How long til this Althouse suggestion breaks into a full RatherGate2?
The first commenter says: “I guess that’s why they call it ‘fee’-dom.” A few comments down someone asks if maybe it’s Photoshopping. Yes, it’s so easy to Photoshop errors onto people’s signs. (I wonder if there are any defamation lawsuits based on the photographic lie that results.)
Who’s behind the photoshopping though? ACORN? Rahm Emanuel? George Soros? I can’t keep all the villains straight anymore.
marcel
Clearly an appropriate place to demonstrate: the sign in the background indicates that trucks are not free to enter. This is an impingement on the freedom of corporations and other commercial vehicles.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
“Feedom Doesn’t Come Free”
I’ve been to Feedom and the fees ain’t free.
Zifnab
It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
jrg
Michael Moore ate the “r”.
That title is straight-up win, BTW.
Just Some Fuckhead
Twinks for Palin? Who cares about the spelling?
stevie314159
If I wanted to photoshop that, I would have changed “McCain/Palin” to “Angry Old Man/Idiot”.
TR
It’s true. I heard they were even photoshopping glasses of wine into Althouse’s hands in her videos, and photoshopping alcohol-related brain damage into her head too.
Pangloss
Activist judges with San Francisco values.
Onihanzo
The douchebaggery in those comments is absolute gold.
YEAH!! THAT’LL SHOW ‘EM!
Chyron HR
Somebody remind me which major news network runs a website that publishes “amusing” photoshops.
Arguingwithsignposts - ipod touchs
Face/palm head/desk! This woman Is a law professor?!
martha
You can’t fix dumb. You just can’t.
Pangloss
I’ll bet someone photoshopped the lesbians into that strip club. That’s top quality work, BTW.
Onihanzo
The douchebaggery in those comments is absolute gold.
YEAH!! THAT’LL SHOW ‘EM!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Oh my god. Althouse is now defeding Tea Baggers? Jesus Christ. I can’t imagine being a law student at UW and thinking “This idiot is between me and a degree”. I had some marble-headed professors, but at least they were low-profile time-servers. Is there mercury in boxed pink zinfandel or something?
Sounds like a job for Ann Althouse, SuperLawyer! (and one-time NYT columnist. They must be so proud)
Dork
I’m loving those late 80’s stonewashed jeans
Tom Hilton
Althouse quoted me*! Woo-hoo! Or, maybe, ewww….
*The “I guess that’s why they call it ‘fee’-dom” comment.
dr. bloor
@Pangloss:
Complete with airbrushing, I’ll bet.
Tomlinson
@Onihanzo:
These people have manners!
Ann B. Nonymous
Perhaps they misspelled “femdom”.
Pangloss
No one will ever top “No Pubic Option!” It works on so many levels.
Max
Only elite’s can spell.
Real American’s have god on their side and don’t need any help from the communist Merriam-Webster
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Feedle dee and Feedle dumb
ellaesther
The wingnuts remind me of my children when they were about 5 1/2:
NOTHING.WAS.EVER.THEIR.FAULT.
They never did wrong, never made mistakes, never misunderstood, were always where they were supposed to be, always did precisely what was expected, never did anything mean — unless someone else had made them. And in those cases, of course, it was the fault of the person who made them. Duh!
This also reminds me of all my Israeli governments, ever, but that’s a topic for another thread perhaps.
Ross
If I was going to photoshop a misspelling of freedom, “feedom” would be about my last choice.
One would think no one would be dumb enough to spell it feedom, but apparently that is wrong.
neil
Certainly no conservative has ever cherry-picked signs from liberal protests in order to portray them negatively.
At least, when they do it, they pretend they’re not cherry-picking.
mistermix
Anne must be spending too much time at Fark.
ellaesther
@Max: … who were probably gay, because they were men and intellectual.
Paul in KY
Maybe they mean’t ‘feedom’, as in ‘The land of Fees’, that Republican paradise where there are no ‘taxes’, only ‘fees’?
Or they could just be your average, dumb-as-a-rock, hicks who can’t spell ‘literate’ without the number 8.
Just Some Fuckhead
Someone needs to photoshop it to Freetos Are Not Free.
Lurker
@Onihanzo: I sincerely hope that “Chase” was an April Fool’s prankster and not something that actually happened in front of a parent with her 11-year-old daughter.
:-O
Max
OT – but my house is getting packed right now by the movers and poor Max the Wheaten is getting a little freaked out. I think he’s afraid they are going to put him in one of the boxes.
