_Apologia pro Methodo Suo_

Dear Dr. Bones,

Paddy and Eye take for granted that when the LLBU, "little lady from the Big University," drooled memorably

of Intellectual Bottom not long ago, why, Her Beatitude must have meant at least a little bit more than the following type of shameless cheapjackery:

[new] I’ve actually never had a problem with calling SS and Medicare ‘entitlements’. Specifically, if I pay into something it seems I am in fact entitled to receive from it as well. More generally, as a citizen of the richest nation on the planet, yes, darn it, I AM entitled to a share of that wealth! christopher @ Sat 11 Aug 3:39 PM Reply

(( Reply?  Don't mind if Eye does! ))

"As for the insane doctrine ... (( fold here )) ... that being born in a country gives some right to the possession of the soil of that country, it hardly requires notice. Happy days.

It just occurred to me that here Eye is, about to yimmer-yammer of "intellectual foundation" on the basis (sic -- ¡hah!) of a gloss on an original text--one composed by our esteemed e-cquaintance, the Patron of Public Transport, as it happens--of which there is no sign at all, apart from the customer being bound to come across it if she follows up all the hyperlinks scrupulously. As naturally she will not.

Ah, well, like the one-eyed Rev. Farragut signaled at the Bay of Worms: "Here I stand. ¡Damn the torpedoes!"

’Ammâ ba‘da, "but seriously" . . . .

The ability to think of a reasonably presentable membrum disjectum like St. George of Orwell picking on the late Mr. Saintsbury when some, er, villainous, Blue Blazer casually whacks one’s mental knee with a little hammer like "I AM entitled to a share" is really pretty trashy, ¿is it not? One’s mind is so full of a number of things, that I am sure some sort of comeback will bubble to the surface of the stream of discourse in all but the rarest occasions.

(( Relish, sir, the notion that shares of Ponzi Security and LyndonCare™ are not only insanely demanded, they are insanely demanded AT, BY, and FOR Somerville, Massachusetts: "¿After that, who is safe?" ))

As often happens, I fear, this rapid McSponse is not as congruent with the Challenge that evoked it as the ideal wisher would wish ideally. His freelordship of Saintsbury was indeed what his juvenile delinquent assailant called "born too early," in the sense that his open skunkery referred to "the possession of the soil" in a landlordly way that was already obsolescent, at least, on the Airstrip One of 1937, and so extinct as to be quaint in the Somerville of 2012.    Give Comrade Tom a share of that sort, and Eye betsya he would try to exchange dirt for EBT in a flash, probably without even looking into the frackin’ potential of the rock under the dirt. ¡Tusk, tusk!

(( Also fun would be to imagine Comrade Tom expostulating with the Lottery Commissariat that, after all, he "paid into" that official Certificate of Specuvetment he is brandishing, the document unelected bureaucrats were pleased to stigmatize as "a losing ticket." ))

(( To be continued.  Maybe.  ))

Happy days.
--JHM

Fratboy Furioso a Vision of the Future?

Dear Dr. Bones,

I doubt I shall pester the Blue Blazers with this latest bit of McFlummery at a moment when all are bound to be lost in rapt adoration of the Smirk of Janesville [*].  But we shall see.

Digging in, doubling down: Brown's (panic) attacks: charley-on-the-mta | Fri, Aug 10, 2012 1:40 PM EST Oh Lordy. “Scott Brown demands Elizabeth Warren reimburse taxpayers for vote registration mailings – Political Intelligence” (( ¡SNIP! )) Recommended by somervilletom.

Once the USA has become just a tad more like Outer Fehrnstromia, (( fold here )) would it not make sense for the winners of elections to require ex-officeholders and their deluded rabble to pay back from their own pockets for every penny the Wicked State was seduced into spending on loserly policies? If you really want a Social Ponzi Administration, say, or a Department of War, or a whatever, should not YOU be the one to fund these supposed goodies? Especially now that you know for sure from the election results that The People, sole proprietors of all the Seats, do not agree with your depraved personal tastes? Happy days. (( One might also look to the past, as indeed Citizen Fehrnstrom specializes in causin’ Mittius Coriolanus Pompo to do--"¡Here is your chance to meet America's Comeback Team!" (( Poor C. Julius Caesar had to start that big civil war simply because it was the received thing to prosecute one's political enemies into oblivion as soon as they were unprotected by lictors and fasces. The Romans never seem to have thought of this nifty plan as a fiscal mechanism, but come along, ¿Surely after twenty-one centuries a few minor improvements are perfectly in order? )) Happy days.

[*]

Curses, Unmasked Again!

Dear Dr. Bones,

¡Fly at once, sir: all is discovered!

hm75 | +75 | -15 Lady Cherokee appears now to be very sneaky. So much for "transparancy"(sic).  Oh no that's for "other" people, like the police, the church, the fire department, you know, the people who read the "Herald". Not the "gifted and talented" [*] elite royal family of elected officials, which Lady Cherokee wants to be a part of so bad.   Many of us are ON TO THESE FRAUDS, and that will be demonstrated in November.

" ... 'other' people, like the police, the church, the fire department, you know, the people who read the [_Fehrnstrom Fishwrap_]" (( fold here )) Well, yes, Paddy McTammany does indeed know, or at least Eye thinks I do. One small part of the General Theory of Louisedayhicksville is nicely confirmed: Paddy and Eye agree that it is by no means an accident that Icky School did not make this list. At the _Fishwrap_ level this cannot be a POINTED omission, such a subtlety as that would be most improbable at any time. In conjunction here with the express purpose of blackwashin' Citizen Professor Warren, notoriously a practitioner of Tertiary Educationalism, 'tis quite impossible. Had the Party neocomrade(ss) thought of it that way consciously, (s)he would have piled on with a dump truck. No, Icky School must have been left out of the enumeration of lace-curtain suburban respectabiggles because the Mind of LDHV simply does not think of Icky School very highly. (( One might or might not add "any more" to that, but to discuss the decision would digress us deep into the realm of Their Ford's proscribed historybunk, so let us pass it by on the other side of double parentheses. )) 'Hicksvillains need (1) cops to protect what Lord Mammon has blessed them with, and (2) Rev. clergy to keep up the ever-thinnin' pretense that they do not serve Mammon alone, and (3) firepersons for cop-like reasons. Probably they do need Icky School at least a little, as a sort of glorified day care for the brat pack. Back when LDHV could still be taken as a geographical expression, the name of a tribal reservation one could point to on the map -- try 42.335445 North, 71.045655 West -- granma could handle the kiddiecare. But poor granma is in a Home nowadays, and BTW, aren't we lucky that radio shyster got Medicaid to pay for it? ¡What a dumb chump Big Sam can be at times! Given a properly 'crafted' multiple-choice question, I daresay Party neocomrade(ss) HM75 would admit School as one of the amenities that characterize the ever-immortal Whight Civilisation of the Western Race. The trouble is, the same applies to supermarkets, and cell 'phones, and . . . and a long litany of bush-league bennies that would undoubtedly be missed if they disappeared, but do not merit much postive eulogy as long as they show no sign of imminent departure. Moreover, what is important and what is respectabiggle diverge as much at Louisdayhicksville as anywhere else. Crimefighters and sky pilots and firepersons are conventionally fit to be mentioned in mixed country. Even when everybooby present cares much more about real estate and murder vehicles and pro kiddiegames and what's tootin' on the MacL@@han T@@ba, it would be not very couth to admit as much out loud. (( Squawk radio is popular largely because it more or less waives these old-fashioned rules. Presumably 'Hicksvillains think they are invisible and untraceable when callin' in to Massa Howie from the air-conditioned sanctity of a murder vehicle. Not to mention that that is how they drive the damn thing. ))

[*]  I assume the Party neocomrade(ss) is not actually quotin' anybooby here, only as it were puttin' in stage directions.   In case Massa Howie or Dr. Limbaugh decide to read her/his/its copy on the air, they will know that here they are to deploy their Beautiful People Voice™, which refutes without any waste of time spent arguin’.

