j.mp/YAM2WB (and well worth reading)

Fareed Zakaria is Unhappy That "The American Left" Chooses Arithmetic Over Peter Peterson Sunday, 23 December 2012 01:25 Fareed Zakaria is very unhappy that "THe American Left," by whom he means the vast majority of people across the political spectrum who oppose cuts to Social Security and Medicare, insist on taking arithmetic seriously. (( &&c. &c. ))

Comrade Frank of Kansas has crafted (sic a scribble called Pity the Billionaire:The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right which struck Paddy McTammany as a tad short on actual examples of what the title advertised. So 'tis a pleasure to find Farid, zeroth Freelord Zakaria in the peerage of Foxcuckooland, complainin piteously bout how his freelordship's ClassMates™ don't get the respectful attention they used. ¡The respect they obviously ought to get all the time!

On the other hand, the shameless campaign of denigration against our predestined financial Betters seems to come down to nothing more than dear Kruggie saying "“The Peter G. Peterson Foundation is deficit-scold central." Deplorable, of course, that so misguided a sentiment as that one should be expressed by anybooby at all, yet 'tis unlikely--expressed that way, at least,--to bring out many well-pitchforked peasants to trample the stately lawns and gardens of Château Zakaria and/or Castle Concord. (Paddy was, of course, privately hoping for something really inflammatory.)

There is a little more chapter and verse than just Prof. Krugman, but not much: (A) "Some argue that Peterson has been banging this drum for years—decades" omits to specify who these noisy scum are. Moreover, "banging the drum" is only another figure of rhetoric for being a 'scold', which we knew already from faithfully reading the NYT op-ed page.

(B) "William Galston, a former Clinton official, tries to face up to the budgetary crisis being produced by demographics" is mere _pereant qui ante nos_: Freelord Galston had the impudence to write essentially this same piece before Freelord Zakaria got around to it! Well, his freelordship (of G.) is certainly guilty as charged: Paddy definitely remembers encountering the product in _The New Republicanine_, now that I'm reminded. But in between there have been several thousand rehashes by Fox-on-Fifteenth, which, by the way, is more like the true "deficit-scold central", if you ask Paddy. To be sure, the F-15 Squadron are said to be in close cahoots with Castle Concord.

So, then: after nine discouraging words from Kruggie and the faintest echo of a distant drum, his freelordship of Zakaria felt warranted to conclude, with that genteel understatement that so beautifully becomes all the ClassMates™, "Shooting the messenger doesn’t help." (One can hardly see the stately lawn of Château Z. any more, what with all those corpses of murdered emissaries lying about.)

Do you suppose his freelordship -- or possibly Peter Firstlord Peterson Himself -- is descended from that celebrated Royal Princess who had such a terrible time with a malicious pea under the mattress?

In any case, volks with skins as thin as his freelordship's appears to be should just please stay out of the kitchen. And when they are Persons of Fiscal Responsibility, ever "stern to inflict" cuts on the small people, why, a little more "stubborn to endure" on their own part than one finds _chez Fareed_ would do their freelordships' Cause no harm.

Happy days.

Progress in Pajamastan

Today (or yesterday) is !a redstatist-letter day for Pajama Junction NJ!   ¡A day that shall line in Inform-Me!

And that ¡¡On two widely separated fronts!!

(A) Grand Áyatolláh Mikey bin Ledeen -- of allvolks -- has delivered a homily  that eschews His Eminence's customary banalities bout "Spiritual Preparedness & the Native Menace" for brick-an-potatoes practicalities.

 H. E. has noticed that Information Technology ain't "the Gatling gun" of the late Rev. Neocomrade Chesterbelloc, not, that is, automatically on the side of the Whight Civilisation of the Western Race.    The international Bad Poor, that is, can use most of the I. T. whizbangs whight out of the box almost as efficaciously Massa Westy can use em ourselves.   Not only is Time no longer on the side of us whighteous, neither is Twitter, who may be a bigger player than Time, at least short-run.

"Despair now, avoid the rush latter" is probably not His Eminence's last word from the huddled bunker.  Though H. E. makes no concrete suggestions for countermeasures,  Paddy can't help guessin that the Whight Reverend Bin Ledeen will be movin on to that in next week's Sabbath School.

In any case, this binLedeenian trouvée is real an important, even if there exist no countermeasures either immediate or eventual adequate to save the Western Sieve from founderin at last, with probable adverse consequences for many Jumblies.

(B)  That, however, was there, an this is here.   Here, where Squire Roger of Simon Pajama -- ¡The World's Premiere YaleoDrama™ist! -- has finally decided to come clean  an frankly call an advertorial "an advertorial."   Only this one time, to be sure, but reflect that One is INFINITLY greater than 0.0.   (ABSOLUTELY greater, too, as it happens.)

Paddy McTammany suspects, though, that the Squire most likely did not wish to admit that they have all been advertorials all along, PJM's leadin articles --  wide-gauge advertorials for America's Otherparty or for the AEIdeology if not necessarily narrow-guage for ScroogeBank or Warbucks Defense Widget Inc. or ... lemme see ... for "Wholesale Direct Metals ."  [*]

Though the golden pony is out of the barn, yet a little damage control may still be impossible.  The Squire can at least refuse admission in future to us peanut-gallery peanuts whenever the freelordly stable hands are exercisin animals specifically classified as advertorial.

Or perhaps it would be better attuned to der Geist des Bainkapitalismus to allow us to comment if we must, but charge us a stiff fee for it.  Stiff enough to make all but the hardiest of peanuts want to do her business elsewhere.  An then if Freedame Hardy does put up the ten smackeroos, make sure the transaction is marked, an MARKED BIG, whight next to whatever silliness her freeladyship insists on spoutin.   In this manner, 'advertorial's would differ visibly from the general run of pious PJM neobaloney buy either (A) havin no grafitti on em, or (B) buy havin graffiti with PRICE TAGs ostended.

It does not matter exactly what marks the difference (thinks Paddy) as long as somethin clearly does.

Happy days.


___
[*]  As one who stands well outside the money house looking in, Paddy's instinctive reactions are probably not identical with those of  genuine wombscholars an freedummies shoppin in earnest for dogmatic slumberware.  In fact, Paddy can only regard this "Wholesale Direct Metals" break-thru apositively a ¡GOTCHA! for the good guys, goldbuggers bein almost THE kooks par excellance over on the grown-up side of the tracks.

To be sure, his freelordship might  take reference in the neminis negotium ("nobooby's business")  clause of The Kiddie Katechism (I forget which number it bears) an claim that the stable staff at Simor Pajama graciously allowed a band of gypsy goldbuggers to park their caravan & trot out & advert at this pony without any questions bein asked about what sort of beastie it may be.

Such exculpation, however, has only a limited range.   Neminis negotium notwithstandin, no Freelord or Kiddiemaster can hope to retain her reputation amongst the Party base an vile, if she makes a habit of recommendin flat-out pigs-in-a-poke to marks an dupes.   Plus naturally one knows that his freelordship of Simon Pajama would never, now that he has perverted, recommend (say) The New York Times Company to his frelordship's tenants an assorted pajamaclad forelock-tuggers even on a poked-pig basis.   Conceivably The Squire has no idea himself what is in the poke, but that is beside the real point, which is that his freelordship RECOMMENDS the product, an operation quite distinct from knowin anythin bout it.  Maybe HFL does not recommend goldbuggery very highly, but if HFL did not recommend it at least a little, there would be no advertorial here for Paddy to pick on.



     

Takers 51, Grabars 47

It’s Not the Economy, Stupid Posted By Mary Grabar On November 10, 2012 @ 11:39 pm In Education,Elections 2012,US News | 17 Comments Sadly, racial identity politics, originated as a divide-and-conquer propaganda campaign by the Soviets in the 1920s, and then picked up again in earnest in the 1960s by those like communist history professor Howard Zinn, determined the election. (( &c. &c. ))

Mme. la baronne de Grabar appears to be auditionin for admission to the stables of Simon Pajama, hopin (I presume) to add a dash of Slavonic goulash, an gypsy charm, an general nie-wiem-dokladnie-co.

All very well, and of course it would be utter impertinence to attempt to dictate to the Squire -- to ¡The World's Foremost YaleoDrama™ist! -- which nags to snap up an which NAGS [*] to pass by. To benignly neglect.

However, this keyboard cannot help reflecting that the pajamaclad kiddies are alredy servviced by His Effulgently Freemightiness, of Radoszcz, formerly Comrade Ronnie of the VIIth (or ¿was it the XVIIth?) International. A little bit of zwischeneuropäische localcolourblindness goes a long, long way in the feverswamps of central North America, where the best way to move food products is (as Eye and Paddy have been told ) to label them 'bland'.

Indeed, the Squire has saddled himself with a hochwohlgeboren von Spakowski (sp?) already, over an above Radish Man. I presume his freelordship does not want the broad an sunny manorial expanses of Simon Pajama to start lookin like an Asylum for Decayed Eurogentles.

Moreover, I fear her freeladyship scribbles nothin here that Radish Man would not have scribbled better. Enough self-gossip drips adventitiously into the neovenom to make pretty clear that Mme. la baronne was never PERSONALLY acquainted with Dr. Marx. No even in the (rather hand-me-down) sense in which one could accuse R X. Radosh of havin been.

In short, Radish Man can do it better. Moreover, Radish Man is probably already doin too much of it for the market at Pajama Junction NJ. Perhaps his freemightiness could not recite quite so well on the late Comrade Zinn, unless given five or ten minutes to prepare, but (A) it seems improbable that even Mme. la baronne de Grabar seriously believes in a Zinnocentric universe. More inportant, (B) betcha the selfservative kiddies will not be persuaded to give much of a hoot about the fiend Zinn no matter which Party neocomrade presides over the eleoquent an shockin exposé.

