"It's been laying there lonely and neglected," he said. "Can it not come back to Scotland where it was born?"
Bring them home lads.
Bring them home.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
No True Scotsman
No true Scotsman would leave such a thing behind. This is a travesty. A delicious, delicious travesty
Friday, October 23, 2009
How Much Are They Paying This Guy?
Chase Carey is the Deputy Chairman of News Corp, otherwise known as Rupert Murdoch's cancerous blight upon the face of journalism. He is also a moron.
Translated from corporate-speak:
In the end it doesn't matter, though. Their attempts to capture all the extra benefit people might enjoy is just going to doom TV in the long-run. I don't think these fellows understand how quickly and easily people can turn to torrenting. When people are convinced that your only goal is to nickel and dime them out of every cent you think you can get away with, it tends to erode any sense of loyalty or compassion they might have towards you.
"I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content. I think what we need to do is deliver that content to consumers in a way where they will appreciate the value," Carey said (via the Broadcasting & Cable blog. "Hulu concurs with that, it needs to evolve to have a meaningful subscription model as part of its business."
Translated from corporate-speak:
I think don't think we've managed to milk people on this quite enough. People still have joy and happiness flowing through their veins, we need to work harder at bleeding them dry.Now maybe Hulu isn't profitable and they actually do need to charge to make a respectable amount of money. I don't begrudge anyone for making money doing what they're doing. Notice that the crux of his argument isn't that Hulu needs to charge to stay afloat, no his complaint is that there are people out there going unfleeced, just walking around town with money still in their pockets. Money that rightfully belongs to Rupert & Friends. Travesty!
In the end it doesn't matter, though. Their attempts to capture all the extra benefit people might enjoy is just going to doom TV in the long-run. I don't think these fellows understand how quickly and easily people can turn to torrenting. When people are convinced that your only goal is to nickel and dime them out of every cent you think you can get away with, it tends to erode any sense of loyalty or compassion they might have towards you.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
No, Nay, NEVER!
While music taste is largely subjective, there are some things which, for the sake of all that is good and holy in this world, we must simply regard as objective truths. These would be "Well, duh!" statements like "Mozart was pretty damn talented," or "The Fugees kicked ass" or "Jonah Weiner needs to pass whatever he is smoking because he has clearly had too much."
I love a good guitar riff as much as the next guy, and who doesn't miss those grungy days when "alternative" music was actually an alternative to something? But it takes more than nostalgia and soaring riffs to rescue the fail-train that is Scott Stapp. It was bad enough that he was a very cheap knock-off of Eddie Vedder, but compound that with sappy lyrics, cheap sentimentality, and Stapp's Jesus complex and what we had was a combination of everything awful about pop-music boiled together into a stew so saccharine and vile that it could prompt a diabetic coma.
I love a good guitar riff as much as the next guy, and who doesn't miss those grungy days when "alternative" music was actually an alternative to something? But it takes more than nostalgia and soaring riffs to rescue the fail-train that is Scott Stapp. It was bad enough that he was a very cheap knock-off of Eddie Vedder, but compound that with sappy lyrics, cheap sentimentality, and Stapp's Jesus complex and what we had was a combination of everything awful about pop-music boiled together into a stew so saccharine and vile that it could prompt a diabetic coma.
Liberté, égalité, fraternité
This post by Matt Yglesias manages to expose the inherent deficiencies in the orthodox liberal mindset, which is the dogged insistence on making the perfect (i.e. naïve utopian fantasy) the enemy of the good.
Yes the United States is somewhat unfair in its income distribution. Yes we could stand to be more egalitarian but, given that maids and their employers live in the real world rather than some Marxist paradise, we measure the caliber of a man by how he treats his subordinates.
This is why tradition and culture makes such a big fuss about having a spirit of courtesy, respect, and charity towards each other. It does not matter how equal and egalitarian a society is if everyone insists on being douchebags towards each other.
Does nobody read de Tocqueville any more? Fraternity, not equality, is what we are after.
Yes the United States is somewhat unfair in its income distribution. Yes we could stand to be more egalitarian but, given that maids and their employers live in the real world rather than some Marxist paradise, we measure the caliber of a man by how he treats his subordinates.
