THE
SCAPEGOAT. We just love America. And the Seventies
too. We can't wait for the utter destruction of our country by
Michelle Obama, the ultimate henpecker-in-chief.
Funny that we never figured we'd be rooting for Hillary as a saner
alternative. Now that's life in these United States.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
France is
Done.
How
soon will our 'progressives'
exhume Marilyn Monroe to burn her at the stake? For one damn reason or
another.
Crimes against Green, or Feminism, or Trans-Racialism?
LOOK IT ALL UP, CHUMPS. There
was once a nation called France, which believed that life was to be
lived through all the senses even as they created some of the greatest
works of architectural engineering and artistry in the world, in
addition to their skeptical philosophies, mind-expanding conceptual
painting, and deathlessly sensual poetry. We can still admire them for
their gift of the Statue of Liberty; the western masterpice called
Paris; the technological aspiration represented by the Eiffel Tower;
the wineries of Champagne and Bordeaux; the precociously decadent
music of Debussy, Satie, and Piaf; the scientific contributions of
Pasteur,
Lamarck, and Descartes; writers like Voltaire, Rousseau, Rimbaud,
Moliere, Hugo, and Dumas; the mechanical esprit of Bugatti, Delahaye,
and Turbo Lago; and the nudes of Degas, Renoir, Manet, Rodin, and
French cinema.
Now it turns out that the thousand-year duel between French Catholic
faith and
cynical French ennui has finally been decided. Robespierre and Vichy
trump
Napoleon and de Gaulle. Foucault trumps Joan of Arc. The EU trumps
Voltaire. And De Sade trumps
Bastiat. What's left is grinding, defeatist, even enthusiastic
submission to barbarism. A truly French icon is now to
be offered up on
the altar of cowardly sacrifice.
Former screen siren Bardot convicted in
race case
Brigitte Bardot was convicted Tuesday of provoking discrimination and
racial hatred for writing that Muslims are destroying France.
A Paris court also handed down a $23,325 fine against the former screen
siren and animal rights campaigner. The court also ordered Bardot to
pay $1,555 in damages to MRAP.
Bardot's lawyer, Francois-Xavier Kelidjian, said he would talk to her
about the possibility of an appeal.
A leading French anti-racism group known as MRAP filed a lawsuit last
year over a letter she sent to then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
The remarks were published in her foundation's quarterly journal.
In the December 2006 letter to Sarkozy, now the president, Bardot said
France is "tired of being led by the nose by this population that is
destroying us, destroying our country by imposing its acts."
Bardot, 73, was referring to the Muslim feast of Aid el-Kebir,
celebrated by slaughtering sheep.
French anti-racism laws prevent inciting hatred and discrimination on
racial or religious or racial grounds. Bardot had been convicted four
times previously for inciting racial hatred.
"She is tired of this type of proceedings," he said. "She has the
impression that people want to silence her. She will not be silenced in
her defense of animal rights."
It's rare that the best case for a nation can be made without words,
especially when that nation has produced some of the greatest users of
words in recorded history. But here's a brief (very) sample. [To be added later if I still feel like
it: IP readers who don't
think graphics are 'silly' can register their votes in the comments.
HINT: The Talbot Lago is the automotive equivalent of Bardot. Still,
I'd hate to disturb the 7-minute frosting of hope Mal is living on
these days.] And here's
a look at the iconic
woman France is now throwing under the bus along
with its own heritage as a civilized nation.
"Il
faut cultiver notre jardin." Sexy idea for Brigitte. Inconvenient anti-Islamic truth for
La France Perdue.
Put them all in haute-couture burkhas.
They'll all look the same then. Just like the rest of the European
zombies.
P.S. I
couldn't resist. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Talbot Lago.
And, what the hell, a Delahaye too.
How are the mighty fallen.
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Obama Decides on a New
Church
XOFF NEWS. After
days of in-depth research, the Obama campaign has
selected a new church affiliation for the candidate that is expected to
boost his popularity in Democrat constituencies where he has been weak.