Hjertets Renhed er at ville eet, they wisely say in Mezzo-Europa. Some of them.

To achieve hard-hittin results, results badly needed under present circumstances, your whightist agitpropper would do well to concentrate her fire an not disperse it at miscellaneous unheard-of Zinns, no matter how annoyin this or that individual freelord- or ladyship may find em. Mme. la baronne drops the name "Bill Ayres" in passin. Now Wally Wombschool an Cindy from Wasilla will almost certainly have heard the name, though ’tis near as certain the name is about all the kiddiecons will have heard for sure.

It seems to Paddy that Dr. Ayres is about all America's Otherparty really requires in the way of a sinister alien trouble-makin theorist. I quite appreciate why Mme. la baronne, an His Effulgently Freemightiness, an also (sorry, I forgot the BTBK above) the Bow-Tied Bum Kicker, Perfesser Kimball, would prefer that their poster child for sinister alien theoretical agitation bear a surname like, say, Rigoberta Menchú Tum. Other things equal, that exotic clang is far, far more suitable than the Wunnerbread(®) blandness of "William Charles Ayres." However other things are far from equal. Especially unequal is the time it would take gettin the pajamaclad dupes an marks up to speed on who the fiendess Menchú is as compared to creatin a really pretty picture of the Abhominable Ayres in the dittopans of the Tee Putty.

True, the Daughters of Virtue & Sons of Wisdom (L.L.C.) have at the moment 1,426 (I think it is) days in hand for agitproppin purposes. Master Wally an Mizz Cindy won't be (maybe) heavin their obesities up off the potatoe coaches to go (maybe) vote for nearly two whole years, apart from the odd parochial race for dog-catcher. That's plenty of time, in theory, to get the Howard Zinn Antifan Club up an runnin, "over seven hundred outlets nationwide" &c. &c. Could ALL the resources of Hooverville an Rio Limbaugh / Port Ste. Lucie an Pajama Junction be focused on Howie-hatin, I daresay Howie-hatin would do almost as well as Bill-bashin. Pretty well any ONE sinister alien theoretical fiend would do, as long as there is only the one and it is not the sort of SATF that reminds Wally an Cindy too much of Icky School. As Dr. Marx would certainly do, an Comrade Alinsky very probably.

¡Puritas propagandæ UNO est maledicere!

Happy days.

___
[*] That is a (minor, or minimal) Rio Limbaugh / Port Ste. Lucie joke. ¡Hammabîn yabîn!, as we used to transliterate at Pinsk-by-the-Bog back when Paddy was a sprout.

Ignoringce is Golden

The BTBK, bow-tied boss kisser, really ought to give us a quick scribble to match the title Wombschoolin for Dummies. For the crux an pith an gist an active ingredient of Neowhightism, on its ’conservative’ iintellectual’ side, could not be better expressed than his freelordship here expresses it, despite unfairly singlin out dear Kruggie:

[B]asically the whight response to Paul Krugman [is] a pitying silence as one averts one’s eyes and hurries on

Not bein a Perfesser of Logic, to put it mildly, the BTBK can be spared captious criticism about revilin one’s bosses’ Class enemies being maybe just a smidging inconsistent with ignorin em.

Moreover, his freelordship is (probably) not a Perfesser of MacL@@han Studies either, so the earnest young wombscholar an freedowndumbee will have to look elsewhere for advice on how to get her pityin silence shytk quight unmistakably whight, with nobooby out there in T@@bavisionland in any danger of mistaking her pity-based silence for a wordlessness born of gloatin, or of commiseratin, or of sheer aghastitude, not to mention several dozen other candidates.

The Silence of Ignoringce is easier. In fact, ignoringce is usually floatin whight there in plain sight on the scummy surface of one’s silence for every cofactionalist to admire. The only problem is that a scorecard may sometimes be necessary to make out exactly which patient is getting this particular course of Kimball Therapy (© ™ ® & Pat. Pend.)

His cravatophile freelordship would be a good deal more amusin. it seems to the present keyboard, were HCphL simply to write "Why I Admire Paul Krugman an Yoo Should Too" at the top of a blank sheet





















an leave it at that. Winque, winque; nodde, nodde.


Para despedirme de Vds. les deseo felices días, "Happy days"


____
[1] Being a universal genius, Kruggie did not surprise Eye and Paddy a bit by having spotted Bozo von Padschama bein silent at him from several kilometres off:

Now, the obvious riposte here is that we know why we have a weak recovery, and it’s not Obama’s evil eye — it’s the normal hangover from a severe financial crisis, which could only have been averted by much stronger fiscal and monetary stimulus. But that’s NOT A STORY the Romney PEOPLE WANT TO HEAR. Hence the DETERMINED EFFORT by people like [the bow-tied boss kisser] TO DISMISS everything we’ve learned — and I don’t just mean me, I mean Rogoff-Reinhart, the IMF, Alan Taylor, and more — about the macro effects of financial crises. So there you have it. The true plan is to provide an economic stimulus in the form of Romney’s awesome awesomeness; the cover story is the pretense of having an actual program. Are you feeling confident?

(( DIGRESSION. At last Kruggie has almost, but not quite, got the range of Mittius Coriolanus Pompo, Demander of Apologies, Despiser of apologetic wimps, Master of Seamus, Stepmaster to Miss Rafalca, Binder of Babes [new item 10/20/2012 04:34], Baincapper Extraordinaire, &c. &c. &c. ... nausea ... &c. &c.

(( Comrade Krugman still does not clearly see that the awesome awesomeness in question is not, mostly, a matter of His Mass. Excellency’s *personal* self-wunnerfulness, down at some wretched Kimbalkoid level, for all that H. M. E. is undeniably a double-barrelled H*rv*rd ’75. No, the really spiffy thing about ‘Mittens’ Romney is that to elect H. M. E. will be to entrust the destinies of our holy Homeland™ to a whole Class of Awesomes. Or make that "to ¡A Whole CLASS of Awesomes!"

(( Thus "the pretense of having an actual program" is, to some extent, unfair to H. M. E., who certainly does not slouch forwards with some cheapjack Fourteen Points to wave at T@@bavisionland and the electorate as if H. E. were St. Woodrow come again. The supposed secret plan is plain as day, really, an not to be compared with the shenaningands of President Kissinger an Dr. Nixing. Much better than knowin exactly what to do, His Awesomeness knows ... ¡ta-DAAH! ... whom to hire.

(( No doubt several godzillion potboilers titled something like 318.5 Management Secrets of Mary Baker Eddy have already discovered or invented that Peruna, more or less. Still, His Awesomeness will, if Father Zeus really hates us, be the first to put it into actual operation in the non-secret sector. Mittens will hire US the whight Classmates, an then their freelordships will see what needs to be done an promptly sally forth to do it.

(( Whereupon The Awesomes will collide at once with Johannes von Böhner und Erich von Kantor und Mitchel von McConnell an with all the other Classmates (an the hired hands, an the flat-out scabs, maybe even with the tame bow-tied perfessers of reaction) assembled in the lobby behind that crew.

(( That, however, is another story down to which we have not yet sunk. ))
.

'Benghazigate', as some call it

Dear Dr. Bones,


Neohaven an’ Yaleodra™a to the contrary notwithstandin’, his freelordship of Simon Pajama perhaps never had all that much of a mind to lose. Nevertheless what’s left is in imminent peril, to judge from this scrumptious palæosabbath-mornin’ slice of pious baloney.

Q. ¿Why is a raven like a writing desk?

A. Because "Benghazigate, as some call it, is worse" than Watergate. Q. E. D.

Furthermore, pomegranates are thicker than water.

For once, the Fearless Funders of Freedumb, who pay to AstroTurf™-bag the brains of the brat pack into Tee Putty, have managed to lose Paddy altogether. Usually, one can make what the knaves in command an’ their scab clevers are up to, but not this time. ¿What on G*re’s green earth can their freelordships suppose themselves to be doin’ when they underwrite, and their clevers work up an’ stage, a major Otherparty Bark-an’-Bellow ’bout ""Benghazigate, as some call it"?

But even in extremest perplexity, one can annoy the wombschool community with a distinction or two. ’Tis only looking forwards, towards achieved results or at least original-intented outcomes, that the Benghazibaiter gentry (as some call ’em) do not make sense. Deploying a rear-view mirror [*], however, the student of neocomradology can guess that benghazibaitin’ must be designed to give the kiddie selfservatives a distraction from all those pesky polls in which Mittius Coriolanus Pompo an’ the Smirk of Janeseville have not been gettin’ proper respect from the lower orders.

To be sure, "just a distraction" is not the strongest of explanations: pretty well anything and its sister-in-law could be dragged in to distract. Ideally, one would like to have some notion why the Fearless Funders prefer this particular distraction to an almost infinite zoo of competitors. It makes things worse, not better, that to summon up the Old World to fairembalance a New in which one’s Class’s political tricks are temporarily falling flat is pure cliché at Potomac River City. Usually, of course, it is a ploy adopted by the Executive Branch that is rather than by mere wannabes, but that does not make it less a cliché.

***

His freelordship’s cupboard love for Citizens Caddell and Powers affords no amusement or mystery, but Wally Wombschool an Cindy from Wasilla will not have noticed the fearful symmetry of it: ¿Who better to listen to in this Year of Coriolanus Pompo than his equal-but-opposite numbers, renegade whight-wing Demoncrats and Lieberals?

