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You are here: Home / This Brings Me Such Joy

This Brings Me Such Joy

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Are we all following the saga of the National Review and degenerate scumbag Mark Steyn’s meltdown in the Michael Mann case? Because it is really just awesome and the kind of thing that brings me so much joy and pleasure that I almost feel guilty and think I deserve to have a knee injury, because without a little physical pain, the pleasure of this epic fail might just be too much for me and I might just float away, so a little pain is needed to keep me grounded.

And we still have the Sherrod case against the spouse of Andrew Breitbart’s rotting and rancid corpse, and who knows, maybe the FSM will bless us all and David Souter will sue Erickson and CNN.

Reader Interactions

114Comments

  2. 2.

    BGinCHI

    It’s possible that Steve was out pissing on Wm F. Buckley’s grave. I assume Breitbart was stuffed and mounted in Bill Kristol’s ski lodge, so no pissing there.

    If your knee is ruined you should get titanium, Cole. Unless bionic is available.

  3. 3.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Schadenfreude is a noun, so I’m sure it could be adjectivized the way we do with other parts of speech in English, but how, I don’t know. I’ll leave it to others to figure it out.

    Needless to say, this is pegging my Schadenfreude meter. Suffer, Steyn, suffer. Writhe in pain, for a prolonged period.

  6. 6.

    jl

    Mann is suing for defamed as a fraud, right? Not the comparisons to a child molester, right?

    Anyway, the NR has a problem, since Steyn seems to be trying to sinkt them, as well as Mann.

    Steyn managed to piss off his own lawyers enough for them to quit, as well as going after the judge. Strong work, Mr. Steyn!

  7. 7.

    J.Ty

    Very interesting question, actually. Schadenfreudig is the adjectival form I’m familiar with; in German, when you’re doing a comparative/superlative form of the adjective, you usually inflect the core vowel. But I don’t know which core vowel to use… Would it be schädenfreudiger or the uninflected schadenfreudiger (no such thing as e-umlaut)?

    ETA: Well, there are zero google results for schädenfreudiger. So it must be schadenfreudiger.

  10. 10.

    phein39

    How Serbian of you! At our weddings, the groom gives the bride a gold ring sometime in courtship, and then throws it away (into a lake, river, somewhere gone forever) during the wedding ceremony. Why? Because happiness fades, but pain we remember forever.

  19. 19.

    dr. bloor

    As many of you know, National Review is not a non-profit — we are just not profitable. A lawsuit is not something we can fund with money we don’t have.

    Looks like Lowry missed the lecture in Econ class where they taught that every now and again, the Invisible Hand turns itself into a fist and shoves itself right up your ass.

  21. 21.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @dr. bloor:

    It’s highly unlikely that Lowery has even seen a copy of The Wealth of Nations, let alone cracked it open and actually read it.

  23. 23.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @phein39:

    Freude, schöner Götterfunken,
    Tochter aus Elysium!
    Wir betreten feuertrunken,
    Himmlische, Dein Heiligtum.
    Deine Zauber binden wieder,
    Was die Mode streng geteilt,
    Alle Menschen werden Brüder,
    Wo Dein sanfter Flügel weilt.

  24. 24.

    J.Ty

    @Villago Delenda Est: You see a lot of things like that when you’re studying German. It’s an (unsurprisingly) very regimented language, especially since the spelling reforms in ’96.

    Sidenote: It was really obvious that German needed to standardize its spelling, but the last time anybody tried was, um… 1944. So it took a while for it to really catch on again.

    ETA: You know who else tried to standardize spelling!

  25. 25.

    jl

    The online translator turns

    Absolutely amazing, supremely, deliciously blissful, and completely just

    into

    Einfach nur super, super, super lecker und ganz einfach.

    Any German that has ‘super super super’ in it can’t be bad. Mine is so rusty I don’t know whether the translation is any good, but I’m a gonna use it.

  26. 26.

    Cervantes

    @Villago Delenda Est: Rhetorical hyperbole is protected speech under the First Amendment.

    Or as Judge Weisberg put it:

    The allegedly defamatory aspect of this sentence is the statement that plaintiff “molested and tortured data,” not the rhetorically hyperbolic comparison to convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky.

  27. 27.

    kc

    @dr. bloor:

    As many of you know, National Review is not a non-profit — we are just not profitable. A lawsuit is not something we can fund with money we don’t have.

    Maybe they should stop lying about people?

