Thers' Day

Huh.

How the hell does someone who writes like this:

American's by and large DO believe in "free markets, free people, and in the greatness of the American people and the American nation". Only slackers whose greatest accomplishment is conquering World of Warcraft think otherwise. Most of us - "who aren't morons" believe that we should be free, that we are a great people and that America rocks.

have the nerve to criticize the intellectual capabilities of someone who writes like this:

No. My point was, rather, that it's a pretty pisspoor showing for Movement Conservatism to have labored mightily since the 1960s in the crucible of intense ideological struggle, only to ultimately bear forth... "America rocks." Perhaps if these deep thinkers are alloted another 40 years they might likewise determine that ice cream is delicious. That is if they can ever figure out how to keep it the fuck out of their nostrils.

The conservative movement certainly has a recent history of not knowing when it's in way over its head. But Thers at Whiskey Fire has a mastery of the language that you might think would cause even the most blindly arrogant of whackjobs pause. Certainly one could do better than calling him a slacker. Or maybe one couldn't.

Liberals Are Poopyheads

Larry Elders, via Human Events:

Bottom line: Conservatives consider liberals well-intentioned, but misguided. Liberals consider conservatives not only wrong, but really, really bad people.

Really, Larry? That is a fascinating thesis.



Are you certain? You seem pretty certain.



Wow. This is a stunning revelation, sir. I marvel at such rock-solid logic.



Well, there you have it. Our current social divide does not stem from mistrust begun during the conservative anti-Clinton movement and embraced by the Bush administration. It's because liberals are big jerks who hate all conservatives.

And just look at these statistics. Hard evidence!

Using this 0-to-100 scale, the survey asked those who described themselves as "conservative" or "extremely conservative" to rate "liberals." Average score -- 39. "Liberals" and "extreme liberals" gave "conservatives" a similar score -- 38.

Can't argue with numbers like that.

Night of the Living Turdblossom

Karl Rove won't stay dead, and hilarity ensues.

Think about that. She’s running against ‘nobody’ and ‘nobody’ gets 40 percent of the vote. The other 5 percent of the vote went to three other people: 27,924 votes went to the guy who believes in UFOs, the guy who dropped out and the guy who last held public office somewhere around 1855.

Wow. He may have handed the Chimp in Charge his resignation, but he hasn't quit the game he's best at: walking the razor-thin line between political spin and complete fabrication, then jumping off and kicking the line repeatedly in the gut until it vomits all over his shiny black Louis Vuittons.

Clinton should have taken her name of the ballot in Michigan. No question about it. But to say that 40% of the vote went to 'nobody' is delusional. 40% of the vote went to Obama and Edwards. Their names weren't on the ballot, but their camps were putting out the word: get to the polls and vote 'uncommitted'.

We let a career criminal walk free... we even give him a cushy job as a columnist for a major news magazine... and this is how he pays us back.

Kevin McCullough Update

Turns out Kevin McCullough couldn't resist swiping back at the critics who found fault with his column on Mass Effect. Taking the sophisticated tact one would expect from such an obviously intellectual journalist, he resorts to calling his critics "Gamer Nerds". This from a guy who looks like Squiggy from Laverne & Shirley had a brief but torrid love affair with a ferret, producing a child that very nearly survived.

Of course whenever a web argument erupts, 80% of what gets said is mindless namecalling and empty threats, leaving about 20% actual content. The lazy participant will focus only on the garbage, and pretend that the actual content doesn't exist. Is Kevin McCullough lazy?

To a person (after being hyped a bit by gamer-nerd-blogs) and no doubt instructed to flood my inbox with response, the gist of these responses went something along these lines, "YOU LIED, YOU LIED, YOU LIED." Some called me a yellow journalist, some just typed the "F" word something like 27 times, and signed it, "have a good day."

Yes. Yes he is. He also has a bit of an inflated ego, assuming that gamer blogs were instructing people to criticize him, instead of just laughing at his stupidity as was actually the case. But does he understand proper comma usage?

But what was it I was supposed to have lied about? That my friend is the compelling part of this highly emotional drama - if only to one niche of people attached to their X-Boxes.

