From the BeyonceVoters Tumblr. The original “slur” comes from a Fox News mouthpart, because the only thing more popular to Fox News listeners than racial panic is sexual panic (or is it the other way around?)…
In other popcultural news, from Rolling Stone:
Author George R.R. Martin, who created the world of Game of Thrones in his Song of Ice and Fire series of books, has heard fans’ complaints that he is taking too long with the saga’s next installment, The Winds of Winter, and he has two words for them: “Fuck you.”…
The writer said that he also found it contentious that fans would complain about his attending events rather than staying home and working, noting that he only writes when he is home. But despite his outrage at such suggestions, he also said that he did not know when the next book would be finished. He reiterated, however, that he does indeed have a plan for the end of the story and has shared it with Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss….
Waiting for the (ironic! J/K!) Kickstarter campaign among his more impatient fans looking to fund a ninja who’ll give them closure…
And, finally, because I am not a nice person, I was entertained by Jim Newell’s account of “Dinesh D’Souza’s paranoid nightmare”:
The vast forces of the universe and the United States government and the powers that be have arrayed themselves against one man, one prodigy, who could obliterate their regime of smoke, mirrors and lies: Dinesh D’Souza, the former Reagan era policy adviser and hot-ticket conservative intellectual who, more recently, has become a hand-waving, fear-mongering fake-tree salesman, and criminal.
He is, in other words, the right’s Job. But the longer he suffers, the more selectively he’s prosecuted, the more his art is censored, the stronger he becomes!…
Apparently D’Souza considers both the New York Times and Costco tools of the Obama Administration, because pffft, who believes that “free market, profit-driven” sales yak? Also, he seems to be threatening to sue Google, over his latest extremely serious & factual “documentary”, for reasons which I’m not even going to try and explain.
***********
Apart from cheap laffs, what’s on the agenda for the day?
raven
I heard D’Souza on some radio show going on and on about how Clinton was OK and loved America but Hillary and Obama were revolutionaries!
Botsplainer
D’Douchebag’s Costco warriors don’t understand the pernicious gaming that afflicts Amazon and NYT nonfiction best seller rankings.
Because nonfiction titles don’t sell nearly as well, wingnut organizations do bulk buys for books to give away with donations or at events, thereby creating a fiction (since when is movement conservatism anything other than a cynical lie?) that there is actually a market for these pieces of shit. By doing this, they rank the books, and give conservatism yet another unearned, undeserved bit of heft.
Schlemizel
We had a nice time at Gettysburg despite the fact it seems to be set in the heart of mouth-breathing moran country. Saw a lot of Gasden flags hanging, I didn’t know if I should laugh at the irony or cry over the stupidity.
The battlefield itself is something to travel. I admit to being a bit of a Civil War nut, I have read about 100 of the estimated 50,000 books on the subject, so being able to see the landscape and putting people in place was rather emotional for me. It helps given the scope of the site to have more knowledge before you go.
We were unable to get the guide everyone recommended but the guy we did get was pretty good. We sprung for the 3 hour tour and that was worth it too. We got to see several places not on the normal tour & spend a bit more time at a couple. The guides own home is on the main drag in town & he stopped to show us the cannon shell that struck the building during the battle. I even learned a couple of things I had never heard before. My only complaint was that the guy had his lecture down & didn’t like to be interrupted. When I would stop to ask for some detail or confirmation of something I read it threw him off a bit, it was hard to get a word in edge-wise.
raven
@Schlemizel: I signed up for the Battle of Atlanta tour on the 19th. The 22nd is the 150 anniversary and I’ve been able to confirm that my ancestor was, indeed, killed at that place in time. I went to the Cyclorama last weekend and was glad to see it again now that I have a much better idea of the event.
BruceFromOhio
Tough to decide which is worse, Martin or his whiny readers. Martin hates his readers. Hates them. Don’t for a moment pretend that you like some character or aspect of the stories, Martin will punish you remorselessly, because he simply fucking hates you.
Like all the other “must see” series that have come and gone, wait till the last credits roll, and then buy or borrow the box set.
ETA:
Indeed? Then apparently he neither reads nor shops.
NotMax
@Schlemizel
Gettysburg is a better place since the demolishing of the horrid, intrusive observation tower.
Hope you found the time to view the cyclorama, an historical artifact in its own right.
Last time was there (mid-1970s) rangers and workers were frantically hustling indoors anyone they could find, as a massive storm was moving in fast, with tornados predicted. Only time I’ve ever seen the entire sky turn a deep olive green. Spooky.
Patricia Kayden
I love the photo which accompanies this post. So on point and cool!
D’Souza has always been an anti-Black racist so I’m really glad to see him being “persecuted”. He needs to disappear from public view.
Baud
If Martin really wants to stick it to his readers, the series should end with all sides entering into a peace treaty that ushers in a thousand year Pax Westoria.
