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I get emails

So yesterday I emailed SEK to ask him for Christopher Andersen’s email address. He’d mentioned in one of his threads that he’d tried contacting both Andersen and Cashill, and since I’d contacted Cashill and gotten a response, I figured maybe I could get Andersen to comment, as well.

Boy, what a mistake THAT turned out to be.

Since my rather terse (but professional) first request, I’ve received a number of emails from SEK — many of them that go on at length about my dastardly character (while at the same lauding his own innate goodness). Here’s the latest:

Once upon a time you were a decent guy, but since things turned against you politically, you’ve become an [sick] trigger sensitive dick. You lie about what I write and think and impugn my honesty—intellectual or otherwise—at every opportunity. Fuck, you even returned from self-imposed exile to prove how much you don’t care what I think by writing a post about me and spending an afternoon commenting on my blog.

To which I say, fine, whatever. Those are your issues.

But you’re so fucking blinkered you don’t even realize that I was trying to help you there, because I’d like to know what Andersen thinks as much as you do. But after the way you’ve maligned me without cause for the past few years, my friends—go figure—don’t want to have a fucking thing to do with you. I can’t ask them to do a favor on your behalf because they’re pre-pissed at me for even engaging with you in uncivil blog commentary.

But because I’m not a fucking asshole, I remind you that you did some graduate work with someone who currently works at the same agency that represents Andersen. How do I know this? Because the person in question told me once upon a time. I’m not going to give you my friend’s email address because that’d be pointless—apples to oranges she already has all permutations of your address in a kill file—so I point you in a direction of another agent there that might bear fruit . . .

. . . and you continue to be an ass. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected otherwise, but what can I say? I’m an optimist. Now please, write more baseless shit about me that’ll forever disabuse of me of benefits and doubts.

First, the delusions of grandeur and the outsized ego evident in this (predictably wordy) treatise — recall, all I did was ask for a fucking email address — boggles the mind.

Second, I did many, many, many things yesterday. Dropping a few comments onto SEK’s site to correct his attempt at casting Jack Cashill as a liar — without his having any proof to substantiate the libel — was but one of them, and it didn’t take me long to do. Nor did I come out of “self-imposed exile” (how dramatic!) with SEK specifically in mind (other than I remembered how he’d come after me for an early post referencing Cashill, in which he completely misrepresented both my tenor and argument; and that he is on record as calling the idea that Ayers may have contributed to the writing of Dreams “absurd” on its face, making him a kind of natural foil in this controversy).

Truth is, I got wind, via an email, of Cashill’s latest post. I learned of SEK’s attempts to slime Cashill through comments on a post written by Darleen that referenced Cashill’s published notice of Andersen. I decided to contact Cashill to get his take on all this. I got an answer and, as I told other commenters I would, I posted the follow-up.

That’s all.

We should all be sick and tired of people like SEK who spend an inordinate amount of energy caricaturing those of us on the “right” who have had the temerity to stand up to a steady stream of “progressive” lies and “pragmatic conservative” surrenders. SEK, for all his pretension that he’s a good person, is a sophist and a liar. Even in his latest email, he takes pains to paint himself as the put-upon Man of Good Will while simultaneously taking care to remind me that I have been shunned from the polite company of Learned People. He accuses me of bearing false witness against him, when the truth is, I’ve done nothing of the sort. I’ve simply illuminated what he is by showing what he does.

Let me repeat: Scott Eric Kaufman is a sophist and a hamfisted prevaricator. He’s proven that over and over again — from trying to suggest that my having pointed out the hateful venom aimed at Tony Snow on the occasion of his death is just as awful as the venom itself, to misrepresenting me to his coterie at the Valve (and then having the audacity to point out how I’m out of favor with said group, as if he had nothing to do with the way I’m portrayed).

Which is why my response to his email will stand as my response to all the sanctimonious progressives and “pragmatic conservatives” who have labored for years to destroy my credibility and damage my reputation, and who have formed a kind of tacit alliance on the subject of “trigger sensitive dick” Jeff:

I asked you for an email address, not your opinion of me or my character.

You are a liar and a fraud. And I don’t give a rat’s ass what anyone who respects you may think of me, because I haven’t any respect for anyone who would respect […] you to begin with.

I find the entirety of political blogging ridiculous these days — the home to people like SEK, who’d rather spend a thousand words walking back a bad argument than spend ten words apologizing for having made it in the first place.

With that, it’s back to football and pennant race baseball for me.

But if any of you who’ve stuck with me through the years need my help again turning the tables on willful characters assassins like SEK, feel free to drop me an email.

Maybe I’ll take time from my “exile” to put a boot on the neck of yet another pencil-necked fraud.

You know — for kicks!

OUTLAW!

256 Replies to “I get emails”

  1. cranky-d says:

    SEK loves him some SEK, that’s for sure. Not that I don’t love me some me, but I try not to be so public about it.

    I like the “you’re an asshole, and all my friends agree with that” attitude as well. That kind of argument always convinces me of the error of my ways.

  2. badanov says:

    Help out an uneducated mind here:

    A sophist is someone who makes incredibly dumb argument concerning something, but makes it sound like it’s the most brilliant thing ever uttered.

    amirite?

  3. Spiny Norman says:

    A massive ego coupled with massive insecurites is not a good combination, as SEK amply demonstrates.

  4. geoffb says:

    Perhaps this is part of a plan to be hired by NBC. They seem to go for this kind of email. Resume enhancement.

  5. Spiny Norman says:

    A sophist is someone who makes incredibly dumb argument concerning something, but makes it sound like it’s the most brilliant thing ever uttered.

    Doing so intentionally, knowing the dumb argument is false, yes.

    The “strawman argument” could be considered a crude form of sophistry.

  6. JeffS says:

    Such emphatic push back to a simple request means that SEK does not want you contacting Andersen, most likely because you are on the right track. You hit his button, and he over-reacted. So SEK is indeed lying.

  7. No one you know says:

    But because I’m not a fucking asshole,

    Ever notice that the people who protest such, or some riff on “Hey, I’m a nice guy” tend to be the biggest fucking assholes around?

  8. Darleen says:

    I believe N.O’Brain’s comment is apropos here:

    Interesting case study of the herd behavior of independent scientific minds, via WUWT:

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/25/wandering-the-climate-desert-in-exile/#more-11153

    You can read the entire piece via the link (PDF fromat).

    “What has science been reduced to if bear biologists feel they can effectively issue ad hoc recommendations on worldwide energy use? How low have standards sunk if informed opinion is censored, while uninformed opinion is elevated to official policy?

    If a leading researcher can’t speak his mind without punishment by exile, what chance would any up-and-coming researcher have? As Mitchell Taylor points out “It’s a good way to maintain consensus”.”

    SEK either was too weak initially or is somehow justifying to himself why he wants to be part of an “academic consensus” that holds “non-intellectuals” are really too stupid to know what they are saying and, therefore, don’t belong among polite company or in the government — Government being all about legislating how stupid people should run their lives.

    Pretty damned sad.

  9. Darleen says:

    … OH, in addition, non-intellectuals by definition do not have to be accurately quoted or considered seriously, and are fair targets for dishonest characterization.

    Jim Crow left the south and resides most certainly at many institutions of “higher” learning.

  10. Jeff G. says:

    SEK’s just upset because I’ve proven you can be an intellectual and still pick up a barbell from time to time.

    DON’T HATE ME BECAUSE I’M BEAUTIFUL, SCOTT!

  11. Ric Locke says:

    SEK and allies will simply accuse you of anti-intellectualism. They aren’t totally wrong.

    Regards,
    Ric

  12. Rusty says:

    Would it have killed him to give you the effin’ email address?

  13. Jeff G. says:

    I tried 3 times, Rusty.

  14. Darleen says:

    I tried 3 times, Rusty.

    good friggin lord … SEK has regressed to the 7th grade.

  15. Blake says:

    Jeff,

    You’re probably capable of picking up both a Bar Belle and a barbell.

    Hence, the jealousy of SEK.

  16. SBP says:

    The amusing thing is that SEK and his ilk are making burnt offerings of their self-respect and credibility in pursuit of a prize that will Go Away soon.

