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One day, I hope to stop being surprised [dicentra]

So says the the title of an SEK article over at Acephalous, which begins:

I try not to pay attention to Glenn Beck, but even when I have, I never really paid attention to him. But when an old friend, someone I genuinely respect, forwarded me a link to Beck?s archive and dared me to refute his logic, I decided it might be time to try.

Bad decision.

The transcript he links to is from Beck TV program on 19 Nov 2010. After poking through it a bit and sneering at what he reads, he concludes:

Let me recount Beck’s argument for you:

1. Jay Rockefeller?s father supported a One World Government, which makes

2. Glenn Beck afraid, and as you should be, because

3. George Soros’s father wanted everyone to speak Esperanto,

4. And had a dream, which is something Obama’s father also had, meaning

5. If Soros is unable to fulfill his father’s dream

6. Obama will be assassinated and

7. China will invade.

This of course, is a typical Beckian narrative that all of us Beck listeners recognize, except for the part where we totally don’t. I realize that Scott did not attempt a serious analysis of the transcript, because he doesn’t take Beck seriously, seeing him as little better than a guest caller on “Coast-to-Coast AM” with Art Bell, only with a bigger microphone.

But Scott could at least have had the sense to not admit profound ignorance on what Beck ever says. I’m not surprised, though, because I know that for Serious People like SEK, admitting that he pays attention to the likes of Glenn Beck would collapse any credibility he may have among those whose good graces he desires to be in.

You see, all of the topics that Glenn addresses–the dots that Scott attempts to connect–are topics that Glenn has has talked about at length in the past, so when he mentions this or that, he’s harking back to discussions he’s already had, discussions that most of the people watching have already heard. By looking at one transcript on one show, Scott cannot help but miss the point, because he’s not taking all of the material into consideration. Assuming that he’s taking anything into genuine consideration at all.

Let’s be all Harold Pinter-y and start at the last point and go to the first, shall we? It should be fun.

Number seven: “China will invade.”

Scott derives this conclusion from “There’s a million things that can make the entire world fly apart. China’s leaders know this…”

and what Scott left out was “…, as well as ours. But China is expressing many of those concerns out in the open. Why? Because they are not living in fear, as many of our people are.”

See, what Glenn has said in the past about the Chinese is that unlike us, they plan waaaaay far ahead. They have contingency plans and stuff. And they’re looking to achieve hegemony in Asia and maybe more. Glenn has NEVER said that the Chinese plan to invade the U.S. Never even hinted at it. And of course China’s hegemonic aspirations come straight from Glenn’s fevered imagination and nowhere else.

Numbers five and six: “If Soros is unable to fulfill his father’s dream, Obama will be assassinated.”

Glenn has expressed this fear for a long time. He posits that a lot of powerful radicals, financed by Soros cash, are counting on Obama to fulfill their political wish list, but that if he proves to be unable or unwilling to do so, they’ll take him out. And then they’ll use the political chaos that comes from a presidential assassination to expand their power, not letting THAT crisis go to waste, as is their wont.

Which is why Glenn was alarmed when Soros said this last Tuesday: “I’m used to fighting losing battles but I don’t like to lose without fighting.” He added, “We have just lost this election. We need to draw a line. If this president can’t do what we need, it is time to start looking somewhere else.”

Whether this means they’ll try to actually kill him or just work around him, I don’t know. But Glenn figures that the Chinese are aware of that same possibility (assassination) and are preparing for that eventuality among many others. So that THEY can take advantage of such a crisis.

I’m guessing that Scott takes comfort in the adage that the revolution never eats its own or something.

Numbers three and four: “George Soros’s father wanted everyone to speak Esperanto, and had a dream, which is something Obama’s father also had”

Scott has never heard Glenn talk about “Dreams from My Father,” wherein he shows how Obama’s father dreamed of establishing a Marxist government in Kenya, among other far-left goals, and how Obama identifies with those dreams and seeks to carry on his father’s project.

Nor did Scott see Glenn’s three-part series on George Soros–

10 Nov 2010: The Puppet Master
11 Nov 2010: Five Step Plan
12 Nov 2010: Making of the Puppet Master

–wherein Glenn explains:

When George was six years old, the family changed the name from Schwartz to Soros. Now, at first, it just makes sense on the surface because you’re like, OK, well, of course, they’re trying to stay alive. There were mad men rounding you Jews up.

But when you look at the name Soros, it’s an obscure name. What does it mean? Where did it come from? Well, it means to soar.

More importantly, it derives from Esperanto, which is a made-up trans- European language that started I think in the 1880s. And it was promoted by those who dreamt of a world free of nationalities. Get it? A world free of nationalities, an open society.

His father was very much into this. That’s how they picked the name Soros.

And that’s why Glenn links Soros’s goals to those of his father. And also why he cites the very similar dreams of Jay Rockefeller’s left-wing father.

Numbers one and two: “Jay Rockefeller’s father supported a One World Government, which makes Glenn Beck afraid, and as you should be.”

I think that the transcript speaks for itself:

BECK:I want to start with thanking Jay Rockefeller for finally saying out loud in public, on the record, on videotape what I know many of his colleagues are thinking and probably very busy working on accomplishing.

Here it is:

[begin video]SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER, D-W.VA.: I hunger for quality news. I’m tired of the right and the left. There’s a little bug inside of me which wants to get the FCC to say to Fox and to MSNBC, “Out, off, end, goodbye.” It’d be a big favor to political discourse, our ability to do our work here in Congress, and to the American people, to be able to talk with each other and have some faith in their government and in their ? more importantly, in their future.[end video]

BECK: Who is that cute little senator who wants to do America a solid? You are!

I’m sure the best way to restore trust in the government and restore the level of discourse in America is to shut down discourse in America — like it’s the media’s fault that we have this gigantic debt.

Yes. Yes.

Jay ? may I call you “Jay”? Jay, I think of this as kind of like bank criminals saying, do you know how many banks we could rob in a day if we could just get rid of the police?

You know, Jay, I have a little bug inside of me, too, and it wants to stop control-hungry progressives from running our lives and pushing us into a giant global system of government. You know, the kind of global government that your dad liked so much ? oh, David Rockefeller. Oh, miss him. He was a globalist and had a wonderful vision of the future of our world.

I liked his speech to the U.N. where he talked about overpopulation and bemoaned the fact that more infants now survive the birth process. Don’t you hate that when your kids survive? He said also more people are living longer.

His solution? Let’s listen in.

[begin video]DAVID ROCKEFELLER: The United Nations can and should play an essential role in helping the world find a satisfactory way of stabilizing the world population and stimulating economic development in a manner that is sensitive to religious and moral considerations.[end video]

So Scott? Glenn started the show with Jay Rockefeller’s talk of shutting down TV channels in order to shut up people like Glenn Beck. And how the Rockefellers, like most of the world’s über-rich, would be more than happy if the rest of us proles just shut up and let Our Betters take control.

Which he followed with references to George Soros, another über-rich dude whose father was also down with one world, his speaking Esperanto being an emblem of that desire to have an “open society,” e.g., no more national sovereignty, no more national currencies, no more national governments.

[begin video]UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The question is what we need and whether Mr. Soros and his foundations can help to bring more foreign influence into the United States instead of relying on what is essentially a balance between Democrats and conservative Republicans.

GEORGE SOROS, BILLIONAIRE/FINANCIER: I think you put your finger on a very important flaw in the current world order, and that is that only Americans have a vote in Congress. And yet, it is the United States that basically determines policy for the world. That is a flaw in the current set up.[end video]

Soros and his father want an “open society,” which is why Soros set up the Open Society Institute

[begin video]SOROS: I became concerned with the problems of globalization. They had global markets, but their politics is based on sovereign of states. So, how do you deal with that issue?

And then, I came to the realization that open society is in danger by our current leadership, in this country. And that is when I refocused my attention on the United States.[end video]

Soros sees U.S. sovereignty as the primary obstacle to this open society that he’s dedicated his vast resources to implementing. He enjoys bringing down societies that he sees as oppressive and evil. He has the power to bring about that very thing, especially now, when our economy and currency are so precarious. And the U.S. as the primary obstacle to open society, must of course be oppressive and evil.

Scott is also unaware that when Glenn talks about One World Government, he’s not echoing the standard conspiracy theories that have been pinging around society for decades. This isn’t John Birch Society stuff. The Birchers were Yet Another Example of the paranoid style of politics, which posits that a small cabal of shadowy entities is already in place, pulling invisible strings and wreaking all manner of havoc, for whatever shadowy purposes they have in their shadowy little hearts. The Birchers could never tell you the names of these cabalistas, though, because those people were so damn powerful they had managed to erase their very existence from the face of the earth. Because for the paranoid, the lack of evidence is evidence still–evidence of great stealth and power.

On the other hand, broadcasting information on Soros’s known activities? Does that make you a conspiracy theorist, Scott? You can always dispute what Soros’s activity means, but what his activity is?

Just following the money, son. Nothing crazy about that.

But of course, Glenn is a fear-monger, which Scott makes amply evident by quoting this:

I feel a little uncomfortable. We’ll talk about preparing for –let’s just leave it at that, being prepared.

Note how, in a classic bit of demagoguery, he stops himself just short the moment of revelation. People fear what they don’t know, especially when they’re being told, in ominous tones, that the unknown requires preparation…

Glenn peddles in THE UNKNOWN?

Are you HIGH?

What the hell do you think all that blackboard scrawling was about? Honest people can dispute the validity of what Glenn says, but to say that Beck is interested in hinting around at things instead of trying to bring them into the light of day is absurd.

Glenn’s answer to the charge that he’s a fear-monger is that there’s no fear involved if you’re prepared for what’s coming. It’s when disaster strikes and you’re standing there with your pants down that panic ensues. If and when we get hyper-inflation (something that a LOT of economists are afraid of), who is going to panic when the store shelves empty or when prices quadruple: those who have a pantry full of food or those who have a couple cans of tuna and a bottle of ketchup? And if the disaster doesn’t happen? Hey, the food is still edible. No harm, no foul.

Scott also doesn’t know that Glenn frequently telegraphs what he’ll be doing in future shows, and so his stopping short was not to frighten us through omission but to save that stuff for later.

So yes, it was a mistake for Scott’s friend to invite him to refute Glenn’s 19 Nov 2010 show, just not for reasons that either anticipated.

One day, I do hope to stop being surprised by the intellectual laziness of the self-satisfied. I just don’t anticipate that day to arrive anytime soon.

246 Replies to “One day, I hope to stop being surprised [dicentra]”

  1. sdferr says:

    If and when we get hyper-inflation (something that a LOT of economists are afraid of), who is going to panic when the store shelves empty or when prices quadruple: those who have a pantry full of food or those who have a couple cans of tuna and a bottle of ketchup? And if the disaster doesn’t happen? Hey, the food is still edible. No harm, no foul.

