But for events like the Boston bombings and the manhunt, it's a complete cesspit; wading into it is like being attacked by a million shouty Steve Doocy Mini-Mes.
Anyway, congratulations, 95% of the Internet -- you managed to out-squalid the New York Post.
MAS. Mileage, of course, varies. But having to wait a few hours in order toknow the truth is hardly too high a price to pay to avoid wading through sewage.
The only people who need Constant Updates are law enforcement and anyone with public safety duties. The only people who deserve Constant Updates are the families of victims.
It's natural to want Constant Updates, but you know, some perspective?
MUCHO MAS. See what you find when you dip into Twitter just for a second? It's bobbing for road apples:
Truly, the American Right has suffered a million 9/11s since Monday, and are the Real Victims in this tragedy.
Until now, I have not weighed in on the Great Platinum Koin Konspiracy of One-Thirteen, so I quite forgive you for not as yet having made up your minds regarding the wisdom of the ploy. Allow me therefore to present Dispositive Evidence as to why the president should immediately get on the phone to the Treasury and say, "mint me that coin right fucking now." And hang up.
McArdle's post is shouty gibberish of the "everyone is wrong except Megan McArdle" class, and need not detain us. All one ought to consider is that lazy hacks are not even right once an ever.
Which brings us by inevitable vicus of regurgitation back to Ann Althouse and environs. Althouse fondly imagines that she has slain K'Thruglu through an ingenious combined attack consisting of pig-ignorance, preening allodoxia, and willful idiocy. Which is to say, the usual horseshit.
There seem to be two kinds of objections. One is that it would be undignified. Here’s how to think about that....
The professor is about to teach us how to think. Get ready!
... we have a situation in which a terrorist may be about to walk into a
crowded room and threaten to blow up a bomb he’s holding.
Okay. A hypothetical. I'm up for hypotheticals. And it's an analogy,
because the trillion-dollar-coin thing isn't promoted as a solution to
terrorism. But terrorism is something that you can picture quite
concretely and you understand it as very real and scary — unlike the
debt ceiling problem which is awfully abstract. (Even to say "ceiling"
is to resort to metaphor.)
Well, she concedes, or senses, that Krugman is using a metaphor and not advocating literal clown-based law enforcement, which is for Althouse a major achievement. However, "the debt celiling problem" is only "awfully abstract" if you are either genuinely or disingenuously sufficiently cretinous to take the several minutes it requires to understand it.
Which is why Althouse doesn't, or can't (who cares) acknowledge why the extended clown metaphor Krugman uses works. If a gang of utterly absurd cretins manages to engineer a ridiculously dangerous situation, what can you do but send in the clowns? It takes a joker to catch a fool.
I mean, look -- in 20-thousand-10 a lawless bunch came riding into town; they reached for their guns with their tiny little hands and they shot the sherriff down. They terrorized the citizens, they caused a saloon brawl, and no one would stand up to them, even though they were so small.
So the platinum coin would come to right a wrong.
(Yes, yes, that is an obscure joke. Permit me my small joys, redsnouts. At any rate comparing The Tea Party to The Terror of Tiny Town is in every respect thoroughly cringe-worthily apposite.)
Nothing Althouse says equates to a "point"; she doesn't understand the actual issue, and on that basis crowns herself Queen Honeytwit of the Dipshits.
But such finger and tongue-wagging smuggeries are mere priggish prudery.
So -- General David Petraeus has been "caught" having an affair with someone not his wife.
So -- General David Petraeus has been revealed as possessing an illicit, "dangerous" sexuality.
So -- what?
The cant! The hypocrisy!
Let us all face the truth. Let us stride manly forth into the daylight and say YES! YES! THIS IS WHO I AM!
Let us be bold. Let us be honest. Let us... be true to ourselves.
Admit it:
Who among us, in America, does not want to fuck a General?
Yes, we have all heard the slander, we have endured the pervasive cruelty. We have often been accused of being, as they say, generalosexuals. Or worse! But let us own the epithet. Let us say, loud and proud: I am an American, and I am a General-fucker.
Republican or Democrat, we have all wanted to fuck General Petraeus; we have for years cast him coy glances, batted our eyes, simpered, primped, and preened, flirted shamelessly, desperate for his favor, his manly charms.
Don't deny it!
That dear, dear David has cast his favors upon an unworthy BITCH, excuse me, TROLLOP is the polite term I am informed, must not discourage us.
Someone else will come along just like him soon enough, and since we will be faithful and true and sincere general-fuckers, we'll stay steadfast and unchanging, and be rewarded by getting well and truly fucked in the end.
I mean, not quite as fucked as certain foreigners, sure, but whatever.