    I don’t expect the university-as-we-know it to be around for more than another decade or so.

    It sure would suck to know that you’d sat through all those committee meetings for naught, wouldn’t it?

  17. ThomasD says:

    Their embryo having failed to successfully implant within the womb of the American body politic the progessives are turning decidely menstrual.

  18. geoffb says:

    bh if you are reading this I apparently don’t have your new email. I got an auto response from gmail to a reply.

  19. Darleen says:

    ThomasD

    At the risk of being pedantic, the biology is a bit off in your metaphor.

  20. JHo says:

    So it’s progressivism > dishonesty or dishonesty > progressivism? The inevitable left-sneering isn’t bad, but because it deals in falsehood and appearance, it’s the philosophy I reject.

    Is the hardcore relativist an intellectual nihilist? Seems that like the recovering alcoholic who knows his limits and the importance of not transferring the effects his malady onto others, the last thing the enlightened nihilist should do is influence top-down policy that then influences the lives of others. Comparing that principle to the academy, and comparing that principle then to government — which is to apply it to current accepted progg institution in both instances — we see that little of that sort of restraint occurring.

    I think influence is precisely what the relativist seeks. This is called “progressive” for this very reason: Progress is reactionary which is to say in opposition to something given to be inferior and needing reform. A problem arises when progg facts don’t fit the prediction, or worse, the desire.

    So the lie skirts the problem of facts to become policy by nearly any means, and given the sum of fascist-statist history, contemporary progressive trajectory, and the simple observable nature of power-mongering, we conclude that relativism — the institution of progressivism — boils down to a fundamental lie about life that willfully or not, ruins liberty, especially the liberty of speech, formally or informally. Is that about it?

    It’s be so convenient to find a handle on this phenomenon Surgewick Edgewise Keynote might Himself approve of shy of just calling it the lie.

  21. McGehee says:

    Progressivism is just dishonesty’s way of creating more dishonesty.

  22. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    Jeff, you are a dastard.

    …she already has all permutations of your address in a kill file.

    WTF?

  23. ThomasD says:

    Darleen,

    How so? When ovulation fails to result in implantation of an emryo menses, and the often associated bloating, cramping, mood lability, general misery, etc. typically follows.

  24. sdferr says:

    Sophists and sophistry are dependent on fools like me: I was taken in by my own gullible willingness to believe that Kaufman was stating as fact that Cashill had been interviewed by Anderson for Anderson’s book; that, coupled with my sloppy reading of a quote by Kaufman of Anderson quoting Cashill (where Anderson’s quote was actually taken from Cashill’s writing, available to all on the web). I assumed, without knowledge, that Kaufman must have been in possession of Anderson’s book and therefore wouldn’t make the claim of an interview without a citation on Anderson’s part. So, armed with a falsehood of my own making, I jumped to condemn Cashill where he was entirely innocent. And worse, I maintained that stance even after being warned — or in my case, merely reminded of something I had long before known of Kaufman — by Jeff and others that Kaufman was willing to lie to advance his political agenda. I don’t think I was in search of a lie to tell about Cashill to begin with but I certainly proved willing to give harbor to one for a time, despite being favorably disposed to the good sense of the story Cashill has to tell about Obama and Ayres. Thanks to Jeff’s e-mail to Jack Cashill I was promptly disabused of my error and the false accusation that followed.

    I also learned that had I simply listened to Cashill’s interview on the B-Cast Thursday, I wouldn’t have committed the mistake to begin with. Unfortunately for me that didn’t happen until Friday afternoon.

  25. Jeff G. says:

    I’m sure SEK feels like he can say these things about me because certain “conservatives” agree with him behind the scenes. I suspect he’s had email contact with several, in fact, and so feels he (and they) have a handle on who I am.

    He doesn’t and they don’t.

    But it’s not like I haven’t been through this before.

  26. Mikey NTH says:

    From what I dropped into Ric Locke’s site the other day:

    Ric and Cranky-D:

    Part of the disdain for intellectuals is the phenomenom of a person being highly trained and educated in one field – an actual authority in that field – and then assuming that authority transfers to every other field they wish to comment on.

    And if the field of their expertise is fairly obscure and not called upon much, the temptation to branch out into fields that receive more public attention is hard to resist. That attitude brings a lot of contempt from people who do have expertise in other fields, but not necessarily the same level of education. Especially when the out-of-field expert starts saying ’shut-up’, and then proceeds from there to get everything dead wrong.

    (I am a lawyer, that is my field of expertise – but I do not pose as an expert in all areas of law. And I am certainly not going to question an electrical engineer about his conclusions unless I can get an opinion from another electrical engineer.)

    It may or may not have bearing on this, but I thought it was appropriate.

  27. Mikey NTH says:

    And I see that Ric linked to the post I put my comment (above) on.

  28. urthshu says:

    And all this time I thought you came out of self-imposed exile for me, you heartless bastard!

  29. Darleen says:

    ThomasD

    After ovulation, if the egg fails to be fertilized then menses commence. When an embryo fails to implant or implantation fails, that is spontaneous abortion (aka miscarriage).

  30. Mikey NTH says:

    Comment by JHo on 9/26 @ 11:37 am

    There is the, I think, the concept that since there is a problem, and the progressive is so bright, the progressive should try to solve the problem. And resistance to the problem can’t be caused by other people being bright and speculating on the problems the progressive solution will cause – oh no, that would mean the progressive isn’t as smart as he thinks – the resistance acts out of nefarious reasons.

    Tie in self-rightousness and the stubborn adherance to an idea that the progressive has invested a lot in, and watch the fur fly!

  31. sdferr says:

    Not to mention Darleen that the metaphor would have the progressives still in the fecund stage of their life-cycle, rather than what may prove to be the case, that they had entered menopause sometime ago and we simply haven’t noticed it as yet.

  32. ThomasD says:

    Ok. that really is pedantic since menses follows failure of implantation regardless of fertilization status.

    Plus the characterization of progessivism as a miscarriage remains apt.

  33. Spiny Norman says:

    “Progressivism as a miscarriage”.

    I can live with that. ;^)

  34. SEK says:

    Feel free to delete this, Jeff, but I feel compelled to set the record straight:

    You asked for Andersen’s address. I replied that, to the best of my recollection, you went to Hopkins with an agent at the firm that represents him — the not-in-the-least-bit-subtle implication being that you should do what I did and contact a person you know at the firm and ask her to forward your email to Andersen or his representative.

    Then you asked how I could have emailed Andersen without his email address. I reminded you, by quoting your earlier email, that your contact with Cashill was similarly mediated through the editor of the American Thinker. [Was this reminder in an email where you began by saying something along the lines of, “you can’t read for shit”? Because I stopped reading at that point, and responded the way I’ve responded the last several times you’ve written: if you don’t have the email address, that’s all you needed to say. Problem is, you just can’t keep from lectures and condescension, even in response to simple email questions. It’s who you are – jeff]

    You then wrote a pissy comment about how I was emailing you — a fact, I might add, you put to lie in the first sentence of this post — [Uh, not so much – jeff] so I decided to explain, in detail, why my friends who hate you on my behalf are unlikely to do you a solid and forward your email to Andersen or his representative.

    In that email — quoted above without my permission — I again noted that I’d tried to help you. Even if I’m misremembering what that Hopkins alum who works for Trident told me, that doesn’t change the fact that I pointed you, in good faith, in a direction that might could lead to Andersen because, as I wrote, “I’d like to know what Andersen thinks as much as you do.”

    That there? That’s me being more interested in the truth than being right . . . a fact you’ve provided independent corroboration of via the dick move of publishing a private email you actively solicited. Because that email speaks well (if exasperatedly) of my actions and intent, I’m giving you permission to publish our private correspondence retroactive as to now.

    Now please, delete this so nobody finds out that I tried to help you get in touch with Andersen, and before anyone realizes that the reason I didn’t provide you with Andersen’s address is that I don’t have it because he hasn’t responded to my email yet.