  29. 29.

    linda

    Part of a never-ending pattern. When the right is confronted with reality, they reject it and substitute their own. It happened on the issue of nation building in Iraq, and winning the 2012 election, or winning the debt ceiling fight last fall. I’m sure the white shoe law firm told them to suck it up and issue a public apology, and The People Who Are Never Wrong told them to screw off.

  32. 32.

    Gopher2b

    Can you imagine the emails personally disparaging Mann. Don’t know if they have to prove actual malice but I’m sure those idiots have provided a treasure trove.

  33. 33.

    cokane

    Christopher Hitchens once said one of the joys of his life was in seeing certain people proved wrong. There’s no shame in feeling this way Cole.

  34. 34.

    The Dangerman

    Our Media is a disgrace; I watched last evening while Fox News tried their damndest to rehabilitate Chris Christie. Good luck, assholes.

  37. 37.

    jl

    @efgoldman: The one nice thing about learning German is that, from my experience, Germans are very nice and helpful when you try to speak their language with them. I guess they are so astonished and grateful that anyone would put up with it or wants to talk it.

    Their welcoming attitude is in stark contrast with certain of their neighbors, I might add.

  39. 39.

    cthulhu

    I guess I wonder, should Steyn be the cause of NR burning to the ground, will he actually be shut out of the wingnut welfare trough or will he simply move on to other patrons who don’t give much of a crap about NR anyway?

  40. 40.

    eemom

    Truly, a most splendiforous thing it is, and on SO many levels: the scientist fighting back against the lying wingnut scum machine….the legal system employed to perpetrate, you know, actual JUSTICE….the vindication of, you know, SCIENCE….the potential death blow to the legacy of Buckley’s vile corpse….and last — but OH so not least — the spectacle of how-fucking-stupid-can-anyone-be Steyn publicly attacking the fucking JUDGE on the case.

    Verily, it is like unto the petals upon a rose.

  42. 42.

    SuzieC

    @Cervantes:

    Yes. That is a statement of fact as opposed to a statement of opinion.

    So happy that Steve is home! We let our kitty (Duder who appears in Dec. cat calendar) go outside whenever he wants. As soon as he realizes in his little furball mind that it’s fucking 6 degrees out, he comes right back.

  43. 43.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @jl:

    Their welcoming attitude is in stark contrast with certain of their neighbors, I might add.

    Do you mean the French? I have always found the French to be quite friendly. I also have tried to begin any conversation with a French person in French. Also, I expect the same level of brusqueness and impatience from Parisians that I expect from New Yorkers. By that standard, Parisians have come off quite well. YMMV.

  45. 45.

    jonas

    @jl:

    German grammar, dude.

    I’m sure you meant “German grammar, Duden.” Har! Just a little German grammar humor there… ok, I’ll shut up now.

  46. 46.

    jl

    @cthulhu:

    ” will [Steyn] actually be shut out of the wingnut welfare trough ”

    It might be tough. When it comes to keeping track of money, I think even the wingnuts will be able to figure out he has very high potential for being a ‘high maintenance’ asset.

  47. 47.

    J.Ty

    Berliners are nice, but don’t ask a cop if there’s a nearby public restroom during a protest that you happen to be at.

    Sample size = 1, here, obviously.

  48. 48.

    jl

    @jonas: heh heh… he said ‘Duden’… heh heh heh.

    Actually that damn Duden is pretty good. Got me through some tough German grammar hell times.

  52. 52.

    eemom

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I expect the same level of brusqueness and impatience from Parisians that I expect from New Yorkers.

    Yo, who da fuck you callin brusque and impatient?

    Speaking of homiez, I might be going to your fair state soon to take depositions: Milwaukee. I understand it is a city upon a lake?

  53. 53.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @J.Ty: My mom did that in Chicago during the ’68 Democratic Convention. She has not had a high opinion of the CPD since that time. She was looking for a place to take her four year old son who needed to pee (and I did need to pee).

  55. 55.

    JCJ

    @jonas:

    I’m sure you meant “German grammar, Duden.” Har! Just a little German grammar humor there… ok, I’ll shut up now.

    OK, das hat echt Weh getan..

  56. 56.

    Mnemosyne

    @eemom:

    I haven’t been to Milwaukee in 20 years, but I remember it having some nice art museums. When I was a kid, my school would take us to the Holiday Folk Fair every year.

    I wonder if the spy-themed bar is still there. It sounded cool, but I wasn’t old enough to get in before I moved to California.

