Meet your new thread, same as the old thread.

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
No, it's equally funny when it's true. Perhaps more so. Trust me when I pronounce the Atticus Grinch Laws of Representative Politicodynamics:*

Rule 1: Government officials you get = government officials you deserve.

Rule 2: There is no Rule 2.


*On the national scale, these are also known as Grinch's Laws of Conservation of Jomentum.

I have no illusions about my many flaws, moral and intellectual, but I deserve better than what I got. Have, I mean.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by ironweed
I have no illusions about my many flaws, moral and intellectual, but I deserve better than what I got. Have, I mean.

You deserve to move to Redwood City ("Climate best by government test").

[Not Bob]

Originally posted by ironweed
I have no illusions about my many flaws, moral and intellectual, but I deserve better than what I got. Have, I mean.

Indeed. Story of my life.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Colbert hits double digits in recent Rasmussen poll.

You know, I don't care if his candidacy is violating federal election laws. This is awesome.

• Scene 12:
  
  Camera pans across hearing room, as Stephen Colbert takes his seat at a witness table, reporters scurry as we hear a gavel.
  
  LENHARD: Please, please everybody come to order. Mr. Colbert, you understand the allegations made about the funding of your candidacy. We here at the FEC want to know why we should turn a blind eye to the immense aggregations of wealth of Comedy Central . . . indeed of Viacom. In truthi . . .
  
  COLBERT (shouting): Truthiness? You can't HANDLE the truthiness!

link

[Tyrone Slothrop]

More Aldo Moro context, from a commenter on my blog:

• Moro was prime minister when I left Rome for stateside, and he was by all accounts one of the more competent italian elected officials (admittedly not a high bar).
  
  It's difficult to convey how terrorized Roman citizens felt as a result of the Brigati Rossi's 1970's terrorist campaigns. I was there at the time -- each day my parents would read the paper to see whether they knew the latest kidnap victim, and where the latest body of a former kidnap victim had been found, if the family had been too slow in paying the ransom.
  
  The ex-pat community was fairly small in Rome in those days, so we knew the Getty family, even though we didn't socialize with them. When John Paul Getty III was kidnapped at the age of 16, my friends and I were all terrified we'd be next. When his ear arrived in the mail, we all assumed we'd be eventually cut up and returned piecemeal to our parents.
  
  That the Italian government was unwilling, even in those circumstances, to stoop to torture is a testament to their principles. Whether this administration would take the moral high road in similar circumstances would now seem to have been answered unequivocally in the negative.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
More Aldo Moro context, from a commenter on my blog:

• Moro was prime minister when I left Rome for stateside, and he was by all accounts one of the more competent italian elected officials (admittedly not a high bar).
  
  It's difficult to convey how terrorized Roman citizens felt as a result of the Brigati Rossi's 1970's terrorist campaigns. I was there at the time -- each day my parents would read the paper to see whether they knew the latest kidnap victim, and where the latest body of a former kidnap victim had been found, if the family had been too slow in paying the ransom.
  
  The ex-pat community was fairly small in Rome in those days, so we knew the Getty family, even though we didn't socialize with them. When John Paul Getty III was kidnapped at the age of 16, my friends and I were all terrified we'd be next. When his ear arrived in the mail, we all assumed we'd be eventually cut up and returned piecemeal to our parents.
  
  That the Italian government was unwilling, even in those circumstances, to stoop to torture is a testament to their principles. Whether this administration would take the moral high road in similar circumstances would now seem to have been answered unequivocally in the negative.

so 2 people got killed? wow, and they still wouldn't touture. holy crap. and people were real scared.

now imagine 3000 people got killed, and you had to worry every time you stepped on a train, or bus or airplane. then let's see what Italy would do.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
so 2 people got killed? wow, and they still wouldn't touture. holy crap. and people were real scared.

now imagine 3000 people got killed, and you had to worry every time you stepped on a train, or bus or airplane. then let's see what Italy would do.

The Red Brigades were responsible for 14,000 acts of violence in their first 10 years. Sorry -- after your earlier post, I assumed you were familiar with the context.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The Red Brigades were responsible for 14,000 acts of violence in their first 10 years. Sorry -- after your earlier post, I assumed you were familiar with the context.

What, like bitch-slapping ppnyc?

ETA so Landry on FNL (a guy in high school) had the same advice as Spanky re: how to look at strippers (in the eye, not in the tits).

Spanky: businessman, or high school student?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The Red Brigades were responsible for 14,000 acts of violence in their first 10 years. Sorry -- after your earlier post, I assumed you were familiar with the context.

oh. Ty. you make me sad

you're quoting wiki.

that is a step up from your normal, but it's still pathetic.

fringey has more than 14000 acts of violence. we need to look at what "violence" means for each.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
oh. Ty. you make me sad

you're quoting wiki.

that is a step up from your normal, but it's still pathetic.

fringey has more than 14000 acts of violence. we need to look at what "violence" means for each.

I only smacked that boy 3 times, and he liked it. Just like you.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
More ludicrously overappreciated than Randy Newman by far:

• Lou Reed
• Jim Morrison
• Iggy Pop
• Sonic Youth

2!!!!!!

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
No, it's equally funny when it's true. Perhaps more so. Trust me when I pronounce the Atticus Grinch Laws of Representative Politicodynamics:*

Rule 1: Government officials you get = government officials you deserve.

Rule 2: There is no Rule 2.


*On the national scale, these are also known as Grinch's Laws of Conservation of Jomentum.

Rule 3: That which would run for office is necessarily unfit to hold it.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by ironweed
I have no illusions about my many flaws, moral and intellectual, but I deserve better than what I got. Have, I mean.

I used to think that. Then I realized I had it backwards.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop

• People under the age of 35, maybe even 40, probably don't remember the Aldo Moro crisis. Aldo Moro was a several-times prime minister of Italy who was kidnapped and held hostage by terrorists in 1978. After about 50 days, in which the terrorists alternately interrogated Moro and let him write letters to the outside world begging for his life, he was murdered. Maybe "several-times prime minister" doesn't do his stature justice -- imagine, G-d forbid, that something similar happened to, oh, Bob Dole or Dick Gephardt. An important politician widely recognized as a national leader, taken by terrorists making outrageous demands who could kill him at any moment. Short of an actual nuclear bomb, that's one of the worst things imaginable in a democracy.
  
  At one point in the crisis, General Dalla Chiesa, the head of the team trying to unravel the kidnapping, was asked permission to torture a Red Brigades sympathizer who was in jail, for information that might free Moro. His response? "Italy can survive the loss of Aldo Moro. It would not survive the introduction of torture."

link

1. Bob Dole's pushing 90 and Dick Gephardt's a cyborg.

2. The worst thing imaginable in a democracy would be the election of John Edwards.

3. Italian shoes, Italian food and Italian clothing. Those are the things from Italy worth copying.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Interesting definition: The rest of the article is pretty cool.

Disclaimer: I like China Mieville's books quite a bit. And he's written quite a bit about "libertarian" floating shelters.

I like the ranting and many good points are made, but there's a little too much running-to-the-thesaurus evident in the prose.

The point about libertarians being too stupid to go out and milk the state is a funny one. But it misses what's maybe the only principled view of libertarianism - that people shouldn't have to do that. Maybe we'd all be a lot better off if the state didn't control so many purse strings and our industries weren't as dependent on govt contracts.

Libertarians didn't send us into Iraq. That's all on the milk-the-state crowd.