Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Optimism opens the door to great things.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

This really is a full service blog.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

Second rate reporter says what?

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

“But what about the lurkers?”

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

After roe, women are no longer free.

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57Comments

  1. 1.

    Zifnab

    Hahahahaha! Omg, thank you, John. That last link is hilarious. You totally just made my morning.

  2. 2.

    Ugh

    I don’t know what it is about Greenwald that gets them so exercised, but they do seem to lob a lot of pure hatred at him.

  3. 3.

    The Other Steve

    I’m spewing on your thread…

    I just want to highlight this. To point out how bad companies harm good ones. Republicans who defend bad companies are anti-business.

    Col. Timothy Clapp, who preceded Lightner as director of the Reconstruction Operations Center, which tracks the movements of private security firms under Defense Department contracts, said reported incidents were usually limited to a few companies, including two British firms, Aegis Defence Services and ArmorGroup International.

    Clapp said military officials became temporarily concerned last year that Aegis, which protects Corps of Engineers officials on reconstruction projects, was “out of control” because the company reported so many incidents. But Clapp said the numbers were skewed because Aegis conducts many more missions than other companies and because other companies rarely or never report shooting incidents.

    So Aegis get’s in trouble, because they follow the rules… reporting shooting incidents in Iraq. Blackwater doesn’t get in trouble because they skirt the rules.

    In the end though, Blackwater is going to do something(say Sept 16) that causes everybody to question all security companies. This hurts companies like Aegis who are upstanding corporate citizens.

    Again, it’s clear from this that Republicans are anti-business. Democrats would do well to make this point.

  4. 4.

    NickM

    Wow. The second link there – from today – is unreadably juvenile. The author writes to impress like he doesn’t need to worry about being clear but he fails to dazzle or be clear or even intelligible.

    Look at this:

    “Once he acknowledged the hailing, ‘he,’ as a constructed identity, became entrapped in the problematic of distancing his own insulting and mean-spirited characterization of others and their ‘fauxtrage’ at certain representations that he promotes.”

    What the fuck is the author talking about? If he knows, he’s not telling the reader. I understand who writes this kind of thing – High School freshmen and unsuccessful, insecure little men – but what kind of idiot reads it other than to laugh at it?

    How sad it is to see one’s native tongue tortured in a semantic Gitmo.

  6. 6.

    John Cole

    Wow. The second link there – from today – is unreadably juvenile. The author writes to impress like he doesn’t need to worry about being clear but he fails to dazzle or be clear or even intelligible.

    It is gibberish. There is no other way to describe it.

  7. 7.

    Andrew

    That there fancy writin’ becomes a lot more clear once you’ve got your finger up a dog’s ass.

  8. 8.

    RSA

    What the fuck is the author talking about?

    When I read a sentence that contains the phrase “gnomic conceit”, my eyes glaze over immediately.

    And to follow up on TOS’s spewing, I found the WP account interesting, too:

    Lightner, the Army major who monitors shooting incidents, said he thought the number of reported incidents was in some ways insignificant. “Other than entertainment value, I don’t see why I need to be all that worried about the number of incidents, as long as they were legitimate,” he said. “If they were incidents of wrongdoing, then that’s a different story.”

    Lightner said he usually accepted the company’s version of events. “If they’re reporting firing a weapon, and there’s no wrongdoing, and they operated according to the law, then God bless ’em, drive on,” he said. “If Aegis sends me a report and says, ‘Bad guys shot at us, we shot back and dropped two of them,’ I’m not going to investigate. I’m not going to worry about it, unless somebody comes back and says, ‘Yeah, they dropped two children, or they dropped a woman.’ “

  10. 10.

    Tim F.

    I don’t know what it is about Greenwald that gets them so exercised, but they do seem to lob a lot of pure hatred at him.

    He called them physically insecure pussies who make up for a childhood of getting picked on with contrived aggression displays. It hurts because it’s so true.

  11. 11.

    Andrew

    Look, you guys quit beating up on my good friend Jeff Goldstein. He may write incoherently, but he argues in good faith.

    Luckily, this was by some other asshole named Dan Collins. But that could be a pseudonym for Jeff’s cock.

  13. 13.

    les

    My god–is that what p-wis is always like? Don’t suggest I go there again, I might forget and do it.

  14. 14.

    Dennis-SGMM

    I always thought that it was protean wisdom. But, I was educated in the Sixties by a bunch of raging liberals at Berkeley so I must be wrong.

  16. 16.

    cleek

    Dollins thinks “Gleen”, a splice of GG’s real first and last names, highlights Greenwald’s sock-puppetry ?

    that boy’s not right.

  17. 17.

    whippoorwill

    This situation cries out for comment by the General JC Christian. I hope he offers his wisdom on all things homosexual, although, of course, he’s not one himself.