  35. happyfeet says:

    I have a bookshelf that used to have Christopher Andersen’s Madonna bio on it. It used to be my friend T’s bookshelf. Now I’m not sure what’s on it cause it’s behind a ton of stuff. I remember at one point there was a hubcap on it what rolled off a car while it was taking a corner and busted me in the shin to where I had a really really bad bruise. It didn’t hurt cause of I was drunk. I might have thrown it away though while I was cleaning up before the ton of stuff got here.

  36. Rusty says:

    #13
    Dude’s got issues, then.

  37. Mikey NTH says:

    You could have just said “I don’t have his direct e-mail address, I am trying to contact him through XXX XXX (e-mail address).” and left it at that.

  38. ThomasD says:

    “…and before anyone realizes that the reason I didn’t provide you with Andersen’s address is that I don’t have it because he hasn’t responded to my email yet.

    The reason? I doubt it, else why not be up front as to the fact?

    But typical SEK, a lie couched in the truth.

  39. Victor. says:

    What strikes me most at this point is how SEK has repeated these claims of Andersen being a contemptible liar (noting all the various iterations of his charge), while posturing himself in private e-mail as someone that was from the very start interested in what Andersen “thinks”, it strains credulity.

    Shorter SEK:
    You reckless, piece of shit lying star fucker! Seriously, how’d you do it?

  40. JeffS says:

    SEK, did you specifically tell Jeff that you didn’t provide an e-mail due to the lack of a response? Because unless you did, your last paragraph is a classic example of misdirection. If not flat out lying.

    Please note that Jeff has your full e-mails.

  41. urthshu says:

    >>Now please, delete this so nobody finds out

    I know, that just reeks of thought-crimeiness

  42. Blake says:

    If you read the comment by Jeff G. in the link conveniently provided by SEK, you find this gem:I kind of tuned it out when he launched into his predictable wronged-man-of-truth spiel, to be honest.
    SEK, it’s almost like going back in time and seeing the future.

  43. urthshu says:

    >>>I remember at one point there was a hubcap on it what rolled off a car while it was taking a corner and busted me in the shin to where I had a really really bad bruise.

    “Where does he get those marvelous toys?”

  44. Darleen says:

    You asked for Andersen’s address. I replied that, to the best of my recollection, you went to Hopkins with an agent at the firm that represents him — the not-in-the-least-bit-subtle implication being that you should do what I did and contact a person you know at the firm and ask her to forward your email to Andersen or his representative.

    SEK

    See, I’m not an intellectual … I’m just a lowly supervisor of other people but what I’ve learned is that if you don’t want your instructions/communications misunderstood you write clearly.

    You know, those declarative sentence thingies. As in “I don’t have Anderson’s email. Here is what I have done ___________. You may do ____________.”

  45. Mikey NTH says:

    Oh!
    Darleen, we were thinking the same thing.

  46. Jeff G. says:

    You asked for Andersen’s address. I replied that, to the best of my recollection, you went to Hopkins with an agent at the firm that represents him — the not-in-the-least-bit-subtle implication being that you should do what I did and contact a person you know at the firm and ask her to forward your email to Andersen or his representative.

    Actually, the implication was too subtle, because I didn’t then, nor do I now, have any idea what you are talking about.

    See, what you should have said is, “I don’t have his address. I wrote to someone who works for Trident and asked them to forward the email. You might try the doing the same.”

    Then, all would have been clear.

    Instead, you went the…well, the SEK route, let’s just say. In lieu of practical information, you decided to describe my odious character, and for emphasis, to juxtapose against that the beacon of light that is SEK. You can’t just give an answer. Everything is a lecture, with you cast as the long-suffering teacher trying desperately to get through the darkness that is the tiny mind of those not you.

    Because that’s who you are.

    True to form, SEK cites a later comment to suggest I’ve somehow lied about who initiated the email exchange — and that his forensic sleuthiness has trapped me into owning that lie!

    Only thing is, I’d already noted earlier that I’d emailed him first.

    Conveniently bracketed that information is, as is his wont.

  47. Darleen says:

    Comment by Mikey NTH on 9/26 @ 1:16 pm

    Ha!! :-)

  48. Seth says:

    I really enjoy it when Jeff G gets his dander up.

  49. Jeff G. says:

    SEK, did you specifically tell Jeff that you didn’t provide an e-mail due to the lack of a response?

    No, he did not.

    Nor does it matter. I asked for an email address. If he didn’t have one, all he needed to say was he didn’t have one.

  50. Darleen says:

    Comment by Jeff G. on 9/26 @ 1:18 pm

    Really, it is classic passive-aggressive behavior by SEK. Akin to a long-gone boyfriend I had who would “punish” me with the silent treatment. I would ask, “What’s wrong?” and he’d answer “WELL, if you don’t know that certainly shows me you don’t really care about me what makes me upset.”

  51. Charles' Johnson says:

    Obsessively smears you while falsely accusing you of doing the same. Man, what a nutcase.

  52. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    SEK: No, I’m not joking. And stop calling me “Shirley”.

  53. B Moe says:

    …why my friends who hate you on my behalf are unlikely to do you a solid and forward your email…

    Let the beclownings begin!

  54. JeffS says:

    Nor does it matter. I asked for an email address. If he didn’t have one, all he needed to say was he didn’t have one.

    Just so. But it is telling of SEK’s mendacity.

  55. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    SEK: Stop producing facts you fucker/dick/asshole/bad person. We don’t deal with “facts” at the University level. My posits are scripture because I say so! How dare you present “facts”.

    I have tenure!!

  56. Jeff G. says:

    This guy has friends who hate on his behalf.

    Like Obama! Must be a progressive thing. I have friends who are friends with people I hate and vice versa.

    I think it’s because our minds are too small to grasp the importance of manufactured consent.

    WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AT WAR WITH EURASIA!

  57. Don Winslow of the Navy says:

    56 Comment by Jeff G. on 9/26 @ 1:37 pm #

    This guy has friends

    ————————————

    I also am amazed.

  58. Darleen says:

    why my friends who hate you on my behalf

    My, that is quite the nougatty center of a rancid bit of the progressive chocolates box.

  59. Jeff G. says:

    I HAVE BEEN SHUNNED!

  60. B Moe says:

    NO SOLIDS FOR JEW!!!!!!

  61. Jeff G. says:

    That there? That’s me being more interested in the truth than being right

    Hence your deeply apologetic post in which you admit to being unforgivably mistaken about Cashill. Right?

    I’d laugh if it weren’t all so fucking sad.

  62. N. O'Brain says:

    Moral relativism is the only absolute reactionary leftists know.

  63. Don Winslow of the Navy says:

    Is An “Academic Blog” An Oxymoron? – Scott Kaufman – part one

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGJk9bM-3qw

  64. N. O'Brain says:

    Oh, and thanks, Darleen

  65. Joe says:

    Jeff, tell us what you want us to do. I cannot say I am surprised by this BS and it is certainly not just SEK. It is also not just on the left.

  66. Adriane says:

    I like soft pillows. Does that make me a sophist?

  67. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    “This guy has friends who hate on his behalf.”

    Yeah.

    Two humanities grad students with part time jobs at Barnes & Noble.

    Scary that.

    Most on the “right” (and I guess that’s all of us what don’t agree with SEK, William & Snowcone) wish for another Reagan. Truth told, I think America needs a Charlemagne. ‘Course Reagan had a lot of Charlemagne in him.

    So there’s that.

    Anyway…

    As a tax-paying voter of Oceania, I am tired of this war with Eurasia.

  68. N. O'Brain says:

    “As a tax-paying voter of Oceania, I am tired of this war with Eurasia.”

    Hold still while I measure you for this rat cage…..

  69. cranky-d says:

    Hey kids! Here’s a suggestion you might try that will not only make other people less inclined to consider you a doofus but will also help lower your blood pressure and keep you from throwing worse arguments after bad. When you are wrong, admit it. If you know you have wronged someone, apologize. In the long run you will get much more respect from others that way.

    It’s difficult the first time, but it gets easier.

    We are all wrong at some time or other. Sometimes we’re ideologically blinded. Sometimes we’re just stubborn assholes. I’ve been both of those things at times.

    Anyway, this has been your public service announcement for the day.

