DPL is a round-heels, I guess:
Prepare to be Seduced by Madness [Jonah Goldberg]
This has been making the rounds on the interwebs. It is a two-fistfuls-of-fantastic theory that The Shining was in fact Stanley Kubrick’s confession to faking the Apollo moonlandings (while filming 2001: A Space Odyssey).
I think you’ll be surprised by just how crazy this is.
Comrade Dread
Some days the stupid hurts worse than others…
me
Jonah must be scouting for new talent to hire at the National Review.
Adam Collyer
I can’t believe you got me to click through to the Corner for that.
And I can’t believe that Jonah Goldberg is calling out the stupidity here. My head hurts.
Kryptik
I’ve noted this elsewhere before, but I can always take heart in the fact that no matter how stupid politics gets, the stupidity will never measure up to that of moon hoaxers.
Someone get these folks a copy of the Mythbuster’s Moon Hoax Myth eps, at the VERY least.
Morbo
No, you can’t make me. No, you can’t make me. No, you can’t make me. Alright, fine. Oh, that’s all of the Corner article; I was expecting the crazy to be Jonah’s. You’re not exactly clear here; I think your second “this” is supposed to be Jonah’s “this” link but is still going to the NRO article instead. Maybe put that one in quotes?
FlipYrWhig
Opening for the most traumatizing pr0n ever: Jonah Goldberg saying “Prepare to be seduced.”
(BTW: “I wish that it would stop.”)
licensed to kill time
Ok, I tried to read that Shining Secrets thing but it’s just too stupid. Just goes to show you can pull bizarre theories out of anything if you’re crazy enough. People are strange.
SpotWeld
Someone picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue.
licensed to kill time
Also, “two fistfuls of fantastic” just sounds nasty.
arguingwithsignposts
DPL? Roundheels? Google gave me roundheels, but wtf is DPL?
Blue Raven
I have an aunt who is a moon landing denier. She watched the damn thing live and refuses to accept it as truth. But I’d like to think she’d refuse to accept that parcel of illogic as evidence. Of course, I have harbored my share of insane fantasies in the past.
Zam
Damn first time in moderation ever.
Zam
Man conspiracies make me laugh, has anyone seen the HAARP caused the Haiti earthquake yet? A friend of mine has been posting HAARP stuff all over facebook the last few weeks, I’m seriously considering finding him some help soon.
On another conspiracy related note, my high school physics teacher used to get really upset every time someone tried the “moon landing was a hoax” line on him, so our class just rolled with it. I’m pretty certain he now believes that my entire graduating class has been duped by the crazies.
DougJ
Google gave me roundheels, but wtf is DPL?
An abbreviation of Jonah’s best-known internet nickname
drew42
I believe this reveals the truth behind The Shining.
DougJ
@FlipYrWhig:
Yeah, heard that song on the radio yesterday when I was driving .
Jim C
@FlipYrWhig: What would be the perfect soundtrack for his [shudder] seduction scene?
A Sousa March?
Let The Eagle Soar?
Lee Greenwood’s Greatest Hits?
Something from the early Rush discography?
Morbo
Also, boy, gotta love that the author of The Secrets of Alchemy denies that the moon landing took place. Man never set foot on the moon, but watch me turn lead into gold.
El Cid
Jo’bergs just trying to distract us from theories that the Corner is edited by the Shadow people.
drew42
I started to read it, settling in for some standard conspiracy fare. But the author kind of lost me on page 2, when he wrote:
Stated so matter-of-factly, as if this is common knowledge.
The Ace Tomato Company
This is my new favorite conspiracy theory. It’s so Dale Gribbel-esque. God bless this idiot.
John PM
Sounds like he was “tempted by the fruit of” a nutter.
Ash Can
GREEN FUCKING BALLOONS, already!
DougJ
@John PM:
Ha!
kid bitzer
squeeze!
“tempted by the fruit of a lover…”
Remember November
yeah that LEM disengage from the main orbiter was a bitch to fake without CGI.
/facepalm.
Sly
On a somewhat related note, Buzz Aldrin rocks.
Shell
Well, Hey. I’m convinced!
scav
@Ash Can:
DITTO! for the love of xerox, DITTO!!