  18. 18.

    Face

    I always thought that it was protean wisdom

    More like Pro-teen Wisdom. Pedophiles, the lot of em.

  19. 19.

    Wilfred

    semantic Gitmo

    That’s a great phrase. BTW, whoever wrote the passage you quote is referring to Althusser’s idea of interpellation. He’s saying that once the person responded to being called ‘faggot’ (hailing) that person becomes a hypocrite for resorting to hurtful representations of others. If he had ignored it, he would be exempt from the charge and its underlying ideological foundations.

  22. 22.

    Timb

    At one point in the past, Greenwald and Goldstein were almost equals and had a long exchange re: issues of the day. Because Greenwald can write without sounding like a high school teacher writing bad poetry in the teachers’ lounge, he eclipsed Goldstein long ago and Goldstein and his little Collins are left with shooting at the contrails. Classic jealousy.

    My personal favorite part was in the first link, when Goldstein, coming to the defense of his little brother, criticized Greenwald for verbose writing!! The irony was so thick, it would take a dozen Protein Wisdom regulars (all that are left) years to cut it with the Bowie knives they keep under their pillows (in case a terrorist surprises them at night!).

    Watching Collins go round and round with his sycophantic fools is the most fun I’ve had in forever.

  23. 23.

    Jay C

    I don’t know what it is about Greenwald that gets them so exercised, but they do seem to lob a lot of pure hatred at him

    1) He is much smarter than them..
    2) Point 1) is made blatantly obvious in every one of his posts.

    Also: Glenn Greenwald tends to make his points by bolstering them with logical arguments – an ability the PW gang seems to have forgotten (if indeed they ever knew)

    Note the way Dan Collins uses the smokescreen of the use of “faggot” to obscure the gaping logical fallacy in his posts: that G.G.’s calling-out of wingers’ hysterical anti-Muslim pants-wetting rhetoric somehow translates directly into “support” for “Islamofascism”. Whatta maroon.

  24. 24.

    RSA

    Reading Protein Wisdom is like taking hours to unlock an elaborately carved puzzle box, with numerous dead ends, to find a steaming turd in the center.

  25. 25.

    The Other Steve

    I don’t know what it is about Greenwald that gets them so exercised, but they do seem to lob a lot of pure hatred at him

    Goldstein fancies himself as a writer. He wants a regular column with a big media outlet, along with a book deal.

    Greenwald has achieved that.

    Therefore Greenwald is evil.

  26. 26.

    Timb

    It’s a strange bi-polar world they live in, where one can only take their position or one can only taken the absurdist position they define. Simply put, in this case, they should ignored Collins and taken the offensive post down. But, they are so convinced of their rectitude they can never be wrong. How can they be wrong, when their opponents (the “liberals” in this country, the entire voting population of Europe, the Muslim religion, all two billion of them, the Chinese…). Think about their weird bunker mentality, where only 30% of the population in the United States believe with them and the other 90% of humanity in wrong, dangerously wrong.

    Watching them close ranks and defend something so stupid reminds one of Winston altering the history books in 1984….”Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia”. “Protein Wisdom has always condemned homosexual ephitets, except when WE use them.”

    Odd folks doing odd things.

  27. 27.

    Punchy

    And after you put all them pesky faggots in their place, could you move on to the colored people?

    Pretty classy coming from GOLDSTEIN, perhaps the most Jewish-sounding name there is.

    These guys are, really, just punk-ass bitches with an inferior complex and a month’s supply of Cheetos and orange-stained keyboards. Always a few pounds overweight, always not quite able to throw the ball to the cut-off from right field, having an ample supply of Vaseline at the ready, never offered the second date b/c they unable to hide the fact that they’re socially clueless and misogynistic to boot.

    I refuse to care what these losers think. When you’re only a few years removed from Dungeons and Dragons and internet porn, your opinion means less than zero.

  28. 28.

    Bill H

    I went back to those links about three times and could make no sense of it at all.
    a) It’s pure gibberish and you are messing with me
    b) You are infinitely more intelligent than I
    c) You are infinitely less intelligent than I am
    d) There really is a Twilight Zone

  29. 29.

    Billy K

    There’s just something wrong when a blogger gets into his own comment section and trades comments with a reader blow-for-blow.

  31. 31.

    cleek

    they block my comments over there? i guess that’s expected; intolerance of dissent is practically the definition of “wisdom”.

  32. 32.

    jcricket

    I know it’s totally over-used, but go re-read 1984. There are an absolutely stunning number of quotes that are directly applicable to things that both elected (Bush, Cheney, Delay) and un-elected (Limbaugh, Hewitt, Savage, Medved, insta-perfesser) Republican party apparatchiks are doing on a daily basis.