  70. McGehee says:

    I think Scott’s parents misspelled his middle name. It should start with a U.

  71. SarahW says:

    SEK will not answer a simple question in a straightforward fashion, because he’s a brat. Brats need to feel they are in an exalted place. He can’t just say what he means or other people might figure out his thinking errors more quickly, and he would lose his idea of the upper hand.

  72. Darleen says:

    N. O’Brain

    The link you provided and the pdf are not only apropos on this thread, but is startling (but unsurprising to us that pay attention) on its own about the current state of “Science”.

    There is no reason that biologists, psychologists, or any scientific group can’t hold an informed opinion on greenhouse warming, but who needs their uninformed views? If they
    have not considered the evidence, they do science a disservice making public pronouncements. Science will surely lose its hard-won credibility with the public as many “Scientific Associations” get caught with their pants down: supporting an international unelected, unaudited committee, without any evidence. […]

    What is left of science if there is no debate about the evidence?

    Such “science” is just another denomination of the Left Cult Church, useful for their political endgame.

  73. Darleen says:

    rd/meya shows up to piss on the carpet

  74. RD says:

    rd/meya shows up to piss on the carpet

    As if your carpet needed any help.

  75. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    That there? That’s me being more interested in the truth than being right

    So, so noble. You big ‘ol truth teller you. We cower at your impeccable truth telling ability to espouse true truthy truthiness with your words. In fact, Crayon should immediately give you your own color in the big box.

    I’m serious. Facts be damned, you speak the truth sir!

    The Pope is now fast tracking your Sainthood. In the mean time we can only offer Joseph’s Technicolor Dreamcoat (which we bought in a fire sale on Ebay).

    Truth yo.

  76. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    AP Breaking News: Modern Science = UN Whorehouse

    Update: Phillip K. Dick, Humanity Hardest Hit

  77. N. O'Brain says:

    Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 9/26 @ 2:35 pm #

    Oh sweet jeebus on a pogo stick but that’s funny.

  78. JHo says:

    it is classic passive-aggressive behavior by SEK.

    See the first line of comment 34: You’ll just have to delete this, that being who you are, but dammit, this time somebody’s gotta speak out.

    Then: so don’t you dare delete this.

    The forces of deceit and oppression, in that hissing sea of anti-enlightenment that lies just beyond the moat, seething with mindless persecution, disguising itself like the ethical chameleon it is.

    SEK’s in the right line of work.

  79. JHo says:

    Next you’ll be advocating the rollback of The Enlightenment.

    Yep.

    Why do I get always get the feeling that Darleen is a desperate Jeff G. in drag?

    Or of you as admissions assistant.

  80. Darleen says:

    rd/meya

    go read the 8 page pdf and tell me those AGW acolytes give one farthing about science. Their “science” isn’t.

    and in the words of Edmund Blackadder, “get stuffed”

  81. N. O'Brain says:

    “Ooh, science in scare quotes. Next you’ll be advocating the rollback of The Enlightenment.”

    Um, no, as a matter of fact.

    But you missing the point surprises no one here.

  82. SBP says:

    Next you’ll be advocating the rollback of The Enlightenment.

    Which one, Rilly Dumb?

    French, yes. Scottish, English, and American, no.

  83. N. O'Brain says:

    Isn’t “French Enlightenment” an oxymoron?

  84. SBP says:

    Yeah, N.O’B., but that’s what they call it.

    I recommend that everyone read the Mark Twain essay “The French and the Comanches” in which the two peoples are compared — much to the detriment of the French.

  85. cranky-d says:

    The problem with the global warming scam at this point is that it has so much inertia behind it that years will pass before it’s gone. Which is the point with all progressive action. Make things inevitable before the proles have a chance to see that they are being duped.

  86. SBP says:

    I dunno, crank… people are already starting to grumble about the cooler-than-normal summers. I expect this winter to be harsh, too.

  87. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    Ooh, science in scare quotes. Next you’ll be advocating the rollback of The Enlightenment.

    JEOPARDY!

    Q: Fell out of sky. Landed on face. Started to wiggle?
    A: RD still wouldn’t understand The Enlightenment.

    Illuminati you see. It’s all a George Bush Skull & Bones conspiracy. Go back to whatever you were doing.

    And “science” wasn’t in “scare” quotes I don’t think. Don’t mean to speak for Darleen, but I believe those were “you gotta be fucking kidding me” quotes.

    Kinda like when I get a paycheck and look at the Federal Withholding.

    So if I write, “You’re a know-nothing assclown”, are those scare quotes?

  88. RD says:

    go read the 8 page pdf and tell me those AGW acolytes give one farthing about science. Their “science” isn’t

    I’m pretty sure the Top Climate Experts such as Rush Limbaugh get paid much more than 1/960 of a pound sterling annually, so what’s your point?

    And again, I’m not meya. She’s much nicer than I am. Also.

  89. Darleen says:

    I’m pretty sure the Top Climate Experts such as Rush Limbaugh

    Funny I read this and didn’t see Limbaugh’s name one. Or Beck’s.

  90. SBP says:

    Poor Rilly Dumb.

    Must suck to only be capable of debating with a cartoon image in your head, huh?

    BTW, are you still defending child sex slavery?

  91. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    Top Climate Experts

    LOL

    And they get their grants to do their “studies” (LOOK, SCARE QUOTES!) from who exactly?

  92. happyfeet says:

    Dirty socialist NPR-listening Barack Obama sycophants in Manhattan have discovered teh greenerest place in America is… Manhattan. Yay! Solipsism rulez suburbs droolz.

    Building on the stunning article he wrote for The New Yorker in 2004 about how, contrary to being the ecological nightmare most people think it is, New York City is actually the greenest, most environmentally responsible community in America, his book mounts a passionate, fact-studded case for “the environmental advantages of Manhattan-style urban density.”

  93. SBP says:

    Pretty sure that Richard Lindzen isn’t an alias for Rush, either.

  94. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    You should bolt for the UK RD. Douchebagery Environmentilism is now a state sponsored religion over there.

  95. bains says:

    I’m pretty sure the Top Climate Experts such as Rush Limbaugh get paid much more than 1/960 of a pound sterling annually, so what’s your point?

    Aint it interesting that the Top Climate Change (formerly known as Global Warming, up until the Globe, you know, stopped warming) Experts are those that live of the largess of government. Yea, that same government that sent millions to Acorn to propagate voter fraud, tax fraud, loan fraud…

  96. Darleen says:

    Owen’s Environmental Enemy No. 1 is the automobile, which not only burns damaging fossil fuels but encourages us to spread out and, paradoxically, destroy open space. The best way to deter people from using cars — along with grouping residences and businesses more closely — is by making driving as unpleasant and expensive as possible: by charging exorbitant taxes on gas and parking rather than easing traffic congestion or producing smaller, cheaper automobiles.

    Sounds like Jerry Brown.

  97. Snowcone says:

    teh greenerest place in America is… Manhattan

    Did you also know that Texas pumps out over 25% of America’s CO2 emissions?

  98. Darleen says:

    rd

    oh my, are you one of disengenuous SEK’s friends who hate JeffG on SEK’s behalf?

    How well does that pay?

  99. N. O'Brain says:

    “Comment by Snowcone on 9/26 @ 3:27 pm #

    teh greenerest place in America is… Manhattan

    Did you also know that Texas pumps out over 25% of America’s CO2 emissions?”

    Yeah, but you breathe 10% of America’s methane.

    So what’s your point?

  100. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    “Did you also know that Texas pumps out over 25% of America’s CO2 emissions?”

    So you live in Texas?

  101. B Moe says:

    You know what would be great? If we could just find some way to provide energy from CO2!

    It would be like, win win! Seriously.

  102. RD says:

    oh my, are you one of disengenuous SEK’s friends who hate JeffG on SEK’s behalf?

    I guess it pays as well as your lame paranoid delusions assume it would.

    BTW, how did it feel when your wingnut welfare was cut off?

  103. bains says:

    Apropos of a comment way up thread, GO Rocks! And Jeff, when are the O’s going to finally rebuild a team worthy of support?

  104. SBP says:

    Did you also know that Texas pumps out over 25% of America’s CO2 emissions?

