Offsite Comments

Just as computer "hackers" became hijacked by conflation with criminal "crackers," it's quite unfortunate that "flash mobs" has become attached to these thuggish attacks. Until there started to be violent ones, "flash mobs" merely referred to (per Wikipedia) "a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment and/or satire." (My emphasis added.) Something like "flash attacks" or "flash battles" would be more appropriate for these violent cases.

Here's a classic example of flash peaceful assembly (1st try using "embed video"):

"how did you do that line through...?" Oh, well, Chrissy, it took me thirty-plus years of computer programming, some seventeen years of study of HTML, and tedious hacking of the PoliNation website. Naw! ;) Just use the tag is <strike> (think: strike-through). Works in comments on many websites, not all. I've been inspired to see what people do with it.

Valuing what we usually take so much for granted, everyday freedom (from the article):

Two years later, Miss Dugard is living in northern California with her mother, her half-sister and her two daughters.

The two girls are now at school full-time. She writes of her pride at how well her eldest daughter interacted with the other students at her orientation day, and how for the first time she realised they were all going to be OK.

Most of all, she writes, she and her daughters are happy to be free - for the first time in 18 years.

'Now I can walk in the next room and see my mom,' she says in the interview. 'Wow. I can decide to jump in the car and go to the beach with the girls. Wow, it's unbelievable, truly.'

"I know I’ve been doing a lot of posting on the Fast and Furious scandal and some of you might not be as enthralled as I am with it..." Stay on it! The LaughingStock Media mostly tippy-toed around this, while the new Vox Populi righteously called for justice.

This is one scandal which goes well beyond the Obamanation's slaughter of our economy and assassination of rule of law, going to actual mass murder. Unlike the suspicion that the OKC bombing was a similar sting op gone horribly wrong* which the FBI is still covering up, this is uncovered, out there, and heads ought to roll. Soon!

* "[T]he Oklahoma City Bombing appears to have been an earlier and far, far uglier version of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’ 'Operation: Fast and Furious,' an affair involving many of the same key players." -Jesse Trentadue, June 27, to Bob McCarty

Cute kid. Tragic.

I have mostly tried to turn the channel, or click to another webpage, whenever this trial came up, but it became inescapable, unavoidable.

I obsessively vidtaped (ah, the good old days) CourtTV and with much fast-forwarding of the empty time I watched the entire prosecution portion of the O.J. Simpson trial. I didn't bother watching the defense, though, because I had already seen the prosecution fail, and I already knew what the outcome would be, and I believe the jury in the Simpson murder case made the right decision. The prosecution was lame, incompetent, a total waste of time and money. The trial was a circus. Ugly truths of our terrible system were exposed. But mainly, when the government fails to prove its case, that's all there is to it. Remember, the verdict is not "innocent," but "not guilty."

Ways this was like the OJ Simpson trial:
Spectacular pre-trial and during-trial publicity that primarily declares guilt by media.
Prosecution evidence is primarily circumstantial and unconvincingly presented.
Unsympathetic and arrogant prosecutors (so I've heard).
A jury that does its duty.
A public that is shocked, shocked! to find out the verdict is not-guilty and will always believe justice was not done, which may be true in fact, but justice was done in law.

I'm not a lawyer, but Our Leader Mark Levin is and agrees the jury did the right thing because "THEY DIDN"T PROVE MURDER."

Levin on The Hot Joints: "...wasn't even a circumstantial case..." "...shot too high for first-degree..."

Levin also discussed it on his own show on Tuesday. From the description of the show: "There was not nearly enough evidence to convict... The prosecution never proved that she murdered her daughter, or that she had the intent of doing it either.,,,"

Our criminal justice system is a mess from top to bottom. Out-of-control and incompetent prosecutors are a big part of that mess.

Now, my commently duty done here, I'm getting back to my life.

Impressive time-lapse of the sandstorm moving in (h/t to Ace of Spades, where four other videos are also posted).

“two sows trying to fight their way out of a 50 pound grain bag” Now, that’s just downright rude and disrespectful to our nation’s First Lardy…. OW! That was so funny it hurt.

“…in Time magazine, a once-respected publication.”

Ah-hah-hah-hah! Chuckle chuckle! Good one.

Oh, wait… were you serious?

