Whiskey Fire

Musical chairs

by flory

Two wars, an economy looking upwards to see the gutter and the worst environmental disaster in the nation's history are but mere distractions from the pressing concerns of our journalistic elite.

Helen Thomas' front-row seat isn't even cold yet, but that's not stopping speculation within the White House press corps about who'll get the prestigious spot right in front of the podium

Pedagogy of the Possessed

by va

Stanley Fish, famed academic and human parody, has produced the most horrendously funny book report since he took up Going Rogue. Usually I lay off the Stanley Fish Book Reports because they're so inane, but today's is like a luxury cruise down the rabbit hole. The topic is Education and Its Aims, and the book of note is by Leigh A. Bortins, who "writes as an engineer, a home schooling advocate and the C.E.O. of Classical Conversations, Inc." In other words, the lady is a nutter. There isn't the remotest chance that the book is anything but drivel, starting with its title. Which, by the way, is The Core: Teaching Your Children the Foundations of Classical Education. Deep stuff.

If "home schooling advocate" wasn't damning enough, Fish reports that Bortins "sees learning 'as a continuing conversation that humankind has been engaged in for centuries.'" Maybe sixty or more centuries, who knows? Was our ancestors learning? Was they teaching their progeny, such as Bortins? Fish does us the service of quoting her, so let's judge:

She proposes a two-pronged program of instruction: “classical education emphasizes using the classical skills to study classical content.” By classical skills she means imitation, memorization, drill, recitation and above all grammar, not grammar as the study of the formal structure of sentences (although that is part of it), but grammar as the study of the formal structure of anything: “Every occupation, field of study or concept has a vocabulary that the student must acquire like a foreign language . . . . A basketball player practicing the fundamentals could be considered a grammarian . . . as he repeatedly drills the basic skills, of passing dribbling, and shooting.” “Every student,” Bortins counsels, “must learn to speak the language of the subject.”

Fascinating.

For whatever reason, the esteemed Fish doesn't care to get into how silly this all is, to say nothing of how insidious and abusive this brand of home schooling can be. He actually seems pretty enthusiastic, except to say that "Notably absent from Bortins’ vision of education is any mention of assessment outcomes, testing, job training ... and the wonders of technology." That's no small omission, but what's absent from this review is direct evidence that Bortins is just bonkers. Which, I'm sorry, but she inevitably is.

Fortunately, for our purposes, she has a blog, where, oh, for example, she announces that her book is for sale under the heading, Leigh Bortins is Going Rogue. Yes, yes: The profile is coming nicely into view. And she is fiendishly clever! "The Lord teaches us to be 'wise as serpents,'" she notes. So she devised a strategy--a secret Christian strategy!

A few people have expressed concern that in writing this book for a secular press and from a secular perspective, I would dilute the truth that drives me to promote Home-Centered Education.

[...]

It was hard to write this book at first because I can't help but express my faith as I write. It's just in me. Every time I'd get "too" theological for the publisher, they would argue with me until I took it out. But the arguing was so fun because I got to share my faith with a handful of secular New Yorkers in the process.

The book was published by MacMillan. Stanley Fish, in the New York Times, puts it in the same league as a book by Martha Nussbaum. The world's supply of trex, and the world's capacity to nurture and love trex, is magically endless.

BONUS. Quote from the Bortins blog: "If the stats are correct, by the end of the Obama administration, he will have been the president who oversees the lowest rates of abortions and teen pregnancy and STDs ever. How will we social conservative activist [sic] complain about him?" I boldly predict you'll make shit up.

And I'll Have Fun Then

Been busy this weekend; the 10 Year Old's Little League team is trying to make the playoffs, which is intense drama of the sort that makes Wagner look bush. Also the 5-Year-Old is prepping for her Dance Recital, and omigod, that is Little League on steroids acid from hell throw it under the bus etc. So, lots of Child Activity Distribution Activities have been occurring.