Michael
OT, but it looks like Colorado has gone totally peak wingnut.
http://coloradostatesman.com/content/991570-legislators-haggle-over-tax-exemptions
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14303473
The Ace Tomato Company
Oh my god, it makes sense when you think about it!!!! Kubrick produced 2001 in 1968, which means he couldn’t have helped fake the subsequent missions. We know this because the subsequent missions (sequels if you will) were pretty much the same movie with a bit of extra needless drama (Apollo 13) and a lot better special effects (color, space dune buggies, etc).
We are through the looking glass people…
arguingwithsignposts
@DougJ:
Ah, might want to add that to the lexicon as another alternative to the full version.
Ash Can
@Michael: Sounds like Colorado Springs done gone Galt. Right-wing paradise!
If I were a public school teacher there I’d be packing up my car right now.
dr. bloor
Couldn’t happen to a nicer place than Colorado Springs, though.
GregB
I have it on authority that Buzz Aldrin was once married to Olive Oyl. Thus making the connection to Shelly Duvall complete.
-G
Ash Can
Oh crap, I just remembered that I have a cousin-in-law at U of C in Colorado Springs. Damn. I hope the campus has its own health and safety services and maintenance crew.
Anne Laurie
@dr. bloor:
So, Ted Haggard’s a fair example of the local “small bidness” talent there?
Michael
All well and good, but CO is apparently trying to go Full Metal Teabagger in a race to not fund things like that. Fiscal responsibility dictated from behind the walls of gated communities, y’know, aided by the idiot rumblings of blue skinned glibertarian brownshirts.
We’re at a mighty dangerous fork in the road. The purpose of the teaparties was never clearer – obfuscate and distract – and they were wildly successful at switching the narrative and making it impossible for messaging.
MikeJ
Haggard pays extra to get a businessman who’s big, but he’s probably a small businessman himself.
Notorious P.A.T.
Is denying the moon landings dumber than denying evolution? Heck, Rudy Giuliani–Rudy Giuliani–is now going around saying there were no terrorist attacks on the USA while Bush was president.
me
This reminds me of SimCity 2000 on the screen where you apportion the tax revenue, “You’ll regret that!”.
danimal
@John PM: I wish that it would stop…
PanAmerican
It reads like a failed parody of those who finger paint with Kubrick’s cinematic droppings.
….the subtext in The Shining is the extermination of the natives….. the danger of the artistic endeavor driven by greed…blah, blah, blah…
The cult of Kubrick can’t allow for some of his movies being suck. There is some dazzling technical work and great scenery chewing but the sum of The Shining is a mediocre movie.
Mike in NC
That’s Ground Zero for the fundamentalist Christian persuasion. They don’t need no stinkin’ streetlights if they can use their burning bushes.
EEH
Back when they were having the contest to design Colorado’s state quarter, one person wrote in that the slogan on the coin should read “Colorado, the Mississippi of the West.” Sadly, we look to be well on our way to achieving that status.
Mike in NC
It’s the truth, and there were also no terrorist attacks while Rudy was mayor of NYC. He told me so himself!
Pasquinade
Grover Norquist must be getting tingles down his leg at the thought of the Colorado Springs city government being “drowned in a bathtub”. Will he hold it up as an example for the federal government?
One commenter on the Denver Post story posted that the property tax is only $78 per $100,000, and the voters voted down a tax hike. If true, then they deserve the coming misery.
Michael
Nah – burning witches.
This is where I complain, once more, about Nero’s lousy work ethic and the foolish policy of overfeeding lions before showing them off in the Coliseum.
jeffreyw
Ah..finally an action shot.
Michael
It makes me want to buy a shitload of spray paint and head out to the Springs. I’m betting I could tag not only some of the nicer spots in Garden of the Gods, but also every government building and police headquarters in the middle of the night.
After that, I go window popping at all the better establishments.
kay
@Mike in NC:
Colorado Springs has a high crime rate.
Call me crazy, but shuttered libraries, locked day care centers, closed senior centers, drained swimming pools, parks with dead grass and empty flower beds and dark streets are not going to help that situation. The only people that are going to be out and about are criminals.
They better hire some more cops, with all the money they save.
Ed Drone
As I understand it, the plan is to preserve one bathtub-sized vessel in the park, so the city government can have their meetings in it.
