Vox Popoli

I just sent a publisher an email withdrawing my proposed book on History’s Lies from consideration prior to submission. Why? Because a glance at the bestseller lists demonstrates that it’s the sort of thing that no one particularly wants to read, and it would harm the publisher to waste resources pushing something that is inadequately marketable.

Based on current non-fiction trends, it seems my two best options are as follows:

A) HEIL HILLARY: The secret life of a Nazi lesbian

B) MEDIA WHORES: Courtesans and Charlatans of the American Commentariat

Which one sounds like the more entertaining read to you? Anyhow, I’ll probably turn the chapters on the Spanish Inquisition and the Left-Wing Nazis into columns in the future. Researching the Inquisition was quite interesting, actually. I stole Robert Anton Wilson’s rather innovative footnoting approach, which allowed me to work in tangential material, such as Siegfried and Roy and other things that don’t actually have anything to do with the Spanish Inquisition, but make for a read that’s a little less dry.

It’s RAW who produced the funniest line in the history of literature, subsequent to a lengthy discussion of an infinty of Nietzsches contemplating an infinity of spiders in the moonlight: “Nietzsche masturbates too much.”

DNG unleashes a long rant in defense of Asian women:

…a lot of white American women here in Japan are very bitter. They’re really bitter in Taiwan as well. They look at the foreign men around them who have extremely beautiful Asian girlfriends and get mad. They say to themselves: ‘He’s pathetic! If we were back home, I wouldn’t give him the time of day! I can’t compete here because Asian women are submissive!!’ That’s the attitude: Japanese women spoil everything by being submissive slaves, they upstage the Great White Gaijin Chick who rightfully belongs at the center of the universe. It certainly isn’t because white American women are paunchy and sexist and act like bulldozers. And it’s not because they’re vain and hypocritical and they look like land-bound dugongs, no sir. A white chick could never look in the mirror and reach the most obvious conclusions, could she? No, western men want to oppress somebody and Asian women are easily-oppressed whores….

I’ve never thought that Asian women are naturally slutty or weak-minded or whatever. No damned way. It’s a slur! It’s a totally racist idea and it angers me to no end to hear it, but you will seriously find a huge number of white women who actually make accusations like that. In the U.S. I’ve met white women with PhDs who express disbelief when I say that most Asian women I’ve met are tough and independent-minded. I’m convinced that these stereotypes about Asians keep circulating because they reinforce the prejudices of white women. Seriously, in all my experience it’s been almost exclusively the white women who make these kinds of snide insults. Probably 95% of it comes from white chicks, I don’t think I’ve met any other group of people in the world who have such an extreme and perverse relish for bashing Asian women. It’s disgraceful.

I tend to find this oft-virulent racism more amusingly ironic, as men of every culture, European, Asian, African and Arabic, know very well that American women are the most sexually available on the planet. This should be obvious to anyone who considers the matter, as it is simply the logical result of the United States being Ground Zero for the Sexual Revolution. Even in notorious Thailand, you usually have to pay to play; only in America can one reasonably expect sex on the first date, assuming that one even bothers with a date in the first place. I understand that England has loosened up considerably in this regard in the last 15 years, but it is still playing catch-up.

Asian cultures may be more exotically erotic, as it wasn’t the Anglo-Saxons who came up with the Kama Sutra, after all, and one has difficulty imagining the concept of a young Thai wife having to be told to close her eyes and think of Thailand, but for the most part there is still an element of propriety that is now absent in America. When studying in Tokyo, I once committed the faux pas of inviting a Japanese girl over to my host-family’s place for dinner; both she and my host family were very amused and did not tell me until halfway through dinner that I had basically proposed, and in coming over, she had accepted.

Fortunately, they all simply saw it as a joke at the expense of the clueless gaijin. That would have been a tough one to explain to Mom and Dad.

Nate carries water for Axl Rose on his blog:

Say you don’t like them. Say you hate the music and what they stood for. But don’t call them posers. They don’t come more real than GnR.

