Transparency

A little gift for T&U:

Comprehension

AWR Hawkins:

And while I’m embarrassed for [Bruce] Springsteen, I’m also appalled by his hypocrisy. I mean, here is a man who takes advantage of the system in order to keep from paying all the taxes he’s supposed to pay in his home state of New Jersey: which means he’s making sure his money isn’t in the system to be distributed to those less fortunate ones whom he’s accusing [stupid bastard Governor Chris] Christie of overlooking.

Hmm, according to the link, the property is apparently indeed organically farmed, which is exactly what that tax break is for. So, uh, GO GET BRUCE!* That's right, RAISE HIS TAXES.

At least this part is funny:

When I was an impressionable youth with no direction in life, I went to a couple of Springsteen concerts during the mid-1980s. Like many at that time, I hadn’t grasped the fact that Springsteen’s thematic “Born in the U.S.A.” wasn’t praising this great country but condemning it. Yet I’ve long since figured it out [...]

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice - HEY HE FOOLED ME TWICE.

*Note: shit not given about Bruce Springsteen, who as a successful multi-millionaire is obviously not doing his own taxes for fuck's sake.

The "L" Word

George Will wrote something dumb and everyone and their mother is having fun with it because even without the word "socialist" in the piece he's in Glenn-Beck-chalkboard territory with the collectivist trains vs. individualist personal vehicular devices. Anyhow, LGM has indefatigable libertarian Brad Potts to provide extra yuks:



Brad Brad Brad: those are the people who enforce the property rights!

News T&U Can Use

Let's mildly reorder Alexander Marlow's Big Hollywood complaint that THE SHEEN IS OFF:

Until this point, the libertarian in me was truly pulling for Sheen to continue sticking it to the Hollywood Man and fulfilling his own personal definition of #WINNING.

OMG, what could Charlie Sheen have done now? Did he take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut, injuring aged bystanders? Did he, um, get anybody fired? I mean, obviously you'd have to do something pretty bad to get a libertarian-minded gentleman to say "WHOA CHARLIE!" right? Did he sniff all the available liberty up his nose?

There follows an appreciation of Sheen's habits, talents, worth to CBS, and ability to show up to do his job. Also:

And besides, Money Talks alone should earn the man the benefit of the doubt.

Of course! The true measure of utility! Why shouldn't Sheen be able to do what he wants to do simply because he is rich? He could be peeing on crucifixes and burning flags and aborting babies and NOBODY WOULD CARE. This underscores how awful the latest horror must be.

It isn’t black and white, of course, and I don’t mean to defend him–I would love to say that Sheen is only hurting himself, but he has a family, including children, and you can’t just go around trapping porn stars in hotel bathrooms.

True enough, Marlow, but let's stop drawing out this making-you-look-stupid game and see what new outrage has hurt Sheen's familyincludingchildren. According to my sources, it started with this:

“Nothing terrifies a troll more than its own reflection,” Sheen continues, before shifting gears into politics. “In a recent poll, they told me I’d bring down that whore [Sarah] Palin. I don’t have time for that nonsense.”

And then he sucked the innards out of a cute penguin with a sharpened crack pipe, right?

But what I will say is that I’m disappointed that Sheen, a star who I thought did everything in his power to buck the establishment, has embraced the single most pathetic cliché in Hollywood today: bagging on the mother of five with some of the most caustic words imaginable.

Okay, then, nothing else, just the mean word.

Well look, calling Sarah Palin a whore is sexist and dumb and we here at the House of Substance do not endorse such behaviour and we hope that Sheen's loved ones can put this tragic episode behind them and eventually forgive their wayward wife-beating crackhead for this not-at-all-characteristic-of-crazy-misogynist-lunatics outburst.

The most pathetic cliché in politics today is anyone using the word "libertarian" for any reason at all.

IMPORTANT NEWS FROM CANADA!*

OMG PASS THE SYRUP!

Maple syrup may have potential health benefits, say scientists checking out its antioxidants.

Also it may make your penis just slightly bigger than an American penis (the ONLY measure that counts).

Preliminary laboratory findings from Quebec suggest maple syrup may help the body regulate blood glucose levels.

Up up UP, my lazy and malingering glucose levels! Thank you for this valuable information, um, who are you people bringing me this delicious and nutritious information?

The research was funded by the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

YETH I WOULD LIKE THOME MORE THYRUP!




*You are banned for thinking what you are thinking.

Orly!

James Lambert:

Orange County Lawyer Dr. Orly Taitz, esq. has filed a formal complaint last month with the Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue regarding her contention of alleged multiple irregularities involving the President's social security numbers. Investigators are alleging that the President has used a number of such numbers over a period of time. Taitz has yet to hear back from the Social Security Director. (See copy of her complaint below).

Blah blah blah. But who is this James Lambert guy?

