An Era Has Passed

Goodbye, easily-replaceable cog in an entertainment machine. In tribute, here is a song you may never have been in the studio for, plus completely unrelated visuals.

Yum Yum Good Eats

Gratuitous advertising: holy shit is Vij's a great place. Had the mushroom appetizer and the venison main, got to sample the yam appetizer and the eggplant and chickpea main. I don't go there often, but wow once again.

The View From Afar

Warner Todd Huston:

It has gotten so bad in France that in some parts of its cities, those parts controlled by marauding gangs of Muslim youths, whites never enter for fear of their lives. Not only that but not even police dare enter these areas. This dangerous situation does not seem anywhere near being solved. In fact, it’s just getting worse.

Well, fortunately modern technology allows us the means to check this out. Let us go then, you and I, while an evil crescent crosses the sky...



Closer...



Closer...



And on to street view, for the advertised unrest, NOW IN PROGRESS:

Death

Daniel Foster wants you to know that the president will kill you:

The stripping of the “death panels” from the final version of Obamacare won’t stop the administration from getting “end of life planning” into Medicare by other means.

You might think that "end of life planning" might have something to do with ordinary medical treatment like, say, weighing the benefits of extending your life for a year vs. spending most of that year hooked up to machines or taking poison intravenously, or, you know, at least letting patients and their loved ones know in advance what their prospects are. I think I am to read Mr. Foster otherwise.

Conflict

To placate the maternal unit I went out with her on Christmas Eve to Jazz Vespers.

As church services go, it was better than most, and the jazz was as white as snow, which is okay at Christmas, the highlight being a version of the song embedded below (which I already like a LOT) with Jennifer Scott channeling Karen Carpenter. Yes, I mean that in a good way.

The United Church of Canada is pretty decent as decency goes, and the pastor was awfully gay (and happily married). Since candles and charity were involved, there were some firemen involved and he made some jokes about being handled by them, and the crowd had a whole bunch of happy folks being open about who they were; such a scene is good for mom, who once got awfully angry with me about the concept of gay marriage. It's also good for me: I muster up cringeworthy statements now and then, perhaps including this post. Still, bitter me at Xmas was thinking about the good feelings that the UCC is willing to extend to others in the pursuit of their mission being an expansion of the potential audience that can be lied to. The Baby Jesus story yet again moved me not in the least, but people holding hands in church who would, in my youth, have been beaten senseless for doing such a thing was a lesson. Mind you I haven't sat through an other-than-wedding service in many years, and it's Vancouver anyway, so who knows what's going on in those places? Bong and Bondage Vespers on the way soon? Bongdage Vespers?

And none of this good will prevented me from being the object of a creepy bathroom interrogation by a crazy guy wanting to know why I didn't go to church. Answering "IT IS CRAZY" did not seem to be right for the night, so "Merry Christmas" and I was out.

Non-Parrot Entertainments

You probably saw this before I did:



Now consider the genius of Basil Wolverton:

Treasures of Archive.Org

One of my RSS feeds is a feed for the Internet Archive, which I mostly don't click through to. It's interesting to see the items go by, in a way: lotsa religious sermons, shitty dance tracks, and technical gobbledygook. Much like the internet as a whole I guess.

Well, it seems that the LaRouche maniacs also like to preserve video there. When I first saw LaRouche on TV he was an obvious nut buying late-night airtime, and his name is still synonymous with lunacy. If you watch the video, though, (or rather start watching it and never ever finish) how far is that lunacy from the lunacy of sitting Republicans? It's no different from Glenn Beck except that LaRouche dislikes some authoritarians - the focus on the British Empire remains absurd and hilarious - while Beck seems to like them all. Just how big an influence on right-wing memes is Lyndon LaRouche?