Also, at about this time of year Molly I puts on an opera (seriously -- she's Master Carpenter for this show); she's also finishing a book (details around here somewhere). And she & I are both gearing up to grade AP Lit exams in Louisville in, er, a week. My own next book is stalking me like a Troma villain. Also we needed to rent a brush cutter for aggravating reasons, and we needed to buy a dryer... argh. Garden is coming in well, though, hopefully last year's blight isn't this year's.

The Louisville AP thing will probably mean a 10-day hiatus, by the way. Molly I & I are driving, because flying is such a tremendous pain in the ass and another 15 hour layover is something up with which we will not put. Stay tuned for some site interim announcements.

Annnnyway, while all this was/is going on, also Jules Crittenden was being a dick. I'm going to have to play ketchup here because apparently while I was just emailing, he was blogging. This is not a big deal in and of itself, but let's be clear: Jules Crittenden is a dick.

Firsters:

BTW, what’s ”Whiskeyfire” supposed to mean?

Something sinister. You'll never know! There is no way of unraveling this mystery bwah ha ha because I have left No Clues. 

I’ll take the subtle irony plus the track record to mean that he actually considers the idea of civility in national discourse to be a joke.

Uh. I kinda do.

So that's all for that. But the fun continues. The E-MAIL JULES CRITTENDEN DID NOT WANT YOU TO SEE. It's my reply to his stuff he posted. And it's smokin'. (This is so stupid.)

Oh, that. I was foxed by the linkage of "Hoft" and "scholarship."

I was there for that! That whole thing was started by Roy Edroso using a bad word, which then made "Instapunk" mad at all the cursing, and then Hoft started counting f-bombs. And then Instapunk called me a stupid Irishman (really! more amusing than anything else), and tossed around the word "dyke," and later, pretty infamously, dropped the n-bomb. Good times... pretty sure you linked me during the whole highly enjoyable mess, also, but I'm not bothering to look it up.

Anyway, I stand by what I said in the context of the time:

http://whiskeyfire.typepad.com/whiskey_fire/2007/03/spoken_like_a_t.html

But that nonsensical history aside. More to the immediate point, you are confusing "a lot" with "indiscriminately." Yes, you can prove that I curse a lot. But you have no foundation for saying I curse indiscriminately. Indeed, you acknowledge that I do not! Sir -- I curse as a matter of conscious choice and with due attention to relevant rhetorical, political, cultural, and indeed syntactical contexts. Asshole.

I've said this before at my place, but I was inspired to curse a lot on the internet by Pierre Bourdieu's "Censorship and the Imposition of Form" from Language and Symbolic Power. You'd only need to read the first few pages, but since he's French you won't bother. For the more easily digested version I'd recommend Chris Rock on "nigger" and "faggot." And "fuck!" Oh wait Chris Rock curses a lot so he's in the gutter and not successful and also stupid.

Even your beer analogy is bad. I have cousins who are NYC firemen, for instance. If you would like to witness indiscriminate beer drinking, I can take videos. They do not, however, drink before or on the job. Why? Because drinking, even less so than cursing, is socially & politically situational. In ways that you haven't bothered to consider, because you seem to think in cliches. "Lefties don't believe personal liberties have consequences, or at least don't believe that they should have, which is, leftwise, the same thing." Christ, that's dogma, not an idea. Grow up. Or, grow the fuck up. I don't give a shit.

You have no clue about "lefties." You have idees fixees, which is French for "bite me."

Best. (Honestly.)

He has nothing to declare but being a dumbass. Earlier context:

Why not? Free exchange of ideas floats all boats.
 
Jim Hoft of Gatewaypundit fame via Newsbuckit, on the use of the seven words you can't say on TV, left vs right blogosphere here.
 
Frequency of profanity on major left blogs here. Right blogs, here. 
 
The material is dated but anecdotally I haven't noticed any significant shift from those trends. How fair/comparable are the two lists of sites? Looks good though arguments could always be made for including or excluding sites on either side, the subject matter being pretty highly subjective. It's also notable that there have been partisan flips over time. LGF bolted from right to left, for example, taking a lot of pretty vile and juvenile use of profanity plus mental instability with him. Good riddance. You're welcome to him.
 