Score for me… the mover just guessed my age at 26! I’ll be 39 in a month, so he made my month.
@EllaEsther – exactly!
jibeaux
@Onihanzo:
I wonder if this guy — do you think it’s o.k. that I’m assuming this is a guy? — sits at home thinking, “why don’t any of these cunts and dickwads who call themselves my friends ever call or email and why do I have four facebook friends now including Tom the default guy?”
Tom65
Ah yes, the nobility of the demonstrably stupid.
Scott
@Onihanzo:
And before long he’ll be ranting about the Evil Librul Conspiracy that caused his friends to stop inviting him into their homes or even talking to him in public…
jibeaux
@Max:
You know that movers get tipped, right? :)
catclub
“I can’t keep all the villains straight anymore.”
Well there’s your problem, not enough gay villains.
Perry Como
@Pangloss:
ftfy
kommrade reproductive vigor
Goodness me. I thought the teabaggers were a bunch of drooling flakes who couldn’t touch reality with a 10 foot pole. But, since someone could have photoshopped their signs I’m going to take them seriously.
Brick Oven Bill
I will lay it out for you again DougJ. When McCain pulled ahead of Barry in September 2008, and we predicted a Nicholas Cage Moment (NCM) within two weeks, George Soros saw this prediction, panicked, and crashed the economy, in an effort to prevent this NCM, approximately one week after our assessment.
This was accomplished by pulling $500 billion out of the money markets, and causing the panic that dropped the market to like 7,000. This put Barry back in the lead, and delayed him being told ‘no’ for the first time in his life until Copenhagen, when he was safely in office.
This was necessary to place his compromised President in office, and gain access to the Treasury, via Mark Patterson.
Now, we must consider Peter Orszag’s role as an agent of the Banks. Pete, as Director of the CBO testified that the $3 trillion in bad loans that Fannie-Freddie made disproportionally to low-IQ minorities could be transferred from the Bankers to the taxpayer at no cost.
Then there is the SEC, and the non-requirement to disclose the short positions that Soros’ hedge fund took before he crashed the markets, producing for him a $1 billion profit.
This is why Sullenberger should be installed as President.
Hope this helps.
And you can tell that the image was photo-shopped by observing the right, and left margins on the sign. Knowledge through the eyes must be obtained by viewing objects, not images. Images can be manipulated.
See also TV.
arguingwithsignposts
Perhaps they should have stuck with the giant puppet heads. You can’t misspell those!
Brandon
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I actually wonder what her students must be thinking when they realize that they’ve paid thousands of dollars to hear the rantings of an idiotic lunatic. I’ve had my share of ranting lunatic law professors, that’s par for the course and took a couple courses from adjuncts/lecturers that I suspected of not being all that bright, but at least savvy in their area of expertise. But never took a course from a raving lunatic idiot who lacked nous. Amazing.
Onihanzo
@Scott: yeah, he got a bit of a scolding from a fellow teabagger… but I couldn’t help but laugh at his self-indulgent victory lap.
Apologies too for the double posting. Editing and blockquoting are tag-teaming me today.
Michael
For whining sack of shit teabaggers who complain about being called a teabagger, here’s an early reference thread where wingnuts talk about using teabags.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2190941/posts
Further, I distinctly recall that FR’s Dear Leader himself happily adopted the moniker at some point during that period.
It isn’t as if the name isn’t a self-inflicted wound.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
taking them as seriously as one can, just for a moment, I’d love to know how and how much these two lads ever paid for their feedom
Max
@jibeaux: Yep. Two packers today – $40 or $60?
Loaders on Saturday – $20 each?
Funny story… in my younger days, I had a boyfriend who may have been involved in the sale of illegal substances and may have tipped the movers in said substances. They seemed very happy with that tip.
jeffreyw
Ah, feedom. I still remember Richie Havens singing that at Woodstock.
bobbo
Yes, I bet you’re as good at Photoshop as you are at law.
"Fair and Balanced" Dave
“Gentlemen, this man may talk like and idiot and look like an idiot, but don’t let that fool you: he really is an idiot.”
Groucho Marx (“Duck Soup”)
Delia
It’s not the teabaggers’ fault. Rahm stopped Sharpie from putting a spell check in their markers.
JGabriel
Taxes are bad, for Ayn Rand tells me so, through the moral examplar of her fictional pair-o’-dimes Howard Roar and John Gall.
