Michael Totten has up his account of Hitch and the Syrian Nazis. It differs from mine mostly in the wealth of concrete detail. My guess is that certain expletives might also have been redacted.
Robert Burton’s speculative piece about the inner workings of Bernie Madoff’s brain is also interesting, and has applications for those who are presently reading Julius Caesar with me.
A piece on the brilliant Miss Trimble and envy at University Challenge:
The nonsensical and incoherent claim that underlies so much Leftist discourse is “all men are equalâ€. And that is the envier’s gospel. It makes not a scrap of sense and shows no contact with reality but it is something that enviers resort to as a way of soothing their envious feelings. They deny the very differences that give them so much heartburn. “Denial†was long ago indentified by Freud as a maladaptive psychological defence mechanism and “All men are equal†is a prize example of that. Whatever one thinks of his theories, Freud was undoubtedly an acute observer of people and very few psychologists today would doubt the maladaptive nature of denial as described by Freud.
So Gail Trimble by her very existence offends Leftists. Her existence pushes down their throats the falsity of their central dogma. Reality is SUCH a problem for Leftists! And because their central dogma is not rational, they can only respond to inconvenient reality by hatred and abuse. Conservative bloggers know from their email and the comments that they get on their blogs how most Leftists respond to any presentation of facts that are inconvenient to them. A rational comment backed up by facts is very rare. It is almost all assertion and abuse. If you are very lucky you may get selective attention to the facts but that is all.
Unfortunately, it meanders into theology at the end.
Joan Walsh at Salon seems to think we’ll probably want to tear this kid down:
Ty’Sheoma Bethea of Dillon, S.C., was of course the star of the show Tuesday night. Her “We are not quitters” was the banner headline on both Slate and Salon after President Obama’s speech; what other evidence do we need?
Today CNN’s Kyra Phillips interviewed Bethea, and she seemed a bit less nervous than last night. She talked about her crumbling school but emphasized, “We have great teachers and a great principal.” She told Phillips what was behind her famous line: “We are not quitters because anything is possible. I don’t think we should give up so easily, we should work harder for it.” She is fast becoming the face of personal responsibility in post-Bush America. Bobby Jindal, pay attention.
An awful but inevitable thought: How long will it take Michelle Malkin and friends to find some way to tear Bethea down?
Uh, no . . . it’s not exactly congruent to the ACORN foreclosure “victim.” I mean, what did the kid do? Get pregnant and decide to keep the baby? Ask Obama a hard question?
Comment by BumperStickerist on 2/26 @ 7:51 am #
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Comment by serr8d on 2/26 @ 7:56 am #
Madoff’s letter to his neighbors..
brings Burton to speculation as to why Madoff’s ‘mirror neurons’ weren’t online, empathic, when it came to ripping off friends and associates.
Shouldn’t, really. That letter is obviously just a trained reflex action, an appropriate businesslike response. Those responses Madoff obviously mastered irregardless of his neuron arrangments.
He could teach, really. Don’t expect a friendly bell curve grading system.
Comment by Obstreperous Infidel on 2/26 @ 8:06 am #
LOL…Thanks, BumperStickerist. That was very funny. A nice start to the day. Thanks again.
Comment by Bob Reed on 2/26 @ 8:31 am #
Unfortunately, to the left, “all men are equal” justifies equality of outcome, instead of opportunity as espoused and codified in our constitution…
Just the ol’ “by any means necessary” approach to achieving their ends by trying to co-opt the meaning of language…
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 2/26 @ 8:33 am #
Right. The right to the pursuit of happiness doesn’t guarantee that you’ll find it.
Comment by Joe on 2/26 @ 8:46 am #
Hitch does need some training. That is a good idea–get him to Chicago. I am all for tearing down and defacing Syrian Nazi posters (or any Nazi posters for that matter)–but you have to be prepared for the thugs.
Comment by Abe Froman on 2/26 @ 9:13 am #
Seriously, that makes Hitchens look like an all-talk homo like we all know Thor is. If you’re going to play agent provateur in a third world backwater you’d better be prepared to man the fcuk up when the consequences come.
Comment by Abe Froman on 2/26 @ 9:14 am #
Oops. that should read “provocateur.”
Comment by happyfeet on 2/26 @ 9:21 am #
Is “We are not quitters” more Staliny or Leniny you think? Either way, who doesn’t love to be exhorted by dirty socialists? Tearing that slogan down would be a lot evidence that you are not with the program I think. ohnoes. What if… this is a horrible thought, but… what if this robust proletariat slogan is just more of how Baracky kind of tends to lie sometimes in a sort of journalist/crack whore/deceivingly peaceful pet monkey way? Cause it just occurred to me that no one said anything about quitting. I think it might could be a strawman. That would be disappointing.
Comment by Sdferr on 2/26 @ 9:43 am #
“We are not quitters” accords very well with “there will be no competition”, for if there is no struggle afoot, there is nothing to quit. One rule, one source, one benefactor, one decision maker, one path to glory. More Lenin-y for now.
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Comment by geoffb on 2/26 @ 10:40 am #
I’m going with more Staliny. It reminds me of the posters Solzhenitsyn reproduced from the White Sea Canal project.
“Even the horse doesn’t need the whip”. We are all to be in Barack’s “Shock Brigades”. No quitting allowed.
Tried to find a copy on the web to no avail.
Comment by Obstreperous Infidel on 2/26 @ 10:53 am #
“She is fast becoming the face of personal responsibility”
Bwuhahahahaha!!! Yes, with other people’s money. These people wouldn’t know “personal responsibility” if it was stroking their nipples.
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Comment by Rob Crawford on 2/26 @ 12:05 pm #
I’m thinking it’s more “Triumph of the Will”-y.
Comment by Rob Crawford on 2/26 @ 12:07 pm #
It’s rather odd that they assume there’s a reason their poster-child-of-the-moment is somehow the wrong choice.
Comment by McGehee on 2/26 @ 12:15 pm #
One thing that the Stalinists reviled was “wreckers.” Which, if my truck breaks down on the highway, the lack of wreckers is going to suck big time.