Though come to think of it, I believe we can make a little fun and mystery for ourselves by wondering what a wet-behind-the-fangs freelord like Simon Pajama *really* thinks of goodvolks who agree with almost everythin’ to which his freelordship recently perverted -- yet do not themselves boldly pervert. [**] I daresay his freelordship can toss a little Caddel & Powers brand bathsalts into the tub for his next wallow in self-esteem an’/or self-sorrowin’: "Unlike somevolks, Eye found the courage to act on my neovictions" &c. &c. &c.

Happy days.


___
[*] No intrepid explorer of the quaint by-ways of Wingnut City or scenic feverswamps of Rio Limbaugh / Port Ste. Lucie should be without this item of equipment. Nowadays, many whightist agitproppers like to make noises about "reactionary liberalism," as if servility / conservility / neoservility were now the Cuttin’ Edge of Progress. Were that the case, a rear-view mirror would be perfectly useless, one would never see the slightest trace of one’s quarry in it. The Freedumb Funders an’ their crews of scabs an’ señoritoes an’ pajamaclads would be merrily wreakin’ Destructive ©®ea™ionism on tomorrow, while the student wastes her time looking for them back in yesterday.

But it is not the case at all, as any fool may plainly see simply from Coriolanus Pompo an’ the Smirk settin’ up to be "America’s Throwback Team." Moreover, as American D*cl*ne (Pat. Pend.) continues and accelerates, there will be more and more occasions on which humanoid events will be very puzzling indeed viewed either with the naked eye or through any optical apparatus other than precisely the rear-view mirror. Of course The way up and the way down are one and the same, but unless one reverses lift and whight in a mirror, they may misleadingly look rather different.

You heard it here first.


[**] Without wandering off into psychobabble altogether, one may wonder, perhaps, about the psychic rewards and penalties Master Patrick or Mizz Kirsting would incur by perversion, both (A), in the 16.3% event that Coriolanus Pompo becomes dictator an’ the Smirk magister equitum, and (B), in the 83.7% event that their firstlordships fall short.

To join the winnin’ side after the battle is inglorious, but often richly rewardin’. On the other hand, if rich reward were all that our semi-renegades cared for, ’twould be inexplicable that they have not been Republicanines an’ conserviles all their lives.

To wait until Team Freedumb loses the next round before formally signin’ up would be so peculiar chez nous as to be almost un-Homeland™ic, not that Paddy McTammany would raise any chauvinistic objections meself. Few things are less likely, but if C&P were to do it, they would be pervertin' not to mainstream throwbackism, but to a really tiny backwater trickle of selfocentric reaction that contains only J. Sidney McCain that anybooby ever heard of. "Mugwump Creek," call it. Or "Maverick Bayou."
Since C&P already enjoy the full self-privileges and neo-immunities of Mugwumpianity and le maveriquisme en Amérique where they are, it would seem perfectly pointless of them to move. Even if they have tired of that show and crave to be quiet conformists for a change, they could simply start agreeing with their nominal comrades, Again, without any need for a trip to City Hall to re-register.

Abzocker!

Dear Dr. Bones,

Unless I have forgotten a lot more High Prussian than I think I have, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is pleasantly in the tank with the good-guy water-polotics team.

But first the news:

Romney sagte in dem veröffentlichten Mitschnitt: „Es gibt 47 Prozent, die für ihn (Obama) sind, die abhängig sind von der Regierung, die glauben, dass sie Opfer sind, die glauben, dass die Regierung die Verantwortung hat, für sie zu sorgen, die glauben, dass sie ein Recht auf Gesundheitsfürsorge, Lebensmittel und Unterkunft, auf überhaupt alles haben.“

Mitschnitt is, alas, not *Mitt.schnitt and has no intrinsic connection with His Mass. Excellency, Mittius Coriolanus Pompo, Demander of Apologies, Despiser of Apologizers, Master of Seamus, Stepmaster to Rafalca,

(( Baincapper Extraordinaire, ))

Possessor of the Golden Birth Certificate, Ripest Fruit of

(( Cr*nbr**k, ))

&c. &c. &c. Most pertinently for our present purposes, H. M. E. is now become also "(the) Mighty Wielder of Percentages." [0][1]



Happy days.

_____
[0] Polly Glott over to G@@GLE turned H. E.’s recent titular enhancement into "The Mighty Benutzerbild von Prozentangaben," which seems to Eye and to Paddy impressive even by the local standards of Port Gibberish. _Benutzer_ might do, vaguely, for ‘wielder’, but nobody ordered a _Bild_. _Angabe_ with the inseperable prefix is the kind of thing Dr. Alzheimer takes away first: the dictionary says "declaration, instruction, statement; information." So Paddy and Eye envision an illustrated pamphlet that explains how to assemble forty-seven percent (but no more than 47%) of the bicycle Amazon sent us for Exmass.

One could make Mittens jokes about that, but ¿So what? We did not tell Miss Polly that we were tracking the biggest game of all, picture and pamphlet must have come from something lodged and rotting in her mind, not ours.

Plus ¡for the Sons of Bethmann-Hollweg & Daughters of Brünhilde to pretend not to know what ’mighty’ is! That is so obvious a self-exculpatory ploy that they cannot sanely hope to fool anybody.

On the Alzheimer front, Unterkunft will be about the last to go, we betsya. ¿Who can fail to remember a German word he learned the meaning of by reading War and Peace in a Homeland™ic translation?


[1] For those of them at Rio Limbaugh, plus everybooby demented by the dull-set strains of the MacL@@han t@@ba, Eye thinks we had better assign idols to the various items in H. M. E.’s ever-expandin’ formal style. So, then:

(( Mighty Wielder of Percentages ))

Each idol can be linked to a plain prose explanation for pre-postliterate grown-ups. In this case, to the complete transcript of H. M. E.’s ever-immortal Geheimrede.

American Nordic

Dear Dr. Bones,

Idols and icons cannot possibly mean the same thing to you and Eye as to those whose brains have been rotted by endless cadenzas for MacL@@han T@@ba.[1]

Probably only we happy two in all of central North America will see anything remarkable about this doozy:

(( "American Nordic" by The Daily Torygraph ))

Happy days.
--JHM

___
[1] The medium is indeed the message / massage / mucilage, an MMM which might be prosed as "Abandon all criticism, ye who enter here."

Master of Seamus Does the Dishes

Romney is capable of showing kindness to certain animals in certain situations. Such as the time he tried to rescue a ferret from a dishwasher. From Michael Grunwald's new book, The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era: [Former Utah senator Bob] Bennett says his friend Mitt Romney commiserated with him about the ingratitude of the Tea Party, telling a presumably apocryphal story about getting bitten by a ferret he had tried to rescue from a dishwasher. "Mitt said the Tea Party people are like that ferret in the dishwasher," Bennett says. "They're so frightened and angry, they'll even bite Bob Bennett, who's trying to get the country out of this mess." Despite the suggestion that the story was apocryphal, we consider it plausible that the incident actually happened to Romney.

Happy days.

The Apotheosis of Tee Putty

Well, AN apotheosis.

Obama puts Medicare in critical condition By Deroy Murdock | Monday, August 20, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Op-Ed (...) The Washington Post conveniently itemizes Obama’s 10-year decreases in Medicare: * The lion’s share, some 34.8 percent or $249.2 billion, involves “reductions in how much Medicare reimburses hospitals and private health insurance companies,” as Kliff observes. Team Obama lamely argues that these are not Medicare-benefit cuts. Nice try. This is like saying that Washington is not reducing student aid, just limiting tuition payments to colleges and university systems. * Another 30.2 percent of Obama’s Medicare reductions, or about $216.2 billion, is gouged out of Medicare Advantage. This highly popular program lets seniors choose among private insurers. But, since Obama knows best, this market-friendlier approach gets catapulted off a cliff. “These cuts will force seniors to pay $3,700 more for their health care by 2017,” according to the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s James C. Capretta. “The Medicare trustees project that the cuts will drive some 4 million seniors out of Medicare Advantage plans between 2012 and 2018.” * A further 8.8 percent ($63 billion) comes from payments diverted from home health providers. * An additional 5 percent in cuts ($35.8 billion) affects Disproportionate Share Hospital adjustment payments. These subsidies assist hospitals that treat large numbers of uninsured patients. * The remaining 21.2 percent ($151.8 billion) consists of cuts to another 10 or so Medicare services, The Washington Post reports. (...) Deroy Murdock is a columnist with Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with Stanford University’s Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace.

walkman56 ? 0 0 Obama gave the money to insurance cos., hospitals, and closed the donut hole for seniors who are by and large living like paupers. Disgraceful. Posted 5 hours ago Reply Link Abusive

¡Well, well!  Anybooby who manages to get that much wrong in that few words would appear to be a poster child for AstroTurf™-baggin’ by the Fearless Funders of Freedumb.

THIS is the intended end product!   THIS is what all those hardly earned megabucks have been poured forth like irrigation water in order to raise us a crop of.   A scab so loyal to its bosses that it refuses to make any picky distinction between doughnuts and holes.  Or between geezers and paupers.  A scab prepared to believe that what the esteemed Hoovervillain has a quotee call, accurately enough, “reductions in how much Medicare reimburses hospitals and private health insurance companies" amount to BHO giving money to insurance companies and hospitals.

Freedumb of Private Judgement could hardly go farther.   Facts and Irish need not apply.

The trouble with this sort of seemin’ perfection, though, is that one can never be ENTIRELY sure one is not being practiced upon. The reason Mr. Poster looks rather too scabby to be true could be that he is not true at all and never intended to be.

