You're adorable when you're hopeful, Roy, and thanks for trying.
I'm about all out for the U.S. run at the top, at the very least. The fact that The Boy King is tied (at worst) in the polls, knowing what we do about him, is really the only signpost necessary these days and it doesn't point in a pretty direction.
Yeah, the PTSD is strong. And it’s pretty galling that the same people who claimed the reason they opposed aid to Ukraine was because they had learned their lesson about the futility of foreign wars with Iraq are now the same people baying for the blood of Palestinians, because, well…Muslims.
Aside from their vested interest in seeing the Middle East erupt into Armageddon, either from war-mongering and/or because it will bring on the Rapture, conservatives are very, very bad at nuance.
So although there is plenty of conservative bad faith in play, even putting bad faith aside the mere idea that competing facts – Israel has a right to exist, terrorism is always wrong, Israel has imposed an apartheid regime on Palestine, Palestinian citizens shouldn’t pay the price for the actions of Hamas, criticism of Israel’s policies is not antisemitism, Jews have been persecuted for centuries and some bad actors are using this conflict to promote antisemitism – can all be true at the same time is just too complex for conservatives. They just want to know who is wearing the white/black hats. Pick a side.
If only Jared Kushner had been given a little more time, I’m sure that insipid Victorian Ghost Boy could have straightened it all out, lol.
How many of those professing to love Israel and Judaism are also of the white-nationalist-Christianity-is-the-natural-state-of-America persuasion? It's like how evangelicals and tradcaths make common cause to elect a True Believer like the Orange Maniac, but you know they can't wait to turn on one another. Also, I may borrow Victorian Ghost Boy, only Imma add "Anorexic" to the front.
And yeah, the Christian conservative "support" for Israel boils down to "hey thanks Jews for self-destructing and going to Hell to burn for eternity so we can get Raptured up to our just rewards. You're real pals!"
I can't take credit for it, like you and Claire I find it suits him perfectly.
The description was originally posted years ago on twitter, and I forget by who, but she said "In every photograph I've seen of him, Jared Kushner looks like the ghost of a Victorian boy, and if you see him you die 7 days later."
I know! Every once in a while a description of someone is so pitch-perfect you can never look at the person again without thinking of it. That's the case with Victorian Ghost Boy and Kushner. Every time I see a photo of him, in my head I hear "Seven days..."
Also, too – on the sidewalk right outside our front door is a stone bench that has an interesting graffito that is visible only when the stone is wet. Been there a few years. Says "Jared is a spy". Right next to it is another in the same format, this one saying "Ivanka is a cunt".
As far as I know no one has ever tried to remove these artworks.
You know what else that made me think of? That photo of the sad little Cruz family dog, Snowflake, looking out the front door after they went to Cancun without him. Except I’d probably like Snowflake.
Post 9/11 I bet that there would be no WMD found in Iraq with one of the judges I often practiced in front of. It was a bottle of single malt. The bastard has yet to pay up. Not really all that much to do with your post, but I'm still pissed.
No, it was definitely Jimbo. He had a link for contributions to Gnat’s college fund, and I remember being incensed at his presumptuousness and faux *poverty* (see: Jasperwood, big-shot lawyer wife, frequent annoying shopping trips, etc.)
Just doing what all good Patriots do, following the urgings of our Commander in Chief to buy, buy, buy for the good of the economy, a trip to the mall being an early-2000's equivalent to a Victory Garden.
Hey, anyone else remember Kim du Toit? Now that guy knew how to bleg.
Also, I'm mildly nostalgic for the days when people actually thought blogging could be a paying gig. "Man, a THOUSAND people read my last blog post, I'ma quit my day job and do this full time!"
That's who I thought JT might be talking about at first, because I recalled DuTwat soliciting funds for a Paris vacation for his family. That took nerve!
But it was for his EDIFICATION, that's what justified it. Can't be bothered to care, but I'm sure he's the type to be absolutely OUTRAGED that anyone's student loans should be forgiven.
I had to google to figure out the difference between "perfervid" and "fervid", is it just "fervid, but moreso?" Still not sure. In what units is fervidity measured? How can you know when you've crossed over into perfervidity?
It's like feverish, but everybody knows 100 degrees is no big deal, but if you reach 104 you should be in a hospital. Is it wrong to expect a similar precision from our adjectives? Yes.
All you used to need to make it in the bigs was be fast. Then you needed speed on it. Later you needed to bring it. More recently you either had velocity or straight back to Triple A.
As someone with a post grad degree in Classics it's always bugged me that so many people with the same love of the subject as me ended up on the Right. We studied and translated and debated the same stuff, but ended up so different politically and philosophically. Basically they followed ministers/priests' "interpretations" of Greek and Roman stuff; I avoided that shit like the plague. I dove into Nietzsche and came out unscathed (!), with an interest in the relation between Greek Philosophy and Drama. Anyway, I'm an existentialist leftie. I didn't get invited to many parties
I was basically coerced into being president of the Classics Grad students society for a couple of years. I was responsible for getting $$ from the student union for wine and food for department functions. I took care of my classmates (made sure they had full bellies and addled brains!). And they shun ME? Ungrateful wretches!
Perhaps. I think I just scared them a bit (I was a bit older, had a drum kit in my office, didn't seem to give a shit about anything, and would argue anything with anyone).