SHOW US THE LICENSE!

The What?

Did I just read an entire thread about a book called The Greek Seamen without seeing a single joke about you-know-what?

Someone to Blame

Matthew Shaffer at The Corner:

They say there are no jobs in journalism anymore. In fact, there’s at least one, and you can apply right here. The Buckley Fellowship is a pretty wonderful opportunity — almost a bit too good to be true. After seven months on it, I feel a little guilty that I’ve bamboozled the world into paying me to learn about politics and foreign affairs and big ideas and prose style, and occasionally even to inflict my own thoughts on our readership. It’s a bit unfair that such jobs exist and are sometimes even given to recent graduates — but those who can take advantage of it should.

The fellowship is educational, lets you do meaningful and creative and satisfying work while serving a good cause, and all that jazz. But it’s also, more importantly, a lot of fun. We have a good time at the office. On Wednesday lunches you can enjoy battles of wits between NR’s hip young editors and writers, including but not limited to Kevin Williamson, Dan Foster, and Fred Schwarz. At after-work drinks, you can drop your card, and people marvel and ask, “You know Jooonah?” or “You know Derb?” And you can nod back, real cool-like, and say, “Intimately — I edit them.” (It’s true: when people ask if you know Jonah — and they always do — they pronounce all three o’s.)

Please stop it. You aren't good at it.

Text Editor for Windows Bleg

What's the best free text editor for Windows for geek purposes? I've used Xint for a while. I like feature bloat.

UPDATE!

Some software just has more ponies.

Inappropriate

Sometimes the lovely daughter, in her scouring of the internet, has to be gently pushed in another direction, but now you get to watch this:



Even more. He seems to have really enjoyed himself.

My Computer is Old Too

As I remain solidly behind the curve, I use a bunch of old Macs. I like Firefox, and the speed difference in the new version is pretty impressive on the PC at work. None of'em are Intel-based machines, however, and Mozilla has left them behind.

TenFourFox works on my G5, while the frighteningly-named Minefield works reasonably well too and covers the G4 laptop. The most important extensions still seem to work fine, though I lost PassiveCache (which I liked a lot). Not really sure which is peppier; maybe M. Bouffant's page is the true test?

Hmm, Minefield seems to do better with Flash, so sticking with that.

OMG I did not know what Bouffant had waiting there at that page over thereabouts.

I'll get you for this Weigel. YOU'LL MOO THE DAY.

Cheer

On The Now-Discredited

Warner Todd Huston on an admission:

Media Matters was once a perfectly legitimate, though left-wing media critic.

Warner Todd Huston respecting legitimacy in 2007:

the extreme, leftist propaganda group Media Matters

Selling Out

A hipster gives up blogging:

For years, the pop culture blog Hipster Runoff has puzzled, intrigued and enraged the "alt" and "mainstream" world in almost equal measure. Gawker honored him in 2009 with the much-coveted "Hipster of the Decade" award.

Never heard of it. But this part is interesting:

The money was pretty decent (usually took a long time to actually reach my pocket due to advertisers delayed payment schedules), but being a one person blog it is probably not a solid long-term career choice. Plus on top of that, ad networks usually take at least 50% off the top.

[...]

If I could have sold out, I would have, but that opportunity never came, and probably wasn't going to for HRO.

Apparently selling out is not selling out and is some other undefined thing. Expect lots of ads and pornography at this site soon. But interesting and edgy ads and pornography. You know, hip. Plus paywall.

Victory!

Andrew C. McCarthy:

Was all this not true when Obama was embracing the Bush policy of considering Qaddafi a valuable ally against terrorism and when Obama was pouring taxpayer funds into Qaddafi-run charities?

It's Crazier Andy, so the sentence is not to be taken seriously in its particulars, but hey, I'm willing to say Obama is a hypocritical asshole if the hypocritical asshole judgement now also applies to the hypocritical asshole National Review writers had their heads stuffed in for eight years. If tarring Obama as Bush is their weapon their project as a whole looks kinda silly, huh?

The Measure of Success

A question for Pervez Musharraf:

You are planning a return to Pakistan to run again for President, a job you left in 2008. Why?

For the sake of Pakistan. I am very comfortable. I go around the world lecturing, and they pay me well. But there is a cause bigger than the self. I governed the country for nine years — successfully. So I don't have to reinvent the wheel. And I know Pakistan is suffering. I know there is a vacuum of leadership. Therefore the cause of Pakistan pulls me toward my destiny. Maybe it's a call of destiny much more for the nation than for myself.

More surprising answers - not that I claim any expertise on what could go better in Pakistan - to questions at the link.

Orient Yourself

My American friends can figure out where they fall on the Canadian political map with this. Could you really fit in to this nation of imaginary girlfriends?

An election's coming up, disaster looms. I'll be voting NDP; the compass tells me I'm to the left of them socially and economically.