Ed
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I partially agree with this. The Shining is definitely far down my personal Kubrick list, though I wouldn’t go so far as to use the word “mediocre.”
Mike in NC
The MSM is ready to declare 2010 to be the Year of the Tea Party
LunaticsPatriots. You see, these non-partisan Real Americans are going to rise up and launch a tsunami of anti-incumbent rage against the Kenyan Kommunist and his minions in Washington, who are out to steal our freedoms and cram blah blah blah down our throats. Roger Ailes and Faux Noise thank you for listening.Bubblegum Tate
@dr. bloor:
My sentiments exactly. Let them Galt themselves back to the stone age for all I care.
cschack
Paul is dead. Jay Weidner killed him.
jeffreyw
More
And again
Martin
How long before Colorado Springs turns into the US Horn of Africa, with tandem trailers getting hijacked by fundamentalists in Toyota pickups on I-25? I’m envisioning a mashup of the Road Warrior and Deathrace 2000, but all buttered up with Jesus and Ayn Rand.
Sly
@PanAmerican:
You can rag on The Shining all you want. But the moment you start in on Doctor Strangelove, there’s gonna be some fighting in the War Room.
skippy
it’s a wacky theory, but it can’t hold a candle to david ickes.
because obama is a lizard people.
Svensker
@skippy:
Really? Do tell.
Aye yai yai. These people son muy locos.
The Moar You Know
I hope one day we get to find out who Chunky Reese Witherspoon was, and that someone can get the revolver out of her mouth quickly and remind her that we all at some point in our lives have made a terrible, terrible mistake.
Michael
Thunderdome, with the addition of prayers.
And smoking, lots and lots of smoking.
dr. bloor
@Mike in NC:
Not just Ailes by a long shot. This was pretty much the takeaway point of Talk of the Nation this afternoon, where Vin Weber’s opinions were countered by Ron Elving’s pathological balancing act and Neal Conan’s bobbleheaded hosting.
Slattenpat
It’s amusing how the (ahem) “Moon Hoaxers” only seem to base their frothing insanity on analysis of a few clips and photographs, when there is over 6 Million feet of film footage of the entire process leading up to the moon landing.
They could watch some of it in the excellent documentary For All Mankind (1989)
Synopsis: Director-journalist Al Reinert sifted through 6 million feet of film and 80 hours of interviews with astronauts to deliver a dazzling, Oscar-nominated documentary chronicling the American space program and its rush to put a man on the moon. With Brian Eno’s atmospheric score, the film uncovers vibrant, never-before-seen footage of the space race, which ended in 1969 when Apollo 11 fulfilled President John F. Kennedy’s challenge to NASA.
“…But… but… look at the shadows on this one photograph!”
Oh? You mean the stuff that was debunked on Mythbusters – Season 6, Episode 11: NASA Moon Landing Hoax? Yeah, get some professional psychological help, “hoaxer.”
Sly
@Svensker:
Don’t discount Icke. The Reptilians have been among us for a long time.
JenJen
“A foot without a sock.” :-)
Splitting Image
The Shining is to Dr. Strangelove as Ringo is to the rest of the Beatles.
Tazistan Jen
@Michael:
I’ve got to stand up for Colorado a little bit here. This state kicked out the crazies – now the Governor, state senate, state house, both fed senators and 5 of 7 fed reps are all Dems. And it was directly related to fed-up-edness with the Republicans’ obsession with social conservatism instead of running the state.
What is killing us here is the initiative system. A law called TABOR (tax payers bill of rights) passed by a direct vote in the 90’s. It mandates that every tax increase has to be passed by the voters. It also includes what is called the ratchet – government spending can only go up a certain amount each year, and if spending goes down one year (say in a recession) the base amount ratchets down.
So we have to have constant votes to get people to raise their own taxes, and they have to vote to let the government spend it even if they can raise it. People vote to tax themselves more often than you would think (though it takes a huge education and persuasion campaign every time) but it takes a couple of years to get something on the ballot and then have the vote and then implement it.
Colorado Springs is in even worse shape because they won’t even vote to raise their own taxes when they clearly need to. But Colorado as a whole isn’t that bad.
Svensker
@Splitting Image:
Aw, come on. At least Ringo was cute and friendly in an ugly puppy kind of way. The Shining was just a flat out stinkeroo.
