McArglebargle, GG, and Taibbi will be among the first to welcome our new fascist overlords. They will couch it as "strong forthright leadership", and nary a negative word about right wing authoritarianism shall we hear.
Now that you mention Dreher, a couple of days ago there was a Twitter exchange about his obsession with LGBTQ representation in children’s TV programs between two of my favorite writers, NYT opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie and the great Adam Serwer. We all know Serwer coined THE phrase to sum up the Trump era: The Cruelty is the Point (btw, his book of the same name containing his Atlantic essays as well as new material is phenomenal and I highly recommend). Anyway, Serwer also summed up Dreher’s whole schtick brilliantly:
Bouie: That guy is the most dramatic person on this website.
Serwer: Every post is him tossing himself weeping on his canopy bed as the orchestra swells.
That description of Dreher is....perfect. Just perfect LMAO.
I don't understand the obsession with any pundit. Outside the small industry of pundits and their employers, who cares? The pundit who provides insight is the rare exception of the rule. So, Greenwald. Or, I should say, a gay expatriate sympathizing with conservative parents. Why is his opinion of any importance. BTW: If he's referencing the cohort of parents with both essential (relatively shitty) jobs and cannot get coverage for the kids nor, maybe, even computers for Zooming®, he has a point. Then again, he'd lose that point by his tacit support for the wing nuts opposed to doing anything good for people if it includes benefits to any POC.
As for Taibbi, even now, he has his moment, albeit rarely. Still, sad to watch. The disasters of (in no particular order) of the First Look debacle (partially self-inflicted maybe); bad behavior in Moscow coming out; and his last two books tanking (others done similar media criticism better and Eric Garner maybe isn't the stuff of a best seller) apparently broke him some way. Regardless, his importance is, shall we say, not what it once was, in part because of his own choices.
McCardle and Greenwald both going to "well, NOBODY wants low speed limits!!!" argument is the classic deployment of sophistry that Rightwingers absolutely adore when arguing. It's the kind of "reasoning" your 8-year-old brings on when arguing to stay up late ("Well, you wouldn't want me to be asleep FOREVER, so why do you want me to go to bed now?").
What gets me is that they're always so proud of themselves for making these arguments--like they've just proved Fermat's theorem by hard-boiling an egg.
Greenwald has also fully embraced the wingnut mantra of never admitting that you might not be 100% right because any admission of that is a sign of weakness.
Funny how they're all reaching for automotive analogies, but can't find the one that's a near-perfect match to mask mandates: Laws that require people to wear a seat belt. Wonder why that one never comes to mind?
Being libertarians, they probably call it "shared reasoning," but I, too, must hail Roy's line that nails it for what it is:
"I’d call it plagiarism, except it’s not a crime to take something out of someone else’s garbage."
Even aside from McArdle's ugly "argument," she's too lazy or too dishonest to even get her own facts right.
McArdle (and Greenwald): "In the U.S., tens of thousands of people were killed in auto accidents last year. We could probably eliminate most of those deaths if we simply made sure that no one ever piloted their personal vehicle above some prudent speed -- say, 25 mph."
Later, it's not even "most" deaths: "To avert 40,000 deaths..."
The first result of Googling "percentage of auto accidents caused by speeding" is this from the Dept. of Transportation:
"In 2019, speeding was a contributing factor in 26% of all traffic fatalities."
Strange I've got subscriptions to both those guys and I didn't get either of these. Although after reading these excerpts and then dropping into the articles I maybe shouldn't complain.
Oh well, they've already got my money so I will probably continue to check in with them until the end of my year, but damn.
"I’d call it plagiarism, except it’s not a crime to take something out of someone else’s garbage."
I like that.
It's like they are digging through someone's compost bin looking for that questionable potata frittata you threw out that was lost in the back of the 'fridge, you never took to work to eat, got some sort of mold on it and now is covered in three days of coffee grounds but for them? It's the perfect meal.
Yes, we had some assholes show up in downtown Portland from the hinterlands. My wife had mentioned it the day before. I didn't even know since I was hunkered down doing work. She mentioned that she suspected there was probably going to be a lot of tiny penis wagging out of windows of giant pickup trucks (raised to be completely worthless for hauling anything conveniently) with Trump and US flags attached to them.
There's a reason I love that woman. She's so demure.
McArglebargle, GG, and Taibbi will be among the first to welcome our new fascist overlords. They will couch it as "strong forthright leadership", and nary a negative word about right wing authoritarianism shall we hear.