    This, it seems to me anyhow, is problematic to say the least. I can be said, in a remote sense, to fear being eaten alive by a great white shark or a lion on the veldt. But just how likely are these possibilities? And wouldn’t my time and energy have been poorly spent, if unnoticed or hidden ex post facto, should my misdirected fears never appear? Hyperinflation is a bad thing, sure. But what is the likelihood of it? And here is the inflection, I think, upon which many people in the economist tribe diverge, with good reason.

  2. geoffb says:

    You keep this up and old “Stinkfinger” will just have to man-up and register.

  3. Crawford says:

    Why do you read what Squat Enus Kueefman dribbles? You’ve known for years he’s not honest, intellectual, or intellectually honest.

  4. Crawford says:

    I get the hope to find an honest argument coming from the left, but, man, you’re going to have to look elsewhere.

  5. McGehee says:

    You’ve known for years he’s not honest, intellectual, or intellectually honest.

    Indeed, that is Something Everybody Knows.

  6. Abe Froman says:

    Can’t say I care enough about what a goofy autodidact thinks to invest that that much passion into his defense, but anything that further reveals SEK to be an intellectually lazy poofter is something I can get behind.

  7. sdferr says:

    Seems like your link to the Beck program transcript is buggered.

  8. sdferr says:

    Mr Beck does kindly point out that people have occasionally been unduly distracted by Malthusian fears of overpopulation. Now there is a bugbear, useful to some people for purposes of their enrichment even today (yeah, I’m looking at you Al Gore). I’d bet he would agree that their time, retrospectively anyhow, was not well spent.

  9. Spiny Norman says:

    Funny thing is, I’ve heard very little about George Soros from Glenn that I didn’t already know. I’m just glad it’s getting a wider exposure.

    Scott, on the other hand, is the walking, talking stereotype of the smarmy, intellectually lazy leftist douchebag.

  10. dicentra says:

    But just how likely are these possibilities?

    You DO know that–after swearing under oath that they would NOT monetize the debt–they’ve decided to do it anyway? And that monetizing the debt is a really good way to devalue the currency? And that the precarious nature of the world’s economies makes it easy for small events to have large effects? And that Soros, who believes that the U.S. is in his way, finds great sport in collapsing world currencies? And that a Soros surrogate met up with Beck’s surrogate and warned him that Beck was “damaging Mr. Soros’s interests”?

    And wouldn’t my time and energy have been poorly spent, if unnoticed or hidden ex post facto, should my misdirected fears never appear?

    Dude. There are myriad reasons to keep a goodly supply of food on hand; hyperinflation is just one of them. The LDS church encourages its members to keep a year’s supply of food, and I have benefitted from it many, many times (as have the rest of us who follow this counsel), because in my case I keep losing my job.

    And if you don’t lose your job, maybe your brother or neighbor does. You can pack up a box of groceries out of your pantry and help out right there, without kicking a hole in your bank account.

    Or maybe a part of your town is leveled by a tornado. Or a broken levee. Or a hurricane. Or an earthquake. Or a brush fire.

    Maybe the infrastructure in your area is disrupted by a natural disaster or a strike or who knows what. Banks might not have any more cash in the ATMs, store shelves can empty in a matter of hours.

    You, on the other hand, can sit tight in your house and not panic, because you’ve got what you need to outlast the disaster. You can help those who weren’t prepared.

    It’s a matter of general prudence to keep your pantry stocked, your normalcy biases notwithstanding.

  11. dicentra says:

    Can’t say I care enough about what a goofy autodidact thinks to invest that that much passion into his defense, but anything that further reveals SEK to be an intellectually lazy poofter is something I can get behind.

    Yes, well, you’ll notice that the thesis of this post is not that Glenn Is Right but that SEK is talking through his hat. Whether Glenn is right about this or that remains to be seen. But like Sarah Palin, his very existence does tend to force The Smug to show their true colors.

  12. sdferr says:

    Yeah, I already know you’re a true believer dicentra, so there’s no need for you to have to reinforce the message. I’m just not buying. Which you may have known already too, I guess.

  13. dicentra says:

    You’re not buying that keeping a full pantry is a matter of General Prudence?

    Whatevs.

  14. sdferr says:

    I’m not buying a lot of things these days. Among which keeping a year’s supply of food on hand. Or that hyperinflation is coming, oh my god, we’re doomed, doomed I tells ya. Or that SEK is worth my attention. Among other things. Mr. Beck, on the other hand, in many respects, is worth some of my attention. Which I will continue to supply.

  15. Abe Froman says:

    But like Sarah Palin, his very existence does tend to force The Smug to show their true colors.

    That’s true because they’re low hanging fruit. Every lefty I know bases their argument that Palin is an idiot on flat out falsehoods, which tells you just how much of this antipathy is cultural snobbery as opposed to intellectual. At least I base my low opinion on the fact that I’ve never heard her say anything as insightful or erudite as I’ve come to expect from any one of a hundred regulars here. That doesn’t strike me as especially high expectations for a presidential candidate.

  16. Roddy Boyd says:

    I remember when Beck was both amiable and funny, while bringing up some good points.
    His radio show can still entertain.

  17. Roddy Boyd says:

    Abe,
    That is a well made point. Precisely my concerns about her as well. She’s no idiot, but there are some things that aren’t there that should be in a presumptive candidate for POTUS.

  18. Abe Froman says:

    I forget where I saw this – maybe here, – but it’s pretty funny to watch pre-derangement Tinglepants fawning over Beck.

  19. Bob Reed says:

    I happened to see this myself yesterday, and was a bit amused by Scott’s sneering dismissal. Folks like him will always dismiss the things that Beck says becuase he doesn’t have what they see as the proper credentials, gravitas, nor dignitas to properly discuss issues and ideas. I’m certain that they would characterize Glenn’s approach as an appeal to “Hee-Haw indentity politics”; a term of art I read over the weekend only applied to someone different.

    I find myself agreeing with more of what Glenn says than I disagree with. Now mind you, those disagreements are sharp, I occasionally find him too broad-brush, and it seems occasionally that he focuses on what is said or written, in a praticular instance, at the expense of missing the overall meaning of a document or body of work. But at least he’s raising consciousness on matters that otherwise would never signifigantly be injected into the public space save for maybe the comments section or headline post at an obscure blog.

    Full-blown, grand mal, Weimar-esque hyperinflation coming? Truthfully, I don’t think so, as my humble opinion is that the banks have so much trash on, and more disturbingly off, their balance sheets that the cashflow from QE2 will mostly end up in their vaults or back on deposit with the Fed gaining overnight interest. Now from a FOREX standpoint, it may cause a signifigant rise in commodity prices (food, fuel) to make life more costly, but probably no hyperinflation here; that doesn’t mean, though, that it’s not an exit-ramp onto the road to economic perdition in other ways. Nor does it mean that the very inflation we speak of won’t be exported to our trading partners.

    Still, it’s never bad practice to have some grub in storage.

  20. JD says:

    SEKs is a douche nozzle. Water is wet.

  21. Bob Reed says:

    Please forgive my typos in #19.

  22. happyfeet says:

    Glenn Beck has a nice smile like Ann Althouse and both Matt and Kim but not Zac Ephron he always looks phony

  23. Crawford says:

    She’s no idiot, but there are some things that aren’t there that should be in a presumptive candidate for POTUS.

    Fawning deference to the press? A taste for kobe beef?

  24. LBascom says:

    “Fawning deference to the press? A taste for kobe beef?”

    Ivy league law degree? Polished north-eastern accent?

  25. JD says:

    I just drove through Kokomo. I was going to sot and try to listen to the Barry and Joe show, but I decided to give myself a root canal with a chainsaw instead. Far more pleasant.

  26. Carin says:

    “Fawning deference to the press? A taste for kobe beef?”

    Ivy league law degree? Polished north-eastern accent?

    A golf game that needs work? Condescending attitudes regarding the intelligence of the American people?

  27. Abe Froman says:

    We don’t mind Ivy League degrees when the people who possess them articulate the anti-elitism which people like Sarah Palin inarticulately take comfort in, do we?

  28. Carin says:

    I don’t mind an educated person who can articulate anti-elistims – regardless of where they are educated.

    I’m open to the idea some of them may have matriculated from an Ivy League college.

  29. alex_walter says:

    One day, I do hope to stop being surprised by the intellectual laziness of the self-satisfied.

    We’re talking about the same Glenn Beck, right?

  30. sdferr says:

    “We’re talking about the same Glenn Beck, right?”

    He said, demonstrating through performance what might not have been ready to hand otherwise.

  31. Carin says:

    Is this our new plaything?

  32. sdferr says:

    Yep, to the extent that he chooses to make himself so.

  33. Carin says:

    He’s not very much fun so far.

  34. Ernst Schreiber says:

    We don’t mind Ivy League degrees when the people who possess them articulate the anti-elitism which people like Sarah Palin inarticulately take comfort in, do we?

    I refudiate your “elitist” cant.

  35. Ernst Schreiber says:

    You sadly misunderestimate the contempt that fancy-talkers like yourself generate among the smelly proles.

  36. sdferr says:

    “You sadly misunderestimate the contempt that fancy-talkers like yourself generate among the smelly proles.”

    newrouter, among others, has frequently admonished we should stick to the present or very near present, for instance, leaving all that boring ancient history of thought business behind as the worthless pile of crap it so obviously is, I think was his point.

  37. Roddy Boyd says:

    Naw. The smartest thing the old girl did was get and stay angry at the Press. That’s just solid politics there.
    She seems legitimately unable to grasp broad strokes of policy and gives every indication of playing it for quotes. Its not enough that the next POTUS be able to beat Obama, or in ’16 not be Obama. I would like someone capable of governing seriously and rationally.

    Hell, she didnt even do that in Alaska.

  38. alex_walter says:

    Just out of curiosity, when do we all get rallied to fight against the War on Christmas?

  39. Ernst Schreiber says:

    If we’re going to keep insisting on resetting the clock to year zero, the very near present is all there is.

    Mostly I just wanted to type refudiate and misunderestimate , though.

  40. Joe says:

    Typo Proofreading: And of course China’s hegemonic aspirations come straight from Glenn’s SEK’s fevered imagination and nowhere else.

    You have the stomach flu. Although you may be puking because you are thinking of SEK.

  41. Sigivald says:

    See, I don’t listen to Beck either.

    And the shit about Obama being assassinated by A Shadowy Cabal Of Leftists Who’ll Stop At Nothing And Will Naturally Somehow Use That Incompetent Twat Biden To Achieve Their Goals In The Chaos?