"We didn't want to depart too strongly from the kind of tradition
Senator Obama has been used to -- a vigorous, enthusiastic,
pentecostally joyous congregation whose devout beliefs reflect working
class concerns and backgrounds," explained campaign spokesman George
Axelrod. "At the same time we wanted to take the opportunity to do some
outreach and create a new bond between the Senator and typical white
people from embarrass--, uh, embattled states like Kentucky and West
Virginia."
These criteria led to the choice of a Pentecostal Baptist Church in
Jolo, West Virginia. In announcing his decision, the Senator said, "Michelle, the kids, and I are
truly looking forward to next Sunday's service, and I feel sure that the majority of
hard-working white Americans will soon see that whatever our religious
differences may have been before, they are now a thing of the past.
Jolo Baptist is probably exactly like the church next door to all of
you
who don't live in California, New England, or Chicago."
The tornadoes that struck large parts of the nation yesterday are
believed to have been caused by a collective sigh of relief from
the
Democratic National Committee.
Here's a little more about Jolo.
If sanity is the measure, we're sure the Senator will feel right at
home. Electorally, we'll just have to wait and see.
Friday, May 30, 2008
HOPE: The Approaching
Singularity
A
Vision of the Future worth getting excited about. At some level it's even kind of
understandable. And HOT!
THE FUTURE.
Our loyal and beloved commenter Mal wants hope. Excuse me. Hope with a
capital H, italicized and boldfaced. I'm not sure this qualifies but it
might, and mights are what hope is
all about. Everybody should tune in to Glenn Beck's TV show on Headline
News tonight to hear Ray Kurzweill discuss the coming 'Singularity."
This, then, is the Singularity. The
Singularity is technological change so rapid and so profound that it
represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. Some would say
that we cannot comprehend the Singularity, at least with our current
level of understanding, and that it is impossible, therefore, to look
past its "event horizon" and make sense of what lies beyond.
My view is that despite our profound limitations of thought,
constrained as we are today to a mere hundred trillion interneuronal
connections in our biological brains, we nonetheless have sufficient
powers of abstraction to make meaningful statements about the nature of
life after the Singularity. Most importantly, it is my view that the
intelligence that will emerge will continue to represent the human
civilization, which is already a human-machine civilization. This will
be the next step in evolution, the next high level paradigm shift.
Kurzweill is an optimist. He thinks it's all going to work out for the
best. By 2025, we won't be able to recognize the civilization we're
living in viewed from the standpoint of today. Which means that all the
issues which seem so critical and dark right now will probably be
wholly irrelevant. YAY! He foresees, in the very near future, human beings
who are trillions of times
more intelligent than we are.
Consider a few examples of the
implications. The bulk of our experiences will shift from real reality
to virtual reality. Most of the intelligence of our civilization will
ultimately be nonbiological, which by the end of this century will be
trillions of trillions of times more powerful than human intelligence.
However, to address often expressed concerns, this does not imply the
end of biological intelligence, even if thrown from its perch of
evolutionary superiority. Moreover, it is important to note that the
nonbiological forms will be derivative of biological design. In other
words, our civilization will remain human, indeed in many ways more
exemplary of what we regard as human than it is today, although our
understanding of the term will move beyond its strictly biological
origins.
Many observers have nonetheless expressed alarm at the emergence of
forms of nonbiological intelligence superior to human intelligence. The
potential to augment our own intelligence through intimate connection
with other thinking mediums does not necessarily alleviate the concern,
as some people have expressed the wish to remain "unenhanced" while at
the same time keeping their place at the top of the intellectual food
chain. My view is that the likely outcome is that on the one hand, from
the perspective of biological humanity, these superhuman intelligences
will appear to be their transcendent servants, satisfying their needs
and desires. On the other hand, fulfilling the wishes of a revered
biological legacy will occupy only a trivial portion of the
intellectual power that the Singularity will bring.
Needless to say, the Singularity will transform all aspects of our
lives, social, sexual, and economic...
Not only that. We're going to be richer than our wildest dreams. This
is a quote from the first paragraph of the piece:
You will get $40 trillion just by
reading this essay and understanding what it says.
Cool. There are some things I could do with $40 trillion. For one
thing, I'd buy a new air-conditioner for my office. One that
doesn't freeze up in July and August. (And on warm days in May.)