Colette
@Tazistan Jen: So Colorado has Californicated itself. Because that’s worked out so well for us here in CA.
Michael
So you’re saying that Colorado is going the route of California.
This from the Great Orange Satan, alternatively titled “Norquist’s Baby”:
**************************************
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/2/1/832797/-Poem(ish):-An-Ode-to-Colorado-Springs
It’s just one of those things
In Colorado Springs
The city is falling apart.
They woke up today,
Full of dismay,
To garbage-strewn fields in the park.
‘Twas some years ago
Saw the ol’ right wing grow
Angry, and righteous they marched
“The Budget’s the rub!”
(Waving bags full of tea)
“Come along, follow me!
“We’ll drown this whole lot in the tub!”
Old Grover, he grinned
To be sure, ‘twas a win.
“Let the Government shrinking begin!”
And it did.
The mil rate stayed flat,
The city in black,
Boats riding the tide,
Bubble growing in size,
The horizon seemed endlessly blue.
Each year little retreats
Smug posts on their re-tweets
On the surface the doctrine seemed true.
As the naughts rolled along,
They crowed out their song:
“We have us a winner!
“Free lunch, lavish dinner
“Norquist, we owe it to you!”
Then,
POP!
That was that.
The bubble went flat.
And suddenly, revenue too.
But not costs.
No, they didn’t.
Roads still must be laid
Clerks and teachers get paid
As well as the boys in the Blue.
The plans came undone
As they ran out of funds,
It looks to have started a fight:
You’ll pay for it later
If you enact TABOR,
You’ll be out of the the money for lights.
Bubblegum Tate
@Colette:
And I believe a big part of the Californication of Colorado was the influx of wingers from Orange County.
Lisa
Wow that was all kinds of crazy.
To quote R. Kelly: “Bitch, is you tweakin’?“.
Nellcote
@skippy:
no talking dolphins?
The Grand Panjandrum
Focus on the Family is headquartered in Colorado Springs. The Christianists have infiltrated the Air Force Academy that is just outside of town. Makes sense they would go full on teabagger insane.
Evinfuilt
@Michael:
My parents moved to the Springs. I’m so happy for them, they’re finally getting to live their dream of no Government interference.
Its not like they needed light, police, firefighters, etc…
From here on, when someone wants to go Galt, point to Colorado Springs, the city went Galt and has Focus on the Family headquarters too, its Tea Partier paradise (too bad its also frickin beautiful, but somehow they’ll ruin it.)
Be thankful Pikes Peak isn’t controlled by local interests.
licensed to kill time
Boy, Balloon Juice is acting crazy for me today. Server up, server down, lost the edit function a week ago and it’s still dead – what’s happening with the site upgrade? Is everything on hold while John recuperates or what? I’m alarmed by the malfunction!
Evinfuilt
@kay:
Too bad they’re laying off Beat Cops, selling the choppers and of course hiring freeze and laying off additional firemen and detectives and…
Oh and its not exactly a wet climate and they’ve sold off a lot of their water rights to California and Arizona. You could easily get an out of control city fire like we haven’t seen in a hundred years, and this will be the place.
Alex S.
@Michael:
That reminds me of the South Park episode “Margaritaville”. They all are praying for the economy to recover and hope that Hoover-economics will save them.
Svensker
Re Colorado Springs — the article linked to on GOS has comments, and one of the commenters explains that the city council of C.S. is SOCKALIST! ! ! because they are tricking the citizens by cutting their services and then they will RAISE TAXES and commie flub flub muslim omg Young Pioneers!
blahblahblah
My God, the idiot even argues that Kubrick ruined a great Stephen King story. Since Stephen King _did_ remake The Shining into a spectacular shit-fest miniseries, we all can compare the difference between a great story teller and filmmaker vs. the two-bit hack.
Teh crazy prefers the two-bit hack.
Surprised?
twiffer
@Kryptik: no, no…the fact that the mythbusters were able to replicate certain shots to debunk then PROVES the moon landing was faked. obviously. i mean, fuck, it’s the moon…that’s like, far away. and the aliens who secretly control the zionist illuminati bankers (and are battling the rosicrusians AS WE SPEAK) would never let us land there and steal all their delicious cheese.