Firstly, as the caffeine slowly, slowly kicks in, I'm contemplating the symmetry of let's say disapproval of terrorist acts by Palestinians and Saudi nationals leads to islamophobia, likewise many of those disapproving the Israeli response leading into anti-semitism. Is it that difficult to target the bad actors without overgeneralizing? Or is there so much latent hate that the slightest trigger is enough to excuse it, make it acceptable?
Anyway, some comrades posted an article how the current war is ending the US longtime mid east policy.
Like an idiot, I assumed they had in mind maybe not doing anything about the 1967 borders, or maybe 1948 with the shit show of creating the Jewish homeland and decolonizing the area like the English screwed up with nearly all their colonies -- India, Africa, etc. What a great time that would have been to implement a clear two state solution, I guess...
Or maybe the comrades were referring back to ancient times and the Balfour declaration and Sykes-Picot in the 1910s.
But, nah, of course I was wrong and the comrades went for our clinically insane response to 9/11. The problem there, besides the problem being at least over a hundred years old, not 20+, is that Netanyahu created a problem that needs some addressing. (I'm sure we can disagree on the problem, but whatever it is, it's way overdue for addressing and resolving.) Our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq never came close to being any sort of legit problem getting a legit solution. And that Afghanistan reference is really twofold in a way: Post-9/11, of course, but also since the late 70s.
I'm at a loss to understand whatever "plan" Israel has been following for decades now, well before Bibi showed up. Let's just keep expanding the settlements, squeezing the Palestinians into smaller and smaller spaces, inflicting more Apartheid humiliations on them, and... what? They'll just take this shit FOREVER? There will be an explosion, but it will happen on someone else's watch? There will be an explosion, but it will all redound to our benefit, aside from a thousand or so dead Jews? Yeah, probably the last one.
Do nothing, make the present a done situation that cannot be changed.
It’s pretty much all democracies can do these days: let problems fester and blow up in someone else’s face. Global warming is of the course the ur-example these days but, like, every major problem’s being ignored...
While Americans support Israel, Americans also recognize by and large that Netanyahu has always been a complete dick to the United States. And many Americans (and Israelis) know that Bibi is corrupt, venal, and conniving, but not very smart. He's Israel's Trump.
Here's hoping that the Israeli electorate turfs him out soon. And then undoes his "court reforms" that were intended to let him and his wife skate on the pending corruption charges.
There are times (OK, pretty much always) when I feel like I've seen this movie before, and know exactly how it plays out. Nation suffers horrifying terror attack that its incompetent leadership didn't see coming (or saw but ignored) and then that SAME incompetent leadership reaps enormous political benefits as its populace "rallies 'round" said incompetent leaders.
But that's just how I THINK the movie will play out, and the voters of Israel may have different ideas. Maybe they're not as dumb as Americans (a low bar, I admit) and they'll surprise us.
While that is often the result, so far that does not appear to be happening much for Bibi, given the intelligence failures. Of course the big question is what about after the fires cool?
Leave to our new Speaker to tie aid for Israel to protecting tax cheats from the IRS. Modern pseudoconservatism has only two policies: preserve the wealth of donors and foment hate of Others. Johnson will advance both with that creepy smug smile that should be part of any caricature of MAGA’s latest poster boy.
At the same time he introduced a bill in the House to repeal certain consumer tax credits for energy-efficient appliances that were in the Inflation Reduction Act (I just love saying that name in full, knowing it sends right-wingers into a rage.)
It’s hard to square this with Mike “Tiny” Johnson’s supposed Biblical world view. Unless he’s equating that view to the Prosperity Gospel, which I understand is completely a-Biblical.
"... 'Never have I encountered a national character that is so feckless, and so indolent, as the Venezuelan one...'”
It reminds me of an old Bloom County cartoon (very old by now), where Margaret Mead's "secret" memoir drops in the news, & Milo Bloom seems to know an awful lot about its bombshell revelation: "Man, these Samoans are a surly lot."
As George Bluth would say, "There's always money in the [casual, reckless ethnic slurs] stand."
The guy who wrote that was probably imagining himself in some oak-paneled library sipping scotch with the other landed gentry. A butler brings in an ironed copy of the Times of London, with reports of the latest victory in Somaliland.
Well, I'm not too impressed by your first, but if you feel you must, send him along. And in re Good Day, do be a chap and move aside, won't you? You're blocking my sun. There's a good fellow.
There was a bit in one of the Blackadder series about the British army, accustomed to easy victories over spear-wielding Africans, being unprepared for a million Germans with machine guns.
Yeah, this time does feel different. More public support for the Palestinians than the Afghans or Iraqis ever had, more public awareness that there are actual humans under those bombs. The days of war as a video game, where we could cheer on the explosions with no thought to the people torn apart by them, are over, I hope. Even the awful MSNBC (who have the Israeli ambassador living in an apartment below the studio with Joyce Vance) will break into official statements from the Israeli government to interview people on the ground in Gaza (when the Israelis haven't cut off all communication, that is) and the hosts do express at least some pro-forma horror at what Palestinians there are experiencing.
Before it happened, some 50% of the public were in favor of Israel delaying a ground invasion of Gaza. That would be the -Israeli- public. Here, the Neo-McCarthyites have emerged to seek out anyone who might remotely express "pro" Palestinian sympathies or a call for a ceasefire to have them immediately fired from government, academia, or serving breakfast at Denny's. Meanwhile, morality seems to have been reduced to the Hamas death-squad brand of intimate barbaric slaughter versus the clean, justified kills of Israeli missiles wiping out hundreds of men, women and children in order to eliminate one guy, assuming that was even the alleged purpose.