This is why tradition and culture makes such a big fuss about having a spirit of courtesy, respect, and charity towards each other. It does not matter how equal and egalitarian a society is if everyone insists on being douchebags towards each other.
Does nobody read de Tocqueville any more? Fraternity, not equality, is what we are after.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
I Feel as Strong as a Bull Moose
Around the perimeter of Harvard Yard there stand a series of brick archways that serve as gates. Among these is the Dexter Gate upon the entry side of which which one may read the inscription: "Enter to grow in wisdom." On the opposite exit side of the gate is written: “Depart to serve better thy country and thy kind.”
Though the Harvard of today has, like other elite schools, transformed it's diploma from a certificate of meritorious scholastic achievement into a mere patent of nobility, it would seem there was a time long ago when it did, in fact, take its role as a university seriously. That role was not to help secure a position in medical or law school nor was it to maintain a recruiting pool for big business to requisition fresh brigades of over-ambitious corporate raiders. No universities once aimed for a loftier goal, to mold great citizens and future leaders.
The fault, of course, does not lie with the universities alone. Among America's best educated and best placed echelons of society there is an endemic culture of moral diffidence and timidity. It is rarely called out, of course, because it has been very successful at hiding behind a mask of tolerance and open-mindedness. Frankly, I am sick of it. I am tired of having the culture, traditions, and norms that made us all who we are consistently denigrated because someone, somewhere, might have had their feelings hurt. The pendulum has swung entirely too far into the absurd and I decided to pour myself into this blog to join the growing backlash to push it back towards sanity.
Like all young boys I went through a series of rebellious phases as a child. I questioned authority, taunted tradition, and defied the rules simply because I resented confinement. The key word there, however, is that I did these things when I was a child. Rebellious tendencies in children are a healthy sign of principled, independent thinking. There comes a time, however, when every young lad must put away childish things and consider his place in society. At the point where a boy stops thinking about himself, who he is or what he wants to do, and begins to reflect on how he can better serve his country and his kind. We live in such a youth (specifically teenage) oriented culture, however, that rebellion alone is all we ever glorify. Duty, honor, and what a prior generation used to call 'constancy' are consistently undermined by an ethic of "what's in it for me?" that masks itself as "freedom."
I consider it my purpose to strip all these self-serving social constructs that the liberal discourse has surrounded itself with and expose their inherent hypocrisy and wantonness.
Though the Harvard of today has, like other elite schools, transformed it's diploma from a certificate of meritorious scholastic achievement into a mere patent of nobility, it would seem there was a time long ago when it did, in fact, take its role as a university seriously. That role was not to help secure a position in medical or law school nor was it to maintain a recruiting pool for big business to requisition fresh brigades of over-ambitious corporate raiders. No universities once aimed for a loftier goal, to mold great citizens and future leaders.
The fault, of course, does not lie with the universities alone. Among America's best educated and best placed echelons of society there is an endemic culture of moral diffidence and timidity. It is rarely called out, of course, because it has been very successful at hiding behind a mask of tolerance and open-mindedness. Frankly, I am sick of it. I am tired of having the culture, traditions, and norms that made us all who we are consistently denigrated because someone, somewhere, might have had their feelings hurt. The pendulum has swung entirely too far into the absurd and I decided to pour myself into this blog to join the growing backlash to push it back towards sanity.
Like all young boys I went through a series of rebellious phases as a child. I questioned authority, taunted tradition, and defied the rules simply because I resented confinement. The key word there, however, is that I did these things when I was a child. Rebellious tendencies in children are a healthy sign of principled, independent thinking. There comes a time, however, when every young lad must put away childish things and consider his place in society. At the point where a boy stops thinking about himself, who he is or what he wants to do, and begins to reflect on how he can better serve his country and his kind. We live in such a youth (specifically teenage) oriented culture, however, that rebellion alone is all we ever glorify. Duty, honor, and what a prior generation used to call 'constancy' are consistently undermined by an ethic of "what's in it for me?" that masks itself as "freedom."
I consider it my purpose to strip all these self-serving social constructs that the liberal discourse has surrounded itself with and expose their inherent hypocrisy and wantonness.