EEH
@Tazistan Jen: Let’s not forget the loathsome toad responsible for the whole Tabor debacle in the first place: Douglas Bruce.
Cassidy
It’s a good thing I decided to move into housing, instead of buying a house. My next assignment is Fort Carson.
And Kubrick is over-rated crap. Because of him, we have to deal with the pretentiousness of people like Wes Anderson.
MikeJ
@Tazistan Jen:
Your bad example sure helped us here in Washington. They tried the same idiotic initiative here and everybody just said, “look at Colorado.”
jager
The tax rate in Colorado Springs is 78 bucks per 100,000 dollars evaluation and houses there are not that expensive. Even a wingnut fundie should realize that paying about 150 bucks a year for cops, firefighters, parks, swimming pools and god damned streetlights is cheap at 10 times the price!
The Moar You Know
@Tazistan Jen: Same story in California.
It turns out that
the founding Fathers and every historian since Romeno one could have predicted that allowing the voters the ability to directly write legislation would result in a flood of bread and circuses, to be paid for by someone else’s kids at some indeterminate point in the future.J. Michael Neal
I love the idiot small businessman from Colorado Springs going on about how city employees are overpaid. It costs the city $89,000 annually per employee, he claims, while it only costs me $24,000. Clearly, the city isn’t doing enough to screw its workers.
Let’s break this down:
1) I’d love to know if he’s making an apples-to-apples comparison. My bet is that he’s taking the average cost for the city to employ someone with what he pays in wages to his average employee. If I’m right, count them the same way, and the difference would be less.
2) Has he included himself in that average? I’m betting that the figure for the city includes everyone that could be considered top management, but that the figure for his company does not. How does that change the average?
3) How many of his employees are part-time? My guess is that his advocacy for seasonal employees means that the percentage is fairly high. Dividing the work up among more people will drive down the average cost, while not doing so much for total payroll.
4) $24,000 per year? Really? What kind of business is this, and do people really want their city to be run by people paid like fast food employees? Yeah, I want my kids (if I had any) taught by someone making $500 a week, just like I want to give minimum wage workers carrying guns and authroized to fire them at anyone they think is a threat.
Fucking moron. If I ever have to drive through Colorado Springs, I’m locking the doors, rolling up the windows, and not slowing down enough to be an easy target.
Jeff
You mean that The Shing is more talented than most of Dr Strangelove, but prefers to have fun? (Compare Ringo’s All-Star band to ANYTHING from McCartney, or most of Harrison’s works.)
Poor Ringo — he always gets short-shrift.
slag
Not one but two links to the DPL post? More green balloons please.
Colette
@twiffer: Zionist Illuminati Bankers could be a good name for a band.
I ran into one of these moon-landing deniers at summer camp last year, and I regret to say that I spent a good 45 minutes trying to talk sense into him before realizing that it was a waste of oxygen. Among other things, he was absolutely convinced of the scientifically-proven validity of his ideas while being unable to understand that there are different types of radiation.
The best part? He’s a teacher in the San Franciso public schools. (Not my kid’s school, thank doG.)
harlana peppper
Kubrick overrated? It takes a lot of balls to say that with all the unimaginative, predictable crap Hollywood turns out these days.
MikeJ
Raaaaaahm!
Caradoc
Damn if I haven’t read this somewhere before. There’s a similar theory with George Lucas getting the contract. (I’d love to see the Ridley Scott version.)
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Michael: Clearly this is all ACORN’s fault.
Wile E. Quixote
From the crazy.
“advanced U.S. saucer technology”. If we had “advanced saucer technology” then why the fuck did we go through all of the effort to fake the moon landings, which included building some absolutely huge fucking rockets and launching them into space (unless that was faked too, perhaps with the world’s largest green screen) and why would we keep it a secret? Seriously, if we’d had “advanced saucer technology”, whatever that means, I think that Johnson would have been on the phone to Brezhnev saying “Who’s your daddy, Leonid? Who’s your American daddy with advanced saucer technology? I’m your fucking daddy! Now bend over, grab your ankles and withdraw all of your troops from Eastern Europe and stop supporting the North Vietnamese.” If we’d had “advanced saucer technology” Curtis LeMay would have said “Fuck the B-70 and the YF-12! I want a USAF saucer wing deployed by the end of 1964.”