Reply from Aaron Worthing

Ann Herself wrote: "I don't think mishearing song lyrics is considered embarrassing."

Depends on circumstance. Long ago in the quiet of the world, I recall my older sister, while she was dating a guy name Bobby, becoming seriously flustered because of the Beatles song "Can't Bobby Love."

Lincolntf fretted, "People say both "Charles'" and "Charles's" are correct, but I can't stand using either." The Authority: "Elementary Rules of Usage, Rule #1: Form the possessive singular of nouns with 's. ... Thus write, Charles's friend. ... Exceptions are the possessives of ancient proper names...." Now, go read, study, memorize is Elements of Style, be wise, and sin no more.

On Sunday, we went to a great fireworks show in nearby Big Town, sponsored by a local mall. About half-way through, one firework mis-fired and started some dry grass and shrubbery on fire not far from us. Folks had it out before the fire department arrived, and after the firemen gave the okay (so I presume), the show continued. Fireworks, fire, and firemen! Greatest Fourth of July fireworks show ever! Or at least for us this weekend. I tried to get some cheering going for the firemen, but only our group bothered.

Attended another show in Smaller Town north of Big Town, which is usually the best show, but they had technical difficulties, started late, and something happened in the middle, so there was no grand finale. Waiting for the show to start, our group sang the National Anthem. After it abruptly stopped, even though an officer told me they might yet shoot off some more, we waited a while, then left. However, before, during, and "after" the big show, there were constant private fireworks -- big ones! -- going off in all directions. Folks there really know how to celebrate. Also, I'll bet you 95% of them know what they're celebrating. Marvelous time!

If your local government is a Big Nanny that won't permit fireworks, set off a stick of dynamite under their rear ends. Metaphorically and politically, of course.

cate007 wrote: "Humans didn't evolve here, so he [is] an invader on his Indian side, as well."

Well, now, let's get real specific. The first tribe of Amer-Indians or Eskimo-Inuit or whoever it was that got here first, they weren't technically "invading" if they were the first humans on this side of the planet. It was the second band of folks migrating across the North Atlantic, or the Bering Straits, that were officially the first "invaders," and every band since. So, just find that original bunch, and their exclusively pure-line descendents, and everybody else has to go back where we came from! [Packing suitcase.]

¡Viva la Revolución... de 1776!

The URL has an underscore character at the beginning. Try this. PoliNation has its own character, not HillBuzz's; each is unique, but with many of the same good qualities (no surprise). For me, there is no "competition" -- well, except for overall time: As I've followed one blog to another, it does take me longer than ever to skim through all my favorites, and I don't get to half as many as I'd like, but: Yay! for many good blogs! (Didn't Kevin even recommend that, 'way back when?) What I wouldn't know without everybody digging out the news, and mulling ideas, is encyclopedic! Linkage is the revolution against the LaughingStock Media tyranny.

I'm a relative newcomer here, but let me add my pathetically devalued US$0.02: "Paint drying" seems kinda harsh. HillBuzz has its ups & downs, like recent weather -- sometimes deluge, sometimes drought. Some posts spark much discussion, some less. Certainly without Kevin's contributions, it's different, in bad ways (yeah, Kevin's brand of fire on certain topics is missed) and good (we get to see what the "substitute" staff does, and that's been admirable in so many ways).

I've reviewed some of the discussion elsewhere about HB, and Kevin, including copies of threads now gone from HB. Sometimes the character of HillBuzz morphs and the community undergoes mitosis (which is growth, the basis of evolution, and only possible with cells with highly-organized nucleii -- strain that metaphor!). I've been impressed, in the site since I've been following it, and in older pages, by the sustained quality of character, genuine kindness, and sense of community of most HB commenters. Obviously, this has somewhat to do with the moderators' discretion, but they can only moderate away the chaff; the good grains had to be there or there'd be nothing left.

And now, if I may, back to the Spirit of '76: TOSS 'EM ALL OUT NOW, STARTING WITH THE PSYCHOPATH IN CHIEF! Have a 4th!

"...what happened there could just as easily happen here."

Not just could. Will. It's being permitted, even encouraged, passively, and actively. From the top.

For example, who's coming over our unprotected borders? Jihadis allied with drug gangs!

