three of these interpretations from various people who have seen the film.

In response, you then get conservatives arguing that the president did exactly the right thing, and that immediately jumping up and rushing out of the room would have been needlessly upsetting and impulsive; his calm and deliberate demeanor helped to set the right tone of response for these events.

Bullshit. More than anything else, the fact that defenders of Bush feel they need to offer some kind of positive rebuttal explaining Bush's actions in this particular context shows what an ugly effect Moore's style of filmmaking has had on public discourse in general. The proper respoonse to the film's assertion is ignoring it, because it's fucking stupid.

Those seven minutes don't say anything important about Bush, good or bad. Neither would it have meant anything extraordinary if Bush had sat there five minutes, or for no time at all. I wouldn't think any less of him if he had leapt out of his seat without a parting word and left the kiddies puzzled and traumatized (although you can bet that Moore would use this scenario just as readily as proof that Bush is a bumbling and uncaring fool). Trying to draw some Big Conclusion about whether the president feels like he should continue to read for a few more minutes during a tense situation is just lame and pathetic. It's a nothing controversy.

But of course Moore tries to turn it into some breathless indictment. That's what he does. And of course many of his dullard cheerleaders in the idiot media are only too eager to salivatingly bob their empty parrot heads in enthusiastic concurrence. One of Moore's main shticks is the carefully crafted pose of ironic outrage. If only he acts fervently enough like something utterly mundane, unremarkable and widely known is an outrageous and scandalous secret, maybe the deltas will all start vibrating angrily in their seats because... well, just because.

Trying to craft a defense of Bush in this instance that goes beyond "Shut up, you're an idiot," is simply giving Moore's argument too much credit already.

Signs of the Apocalypse #765

2004-06-24T07:39:00.000-07:00

Roger Simon:

But I did see the trailer the other night and what is being emphasized in the advertisement is that the documentary reveals the shocking news that Bush helped the Bin Laden family leave America immediately after 9/11. Now Hitchens, of course, shows how this is a bald-faced lie. Bush critic Richard Clarke has acknowledged his sole responsibility for that. (I blogged about this a few weeks ago.) It seems to invalidate the entire film without having to go further. It will be interesting to see how the critics respond. Don't look for the Cannes Film Festival to rescind the Palme d'Or. After all, Quentin Tarantino informed us that his jury had awarded the film the prize "for aesthetic reasons."

Forget the whole thing about dishonest distoritions, bold-faced bias at Cannes, the fact that Michael Moore is depleting our nation's Krispy Kreme resources at an alarming rate, etc. etc. What's really freaky, man about this whole situation is the fact that Michael Moore would win anything on the basis of aesthetics.

I mean, seriously, has the whole world gone insane?

Faniboi Inanity

2004-06-23T23:43:00.000-07:00

Abandon all coolness, ye who enter in

This post by Allah made me cue up the end of Return of the Jedi (doing so is insanely easy and quick since our network has about 900 easily-accessible DVD rips), just to watch the part with Nien Nunb. I ended up watching the last 20 minutes or so of the movie.

Then, out of some vague urge I still don't fully comprehend, I watched about the last half hour of Return of the King.

Just witnessing the contrast was like participating in a Two Minutes Hate with Lucas replacing Emmanuel Goldstein as the centerpiece.

Christ, what gawdawful tripe this was. I used to think that Episode I had soured my love of the previous films. But now I realize there was something else going on. It didn't poison some well of goodwill, it just revealed that Star Wars was always rather insipid and poorly made tripe that I was too young to recognize for what it was, and that right up until Ep. I came out, my affinity had simply been coasting on some kind of inertia of nostalgia and emotional investment. The idiot prequels didn't turn me against Star Wars so much as reveal its inherent lameness. And of course the fact that Lucas himself has long vied with James Cameron for the title of Most Insufferable Prick in Hollywood (you know, the "Miphie") just made the revelation feel all the more right.