I also think the Singularity vastly simplifies the child rearing
challenge. Just teach them to be honest, virtuous, adaptable, and
good-humored. It looks like everything else will be taken care of.
Of course, this may be the kind of idea that's more acceptable to the
old than the young. For example, I'd probably have felt threatened in
my salad days at the prospect of being a trillion times dumber than the
smart ones. It doesn't bother me anymore. Something I learned from
dogs. After a childhood filled with scary-smart terriers and German
Shepherds, I've come to realize that greyhounds -- who are truly
deep-down dumb (something the
rescue organizations don't promote nearly enough) -- are much much
happier than the high IQ breeds like terriers, sheep dogs, retrievers,
and standard poodles.
In fact, when the Singularity comes, I'm going to have myself
remanufactured as an eternally four-year-old greyhound.
Me in my golden years. Which I expect
to last till the sun burns out.
The ladies only laugh when you stick your nose into the Singularity.
It's going to be great. And for once I'm not even being ironic. Irony
is totally lost on greyhounds.
Hope:
A Tale of Two Rachels
We're
so fearless we'll even jump into a catfight. Rich Rachael (left) and cool Rachel (right).
OUR
FAVORITE ELOISE. Michelle Malkin, bless her heart, thinks symbols
and images matter. Probably because she's an evil gook bitch. Here's
the current dustup as reported by Waterglass.com.
Rachel
Ray [sic] in Terror Scarf Scandal
The far-out space-nut bloggers win again! Rachel Ray [sic]
Dunkin’ Donuts advert pulled after bloggers complain:
The US chain Dunkin’ Donuts has pulled
an advert following complaints that the scarf worn by a celebrity chef
offered symbolic support for Islamic extremism. The online advert for
iced coffee featured the well-known US television chef Rachael Ray. She
was wearing a black-and-white checked scarf around her neck that
resembled a traditional Arab keffiyeh. This fashion choice incensed at
least one prominent conservative blogger, who said it evoked extremist
videos. The blogger called the garment “a regular adornment of Muslim
terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos”.
The blogger is Michelle Malkin. She says of the scarf scandal:
Left-wing bloggers responded with
complete scorn, deliberate mischaracterizations of the debate, and then
outrage when Dunkin’ Donuts commendably showed sensitivity to the
concerns and pulled the ad.
What crap, I say. Now, this past winter, early spring, living in
Warsaw, Poland as I do, just about every teenager I saw walking around
wore this same scarf. I noted this to my wife, saying that the
kids in
Warsaw are dressing like Yasir Arrafat. She saw this, too, but
said
that this is the style nowadays. They don’t know who Arafat was,
she
said. I agree. Let the kids wear the “terror
scarves.” Aparently [sic] our
European betters are not afraid of the terror scarf.
Hey. Waterglass. Was this cool?
But if enough people do it, and most of those people think it's cool,
it's basically okay, right? That's why we wrote this
post back in March of 2006. And this
update. And other closely related entries.
Actually, Waterglass, it does
matter. Some things are so simple they lose their impact as soon as a
talented intellect goes to work on them. The obviously insane becomes
somehow defensible, dismissible, no big deal.
That's why we continue to love the OTHER Rachel. The simplistic,
all-cards-on-the-table, ditzy one. She
knows what she thinks.
Halleluiah! (Yeah, she's disregarded our ecxcellent advice about
slimming down her ridgeback, but we're pretty sure she's at least
mulling it over.)
For example, this is a Rachel who has written the best policy about
reader comments I've ever seen on the Internet:
So: I said it in the comments and I’ll
say it again: if you can’t make your argument without using insults and
name-calling, then you need to shut the fuck up or take it to some
other blog where they get off on that sort of behavior.
That goes for BOTH SIDES. Even if you agree with me that the
won’t-vote-for-McCain folks have a bad plan, take a cue from me and
refrain from calling those people whiny titty-babies or any variation
thereof. They AREN’T whiny titty-babies, they are intelligent people
who have made a decision based on what they think is right, and if that
isn’t a good enough reason to afford them the respect of not calling
them names, I don’t know what is. The plan is what I am attacking, not
the people.