"We've found copies of the Koran, we have found prayer rugs, we have found a lot of stuff written in Arabic, so it's not just people from Mexico coming across that border," Tancredo, a Republican, explains.

--CBS News

Why would anyone want to allow another attack? Easy. To impose more "security forces" upon us. In this video, CGreen drives home the point that, today it's airports, trains, and busses, tomorrow you'll be felt up in the malls and theaters, and baaaaa! it'll just be accepted by the sheeple.

Expect it. Then resist the response they already have ready to impose more tyranny.

Speaking of being ready, can any more scholarly than I translate the hat in this picture on Barhardt's site? :)

Happy Independence Day!

Nice article at washintgonpost.com on the rise and fall of United Media. A certain great strip did not get a mention, but it's a good article anyway. Tip of the Mindful topper to Alan Gardner at Daily Cartoonist for the link.

Didn't "fair to well" [sic] and then fared weller? :)

Walt Kelly did a great essay about newspaper comic-strip polls and Pogo. Reprinted in Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue Eyed Years With Pogo, if I recall correctly, but I can't find my copy. (Good heavens, my collection is in such disarray!) Kelly said Pogo was always one of the strips that consistently polled strongly in the "drop it" category, and after being dropped was just as consistently quickly reinstated due to howls of protest.

He wasn't writing about Pogo per se as much as he was writing about polls, who answers them, and what they really mean (and, more importantly, don't mean). Still worthy today, maybe more than ever as politicians are more than ever unprincipled poll-watching weathervanes.

Nice one, Chrissy.

Y'live in the belly of the beast long enough, y'lose all perspective, and then y'say things you really mean but without having any clue how you sound to people out here in the real world. But just imagine: He's never seen that kind of member before! And just what is the "danger" that this congressional lifer sees? That purposefulness has priority over politics? Yes, I can see where folks like him could become an endangered species. We can only pray they quickly become extinct.

I haven't tried 'em for years but as I remember, JJ, you're right about the profitability-induced decline in fishy breadsticks, pretending to be fish sticks. Between planned obsolescence, crappy products, and reduced-size packaging, life just ain't what it used to were. (Anyone else remember the old Mad article about deceptive packaging and shrinking product size? I seem to remember a peanut-sized candy bar being shaken out of a big, empty package. And that was forty-some years ago!)

Not sure how this got from fish sticks to liver, but Mom used to try to feed us kids liver once a year. Something she once read in a magazine about health, I suppose. We were instructed to eat it all, but I could never get one bite down. Or to stay down, anyway.

When Mrs. Webworker and I first got together, close to thirty years ago now, she served liver one day. I was wary as I would be facing a rattler. It had been fresh, carefully selected at the best local butcher, thoroughly tenderized, perfectly prepared as only my gourmet-chef partner can do it. The smell was still liver, initially invoking revulsion, but I actually ate the whole serving!

We never had it again.

Happy new month! Also Happy Independence Day weekend! Be careful with fireworks if you live in a free state. If not, IMPEACH YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS! :)

[2nd attempt to post. If previous one shows up, please delete this one. If neither shows up... I'm gonna cry. :-O ]

I haven't tried 'em for years but as I remember, JJ, you're right about the profitability-induced decline in fishy breadsticks, pretending to be fish sticks. Between planned obsolescence, crappy products, and reduced-size packaging, life just ain't what it used to were. (Anyone else remember the old Mad article about deceptive packaging and shrinking product size? I seem to remember a peanut-sized candy bar being shaken out of a big, empty package. And that was forty-some years ago!)

Not sure how this got from fish sticks to liver (Steve!), but Mom used to try to feed us kids liver once a year. Something she once read in a magazine about health, I suppose. We were instructed to eat it all, but I could never get one bite down. Or to stay down, anyway.

When Mrs. Webworker and I first got together, close to thirty years ago now, she served liver one day. I was wary as I would be facing a rattler. It had been fresh, carefully selected at the best local butcher, thoroughly tenderized, perfectly prepared as only my gourmet-chef partner can do it. The smell was still liver, initially invoking revulsion, but I actually ate the whole serving!

So, I realized, it can be made edible. We've never had it again, though.