If you'd told me ten years ago that I'd be writing this, there's a good chance that I would've chopped off my hands to prevent such heresy from being typed. I guess I can chalk that up to vagaries of youth. Even though it's embarrassing, I'm actually a little glad I have that blemish to point to. As youth idiocies go, being a Star Wars fanboi isn't too bad. It sure beats being a Chomskyite or Rage Against ~~the Machine~~ Homework fan. Although those probably would've got me laid more.

People Unclear on the Concept

2004-06-23T21:21:00.000-07:00

#495: Queers for Palestine

Jump Through Our Hoops, You Legal Monkeys

2004-06-23T20:48:00.000-07:00

That's right, law school students, you're all part of a racket as corrupt as your uncle Salvatorre's meat packing union.

While depressing to revisit the ugly truth about the bar exam, I was already aware of this even prior to going to law school. The really sad thing is much of the same forces are at work behind LSAT testing and law school admission rates, a fact I took perverse delight in relating to my LSAT students when I worked for Princeton Review. Law schools (or the accredited ones at least) have something of at least a tacit agreement amongst each other that they will collectively keep their fingers plugged in the dike that holds back the vast resevoir of the money-obsessed and morally flexible youngsters as a means of maintaining the relative prestige and comfortable lifestyle afforded a lawyer.

Even more transparent is the relatively recent decision to mandate attendance at an accredited school for admission to the bar. Tradition was, if you were smart enough and didn't care about some academic pedigree to put on your resume, you could study on your own, and if you were able to pass the bar, you were as much a lawyer as anyone else. I'm not sure of it, but it seems rather clear to me that this was more than anything the law schools' doing, making their $50-100k stamp of approval an unavoidable hoop for future shysters to jump through.

I've heard similar things about med school as well, although I could be wrong. A year in law school has thoroughly demystified the legal world and jaded me to the point that I'm pretty sure any reasonably intelligent simian could do it passably well with about half the schooling lawyers typically recieve. The world of medicine is still fairly opaque to me, though. The bank of knowledge required seems more encyclopedic, the process of diagnosis still looks like something of a magic trick.

But then, I also wouldn't be surprised if I learned tomorrow that what doctors do boils down to a car mechanic working with slightly squishier parts. I'm actually sure that would happen if I ever leanred the stuff myself. One certainty I have about life is that once I can do something, it can't possibly be hard. After all, I'm an idiot.

Soccer Hoodlums Graduate to Suicide Bombing

2004-06-23T20:37:00.000-07:00

A Palestinian boy cheers for his country's soccer team.

Huh?

...Oh.

Well, I mean I just assumed with the face paint and all... you know, the Palestinian soccer team. Cuz I figured they'd have one. I mean, countries have stuff like national sports teams and schools and police forces and court systems and running water and all that shit, right? It's not like he'd be just some adolescent idiot standing on the corner yelling for the destruction of Israel, is it?

Optical Delusions

2004-06-23T14:38:00.000-07:00

You might think this picture bears the hallmarks of some photoshop manipulation, but you have to remember, the camera subtracts about 250 pounds.

Fahrenheit 9/11 Gets R-rating

2004-06-23T10:04:00.000-07:00

"R," in MPAA parlance apparently now stands for "Retarded."

What, no cries of "Censorship!", Mikey? I'm disappointed. It seems your game is slipping. Try to work on that. I'm starting to get a little concerned that, come the next terrorist attack, you won't even have some analogy ready at hand to compare the murderers to George Washington or something.

We Are Badasses

2004-06-22T15:06:00.000-07:00

How do you like that shit, you infidel pigs? Yeah! We are one baaaaad group of muthafuckas. We like totally cut his head off. His head. You like them jihad apples? Yeah. Yeah. Look at that. Look at us. He was all like crying and shit, and we did it anyway. Cut his head clean off. You like that, infidels? You like that? Take it. Take it good. That's right bitches. Yeah, you may be able to kill hundreds of us effortlessly from thousands of feet in the air, you may be able to go up against superior numbers and kill 50 as many casualties as you take, and sure, you can conquer a country in 3 weeks, but fuck all, can you behead an unarmed and blindfolded civilian? Yeah, we thought so. You wish you was as bad as us! Yeah. Tremble like the little bee-atches you are!