  57. 57.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @eemom: Milwaukee is very nice. I actually prefer it to Madison; Milwaukee is a really city, while Madison is a big town. Also, Milwaukee’s Dems are union and AA folks while Madison’s are more from the hippie school. If you are coming up, let me know and I can recommend some good restaurants and/or bars. FWIW, I am actually trying to engineer a move to Milwaukee.

    BTW, I did not say that New Yorkers were brusque and impatient. I said that I expect the same level of brusqueness and impatience from Parisians that I expect from New Yorkers.

    @Mnemosyne:

    I wonder if the spy-themed bar is still there. It sounded cool, but I wasn’t old enough to get in before I moved to California.

    Safehouse. It is still there. It is both cooler and tackier than one would expect. Also wasn’t Wisconsin still an 18 state back then? That would mean that a 16/17 y/o had a decent chance of getting in anywhere.

  60. 60.

    SRW1

    @efgoldman:

    Maybe one of the German speaking BJers can come up with an exaggerated extension of Schadenfreude. What’s Schadenfreude-er?

    If it were an adjective, which it of course isn’t, it would be ‘schadenfreudig’, the comparative would be ‘schadenfreudiger’, and the superlative would be ‘am schadenfreudigsten’.

  62. 62.

    Mnemosyne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Fucking Reagan got them to change the drinking age before I turned 18, and about one year too young to be grandfathered in when they did the final move to 21.

    ETA: And I was too nerdy to have a fake ID — that’s what I get for running with the science and humanities crowd.

  64. 64.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @JCJ: It is silly, but it can be fun. My fraternity used to have a huge all campus party with Safe House theme every parents’ weekend. It usually ended up with some student’s mother doing a scotch inspired Marlene Dietrich impression in the piano bar room at around 5:00 a.m. Good times.

  65. 65.

    lumpkin

    I went to the link and then clicked on another link from “around the web”. I thought it was about Miley Cyrus but it was about deporting the Bieber kid. YIKES! Do they really look that much alike?

  66. 66.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne: Jesus, Wisconsin didn’t have photos on driver’s licenses back then. I got one from a guy from the University School in Milwaukee who was about my size with similar hair and eye color that worked just fine. This was at a Youth in Government thing In Madison. I was a IB diploma candidate, student council person, National Merit Scholar, cross country running member of the good kids’ society. One can still be subversive.

  68. 68.

    cthulhu

    @Howard Beale IV: The radio station in LA that used to host liberal talk was apparently bought by Rush’s company (they even switched the call letters to KEIB) and changed weekday format to the right wing standards (Beck, Rush, Hannity) at the start of the year. Decided to listen as an experiment to compare to what I knew liberal talk to be like. One thing for sure: there are definitely a lot of grifting of right wing talk radio listeners. While there was some gold and other investment promoters as lib talk sponsors, I would say a good third or more of right wing talk advertisers have suspicious business models.

  69. 69.

    eemom

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Cool, sounds like a nice place to visit. Wish it could be in the summer, though.

    @Mnemosyne:

    One of the ever-dwindling benefits of being as old as I am is I actually was 18 when the drinking age was 18…and when it got raised I was older than it.

  70. 70.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @eemom: The lake tends to keep Milwaukee a bit warmer than the rest of the state during the winter.

    @jl: I can see it. The brandy comments are especially apt. It is the booze of choice here.

  74. 74.

    J.Ty

    @Yatsuno: I’ve had a few frustrating encounters (in Berlin in particular) where they didn’t speak English because they were over 30 and I was in Prenzlauer Berg, but otherwise I’ve found that they’re more than happy to help you with your German–provided they also have the conversational relief valve of knowing your language a bit, too.

  75. 75.

    Mnemosyne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I’m not saying I was never served across the border. But I wore braces until I was 18, so no bouncer in his right mind would let me into a reasonably famous place without some kind of fake ID.

    ETA: Also, too, remember I’m a flatlander, not a cheesehead. I would have had to find a stranger in Wiscy to loan me an ID or have someone make one for me. My older brothers probably had those connections, but they were not about to let their baby sister get one.

  76. 76.

    The Tragically Flip

    How many cruises will they need to host to get out of this mess?

    Seriously though, some billionaire will buy them out and turn the place into his vanity rag. Creative destruction is for little people, not for capitalists.