    Then why don’t you stop burning any petrochemicals produced in Texas immediately?

  105. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    “Did you also know that Texas pumps out over 25% of America’s CO2 emissions?”

    I call horseshit, but lets say it’s 15%.

    Do you own a map dip shit. It takes longer to drive from Beaumont to El Paso than it takes to drive from Santa Fe to Los Angeles.

    Texas is a big (wonderful) state. Geography 101.

    Manhattan is the size of Dallas & is a CO2 whore.

  106. SBP says:

    Jeff: my offer to help get rid of these proxy morons still stands.

  107. N. O'Brain says:

    “BTW, how did it feel when your wingnut welfare was cut off?”

    Yeah it’s a shame that ACORN was cut off by the Census. And the IRS. And Congress.

  108. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    “BTW, how did it feel when your wingnut welfare was cut off?”

    …?

    Please, oh please explain that one RD.

    This should be rich.

  109. McGehee says:

    LYBD, I think he’s talking about the bribes we all get secretly from Trihallienronburtonlateral for echoing the Reichwing squawking points on the internet.

  110. Blake says:

    RD.

    Wingnut? That’s it? The best you can do?

    Of course, you did toss out “paranoid delusions” so, you get a couple style points there. But, huge deduction for “lame” in front of “paranoid delusions.”

    Overall, I give it a 2 out of 10 possible on the insult scale.

    Judges?

  111. RD says:

    Jeff: my offer to help get rid of these proxy morons still stands

    Let me guess: you went to Walmart and bought some new-fangled gun that kills people by boring them to death.

  112. Wm T Sherman says:

    “Proxy moron” is a little ambiguous. I could be wrong, but I think RD is a moron on her own behalf, not somebody else’s.

    I have not followed closely – are these irritants being IP-address-blocked, and then using proxy servers to get back in?

  113. Darleen says:

    N.O’Brain

    and it looks like corporations are getting ready to cut off ACORN, too.

    Corporations that have given ACORN millions of dollars over the years are now cancelling their donations in the wake of videotape revelations of employees of the infamous community organization giving advice on mortgage fraud, tax evasion, prostitution, and child sex slavery.

    Bank of America is reviewing its grant program, while Citigroup is waiting for results of official investigations in the scandal. JP Morgan Chase had previously ended its relationship with ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

  114. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    McGehee you slippery bastard! You must have some kind of in with Karl Rove to get the small wingnut welfare checks.

    All the checks I got from “BushHitlerHaliburtonBlackwater” were those giant ones like Jackie Moon gives out or Tiger Woods gets for winning a golf tournament.

    Wells Fargo wouldn’t cash ’em.

    Wingnut Welfare as far as the eye can see…and I missed the boat.

    Godamnit.

    Can I take a tax write off RD?

  115. Jeff G. says:

    I have not followed closely – are these irritants being IP-address-blocked, and then using proxy servers to get back in?

    Yes.

    Sad, but that’s what they do.

  116. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    “Let me guess: you went to Walmart and bought some new-fangled gun that kills people by boring them to death.”

    Yup. You pull the trigger and it fires off Obama speeches.

    Terrible, terrible gun.

    Assault weapon when you think about it.

  117. SBP says:

    #113 If we’re so “boring”, Rilly Dumb, why are you here 24/7/365?

  118. geoffb says:

    “AP Breaking News: Modern Science = UN Whorehouse”

    Dydeetown! F. Paul Wilson.

  119. Mikey NTH says:

    Comment by Darleen on 9/26 @ 4:01 pm

    I predicted this would happen. The big private donors would find this too toxic to remain in contact with ACORN. And I bet their personnel are not going to be welcome in the NGO world for some time.

  120. Blake says:

    RD,

    You should kneel at the foot of Lamontyoubigdummy and learn the way of insults.

    Although, since you’re a leftist, RD, you’re probably congenitally incapable of learning anything.

  121. RD says:

    Sad, but that’s what they do

    Hey, that’s why we get paid the big Soros Bucks.

    Pretty soon I’ll be able to afford my very own Socialist Abortion Factory/FEMA Re-education Camp.

  122. Spiny Norman says:

    I have not followed closely – are these irritants being IP-address-blocked, and then using proxy servers to get back in?

    Yes.

    Sad, but that’s what they do.

    What obsessive little web-footed cretins.

    How old are these kids? 15? 16? On an emotional level, they can’t be much more than that. Are their lives so dreary that they have to constantly annoy the “grown-ups” in order to feel “big”? Kinda like the “flaming dog turd on the porch” routine…

  123. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    “Dydeetown! F. Paul Wilson.”

    William Gibson just called to say Neuromancer was all a big joke.

    Under the holy watch of the Progressives, the sky will never be the color of a television tuned to a dead channel.**

    **Probably/Maybe/Possibly/Expiration Date Applies/Guarantee Void in Tennessee

  124. pdbuttons says:

    come and listen to a story about a man{?) named rd
    a poor sloganeer barely kept his families cred
    then one day he was hooting on pw
    and up thru the ground came malarkey

  125. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    Pretty soon I’ll be able to afford my very own Socialist Abortion Factory/FEMA Re-education Camp.

    You’re a little behind the the 8 ball there RD. We already have those.

  126. pdbuttons says:

    brevity is the[cough) soul of (hack)

    wit

  127. pdbuttons says:

    uneasy lies the head who wears the crown
    uneasy is charlie brown field goal kicker

  128. pdbuttons says:

    pomp and circumstance
    punt pass and kick

  129. geoffb says:

    “the sky will never be the color of a television tuned to a dead channel.”
    Haven’t spent much time in Michigan where the sky is almost always a lovely shade of grey.

  130. malaclypse the tertiary says:

    Churlishness, thy name is Scott Kaufman.

  131. pdbuttons says:

    nothing either good or bad
    but thinking makes it so

  132. pdbuttons says:

    # 134
    one fell swoop
    i just pooped!

  133. pdbuttons says:

    more in sorrow than in anger…
    shakespeare rules!

  134. geoffb says:

    “Without the Ivy League there would have been neither a Bush Jr. nor a Manhattan Project.”

    There seems to be a cart/horse problem here. Individuals make the institution what it is, and that defines what the problem is now. The thing’s characteristics define the word, the word doesn’t define the thing. Ivy League no longer means what it meant. The actions of individuals have changed the definition.

  135. pdbuttons says:

    bob yeah [boring)

  136. pdbuttons says:

    steve yzerman was the best
    iggy pop
    mc5
    let’s give it up 4 motor city…
    {shall i compare thee to a summers day?

  137. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    Without the Ivy League there would have been neither a Bush Jr. nor a Manhattan Project.

    As Sandy Denny sung, “Who Knows Where the Time Goes”.

    You’re the ultimate mis-directional douchebag. NO ONE is saying OR HAS EVER SAID these weren’t venerable and honorable institutions of learning way “back in the day”. They have become speech policed, thought forced, PC, write “x” to get your grade, liberal monkey farms (I’m not racist, a stupid white liberal monkey can fling progressive shit as well as a black one).

    Your argument is infantile. Just like you.

    If Columbus didn’t discover America, there’d be no George Bush!

    Good grief.

    Assclown.

  138. pdbuttons says:

    fairport convention
    for goodness sakes
    i got the hippy hippy shakes
    {foregone conclusion)

  139. pdbuttons says:

    parting is such sweet sorrow

  140. N. O'Brain says:

    Is Penn State on yet?

  141. Joe says:

    Without the Ivy League there would have been neither a Bush Jr. nor a Manhattan Project.

    I am just guessing on this, but I think George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush made George W. Bush the old fashioned way.

  142. RD says:

    [this is my fourth IP address today. I keep using new IP addresses and posting here because, well, I have lots of friends and much joy in my life!]

  143. dicentra says:

    Wanna hear something really funny? Remember when I used this sentence as an example of how SEK was wrong wrong wrong?

    A fin de cuentas, la contribución a Dreams from My Father de Barack sería significante.

    Here’s the funny part: sería IS the conditional tense, but the conditional tense shouldn’t be there. I should have written this:

    A fin de cuentas, la contribución a Dreams from My Father de Barack iba a ser significante.