Short-Takes: Berkeley in the 60s (1990)

2004-06-22T07:22:00.000-07:00

The sound of one hand clapping (...for itself, while the other hand alternates between patting itself on the back and masturbating over its righteous achievements, of which there are evidently none).

Living in a Co-op Is...

2004-06-21T23:44:00.000-07:00

Part of a continuing series

Mentally keeping track of places no longer suitable for sitting, ever since they'd been occupied by one of your housemates during his naked phase.

Fry, Baby, Fry

2004-06-21T23:40:00.000-07:00

There are many things you could point out about Lynn Stewart to give one adequate reason to hope the government throws a spiky, flaming book of Justice at her.

Here's just one of them:

Stewart often embraces her clients, seeing in their cases the stuff of radical liberation. "I'm not going to say what's healthy for someone who lives somewhere else in the world," she said. "My own political sense tells me that the only hope for change in Egypt is the fundamentalist movement."

My own political sense tells me the only thing fitting for Stewart is an 8' x 10' cell for the rest of her useless life.

The Big Fat Pot Calls the Jumping Kettle a Black Shark

2004-06-21T13:47:00.000-07:00

... or something. You figure it out.

Now that's chutzpah: Michael Moore threatening people with libel suits for wilfully distorting the truth.

Just read that sentence again to make sure you've absorbed it fully (but don't read it too many times, or your head might very well go Scanners).

As serious legal claims go, it's almost impossible to even conceive of a realistic libel claim that Moore might have against anyone criticizing his movie. That's doubly true when one considers his suggestion that the reason he's making this statement now is because there was a whole slew of actionable libel made in response to Bowling For Columbine that he could've and should've pursued but didn't. He implies that there was some sort of tort liability incurred by at least some of those hundreds of people who publicly dissected the dishonesty in BFC, but for some reason he didn't respond soon enough and is now precluded from legally vindicating himself.

Sorry, Mikey. We're not that grotesquely stupid, unlike that choir you preach to with your mendacious little piles of celluloid refuse. The statute of limitations for libel and slander are almost always at least two years, and often as many as four. BFC came out in October of 2002. The public take-downs of the movie's credibility only came when the movie had gained wide notoriety in 2003. If Mike actually had some sort of libel case, he's still well within his ability to pursue it.

But of course he doesn't, and that's what this is all about. A successful libel claim requires that the defendant printed and represented as true something that he personally knew was false, or knew that there was a high probability of it being false. No criticism of BFC that I ever saw or heard about even came close to this standard. And of course, the elephant of irony in this room is the fact that BFC itself is a credible instance of libel on several counts, since it dishonestly edited material to distort the public statements of several people.

What this threat is really about is bluster and intimidation. I think Moore is beginning to realize that F-911 is no less sloppy and objectively dishonest than BFC was, and he's starting to sweat at the prospect of all the errors being prominently pointed out before the film even has a chance to establish itself like BFC did. This is about blunting that well-earned criticism through specious legal threats. After all, it doesn't cost anything to threaten a lawsuit. In addiiton it might just be the case that Moore is egomaniacal enough that he actually believes that his millions and his fame are enough to bring the legal system to bear as a cudgel and make the little people tremble. Maybe he really believes all that twaddle he peddles about millionaires being able to use the law as their own personal plaything. I dunno.

What I do know is that these threats are like everything else he puts out into the public sphere: annoying, empty and deceitful.

The Federal Judiciary Takes a Credibility Hit

2004-06-21T10:07:00.000-07:00

The thing that I find particularly striking about this story linked by Instapundit is the fact that, even though these were particularly liberal lawyers, members of the American Constitution Society (the National Lawyers Guild version of con law groups), they were still shocked enough at the remarks to gasp. The fact that Federal judges have a reputation for logical sobriety sufficient to elicit those gasps makes me glad in having chosen law as a future profession, and it consequently makes me that much more annoyed that Calabresi would say something so mind-numbingly stupid.