  77. 77.

    joel hanes

    @Mnemosyne:

    drinking age

    Absolutely the only advantage to beginning to bald at age 17 was that I never got carded through that whole merry-go-round ride — at 18 I could get served just about anywhere, regardless of the legal drinking age at the time.

    At age 61 that head-start somehow seems less of an advantage.

  78. 78.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne: Braces would do it. I looked very young; I still have just a bit a gray. The ID work perfectly. Memorize the birth date and you were golden.

  79. 79.

    joel hanes

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    One can still be subversive.

    So one can. Bless you.
    (Juanita Jean is currently my favorite subversive)

    I wonder if “Subvert The Dominant Paradigm” bumperstickers are still available … [googles] ..
    yes, yes they are. That somehow makes me happy, like seeing “Hayduke Lives!”

  80. 80.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @joel hanes: I am a huge fan of punk rock. I dress like a slightly hipster preppy. I have never had a problem with it at any concert. I wear my clothes; I enjoy the music. Fuck anything else.

  84. 84.

    max

    @Cervantes:

    @kc:

    Maybe they should stop lying about people?

    You must be joking. What would they publish?

    @Omnes Omnibus: @Cervantes: Dreck of some kind.

    How would you tell?

    max
    [‘That cesspool looks pretty icky whichever kind of shit it is.’]

  85. 85.

    MikeJ

    @Mnemosyne:

    Fucking Reagan got them to change the drinking age before I turned 18, and about one year too young to be grandfathered in when they did the final move to 21.

    In TN the age was 19 and I was 18 when they bumped it to 21. I feel your pain. Happily my college ID said I was a year older and grandfathered in. Of course the bar I had been going to since I was 15 never actually checked.

  86. 86.

    Petorado

    @Mnemosyne: I just made it under the wire. On my 18th birthday I went to the Post Office to fill out my selective service card and bought a six pack of 3.2 beer on the way home. Mom freaked, but I explained if Ronny was gonna start a war, I wanted to have had a beer before the bullets went flying.

  87. 87.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @max:

    [‘That cesspool looks pretty icky whichever kind of shit it is.’]

    You know this. I know this. Oddly, they don’t.

  88. 88.

    Culture of Truth

    Steyn is just taking rightwing purity lunacy to its logical conclusion — holed in up your basement, surrounded by walls and barbed wire, having alienated all his enemies and friends for their failure to reject all government and nations and laws and acceptance of women and minorities and all humans not him.

  89. 89.

    burnspbesq

    @raven:

    Written by TRex!

    David has really gotten his shit together in the last year. Steady job, steady boyfriend, new band. Couldn’t be happier for him.

  90. 90.

    burnspbesq

    @cthulhu:

    I guess I wonder, should Steyn be the cause of NR burning to the ground, will he actually be shut out of the wingnut welfare trough or will he simply move on to other patrons who don’t give much of a crap about NR anyway?

    Theoretically he could go back to Macleans, although he might not be welcome their either. National Post, maybe?

  92. 92.

    burnspbesq

    @eemom:

    One of the ever-dwindling benefits of being as old as I am is I actually was 18 when the drinking age was 18…and when it got raised I was older than it.

    I turned 18 the year NJ lowered the age of majority to 18. On my eighteenth birthday, I (1) signed my own note to get out of school early, (2) went and registered for the draft si I would have a second ID, and (3) bought my first legal six-pack using my draft card as ID.

  96. 96.

    Ruckus

    @joel hanes:
    High school friend had the opposite gift. Way too much hair. Summer when he was 16 he and his dad went to a bar and he got served straight away but his dad got carded. And his dad was about 40 at the time. Of course he had a full beard by July 1 every summer, the HS wouldn’t let him attend unshaven.

  98. 98.

    daveNYC

    @burnspbesq: He’ll probably end up somewhere. Dunno why though, there’s more than enough rabid right-wing writers out there who can manage complete sentences, using the spell checker, and not getting their asses sued off you’d think that someone like Steyn would be shunned.

  100. 100.

    hrumpole

    “Now, Steyn is representing himself against Mann and he and the Review have parted ways.”

    1. For a supposed intellectual, Steyn really has no idea what the concepts of amendment, allegation, or decorum mean. Even in DC, it’s notice pleading, and the rules state that when you amend, it relates back to the date of original filing. In other words, the first complaint doesn’t exist. (This is not a secret in the legal profession). Courts won’t kick a defamation case because the plaintiff described yourself as 5’8″ when he’s really 5’7″ and 3/4, and he’s suing because the defendant called him a child rapist in a crowded school auditorium. If that’s the hill you choose to die on, the cause is already lost. Also, judges can’t be worked like newspaper reporters. They don’t have to take it, and, in addition to holding you in contempt, there are dozens of rulings that they can make within wide ranges of discretion that can make your day miserable: from extensions of time to evidentiary issues. Not a good idea to piss them off without a really good reason.