    Yeah, when I put it like that the glaring flaw’s pretty, uh, glaring, isn’t it?

    (And part of the reason I can’t be bothered even to read his transcripts, let alone waste time listening to him in realtime. [To be fair, I despite audio and video communication for such things, and I won’t even watch Bill Whittle in video. Beck doesn’t stand a chance, comparatively.])

    (That and the way they don’t have a majority in the House, and only the flimsiest in the Senate, anymore.

    Obama will either not even run in 2012, or will be brutally defeated, barring amazing changes.

    But assassination by The Shadowy Left Elite so they can Fulfill the Prophecy?

    Come off it. Those guys aren’t competent enough to do it even if they wanted to.

    This is shades of the recurring “The Republicans will steal the election!” from the Left, or “The Military-Industrial Complex!!”)

  42. Pablo says:

    She seems legitimately unable to grasp broad strokes of policy and gives every indication of playing it for quotes.

    Don’t look now…

  43. Ernst Schreiber says:

    when do we all get rallied to fight against the War on Christmas?

    Just as soon as we’re done ritually slaughtering the flightless birds with the genetically enhanced ta-tas to honor the sky god who struck down the natives so that we could possess this promised land.

  44. Pablo says:

    Just out of curiosity, when do we all get rallied to fight against the War on Christmas?

    Actually, we need to get recon forces out right now. We need to go stake out your nearest Salvation Army thrift store. Keep a particular eye out for hippies. We’ll come get you when we’ve secured America.

  45. Carin says:

    Just out of curiosity, when do we all get rallied to fight against the War on Christmas?

    They’re just funning you, Alex. Stay-tuned to Rush. He sends out the marching orders.

  46. Ernst Schreiber says:

    ixnay on the ecretsay ecoderday ingray!

  47. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Your not drinking enough snapple Carin.

  48. Abe Froman says:

    We don’t need to fight no stinkin’ War on Christmas. We just have to wait for the lefties to sanction Ramadan Rafi’s inclusion in the public square and ride his coattails to Jesus and Santa everywhere!

  49. Carin says:

    ixnay on the ecretsay ecoderday ingray!

    It’s cool, Ernst. As long as Alex doesn’t know how to make the receptor-tin-foil hat …

  50. Obstreperous Infidel says:

    She seems legitimately unable to grasp broad strokes of policy and gives every indication of playing it for quotes

    How so? I mean, I’m not a big fan of hers, but I see assertions like this and usually fail to see the accompanying evidence. I’m not denying they may be out there, but do you have any? And as it pertains to the original post, JD’s got the jist. SEK is a smarmy wannabe elite douchbeg. Deconstructing anything he does or says seems pointless as he is an open book.

  51. cranky-d says:

    Okay, I didn’t hear that we are supposed to start bitching about the war on Christmas this week. Apparently I have been kicked out of the cabal.

    This is a fine how do you do for the holidays.

  52. Mike LaRoche says:

    I’m gearing up for the War on Kwanzaa.

  53. Ernst Schreiber says:

    If you’d signed up for *cough*carbonite*cough* like you were supposed to you’d have the scoop.

  54. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I’m gearing up for the War on Kwanzaa.

    Is that the holiday holiday for white liberals who want to show they’re down for the struggle?

  55. geoffb says:

    *cough*carbonite*cough*

    They don’t call it Black Friday for nothing you know.

  56. Jim in KC says:

    “Carbonite.” Heh.

  57. Kevin B says:

    Of course there’s no secret cabal trying to establish a world government. They’re perfectly open about it and CAGW is one of the ways they’ve chosen to create that world government.

    This nice list of quotes by some of the players should help put Glenn Beck’s ravings in perspective.

  58. sdferr says:

    That “Just out of curiosity” up there was real knee slapper. hehs.

    Or lie, to put it another way.

  59. Jim in KC says:

    We have always been at war against the war on Christmas, Alex.

  60. Swen says:

    1. sdferr posted on 11/22 @ 9:19 am

    If and when we get hyper-inflation (something that a LOT of economists are afraid of), who is going to panic when the store shelves empty or when prices quadruple: those who have a pantry full of food or those who have a couple cans of tuna and a bottle of ketchup? And if the disaster doesn’t happen? Hey, the food is still edible. No harm, no foul.

    This, it seems to me anyhow, is problematic to say the least. I can be said, in a remote sense, to fear being eaten alive by a great white shark or a lion on the veldt. But just how likely are these possibilities? And wouldn’t my time and energy have been poorly spent, if unnoticed or hidden ex post facto, should my misdirected fears never appear? Hyperinflation is a bad thing, sure. But what is the likelihood of it? And here is the inflection, I think, upon which many people in the economist tribe diverge, with good reason.

    The probability that my house will catch on fire is exceedingly low, yet I keep fire extinguishers and have homeowner’s insurance, that later at no little expense. My doctor assures me that the probability I’ll turn up my toes any time soon is exceedingly low, yet I keep life insurance, again at no little expense. The probability that I’ll play host to a home invasion robbery is exceedingly low, yet I’m armed to the teeth and keep the crocs in the moat on a strict diet. Car insurance? You betcha. Medical insurance? Ditto.

    So yes, as a matter of fact we keep several months-worth of food, and emergency cooking and heating lamps, stoves, and fuel in storage. We keep supplies of batteries, flashlights, and emergency radios on hand. We keep heaps of extra blankets and bedding, and warm winter cloths on hand. I’ve even got snowshoes! We keep 6 months-worth of esssential medications on hand. As dicentra points out, the difference between keeping some food and supplies on hand and all the insurance, etc., is that we eat the food to keep it rotated, unlike the insurance there’s no extra cost. I use the camping gear but keep the expendables well restocked, again there’s no extra cost. The batteries get used and replaced. The medications are used and replaced. I even use the snowshoes although I groan at the very idea of that much snow. There’s very little added cost or effort involved in any of these preparations, beyond a little foresight.

    However, being so prepared has kept us comfortable during multi-day power outages and kept us fed during blizzards that have shut down the town for two weeks. It’s kept us supplied with necessary medications even when our doctor left town and we couldn’t get an appointment with another for three months.

    I’m glad you’ve never experienced any such tribulations, and I heartily hope we don’t see any devastating economic upheavals, or any more stinking blizzards or power outages (but that’s too much to hope for). I’m not counting on these things happening, but I sure don’t want to count on them not happening because, as we all know, shit happens….

  61. sdferr says:

    I’m glad you’ve never experienced any such tribulations. . .

    You don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m afraid. As it happens, I live in hurricane country and have experience many such outages. This has little to do with the likelihood of hyperinflation, however.

  62. LTC John says:

    Jim,

    Great, another War I am going to have to deploy to?! I must really be out of the cabal too…

  63. alex_walter says:

    At least in The War on The War on Christmas everyone gets hot chocolate with marshmallows and a candy cane stirring stick.

  64. McGehee says:

    They’re perfectly open about it and CAGW is one of the ways they’ve chosen to create that world government.

    Citizens Against Government Waste?

  65. McGehee says:

    Okay, I didn’t hear that we are supposed to start bitching about the war on Christmas this week.

    Not until the Godless Battalion assassinates Santa Claus at the end of the Macy’s parade.

    That way we can put in our own puppet Santa like Kevin Kline in Dave.

  66. Swen says:

    17. Roddy Boyd posted on 11/22 @ 10:27 am
    Abe,
    That is a well made point. Precisely my concerns about her as well. She’s no idiot, but there are some things that aren’t there that should be in a presumptive candidate for POTUS.

    You mean like.. experience? I’d have thought that in the last two years we’d have lost any illusions re OJT at the White House. Obviously even the most amazingly brilliant and talented and god-like Obama has proven less than up to the task, how could we expect any mere mortal to do better? Seriously, how could we even think of electing another ‘feel good’ candidate who doesn’t have serious administrative experience? We’ve touched the hot stove, we’ve been burned, let’s not touch it again.

  67. Jim in KC says:

    At least in The War on The War on Christmas everyone gets hot chocolate with marshmallows and a candy cane stirring stick.

    And silly straws. Don’t forget the silly straws.

  68. Swen says:

    61. sdferr posted on 11/22 @ 12:46 pm

    I’m glad you’ve never experienced any such tribulations. . .

    You don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m afraid. As it happens, I live in hurricane country and have experience many such outages. This has little to do with the likelihood of hyperinflation, however.

    So You’re saying you have experienced such problems, you’re just a slow learner? Because I never addressed the probability of hyperinflation, I was trying to point out that there’s a whole lot of other reasons to be prepared, even hurricanes! Personally, I choose to live my life not counting on shit not happening. Whatever. ‘Tis certainly your life to live.

  69. LBascom says:

    “You don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m afraid. As it happens, I live in hurricane country and have experience many such outages. This has little to do with the likelihood of hyperinflation, however.”

    Glenn Becks doesn’t say stock up because of hyperinflation, he says stock up because it’s just good sense.

    Or weren’t you a boy scout? ;-)

  70. LBascom says:

    ” ‘Tis certainly your life to live.”

    But looters will be shot.

  71. Abe Froman says:

    I’m not real good at stockpiling things. But I do have half a bottle of Jagermeister that’s been sitting in my freezer for ten years in case the Hudson River floods, I can’t get to a liquor store and I turn into a stupid twentysomething again.

  72. sdferr says:

    So You’re saying you have experienced such problems, you’re just a slow learner?

    Why the personal attack?

    Because I never addressed the probability of hyperinflation . . .

    I, however, in the extended quote that seemed to have initially interested you, was addressing the probability of hyperinflation, and the associated claim that people should deploy some part of their working capital storing up a year’s worth of food supplies. Indeed, my life is mine to live, and within that rubric my economic decisions are mine to make. I have not, so far as I know, made any argument that emergencies of various sorts and with various probabilistic strengths don’t happen, nor that people shouldn’t be prepared for those emergencies they understand to be more probable.

  73. sdferr says:

    Glenn Becks doesn’t say stock up because of hyperinflation, he says stock up because it’s just good sense.

    Well, compare that with:

    If and when we get hyper-inflation (something that a LOT of economists are afraid of), who is going to panic when the store shelves empty or when prices quadruple: those who have a pantry full of food or those who have a couple cans of tuna and a bottle of ketchup? And if the disaster doesn’t happen? Hey, the food is still edible. No harm, no foul.

  74. Crawford says:

    sdferr, you’re taking offense where none was offered.

  75. sdferr says:

    I am? I thought being accused of being a slow learner was a sort of backhanded slight. Maybe it’s not, but I don’t think so.