Note the tags:

economic; larouche; crash; econ; depression; recession; recovery; british; empire; world; 9/11; inside; job; defense; ego; president; obama; summers; modification; manipulation; sociology; swine; epedemic; pandemic; genocide; disease; pig; h1; n1; infection; sick; development; rail; power; nuclear; atom; fission; fusion; science; future; magnetic; levitation; looting co2; pollution; global; warming; epa; carbon; dioxide; climate; health; care; mri; ray; life; doctor; assisted; suicide; hospital; cut; payment; hmo; adam; smith; empiricism; religion; dogma; dollar; money; federal; reserve; usury; nazi; fascist; hitler; germany; england; british; king; adolf; kill; death; camp

In the Absence of Posts

Go read this.

I am not sure how present I will be over the next while; maybe I'll be here more, maybe I'll be here less FEWER. In any case, enjoy what there is to enjoy and thank you very much for entertaining me.

The Itch That Must Be Scratched

Shorter Washington Times:

Know WHO ELSE took advantage of a lame-duck session?

HUGO

CHAVEZ.

Also Hitler did bad stuff.

And Mussolini.

Must-See Entertainment

News from one of the many places that pretends to be a kind of Hollywood:

Six people have been injured in an explosion on the set of the feature film Dungeon Siege II in a provincial park east of Vancouver.

The show must go on! Break a leg! Blow up in a propane-tank explosion! Et cetera! Please bring us Dungeon Siege II as the world is clamouring for it!

Who is heading up the crew of artistes endeavouring to bring us the finest in projectimacated pictures?

The film is being directed by Uwe Boll and stars Swedish actor Dolph Lundgren, who was last seen in the film the Expendables.

World, you owe us for cradling this soon-to-be masterpiece. Kiwis can EAT IT: WE IMPORTED BOLL.

Riverdale Sucks Too

Archie gets disappointed and Reggie’s an asshole again:

When Archie Andrews and Reggie Mantle are opponents in the race for student body president, each candidate channels one of the most well-known figures in American politics: Archie goes blue with Obama while Reggie goes red for Palin. Soon the real life politicians visit the young politicians.

Food of the Clods

Not merely the love of one foodstuff but the animal instinct, the simple undifferentiated hunger; that was the force that would tear the Party to pieces. She put the chocolate chips down upon the graham crackers, among the fallen marshmallows. Presently the melting and dripping of the sugary goop quickened, and in a sort of pleasant ooziness they slid askew. The sun seemed to have grown hotter. They were all ravenous. Almost immediately they ate and ate for about half an hour. Sarah finished first. You could not have pure hunger or pure indulgence nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred. Their meal had been a battle, the dessert a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.

No Eskate

I was never a good skater because I couldn't twist the blades around to catch the dark matter just so.

Geek Notes

Holy cow is Foswiki ever a slick little package. I wrestled with TWiki some years ago and although it seemed like an obvious powerhouse it was tough for impatient me to make it do what I wanted quickly. Since TWiki lost a bunch of developers it forked into Foswiki and I get a nice little installer for my Mac. I'll be taking the Foswiki-enabled machine to a meeting or two I think, and maybe I'll get some adoptions happening.

Joy

You must already have seen this parrot, yet I am reposting the video. It makes me laugh every time I see it. Do not seek out the original song: it sucks.



One, nothing wrong with me
Two, nothing wrong with me
Three, nothing wrong with me
Four, nothing wrong with me

One, something's got to give
Two, something's got to give
Three, something's got to give
Now!

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor

Also:



And in comments for that, a truth is spoken:

Bye Bugs!

It seems I will not have to use my fabulous wealth to destroy art after all.

Rain was beginning to destroy the art because it was seeping into the piece where the Plexiglas had been smashed, Blume said.

Um, no. It was fogging up before the first removal.

The Underworld

Michael Steele can go to hell:

Michigan committeeman Saul Anuzis also announced a key endorsement Friday [in the race to chair the Republican National Committee] from Bill Crocker, the national committeeman from Texas.

Crocker joins Virginia committeeman Morton Blackwell in backing Anuzis; both are prominent conservative voices within the RNC.

Anuzis now has nine RNC members publicly committing to support him for chairman.