Therefore, fees are a much better way to pay for government services, in that they charge the slacker poor and Democrats who need the services, instead of taking the hard-earned income of wealthy producers like Paris Hilton and Peaches Geldof.
The sign bearer was just, in his witty Ayn Rand-like way, advocating for a fee-based government over the destitute getting things for for free by burdening the backs of the rich with taxes. So it’s not a misspelling, it’s wit!
Ayn Rand would get the joke, even if you don’t.
.
stuckinred
@jeffreyw: Sometimes I feel like a motheress child!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Max: I gave my movers twenty bucks each. They were pleasantly surprised. But they seemed even happier about the dozen donuts I picked up.
Alan
@Zifnab:
That was a running joke on Rush Limbaugh’s show about 20 years ago. He used to joke about how the Dems would rely on imaginative speculation as reason enough to start an investigation into the Reagan or Bush I WHs. My, how things have changed–it must be Alinsky’s fault. Perhaps I should read Ayer’s… oops … I mean Obama’s book to divine how the Marxists … oops…. Dems pulled this off.
jeffreyw
@stuckinred: Heh, I get called a fatherless child all the time.
stuckinred
@“Fair and Balanced” Dave: Send him back to the penitentiary where his family awaits him with open arms!
JGabriel
Brick Oven Bill:
Here I must respectfully disagree with my Objectivist bishop, BOB. The margins were not photo-shopped; clearly the sign-bearer put a larger margin on the left side of “Feedom” than on the right to symbolize the bereft emptiness of the left’s ideas.
.
rootless-e
@JGabriel: I’m so inspired
spring is here
and I’m feeling first rate
won’t let no empathy
get me down
Gonna laugh and point
at your suffering
Objectively
you’re just a clown
JZ
Feedom AIN’T free. It costs an buck-oh-five.
A Guest
Title s/b
Feedom’s juts another word for nothing left to loose
Max
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, I should do food on Saturday, good suggestion. Smart community, this is.
I just donated a bottle of Silver Patron and Absolute Vodka to the tip pool. I’ll give them $60 for lunch to soak up the alcohol. :)
jibeaux
When I first went to that photo set, I expected point and laugh mode, but it just made me sad that we’re so willfully stupid as a people. I have no problem pointing and laughing at leaders riling these people up who know better, but if you are the kind of person who can get so riled up that you will take time off work or take time that you could be, I dunno, cleaning the gutters out, and pack up some snacks and a drink and a lawn chair, make arrangements for the kids, get out your supplies to make a sign — all without ever bothering to learn that the word “so cial ism” has an “a” in it — then wtf kind of country is this? We’re just hopeless. It made me depressed. Then my friend referred to this epidemic of willful ignorance as “the teabonic plague” and that helped. * spacing for moderation not ignorance dammit you know what word I mean
Nylund
Does anyone else see the irony of a large group of people who spend their money on tri-cornered hats and 1776 historical costume periods, multiple copies of Going Rogue, RNC donations to lesbian strippers, and no doubt a closet full of Joe the Plumber commemorative plates protesting in public that THEY know how to better use their money than those foolish gov’t officials that insist we spend it on hospitals and highways, teachers and firemen.
jl
Put photoshop disasters on the case:
http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/
Start your submissions.
BTW, I learned about the photoshop disasters blog from some sicko commenter on this here miserable politically correct lefty blog. Thanks, unknown sicko commenter. Photoshop disasters is fun to check out periodically.
Mr Furious
Since I actually work in/with Photoshop for a living, I can say with some degree of expertise that, yes, several of the shots in that gallery appear altered. But at the same time, once I noticed THAT, I looked much more closely at them as I went through, and in my opinion, most are real.
Most of the pixel- and artifact-related flaws that Althouse, et al, are going to use as ammo are due to the fact that they originally came out of a cell phone, and have since been jpeged to death—not retouched.
FWIW.
demkat620
Always the victims. There can’t even take responsibilty for bad spelling on their own signs.
Just another indicator “the Man” is out to get them.
JGabriel
@rootless-e:
Ayn Rand weeps for you.
.
jibeaux
@Alan:
Is this humor? I’m just asking.
Peggy Noonan is the source of this particular joke, not El Rushbo Who Is Not Yet In Costa Rica.
stuckinred
@demkat620: I have enough problem with fat stupid people my age (especially Nam vets who make sure they have their hats on) whining and bitching at this shit but when they send their goober kids it’s even worse. (grandkids I guess, a pirate looks BACK at 60).
freelancer
@Brick Oven Bill:
I liked when McCain imitated my favorite NCM on Election Day.