I’ve been doing this blog thing and reading other blogs for a long
time, and there are a handful of reasons I sometimes stop reading other
blogs even if I like the blogger. One of those reasons is when they let
their comment sections turn into dirty fights. That repels me like
almost nothing else and I simply won’t have it here on my own blog.
Also, it should go without saying since I’ve said it a hundred fucking
times, but any comment that insults me or calls me any sort of
unpleasant name WILL BE DELETED. I don’t give a flying turd if you want
to explain how you disagree with me, which is so massively obvious if
you’d just read all the other comments that very vehemently disagree
with me, but I do give a flying turd about providing you the bandwidth
to be an asshole to me on my own turf. This includes writing, “Rachel
you’re full of shit,” or “I don’t give a shit what you think so bite
me,” or “you are screeching spastically” and so on.
I don’t know how to be more clear about it: disagree all you want.
Question my conclusions, my logic, my facts, whatever, but do it in a
way that wouldn’t get you punched in the nuts by Rupert if you said it
to my face in his presence.
There. Perfect. My guess is, she would know that Rachael Ray shouldn't
be wearing a kaffiyeh to advertise an American commercial establishment
and, if she did, should apologize for having done so. It's NOT
complicated. It's common sense.
Like the way Rachel Lucas (the common sensical one) reacted to
discovering that muslims
hate dogs. She knew immediately that this was important information
and probably fatal to any policy of peaceful coexistence between them
(barbarians) and us (civilized people).
That's why I continue to have hope for America. Because we've got a
good supply of Rachels who are better than what Waterglass calls our
"our European betters." [Scoff]
We're big fans here at Instapunk, Rachel. But please do schedule an
intervention for Sunny.
Now. As to the other Rachael.
STOP IT. You're cute. But not THAT cute.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Nothing New
He's
got the wherewithal to scribble* a book-length manuscript. Who knew?
GETTING
AHEAD. It's the job of the media, left and right, to pound this McClellan item for
days. But it's not a story, just a postscript. We already said
everything that needs to be said long ago. Before the administration
belatedly fired this incompetent sack of shit, we wrote:
[November
2005] George W. Bush doesn't like to fire people. It's his
greatest
weakness. If he wants to prevail in his most important policies,
however, it's time he overcame that weakness... [T]he
first three heads that must fall: Dan
Bartlett, Strategic Communications Planning; Scott
McClellan, White House Press Secretary; and Nicolle
Devenish, White House Communications Director.
These people assumed their current posts in the wake of the President's
highly successful campaign for reelection. Since then, they have
presided over one public relations debacle after another -- the
needless Schiavo brouhaha, the incompetently presented Social Security
reform initiative, the appalling failure to take credit for successes
in Iraq or to counter the MSM's "Vietnam quagmire" fantasy, the Cindy
Sheehan farce, the self-destructive Miers nomination, the Valerie Plame
fiction, the cone of
silence enforced while the Democrats screamed and shouted their "Bush
lied" lie into every network microphone for months, and the feeble
counterattack
that led to the ridiculous playacting of John Murtha.
By any possible standard of competence in communications, these people
are miserably and irredeemably inept. If they were merely obedient
soldiers executing the instructions of the big boss, they should have
resigned en masse long ere this in protest at being deprived of the
opportunity to exercise their good judgment. If they actually concocted
the communication plans that responded to the crises listed above, as
seems more likely in the court of the Great Delegator, they should be
drummed out of the profession -- hollow square, buttons ripped off,
swords broken -- the works.
The one thing I can't understand is why more Republicans haven't
demanded exactly this step. It may be difficult to see into the
workings of Bartlett's and Devenish's jobs, but we see McClellan every
day. The picture shown here is typical -- hands up in surrender. He is
continually at a loss, defensive, borderline oafish, argumentative
when he should be cool, placating when he should be predatory. His
performance alone is enough to indict his communication superiors. He's
minor league and even his surname is unpleasantly evocative of the
blowhard general who was always piling up more resources for a battle
he could never bring himself to fight. Get rid of him. NOW.
