the defeatists!

I've been trying to not raise my blood pressure, but...

This goddamn woman is going to kill me.

 I kept thinking I should comment on the speech in Oslo, but I couldn't think of much to say.  I pretty much agreed with Obama, who pretty much agreed with everybody except the occasional mad pacifist-philosopher on the just war argument. From Aristotle through Ricoeur, the just war argument gets restated and retitled, but rarely changes -- there is evil and you have the right as a person/group/nation to defend yourself and the responsibility to try and prevent it from eating you and the rest of the world alive. Broughhahahaha about Toby Keith aside, 9/11 provided the justification for Afghanistan and possibly the necessity. Sorry. Bridge in the song sucks, but it was still an honest statement. And, Toby Keith is a moderate Democrat, so go figure.

So since my brothers are finding ways to plug Gary Busey's face onto everything imaginable and the world is turning as per normal, I gotta say, I was doing really well. Staying calm...and then, I read this bit of absolute bullshit and degradation of the sacred by the illiterate/insane/and deranged crone from Minnesota, Michelle "I can see aliens from my house" Bachmann. Tiffany call her home!

Bachmann's argument is fallacious and stupid -- everyone tried in the United States, its territories and possessions including all the ships at sea, military bases, military tribunals and in captivity by a board of court martial in a POW camp is entitled to a fair trial. Including the little green men who obviously have taken over Michelle's mind and body. I mean, Minnesota has excellent public schools. I know she's from Lake Woebegone country, but still they have fantastic schools. She has to have taken civics...I think.

More to the point, Crusader AXE believes in American Exceptionalism. Although Ronald Reagan was a 30 year disaster for this country through his influence on law, thought, foreign policy, his reference to the beacon like a city on a hill from John Winthrop's sermon to the Massachusetts Bay Colony has always struck a note with me. Winthrop more than Ronnie, but then, I was better educated than Ronnie, or for that matter, Michelle Bachmann. Anyway, America is special not because of the water and our superior body fluids, but because of the idea of America. Truth, Justice and the American Way. Bachmann is supposedly a Christian, although we all know that in itself means nothing. But, we have a big statue in New York harbor that celebrates the American idea. The door is open to anyone. Goering got a goddamn fair trial! Jesus...didn't this woman swear to preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies domestic and foreign? I did. Anyone who ever served in the military, the Federal Service, and any of a number of state agencies has done the same thing. She was sworn into office in the Capitol.

I know that politicians don't have to know how to read and certainly there is no requirement that they know how to use logic. But, the Amanda Knox trial ought to give Bachmann pause. The gal is guaranteed a lot of time in prison because people don't like America as much in Italy, and all the things that occurred in that trial, from never cautioning the jury, to allowing hearsay, to letting the goddamn jurors give interview during the trial are contradictory to the very concept of a fair trial. Under the Napoleonic code. Where Ms. Knox and her attorneys face the duty of proving the negative...which cannot be proven. Guilty until proven innocent, so that the state and the "homeland" are protected first, and then the Rights of the Individual. The goddamn Napoleonic code is a heritage of tyranny in much of Europe. We are a common law nation, and along with the British Commonwealth, have other expectations.

Then, the fact that she refers to the Bill of Rights as "perks," that only Americans have just makes me cringe. They are rights and responsibilities. As a member of Congress, she has a special responsibility to "preserve, protect and defend" those rights. Instead, she giggles and fingers her erroneous zone lasciviously.

So, this menopausal bimbo who shouldn't be allowed to be on a goddamn zoning panel or school board -- damn, especially a school board --has a bully pulpit and adoring fans. Yet, she is truly ignorant, and truly anti-American. Seriously, I can picture Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Hamilton staring at her, bemused, taking a pinch of snuff and then walking away sadly. Especially if their shades still walk...

Where's Mario Savio when you need him?