"Massa Jeff, he dead"

Dear Dr. Bones,

The ostrich attitudes of the unjõ-bito, "gentlemen who dwell above the clouds on the upper slopes of the Great Blue Hill, hard by the Palace of Public T@@Bavision" -- also sometimes known as "The Little Friends of Senator Coakley" -- deserve further analysis and reprehension. But the following will do for a start and furnishes URL's to tether idols to when we have further dealings with the prose-challenged.

Rush is back david | Mon, Aug 6, 2012 6:10 PM EST Well, this is disappointing. Via email: (( ... snip lovenote from Entercom Communications Corporation [*] ... )) If that's so, why would it be a “no-brainer” to bring Rush, who has repeatedly demonstrated at best “racial intolerance,” to your station? Never mind – I'm not sure I really want the answer. (Note: go read the quotes at the link. They are amazing. Perhaps someone should advise Mr. Wolfe that they exist, since he apparently doesn't know.) Recommend 0 Discuss 8 Comments [1 new] . Leave a comment below.

Forget 'disappointing', it was positively AWFUL (( fold here )) to get up this morning and tune into Goneril 1200 -- up to now, my personal favorite among the Three Weird Sisters -- only to get some pair of bipartisan bozoes going about Easter Island (?!) instead of Jefferson Davis Katz interviewin' the twenty-third most important Republicanine operative in all of New Hampshire. Or maybe the second shapeliest frathouse babe over to The Boston Herald  Or . . . . "O woeful day, o day of woe," said he, "And woe is me who lived this day to see." Regan 680 must still be functionin' normally, however, when one can tune in for three seconds and hit the blessed reassurance of "... third or fourth generation leachin' off the government..." So ¿possibly there is hope? Happy days.

[*] It is a little remarkable, Dr. Bones, to find this particular recipient on a whight-wing mailin' list.

Fortunately it is plain from the rest of the bluenose commentary that the nobility and gentry do not pay attention to Tee Putty doin's unless they are written up VERY LARGE in The Fehrnstrom Fishwrap.

And not necessarily even then.

Happy days.
--JHM

None so blind as

Dear Dr. Bones,

From this truly wretched performance from the Intelligence Arm, Paddy and Eye get the impression that the nobility and gentry condescend to notice the doin's of the ever-victorious Tee Putty only when written up LARGE  in The Fehrnstrom Fishwrap. 

Rush is back david | Mon, Aug 6, 2012 6:10 PM EST Well, this is disappointing.   (( &c. &c. ... ¡SNIP! ))

FWIW Rush is a blowhard. Olberman is a blowhard (I know…he’s not on radio). Severin was an egomaniac blowhard. I’ll take Michael Smerconish, if you haven’t heard him, WTKK afternoons. lodger @ Tue 7 Aug 10:36 AM

Some of the Little Friends of Senator Coakley (( fold here )) need to be informed, it looks like, (A) that Dr. Limbaugh has been available without interruption, and (B) that the Bestembrightest One has been back on the air for months. Happy days.

How, and where, the bluer half live to be unaware of such elementary political order of battle, . . . .

Well, no, it's not as if we don't know where to find ostrichlike Blue Blazers:

Meanwhile, back at the Fishwrap,

Boston’s conservative talk radio underwent a major shakeup yesterday as Rush Limbaugh announced he is leaving WXKS-AM and heading back to WRKO, and “Talk 1200” yanked local talkmeisters Jay Severin and Jeff Katz from its weekday lineup. A spokesman for the Clear Channel-owned Talk 1200 (WXKS-AM) wouldn’t confirm Severin and Katz’s ousters out of “respect” but their names have disappeared from the talk station’s website. (...) Katz was tapped to helm the station’s morning-drive slot a month later. Severin took over afternoon-drive in August 2011 — four months after WTKK-FM (96.9) fired him for boasting on the airwaves that he had sex with nearly every woman he had hired when he ran his own company years ago. (...) Over at WRKO yesterday, Limbaugh told listeners on host Howie Carr’s radio show that he was “ecstatic” to be coming back to the station. His show returns Aug. 21 from noon to 3 p.m. The station also said Michele McPhee would move to morning-drive to host with Todd Feinburg.

Happy days.
--JHM

DevalCare™ Conclusively Shown to Be of Scant Electoral Importance

Dear Dr. Bones,

Critics: Health-care cost bill ‘rushed through’ Legislature By Chris Cassidy | Monday, August 6, 2012 .... The landmark health care cost-containment bill Gov. Deval Patrick is due to sign today — intended to save billions of dollars — was rushed through the Legislature and could actually end up costing taxpayers, critics told the _Herald_. The final version of the 300-plus page health care cost-containment bill came out the night before the vote in the House, leaving lawmakers mere hours to sink their teeth into the rambling document, opponents said. (( &c. &c. ... yimmer ... yammer ... yada ... ¡SNIP! ))

Ad quem responduissem Patricius McTammany:

Now if EYE were among the Fearless Funders of Freedumb, LLC, I believe I would have a word with the Freiherr Geheimrat von Fehrnstrom about exactly what _The Boston Herald_ is good for, agitpropwise. And, more to the immediate peanut-gallery point, about what it is NOT so good for, a category to which the present performance clearly belongs. IOAO, (( fold here )) "in our arrogant opinion," that is, at any rate. Though indispensable in its proper place, the Herald should be firmly kept therein an’ be slapped down as soon as it gets uppity.  Fruits of the Jay School an’ frathouse babes do their Movement little good when they start gettin’ self-toplofty ideas about behavin’ like the Wall Street Jingoe  Or even like the Daily Torygraph back home in Anglosaxonstan the Blessed. The fruits and babes are not themselves blameworthy, I guess, however. Almost certainly it was bicycle-challenged Jay School perfessers at Wombschool Normal University (or St. Dilbert Antistate College, or Wingsdale, or George Masondine, or whatever seminary of Redarkenment) who replaced part of the mush native to the kiddies’ dittopans with the impractical notion that just bein’ "journalists" means they can burble along plausibly about absolutely anythin’. ’Look here, O Fearless Funders," Eye can imagine myself expostulating with the Betters of us all, "At how Freelord Fehrnstrom’s old fratbuddies burble about "[t]he landmark health care cost-containment bill Gov. Deval Patrick is due to sign today." Can your firstlordships really think--or even just sincerely but mistakenly claim--that you are gettin’ your fundin’s-worth? "Considering that the Jobs Plague is more or less under control, for the moment at least, to worry that the B.H. fruits an’ the B. H. babes will go on strike, or resign en Mass., should their Walter Mittens delusions of Walter Lippmannship not be accommodated is ludicrous. ¡Easily replacable are they! Perhaps your firstlordships might let a few of ’em go regardless of their behavior, simply pour encourager les autres. Among other things, that plan ought to save your freelordships’ managerial hired hands a bundle on ... ¡of all things! ... the health-insurance benefits blackmail. Quite without regard to anything the General Court may be vilely scheming. "If that seems a little harsh, at least your firstlordships should have the hirelin’s prepare a clearly demarcated sandbox for their babes an’ their fruits to play Walter Lippmann in. Saturday-morning unsigned editorials would be ideal, it seems to Paddy McTammany, plus any other zone of traditional fishwrappery that one can safely count on nobooby of any importance ever actually attending to. A Party Neocomrade (fifth grade) Ch. X. Cassidy could burble away there harmlessly enough. No real-world good would come of it, of course, yet as long as we are talking about a TRADITIONAL sort of fifth wheel, the fratkiddies could flatter themselves they are bein’ pandered to an’ so maybe resent it a little less when required, as they certainly oughtabe, to keep their little noses in firm contact with Geheimrat von Fehrnstrom’s grindstone the rest of the time." As for the Freelord Privy Councilor himself, sentimental attachment to the old ’journalistic’ ’hood is admirable only on condition that it never interfere with gettin’ today’s agitation-propaganda job done today. And (it seems to Paddy that) there is some real interference here, because every corporation-paid minute that a PNC-5 ChXC wastes on "landmark health care cost-containment," is a moment that might have been devoted to denigratin’ the Law Squaw a little more throroughly still in the eyes of Louisedayhicksville. One would have to be asleep not to notice that Freelord Fehrnstrom thinks the chances of his Master carryin’ Massachusetts in the fall are zeroe.  00.00% at best. Whereas the re-election of Fedguv Senator S. Philip Fratboy, his freelordship’s Number Two Charlie McCarthy, is at once (A) achievable and (B) no sure thing. Naturally an ignorant lay sheep like Paddy McTammany must hesitate a little before offering suggestions for improvement to the Willi Munzenberg of our time. ¡Eye knows, Dr. Bones, I know! Yet sometimes, after all, things really are just as things appear to even the meanest intelligence. Like "2 + 2 == 4," and "The sun rises in the east," and "It will not help Fratboy one bit to keep on warmin’ The People’s Seat (Pat. Pend) that he should ostentatiously run agains DevalCare™." That much of a bleat seems perfectly safe. A little less so, but only a little, is to point out that the less media attention DevalCare™ (which used to have a different monnicker that slips my mind at the moment) attracts, the better for Mittius Coriolanus Pompo, Demander of Apologies, Master of (Eric an’) Seamus, Baincapper Extraordinaire, (&c. &c.) on the national stage as well as for Fratboy up here in the zeusforsaken boondocks of Lovecraft Country. Happy days.