We also said everything worth saying about insider
books:
[April
2007] There has been a constant stream of
subversive, self-aggrandizing books by those whose whole power to serve
the U.S. government resided in their capacity to listen and speak
honestly to the President, whose confidence in their input rested
largely on the knowledge that candid conversations about matters of
state would not be spilled
into the public trough.
Thanks to the likes of George Tenet, Colin Powell, David Frum, Richard
Clarke, and God only knows how many other narcissistic crybabies, it
will never again be possible for a president of the United States to
converse with advisers without contemplating the self-serving books
they will write, and publish, while he (or she) is still in office.
Sorry. I can't forget what everyone else -- and I do mean everyone --
has forgotten. The United States of America is the most powerful and benevolent nation the world has
ever seen. The decisions that have to be made on behalf of our own
ctizens and the world are frequently difficult, complex, morally
contradictory, and nearly impossible to make. The leadership of no
other nation in history has ever voluntarily confronted the murderous
intentions of its rivals without permitting itself the option of
annihilating them by any means possible. Thus, the much pilloried Bush
adminsitration has continuously faced a situation without precedent in
human history -- fanatical, mortal enemies bent on the destruction of
the nation they serve, enemies who could be reduced to ash in
approximately 60 minutes without significant risk of retaliation, but
who will not be exterminated because we choose not to do so for moral
reasons.
The question that must be asked is why this heroic moral choice should
lead to the end of the most basic principles of loyalty, honor, and
integrity by those who have been so privileged as to participate in the
experiment.
The answer is apocalyptic. Such lofty expressions of merciful intent
lead inevitably to the lowest, most venal reactions by those who detect
the weakness inherent in mercy. They know they can get away with
personal treachery to further their own interests.
George W. Bush's real weakness is that he is not Hitler, Napoleon, Stalin,
Saddam, Castro, or Pol Pot. That he is far more like Portia than Caesar
is a promise of doom. In the days of Octavian, Powell, Tenet, Clarke,
and Frum would never have lived to write their whining memoirs about
their superiority to those from whom they took their orders. And the
citizens of the Republic would have been safer abroad as a result. But
there will be no American Augustus to lay the groundwork for a second
American Century. There will be, however, (count on it) an American
Cleopatra, Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero, and an inevitable sacking of
the capital of the world.
Rejoice, all you nihilists. Your fondest, deepest wish, the slashing of
your self-hating throats by oppressed barabarians, is one step closer
than it was yesterday. Happy?
That about does it. Nothing to add.
*What he did it with. It'll probably sell
for thousands on eBay. Unless it's subpoenaed by the Pelosi/Reid Congress first.
Rebutting Fairy
Dust
[Begin
at 8:30 in and listen as long as you can stand it.]
HAVE SOME OBAMA BEANS.
Last night I had the privilege of attending a corporate
function, a dinner honoring a high-tech business unit's employee
anniversaries.
I was there as a guest and had no personal knowledge of the people who
were being celebrated for 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, and 40 years of service to
their company. I did know the executive who emceed the rite of
recognition. He's a 40-year-old man (a kid by my reckoning) engaged in a constant battle to apportion his
time appropriately to his job, his family responsibilities, and his
volunteer efforts for the working-class Catholic parish he was born
into. Not for the first time, I found myself awed and humbled by his
ability to excel at these overcommitments. During the past year, he has
managed a painful reorganization (and RIF) of his workforce without
losing their dedication or affection, seen his eldest daughter blossom
into a devoted nursing student with a work-study schedule as consuming as
his own, and acquired a fluency in Spanish that enables him to keep up
with the changing demographics of the parishioners he helps in his
"spare" time.
I know him to be, as well, a loyal lifelong Democrat. So as I watched
him graciously honoring his company's employees for their longevity and
individual
achievements on the job, I couldn't help thinking about Obama's
Wesleyan address. The ringing call to "public service" sounds good and
even inspiring, but in the context of what I witnessed last night it is
also ignorant, narrow-minded, and insulting to a huge percentage of the
American populace, whether they choose to recognize the insult or not.
