"Who Does He Think He Is?"

"It is time to pop the tea baggers' favorite balloon (so what if it will be replaced by another?), and with that in mind I hereby offer to negotiate a $100,000 payday to the person who will come forward with a sex tape or phone records or anything else that succeeds in removing Glenn Beck from the public eye forever. I am not offering the cash myself, but I will broker the deal and/or raise the money for what you bring to the table. (And it better be good.)"

The Freedomist records the proposition by Beau Friedlander which was taken down by The Huffington Post.

This is a descent at which some will be appalled and bored, at once, in their understanding of the straight-up Soviet dimension of it. It bears a special sort of knowing leer; the elbow-in-the-ribs bet on universal human depravity that will save us all if only we just sink to it.

Of course, it wouldn't do to simply offer to have him killed, which would be most un-civilized, and nevermind about all that "remove from the public eye forever" jazz: get your mind out of those concrete overshoes. No. It would suffice to have the witch burned metaphorically, because sneers have been the fuel of the revolution for longer than almost anyone remembers now.

Stompers Working For You

Tam links a heartwarming story of official concern for everybody's well-being in Philadelphia. I, for one, certainly feel a lot safer with the cupcake lady in the bag.

In the same spirit of pubic diligence, I offer this item in which the city of Charlotte, N.C. has denied permission to build a restaurant out of a shipping container because it's so wild and goofy an idea that they don't know how to fit it into their zoning arbitrariness Lookout For The Common Good.

~~~~~
It cannot be referred to as a state of freedom when anyone must beg permission to produce under threat of force.

Do you understand?

"You Play A Very Risky Game When You Make Exceptions To Fundamental Principles."

Almost a century and a half into Pragmatism, there came a point that would not dent the minds of those goddamned fools who were pleased to style themselves 'Americans', even though they weren't.

"So. You thought you could avoid those intrusive airport technological strip searches by not flying on a commercial plane? You thought they were just were doing that to 'other people'? You thought it was okay to look the other way as your Fourth Amendment rights were violated when you flew on an airplane. It was all in the name of 'safety', right?"

Joe Huffman

You goddamned fools.

They Don't Have To Take Your Guns, Ladies & Gentlemen

They have another way around it.

CultureWatch

An article theme on my mind lately:

"By the first decade of the twenty-first century, the Anglosphere was a profoundly un-serious culture."

Datapoint:

1-in-4 Grown Men Travel With a Stuffed Animal

Everyone Should Work On A Tractor

As I was compelled to explain at Facebook:

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is about managing the immutable reality of mechanical systems. People can bullshit each other -- and even themselves -- over concepts in all sorts of ways. When concepts are forged in steel, that becomes impossible. You don't get to bullshit your way around a 5/8" bolt. You just don't. When you're dealing with a flywheel pilot bearing, no mental substitutions -- whether from sloppiness or outright psychosis -- will suffice: that bearing is only what it is, and your mind had better be right about everything about it.

Robert Pirsig once wrote a very ridiculous book, but he wrote it about a very serious subject.

There is great philosophy in machines."

It's about my friend Mike's 1940 Ford 8N tractor, currently all-ass apart in a handy garage. Neither one of us has ever overhauled an engine before, but we're getting through it.



We have the hood (with gas tank) off and the head bolts are already broken.



All front-end gear is removed, cylinder head is removed.



Engine block un-bolted.



Seat, wheel fenders and instrument panel stripped.

To My Book Fiend Ernest Brown

Look here, man, this is serious. The first load arrived -- (wot?) last week? -- with real presence on the Sovietology shelf. The second dropped the day before yesterday (just as I finished Philbrick* and picked up McGerr's "A Fierce Discontent") and crashed all other reading to a stop.

Tucker's anthology on Stalinism is a great look at mid-70's debate: lots of new names to me. There's grand-scale nonsense in it (Medvedev, naturally), but very rich. Wolfe's "Marxism" = chunky history. Excellent play, sir. "Problems In European Civilization" (I'll say) -- "The Stalin Revolution" is a riot. Racing around in it, I'm about on the last page of Ponomaryov's "Fulfilling The Leninist Plan" and waiting for the punch-lines when it dawns on me that it's straight boilerplate ministry period-prop. This is a "Problem In European Civilization".

"The Origin of The Communist Autocracy" -- Hmm. Schapiro. London School. Richly documented. This is 1955, and in my collection compares with Richard Pipes' 1994 study ("Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime") of the early period (1917-'24), but Schapiro features the opposition. Probably good events-study but laden with nonsensical theory, is my bet.

"Soviet Ethics and Morality" -- De George, 1969. Ann Arbor Press... ya think that'll be a riot, or what?

The thing is... Fitzpatrick's anthology: "Cultural Revolution In Russia, 1928-1931". Oh dear. I believe that there are signs in this, Ernest. I really do.

Just paging through it the other night, I hit on one that I'll post up here inna minnit. I haven't read the whole chapter yet and I want to, but this thing looks really important and on-time.

