Feh, Meh, And Bite Me

The NR has "fired" John Derbyshire. Fine but read the post and remember that Derbyshire has made a career out of being a racist, homophobe, and misogynist asshole with the NR's blessing for low these many years. Rich Lowry claims that

Derb is also maddening, outrageous, cranky, and provocative. 

No he isn't; he is a racist, homophobe, misogynist asshole who has benefited from the Rights embrace of racists, homophobes, and misogynists. This firing changes nothing and the Right and the NR in particular need to atone for using their rights to free speech to behave like neanderthals and thugs.

Every "culture warrior" is engaged in the same despicable speech act as is Derbyshire and their supporters ought either embrace Derbyshire or reject a "cultural war" built on lies, vituperation, and vile rhetoric or get out of the "cultural warrior" game. And that includes the vicious scum bags Santorum and Romney.

UPDATE:
Derbyshire defended by Jeff Goldstein.

Post Racial

John Derbyshire, who has admitted he doesn't think, has an article up proving that he can't. Using "math" and "science" he "proves" that black Americans hate white Americans, kill at the drop of a hat, that most are dumber than the 10% of dumbest white Americans, and, among other horror show nonsense, if reasonable bright and presentable the most favored of all Americans. In the comments, on of his supporters, of whom there are many, takes him to task for not mentioning that black American males are sexually aggressive

What a horrid little man.

UPDATE:
It seems that there are calls for the NRO to fire the "Derb."  This needs to stop; the Right in the USA is racist and sexist.  They need to acknowledge this.  Making a case for not reading the NRO because it is filled with batshit crazy Religio-Fascists and related nutters is the way forward.  They are all of them crazy, liars, and horrid little people.  The "Derb" isn't an outlier.

 UPDATE:

Rich Lowry has a post up distancing himself and the Right from the Derbyshire debacle.  Oddly enough the comments are off. I suspect they are off because, being a race baiter himself, he is fully aware of the extent to which his readers are foaming-at-the-mouth racists.

Remember the bullshit, in the Frankfurtian sense of bullshit, about no one cares about black on black violence is bullshit, evidence that the speaker is absolutely ignorant of the reality of black Americans lives, and yet more bullshit.

UPDATE:
In 2003 Derbyshire said of himself that

I am a homophobe, though a mild and tolerant one, and a racist, though an even more mild and tolerant one, and those things are going to be illegal pretty soon, the way we are going.

For 8 years he has been an important part of the NRO and the Right wing noise machine.  Not only ought they not fire him but they should all come out and admit that they supported and support "mild" homophobia and racism.

How To Argue

Here is Eric Holder's response to that deranged judge who tried to make a mountain out of a molehill. What is striking is that Holder uses the letter to school the judge on the limits of judicial review and on the power of the Commerce Clause when it serves a legitimate purpose. How, I wonder, will the Right respond?

I Can Already Hear The Screams of Fake Outrage.

This Saturday, the USA Network is going to show a remastered version of the all-American classic To Kill A Mocking Bird.  President Obama is going to introduce it. Which brave conservative nutbar will be the first to call him a race pimp?

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

It's the Hell of the North this Sunday and, God willing, it might rain.

Lies and Those Who Believe Them

I mentioned more than once that a culture war is impossible without tell endless lies and using vile smears and language. Rush Limbaugh's take on Fluke is a nearly perfect example. Today Rick Santorum insisted the University of California system no longer taught American history. It's not the lie that is so surprising its that he thinks, and he is probably right, that some small number, maybe 27%, will believe it. And what, I ask, does this tell us about a "culture war."

That in addition to vile, lying cretins a "culture war" need credulous, hate-filled louts who are willing to accept the silliest, mean-spirited lies directed at people they have never met.  This is no way to run a country and Santorum ought to be ashamed of himself and, ideally, someone on his side of the "culture war" will make the point that he should not lie with such gay abandon.

What's Wrong With Schools?

It's not, as some insist, bad teachers or an insufficient number of standardized test, nope. Much like our colleges and universities, the  problem with schools is administrative overreach and over pay. To wit, the Long Island administrator of 10 schools and 6.6k students gets around 405k per annum and no backises.  

Supper

The Lamb began as a whole rack that I trimmed and Frenched, the spuds are Parmesian, and the Corn lime cilantro. I fear that the Lamb is over.

Drive, She Said

Enjoy the weekend:



Many more riding and singing covers over to the youtube.

Bird is The Word

According to some on the internets and elsewhere a photo that may or may not be Trayvon Martin flipping the bird is evidence of his essential thuggery and proof that Zimmerman shot a kid who had it coming. Leaving aside the fact that all Zimmerman knew about Martin was that he was black, here's videographic evidence that of white thuggery:



What exactly does this mean? Not really sure, but one assumes that, at least in part, it proves that immature Americans enjoy flipping people off.