Mr. Anuzis pictured below:

Freedom

Via Morbo at Edroso's a too-filled-with-in-jokes parody of Marvel's Civil War bullshit.



I say "too filled with in-jokes" because I wish everyone on the planet could find this as hilariously funny as I do, but that's unlikely unless you've wasted an enormous amount of time on nonsense. I mean, presumably the other people on the planet are probably doing something more important like laundry, watching television, starving or what have you.

To make this post more useful then, consider reading this very very long comic or other more valuable things with the Firefox extension Linky, which'll open up every damned image in one tab if you ask it to, and then you can just scroll away. Linky's awfully handy for things like opening up, say, thirty tabs at once and then you just close 'em as you read. Hey, there's a Chrome version too.

Good News Everyone!

Conrad Black:

By the time of the pope’s British trip, the swords of the worldwide Catholic-baiters had already been blunted by the sudden surge of alarm over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. For several months, War of the Worlds horrors of the destruction of the world’s oceans, the end of the shrimp industry, the irreversible sliming of the entire Gulf and Atlantic coastlines of America, had shouldered and bullied into the back of the public mind the cherished prospect of the exposure of the Roman Church as a racket of pedophiles and predatory Sodomites. Of course, the oil spill was a terribly serious problem too. But in the one case as in the other, there was a determined effort, halting at first, hampered by bumbling and by an urge to downplay and deny, but soon indomitably determined and focused, to address the causes of the problem and stop it, and then to put things right as much and as quickly as possible and prevent repetition. It is not obvious why the swift and dramatic progress in both crises came as such a surprise, and to many, even apparently, as a disappointment.

That's right friends, the priest abuse scandals are over.

I encourage you to read Black's full column because I'm mean that way.

The Vicious Bloodlust of Moderate Centrism

Ross Douthat:

Hitchens is absolutely right that paranoia can lead to disastrous follies, and crackpottery to violence. But do you know what else has often led to folly, disaster, violence and human misery? The “moderation” and “centrism” of the Western governing class. It wasn’t Glenn Beck who mired the United States in two neverending overseas occupations, where “gun brandishing” is the least of the everyday horrors that flow from our policy failures.

On the one hand I wish to LOL at Ross Douthat and on the other, um, well done moderate centrists.

Why We Goatse

Mike Potemra:

I am very taken with his idea of the Internet as a metaphor for God; the Internet is, after all, a purely spiritual realm, using rudimentary material elements to connect souls with each other — sometimes across vast distances — in the communion of shared meaning.

Imagine a lone hand, and another lone hand, joined together by the flexibility of a gaping anus.

Two Things

A good thread at Sadly, No!

A sad little story condensed by Brendan.

The Fruits of Leftist Hollywood

The countdown has started. No less a man than John Nolte is getting ready to reveal his list of the best movies leftists have ever made. Given that Hollywood is a place where a conservative never gets an even break, this should give us a helluva big pool of fucking great movies, right? I mean, even with the stipulation that these have to be blatantly political - sorry 1,001 Ways to Eat My Jizz! - movies have been coming out of the LA area for, what, twenty or thirty years now or something right? And other people make movies too!

NUMBER 25!



And there we are! A thrilling and convincing tale of global warming ushering in a new ice age, with the not-crazy Quaid as humorless scientist with a cockamamie theory that JUST HAPPENS TO BE TRUE, YOU FATCATS IN WASHINGTON!

...in 2004 Emmerich let loose with “The Day After Tomorrow,” a Leftist snuff fantasy and environmental wet dream where all of Western Civilization, most especially the United States, reaps what they’ve sewn when Mother Nature strikes back for our polluting ways with a can of CGI Whup-Ass that contains super-tornadoes, tidal waves, and insta-freeze hurricanes that all lead up to another Ice Age.

That Western Civilization can sew up a Doily of Destruction is ably shown in the source material, The Coming Global Superstorm written by notorious leftist and skeptic Art Bell in conjunction with alien-ass-rape-victim Whitley Strieber. My great relief that the expression of the scientificamal facts contained in the book made it to the screen untainted by Hollywood's usual sentimental guff can only be expressed in a big wet sloppy blowjob to my hero Al Gore.