~~~~~

* It was Mike Hendrix's link that caused me to pull Nathaniel Philbrick's 2003 account of the U.S. Exploring Expedition off the Ernest Brown Shelf and finally read it, in just a couple of big bites. Very good.

Professor Fail

Glenn Reynolds:

"Personally, I believe that 'fairness' consists in the fruits of my labor not being taken by corrupt hacks to redistribute to their cronies in exchange for votes."

Oh, yeah?

Well, dear professor, let me only point out that 'fairness' consists in the fruits of my labor not being taken. <=fullstop

Get it?

Real. Life. Horror.

"Anyone who wants to keep their child out of prison should not be waking up to that necessity on the day of a murder trial."

(Rudi Stettner -- Indy Posted)

There's a lick, right there.

I spent some time rolling through the story of Seandell Jackson, Nathan Potter, who was the innocent man he killed for no reason, and Gerald Hawkins, who is Jackson's uncle and who turned him into the police. Mr. Hawkins is a tower of light in all this Endarkenment, and especially when he is cast upon other of the murder's relatives who evinced not even tatters of civil esteem during the monster's sentencing hearing. The good taxpayers of Indiana will now carry their product forward from the age of nineteen years, whether they care to or not. Ordinarily, even that would not necessarily strike one as an expensive project, but times in which everything must eventually be raised to "art", anything is possible with stolen money and very little is ordinary. "Corrections" is a going concern, now. The sky's the limit.

I traipsed across that horror-show while looking around at a different ghast, found originally at Tam's. Entranced with the sparkling Miss Lee, I found her memorialized here. I guess it's a crime blog, but these are the ethical ashes falling-out in this, our Endarkenment. That's really what they are.

That place seems to have a real eye for them.

Take A Seat

Trust me: this is very cool. That's a full-sphere 360º high-res photograph of the cockpit of a P-51C Mustang, sitting on a grass strip on a bright sunny day.

Just try to imagine sitting in that thing six miles in the sky, on your way to a deadly fight.

Wow.

(thanks to e-mail link-hitter Florida Guy)

Notice

Beginning tomorrow, a smoking ban will go into effect on the Ithaca Commons.

As long as this is in effect, no business there will ever enjoy my custom again. Never, ever.

That is all.

Overheard At The Parts Counter...

...over in Groton, as the guy hands me my rebuilt alternator:

Guy: "That's $62.90."

Me: "That's outrageous. I won't pay it."

Guy: "Fine. Don't. I don't care if your fuckin' truck runs or not. There: that's my customer service for you."

Me: "It's a lot straighter than the bullshit that passes for that in the rest of the country."

Guy: {laff} "Look; they're new brushes, regulator and bearings..."

Me: "Thanks, Dale. Good job, mate. I'll see ya."

Browser Window Cleanup

• "When San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Deputy Darren Murphy responded to a 'shots fired' call in April 2008, he decided en route that he was going to make an arrest."