It depends which GnR you’re talking about. I happened to spend two evenings partying with the original five in Tokyo not long after the release of Appetite for Destruction. I got along quite well with Steve, the drummer, and Duff, the bassist. They were both good guys, friendly and pretty much up for anything. We killed more than a few beers together that weekend. Snake was a complete bore, as he sat in the corner, hid behind his hair and didn’t talk to anyone or do anything for two solid evenings. I don’t remember what was going on with Axl – but I nearly got in a fight with Izzy Stradlin the second night, as he was trying to physically drag a girl with whom I’d had dinner that night out of the bar with him. She didn’t want to go, but he wouldn’t release her, so I had to grab her arm and cuss him out before he finally let her alone.

I remember thinking at the time that I was probably going to have to pop him one in the face and wondered a) what Japanese jails were like, and b) if the altercation would make MTV News. But when she started screaming, Stradlin let her go before I decided to risk it and let loose on him. A few months later, Axl started dating another friend of mine from my Tokyo dayz; she’s in the Patience video, if I recall correctly.

GnR were real rockers, sure enough, but the band was a complete fraud in at least one sense. Their “independent” label was a fake; there never was any Uzi Suicide label. It was just a packaging deal dreamed up by their record label to give them more “cred”. Apparently that seems to have worked in Nate’s case.

I’ll take Metallica, Soundgarden or Nirvana over them any day. I was more of an industrial guy, though, and although they weren’t really rockers, for my money, there was no band that brought the Apocalypse better than Ministry.

So, John Kerry spent Christmas 1968 in Cambodia on the orders of President Nixon. Except Nixon wasn’t President in 1968. John Kerry’s Silver Star citation from 1969 is signed by Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, who was the Secretary of the Navy from 1981 to 1987. Mmm-kay….

While his media defenders embarrass themselves with their ignorance of East Asian geography, (no the Mekong Delta isn’t in Cambodia), his befuddled defenders in blogworld base their arguments on the “fact” that no one on Kerry’s boat agrees with the 250+ Swift Boat veterans who think John Kerry is a total fraud. Unfortunately for them, this “fact” is an incorrect assertion which doesn’t hold up any better than those haunting and fictional memories that are seared – seared – into John Kerry’s imaginative mind.

Steve Gardner is the sole crewman not swayed by Kerry during his many post-Vietnam years of solicitation aimed at gaining the support of his own crew. Today, Gardner asks: “How can Kerry possibly be commander in chief when he couldn’t competently command a six-man crew?” Gardner, a two-tour Swift Boat sailor who sat five feet behind Kerry in Vietnam and who saw many officers during his two years, judges Kerry to be by far the worst.

“Kerry was erratic,” Gardner said in an interview June 19. “He hardly ever did what he was supposed to do. His command decisions put us in more peril then he should have. But mostly he just ran. When John Kerry looked out the bow of the boat and he saw tracer fire coming after him, he’d turn and run.” Gardner added: “When he should have been fighting, calling in air support, he was hightailing it. That’s always been my bone of contention with Kerry — his decision-making capabilities. That’s what takes him out of contention as far as I’m concerned.”

My question is this: where’s Limahl when you need him?

The Libertarian slate includes nearly two dozen legislative candidates, including former gubernatorial candidate Tom Cox, who won almost 5 percent of the vote when Democrat Ted Kulongoski defeated Republican Kevin Mannix in 2002. This time, Cox hopes to defeat Rep. Mary Gallegos, R-Cornelius, one of 11 House Republicans who voted for the tax increase that voters ultimately rejected…..

Libertarians also could play a role in several other House races that have no incumbent, such as House District 54, which Rep. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, will exit. Libertarian Tristan Reisfar is taking on Democrat Judy Stiegler and Republican Chuck Burley, both of whom he says support tax and fees increases.

Mannix, the Oregon Republican Party chairman, said he’s telling members to “stop paying any attention” to Libertarian candidates, who he says have little in common with Republicans.

But the tax issue is important enough that some Republicans wouldn’t mind seeing a Democrat defeat a Republican. Tax activist Don McIntire said that the Executive Club, a decades-old conservative group to which he belongs, voted to back Cox against Gallegos. “There’s a chance his entry into the race could deliver the votes for the Democrat, but on balance, we’ve decided that’s better than continuing with somebody who’s a lousy Republican,” McIntire said.

“Stop paying any attention!” That’s the most that the Republican leadership can say about the Libertarian Party. Why? Because when Republicans do pay attention and honestly weigh it as an alternative, the Libertarians easily prove to be the superior choice for most republicans, conservatives, and even small-d democrats.