The NMMNG Watch

Dear Dr. Bones,


We must not allow ourselves to be terrorized by

((  特別高等警察 ))

Louisedayhicksville’s Finest, sir. In that spirit,

No more Mittster nice guy! It’s time to fight back against Dirty Harry By Howie Carr | Sunday, August 5, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists Don’t you wish Mitt Romney would take off the gloves? (( ... yimmer ... yammer ... ¡SNIP! ))

Ad quem respondisset Patricius McTammany

Ah, but what would it be like if Mittius Coriolanus Pompo, Demander of Apologies, Master of Seamus, Fine Fruit of H*rv*d (two counts), Heatthrob of the Ever-Victorious Tee Putty, (&c. &c. &c.) were actually to take strategic advice from Massa Howie? Nothing is less likely to happen, the "My foot, my tutor?" side of this sideshow is overwhelmin’ -- still, what if it DID? Assume, then, that our homes-off [*] former Governor has worked out--had the Freiherr Geheimrat von Fehrnstrom explain to him-- what all the boondocksy trivia is about--"James Curley WHO?" The History Master did not teach Us that name at Cranbrook!" -- what then? (( Probably we’ll stop here so as not to provoke the LDHV Denkpolizei too much. )) Actually you don’t need to assume anythin’, you just need to try to find what "the most expensive murder vehicle on YOUR lot" recommends. Recommends specifically, I mean, recommends that is somethin’ more concrete an’ retaliative than ’Mittens’ just bein’ as NOTNICE as possible anywhichway an opportunity comes down the pike next. Absent, of course, is any hint that Pompo the Magnificent might conceivably condescend to let us plebes and proles have a look at the freeelordly 1040’s. That, Paddy McTammany presumes, would be, in the eyes of Howard Louis (?) Lawrence (??) Carr [**], for the firstlord his master to surrender to Dingy Harry unconditionally. ¡Unthinkable! To be sure, Massa Howie has no more idea of Coriolanus Pompo’s financial situation than anybooby else does whom one might pick at random on the notnice streets of Louisedayhicksville. Considering that HLLC is, as ever, addressin’ the lowest category of freelance Class warriors, not trained troops but a rabble in alarms, ’tis sensible enough that the Kiddiemaster should decide not to confuse his dupes’ and marks’ cute little whight-haired dittopans with any suggestion that Pompo might in fact have somethin’ to hide. That H.E. is hidin’ all that the Senate Majority Leader alleges is improbable. But for the moment at least, the good guys are clearly ahead, as follows: (it sure looks as if) Pompo would do Themselves some sort of unacceptable damage by comin’ transparent, even though Their Highness were in the process to refute Mr. Reid’s well-swiftboated insinuation of not havin’ had even a single penny robbed from Themselves by the evil Fedguv for many, many moons. Sixscore moons, I guess it woud be. Betcha Massa Howie realizes this as clearly as Paddy does myself, and, realizin’, runs all over the Carr lot wavin’ his freelordly arms and bellowin’ random irrelevant baloney [***] to distract the kiddie selfservatives from the real meat and potatoes of the existing correlation of farces. But Hearst knows best. Happy days. ____ [*] For those at Rio Limbaugh: this little attempted McFunny is not about His Excellency’s unmatched record of downshorin’ and offsourcin’ othervolks’ secret-sector business corporations, but only about where H. E. literally dwells. Somewhere out west of Worcester that the yocals call "EVANSVILLE, Ind.," Pompo Themselves orated just yesterday, "“Well, I was raised in Michigan, but I’m really a Massachusetts guy now ... But you know what? I’m an American that loves this country.” WWNN. M. Coriolanus Pompo is echter Heimatlandliebhaber ... unlike Guess Who, exactly? W2N2. Though far from unnice enough to satisfy Massa Howie, that self-exuberance does suggest that at least Pompo is tryin’ to get nastier. [**] Though I know it is hopeless to go on about it with Stonewall Larry (or Louie, as the case may be), yet Paddy Mc.T still wants to see that birth certificate. [***] Though the proverbial "flowers that bloom in the spring" never show up, they are adequately replaced by the Mumbles that Blooms in the Silly Season.

Our New Refrain

Entrepreneurs did ‘build that’ By: Sen. Scott Brown August 1, 2012 09:25 PM EDT (( "Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) serves on the Small Business Committee and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He is running for reelection in (sic) the Senate against Democrat Elizabeth Warren." )) ‘You didn’t build that” is the new refrain of the extreme left. The good news is that they are finally revealing how they feel about free enterprise. The bad news, if you run any kind of business, is that they’re talking about you — and it’s their way of saying that government is entitled to more of what you built. This anti-free enterprise attitude, epitomized by Elizabeth Warren, the liberal Harvard professor who has made it the calling card of her Senate campaign against me, is that every achievement in life is a collective effort. If you started a business and it has any success, “you didn’t build that” — government gets the credit, too. Small-business owners might remember it a little differently, given that most of them worked long hours, risked their savings, took on personal debt and gave up their weekends and vacations to become successful. Warren is particularly worked up over this theme. She’s given to rebuking any business owner who dares to believe that he or she made it on their own. Who succeeds on their own? “Nobody,” Warren says, in an angry tone. After all, she says, every business owner benefits from government investment in the schools, roads and police and fire protection that “the rest of us paid for.” It’s a phony argument, every way you look at it. For one thing, business owners obviously pay for those services, too. So where does anyone get off dismissing business owners as a bunch of freeloaders — as if only “the rest of us” pay the taxes that support public services? The real problem with the whole “you didn’t build that” crowd goes even deeper, however. It goes straight to the heart of our free-enterprise system and to the character of the men and women who make it work. Across Massachusetts are hundreds of thousands of businesses — from the big firms that employ many people, to the corner stores, dry cleaners, restaurants and hair salons that employ just a few. Sometimes they’re such fixtures in the neighborhood that it can be easy to forget how much work went into each business. They all began as a risk that somebody took, a dream somebody pursued — usually with a lot of cost, worry and aggravation along the way. I meet a lot of small-business owners, and I admire them for a lot of reasons. They’re optimistic and full of energy. They throw everything they have into building something or making it better. They’re independent, proud of making their own way and willing to accept all the difficulties that go with that — the kind of worries that can’t be forgotten at closing time. In hard times, more than a few have sacrificed their own paychecks to make sure their workers get theirs. You know what else I’ve found? These business owners tend to be pretty grateful, too. They’re not the sort to take things for granted. They appreciate their customers. They remember the people who gave them a break or bit of encouragement along the way. They’re glad to have had a chance in life, and they love to provide a chance to someone else. These entrepreneurs understand — better than any politician — where small businesses fit in the community, and how, in a free society, we all depend on one another. If they say they built it by themselves, or made it on their own, they’re only saying that no one worked seven days a week in their place, no one showed up in their place to open the door at 5 a.m. or no one did their planning, working and sweating for them. Is it too much to give them that? Only the most rigid ideologue would come along and insist that these men and women — the ones who do most of the hiring in America — have failed in some duty to their communities or to their country. America’s entrepreneurs have built great things on their own. If only leftists like Warren and all Occupy protesters weren’t so wrapped up in taxing and regulating them without end or in denigrating their achievements, these men and women would do even greater things and hire even more workers. And in this slowest economic recovery since the Great Depression, that would sure be a big break for “the rest of us.”