Yes, it
was a corporate function, but as I listened to the well crafted
summaries of individual careers, accomplishments, and personal traits
of the honorees, I saw -- even as an outsider -- that they hadn't given
all those years to one organization because they were in thrall to
Obama's contemptuously labeled "money culture." They had committed
their lives to exacting and difficult disciplines they were good at,
and along the way they had undertaken serious risks to accomplish goals
they believed to be important. (In fact, by any objective standard, the
goals were important, to all
of us, but to say more might make it possible to identify them, and
that I won't do.) Yet in our uniquely American way, the tributes
to each person mingled memories of extraordinary brilliance and
principle on the professional level with anecdotes about personal
foibles and -- a constant thread -- all the other things they somehow managed
to do for family, charities, and each other. Those in attendance
understood all the nuances. They laughed, they applauded, they chimed
in with their own approving comments, and they were respectfully silent
when the weightiest accomplishments were being described. They were a
community and, though I hate to utter a cliche that was
repeated several times without irony or any expression of dissent, a
family.
I'm not being saccharine. There are bad companies as well as good.
There
are corporations in which people are valued exclusively for cutthroat
devotion to profit. But in my own personal experience I have observed
that bad companies, like bad people, eventually get what's coming to
them. And there are good companies that forget the need to make a
profit and so expire at great personal cost to the people and families
who depended on them. It's important to remember, though, that the
historic success and affluence of America lies in the fact that so many
companies of all sizes are very much like the one I'm telling you
about. Unlike Wall Street money machines or Ivy League law firms, most
corporate entities in America exist to provide goods and services that
people need, want, or depend on without knowing how or why. And
regardless of the profit motive built into the capitalist economic
model
-- the most successful economic model ever discovered -- the people who
make it all work are in "public service" to a much greater degree than
any not-for-profit example cited by Barack Obama at Wesleyan.
Where do you want the most talented mathematicians, chemists,
engineers, biologists, computer jocks, and managers to spend their
time? In a lifelong feel-good allegiance to some vast international
Peace Corps, unloading sacks of U.N. flour in
third-world nations? Or pushing themselves to wring every last
drop of
productivity out of the one supreme talent they were born with and
educated to use?
Fairy
dust is the illusion that we can fix everything if everyone tries to do everything
except
succeed personally.
Last night I saw the America that Obama knows so
little about he feels
free to piss on it. And, yeah, it really does look something like this:
You
don't know their faces. They won't be on TV or in the White House. But you owe them
everything.
For a while there, it made me mad at Obama, for his blindness, his
arrogance, his half-baked experience of the country that's given him so
much opportunity, his wife's pampered resentment of things no one
should take for granted. But then I had a different thought. I realized
that he is one of the clearest examples we have yet had of the
emergence of an isolated aristocracy reminiscent of the Brits' class
system. Eton, Harrow, Cambridge, Oxford,
and ultimate divorcement from the vitality and creative
accomplishments of real life. When they realized that their inbred, genetically
damaged, and over-educated gang
of dukes and earls and "honorable" untitled younger sons couldn't ever
achieve anything of value, they consigned them to careers in
politics.
Wouldn't
you just love to see a like competition for the Harvard Law School class of [fill
in an apt year]? Think Schumer, the SENIOR Senator from New York.
Clearly, it's been a civiization-destroying
move for the Brits. But
maybe, just maybe, Obama has hit on a better solution.
Perhaps Wesleyan grads should
all join the Peace Corps. And take their
Williams and Amherst chums with them. And the graduates of all the
Ivy league colleges and graduate schools, and Stanford and Berkeley and
Brandeis and the University of Chicago and everywhere else 1400 SAT
scores guarantee colossal mis-education. Ship them overseas. Put them
to work vaccinating famine victims against chlamydia. Teaching
malaria-stricken
tribes how to put condoms on bananas. Building mud-brick government
offices for the distribution of welfare checks people could cash
if they ever learned how to write their names. Would it do any good?
Yes. It would keep the fairy-dust fanatics away from the rest of us.
All that's left is convincing Obama to go with them. Overseas. To right
all the wrongs of a world he hasn't taken even the first step toward
understanding.
What's that he's dusting off his shoulder? Nah. Not the fairy dust.
