Caught Short

This is from a critique of Gore Vidal. I post it here to lament that I will never understand the accusative and ablative any more that I will string theory.

 

For all his claims of erudition, Vidal suffered the wages of the public autodidact. I noticed he quoted Latin ad nauseam — and nearly always with his nouns and adjectives not just in the wrong cases (especially the confusion of the accusative and ablative in preposition phrases), but predictably in the fashion of those who like to copy down Latin phrases but cannot read a complete Latin sentence.

I Agree With This

HANK WILLIAMS JR.: ‘WE’VE GOT A MUSLIM PRESIDENT WHO HATES FARMING, HATES THE MILITARY, HATES THE U.S. AND WE HATE HIM!’

Our Slave Owning President

Barack Hussein Obama, is an eloquently tailored empty suit. No resume, no accomplishments, no experience, no original ideas, no understanding of how the economy works, no understanding of how the world works, no balls, nothing but abstract, empty rhetoric devoid of real substance.

He has no real identity. He is half-white, which he rejects. The rest of him is mostly Arab, which he hides but is disclosed by his non-African Arabic surname and his Arabic first and middle names as a way to triply proclaim his Arabic parentage to people in Kenya . Only a small part of him is African Black from his Luo grandmother, which he pretends he is exclusively.

What he isn't, not a genetic drop of, is 'African-American,' the descendant of enslaved Africans brought to America chained in slave ships. He hasn't a single ancestor who was a slave. Instead, his Arab ancestors were slave owners. Slave-trading was the main Arab business in East Africa for centuries until the British ended it.

Romney?

Not feeling enthusiastic about Romney? Repeat after me: “Supreme Court Justice Eric Holder.”

Fucking Football

A small part of our long trip this year was being away from the Alabama (and Auburn) football fanatics. This includes my wife’s family who are rabid fans. All too soon we will see team flags fluttering from car windows every Saturday and people asking us something about the game. We don’t care about the game. Grow up people, talk about ideas, politics, anything but football.

My word of the year is miasma. It applies equally to living on the same planet with Barry Hussien and his minions and in the same state as Alabama fans.

miasma – my-AZ-muh

A noxious atmosphere or influence.

Compare and Contrast

This is likely to go down as the most memorable utterance of The World's Greatest Orator."If you've got a business, you didn't build that."

Compare with

….the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world.

President Calvin Coolidge's address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Washington D.C., January 25, 1925.

Why closed-mindedness is an imperative for the left.

 

I might call it understanding where Debbie Downer is coming from.

 

By JAMES TARANTO

"Don't repeat conservative language or ideas, even when arguing against them."

That bit of advice, No. 1 on a list titled "The 10 Most Important Things Democrats Should Know," comes from the promotional material for "The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic" by George Lakoff and Elisabeth Wehling.

Many politicians, pundits and talking heads have taken Lakoff's recommendation to heart. This is why conservatives and liberals can't seem to have the simplest conversation: liberals intentionally refuse to address or even acknowledge what conservatives say. Since (as Lakoff notes) conservatives invariably frame their own statements within their own conservative "moral frames," every time a conservative speaks, his liberal opponent will seemingly ignore what was said and instead come back with a reply literally [sic] out of left field.

Thus, he is the progenitor of and primary advocate for the main reason why liberalism fails to win the public debate: Because it never directly confronts, disproves or negates conservative notions--it simply ignores them. . . .

By intentionally refusing to challenge, disprove, understand or even acknowledge the existence of the other side's argument, you allow that argument to grow in strength and win converts.

This is an important insight, not only into the way the left debates and otherwise communicates, but into the way the left thinks--or fails to think. The book's subtitle, after all, promises an instruction in "Thinking and Talking Democratic." Lakoff and Wehling command their readers not only to act as if opposing arguments are without merit, but to close their minds to those arguments. What comes across to conservatives as a maddening arrogance is actually willed ignorance.