Wednesday, October 15, 2014

INEPT EVEN AT SPREADING PANIC.

One of our most esteemed conservative writers approaches the important subject of Ebola:
While disposing of a body in a mass grave, one man in a hazmat suit turns to another and asks, “When did we run out of body bags?” 
“Two days ago.” 
Fortunately, the scene is only from the movie Contagion, though it’s probably close enough to what is going on in parts of West Africa right now.
Surprise, it's National Review legacy pledge Jonah Goldberg, talking about something he understands (a stupid movie) and something he doesn't (everything else, except maybe delis with the best deals on Cheetos and Mom's List of Names of Librul Fascists I Can Use). Boy, I bet West Africa's like that movie Contagion -- not very popular and it stinks, amirite!

After some pro-forma slurs on Gwyneth Paltrow, Goldberg suggests that liberal Hollyweird has been covering for Obama fake-epidemic-wise:
Contagion broke away from the shackles of the genre. Ross Douthat put it well in an essay for National Review, calling it a “pro-establishment thriller.” Government officials, the scientists, even the military were all competent and determined to do the right thing. 
It was a fascinating departure from the speak-truth-to-power cinema of the Bush years and even Hollywood’s paranoia in the Clinton years. (In the movie version of The X-Files, FEMA was a villainous cabal.)...

Given the timing, I think it’s no accident Hollywood produced Contagion. After all, Obama was going to restore faith in government.
Thus were the lofo sheeple lulled into a false sense of security by a liberal disaster movie. But now we know the CDC is stupid because some people in Texas got Ebola.
We now have our own version of Contagion playing out in real time.
From the Wikipedia on Contagion: "The Minnesota National Guard arrives to quarantine the city... Meanwhile, the death toll reaches 2.5 million in the U.S. and 26 million worldwide..." The current Ebola situation in America is more like Terms of Endearment than Contagion.
The disease is different, of course, and so is the response. Still...
Just wait a second and contemplate the Oh For Fuck's Sakeness of that.
...Still, I have little doubt that the real-life players at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health are as well-intentioned as their cinematic versions.
What the fuck does that even mean? That's like saying, "Oprah Winfrey is not really like Lizzie Borden. Still, I'm sure she has nice table manners, just like Lizzie Borden."
But they aren’t nearly as reassuring. They keep telling us they know what can’t happen right up until the moment it happens. They put the theory of their expertise ahead of the facts on the ground...
In other words, unprecedented event is unprecedented, so scientific protocol is worthless and we're all going to die like in that movie. I know some scribble has to occasionally appear under Goldberg's name from time to time, but there are so many wingnuts trying to panic the country with Ebola now that I assume conservative movement leaders take it seriously as a propaganda theme -- aren't they concerned that Goldberg's clowning might spoil it?

UPDATE. In comments, mortimer2000 brings us back to 2006, when Goldberg was telling us to "Give Bush a Break" over Katrina:
And of course there were real tragedies involved in that disaster. But you know what? Bad stuff happens during disasters, which is why we don't call them tickle-parties... 
Long before Katrina, New Orleans was a dysfunctional city in a state with famously corrupt and incompetent leadership, many of whose residents think that it is the job of the federal government to make everyone whole...
It's not as if he's completely inconsistent -- in both cases, he clearly can't give a shit about the people who are suffering.

222 comments:

  1. coozledad1:47 PM

    They put their theory of expertise ahead of the fact that Texas is a third-world shithole, stripped of regulation or oversight of any kind, and took for granted an ebola patient wouldn't be left to liquefy in a goddamned waiting room with other patients.


    They need to suspend air traffic to and from Texas, and any other state governed by free market religion.


    http://gawker.com/dallas-hospital-was-totally-unprepared-for-ebola-patien-1646495681

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  2. There is no problem that these manty-pissers can't make worse.
    ~

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  3. Bethany Spencer1:51 PM

    I've heard about this Lizzie Borden gal before...knew she was famous for SOMETHING. Didnt know it was her table manners. Geez, I learn something new every time I come here.

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  4. carolannie1:58 PM

    What is it about RWNJ that they always refer to movies as the current version of reality playing on your neighborhood screens?