NorthLeft12
These are the same type of fans that Adrian Peterson complained about. These type of fans believe that they are owed something from the athletes, writers, artists, etc. that they worship/follow. Sort of like that big, old white guy in the sky, eh?
I find the NFL fans the most despicable. ie. “Take a salary cut so my team can afford to get a free agent”; “Shake off that concussion/ACL or broken whatever and get back on the field”; “Train and think football twelve months a year”; and the ever popular “Its only a game, I would take their job for $100K a year!”
Ramalama
@BruceFromOhio: Martin hates anyone who’s not a (dire) wolf. http://www.prizeo.com/prizes/georgerrmartin/a-wolf-sanctuary-tour-and-helicopter-ride
Ramalama
And, Holy doughy crapload, that Beyonce tumblr page is AWESOME. Good find!
WereBear
FTFY
Unsuccessful strikethrough. Ah well.
SFAW
@BruceFromOhio:
Shorter Bruce (to GRRM): “Fuck me? No, fuck YOU!”
SFAW
@Baud:
Which Preznit McCain would then hold up as a shining example to Iraqistan, followed by a hearty “So cut the shit!”
Randy P
@Schlemizel: I’m not a huge Civil War or history nut, but getting more so as I age and live closer the battlefields (I grew up in NY state, not close to any of it). Gettysburg is about 2 hours west.
A few years ago on an impulse I went to Gettysburg when the wife was out of town for the weekend. It turned out to be the day some fellow Abe Lincoln was giving a speech (they re-enact on the anniversary of the speech, I had no idea that was the day). In the gift shop I bought a little guide book just about Little Round Top because I wanted to try to get some appreciation for why these little piles of dirt were so bloody important. Excellent purchase. The book told me where to find every little forgotten marker lost in the weeds on that hill and what had happened there. I spent hours on that hill imagining the fighting and tracing the movements.
On top of the hill, I was looking over the fields and trying to match up the landscape with more commonly remembered events, like Pickett’s Charge. Asked one guy if he knew where it was and immediately EVERYONE on the hill converged and described it foot by foot. “See that tree over there?”
On the same trip I stopped in a little tiny bookstore/coffee shop. There were a couple of old-timers discussing J. D. Robb, alter ego of writer Nora Roberts, and a whole room dedicated to Robb/Roberts. I couldn’t figure out why till I finally figured out that this was her home bookstore. Owned by her family and she lives nearby.
nancydarling
Jesse Watters, who coined the phrase “Beyoncé Voters” is the asshole who was kicked out of a N.O.W. conference because, well, he’s an asshole.
Randy P
@Randy P: I live now near Swarthmore College, founded by the Quakers in 1863. I keep wondering whether it was in some way a reaction to the bloody battle at Gettysburg just 100 miles or so to the west. But local historians keep telling me “no”. Still I wonder how the opening of a college by a pacifist religious sect was colored by those events.
Baud
I completely missed that Castro was confirmed as HUD secretary. Part of me is glad it wasn’t news.
raven
@Randy P: I moved to Georgia from Illinois 30 years ago. The first year I was here I visited Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield and, when we signed in, the Park Service guy asked “have you seen the Illinois Monument?” I had not and he directed me to “Cheatham’s Hill” that is actually about 10 miles from the main site. You drive through a Marietta housing tract and come to a park. At the top of a hill known as “The Dead Angle” you see a large monument with Illinois on it. That was all very nice and I filed it away and went on about my business. Some 10 years ago my uncle had put together a family tree and on it was a listing for Jason J Figg “a Confederate soldier killed 22 July , 1864 at the Battle of Peachtree Creek. Last year I bought a subscription to Fold3, a website holding historical military documents and photos. I was looking for stuff on my dad’s WWII Destroyer but ran Jason’s name just for fun. Sure enough his enlistment documents are there and it prompted me to look deeper. It turns out that the Battle of Peachtree Creek was actually the 20th of July and he was killed the 22nd which made it the Battle of Atlanta. Added to that is the fact that his unit, the 11th Tennessee Infantry, was also one of the pivotal units at the “dead angle”. So after a lifetime of identifying as an Illinois native I come to find that my ancestor fought, and likely was killed, fighting against Illinois troops.
danielx
Well, our boy Eric is still hanging in there after being attacked by a pit bull – thanks to those BJers who expressed their sympathy after my rant of yesterday pm. Damn convenient having an animal hospital with a 24/7 animal ER a mile and half down the road, I may say. The dog got his shoulder instead of his throat; he has a lot of puncture wounds but none that penetrated the thorax. They will try him with some solid food this morning and maybe release him this afternoon, at which time we will have the dubious pleasure of flushing out his wounds daily with hydrogen peroxide. He didn’t care for being messed with before (which is why he gets shaved a couple of times a year, won’t be brushed) and I have no doubt he’ll care for it even less now. However….I thought he’d die on the way to the ER, considering the amount of blood he lost, a large portion of which seemed to end up on me. Any sixteen year old cat who survives an encounter with a pit bull has used up a couple of his nine lives, and we’re duly grateful to have him still with us.