Since their obvious goal was to set the Middle East on fire, both Hamas and bin Laden are the clear "winners" of their respective terror conflagrations, abetted by some of the worst people in the world on the "civilized" "non-barbaric" side. Either way, the innocents always pay a terrible price, but as long as it's "those" people, well what can you do, *shrug emoji*?
(Jeez, you run out of scare quotes discussing this stuff.)
The glee they (and most of the NY Times columnists) took when some college students went around the bend after the 10/7 attack was a thing to behold. Ah, to remember the halcyon days of the 101st Chairborne and the Keyboard Commandos....
Donny Deutsch was on MSNBC claiming that a hundred faculty at Cornell signed on to "a statement supporting Hamas." As they say on the internet, "Big, if true." Naturally, the host, Nicole Wallace, was horrified. Not horrified enough to get one of her producers to google the offending statement so they could throw the actual words "We support Hamas" up on the screen for the horrification of their viewers, but horrified nonetheless. And then it was Thank You Donny, and time for another commercial break.
So, I went to the Google to see what grain of sand led to Deutsch's "pearl" and found that one Cornell professor and the DEI coordinator had made remarks supporting Hamas. So two is much like one hundred if you are counting grains of sand on the beach.
Are you suggesting we can't trust former advertising exec (literally the ONLY thing mentioned in his on-air intros) Donny Deutsch to be careful with the facts? Based on his previous "experience" I'm surprised he didn't go with "9 out of 10 Cornell faculty agree..."
Yeah, that was my thought, but in fact the professor stated he was "exhilarated" at Hamas's attack because they were fighting back. It was the kind of stupid blurting that rightwingers will remember forever.
I particularly “love” the justification for bombing a refugee camp: “We told them to move south!” As though 1) that was an option for any/most of them and 2) the purported target of the strike wouldn’t just move with them? It gives the abuser’s “You made me hit you!” a bad name.
Also, "Well, we TOLD them to evacuate the hospital!" Like people in an ICU can just be piled into ambulances, oh, sorry, forgot there's no fuel for the ambulances.
Without fuel, a lot of them COULDN'T move. The doctors at the Gaza City hospitals said they couldn't evacuate their patients, because most of them would die if moved. And I understand there's even people who DID go south, only to return back north. "We prefer to die in our own homes" was how one put it. And the IDF shelled people heading south anyway. And the "evacuation" has taken one of the most densely populated places on God's grey Earth and effectively doubled the population density. With only a trickle of relief being allowed to enter.
"With only a trickle of relief being allowed to enter"
I think the IDF and their PR department in the US have figured out that as long as the number of trucks being allowed in isn't ZERO, Americans won't have the cognitive skills to figure out whether the amount being allowed in is even close to adequate. Thus the excited MSNBC report that FOURTEEN trucks were allowed in yesterday, hooray for humanitarianism! So about 160,000 Gazans per truck, if anybody at the network knew how to work a TI-30.
One wonders how the IDF gets their updated intelligence on exactly what Hamas is up to. I mean, if there's infiltrators, then mayyyyybe they could have been used to attack Hamas from inside, or even maybe stop the attack on the 7th. Or are they just doing the "tall guy = bin Laden" bullshit that was sooooo effective for us in Afghanistan?
You alluded to Canada. There were some rather ominous remarks coming from “unnamed officials” of the Cheney Shogunate in the months following the 2001 unpleasantness. The one I recall in particular spoke of the need to bring the Canucks “within our security perimeter,” and that Canada would perforce be obliged cede a certain amount of its sovereignty to US policymakers. Here was one of those rare instances in which German beats English in terms of concision and brevity: the word you were looking for, gentlemen, is 𝘈𝘯𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘭𝘶𝘴𝘴.
I look for an armed occupation of Greenland (“a dagger pointed at the heart of, uh…Suriname?”) during Trump’s next term, since the Danes will probably persist in their resistance to selling it.* Expect in that event a wave of anti-Scandinavian sentiment to wash over MAGAtworld, and for the GOP to rechristen the pastries in the Congressional Cafeteria: “Gimme a coffee and a cheese greenish.”
The main difference between Conservative and Liberal in Canada is that conservatives will cede Canadian autonomy on almost every issue to American whims. The elder Trudeau put a stop to that shit back in the day, but still the conservatives fight for America; and when they're in power everything goes to shit and the liberals have to step back in and clean everything up. It's an endless fucking cycle that's always 4-8 years behind what goes on in the US.
Apparently the Canuck Wingnuts (worst hockey team EVER) is reviving the protest "convoys", only this time to jump on the anti-LGBTQ "Save Our Sprogs" bandwagon.
Look at your damn maps, people! All of that land south of the St. Lawrence is logically part of Greater New Hampshire and Upper Maine. All we want to do is tidy the borders up a bit. And as for those French speakers; they'll no doubt welcome us a liberators. And of course, they'll lobby to bring in their relatives north of the Annexed Zone. It would be unfair not to help those poor oppressed folks.
Ottawa is the real sticking point. The rest of the provinces are in thrall to those bastards. A lightning summer campaign should turn the trick. Take out the so-called National Capital and the provinces are free!
Should said provinces prove incapable of self-government, or proper stewardship of their resources, it would only be appropriate that the United States accept the challenges of Civilization in the Western Hemisphere.