The 60 Minutes Tongue Bath

2004-06-21T07:41:00.000-07:00

So last night, it was mentioned on the 60 Minutes rimjob of Bill Clinton that, during the 1992 interview with Steve Kroft about Gennifer Flowers (which Clinton himself had voluntarily arranged to squelch the Flowers rumors), Bill was so pissed that Kroft would dare interfere with his personal life that he wanted to get up and "slug" him.

[Cut to Dan Rather, who mistily cocks his head and says with his eyes, "You poor, poor man. How'd you ever get through it?"]

Of course, it's a cliche at this point, but imagine if it was a Republican former president saying the same thing. Oh, the outrage! Wanting to visit violence against a journalist who just doing his job! What a big dumb ape!

A Public Spanking Over Bazian, From Yours Truly

2004-06-18T21:53:00.000-07:00

Remember the Hatem Bazian flap where the UC Berkeley lecturer called for an intifada in the US that would be more radical than the one in Israel? It was linked just about everywhere, but LGF will do nicely in a pinch. Well, not long after, a free local paper, the Berkeley Daily Planet, did an interview with the apparently poor, put-upon Bazian, who whined that people were upset with him and were making thousands of death threats by email.

Anyway, I steer clear of the Daily Planet pretty regularly when I see it on the street, and the few times I've read articles have been when they were linked online from exterior sources like LGF. I heard the audio recording when it was linked by LGF. Then I read the Daily Planet article by the same road. Then I sent the following (quickly dashed-off) letter to-the-editor:

Absolutely ridiculous article (“UC Lecturer’s ‘Intifada’ Comment Brings Death Threats,” Daily Planet, May 25-27). First of all, he didn’t say “political intifada.” I heard an audio recording of the event. But more importantly, he didn’t mean it in a political sense, either. It strains common sense to think that he was talking about some sort of benign political realignment by using that word, especially since he explicitly related it to the Palestinian intifada and claimed that it would be more “radical” even than the murder and terrorism going on in Israel.

I also find it rather sad that Mr. Schiller blindly accepted and parroted Bazian’s silly claim to multitudes of death threats. Death t hreats are illegal. One might think that just maybe if someone was getting deluged with serious threats of harm, he would report them to the police and they would be investigated. But of course, actually looking into such a thing to see if there was any credibility to the those claims would be too taxing for Mr. Schiller, I suppose. By the way, saying someone ought to be shot in the head, while not a particularly nice suggestion, is not a death threat. I strongly suspect that most of the claimed “threats” against Bazian were of this degree, if not much less.

This is truly the worst sort of shoddy reporting. The article failed to look at Bazian’s dissembling with any kind of critical eye. You have effectively become a mouthpiece for his lies. Congratulations.

Just tonight, someone pointed out to me that the BDP had published my letter some time ago (last letter on the page). My friend pointed out that BDP actuallywas quite diligent about printing harshly disagreeing letters. Kudos to them for that much, at least.

Picture Fun - My Personal Care Bear

2004-06-18T15:10:00.000-07:00

Michelle Malkin finds her inner Care Bear. She thinks she's Grumpy Bear.

As for myself, I'm gonna have to go with Hippie-Stomping Bear.

Hiding behind the ACLU only makes Hippie-Stomping Bear angrier and stompier.

Living in a Co-op Is...

2004-06-18T13:21:00.000-07:00

Part of a continuing series

Listening to the Food-Not-Bombs people who use our kitchen once a week talking at length about how every police officer was merely a childhood sadist who loved hurting people so much that they had to follow it as their life's work.

Stay Out of Her Bush(es)

2004-06-18T08:59:00.000-07:00

"Look, I just want them to stay the hell off my property. It's about my privacy, don't you get it? I'm perfectly willing to work out a compromise, like, for instance, letting them watch while I have sex with a donkey and deepthroat an 18-inch glass dildo. I'm down with that. But I absolutely draw the line at someone hiking in my back yard. Just the thought makes me feel so violated."