    For a short while I would read with some outrage something that Tony Snow or whomever had said, and then spend, oh, 10 seconds, finding the analogous quote from 1984. Then it got sad.

    I also find ironic that the party that presents itself as totally anti-communist (Republicans) so closely resembles their analogues in a book written by a staunch-anticommunist (Orwell).

  33. 33.

    r4d20

    Jeff Goldstein likes to talk tough but called the cops on a mentally disturbed woman for comments far short of “threatening”.

    Hes a cowardly pussy with a big mouth that is going to get wired shut one day.

  34. 34.

    John S.

    Nice post title, Cole.

    By the way, did you know “San Diego” is German for “whale’s vagina”?

  36. 36.

    Jake

    Oh boy! Maybe a black guy will annoy him so he can use the N word! But only as gnomic conceit.

    Fucking shitheads. Would it be wrong to kidnap them and deposit them in the nearest leather bar? Fine. But it would be funny.

    For the record, it was not until recently that I learned PW was not a pron site. Assholes ought to consider a name change or dropping the F bomb makes them look like they’re covered in mothballs and tripping over shoes deep in the recesses of in Liberace’s closet, rather than whatever image they’re trying to protect.

  37. 37.

    Andrew

    For the record, it was not until recently that I learned PW was not a pron site.

    You obviously haven’t visited Protein Wisdom. It is definitely a porn site.

  38. 38.

    Zifnab

    I refuse to care what these losers think. When you’re only a few years removed from Dungeons and Dragons and internet porn, your opinion means less than zero.

    …

    Sure, just piss on my two favorite hobbies, why don’t you. But I’ve got a level 6 Halfling Wizard I made out of paper-mauched playboys and he’s totally flipping you the bird right now.

  39. 39.

    cleek

    “gnomic conceit”… i’d say it’s sounds like a kickass band name, but that’s trite. so instead i’d like to say it sounds like the name of a Pavement song, but that reference is a bit dated. so, instead, i’ll say “gnomic conceit” sounds like a Radiohead song.

    there. whew.

  40. 40.

    rawshark

    jcricket Says:

    I know it’s totally over-used, but go re-read 1984. There are an absolutely stunning number of quotes that are directly applicable to things that both elected (Bush, Cheney, Delay) and un-elected (Limbaugh, Hewitt, Savage, Medved, insta-perfesser) Republican party apparatchiks are doing on a daily basis.

    Compare the Tillman and Jessica Lynch ‘stories’ with how Winston Smith created Commander Ogilvie.

  41. 41.

    Cyrus

    For the record, it was not until recently that I learned PW was not a pron site. Assholes ought to consider a name change or dropping the F bomb makes them look like they’re covered in mothballs and tripping over shoes deep in the recesses of in Liberace’s closet, rather than whatever image they’re trying to protect.

    For what it’s worth, the official story is that the name refers not to the obvious, but to an idea from some science fiction story about genetic memory, the idea that it is possible to inherit memories of your ancestors. (Or not the idea that it is possible for modern humans, just the idea that some alien race or some future evolution of humanity or something has it.) Memories stored in DNA, therefore, in protein. (It just occurred to me to wonder what exactly they think memory is stored in normally. Maybe there’s more to it than just protein, I’m not a neurologist, but the “protein” label applies to most of a nerve cell just as well as it does to a DNA molecule… but anyways.)

    So that’s where the phrase comes from. But why use it as the name for anything, let alone something supposedly devoted to independent thought? If there’s any explanation for that, I have no idea what it is. Let a thousand Freudian insinuations bloom.

  42. 42.

    Tim F.

    the “protein” label applies to most of a nerve cell just as well as it does to a DNA molecule

    In the sense that it doesn’t apply to either? DNA is a nucleic acid and a nerve cell is a mix of lipid, nucleic acids, proteins and sugars.

  43. 43.

    Bombadil

    [A] nerve cell is a mix of lipid, nucleic acids, proteins and sugars.

    I thought that was Cheetos.

  44. 44.

    Bombadil

    Are you going to move “Protein Wisdom” from “Blogs John Reads” to “Blogs We Monitor and Mock As Needed”?

    (And, as an aside, before I hit “Submit”, I noticed I’d written “Bogs We Monitor and Mock As Needed” and considered leaving it as a better description of P-W)

  45. 45.

    Billy K

    “gnomic conceit”… so instead i’d like to say it sounds like the name of a Pavement song, but that reference is a bit dated.

    It may be dated, but it works much better as a Pavement title than Radiohead. I, for onw, appreciated the reference and the joke.

  46. 46.

    Jake

    an idea from some science fiction story about genetic memory, the idea that it is possible to inherit memories of your ancestors.