Giving his walkmanship the benefit of the doubt, sinceritywise, Paddy and Eye think he might profit from a famous maxim of one



of the Venerable Pioneers of 'Turf’baggin:

That we may be altogether of the same mind and in conformity with the [AEIdeology], if She shall have defined anything (si ... Hierarchica ita illud esse definiat) to be black which appears to our eyes to be white, we ought in like manner to pronounce it to be black.

The point to be emphasized is that the homebrewin’ amateur may--should--simply leave it all alone until her hire-ups formally pronounce.   In the meantime, it ought to suffice to establish her utter neoloyalty to the Class of her Betters to annouce in advance a perfect willin’ness to see things their freelordships' way the instant she has been reliably informed which way that is. 

I guess his walkmanship might conceivably imagine himself to be, as it were, auditionin’, when he scribbles like this.   In order, that is, to show that he can see whighteousness when all looks Black (or at best Tan) to mostvolks, he gives us a sample of his stuff by lookin’ at "reduction in how much Medicare reimburses" and seein’ "gave the money to insurance cos., hospitals, and closed the donut hole."

Eye fears Fabulous Fernie,



or more likely some lesser underlin’ of America's Otherparty, would be rather perplexed to have his walkmanship in for a job interview. "It is very interestin’, neocomrade, that you can look at pink and see purple.   Not many can.  I congratulate you on your remarkable talent.   Unfortunately what Mittius Coriolanus Pompo and the Smirk of Janesville require at the moment is orange perceived and presented as green.  So please don't call us, we'll call you.   And have a nice day."

Happy days.
--JHM

Confronting the Tired Trend of Personal Gain

Liberals exploiting blacks is tired trend By Joe Fitzgerald | Saturday, August 18, 2012 Black history hasn’t taught us (sic) much, or so it seems when we see it continually reduced to a self-serving prop by those who regard it as a tool for advancement. Joe Biden telling a Virginia crowd of blacks that GOP policies are “gonna put y’all back in chains” is just any echo of shameless exploitations we’ve all heard before. (( ... yimmer ... yammer ... yada ... ¡SNIP¡ )) Black history is American history, too, so to see it appropriated for personal gain ought to offend anyone inclined to honor our heritage. (( .... ))

Joe Not-the-Wurzelbacher—rhymes with Clemens non Papa—lapses into the superduperthoughtful SOSO, "same old, same old," mode, one that kiddie selfservatives seem especially prone to. [*]

"I've heard it a thousand times, ERGO, I don't believe a word of it.  ¡So there, consider yourself refuted, O scum of a Bolshevik!"

Naturally your kiddiecon (or Kiddiemaster wannabe, like Old Colourblind Joe) takes a different tack when it is a question of neopropositions drawn from the Smaller Kaddiechism. Or from the Greater Kiddiechasm of the AEIdeology either, should the matter be especially deep-goin.

Even the lovely (but not so tal...) Cindy from Wasilla, who is surely, let's face it, about the last-ditch rock-bottom specimen of a Party neocomradess, bestembrightnesswise, is not likely come back with SOSO to, say, that beautiful,
that all but all-consolin apophthegm,

"A risin tide lifts all boats."

More urgently still, sievalisation as we know it (’tis the Whight Sievalisation of the Western Race to which Paddy and Eye refer, needless to say,

for of course there is, there can be, no other) would founder in a flash, Jumblies an all, were kiddiecons, or even less abnormal customers, to start applying SOSO to the so-called "commercial speech."     If, having heard the same radio plug for ScroogeBank, say, or for the window-replacement firm of your choice, for the 13,209th time made Ol Joe from Jay School an other rank-an-file Walmartians feel the way Vice President Joseph makes Ol Joe feel, why, commerce would grind to a halt.

Grass would grow in State Street an Herald Square, wolves howl in the very shadow of Baincap Tower an the Prudential. Soon Wellesley, an Weston, even Manchester-by-the-Sea (!), would become hard to tell from Louisedayhicksville or Chelsea. Lovecraft Country as a hole would lapse into such a sad state that Eye betsya even Massa Howie Carr might be ready to entertain the idea of lettin the Wampanoags take it all back. Especially if we stout Euromales could maybe weasel some kind of refund out of ’em, the Massachusetts product having proved unsatisfactory. Doubtless the warranty period has expired, but if the Natives expect us to steer other potential buyers to them in future . . . .

No, SOSO is deployed only when the kiddiecon, or some Fitzgeraldoid conner of kiddies, runs into some bit of eyeglaze she disliked at first sight on dogmatic-mythological grounds.  Otherwise, repetition mostly just produces inattention, Eye thinks, though with just a smidgen of doubt that there may be something to common Social Scientistic notions of subliminal suggestion. Clearly the Froods and the Jungs and the Adlers and, more importantly, their corporate epigones here in the Heimatland G*ttes did not think that repetition as such typically leads to SOSO, to what we may perhaps venture to christen as NtWS, "Not-the-Wurtzelbacher’s Syndrome." Or how about 'Fitzgeralditis'?

I think if that were the case by and large, even "WXKS AM 1200 Newton an (formerly) Rio Limbaugh" would have got the word an ditched it by now.

As is customary (obligatory?) in the stricter whightist circles, his freelordship of Fitzgerald stays as far as possible from anythin the least bit like the hateful Goose-and-Gander Paradigm. A catcher sure won't catch Ol' K*l*rbl*n' Joe thinkin that maybe--just 'maybe'--we donkeys can get quite as bored with his own Party drivel, as here exhibited for not exactly the first time, as his freelordship is impatient of Mr. Biden’s alleged ditto.

To attack head on, for a change: his freelordship was graciously pleased to begin by vouchsafin that "Black History has not taught us very much."

¡Love that US!  For obviously what irks his freelordship is basically that those people (so to call THEM) have signally failed to learn that they ought to have remained regular Republicanines such as they were back when General Ulysses was personally in charge of the Party of Grant & Hoover. (Well, sort of in charge.)

Paddy and Eye believe that Freelord Fitzgerald has stumbled across our very favorite pronoun of the first person plural, the one that contains NEITHER the speaker (Apprentice Kiddiemaster Fitzgerald himself, that would be) NOR those addressed (Wally Wombschool an the aforementioned Mizz Cindy, plus Rio Limbaugh an Wingnut City at large). The { we, us, our, ours } set that is semantically and functionally identical with { they, them, their, theirs }.

Now We Ourselves hereby demand to be addressed as "Marie of Roumania," if his freelordship, an The Fehrnstrom Fishwrap, an all the Louisedayhicksvillains really believe that they have not learned everythin that really matters bout Black History. The trouble is only, ¡quelle surpise!, that so many Blacks and Tans have yet to see the whight, and repent, an, havin repented, amend their lives by rushin down to City Hall to enlist with Rear-Colonel Bruce Tarr. Hopefully accompanied by two forms of photo I. D.

Not bein a complete jerk, Old Colourblind Joe does not attempt positively to expound the infallible racial teachins of the Smaller Kiddiechasm.  His freelordship just pseudo- an neo-moralises around the edges, as it were: "To see [Black History] appropriated for personal gain ought to offend anyone inclined to honor our heritage."

"PERSONAL gain" strikes a distinctly odd note, ¿does it not? One does not often meet with Republicanines an AEIdeologues who speak thus disparaginly of personal gain.  Moreover, whatever the Vice-President of US all may have thought he was doing the other day will not have involved spiffing up the Biden retirement portfolio.

Betcha Ol Joe from the Jay School had his dittopan temporarily disconnected from his keyboard when that one popped out. Your competent whightist agitpropper would have spoken of Party or factional gain, with or without a brief explanation for those of them at Rio Limbaugh why she who weasels financially for Tammany Hall and Cook County and "the Democrat party" is far, far worse than she who merely obtains banknotes to partially reimburse her personal expenses out of Spiro Agnew Brand (®) paper bags.

The freelordly tripe as it stands is not rendered any more tasty when one reflects that it is very difficult to think of plausible ways to become a Black History entrepreneur, boldly to pile up the literal doits and shekels for oneself alone, becoming at last the Steve Jobs, the Koch Frères, the Willard Mitt Romney, the Sheldon Adelson, the . . . of the Triangle Trade.  Not only was Mr. Biden not doing that, ’tis very doubtful that the "personal gain" thing can be done at all. Not, that is, unless ‘gain’ be reduced to such small potatoes as to be negligible in the eyes of a Fearless Funder of Freedumb. At best the future Gibbon of Afromerica may conceivably match the cash value of dear Kruggie's Nobel Prize, merest peanuts by TopPercenter standards: "10 million Swedish kronor (during January 2008, approx. US$1.6 million; 1.1 million Euro)"

Even assuming a strong wind of Affirmative Action from behind, corruptly blowing the trashbags ever up and up, only a fool would go into any sort of History Department guided by a dream of Avarice.

Were Their Ford still comin down to breakfast, chances are He would snap at the kiddiecons, an specially at their Party Neocomrade (sixth grade) J. X. Fitzgerald, that Black History is only more kolorblind bunk, for anybooby who wants to look out properly for Number One like a rational critter.

Happy days.
 --JHM

_____
[*] N.B.: Eye does not say "EXCLUSIVELY prone."

O Auream Integritatem!

There may be a learnable moment here, outside, naturally, of the corporate offices of The Fehrnstrom Fishwrap an Louisedayhicksville an the greater Rio Limbaugh area.

Mittius Coriolanus Pompo, Demander of Apologies, Master of Seamus, &c. &c. &c. &c., has been shamefully pestered about his taxes by plebes and proles and cobblers and weavers and (especially)  representatives of the non-backwater media.