SFAW
@Randy P:
Was at a send-off ceremony for a Maine National Guard unit being sent to Afghanistan last year. One of the speakers – might have been Angus King, but I (unfortunately) am getting more and more forgetful, so it may just be wishful thinking – talked about Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (20th Maine Regiment), and how he might have saved the World (as we currently know it), due to his efforts at Little Round Top. The thought process was: losing Little Round Top leads to the Southern Traitors not being defeated, thus completing the dissolution of the Union, which leads to an un-United States in the 1940s, which allows the Nazis to win, etc., etc.
Although it seems a little bit far-fetched, it’s not completely BS.
Thanks, Maine!
raven
@danielx: I hope the kitty is ok.
SFAW
@Baud:
Fidel or Raul? And don’t tell Marco
PoloRubio.Kay
@raven:
I wondered how they were planning on handling that. They’ve spent years comparing Obama unfavorably to Clinton, so they had to switch to “anti-Hillary Clinton” somehow.
I wonder why they think it matters, drawing that distinction. They could change overnight into “anti-Clinton” and no one would notice. They do it on everything else and no one mentions what they said the week before.
SFAW
@danielx:
Beautiful cat, best wishes for a complete recovery.
WereBear
@danielx: How frightening for all of you!
And glad to hear he’s on the mend.
Skerry
Woke up this morning to a call from my 27 year old daughter. One of her friends died last night. Brain aneurism. He was 29 and recently engaged. RIP, Jon. Hug your babies tight, my friends.
raven
@Kay: The douchebag went on and on about how they “looked” like revolutionaries when they were young and then cleaned up so they could take over.
Mustang Bobby
@Baud: Yes, by something like 71-26; fully half of the GOP senators voting no for reasons unfathomable to the rational mind. Probably they confused him with the thugs in Havana, they don’t like sleeper sofas, or that he was nominated by Barack Obama.
gene108
@Baud:
Martin, unfortunately, has not left enough sides alive to have a peace deal. I remember an X-Men: Days of Future Past cover that had a subtitle “This Issue: Everyone Dies”, which was a really big hook. I think if Martin tried that as a hook, the readers would be like “no duh, everyone always dies, so what…”
Tommy
@Schlemizel: Glad you had fun. My father’s PhD is in Civil War history. My parents joke I am the most photography child next to a cannon in the world. I don’t so much joke but note on my summer vacations we didn’t go to Disney World, we went to Civil War battle fields.
I’ve never seen my dad so animated as when we were there ….
Honestly they just depressed me. Love the history, but at a place like Cold Harbor where 7,000 Americans died in 10 minutes. Heck at Gettysburg there is a farm house where on the second floor as they were cutting off legs and arms the pile got so hit they had to throw then out the window upwards.
SFAW
@raven:
As compared with looking like a sniveling, lying weaselly motherfucker – a look which he apparently has down pat, at any age.
Kay
@raven:
I should have known it was completely based on how they “looked”.
I’ll have less sympathy for Clinton when they start with the “associations” thing they all do, where everyone you’ve ever met is your close personal friend and advisor, because she did it to Obama in the primary with Ayres and Rev Wright. It’s complete and utter bullshit and she knows it and what’s worse, they will all do it to her. She’s been around a long time. She has a lot of “associations”. Just dumb to go after him on that.
MattF
D’Souza was always ‘out there’ but now he’s doing a swan dive into the deep end. And yes, there’s whiff of projection there, calling Clinton and Obama radicals, while he started out as a Reagan ‘advisor’ and is now teetering on the edge of the alternative space-time continuum. But, as has been pointed out many times before, that’s always the story with these guys.
raven
@Tommy: Here’s looking down from the Dead Angle.
SFAW
@Kay:
C’mon, Kay, that’s only this week’s “reason.” You should know that by now. Next week it will be something else, repeat as necessary until Hillary is indistinguishable from the Antichrist. (Which will admittedly be difficult, since it would be tough to mistake her for the current Antichrist, i.e., the Kenyan Mooslim usurper, but I have no doubt they’ll try.)
Baud
@Kay:
True, but it really makes not one whit of difference in how Republicans will attack her.
Josie
@danielx: Thanks for the report on Eric. It’s good to know he is hanging in there. Blessings on you as you attempt to medicate him – always a challenge with cats.
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
My rational mind is fully capable of fathoming reactionary pandering.
NotMax
@Randy P
As an alumnus of Swarthmore, can confirm the historians are correct. The initial funding for the college by sale of stock was underway in 1862, it was chartered in 1864, the first college building constructed in 1868, and the college inaugurated in 1869.