    2. But that’s not even the good part. This is the money quote: “Now, Steyn is representing himself against Mann and he and the Review have parted ways.” Grab some popcorn. The only way the NR gets out of this is to say that “We’re not responsible. This guy is mentally unbalanced and went off on a frolic that we could not have predicted and should not be held responsible for.” The defendants’ interests are now very much adverse. Plus, NR will likely have good lawyers defending them who are no doubt face palming each day they have to deal with this case. Steyn’s filings should be howlers. “First Amendment protection fully immunizes bloggers espousing conservative ideas critical of prevailing liberal dogma, even if assertions of fact about particular individuals are wholly and intentionally fabricated. See, e.g.,DEATH PANELS! BENGHAZI, BITCHES!”

    The NR’s main avenue of defense now is going to be that Steyn was off on a frolic–e.g, “wasn’t me” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_f6qFBQD9U. Hope there are lots of women on that jury.

    Could not happen to a nicer guy.

  101. 101.

    FRANCH

    @jl: I think a much better translation would be “ganz berechtigt.” “Ganz einfach” doesn’t even make sense on its own.

  102. 102.

    Cervantes

    @hrumpole: Who but a fool supposes Steyn is an intellectual?

    Anyhow, how do you envision the NR clowns successfully disclaiming responsibility? Not only did they publish his idiocy, they defended it when asked to retract. Plus they’ve published Steyn for years, not only on line but in print (he used to be their regular back-page columnist). They know him. They’ve utilized him.

    Oh, give my best to SWMBO.

  104. 104.

    slippy

    @dr. bloor:

    Looks like Lowry missed the lecture in Econ class where they taught that every now and again, the Invisible Hand turns itself into a fist and shoves itself right up your ass.

    Wouldn’t it be delicious to stand in front of Lowry with a 10,000 watt megaphone and lecture him on the importance of pulling up his own fucking bootstraps?

  105. 105.

    slippy

    @daveNYC:

    Dunno why though, there’s more than enough rabid right-wing writers out there who can manage complete sentences,

    Believe me, the only other qualification for far right wankery is the willingness to wank in complete sentences. Or, nearly complete. Or, heck, even wanking in a word-salad composed of a dozen years of right wing bumper-sticker stupidities all thrown in a blender . . . is good enough.

  106. 106.

    rumpole

    @Cervantes: The only thing I can think of is section 230 of the communications decency act. If Steyn was posting for free, without review, they could have an argument under that provision, which completely immunizes information services for defamatory statements made by others. NR walks; Steyn hangs. Do I think it’s a winner? No. But that’s the only thing that I could think of. If Steyn is an employee or compensated for the blog posts, then it’s different. Beyond that, I don’t know what they do–the malice standard is not going to protect them. A malice standard might be different for blogs than for print newspapers (the times does a 2-source check; blogs can’t). That might be an angle to pursue, but it’s not an appealing argument– “we are allowed to ruin your reputation because the internet is fast.”

  107. 107.

    JustRuss

    My favorite line from the linked article:

    The Review, which has run at a loss since it was founded on money inherited by William F. Buckley, Jr. in 1955,

    Hardly surprising that Buckley was a trust-fund baby, and that the free market’s invisible hand was bitch-slapping his magazine for decades…but good to know.

  108. 108.

    slippy

    @cthulhu:

    One thing for sure: there are definitely a lot of grifting of right wing talk radio listeners.

    My ongoing opinion of the right wing is that it has become nothing more than a galaxy of grift, fueled by the racist hatred of a bunch of ignorant rubes. Their political platform has shrunk down to taking social revenge on all lesser classes and orders. They have nothing to offer except hate, and stupidity.

  109. 109.

    Cervantes

    @JustRuss: William F. Buckley, Sr. was an oil-man who made corrupt millions in the Mexico of military dictator Victoriano Huerta (“The Jackal,” still hated today a century later).

    That money, in other words, was all blood money.

  110. 110.

    slippy

    @Cervantes:

    That money, in other words, was all blood money

    .

    The people who traffic in such seem insensible to the well-deserved contempt that they have earned.

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