Happy new month! Also Happy Independence Day weekend! Be careful with fireworks if you live in a free state. If not, IMPEACH YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS! :)

Sorry about double posting earlier. I kept reloading the page and it showed new messages, but not my comments (now showing, although awaiting moderation). Oddest things have been happening with the net the last 2 days. I was starting to think it was the final Internet meltdown that's been predicted. Nope. Just the local cable company — yes, they admitted they're having problems.

Didn’t see this until Thursday, and this was exactly fitting for my Thursday, too. Website crashing. Cable outage. Constant interruptions. “What, you wanted to just get a little work done? BWAH-HA-HAHHH!”

Whew! Thank you Robin for the (or at least an) explanation for the frog cartoon.

Arlo and Janis is so intellectual and deep and stuff. All those oblique culture references and twelve-dollah words like mendacity and bats that look like tiny dragons and surreal walking sandwiches and annually talking cats, it usually just sails over my haid. Except the risqué ones. ;)

Michelle... um... Malkin... No... Obama... No... Bachmann! That's the one. (I'm kidding. But it was amusing to hear Our Leader Mark Levin say M.Obama a couple of times by mistake, even when he was talking to Bachmann! Quite understandable, as he'd been talking about MO.)

So, Monday, I read early-on that Michelle Bachmann announced her candidacy in her home town of Waterloo, Iowa, saying she's going to fight like the other home-town hero, John Wayne. "Well what I want them to know is just like, John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa. That's the kind of spirit that I have, too."

Okay, first of all, John Wayne was a sweet boy named Maurice [correction:] Marion who grew up to be an actor who played tough guy roles. So, if you want to be tough, you sort-of want to be like the characters he played, more than like him, but that's okay; he's the symbol. (Here's a classic: John Wayne on Laugh-In doing a bit of poetry à la Henry Gibson.) Second, Waterloo just wasn't the actor's town. His parents met there, but they moved away to Winterset, Iowa, about three hours away, before Marion (his given name) was born. All this was in the original articles. That's a pretty silly mistake. Why did she say it? Iowa is his home state, at least. But, a tiny, tiny mistake.

But! This gave the Democrats a hook for another aren't-Conservatives-stupid meme (Palinizing as they say at Legal Insurrection), as they began spreading it around that Bachmann had "confused" the handsome, famous actor with the ugly, infamous John Wayne Gacy, the "Killer Clown."

Well, of course she didn't confuse them! Not even Gaffes Biden could be that dumb. Possibly not even Obama, who apparently can't remember his own kids' names, much less the identities of living and dead recipients of the Medal of Honor. (Special h/t to Sarah [correction:] Ann Barnhart for her article on the psychopath in the oval office.)

I first saw this meme repeated by Joy McCann at ConservativeCommune.com under the headline "Bachmann Mixes Up Her John Waynes." McCann linked to the Washington Times (headline: "The wrong John Wayne"). I repeated it on HillBuzz.

The Times article noted that Gacy "had his first taste of the criminal life in Waterloo, where he lived for a short time." How short a time is not noted (January, 1967, through March, 1968, according to Wikipedia).

That's the only association.

The Times has an "update" at the bottom of the article — no change in the headline, of course — citing a release from the Bachmann campaign, noting that the actor's parents lived in Waterloo, were married there, and that the actor is from Iowa, and reiterating the patriotic spirit the actor represents.

Why anyone would think that Bachmann might be thinking of Gacy's living there at all is not even suggested. (Not that "thinking" has much to do with the "say anything" crowd.)

As I look again at the Times article, I see that the "problem" was reported to Times reporter Stephen Dinan by "one [unnamed] eagle-eyed reader" and that a clip of it is already on YouTube under the name BachmannLovesGacy.

I smell brimstone.

I am guilty of participating in repeating Democratic mud-slinging propaganda, for which I apologize. I have corrected myself to those to whom I spread the news personally.

I watched the video of Bachmann deriding our "gangster government." I listened to the Monday program of Our Leader Mark Levin, hearing Levin getting the news about this from a caller — who already had a better take than I had. Levin, naturally, dismissed it out of hand. I heard all of his interview with Bachmann at the end of his show. They discussed the Wallace interview, and she reiterated her credentials, but this later matter was not mentioned. (Levin had only just heard about it from one caller, of course, no time to research.)