Police arrested 52 students protesting a tuition hike Thursday at the University of California-Davis and held them in jail overnight without food. One was reportedly beaten by police, a source close to the incident tells Raw Story...The incident took place in the midst of widespread protests at several University of California campuses, in response to the Board of Regents' decision this week to hike tuition fees by 32 percent starting next academic year.

Yeah, I know...Mario who? Lanza? The Nintendo guy? Well, back in the early 60s, prior to Vietnam and Freedom Marchers, Berkeley had something called a Free Speech Movement and Mario was the best known of the leaders.  I read something by the then Chancellor of the University System years ago, and I wanted to bitchslap the guy even though he was dead. Mario appears to have cared a lot, and died 36 years after coming to prominence. Of heart failure.

Fast foward to today. California is tanking, as we all know; the universities are headed down the old clockwise rotating clusterbowl along with just about everything else. They decided to raise the cost of tuition by 36% -- really? I suspect costs have risen at least 36% over the last ten years or so, but according to the Wall Street Journal, the average loan load for students graduating is $23K, up 10 grand since 1996. Bear in mind, that includes ALL THE STUDENT DEBT for tuition, books, room and board and so on. Most students work, most borrow, most are twitching in fear that their parents will lose their jobs or have lost their jobs, and are all living with feelings of impending doom and dread. Well as they should; the journal goes all supply and demand a bit later, speculating that the availability of loans contributes to the costs, as students compete for seats. Charging outrageous prices for something is the best way of rationing it.

The new numbers highlight how debt has become commonplace in paying for higher education. Today, two-thirds of college students borrow to pay for college, and their average debt load is $23,186 by the time they graduate, according to an analysis of the government's National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, conducted by financial-aid expert Mark Kantrowitz. Only a dozen years earlier, according to the study, 58% of students borrowed to pay for college, and the average amount borrowed was $13,172.

On the other hand, Crusader AXE has in fact argued pretty strongly that an elementary knowledge of math is required for informed comment. While the imbalance between rich and poor is growing, most of the folks borrowing a lot of the money are not poor, but middle class. If you're really poor and smart enough, the money is there in the form of scholarships, need-based financial aid, and more heavily subsidized loans. If you're rich, shit...who cares. It's the "middle class" that's getting hit...instead of aspiring to go to UCAL Davis, a worker's daughter will be dreaming of going to Barstow Community College; the kid who could have gone to Harvey Mudd will be siting around at Davis. Supply, demand and cost...very cold calculus. Unless you bitchslap the sytem and make fundamental changes.

There have been discussions over the years about the difference between the student movement in the 60s in the US and in France. Well, as with quality of life in general, France's student movement did in fact result in changes. In the US, we elected Richard Nixon as a backlash; in France, Charles de Gaulle was forced to resign. There's something about a level of passion when something hits viscerally as opposed to intellectually. Pocketbooks and mortgaging the future for forever are pretty visceral. We'll see how this turns out, but my guess is that the bottom rung will suffer severely indeed.  Poorer students will be forced out, smaller schools may be shuttered. And, we'll import more folks with degrees from places like Mobai and Guangzhou. The middle class will become more of an afterthought and we'll see what happens next. Looks in a lot of ways though to this old Hegelian that the Universal Spirit is unfolding itself dialectically and headed for the next stage. Or, to use Marxist language, capitalism is revealing it's contradictions and we're headed for a clash between the American Dream or the American ideology and economic reality; a new omelet will be created, and eggs will be broken.

Took several months back in the early 60s for the cops to break out the teargas. This time, happened basically the same day. We'll see what's next...

Like Bible Camp, only without the hope...

Tiffany, smite this motherfucker. Smite, Smite, Smite. Have nutria invade his underpants...

This is what's wrong with intellectuals as a general class of asses. Just what kids need more of -- regimented time and thought. This dweeb is about as much of a totalitarian as Benny the Rat, only without the Gemutlicheit...

That's just profoundly...nonsensical. Next thing, you'll be wanting these things to be merit based!

Oxford does it. Cambridge does it. Trinity College, Dublin does it. Why not ?

