Friday, July 25, 2014

WORD GAMES.

Now conservatives are fighting with dictionaries and thesauri.

In June, Betsy Rothstein at The Daily Caller was outraged that a display definition of the word "bigotry" on Google included the sentence "the report reveals racism and right-wing bigotry." Rothstein demanded answers from Google, who told her they got it from Oxford Dictionaries. "We hear Google plans to reach out to Oxford Dictionary to flag the above 'right-wing bigotry' sentence as inappropriate," claimed Rothstein. (When I search the word on Google now, I get no sentence at all; perhaps Google put it on their "Dinesh D'Souza possible nuisance lawsuit/Congressional investigation" list.)

Rothstein's investigation into the liberal lexicographical conspiracy didn't end there: This week she reports, "Well, it seems Merriam-Webster also thinks conservatives are bigots." Webster's listed "liberalism" as an antonym of "bigotry" -- and as if that weren't bad enough (couldn't they have at least made it "classically liberal"?), two of their "related words" were "conservatism" and "illiberalism"! Webster's gave her a perfectly sensible answer, which the publisher tactfully began with "I apologize for the unfortunate juxtaposition," so Rothstein headlined her item "Merriam-Webster Editor Apologizes For Bigotry Association to Conservatism (Sort Of)," since conservatives love a little whiff of victory with their persecution mania.

Now at National Review Andrew Johnson is following Rothstein's lead, attacking Roget's Thesaurus: "Thesaurus Synonyms for ‘Obstructionist’ Include ‘Right-winger,’ ‘Rightist,’ ‘Tory,’" he cries. Imagine! Where'd this slanderous idea that conservatism is about standing athwart history, crying "Stop!" come from?

Next they'll denounce common sense for always making them look bad.

UPDATE.  In comments, Derelict reminds us that when conservatives didn't like Wikipedia making them look bad, they created Conservapedia. So maybe now they'll create their own dictionaries and thesauri. whetstone proposes "The Oxford Gibberish Dictionary or Reagan's Thesaurus," which would include
peace (n.); synonyms: war; ongoing futile occupation
bigot (n.); synonym: persecuted free-thinker
libertarian (n.); antonym: pants-crapping authoritarian NO IT'S TRUE SHUT UP
sharculese gets the big picture: "They get that the internet is powerful, and that they don't control it the way they'd like to, but they also fundamentally have no clue how it works, so they've invented their own personal Fairness Doctrine, enforced not by federal jackboot but by careening a metric dongload of poutrage at anyone they find insufficiently deferential."

146 comments:

  1. JOURNALISM!

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  2. John E Williams9:40 AM

    What continues to amaze me is that these maniacs GET PAID MONEY to do this shit. Anyone and anywhere else, they'd be fired. My god, how do I secure a gig like that?

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  3. NonyNony9:49 AM

    First - have an operation to extract your sense of shame and have your dignity removed. While they're in there, they can remove your conscience as well.

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  4. John E Williams9:52 AM

    I'm on it

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  5. Derelict10:06 AM

    They're kind of late to the party with this. If I recall correctly, it was Jonah the Fail who first confronted the bias of dictionaries. When it was pointed out to him that the dictionary definition of "fascism" was the direct opposite of his book's entire premise, he launched his now famous retort: "Which is central to my point."

    These late-comers need to follow Jonah's lead and embrace the wrongness.

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  6. Judging by their writing, I thought they'd rejected dictionaries long ago.

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  7. I am shocked to learn these toolboxes know how to use a dictionary.

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  8. Ellis_Weiner10:22 AM

    The Konservative Kulture Patrol: Whining About the Little Things and Wrong About the Big Things Since Hector Was a Pup (tm).

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  9. Derelict10:28 AM

    Remember when they decided that Wikipedia was too liberally biased? And they were going to create "Conservapedia" to set the world right (so to speak)?


    Well, that experiment is still chugging along. Hilarity not only ensues, but continues.

    I've never seen a movement work so hard to make itself more ignorant.

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  10. And the Conservative Bible (Now with 98% More Capitalism!)

    But my favorite is the evergreen freakout over Internet bias, especially since it devolves into conspiritated grumbling over the fact that sufficiently conservative computer folk are so hard to find.