Just BELIEVE.
MAS. In an apparent effort to make this all even more inane, were that possible... "Tuesday, the house remained quiet aside from the media circus. A woman
could be seen inside the home's large bay windows, but it was not clear
if it was Jill or her twin sister."
Well-dressed & entirely rational, not in the least bit absurdly paranoid conservative cheerleader Michelle Malkin has the scoop: It's a fashionista conspiracy!
Talk about wearing your politics on your sleeve. An elitist clique of fashion designers has banded together to raise money for celebrity-in-chief Barack Obama and browbeat their customers into supporting him. Even worse, the Beautiful People who dress the Powerful People are putting increased pressure on conservatives to stay out of the business altogether.
Out: Haute couture. In: Hate couture.
Much too lazy to do a 180° treatment of that paragraph (Substituting "armament industry" for fashion designers, Romney for Obama, lib for con, yada.) but certainly you can imagine.
You can also imagine the incredible "pressure" being applied:
Diane von Furstenberg pitched in two $85 tote bags and has grown more strident about her partisan agenda as Election Day nears. At a fashion event in her New York Meatpacking District store last month, she yelled at clients: "Everyone here better be a Democrat; no Republicans!"
Wow. Not sure pressure is a strong enough word. Fortunately Malkin found someone (Pro-Romney because he doesn't like to pay taxes or a living wage to women indentured in his sweatshops? Who knows?) to reveal that it's not mere pressure but a threat! And to do a 180 that reveals where the true attacks on women come from.
Young New York City designer Bradley Scott also spoke up against ideological "persecution" in his industry. "It's really offensive for me, as a designer, to be issued an unveiled threat by someone who could exert an enormous amount of influence over my customers, store buyers and magazine editors," he told me on Tuesday. "I for one want absolutely nothing to do with this attack on women. This pressure upon designers should offend every woman in this country, not just the conservatives."
As far as I can determine the real conspiracy here was making Ann Romney appear as if she's a blind woman who lets a six-yr. old Disney Princess fan choose her clothes.
Richard Perry/The New York Times
Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, left, made cherry pies with Linda Hundt,
the owner of Sweetie-licious Bakery Cafe in DeWitt, Mich.,
during a campaign stop in June.
In other news, I believe this is my first published comment ever at the NYT on anything other than a Paul Krugman post. David Brooks attempts a lesson in morality for the real Americans.
The key job in the Good Person Construct is to manage your rationalizations and self-deceptions to keep them from getting egregious. Ariely suggests you reset your moral gauge from time to time. Your moral standards will gradually slip as you become more and more comfortable with your own rationalizations. So step back. Break your patterns and begin anew. This is what Yom Kippur and confessionals are for.
Next time you feel tempted by something, recite the Ten Commandments. A small triggering nudge at the moment of temptation, Ariely argues, is more effective than an epic sermon meant to permanently transform your whole soul.
...
A final thought occurred to me. As we go about doing our Good Person moral calculations, it might be worth asking: Is this good enough? Is this life of minor transgressions refreshingly realistic, given our natures, or is it settling for mediocrity?
David Brooks wants to help the little people improve their morality. Of course, he makes his living writing propaganda for war-mongers and kleptocrats. Don't try this at home, little people. Settle for mediocrity.
P.S. David Brooks types his tripe twice a week. Visit driftglass for an expert take-down of Tuesday's nonsense.
The misdirection is blindingly obvious. The claim is that the Administration needs new tools to get tough on banks. No, it has plenty of tools, starting with Sarbanes Oxley. As we’ve discussed at length in earlier posts, Sarbox was designed to eliminate the CEO and top brass “know nothing” excuse. And the language for civil and criminal charges is parallel, so a prosecutor could file civil charges, and if successful, could then open up a related criminal case. Sarbox required that top executives (which means at least the CEO and CFO) certify the adequacy of internal controls, and for a big financial firm, that has to include risk controls and position valuation. The fact that the Administration didn’t attempt to go after, for instance, AIG on Sarbox is inexcusable. The “investigation” done by Andrew Ross Sorkin in his Too Big To Fail (Willumstad not having a good handle on the cash bleed, the sudden discovery of a $20 billion hole in the securities lending portfolio, the mysterious “unofficial vault” with billions of dollars of securities in file cabinets) all are proof of an organization with seriously deficient controls.
But more broadly, it’s blindingly obvious this Administration has never had the slightest interest in doing anything more serious than posture.
Finally, a blood pressure-reducing video:
UPDATE: Here's a couple of items I forgot to include yesterday, and one from today.
Tengrain suggests changing your registration to a third party or Independent.