Post Racial

So maybe she might have been white and the hospital and cops would have done the same; however, the fact of the matter is she was black and she was hauled off to die in cell. Not, of course, that Trayvon Martin  was killed because he was black but rather because he was armed with skittles and ice tea.

We could, if the louts would let us, discuss the meaning of and how to fix these disasters because things are only going to get better if we take seriously the underlying problems.

I Have No Idea What They're Saying

The Pogues:



I've no idea what they're saying but McGowan in his yfronts is someting or another:

Chickens Roosting

Read this about The Hunger Games Rue/Thresh contretemps that emphasizes the relationship between white and innocence. Then watch this:



Then spend an hour or so thinking about the world view in which a small 17 year black American armed with Skittles and an ice tea is shot dead because he looked "guilty." Was it, per Geraldo, the hooded sweatshirt? or was it a persistent racist language and culture that values whites and wishes blacks weren't?

Thought For The Day

I've been reading the new edition of some of Count Harry Kessler's diaries, and in it on 30 January, 1869, he made this undeniably true claim after

[s]omeone said that a book dealer had complained recently to him that the people who once bought books now ride bicycles. In realty bicyclists do more for the reawakening and understanding of art than the most diligent book worms in all the libraries put together.

He is, of course, right, although I would replace "book worms" with "anybody" and "of art" with "of everything."

Enjoy the weather.

Missing The Point

Here is a E. Waugh's response to a publicist's enthusiastic call  for blurbs for Catch-22:

6 September 1961

Dear Miss Bourne,

Thank you for sending me Catch 22. I am sorry that the book fascinates you so much. It has many passages quite unsuitable to a lady's reading. It suffers not only from indelicacy but from prolixity. It should be cut by about a half. In particular the activities of "Milo" should be eliminated or greatly reduced.

You are mistaken in calling it a novel. It is a collection of sketches—often repetitious—totally without structure.

Much of the dialogue is funny.

You may quote me as saying: "This exposure of corruption, cowardice and incivility of American officers will outrage all friends of your country (such as myself) and greatly comfort your enemies."

Evelyn Waugh 

The times they were a changin'.

Roll The Tape

The guy in handcuffs supposedly just got his head bashed against a sidewalk several times after being beaten about the head an shoulders while lying on the grass.



To me he looks like someone who didn't just get his head bashed against the sidewalk several times after being beaten about head and shoulders while lying on the grass.

Post Racial Society

Perhaps you've heard of a little book/movie dealio called The Hunger Games? Well, it seems, the some fans "knew" that that Rue was white and consequently found her blackness in the movie version off putting. I think that this is proof positive that the Trayvon Martin murder case has nothing what so and ever to do with anything other than Zimmerman's dislike of stupid goons.

How Things Work

The ACA:

Republicans

hate Baby Jesus, the Bible, Black people, and hats:



What happens when a nun becomes a member of Congress? No Habit for them?

Consider this "cartoon" from the UT Austin student newpaper:

Because that's the proper way frame the debate; particularly appalling is the "colored boy" comment.

What a horrid bunch.

So Crazy It Just Might Work

Comment seems beside the point:



Get it here.

Affordable Health Care

I wonder what percentage of human beings presently living in these United States, long my her mountains remain enpurpled, came into the world without the aid of some kind of medical personal? Surely the fact that the birthing of babies is best achieved under the supervision of doctors or midwives is strong evidence that we all participate in the health care "market" at one point or another by virtue of being born, as it were, free.

Hunger Games

Are one step closer:

Until it was taken off the air last December, one of the most popular television programs in China’s Henan province, which has a population of 100 million, was “Interviews Before Execution.” The presenter was Ding Yu, a pretty young woman, always carefully dressed with colorful scarves and blouses; in each episode, she would interview on camera someone who has been convicted of a capital crime and who is about to face a firing squad or a lethal injection.

Not that such a show could ever happen here, mind.

Rand Paul, Idiot

He argues that

[w]e as a society need to glorify those who make a profit.

Therefore let's hear it for the drug dealers and arms dealers. Hurrah the job creators.  The actual "context" for the quote make clear that if drugs became legal and should the Marlboro Man succeed in selling pcb laced doobies to tweeners, Rand Paul would applaud them.

Supper

This from a couple of days ago, Cornish Game Hens, thick pork chops, and ring sausage:

Very good.

Here In Wisconsin

We have the misfortune to be represented by business man and accountant Ron Johnson who is an idiot. He advised poor and or uninsure3d women who needed contraception to use the google to find free contraception, which as this Think Progress report points out finds a bunch of either useless information or explains the high cost of getting birth control. In the course of making this stupid argument he suggested that anyone who insisted that uninsured women couldn't get contraception were making  "a straw-dog argument."

Perhaps he was trying to tell the truth. Strawdogs is, after all, a brutal investigation of violence in everyday life to say nothing of the treatment of women in the modern world.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ue1zbYIX2E&feature=related