One of the antique National Geographics I've been reading lately as a sleep aid had a nice story on Madawaska, the name the natives have for the river valley that stretches across the Maine-Canada border. A mixture of French-Canadian and Scotch-Irish, the people see themselves as Madawaskans first and freely intermarry across the border. Potential Fifth Columnists all of them, the first step should be to throw every single Madawaskan into an internment camp.
That is, until you figure out they know where all the hidden border crossings are, and who to pay off, and how to move that sweet, sweet maple surple south in the dead of night after Vermont burns to the ground. THEN you'll need those Madawaskans!
I still can't be an anarchist, because I'm pretty sure that Day 2 of anarchy would see the creation of _new_ governments that would be even worse than what we've got now, because that's the historical average, but the anarchist in me notes that nations are nothing _but_ caring much more about one group of people's pain or pleasure than another group's lives and deaths.
It seems to me that this country has yielded up a polity that combines some of the gamier elements of anarchy and authoritarianism while failing to deliver the putative benefits of either scheme.
You're adorable when you're hopeful, Roy, and thanks for trying.
I'm about all out for the U.S. run at the top, at the very least. The fact that The Boy King is tied (at worst) in the polls, knowing what we do about him, is really the only signpost necessary these days and it doesn't point in a pretty direction.
Yeah, the PTSD is strong. And it’s pretty galling that the same people who claimed the reason they opposed aid to Ukraine was because they had learned their lesson about the futility of foreign wars with Iraq are now the same people baying for the blood of Palestinians, because, well…Muslims.
Aside from their vested interest in seeing the Middle East erupt into Armageddon, either from war-mongering and/or because it will bring on the Rapture, conservatives are very, very bad at nuance.
So although there is plenty of conservative bad faith in play, even putting bad faith aside the mere idea that competing facts – Israel has a right to exist, terrorism is always wrong, Israel has imposed an apartheid regime on Palestine, Palestinian citizens shouldn’t pay the price for the actions of Hamas, criticism of Israel’s policies is not antisemitism, Jews have been persecuted for centuries and some bad actors are using this conflict to promote antisemitism – can all be true at the same time is just too complex for conservatives. They just want to know who is wearing the white/black hats. Pick a side.
If only Jared Kushner had been given a little more time, I’m sure that insipid Victorian Ghost Boy could have straightened it all out, lol.
Re the nuance: not just bad at it – perfervidly (get over it) boastful about rejecting it.
Yes. Nuance is part of the Woke Mind Virus.
How many of those professing to love Israel and Judaism are also of the white-nationalist-Christianity-is-the-natural-state-of-America persuasion? It's like how evangelicals and tradcaths make common cause to elect a True Believer like the Orange Maniac, but you know they can't wait to turn on one another. Also, I may borrow Victorian Ghost Boy, only Imma add "Anorexic" to the front.
Borrow away, lol.
And yeah, the Christian conservative "support" for Israel boils down to "hey thanks Jews for self-destructing and going to Hell to burn for eternity so we can get Raptured up to our just rewards. You're real pals!"
But foist: all y'all Jews git back to Israel. THEN we'll talk.*
*Talk about how it'll be when the Rupture comes.**
**It's an exclusive club, and you're...well, you know...
"Victorian Ghost Boy" is so wonderful it almost makes me wish for a return of Jared to the seat of power so we could use it more (ALMOST).
Anorexic Victorian Ghost Boy
Anemic will work too
I think SS’s modifier “insipid” is perfect.
The man tasked with ending war for all time? Insipid? How dare you!
They run the gamut from inane to insipid.
I can't take credit for it, like you and Claire I find it suits him perfectly.
The description was originally posted years ago on twitter, and I forget by who, but she said "In every photograph I've seen of him, Jared Kushner looks like the ghost of a Victorian boy, and if you see him you die 7 days later."
(Praying this reference will be understood), man, that's some Sadako shit right there!
I know! Every once in a while a description of someone is so pitch-perfect you can never look at the person again without thinking of it. That's the case with Victorian Ghost Boy and Kushner. Every time I see a photo of him, in my head I hear "Seven days..."
Imagine how soft and moist and cold his hands are.
Reminds me of this:
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/06/04/22/14374040-7104813-image-m-10_1559682859823.jpg
Their immense neediness provoked an attempt to get public streets in their Georgetown neighborhood gated off. Hilarious indeferrence* ensued.
*Yeah I know. Sometimes I use a word I WANT to exist.
Also, too – on the sidewalk right outside our front door is a stone bench that has an interesting graffito that is visible only when the stone is wet. Been there a few years. Says "Jared is a spy". Right next to it is another in the same format, this one saying "Ivanka is a cunt".
As far as I know no one has ever tried to remove these artworks.
“Sometimes I use a word I WANT to exist”
And if there is justice under heaven, someday lexicographers will recognize and celebrate this contribution of yours. Two, three, many Vietmarks!
Remember the not-letting-the-guys-working-on-their-place use one of the many terlets? (Or was it the Secret Service?)
I do remember, and about as well as you (think it was SS)
I applaud "indeferrence" because I make up my own words too. I always refer to dark and rainy days as "drismal" -- dreary plus dismal plus drizzly.
Carry on, carry on...
You know what else that made me think of? That photo of the sad little Cruz family dog, Snowflake, looking out the front door after they went to Cancun without him. Except I’d probably like Snowflake.