"It will not be easy to produce a low-cost, high-quality three-year curriculum for a college degree, but now is the time to try," Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), a former education secretary and a past president of the University of Tennessee, told a group of educators this year. "Today's economic crisis and tight budgets are the best time to innovate and change."

Passing over the fact that a lot of people still work during the summers to pay tuition and expenses, and on and on and on, there is a huge difference between Oxford, Cambridge and Trinity College and Party School U or Ginormous State University someplace. Literacy and relevance. I know a lot of Americans who graduated in three years--they were very bright, had a clue as to what they wanted and had the money for all those extra courses and summer sessions. They were focused, and didn't care that much about booze, broads, bridge and bullshit. They're all drones now, of course, but they got done in three years.

Have you talked to an American kid lately? They're terrified of graduating because of the debt burden and 10% unemployment. The newest "doing the right thing" commercial from Liberty Mutual (not Liberty U, which should probably lose it's tax exempt status over the latest madness, but what the hell? Why not suppress speech and argument. Do you need to be able to logically debate the issues and pay attention when you're swinging a viper around to show how much you trust Jesus? Do you?You talking to me?(AXE, ...calm down. This is not about Zombies worshipping Zombies...and, if Jesuah ben Joseph was really a Maccabee, he'd definitely been down with barring people you don't agree with. Hell, he'd probably have been done with killing them. Falwell's university is not true to the true Jesus...whatever the hell the guy actually said. Seriously...)

There, I'm better. Education, not bad sense. That's what I'm wondering about. The latest Liberty Mutual doing the right thing is telling your kid you're going get laid off, he's going to have to drop out of school and be a fucking migrant farm worker and sex slave, and the kid says, "Shit pops. I'll just join the Air Force..."

But critics said they fear that an undergraduate's academic and social experience would be compromised by shortening it to three years. College would tilt more toward job training and away from the broad-based education many U.S. schools have offered."Most high governmental officials who speak of education policy seem to conceive of education in this light -- as a way to ensure economic competitiveness and continued economic growth," said Derek Bok, president emeritus of Harvard University. "I strongly disagree with this approach."

Well, of course. Let's face a few facts -- most curriculums are more like job training. Always have been. Why aren't you in an engineering school? A business program? Pre-law? Pre-med? Pull your pants up, get a haircut and maybe you'll meet more girls. Shit...HOW ARE YOU GOING TO PAY THESE LOANS BACK! So you have a degree in liberal arts? How does that work?

There is some truth to that. As a guy with an undergraduate degree in philosophy with a cute little gold key that opens nothing and a guilt feeling because I never did get that degree allowing me to pontificate at Amherst to a crowd of rich young twits every year about Sarter, Schopenhauer and Pop Culture, education doesn't guarantee anything. It does guarantee the ability to frame a situation. But, if you want a good job, get a degree in math and a MBA.

The thing about Harvard and Yale and Oxford and Cambridge is that deep down, they are upper class schools with a lot of rich kids. I agree that as a human being, the socialization of the undergraduate experience is probably just as important as the education. Where else would I have been able to live in a hothouse environment, and focuse on...booze, broads, bridge, guitars and poltics? But, there is a difference between what education is and what people think it is. Remember, the mantra is not "to be a better person" or "to be a whole person," or "to live a full life..." it's "to get a good job, get a good education." Mine got me a rifle, a rucksack, and a guy from Georgia with no teeth cursing me while I was crawling through mud. It got Agi a cubicle. It got El Serracho a cubicle. It got IOZ a job with a nonprofit, but of the various left-libertarian-anarcho-syndicalist types that I virtually hang around with, IOZ has the most genteel background. Of course, he's the most radical of the group by far, and he makes full use of his education and his life experience. It got Mr Fun a job watching the river flow for unbearable assholes. But, even though we may not have the greatest jobs, we are able to look up through the bars of our prison and see stars. Of course, we question their reason for existing, make snarky remarks about their sexual identities and call them motherfuckers, but still...