  76. Swen says:

    62. LTC John posted on 11/22 @ 12:47 pm
    Jim,

    Great, another War I am going to have to deploy to?! I must really be out of the cabal too…

    Actually, we were rather hoping you’d be home for the war on the war on Christmas. It’s traditional.

  77. Swen says:

    70. LBascom posted on 11/22 @ 1:22 pm
    ” ‘Tis certainly your life to live.”

    But looters will be shot.

    Meh, we plan on feeding ’em to the crocs. It’ll keep the crocs healthy in the unlikely event that hyperinflation does hit and we need to go into the luggage business.:D

  78. sdferr says:

    But looters will be shot, right Crawford?

  79. Swen says:

    61. sdferr posted on 11/22 @ 12:46 pm

    I’m glad you’ve never experienced any such tribulations. . .

    You don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m afraid.

    72. sdferr posted on 11/22 @ 1:26 pm

    So You’re saying you have experienced such problems, you’re just a slow learner?

    Why the personal attack?

    Gee sdferr, why don’t you tell me?

  80. Crawford says:

    I am? I thought being accused of being a slow learner was a sort of backhanded slight. Maybe it’s not, but I don’t think so.

    I’m referring to the whole thing.

    Objecting to being prepared for an emergency because there won’t be a particular emergency you believe to be unlikely? That’s just picking nits.

    Continuing to object long after it’s been pointed out it’s a general “be prepared” message? Those nits just got smaller.

    Acting like a slow-learner and then objecting that someone noticed? Now you’re into alex territory.

    And, yes, looters should be shot. Why do you have a problem with that idea?

  81. sdferr says:

    Picking nits? Again, I don’t think the claim that there is hyperinflation on the way is a nit exactly.

    Tell you what Swen? All the ways that you know nothing about my life? That would be a profound waste of your time and mine.

  82. Pablo says:

    I blame manopause.

  83. sdferr says:

    On closer reading I find:

    Objecting to being prepared for an emergency because there won’t be a particular emergency you believe to be unlikely?

    See, I don’t think I ever did that, so can’t be justly accused of it.

  84. JD says:

    The innertubes are grump.

  85. Pablo says:

    Here’s the thing, I think, from #1:

    And wouldn’t my time and energy have been poorly spent, if unnoticed or hidden ex post facto, should my misdirected fears never appear? Hyperinflation is a bad thing, sure. But what is the likelihood of it?

    No, your time wouldn’t be poorly spent, because you’ll have expended very little on an ounce of prevention that turns out to be a pound of cure for a great variety of possibilities.

  86. Swen says:

    81. sdferr posted on 11/22 @ 1:59 pm

    Tell you what Swen? All the ways that you know nothing about my life? That would be a profound waste of your time and mine.

    Now you are being obtuse.

    1) I responded to what I perceived as an attack on dicentra’s ‘be prepared’ message. Knowing where dicentra is coming from, I took her ‘be prepared’ as going a good deal beyond worries of hyperinflation.

    2) You responded by telling me ‘you don’t know what you’re talking about’ — gee, could that have been a personal attack? — although I thought I’d made it clear that I wasn’t talking about hyperinflation, but rather the more generalized ‘be prepared’ message.

    3) I responded with a little dig of my own, meant to point out that if you have lived through hurricanes you ought to know that being prepared is a good thing.

    4) You whinge about my personal attack, which was in response to your personal attack.

    5) Now I’m going to point out that if you can’t take it you shouldn’t dish it out. And you know what? I don’t know nor care about your personal life, but perhaps you should get one?

    Now be a good lad and bugger off.

  87. sdferr says:

    On the fears there Pablo. That doesn’t say anything, nor was it intended to say anything about other things, like getting and keeping fresh batteries in the house.

  88. sdferr says:

    I’m glad you’ve never experienced any such tribulations . . .

    Sorry to have misread you then. As to “Now be a good lad and bugger off.”? Are you serious? I mean, beyond being a serious ass about this?

  89. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I’d have thought that in the last two years we’d have lost any illusions re OJT at the White House. [….]Seriously, how could we even think of electing another ‘feel good’ candidate who doesn’t have serious administrative experience? We’ve touched the hot stove, we’ve been burned, let’s not touch it again.

    While I grant this is a legitimate concern, I wouldn’t go so far as to consider Palin solely a “feel good” candidate. I’m also not sure what qualifies as “serious” administrative experience. The truth is that Sarah Palin was more qualified to be Vice-President in ’08 than Barak Obama was to be President. It’s one of those life’s-not-fair ironies that his now-demonstrated inadequacies will be held against Palin by a justifiably twice-shy electorate.

    Back to picking nits.

  90. Crawford says:

    So if I prepare for hyperinflation but instead use the emergency supplies during a blizzard, my “time and energy have been poorly spent”?

  91. sdferr says:

    Do we have no concept of fears representing mental energy and occupation then? Sheesh.

  92. LBascom says:

    you’ll have expended very little on an ounce of prevention that turns out to be a pound of cure for a great variety of possibilities.”
    [my emphasis]

    Well, to be fair, there is a wide variety of pricing depending on which Food Insurance© package you order.

    He does have a great variety of possibilities.

    By looking at one transcript on one show, Scott cannot help but miss the point, because he’s not taking all of the material into consideration. Assuming that he’s taking anything into genuine consideration at all.

    Now! Enough with this echo chamber! There’s a war on the war on Christmas to wage…

  93. McGehee says:

    Do we have no concept of fears representing mental energy and occupation then?

    Sdferr, this thread offers one of the reasons why I’ve tended to shy away lately from discussions that you generate and occupy. I rarely see one of your discussions generate more light than heat.

    Why don’t you stop expending your mental energy and occupation defending what amounts to your failure to communicate your point effectively in the first place?

  94. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I thought we’d agreed to wage war on Kwanzaa instead.

  95. sdferr says:

    So, shut up, no need to defend yourself sdferr when others mistake you, whether intentionally or not, because you can’t write well enough to make your own point in any event, so just go away. Ok. Cool.

  96. Swen says:

    89. Ernst Schreiber posted on 11/22 @ 2:33 pm

    I’d have thought that in the last two years we’d have lost any illusions re OJT at the White House. [….]Seriously, how could we even think of electing another ‘feel good’ candidate who doesn’t have serious administrative experience? We’ve touched the hot stove, we’ve been burned, let’s not touch it again.

    While I grant this is a legitimate concern, I wouldn’t go so far as to consider Palin solely a “feel good” candidate. I’m also not sure what qualifies as “serious” administrative experience. The truth is that Sarah Palin was more qualified to be Vice-President in ’08 than Barak Obama was to be President. It’s one of those life’s-not-fair ironies that his now-demonstrated inadequacies will be held against Palin by a justifiably twice-shy electorate.

    Back to picking nits.

    Agreed, Palin had more administrative experience than Obama. She also has a good deal more real world experience, particularly in business, than Obama, she hasn’t led his insulated and pampered life. She was more qualified in ’08 to be president than Obama. I’d have voted for her if she hadn’t been saddled with McCain, the leader of the whole dang herd o’ RINOs. I’d still vote for her before I’d vote for a more experienced RINO. But yeah, once burned twice shy. The presidency is a really big job, especially during interesting times, I’m hoping we can find someone with a great deal more experience — meaning a multi-term governor or some such — but we shall see.

    If nothing else, I’d vote for Palin just to see all the liberal heads exploding! But just in case she screws up I gots a basement full of food.

  97. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Just to be a wet blanket: Are we squabbling over the appropriate response to hyperinflation, the right metric for gaugeing the probability of hyperinflation before we determine to invest in that appropriate response, Sacred HONOR (Beck’s or Dicentra’s), or is this bust sdferr’s balls day because he was the first to unknowingly use the secret word?

  98. Ernst Schreiber says:

    But just in case she screws up I gots a basement full of food.

    Good to know. Now, please tell me your whereabouts, habits, routine movements, vulnerabilities (e.g. easily targeted teenage dependents) etc. just in case.

  99. bh says:

    All I see is people busting sdferr’s balls.

    I wonder what the secret word was.

    Sdferr said he didn’t know that hyperinflation was likely enough to worry about. Others said there are other reasons to stock up on essentials. Sdferr said that had nothing to do with his point. Then the ball busting.

  100. Swen says:

    94. Ernst Schreiber posted on 11/22 @ 2:48 pm
    I thought we’d agreed to wage war on Kwanzaa instead.

    Someone still celebrates Kwanzaa? Who knew? Perhaps if we ignore it, it’ll go away quietly?

  101. Pablo says:

    Good to know. Now, please tell me your whereabouts, habits, routine movements, vulnerabilities (e.g. easily targeted teenage dependents) etc. just in case.

    Mostly I’m in the basement reloading ammo, except for when I trek off to the range. OK, your turn! Send me a pic!

  102. Bob Reed says:

    I was wondering that myself Ernst.

    I personally don’t see Wiemar-esque hyperinflation in the near future, but increases in gas and food that will clearly be uncomfortable to some.

    All the same, nothing wrong at all with having supplies, food, ammo, etc, socked in, especially if you’re so inclined; moreso if you live in a remote or disaster prone region. I do mainly to keep my MIL from worrying unnecessarily, even though I live adjacent to NYC.

    And I keep lots of ammo, because my pieces eat an exotic “flavor” and it’s cheaper to by a whole lot at once.

    But it’s all a matter of personal comfort and discretion. So I’m not really understanding the dispute, but haven’t reviewed the entire thread.

    As our pal Danger often says, let’s keep the fire downrange.

  103. Carin says:

    I thought we’d agreed to wage war on Kwanzaa instead.

    You’d think we could build consensus from that.

  104. Pablo says:

    Fortunately, I think we can generally agree that SEK is a mendoucheous twatwaffle.

  105. Carin says:

    Someone still celebrates Kwanzaa? Who knew? Perhaps if we ignore it, it’ll go away quietly?

    We’ve tried that Swen, and it hasn’t worked.

    I blame the media. They certainly do their most to pimp that holiday, don’t they?

  106. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I wonder what the secret word was.

    I’m guessing the latinate fancy talk for “after the fact” bh. Fancy talkers need refudiatin’ is what they need.

  107. Carin says:

    ortunately, I think we can generally agree that SEK is a mendoucheous twatwaffle.

    EXCELLENT. Let’s start there.

    SEK is a mendoucheous twatwaffle, and the WAR ON CHRISTMAS is now THE WAR ON KWANZA.

    Or, were we gonna do a WAR ON THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS?

  108. bh says:

    Fortunately, I think we can generally agree that SEK is a mendoucheous twatwaffle.

    … with a pedo beard.

  109. McGehee says:

    Sdferr said he didn’t know that hyperinflation was likely enough to worry about.

    In response to something that was said about stocking up on essentials.