Altogether, this is more of Bachmann than I have actually had so far. Levin ran the audio of the Wallace interview, about which I'd only heard the "flake" gotcha, so now I've heard Bachmann's great response. Because I listened to Levin, I learned much more about her than I had known before.

I don't know why she would confuse the birthplace of John Wayne (THE ACTOR!). (More significantly, I don't know why she's permitted her campaign guy to chew at Palin.) But I vehemently repudiate the whole "she confused her John Waynes" meme. It's not that I ever thought she did, but I was "concerned" that this gaffe was going to stick to her. And they're trying to make it stick. But it's just another left-wing propaganda ploy, another wad of madly-hurled monkey poo.

I haven't fully taken the measure of the site Conservative Commune, but despite the separate article pointing out the killer's Democrat background, the "Bachmann confuses her John Waynes" headline is prominent. It matters, just as Mark Levin pointed out the tactic of Wallace repeating the "flake" charge twice in his lame apology, and how it's the repetition of the meme, in any context, that starts it being cemented in the neurons. Well, remember, OBAMA IS NOT A MUSLIM OR A SOCIALIST!

I regret being suckered in by this for even a day. (And that I was too busy to get back to it on Tuesday.) I regret my own "toast" reference. Thanks to Amy for answering on the Monday thread that it's less of a deal than I made it. I thank the folks at HillBuzz for steadily reinforcing the concern trolls watch, and other propaganda awareness. I have been eyeing non-candidate Palin all along and have been listening to the "concern" about Bachmann being a RINO or a RINO dupe. I now have new-found respect for her, and I'm going to be keeping an eye on the other best possible Madame President.

After writing the above, I went looking at news.google.com for any straightforward article about Bachmann's announcing her candidacy. On page after page I found nothing -- NOTHING -- but repetition of this same meme. Headlines (links eschewed) like:

John Wayne who? Michele Bachmann getting last laugh in polls (Los Angeles Times) (well, that's okay, but the lede talks about her "gaffe-rich entry" into the GOP presidential sweepstakes.")

All in a name: John Wayne vs. John Wayne Gacy and other mix-ups (Washington Post, also not bad -- mentions how easy it is for folks to mix up names like, oh, say, Ted "Chappaquiddick Killer" Kennedy confusing Obama & Osama.)

Will Michele Bachmann’s Gaffes End Her Presidential Chances? (US Snooze & World Retort)

Bachmann Campaign Starts With a Bang (Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone actually held back until the 2nd sentence to mention it.)

Michele Bachmann, you're no Stepford Wife: Only a gaffe-proof candidate can win (S.E. Cupp, NY Daily News -- "latest unforgivable gaffe" in the fourth paragraph)

'She's not ready for the White House': Former aide attacks Michele Bachmann for her 'wildly out of control' office (UK Daily Mail's Fiona Roberts can't even get Gacy's name right when in the 5th 'graph she says Bachmann "inadvertently compared herself to serial killer John Wayne instead of the actor.")

And that's some of the nicer stuff.

I went looking on YouTube for the video about her "gangster government" speech, and until I refined the search saw only page after page about her gaffes and worse. (Everyone should be aware of the problem of "filter bubbles.")

Levin pointed out what Wallace was not asking — what I haven't found any of those in this latest manufactured flap saying — that Bachmann is a serious candidate, a contender, with serious backing, and, why look at that: she's a Republican woman! Where's the excitement about that, like there was for the "historic" half-wit psychopath-in-chief under whom we currently suffer? We may have in Bachmann the first female U.S. President. Historic. Monumental. Where's the buzz?

Sigh. Called John Wayne "Maurice" instead of "Marion." Called Ann Barnhardt "Sarah" and screwed up the link. Forgot to close a strong tag. Left out a space. I'm obviously unfit to be President, also! (Heading for bed, in shame.)

Yessir, Cap'n G!

Ron Fournier: "the president’s eye is set on numbers that have little to do with battlefield strategy and everything to do with his reelection hopes."

the Taliban will take over again,

their leader practically calls us "occupiers"

"the average monthly casualty rate for U.S. military forces serving in Afghanistan has increased 5-fold" under Obama...

Obama is overruling the advice of his generals

Aw, what do those silly generals know about war compared to this brilliant Communist Community Organizer?