I think this a good point that should be broadcast in all-caps. Just wanted to say that
Trump yelling the other day about how Ermerica is JESUSLAND and therefore we can't and shouldn't accept any refugees from Gaza because NOT CHRISTIAN.
Learns of existence of Palestinian Christians, head explodes.
Just wondering, Mr. Trump, who d'ya think was livin' in that Little Town of Bethlehem?
Post 9/11 I bet that there would be no WMD found in Iraq with one of the judges I often practiced in front of. It was a bottle of single malt. The bastard has yet to pay up. Not really all that much to do with your post, but I'm still pissed.
My old man recommends Lagavulin.
Your old man is commendable too.
Thank for your the "too."
What the hell – Commendations All 'Round!
This is what old men are for.
(But ask your doctor if Lagaluvin is right for you)
If she says no, tell her "Piss off!"
Too peaty for me. Try Springbank.
If only there was some sort of recourse...like maybe a code of conduct, or some kinda ethical suggestion...
Lileks. Thanks for reminding me.
Gnat. Ugh.
Remember how he blegged (?) for tuition $$ for her? Double ugh.
I don't remember that! Maybe you're thinking of someone else? That doesn't sound like him.
No, it was definitely Jimbo. He had a link for contributions to Gnat’s college fund, and I remember being incensed at his presumptuousness and faux *poverty* (see: Jasperwood, big-shot lawyer wife, frequent annoying shopping trips, etc.)
hot mess – it's what's for dinner!
"frequent annoying shopping trips"
Just doing what all good Patriots do, following the urgings of our Commander in Chief to buy, buy, buy for the good of the economy, a trip to the mall being an early-2000's equivalent to a Victory Garden.
Hey, anyone else remember Kim du Toit? Now that guy knew how to bleg.
Also, I'm mildly nostalgic for the days when people actually thought blogging could be a paying gig. "Man, a THOUSAND people read my last blog post, I'ma quit my day job and do this full time!"
That's who I thought JT might be talking about at first, because I recalled DuTwat soliciting funds for a Paris vacation for his family. That took nerve!
But it was for his EDIFICATION, that's what justified it. Can't be bothered to care, but I'm sure he's the type to be absolutely OUTRAGED that anyone's student loans should be forgiven.
The shame of the Twin Cities.
John Hinderaker (Assrocket) still ranks lower?
*sigh* I remember Ntodd writing about him back in the day.
All I got to say* is "feckless perfervidity"
*HA!
Or, if you prefer: "perfervid fecklessness"
I had to google to figure out the difference between "perfervid" and "fervid", is it just "fervid, but moreso?" Still not sure. In what units is fervidity measured? How can you know when you've crossed over into perfervidity?
You never know til yer former friends inform you on their way out the door that final time.
Apparently measured in degrees:
"intensely enthusiastic or passionate, especially to an excessive degree"
as opposed to (or, more like same as)
"perfervidus, from Latin per- ‘utterly’ + fervidus ‘glowing hot, fiery’ "
I take my boils slow, thanks.
It's like feverish, but everybody knows 100 degrees is no big deal, but if you reach 104 you should be in a hospital. Is it wrong to expect a similar precision from our adjectives? Yes.
Perzackly.
100º fahrenheit is twice as hot as 50ºF.* But not if you measure those same temps in centigrade.
*I just made that up.
100º fahrenheit is twice as hot as 50ºF.
That sort of a statement requires an absolute temperature scale, so Kelvin or Rankine
Calvin & Hobbes or I don't pay attention.
And it is absolutely true that I made it up, while assuming there was some actual useful alt. fact.
Is it like the difference between speed and velocity?
Sorta
All you used to need to make it in the bigs was be fast. Then you needed speed on it. Later you needed to bring it. More recently you either had velocity or straight back to Triple A.
That VD Hanson was certainly a pernicious asshole wasn't he ?
Wait, what? He's still around ?
Godammit!
Hamish keeps recommending Andrew Sullivan's substack. That and Matt Taiibi. I'm sure he'll let me know if Hanson gets a substack.
Reject VD!
They have creams for that.
As someone with a post grad degree in Classics it's always bugged me that so many people with the same love of the subject as me ended up on the Right. We studied and translated and debated the same stuff, but ended up so different politically and philosophically. Basically they followed ministers/priests' "interpretations" of Greek and Roman stuff; I avoided that shit like the plague. I dove into Nietzsche and came out unscathed (!), with an interest in the relation between Greek Philosophy and Drama. Anyway, I'm an existentialist leftie. I didn't get invited to many parties
He's no fun at parties – just hoovers up the hors d'oeuvres, rails about authenticity and Boom! Gone!
I was basically coerced into being president of the Classics Grad students society for a couple of years. I was responsible for getting $$ from the student union for wine and food for department functions. I took care of my classmates (made sure they had full bellies and addled brains!). And they shun ME? Ungrateful wretches!
Brains too addled? Maybe you overplayed yer hand...
Perhaps. I think I just scared them a bit (I was a bit older, had a drum kit in my office, didn't seem to give a shit about anything, and would argue anything with anyone).
Ah, perforce contrarian. Best kind.
So, the internet was designed with you in mind
This is a supervillain origin story I need, nay DEMAND, to hear.
Conservatives made me commie!
Doesn't he also check that the party giver does not have his chainsaw that got stolen
Me too, and I’m married to a Virgil specialist who is at least as Commie pinko as me. Yeah, we don’t get invited to many parties either.