    So my point still stands about how “would” did not indicate conditional tense, but my brilliant example was wrong.

    See? Funny! I haven’t taught Spanish for 14 years!

  144. dicentra says:

    Ivy League no longer means what it meant.

    I can attest that Parthenocissus tricuspidata still climbs the halls at Cornell and probably at the rest of the league.

    Ever try getting rid of that stuff?

  145. dicentra says:

    RD: You forgot the accent over the “i” for that last word.

    Now go wash your keyboard off with soap.

  146. dicentra says:

    It may be interesting to note that the Boston Ivy that grows on those hallowed walls isn’t really ivy, it’s related to the grape and is a first cousin of Virginia Creeper, which you see covering trees along the highways in eastern forests.

    I have Virginia Creeper along the east wall of my house: I cut it back almost to the ground every spring and within about a month the whole wall is covered in greenery. It also turns bright orange-yellow for the fall. Good stuff if you don’t mind it taking over.

  147. pdbuttons says:

    in english it’s called an assist
    fop

  148. pdbuttons says:

    eye of nettool off
    ya’ blow me

  149. sss says:

    [No, really. Just because I keep shifting IPs in order to post where I’m not wanted — anonymously, taking care to personally attack people I’ve never once met — that doesn’t mean I’m a sorry ass cunt.]

  150. Darleen says:

    oh looky….RD is going all TehAss… copying its pathetic little mewlings and spamming them via proxy.

    What a coward.

  151. SBP says:

    I have Virginia Creeper too, dicentra. Pretty stuff, and I don’t mind it taking over (my house is a prime example of the “Crank Lloyd Wrong” school of architecture anyway… it’s home, though).

    I see Rilly Dumb is still hanging around with the boring people on Saturday night.

    That’s quite the social life you have there, Rilly — spending your whole weekend posting stupid shit on a site where everyone hates you.

  152. dicentra says:

    SBP: I also like saying the botanical name for Virginia Creeper — Parthenocissus quinquefolia. That’s “par-then-o-SI-sus KINK-e-fo-li-a”

    On the northwest side of my house, I have a variegated ivy, an actual Hedera helix. It’s trying to come inside now and I keep having to slam its little twining feelers in the door.

    They say that ivy ruins the façade (I have deeply scored brick), but I figure as long as I don’t tear it down, it’s OK.

  153. Rusty says:

    #31
    University of Chicago wasn’t considered ivy league back in those days. It was considered pretty much a nerd school like MIT.
    Mostly liberal drunks and loosers got to ivy league schools.

  154. Rusty says:

    Fuck the Prius. I’m gettin a UNIMOG.

  155. SBP says:

    Partheno- means “virgin”, I think, as in parthenogenesis.

    The last part means five-leaved.

    I have some English ivy, too, that I grew from cuttings I picked up on campus (they’d trimmed an ivy bed and left a bunch of the trimmings lying around, so I swiped a couple of pieces).

    There’s a disputed borderland between the Virginia Creeper and the real ivy. Mostly, though, the ivy seems to prefer the grond and the Virginia Creeper likes to climb up the side of the house.

  156. SBP says:

    Oh, and Parthenon, of course.

  157. SBP says:

    Ah, Latin “cissus” (from Greek “kissos”) means “ivy”.

  158. bour3 says:

    ballast
    calms
    fluttering
    horizons
    howling
    knotted
    murky
    oceans
    panoramas
    ragged
    seas
    ships
    storms
    tangled
    waves
    wind

    Ha ha ha ha ha. They imagined this would go unnoticed. Yes, by the likes of Time perhaps.

  159. dicentra says:

    I knew the quinquefolia definition, but not partheno- and cissus, which I assumed was “grape” or some such, the tendrils on Virginia Creeper being definitely grape-like.

    In which case, is it “par-the-no-KI-sus”? I never know when to use the K sound or the S sound for “ci.” I guess it depends how old your Latin is.

    Which is why it drives me crazy to hear Dracaena pronounced “dra-SEE-na” instead of “dra-KEE-na”: I could have sworn the “ae” was there for the express purpose of making the C a K sound.

    But what do I know? I only took Latin for a semester, then it all got papered over when I learned Spanish.

  160. SBP says:

    Well, we’re stuck with the initial S sound in Caesar which is also technically wrong, I think.

    Also “narcissus” is pronounced with the S sound.

    “Sleep ivy”? Hmm… trying to think of some way to connect that with the mythological character. Sdferr, you around?

  161. SBP says:

    I never took Greek or Latin, alas. They weren’t offered in my high school (we barely had Spanish).

    What little I know I picked up from reading on my own.

  162. sdferr says:

    The Greeks would have “k’d” it for certain, SBP, so nar-kiss-os. The *sleepy* is also right according to Liddell-Scott as it is conjectured to have derived from the verb nark-a-o, to grow stiff or numb. There isn’t any ivy about narcissos though that I can see, save for the homophonic similarity of ivy kissos with the nark+issos, the – [iss]-os suffix appears at first glance a fairly standard nominal form ending: I’d have to dig a little deeper to discover where the [iss] comes from but I doubt it has any association with ivy as such.

  163. SBP says:

    Thanks, sdferr!

  164. dicentra says:

    Also “narcissus” is pronounced with the S sound.

    Well, yeah, after the Romans borrowed it. [I took Latin in college, not high school; though my cousin’s daughter’s Utah high school did an intensive Latin thing where they all learned to speak Latin for a whole year. Impressive!]

    Etymology hurts.

  165. dicentra says:

    nark-a-o, to grow stiff or numb

    Hence narcotics. But we’ve got an O after the C, so it has to be hard. Latin is supposed to soften C and G when a “high vowel” (e or i) follows.

    Didn’t take Greek, but I did take Romance philology, also in college. Fascinating stuff if you’re a language nerd like me.

  166. sdferr says:

    Visiting a friend in Portland, Or. awhile back, I learned that they look at Hedera Helix as a dangerous invasive species and that many folk there go out of their way to eradicate it wherever they may find it. Not that I blame them.

  167. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    Ah, Latin…

    Alas, I have no scholarship in the subject. But, as a common sense theme to our trolls, know that we always look at:

    Cui bono?

  168. SBP says:

    invasive species

    The winter here seems to keep the ivy in check, but I could definitely see it getting out of hand in Portland.

    Etymology hurts.

    Oh, but it’s a good hurt. :-)

    What little I know comes from reading tons of natural history and science books as a kid, washed down with a healthy dose of mythology.

    I’ve been (slowly) reading through the classics as an adult, though not in the original languages. It’s probably too late to really learn those now. Sigh…

  169. mcgruder says:

    man, if i was SEK, I just wouldnt reply to Jeff G. when he sent me an email. because he will slice and dice your ass and make things look mighty bad.
    See, THAT is where I have it over you people.
    As a reporter, you just about never reply to emails from people who dislike you.
    Ever.
    Email as a reporter= mighty big trouble, just like whiskey and a crummy woman is to Merle Haggard.

  170. Jeff G. says:

    It was a straightforward email, McGruder. The reply you are seeing here was number three or four in the sequence.

    I just wanted an email address.

  171. Log Cabin says:

    I am not nearly as educated as most of you here, and I can barely follow some of the points floating around.

    I am struck by one thing when I read Jeff and SEK’s back and forth: Who the hell actually speaks (or writes) like that SEK guy? I mean jumping jeebus, that guy is a pretentious fuck, ain’t he?

    That’s what I get out of it, anyway.

  172. The Monster says:

    Well, we’re stuck with the initial S sound in Caesar which is also technically wrong, I think.

    At one point in Latin, C (written almost like <), K, and Q equally represented both of the sounds we now associate with K and G (as in Gold, not Giraffe), but with the Q before a “rounded” vowel, K before A, and C elsewhere. The C became more curved, then added the “crossbar” when it represented the G sound, and with this new ability to distinguish between the two sounds, C and G largely took over from K and Q.