Now all of these conspiracy nuts posit the existence of some huge and scary conspiracy that would, if someone like Curtis LeMay found out about the advanced saucer technology, intimidate them into silence. That might work with some people but with Curtis LeMay? Come on, the guy was willing to turn the Soviet Union and China into radioactive slag. This is the guy who wanted to put 20 megaton bombs on the B-52 and to be able to drop 3 or 4 of them on each target in Russia. This is the guy who flew a shitload of missions over Germany during the Second World War. He’s not someone who could be easily intimidated. I don’t think that Lyndon Johnson would have been intimidated either. “Mr President, we have this advanced saucer technology that is so powerful that if we revealed it to the Soviet Union and threatened to use it they’d have to stand down or face certain annihilation. But even though Vietnam is turning into a quagmire and is going to cost you a second term, and even though this saucer technology would force the Soviets to stand down in Vietnam and come to the negotiation table, you can’t ever reveal this to anyone. You’ll just have to go down in history as a huge failure who pushed the United States into an unwinnable war and retire in disgrace to your ranch in Texas.”
Why don’t these people ever ask questions like this.
gnomedad
@Slattenpat:
Hey, that’s fake, too. Just a warmup for faking climate data.
Origuy
@Michael: Leave the Garden of the Gods alone, maybe the state will take it over. However, with all those streetlights out, someone could make a tidy sum digging up the electric wires and selling the copper.
Tag the USOC headquarters if you want.
Origuy
Oh, in that vein, how long before this gets vandalized?
Wile E. Quixote
Wile E. Quixote
Another item from the articles on the Colorado Crazy
I wish that someone had stood up and said “Are you collecting Social Security or Medicare? If you are then you’re taking someone elses blood and money. So why don’t you shut the fuck up before we come over there and break both of your hips?”. Jesus I hope I don’t become a greedy old fuck like that.
Bubblegum Tate
@Wile E. Quixote:
I’m quite confident that I’ll be a jaded old fuck. But greedy? Nuh-uh.
Seanly
Just for that I am going to watch all of my Stanley Kubrick DVDs in chronological order!
Lolita was Kubrick apologizing for blowing up the Challenger using Tralfamadore technology to go back in time. Or was he moving forward in time?
I loves me some crazy!
Mike in NC
What exactly is Dubya up to these days, anyway? On second thought, who gives a shit?
Mike in NC
Didn’t Kubrick die of shame shortly after they released “Eyes Wide Shut”?
EEH
@Wile E. Quixote: It’s really worse than that. The senior exemption that she’s all worked up about is this:
Splitting Image
The sad thing is, she’s a perfect example of why government entitlement programs can be dangerous. Trying to get someone like her to give up a benefit of any kind is problematic whether it’s affordable or not and whether it’s needed or not.
The teabaggers are living proof that America needs a Tea Party movement.
Zach
Someone wrote an entire book on coded messages within 2001 back in the day, 2001: A Triple Allegory … from what I remember from reading review almost 10 years ago, it’s no less crazy than this.
I have a degree in cinema studies; it was fantastically fun because you basically make up whatever you want (a picture’s worth a thousand words, so 1000 * 24 frames/second * 3600 seconds/hour * 2 hours = about 200 million possible words) no matter how ridiculous. This conclusion isn’t any less justified than most film theory, it just sounds more ridiculous and avoids jargon.
The Other Steve
Wow, there’s 10 minutes of my life I won’t ever get back.
davidbaer
The Center for Media Research has released a study by Vertical Response that shows just where many of these ‘Main Street’ players are going with their online dollars. The big winners: e-mail and social media. With only 3.8% of small business folks NOT planning on using e-mail marketing and with social media carrying the perception of being free (which they so rudely discover it is far from free) this should make some in the banner and search crowd a little wary.
http://www.onlineuniversalwork.com
Remember November
I think we need to repeal the Homesteader Act and get Fl and Texas to cough up a few bucks for Colorado.
Remember November
@Blue Raven: your aunt is batshit crazy then. My dad and my friends dad worked for Grumman on the LEM.
Matthew B.
Whaa? I guess they both like symmetrical framing, but I’m really not seeing the resemblance otherwise.