I struggled with Latin and Virgil, you obviously married an intelligent partner! If you're ever in Kyushu (Japan), let's have a drink!
Sounds like a plan!
Classical Athens and Sparta run one themselves into the ground during the long and pointless Peloponnesian War. Hey, if it worked for them...
Thucydides is worthy reading
Unbelievably, I have thoughts...
Firstly, as the caffeine slowly, slowly kicks in, I'm contemplating the symmetry of let's say disapproval of terrorist acts by Palestinians and Saudi nationals leads to islamophobia, likewise many of those disapproving the Israeli response leading into anti-semitism. Is it that difficult to target the bad actors without overgeneralizing? Or is there so much latent hate that the slightest trigger is enough to excuse it, make it acceptable?
Anyway, some comrades posted an article how the current war is ending the US longtime mid east policy.
Like an idiot, I assumed they had in mind maybe not doing anything about the 1967 borders, or maybe 1948 with the shit show of creating the Jewish homeland and decolonizing the area like the English screwed up with nearly all their colonies -- India, Africa, etc. What a great time that would have been to implement a clear two state solution, I guess...
Or maybe the comrades were referring back to ancient times and the Balfour declaration and Sykes-Picot in the 1910s.
But, nah, of course I was wrong and the comrades went for our clinically insane response to 9/11. The problem there, besides the problem being at least over a hundred years old, not 20+, is that Netanyahu created a problem that needs some addressing. (I'm sure we can disagree on the problem, but whatever it is, it's way overdue for addressing and resolving.) Our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq never came close to being any sort of legit problem getting a legit solution. And that Afghanistan reference is really twofold in a way: Post-9/11, of course, but also since the late 70s.
Read "latent hate" as "talent hate" and glowed (slightly) at the thought that certain thinkers and writers of note could enrage the rabble so.
Love the latency, hate the talent.
Before you’ll know, you’ll be experiencing that kind of confusion 24/7/365.
I think I'm pretty much done with before, and drifting aimlessly but disturbingly swiftly toward after.
I'm at a loss to understand whatever "plan" Israel has been following for decades now, well before Bibi showed up. Let's just keep expanding the settlements, squeezing the Palestinians into smaller and smaller spaces, inflicting more Apartheid humiliations on them, and... what? They'll just take this shit FOREVER? There will be an explosion, but it will happen on someone else's watch? There will be an explosion, but it will all redound to our benefit, aside from a thousand or so dead Jews? Yeah, probably the last one.
Preserve the Empire (no matter how small).
By golly, he’s got it!
Do nothing, make the present a done situation that cannot be changed.
It’s pretty much all democracies can do these days: let problems fester and blow up in someone else’s face. Global warming is of the course the ur-example these days but, like, every major problem’s being ignored...
"Eh, not gonna worry, whatever happens I probably won't be the one left holding the bag." That's leadership for the 21st century.
And they wonder why they struggle to win the youth vote.
Can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs
What happens to a dream deferred?
While Americans support Israel, Americans also recognize by and large that Netanyahu has always been a complete dick to the United States. And many Americans (and Israelis) know that Bibi is corrupt, venal, and conniving, but not very smart. He's Israel's Trump.
Here's hoping that the Israeli electorate turfs him out soon. And then undoes his "court reforms" that were intended to let him and his wife skate on the pending corruption charges.
There are times (OK, pretty much always) when I feel like I've seen this movie before, and know exactly how it plays out. Nation suffers horrifying terror attack that its incompetent leadership didn't see coming (or saw but ignored) and then that SAME incompetent leadership reaps enormous political benefits as its populace "rallies 'round" said incompetent leaders.
But that's just how I THINK the movie will play out, and the voters of Israel may have different ideas. Maybe they're not as dumb as Americans (a low bar, I admit) and they'll surprise us.
While that is often the result, so far that does not appear to be happening much for Bibi, given the intelligence failures. Of course the big question is what about after the fires cool?
I'm reminded that Netanyahu was invited to address the 113th Congress and promptly tried to get the United States to go to war with Iran: https://time.com/3730318/transcript-netanyahu-speech-to-congress/
"Let's you and him fight."
Leave to our new Speaker to tie aid for Israel to protecting tax cheats from the IRS. Modern pseudoconservatism has only two policies: preserve the wealth of donors and foment hate of Others. Johnson will advance both with that creepy smug smile that should be part of any caricature of MAGA’s latest poster boy.
At the same time he introduced a bill in the House to repeal certain consumer tax credits for energy-efficient appliances that were in the Inflation Reduction Act (I just love saying that name in full, knowing it sends right-wingers into a rage.)
Because you gotta have priorities.
No doubt his reasoning is Biblical.
Like when he opens the burlap sack that contains his monthly cash donation from the Oil & Gas industry and says, "Jesus Christ, that's a lotta money!"
It’s hard to square this with Mike “Tiny” Johnson’s supposed Biblical world view. Unless he’s equating that view to the Prosperity Gospel, which I understand is completely a-Biblical.
It’s in the New Capitalist Translation edition.
You can always misinterpret any Biblical verse if you strip it of context or pretend Jesus superceeded it for us
I like my shellfish to wear clothing made of two types of fibers, like the Bible teaches us.
"Sanity has a fighting chance" but in the asylum the sane are not free, and have reason to be paranoid.
"Give sanity a fighting chance." I like it.