What do the results mean? Subject to interpretation. I have a partisan view that has to do with notions of personal responsibility, and the ways in which that is or is not embraced. Lefties don't believe personal liberties have consequences, or at least don't believe that they should have, which is, leftwise, the same thing. They also tend to think that their moral superiority excuses their moral failings, and even turns moral failings into virtues. So no big surprise so many of them think "fuck you, asshole" is a cogent political argument. Tragic how ideology can taint self-expression, when you think about it.
 
While the weight of numbers is impressive, the list also lacks context. I use profanity on my site, for example, but try to limit its use in general, and the ways in which I use it. When discussing the political speech choices of lefty sites; within quotes (extensively in accounts of combat, for example, where profane speech is part of the scenery); or for occasional emphatic and ironic purposes. I try to avoid usages such as "so-and-so is an asshole." I made a special exception in your case with "Prof. Asshole," and "smearing shit on bathroom walls," though those were specific ironic references to your own vile, juvenile choices re language and content. Your own description of me lamentably failing to be an asshole to no one's great surprise was actually a relatively clever use, BTW. Enjoyed that. But profanity has sharply limited utility in any discussion of politics, policy, public affairs, etc. More of a crutch. Shows a lack of imagination, education and breeding. While it may be meant to illustrate the degree to which some target inspires anger or disgust, it generally has the reverse effect, reflecting more poorly on the speaker than the target.
 
That said, verbally, in familiar, selective company and circumstances, I use a fair amount of profanity, as I have noted previously on my blog. Colorful language, like beer, is one of the joys of the greater English cultural experience. But we don't drink beer indiscriminately. People who do can be found in gutters, indiscriminately using the kind of language you seem to think passes for political discourse, and otherwise soiling themselves. 
 
Best,
 
Jules

Heh. I am working. But I am not working for you.

BTW. He really did invoke "breeding." That is The Tits.

FROM CRITTENDEN'S COMMENTS. "And, yes, Mr. Fire, it IS uncivil."

World of Fun

Am intensively studying Neko Case videos. Stand by.

Bad Language

It really is not today or yesterday I was talking about this. New Superchunk!

Like a Fruitcase

The Editors just can't bring the funny like Althouse.

"Rand Paul can't play 'Tom Sawyer' on the campaign trail? Rush says no!"

There's a headline I completely misinterpreted. I imagined Rush Limbaugh had made some argument that Rand Paul can't behave like the Mark Twain character. Was Paul attempting to pass himself off as a good-hearted, mischievous boy? But no, "Rush" is the rock band Rush, and "Tom Sawyer" is one of their songs.

Over the Goalposts

Nice.

Sally Quinn: WTF

by Monica_A

I truly do not know what to make of this woman. Is she evil? Is she the unpopular girl in high school wreaking havoc on the Socs? Is she just a misunderstood genius who wants to bring beauty into the world? She's an enigma wrapped in a mystery. How do you explain Mrs. Quinn-Bradlee? Is she enterprising girl journalist (having graduated last in her college class) that ends up at the Washington Post where she marries the boss and becomes the grand doyenne of Washington? Is she the mother of a special needs child that worked tirelessly to make sure her child had all he could for a successful life? Or is she the spiteful person who schedules a competing social event (a wedding!) to punish those she believes have wronged her in the past? And why does she have so much power to make or break people?

Have a read (but have a stiff drink first) and tell me what you think. Don't have a read and still tell me what you think.

Something About Sally Politics: vanityfair.com.

She just seems like an awful, petty, spiteful person. Who wants to hang out with that?! Just awful!

PS: Ben Bradlee doesn't come out like a rose in this story. At least I'll have my memories of Jason Robards.

UPDATE by Thers -- this story of course contains a sentence so wonderful it deserves to become an Internet Tradition of which one ought to become aware:

After the firestorm, she entered the concrete meditation labyrinth her husband had built for her on their country estate in St. Mary's County, Maryland, to think.

"Entered the meditation labyrinth" isn't quite "hiking the Appalachian Trail" but it is Awesome Indeed.

Drooling Forth

Not sure exactly how the news that the de facto head of the Democratic Party is attempting to influence Democratic primaries is a shocking scandal, but I guess them's the rules! Just when I was feeling nostalgic for the '90s, too.

Also please to enjoy the usual schizophrenic nihilism of wingnuttia in attack mode. "Obama was using ruthless Chicago-style politics to advance his radical, uncompromising, far-left agenda by trying to make sure Arlen Specter stayed in the Senate." Right.

Hey Jules

Don't feel so bad! My name is "Andrew Haggerty." I prefer the pseudonym (there's a difference between anonymous & pseudonymous) for the same reasons the (sadly) non-currently-posting Hilzoy did, which is to emphasize that who I "am" online is different from who I "am" in other areas, specifically, I don't bring my politics into the classroom at all, for a number of reasons, and the pseudonym makes it easier for me to not be perceived as a political actor when I'm teaching. Having students try to play to my politics is irritating, because then they're not focusing on learning the material. That said, my real name is no big deal and no big secret. I've emailed Crittenden with this shocking revelation, by the way. Moreover, it's interesting how those who are most interested in the question of anonymity as an online plague are always also the ones talking about hauling people before review boards of various kinds. Wonder what that's about!

I'm going to let the "profanity is a crutch" cliche slide, because who has the time.

MAS. Crittenden has a very funny update with some of the sparkling repartee for which the right blogosphere is so justly renowned: 

Have responded to Haggerty’s email with a suggestion that, as long as he’s going pseudonymous, he try something deeply meaningful like “Prof. Wanker.”

Try not to bruise your knees slapping them. (And what is this "three paid months off" thing? News to me.)

Rifle Games

"Paintball guns."

The Cihan news agency reported that Mr. Dogan had one bullet in the chest and four bullets fired into his head from close range.

For Every Wild Weekend, The Roofers Cry

Roy draws us to a post over at the shrine of Our Lady of the Soggy Biscuit. It's an anti-union & anti-higher education rant. There's a lot to have fun with, but I liked this especially well -- from the comments where often you get the best shit:

I have long argued that we need to get back to encouraging kids to take up the blue-collar work that does not risk "outsourcing" and will always be in need. My own husband wonders if he might not have been happier, in the long run, as an electrician than an electrical engineer.

Probably he would have been, you Noo Yawk dingaling, because if he'd been an electrician, he would have been in a fucking union. Whee.

Both of my sons have come away from college convinced that unless you're pursuing medicine or the hard sciences, a degree is a waste of time and money. My Elder Son has made a very strong case for the de-emphasizing of degrees in favor of true competency certification (based not on education credits but true proficiency) for educators, the social sciences and business degrees, and artists--whether in fine arts or music--should be able to study as apprentices, journeymen, etc.

This is, of course, an argument in favor of unions, because why work hard to develop proficiency in a trade if you can be treated like a cheap disposable part when budgets get crunched?

It's also an argument in favor of the Anchoress being comical, because the idea of "proficiency certification" requirements being set up by the government for "artists" is actually something that would only piss off hypothetical as opposed to actual hippies. No, seriously.

JUST ADDING... The kind of work that "does not risk 'outsourcing' and will always be in need" is actually primarily work that is likely to be done by government workers who are likely to be unionized. In the New York City environs, the gigs that come most readily to mind are firefighters, cops, and teachers. Of my own cohort of 19 first cousins of my mostly upwardly-mobile NYC working-to-middle-class generation (grew up in the 70s-80s), I'm pretty sure these professions constitute about slightly more than half of us. And I'm pretty sure none of us, even the most wingnutty (if beloved) (glares at comments section), considers it shameful or embarrassing to have a government gig teaching or firefighting. Or working as a union electrician, for that matter. 

Which is to say, where the hell is the Anchoress pretending to be from, anyway? Here she quotes from her son:

If I end up going into the service, it might help get me into officer’s training. And if worse comes to worst, hey, I’ll become a school teacher. Or a federal employee. Or a bouncer.

Snob. Of course it is not his fault. I blame the parents. He was just raised wrong, is all.

See, I never myself ever thought the idea of "public service" was anything but something to be proud of, even if you couldn't just deign to wander into "the service" and be ordained an officer as some sort of fucking consolation prize for not being able to waltz into a Wall Street office with a hooker giving you a blowjob as you snort coke off her scalp right after you get that "sheepskin" because hooray the fuck for you.

Why any of these professions, including that of bouncer, would be eager to be blessed by this young fellow's halfhearted approaches, I cannot say. Maybe Human Events or someone similar will give him a paycheck for doing pretty much nothing but whining. He should ask his mom about that.

Quail and Quasar

Liam Neeson is in the A-Team movie? What, does the man only take scripts on dares? "Ha! bet you won't take this piece of shit, Neeson!" "Oh won't I! Bollocks!"

Now, to be fair, I don't actually know that the A-Team movie will be a piece of shit, except, yeah, please, it will be a piece of shit.

Perhaps Neeson is just trying to pile up dough to help finance Brendan Gleeson's At Swim-Two-Birds project, which is obviously something we at Whiskey Fire are even more eager to see than we were a Transformers sequel.

The film if ever completed will have all the commercial appeal of death, which is about what the book had when it came out, except with any luck if the movie does get made, the Nazis won't bomb the warehouse where all the copies of it are stored, which is what happened to the book. But I wouldn't rule that out, either.

Don't get me wrong; I'm totally excited about a film version of At Swim-Two-Birds, but look, when I'm your target demographic, you're fucked, as far as making money goes. Not that this should matter. They should make this by holding bake sales, if they must. Or by creating a Film Board of some description. A-list Irish film stars should also get involved.

Can One Person Possibly Be This Stupid?

"Extreme Greenies:see now why we push"drill,baby,drill"of known reserves&promising finds in safe onshore places like ANWR? Now do you get it?"

So "drill, baby, drill" only applies to land and it's all our fault because we didn't listen to half-term governor Sarah Palin? Gotcha!

What a powerful stupid!

by Monica_A.

Just to Say

Just to say, the gusher in the Gulf? That's an ideological failure: oh we are so great this could not happen to us. So in a way was 9/11 an ideological failure: oh we are so great this could not happen to us.

Well, it happened.

Maybe we as a nation should start to consider whether or not there exists a body of literature as regards the human experience that contains subject matter pertinent to the issue of "hubris." Also, perhaps we ought to contemplate the lessons embodied therein. 

Maybe!

Seeking New Exposure

Oh hooray The Weekly Standard has a Valuable Scoop, the thoughts of Sarah Palin about the Israel/flotilla dead people thing. Because Sarah Palin is an Expert on, like, things and stuff.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has obtained Sarah Palin's imminent Facebook post on the Israeli Flotilla incident.

I am trying to figure out a way to satirize "obtained an imminent Facebook post" but I confess failure in this regard. Stupid has lapped reality. Or reality has lapped stupid. Whatever. Stupid wins!

These ships could have offloaded their cargoes at a nearby Israeli port if they really wanted to help the people of Gaza.

That's just nuts...

Oh wait. She cited Ralph Peters. OK then. 

Whee. 

Whee, I say.

Not Behind the Fighter Jet

Andrew Bacevich says something you are not ordinarily allowed to say in newspapers.

The fallen gave their lives so we might enjoy freedom: However comforting, this commonplace assertion qualifies at best as a half-truth. Who can doubt that the soldier killed in battle at Gettysburg or on Omaha Beach died while advancing the cause of liberty? Whether one can say the same about the Americans who lost their lives assaulting Mexico City in 1847, suppressing Filipino demands for independence after 1898 or chasing rebels in 1920s Nicaragua is less clear, however.

In recent decades especially, the connection between American military intervention and American freedom has become ever more tenuous. Meanwhile, competence has proved notably hard to come by. Rather than being a one-off event, Vietnam inaugurated an era in which the United States has routinely misunderstood and repeatedly misused military power. Even as political authorities sent U. S. forces into action with ever greater frequency, decisive results — what we used to call victory — became more elusive. From Beirut and Bosnia to Iraq and Somalia, the troops served and sacrificed while expending huge sums of taxpayer money. How their exertions were helping to keep Americans free became increasingly difficult to discern.

The damning truth is that no American military member who died in Iraq or Afghanistan died to protect the freedom of American citizens. Whatever they died for, it was not for that.

And it's more verboten to say that out loud now than it was to cheer on these wars at the time.

Not sure how "pointless deaths" relates to "patriotism," but you know.

Don't Spoil Their Fun

I watched the Transformers sequel, for reasons that escape me. This film will be reviewed in a 5 paragraph essay.

Ever since the beginning of history all over the world there have been movies and also robots. Transformers Two is a movie and in this movie there are robots and also they go to a desert, which is in Egypt and there is history there because that is where there are pyramids and also robots. This movie is awesome because of the robots and also history.

A lot of things happen in this movie. A lot of bad robots who are also things like airplanes try to kill a guy because he goes to college and sees things in his head that are crazy but turn out to be smart and then they go to Egypt. It is all because of history and how bad robots and good robots have a fight. Also there are Army guys. I think the good robots win but I am not sure because there are a lot of explosions that are cool.

A guy died and that was sad but I don't know who he was. And then he was alive and his girlfriend was hot. His girlfriend trapped an evil robot that is small and in a funny scene the small robot had sex with her ankle. This was a smart idea because the director knows that even though guys will mostly want to see the movie girls really like movies where girls get to do cool things like trapping small robots that have sex on their ankles.

The robots were cool! They had fights that had explosions! I think there were good robots and bad robots but it was hard to tell because they were all, like, robots that turned into cars and airplanes and I think one of them was also a toaster. And one was a hot girl but also an evil robot! I thought it was cool that even though the movie is about robots that turn into cars you could totally tell which robots are black. Two of the robots are totally black! They have fights all the time and I thought this was totally realistic because if black people were cars that turned into robots they also would probably have fights.

In conclusion I thought Transformers Two was awesome!!!! It had robots and fights and explosions and Egypt. Egypt was great because of the history but I thought it was also cool how even though the movie was mostly about robots there were also fart jokes which is cool because ordinarily robots don't fart. I heard the movie had great computer special effects and this was true!!! Transformers Two is a movie and in this movie there are robots and also they go to a desert, which is in Egypt and there is history there because that is where there are pyramids and also robots. This movie is awesome because of the robots and history also.

A Special Strategy

According to the always sagacious (trans: douchebag) Jacob Weisberg, there exists "a struggle for the soul of the Republican Party." Well, I guess you gotta be in it to win it. What you'd do with it, I cannot imagine.

One way to understand the divisions in the Republican Party is as a clash of regional philosophies. Northeastern conservatism is moderate, accepts the modern welfare state, and dislikes mixing religion with politics. Western conservatism is hawkish, hates government, and embraces individual freedom. Southern conservatism is populist, draws on evangelical Christianity, and plays upon racial resentments. The big drama of the GOP over the past several decades has been the Northeastern view giving way to the Southern one. To see this transformation in a single family, witness the shift from George H.W. Bush to George W. Bush.

This is true as far as it goes, but it's also a very polite way of saying "the GOP is becoming more racist and stupid."

Yet since the second Bush left the White House, something different appears to be happening in Republicanland: a shift away from Southern-style conservatism to more of a Western variety. You see this in the figures who have dominated the GOP since Barack Obama's election 19 months ago: Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Rand Paul. You see it in the right's overarching theme: opposition to any expanded role for government, whether in promoting economic recovery, extending health care coverage, or regulating financial markets. You see it most strongly in the Tea Party movement that in recent months has captured the party's imagination and driven its agenda.

Bullshit. Weisberg just made this Western/Southern shit up. "The GOP is becoming more racist and stupid" remains the essential point.

On many issues, such as guns, taxes, and immigration, Southern and Western conservatives come out in the same place. They get there, however, by different means. The fundamental distinction is between a politics based on social and cultural issues and one based on economics. Southern conservatives care about government's moral stance but don't mind when it spends freely on behalf of their constituents. Western conservatives, by contrast, are soft-libertarians who want government out of people's way on principle. Southern Republicans are guided by the Bible. Western Republicans read the Constitution. Seen in historical terms, it's the difference between a movement descended from George Wallace and one that harks back to Barry Goldwater.

In a sense, sure. But one might also remark that the Republican party is becoming more racist and stupid.

Tea Party darling Rand Paul's objection the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is clearly Goldwater's, not Wallace's. Wallace and his followers resisted civil rights because they wanted to maintain segregation. Goldwater favored integration but thought the civil rights bill infringed upon private property rights and free association. In a similar way, the Palin-Beck opposition to universal health insurance is based on their intrinsic dislike of activist government, rather than on a Southern Strategy argument that federal benefits will help poor blacks and not working-class whites. Many reporters have gone to Tea Party rallies looking for expressions of bigotry. What they have tended to find instead is a constitutional fundamentalism that argues that Washington has no right to tell individuals or states what to do.

Interesting. However, the "racist and stupid" hypothesis retains superior analytic power. "Certain signs at certain protests not existing is evidence of a regional philosophical slash ideological position held by a demographic base I never bothered to research" is, well, stupid.

The new Western conservatism is not simply a reincarnation of the old Goldwater version. Lacking anti-communism as an organizing principle, it has been forced to invent a collectivistic demon, depicting Obama's centrist liberalism as socialism with American face. Where the old Western conservatives had serious thinkers lurking in the background—Harry Jaffa, the Straussian political philosopher, wrote Goldwater's famous convention speech—the new wave is authentically anti-intellectual. At the same time, Western conservatism has become more inclusive. The embodiment of its frontier spirit is now a woman who proclaims, "There's plenty of room for all Alaska's animals—right next to the mashed potatoes."

This certainly weighs more to the "stupid" side, granted.

Palin and Beck are terrific entertainers and the Tea Party is a great show, all of which has made the conservative movement fun to watch lately. But cowboy-style constitutional fundamentalism is unlikely to prove a winning philosophy for Republicans beyond 2010. For that, they need a conservatism that hasn't been in evidence lately—a version that's not Western or Southern, but instead tolerant, moderate, and mainstream.

Jacob Weisberg is an absolute fucking tool: this might be another lesson to be drawn here. "I like the stupid racism so far, what fun, but maybe later on if it doesn't work out so good, then it might be a problem."

Brigadumb

Donald Trump's golf paradise is threatened by a right Scottish bastard.

Protesters opposed to Donald Trump's planned $1.5 billion Scottish golf resort say they've pulled a trick shot out of their bag.

At the center of the plan is local fisherman Michael Forbes, who has long been an irritant to Trump. Forbes has refused the American tycoon's offer of nearly $700,000 (488,000 pounds) to buy his family's 23-acre run-down farm, which sits at the center of the planned resort.

But Forbes has sold an acre of his land near Aberdeen to protesters who also disagree with Trump's plans – a sale which will force the property tycoon to face down more than 60 people.

The group, Tripping Up Trump, says it purchased the land and named it "The Bunker," after the sand trap that many golfers end up in.

"We've called this piece of the land the bunker because he will now find it impossible to force a sale as there will be so many names on it," group spokesman Martin Glegg said Wednesday. "This is the prime slot that Trump wants and there is no way he can get it now."

Glegg said he hoped eventually to have hundreds of names on the deeds.

You would need to be completely inhuman, lacking utterly a natural, wholesome sense of joie de fuck you, to not side utterly with these kilt-wearing motherfuckers. I mean:

Trump, who flew to Scotland on Wednesday, said: "Forbes is someone who I would love to see clean up his property. It is a slum and a pigsty. His barn is rusty, rotten and falling down."

And it's all his.

Trump and Forbes have a history of bad blood. Trump has called Forbes "the village idiot" for refusing to sell, and Forbes retaliated by calling Trump "a New York clown."

Heh. Forbes can come to my New York annnnny day he likes, drinks & sheep intestines on me.