An awful lot of kids in colleges would be better off with what the Brits call a "polytechnic..." a trades school. A lot more would be better off in an "Arts School..." Richard Hammond of Top Gear , Keith Richard  and lots of other folks went to those things. But, since nobody makes things and god help us if anyone actually pays attention to the arts, those alternatives are limited. Jagger, of course, went to the London School of Economics...

So, without four year college educations where would we be? Where would folks like me get to learn how to play LouieLouie in Latin, or sheltered teenage girls get to experiment with their sexuality and undergraduates explore Satanism or concoct plans like carving Obama's name in their chest...upside down...to get McCain elected? I guess I don't know...but, I do know this. Lamar Alexander is a dickhead. Everytime someone complains about needing to add innovation and efficiency to an institution, whether it's the American League or the College of Cardinals or the Stanford Cardinal, bad things happen.

Ah, England...actually Wales, but WTF!

Bonnie Raitt-Burning Down the House
by SFBA4me

Now, in the US when a princpal installs cameras in the Girl's Bathroom, we call it voyeurism. In England, where the IRA gave them the gift of 24/7 Closed Circuit TV Coverage of everygoddamnthing imaginable, it's just the next step in securing the state. From itself. For itself. God save the Queens...

Fire up the nuclear vibrator Tiffany, End Times a Coming...

\Not sure what is more irritating about this one... that you can get a college degree from Barnum and Bailey or that you can get an Abstinence Educator's Certificate for $50. I'm thinking the later...I would have bought a bunch of them as Christmas presents had I known...and then there's this nonsense

"Anyone with a gram of discernment?" Really...the bottom line of Satanism and much of rock and roll?This is so...1950s PTA, White Citizens Council, League of Decency, Ladies League of Lodi Street nonsense that it's existence actually makes the BA in Fun Arts crap make sense...Fuck these people. "Despite all the aggravation we can dance to the rock and roll stations..." So, let's go!

Rhinhart and Not Sure for Americuhh!!!

There's a conspiratorial clown in Oklahoma  running for re-election using a comic book as a tool. Well, I don't have any big feelings about comic books. When I was a hatchet, I'd stop daily in this little smoke shop/newsstand/bookie joint on the corner of Harrison and Water back in Syracuse, and plop down my 15 cents for something...Classics Illustrated was a brand I liked. In second grade, I got to read versions of the Illiad, Ivanhoe, Against All Flags, Caesar's Gallic Wars, and so on. Think of Cliff Notes, only with color pictures. I read Prince Valiant Comics; I read The Viking Prince; I read about SGT Rock and Easy Company; Blackhawk...you get the picture. They used actual, multi-syllabic word constructions with subjects, predicates, objects, and even the occasional subjuntive clause. I believe those things were called, what was it, I'm blanking...oh, yeah, complete sentences.

However, this guy's stuff is homophobic ( a gay character has horns, and I don't mean trumpets!), full of lousy grammar and misspellings  When challenged on the misspellings by CNN, the guy said something like, " I don't necessarily care, dude...you know? Really, kaschizzle..."and probably flashed some gang signs. He claims the thing took him two months to do. The fact that this idiot is a white, Christian, Republican-suit  under indictment and awaiting trial in September for corruption charges  makes it even more precious. He blames the "Gays, Godless and liberal 'good old boys" on the country commission for his travails.

I do not know who the good old boys at the courthouse are," said County Assessor Leonard Sullivan, a Republican who has had public disagreements with Rinehart.

I have really encouraged him on more than one occasion to get professional help. He really needs it,"  said Sullivan, who is not depicted in the comic.

While to a certain extent this is just silly and funny -- those Oil Patch Republicans, what a barrel of laughs -- I think there are more serious issues for us to consider. And laugh at.... Leonard Pitts  has an intriguing insight into the whole thing, plugging the cult not-quite-a-classic Idiocracy... 