Be Good Tanyas - Broken Telephone

This always jumps out at me when I hear it. I think it's the vibrato of the voice and how far it is above the music. It's also nice that she slurs so much you don't have to pay too much attention to the lyrics. Could do without the reverb guitar.

Good Will to Men

What says generosity, kindness, and the spirit of brotherhood in that special season?

You can give Burt’s latest hardcover collection of interviews, Portraits of Success for just $30! Or maybe you’d prefer his collection of commentary, Liberals, America’s Termites for just $20 postpaid. How about both for the rock-bottom price of just $40?

It's a wonder Burt doesn't include termite-destroying cans of Holiday Raid in the deal.

TinyPic Has Judged!

Oh the shame:

Leaky Art Syndrome

Here is some art I hate:



Someone's stolen a second mildly battered VW bug from it; good for them. The humidity and rainfall are such that the display cases are getting moist and gross. Truly the kind of problem unique to Vancouver.

If I win the lottery I pledge to buy a VW bug and smash it into the thing, bringing it down once and for all in a far more poetic way than it deserves.

Christmas Gifts

Friends, I believe we are adult enough that I can admit to whacking off every once in a while. Let me now and forever promise not to rub your noses in it.*

*In the sense of not purchasing beatoff-celebration cologne only.

Light Sails

Will the day of the light sail soon be upon us? The diagram is interesting as it more clearly shows use of light flowing through the sail rather than being trapped by it.

MORE SCIENCE!



UPDATE!!

I have been called out.

EAT THIS, DOUBTER!

Free Stuff

Noticed some animation freebies, downloaded them.

Bryce for Windows here.
Bryce for Mac here.

Thus far I have learned that I can make water, land, and a tree. A pencil will do that too I guess.

Bryce let me know that Daz Studio was free. Well, it kind of is, partially. Some of what works when you download it will be crippled in 30 days unless you pay up. Downloaded it anyway. "Free" means two things in this case: register on their site to get the serial number (which will keep the core app going apparently, but the 30-day time limit on the other junk still holds) and the license also says I have to tell people about it. That's an easy thing to do, so I'm doing it.

Daz for Windows.
Daz for Mac.

For what it's worth - and I haven't gone too far into them yet - both programs above are way easier than Blender. Not that I've actually animated anything yet.

BOOTS STAMPING ON FACES FOREVER!

I understand that the New York Post is scratchy asswipe with a sports section, but come on:



That is just...doubleplusungood.

Play Count

Somehow the network drive lost my iTunes library file so I found an old one, used that, and imported - once again - every goddamned file I have. Top ten in terms of play counts not including a couple of thousand other songs:

Cow	The Melvins	586
On Suicide	Art Bears	219
La Migra (Cruza La Frontera II)	Brujeria	191
I Get Wet	Andrew W. K.	165
An Ending (Ascent)	Brian Eno With Daniel Lanois & Roger Eno	140
Pandemonium	Killing Joke	120
Mouth for War	Pantera	103
Fucking Hostile	Pantera	103
Cotton Bolls	Killdozer	96
Guilty Of Being White	Slayer	79

Apparently I like loud music unless it's about suicide and then I like weird music just as much. Also: I am a big fascist or something. The Melvins piece at the top is kind of a cheat: the song's okay, but it ends with two-and-a-half minutes of heavy trudging drums and I can listen to that forever, so I set the file to start at the drum solo. And then listen for a respectable proportion of forever.*



*To an eight-year-old.

Baltimore What?

Orly!

Gee, I Dunno...

Sarah Palin:

Palin also talked about how frustrated she was with the continuing interest in that 2008 [Katie Couric] interview. “Because of that one episode, that one episode, that would turn an issue into what it has become over the last two years. I think that’s ridiculous,” she said. “That’s one of those things, where that issue … that I don’t read, or that I’m not informed, it’s one of those questions where I like to turn that around and ask the reporters, ‘Why would it be that there is that perception that I don’t read?’”

