Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
This post is in: Open Threads
It is now official. I have entirely too many blogs bookmarked in my browser. So many that it takes me an hour or so to get through them all. What I need now is:
A psychologist to come up with a name for my new disorder
-and-
A webring for self-help groups to get over blog addiction.
Which reminds me of George Carlin, who recently commented that self-help books just aren’t self-help. They are help.
This post is in: Open Threads
Once more just because it was so good the first time around. This is the first editorial I can ever remember my father liking so much he pointed it out to me. Leonard Pitts on September 12th.
Much thanks to our friend on the left, Ted Barlow, for pointing that out again, who saw it again on the Kaus Files.
This post is in: Open Threads
Sgt. Stryker points out the fear-mongering of our ‘International Aid Agencies.’ Can’t we find some decent, honorable do-gooders?
Can’t seem to get the links function to work on his new site, so scroll through and you should be able to find it. Right now it is the first post you will run into.
This post is in: Open Threads
Doh!. Found another site I thought had perma-linked weeks ago. I present Eve Kayden at Quare. She is also soliciting advice on a new slogan.
I suggest: Dysfunction Junction
Not because of her writing, but becaue of Quare.
This post is in: Open Threads
Matt Welch discusses the soon-to-be protesters in NYC who will be hyperventilating about world trade, globilization, and a bunch of other things, all the while throwing bricks through business windows and providing the NYC police force with new and unusual reasons to beat them during the upcoming meeting of the World Economic Forum. Mr. Welch got an email from a friend in NYC (and I am reprinting without permission, but unlike many large weekly business magazines, I am crediting him) that stated:
So the anti-everything protesters are set to play in the Big Apple tomorrow as Bono and other world and business leaders meet at the Waldorf. I am sure you will end up blogging something about the events, especially if there is any sort of riot. So, since you cannot be here to enjoy all the fun, let me tell you the general opinion and feeling from most tired, stressed, battered, grieving New Yorkers I have spoken with: We don’t want protesters. The bigwigs paying 25 grand a pop to gather here are more than welcome. We need their money. But the over-fed, white-boy, black-wearing trouble makers protesting instead of working, well, they can stay home. We have been through more than enough during the last four months. I have heard predictions that average New Yorkers will beat the shit out of the protesters if the boyz in black even get the slightest bit out of line. Never mind how the NYPD is feeling. Baton Rogue!
I also saw on Lucianne’s site this quote of the day (which I saw mentioned again on the Corner):
“So trust me on this one. If you skinny little whitebread college kids, with your “coalitions” for this and your “actions” against that, think you’re going to come into our town and mess things up again just for kicks-right when we were getting it cleaned up, too!-I think you’re going to be in for a rude awakening. We’re feeling a little cranky, and are in no mood for your shenanigans right now. ”
-Jim Knipfel, New York Press on the planned demonstrations for midtown New York during the World Economic Forum meeting this week.
Matthew Yglesias also has some observations about the WEF protestors:
But these characters didn’t start their movement when Dubya took office, they’ve been going at it since Bill Clinton was President. Bill Clinton, as you may recall, was a Democrat and they were protesting against him, too.
This reminds me of my pet peeve of associating regular liberal folks like myself with the anti-war scum, or at least placing us in some special category of unusual liberals who support the war. Liberals have been wholehearted in their support of this war (see, e.g., Ted Kennedy and Paul Wellstone).
A distinction should be drawn between what might be called the “liberal” and “radical” wings of the left much as we all recognize a divide between libertarians and conservatives.
Charles, Leader of the Anti-Idiotarian Revolution at Little Green Footballs and candidate for Political Blog of the Year notes this comment from Jeff Jarvis:
Watch out, bozos
: If the anti-world-trade bozos coming to New York cause me the slightest inconvenience or fear as I head into the city, I swear, I will bite their noses off and spray them with mace and spit on them and find any way I can to humiliate the little twerps. The last thing New York needs is trouble and we will not tolerate it.
This post by Charles elicited several comments, one of which was:
While I am strongly against world trade, I am just as strongly against people voicing their opinions through violence and bullying.