    The S in Caesar would be the S sound (as in saw), not the z sound Germanic languages associate with a single s (as in english “cousin”). Therefore, the German “Kaiser” has the first syllable of Classical Latin “Caesar” pretty much spot on. (The second syllable, not so much.)

    Somewhere along the line, words that were spelled with C mutated slowly into something more like TS in Romance languages, and when William the Conqueror brought his Norman buddies over to run things in England, they screwed everything up. Although linguists consider English a member of the Germanic family, I say the Frenchies made it the bastard child of the Romance family as well.

    Goddamn Frogs.

    Beck shoulda boiled a real one. Then ate its legs.

  173. dicentra says:

    So the original “Caesar” is “KAI-sar” and Cicero is “KEE-ke-ro,” I understand.

    I had a teacher that called English a “garbage” language because of its multiple origins.

    What with the Celtic (KEL-tic) substrate, the Latin, Saxon, and French overlays, and whoever else invaded those silly islands, English makes no sense at all.

    I pity da foo that has to learn English as a second language.

  174. dicentra says:

    Who the hell actually speaks (or writes) like that SEK guy?

    All of academia. Which is why Jeff, SBP, and I bugged out. We just weren’t HIP enough for the room.

  175. SBP says:

    Somewhere along the line, words that were spelled with C mutated slowly into something more like TS in Romance languages

    Slavic, too, hence Tsar/Czar.

  176. dicentra says:

    hence Tsar/Czar

    It’s almost always “tsar” in the crossword puzzles. But when you’re talking about Obama, it’s “czar,” because you can’t spell OLIGARCHY without “czars”!

  177. Topsecretk9 says:

    SEK why my friends who hate you on my behalf are unlikely to do you a solid and forward your email to Andersen or his representative.

    I did not know SEK is in kindergarten.

  178. SBP says:

    Academia is kindergarten for old people, TSK9.

  179. SBP says:

    I think the western university would be vastly improved if professors were required to spend, say, a decade in the real world before assuming their positions.

    Most of these people entered the alternate reality that is Big Education when they started kindergarten, and have never left the comfort of the womb.

  180. McGehee says:

    But we’ve got an O after the C, so it has to be hard. Latin is supposed to soften C and G when a “high vowel” (e or i) follows.

    Then what’s with “coelacanth?”

    Does the second vowel in the “ae” and “oe” combinations, control?

    (I only managed to get nine weeks of Latin, and that in a public school — even though I went to Catholic schools for nine years out of twelve.)

  181. sdferr says:

    One of the best aspects of the St. Johns undergraduate program faculty was the requirement that Tutors be prepared to work in every field (in the long run). So a fellow educated in Mathematics would have to tutor a class in French, a woman with a degree in Romance Languages would tutor a class in Biology or Physics. It turns out that everyone is a student but that they have a wide range of experience and time on task, they can help one another along. It was a rare occasion when a tutor simply wasn’t up to the job. These were all smart people, some even brilliant in their way, so dealing with a new subject didn’t stump them but it did keep them attuned to what it means to be learning.

  182. guinsPen says:

    What is geezergarten?

    I’ll take “Behalf Haters” for $300 please, Art.

  183. SDN says:

    dicentra, my wife has a t-shirt that says

    “English does not ‘borrow’ words from other languages. It follows them down alleys, clubs them on the head, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar!”

  184. dicentra says:

    Then what’s with “coelacanth?”

    Remember when I said that etymology hurt?

  185. dicentra says:

    @188

    I want that shirt!

  186. SBP says:

    Looks like a variant of the famous epigram from James Nicoll, a long-time participant in the science fiction newsgroups.

    The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

  187. sdferr says:

    coelacanth is a modern coinage, looks to me from the dictionary, Koilos+akantha it says right here, so it just got mispronounced from the get go.

  188. dicentra says:

    @185

    OK, one of the tough things about Latin is that its pronunciation evolved over time, so what the “correct” pronunciation is has to do with what era you’re talking about.

    I found this at About.com regarding the pronunciation of Julius Caesar:

    * YOO-lee-us KYE-sahr (reconstructed ancient Roman)
    * YOO-lee-us (T)SAY-sahr (northern Continental Europe)
    * YOO-lee-us CHAY-sahr (“Church Latin” in Italy)
    * JOO-lee-us SEE-zer (“English method”)

    Maybe “SEE-la-kanth” is just “English method” whereas in ancient Rome they’d have said “KOI-la-kanth.”

    Yes, it hurts us.

  189. dicentra says:

    Hey Jeff, how do you like how your thread degenerated?

    We went from “Ivy League” to “coelacanth” in just a few easy steps.

    You’re welcome!

  190. sdferr says:

    But the Romans wouldn’t have had a word for coelacanth would they? I thought the thing was first discovered as a fossil in the 18th C. and only much later discovered to still live somewhere near Indonesia or wherever it was captured and brought to shore?

  191. sdferr says:

    Kaufman now writing his name in the snow with his piss stream? Jolly.

  192. dicentra says:

    @196

    Uh oh. I’m not going over there, are you?

    But the Romans wouldn’t have had a word for coelacanth would they?

    Prolly not. But you know scientists: gotta make up Latin names for everything, even if it means Latinizing your own name, such as nuttallii as the species name for lots of stuff that Nuttall discovered.

  193. dicentra says:

    as one of his own commenters wrote, “[he] has it coming.”

    Who said that, snowcone?

  194. dicentra says:

    He had it coming
    He had it coming
    He only had himself to blame
    If you’d have been there
    If you’d have seen it
    I betcha you would have done the same!

  195. SBP says:

    Well, there’s “coelestial” (archaic spelling “celestial”). Miko?aj Kopernik’s most famous work was De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium

    Oh, and SEK? Bite me. The sophistry didn’t work this time. Good luck with it next time around, eh?

    Pro bono advice: less time twisting words, more time learning how to do basic research (including using Google).

  196. SBP says:

    Archaic spelling of “celestial”, I meant to say.

    It’s possible the Brits still spell it that way (they’re fond of “foetus” and “gynaecologist”, I’ve noticed).

  197. sdferr says:

    Who said that? Search me. I’ve searched this tread and the White house snit thread and can’t find it. Mayhap it’s in some other thread somewhere.

  198. SBP says:

    Hey, NippleNut: how about you go hang out at SEK’s place with all the other Smart People, eh?

  199. sdferr says:

    Merriam-Webstr says “from Latin caelestis celestial, from caelum sky” so there’s that.

    I’ve got no good idea why the Archeologists would have transliterated “koilos” into coel[os]acanth though. Maybe the idea of “koilacanth” just wasn’t appealing?

  200. sdferr says:

    Or maybe, like me, they just typo their way through words like Archaeologists?

  201. SBP says:

    I say the Frenchies made it the bastard child of the Romance family

    And the Normans made it worse.

    French as spoken by Danes. Lovely!

  202. McGehee says:

    Given that the name of SEK’s blog means “headless,” I think he’s already well into Minute #8,792,315,843 of his allotted 15. Maybe it’s time to block his trackbacks.

  203. sdferr says:

    Here’s an acanthus we used to have in the garden. Mean plant, but pretty too.

  204. dicentra says:

    Acanthus? Bear’s breeches? You must have nice loamy soil and adequate rain where you live. I couldn’t grow those if my life depended on it.

  205. sdferr says:

    It was south Jersey and a bit sandier than I’d have liked but don’t live there any more. Sw Fl is sand all the way down to the limestone.

  206. Danger says:

    sdferr,

    Where in SW FL? My parents live in Pinellas County.

  207. sdferr says:

    Lee.

  208. Danger says:

    Ever been to St Armand Key?

  209. sdferr says:

    Nope.

    Last time I was up to Pinellas was to go to Ted Peter’s smoked fish house Danger. Which, yum.

  210. sdferr says:

    Did live at a friend’s house on Longboat Key for a month back in ’76 though. There I tried to catch a guy who learned to throw a knuckler from Wilbur Wood and Hoyt Wilhelm when he worked spring training games with the W.Sox. Never did catch but a couple. Weirdest visual experience of my life I think.

  211. Danger says:

    I will have to try Ted’s someday, I never noticed the place growing up near there but then again their are a lot of good seafood restaurants in Florida.

    St Armand’s Key is near Sarasota. A pretty neat place to spend an afternoon. I think the name of the beach there is called Lido it used to be a nude beach when I was a kid.

  212. Danger says:

    One of my parents favorite restaurants is an Amish restaurant near Sarasota as well. Unfortunately I cant remember the name of it but it is good eatin!

  213. sdferr says:

    “Amish restaurant near Sarasota”!!! I ate there back then. Great food, no joke.

    All those places have changed beyond recognition from the ’70s, built up with all manner of stuff, Danger. I know we went to Lido for kicks for an afternoon back then, but I can’t remember much about it today.

  214. sdferr says:

    Though they were actually Mennonites, I think.

  215. sdferr says:

    Yoder’s restaurant, Danger? This says they are Amish so you’ve got it right and I’m remembering wrong.

  216. Danger says:

    Yeah, nothing but high rise condos blocking the view down that way. We are very fortunate along the emerald coast to have miles of undeveloped beaches.

  217. Danger says:

    Yup that’s the place.

  218. sdferr says:

    Says it was founded in ’75. I ate there in May of ’76. Not since, however. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve thought of the place in over 20 yrs until just now.

  219. Jeff G. says:

    SEK saves my emails?

    Heh. That’s awesome.

  220. SBP says:

    Those are going to be valuable someday, Jeff.

    He knows it, too.

  221. Darleen says:

    dicentra

    oh my…on what other blog would a thread “degenerate” into a discussion of Latin pronunciation and languages??

    god I love this place

  222. Victor. says:

    Obvisously he saves them in a kill file.

    Harr!

  223. Danger says:

    It takes about an hour and $5 in tolls (last time I went) to drive down there from my parents house but I eat out of enough military chow halls to justify the global warming contribution;)

  224. Darleen says:

    Comment by Jeff G. on 9/27

    oh stop … I laughed so hard I startled the cats.

  225. Jeff G. says:

    Is he soliciting more friends to hate me on his behalf?

    Guess I had that coming.

    Heh. Awesome!

  226. Jeff G. says:

    Good to know I still drive them crazy.

  227. Jeff G. says:

    Back to football. And things that matter.

    OUTLAW!

  228. Danger says:

    Jeff,

    I told you SEK is a shipwreck.

    Your emails are like a message in a bottle. They make him feel like a rescue (from annonymity) is near.

  229. Danger says:

    I am sure I spelled that wrong but it is late/early so SEK it!

    G’night (for reals this time8^)

  230. Patrick says:

    Not to interrupt… but:

    I like soft pillows. Does that make me a sophist?

    Now THAT is some seriously funny stuff! :lol:

  231. SBP says:

    “Bored”: Like, whatever, dude.

    (that phrase is ® SEK, by the way — sure hope he doesn’t sue me for plagiarism!)

  232. geoffb says:

    Decided to google Protein Wisdom “[he] has it coming.” 8 hits, none here. But CANIS IRATUS was worth the look.

  233. Pablo says:

    Yoder’s restaurant, Danger? This says they are Amish so you’ve got it right and I’m remembering wrong.

    Amish people with a website? Man, things have changed.

  234. Pablo says:

    Decided to google Protein Wisdom “[he] has it coming.” 8 hits, none here.

    Yeah, but that last one is me. And given where it is, how weird is that?

  235. SBP says:

    like the teen children say

    Direct quote from the brilliant rhetorician SEK, dude.

    You get tenure for coming up with witty sayings like that, y’know?

  236. SBP says:

    240: I ran across a Luddite web site once, Pablo, but I’m pretty sure it was a joke.

  237. Bloody Stupid Johnson says:

    My apologies, everyone, “Bored” is an artificial intelligence I designed that was supposed to seek and compile knowledge and process it into the ultimate wisdom. Apparently in the kernel I misplaced a decimal point or something.

    Beg pardon. Terribly sorry.

  238. JHo says:

    SEK saves my emails?

    Nah. That was a sarcastic post, showing the inherent superiority of humor employed by a superior intellect. It seems Mister Keefmann plays to emotion and appearance quite a lot, as he and the Kroffman commentariat prefer, one concludes.

    If you ginned up some sage, preferably bespectacled bookishness in the employ of some great institution, then tossed in some uncharacteristic self-deprecating (or decapitating) mirth, that would line up probably six or nine regulars like right now.

  239. SDN says:

    #190: dicentra, Here you go!

  240. N. O'Brain says:

    “Comment by Pablo on 9/27 @ 9:02 pm #

    Yoder’s restaurant, Danger? This says they are Amish so you’ve got it right and I’m remembering wrong.

    Amish people with a website? Man, things have changed.”

    Yeah, up in Lancaster County in Penna. they have the occasional clop by shooting.

  241. SBP says:

    ‘Twas brillig, and the sophist SEK
    Did spin and stonewall in a trackback
    ‘Til Goldstein, with a body check
    Opened up a can of HackWhack.

    “Beware the Babbleschlock, my son!
    The bile that spews, the lies to match!
    Beware the turgid turd, and shun
    The odious Pedantisnatch!”

  242. Jeff G says:

    Nah. That was a sarcastic post, showing the inherent superiority of humor employed by a superior intellect. It seems Mister Keefmann plays to emotion and appearance quite a lot, as he and the Kroffman commentariat prefer, one concludes.

    Ah. Yes, SEK does fancy himself quite the internet wit and humorist, doesn’t he? I never had the heart to tell him just how godawfully pedestrian his “humor” is.

    Although in his defense, it is the kind of thing academics pretend to smile and nod at.

  243. But because I’m not a fucking asshole, I remind you that you did some graduate work with someone who currently works at the same agency that represents Andersen. How do I know this? Because the person in question told me once upon a time. I’m not going to give you my friend’s email address because that’d be pointless—apples to oranges she already has all permutations of your address in a kill file—so I point you in a direction of another agent there that might bear fruit . . .

    OK, so I’m late to the party. But how is that not being a “fucking asshole”? Everything up to the dash is “fucking asshole” worthy, I think.

    I’ve been guilty of that kind of asshole-ism myself, so I recognize it. In my case, I received an email from a guy I used to work with who was looking for contact information. I harbored some ill feeling, so I told him he could try asking any number of people who still worked for that company but hated his guts. I listed them by name. It was a long list. Eventually he got his contact information, and I got another email from him, a forward. He had forwarded my reply to a couple of people on the list, one of whom gave him the information he was looking for. Making me look like a “fucking asshole”. I suppose if I had told him I wasn’t a “fucking asshole” before I pulled the asshole move he might have not noticed that I was, in fact, being a “fucking asshole” so this has been a learning experience for me.

    I guess grad school is good for something after all!

  244. Jeff G says:

    I have no idea who this person I went to grad school with is, and I doubt I even went to grad school with her.

    Notice how all these Jeff haters are never named? I find that interesting.

  245. Sounds like an ex-girlfriend brought your name up after he’d already paid for dinner.

  246. dicentra says:

    SDN. Heh. Thanks!

  247. Starcaller Nishi says:

    Jeff, I’m one of your oldest and most reviled commenters……and I have just one thing to say…..

    /backs slowly out of the room while strictly avoiding eye contact.

  248. Jeff G. says:

    Not sure what that means.

  249. happyfeet says:

    Hi nishi! I have music for you I go get it brb. here you go. Everyone else already knows cause I’ve been very excited. Mostly cause of he’s got that 80s thing down perfect and he has an anti-hiphop sensibility that’s been missing lately. Much as you have been.

  250. guinsPen says:

    The kids are all about coonskin caps, happ’?

  251. McGehee says:

    I think what it means, Jeff, is that the nishtoon finally got a clue about how best to behave when she visits here.

  252. happyfeet says:

    not those ones. The other 80s. It was a happy time. An optimistic time. There were capitalisms and Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped islands in pink plastic and for no reason at all people would stop and have laser light shows in the middle of downtowns everywhere. We should do that again, while there’s time.

  253. happyfeet says:

    Where’ve you been anyway Mr. guins? Don’t think you can go away and nobody will notice cause you’d be wrong about that mister.

Comments are closed.