That is not to say the war was not a part of the zeitgeist of those behind creating the college. The Hicksite Quakers who founded Swarthmore had a long history of active participation in the anti-slavery movement (most well-known today is probably Lucretia Mott).
Valdivia
I refuse to link but go read the Jacob Heilburn piece for one of the Spectator (uk) this am. He says Obama has worse polling than Nixon. What? Can someone explain to me how these guys see the world? I just don’t get it.
Tommy
@Randy P: Little and Big Round Top. I still have those guide books we got back in the 70s when we went.
For me what stuck with me was the area of Pickets charge. Maybe I don’t recall it right. But the Confederates were in the woods. Milling around. 300-500 yards away, across a flat field without a single tree, the Yankees (and I am one–not a slur) were in entrenched positions.
They just kept throwing themselves at the position. Wave after wave. Where I don’t think they could ever take it. Didn’t stop them.
Valdivia
Bad editing–one of the UK papers, The Dpectator.
Baud
@SFAW:
Actually, Starlin Castro of the Cubs. He likes to work on housing policy issue in the off season.
JPL
@danielx: Hopefully Eric comes home today and appreciates your caring for the wound. (I think not, but they have treats for that.)
@Skerry: How very sad.
Valdivia
@danielx:
So glad to hear that. Was going to head to that thread see if you had given us an updated.
NotMax
@NotMax – @Randy P
Should add that the initial meetings about forming a college began in the 1850s.
MomSense
@danielx:
I hadn’t heard the news yesterday–but so relieved your kitty is ok. I went through that many years ago now with my former lab who almost died on the way to the animal hospital. Sending you my support and hope that your kitty fully recovers.
SFAW
@Tommy:
Thank Jeebus for Bobby Lee!
SFAW
@Baud:
Given the Cubbies’ record, he’s probably doing that in-season as well.
Suffern ACE
@raven: certainly glad I never changed. I was a slob then and I’m a slob now. That kind of fashion consistency is what makes me great. I hit my style note early and it’s universally timeless.
Suffern ACE
@SFAW: today’s daily news headline is that Chelsea get 75k to give speeches. I believe they’re going to go after the Clinton parenting skills. They pampered their daughter by being rich and famous.
Xantar
@NotMax:
Ooh, when did you go to Swarthmore?
-Class of 2005 Alum
raven
@Xantar: HAHAHA, like 1895!
SFAW
@Suffern ACE:
Nothing new. The child-molesting, doctor-shopping Oxycontin addict has been doing that for years.
ETA: You know who I mean: four times married, no children, so therefore a parenting expert.
raven
Did we all know that Taylor Schilling from Orange was in Atlas Shrugged?
SFAW
@raven:
Yeah, as if YOU should be busting ANYONE ’bout being old.
You whippersnapper.
raven
@SFAW: :) and engaging in SEVENTIES nostalgia between starting senseless fight!
SFAW
@raven:
Part 1, Part 2, or Part 47?
SFAW
@raven:
Glad I could get a smile for it, as was intended.
Betty Cracker
@raven: I knew that. I don’t hold it against her, though. Acting gigs are tough to get.
raven
@Betty Cracker: I was just reading about Uzo Aduba, really cool lady.
SFAW
@raven:
Jeez, is the whole cast from MA?
NotMax
@Xantar
Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away.
Without pinpointing it exactly, will say that the war in Viet Nam was going hot and heavy at the time. So far back that half of Tarble had not yet burned down. So far back that WSRN was not yet broadcast FM.
Always nice to meet a fellow Swattie.
@raven
Sure feels like it!
Botsplainer
@Tommy:
The power of the propaganda promulgated by the labor thieves astride Confederate traitor culture was strong, aided by the notion that they’d find succor in second life paradise (was that 72 virgins or something like that?).
Lee was a war criminal and shitty commander. He should have hung last, after Davis, Stephens and Benjamin.
Cervantes
Costco co-founder Jim Sinegal not only endorsed Obama, he spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2012.
D’Souza is still an idiot, however.
Paul in KY
@Baud: That would mess with everyone’s mind!
Paul in KY
@danielx: Glad to hear that. Hoping for best for him. Horrible thing to go thru.
Paul in KY
@Tommy: One other thing was as the Rebels came out of the woods & marched up the hill, the Union troops at top were chanting ‘Fredricksburg, Fredricksburg..’
This due to the terrible battle there a few months before where the Union made 15 charges up a hill, more or less like the situation Pickett’s troops found themselves in.
Lee & Pickett should have been hung for murdering their troops. Also too the Union general who ordered the 15 frontal assaults up some god awful, heavily defended hill.
raven
@Botsplainer: And the fucking grunts were just pawns.