@JZ:
You and I, we think as one, we’re like two horses in the same harness.
arguingwithsignposts
@Mr Furious:
Just curious which ones were ‘shopped?
The JPEG artifacts are pretty obviously from shitty cell phone cameras.
And honestly, who is going to spend that much time ‘shopping a bunch of signs to make morans look like, well, morans?
jibeaux
@Mr Furious:
it’s the kerning, bitchez.
Comrade Dread
Feedom is that what they call the banking district these days?
I am a Soros funded, Masonic and Trilateral commission member plant.
Bob L
If it is photoshopped it is good work. It would require multiple custom font sets since each letter on the sign is unique.
Sentient Puddle
@Onihanzo: Wow. I’m quite impressed by that comment. It takes a special kind of dumb to lack that much self-awareness.
Joel
I always felt that there needs to be the liberal inverse of the Fairtax proposal.
Scrap all sales taxes and the like and just use one tax; the income tax.
Include capital gains.
This inspiration came from a recent trip to Portland, Oregon.
rootless-e
I once met a woman who was both an Ayn Randian dingdong AND a fanatical follower of Meyer Kahane. At the time I was surprised that anyone could combine such ideologies.
gbear
(deleted)
Citizen_X
@Joel: I think that’s an excellent idea. The fairest tax is a progressive tax.
Not that it’ll happen before hell freezes over, or anything. But yeah: put that out there as a counter-proposal.
Comrade Dread
Yeah, I’ve also met plenty of people who embrace Randian thoughts and Chrsitianity. I remain surprised that anyone could reconcile the whole “Selfishness is the highest virtue” with “Love your neighbor as your self.”
rootless-e
@Citizen_X: I’ts a good idea. I’ve used it on wingers. You can even frame it as “stop government social engineering that rewards stock investing over selling cars or installing air conditioners.”
catclub
Joel @ 72
If you really want an inverse, make it a property tax.
(And stocks and cash are property.)
OT: xkcd is really good today, if you like command line unix.
rootless-e
@Comrade Dread: The key to unlock this puzzle is that ideologies are mostly valuable for the emotional charge and the flimsy “logic” is just there for show. So Kahanism and Randism both have a unifying “might makes right” theme combined with the traditional right wing universal self-pity. Same with Christianity and Randism.
wasabi gasp
Feed’m. He do shit.
sparky
if (A) someone is looking for page hits, sure beats drunken vlogging.
paranoia pays, as it were. just ask mistah Beck.
either that or (B) someone has gone back to her Frankfurt School reader.
i vote (A)
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
This is ekselent news for John McCain!
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
Don’t read on me!
Jay in Oregon
@Bob L:
You don’t need custom fonts to select the chunk of the sign with an “F” and drag it over the “r”, then use the rubber stamp tool to clean up the resulting mess.
And this…
…rocks my world. :)
alhutch
@Max:
Maybe should have held that back until the end of the day, unless your breakables have already been packed.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: Don’t read on me!
I think if we see that one, we’ll know the ghost of Bill Hicks is guiding their sharpies.
stannate
Feedom costs a buck-o-five.
Chris Johnson
“Feedom Isn’t Free”
Buckwheat teabags! :D
Feedom!
cfaller96
Already pointed out, but wow are the comments full of 100% Prime Grade asshole:
Wow. Everybody at the party looks at you and your own friend says you’re being an asshole, and your conclusion is that it’s a liberal’s fault. Wow.
ABS
@rootless-e:
you knew Pamela Geller?
Bob L
@Jay in Oregon:
Even then, there is no visible sign of alteration in the texture of sign around the F, like you normally see when people are slapping out photoaltered pics for a laugh. As someone else said, why work so hard to make morans look like morans?
Part of the real joke in the pictures is the basic messages are ridiculous, like “Freedom isn’t Free” being pushed by a Teabagger libertarian with all the cynical control freak implications in that phrase. The bad spelling is just sauce.
Davis X. Machina
I figure the guy’s a Buckwheat/Eddie Murphy fan…
Fee times a mady…
ArchPundit
Here’s the problem with Althouse.
I’ve been a part of making fake teabagger signs to have teabaggers stand with and we never thought about making simple spelling mistakes. As a good liberal goo-goo intellectual we were all trying to out snark and wit each other and the simple, but effective misspelling prank never crossed our minds because it’s too simple and effective.