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  11. The exact quote in context: "Liberal fascism differs from classical fascism in many ways. I don't deny this. Indeed, it is central to my point." Which reminds me, I really should go update the Jonah Goldberg article on RW.

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  12. whetstone11:09 AM

    Where you guys see funnies, I see a free-market opportunity: an opening for the Oxford Gibberish Dictionary or Reagan's Thesaurus. I'm certain a few bulk buys by Liberty University and its ilk would get me some cold hard wingnut welfare.


    peace (n.); synonyms: war; ongoing futile occupation
    bigot (n.); synonym: persecuted free-thinker
    libertarian (n.); antonym: pants-crapping authoritarian NO IT'S TRUE SHUT UP

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  13. racist (m.); synonym: not us

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  14. First syllable in dictionary??

    Just sayin', libtards.

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  15. XeckyGilchrist11:36 AM

    Inorite? This is reminding me of that time they were going to boycott French products like fancy wine and cheese.

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  16. XeckyGilchrist11:37 AM

    "Just because I've redefined the word to make it fit liberals doesn't mean liberals can't be tarred with the stigma of the original."

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  17. If you get enough college degrees, you can get paid by the Washington Post to defend the indefensible.
    ~

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  18. They're not bigots!

    They just hate the blacks. And the Mexicans. Etc.
    ~

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  19. Jay B.11:49 AM

    It seems we ran into this last night. They are now rejecting context in addition to reality.

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  20. sharculese11:53 AM

    Dang, you'd think the wingers would admire Google for their bold new innovations in turning real communities into your private fiefdom, and yet they never seem to want to talk about that.


    This is same impulse that gets them all hot and bothered when twitter announces that the top hashtags are a shart #tcot followed by a splattering of wingnut shibboleths. They get that the internet is powerful, and that they don't control it the way they'd like to, but they also fundamentally have no clue how it works, so they've invented their own personal Fairness Doctrine, enforced not by federal jackboot but by careening a metric dongload of poutrage at anyone they find insufficiently deferential.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Courtesy of Roger Ailes (not that one), Google is doubleplus Hitler Cooties with a side order of Stalin!

    http://rogerailes.blogspot.com/2014/07/google-screwball.html

    Republican
    Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a frequent foe of Google, is demanding to
    know why the giant Internet company was fumbling the search results for
    Dinesh D'Souza's movie America for nearly three weeks.

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  22. Your media/social movement cons - you know, the kind of jackasses who capitalize "the Left" - have long held contrary views on liberals and communication. One one hand, they maintain that The Left controls an all-powerful media machine that can squash any opposing view without effort or mercy. On the other hand, they also believe that liberals are slow, out of touch and simple creatures that can be easily outmaneuvered.


    There is a way to synthesize these seemingly contradictory beliefs - you just assume that the world-crushing machine can be defeated by a team of rebels With Nothing To Lose. They started in the 90's with direct mail and some intrusion into the tape swapping subculture, but it was the blogger triumphalism of the post-9/11 period that really set them off. They believed that Guy Who Just Started A Blog was a serious threat to liberal media hegemony that existed only in their own minds.


    Of course, that all assumes that every Guy Who Just Started A Blog was conservative - liberals being too slow and out of touch to understand the delicate sophistication of blogging. But not only has THE LEFT maintained its own online presence, they've managed to outmaneuver conservatives on numerous occasions. And since we know that liberals (who are stuck in the sixties, man) aren't naturally capable of this, they must be cheating.


    Q.E.D.

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  23. PulletSurprise12:12 PM

    "Reality has a left wing bias." --Rev. Sir Doctor Sen. Stephen T. Mos Def Colbert, D.F.A.

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  24. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBKCym-ERyY

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  25. mortimer200012:18 PM

    Clearly what we need are new words to describe this whole business. A few possibilities:

    nitpique: senseless indignation at tiny things

    cholered people: angry right-wingers (alt. persons of choler)

    miff diving: searching for tiny things to be outraged about (see also: nitpique)

    raschism: contradictory belief that one's own bigotry can't be bigotry

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  26. Karl Rove, 2004, on the front lines in the War on Reality:

    "That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And
    while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act
    again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's
    how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you,
    will be left to just study what we do."

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  27. Sorry, but you're way late to the party.
    http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page

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  28. miff diving


    or conservalingus if you want to get clinical.