Now that you mention Dreher, a couple of days ago there was a Twitter exchange about his obsession with LGBTQ representation in children’s TV programs between two of my favorite writers, NYT opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie and the great Adam Serwer. We all know Serwer coined THE phrase to sum up the Trump era: The Cruelty is the Point (btw, his book of the same name containing his Atlantic essays as well as new material is phenomenal and I highly recommend). Anyway, Serwer also summed up Dreher’s whole schtick brilliantly:
Bouie: That guy is the most dramatic person on this website.
Serwer: Every post is him tossing himself weeping on his canopy bed as the orchestra swells.
That description of Dreher is....perfect. Just perfect LMAO.
When you're the Center of the Universe and no one else is really quite real - that must be the loneliest place possible. No wonder they go mad.
I can picture Taibbi and Matt Gaetz out cruising Chuck E Cheese's on a Saturday afternoon.
I don't understand the obsession with any pundit. Outside the small industry of pundits and their employers, who cares? The pundit who provides insight is the rare exception of the rule. So, Greenwald. Or, I should say, a gay expatriate sympathizing with conservative parents. Why is his opinion of any importance. BTW: If he's referencing the cohort of parents with both essential (relatively shitty) jobs and cannot get coverage for the kids nor, maybe, even computers for Zooming®, he has a point. Then again, he'd lose that point by his tacit support for the wing nuts opposed to doing anything good for people if it includes benefits to any POC.
As for Taibbi, even now, he has his moment, albeit rarely. Still, sad to watch. The disasters of (in no particular order) of the First Look debacle (partially self-inflicted maybe); bad behavior in Moscow coming out; and his last two books tanking (others done similar media criticism better and Eric Garner maybe isn't the stuff of a best seller) apparently broke him some way. Regardless, his importance is, shall we say, not what it once was, in part because of his own choices.
Libertarianism = a philosophy embraced by sociopaths to mask their inhumanity.
McCardle and Greenwald both going to "well, NOBODY wants low speed limits!!!" argument is the classic deployment of sophistry that Rightwingers absolutely adore when arguing. It's the kind of "reasoning" your 8-year-old brings on when arguing to stay up late ("Well, you wouldn't want me to be asleep FOREVER, so why do you want me to go to bed now?").
What gets me is that they're always so proud of themselves for making these arguments--like they've just proved Fermat's theorem by hard-boiling an egg.
Lynch mobs don't read, and they're trying to change that.
Greenwald has also fully embraced the wingnut mantra of never admitting that you might not be 100% right because any admission of that is a sign of weakness.
That concept of "anti-Covid absolutists"--like, "Really, you can't find anything positive to say about Covid?"
Funny how they're all reaching for automotive analogies, but can't find the one that's a near-perfect match to mask mandates: Laws that require people to wear a seat belt. Wonder why that one never comes to mind?
“I’d call it plagiarism, except it’s not a crime to take something out of someone else’s garbage.”
I nearly got third-degree burns just reading that.
Being libertarians, they probably call it "shared reasoning," but I, too, must hail Roy's line that nails it for what it is:
"I’d call it plagiarism, except it’s not a crime to take something out of someone else’s garbage."
Even aside from McArdle's ugly "argument," she's too lazy or too dishonest to even get her own facts right.
McArdle (and Greenwald): "In the U.S., tens of thousands of people were killed in auto accidents last year. We could probably eliminate most of those deaths if we simply made sure that no one ever piloted their personal vehicle above some prudent speed -- say, 25 mph."
Later, it's not even "most" deaths: "To avert 40,000 deaths..."
The first result of Googling "percentage of auto accidents caused by speeding" is this from the Dept. of Transportation:
"In 2019, speeding was a contributing factor in 26% of all traffic fatalities."
They get paid for this.
Eating - a cost-benefit analysis.
Wow, Taibbi is dead to me now. This is utterly the last straw.
Strange I've got subscriptions to both those guys and I didn't get either of these. Although after reading these excerpts and then dropping into the articles I maybe shouldn't complain.
Oh well, they've already got my money so I will probably continue to check in with them until the end of my year, but damn.
"I’d call it plagiarism, except it’s not a crime to take something out of someone else’s garbage."
I like that.
It's like they are digging through someone's compost bin looking for that questionable potata frittata you threw out that was lost in the back of the 'fridge, you never took to work to eat, got some sort of mold on it and now is covered in three days of coffee grounds but for them? It's the perfect meal.
Yes, we had some assholes show up in downtown Portland from the hinterlands. My wife had mentioned it the day before. I didn't even know since I was hunkered down doing work. She mentioned that she suspected there was probably going to be a lot of tiny penis wagging out of windows of giant pickup trucks (raised to be completely worthless for hauling anything conveniently) with Trump and US flags attached to them.
There's a reason I love that woman. She's so demure.