“What about Ron Paul?! He took second! Doesn’t he warrant a mention?” This meme has been echoed even by the likes of Jon Stewart, whose fanciful quest to ferret out every trace of hypocrisy on the side of his opponents has instead led him down the rabbit hole of self-righteousness and false punditry, always thinly veiled by a layer of badly applied clown makeup.
OK, just stupid & juvenile so far. No need to hold your breath, however. Just your nose.
Because Ron Paul is a joke at the expense of the Right, and his second place showing in the straw poll was the bad punch line. The man tracks with (and may agree with) racist, conspiracy-mongering mongoloids so vile that they would instantly discredit libertarianism if any liberal media outlet more relevant than The New Republic ever bothered to cover them. Those who disagree are invited to explain the chumminess between Ron Paul and the Mises Institute, whose patron Saint Murray Rothbard once made a habit of paling around both with Maoists and with the followers of David Duke, for the simple reason that the responsible Right failed to display a sufficient hatred of America relative to those two groups.
Mongoloids. Ha ha. What is it, 1955? Also funny: A pseudonymous clown typing for TheDC claiming that "liberal media outlet" TNR isn't relevant. And here's the big fun:
What Paul’s partisans fail to apprehend is that the reason that coverage is not forthcoming for their hero is because Paul has made himself the avatar of a time-tested brand of Republicanism: That is, self-hating Republicanism. The reason disingenuous sniggerers like Stewart sympathize with Paul, and why Rachel Maddow will fawningly ask him to explain his crackpot theories between heaping mouthful [sic] of carpet is because Ron Paul attacks his own party with twice the zeal he ever uses against liberals. He spouts the same nonsense talking points as members of the Pacifist Left (“Iran is only defending themselves!”) and the Socialist Left (“Corporations aren’t people! Only people are people!”) with the ingenious capacity for somehow duping legions of devoted followers into believing these time-tested left wing gobs of spit are somehow true conservatism. It’s time someone explained precisely why this designation is as fantastical as Paul’s chances at election are.
Does he mean Rachel Maddow is as nutty as Hitler, who was alleged to be rug-chewingly mad? Or have I somehow missed the hard core carpet-munching that is (Subliminally?) interspersed w/ Ms. Maddow's questions?
Because TheDC needs clicks, there are four more pages of this (Granted, an easy condemnation of Rep. Paul's economic cow patties.) but I'd as soon poke myself w/ a sharp stick as use that stick to search through the urine-filled tank to spear more poop nuggets. I will share that Pseudo-Mencken's main gripe w/ the Texas Turkey is that he is not bloody-minded enough to engage in pre-emptive attacks/strikes/wars against any nation, group or individual that looks cross-eyed at these United Snakes. Help yourselves if you like. Just don't say you weren't warned.
— M. Bouffant (Available here in the first person plural.)
Rot like this that never fucking ends. If she's such a great admirer of "business," why doesn't she see if she can compete in it, rather than blathering in a manner designed to get clicks for the boss?
I am second to none in my admiration for business. And in fact I share the GOP view that there is far too much regulation in this country. I would also like to cut taxes, if only we were willing to also cut spending.
Because taxes are so unspeakably high now. Regulation? The horror!! And infrastructure investment is just throwing worse money after bad?
Not, mind you that I expected better, or that I think the Democrats will deliver anything more plausible; they have their own unrealistic expectations of policy projects, like infrastructure investment and green jobs. But this is what I do during campaign season: politicians say remarkably silly things, and I point out just how remarkably silly they are.
We anxiously await Ms. McArdle's complaint about how the crummy pot-holed streets of Washington have forced her to trade in her Mini Cooper well before she thought it should have fallen apart.
Much "civility" claptrap issuing from the usualsources (white guys, old & privileged, in the Puffho).
Look, the shooter was a paranoid & delusional schizophrenic. The sudden introduction of the civility for which wretched old honkies (Of whom, in the interests of disclosure, I am one, 'though not wretched in the way Fineman, Paul Helmke or other media villagers are.) pine into "the discourse" would not have made George Wallace's proverbial dime's worth of difference to the young man alleged to have killed & wounded his fellow humans in a Tucson parking lot.
Attention has been paid to Arizona's recent passage of a concealed weapons carry law & to Sarah Palin & others (Rep. Giffords' opponent in the recent election among them) using violent, gun-oriented imagery & rhetoric to play to their threatened, fearful base, but (especially considering Arizona's attitude toward the medically indigent) the first place we should look in the finger-pointing process is Arizona's treatment (if any, ha ha) of its mentally ill population.
Beyond the state's apparent assurance that every disturbed paranoid (who is a legal resident) can get at least one gun.