Smart!



Also.

The Beast With Two Backsides

Exploring the Z axis, if you know what I mean. Also the influence of that one Kraftwerk video.

Somehow TinyPic accepted our last excrescence so we'll see how this one does.

Wholesale Post Theft

This lifted from Susan of Texas:



There's something about the shade of blue Twitter employs that makes it perfect for clueless babbling. I may have to get me an account.

Hippies

She's Breaking Up!

Father Forgive Them

Well I laughed:

St. John's Shrewsbury, built in 1858 and the last remaining building of a village that vanished decades ago, was an Anglican Church until Saturday.

Shortly before noon that day in what is now part of the municipality of Gore, St. John's was deconsecrated in a ceremony that also involved the sprinkling of holy water in its cemetery to cleanse the grounds of all traces of "the craft of Satan" or human malice.

Witches, waves of misguided ghost-hunters and self-proclaimed spiritualists, along with common vandals, have swarmed the church in recent years.

Okay, let's take a little break before the punchline.



We're back!

"This is the only church that I know of that has been brought to its knees by people ... pursuing some sort of desire for supernatural experiences," Archdeacon Edward Simonton said during the deconsecration service. "We could not protect this building."

More Moneyblogging

Here is a newish Canadian twenty, with our beloved Queen on the front, well-printed thanks perhaps to the beneficent influence of our betters:



Hey, what about those holograms down the one side?



There they are. Those are nice and all but the human warmth of this money is best displayed by the...GAAAH!



Little worms all over the face of Her Highness! And her beauty is obscured by petty numbers! Peeking through the other side - ignore the other art as it's not interesting in comparison - there's a little recompense as we have a ghostly Queen peeking through the other side:



What a relief. And we can get an even closer view of her luminous beauty here, only partially marred by worm damage:



What a delightful, respectable - and attractive! - woman. Excuse me, I have developed a strong urge to put Lyndon LaRouche in prison.

Shovel-Ready Projects

Via Mr. Atrios:

A significant production problem with new high-tech $100 bills has caused government printers to shut down production of the new notes and to quarantine more than one billion of the bills in huge vaults in Fort Worth, Texas and Washington, DC, CNBC has learned.

[...]

Because officials don’t know how many of the 1.1 billion bills include the flaw, they have to hold them in the massive vaults until they are able to develop a mechanized system that can sort out the usable bills from the defects.

Sorting such a huge quantity of bills by hand, the officials estimate, could take between 20 and 30 years.

How tragic if actual people were hired to sort that out.

Too Much for TinyPic? You Be The Judge!

My friends, I have had one beer.

UPDATE: BEAUTY RESTORED

Muslims In Spaaaaaaaaace

Here's an odd story:

MONTREAL - The head of the Muhammad Institute for Space Science, dedicated to putting the Islamic world back at the forefront of scientific discovery, wants to build a space-launch facility in Canada.

Redouane Al Fakir's goal has been to return Muslims to the place of pride they held, centuries ago, as world leaders in astronomy.

But the Vancouver astrophysicist wants all Canadians to be involved in his project. His proposed commercial space port would be the first of its kind in this country — and Al Fakir says it's about time.

The way he sees it, if countries like India, China and Japan can launch satellites into space, why not Canada?

He wants the launch site for the Muslim world to be here in BC somewhere. I'm of course for such a crazy arrangement but why wouldn't The World's Only Muslim Launch Site be in a country with a dominant Muslim culture? Whoops, prayer call, gotta go.

What Makes This Funny?

Over at a Breitbart site someone watches this video:



The endorsement:

One of my favorite Saturday Night Live skits ever. I have not laughed this much in years.

What makes this funny if you're one of Breitbart's loons?