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  5. Helmut Monotreme2:02 PM

    Yeah, weird isn't it how poeple who train their who life to fight plagues are advising people not to panic so that the disease can be controlled without 100,000 doomsday enthusiasts enacting their zombie killing fantasies on everyone with so much as a runny nose.

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  6. DN Nation2:04 PM

    God, just shut the fuck up, J-Load. Your witless, half-thought, sulfur-stank musing on the politics of the day is one thing; ginning up fear because you have to say *something* is another.


    Don't you have some deadline to pretend to reach? Go do that, idiot.

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  7. Another Kiwi2:04 PM

    The disease is different, and so is the response but aside from that Mr. Obama is a blah. Yeah you heard me right. He's masterminded this plan to kill us all and dance about on our graves singing "Camptown Races"
    Can I just add that I need new undies, size humungous with detachable fart filters. Thanks readers!

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  8. I think Goldberg deserves some credit. He cited a movie that was filmed and released this century.

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  9. whetstone2:06 PM

    Contagion broke away from the shackles of the genre. Ross Douthat put it well in an essay for National Review,
    calling it a “pro-establishment thriller.” Government officials, the
    scientists, even the military were all competent and determined to do
    the right thing.


    Yeah, the ebola-based sequel to Red Dawn never got off the drawing board. "It's a real war, kid. Be careful when removing your suit and follow all sanitary procedures. CDC's not going to save us, we need to run these clinical trials ourselves. WOLVERINES!!!"

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  10. Bigby2:23 PM

    If this happened 10 years ago liberals would be screaming "Jeebus H. Christ, Bushie, you cut the living SHIT out of CDC funding so you could give fat cats infinite tax cuts!!!", and J-choad would be saying "it's no big deal, like, only 2 people have died, very far from me, maaaan libtards are such pussies, amirite?!".

    EVERYTHING out of these assholes' pieholes is petty, cynical propaganda...that works.

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  11. Provider_UNE2:23 PM

    Uhm, yeah, huh?

    Wonders If I have wandered into a conservative cosplay convention with furry undertones (apologies to LARPers and Furries) or if someone slipped something into my drink...)


    Need a breath of fresh air after which some of this might make something resembling sense. I just don't know if I can twist my brain into th pretzel required.


    Everytime I think I am closing in on the grand unified wingnut field theory something like this comes along.
    ...

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  12. coozledad2:25 PM

    the grand unified wingnut field theory

    We don't want no fuckin' regulation until we want it yesterday.

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  13. But they aren’t nearly as reassuring. They keep telling us they know what can’t happen right up until the moment it happens.
    Can you really know anything? Isn't everything unknown until someone observes it? If the past is an illusion, can we really use it to judge the present? Doctors and researchers are wrong all the time. Today, they say that drinking a liter of Mountain Dew a day is unhealthy, and that I should stop doing it. But maybe tomorrow, they'll find out that having ample amounts of Dew in your bloodstream makes you immune to Ebola. You don't know - no one does! So aren't "expertise" and "science" and "knowledge" just lies we use to blot out that true internal compass that exists in the gut? My gut says Mussolini and Hillary Clinton would have been best friends, and you can't prove otherwise.
    (Taken from the one-man show Jonah Goldberg's Amazing Post-Modernist Journey [Expulsion of Intestinal Gas])

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  14. I think in the Real Conservative version, the magic bullet cure for the disease is whipped up in some dude's fridge (a dude hedged out of medical school due to quotas, no doubt). He then sells it to GSK, which hangs on to it while they lobby the government for a patent extension - because really, why bother curing a plague if some other company can cut into your profits with generics? Also, California gets wiped out because they think smoking pot will cure it. Y'know, cause they're hippies.

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  15. Megalon2:37 PM

    "In the film, a bat virus finds its way into a pig and then into a
    promiscuous American played by Gwyneth Paltrow, who quickly dies as
    “patient zero” of a horrifying global pandemic. Ironically, as America’s
    Ebola patient zero lay dying in a Dallas hospital last week, Paltrow
    was playing herself at a $15,000-per-plate fundraiser in her Los Angeles
    home and lavishing praise on the president."

    What bitter irony! Does the hypocrisy of the liberal fascist know no bounds!?

    "Fortunately, the scene is only from the movie Contagion, though it’s probably close enough to what is going on in parts of West Africa right now."

    Yeah, it's probably close enough. No need to check or anything. I mean, he's got a deadline for Christ sakes!

    "Still, I have little doubt that the real-life players at the Centers for
    Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health are as
    well-intentioned as their cinematic versions."

    Wow, you're willing to admit that they aren't trying to intentionally make it worse? How incredibly noble of you!

    Christ, that was fucking pathetic even by Jonah's non existent standards.

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  16. Brian Schlosser2:41 PM

    Luckily for Jonah, Ebola can be banished with a good, hearty faaaaaaart.

    There may, of course, be some collateral damage...

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  17. I think the concern for the intrepid shart-monger is that Ebola has so far only killed Blah people and their readers don't have a problem with that.

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  18. Another Kiwi2:42 PM

    It's all the "still" and "little doubt" and "fucked if I know" that is extremely annoying

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  19. FlipYrWhig2:42 PM

    If _Contagion_ has a "pro-establishment" bent, does _Volcano_ (1997)? Does _Independence Day_ (1996)? Does Jonah Goldberg have any goddamn idea what he's talking about, ever, on any subject?

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  20. swkellogg2:43 PM

    Hi Jonah,


    Don't worry.


    The private sector guided by the free market and quarterly profits has the solution:


    More body bags, coffins, and lime.


    Glad to see your still down with the "shrink government at all costs" dogma.


    Sincerely,


    The Bunny

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  21. Another Kiwi2:43 PM

    What's that word visible from space? Why, it's NO.

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  22. gocart mozart2:45 PM

    We must suppress the dark matter vote.

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  23. Ted the slacker2:53 PM

    Loadpants is the Ebola of wingnut scaremongering - unless you manage to ingest one of his wordshits, you won't crap yourself.

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  24. glennisw2:57 PM

    Oh ferfucks sake. How irresponsible these right wing hacks are, deliberately sowing mistrust of the CDC in the middle of this crisis.

    Yes, it's a serious infectious disease. Asking for 100% success - i.e., ZERO cases - in the face of a serious infectious disease is a pipe dream, brought to you by a pumpkin coach drawn by a team of pink and lavender unicorns. Idiots who conflate the phrase "not likely" with "never happen" are just that - idiots.

    The fact that we have TWO cases in this country, is not a crisis.
    These jerks simultaneous manage to hold two completely incompatible thoughts in their empty heads 1) The government is incompetent and lying to you and 2) The Authorities ought to ban travel and enact mass quarantines of its citizens.

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  25. PersonaAuGratin2:58 PM

    "I always forget... does the axe go on the left side of the dinner plate or the right?"

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  26. glennisw2:58 PM

    There are the known unknowns of course, and then there are the unknown unknowns.....

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  27. glennisw2:59 PM

    I suppose it would be much worse if anyone took him seriously.

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  28. Gromet3:01 PM

    Salad axe on the outside, then work your way in.

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  29. glennisw3:02 PM

    Where does the cocktail hatchet go?

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  30. Government officials, the scientists, even the military were all competent and determined to do the right thing.
    The worst lingering legacy of the Reagan era is the "government is bad and ineffectual" meme. Conservatives have pushed this narrative so that their cronies can loot the treasury via no-bid, cost-plus contracts.

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  31. BigHank533:05 PM

    You wouldn't expect one of them to leave the house, would you? Go among the members of the great unwashed, the public, the ordinary Johns and Janes of the Six-Pack family? They've seen the news: lots of those people are out there. Right now it's virulent Ebola-spreaders, but I'm old enough to remember when it was illegal aliens, vote fraudsters, homosexuals planning weddings, New Black Panthers, blacks, dhimmicrats, war protestors, terrorists, abortionists, crack dealers, crack addicts, crack babies, and the super-predators the crack babies grew up into, illegal aliens, liberals, blacks, Communists, war protestors, AIDS activists with AIDS, kids collecting for UNICEF, homosexuals, anti-nuke demonstrators, hippies, rioters, democrats, and blacks.

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  32. Damn, only a rightie can bring slut shaming into a discussion of ebola.

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  33. Brian Schlosser3:06 PM

    But the number of cases has shot up 200% in only weeks!!!