Unc D can’t stop himself:

“I LOATHE political correctness. However, while I agree with your assesment of that piece on MM’s blog, that’s an obnoxious way to start off your post. If MM was black, I doubt you would have written: “Michelle says ‘Yes Massa’ to the Feds?””

You don’t think so? O ye of little faith! And for one who reportedly loathes political correctness, you seem to be focused like a laser on the PC aspect, considering that I’ve already a) labled her a media whore, b) called her a bootlicker, and c) implied that she is committing adultery with a Philippino terrorist. That’s all fine, apparently, but a dismissive reference to Ms Malkin being Asian and female suddenly gets your panties in a bunch. That PC sensitivity just sneaks in there, doesn’t it.

Was it obnoxious? Sure. But obviously you’re mistaking me for someone who gives a flying rat’s posterior. Ideas are what they are, equally valid regardless of how they’re couched. If I say “Peter Jennings, you handsome hunk of Canadian salt pork, 2+2=4” it is no more or less valid than “Peter Jennings, you loathesome Canadian cretin, 2+2=4”. I often express myself in terms of venomous contempt because that is how I view the ideas being expressed by many of the charlatans infesting the commentary pages like rats infected with lethal intellectual buboes.

No matter what the issue might be, the answer is always the same. Trust Big Brother and love Him, and then you will be safe. THAT IS A LIE AND IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN A LIE.

If my words weren’t dripping with venom, I’d be frothing at the mouth like Mogambo. Wake up, you cretins! This country, the noblest political experiment in the history of Mankind, belongs to you, and you are pissing away your birthright for nothing but empty words and false promises.

Rich unwisely plays with metaphor:

So, Suicide is a requirement of being an American. Interesting

The only form of national suicide is the one in which we are gradually engaging, sacrificing our liberties and Constitutional safeguards in favor of a security that will prove to be a mirage, dangled as false bait in front of frightened fools. Our demise will prove to be entirely of our own doing.

Rich’s comparison is particularly nonsensical, as even the most pacifist society falling to the force exerted by another would be more accurately equated with murder.

Speaking of fantasy football and attack dogs, I have to complain about the complete madhouse that is my fantasy football league. During this year’s draft last weekend, I took some merciless ribbing for my misplaced affection for Kelly Holcomb. Hey, the guy plays great, gets injured, comes back for the AFC playoffs and throws five touchdowns. What’s not to like?

Sure, he turned out to be a disaster, which is why Garcia is now starting for Cleveland, but it was a reasonable mistake. This didn’t prevent numerous cracks about my inability to judge QB talent, my drafting incompetence, etc. But here’s the point which demonstrates that my fellow GM’s are, without any doubt whatsoever, complete idiots. I NOT ONLY NEVER DRAFTED KELLY HOLCOMB, I NEVER HAD HIM!

I drafted two quarterbacks last year. Peyton Manning and Matt Hasselbeck. That’s two of the league’s top five QBs last year. The year before that, Brett Favre was my starter. The year before that, Donovan McNabb in his one great fantasy year. The year before that, I was alternating Daunte Culpepper and Jeff Garcia to overwhelming E-F-F-E-C-T otherwise known as effect.

It was the White Buffalo who drafted Kurt Warner and Kelly Holcomb last year, two misjudgements of stunning magnitude, only a few short years after DRAFTING RANDALL CUNNINGHAM #1 OVERALL in 1999 when his wheels were obviously about to fall off. And I’m the one who can’t judge QB talent? I am reluctantly forced to conclude that next year, we’re going to have to institute pre-draft drug-testing.

BT brings up the only subject that matters right now:

You and I differ politically but… who are your sleepers and guys poised for breakout years? I’ve got my own thoughts…Chris Brown, Thomas Jones, David Carr, Joey Harrington, and Carson Palmer.

Also, my general strategy is RB in the first & second round then best available in rd. 3. Share your strategical insights as I need all the help I can get.

Lastly…I disagree with 95% of what you say but you make me think and you’re firm in your beliefs. Too many people just regurgitate the crap spoon fed to them by the politicians and talking heads. You don’t and I respect that. I love reading your blogs and WND columns. Thanks and keep up the good work.

