Favorite poster from NR's "The Corner"

If Obama is Cyclops and America is Marvel Girl, then McCain is Dr. Light and America is Sue Dibny.

oh snap

So What About the Obamacons? [Jonah Goldberg]

Several readers have asked, with varying degrees of charity of spirit, whether I still think the Obamacons are a phoney phenomenon. After thinking about it, I have to say I have changed my mind somewhat. The Obamacons have reached sufficient voice and number to be more than the "statistical noise" you get every election year. That said, I would still say that while the phenomenon isn't entirely phoney, I have a very hard time saying the same thing about the arguments the Obamacons use. I think the idea that there would be much that is recognizably conservative in an Obama presidency is absurd.

10/29 03:24 PM

'statistical noise'

I love how Goldberg strives for a tone of bemused detachment, like he conceives himself as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court.

The Obama Show [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

I had a sinking feelings watching this Obama infomercial. Until it flashed a preview for the LIVE OBAMA EVENT. That instinct to overshoot could may be a big part of the reason this is still a contest, that he hasn't quite sealed the deal. When you think about it, his campaign is one huge overshoot. It could be a successful one, mind you. But we are a skeptical people ... right?

I'll say this much for the last half-hour [Andy McCarthy]

The Knicks look much better than I'd have thought.

A Joke And What It Reveals [John Hood]

Speaking in front of a huge audience at downtown Raleigh rally yesterday, Barack Obama threw off a humorous line about John McCain's accusation that the Obama tax plan is redistributionist:

McCain has “called me a socialist for wanting to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans so we can finally give tax relief to the middle class,” Obama said. “I don’t know what’s next. By the end of the week he'll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten.”

Ha ha.

Only, in this passage Obama revealed precisely why he is vulnerable to such charges: he can't seem to tell the difference between a gift and a theft. There is nothing remotely socialistic or communistic about sharing. If you have a toy that someone else wants, you have three choices in a free society. You can offer to trade it for something you value that is owned by the other. You can give the toy freely, as a sign of friendship or compassion. Or you can choose to do neither.

Collectivism in all its forms is about taking away your choice. Whether you wish to or not, the government compels you to surrender the toy, which it then redistributes to someone that government officials deem to be a more worthy owner. It won't even be someone you could ever know, in most cases. That's what makes the political philosophy unjust (by stripping you of control over yourself and the fruits of your labor) as well as counterproductive (by failing to give the recipient sufficient incentive to learn and work hard so he can earn his own toys in the future).

Government is not charity. It is not persuasion, or cooperation, or sharing. Government is a fist, a shove, a gun. Obama either doesn't understand this, or doesn't want voters to understand it.

John Hood evidently not a relative of the Nottingham Hoods then...

I can only assume Mr. Hood is going to spend tomorrow giving a fist, a shove or a gun to all those damn kids coming around trick-or-treating.

He probably has a sign on his door and is not allowed.

:-D

Government is a fist, a shove, a gun.

wow. just wow.

In the NRO Universe, we literally live in 1934 Germany. Literally.

Is he going on that NR Cruise thing? What a delight at the dinner table he'll be.

If you have a toy that someone else wants, you have three choices in a free society. You can offer to trade it for something you value that is owned by the other. You can give the toy freely, as a sign of friendship or compassion. Or you can take large amounts of money from the tobacco industry.

can we all book a cabin on the cruise?

Remember that NR piece about one of their cruises – one where William F. Buckley was dismissed as senile by the younger Cornerites?

all sold out ;_________;

http://www.nrcruise.com/Media/nr-note.gif

"How To Book The Cruise"

sounds like a potential Larry Craig memoir title.

Would anyone like to participate in a NRO collaborative script set on their cruise? The climax comes when the ship starts going down Titanic-style and Jonah + K-Lo have a DeCaprio/Winslet style romance!

no

K-Lo/Twinkie fan fic

This is the soundtrack:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51O23tTB2aL._SS500_.jpg

ouch did u just call klo a whale

klo is jean grey, the twinkie is cyclops

K-lo is Dr. Light. The Twinkie is Sue Dibny.

I am so sad that cruise is booked. ;_;

Greenwald writing about The Corner:

Many people have noted the even-worse-than-usual malice and derangement of National Review writers over the past couple of months. Much of that has been just a mild, desperation-fueled extension of standard form -- the low-level, vapid, cliché-spouting cartoons (Jonah Goldberg, Kathryn Jean Lopez); the right-wing talk-radio-level haters (Mark Levin, Mark Steyn, Lisa Schiffren, Victor Davis Hanson); the GOP-loyalist Dead-Ender operatives (Rich Lowry, Ed Whelan), etc. But Andy McCarthy's unique descent into full-fledged reality-detachment and "sheer madness" has really been something to behold -- not because it's inconsistent with prior behavior (it's isn't), but because he was, not all that long ago, a federal prosecutor, an Assistant U.S. Attorney, with immense power over the lives of many people

Bad Thoughts [John Derbyshire]

Now here's a subversive little thought about that Khalidi tape that the Los Angeles Times is guarding like a cargo of plutonium.