Though far from clever enough to be cynical himself,

(( fold here ))

Senator Fratboy has nothing to say here that a pluperfect cynic would be bound to avoid.

With Citizen Fehrnstrom, or whichever authentic G.O.P. Genius it was who put it into the laddie’s mouth, I admit I am not so sure that subjective sincerity must be presumed, yet chances are that even the original concoctor managed to talk herself into thinkin' she really believes every word of this tasty slice of the pious Party baloney du jour.

For consider the alternative: Party Neocomrade Mephistopheles, so to label the nameless (and probably existenceless) cynic, would have to recognize as clearly as we decent grown-ups do that "they are finally revealing how they feel about free enterprise" is two-hundred proof burblin' b*llsh*t. First see clearly, and then lie boldly -- that what cynicism is.

Never has the Absolute Freedumb of Trade had fewer serious enemies than it does at present. Admittedly the big die-off happened two decades ago, when the Lenin-Gorbachev Racket (®) expired, leaving behind only the smallest of unfreedom fries scattered on the beach at places like Havana and Pyongyang. If Grover Freelord of Norquist, or Massa Tom Donohue of the CCUSA, or any other really top-notch TopPercenter, have lost as much as twenty seconds’ sleep in twenty years over how Dr. Castro and that gang ‘feel’ about ’em, why, the Titans of Selfservatism are ten times freedumber than they look. (Though unlikely, this is not perhaps entirely impossible.)

If Citizen Professor Warren be the most formidable turnip ghost of an "extreme left" their freelordships can fadge up to be self-terrorized of, they all ought to be dancin' in the suites. The late Mr. Mencken had that number exactly when he spoke of "a conspiracy of kittens to overturn the Washington Monument." If one does them the dubious compliment of taking whight-wing agitprop perfectly seriously, the only feature possibly more strikin' about the Kiddie Selfservative Movement than how courage-challenged they are, is how prudence-challenged. The two go together, of course: it takes some pretty fringe notions about kittens to be as scared of them as their freelordships are or pretend to be.

As I suggested, there is probably not much pretendin’ about it. Freelord Grover, an' Massa Donohue, an' all the Fearless (¡hah!) Funders of Freedumb, who cause 'Fingers' Fehrnstrom to cause S. Philip Fratboy to make the silly noises he makes, really *are* terrorized of kittens. Or so I diagnose.

The most important thing about this weird bain disease. it seems to me, is that it has developed only recently. Had the Classmates’ judgment an’ intrepidity been what they are now back when they had Bolshies to worry about as well as H*rv*rds, they would have succumbed to Fear Itself long since. It appears, though, that in TopPercenter circles timidity and misjudgment are subject to something like Parkinson's Law: self-terrorization expands to make up in subjective intensity what it loses in justification.

Wherefore the Blue Blazers are sensible enough to sloganize as they do about being "reality-based" commentators by comparison with the Whight Guard Officers Mess. Smart enough to know a kitten when they see one, anyway, and brave enough not to go hide under their potatoe couch whimperin’ the rest of the day.

The Vampire State

Dear Dr. Bones,


It is always at least a small pleasure to find that our coarse and illiterate province has been taken notice of by the Great World.

Representin' the GW this morning, is that distinguished Freelord an’ Kiddiemaster in the neopeerage of Foxcuckooland who signs his checks an' other scribbles as "Walter Russell Meade." Not to be confused with James Russell Lowell is he, though perhaps his freelordship would not mind an occasional slip-up too much.

Unfortunately, WRM is not really interested in our MA except as portendin' Doom for Uncle Sam. His freelordship labels this (non-check) scribble "Health Care in MA Is Bad Omen for Obamacare."

Pausing to savor the kiddiemagisterial headline, Paddy and Eye agreed that a really alarming piece might be composed to accompany it, one, that is, that would make Massachusetts out (not an Empire State, but) "The Vampire State," healthy enough ourselves indeed, but healthy only by sucking the blood and pelf out of the hapless hides of NY and NJ and AZ and AK (&c. &c. ) And this case can be fadged up by a competent rhetor without too much difficulty.

And also without total implausibility. One of Walter Russell Meade's Classmates used to broadcast that "What is good for General Motors is good for the United States." Strike "General Motors" and insert "Massachusetts General Hospital," and ¡there you are! Or almost there, because you do have to assume further that when a Classmate starts goin’ on in that vein, what her freeladyship really has in mind would be more accurately expressed "What is best for the US of A is bound to even better for ScroogeBank." Or for Warbucks Defense Widget Ltd. For whatever noble Corporate Citizenness happens to be nearest an' dearest to the particular Classmate.

Now the thing is, Dr. Bones, that nobody quotes the late SECWAR’s original formulation who does not take for granted that it was GM that came first an’ foremost with Massa Charlie Wilson. Probably "nobody" is not literally correct, there's a couple of oddballs nesting in almost every tree, but to utter WIG4GMIG4US (let’s abbreviate it) and mean it strictly at face value, to sincerely and significantly take the view that Uncle Sam just happens to be so constituted that the happiness of murder-vehicle manufacturers is more critical to our collective well-being than any other single factor . . . to think that, Eye says, one would pretty well have to be a Martian. [1]

From there it is easy sailing, and requires no more whight-wing malignance than one meets with every day in the op-ed columns of The Wall Street Jingoe: simply have some Classmate's idiot niece or nephew work through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 lookin' for Jingoe-quality ‘proof’ that the whole obamanation must have been hatched in order to line the pockets of Mass General and H*rv*rd and (optionally) Massachusetts generally. Also optional, but lots of fun, would be to insinuate darkly (ahem) that Barák Husâyn O’Bàma (¡ugh! ¡¡Ugh!! ¡¡UGH!!!) looks forward to spending the next hundred years or so as Chairman and CEO of H*rv*rd Vulture Healthcare Partners, or whatever more seemly name the MGH/HU/MA racket assumes in public. [2]




___
[1] We would digress too far, I think, to worry about whether this Martian analysis might not be correct, for all that no earthling could ever come up with it disinterestedly. For purposes of hooting at Freelord Meade, it seems safe enough to assume that WIG4__IG4USA NEVER passes the ¿Cui bono? test, fill in the blank in the acronym how you please.


[2] Even if you think today’s pscenario as silly as most of the others, sir, there is at least a small benefit here in noticing that whightist vituperation of the POTUS of us all seems never to run to anything like we just did, accusin’ BHO of crudely being on the make the same way a freelordly Baincapper is naturally expected to be on the make.

The closest the Party neocomrades at any level of the Great Chain of Buying, from Dr. Limbaugh an' below all the way up to the stratosphere where Walter Russel Meade wings it blithely, come to it is complainin', once in a very long while, that the President has made far too many bucks off those autobiographies he had Comrade Ayres write for him. Of plans to get filthyrich personally after he leaves office, there is no sign at all that we have noticed.