Cervantes
Thanks, was unaware of that episode. On the one hand the Fox clown’s obvious cry for attention ought to have been ignored. On the other hand Jessica Contrera’s reporting was not bad.
Is anyone here familiar with Ms. Contrera’s other work? (Thanks.)
Cervantes
And to link two discussions: the young Robert E. Lee was a student of Quaker minister Ben Hallowell, who later helped found Swarthmore.
Amir Khalid
I came upon this strange story: John Wayne’s heirs are suing Duke University in North Carolina for the right to sell alcoholic beverages under the brand name “Duke”. This is apparently the latest in a decades-long series of disputes between Duke and the Waynes over the name — which the university adopted in 1924, in honour of benefactor Washington Duke, and which the young Marion Morrison was given after his pet dog.
mai naem
Dsouza knows what he’s doing. He’s made a boatload of money off the first movie/docunovella because he made it on the cheap – kind of like Michael Moore’s early stuff. DSouza doesn’t need to make another dime. but he’ll do his prison time and make money off the post-prison tour. Any moron who’s gone shopping at Costco knows they have limited space for their books and basically carry popular titles,some reference stuff and some appropriate stuff during christmas. I’ve seen plenty of conservative garbage there before. Hell, SnowBarbie Sarah did Costco promos for her post election book.
Violet
@Suffern ACE: I thought today’s news was that Meghan McCain was likely going to be one o The View co-hosts. Hilariously, Sarah Palin said she’d like to do it.
Cervantes
@mai naem:
Always? Let’s hope the judge and jury think so.
Another Holocene Human
Guinness just subjected me to a weird jingoistic ad with the refrain to “The Battle Cry of Freedom” playing in the background. Sure it sounds a bit Irish but it’s a Union American Civil War song (that calls Confederates “traitors” no less).
Who knows, maybe it plays well in the Northeast.
raven
@Amir Khalid: Missed you during the game.
CaseyL
@danielx: Wonderful news that Eric’s doing well enough to come home! I’m happy for you and for him. And the aftercare could be worse: at least you don’t have to put hot compresses on the wounds, just bathe them.
@Tommy: A war historian once said that military tactics changed so little for so long that Alexander the Great theoretically could have commanded forces competently right up until WWI (when air power first became a real factor). And trench warfare persisted even into WWI.
shelley
Was surprised to see his book was #1 on Amazon yesterday. Even with bulk buys, still am reeeeeaalllly perplexed that there would be enough people who want to read this sour little screed.
Violet
@danielx: So glad your boy is doing better.
Amir Khalid
@Violet:
I know Sarah Palin considers herself one of the smartest and quick-wittedest people alive, but even on her best day she strains to achieve coherent speech. A co-hosting gig on a talk show would seem well out of her skill set. The network must have been amused by her offer.
Botsplainer
@shelley:
Nonfiction titles always have low numbers to start with. The bulk buys generate buzz, and some sales will occur that will generate about twenty pages of “oh, shit – I really bought this stupidity?” before the book is angrily quit and used as pantry counter space filler.
Amir Khalid
@raven:
My ISP had some kind of hiccup: every site I tried to access kept timing out on me. I couldn’t even update Balloon Juice to see what everyone else was saying.
Violet
@Amir Khalid: I kind of wish they’d hire her. The trainwreck would have to be ratings gold. She’d be so terrible at that job it would kind of be a comedy show in itself.
She’d never do it, of course. That would mean real work and Sarah Palin doesn’t do work.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid:
Never mind alcohol, Wayne’s heirs should start marketing “Duke”-branded tobacco products.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: Hell, maybe former Congressman Duke Cunningham can sue, too. He probably needs the money more, now that he’s out of the big house.
Stupid stuff like this reminds me of years ago, when a big global soft-drink manufacturer that had then begun using polar bears in some of its advertisements sued a small regional soft-drink company here in New England, called “Polar Soda” — that had been using the polar bear in its logo for about a hundred years.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Tommy:
Most of the officers on both sides were trained in obsolete tactics developed during the era of Napoleon. The weapons used in the Napoleonic era were smooth-bore muskets which fired loose fitting round balls (Necessary because black powder fouling made anything else impossible to ram down the barrel) and were accurate only at fairly short ranges. The tactic developed then was for compact masses of men to fire away at each other at relatively close ranges and then deliver the coup de grâce with a bayonet charge.
The rifled musket was developed in the decades leading up to the Civil War and the Minié ball (Actually looked similar to a modern day rifle slug) solved the problem of reloading a powder fouled weapon as well as capturing more of the energy of the powder charge. The resulting rifle was accurate at ranges up to six-hundred yards. Though the rifles were still muzzle loaders, advances in the ammunition enabled a trained man to fire three aimed shots per minute. The .58 cal soft lead Minié ball fired by these weapons weighed 500 grains or 1.1 ounces.