He does not. Unless, of course, he has a good friend around whom this controversy revolves. I assume he would have mentioned this friend earlier.

I'm sure this moron's book is just captivating reading. I'd rush out and grab it, but this poopy pants living in the basement has some Rock Band to play.

UPDATE: Penny Arcade reminds us that Kevin McCullough is really just a sad little man who never got over his childhood dream of being famous, as only they can.

The Crazies Won't Stop Writing!

Courtesy of Penny Arcade:

Hot on the heels of the Syracuse fellow who thinks blogging is out of control and the bowtied asswad who thinks teh gais r gunna git us, we've got Kevin McCullough, who honestly believes that the Xbox game Mass Effect, which I've actually blogged about here, should be a central issue in the presidential race; specifically, how best to burn all copies of the game and, if possible, the programmers in a public bonfire.

How misinformed is Mr. McCullough?

"...the new video game that one company is marketing to fifteen year old boys."

Mass effect is rated M for Mature, meaning it shouldn't be played by anyone under 18. McCullough is apparently one of the idiot parents I discussed here.

It's called "Mass Effect" and it allows its players - universally male no doubt - to engage in the most realistic sex acts ever conceived.

While the game is, indeed, called Mass Effect, that appears to be the only nugget of truth in this sentence. Females are now allowed -- and on occasion, even choose! -- to play video games nowadays. And, there are no sex acts depicted in Mass Effect. I've finished the game, and I don't believe Mr. McCullough has. I can assure you that there is no graphic sex depicted. There's not even any nudity. There is one bedroom scene that would easily be allowed on prime time television. That's it.

One can custom design the shape, form, bodies, race, hair style, breast size of the images they wish to "engage"...

No... one can customize one's own character, but not the characters he or she engages with. At all. This is completely fabricated. And to get to the one aforementioned bedroom scene, which is about as randy as an episode of Friends, requires about 40 hours of shooting aliens and engaging in galactic diplomacy. Hardly a plug-and-play scenario.

Okay, I could do this all day, and I'm barely past the first few paragraphs. I'll just toss this last one out.

With it's "over the net" capabilities virtual orgasmic rape is just the push of a button away.

While anyone with an understanding of computer programming and the capabilities of the Xbox 360 knows this is an impossible scenario, that's secondary here. Is it just me, or does he almost sound... excited by the prospect? Seriously. I read that, and could almost visualize a tiny bit of drool running from the corner of McCullough's mouth. I think it's the use of the word 'orgasmic' to modify 'rape'.

It takes a special kind of batshit conservative to run out of actual things to bang his head against stupidly and resort to making shit up out of whole cloth. The game McCullough describes doesn't exist. It is unlikely to ever exist, as no responsible game retailer would carry it. But the fact that it doesn't exist does not appear to phase Kevin at all. He's gone to war against this imaginary game, I assume because the Goblin King was occupied elsewhere and unavailable.

If you're clamoring for more Kevin McCullough, and I know you are, his book, published by Harvest House Publishers, is available here.

See If This Sticks

Can you spot the man desperate to forge some positive last-minute legacy in this picture?

Here's a hint: He's the one with audacity to explain the importance of peace and stability in the middle east after spending the last seven years idly throwing lit matches into the world's tinderbox.

Captain Obvious vs. The Floundering Campaign

Fred Thompson's campaign has not taken off the way a lot of people (presumably including Fred Thompson) thought it would. Going by the way he held off his campaign with a wry smile and chuckle, he thought he could saunter on to the scene like a modern day Ronald Reagan to cheers and adulation. Apparently, he failed to notice that Ronald Reagan emitted more charismatic smiles than dour, moody glares.

So how is he going to reinvigorate his sinking candidacy?

By reminding voters that Democrats are Democrats.

"It's like they're all in training for the NASCAR, you know, nothing but a left turn, just steady as she goes, all the way around," he said at a coffee house in northeastern Iowa.

I guess Fred Thompson feels that the best way to the White House is by reminding Americans that Democrats tend to make more left-wing, liberal decisions than Republicans. I wasn't aware most Americans were oblivious to this fact.