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  34. BigHank533:07 PM

    Above the plate, parallel with the edge of the table, between the first-course wine and water glasses. The sharp edge always faces away from the dinner guest.

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  35. Unless it's regulating the private lives of gays and sluts.

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  36. Needs moar knockout game.

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  37. Gromet3:14 PM

    They can't abide the chaos and uncertainty of actual life. They need a narrative structure -- preferably one with a clear moral and obvious heroes. So a certain kind of movie, religion, and politician are their thing. Notice how all these rightwing nitwits are expressing the same exact sentiment as Jonah: he wants to be "reassured" by the people in charge. That's the paramount thing. Not, like, what are the specifics of this crisis and what are the ways in which we can address it and the percentages there -- just is there a clear authority figure using a reassuring tone? There is an explicit, desperate longing to be convinced that all will be well, right alongside a total pants-shitting panic that the monster under the bed is real and is about to deliver the absolute end of the world; that is their dialectic every single time. See also: small children.

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  38. Jay B.3:21 PM

    But they aren’t nearly as reassuring. They keep telling us they know what can’t happen right up until the moment it happens. They put the theory of their expertise ahead of the facts on the ground...


    You can say the same thing about investors. Or Republican economists. More people have suffered because of them than Ebola.

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  39. KatWillow3:21 PM

    3) The government will used this disease to force a Police State on Americans, and take away our guns!

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  40. Gromet3:24 PM

    Cocktail hatch--Oh! You mean the bobbitt.

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  41. Gromet3:28 PM

    Ah, thanks, I finished that Jonah quote so irritated by its last clause that I'd forgotten what gobsmacked me in its first clause.

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  42. mortimer20003:30 PM

    Jonah Goldberg in a time of crisis, a little trip down memory lane and a preview of sociopathy to come...
    Goldberg "reassuring" Katrina victims in the New Orleans Superdome:
    I think it's time to face facts. That place is going to be a Mad Max/thunderdome Waterworld/Lord of the Flies horror show within the next few hours. My advice is to prepare yourself now. Hoard weapons, grow gills and learn to communicate with serpents. While you're working on that, find the biggest guy you can and when he's not expecting it beat him senseless. Gather young fighters around you and tell the womenfolk you will feed and protect any female who agrees to participate without question in your plans to repopulate the earth with a race of gilled-supermen. It's never too soon to be prepared.
    ...
    My guess is that it will simply be a really unpleasant time for the remainder of the day, but hardly so unpleasant as to sanctify them with refugee or some other victim status.
    On Bush's response:
    Yes, the federal government could have responded better. And of course there were real tragedies involved in that disaster. But you know what? Bad stuff happens during disasters, which is why we don't call them tickle-parties.
    ...
    It seems indisputable that Katrina highlighted the tragedy of New Orleans rather than create it. Long before Katrina, New Orleans was a dysfunctional city in a state with famously corrupt and incompetent leadership, many of whose residents think that it is the job of the federal government to make everyone whole.
    BTW, avoid the comments to his current NRO idiocy at all costs. Clearly, Goldberg gets the commenters he deserves.

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  43. Megalon3:30 PM

    "You guys love Obama so much, but Gwenneth Paltrow said a bunch of stuff about how she likes him even though she was a total slut in this one movie!"

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  44. Provider_UNE3:34 PM

    Took the constitutional, had a smoke...Nothing. In this case I think only trephination would help...
    ...

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  45. Gromet3:38 PM

    I wonder how many residents of New Orleans he talked to before he decided they think it's the government's job to make everyone whole. Seems like you'd need to have a coffee or a beer with more than one or two residents before making that kind of statement. Unless you're a racist asshole. Then maybe you could just do it.

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  46. DN Nation3:40 PM

    "Bad stuff happens during disasters, which is why we don't call them tickle-parties."


    Holy smokes. Get bent, Goldberg.

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  47. Gromet3:46 PM

    "This man defiles the Oval Office by dining in the home of a woman who once pretended to be a slut! We must get a better role model for our children than this faithfully married generally moderate Harvard graduate who was twice elected by a majority to lead the free world."

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  48. Provider_UNE3:46 PM

    What I lurve about the meme is that after that crap flows out of the left side of the mouth it is followed by "Vote for me so I can prove it to you." out of the right side of the mouth.