I guess the selfservative kiddies, an' their Kiddiemasters, an' their Freelords, must all take utterly for granted that the fiend is moved by impeccably fiendish motives, by what St. Jack of Narnia somewhere called "the innate and, as it were, disinterested hatred of Darkness for Light." Either the Party neocomrades believe that, or they believe some damnfool psychobabble about the Kenchurian Kandidate's Mau-Mau daddy, which amounts to the same thing in practice. Either way, BHO, as kiddiecons conceive him, is utterly out of step with normality an’ whighteousness. These, as we know, consist above all in lookin' out for Number One.

like a rational critter.

(Work in progress)

A Tale of Two Kitchens

Being no devotee of idolatry generally and of

(( The MacL@@han Tuba ))

in particular, Paddy McTammany noted with dismay that the all-prestigious BossTown (NY) Globe did not see fit to make any concessions to the prose-challenged, despite iconography being what the scribble in question was about.

Forced to fumble around with YooTube and a’ that impious baloney for myself, I was surprised, almost Casablanca-shocked, to discover that there two completely different kitchens starring in Fehrnstrom Film Studios’ summer blockbuster. Naturally the one nearest the start of the picture show is not the one wanted: I have no idea how one writes "Half and half" in Catalan, but I do betcha it is not the same as your way and mine. So much for 00:00:40 and thereabouts.

The real (so to speak) hot stuff is located at and around 00:00:49

( ¡Bienvinguts a Barcelona! ))

Needless to say, this sequence does not contain any obvious tip-off that all the actors are not yammerin’ South Bostonian to an off-camera Phantom Gourmet. ¿Or why not to Senator Fratboy himself in person?

I presume, a little uncertainly, that the cavaller in the white labòratory coat who appears immediately before was attached to the hand that wore the glove that held the frying pan that was creating the culinary happiness of Catalonia.

As the comrades over at the Guardian like to quote, "Comment is free, but facts are sacred." Those were the facts, ma’am, and if you really want any of Paddy’s dubious other stuff, I fear you will have to cross the e-street and shop over here..

Happy days.

¡She believes in an America!

“I believe in an America…” jkleschinsky | Fri, Jul 27, 2012 2:13 PM EST In response to Sen. Brown cherry picking a quote for his new, albeit confused ad “Let America Be America.” I thought I’d give everyone a bit more context from then Senator Kennedy’s speech on October 31st 1960. I tried to edit it down into something more digestible, but also added a link to the full text at the end who want to read it in its entirety. The point is, America is America when we work together, care for one another, and invest in our Country. Something our current junior Senator has failed to do time and time again. (( snip quotation ))

2012 - 1960 = ???? (( fold here )) Not a hard problem, that one. Or at least ’twould not have been before the Grade Inflation Plague™ hit, sometime in ’68. Really there are two quite distinct sequellæ to ‘Camelot’: to burn figurative candles to St. Jack of Brookline in the spirit of November 1963 through August 1968 [*] is quite a different thing, it seems to the present keyboard, than to be a latecomer to the cult, a devotee, that is, who has been tainted, probably unconsciously, by Secretary MacNamara, and President Nixon, and Moynihanian Neglect™, and Indowhatsis, and so on, by all those petty differences between Oughtabe and Is that mostly do not seem to matter much taken separately but add up relentlessly all the same. That probably are adding up to "President Romney" behind our backs even as we of the geezer community reminisce. (( Betcha "Recommended by christopher, kloechner, methuenprogressive, somervilletom, dave-from-hvad" does a pretty good job of unmasking geezers. Moreover, I take it to be "no accident" that the Big Three have not found this one ready for prime time. I’ve got a snapshot somewhere that makes plain that their editorial excellencies can no more personally remember President Kennedy than they can Queen Anne and King Assurbanipal. )) Even a political Spring Chikin ought to have noticed, however, that there is a whight-wing JFK icon floatin’ around nowadays as well as the prog ditto revered above. The true Holy Grail, whightvolks assure was not anything like "a government of men devoted solely to the public interests," it was--to put it my way rather than the Republicanine Way--"a government of taxcutters devoted solely to the care and feedin’ of jobcreators." Though in fact ‘solely’ won’t do, for our now economic whightists profess to admire King Arthur’s (real) anticommunism as well as his (more like ‘alleged’) Chicagonomic fiscal soundness. On the terminology front, Paddy McTammany wishes that good guys would think twice before using the verb "to invest" in such a sentence as "America is America when we work together, care for one another, and invest in our Country." I apologize to Mr. Poster if in fact he *did* think twice, but there are plenty of othervolks who do not. To them I say, "¡The United States of America is not a hedge fund, gentlemen!" Moreover, King Arthur is nowhere reliably recorded as having exhorted the Table Round, "¡Ask not, my fellow Camelotions, what your country can invest in you, ask what you can invest in Our Country!" I am pretty sure, though not absolutely, that when His Majesty decided that Greater Camelot needed more schools, or roads, or bridges, or Palaces of Public Tubavision, or any other such all-around goodies, he managed to make his meaning clear without any mention of either ‘investment’ or ‘infrastructure’. ¡Those, those were the days! "And that in [word], and not in [deed] alone." Happy days ___ [*] There is no point in insisting on petty details of personal ideochronology, but it may be explained that I consider The Great Good Time -- which overlaps with everybody but Uncle Sam’s Age of Emergency -- to have commenced with the Roosevelt inauguration, 4 March 1933, and terminated at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago during the week of 29 August 1968.  "¡Alas, poor Hubert!" Why, ¡it really looked for quite a long time as if we might become a civilised country! Instead of which, the genuine "permanent high plateau" came to a sudden end, and down we tumbled to ______. (Fill in the blank to suit yourselves.)

Nil nisi whatever

Message from God? somervilletom | Sat, Jul 28, 2012 11:14 AM EST Multiple sources reported yesterday that Don Perry, leading spokesperson for Chick-fil-A, died suddenly of a heart attack.   (&c. &c. ) *** end post begin comment *** Probably in bad taste but yes people from that corner of Christianity have an awful lot of certainty about what God is and is not saying. kbusch @ Sat 28 Jul 11:56 AM

Speaking of bad taste, (( fold here )) Paddy McTammany’s nominee for the all-time world champion in the present subcategory turns up in, of all places, Supreme Court for Dummies by Lisa Paddock [*]: (( Might here attempt a high-falutin’ 02138 little funny about ¡O Felicis culpa!> )) Happy days. ___ [*] This tome is a curiosity of literature in a couple of other ways besides preserving that dreadful anecdote: (1) There is definitely no definite article in the title, and (2) there seem to be no numbers on the pages either. Must be something about dummies.

You Win, Alzheimer

Dear Dr. Bones,

If not quite at the Very End of the Line, one is over the last hill and in plain sight of it when Maureen Dowd, an employée of the New York Times Company, starts making sense about something that matters:

What drives [Governor Romney’s] gaffes is his desire to preen over accomplishments. As a candidate, he’s expected to stoop to conquer, to play a man of the people. But he really wants voters to know that he earned $250 million, and not even in the same business where his dad made a name for himself. So he keeps blurting out hoity-toity stuff to make sure we know he’s not hoi polloi — about his friends who are NASCAR owners, his wife’s Cadillacs, how he likes to fire people and how he, too, is unemployed. And he builds a car elevator in the middle of an economic slough. In his interview with Brian Williams in London, Romney couldn’t resist giving himself the laurels for saving the Salt Lake City Games by analyzing whether the British ones were off by a hair, or a hire. Then he tried to scamper back to the obligatory common-man script and ended up looking clumsy . . . .

Apart from the trash psychobabble about Daddy, that view of

M. Coriolanus Pompo, Demander of Apologies, is not worth distinguishing from our own.

Paddy and Eye could have distanced ourselves from the laughable lady to some extent by quoting more than we have, but it would be a little dishonourable of us to do so, when we believe this part that Mizz Maureen did get right to be The Key to All Mittologies.

Happy days.