When a slow moving (By modern standards) soft lead slug hits a target the energy transfer is ferocious and more than sufficient to shatter any bone it strikes. Thus the high number of amputations during the Civil War.
Gin & Tonic
@CaseyL: A war historian once said
Cite? I just find this assertion completely off the mark. The change in the nature of warfare once mobile gunpowder-based artillery became widespread was as dramatic, IMO, as the introduction of air power.
Cervantes
@Gin & Tonic: Not exactly. When Coca-Cola started airing those “polar bear” commercials, Polar Beverages responded with an ad that showed a polar bear rejecting a can of cola and picking up a can of Polar’s “pure” seltzer instead. That is why Coca-Cola sued.
More recently Polar Beverages sued Pepsi for using the word “Polar” in the name of some sort of slushy item.
K488
@Another Holocene Human: And it’s all through Charles Ives’s music – his father was a Union band leader during the Civil War, IIRC. George Frederick Root wrote the original in 1862.
Paul in KY
@Violet: She would make the other ladies pine for the days of Liz Hasselbeck.
Botsplainer
Should be front paged on the issue of the bestsellers lists and D’Souza.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/02/22/heres-how-you-buy-your-way-onto-the-new-york-times-bestsellers-list/
Paul in KY
@Gin & Tonic: I think Alexander could have quickly been brought up to speed on artillery. Just like catapults, except with a lot greater range, etc.
Gin & Tonic
@Cervantes: Look at you, with all your “facts” and stuff. It’s far better as a David and Goliath story, particularly with the North-South conflict thrown in.
Another Holocene Human
@BruceFromOhio: I dunno, I picked up book two and flipped to a random chapter at a friend’s house and despite the sprawling story lines his writing is remarkably easy to read and follow. Seems more like he loves readers to me.
Also, from what I’ve seen on wikipedia he killed a certain awesome character and then had her come back as a vengeful zombie. So, not quite so unfeeling as claimed, I think.
Hates readers? Maybe some jerk like Norman Mailer who clearly sees readers as a source of narcissistic supply or maybe someone who used literature to declare war on the English language like, oh, James Joyce?
Cervantes
@Gin & Tonic: Mea culpa, but now you see Jake Tapper’s point of view, and Tim Russert’s, and Judy Miller’s, and Maureen Dowd’s, and Dinesh D’Souza’s, and so on.
Another Holocene Human
George RR Martin can’t possibly be as fed up with fans as the guy who founded GAINAX and created Neon Genesis Evangelion, Hideki Anno. Not only is he infamous for storming out of a fan panel after fielding too pointed a question, he also stuck the masturbation scene in the EVA movie, possibly more shocking to Japanese audience than even the American one. I think he even later clarified that it was meant as a personal insult to the fans who’d demanded the movie and weren’t satisfied with the balls-tripping/modern philosophy/theory of existence ending the TV show had.
shelley
@Botsplainer:
Interesting. Probably why these kinds of titles do a nose-dive after a couple of days. But the writer is still able to use the title, ‘NYTimes best-selling author’ for the rest of his life.
Meanwhile, how many books based on the movie, ‘Frozen.’ are still in the Amazon top-twenty?
Botsplainer
@shelley:
There’s so much dumb money sloshing around in the wingnutosphere that making the list would be child’s play. The $200,000 to $300,000 in the cited example would be happily tripled or quadrupled by the knobs D’Souza slobbers on in order to elevate visibility and keep their neofascist philosophy relevant and seemingly mainstream.
shelley
And ‘To Kill A Mockingbird”, god bless it, is still in the top twenty.
Another Holocene Human
@Paul in KY: Gallipoli.
You know the commander (who sent the ANZAC troops to their slaughter) is famous for coming up with a clever hidden seam method for finishing knitted socks?
No, I am not kidding.
Yes, it is the same guy.
I remember learning in history class about his contempt for the ‘colonial’ troops being such that he wouldn’t interrupt his tea to consider changing tactics.
Another Holocene Human
@Amir Khalid: Rooting for injuries.
Patricia Kayden
@danielx: Good to hear this. Go Eric!
Mnemosyne
@danielx:
Phew! If they gave him a pain patch (sort of like a nicotine patch, but with pain meds), he’ll actually be feeling pretty good for a few days until it falls off.
If they gave you liquid antibiotics, what worked for Natasha was for us to drizzle them over tuna. Of course, she would then wait until the concoction was warm and really stinky before she ate it, but apparently it tasted better that way.
Another Holocene Human
@Gin & Tonic: Motherfucker. I hope the judge slapped them down good.
Polar lost a bid to provide soft drinks to UMass Amherst. Their factory was in Central Mass, about 50 miles away, but they could only bid at cost and not below cost like the Big 2, who were eager to sell sodas at a loss to college students to develop brand loyalty.