I am not an Oklahoma County voter, so maybe you wonder why I care about Rinehart's campaign. I don't. What I do care about is what I will call the ongoing stupidification of America, of which this is but one glaring example among many. Think of the congressman who advocated bombing Mecca to teach Muslims a lesson. Think of the "zero tolerance" policy that required a 10-year old to be suspended for bringing to school the tiny toy gun from his GI Joe. Think of the "Jay Walking" segment on the "Tonight Show" where average Americans cannot answer basic questions of civics and history. Think of those cable shows where we are theoretically entertained by coarse women vying for the affection of washed-up rock stars. Heck, read your junk e-mail. And then tell me you don't feel the nation's collective IQ dropping like stocks...No, I'm talking about stupidity, which I define as an inability to analyze, draw conclusions from, or otherwise "use" information even when one has it. And stupidity is often characterized by smug indifference. When a CNN anchor drew Rinehart's attention to his spelling errors, his reply was, "I don't necessarily care." ...In recent years, we have seen intelligence demonized as the sole province of the "elite," a term that once described accomplishment, but is now used to condemn anyone who looks like he might have accidentally cracked a book or had a thought. Not long ago, I gave a commencement address in which I told young people I am less concerned with what they think than "that" they think. Because we are losing that skill. Me, I find that alarming.Maybe you disagree. I bet you'll feel differently when Brent Rinehart is president.

Not that Pitt is Edmund Burke in his writing. Lots of incomplete sentences and grammatical misconstructions...don't begin sentences with "And." Sentences are supposed to express complete thoughts. And so on. But, I'll leave with for those interested in textual analysis to worry about that piece of the pie.

We have what appears to be basically an illiterate as president; based on the prowess of the remainder of the Bushite gang, I'm having problems with any of them having advanced degrees...Despise him as he deserves, Henry Kissinger is obviously brilliant. Twisted and deranged, but brilliant. Condi, not so much...The Lee Atwater-Karl Rove tradition of taking things out of context and inflating them really is contributing to the decay of thought and discourse. I'm about ready to advocate the return of duelling pistols as a way of settling disputes. I'm pretty sure that John McCain would have called out Bush and Rove in 2000. Today, he's as craven as they are, but that's for another time -- we're not accountable as a nation. Hamilton spread rumors of incest on the part of Burr, Burr shot his ass off. Hamilton smugly went to the duel sanctimoniously intending to "reserve his shot." Burr had a different approach.By the way, Burr was the sitting Vice President of the United States at the time. So, Cheney was only the second VP to shot someone in office...in his case, a friend, by accident.  Andrew Jackson shot a man who insulted his wife despite having taken a round in the chest that might have killed him, saying later that he would have killed the bastard if he had been shot through the heart. Jackson fought 13 duels. I'm not advocating murder as a way of thinning the herd, but the lack of testicular fortitude on the part of politicians in general might be amped up a bit i fthere were personal consequences for one's actions.

Brent Rinehart

Since the cratering of the Cthulhu-Guiliani campaign, we've been reaching around trying to find a new candidate to endorse. There aren't a lot of possibilities that really fit...but, I think Brent Rinhart would make a helluva continuation of the Bush story. Brent Rinehart is da man wid da plan...blame in on the gay, commie, Jew, liberal good old boy elites Rhinhart and Not Sure for the USA...they got electrolytes...

doo-wop (that thing it is you do?)

shorter Atrios:

                                    TREEHORN
                         People forget,

              He taps his forehead with one finger.

                        that the brain is the
                        biggest erogenous zone--

                                    DUDE
                        On you, maybe.

                                    TREEHORN
                        Of course, you have to take the good with
                        the bad.  The new technology permits
                        us to do very exciting things in
                        interactive erotic software.  Wave
                        of the future, Dude.  100% electronic.