Perry, chief anti-idiotarian at the Libertarian Samizdata was then compelled to reply to the previous reader comments on LGF, and as usual his commentary is far more high-brow than yours truly:
Over on Little Green Footballs (also see link under ‘posh blogs’ section in sidebar), there is a lengthy series of entries in the comments section under an article about globalization and the people who are heading to New York to protest against it. Someone called Michele stated that she was “strongly against world trade”. This astonishing remark was something that had to be answered and so I will repeat my remarks here:
To be “strongly against world trade” is to be in favour of poverty and against free association. It is to favour force over choice. It is to favour death and famine in the third world. Anyone who actually wants for the peoples of South America, Africa and Asia to prosper should be demanding not an end to world trade but the removal of all barriers to entry to the US and EU markets. At a stroke that would result in cheaper products for common working western people as cheaper African, South American and Asian goods become available. Immediately the economies of third world nations would improve as they could sell their products without immoral grotesque discriminatory tariff barriers.
Also, as a laissez-faire capitalist libertarian, I am strongly opposed to the World Bank, the WTO and the IMF… these are institutions that support crony capitalism and big-government. They subsidise neo-national socialist stupidity like that in Argentina and despotic kleptocratic regimes across the globe.
I am in favour of true free association and therefore laissez-faire and true globalization. I reject collectivism in all its coercive left and right wing forms and the violence and poverty they always lead to. Individualism and laissez-faire capitalism without borders is the only moral option and the only option that can actually work at all in the long run.
About a month or so ago I saw the call to arms for these knuckleheads on the Workers World site and I had this to say (and I don’t even live in NY):
As if New Yorkers have already not suffered enough in the last few months, the Workers World reports that every anti-WTO nitwit, green party activist, socialist, anti-free-marketer, Earth First! tree-hugger, and every pachouli wearing privileged child of West Coast white trash who owns a copy of the Communist Manifesto – generally, every wart on society’s arse imaginable- will descend on New York to protest things they do not, can not, and will not understand on February 2nd when the World Economic Forum meets at the ‘luxurious Waldorf-Astoria hotel.’
The only upside to this protest is that the sky-rocketing sales of tofu, rolling papers, Guiness, and Native American brand cigarettes might produce a slight bump in the economy, but this will be probably be offset by the money spent on overtime on the police, who will no doubt be needed to beat the rabble sensless (more so, if possible) before they ship them back to their deluded enclaves in Berkely, CA, Seattle, WA, and DNC headquarters.
No doubt freeing Mumia and leniency for the Marin County Mullah will be at the top of the agenda.
After watching the comments on the web and in blogworld, I think I may have underestimated the anger that will be vented on these anarchist buffoons. This will be entertaining, and I really hope that either P.J. O’Rourke or Mark Steyn will be on hand to document the entire affair.
***** UPDATE *****
Damian Penny also has some comments, and a link to a Rod Dreher article I either missed or which came out after I initially wrote this blurb. In Damian’s words:
Opponents of globalization have a right to peacefully protest, but they also have a responsibility to curb the lunatic fringe in their midst. (Similarly, the state has a right to protect people and property from “activist” thugs, but also an obligation to ensure police officers don’t abuse their authority). I know if I lived in New York, having gone through the horror of 9/11, and found myself confronted by a bunch of boutique Marxists ransacking everything in sight, well…lets just say they’d finally be able to identify with the downtrodden proletariat, because this bourgeois oppressor would do some serious damage.
**** UPDATE #2 ****
The Profound Samurai weighs in:
BTW – Protestor/activist people need to beware. We are not Seattle. We don’t hide from the constant rain and sit in coffee shops telling each other how cool we are and wear flannel as part of a suit. And we don’t let people from the outside fuck with our city. It really pisses us off, especially now.
And in case you are still thinking about it, have you ever gotten a New York style beating? It involves concrete, egalitarian whoop ass (everybody from the bum to the billionaire jumps in), and a quick soak in the East River.
Come to think of it, things have been stressful. Start something, so that we can release the aggression upon you.
This testosterone is heady stuff, indeed.
**** UPDATE #3 ****
Tim Blair weighs in. Good Stuff.
This post is in: Open Threads
New link added for the vodkapundit. Very dry, and up, please. And, no, you can’t have my olives. Get your own.
This post is in: Open Threads
Daily Pundit has a new link, and when I went to switch it on my template I noticed I had never added Mr. Quick. That was a atragic oversight, and I apologize to you readers, because you have been missing out. The link should work now, and for those of you who just want the url, here it is:
http://www.iw3p.com/DailyPundit/dailypundit.htm
I wonder how many other worthy blogs I have omitted while thinking I have them linked?