Mass does a lot of money-only bid scoring and it has cost them in lots of different ways over the years. (Like when MBTA bought streetcars from Breda instead of Siemens or Kinki-Sharyo.)
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
BTW, the person who bought a sampler pack from your website last night to be sent to Illinois? That was me. :-) Just so you don’t get nervous about there being a billing address and a shipping address in two different states.
Hill Dweller
Good God. Now Charlie Pierce is jumping on the ‘Obama has to visit the border’ bandwagon.
Another Holocene Human
@Cervantes: Not sure I can blame Polar for suing Pepsi. That’s sounds like a typical “use it or lose it” trademark protection case. Polar does have (limited) nationwide distribution fwiw to supermarkets.
Look at what happened to RC/7-UP/Schweppes. The fountain game is an ugly one.
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
At least fans can be sure that Anno hates himself more than he hates them. I’m pretty sure that Shinji is Anno’s alter-ego, which should tell you all you need to know about him.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Hill Dweller:
Pierce makes some good points. Sometimes the job of presidentin’ is about appearances. This may be one of those times. Just because Republicans initiated the clamor for Obama to visit the border doesn’t mean that the idea should be automatically discarded. Stopped clock, blind squirrel.
raven
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: It’s fucking bullshit and you know it. It’s like these assholes landing in Kandhar for 20 minutes on a “fact finding” mission. “Charley ain’t around here, let’s go”.
Svensker
@Randy P:
You do know that William Penn was a Quaker?
Matt McIrvin
@SFAW: The alternate history I tend to imagine is that if the South successfully secedes, the Civil War ends up being concluded as the North American front of World War II; Hitler still loses, but it’s years later, after Stalin nukes Berlin and Tokyo and Richmond, and the Soviet bloc subsequently takes over much of the world.
Eventually, the global march of international Communism frees the slaves…
Matt McIrvin
(Of course, the birth of individual people is such a contingent thing that a world in which the Confederates win is probably a world with no Stalin or Hitler as we know them, and probably more things go far more differently than that.)
Hungry Joe
@NotMax: OOOooo! OOOooo! Can I play? My father was Swarthmore ’37.
Randy P
@Svensker: Um, yes. How is that related to the founding of Swarthmore College in the 1860s?
Hill Dweller
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Even looking at it from a strictly PR perspective, it’s stupid. Sadly, these kids are going to be sent back to their respective countries. Imagine Obama being photographed standing next to a kid who later gets sent back to his country, and is then murdered.
Obama going down there is neither helping the kids, the situation, nor himself.
Svensker
@Randy P:
Pennsylvania was full of Quakers. Even now there are quite a few. And Quakers were rich and liked education, so the founding of a Quaker university in the mid-1800s in Pennsylvania would not have much to do with anything external.
Bex
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Next headline on NoiseMax: Obama’s Cheap Political Stunt.
ThresherK
@Another Holocene Human: As someone married to a Worcesterite, and who drives up I-290 by the inflatable Polar polar bear every month, I can’t say I’ve ever thought of the Coca-Cola polar bears and Polar brand in the same sentence.
To add to my blind spot, I’ve read a couple books on trademark law and how so much of its early history has the words “Coca-Cola” on it.
Violet
@Hill Dweller: Speaking of which, Rick Perry is riding around on the Rio Grande river on some boat “looking at the border.”
Bob In Portland
Botsplainer
@Matt McIrvin:
In mine, the North quits and gives it up. The South, having started out as a fascist theocracy built on slavery, never has a good go of it and deteriorates into a barely governed, warlord led badlands, contending with countless slave uprisings until it endures a violent socialist revolution in the early 1900s, along with a slave led genocide of white planters in Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina. Some areas of the former Confederacy remain governable through the assistance of US troops, and eventually rejoin the union after 1930.
The following world is much more progressive.
Amir Khalid
@Violet:
With his glasses on, presumably, to help him think smart thoughts.
Karen in GA
@danielx: I’m a little late to this, but I hope Eric has a smooth recovery. Poor kitty!
Valdivia
Oh for f***’s sake what does going to the Border do for Obama or the situation? It’s the stupidity of the Village trying to liken everything to Katrina (this is his 20th one I think, I lost count) that is driving the drumbeat that he go there. Ugh.
Bobby Thomson
The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a 15-year-old girl without a gun.
Bobby Thomson
@Botsplainer: Consider the alternative reality in which the South joins the Axis Powers.
Not at all implausible.
ETA: should have read more – I see that’s the original point.
rikyrah
The Supreme Court’s Conservatives Are Abolishing Anti-Discrimination Laws
By: Rmusemore from Rmuse
Thursday, July, 10th, 2014, 11:22 am
Although America was founded on the brilliant, but false, premise that all citizens are equal, it has taken the course of the nation’s history, a Civil War, and several hard-fought civil rights battles for most Americans to realize a semblance of equality. Obviously, most Americans either could not comprehend, or adamantly opposed, the idea that social equality means every citizen has the same status and equal rights under the law, or that true equality requires the absence of legally enforced boundaries and government enforced discrimination; precisely what the 14th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees all Americans.