I love this quote from the oldy-moldy days:
"... 'Never have I encountered a national character that is so feckless, and so indolent, as the Venezuelan one...'”
It reminds me of an old Bloom County cartoon (very old by now), where Margaret Mead's "secret" memoir drops in the news, & Milo Bloom seems to know an awful lot about its bombshell revelation: "Man, these Samoans are a surly lot."
As George Bluth would say, "There's always money in the [casual, reckless ethnic slurs] stand."
The guy who wrote that was probably imagining himself in some oak-paneled library sipping scotch with the other landed gentry. A butler brings in an ironed copy of the Times of London, with reports of the latest victory in Somaliland.
I think you've been reading too many PG Wodehouse stories...
How DARE you suggest there's such a thing as "too much Wodehouse"! Expect a visit from my second! Good day, sir!
Well, I'm not too impressed by your first, but if you feel you must, send him along. And in re Good Day, do be a chap and move aside, won't you? You're blocking my sun. There's a good fellow.
Pish-posh! It's everyone's sun, you blackguard!
What ho, Jeeves—no news of Tanganyika and Nyasaland?
There was a bit in one of the Blackadder series about the British army, accustomed to easy victories over spear-wielding Africans, being unprepared for a million Germans with machine guns.
Last of the series, yeah. Not many laughs in that last scene...
I imagine them pitching it to the BBC: "And then everyone dies! So we never have to do this show again!"
Isandlwana says hi!
This reminds me of "What Ho, Gods of the Abyss"
https://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/447926.html?thread=11505078
Sounds more like Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
The Daily Beast and all that.
Periodic reminder that George W. Bush's State Department tried to overthrow Hugo Chavez's government *twice*.
Yeah, this time does feel different. More public support for the Palestinians than the Afghans or Iraqis ever had, more public awareness that there are actual humans under those bombs. The days of war as a video game, where we could cheer on the explosions with no thought to the people torn apart by them, are over, I hope. Even the awful MSNBC (who have the Israeli ambassador living in an apartment below the studio with Joyce Vance) will break into official statements from the Israeli government to interview people on the ground in Gaza (when the Israelis haven't cut off all communication, that is) and the hosts do express at least some pro-forma horror at what Palestinians there are experiencing.
"the Israeli ambassador living in an apartment below the studio with Joyce Vance"
You call THAT living??!!
You should have seen the argument about whose turn it was to wash the dishes.
Nah, takeout. All takeout.
Before it happened, some 50% of the public were in favor of Israel delaying a ground invasion of Gaza. That would be the -Israeli- public. Here, the Neo-McCarthyites have emerged to seek out anyone who might remotely express "pro" Palestinian sympathies or a call for a ceasefire to have them immediately fired from government, academia, or serving breakfast at Denny's. Meanwhile, morality seems to have been reduced to the Hamas death-squad brand of intimate barbaric slaughter versus the clean, justified kills of Israeli missiles wiping out hundreds of men, women and children in order to eliminate one guy, assuming that was even the alleged purpose.
Since their obvious goal was to set the Middle East on fire, both Hamas and bin Laden are the clear "winners" of their respective terror conflagrations, abetted by some of the worst people in the world on the "civilized" "non-barbaric" side. Either way, the innocents always pay a terrible price, but as long as it's "those" people, well what can you do, *shrug emoji*?
(Jeez, you run out of scare quotes discussing this stuff.)
Yeah. Interesting how the baddies know exactly what their 'civilized' adversaries will do when the fan has been excreted upon.
The glee they (and most of the NY Times columnists) took when some college students went around the bend after the 10/7 attack was a thing to behold. Ah, to remember the halcyon days of the 101st Chairborne and the Keyboard Commandos....
No, wait. The other thing.
Donny Deutsch was on MSNBC claiming that a hundred faculty at Cornell signed on to "a statement supporting Hamas." As they say on the internet, "Big, if true." Naturally, the host, Nicole Wallace, was horrified. Not horrified enough to get one of her producers to google the offending statement so they could throw the actual words "We support Hamas" up on the screen for the horrification of their viewers, but horrified nonetheless. And then it was Thank You Donny, and time for another commercial break.
So, I went to the Google to see what grain of sand led to Deutsch's "pearl" and found that one Cornell professor and the DEI coordinator had made remarks supporting Hamas. So two is much like one hundred if you are counting grains of sand on the beach.
Are you suggesting we can't trust former advertising exec (literally the ONLY thing mentioned in his on-air intros) Donny Deutsch to be careful with the facts? Based on his previous "experience" I'm surprised he didn't go with "9 out of 10 Cornell faculty agree..."
Supporting Hamas or "supporting" Hamas?
Evidently some people believe that giving any shit whatever about Palestinians is "supporting" Hamas.
Yeah, that was my thought, but in fact the professor stated he was "exhilarated" at Hamas's attack because they were fighting back. It was the kind of stupid blurting that rightwingers will remember forever.
I particularly “love” the justification for bombing a refugee camp: “We told them to move south!” As though 1) that was an option for any/most of them and 2) the purported target of the strike wouldn’t just move with them? It gives the abuser’s “You made me hit you!” a bad name.
Also, "Well, we TOLD them to evacuate the hospital!" Like people in an ICU can just be piled into ambulances, oh, sorry, forgot there's no fuel for the ambulances.