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  29. Derelict12:25 PM

    It's love at first sight with nitpique. I want to have this tattooed on my most public parts.

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  30. bulletsarepeopletoo12:25 PM

    I hope these conservatards* check out Urban Dictionary. Their whining would be epic.

    *A person who is politically conservative to an extreme degree, often with no sound intellectual basis for his or her beliefs.

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  31. sharculese12:32 PM

    yeah, but why come there's no #tlot then, huh?!

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  32. TG_Chicago12:34 PM

    Reminds me of a twitter exchange I had with Dan "Baseball Crank" McLaughlin:

    --------
    Jonah Goldberg: You know, I'm kinda amazed feminists haven't
    complained about the clearly phallocentric male nature of the "Oscar"
    award itself.

    Dan McLaughlin: I'm pretty sure they have. Also everything else.

    TG: LOL feminazis are so stupid! But it's the Democrats who wage a war
    on women, amirite?

    DM: So, if I disagree with some men, I am at war with all men?

    TG: You just said that anybody who fights for equal rights for women
    is a constant complainer.

    DM: I deny your privilege to use your personal definition of the word
    "feminists" to mean something other than its common meaning.

    TG: adjective 1. advocating social, political, legal, and economic
    rights for women equal to those of men.
    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/feminist?s=t&path=/ ...

    TG (again): Typical conservative. Thinks the world ends at the edge of
    the rightwing bubble even when actual facts are outside.

    DM: So: Sarah Palin is a feminist, correct?

    TG: Example?

    DM: Hahaha, I knew you'd balk at defining the term to include
    dissenters from left-wing orthodoxy.

    TG: All I did was ask for an example of her advocating for equal
    rights for women. You seem unable to prove it.
    -----

    He didn't respond. I asked for an example again the next day, and he
    still didn't respond.



    So not only do conservatives invent their own definitions for words, they also complain when others use the actual dictionary definitions.

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  33. RogerAiles12:38 PM

    He was too busy yanking his baseball crank to pics of Palin, in the tradition of R. Lowry and J. Hoft.

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  34. Interesting sidenote: Andy Schlafly has long maintained that certain words and phrases have innate political content. On the basis of that, he claims that by charting the development of these words, he can prove that conservatism is growing faster than liberalism because there are more "conservative" words than "liberal" ones. Thus it is proven.


    You'll have to excuse me, I'm in the unenviable position of knowing a lot about Conservapedia.

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  35. If you have it tatooed on your most pubic parts then it will only be obvious if someone is miffdiving.

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  36. Excuse you? I do deeply, deeply, pity you.

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  37. Jenghazi Rubin, 6 or 7 times a day at the Washington Post:

    SKREE! SKREE! SKREE!
    LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS!!!*
    SKREE! BOMB IRAN! SKREE!

    * Her checks keep clearing. But if you have no cognitive dissonance alarm, it can't go off.
    ~

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  38. sharculese12:50 PM

    It's a serious point of contention for the men's rights crowd that all the top definitions of MRA at urban dictionairy are making fun of them.

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  39. catclub12:51 PM

    Outlaw Jersey Whale / Jonah the Fail




    Unbeatable GOP ticket! Bookmark it libs.

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  40. Oh, CP was a lot of fun back in the day - when Andy Schlafly was coming up with crank theory after crank theory, the administrators were engaged in this weird cloak-and-dagger power struggle, and every good faith editor was banned on the spot while parodists ran wild. Now that it's little more than one crank's redoubt of delusion, it's not really funny anymore.

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  41. RogerAiles1:47 PM

    cholered people: angry right-wingers (alt. persons of choler)



    See also: The Daily Choler

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  42. So: Sarah Palin is a feminist, correct?


    Yup, that right there demonstrates why they want their own dictionaries. A woman who improves her own lot, while endorsing policies that hurt most women who are not her, is a feminist. See also: Clarence Thomas, African-American civil rights champion.

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  43. I want to take this comment on a piquenic.

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  44. PulletSurprise2:12 PM

    Remember Breitbart's epic fit of nitpique when he drunk-dialed Gawker for labeling a neo-Nazi a "right-winger?"



    Come to think of it, Breitbart would make the ideal poster boy for the concept of nitpiquing.


    NSFW/headphone alert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nokactFQj38

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  45. But that's OK because minorities are violent savage criminals who do drugs and rape white women when they aren't lazing around eating t-bone steaks.



    Plus, there was that one time a black man made a derogatory comment about white people, so it is perfectly fair.

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  46. More than fair--its necessary.

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  47. you just assume that the world-crushing machine can be defeated by a team of rebels With Nothing To Lose.


    Which has nothing to do with their insatiable desire for a do-over of the Civil War.

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  48. She is also a noted champion of special needs children. A cause to which she has dedicated as much successful labor as she did to abstinence only education.

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  49. Oh please, Lord, let Rothstein google "santorum."

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  50. redoubtagain2:46 PM

    I want to see what they do with the word "reactionary".

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  51. NonyNony2:49 PM

    all the top definitions of MRA at urban dictionairy are making fun of them.

    Grod you know - that makes me feel happy. I should probably log off the Internet right now and call it a day because that's probably the happiest thing I've read this week :(

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  52. Perhaps this is wrong, but knowing that NeoCons pay for this crap makes me giggle. It's like watching unpleasant people fork over their cash for a shit sandwich with a side-order of snotchos.

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  53. gocart mozart3:00 PM

    Best of the Public
    2009
    A term coined by Andy Schlafly to express the idea that one does not need liberal credentials that so-called "experts" have. Indeed, many great historical figures would have failed the liberal "expert" test.

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  54. Tony Prost3:00 PM

    context (n): what conservatives are always taken out of.

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  55. swkellogg3:18 PM

    As it should be.


    Let the MRE's dig for their ponies in the giant pile of poop over at Dr. Helen's petting zoo.


    They need the exercise anyway.

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  56. Bizarro Mike3:29 PM

    I had forgotten about snochos until now. I have a feeling the word will be more useful as we move into election season...

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  57. Derelict3:57 PM

    Give her credit: She has managed to abstain from education. And apparently her children have as well.

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  58. satch3:57 PM

    Well, why shouldn't the Right throw a fit every time their feelings get hurt and/or their special snowflakiness gets questioned? Betsey Rothstein gets to crow because the editor of Merriam-Webster apologizes for the gross insensitivity of associating bigotry with conservatism. Dunkin Doughnuts apologized when Michelle Malkin threw a tantrum because Rachael Ray wore a scarf that looked vaguely Muslimy in one of their ads. Breitbart got an apology... Duck Fucking Dynasty got an apology... the list is endless. They'll keep doing it until corporate spokescreatures grow a pair and suggest that the next wingnut trolling for an apology for some grievous slight should take a pill and lie down until the butthurt passes.

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  59. sharculese4:02 PM

    Oh yeah, it was a whole big thing a couple of years ago where they were gonna go over en masse and fix that egregious slander, which worked for like a day or two before the internet noticed and fixed things.

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  60. Oh, that's a good one. For starters, Andy invented that one himself (you may recall that used it a lot in his Colbert interview). Second, his conceptions of "public" and "expert" have no official definition and are subject to change. From the definition you'd think it was a complaint against credentialism - very common on the right these days - but most of his examples come from fields such as popular music or athletics where one does not normally seek credentials. Those fields do have professionals and amateurs, but Andy ignores those definitions or applies them arbitrarily. So for instance, one Olympic athlete is an "expert," while another from the same year, country and event is "the best of the public."


    He must have a definition in his head, because he's more than eager to reject other people when they submit entries that seem to fit. On several occasions, he's rejected amateur astronomers who discovered new celestial bodies with no explanation. In at least one case, it's likely because the discovery butted heads with another of his crank theories - one of them found possible evidence of a black hole and, per Andy, only atheists believe in those.

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  61. If they don't want to be associated with bigotry, they could stop being bigots... ah, who the fuck am I kidding?

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  62. Formerly_Nom_De_Plume5:14 PM

    nitpique:

    nɪt/piːk/
    noun
    c. 1380 from the Argle-Bargle

    A POVRE widwe somdel stope in age,
    Was whylom dwelling in a narwe cotage
    Withe nitpique did groch the lauch
    This is centrille to my pointe
    Faaaaaaaaarte

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  63. XeckyGilchrist5:23 PM

    I was happily surprised at UD the other day when I went to do a bit of wallowing in shithead stupid and get myself angry - hey, if I didn't do that for fun sometimes I wouldn't hang around places like *this* - and looked up "Feminist." Imagine my surprise that the first assholish definition was #12! A while back there were no supportive or even impartial definitions before about #6.

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  64. XeckyGilchrist5:25 PM

    Is it known for sure that it was Rove that said that? I've long suspected it, but hadn't seen proof.

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  65. XeckyGilchrist5:31 PM

    The word "snotchos" always brings to mind this classic Edroso piece - http://alicublog.blogspot.com/2008/11/snotchos-for-dr.html - and I belly-laugh every time I see it.

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  66. Widely attributed, but, yeah...

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  67. mommadillo6:18 PM

    "their insatiable desire for a do-over of the Civil War"



    If only. I'm from Michigan. We kicked their sister-fucking redneck asses once and we can certainly do it again. Only this time I vote we make them work a lot harder for the privilege of being allowed back into the Union once it's over.

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  68. montag27:30 PM

    Oh, dear gawd, I tried to read that "new conservative words" page, but it was impossible. It was so heavily encrusted with cheetos dust that I couldn't make out most of it, and what I could was just plain silly. "a.m." is a conservative word because "morning work ethic" is conservative? So, all the people with the 11-7 shift at the nuclear power plant are liberal slackers?

    But, I can tell that people--crazy people--have put their hearts and souls and their morning work ethic into this exercise. Unfortunately, that still doesn't make it rise to the level of remotely correct... or necessary.

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  69. montag27:33 PM

    Hmm. That's an odd notion about black holes. Every televangelist is a black hole for money, and they're not atheists.

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  70. montag27:38 PM

    Hmm. Well, now we know why they're incessantly fucking whining.

    It gets them what they want.

    So, conservatism is the four-year-old in WalMart of political philosophies

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  71. montag27:43 PM

    And, where is Rove now? Where's that empire now? Where's that "reality" now?

    Does Rove ever contemplate the fact that his empire lasted considerably less time than the Third Reich?

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  72. He keeps using that word "reality."


    I don't think it means what he thinks it means...

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  73. KatWillow7:52 PM

    Imagine playing Scrabble with these goons.

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  74. He sounds like William Burroughs on a bad acid trip.

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  75. I'm from Florida and was born in Virginia. The first time I ever met an out-in-the-open Klansman was in Saline, Michigan. I also met actual, honest-to-Hitler Nazis in Walled Lake, Michigan. Just sayin'.

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  76. TGuerrant8:34 PM

    Classical Fascism? A Mason Williams B side?

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  77. montag29:46 PM

    Okay, I'll play:

    Cruzing: the relentless search for ultimately meaningless political acts.

    corndogger: a religious conservative miming fellatio at the Iowa State Fair.

    hoft: verb, intransitive, to cough up something unpleasant, e.g., "I hoft a loogie."

    krauthammered: rendered senseless by repeated contradictions and false analogies.

    straitwalker: deficit hawk, often under the control of Pete Peterson.

    Benghazied: ambushed by car thieves.

    Kochlear implant: political graft.

    constirnation: country-wide conservative shit-stirring.

    lamebast: a ridiculously weak argument shouted loudly.

    prigheadedness: obstinate assertion without evidence that conservatives are always right.

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  78. Derelict10:26 PM

    Rove is presently raking in HUGE bundles of cash for his Crossroads operation. At last count (right after the Mittser tanked in 2012), Crossroads had raked in something like $100 million and blown most of it on losing candidates around the country.

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  79. "morning work ethic" is conservative?"


    I was listening to the Stephanie Miller show on Wed when she was talking to Ted Olsen about the cases he and David Boies have been arguing in defense of marriage equality, and I was fully prepared to accept that his heart was in the right place until he said "marriage is a conservative value." Jesus... even when they're trying to sort of help, they can't help occasionally letting their real strategy appear, which is to identify admirable human qualities, re-brand them as "conservative", and shanghai them into their little culture war.

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  80. YNWA4051510:44 PM

    Probably ought to remove your sense of humor (or have it replaced by a particularly vicious sense of "humor"), as well. And might as well remove any and all sense of proportion, and the ability to construct coherent metaphors, or at least render yourself incapable of using any metaphor that doesn't eventually amount to "just like the Holocaust/Hitler/Stalin!"