    Personally, I don’t give a fuck why people want to be prepared, and I don’t give a fuck what other people think about why I might want to be prepared. It’s nobody’s damn business to say, “Oh, my reason for wanting to be prepared is valid but yours isn’t likely enough to worry about.”

    That’s what sdferr’s point looked like to me, and I say the hell with it.

  110. Swen says:

    98. Ernst Schreiber posted on 11/22 @ 3:10 pm

    But just in case she screws up I gots a basement full of food.

    Good to know. Now, please tell me your whereabouts, habits, routine movements, vulnerabilities (e.g. easily targeted teenage dependents) etc. just in case.

    Did I mention the crocodiles? Well, it’s unlikely you’ll ever meet them because, in the hopefully unlikely event that the shit ever really hits the fan you’ll have to come through the Shoshone and Arapaho Nations first. Or the Crows. I think of it as a layered defense. :)

  111. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Note to self: bring M-80s when visiting Pablo to “borrow” some canned tuna and ramen noodles.

  112. alex_walter says:

    I’ve just been enjoying the fratricide here while Santa arms the sled with 500 pounders, writes a short dedication on the side of each piece of ordinance to fond reindeer memories, and sets his sights for Kwanzaa HQ. But back to regular programming:

    “She was more qualified in ’08 to be president than Obama.”

    I guess you guys are mixed up about presidential qualifications. They are (1) natural born (2) 35 years old (3) 14 years in the US, and (4) 270 electoral votes.

    She should be able to swing 1, 2, and 3 – but for #4, the term “snowball’s chance in hell” comes to mind.

  113. bh says:

    In response to something that was said about stocking up on essentials.

    This is what he was responding to: “If and when we get hyper-inflation (something that a LOT of economists are afraid of), who is going to panic when the store shelves empty or when prices quadruple: those who have a pantry full of food or those who have a couple cans of tuna and a bottle of ketchup?”

    He quoted it in the very first comment. Look at the rest of the comment. He’s talking about hyper-inflation. It’s been an ongoing discussion around here, in fact. Look at #61, “This has little to do with the likelihood of hyperinflation, however.” He’s made his thrust abundantly clear.

    That’s what sdferr’s point looked like to me, and I say the hell with it.

    Well, that didn’t look like his point to me, so I don’t feel any need to send it to hell.

  114. Carin says:

    bh, I don’t know how I’m supposed to take you seriously with that avatard.

  115. Mike LaRoche says:

    the term “snowball’s chance in hell” comes to mind.

    …concerning Obama’s re-election chances. In 2008 he was the least-qualified, least experienced president in American history, and his performance over the past two years has done nothing to alter that fact.

  116. Ernst Schreiber says:

    the WAR ON CHRISTMAS is now THE WAR ON KWANZA.

    Or, were we gonna do a WAR ON THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS?

    I think we should wage war on the COMMERICALIZATION of Christmas. I want you all to show your opposition to crass commercialism, by running to the nearest big-box store and buying Charlie Brown Christmas and Miracle on 34th Street (both versions) on Blu-Ray. Buy a Blue Ray player if you need to. Oh and a flat screen HDTV if you don’t have one so you can really appreciate quality and craftsmanship that went into the Blu-Ray transfer.

    And remember, I am in no way, a compensated spokeperson for the fine anti-commercialism products that I’ve just endorsed, (wink-wink nudge nudge).

  117. bh says:

    Hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husband, Carin.

  118. Mike LaRoche says:

    And as for Obama’s alleged intellectual superiority, as someone around here said a couple of weeks ago, perhaps if Obama is nominated for the Heisman the press will finally look into his academic record.

  119. Carin says:

    baa haaa haaaa!

  120. Ernst Schreiber says:

    270 electoral votes aren’t a qualification smart ass.

  121. Mike LaRoche says:

    And since this is a Glenn Beck thread: Happy RamaHanuKwanzMas!

  122. Ernst Schreiber says:

    270 isn’t even a requirement.

  123. alppuccino says:

    (1) natural born (2) 35 years old (3) 14 years in the US, and (4) 270 electoral votes.

    (5) Public oral IQ test.

    That’s the one that would’ve done Obama in. If you think he sounds like a jibbering idiot when he’s asked one off-script questions, just think how he’d be if he were asked several questions that actually have definitive right and wrong answers.

    He’s sound like Monty Python sketch.

  124. alppuccino says:

    He’d

  125. Carin says:

    think we should wage war on the COMMERICALIZATION of Christmas. I want you all to show your opposition to crass commercialism, by running to the nearest big-box store and buying Charlie Brown Christmas and Miracle on 34th Street (both versions) on Blu-Ray. Buy a Blue Ray player if you need to. Oh and a flat screen HDTV if you don’t have one so you can really appreciate quality and craftsmanship that went into the Blu-Ray transfer.

    It’s that time of year when I start talking about Christmas music …

    I’ve found ONE new album that looks interesting. It’s by a group of artists that go by the monicker Ten Out Of Tenn.

  126. alppuccino says:

    In fact, he’d sound like my writing @ 123

  127. alppuccino says:

    but he does poop hope.

  128. cranky-d says:

    It’s not even thanksgiving yet, and we’re all annoyed with each other.

  129. Ernst Schreiber says:

    OT: Thank Odin! Brad Childress has been cast into Niflheim, where frost giants will feast on his entrails until Ragnarok!

  130. LBascom says:

    I just wanted noted for the record I came no where close to sdferr’s balls.

    Sheesh, wadda I look like, a TSA agent?

    This is what he was responding to: “If and when we get hyper-inflation (something that a LOT of economists are afraid of), who is going to panic when the store shelves empty or when prices quadruple: those who have a pantry full of food or those who have a couple cans of tuna and a bottle of ketchup?”

    Then, the response to that was: hyperinflation is used as example, Beck pushes preparedness in a wide variety of circumstances, which hardens the case to stock up.

    I don’t know what happened after that…

  131. happyfeet says:

    you can’t stock up on brown rice really did you know that?

    it’s true it goes bad relatively quickly and you can’t really tell just when you cook it it goes all gloppy on you

    And that is the story of the stocking up on the brown rice.

    Also Mr. sdferr is right about the hyperinflations being a lot unlikely. I think 6% inflation is more closer to what’s probable and personally I think that would be a lot ghastly and alarming but I doubt anybody would be missing any meals except for, you know, really really poor people.

  132. LBascom says:

    “it” noted.

    stick it where it goes, haters…

  133. cranky-d says:

    The is the last time I invite you all to dinner!

    *runs away sobbing*

  134. LBascom says:

    “you can’t stock up on brown rice really did you know that?”

    Flour is hard too, it gets weevils. Beck was talking the other day about how his wife stocks up on whole grains, and makes flour when needed ‘cuz it lasts longer that way.

    Maybe that was when he was talking about China invading though, so it might not pertain to this discussion.

  135. Pablo says:

    “She was more qualified in ’08 to be president than Obama.”

    I guess you guys are mixed up about presidential qualifications. They are (1) natural born (2) 35 years old (3) 14 years in the US, and (4) 270 electoral votes.

    She should be able to swing 1, 2, and 3 – but for #4, the term “snowball’s chance in hell” comes to mind.

    Yeah, she got ZERO electoral votes for President in ’08. It seems you forgot #5: You have to toss your hat in the ring.

    Don’t ever let anybody tell you you’re not a sharp motherfucker, alex. I’ve got dibs on that.

  136. bh says:

    The is the last time I invite you all to dinner!

    *runs away sobbing*

    Anyone know where the liquor cabinet is?

  137. alex_walter says:

    She’ll get zero in 2012 too, regardless of her “hat in the ring” decision.

  138. Ernst Schreiber says:

    The is the last time I invite you all to dinner!

    If you hadn’t turned the turkey into lump of charcoal, I wouldn’tve had to bust your lip would I? Now stop your bawling and git yer ass back in the kitchen you whiny little bitch!

  139. Ernst Schreiber says:

    No liquor bh! I start drinking in the mood I’m in and Poland is going to get invaded! You wanna be responsible for that?

  140. bh says:

    An after dinner digestif reduces the likelihood of blitzkrieg by over 30%, Ernst. Read it in Men’s Health.

  141. Mike LaRoche says:

    For relaxing times, make it Suntory time.

  142. LBascom says:

    If Palin is the nominee running against Obama in 2012, I would vote for her with a clear conscience.

    DON’T PUSH YOUR MORALITY ON ME!!!

  143. cranky-d says:

    Do the Dew. Be the Dew. Tullamore Dew.

    I was not compensated in any way for this endorsement

  144. Pablo says:

    She’ll get zero in 2012 too, regardless of her “hat in the ring” decision.

    Wait, I thought that a Palin nomination was the left’s fondest hope and latest plan? Are you thinking she’d get skunked, alex?

  145. newrouter says:

    have some acorn fun: vote early and often for bristol tonite

  146. Swen says:

    102. Bob Reed posted on 11/22 @ 3:15 pm
    I was wondering that myself Ernst.

    I personally don’t see Wiemar-esque hyperinflation in the near future, but increases in gas and food that will clearly be uncomfortable to some.

    All the same, nothing wrong at all with having supplies, food, ammo, etc, socked in, especially if you’re so inclined; moreso if you live in a remote or disaster prone region. I do mainly to keep my MIL from worrying unnecessarily, even though I live adjacent to NYC.

    And I keep lots of ammo, because my pieces eat an exotic “flavor” and it’s cheaper to by a whole lot at once.

    But it’s all a matter of personal comfort and discretion. So I’m not really understanding the dispute, but haven’t reviewed the entire thread.

    As our pal Danger often says, let’s keep the fire downrange.

    But you see, like the Spanish Inquisition, no one expects the Wiemar-esque Hyperinflation! [He says with his best British accent.] But seriously, who the heck knows what’s going to happen? Certainly not me, I’m no economist and my crystal ball is in for repairs. I do find the current fiscal situation in the US very troubling and by all reports we’re in good shape compared to the EU. China, Russia, and India are one bad crop away from serious trouble. “In uncharted waters” I think I read somewhere, so perhaps no one really knows. Besides, Wiemar-esque hyperinflation is just the bogeyman of the day.

    Allow me to let my inner paranoid out to play: There’s also global thermonuclear war or its baby bro, an EMP attack. Or we could have another Mount Tambora-esque volcanic eruption — anybody wanna guess how many people would survive another “Year Without a Summer” causing global crop failures? Or another New Madrid-sized earthquake. That would be exciting. Or a massive solar flare like the one that happened this last summer, that doesn’t miss? Or another Little Ice Age. Or an astroid impact. Or.. Throughout history such extreme natural disasters occur with frightening regularity. Our global infrastructure is fragile and we’re terribly dependent on it. Even so deep a thinker as Stephen Hawking thinks humans won’t survive as a species if we keep all our eggs in this planet’s basket.