Fuck you Michael Ignatieff. And Steven Harper, but that's a given.

I Like Baman Piderman

The MAN Doesn't Want YOU Entertained!

Well geez, I was hoping that'd last more than 15 minutes at YouTube if untitled and untagged, but it was not to be.



Four views, three dislikes: COME ON.

And yes yes, it's really just me that's entertained. Anyone who wants a talking goatse screensaver - Mac only! - that will react to input from a microphone please let me know.

Maybe it'll last at the right-wing crazy site:



Audio stolen from tux guy at Roy's place.

The Densitometer

Authentic Frenchmen

Conrad Black on Libya:

I have thought all along that the key to a satisfactory outcome lay with the French. France is a Mediterranean country; Algeria, Libya’s neighbor, was a French département (state or province) from 1830 until 1963, and there were more than a million authentic Frenchmen in Algeria, including the great writer Albert Camus. France, in all its feline self-indulgence, was happy to claim for decades its tolerance and vocation for absorption and fraternization with the Arabs, especially while de Gaulle could irritate the Americans by truckling to Arab anti-Semitism, and the French elites could sit in their cafes waving their smoldering Gitane or Gauloise cigarettes and snifters of cognac or absinthe about, extolling the virtues of French trans-Mediterranean Arabophilia (in refreshing contrast to America’s hypocrisy and bigotry vis-à-vis its black population). The whole charade was supported by feting James Baldwin and other American black intellectuals virtually with such open arms as those with which Americans embraced Antoine de St. Exupéry and Andre Gide during World War II; or those with which the French court welcomed Jacques Cartier’s representative Canadian Indian, Donnacona, in the 16th century. (Gide, an aggressive homosexual decades ahead of his time, was attracted to America chiefly by the relatively tight trousers of American GIs, who, as he put it, rolled their buttocks fetchingly along the great boulevards of the French cities they liberated (ultimately almost all of them).

I call JanusNode.

Just a smidge more:

President Sarkozy was elevated to the headship of the state in part because as interior minister he had denounced the unruly Paris Arabs as “riff-raff”; and he tried to stay at the crest of the wave of developing opinion. But longtime xenophobe and Arab-baiter Jean-Marie Le Pen’s daughter, more presentable than her father as she has dropped his anti-Semitism, and has a softer vocabulary and less strident and buffoonish style, moved up almost to level pegging in the polls with Sarkozy.

I rate for less strident and buffoonish styles, plus a good pegging.

At the link there is an audio version of this glossolalia.

The Penguin

Attempting to whistle the solo from this while on the bus gets you funny looks:



Probably just thinking about this.

What Could Have Been

Kevin D. Williamson:

Hourly cost of whatever it is we’re doing in Libya: about $4 million. Total cost of building one mile of border fence, as undertaken by our horribly inefficient, bloated, largely incompetent federal government: about $2 million. So, every 30 minutes we’re in Libya is one mile of border fence we could have built: Assuming the mission is accomplished in each case, which investment would make us safer?

Credit is due, I guess, to Williamson for preferring domestic destruction to foreign.

Role Reversal

In celebration, obviously.



If someone - SOMEONE - wants to make me a better wine glass I'd be grateful. Most of the ones you can steal are pretty shitty, although there's the occasional amusing umbrella drink.

Thanks! I think maybe the wine should be a little closer to Ann too...but just outta reach, ya lush!

Tags pretty much the same as before:

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Rights for Refugees

Vancouver is where it's at:

Randy Quaid screamed through the world premiere of his song Star Whackers at a Vancouver club Friday night, a conspiracy theory anthem whose content did not stray much from expectations, given its title and the recent, bizarre history of its writer.

“I’m talking about whackers,” Quaid screeched into the microphone during a late-night two-song set at The Commodore Ballroom. “Those cheesy star whackers!”

Was that set to the Patty Duke Show theme or something? Oh wait, maybe not:



There's an "entertainingly crazy" box to tick on the immigration forms. Welcome all!

White Powers

This guy is entertaining. What the hell makes him interested in stupid comic books?

Also Hitler

Michelle Malkin:

A grown woman in public office who acts like Lindsay Lohan has no business comparing one of America's finest generals to Charlie Sheen. But anti-war Democratic Rep. Lynn Woolsey has never shown any restraint when it comes to trashing America's military leaders before the world. That's because being a Code Pink liberal -- like being a Hollywood brat -- means never having to apologize for your reckless words and deeds.

Who will win this battle of inappropriate celebrity comparisons? The congresswoman who compares the general of a War Until Forever to a rich and famous delusional scumbag? Or Michelle Malkin, a concentration camp advocate who compares the Code Pink-supporting congresswoman to a rich and famous delusional scumbag?

Looksism

I don't really have anything to say about Janet M. LaRue's latest article except this: