Is anyone watching- I’ve got my hands in too many things atm to watch, but I am curious if there really is a chance his nomination will be defeated.
Archives for January 2013
Local Flavors
I’ve been working like a dog, and doing new and interesting things with beautiful people…actually I just haven’t had that much to say. I have been paying more attention to local blogs recently.
Here in Oklahoma, one of the better liberal blogs is The Lost Ogle. The name is an OKC in-joke. Also, Dustbury and The Oklahoma Observer. For a not entirely batshit insane conservative take on local politics, The McCarville Report.
Let us know in comments who the local sources are in your areas. Who should we be reading to get the flavor of local culture and politics?
Conservatives Talk Rap Music: Rap Ain’t the Same Since Sir-Mix-A-Lot Quit the Game
National Review authors Mark Steyn (who hates Big Bird) and Jay Nordlinger (who likes calling Mexicans “wetback”) did a podcast where they discussed the decline of rap music.
Douche One thinks rap music lacks human feeling. Douche Two thinks rap music fell off since Sir Mix-A-Lot quit the game.
Yes, I’m serious.
[read full post at ABLC]Cable Internet Will Slowly But Surely Turn Us Into a Third World Nation
I pay extra for supposedly a better Internet connection from the execrable bastards at Time Warner, may they all rot in hell after enduring years of pustulous boils, sulphuous, uncontrollable flatulence, and impotence brought on by an infestation of testicular guinea worms. This morning, their expensive service was crawling along like a mid-nineties dialup connection, so I began an odyssey that took me to BestBuy to get a new modem, and had me on the phone with 5 different tech support agents. It wasn’t until an hour (literally) into the last tech support call with an extremely pleasant and knowledgeable young woman that she was informed by one of her co-workers that “oh, yeah, we have an outage in that area”.
Like most of the US, there is no “market” for Internet providers for home service in my fair city. You can buy DSL, which is too fucking slow, wireless or satellite, which is relatively slow and has a tiny bandwidth cap, or you can take your hat in hand and get it filled with whatever scheiss is on offer from the cable TV operator, in this case Time Warner. Time Warner is actually not quite as bad as Comcast, since they don’t cap bandwidth, and they’re better than some smaller operators, since they will actually sell you service based on a technology invented in the last decade (DOCSIS-3). Of course, they charge way too much for it, but the only way those monopolistic fucks will lower their prices is if Google brings fiber to your town.
So after this outage is over (seems to be, since I can log here), I’ll be plugging in my old modem, having it re-provisioned (which, unless I talk to the same intelligent woman I spoke with earlier, will take 2-3 tries) and returning the new modem to Best Buy. Then I will be having a couple of stiff fucking drinks because we are all doomed by a system that celebrates oligopolies as markets.
Cable Internet Will Slowly But Surely Turn Us Into a Third World NationPost + Comments (73)
He’s not a man, he’s a loving machine
Aimai has an interesting post up criticizing the notion that anti-gun people (of which I am one) don’t “get” gun culture. I understand her point, and I also get sick of get sick of “Red Staters drive a car like this `Do, do, ch. Do-be-do, do-be-do-be-do’, Blue Staters drive a car like this `Dee-da-dee, a-dee-da-dee-da-dee-da-dee'”. But at the same time…I personally don’t “get” gun culture. I understand hunting, but for me, handguns are just killing machines and I can’t see them as anything else.
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to “get” conservatism more generally, because I don’t think you can understand American politics — especially the nature of Republican primaries — without having some intuitive feel for conservatism. Here’s a question for you: what single article or book helped you best understand how conservatives think and how that thinking differs from that of liberals? For me, it might be this NRO “Men We Love” Valentine card to various conservative luminaries. It’s not quite as steamy as Bobo’s mash notes to John Thune, fortunately:
Dick Cheney, the Uber Daddy: Maybe it’s the sly, knowing smile that hides a teamster’s vocabulary that makes this man so macho. To me he is the essence of cool….I was first introduced to him at a reception and, even though he didn’t know me, he leaned over and kissed me. Right then I was hooked. But, when it was suggested to him that a certain arrogant New York Times reporter was, in so many words, a fool, and he responded, “Big time!” I was cooked.
[….]To anybody who reads my blog, my pick should be no surprise. Yes, I’ve called this fellow at the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom a “Heritage Hottie” and a “conservacutie,” but my admiration for Nile Gardiner really does extend beyond that damn adorable smile. The first time I saw him was on Neil Cavuto, telling a guy who blamed African poverty on imperialism and not corrupt governments that he was spouting nonsense–hot!
What would yours be? (Article that most helped you understand conservatives, not conservative valentine.)
He’s the poetry man
I went on Twitter to see how many spittle-flecked anti-Hagel posts Jennifer Rubin had written this morning (answer: 20 in the last hour alone) and came across this:
poetry read by Inhofe:”those who cried “appease appease” are hung by those they tried to please.”
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 31, 2013
Inhofe also wrote the Official Anti-Hagel Washington Post Editorial, so I guess he’s the point man for Shelly Adelson on this one. If they can’t find a better point man than Inhofe….
Ironic Goatees For Everybody
Observation: If you want to know what Nate Silver would be like if he decided to use his powers for “soft jazz glibertarian concern trolling of liberals” instead of for good, then the Freakonomics franchise is about as close as you can get. It’s what happens when a Village Centrist and a Chicago school social economist team up for maximum totebagger nonsense.
Every single story there is “Here’s this liberal policy that you probably think is a no brainer. Now here’s our cherry-picked cost/benefit analysis that shows there’s really a massive hidden socioeconomic price of that policy because the evil and stupid federal government gets involved at this point here. It’s okay however, because you’re subconsciously doing the counter-intuitive opposite of this policy on your own personal microeconomic scale. And since so is everybody else, that’s why the policy seems to ‘work’ at the macro level. You’re just a delusional hypocrite, that’s all. Still, enjoy the guilt while you ruminate on the fact that government can never, ever work.”
And if the story isn’t about a liberal policy screwed up by the gubment, it’s “here’s this conservative free-market policy that you would think doesn’t work but…” and then you have to punch somebody. Luckily, hanging around this place long enough has allowed me to recognize the standard McBargle/Reasonoid logic these guys employ and go “But your entire premise is self-serving bullshit that only works as the very definition of confirmation bias. Go stick your head in a goat orifice. Thanks.”
Makes me want to set a Thermomix on fire.