Well, until now and I see the simple genius. So Ann has unleashed a thousand prank signs that will get far more attention than those before them for the stupidity in their simplicity.
ArchPundit
@cfaller96:
The other thing is teabagging isn’t offensive. What’s wrong with two consenting adults having one of them move a little further down for enjoyment?
The fact that they find it offensive is the best part of it. So what–you are teabagging–it’s kind of fun (from the receiver’s point of view). Good for you for having a healthy sex life.
The fact that they think the practice is so disgusting and derogatory and didn’t know it when calling themselves it is what’s so funny to me.
ArchPundit
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Hysterical bit on one of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast about the ghost of Bill Hicks burning down the backroom at a comedy club. It’s all starting to make sense.
David in NY
But, you know, the use of the “Youth in Asia” picture, which is just a repetition of an old SNL-Gilda Radner joke, suggests that one or another of these “Teabonics” signs might be a plant. On the other hand, there are a lot of them.
licensed to kill time
@David in NY:
I had the same thought when I saw that sign, kind of a Billionaires for Bush vibe going on there. It’s not like any teabagger would notice, though. They probably think that’s how euthanasia is spelled.
cfaller96
ArchPundit, well that’s one way to argue the point, and it has merit. My instinct was and still is to rhetorically (i.e. douchily, dickishly, obtusely, etc.) ask “wait, isn’t ‘teabagging’ the term y’all used to describe themselves? I’m confused- what’s so offensive about properly addressing you by the name you yourselves used?”
Regardless of the reason, I think calling a women a “cunt” at a party and in front of her 11 year old daughter is a sign that you have problems relating to other people and you might be an asshole. I’m really not sure there’s room for debate here, as even his own friend thought he was being a dick. The high road exists- this guy obviously doesn’t know that, because he’s never taken it.
slag
Not being purposefully familiar with Althouse-ese, I immediately interpreted this as sarcasm. Not so? Maybe it is the wine, after all.
ArchPundit
@cfaller96:
If he called my wife a c#nt in front of my daughters–he’d have been leaving very quickly. Whether it be by me grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and showing him the door or just running ahead of me. (notice-I wouldn’t hit him, but I would be directing him out my door quickly). I’d be saving him. That’s if my wife didn’t kick his ass….before I could get to him.
ArchPundit
@David in NY:
Thank you, as I take a bow for my friends’ work in Saint Louis.
Yeah, that’s a fake. But pretty funny eh?
Apparently it didn’t phase them in the least when they read it.
pablo
I confess!
teehee
PaulB
It’s not sarcasm. Althouse has threatened several times to sue individuals for “stalking” her who had reposted comments in her forum after she deleted them. And she’s a fucking law professor??? The mind boggles.
pablo
and
and
and
and
and (my personal fave)
AIN’T BEEN SUED, YET
Alan
@jibeaux:
I’m not sure how long ago Noonan said that but it was a running joke on Limbaugh’s show. I think it originated with Tom Foley opening an investigation into Bush Sr’s alleged SR-71 trip to Iran to negotiate the release of the U.S. hostages before Reagan took office. It would’ve been irresponsible for them not to investigate. I believe the subject arose during the ’88 election.
What was left is now right.
Joseph Nobles
I really think that the “Feedom” misspelling was intentional in a half-assed attempt of being ironical. Other inadvertent misspellings I’ll buy, but I think this was artistic license.
asiangrrlMN
@Onihanzo: Man. If someone had said that to me, that might have been the last thing he said for awhile. Especially given that they were the ones to label themselves teabaggers first. No, not even especially. That’s just downright horrid and inexcusable.
Maybe this one was photoshopped or some attempt at a pun, but the rest of them are just as bad, if not worse.
nate_rio
It came free to the pirate that stole his ‘Arrrrrgghh’!!!
Ha!…I kill me!!
Michael E Sullivan
If this was photoshopped, it was done by somebody who really knew what they were doing, not your typical random “i have photoshop” person.
It’s impossible to say with high certainty that it *wasn’t* photoshopped at this low resolution — if I worked on a picture at a high resolution and then sampled it down to 72 dpi at this size, I could easily make a change like that which would be undetectable. But I do know what I’m doing.
No way could I have made that change starting at *this* resolution, without leaving traces that someone of a similar skill level could spot. This picture doesn’t have any such traces.
I think maybe I’ll go into image forensics when I get out of the printing business.