Pompo comes stately down to the Forum to show off his Classwar wounds, an to warn Senate an People against the dark threat of ... of, among other dusky unwhighteousnesses, protected patients an affordable public medicine. Also to commend his idiot stepnephew,



P. Smirquius Caseus Minor, who, though not from the City aristocracy, is considered, no doubt correctly, to be the very model of a respectably cloth-coated Republicanine at Janesville WI.

The riff and the raff, however, are not half--not a twentieth--as interested as they oughtabe in Smirquius Minor with his ever-immortal Thirty Year Plan for TopPercenter Ascendancy, cleverly disguised as a Fedguv budget for whichever FY happens to begin next at any given moment.   Roused by the hate-crazed demagogue Reid, who is still, somehow, to our shame as Neoromans,



Princeps Senatus, the rabble want M. Coriolanus Pompo's 1040's released to them almost as badly as their brethren of the external proletariat once wanted



that universal hearth-throb Barabbas released to them, instead of what's-his-name, some out-of-commonwealth relative of the Coriolani Pompones, I believe that troublemaker was.

Anyhow, it has seemed good to Pompo -- or perhaps to Erich, Freiherr von Fehrnstrom, which comes to the same thing -- to have Volumnia Equestrix, consort to Coriolanus Pompo, to join her guy on the rostrum an remark "There’s going to be no more tax releases given.   Mittius is honest.   His integrity is just golden.”

Now Freedame Volumnia notoriously lives an exceedinly retired life.  Her freeladyship may be innocently unaware that Neorome ditched the gold standard sixteen (MCMXLIX - MCMXXXIII) years before her freeladyship was so much as hatched.  Quite as likely, though, her freeladyship was just readin what Fabulous Fernie wrote for her freeladyship to read.

We now arrive at the learnability moment, which works as follows: what makes aristocratic goodvolks like the Coriolani Pompones (an Volumnii Equestres) be aristoes -- makes ’em constitue, that is, a CLASS of aristoes, not just a laundry list of ruggedly self-infatuated individuals -- is that the freeladylike appeal would actually work, were it addressed strictly to Classmates.

With the proles an plebes an cobblers an weavers an mainstreamers actually before her, Freedame Volumnia will, needless to say, effect nothin worth mentionin.

Inside The Class™, however, on the freeladylike home turf, so to speak, reciprocal self-avouchin like Fernie asked for not only works, 'tis the glue that hold the whole aristoe shebang together.

The late Dr. Marx made an admirable beginning on the hypothesis that Classmateyness is basically an economic phænomenon. I suppose that view is, even today, sound enough, provided that one glosses ‘basically' with a great deal of care.   For rough-and-ready everyday use, however, it is more helpful to start with The Psychological Reality of Classmateyness, so to call it, and not get unduly hung up on technicalities about their freelordships' current net worths.

In practice, you may safely assume that you, too, nust be a Classmate, if you have no problem about takin Freedame Volumnia's bare unsupported word for the wunnerfulness of M. Coriolanus Pompo. (Inasmuch, however,as you appear to be readin the peanut gallery of The Fehrnstrom Fishwrap, there is no need to worry about where you stand, Classmatewise. "Four-letter word, starts with "SC", ends with a 'B', . . . . Either that or a Bolshie.)

Somebooby like the late Comrade Vidal--a traitor, I mean, like Comrade Delano, to his hereditary Classmates--expressed the essence of this concept by pointing out that, presented with some specimen of Dives not known to oneself personally, we humble of the Murrayan Underclass will probably wonder "How much is he worth?" A proper Classmate, however, will ask "Who are his people?" That is to say, an echt freelordship wants the dots filled in between himself an Dives Ignotus with genuine ‘people', Classmates whose vouchins for one another are known to be acceptable.

It follows (unexpectedly to Paddy McScribble) that Classmates must find the whole circus about M. Coriolanus Pompo's taxes (an the freelordly finances of other sorts as well) not so much distasteful as unintelligible.

Suppose the questionable Dives Ignotus attempts to enter the sacred precincts of

the Unionbasher League Club to dine in secret-sectorial bliss with (those whom D. I. evidently fancies to be) his peers an peeresses.   No UBLC member in good standin would dream of bein so crude as to demand that Ignotus present papers on the doorstep or be referred to the attentions of the cops.   Should Ignotus happen to be dressed the way P. Smirquius Caseus Janesvillensis allegedly dresses--an be not accompanied by some known club member an Classmate like M. Coriolanus Pompo--he will almost certainly not get in, or not get in far for long.   But even so, there would certainly be no silly prole-plebe-cobbler-papparazzo fuss about tax returns, or birth certificates, or photo I.D.'s.  Das wäre für die Gasse, they used to say in Ye Olde Country.

Fabulous Fernie's Jay School fruits an frathouse babes are likely to refer this sort of thing as WWNN (alio modo: W2N2), "wink, wink; nod, nod."

That observation, however, best serves to remind that Freelord Fehrnstrom is no Classmate. 'It is probably safe to say," thinks Paddy McTammany from well outside the mon[k]ey house, "That if one can detect any unmistakable winkin or noddin, probably the goodvolks involved are not Clasmates. Top-drawer hired gunclingers, possibly, yet not quight the really whight sorta volks whose ‘people' your Vidal-class Classmate would inquire after."

Naturally if Freedame Volumnia had winked or nodded whilst standin by her Heroe, one would take for granted that divorce proceedins have commenced. [*]

Happy days.

___
[*] It seems antecedently likely that her freeladyship has not much better an idea about the financial doins of the Baincapper Extraordinaire to whom she is hitched than Senator Reid, or Yoo, or Eye does.   No more idea, that would be, than M. Coriolanus Pompo admitted to havin about some friend



of his wife's named ‘Rafalca’ who got into the non-backwater media recently by way of some politically irrelevant connexion.

      

(( smirk in progress ))

Happy days.

Who ARE These People?

(( "Chick Checks Out the Chikin" ))

"Superman comes to the Supermarket" [*] it ain’t quite:

Sarah Palin waded into the controversy surrounding Chick-fil-A and gay marriage by tweeting a picture of herself and her husband Todd visiting one of the the fast-food chain stores Friday after a Texas campaign stop. “Stopped by Chick-fil-A in The Woodlands to support a great business,” the former Alaskan governor and vice -presidential candidate tweeted following an appearance at a rally for Republican Senate primary challenger Ted Cruz outside Houston. At the Cruz rally, Palin said: “Jason, you’re going to have to take me on our way back to the airport later. We drive by a Chick Fil-A. We don’t have that in Alaska,” she said, referring to an aide. “Love me some Chick Fil-A. (sic) So we’ll go there, Jason, on the way, OK?” Palin urged Cruz’s supporters to visit Chick-fil-A, which has been mired in controversy since its president said the chain supports “the [B]iblical definition of the family unit.” Palin told Fox News this week that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s comments on the chain amounted to “thuggery.”

Happy days.

_____
 [*] "Thank you, Comrade Mailer."

When the Story Hits the Sieve

Dear Dr. Bones,

One can hardly wander half a verst out in WWWonderland without running across strangers and aliens who are performing miracles of benefaction aimed evidently at oneself.

Take, for example, the Poet Laureate of Northwestern Civilisation,

>

a far-flung freelordship whom one would expect to concern himself with, say, creatin’ the literary happiness of Prince Patrick Island, 76° 45’ N 119° 30’ W.

But not at all: his freelordship is usually (and here) found addressin’ the wombscholars an’ freedowndumbees of Pajama Junction NJ, apparently with some thought that, through them, and aided by the Squire of Simon Pajama, ¡World’s Greatest YaleoDrama™ist!, his freelordship of Solway will somehow be able to dictate postpolicy and neomorality and especially ... ta-DAAH ...What Happened in History, plus maybe a little belles-lettres, I guess, there is any time left over, to our own dear Heimatland G*ttes.

Paddy McTammany ought to be grateful, of course, but . . .

But please ¡let’s not talk about me!

Instead, let us look under the Exmas Tree and see what his boreal freelordship has left for us this time. Hmmm. Another large sack of coal, it looks like.

"Corruption, delusion, and mendacity" sound pretty coal-like to me, anyway, who think traditionally of fossil fuel a dirty and smelly rather than as workin’ wonders for the portfolioes of the Chosen. His freelordship bein’, as we happen to know, an ornament of the Greatest Demographic™, the term ‘corruption’, comin’ thus from the Laurel Keyboard [0], cannot mean anything strictly Calvinistic or Augustinian. Paddy and Eye are not, however, entirely sure that it means no more than what your run-of-the-mill Tammanyphobe means by it.[1]

Perhaps it does not much matter, though, for his freelordship keystrokes of "mass deception" a little farther down in a fashion that suggests that in the freelordly neogeography, the province of Deceptio Magna comprehends and incorporates the inferior jurisdictions of Corruptio, Delusio, and Medacitas. Think of Cæsar on Gaul.

Deceptio Magna appears to be a very large ideoprovince. Very large and very deplorable:

The ability of dominant elites to influence and even control the thought-world of vast populations to an historically unprecedented extent is now an integral part of contemporary life.

Kinda fun to notice that, if one had no notion of who his freelordship is, one might think at this point that one was in for a hell-fire sermon against Rupert Firstlord Murdoch and Kiddiemaster Ailes et hoc genus omne, pajamatarians and YaleoDrama™ists not excluded.

But no, of course ¡that can’t be whight!