    Makes a darn good argument for putting a bit of extra ammo away, along with all the rest. Some of the survivalists — err, “preppers” I believe they prefer now — argue that you should have weapons that use common calibers, but how many shootouts do you think you can survive? And if you do survive you’ll have their weapons too. So if you like something exotic — short of a gyrojet — why not?

    One nit: In the case of TEOTWAWKI I’d argue that you’d be better off not to be in or near a big city. It doesn’t take much for a crowd to become a mob and rioting mobs are berry dangerous. A hungry, thirsty, frightened, rioting mob? Brrrr.. All in all I think it’s safer to be somewhere more remote where some semblance of order would be easier to maintain. Obviously that’s often not an option, so just a thought.

  147. happyfeet says:

    humans won’t survive as a species if we keep all our eggs in this planet’s basket.

    I don’t think you can really stock up on eggs neither you’d have to get your own Carin birds.

  148. Mike LaRoche says:

    have some acorn fun: vote early and often for bristol tonite

    It’ll be the first time I’ve ever seen DWTS. Making libtard heads explode is a worthy cause.

  149. Swen says:

    105. Carin posted on 11/22 @ 3:17 pm

    Someone still celebrates Kwanzaa? Who knew? Perhaps if we ignore it, it’ll go away quietly?

    We’ve tried that Swen, and it hasn’t worked.

    I blame the media. They certainly do their most to pimp that holiday, don’t they?

    Pimp Kwanzaa? [Gasp!] :D

  150. Mike LaRoche says:

    I was not compensated in any way for this endorsement

    I’ll take my compensation in Carin birds.

  151. Stephanie says:

    http://originalismblog.typepad.com/the-originalism-blog/

    Well, well. Look what is appearing on the tubes.

  152. newrouter says:

    Bristol Palin & Mark Ballas 800-868-3407
    800-VOTE4-07

  153. Bob Reed says:

    Well Swen,
    I’m not sure why you quoted my comment; it sound like we’re in agreement on much, save for the hyperinflation part. I explained my view upthread at #19. So I’m thinking high inflation, but not necessarily hyper-Weimar-style.

    And you’re correct, disasters happen, we’ll never know what or when, and living next to NYC is probably not bad. Now, I don’t have 9 million rounds, but a few thousand; enough that I could probably make my way to relatives in nearby Pa, or to a place I have in the Blue Ridge mountains.

    So I stock what I can, more than enough to get me through getting out of dodge if necessary, to where I can live off of game if necessary. I’m happy for you if you’re prepared to your own satisfaction and in a good place yourself.

  154. Swen says:

    112. alex_walter posted on 11/22 @ 3:27 pm
    I’ve just been enjoying the fratricide here while Santa arms the sled with 500 pounders, writes a short dedication on the side of each piece of ordinance to fond reindeer memories, and sets his sights for Kwanzaa HQ. But back to regular programming:

    “She was more qualified in ’08 to be president than Obama.”

    I guess you guys are mixed up about presidential qualifications. They are (1) natural born (2) 35 years old (3) 14 years in the US, and (4) 270 electoral votes.

    She should be able to swing 1, 2, and 3 – but for #4, the term “snowball’s chance in hell” comes to mind.

    Indeed. Wasn’t there a poll not so long ago that concluded Palin is the most polarizing figure in today’s politics? Worst than that, it would be the left going off the deep end and they tend to be as vocal as they are irrational. Of course, she draws a lot of fire that might otherwise be directed more effectively so it’s good to keep her around. In my eViL little heart I think a Palin presidential run would be tons of fun — kinda like visiting the monkey house at the local zoo ‘cept on TV — but then I poke rattlesnakes with a stick just to hear them buzz.. Realistically, I don’t know how much more polarization the polity can take.

  155. Swen says:

    116. Ernst Schreiber posted on 11/22 @ 3:39 pm
    the WAR ON CHRISTMAS is now THE WAR ON KWANZA.

    Or, were we gonna do a WAR ON THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS?

    I think we should wage war on the COMMERICALIZATION of Christmas. …

    Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, but could we wait until I get my Christmas shopping done? I’m kinda wrapped up with that right now.

  156. newrouter says:

    Realistically, I don’t know how much more polarization the polity can take.

    choices: economic insanity or economic sanity

  157. geoffb says:

    She’ll get zero in 2012 too, regardless of her “hat in the ring” decision.

    It’s all in the definitions.

  158. happyfeet says:

    where’s Mr. sdferr? I found an amazing new cpg for to taste.

    flippin’ yum is what this is

    I *think* it’s new anyway – I don’t remember seeing it ever before. There’s a lot of blah blah blah on the container about … I don’t know – something about making a pie. That’s retarded. Just get yourself a spoon and you’re good to go.

    It’s going to be really really hard not to hit this again.

  159. Swen says:

    135. LBascom posted on 11/22 @ 4:03 pm

    “you can’t stock up on brown rice really did you know that?”

    Flour is hard too, it gets weevils. Beck was talking the other day about how his wife stocks up on whole grains, and makes flour when needed ‘cuz it lasts longer that way.

    Maybe that was when he was talking about China invading though, so it might not pertain to this discussion.

    On the other hand, pinto beans are reputed to keep pretty much forever. If you’re going to stock up on food the key is to pay attention to the expiration dates and rotate your stock. My wife keeps lists of what we’ve got and when it expires, and we’re forever eating something that’s about to expire. Most all the canned and dried stuff will keep a year though, although flour is best kept in the freezer.

    If China invades — why would they want to do that? Don’t they have enough problems at home? — I say let them have all the out-of-date stuff they want!

  160. Jeff G. says:

    Classical liberalism, originalism… I must be hallucinating…

  161. Swen says:

    154. Bob Reed posted on 11/22 @ 4:59 pm
    Well Swen,
    I’m not sure why you quoted my comment; it sound like we’re in agreement on much, save for the hyperinflation part. …

    Because it gave me the perfect excuse to slip in a little Monty Pythonism. A little mirth amongst the mayhem. I’m agnostic about hyperinflation. Really! When it comes to global economics I’d be the last guy to listen to. I’ve studied enough hostory to know that all kinds of bad shit happens though, both man-made and naturally occurring. That can’t happen here is a phrase that will never pass my lips.

  162. Swen says:

    “hostory” is like “herstory” except with horses. You like horses, right?

  163. LBascom says:

    “If you’re going to stock up on food the key is to pay attention to the expiration dates and rotate your stock. ”

    Expiration dates are for the finicky (and apparently the very ambitious).

    I buy mostly canned stuff, and if shit goes down five years from now, and I’m really hungry, they will be just fine, I’m sure…

    You can never tell with the Chinese. They’re inscrutable. Besides, I may have made that part up, my memory being what it is.

  164. LBascom says:

    “Classical liberalism, originalism… I must be hallucinating…”

    Ever heard of this Mike Rappaport fella?

  165. Carin says:

    I had to run to the store a bit ago ’cause I was out of chicken food. [shudder] They get nasty when they’re out of food. They’ll peck at anything. And when I finally bring in the food, the jump on me and start eating it right out of my arms.

  166. Carin says:

    Also – here’s a little bit of chicken knowledge for everyone. In the winter, you need to put a light on in the coop for extra hours, or they don’t lay many eggs.

    I had procrastinated, and I was down to three a day. The light’s been on a week, and I’m up to 6.

  167. Ric Locke says:

    #161 Jeff — you should neither feel left out nor get your hopes up.

    From a quick scan of the “Originalism Blog” and some slight familiarity with the people it quotes with admiration, what they mean by “originalism” is “digging around in the background of the Framers to find excuses for what we want to do”. One of them even calls them on it!

    As either a back-channel approach to intentionalism or a hope for the future it’s a non-starter. Just lawyers with an agenda.

    Regards,
    Ric

  168. alex_walter says:

    Wait, I thought that a Palin nomination was the left’s fondest hope and latest plan? Are you thinking she’d get skunked, alex?

    You mean, get skunked again? Yeah.

  169. newrouter says:

    You mean, get skunked again? Yeah.

    no that’s a progg view of reality

  170. Swen says:

    157. newrouter posted on 11/22 @ 5:04 pm

    Realistically, I don’t know how much more polarization the polity can take.

    choices: economic insanity or economic sanity

    I certainly hope we’ve chosen economic sanity, but my Magic 8-ball says “The future is cloudy” and recent history says “dream on”. I really, Really, REALLY hope that our congresscritters have gotten the economic sanity message, but I also remember a lot of promises made in the Contract With America that got forgotten after that election. The new batch of promises in the Pledge to America includes the promise to “put common-sense limits on the growth of government” (see page 21). We can’t afford the government we’ve got but all they’re willing to promise is that under Republican control the government will grow slower than under the control of the Dems? So we’ll go broke a little slower?? Seems like our choices were between extreme economic insanity and moderate economic insanity.

    I think Angelo M. Codevilla is right, the Democrat and Republican establishments have joined to become an inside-the-beltway Ruling Class that’s pretty much out of control. We’ve taken the first small steps toward getting them back under control, but we’ve got a lot of house-cleaning yet to do to have any hope of economic sanity. And we’ve got to keep an eye on them every minute. To paraphrase Joni Mitchell, when they’re our of our sight they’re out of their minds.

  171. newrouter says:

    oh please call

    “1-800-868-3407 CALL IN NOW DON’T WAIT!!!!ABC.COM GO BRISTOL!!!!!!!”

  172. alex_walter says:

    Yep Swen, but it’s a two party system. You either get to vote for the corrupt and cowardly bad guys, or the other corrupt and cowardly bad guys. Your pick! What flavor of corruption would you like? It’s going to get far worse before we can even hope for better.

  173. alex_walter says:

    You mean, get skunked again? Yeah.

    no that’s a progg view of reality

    If that’s how you choose to relabel “accurate” – so be it. I think it’s overly generous to the proggs though.

  174. Mike LaRoche says:

    Teh Won knows all about being skunked after November 2.

  175. bh says:

    Stupid question here, Mike. Does the pictogram in your avatar mean “over my dead body”? Like, you can take my gun from my cold, dead hands?

  176. Swen says:

    164. LBascom posted on 11/22 @ 5:54 pm

    “If you’re going to stock up on food the key is to pay attention to the expiration dates and rotate your stock. ”

    Expiration dates are for the finicky (and apparently the very ambitious).

    I buy mostly canned stuff, and if shit goes down five years from now, and I’m really hungry, they will be just fine, I’m sure…

    You can never tell with the Chinese. They’re inscrutable. Besides, I may have made that part up, my memory being what it is.