Without fuel, a lot of them COULDN'T move. The doctors at the Gaza City hospitals said they couldn't evacuate their patients, because most of them would die if moved. And I understand there's even people who DID go south, only to return back north. "We prefer to die in our own homes" was how one put it. And the IDF shelled people heading south anyway. And the "evacuation" has taken one of the most densely populated places on God's grey Earth and effectively doubled the population density. With only a trickle of relief being allowed to enter.
"With only a trickle of relief being allowed to enter"
I think the IDF and their PR department in the US have figured out that as long as the number of trucks being allowed in isn't ZERO, Americans won't have the cognitive skills to figure out whether the amount being allowed in is even close to adequate. Thus the excited MSNBC report that FOURTEEN trucks were allowed in yesterday, hooray for humanitarianism! So about 160,000 Gazans per truck, if anybody at the network knew how to work a TI-30.
There were hundreds of trucks crossing into Gaza before the siege.
Huntsville, Alabama, you get one truck. Tempe, Arizona, you get a truck. Little Rock, Arkansas, you get a truck...
One wonders how the IDF gets their updated intelligence on exactly what Hamas is up to. I mean, if there's infiltrators, then mayyyyybe they could have been used to attack Hamas from inside, or even maybe stop the attack on the 7th. Or are they just doing the "tall guy = bin Laden" bullshit that was sooooo effective for us in Afghanistan?
I think I know where I'm putting my money.
You alluded to Canada. There were some rather ominous remarks coming from “unnamed officials” of the Cheney Shogunate in the months following the 2001 unpleasantness. The one I recall in particular spoke of the need to bring the Canucks “within our security perimeter,” and that Canada would perforce be obliged cede a certain amount of its sovereignty to US policymakers. Here was one of those rare instances in which German beats English in terms of concision and brevity: the word you were looking for, gentlemen, is 𝘈𝘯𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘭𝘶𝘴𝘴.
American real estate: We just knock down a few walls, and boom – bigger country!
A sunken lebensraum!
American real estate: Nobody lives there anyway...
Except Vancouver, which is full of bum shit and apartments that are crazy-expensive because nobody wants to live there.
I look for an armed occupation of Greenland (“a dagger pointed at the heart of, uh…Suriname?”) during Trump’s next term, since the Danes will probably persist in their resistance to selling it.* Expect in that event a wave of anti-Scandinavian sentiment to wash over MAGAtworld, and for the GOP to rechristen the pastries in the Congressional Cafeteria: “Gimme a coffee and a cheese greenish.”
*𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘊𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘩𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘯 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘢 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘤𝘬.
Well, who wouldn't want to steal Greenland? It's land, isn't it? And so green! It's right there in the name!
[cue icy stare]
Aw, Greenland, why you be so COLD?
Hear me, O Muse, as I summon The Onion’s Smoove B to this thread!
If the cheese is greenish, probably avoid it
The main difference between Conservative and Liberal in Canada is that conservatives will cede Canadian autonomy on almost every issue to American whims. The elder Trudeau put a stop to that shit back in the day, but still the conservatives fight for America; and when they're in power everything goes to shit and the liberals have to step back in and clean everything up. It's an endless fucking cycle that's always 4-8 years behind what goes on in the US.
Their truckerclowns were pretty contemporary, for what that was worth...in Canadian money...
Haha, and now the JP yen has tanked. Who's next? Sorry, touchy subject. I quite literally can't afford to leave Japan right now
Apparently the Canuck Wingnuts (worst hockey team EVER) is reviving the protest "convoys", only this time to jump on the anti-LGBTQ "Save Our Sprogs" bandwagon.
Gettin' the band back together, playin' all the oldies.
Look at your damn maps, people! All of that land south of the St. Lawrence is logically part of Greater New Hampshire and Upper Maine. All we want to do is tidy the borders up a bit. And as for those French speakers; they'll no doubt welcome us a liberators. And of course, they'll lobby to bring in their relatives north of the Annexed Zone. It would be unfair not to help those poor oppressed folks.
Ottawa is the real sticking point. The rest of the provinces are in thrall to those bastards. A lightning summer campaign should turn the trick. Take out the so-called National Capital and the provinces are free!
Should said provinces prove incapable of self-government, or proper stewardship of their resources, it would only be appropriate that the United States accept the challenges of Civilization in the Western Hemisphere.
I give it two, maybe three years, tops.
Do I get my sinecure now?
Worked great in 1813!
One of the antique National Geographics I've been reading lately as a sleep aid had a nice story on Madawaska, the name the natives have for the river valley that stretches across the Maine-Canada border. A mixture of French-Canadian and Scotch-Irish, the people see themselves as Madawaskans first and freely intermarry across the border. Potential Fifth Columnists all of them, the first step should be to throw every single Madawaskan into an internment camp.
That is, until you figure out they know where all the hidden border crossings are, and who to pay off, and how to move that sweet, sweet maple surple south in the dead of night after Vermont burns to the ground. THEN you'll need those Madawaskans!
And clear cutting British Columbia should pay for the whole enterprise!
Ontario is historically part of America!
So, sort of Off-and-Ontario?
I still can't be an anarchist, because I'm pretty sure that Day 2 of anarchy would see the creation of _new_ governments that would be even worse than what we've got now, because that's the historical average, but the anarchist in me notes that nations are nothing _but_ caring much more about one group of people's pain or pleasure than another group's lives and deaths.
It seems to me that this country has yielded up a polity that combines some of the gamier elements of anarchy and authoritarianism while failing to deliver the putative benefits of either scheme.
Free. Dumb.