Hollywood Che Chic

2004-06-18T07:17:00.000-07:00

Hollywood is making another movie about our old Marxist killer-pal, Che, and this one looks to be a Hollywood fawnfest of the same stripe as the hagiography of that excreble woman and mediocre artist, Frida Kahlo, where revolutionary politics and personal immaturity and self-obsession meld into the perfect charismatic elxir, at least for people who listen to the Rage Against ~~the Machine~~ Homework.

While the romance associated with revolution has always been prevalent among the immature and emotional, there weren;t exactly many figures to personify that romanticism. It took a much different mindset and historical outlook to get behind Stalin or Lenin the way the dupes of the 30's did. For the naive Western comrade of the 60's up to the present day, those fellows were simply much too stodgy and too mired in the ugly and tedious quotidian of actually running a (non)functioning Marxist state.

Che, on the other hand (or at least the popular conception that many still hold of him), can be sufficiently separated from any fetters tying the young and idealistic to the oppressive real-world consequesences of their beliefs. His status as permanent guerrilla allows one to forever exist in the romantic world of continuing revolution, rather than forcus on the ruin that follows in the wake of those satisfying orgies of smashing the powers-that-be. That, and clever marketing (the irony is particularly satisfying), is what has placed his two-toned image on every other college dorm room in the country - he is the epitome of communist romanticism and denial of reality.

Expect heavy doses of both from the new movie, which seems to have attracted a lot of big name talent like Steven Soderbergh and Benicio Del Toro. With a tagline like "[H]e fought for the people," expect to not see much focus on the fact that Che was basically an incompetent and ignorant revolutionary, as much interested in fulfilling romantic fantasies as the common American know-nothing that idolizes him. Also, I wouldn't be waiting with bated breath to see much depiction of the sizable contempt in which he held the people he was trying to mobilize to revolution. The people he dealt with he considered largely a canvas on which to paint his own personal valiant narrative of The People. They were the faceless masses, surrounding him as the central messianic figure of deliverance. I guess, when one considers how incapable they seemed to help him bring about this personal transcendence and fame, that it's understandable he was so annoyed with them all the time and wrote repeatedly in his diaries the scorn he felt for the stupid peasants he was surrounded by.

What you can expect is the standard worshipful fare. The filmakers will likely claim they're creating a fair, unflinching portrait. They'll include the man's flaws as well, such as his fierce temper and propensity for violence, which will no doubt be depicted in such a way as to make him seem even more attractive or sympathetic, in the same way that Frida Kahlo's abusive relationship with her husband only made her more appealing to the audience.

Expect a slew of Oscars.

Short-Takes: "The Believer" (2001)

2004-06-17T22:03:00.000-07:00

Yeshiva students grows up to be Neonazi. He be seriously fucked in the head, yo.

We the Undersigned...

2004-06-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

...are talking out of our ass.

Bruce, they need you.

On September 1, the Republicans will be hold their convention in New York City and will nominate George Bush for President. Many people will see this event as it will be broadcast on all the major television networks. However, an opportunity exists at that time to make it clear to Americans that they can choose an alternative to George Bush.

Well thank goodness they're providing an alternative to Bush. I'm assuming, of course, that the election in November has been summarily cancelled, because why else would they feel the need to provide an alternative when the traditional, obvious means of voicing one's dissatisfaction with a sitting president was still in place? I mean that would just be stupid.

Song Lyric that Presently Captures My Mood

2004-06-16T22:39:00.000-07:00

I'm waving my dick in the wind,
I'm waving my dick in the wind.
If it all goes right, I'll be in your arms tonight,
I'm waving my dick in the wind.

Admittedly, it's more of a "pose" than a "mood."

By the way, are you cold? I feel cold.

The PR Appeasers of Corporate America

2004-06-16T19:41:00.000-07:00

It would be refreshing to see the American incarnation of McDonald's do something like this:

In its new campaign, McDonald's [of Australia] attacks Spurlock's film as being "about someone who decides to overeat."