    Like the arsonist running for Chief of the Fire Department.
    ...

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  49. gocart mozart3:54 PM

    They all call for banning travel from Liberia but not travel from Texas for some reason.

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  50. smut clyde3:54 PM

    The whole farrago of private-sector venality and incompetence at the Dallas hospital is such a perfect demonstration of why the US needs a public health system, you'd think Goldberg et al would prefer to talk about something else.

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  51. LookWhosInTheFreezer3:57 PM

    My gut says Mussolini and Hillary Clinton would have been best friends, and you can't prove otherwise.



    "Hillary, come over here and do that shrill thing into the microphone. I want everyone to know that I finally got these goddamn trains running on time."

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  52. smut clyde4:00 PM

    what is going on in parts of West Africa right now

    Countries with weak central governments and no environmental regulations to speak of? Beacons of private enterprise? Shirley they are right-wing utopias.

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  53. whetstone4:07 PM

    They keep telling us they know what can’t happen right up until the
    moment it happens. They put the theory of their expertise ahead of the
    facts on the ground.


    Jonah discovers what epidemiology is. It's like watching a child—a dumb, mean child, but still—take its first steps.

    Quick, someone tell him that'd we'd not only have an Ebola vaccine, but 100% precisely predictive epidemiology if we increased the NIH's budget 100-fold. "OK, the x is funding and the y is accuracy. Follow that all the way up... here, put your finger on it."

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  54. BigHank534:14 PM

    If you've seen the film, you've noticed how Goldberg has conveniently forgotten to mention the high-profile fearmonger filling his pockets by promoting an ineffective treatment. Odd, isn't it?

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  55. Tony Prost4:15 PM

    The original movie "Contagion" was made in 2002, under C-plus Augustus, so how about that, Doughy?

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  56. Tony Prost4:18 PM

    They are going to rise from their beds of pain, to go vomit all over us, and KILL US ALL!

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  57. mortimer20004:19 PM

    Maybe that should be, "... here, pull your finger on it." It is Goldberg after all.

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  58. Ross Douthat put it well in an essay for National Review



    nah.

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  59. Ironically, as America's Ebola patient zero

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  60. smut clyde4:33 PM

    Follow that all the way up... here, put your finger on it.

    Sentences I do not want to hear associated with J. Goldberg, #173.

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  61. satch4:36 PM

    On the other hand, I don't think that Jonah would have a problem for something like this:

    "The point is that by the time [Bill Clinton] departed the White House
    there were few women and even fewer men who would with any sincerity
    have awarded [him] the status of sex hero, let alone—O happy
    invention!—“studmuffin.” That designation would have to await the
    arrival of a high-achieving, clear-headed, earnest, no-nonsense,
    Midwestern family man nearly seventy years old."

    That, of course, was Midge Decter on her fave Donald Rumsfeld, after which, she had to change her underwear.

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  62. ColBatGuano4:39 PM

    Who will remember the flash mobs of thugs!?!?!?!?!

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  63. Another Kiwi4:41 PM

    I'm seeing a man with a bullhorn, on a pile of rubble, in a raincoat.

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  64. AmusedAmused4:41 PM

    Because there is an acute shortage of apocalyptic blockbusters in which governments fail, and plucky survivors save the world with the power of Jesus and Gunz.

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  65. satch4:43 PM

    A magic bullet made of Rearden Metal and fired by a static electricity gun.

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  66. Another Kiwi4:43 PM

    My god, have you seen the lynch mob invites they are sending out these days? Frightful!

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  67. Another Kiwi4:45 PM

    Did you not hear the Dallas Doctor on Nine to Noon? They are all fine doctors and nurses there. Y'all

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  68. Another Kiwi4:48 PM

    As an aside: Was it not "Contagion" which was, for a long time, the most successful film made with a "Friends" cast member in it?

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  69. satch4:52 PM

    "As Obama would tell Ohio State students in 2013, “Unfortunately, you’ve
    grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing
    more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our
    problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the
    works.” (Fun fact: A few days later the IRS scandal broke.)"


    The IRS "scandal"? THIS is central to your point??? Jesus, Jonah, yer killing me...