One would think most Americans support the 14th Amendment’s prohibition of unequal treatment under the law unflinchingly. Unfortunately, the religious right is intent on abolishing the concept of equality and rejects the idea that no American, or government entity, has the right to abridge any other Americans’ right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Now, they are using the Hobby Lobby decision to attempt to establish Christianity’s prohibition against gays as a government policy as a jumping off point in the rush to government by theocracy.
According to a noted constitutional lawyer, Edward Tabash, the High Court’s conservatives failed to reconcile the two religious clauses in the First Amendment and decided that by merely professing a religious objection, someone can establish their religion as law and over other Americans by constitutional fiat. Tabash explained the Establishment Clause as ensuring that believers and non-believers were equal before the law and that no branch of government can favor one religion over another religion, or no religion, and the free exercise clause ensured that because of someone’s religious views they can not suffer lesser rights. By butchering the Free Exercise clause, the Court gave Christians special constitutional rights over the law and other Americans that conflicted with the Establishment Clause. It is that new interpretation of the Establishment Clause that religious leaders are beginning to use to force the government to establish the Christian right’s objections against anti-discrimination laws such as the 14th Amendment’s as government policy. The conservative Court effectively gave fundamentalist Christians the right to establish their religion on the government and the people, and it is why an expanded consortium of faith leaders are demanding that President Obama use taxpayer funds to legally discriminate against gays in direct conflict with the 14th Amendment.
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/07/10/supreme-courts-conservatives-abolishing-anti-discrimination-laws.html
Cervantes
@Another Holocene Human:
Me, neither. Part of Polar’s complaint in that suit was that they did not want their name associated with high-fructose-corn-syrup dreck.
beth
@Violet: Well if someone doesn’t set the video of that to Lonely Island’s “I’m On A Boat” there is truly no god.
J R in WV
“Dizxy” D’Souza has slipped over the edge into complete disconnection from reality, as so many of the truly right wing Republicans finally do. I think it points to the problem with selling the “Big Lie” technique to forward your cause: eventually you start to believe your own lies, and then it becomes impossible to respond rationally to changes in actual reality.
This was an obvious part of WW II when the leaders of the Third Reich found it impossible to believe the stories from the western front as the Allied invastion penetrated past their “Iron Wall” around captive Europe!
If you don’t believe in reality, how can you possibly have policy positions that make any sense to people who are out there living in real life? The Republicans responded with “We create our own reality!” back in W’s term, but it didn’t make any sense then and Dizxy’s pitch now makes even less sense.
This is part of what gives me hope as we approach a truly important election!
Paul in KY
@Another Holocene Human: That POS also should have been executed. The Pogues have a very sad song sung about some Anzac who was basically murdered by the General Staff.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: Sounds like Commie Fan Fiction :-)
Paul in KY
@Botsplainer: Is Kentucky still in the Union in this scenario?
Randy P
@Svensker: So your theory was that the founding of the college was planned in 1682 and the intervening 180 years it was tied up in committee meetings as they worked out the details? Interesting. I know plenty of Quakers and a fair amount about their business process, so that’s plausible I guess. Not my first hypothesis though.
SFAW
@Paul in KY:
Well, of course – cats are not known for their aerodynamic/ballistic properties.
SFAW
@Matt McIrvin:
Talk about creating your own reality …
Gene108
@Bobby Thomson:
I do not know if the South would have lasted long as a country. The whole reason for secession was that they could not expand slavery across the continental United Stated.
With that goal as the reason for your existence the odds the South would not have picked another fight is unlikely and at some point prior to either World War the North would have had enough and obliterated them.
In the Civil War the North still viewed the South as countrymen. Give a generation of time for the idea of separate nations and peoples to set in and the South’s need to expand slavery the North would not be as restraied when they went to war again in the 1880′ or 1890’s.
SFAW
@Gene108:
Still did, until a few years ago (I think).
The South, on the other hand, appears not to have felt that way, from the start of the War of Northern Aggression, up to present day.
Mnemosyne
@Gene108:
IIRC, part of the post-war plan by the South was to expand out and annex parts of Mexico, Central America, and/or some of the Caribbean islands that still had slaves. It was pretty delusional, but that was the plan.
Apparently Napoleon III of France was hoping to intervene on the side of the South in the American Civil War and had Maximilian I declared Emperor of Mexico as part of that plan. It didn’t exactly work out.
Cain
Us, Wheel of Time folks know all about this shit. That’s why we’re not reading that series when the author can kick out at any time.