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.

The Evolution of Comedy

November 16, 2010:



Someone spies with their little eye:



November 22, 2010:



Apparently the image is from here, older site referred to here.

Nattering Nabobs of Negativism

Might this have transcription errors?

Sarah Palin: “As for doing an interview, though, with a reporter who already has such a bias against whatever it is that I would come out and say? Why waste my time? No.”

“I want to help clean up the state that is so sorry today of journalism. And I have a communications degree. I studied journalism, who, what, where, when, and why of reporting. I will speak to reporters who still understand that cornerstone of our democracy, that expectation that the public has for truth to be reported. And then we get to decide our own opinion based on the facts reported to us.”

“So a journalist, a reporter who is so biased and will, no doubt, spin and gin up whatever it is that I have to say to create controversy, I swear to you, I will not my waste my time with her. Or him.”

Probably not. To air in two hours, for those who have the stomach for it.

The Legacy Defined

Via Taegan Goddard, by all means display this:

As former president George W. Bush broke ground Tuesday in Dallas for his presidential library, officials weighed whether or not to display one item that few know is being held in storage there: the "Mission Accomplished" banner.

SOMEBODY evidently treasured it.

More than 3,000 people, including friends, supporters and former administration officials attended Tuesday's ceremony. Outside, there were about 100 protesters joined by a handful of counterprotesters. "It is hard to believe there is this much excitement about shoveling dirt," Bush said.

Dirt?

Let me be moderately fair and acknowledge that Bush said that banner was a mistake in some stupid interview with Matt Lauer, but, you know, he's a big fat liar.

Truth in Labelling

Here is the story of a monster:

TWO dozen cancer patients, including a six-year-old Sydney girl, died after treatment ordered by a doctor who is a convicted fraud.

What is his name?

Hellfried Sartori is the Austrian at the centre of an inquest into the deaths of five people in Perth in 2005.

And the treatment?

Mr Sartori replied that 50 per cent of the cure for cancer was positive thinking by the patient. He conceded he had exaggerated about the efficacy of his treatments, insisted he could cure cancer and admitted lying to Australian authorities. ''If any treatment has proved benefits, it is this treatment,'' he told the court. ''And I have not violated my Hippocratic oath.''

...

In other evidence yesterday, Mr Sartori admitted lying when he applied, unsuccessfully, to register as a doctor in Australia. He also conceded that academic articles about caesium chloride treatment, which he published in 1984 and which had been peer-reviewed, did not include crucial material that about 10 of 50 patients he treated with caesium in 1981-982 had it administered intravenously. Of the 50, 25 died within a year.

His evidence has contained sweeping references to statistics available on the internet, the laws of physics, and his claims that 10,000 people were alive because of his caesium chloride remedies.

Unkind people might want to note here that Australia sanctions all kinds of bullshit in accredited health education.

I'm Interested in Eating My Cookie

Somehow Albertans hired an Australian to do something and did not understand the importance of the cookie to the life cycle of kangaroofuckers.

Schrödinger's Cattiness

What I think I know about theoretical physics is a teensy tiny fraction of what an interested reader of pop science books must know, and what I actually know is of course a more embarrassing subset of that.

But I think I know mean gossip.

Prima Donna and Child

Here is a presidential portrait:



Christ what an asshole. Who does he think is gonna be sitting in those chairs back there? Angela Merkel maybe?

Wait, what's this?



Okay then.

Consulting the Irkle

S.E. Cupp on what irks liberals:

And then it hit me. The reason Palin has become such a lightening rod*, a kingmaker and a punching bag, a celebrity and a power player, is simple. It's because she's so gosh darn happy.

For her fans, like the ones I had the pleasure of meeting in Chicago, she's refreshingly upbeat and resilient, the bubbly friend from childhood who was always great at cheering you up and cheerleading you on.

But for her detractors, nothing raises the ire of cynical liberals more than a happy-go-lucky, totally unburdened, freethinking and self-assured conservative woman who has everything she wants and then some.** And without anyone's help.

Below, no help at all:

Liberalism, after all, needs to imagine an unhappy populace. Passing sweeping entitlement programs and convincing voters that big government is the answer only works if people are frustrated with their stations in life.

Thus Palin is a real threat to front-office operations.

Her happiness REFUTES YOUR STATION IN LIFE.

If Palin's critics really want her to go away, they don't have to worry about her politics, her faith or her folksy rhetoric. They need to worry about her boundless happiness which, like her favorite hunting weapon, is poised to be a warm gun for anyone who dares cross her path.

Also her happiness will kill you. Inspired yet?

*Some sort of engorging rod joke here.
**HA HA HA.

Alinsky on Steroids

K-Lo quotes Breitbart:

.@andrewbreitbart: what msm did to george w for 8 years was “alinsky on steroids. It was to destroy the man, a wartime president.” #nrcruise

Also a wartime president:

What's In Sarah Palin's Mind?