Maybe, instead of pointing out the obvious, Cap'n Fred could explain why we should trust the Republican establishment when they can't even finish a president's term without old cronies ratting them out for corruption.

Use Your Illusions

Most people that follow this site already know I'm a recent convert to moderate progressive thinking, having spent most of the previous twelve years as a moderate Republican. I mention this only to make clear that I have far more experience debating liberals than conservatives.

One thing I will say for all those years I spent arguing with liberals is that they were generally always willing to engage. Sometimes they were spittle-spraying crazed, usually they were passionate but respectful. Regardless, they were almost always up for the battle of ideologies. Now that I've crossed over, so to speak, I'm finding that conservatives are far less willing to ante up if the deck isn't stacked in their favor.

Take this little beauty, for example. I may actually use Jammies Wearing Fool to illustrate another point later, but for now, concentrate on the comments section to this extremely weak attempt at blog humor. I was pointed here through Whiskey Fire via Eschaton, and decided to chip into the conversation with a respectful but frank critique of countering claims of misusing the word 'satire' by insulting those pointing out the error, in the process misusing the word 'spoofed'. The comment was deleted. I called Jammies out for deleting specific posts that didn't conform to his idea of vulgar lefties. He left this post up, responding that he'd only been deleting posts with vulgarities. This was demonstrably untrue, as I calmly responded, because posts with vulgarities remained, while very reasonable posts by myself and others were being culled. Posts I made pointing this out disappeared, along with very polite but critical posts by others, and some of us were banned from the site altogether.

What struck me is how important it was for Jammies Wearing Fool to maintain the illusion that all the people criticizing his rather sophomoric humor and poor word choice were just crazy, vulgar, lunatic liberals. Comments containing well-constructed arguments in a respectable tone were deleted so as to maintain this facade, constantly pointed out by the Fool himself in that comments thread, as well as the respective comments thread on Whiskey Fire. Jammies Wearing Fool was not actually interested in defending the appropriateness of humor that encourages assassination nor his obvious misunderstanding of what constitutes satire.

This is a perfect illustration of why I left the Republican party and conservative philosophy. It crumbles under the weight of fair debate. Those on the right no longer see any need to defend their ideologies; instead, they surround themselves in a fortified illusion of normalcy. If talk radio won't champion their causes, they'll create politainment talkers who will use shock-radio tactics to enthrall listeners while parroting key talking points. If journalists won't defend their ideas, they'll just make up their own phony newspapers and cable news channels. If cabinet members and staff criticize decisions, they will be fired and replaced with cronies. If legislators disagree, they will be bullied and threatened until they toe the line. If the members of the public disagree, they will be given labels that defy rational debate; labels like 'unpatriotic', 'anti-american', and 'moonbat'. It's not about being right, it's about creating and maintaining an illusion of being normal. It may appeal to those who want easy answers, and it may be attractive to low-rent blog administrators who can't even defend their own work, but it is abhorrent to me.

Antisocial Medicine

Yeah, I still read the opinion pages of the Syracuse Post-Standard. I can't help myself. And while I generally resist the temptation to go back to the Syracuse Opinions Bite formula, I can't help but respond to this gem.

To the Editor:
My heart bleeds with sorrow for those poor, unfortunate executives at Excellus Blue Cross-Blue Shield. Those poor guys only make a paltry $2 million or $3 million dollars a year in salary, plus numerous benefits, but they can't seem to spare around $1,000 for some poor kid to have a needed MRI. (Post-Standard, Nov. 5).

The only thing that could possibly make things worse is the involvement of the U.S. federal government (i.e. Queen Hillary's plans for socialized medicine, which has been an abysmal failure in every place where it has been tried).

In the immortal words of Ronald Reagan, the greatest president of the 20th century, the "scariest sentence in the English language is, 'Hello! I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you.' "

God help us all! And shame on Blue Cross-Blue Shield Excellus for their incomprehensible greed!

Eric K. Harer

Wow. Eric is apparently suffering from socio-economic schizophrenia, because his opinions couldn't possibly be more contradictory and head-shakingly dumb.

Eric is just incensed by the idea that Excellus prioritizes profits before the health care of an individual. That is just 'incomprehensible greed,' he yells into the ether. But, of course, for anyone who understands a free-market system, it's completely comprehensible, and certainly expected. Excellus is a corporation. The primary goal of a corporation is to make a profit, Eric, not to provide health care. If Excellus could make maximum profit by providing no health care, they would do so. If they provided top-notch health care but failed to make money, they'd be history. The decision to provide health care services means spending money, which means lower profits. Excellus, and every health insurance provider, hires teams of employees whose only job is to find reasons to deny coverage to people like the kid who wants an MRI. That's because paying those salaries costs less than the cost of the services they'd otherwise provide, maximizing profits. Greed, Eric, is the motivating factor behind capitalism. The expectation is that greed, euphemistically referred to as profitability, will motivate people to provide services. But when providing services is more costly than not providing them, the system inevitably breaks down.

And yet, Eric, despite seeing the inherent flaw in leaving humanitarian causes to the whim of the dollar, you make the usual knee-jerk twitch regarding socialized health care. 'Queen Hillary' (who most certainly is not on the forefront of universal health care, but whatever...) will drive us toward socialized medicine, which has failed everywhere it's been tried. Oh, well, yeah, except for the 36 health care systems ranked better than America's by the World Health Organization. The only thing the American system excels at is costing people money, but then, there's the result of using greed as the singular motivator in a health care system. We spend the most on health care, but when it comes to actually providing quality health care fairly and efficiently, we fall behind almost every other industrialized nation in the world.

While I don't argue that the federal government is inefficient and crippled by corruption, those same practices in the free-market are just considered maximizing profitability. The results are no different, but the actions are justified by the rules of capitalism. We do not sit on the board of directors of any corporation, but we do get to vote on our government. We have direct influence on government, and could enforce efficiency and transparency if it were the will of the people. By turning our health care over to corporations, we give up all say in the matter. Our government works for us when we have the will to demand it. Corporations work only for profit.

But go ahead, Eric. You keep repeating jokes by Ronald Reagan, who was a talented orator but not a trained economist. Meanwhile, the rest of the world will continue to live longer than us and maintain higher standards of health. When injustice happens, you can just keep shouting about greed while being too afraid of cold-war capitalist-propaganda boogeymen to do anything meaningful about it.

Michelle Malkin: Relying on Stupidity

Michelle Malkin (also Michelle Malkin) has evidently been getting some traction out of grousing about the fact that the American media never reports good news from Iraq. As irrefutable evidence, she presents an edited story, culled from an article in The Australian (brought to you by... and be ready for a shock... Rupert Murdoch). The story is meant to illustrate that violence has slowed to nearly a trickle in Iraq.

During a five-day stretch between October 19 and 23, there were no deaths among coalition forces. Although three US servicemen died from “non-hostile causes”, this was the longest period without combat deaths for almost four years. And, between October 27 and 29, there were more days without coalition deaths...

...It is beyond dispute, though, that the tide of violence in Iraq has been stemmed.

Now, I shouldn't even have to point out how stupid it is to believe that a five-day casualty free stretch is more newsworthy than, say, the continued failure of the Iraqi government to maintain order, the widespread corruption among US contractors in Iraq, or an impending destabilizing Turkish invasion into the most stable region of Iraq. That's just Michelle's usual idiocy. But what I love even more is that she assumes her readers won't go on to read the full article from the Australian. I assume she's right, of course, but then, I don't have much more faith in the intelligence of her readership than she does. Even the Murdoch-owned paper had to admit, later in the story (and edited from Michelle's version):

The civilian death toll may also have receded because of the success of ethnic cleansing in Sunni and Shia neighbourhoods, while other Iraqis have fled the country and many rarely venture out of their homes.

In a dramatic turnaround, more than 3000 Iraqi families, driven out of their Baghdad neighbourhoods, returned to their homes in the past three months as sectarian violence dropped, the Government said yesterday.

Michael White, who compiles statistics on violence in Iraq for the independent website icasualties.org, said there had been a substantial change in parts of Iraq "but I also think that this is a lull". In Baghdad, for instance, he fears that Sadr is "keeping his powder dry for when the Americans pull out".