"One fence to fit them all" [*]

Dear Dr. Bones,

It is notorious that Lefty Loser is no good at thinking like a violence professional. Still, ¿what social scientiser worth her bicycle helmet will turn up her nose at a little additional formal proof of what everybody human has always known unofficially and merely by that low animal cunning that does not really count?

So here, then, with no more ado:

Domed cities – the environmental fall back of the Gazillionaires – an explanation for the climate change deniers amberpaw | Fri, Jul 27, 2012 10:46 PM EST Domed cities image [mostly by] courtesy [of] Alexander Ratko For some time, I have been trying to figure out how billionaires can be denying climate change, and the United States of America can have refused to sign onto so many treaties and initiatives to control carbon emissions, and fight global warming. Then I figured it out – the top 1% of the top 1% (the folks who send 32 trillion out of their own countries) are ready to automate all processes that produce what they care about, create domed cities, and let everyone else bake fry ((sic)). Can you come up with a better explanation, anyone? Denial won’t stop this problem. (...) It cannot be that “they don’t know," it must be that “they don’t care” because they have made other plans. It does, however, boggle the mind to think of the Romney Dynasty Domed City – and the Walton Dome. Other suggestions, anyone?

Though undeniably elegant, those domes seem like an awful lot of pointless trouble (( fold here )) to Paddy McTammany. ¿Wouldn't it not be far easier for our selfmade TopPercenters to relocate to the top latitudes (after the poles warm up a little more, that is) and then erect a really stout Maginot Line to keep us Bad Poor down and out? Happy days. [*]  Sings the pseudo-Tolkien One fence to fit them all, one fence to pool them One fence to shield them all, and in the warmin’ cool them O happy land of Baincap, where the Greedies lie!

Happy days.
--JHM

Note on the Correlation of Farces

Dear Dr. Bones,

This one runs off the rails halfway to its destination, no thanks to Paddy McTammany.  I do, however, confess to being too lazy to rewrite it completely now that I have figured out how Kravitz, Esq., was taken advantage of by incompetent boondocks journalism.

[new] Brown just racking up endorsements, but Warren has Hollywood Impressive endorsements by Brown. Former Mayor Ray Flynn, former Worcester Mayor Konnie Luke’s (both Democrats), America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and now Bloomberg. Shows just how independent Brown really is. Not too long ago, Obama and Bloomberg had breakfast together. Methinks Obama wants his endorsement, no? Now, if Menino endorses Brown, or nobody, that will be the nail in the coffin for Warren, we all agree, right? Of course, she can fly in Matt Damon, Barbara Streisand, and Jon Bon Jovi. danfromwaltham @ Fri 27 Jul 12:39 PM

[new] Yawn I am sure that you are not especially influenced by endorsements by outsiders. Why do you think anyone else will be? hrs-kevin @ Fri 27 Jul 5:26 PM

What Terry Troll thinks about this (( fold here )) (and most other things with which the Party neocomrade vexes the Blue Blazers) amounts to not much more than to strikin’ back at Lieberalism, and Democracy, and "the Democrat Party," and pinky-ringed Union Thugs, and [whomever], with such recent whight-wing talkin’ points as the Party neocomrade happens to remember off hand. That is to say, speed of response and volume of fire plainly count for more than stratagem and marksmanship. Considered on its stand-alone merits, "See Michael Bloomberg an’ raise you Barbra Streisnd" is about as dumb as Freedumb Fighters get. Now the serious student cannot be sure that General the Freelord of Fehrnstrom has instructed his troops to behave like that. There are a lot of ’no-count trailer-trash guerillas around nowadays, crank amateurs accountable to nobooby. Nevertheless, his freelordship MAY have issued some such directive, seeing that it definitely makes sense in some encounters. Verbally, at any rate, "throw the kitchen sink" sounds like a thoroughly traditional strategy for the Party of Grant & Hoover (& Goldwater & Atwater) to adopt. Still, ’tis a GOOD traditional strategy only to the extent that we donkeys approximate to being a "Party of Lee," as it were, subtle scalpel wielders rather than bloody-minded butchers. That little lady from the Big University did drool of our (¿?) alleged Intellectual Bottom the other day, but I fear that is mostly pious viennasausage and fatuous self-esteeming on Her Beatitude’s part, a sort of tasteless bluff and bluster far more becomin’ to virile gander Republicanines than to us silly geese. Perhaps at this point, though, we should hear from Il Primo Uomo Blu, who started the thread rolling: Really rich guy endorses Scott Brown [updated] david | Fri, Jul 27, 2012 11:38 AM EST Surprised? I didn’t think so – after all, Scott Brown has raised epic amounts of money from Goldman Sachs and other denizens of Wall Street. You might be a bit more surprised to hear that the really, really rich guy in question is New York City’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who announced yesterday that he is backing Brown. (( ... )) There is no call to be surprised by His Honor (that I can see). Kravitz, Esq., disappoints a little, though, inasmuch as he sounds exactly like Our Miss Sappy [1] when he starts explaining what it was in the NYTC piece about Bloomberg that surprised him. Over in the shyster community they like to say Expressio unius, exclusio alterius, a maxim which implies that Kravitz, Esq., must have missed what we ourselves found a little remarkable, namely a perfect willingness on the part of the New York Times Company wage slave to explain Citizen Bloomberg’s innermost secret-sector motives to his Corporation’s customers. One could hardly have been told with fewer winks and nods that the Mayor pretends to back S. Philip Fratboy (R-MA) because of some nonsense about gun control, but really is only worried about "buck control," if one may thus christen Perfesser Warren’s only-too-‘hammering’ monomania. ¡¡¡ ******* !!! ¡Oops! No, wait a minute. Paddy and Eye naturally assumed that a kulchur voucher like IPUB, Il Primo Uomo Blu, would have read all about it in the NYTC’s adult or metropolitan edition, just as we had already done ourselves, learning from the very first sentence / paragraphette that "Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, one of the most outspoken defenders of Wall Street, has sided against one of the financial industry’s biggest critics in a hotly contested Senate race in his native Massachusetts." Not until the third sentence / paragraphette do we start being fed press-release baloney, "Mr. Bloomberg, through a spokesman, said his endorsement was not about Wall Street at all, but about his desire to reward Mr. Brown for voting against his party and the National Rifle Association on a gun control measure." Kravitz, Esq., has relied, a little shockingly, on that far-exurban NYTC daughter product, the BossTown (NY) Globe, which really did more or less just reprint the P. R. put out by Bloomberg Intergalactic LLC. Our local-franchise yocals stepped off with "Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of New York, waded into one of the nation’s fiercest Senate races and threw his financial and rhetorical support behind Senator Scott Brown on Thursday."  They get around to mentioning St. Elizabeth’s disease only when they get around to Her Beatitude considered personally as Fratboy’s opponent: Warren, who accepted the endorsement of the Massachusetts Credit Union League on Thursday, pounced on Bloomberg’s backing as evidence that Brown champions the interests of major financial institutions. “Today, Scott Brown stands with Wall Street, and I stand with every credit union in the Commonwealth,” she said at her campaign headquarters in Somerville. A vocal defender of Wall Street, Bloomberg may chafe at Warren’s persistent criticism of the financial sector and big banks. But Loeser, the Bloomberg spokesman, said that was not the basis for the endorsement and declined to comment on Warren’s candidacy. If "Loeser, the Bloomberg spokesman" said as much to the NYTC suburban reporter, both the challenge to comment and the response have been admirably suppressed.  [2] Happy days. ___ [1] For those of them at Rio Limbaugh: Sappy formally signs her bankcard authorizations as "Sapientia Conventionalis, Ph. D."

Though Paddy and Eye hate to agree with Her Freelordship, Jasonne, Duchess of Sanseverino-by-the-Sea,

about anything at all, yet in this context it is difficult to forget how his freeladyship used to bark that "The Boston Glob" is expressly produced for suchvolks as prefer their news a day or two stale.

The backwoods Lilliputians must, I mean, have been aware of how Big Brother was covering the same story down in the bright lights of the Big City.  It is not as if His Honor had been vacationing on Nantucket and offered the globaloney purveyors a special interview.