K-Lo:

In light of that post yesterday, I note that Lisa Murkowski accuses Sarah Palin of not enjoying governing (during an interview with Katie Couric).

Perhaps she stepped down because she didn’t need to be governor, she knew she could do more for more out of office. And in her mind there aren’t the governed and the govern-ers, we tend to be one in the same in our representative system.

I don't think I have anything funny to say here, I'm just amused at the combination of witlessness and telepathy and pretend-egalitarianism required to justify the actions of Sarah Palin.

Just Because

∈☀∋

The Thomas Sowell Wish-It-Was-A-Memorial Award For Anti-Intellectualism

Guess the writer!

Postgraduates, by which I believe the AEI analysts mean those with something more than a bachelor’s degree, were 20 percent of the electorate. They went for Democrats by 52 to 46 percent. No surprise there. Obama, after all, is himself a creature of the university ecosystem, and the way he talks reminds me of nothing more than a professor at a faculty meeting talking about changes to the grading curve. All those folks out there with M.A.’s and Ph.D.’s know one of their own when they see one.

Voters without a high-school diploma were only 3 percent of the electorate, and they voted Democratic 60 to 36 percent. Presumably, this group benefits the most from the redistribution of income going on under the Obama administration.

Everyone else (high-school grads, some college, college degrees) voted Republican. Democrats lost the middle class and more.

I’ve been trying to figure out what this means (aside from the amazing educational achievements of the electorate — 97 percent had a high-school degree or more). Does it mean that the over-educated have no more common sense than those with no education? Does it mean that Obama only really appeals to the extremes of the educational distributional curve, because neither end is really responsible for making ends meet and balancing budgets?

Who, pray tell, is enlightening us as to the depravity of the over-educated? Why it is Professor John Yoo.

They Would Like Me If They Really Got to Know Me

A tangent from a Big Hollywood article by some dope:

It’s been tried before, though the project never got off the ground. In 2004, screenwriters Mark Legan and Mark Wilding collaborated on a spec sitcom pilot called The Cell, about a band of inept Muslim terrorists sent to America to blend in with the culture and ultimately blow up a power plant. The comic twist is, the jihadists are unable to resist being seduced by American pop culture – Domino’s pizzas, big-screen TVs, talk shows and bowling leagues* – and have to conceal their unwillingness to carry out violent jihad from a ruthless superior who shows up to check on their progress. Legan and Wilding wrote it for themselves with absolutely no expectation that any studio would run with it – and they were right, no one would touch it. But the unproduced script (you can download it here) was an “underground” hit with enough executives throughout Hollywood that the writers were offered other work.

Although the concept is funnier than their execution of it, those writers found humor in a subject of the most tragic gravity through sympathetic characters whose totalitarian ideology is defused safely by American freedom and abundance. Toothless? Perhaps, but it would have been a start had not political correctness buried it.

I'm not sure how far this guy is going in the advocacy of the script which I am unlikely to read - does he mean he is a Free Speech Advocate of the highest order or does he think the premise is somehow true? In either case the thing that undercuts the comedy somewhat is that the guys who took down the World Trade Center managed to both experience America and devastate it.

*Such delights or reasonable facsimiles thereof are available in other countries I swear.

Wikipedia Edit Required Immediately

July 1973:

Solar Energy WILL KILL YOU

Beware!

An event designed to showcase a new era of renewable energy vehicles was brought to a sudden halt when one of the automobiles collided with a bicycle.

I Just Love This Rhyme Scheme

There are strange things done by conservative sons
As they scrabble and scrape for gold;
The blogosphere’s links are full-up with dinks
Who’ll worry their mother’s not sold;
The NRO’s Corner has liberal scorners,
But the dumbest they have on their roster*
Is the tubby green fright who smokes just for spite
The knee-jerker Daniel Foster.

*Good rhyme, but it just can't be true.

Where, Where Are You Tonight?

You took off your peg leg your wig and your glass eye
You were surprised at the look on my face
I wanted to kiss and hug you my darlin'
But you were scattered all over the place

And He Should Know

John Nolte on Kanye West:

Good to know Kanye West is capable of shame. There might be hope for him yet. Who would’ve ever guessed that after eight years of the worst kind of cruelty and vitriol aimed at President Bush that West would be the first to publicly take it back. Knowing the left as we all do, Kanye is likely to be the last.

Comment #1:


More on the book that is REHABILITATING GEORGE W. BUSH!!!

The best part of the read is how the President’s voice comes through on every page. Like the man, the prose is direct, humble, frequently funny, and always humane. He’s probably one of the most decent men to ever hold that office and if you think you miss him now wait till you read “Decision Points.”

How do you sleep you cunt?

Knowladge

It's tough to remember what was going through my head yesterday let alone the forever ago of programming for JanusNode, but I'm pretty sure that this list from a possibly-not-entirely-fictitious-quack-university was influential.

Since the days of retina-burning websites have passed us by, they've modernized a little: