Whiskey Fire

Now Is the Time, Now Is the Time

Well, I don't really want anyone to get hit by a bus, least of all this fellow. Wish I could wear a hat with such flair. But I do think that of all the virtues, civility is the most overrated and the most subject to abuse. The Specials explain why. That sentiment can of course be expanded to homophobia, as well as to blindly supporting absurd wars. Moreover, in public as opposed to private discourse, "civility" has been so grotesquely perverted as to be an active blight on the American body politic, a casualty of deliberate choices made by the administration. (It's a bit rich to be lectured on civility by members of a party whose campaigns are run by Karl Rove.) What has been done to "civility" is even worse than what was done to "patriotism."

Be Respectable

I should by now know better than to click on one of Roy's links...

Josh Trevino is an ass, and reads this silly piece from the NYTimes Fashion & Style section (!) about how Democrats and Republicans just can't be friends anymore as confirmation of his thesis that Democrats are incivil cultists. What he misses is the fact that the American Right, which we'll posit here as synonymous with Republicans, and also "assholes," has this stupid habit of pretending that its knee-jerk bigotry has something to do with "rational thought that is deserving of sober consideration, as opposed to utter contempt." Take this bit of tortured Tac logic, please:

A core leftist tenet may be expressed in the old feminist cliché, "the personal is political." This gets muddied a bit by the left's predilection for espousing "privacy," as found in some metaphysical emanation or penumbra of the Constitution; but the net -- and discrete -- effect of this espousal is not a depoliticizing of the "private" sphere. Precisely the opposite: where "privacy" is invoked, it is toward a definite politicized end, be it the legitimization of arbitrary couplings under the rubric of marriage, or the breaking-down of the social structures necessary for the maintenance of a conservative order. In this context, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to maintain relationships with people with whom one disagrees on political or ideological grounds.

What he means is that gays don't deserve the same marriage rights as straights because they haven't had these rights before, and this upsets him because... well, no reason, aside from the made-up bullshit. That's our Tac: take a cliche, add a strawman, and you get a stirring defense of Western Civilization that would otherwise just come across as "I hate fags." When gays couple, you see, that is "arbitrary." When straights do it, that is because the Hand of the Almighty told Kevin Federline to taketh of the Holy Stoli and mount Britney Spears, and thus produce the Fruit of Jehovah.

The reason I can't stand anyone nowadays who still believes George W Bush is a Great Man, or that Republicans have not totally gone off the deep end in this brave new century, is that they are absolute lunatics. The gay rights issue is a good example. Take this gem from the retarded NYTimes article that caused Josh to clamber once more atop his plaster Internets plinth:

Stephen Viscusi, 46, of Manhattan, said the divide has made dating even more fraught. Mr. Viscusi, who is gay and a Republican, said he has been rejected by Democratic suitors once they learn his political views.

No shit. "Darling, I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life in your arms, together forever, as second-class citizens! Ours after all is merely an arbitrary coupling, and we are therefore not justified in breaking down the metaphysical basis of the conservative social order, much as I love your hot throbbing... missile defense system!"

If Tac and all the distressed Republicans described by Anne Kornblut in her fatuous slice of spontaneous sociology want to be taken seriously, they can always stop, you know, advocating for bigotry. For openers. They're called "convictions," you know, and you have them because they're right. Today's GOP has made gay-baiting a centerpiece of its electoral strategy. I'm supposed to find this an acceptable, a legitimate subject of dinnertime conversation? I'm supposed to be OK with crass, cynical prejudice? Fuck that shit.

The Iraq war is another lovely example. What a goddamn stupid idea that was, and is. The 107 rationales offered to support it were all utterly demented, either because they were immoral, unachievable in any real universe, based on fever dreams, or all of these together. The administration decided to pretend that the irrational was rational, and the Wise pundits nodded sagely, and the nation's foreign policy was duly and with great pomp & solemnity flushed straight into the shitter under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished."  And we're supposed to pretend that this  was  all just some "oopsie," that the willing propagandists of this debacle were and are just doing the equivalent of debating the relative merits of differing proposals for the motherfucking capital gains tax? People are fucking dead. A lot of people.