And, sure enough, when the persiflage clears a little, one finds that Deceptio Magna is not so much a matter of that abstract high-falutin’ neotrinity first proclaimed, but subsists at a more meat-and-poatatoes, yet still a neotrinitarian, level:

[T]he three consummate trumperies (sic) disfiguring the era in which we live: (1) the Palestinian “narrative,” (2) the climate change shakedown, and (3) the ascent of Barack Obama to the most powerful office in the world. Truth is now at a discount as never before and has been increasingly replaced by promiscuous (sic) and sovereign mythologies. [2]

Freelord Solway seems to have nothin’ new or otherwise remarkable to impart about any of these Manifest Signs of the End of Times, though of course that does not hinder the freelordly gush in the slightest.

Moving on, then, to the bottomline, Paddy expected to find all the freelordly Ends tied together neatly, perhaps in the form of the (not obviously faction-crazed) maxim that to tell a story is not the same thing as to make an argument, and a much lesser thing than to discover and expound a proof.

That theme would in fact not do perfectly for this puddin’, I admit, but the fault is rather his freelordship’s than my own: "the ascent of Barack Obama" is simply not parallel to the other two. Mostvolks outside the Eng. Lit. Dept. would casually call The Régime a ‘fact’ rather than a ‘story’, I betcha.

Freelord Solway’s storification of BHO is unobjectionable to those of us who have been expensively educated, but only because we take for granted that the S-word is polysemic, that there can and do coëxist (say) "The Story of Jonah and the Whale," which can never have happened, and "The Story of Willie Horton," which certainly did. Along with all sorts of intermediate and dubious examples there is no call to go into here.

His freelordship’s own puddin’ theme is a disappointment. Eliminate all the symptoms of thesauroma [3] with which the last paragraph is festooned, and it comes to only this, that Judæostatism, and extraction-based Capitalism, and America’s Otherparty would not need to worry what stories their enemies tell unless somebooby out there in Televisionland and the electorate actually thinks them to be true stories.

You can’t get much trivialer than that, now, ¿can you?

Happy days.
--JHM

___
 [0] Rhymes with "Golden Microphone."

 [1] "For those of [them] at Rio Limbaugh," that would be chiefly the ‘corruption’ that exchanges Spiro Agnew Brand® paper bags full of Federal Reserve notes for political favors.

[2] I think his freelordship probably knows what the words I have sicced (and there are others that might have been) signify for most Anglophones, but feels licenced by Laureateship, or maybe only by neoself-esteem, to marshal them poetically rather than prosaically.

[3] "the malignant swelling of Roget’s gland"

Little Ronnie Radosh bashes Psocialism

Dear Dr. Bones,

"There are no more socialists — if they were honest they would change the name of the party .... [Socialism] evokes the nightmare of the Soviet Union, whose leaders named themselves socialists.” Today, he ["the most well-known [0] Parisian intellectual, writer Bernard-Henri Levy"] maintains, European socialists are essentially like American Democrats — there has been no ideological left in France that matters since the effective demise of the Communist Party, which was “the true exception française.

¡Alas! Comrade Ronnie of the Seventh (?) International, as His now Effulgent Freemightiness of Radoszcz once was, brings this news so extremely belatedly that HFM might as well be talkin’ ’bout the late Queen Anne’s vital signs.

I suppose perversion must always be to some extent in the mind of the pervert.

Clearly H. E. FM. relishes the "History is bunk" side of his new-found ideobuddies. This, however, is maybe a little problematical from the careerist angle, since it is questionable whether Wally Wombschool an’ Cindy from Wasilla could successfully be astrofunded to take an interest in so obsolete a geezer as this one, were he to confine himself narrowly to the events of Century XV-XXI-LVIX; to matters, that is, not yet entirely effaced by the salutary paw of Destructive ©®eationi$™.

One might speculate, a tad uncharitably, that the AstroTurf™-Bagger Class regale the kiddiecons with the likes of HEFM as what might be termed "dogmatic vaccination." As follows:

Even today, Master Wally an’ Mizz Cindy might accidentally run into Ms. Clio in a public place. Say, when accompanyin’ their brats to the local Palace of Postliteracy, formerly the public library. In the long rule, the thing to do, obviously, is to make sure that all places without exception--with as few exceptions as humanoidly possible--have been (what the Freelords an’ the Kiddiemasters jubilate over as) ‘privatized’ thoroughly. Left without a hole to hide in, as it were, Clio will then either just curl up and croak, or emigrate to West Neptune, well out of infection range.

Meanwhile, though, it will be better for everybooby involved, if the Wombschool volks have been inoculated in advance with an Ersatzgeschichte that unquestionably is bunk. And that is an ideoproduct which His Effulgent Freemightiness of Radoszcz possesses primâ-facie qualifications to prepare.

It may seem rather a slender factional niche, Dr. Bones, but you are to consider that the Party of Grant & Hoover maintain a number of others that are not in principle different. Take Neocomrade Associate Justice C. X. Thomas, or Neocomrade Prof. Dr. Fu’ád al-‘Ajamí of the Johns Hopkins University, specimens whom we have agreed operate basically on the lines of "You can trust ME, Neocomrades! Eye am not like the others. ¡Not like THEM in the least! And now, let me fill you in on how very icky the others are . . . ."

¿Surely His Freemightiness of Radoszcz is turnin’ essentially that same trick?

No doubt this general class of whight-wing niches an’ refugia is ‘narrow’ in the sense that only a tiny numerus clausus of Party neocomrades can subsist on any given one of them.   If "the others" suddenly started perverting to Hooverism en masse, the YCTM-INLTO shtyk would break down in a jiffy, no doubt about it. Yet as long as it is not overused, I see no reason why it should not continue workin’ indefinitely for the chosen few.

Perhaps you, sir, can think of such a reason.  If so, Paddy and Eye will be pleased to learn what it may be.

Happy days.

(( It is maybe a difficulty for today’s McScenario that H. E. FM. is certainly in no position to give the selfservative kiddies inside poop on the abominable Frogs, modern as well as mediæval and ancient, a project which his freemightiness spends at least as much time on here as on bunkifyin’ our Miss Clio. Still, we have previously observed that once the Squire of Simon Pajama has made an acquisition for the freelordly stable, it (the acquisition) is allowed to range rather widely. A special pet like Don Ricardito de Fernández y Podhòretz does not have to discuss (Blacks or) Tans in more than every tenth scribble, if that.

(( And Mammon knows best. ))

___
[0] A faint whiff of subliteracy--not displeasing, considering the source-- emanates from that neocomradely wordin’. As opposed, that is, to "the best-known Parisian intellectual," which seems to Eye and to Paddy not only impeccable but also not notably stiff or formal. To be sure, we do not go in for linguistic pajamatarianism any more than for political. What is fine by us could easily seem impossibly stuffy to Master Wally an’ Mizz Cindy ensconced on their potatoe couches.

¿Passive, passive, who’s got my passive?

Dear Dr. Bones,

Friday, Jun 15, 2012 04:17 PM EDT Romney gets DREAMy on immigration | After repeatedly vowing to veto the DREAM Act, the candidate suggests he has no problem with Obama’s new policy By Alex Seitz-Wald Fire up the Etch a Sketch. After spending the entire GOP presidential primary affirming his hard-right immigration policies, Mitt Romney took several steps to the left today while responding to the Obama administration’s new deportation policy.... (( ... ))

Betzee Friday, Jun 15, 2012 08:20 PM EDT "I would like to seek legislation that deals with this issue ..." Hate to tell ya Mitt, but GWB tried and failed. He was a a hellava lot more popular with the base than you will ever be, too. Moreover, use of passive voice speaks volumes about your leadership abilities.

Charity may, in a pinch, suppose that Miss Poster was not talking about "I would like to seek legislation that deals with this issue ..." but about a different oracle, viz. "I think the action that the president took today makes it more difficult to reach that long-term solution because an executive order is, of course, a short-term matter and CAN BE REVERSED by subsequent presidents."

Before picking on the Governor’s alleged "leadership abilities," I’d question a couple of details about His Excellency’s grasp of how the non-secret sector in fact operates:  (1) An executive order is not particularly short-term or long-term or any-other-term, what is special about it is that it is an *internal* directive for the Executive Branch. And of course (2), legislation also CAN BE REVERSED also.

Why, ¡even the Fedguv Constitution itself can be reversed!, an arrangement every boozer ought to celebrate daily as Happy Hour dawns over the yardarm.

Moving on to Leadership, H. E. does rather give the impression that His edicts deserve to be engraved in marble or imperishable brass. Between the H*rv*rd Victory School theory and the practical Baincappin’ experience in H. E.’s background, perhaps it is no wonder that H. E. should take that line. Nevertheless, it is all a bit of a mistake, I fear. Your Baincapper need not worry much about bein’ checked or balanced by anybooby inside her own organization--not unless things are goin’ so badly that the Board of Directors actually wake up an’ madly attempt to do some directin’, an attempt by no means guaranteed to take effect, no matter what the by-laws actually say.

Every Baincapper is a Mussolini in her own secret-sector business corporation, but that by no means guarantees that the next Corporate Titan will not toss all her predecessor’s policies out an’ start mussolinifyin’ in the exact opposite direction.   There is a sort of wild Fairembalance to it: Willard Mitt Romney gets to be the Benito of Baincap an’ hear not a peep against whatever His sagacity may resolve upon only as long as H. E. is actually ensconced in the corner office. The next guy gets the same perks, one of which is that She could, should *Her* sagacity think best, nullify any or all of the formerly unopposable Willardmittian decrees.

And this must necessarily be the case, it seems to me, for, if it were not, poor Ms. Epigone would not in fact have inherited the same job that H.E. used to perform. Worse, Baincap would no longer have a vibrant Benito at the helm to brave the storm, only a Dead Hand of the Past.   Even if the rest of the crew, very improbably, agreed 100% about what WMR would have done, they’d still be only a contemptible committee. Sensible investors will bet on the storm in such circumstances.