    ReplyDelete
  81. freq flag10:45 PM

    ...and re-name those that they couldn't live without:
    "Freedom Fries" Forever!



    (And those stupid libs accuse conservatives of not being able to accomplish anything. -hmph-)

    ReplyDelete
  82. Tehanu10:47 PM

    This is one of the best threads ever!

    ReplyDelete
  83. mgmonklewis10:57 PM

    I woulde lyk to await the Second Flood suspended in a tub with this comment.

    ReplyDelete
  84. mgmonklewis10:59 PM

    It's like ordinary Fascism, but with better plinths and columns.

    ReplyDelete
  85. mgmonklewis11:01 PM

    You didn't even need a degree to shill for the Kaplan Test Prep Daily (h/t Atrios), provided you toed the company line.

    ReplyDelete
  86. mgmonklewis11:03 PM

    Uprated for "Since Hector Was a Pup," which I had not heard before (I have lived a sheltered life). My favorite similar phrase is "She knew the Venerable Bede when he was just the Tot Bede."

    ReplyDelete
  87. mgmonklewis11:05 PM

    Ubi sunt the seditious hacks of yesteryear? [wails, rends garment]

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  88. YNWA4051511:09 PM

    I can understand his impulse to wingnut solidarity, and that whine certainly fits in with pretty much everything the (wingnut portion of the) House has lately been all about, but how is it that any reporter within earshot of his remarks didn't immediately think to ask the follow-up question:


    "Y'know, D'Souza's doing just fine-- more or less-- without your help. So precisely what substantive benefit to your constituents-- or anyone else's non-insane constituents, if we're being charitable-- does this little tilt at windmills provide?"

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  89. They may have managed to "skree!" away the offending sentence, but they'll never escape the definition, courtesy of Dictionary.com: "stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own.


    Ring any bells?

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  90. Calssical TAsces.


    Or "Classical Fasces." Fucking fingers.

    ReplyDelete
  91. montag21:44 AM

    And much snazzier and more comfortable uniforms.

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  92. "One one hand, they maintain that The Left controls an all-powerful media machine that can squash any opposing view without effort or mercy. On the other hand, they also believe that liberals are slow, out of touch and simple creatures that can be easily outmaneuvered."

    Yet another example of projection any self-respecting dictionary would be proud to use until threatened & bullied out of it.

    ReplyDelete
  93. montag21:50 AM

    Oh, indeed. It's a variant on contemporary capitalism. They want to own it all.

    ReplyDelete
  94. montag22:16 AM

    Ever the optimist, eh? They are, in fact, seeking to redefine it so they can go on abusing others without, technically, being responsible for their actions--and, if possible, at the same time, accuse non-bigots of the sin of bigotry. It's sort of like Galbraith's definition of the conservative holy grail--they want to find philosophical justification for greed. They've been looking for end-runs around definitions for eons.

    The Catholics were in the business of selling indulgences, but they were pikers. The conservatives in this country want a trading exchange on bad behavior, complete with a private, under-the-counter derivatives business hedging ethical transgressions.

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  95. BadExampleMan5:49 AM

    And, indeed, looking at the results one must ask: how successful were her labors, really?

    ReplyDelete
  96. Derelict6:57 AM

    Some of them really want to set up a human bondage exchange.

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  97. Juanita jean says "so old he owes Noah a dollar for the ride."

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  98. Do they? Typing words into search fields seems to be about the limit of their research.

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  99. Or, are they?

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  100. Whatever happened to Rich Hall, anyway. He didn't get the off-year SNL brain rot like Miller and Jackson, did he?

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  101. anonymouse9:15 AM

    Is he in prison yet? The thought of D'Souza being totally dependent on the govt. for everything from clothing to anal security gives me an irony boner.

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  102. Brian Schlosser9:46 AM

    And not the fun kind, neither!

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  103. Brian Schlosser10:03 AM

    Oh he has a definition alright... Best of the Public = Anyone who agrees with Andrew Schafly on everything

    ReplyDelete
  104. Derelict10:04 AM

    Fun for them. For the "others," not so much . . .

    ReplyDelete
  105. Brian Schlosser10:09 AM

    You mean "JOURNAMALISM", right?

    ReplyDelete
  106. Magatha10:42 AM

    Except that the concept worked. That's why a whole parade of right-wingers, like Mitt Romney, and Rand Paul, can repeatedly contradict themselves - even though they are clearly on tape, even though all of us can view their contradictions over and over - simply because they believe that it doesn't matter. That "reality" is no longer operative. They don't care that we care. Reality is whatever they are pointing at when they say, "This is reality". It's frustrating and so lots of people just say, "Oh, they're all liars, they're all the same", and the whole thing gets reinforced.

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  107. XeckyGilchrist12:34 PM

    Jesus, I hope not. I could never survive seeing an Anti-Idiotarian Sniglets book.

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  108. BigHank531:55 PM

    Regarding Google and the D'Souza movie, I'm of the opinion that some wiseacre at Google should have just recommended bing.com to the dolts.

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  109. BigHank532:04 PM

    consent (n): something you need from me but I don't need from you, see also rape, MRA, taxes, peculiar institution, age of consent, libertarianism

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  110. BigHank532:08 PM

    It doesn't take too much time with a circle and a ruler to figure out that pi is never, ever, ever going to equal three, no matter what the bible says. So there's at least one error in it. CS people can be as batshit crazy as anyone else, but most of 'em have at least a basic grasp of logic. Logic and modern conservatives get on as well as vampires and garlic.

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  111. BigHank532:12 PM

    Rove is excellent at turning other people's cash into personal profit. In 2012, my house, where the only voters are registered Democrats, got between two and five robocalls per day in the month leading up to the election. Who the fuck thought it would be a good idea to call the same number a couple hundred times...except, of course, someone who was billing the Romney campaign for each call.

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  112. JennOfArk2:27 PM

    Yep. My fantasy is that someday I'll be important enough so that when I insult conservatives, it will be widely reported, so when they start demanding an apology I can say: "You want an apology? Fine. I'm sorry that you are foolish, ignorant and generally over-sensitive. As far as what I said that you're butthurt about, I'm NOT sorry about that - I meant every word and I'm not going to apologize for telling the truth no matter how much you whine about it. Here, let me DOUBLE your pleasure...." before going on to insult them further.

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  113. It's also why Romney and Rove were caught completely by surprise by the 2012 election results. The results were completely in line with what independent polls showed, but their own internal polls had them winning in a landslide so those were the numbers they chose to trust. In the face of a growing disparity between what the two sets of polls were showing, they chose to believe the folks they were paying to tell them what they wanted to hear rather than ask why this disparity existed.


    Yeah, these are people we should trust to run the federal gov't. People who act on fantasy while ignoring unpleasant reality.


    It's almost as if Reason itself is under Assault.

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  114. Ellis_Weiner5:46 PM

    power outrage - particularly upsetting violation of one's pretend standards or values

    Righteous Indignation - synonym for the "country" that outraged "patriots" want to "take back"

    Christian Bail - mitigating reasons/excuses why fundamentalists caught being hypocritical shouldn't be condemned

    glass roots - transparently phony source of claims of "populist" concern

    Kochtails - right-wing Kool-Ade

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  115. The problem was that she quit halfway.

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  116. It seems that all they want is an apology, which is weird given that any outrage generates screams you'd associate with pigs' dicks and wringers.

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  117. Yeah, that's particularly odd given than Olsen must know he's on the Traitors' List. Invoking the Holy Ghost of Conservative Values can only make the scream team angrier.

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  118. Apropos of nothing, I've decided that "Careening a metric dongload of poutrage at anyone I find insufficiently deferential" will be my new mission statement. Thanks for that one, sharculese, wherever you are, and whichever gender you have.

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  119. So, all the people with the 11-7 shift at the nuclear power plant are liberal slackers?


    Hehehehehe, indeed, and soon, once the nucleonic ray is fully operational, all true patriotic Americans will be at our mercy.

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  120. The mental imagery alone is worth its weight in gold.

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  121. skippy8:39 PM

    also, the word is used ionically

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  122. "Dipshit". Bingo!

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  123. beejeez9:03 PM

    Mostly, Michigan's wingnuts tend to militia- and Klan-up because they feel oppressed. Down South, I don't think they'd see the point.

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  124. billcinsd10:11 PM

    "Let the MREs dig for their ponies in the giant pile of poop over at Dr. Helen's petting zoo."