Asked if there would be a day soon when nobody died in Iraq, he replied: "We've had low death-toll days before and then a huge pile of bodies is discovered somewhere.

"I honestly don't think violence will subside just yet."

Oh. So you mean the opinions reflected in Michelle's cropped story aren't the only ones presented, even in a paper run by a shamelessly right-wing, pro-American-imperialist corporation?

Impossible. Nobody embodies integrity like Michelle Malkin.

Summing It Up

A quicker, easier, more timely answer: Why do I no longer support the Republican party?

I think Donald Rumsfeld is the best thing that’s happened to the Pentagon in 25 years. This Pentagon and our military needs a transformation and I think Donald Rumsfeld is the only man in America who knows where the bodies are buried at the Pentagon, has enough experience to help transform that institution. - House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), 10/29/06

Because the Republican Leadership is fucking delusional.

Newsweek: The 78 Stapled Pages That Brought Down A Nation

I guess one does what one knows, and I know responding to drivel. This lovely little number is from the Letters section of Newsweek, in response to an article about Bob Woodward’s new book, “State of Denial.”

You paint a picture of President Bush as a failed politician. As I see it, he’s a good leader who has tried to do what is best for the country. He couldn’t forsee what unfolded in Iraq, but he’s working with the existing situation. Your type of thinking, so influential in shaping the ideas of Americans, undermines our ability to prevail in Iraq. We are at war. As commander in chief, Bush deserves our respect and support. Our soldiers are demoralized by the liberal-media bias and our enemy is emboldened. Do you want us to lose the war? Is that the outcome you seek?

Karen
Gainesville, FL

Now, first of all, Newsweek painted no such picture of President Bush. Certainly some Newsweek columnists, including Jonathan Alter and Fareed Zakaria, have heaped well-deserved criticism on the administration, but Newsweek has not taken to injecting opinion into news pieces. Bob Woodward is the one who painted that particular picture of the President. This follows his last two books on the topic, both praising George W. Bush, proving that Bob Woodward writes whatever he feels will sell the most copies at any particular time. I care very little about Bob Woodward’s latest attempt to cash in on social momentum, and could not possibly care less how he paints the President to do so.

Regardless, Karen does a fantastic job painting a picture of an uninformed, nationalist mouth-breather, too caught up in Bush’s cult of personality even to comprehend where criticism of the administration comes from.

The United States is not involved in a war in Iraq, and the sooner we stop letting people claim otherwise, the sooner we can get to the task of dealing with reality. We are involved in an occupation of Iraq. That makes a big difference when considering Karen’s broader point. It is impossible to win an occupation. There is no final objective, there is no measure of success, and there is no organized enemy to surrender. When will we “win” the occupation? Doubtless Karen would tell us that the occupation is won when the insurgents are gone and Iraq becomes a Western-style democracy. History shows us, however, that occupations breed insurgencies; they do not quell them. Even more importantly, you cannot bomb a nation into democracy. Democracy is a political movement, not a military one. America is independent of Britain because of the American Revolution, but we are a Democratic Republic because of popular consent at the time. There is no evidence that such popular consent exists in Iraq, all cleverly-orchestrated pictures of purple fingers notwithstanding. There is no overwhelming, dedicated democratic movement in Iraq. If there were, there would be no need to occupy; Iraqi democrats, who would fight the insurgents with all the ferocity of colonial minutemen, would outnumber the insurgents.

There is no war to lose Karen, and to what extent there was, it is already lost. The war was lost when George W. Bush sent a fraction of the troops recommended by generals on the ground. It was lost when an invasion was carried out with no solid plan for how to maintain the peace. It was lost when advisors and experts with unpopular ideas regarding the high cost of an Iraq war in dollars, troops, and casualties were ignored or fired. It was lost when George W. Bush was urged by Cheney and Rumsfeld to engage in an unnecessary conflict that his father had refused the same two men long before anyone could engage in a “post-9/11” mindset. It was lost when the first Iraqi citizen was killed for a cause they neither understood nor supported, and that loss was repeated 599,999 times afterwards. No article in Newsweek is going to lose the war, Karen. That job has been accomplished by men much more powerful than Richard M. Smith, chairman and editor-in-chief.