None of this has much to do with what they used to teach in high-school Civics, but that is O.K., at least as a speculative proposition. For all I can see to the contrary, anyway, Dead-Hand-of-the-Past Syndrome, so to call it, is quite as dangerous to public policy as to secret-sector Big Management.

On Subscribing to National Review

Dear Dr. Bones,

Even though V. D. Blimp-Hanson is an old pal of ours, Paddy and Eye agree that it would be unseemly for us to offer the following as a maiden comment over to National Review Online, us being both brand-new subscribers and cultivated despisers of the KSM, "Kiddie Selfservative Movement."  So we shall park it here with you.

His neohonourable an' postgallant freelordship has perorated about ‘Austerity’ versus ‘Growth’ as follows:

Finally, there is one more problem with the fake growth/austerity juxtaposition. They are both simply reflections of much deeper ideologies that drive politics. “Growth” is a euphemism for the politics of hiring lots of government workers, preferably unionized, and expanding the number of people dependent on government, who in turn owe politicians their jobs and reciprocate at the polls in expectation of even greater largesse. The costs of expanding the number of government employees and offering them ever higher salaries, benefits, and retirement packages are met not through increasing productivity, but rather by increasing taxes on those who mostly make their livings under very different conditions in the despised private sector. “Growth,” then, is a sort of “gorge the beast” antithesis to the Reaganite “starve the beast” model. Both ideologies seek to avoid insolvency through a game of chicken — of front-loading the cost and hoping the other guy will blink first when it comes to paying for it. But where the Reagan model sought first to cut taxes, so as to cut revenue, so as to force down the size of government and prune federal dependency, the Obama paradigm seeks first to grow government, which increases dependency and therefore requires more taxes — itself a good thing because it means redistributing income from those who have no clue that they have passed the point at which they no longer need to make any more money. If politicians talked not of “growth” versus “austerity” but of “borrowing and spending” versus “fiscal discipline,” then there would be very little public support for their disastrous agendas. Instead, we are supposed to like the nurturers who “grow” and despise the “austere” who hack away. It’s that simple.

"It's that simple" is never a good sign.

Decent political adults are bound to wonder what it is, exactly, that Rear-Colonel Hanson-Blimp would prefer that we not bother our ignorant little heads about. I guess there is no way to know for sure unless his freelordship himself tells us, but one possibility is that “borrow and spend” would not be a bad description of Reagan Régime policy. As opposed to Jimmy Crater's "inflate and spend," that is.

Thirty years on, "borrow and spend" does not look all that wunnerful viewed from the self-whighteous side of the aisle.  It is rather a tricky business, though, to decide whether the G.O.P. Geniuses of the '80's may fairly be blamed for not foreseein' that B&S would probably never live up to its advertisements. They seem to have taken for granted that their own Class must always be poor Sam's chief creditors, an' therefore always in a position to dictate Sam's policy in a pinch, whereas in fact the heathen Chinee (mostly) has somehow crept into that key rôle.

Being foreigners, the ChiComs and so forth are not in a strong position, policydictationwise, but then, not bein' *primary* creditors any longer, neither are domestic Baincappers.

It occurs to me as I scribble that an anticipator might conceivably anticipate a buy-partisan consensus here, as follows no particular group of piper-payers can call the Fedguv tune, so ¿Why should Great Sam not borrow blithely instead of either (A) pullin' a long face an' mumblin' pious viennasausage about Austerity, or (B) just printing funny money?

Naturally there can be no serious question of Wunnerful US ever paying it all back, but that's O.K. too, in the sense that Lefty and I would not be broken-hearted if we eventually have to hold down a few noteholders and give them what you might call a "Romney School of Barber Science" haircut.

The Daughters of Virtue & Sons of Wisdom, L.L.C., for their part, have made it crystal-clear that they would not consider it a disaster either moral or fiscal to default on such Treasury obligations as are held by the Ponzi Security Administration. "After the first death, there are no others." That is to say, ¿Why not just lengthen that list of less-repayment-worthy bondholders a little that their freelordships have already started compilin'?

To be sure, it's not quite THAT simple, or at any rate damnwell won't be, should potential lenders work out what we are up to and decline to specuvest further in America.  At the moment, however, that danger is almost as hard to detect as is Mlle de la Main Invisible herself.

Poor Blimp could hardly have picked a worse moment to revile "borrowin' an' spendin'" or boost "fiscal discipline" than this present, when neither homegrown TopPercenters nor Lesser Breeds Without are able to think of anything better to do with their hardly-earned piles than hand them over to Geithner von Hindenburg and Bernanke von Ludendorff for safekeeping.

(( Fairembalance, the Fox Goddess, has asked me to point out that the good Rear-Col. is whight enough when he notices that this unprecedented (¿?) cheapness of money for Uncle Sam does not do a whole lot for ‘Growth’--not unless that G*d word be absurdly redefined.

(( The particular HansonoBlimpian absurdity offered, however, is only one of a number of possibilities. ))

Happy days.
--JHM

"¡Color Us Invisible!" (#96.9 of _The Zombie Watch_, an occasional series)

Dear Dr. Bones,

Your 'conservative' 'intellectual' señoritoes can be more fun than a barrel of Darwin-hatin’ ex-monkeys at times.  For example, when wannabe-subtly flatterin' themselves, plus incidently the other ranks at Fort Rio Limbaugh, with such a delicious chunk of pious viennasausage as

Like the noble gesture on its own terms, philosophy as the love of knowledge is all but invisible to the spirit of mediocrity.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Paddy McTammany is enough of an overpricily educated anhistoric Teutonophile [1] to want to point out pedantically that Philosophy is--and always was, and always is/was intended to be--at least a *little* different from ‘philomathy’:

Q. "¿Who is Sophia? What is She, / That all our señoritoes commend Her?"

A. Well, for sure, boy, She is not plain vanilla ‘knowledge’.

¿Hath not Son of Parmenides--or possibly his well-informed ventriloquist-forger, which will do as well at this distance in time--explained this point in the Seventh Epistle, 344a-d?

’Tis not difficult to see out from under whose overcoat the sillier side of Leostraussianity [2] came , and a very Classy overcoat it was, too.  For its time, that is. [3]

Happy days.
--JHM

 __
[1]

Here's a new tack: instead of whispering about secret cabals, insider code, and conspiracy theories about Straussians, Kenneth McIntyre simply reviews the man's work (by way of a new treatment by Paul Gottfried), and comes away underwhelmed: Strauss was at best a mediocre scholar whose thought expressed a confused bipolarity between a very German and ahistorical Grecophilia on the one hand and a scattered, dogmatic, and unsophisticated apology for an American version of liberal universalism on the other. Amongst prominent European philosophers, Strauss was taken seriously only by Hans-Georg Gadamer, until Gadamer concluded that Strauss was a crank, and by Alexandre Kojève, whose work reads today as if it were a parody of trendy French Marxism. In Britain, neither Strauss nor the Straussians have ever been taken seriously. Gottfried is a real scholar and this book is not, by all accounts, a hatchet job. I might add that it was strange arriving at H*rv*rd to discover that the only non-left-liberals in the faculty were Straussians. ((&c. &c. ))

There's more where that came from. Comrade Sullivan is no better than usual, I fear, and he was never anywhere near good enough for setting up as the little street Arab who detects that Emperor Leo is na..., I beg your pardon, one had meant to say "to detect that His Imperial Majesty is perhaps a little underdressed for the intellectual weather this afternoon."

[2] Paddy has been known to spoof at the silliness a little meself: "Even though I have lost my Leo Strauss Brand® magic decoder ring that came in the Cracker Jack® box . . . .", vide peanut-gallery shell #21. ))

Himself of Athens, however, laid a prophetic (and utterly spoofless) finger on the underlyin’ rub long ago:

Darum nun ist jeder ernste Mann, der kein Mietling der Wissenschaft ist, weit entfernt über ernste, hochwürdige Gegenstände seine Gedanken durch die Schrift zu veröffentlichen und dadurch sie der Schwatzsucht und Herabwürdigung preis zu geben. (344d)

But L. Strauss undeniably *did* scribble down his Highworthy Thoughts, even including the one about how The Philosopher (Pat. Pend.) just ain't supposta do that, so ... obviously ... Q.E.D.

One might almost add "L.O.L."

Of course future Little Friends of Eddie Burke (LLC), plus the epigones of M. de Dizzy-Beaconsfield an’ the groupies to Paul Ryan, Jr., Smirk of Janesville, will always retain the freedumb to discover any gap they like, or think politicaly useful, between what Leo the Neoguru wrote down and what the *authentic* an' unscribbled Highworthy Thoughts of his freelordship really were.

Paddy happens not to care much myself for games like that one, the kind in which every participant can make up the rules ad hoc. But then, being more or less an Aristotelian rather than any sort of Parmenidoid, naturally Paddy wouldn't.

[3] Those of them at Rio Limbaugh will no doubt need to be told that nothing made Leo the Great wrathier quicker than to suggest that he grade on a chronology-based curve. Unless, that is, you just modestly proposed to flunk everybody since about Vitoria and Suárez out of hand.

30,000 Leagues Under Big ‘N’

Dear Dr. Bones, Ordinarily Paddy and Eye stay away from all poptripe, not just the MacL@@han Tuba. Out of sight and earshot, if humanly possible.