  You too can thrill your imagination about what to steal from the man's safe like the "peace officers" in the video.
  
  
• "Welfare And Warfare" -- salient remarks on power crossfeeds at The Burning Platform. (linked at WRSA)
  
  
• Who needs this? I don't.
  
  

• "Costco employees paint the picture of a lunatic with a gun. Cops respond as if to a lunatic with a gun. Assuming that the posted transcript is correct, the missing piece is how the confrontation actually went down.
  
  I've said it before and I'll say it again: This is a textbook example of why you don't want to be the person of interest in a man with a gun call. You never know what hysterical bullshit the person on 911 has been feeding the PD and you don't know what kind of mindset the cops are going to be in when you interact with them.
  
  Keep those weapons concealed, folks...and if you're made and somebody seems even slightly aghast by it, GTFO ASAP. Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 bucks. Drop everything that instant and unass the area immediately."

  There are at this writing forty-three pages of discussion over the fatal shooting of Erik Scott at ar15.com.

Sparks File

This is not good:

Back in February, Ithaca Police officers Tase and then shoot dead a "drug suspect" in a convenience store parking lot. This is an ugly case in Ithaca. All officers cleared of wrong in the matter. Some of the weed-level buzz among townies is that while the dead man was a known dealer, the operation was a goof: his van didn't start moving until they Tased him, which happened because it was in gear. Nobody is happy about any of this.

Early last Sunday morning, the house of one of the officers burns down. It's now ruled an arson.

I would not believe for a minute that anyone involved in this is politically sophisticated enough to think this through, and I'm just telling you: this is not what anyone needs.

Witness Account

Consider this comment, posted at the KLAS-TV web story on this thing:

"My wife and I were 7 or 8 feet away from the shooting as were the police. We were to the suspects immediate right. We heard and saw the 3 police officers shouting to the man in question to ‘get on your knees’ several times. At that point the man appeared somewhat stunned by the commotion and shouting of the police.

His Right arm went up in a defenseless position and it appeared his left arm appeared to be going up but there was NO gun in his hand. He was taserd and shot at the same time. At no time did the man in question ever raise his voice, shout an obscenity or become confrontational with the police. We saw the disabled man stooping to his right facing us with what appeared to be a bullet wound in his upper chest with blood coming from the wound and immediately his eyes became glossy as he began to convulse. At this point he was no threat to anyone, both hands were in full view of us and there was no gun. As he was down, the police continued to shout ‘put the gun down’ several times…but there was no gun in his hand as we had full vantage point view. The injured man was having agonal respirations, he was down when the second volly of bullets rang out. There was no doubt in question that following the second barrage of bullets the man was dead. His girlfriend was to the back side of us and began to scream…..why did you kill him, he is a military man with a license to carry a concealed weapon. You didn’t need to kill him….you didn’t need to kill him.

An officer then came up to the injured man who in my opinion was a ‘dead’ man’, was cuffed with his hands behind his back and no attempt by the officer to determine if the man was alive or dead. No apparent life saving aid was given to the ‘downed’ man. The man was totally lifeless when the Paramedics arrived on scene. I was absolutely surprised to see that no attempt at aggressive ACLS was engaged. They simply just picked up the body like a ’sack of potatoes’ and hurled him onto the gurney and into the ambulance This was a crime scene…. the crime scene was violated. One of the paramedics who attended to an injured elderly lady said the man was dead. There was a dead man in front of Costco. What nobody is talking about is that there were many many spectators, many like ourselves within just a few feet of the victim when the shots rang out. It seems to me that the greater danger was posed not by the victim but by the police who fired many shots in the vicinity of the innocent public. I agree with you, I hope the media and your friends family can get their hands of Costco’s Camera’s which will indeed tell the rest of the story. Also it must be confirmed whether the second gun supposedly found by the victims side was indeed also registered to him as a licensed conceal and carry."