* Item: The Los Angeles Times is owned by the Tribune Co.
* Item: The Tribune Co. is based in Chicago.
* Item: "In 2008, Tribune is struggling under a $13 billion debt load, much of it incurred in taking the company private in 2007, and from plummeting advertising income at its newspapers." (Wikipedia. A business friend tells me the current figure is actually $14.7 billion.)
* Item: Tribune Chairman and CEO Sam Zell is a major Republican donor. Why would he not want his paper to release the Khalidi tape?
* Item: The federal government is sitting on a bailout fund of $700 billion.
* Item: It's not likely the Treasury can disburse more than one or two hundred billion of that before the next administration comes in.
* Item: The next administration will therefore have at least half a trillion greenies to hand out to anyone it deems worthy of being bailed out. Anyone — there are no hard and fast rules.
* Item: 14.7 billion is a very small proportion — less than three percent — of half a trillion.

When Sam Zell's office was called and asked about this (by a friend of mine who requests deep anonymity), they said the thought was ridiculous.

Which of course it is. Perfectly ridiculous. Utterly, impossibly ridiculous. Preposterous. Totally preposterous … (Rinse and repeat.)

10/30 04:59 PM

Those guys are on crazy juice.

I wonder if he listens to my pi disc to calm himself down.

I'm sure this has been said before but the absolute fear and loathing and of just about fucking everything revealed (and reveled in) by these folks is amazing. What do they do for laughs?

Extra 'and' got in there somehow.

I mean, is this their idea of fun?

I really mean, how do they keep from killing themselves?

not nro but did cause my brain to leak out my ear

Some people don't think America is special
BY Z. DWIGHT BILLINGSLY (is black btw)

10/23/2008

The headlines you see over these columns are written by editors, but if I were writing this one, I'd call it "Family Secrets." Having attended Yale University and Harvard Business School, I spend a lot of time around blacks who went to Ivy League schools and sit around and congratulate themselves on being the "chosen" ones. I believe many of these people would be dangerous for America if they were to gain political power.

Many of the black people I spend time with don't love America, despite the fact that they have benefited from America's blessings. I have been in million-dollar homes in which I've listened to black elites talk down about America. I've heard them go on and on about slavery, about racism, about how black people have been held down and held back. They see nothing great about America or in how it has overcome that past.

How can that be, you ask, when they have taken advantage of the political system to gain power? I believe they hate America and hate what America stands for. They believe in the United Nations and a world in which America is no better than any other nation.

Barack Obama claims to represent change, and he does. But the change he stands for is change in the worst way. Obama represents change from American exceptionialism to America as just another nation. He represents change from America as a leader of the free world to America as just a peer with the likes of France or Germany. I also am deeply concerned by Obama's past associations with admitted 1960s terrorist William Ayers, convicted Chicago felon Tony Rezko and the voter-registration-fraud specialists of ACORN.

I told you in my previous column that when I was at Martha's Vineyard this summer I didn't really learn anything that might be useful in defeating Obama. What I did hear at a party of black people was a lot of talk about how it's "our time" and about "white guilt." I am very concerned about who Obama would bring into his cabinet and who would be running the government.

These black elites do not respect America. America is special, truly exceptional. I don't think that Obama believes that about America.

translation: the other black students hated this dude 94/7

94/7. Damn!

http://images.stltoday.com/stltoday/images/columnists/billingsly.jpg

oh yeah people hated the shit out of him

Z. Dwight

Z. Dwight Billingsly sounds like a Family Guy character name reject

also:

"Some people"

Does his byline really include (is black btw)?

I hope so.

I spend a lot of time around blacks who went to Ivy League schools and sit around and congratulate themselves on being the "chosen" ones. I believe many of these people would be dangerous for America if they were to gain political power.

Dan would make Cure song national anthem, so I agree.

Believing in Barack [Jay Nordlinger]

This morning, I saw a photo of Barack Obama huddled in conversation with Edward Said — some formal dinner. At first, the photo made my blood run cold. But then I thought, “No, you must believe in The One: He was surely refuting Said on the nature of the Middle East. Said is saying, ‘The Zionist entity is the source of all trouble in the region.’ And Obama is saying, ‘I’m sorry, professor, but that kind of thinking is what is keeping the Arab world in its mental chains.’”

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

if dan made 'killing an arab' the national anthem i think the corner would embrace him

Dan would make Cure song national anthem, so I agree.

It is this kind of dissent which must be crushed.

McCarthy seems a bit annoyed today.