                                    DUDE
                        Hmmm.  Well, I still jerk off
                        manually.

we here at Defeatist Central have flung ourselves all willy-nilly onto our swords on many an occasion.  it's fun!  now I run mostly on intuition, and four things stick out to me about the defeatists in our midst: 1.if what you're doing, blogging, is not fun or fulfilling (something) in some way, then why are you doing it?  2.show me how exactly blogging has changed or upset the structures that bind us.  3.show me how you've infiltrated the existing structures and morphed them from within (via the internet, like arthroscopically and shit).  4.what sort of sad person does not do this for fun, and thinks this is the new means for ch ch ch changes!? (sing it) 

now, there is nothing as satisfying or enjoyable as being completely and utterly useless.  that is simple and resistant anarchy:

That's when [Fry Pan Jack] told me - you know, he'd been tramping since 1927 -
he said, "I told myself in '27, if I cannot dictate the conditions of my labor,
I will henceforth cease to work."  Hah!  You don't have to go to college to
figure these things out, no sir!  He said, "I learned when I was young that the
only true life I had was the life of my brain.  But if it's true the only real
life I have is the life of my brain, what sense does it make to hand that brain
to somebody for eight hours a day for their particular use on the presumption
that at the end of the day they will give it back in an unmutilated condition?"
Fat chance!

but to sit up at attention in one's barcalounger and bellow across the tubes that this is simply not the case, and to whack those that are pointing out a simple truth, and to settle back into the chair, somehow satisfied, is well...sad.

It's rather odd to spend all your time following political news and blogs if the only reason to do it is to provide justification for your view that All Is Lost. Just go out and have some fun instead.

I don't know what he does for work, but I work tangentially for a local government, which is constantly pointing out to me how hopeless everything is, because even at this level, it's bad, real bad, and if I didn't have this to entertain myself, I might just go insane. 

so entertain myself I will.  and we do.  one of the best scenes, I think, from the favorite of all favorite Defeatist movies, TBL, is this:

                                    CHIEF
                         Mr. Treehorn draws a lot of water in
                         this town, You don't draw shit Lebowski.
                         Now we got a nice quiet little beach community
                         here, and I aim to keep it nice and quiet.
                         So let me make something plain.  I don't like you
                         sucking around bothering our citizens,
                         Lebowski.  I don't like your jerk-
                         off name, I don't like your jerk-off
                         face, I don't like your jerk-off
                         behavior, and I don't like you, jerk-
                         off. Do I make myself clear?

               The Dude stares absently.

                                     DUDE
                         I'm sorry, I wasn't listening.

if there is one thing the internet and blogs have helped the "royal we" sharpen, cultivate and hone, it is the art of the Fuck You.  which I think is the greatest thing ever, because it is one of the best tools we have for upsetting the powers that be.  (from fruitcake to f-bombs and back again, baby!)  I can probably find a fake picture of Bush humping two midget twins on the internet somewhere, and I can also find amazing essays and posts that tickle the best parts of my brain, that inspire and invoke and sadden.  (maybe we're making rebel music)  both of these products of blogging do in fact shape and manipulate the political, if that is the intention.  both are as useful as they are useless.  but, what is the utility, or the effectiveness, of blogging, or for that matter, a blogger?  feh!  not one damn thing I do or write on the internet is going to un-President the President, bring the troops home, dismantle our government, or bring about any noticeable change to the machine.  a million of us chirping away in the tubes won't either.  what we're here for, really, is to commiserate, to backslap, to create a little, to share, and to maybe, you know, learn something in the process.  because no matter how hard we try, when we close the browser window, we go back to the world as we know it. 

nothing is as defeatist as thinking otherwise.