There is no more dangerous myth in America today than that people like Josh Trevino are even halfway rational, no matter how badly they write.

Oh, and this bit from the NYTimes article floored me, and I'd thought I was immune to being surprised this sort of nonsense:

In the wake of hostile debates during the last few election cycles, P. M. Forni, the director of the Civility Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, compiled a tip sheet of how to avoid angry confrontations with participants across the aisle. (His top three pointers: don’t assume anyone shares your views; don’t point out another person’s politics in public; don’t ask people to share their political affiliations.)

But Dr. Forni, who is the author of “Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct,” and whose institute assesses the importance of manners in society, said the dialogue has grown muted, and not necessarily for the better.

The DIRECTOR OF THE CIVILITY INITIATIVE AT THE JOHNS MOTHERFUCKING HOPKINS UNIVERSITY?

CIVILITY STUDIES?

Dr. Forni has my congratulations on having the most thoroughly ridiculous job in America today, and I quite sincerely hope that tomorrow he gets hit by a bus.

UPDATE: All right, I'm sorry, I don't hope he gets hit by a bus. But I still think civility is way overrated; truth is a higher virtue, for one thing, and that's always a casualty when civility is invoked by the mendacious, a category that encompasses the totality of the "conservative movement" in this depressing age.

Chicken Blows

Wandered over to Townhall and saw a fine bit of clownish wingnuttery from Kevin McCullough, who pisses me off because if he could just sort his name out he would be a Kids in the Hall cast member and hence someone who doesn't piss me off, because then he wouldn't be a Townhall columnist wingnut.

KMcC thinks gays hate marriage because they are filled with gay hate and gayly hate marriage with the hot gay disco intensity of a thousand gay suns. KMcC is so outraged by the gay hate that he can't even write intelligible English sentences, which is of course the gay fault of gays:

Despite of all that their angry-mob front groups argue for in front of television cameras to the contrary, radical homosexual activists despise the institution and more importantly the sanctity of marriage. That is also the fundamental reason why they are seeking to destroy the institution.

Well said. You can see from that expertly crafted first sentence why he is a "featured" Internets columnist. His point, such as it is, is that gays are jealous of straights because they know that when they fuck they can't make babies and thus they have "voices in their heads" that tell them that God hates them, and this makes them crazy, so they then infiltrate the New Jersey State Supreme Court and write decisions that say, translating from legalese, "Jesus Christ is a DICK."

Your Conservative Movement. What a great bunch of folks. Bigots, and damn proud of it.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!

Today was the 7-Year-Old's last soccer game of the season, and what a muddy game it was. It rained all night, it rained all morning. The game in the rain was played mainly in the mud. The conditions were rougher on the parents & coaches than the 7-Year-Olds, who of course quite enjoyed the licence to get extremely filthy. As I've mentioned, the 7-Year-Old's team tends to get clobbered, and they did again today... but THE 7-YEAR-OLD SCORED A GOAL! Picked up alertly on a loose ball and socked it in. With AUTHORITY.

What's funny is that this means so much more to me than it does to him. Every time I bring it up he says "dad, I'm not the only one on my team, you know." That he scored, eh, whatever, how'd the team do? Very badly. But even that didn't get him down. He had hot chocolate. And at the end-of-season party, pizza. And a donut.

And a TROPHY. Which is cool.

Pics.  And below that, the 7-Year-Old's favorite video. Really.

The Majesty of the Law

Discovered in the Wild:

Well, I must go back to making real estate deals that make me wealthy.
Gary Ruppert

Christ, that's funny.

 

They Get Gifts!

Wow! Eli of MultiMedium has given to me a present:

Which is cool.

And useful, as I actually do need a new wallet, since the one I am currently using has gone through the wash and is losing structural integrity (please, no jokes about money laundering).