But this one, brief, shining neosabbath morning, however, something must be said about turning to this specimen

I Just Heard the N-Word 30,000 Times Posted By Zombie On June 4, 2012 @ 3:20 pm In Music,Sex,Uncategorized | 38 Comments At a recent family reunion I fell ... and within the next 60 seconds “nigger” was repeated at least ten more times, along with a variety of other degrading and offensive terms. (( &c. &c. It drags out its slow length relentlessly, yet bottomlines at last with )) I can only sit here patiently and wait for the taboo-busting thrill of hearing “nigger” and “pussy” in every stanza to eventually wear off, and we can once again enjoy the subtleties of metaphor, pun and double-entendre.

directly from the learnèd and gallant Stephens-Davidowitz of H*rv*rd and, for the moment, of the New York Times Company:

[M]any Americans use Google to find racially charged material. I performed the somewhat unpleasant task of ranking states and media markets in the United States based on the proportion of their Google searches that included the word “nigger(s).” This word was included in roughly the same number of Google searches as terms like “Lakers,” “Daily Show,” “migraine” and “economist.” ((ahem)) A huge proportion of the searches I looked at were for jokes about African-Americans. (I did not include searches that included the word “nigga” because these searches were mostly for rap lyrics.) ... The state with the highest racially charged search rate in the country was ....

After that--thirty seconds after that--one may be excused for thinking dark conspiratorial thoughts when one finds beautiful downtown Pajama Junction NJ festooned with gaudy banners proclaimin’ "I Just Heard the N-word 30,000 Times."

Having worked out that this must be only coincidence, we pondered the grave question: ¿What makes a whightist commentator on "Media, Sex, Unclassified" so interested in dark matters of which her freeladyship cannot properly spell the vocabulary?

We await your thoughts.

Happy days.
--JHM

_De Sedum Allocatione Epistula_

Dear Dr. Bones,

As you see, sir, what we have here is a two-stage drift away from the precious neotopic originally announced by Bob, Cardinal Spencer: [*]


(1) Wally Wombschool would rather talk about "our immigration policy," which is at least marginally relevant, for nobooby can doubt with a straight face that His Eminence is all agog to keep as many of THEM out of the holy Homeland™ as is humanly (or, indeed, præternaturally) possible. Even if H. E. did not actually mention that particular angle in this mornin’s homily.

 (2) Then along comes Cindy from Wasilla and picks up her mate’s ‘airport’ figure, drops everythin’ else, and jets off with it to some holiday destination known only to herself. (I assume that if the fair freedame had a prepared speech on Transport Reform beside her on the potatoe couch, she would have launched whight into it.)

At this point, with poor Cardinal Bob out of sight back around the bend, Paddy and Eye are tempted to see how far we ourselves could turn the dial from Transport Reform in twenty-five words or fewer. "The flowers that bloom in the spring," though a bit overworked, would do nicely, ¿no es verdad?.

 ¡"But that would be [’]rong"!

By way of whighteousness, then, let us take Mizz Cindy’s pretzel and untwist it.  Think, Dr. Bones, of our holy Homeland™ in freeladylike rhetorical terms as an Airship of State

with only limited seating.   Now, ¿Hath the Neotestament not advised us, Ev. Matt. XXII:14, that multi ... sunt vocati pauci vero electi?     It seems to Paddy and Eye that if one turn that into the Yank vernacular as "Many are flown, but few are seated," well, ¡hey presto!, we are pretty well back with His Eminence where we ought to be.

Indeed, there is hardly a note that whightists harp on to which the question "¿But who is to have the seats?" is not preëminently pertinent.

To view the same circus from the whighteous side of the aisle, we fiends of Lieberalism and Demonocracy never tire of proposing "wicked and improper projects" of Seat Redistribution. ’Tis a long, and a very slippery, slope that runs down from being gentlemanly to little old ladies on the MBTA to the unspeakable obhominations of Affirmative Action, but we put it to you, sir, that ’tis all one and the same declivity.

Now over on the far side of Mount Seatshare, where Cardinal Bob prefers to lay down his snowjobs an’ ski, the great thing is, naturally, to make sure that all the vile Muzzies have to stand, even when there is nobody else on board but the flight crew. And not just Muzzies, in all probability, but all Natives of any sorts, everybooby "unsavory and hateful," if Eye may boldly coin a neophrase.

Seats are, or rather, damnwell oughtabe, strictly reserved for Inheritors.   For decent volks, that is, goodvolks who not only look whight primâ facie but are most extremely unlikely, as Social Scientism has profiled time an’ time again, to have an infernal machine concealed somewhere in their nethergarments.

===

Since the Muses and you and Paddy and Eye have already written a good deal about Cardinal Bob, much-esteemed, mnogouvazhàyemniy, Archpontiff of Jehádestán in partibus, though none of it very recently, we will conclude quickly with one brief observation about His Eminence’s here performance considered sub specie agitationis propagandæque.

Paddy and Eye agree that H. E. should have leaned a lot heavier of the Global Tourrorism or Muzzie Menace pedal than H. E. does.  As the archpontifical scribble actually stands, selfservative kiddies are evidently expected to take a disinterested interest in the happiness of Judæostatism, whereas ’tis a feat far beyond their well-wombschooled capacity to assume such an attitude about anythin’ at all.   To get Master Wally an’ Mizz Cindy up off the potatoe couches an’ out in the streets stickin’ pitchforks into Muzzies requires (we think) more than abstract "unsavory and hateful," it requires that the kiddiecons be terrorized about their own personal hides. Or about their 401(k)'s might do.

Cardinal Bob certainly knows how to brandish that shtyk, so it is possible, that for some reason H. E. prefers not to do so in his first encyclical deliverance to Pajama Junction NJ.

Savin’ the best whightstuff for latter, I guess.

Happy days.
--JHM

___
[*] His Eminence bein’ a notable acquisition by the stables of the YaleoDra™a-famed Squire of Simon Pajama, somebooby at PJM is to be congratulated, though Paddy and Eye are not sure who that would be.    In any case, it certainly is not every day that one wakes up to the dulcet barks of a pajamaclad that one has independently heard of.

Taking a Fresh Smirk at Crimmigration

Dear Dr. Bones,

Nobody fairembalanced would expect a "career journalist" to think more than one day ahead at a time, an’, sure ’nough, Bridget, zeroth Freedame of Johnson in the peerage of Foxcuckooland, doesn’t even try.

Imagine, just for fun, though, what might happen if somebooby competent addressed this question on behalf of the Daughters of Virtue & Sons of Wisdom LLC. Before we start, notice how it kinda tells you something about the DVSW (LLC), that Americas’s Otherparty shuld possess that great GOP Genius the Smirk of Janesville to handle pocketbook issues, an’ nobooby even a tenth as neoclever workin’ the crimmigration beat. The few Daughters/Sons mentioned here as takin’ any sort of interest in it all have what one might call "suspiciously vowel-terminal surnames."

Now getting down to vicarious smirkthink, the first problem is that even a final fix for the Criminalien Menace leaves their freelordships stuck with all sorts of aliens an’ ex-aliens who are not criminals. And the second problem--which is as far as we need go to match the Smirk with a Thirty Year Plan--is that after the alien an’ alienagenic Bad Poor are disposed of somehow, their freelordships will still be encumbered by scads an’ scads of unalien Bad Poor, persons not obviously deportable to anywhere in particular.

¡Just imagine what the goodvolks at Dublin (or Belfast) would say about Yank-whightist proposals to ship Paddy and Eye ‘back’ to them for storage or other disposal, simply on a Mac-and-O basis!

What the Otherparty requires, it seems to Paddy and Eye, is a product one might call "domestic deportation." [*]   The Bad Poor, that is, must somehow be got out of the holy Homeland™ politically an’ economically, but not geographically an’ physically. We assume that Party Neocomrade Senator B. M. Goldwater’s famous proposal to saw off the Northeast an’ then hope it drifts far away real quick is not feasible. Even if it were, I betcha the Venerable Funders of the Otherparty would want to keep the Homeland™ proper, for it is only us squatters an’ slackers who infest the land that can be readily dispensed with.

There might be frack oil under the surface to make their freelordships freer still, after all, whereas even if Paddy an’ Eye (&c. &c.) were to be rendered into soap or lampshades, the anticipated R.O.I. would probably not be such as to attract the canny specuvestor.

Paddy and Eye nevertheless expect that what might loosely be called an Endlösung will emerge on that wunnerful day--¡the End, whatever it may be like, is one day closer every twenty-four hours--just think of that, sir!--when the gates around all those fabulous "gated communities" finally stop being figures of speech an’ become bricks-an’-mortar. Plus of course barbed wire, an’ mantraps, an’ Rotweilers an’ counterstormtroopers an’ . . . . ¡Not many Bad Poor will be on the whight or in- side of the Gates of Herrnstein-Murray!

Most of the frack oil will be left out in cold with us humble, no doubt, but as long as their freelordships can maintain themselves as a Sole Remainin’ Hyperpower, that is no big obstacle. Any particular deposit of minerals or whatever can be given gated-community status temporarily, an’ then abandoned when the gunk runs out. Their freelordships will not be needin’ all the land all the time, probably not any very large percentage of it at any one time. As long as whatever they need is available whenever they actually require it, the fact that most of the Homeland™ is a kind of forest preserve mixed with Bad Poor reservation should not inconvenience anybody of importance.

Most of us unfit will die off soon enough, if not at once from such Obamacare as can be achieved out in the woods, then by natural attrition.

No doubt you have read a number of Sci-Fi pscenarios along these cheerful lines as well as we have. So let us leave it at that.

Happy days.

_____
[*] Not to be confused with either the internal emigration of certain selected Old Euroes or the self-deportation of Governor Romney. His Excellency , by the way, has been doin’ rather a notable job of internally deportin’ himself from Massachusetts lately.