the revolution will not be blogged

blogging for me is like talking to an answering machine: nobody is really home, or they're hiding from you, or listening and snickering.  the feeling you get from blogging is similar: you know noone is listening, but you're trying real hard to get past the voice in your head that has you questioning your tone and forgetting the reason you called in the first place.  this awareness can be pretty creepy, especially when compounded, globally!  ahh!  holy shit!  the whole world is listening; good god!  what shall I say?  typical blogging is about as satisfying as masturbation: you know what the outcome is going to be, and hopefully nobody is there to witness your throes of self-inflicted agony.  most people are pretty content seeing the words they type magically appear on the internet.   some of it is real good, some of it is real bad.  pictures help.  it is important that the author(s) recognizes the inherent self-aggrandizing nature of the medium; witness their propensity for vanity and understand the absolute futility of one person reaching out and writing to an entire world - on the internet, no less!  the blogger, no matter how good they are, must realize that they're special and unique, just like everyone else.  for some this is not enough.  witness:

One of my pet peeves has long been a certain strain of defeatism.
Understandably we all feel defeated at times, but there's a certain
kind of defeatist out there on the internets, people who spend most of
their time chastising others for thinking it's possible to have any
influence and attacking the "stupidity" of those who even bother to
try. Maybe those people are right. Maybe there never is anything to be
done. But if that's the case, get a new goddamn hobby. It's rather odd
to spend all your time following political news and blogs if the only
reason to do it is to provide justification for your view that All Is
Lost. Just go out and have some fun instead.

wow, a pathetic diatribe attacking trolls.  a troll, to trolls!  from, get this, an internet troll!  to paraphrase Atrios: get out, you fools!  and let the professionals get r done!  seriously, people, listen up!  how will we ever reach a consensus with all these damn people kicking my shins and tripping me up?  do they not fathom the importance of this, that which I just wrote, and the movement, man, the freaking movement.  so what if I'm wrong?  you're the one's who are slowing down the structure and mechanisms of real motherfucking change, yo!  begone!  we, brothers, we have the power to affect, and effect even, real change...if only.  if only! 

if only, Atrios, you didn't suck large donkey dong. 

you'll note that we've been blogging here at Defeatist Central for about 3 years now, and we're as organized as a bunch of old college roommates trying to get to the homecoming pre-game parking lot party.  we've organized nothing, contributed little, snarked and poked and slipped and joked our way through the tubes, creating a vast log of half-thoughts, some semi-truths, but mostly we've just generated ironic and back-handed insults and wise-cracks laid in disgust.  and that's about as good as this gets, or is supposed to get.  there's no rallying spot.  this shit is digital, man.  people don't run home to check out the hot blogging action at Kos or whatever.  (I myself am a 43 year old, 400 pound, blonde tipped, brunette at the roots, female shut-in, to, I am sure, many people's surprise.  there's not a lot of rushing going on here.)  and yet, we're as relevant as the next guy.  which is cool.  if there is anything blogging, and the internet for that matter, is good for, it is bringing down the median, and highlighting just how exciting alienation can be.  dude, we just don't want you to get all power mad and actually believe you influence change, any more than the rest of us.  shouting into the `tubes is not sane!  no one cares.  and your final ascension into an influence peddling corner of the empire will not be blogged; nor will the revolution.  thankfully.

so, you win, dude.  you're the King of the Internet.  let the rational polity and organizing begin, hencewith!  forthwith!  bitches!  over yonder and under the bridge and through the river and yada, freaking, yada.

we seriously.  fucking.  give up.
 

(the fact that some of the pointers that have led me in the past to Eschaton were to little nuggets of Atrios snark, is itself, not completely lost on me, in the realm of teh universal.)

I'd still wear a cup

every once in a while it's good to feel good about yourself - this world, it beats you down, you know?

well if a legitimate national security threat ever rears its imaginary head, I'm proud to say I could possibly take 27 five-year olds in a fight. 

http://www.howmanyfiveyearoldscouldyoutakeinafight.com/

                            TYLER
                 Any historical figure.

                             JACK
                 Okay... Ghandi.

                             TYLER
                 Good answer.

                             JACK
                 You?

                             TYLER
                 Abe Lincoln.  Big reach.  Skinny guys
                 fight till they're burger.

yes, yes we do.  it's these little mental victories that keep me strong and virile. 

don't let the bastards get you down - especially if they're wielding sticky Legos.