    No, MREs are for eatin'
    MRAs are for poopin'

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  125. BigHank5311:13 PM

    Olsen doesn't give a single withered shit what any conservative wingnut has to say about him, because he can out-nine-eleven them. Go ahead: try calling bullshit on his wife's ghost, Mr. Schafly. They won't even find a grease smear where you used to be.

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  126. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person12:02 AM

    Physical fitness, man! Especially the wounded vets who lost an arm. You know the GOP is all about the vets...

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  127. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person12:04 AM

    Yeah, but I've been going by "metric fuckton" for years now, and recalibrating's gonna be a bitch. Anybody got a cross-ref chart?

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  128. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person12:08 AM

    I'd say they want Jimmy Buffett's Bank of Bad Habits, but I really can't see GOPers as Parrotheads. And yeah, changing the rules after the play has been their style for decades now.

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  129. AGoodQuestion12:09 AM

    It seemed to me - and admittedly this is a subjective and fallible observation - that the blogosphere did really have a pronounced rightward tilt up until 9/11 and the Iraq invasion. While the right had always/will always be up in arms about the mainstream media, a lot of liberals were at any rate complacent about it for a long time. Then things started happening like MSNBC firing Phil Donahue and the press in general acting like Donald Rumsfeld had just said something meaningful and it became apparent that they were not only not on our side but not really on the side of doing their jobs.

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  130. AGoodQuestion12:09 AM

    He relocated to the UK. To my knowledge he hasn't been trying to educate the world on the evils of liberalism.

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  131. swkellogg12:16 AM

    Cheers Bill.

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  132. AGoodQuestion12:19 AM

    Very enterprising of Schlafly to claim "cash discount", "optimism" and fucking "local" for the conservative cause, but why has he not grabbed "the"? I mean it's sitting right there in the T section.

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  133. AGoodQuestion12:27 AM

    ... and do an image search.

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  134. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person1:03 AM

    Oh, that's some prime bigotry there. I love this bit:

    “Reason” first appeared in 1968 as a typed, poorly-edited student newsletter, the rantings of a severely mentally ill Vietnam War veteran and Ayn Rand groupie named Lanny Friedlander.

    Should have called it PTSD Quarterly.

    [Friedlander's] mother, “a shrill fishwife who yelled and screamed,” according to Robert Poole [...] Friedlander himself [...] spent most of his life in psychiatric institutions and veterans hospitals.


    Seems there was literally nowhere to go but up. Reason Mag really did have a Maculate Conception and a Preposterous Heritage...

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  135. smut clyde4:56 AM

    I will not be having with "careen" as a di-transitive verb.

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  136. smut clyde4:59 AM

    These language police and their political correctness...

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  137. Right-wing bigotry
    Many steps I take to see
    One who is not me

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  138. cleter11:13 AM

    All the Parrotheads I know are Republicans. They'd like taxes to be lower so they could buy a bigger boat. Romney didn't win the Florida primary with just the votes of angry old people.

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  139. I like the concept of "Klanning Up" is it like a size upgrade? Or is it more like being put in business class from coach?

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  140. I think most of us have had that fantasy. I alternate that with tea with the Queen.

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  141. ... Damnit. It's only transitive in the nautical sense, isn't it? And "careering" is intransitive, too. All right, smart guy, what's an elegant and correct replacement? Gotta have that mission statement, baby!

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  142. Well, let's see: a standard bag of salted dicks is one dry quart. There are 8 quarts in a pecker. There are four peckers in one bushel of fucks. The bushel equivalent per metric ton for fuckwheat is ~46 ...


    ... Okay, does anyone know how many salted dicks are in a metric dongload?

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  143. DerBrunoStroszek3:02 PM

    His BBC Four documentaries - cranky, funny, opinionated essays on the history of the Western, Texas, California, media representations of Native Americans and the Deep South - are excellent.

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  144. By the end of the fantasy, my target is just two smoking shoes.

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  145. smut clyde9:19 PM

    Ricochet? Carom?

    Pool players sometimes use 'careen' in the sense of 'carom' but they are WRONG.

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  146. Carom?

    Yes. Yes. "Caroming a metric dongload of poutrage off anyone I find insufficiently deferential." My sysadmin mission statement is saved.

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