Happy days.
--JHM

Concerning the I. Q. of M. Coriolanus Pompo

Dear Dr. Bones,

The text for today is brief and to the Powe®Poin™: a certain Blue Blazer has had the bad taste to refer to Governor Romney as "a stupid moron, ¡so there!" Plus maybe the one that goes "My people are from Ireland / We know a thing or two about ‘the Anglo-Saxon model’" is pertinent as well.

The beauty of belongin’ to The Class (®) (( fold here )) is that though one be indeed "a stupid moron" taken individually, yet that simply does not matter. Or maybe it complicatedly does not matter. In any case, Freelord Moron remains forever, far more more significantly, a Dynastic Scion, a fruit of Cranbrook, a double-barrel H*rv*rd ’75, . . . . In sum: ¡a predestinate Master of Seamus! [1] Speaking of the H*rv*rd Victory School--we allude to the former Allston (MA) Academy of Chirurgy and Barber Science--the Gang of Seventy-Five was graced not graced by Governor Romney (as his freelordship would one day inevitably become) alone, George XLIII Bush was around as well, lookin’ . . . well, let’s face it, lookin’ far more stupid-moronic by mostvolks’ standards, especially those of Paddy and Seamus, than his late-bloomin’ wannabe emulator. Happy days. ___ [1] As His Excellency was out discoverin’ just the other day, provincial-colonial Seamus Management is not identical with, or even necessarily simpático with, the Old World product. Torycomrade Cameron’s delightful crack about "out in the middle of nowhere" has a deep background amongst the genuine (¿?) Folk of Hengist and Horsa confronted with Messrs. les nouveaux riches de South Succotash TX an’ Rio Limbaugh FL. Even, I fear, confronted with the homebrew neopeerage of Belmont MA. It will be centuries, I betcha, before Airstrip One succumbs to H*rv*rd Victory School ‘values’ so completely as to remove the sting from His Excellency’s uncivil "¿Who ever taught you klutzes how to big-manage an Olympiad?" kibitzin’. Neocomrade Professor Doktor Niall Campbell Douglas, zeroth Freelord Ferguson, is doin’ his damndest towards that happy end--towards, that is, a general conflation of the Spirit of Late Baincapitalism with the alleged "Western Civilisation." His freelordship’s pains were rewarded with the official write-up for his recent Reith lectures omitting to mention the Victory School connection, resulting in the flagrant suggestio falsi that his killer-app freelordship is GSAS simpliciter -- and therefore impeccably respectabiggle. For many moons to come, Oxbridge and Camford and Redbricke will (as Paddy conjectures) continue to be cultivated despisers of Haircut Science and all practitioners thereof, even perps of highest rank here in the Heimatland G*ttes. Freelaird Fergusson and Baron Thatcheress between them have no chance of converting the "nation of shopkeepers" to the (utterly dotty provincial) notion that shopkeepin’ is a learnèd profession.

Happy days.
--JHM

The Einstein of our Age puts it in a nutshell

Mitt Romney Gets Specific Paul Waldman May 24, 2012 Sort of. But not really. I  have been on a long crusade, which began before this campaign and will probably continue after it, to get everyone to think more clearly about what it means when a politician says "I’m not a politician, I’m a businessman." (( ... )) Halperin keeps trying to get something specific out of Romney, and Romney keeps evading. At one point he protests that he can’t give Halperin a specific innovative idea to create jobs, because "It is a whole passel of elements that come together to create a strong economy, and for someone who spent thei life in the economy, they understand how that works." So, to sum up: Mitt Romney understands how the economy works. And what ideas does that understanding produce? He understands how the economy works. What’s he going to actually do once in office? He understands how the economy works.

Everybody this side of darkest W*lth*m should read the whole piece, which may border on cruelty to mental kiddies, but still . . . .

Happy days.

P. S.: Paddy McTammany recommended the Deval Patrick Show this morning. If you listened in, I trust you will agree that the successor to

 

(( M. Coriolanus Pompo, Demander of Apologies ))

has a remarkable flair for not actually answering the questions he is asked without setting off all the alarms the way poor Pompo does.

"Scott Brown gets in on the Big Lie"

Dear Dr. Bones,

Thinking it over, Paddy and Eye decided that we should write up the sublime parochialism and self-provinciality of the ’GBH nobility and gentry as a separate Ding an sich rather than mix it up with factious Fehrnstromiana.

Meanwhile we shall park this one also chez vous:

What one might call the Lovecraft Country squabbles (( fold here )) between Senator Fratboy and Professor Warren have actually drawn a little attention down in one of the big cities of Brightlightia: Posted at 12:32 PM ET, 07/23/2012 Scott Brown gets in on the Big Lie By Greg Sargent Look, ma, I can lie about Obama’s quote, too! Obama’s now infamous “didn’t build that” speech is similar to Elizabeth Warren’s viral [1] remarks about how the rich didn’t get rich on their own. So it’s not surprising that Senator Scott Brown has just released a new Web video (embedded below) . . . . And so on and so forth. Other E-provincials can read the piece through for themselves and then, if they like, attempt to guess whether Mr. Sargent has been in contact with performances by the Blue Class Group, or is simply a Great Mind thinking alike independently. This citizen of the lesser metropolis strikes Paddy McTammany, at least, as having definite pretensions to Great Mindedness. "To generalise is to be an idiot," said the late William Blake. Mr. Sargent picks up his cue and runs with it boldly: This gives me an occasion to make another point. The whole ”didn’t build that” dust-up is important, because the larger falsehood on display here — that Obama demeans success — is absolutely central to the Republican case against Obama. The Republican argument — Romney’s argument — is partly [2] that Obama’s active ill will towards business owners and entrepreneurs is helping stall the recovery, so you should replace him with a president who wants people to succeed. (. . .) Republicans have decided the policy difference isn’t enough. They also need to sow doubts about Obama’s alleged intentions and hostility towards private enterprise and individual initiative, to give voters a narrative about the Obama presidency and an explanation for the sluggish recovery that will make them more receptive to GOP tax and deregulatory policies they might otherwise greet with skepticism. The claim that Obama demeans success is central to that narrative. It is impossible to judge with certainty from the boondocks of Lovecraft Country whether the major-league Republicanines with whom Mr. Sargent and "Fox-on-15th-Street" [3] are in contact down at Potomac River City warrant thus bein’ called liars flat out. Antecedently, however, and on the basis of our own off-and-on scrutiny of Massachusetts persons of state [4], we are certain that the vast majority of Otherpartisans below the very tippy-top of the iceberg really an’ truly believe that Barák Husâyn O’Bàma (¡ugh! ¡¡Ugh!! ¡¡¡UGH!!!) really and truly hates Business. Dr. Limbaugh has told the dittobrains so three (zillion) times, so ¿How could it possibly not be whight? Happy days. ___ [1] One does not, it appears, need to be a backwoodsperson to think and scribble in tired-blood media clichés. [2] ’Twas a wise move for Mr. Sargent to stick that ‘partly’ in. Even from remotest 02139 one can hardly miss that the marketin’ volks who flog the Governor Romney product line sincerely believe that His Excellency’s native flair, and dynastic breedin’, and especially, perhaps, his M. B. A. ’75 from the H*rv*rd Victory School, fit His Excellency to do much more than passively sympathize with the sad plight of Petty Business. Exactly what this "much more" may be could hardly be vaguer, but all the same, His Excellency would be a completely different sort of whight-wing pol if H. E. were continually oratin’, say, that one scarcely requires two pricey graduate degrees to be a competent practitioner of "¡Hands off the Secret Sector!" Mr. Sargent writes, too exuberantly for my taste, of "the Big Lie" and "lying relentlessly" and "larger falsehood" in conjunction with the recent doin’s of America’s Otherparty. Still, the Romney candidacy does involve a certain incongruity, let us call it, inasmuch as what the consensus of G.O.P. Geniuses sincerely know in their hearts and knavishly feel in their minds is very like "¡Hands off the Secret Sector!," that is to say, ’tis an unpolicy or antipolicy that Bozo the Clown could conduct successfully, were Bozo willin’ to huddle at once with Grover Freelord Norquist whenever anythin’ the least bit tricky-lookin’ turns up. I suppose it is possible to fancy that His Excellency knows and would implement special H*rv*rd or "case method" techniques of nonintervention and inaction and "¡Whatever is, is right!" King Log may have his special procedures of which King Stork knows nothing. Unfortunately, Paddy and Eye cannot imagine that pscenario in any detail, perhaps for the same reason we have never been able to grok the dogmatic mythology of Zen Buddhism. Be that as it may, there is no doubt at all that His Excellency is bein’ marketed as a special-techniques kind of guy, as somebooby who will think of ways and means of panderin’ to Big Management--maybe even to Pettybiz, at least a little--that ignorant lay sheeps like us would never think of in a million moons. Now if *we* was Eric Freelord of Fehrnstrom, this would be the Apotheosis of Cynicism: for complex reasons of Otherparty strategy an’ extremist AEIdeology, we would really and "in principle" prefer to elect the Bozo & Grover ticket, but find it expedient to back Governor Romney officially. Our primary self-justification would be that King Stork certainly *could* behave like King Log if His Majesty could be converted to Zen Whightism before the gold-standard days of good Willard XLV really get started. As a fall-back or "Plan B," we would console ourselves that even if His Ciconian Majesty gets in and then never does quight see the do-nothin’ whight, we can pretty well count on Congressional goodvolks like Johannes Freiherr von Böhner, and Erich Freiherr von Kantor, and Addison Mitchell Freiherr von McConnell (&c. &c.) to make sure that King Stork does not wreak much damage on the true long-term interests of the Sacred Secret Sector. All this would, as I said, be sheer cynicism on our part, cynicism of almost D. P. Moynihanian proportions. With the really existin’ Freiherr von Fehrnstrom, it is almost certainly not that at all, though admittedly Paddy and Eye cannot vividly imagine what it is that his freelordship believes in with total subjective sincerity. It could, perhaps, be no more that anybooby whom E. X. Fehrnstrom helps fund to the top of the greasy pole cannot possibly be all bad. [3] The expression is used by gracious nonpermission of Dr. Pressbeater and the all-prestigious Seeper Institution. [4] Since the now distant day when Comrade Governor Dukakis, running for President in his toy tank, declared that he would raise taxes "only as a last resort" and the Ailes / Atwater / Poppy Bush / Willie Horton crew promptly barked back that that was one resort H. E. would undoubtedly be checkin’ into, Paddy and Eye have taken a fitful interest in whether hack pols can seriously be accused of lying when they emit such noises. We decided then, and have never yet met anything to cause us to repent our decision, that in about 99.9% of the cases the dread Hellword is NOT strictly applicable. The other 00.1% pretty much consists of the late Neocomrade Senator D. P. Moynihan of NY, a "host in himself" in many senses, of which, however, the statistical or representative sense is not one. Since Dan Paddy’s ‘passing’, no one like unto him, clear-cold-cynicismwise, has arisen in Israël. Nobooby that we know of, that is, naturally. We have mentioned Grover Freelord Norquist. Not bein’ as exposed to mob view as hack pols proper are, his freelordship may perhaps qualify. Indeed, there would be a sort of poetic fitness if his freelordship did, in that the Bozo-Grover gruesome twosome we just invented or discovered would put America’s Otherparty in parentheses, as it were, between them, Bozo at the very bottom of the Party base an’ vile, his freelordship the very spiffiest of G.O.P. Geniuses, the only hound in the whole Republicanine pack bestembright enough to be a genuine cynic. This, however, is but daydreaming on our part. Much the better guess would be that his freelordship of Norquist, too, believes ever word that he barks with some sort of subjective sincerity, even though no decent political adult can make out what weird sort of neosincerity that would be.

Happy days.
--JHM

A Time to Choose

Dear Dr. Bones,

"Due to abuse" poor Paddy and Eye are "not permitted to post comments" to the ever-victorious Herald of Louisedayhicksville. So we shall dump our latest hand-crafted garbage on the Muses and yourself, sir:

N.Y. makes ad pitch to lure businesses Mass. sees waste of cash By Marie Szaniszlo | Monday, July 23, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Business & Markets New York has stepped up efforts to attract business to the state with a slick, two-year, $100 million marketing campaign that includes a new website and ads featuring celebrity New Yorkers, even as Bay State officials disputed the effectiveness of such campaigns. With one month down, “The New New York Works for Business” website alone, thenewNY.com, has had “roughly” 23,000 unique visitors and just under 26,000 page views, said Andrew Zambelli, counselor to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The campaign also includes national ads featuring a voice-over by actor Robert DeNiro and the song “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys. “We think this campaign is a very important and exciting opportunity to tell New York’s story that it’s open for business,” Zambelli said. “We know it’s going to create jobs and strengthen our economy.” In a statement last week, Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Greg Bialecki dismissed the effectiveness of such campaigns, saying: “We have not seen any evidence that these sorts of ad campaigns actually drive business location decisions. It is not as glamorous, but we are putting our money into investments in education, innovation and infrastructure that create a sound foundation for business growth.” From June 1, 2011, to June 30 of this year, the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development’s website had 214,766 unique visitors and 1,728,693 page views, according to Google analytics. But Michael Greeley, a general partner at the Boston venture-capital firm Flybridge Capital Partners, called New York’s campaign “brilliant” and said Massachusetts “suffers from not looking cool enough.” Although actors such as Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Mark Wahlberg and Bridget Moynahan all grew up in the state, they no longer live here, Greeley noted. “Our celebrities are intellectuals; those are our rock stars, and we should play to our strength, which is that we solve really hard problems and work on ideas that matter,” he said. “We should be branding aggressively, (going) after our students because they’re already here, and we should be trying to keep them here.”

Well, there you are, Dr. Bones, you must make your choice and stand by it: ¿Do you wish to be governed still by John Winthrop and Secretary Bialecki, or would you prefer to swear neoallegiance to Flybynite Capital Partners LLC?

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, God’s new Messiah, offering each the [Bloomberg] blight, Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, And the choice goes by forever ’twixt that darkness and that light.

Happy days.
--JHM

Chick-fil-A (®) loves Bessie

None of the Blue Blazers or their parasites seem to have bothered (( fold here )) to look at the product rather than the propaganda. Having just done so, Paddy McTammany has to wonder if the Athens of Suffolk County is not being subtly spoofed or kidded: Chick-fil-A (®) does prole food.   It does prole food that would lower the sociogastronomic tone of Upper Revere Beach Drive. ¡If ever there was a case for applying that hoary jurisprudential maxim De minimis non curet Menino! My hypothesis therefore is that C-f-A made a deal with His Honor: they'd pretend to want to invade the Cradle of Liberty, and he'd pretend to be zealous to keep them out. Both parties look good that way to elements of their base (and possibly vile) constituencies, C-f-A with redstate liberal-haters and the Mayor with . . . well, you know. Neither side, as I conjecture, seriously wants anything to happen. Meanwhile we close students of the Boston Herald get a welcome break from "All Fehrnstrom all the time." Happy days. P.S. Especially suited to the Silly Season, is the noble and inspirational C-f-A Cow Campaign: In 1995, a renegade cow, paintbrush in mouth, painted the three words "EAT MOR CHIKIN" on a billboard. From that day forward, the burger-eating landscape would forever be changed. These fearless cows, acting in enlightened self-interest, realized that when people eat chicken, they don't eat them. Today, the cows’ herds have increased and their message reaches millions - on television, radio, the [I]nternet, and the occasional water tower. Needless to say, Chick-fil-A fully endorses and appreciates the monumental efforts made by our most beloved bovine friends.

Happy days.
--JHM