Russo appears in the ads himself, targeting Spurlock's claim that eating nothing by McDonald's for 30 days can make you sick.

"You're right," Russo says in the commercial. "Surprise, surprise. He finds out it was an error. I could have told him that."

Translation: "Well, duh, you grandstanding purveyor of jackassery."

I don't see anything about the American wing following up with a similar campaign. Perhaps it's because Super Size Me hasn't made as big an impact in America as it has Australia, but I'm more inclined to believe it's because US corporations tend heavily more towards the spineless mode of public relations. Case in point: Jesse Jackson being able to extort millions because he deems there to be insufficient black faces in the company's management.

I see this type of problem as being at least in part a tragedy-of-the-commons situation. I think in the short term, it's probably the safer bet for corporations to take the spineless route and, say, take the $10 million hit in donations going to Jackson's pockets so they can get the Rainbow Coalition seal of approval, or to make a meek and half-hearted effort to point out that McDonald's is trying to add healthy alternatives. In both cases, the corporation in question is essentially ceding the argument on its merits to their respective fraudulent gadflies that are trying to score a buck, rather than attacking their accusations as the often baseless and self-serving canards they are.

How satisfying would it be to see a CEO from a Fortune 500 tell Jessie Jackson where he can stick his "concerns" about "diversity?" How satisfying to see Charlie Bell, the CEO of McDonald's, come out on TV and say, in effect, "Spurlock, you're a dirty liar and a shamelessly opportunistic filmmaker"? They wouldn't have to use those words, but even getting that message across in language suitable to the professional public sphere would still be refreshing enough to put in a Sierra Mist commercial.

If corporations were willing to take those kinds of stances, I think such self-serving tribunes of the public would soon evaporate in a cloud of self-righteousness. But, like I said above, taking the route of appeasment is often the most rational thing for each individual entity to do in the isloated context of their ability to act as a private corporation. Confronting yappy attack dogs like Jackson or Spurlock runs a much higher immediate risk than trying to sit them down at your table and get them on your side.

Say Jackson needs another million to pay off yet mother to keep quiet about her new illegitimate bundle of joy that will grow up with a inbred penchant for preaching and rhyming and so suddenly decides that GM doesn't hire enough minorities. No problem there, he says to the board of directors. A tidy donation to Jackson's ~~personal slush fund~~ foundation will allay his deep misgivings about GM's committment to minority employment.

It would certainly be appealing on an emotional level to stand up publicly to this kind of shysterism, but corporations aren't about fighting the good fight and scoring points against some transparent public blowhard, they're about protecting the value of their company to shareholders. Even waging that battle successfully could very well cost as much as Jackson is asking for, and there's a real risk that Jackson would win the PR battle, and then GM gets branded with a reputation for wearing white hoods in the board room and becomes a dirty word on the public tongue.

So, it's in everyone's best interest on an individual level to appease or engage these kinds of people, while in the long run setting themselves up increasingly as legitmate targets in the public mind, to regularly take frivolous potshots at and see what you can get out of the deal.

Captioneering

2004-06-16T11:53:00.000-07:00

"Fire... bad!"

Bias vs. Lies Redux

2004-06-16T11:40:00.000-07:00

This time from Malkin's blog, an emailer writes in regarding a complaint he made to the Times about Paul Krugman's patently false assertion that there hadn't been successful prosecutions of terrorists:

They blew me off. Said that was just his opinion, I need to show facts that prove him wrong, bunch of BS like that. Told me the old fall back, "If you don't like it, don't read it."

So now it seems the NYT's standard M.O. is that it's ok to lie as long as it's your "opinion."

My, my. This is becoming quite a frequent talking point these days, isn't it?

Asylum and Terrorism

2004-06-16T11:17:00.000-07:00

Michelle Malkin presents a frightening picture of the state of the current asylum regime operating in the US:

But the system for screening out the well-meaning from the menaces is completely overwhelmed. Claims of "credible fear of persecution" are almost impossible to document but are rarely rejected. Federal homeland security officials are unable to detain asylum-seekers for background checks without the civil liberties brigade screaming "racial profiling." And there is still a woeful shortage of detention space -- just 2,000 beds nationwide -- to hold those with suspect claims.