    Mostly finicky. I’m not the one who keeps lists, I’m with you, if the can isn’t all swollen up it’s probably okay. My wife wasn’t finicky either until she opened a can of kippered snacks and found that the kippers were gone, replaced by maggots. Nasty, squirmy maggots.8P Grossed her out so bad that she won’t eat anything that’s even one day past expired.

    In conducting inventories of historic sites on public lands one of the most common sorts we find are sheepherder camps, marked by scatters of cans and bottles. We don’t have to document them if they’re less than 50 years old and we usually make that determination based on the manufacturing techniques of the cans and bottles, which changed through time. One of the more common sorts of chronologically diagnostic cans is a “hole-and-cap” can that was made at least partly by hand. They were discontinued around 1920.

    So, I was recording one of these sites one day with a friend who’s an historian and also a Mormon. I was writing in my notes that the hole-and-cap cans indicated that the site had been occupied prior to 1920, give or take a bit. He just laughed and said that he’s seen some old Mormon ranchers giving those cans to their sheepherders clean into the 1960’s! ‘Course, when you spend your life hanging out with sheep, how finicky can you be?

  177. Mike LaRoche says:

    Stupid question here, Mike. Does the pictogram in your avatar mean “over my dead body”? Like, you can take my gun from my cold, dead hands?

    bh,

    That’s a good question, I think. The pictogram in my avatar is a flag from the Texas Revolution (1835-36). In fact, it was the flag flown at the first battle of the conflict: the Battle of Gonzales on October 2, 1835. The battle started when a group of one hundred Mexican dragoons were dispatched to the town of Gonzales (east of San Antonio) to recover a cannon that had been lent by the government to the settlers of that town for the purpose of fighting off Indian raids. The settlers refused to hand over the cannon and instead flew the above-pictured flag of defiance. After being fired upon, the Mexicans withdrew.

    The slogan “come and take it” has roots in classical history as well. A similar phrase – “come and take them” – was supposedly made by King Leonidas to the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae in response to a Persian demand that the Spartans lay down their arms.

    So yes, the sentiment expressed is much like “over my dead body” or “from my cold, dead hands.”

  178. bh says:

    Thanks for the history, Mike. I was totally ignorant of any of that.

    I thought the cannon was a man on the ground, like a dead body. Then the star represented “over”. “Over” + “dead body”. It’s rather remarkable that I’d accidentally read it like a rebus and come to the same basic idea. Weird.

  179. Swen says:

    Ah, the Texas Revolution! In an effort to cheer up our pukey host [sorry about the maggot story, I know, I promised, but I couldn’t not tell about that!] I shall relate a story about the Texas Revolution: Seems Jim Bowie and Davie Crockett were standing on the ramparts of the Alamo one day gazing off toward the south when Santa Anna and 10,000 Mexicans came boiling over the horizon and descended on them. Crockett turned to Bowie and said “are we pouring concrete today?”

    Okay, I denounce myself.

  180. JD says:

    I think some people were aggressively unfair to sdferr here.

    And did I miss where Palin had the opportunity to garner electoral votes?

  181. Mike LaRoche says:

    I thought the cannon was a man on the ground, like a dead body. Then the star represented “over”. “Over” + “dead body”. It’s rather remarkable that I’d accidentally read it like a rebus and come to the same basic idea. Weird.

    Yes, now that you mention it, the flag does look like a rebus! But as you said, what matters is the right idea getting through.

  182. Mike LaRoche says:

    Ah, the Texas Revolution! In an effort to cheer up our pukey host [sorry about the maggot story, I know, I promised, but I couldn’t not tell about that!] I shall relate a story about the Texas Revolution: Seems Jim Bowie and Davie Crockett were standing on the ramparts of the Alamo one day gazing off toward the south when Santa Anna and 10,000 Mexicans came boiling over the horizon and descended on them. Crockett turned to Bowie and said “are we pouring concrete today?”

    Okay, I denounce myself.

    Do you know why there were only 3,000 Mexicans at the Battle of the Alamo?

    Because they only had four trucks.

  183. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Ah, the Texas Revolution!

    Phillip Thomas Tucker says that everything you Texicans and Texican fanboys think you know about the Alamo is not only wrong, but a damned lie as well.

    Kamerad! Nicht schießen! Der Krieg ist vorbei!

  184. newrouter says:

    As Tucker provides long-overdue corrections to the Alamo story unknown to most readers, this should be read by scholars and lay readers alike. . . –Library Journal 3/2010

    so say the communists -library journO!list

  185. Mike LaRoche says:

    Philip Thomas Tucker is just another revisionist leftist academic and a yellow-bellied sap sucker to boot.

    The definitive account of the Battle of the Alamo is A Line in the Sand by Randy Roberts and James S. Olson.

  186. Ernst Schreiber says:

    so say the communists -library journO!list

    In point of fact, newrouter, since the whole purpose of Library Journal is to get institutional purchasing agents to fork over tax dollars, they’re more like the used car salesmen of professional publications. I think a book would have to be exceptionally craptacular to merit a negative review.

  187. dicentra says:

    Molon labe, if I’m not mistaken.

  188. dicentra says:

    Over at SEK’s our old friend timb says “Speaking of insane, Jeff Golstein [sic] has a 1,000,000 word essay on way Glenn Beck is right and you are wrong!”

    (No, sweetie, dicentra wrote the essay and it’s about how SEK is a lazy Smug-o-crat.)

    SEK himself has made no comment at all. Apparently, I don’t rate.

    Best news I’ve heard all day.

  189. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Tucker’s aggressively revisionist, that’s for sure.

  190. The Monster says:

    Molon labe, if I’m not mistaken.

    This is madness!

    This… Is… PROTEIN WISDOM!

  191. LBascom says:

    “I thought the cannon was a man on the ground, like a dead body. ”

    A man on the ground!? Geez bh, are you retarded or just really, really slow? *snort*

    Sorry, no offense. I was just trying to help sdferr feel less lonely.

  192. Swen says:

    So.. Instead of staying inside the Alamo and dying to a man in daylight, Tucker says the Alamo was overrun and many died trying to fight their way out in the dark. My. I’m crushed. I mean! This destroys the key narrative about how they bravely refused to surrender despite overwhelming odds. I’ll never think of them the same way again.

  193. JD says:

    Timmah is nothing if not a creepy little fucker.

  194. LBascom says:

    “Tucker says the Alamo was overrun and many died trying to fight their way out in the dark. ”

    Are you sure Tucker didn’t mean many Mexicans died trying to fight their way out in the dark?

    “Hay todavía dos quedaron vivos! Huye! Huye!”

  195. bh says:

    Heh, it’s already been established that I’m dumber than a bag of dumb people, Lee.

    (Joking around is the best medicine regardless. Guys have an interesting tendency to tell one another to “fuck off” from time to time. It is what it is. Unfortunately, around here, we don’t often have large harvest meals and general drunkenness where we can complete the cycle by saying “I love you, man”. )

  196. Swen says:

    BTW, did Tucker have anything to say about the four trucks? There was nothing about them in the Amazon review.

  197. Danger says:

    This is a fine how do you do for the holidays.

    The guys makin the ammo are always the last ones to find out about the war cranky (can’t have em up and enlisting on us ;)

  198. serr8d says:

    If nothing else, I’d vote for Palin just to see all the liberal heads exploding!

    There’s a good reason leftists hate her…

    As well as attacking Obama, much of the book is filled with criticism of liberals and the mainstream media, and feminists who support abortion.

    …they have nothing but hatred and derision for anyone who dares challenge their ‘smug’ worldviews. The more a candidate attacks, the more hatreds they will garner. Earn enough lefty hatred points, then the ‘softer’ amongst us become concerned about the outspoken candidate’s electability. Call it the Sarah Palin trap: unless the NYT approves, you can’t possibly win.

    I won’t yet decry Sarah Palin’s considered run against BHO based solely on a stack of accumulated leftist hatreds. No matter who is ‘selected’ to run as G.O.P. nominee, that person will eventually become just as vilified as Sarah Palin IF s/he chooses to argue aggressively against progressive policies. If s/he don’t gustily attack proggtards (eg. McCain, Romney, Huckholio), you’ve managed to find another (NYT approved) RINO candidate. God help us if that candidate wins; we’d simply lose ground at a slightly slower pace (as has happened during the last 3 G.O.P. terms controlling the Presidency).

  199. Danger says:

    “oh please call”

    newrouter,
    How many more tv murders can our conscience take? ;)

  200. Danger says:

    “Great, another War I am going to have to deploy to?! I must really be out of the cabal too…”

    oops my bad,

    There is one group that is informed even later that the ammo suppliers. The army of course. Much easier to embrace the suck when it’s a surprise Colonel;)

  201. Danger says:

    “The innertubes are grump.”

    JD,

    Wheres bh? He’s supposed to be on grump patrol!

  202. serr8d says:

    This comment, from my earlier link, has to be Iowahawk…

    The Palins are a bunch of uncultured country bumpkins hillbillies. They have no impressive education, no social class, no cultural fine taste, no decent family pedigree. They are a bunch of stinking losers.

    Compared that to President Obama who has consistently scored excellent grades in his Ivy League education, elevated to highly-envied social stauts, developed tremendous fine things in life and unparalleled family upbringing. President Obama even played better golf than the those Hillbillies Palins. Civilised people like us hold more than one golf country clubs while those country bumpkins hillbillies would never have touched even one single golf club in their entire pathetic miserable lives. People who have never played golf like the Palins are worse than pigs and cockroaches.

    People like us are highly educated, highly cultured, highly civilized, highly developed, well-born, well-nurtured and well-bred should never be allowed to be led by those Wasilly trash. America is the land Of the Best, By the Best, and For the Best. We simply represent the Best and those filthy barbarians like the Palins are simply the worst.

    America has become such a great country because we have never allowed cheap serfs like those Wasilly Hillbilly ever become our leaders. India becomes a great civilisation because they keep those uncultured Untouchables caste at the bottom of the society. We should continue to follow the great foot-steps of our Indian mentors to suppress those untouchable Wasilly Hillbilly at the very bottom of our feet forever. Low-life Hillbillies like the Palins are only worthy to clean my toilets and polish me loos.

    I am also utterly disgusted by these filthy Untouchables. These unpolished, uncivilised barbarians are born to be led, not to lead.

  203. Jeff G. says:

    By the way, di — an excellent piece.

    Timmah’s complaint is that it had too many words for his little head to wrap around — ironic, given that I don’t think SEK could order a Diet Coke in under 5000 words.

  204. JD says:

    That is remarkable, serr8d.

  205. alex_walter says:

    nothing but hatred and derision for anyone who dares challenge their ‘smug’ worldviews.