Yes, BT’s missive demonstrates why I really prefer to consider myself a healer and a uniter, crossing the vast chasm of America’s ideological differences and joining hands together in those small, but vital points of commonality, blah frickin’ blah. I can’t even write that without my stomach getting queasy. If I was Pope – don’t shoot, ET – I think I’d call for a Albigsenian-style Crusade against Unitarians. They just sit around looking all innocent and harmless, with their obese women pastors and “blessed bes”; if that’s not grounds for a good auto-da-fe or three, well, I’m not Pope John al-Mansur the Victorious.

Sorry, got a little off track there. Anyhow, strategies… mine is twofold. If you analyze the numbers, there are two to four players at each position that seriously outperform their peers. It’s more important to get as many of these overperformers as possible, which trumps the position concept BT mentioned. So, I took Ahman Green, (#3 RB) with my first pick, then grabbed Daunte Culpepper (#2 QB) with my second even though a number of very good RB and WR were available, because none of the RB and WR left were overperformers. I drafted Mike Vanderjagt (#1 kicker) a little early as well.

The other part might well be called the Schadenfreude strategy, (just to continue a theme), as I will not only be enjoying, but celebrating the pain of others when Marshall Faulk and Stephen Davis go down with injuries. Why? Because I picked up Stephen Jackson and DeShaun Foster late in the draft, both of whom are reasonably likely to see serious playing time this season.

As for your sleepers, I very much like Chris Brown and am very annoyed with my brother for snagging him first. Thomas Jones, it’s hard to say. The Bears will be better, of course, if only because it’s hard to gain yards or points with Mr. INT always turning the ball over at the first opportunity. I like David Carr, but don’t see him breaking out and I think Harrington will disappoint. Yes, he’s got weapons but I don’t think he’s got what it takes to get it to them. Of course, I could be bitter about picking him up as a third QB instead of Bulger last year and essentially handing the title to the Wheeler Dealer. I debated that one for ten minutes, going back and forth and back and forth, and I still rue the day.

I am optimistic about Carson Palmer, which is why he’s backing up Daunte. Kitna was more than solid last year, and one hopes that Cincy knows what it’s doing in promoting Palmer over him. And I need him to perform even if he never starts a game for me, since Chad Johnson is my #1 receiver. That darned White Buffalo snatched Randy Moss right from under my nose; I was forced to make do with CJ and Marcus Robinson. I did get McCardell late, for a nice value pick if he gets his contract worked out soon, and Jerry Porter could work out very well indeed now that Brown is gone if Gannon comes back to form.

The best thing about our league this year is that last year’s champion and the most serious player couldn’t get online until the third round. So much for months of pre-planning! He got stuck with the most fragile backfield in the history of fantasy football, Marshall Faulk and Fred Taylor. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy… heh heh heh.

Michelle love the FBI long time:

Oh, give me a break. Getting shocked with cattle prods for practicing one’s faith is the “stuff of totalitarian regimes.” Getting locked up in an iron maiden for losing a soccer match is the “stuff of totalitarian regimes.” Answering a few questions about possible domestic terrorism is the stuff of responsible citizenship….

Some of those who have been questioned by the FBI say they were “harassed” and scared by armed agents who visited their homes. Boo hoo. What do they want the agents to do? Would showing up in clown suits with squirt guns in their holsters make them feel less frightened? These are serious men and women doing serious jobs in serious times. Grow up.

Is shooting an unarmed woman in the head the stuff of totalitarian regimes? I’m just looking for clarification here. And did she actually say “grow up”? I know some lefties have made the comparison, but I tell you the truth, Michelle Malkin isn’t fit to replace the color cartridge in Ann Coulter’s inkjet. Be responsible, comrade, and answer the questions. Er, that is to say, citizen. Interesting to see how quickly the Federal focus has insensibly shifted from foreign terrorists to suspected domestic troublemakers… never forget that in the government’s eyes, we are all potential terrorists and those who are committed to freedom are considered more potential than most.

Anyone who’s had an encounter with the FBI, the DEA, the ATF or the IRS and the way they throw their thuggish weight around knows that Michelle has no idea what she’s talking about here. Who wants to further her education in matters of federal comportment by placing an anonymous call to the DEA and informing them of the meth lab in her basement? And is it not imperative that the FBI learn of her intimate relationship with an Abu Sayyaf leader?

Smile when you answer those questions, Ms Responsible Citizen.