    OK, some sort of riff on the idea of archetypes and racial memory. Not Freudian, certianly Jungian and even this sci fi geek cringes at the lameosity.

    But why use it as the name for anything, let alone something supposedly devoted to independent thought?

    Just as I had no idea PW was not a pron site, I had no idea that spouting inane gibberish = independent thought. Maybe the P-Shakers mean thought independent of logic or facts?

    If there’s any explanation for that, I have no idea what it is.

    Oh that’s easy. They thought it was kewel. “Yeah, we’ll start a blog and like, we’ll call it Protien Wisdom and like we’ll be all independent and like, chicks will ask ‘Like what’s Protien Wisdom?’ and we’ll be like, come up to my place and I’ll show ya, hur hur hur.”

    Sad.

  47. 47.

    jcricket

    Compare the Tillman and Jessica Lynch ‘stories’ with how Winston Smith created Commander Ogilvie.

    I wrote the following (in blockquotes below) almost a year ago, on this very site, when John was commenting that he wouldn’t be voting Republican anymore. Seems apropros now as ever (see Protein Wisdom, Rush’s recent comments, etc.)

    From 1984: “Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it… All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children.”

    (Me): Is it far-fetched to see Red State, Malkin, LGF, Powerline, etc. as the “children” of the conservative movement? Is it any surprise that the radicalism has increased to a point where that’s all they see? George Orwell wasn’t writing science-fiction, really, just observational commentary on human tendencies.

    Even sadder, I wrote this 2 years ago, on obsidianwings

    Remember, it’s not the torture and rendition that’s un-American, it’s the dissent. As Dave Neiwart points out, and apropos my comment about satire and reality being blurred, it appears Republicans have now mastered newsspeak.

    Damn that liberal America hating George Orwell!

    I had totally forgotten about the newspeak aspect of the torture apologias offered up by Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al.

    What was that quote about those who forget history? They’re doomed to something. I can’t remember.

  48. 48.

    jcricket

    You obviously haven’t visited Protein Wisdom. It is definitely a porn site.

    So it’s PW when the media refers to the recent rise/popularity of “torture porn”, right?

  49. 49.

    jcricket

    Found some other Orwell gems that apply to Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, any number of private military contractor related scandals in Iraq, the rendition/prison archipelago:

    “People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annhilated: vaporized was the usual word.”

    And more importantly (applying to Padilla and the Tillman cover-up):

    “If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say this or that even, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death.”

  50. 50.

    crack

    Dollins thinks “Gleen”, a splice of GG’s real first and last names, highlights Greenwald’s sock-puppetry ?

    that boy’s not right.

    But its funny and pertinent. Dollins says so.

  51. 51.

    Andrew

    OK, some sort of riff on the idea of archetypes and racial memory. Not Freudian, certianly Jungian and even this sci fi geek cringes at the lameosity.

    I think Dune was pretty good, actually.

  52. 52.

    Evilbeard

    “gnomic conceit”… i’d say it’s sounds like a kickass band name, but that’s trite. so instead i’d like to say it sounds like the name of a Pavement song, but that reference is a bit dated. so, instead, i’ll say “gnomic conceit” sounds like a Radiohead song

    I thought Gnomic Conceit was the name of the new Built to Spill album. Am I wrong?

  53. 53.

    metalgrid

    jcricket,

    The similarities to 1984 are only frightening until you realize that the incompetent administration cannot even enforce a proper authoritarian regime. Their bungling of the Tilman/Lynch propaganda, Gitmo coverups, etc. are just as bad as their bungling of Katrina.

    If they were authoritarian and competent, I might be worried. As it stands, they are just setting the groundwork for Hillary and her Village People to raise the conservatives’ children. So I’m kinda looking forward to it.

  55. 55.

    HyperIon

    It is gibberish.

    i assert that it has always been and suspect that it always will be. visiting that site is a PURE waste of time. just say no to PW.

  56. 56.

    jcricket

    If they were authoritarian and competent, I might be worried. As it stands, they are just setting the groundwork for Hillary and her Village People to raise the conservatives’ children. So I’m kinda looking forward to it.

    I was more worried before the last elections (back when I wrote those posts). The Republican’s totalitarian tendencies are undeniable, but American’s not “dead yet” and voted appropriately last time around.

    Of course this didn’t cause the remaining Republicans or their toadies (talk radio and the nut-o-sphere included) to change course. In fact, it appears many are like Bush, and are “doubling down” their commitment to their misguided ways.

    As you put it, I look forward to the Rapturists and the Islamofascist-heman-woman-hater’s club completing their takeover of the Republican party. Will ensure that people I support get elected in ever greater majorities for some time to come.

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