We Are All Pixels Now

Over at Gnoetry Daily a chatbot is about to be trained with Gertrude Stein as a model. I remember fooling around with these a few years ago: some folks thought you could use them as automated sales agents or FAQs, which is a remarkably efficient way to hide useful information. Still, they can be an entertaining alternative to the Monty Python argument sketch.

Ambition

Via Boing Boing, a video:



This sentence, apart from its scale I guess, is a triumph of theoretical chindōgu:

One, Two, Three, What Are We Fighting For?

Mike Potemra writes about Sarah Palin:

So she may decide to settle for being a beloved, world-historical figure like TR, and leave the presidency to lesser men (or women!). But there was another politician who faced a similar choice, four years ago: I could be content with the adoring crowds, the bestselling books, the ideological media applauding my every move — or I could go for the presidency. We all know the choice Barack Obama made; and I somehow don’t think — all “quitter” gibes to the contrary — that Sarah Palin has any less fight in her than her fellow basketball player in the Oval Office.

Maybe, but are they playing the same game for the same prize? (Sarah Palin as a "world-historical figure like TR" is a smidge of overreach, imagining she did something in "the world" and all.)

Americans, face your future presiden- BZZZZ the alarm goes off and Mike Potemra wakes up.

Germans

I have the sniffles. I am drinking juice and watching this:

Two Versions of Bones

People uploading to YouTube don't necessarily get the conversions right.

This is too slow:



This is what I remember:



Looped for your listening pleasure. Listen as they go in and out of phase! Exciting!

UPDATE FOR EXTRA DUMBNESS!

In 2005 Fred Frith released a remastered version of Killing Time on CD on his own label, Fred Records with the six extra tracks from the RecRec reissue, plus two previously unreleased tracks, "Third Street" and "F.B.I." (live Paris 1981). This edition includes the following note: "In contrast to previous CD and LP versions, the Killing Time LP cuts are heard here as originally intended, at the correct speed and pitch and without added reverb."

Yeesh. It seems the slower version is "correct". CURSE YOU GEORGE LUCAS FOR STEALING MY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES!

ЗОРБ Deviltry

Goddamn, lining that little bugger up is a pain in the ass so this is as good as you get. Here are a bunch more:

Being Talked About

An entertaining story about a horrible person:

[Vitaly Borker] stumbled upon the upside of rudeness by accident.

“I stopped caring,” he says, and for that he blames customers. They lied and changed their minds in ways that cost him money, he says, and at some point he started telling them off in the bluntest of terms. To his amazement, this seemed to better his standing in certain Google searches, which brought in more sales.

Before this discovery, he’d hired a search optimization company to burnish his site’s reputation by writing positive things about DecorMyEyes online. Odious behavior, he realized, worked much better, and it didn’t cost him a penny.

“Look,” he says, grabbing an iPad off a small table. He types “Christian Audigier,” the name of a French designer, and “glasses” into Google. DecorMyEyes pops up high on the first page.

“Why am I there?” he asks, sounding both peeved and amazed. “I don’t belong there. I actually outrank the designer’s own Web site.”

The only explanation, he figures, is online chatter about his appalling ways. He swears that a vast majority of his transactions are amicable, and he is adamant that all of the customers he verbally attacks deserve it.

Volunteering to Serve Your Community

The NRO interviews John Bolton on the Wikileaks business:

Former ambassador John Bolton tells National Review Online that he would charge Pfc. Bradley Manning with treason for sharing U.S. intelligence with Wikileaks. “I believe treason is still punishable by death and if he were found guilty, I would do it,” Bolton says.

Would he could he with a gun?
Would he find some other fun?
Would he could he with an axe?
Would he pound in carpet tacks?
Would he kill him with a car?
Would he use an iron bar?
Would he could he gas him dead?
Or use a rock to crush his head?
He does not like this Private Manning:
Who can tell what death he's planning?

Shame and Embarrassment

Max Boot on Wikileaks:

OK, that’s not quite fair. There are some genuine revelations in all these documents. I, for one, didn’t realize that Libya’s head kook, Muammar Qaddafi, spends a lot of his time with a “voluptuous blonde” nurse from Ukraine or that he uses Botox. Of course, just because information is new doesn’t make it consequential, and this type of information is of interest primarily to editors and readers of Gawker, the gossip site (where I ran across it).