    Au contraire. Palin has been given all due respect.

  206. serr8d says:

    Au contraire. Palin has been given all due respect.

    Funny, this one.

    Sarah Palin is given as much respect from proggtards as was President George Bush (who defeated Al Gore in 2000, and John Kerry in 2004), I’d say.

    Just to remind you. Now you’ll lose sleep, and when you do finally do sleep, you’ll dream unsettling and tremulous dreams.

  207. JD says:

    Oh for the sake of fuck. Why must people insist on being pricks, Alex. Is it in your DNA? Or are you just constitutionally incapable of being a normal not dickhead person?

  208. serr8d says:

    He’s a foreskin, JD. )

  209. serr8d says:

    OH, and JD, you will FEAR THE RUSTY~! won’t you ?

  210. JD says:

    We get everyone’s best, and I am sure that Rusty will be all geeked up to get a shot at the Colts.

  211. bh says:

    Wheres bh? He’s supposed to be on grump patrol!

    This is why I should never take a bathroom break and leave the halls unattended, Danger. Pure anarchy.

  212. dicentra says:

    By the way, di — an excellent piece.

    Thanks, Jeff. Your perspective will improve when you stop puking your guts out. 0_o

  213. Swen says:

    195. LBascom posted on 11/22 @ 8:21 pm

    “Tucker says the Alamo was overrun and many died trying to fight their way out in the dark. ”

    Are you sure Tucker didn’t mean many Mexicans died trying to fight their way out in the dark?

    “Hay todavía dos quedaron vivos! Huye! Huye!”

    No, no, from the Amazon review I gather that the Mexicans all survived unscathed..

    But seriously, the review has this being “a startling new analysis” … “contrary to movie and legend”. The historical record doesn’t comport with movies and legends? Imagine that! Did the reviewer honestly think that people take John Wayne movies as the gospel truth? Besides me, I mean? As for the story of the Alamo being a “myth” and a “legend”, well yeah, it’s not as if there were a lot of survivors to tell the tale. The review itself says the Mexican accounts are only recently discovered. That the defenders refused to surrender and died to a man is about all we really know and we only kinda sorta know that, but this “startling new analysis” doesn’t materially change that. If the Texans died trying to fight their way out of a position that had been overrun were they any less heroic? And if the movie depicted the final battle as occurring during the day, wasn’t that as much as anything because they didn’t have the technology to film night scenes?

    What’s next, a startling new analysis that destroys our illusions that Butch and Sundance escaped from the posse by jumping in a river? [sigh] I’m all too familiar with this sort of academic puffery. Sometimes it seems like every time a paleontologist finds three new bones it’s going to revolutionize everything we know about dinosaurs. Every archaeological dig discovers a previously unknown civilization. Every musty old diary shakes the foundations of history.

    To a large extent it’s the chase for research grants. No one is going to give an archaeologist a million bucks to prove that the Indians sat around a campfire eating a rabbit and throwing the bones over their shoulders. You’ve got to convince the grant committee that your research can revolutionize everything we know about rabbit-eating and bone throwing. Then, if you want to publish your results you’ve got to convince the publishers that you did revolutionize everything we know about rabbit-eating and bone-throwing. Couple that with some understandable enthusiasm, we wouldn’t devote our lives to these disciplines if we didn’t get excited about our findings and sure, finding new documentary and forensic evidence that gives us more insight into the events at the Alamo is exciting. But hyperventilating over how this shatters the illusions we might have harbored after watching an old movie is pretty over the top even by our usual over-the-top standards..

  214. dicentra says:

    This comment, from my earlier link, has to be Iowahawk…

    Burge would have written it in iambic pentameter and woven in three literary allusions per line.

    So, no, but the comment was definitely not written in earnest.

  215. serr8d says:

    So, no, but the comment was definitely not written in earnest.

    But given the near-110% lefty hate-filled comments brought out and endorsed by that article and the Guardian, I’d say it was written in refreshing.

  216. bh says:

    You know that I strongly prefer it when you curse in Spanish, di. That’s my critique.

    Verde pantalones! (I truly mean that.)

  217. dicentra says:

    bh, go wash your mouf out with soap, you murciélago cantábrico.

    Now put down that drink. The holidays don’t start for another 48 hours.

  218. bh says:

    Good times.

  219. serr8d says:

    Oh. Image result for pantalones verde.

    Di, you little minx. )

  220. Ric Locke says:

    I find Alex entertaining, if a bit wearing sometimes.

    He’s clearly one of the leftoids who’re disappointed (!) with the actual performance of the Chosen Won, as opposed to the Hope & Change hype. Now he’s paddling madly up the proverbial Egyptian stream, and getting nowhere. I hope he sticks around for the next stage — it’ll be interesting to note and grade his invective :-)

    Regards,
    Ric

  221. dicentra says:

    I know better than to do an image search on verde.

    It being the Spanish-language equivalent of “blue” when speaking about naughty jokeses.

    I just discovered this pic and now I’m afraid to shut my eyes.

  222. dicentra says:

    OTOH, this is the closest I’ll get to linking a naughty photo for you pervs.

  223. bh says:

    It being the Spanish-language equivalent of “blue” when speaking about naughty jokeses.

    Item number intimidatingly large of things I didn’t know.

    Oh yeah, in case anyone didn’t translate it, di actually used a blood libel against my people with murciélago cantábrico. I forgive her. I only hope others will as well.

  224. dicentra says:

    Look, bh, if I’m going to insult someone, it might as well be a blood libel.

    Piker stuff like death threats?

    Waste of pixellage.

  225. Mike LaRoche says:

    Excellent comment at #214, Swen. That’s academia – and academic history – in a nutshell. One-upsmanship prevails over scholarship. And the predilection amongst most academic historians – as leftists – to undermine traditional culture wherever they encounter it in favor of an ephemeral transnational cosmopolitanism just makes the situation worse. It’s all such a waste.

  226. dicentra says:

    #214 also explains why so many “scientists” support AGW: Doomsday Sells.

  227. Rupert says:

    If one reads the scripture sideways, one can see a possible Christian Chinese army. I throw that out their for my friends that say an army of 400 million will invade the Middle East. I point out how much it costs us to supply a few hundred thousand soldiers. As a Christian, I am offended by the whole rapture/ armageddon type thing.
    Seriously, there are so many weapons set to go off. Divine intervention is the only thing that can save Israel.

  228. Tuesday morning links…

    Pic from the C Word It’s the time of year again for the war to try to maginalize Christianity Somebody at NRO loves Redeemer Presby in NYC McArdle: In Health Care, No Free Lunch Pajamas: The Bizarre Case of Nietzsche: The Pro-Jewish Writer Who…

  229. Rupert says:

    Glenn Beck is who he is – an alcoholic for twenty years who is finally reading some history books about his country. I can’t understand why anybody would be afraid of him. He’s just a goof. At least he admits that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

  230. Carin says:

    You mean he didn’t go to Harvard?

    I can’t believe anyone listens to him.

  231. happyfeet says:

    Glenn Beck has a nice smile and I’m happy for his success and boy he sure has bumblefuck pegged

  232. McGehee says:

    112. alex_walter posted on 11/22 @ 3:27 pm

    About those qualifications there, oh Double-Named One…

    “And, oh, my! Lookee here! Obama has even fallen into a statistical tie with none other than Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor. How embarrassing that is because other polls have shown a majority of Americans believe she is unqualified for the presidency. So it appears many have now decided, on second thought, Obama looks that way too.”

    Link

    I could be wrong but I think Obama’s and Palin’s approval ratings have been moving in opposite directions lately.

  233. Ernst Schreiber says:

    [F]inding new documentary and forensic evidence that gives us more insight into the events at the Alamo is exciting. But hyperventilating over how this [academic puffery ––nice turn of phrase, btw -E.S.]shatters the illusions we might have harbored after watching an old movie is pretty over the top even by our usual over-the-top standards..

    That’s partly why I called Tucker an aggressive revisionist. Although Tucker maintains the standards of the profession by providing the usual array of (publisher-friendly) endnotes and bibliography, the book, strictly speaking, is a work of popular history, (i.e. written for a broader audience than the various academic professional societies, and published by a non-academic publisher). Because The Guild doesn’t do military history anymore, Tucker has had to go outside of it to get his work published, but he still needs to maintain is credibility with his colleagues, so you end up with this neither fish nor fowl bastard hybrid where Tucker appeals to the interests of his fellows by upending the recieved narrative, but does so in a conventionally constructed narrative history that should appeal to a broader audience (or would if he didn’t start out by insulting that audiences’ intelligence with the aggressive nature of his revisionism). Whatever it’s merits as a work of history, I think it’s interesting for what it implies about the state of higher education these days.

  234. Mike LaRoche says:

    BTW, did Tucker have anything to say about the four trucks? There was nothing about them in the Amazon review.

    Here’s the story behind the four trucks.

  235. dicentra says:

    You mean he didn’t go to Harvard?

    Yale, actually. He took one class one semester in a non-degree-seeking program while he was living in Connecticut. Then he had to quit because of a “family situation” or something.

    So he has darkened the doorway of an Ivy, but that’s all he did. Darken it.

    Also, given what the Norks are up to and the Irish and the rest of the PIIGS, I’d just like to observe that hyper-inflation isn’t the only way for our economy to go sideways. A Series of Unfortunate Events could domino the whole planet into a very bad situation.

  236. dicentra says:

    I could be wrong but I think Obama’s and Palin’s approval ratings have been moving in opposite directions lately.

    At this point,rotator-cuff surgery is getting higher approval ratings than Obama.

  237. Squid says:

    Similarly, at this point Obama would rather spend a day in the dentist’s chair than another day in the Oval Office.

    I’m reminded of the second half of Ventura’s term here in Minnesota, after the job stopped being fun for him. Petulance and gridlock resulted, which was fine for our state at that time, though I doubt it’ll work so well for the nation as a whole at this point in our history.

    Interesting times, to be sure.

  238. dicentra says:

    25 best quotations about the left.

    Lots of Coulter, Goldberg, and Sowell, plus Hewitt and Prager and Sayet.

  239. sdferr says:

    Well yes, as dicentra noted herself up there “Doomsday Sells.” Never let a crisis go to waste. And if you don’t have a crisis? Pull one down off the shelf.

  240. Abe Froman says:

    That list makes it look like the guy has read three books and a couple of articles.

  241. Yackums says:

    Divine intervention is the only thing that can save Israel.

    And has already at least four times in the last 80 years (yes, going back to pre-State days).

  242. Dewclaw says:

    Test…

  243. […] out one of Goldstein’s brood took exception to my previous post and attempted to refute it by making a series of patently idiotic claims.  For […]

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