ELI ROCKS!

He is cool enough to be a Doors fan! ("Greatest hits albums are for housewives and little girls!")

Bomb in the Beehive

Just doing my part. See below for lots of neat stories about GOP corruption!

--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl
--AZ-01: Rick Renzi
--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth
--CA-04: John Doolittle
--CA-11: Richard Pombo
--CA-50: Brian Bilbray
--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave
--CO-05: Doug Lamborn
--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell
--CT-04: Christopher Shays
--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan
--FL-16: Joe Negron
--FL-22: Clay Shaw
--ID-01: Bill Sali
--IL-06: Peter Roskam
--IL-10: Mark Kirk
--IL-14: Dennis Hastert
--IN-02: Chris Chocola
--IN-08: John Hostettler
--IA-01: Mike Whalen
--KS-02: Jim Ryun
--KY-03: Anne Northup
--KY-04: Geoff Davis
--MD-Sen: Michael Steele
--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht
--MN-06: Michele Bachmann
--MO-Sen: Jim Talent
--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns
--NV-03: Jon Porter
--NH-02: Charlie Bass
--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson
--NM-01: Heather Wilson
--NY-03: Peter King
--NY-20: John Sweeney
--NY-26: Tom Reynolds
--NY-29: Randy Kuhl
--NC-08: Robin Hayes
--NC-11: Charles Taylor
--OH-01: Steve Chabot
--OH-02: Jean Schmidt
--OH-15: Deborah Pryce
--OH-18: Joy Padgett
--PA-04: Melissa Hart
--PA-07: Curt Weldon
--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick
--PA-10: Don Sherwood
--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee
--TN-Sen: Bob Corker
--VA-Sen: George Allen
--VA-10: Frank Wolf
--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick
--WA-08: Dave Reichert

A Law

Thers's Second Iron Law of the Internets:

No matter how utterly retarded you think the internets are, they are ALWAYS dumber.

Fuck....

So Much for Civility...

Wow. This is really kind of unbelievable...

LAUER: And you brought up Michael J. Fox. Let me just ask you: You know, Rush Limbaugh started a lot of controversy when he said perhaps Michael J. Fox was exaggerating or faking these effects of Parkinson's disease in that ad promoting stem cell research. Didn't Rush Limbaugh just say what a lot of people were privately thinking?

[...]

LAUER: But also, Susan, last word. If Michael Fox goes out there politically and puts himself in the fray, he has to expect to be, you know, taken to account, correct?

ESTRICH: Correct. And he is being taken to account.

Fascinating, the way we understand "civility" nowadays.

In the Land of Magic

AH, Althouse, you wonderful dope. Apparently Ted Nugent came to Madison and did stupid things, and in her inimitible style, Althouse wrote:

So said Todd Rundgren, who came to Madison, Wisconsin last night.

Todd Rundgren and Ted Nugent are different people. Good thing Sinead O'Connor wasn't there too, or Althouse would have warned us about Biz Markie. Anyway, Althouse notes the lack of violence, to which her commenter Pogo replies:

They feared him, and rightly recognized that Nugent would probably beat them up if they tried it.

Which is pretty heady stuff from an Internets tough guy/cartoon possum/stick. Anyway, this much we know is true: Anti-liberal Ted Nugent-inspired smack talk in the Althouse comments section is, uh, pretty fucking funny, like a middle aged guy doing high fives with his accountant friends after totally kicking ass at Chuck-E-Cheese skeeball. Drunk. On three sloe gin fizzes.

In other news, Althouse informs us, a propos of the film version of Running with Scissors:

I love the book, so I'm interested -- warily -- in the movie. But I'm incredibly annoyed at the poster. It depicts scissors, running. Has any movie poster (or book jacket) ever illustrated the title in a more idiotically literal fashion? Plus, it bothers me that the hand isn't wearing pants...

Who could argue? Get this woman a pundit gig, pronto!