Feministing misses the point: as usual
http://www.feministing.com/archives/018446.html
Does Feministing have no limit to its ability to miss the point?
It appears not.
So, the reason-we're-bitching-that-life-is-unfair du jour is that a Mexican city has launched women-only taxis that, horror of horrors, has beauty kits in them! Shock! Horror! Shame! Not only does the author of the post find it apparently unfortunate that the taxis have the aforementioned beauty kits on them, she makes a point of whining about the fact that they aren't instead remaking society from the ground up:
Sure thing, Jessica. Let's get on that. But in the meantime, how about we stop the women in that city from being attacked and/or raped? Nah, that won't do! We need to worry more about social mores than, I dunno, protecting the women from physical harm.
Look, I get that we should change the culture to make sure that the women aren't treated badly. That's a noble, if slightly long-term, goal for all societies. I applaud that. But you see, I happen to be of the opinion that those women live in a place called "reality." And in "reality" there are sometimes issues we need to deal with immediately. Like women being raped.
But why care about those silly details when you can look self-righteous about the big bad patriarchy and its oppressive ways?
Does Feministing have no limit to its ability to miss the point?
It appears not.
So, the reason-we're-bitching-that-life-is-unfair du jour is that a Mexican city has launched women-only taxis that, horror of horrors, has beauty kits in them! Shock! Horror! Shame! Not only does the author of the post find it apparently unfortunate that the taxis have the aforementioned beauty kits on them, she makes a point of whining about the fact that they aren't instead remaking society from the ground up:
Shouldn't we be targeting the gropers and harassers? The onus should be on men to stop harassing women, not on women to escape them.
Sure thing, Jessica. Let's get on that. But in the meantime, how about we stop the women in that city from being attacked and/or raped? Nah, that won't do! We need to worry more about social mores than, I dunno, protecting the women from physical harm.
Look, I get that we should change the culture to make sure that the women aren't treated badly. That's a noble, if slightly long-term, goal for all societies. I applaud that. But you see, I happen to be of the opinion that those women live in a place called "reality." And in "reality" there are sometimes issues we need to deal with immediately. Like women being raped.
But why care about those silly details when you can look self-righteous about the big bad patriarchy and its oppressive ways?
Monday, October 12, 2009
The Illiberal Liberal
I'm a liberal. That is, I sort of kind of identify as "liberal." But I'm not liberal in the way that Michael Moore is a fat socialist weasel. I'm liberal in the sense that I identify strongly with Enlightenment ideals, progressive thinking, and the idea that we can better society in the long-run. I also believe that taxation can be perfectly acceptable, and that government, in and of itself, is not a bad thing.
However, I also believe that the average American liberal is an annoying noisy wart on the fabric of society. Don't get me wrong: I think most American conservatives are hemorrhoids that ought to be lanced from the stinking colon of the nation. But I don't particularly identify with them, and so it's more fun to point out the follies of the group I identify with the most.
I will be joined, in due time, by guests and colleagues. Some liberal, some conservative, some all over the place. But, I warn you eco-tard, feminist, anti-establishmentarians: this blog will probably piss you off at some point. Unlike most of my liberal brethren, I loathe PC thought. I believe that free and open discussion is what moves society forward-- not sugar-coating with euphemisms that soon become offensive like the words they replace. Therefore, if you believe that we should worry more about people's feelings than what's true, I suggest you go hang out at Huffington Post with the rest of your brethren.
However, I also believe that the average American liberal is an annoying noisy wart on the fabric of society. Don't get me wrong: I think most American conservatives are hemorrhoids that ought to be lanced from the stinking colon of the nation. But I don't particularly identify with them, and so it's more fun to point out the follies of the group I identify with the most.
I will be joined, in due time, by guests and colleagues. Some liberal, some conservative, some all over the place. But, I warn you eco-tard, feminist, anti-establishmentarians: this blog will probably piss you off at some point. Unlike most of my liberal brethren, I loathe PC thought. I believe that free and open discussion is what moves society forward-- not sugar-coating with euphemisms that soon become offensive like the words they replace. Therefore, if you believe that we should worry more about people's feelings than what's true, I suggest you go hang out at Huffington Post with the rest of your brethren.
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