As a result, thousands of refugees and asylum-seekers who have made flimsy claims of persecution are let loose. As the Department of Justice's inspector general reported, 97 percent of all asylum-seekers from any country who were released from immigration custody were never found again and deported.

As an optional statutory elective this last semester, I chose to tae immigration law. I took it mostly because of the issues that have been raised since 9/11, and I was keen on learning about the mechanisms for screening and excluding potentially dangerous people from our country.

I was soon disappointed to learn that the class was to be taught from a alien-advocate point of view. That is, every law or regulation or process of review that we looked at was studied from the perspective of the alien trying to gain admission. As such, the professor frequently mentioned offhand things such as the ways in which asylum officers would capriciously deny credible applicants based on some vague and likely prejudicial suspicion. Every anecdote always dealt with the way that aliens were getting unnecessarily screwed over by callous or imcompetent bureaucrats. I never once heard anything like the figure Malkin presents about 97% of applicants disappearing into the US population.

Silly Hats of the World, Unite!

2004-06-15T12:51:00.000-07:00

The cheeseheads finally have a rival for the "World's Silliest Sports-Related Hat" competition:

Update: The East Germans used to be a force to be reckoned with in this sport, but ever since the Iron Curtain came down, Teutonic entries have been relegated to poor showings such as these:

Come on, guys. I see the silliness, but I don't feel it.

It's [Not] Funny Because It's [Un]true

2004-06-15T11:23:00.000-07:00

See, this is why Doonesbury is now not only silly and irrelevant, but unfunny as well.

Trudeau has long been a devotee of the "genuine Little Guy as avatar" school of cartooning, wherein he chooses some salt-of-the-earth character to mouth his own philosophy. This can be an effective trope if you can find a message and an Average-Joe mouthpiece that plausibly could go together. In Trudeau's case however, his iconic Middle America characters tend more towards spouting standard issue Elite Liberal Opinion, today's comic being a perfect example.

You really think people in the army are overwhelmingly against their kids following in their footsteps, even if it means putting their lives at risk? Trudeau apparently does. Perhaps that's just because he's a pampered elitist who thinks the supreme goal in life is his own comfort and self-fulfillment, and so he cannot even fathom a military parent being proud of their kid choosing the same career. Maybe he's one of those clueless types who thinks only the stupid or the disadvantaged go into the military because they don't have any other options in life. Maybe he's just desperately hard-up for material and can't come up with anything else, I dunno.

The bottom line is it's lame because it rings so false.

Mao More Than Ever

2004-06-14T22:55:00.000-07:00

The really interesting thing about this story is merely that there still seem to be people who consider themselves Maoists (aside from certain denziens of Berkeley I see every now and then).

Maoist rebels ambushed two police trucks in Nepal on Monday, killing 21 police officers and wounding 12 in stepped-up violence that analysts said dimmed hopes for early peace talks.

I'm curious what these blokes would have to say about just what makes them "Maoist," seeing as how the dogma itself was generally defined as whatever that crazy ignorant peasant happened to be thinking on any particular day - an arrangement that often caused central committee members to become counter-revolutionaries without them even knowing it. It's truly a sad state of affairs when even the yes-men get executed because their yeses are out of date by a week or so.

If these guys are really Maoists, they should try showing it in a more historically consistent way, like say, starving a few tens of millions of people out of their own incompetence and disregard for anything but ideology. Or maybe they could try making a bunch of substandard steel, or factories and farms that don't produce anything. Or they could shut down the school system for 10 years and kill/enslave every mildly educated person in a frenzy of equality. Now that would presumably do Mao proud.

But no, all they can manage is shooting up a police convoy. Somewhere, the Great Helmsman is looking up, and he is not happy (I mean because of these guys, of course, not because Satan is shoving a hot poker up his rectum).