There was a time when editors and reporters thought of themselves as citizens first and journalists second. There were damaging leaks even during World War II, but when they occurred they were generally denounced by the rest of the press. We now seem to have reached a moment when the West’s major news organizations, working hand in glove with a sleazy website, feel free to throw spitballs at those who make policy and those who execute it. This is journalism as pure vandalism. If I were responsible, I would feel shame and embarrassment. But apparently, those healthy emotions are in short supply these days.

[Note that I beat Tintin to this item. The timestamp on his shows he won't even think of it until this evening.]

The Art of Google Street View

I can't stop scrolling.

Theft of Wood

Opposition to the police in Russia:

In a video, made while they were hiding in the forest, the young men wear army fatigues and hold guns. Stripped to the waist, Alexander Kovtun, the group's leader, directly addresses the police:

"This is not some spontaneous act," he says. "No. We planned it and did it on purpose, to kill you gangsters, because you are the real criminals. You provide cover for drug-trafficking, prostitution and the theft of wood from our forests."

Okay Wiki, Do Your Thing

I Am Such a Whiner

Complain complain complain. It's like I'm Sarah Palin!

Anyway, this was surprisingly easy:



ЗОРБing devil at some point.

God's Wrath

An omnipotent God wreaks havoc again!

A debate over Sunday shopping has led P.E.I.'s transportation minister to suggest God had struck down the leader of the Opposition, who fell and injured herself after introducing a bill to allow Sunday openings year-round.

God also steals socks - JUST ONE MIND YOU - and puts your keys not on the table but ON THE COUNTER.

IT IS GODDAMNED NOVEMBER.

Floyd and Mary Beth Brown write a column with the strength of TWO CONSERVATIVES:

During this Christmas season of cheer and good tidings, a universal message is going forth. They are all united from Barack Obama to Martha Stewart to Wall Street Banks, the Federal Reserve and even your local mall agrees: please borrow to spend more this Christmas.

Okay then, will do.

Americans since 2008 have been tightening their belts, and they have paid down over 150 Billion dollars in consumer debt. This is a remarkable feat and a testimony to the diligence, hard work and frugality of the American citizen. In contrast to the people, we are embarrassed that our government is encouraging irresponsible and spendthrift behavior.

I have no idea what 150 billion (or in Germanic Important English "Billion") they're talking about and will not search for it. But I have this idea that the shape of the economy since 2008 may enforce some diligence and frugality that was not present previously. Here is a graph stolen from Calculated Risk:



In short, I got nothing, but I owe a post. Look! A video! Maybe they know this one at N__B's office.

Fundamentalist Christians = Hate Group

This is interesting. I'm quite happy that the Family Resource Council will be getting more bad press for good reasons. At the same time, the Southern Poverty Law Center is a funny sort of organization. Certainly this opens up other avenues for funding; maybe they can get some of that plentiful Pixar money.

Defining Conservatism

Jonah Goldberg:

From what he could tell, [my father] liked this new pope too. "We need more rocks in the river," my dad explained. What he meant was that change comes so fast, in such a relentless torrent, that we need people and things that stand up to it and offer respite from the current.

I loved the literary quality of the expression "more rocks in the river," even though the imagery doesn't quite convey what my dad really believed. Dad was a conservative, properly understood. By that I mean he didn't think conservatism was merely an act of passive and futile defiance of what Shakespeare called "devouring time." You see, unlike human institutions, the rocks do not fight the devouring river of time, it just seems like they do. My dad believed that conservatism was an affirmative act, a choice of prudence and will. In the cacophonous din of perpetual change, the conservative selects the notes worth savoring and repeats them for others to hear and, hopefully, appreciate.

Below are many ocarinas for Jonah to tootle as he drowns. They kinda look like submarines so it fits the underwater music metaphor.