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  70. You know what we need? A patchwork quilt where each patch is something that conservatives have insisted would be The End Of America As We Know It. They could do one for the media as a whole, but I'm not sure that much fabric exists.

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  71. Gromet4:56 PM

    Look forward. See a man with a bullhorn, on a pile of corpses, in a hazmat suit. "Can you hear me? Well I can hear you, and those germs are gonna hear from all of us soon!" [hands bullhorn to new virus czar] "Heckuva job, Gohmert."

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  72. Gromet5:03 PM

    I have to admit I was shocked at the level of incompetence revealed -- and that it was revealed anonymously by nurses terrified to speak publicly because they aren't unionized. That is amaaaaziiinnnnng.

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  73. Jaime Oria5:04 PM

    Tracy Jordan: "Doctor Spaceman, when they check my DNA, will they tell me what diseases I might get, or help me to remember my ATM pin code?"
    Dr. Leo Spaceman: "Absolutely. Science is whatever we want it to be."

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  74. smut clyde5:06 PM

    Not to forget the part where disinfecting the dying man's apartment had been outsourced to a couple of dudes with mops.

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  75. Another Kiwi5:07 PM

    Gommie.

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  76. BigHank535:10 PM

    Really? I figured that taking the heat off the hospital was the main reason the local prosecutor floated the idea of going after Mr. Duncan on criminal charges.

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  77. Above the pate



    FTFY

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  78. smut clyde5:14 PM

    I would totally buy the Lizzie Borden Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Ettiquette.

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  79. satch5:18 PM

    Hmm, let's see...

    body bags from Classic Plastics... ooh, gotta get a quote, but I'll bet they're pretty pricey

    cheap wood caskets from China... Jesus, $500 bucks?! Highway Robbery!

    lime... ooh, pretty cheap, no more than $10 bucks for a #50 bag.

    Fuck it... go with the lime and an open pit. Gotta cut spending somewhere.

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  80. Ellis_Weiner5:19 PM

    Just as Newt is a stupid person's idea of what a smart person sounds like, so Jonah is a stupid person's idea of what a more stupid person being a asshole person talking to a smart person who is really stupid sounds like talking to a stupid person writing for stupid people reading National Review and thinking they're smart. Amirite?

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  81. smut clyde5:24 PM

    So far, Ebola has allowed
    -- The anti-immigration enthusiast in a previous threat to demand a bar on flights from Liberia, because someone arrived from Brussels;
    -- Republicans to complain about the absence of a Surgeon-General, the nomination of Surgeon-General being stalled indefinitely by Republicans;
    -- John McCain of "Obama has more czars than the Romanovs" fame to demand the immediate appointment of an Ebola Czar, because Authoritarian.



    And now Joberg pointing to the complete failure of the profit-driven deregulated private hospital model of health-care as proof that central-government public health agencies are incompetent.


    Has there been a glitch in the matrix or something?

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  82. Ellis_Weiner5:25 PM

    Welp, that's everybody!

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  83. Ellis_Weiner5:29 PM

    “I don’t care what party you are, you’ve got to get your stuff
    together,” she said. “We need a surgeon general. We need a pinpoint
    person..."


    Thus spake Fox News contributor and "former actress" Stacey Dash. A pinpoint person. Maybe she thought "surgeon" and that led to "knives, scalps, foreseeings, other sharp stuff" and came out "pinpoint." Also, surgeons are doctors, which means they're classy dressers, and wear pinpoint Oxbridge shirts and such.

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  84. Ellis_Weiner5:32 PM

    I would like to take a red pill with this comment.

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  85. Bad stuff happens during disasters, which is why we don't call them tickle-parties...

    Oh gag, is he going to reveal what happens during their Lost at C cruises?

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  86. glennisw5:48 PM

    Wannabee Senator Scott Brown, or Senator McDreamy, as Charles Pierce calls him, has been sounding the alarm against Ebola-stricken terrorists flying to Mexico and trekking across the border, just so they can drag their fevered-wracked and oozing bodies into Texas and kill us all. Story at Thing Progress.

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  87. For what it's worth, I thought Contagion was a pretty good movie, one of the more intelligent ones I've ever seen about a public health crisis and definitely 1000 times smarter than is suggested by the fact that Jonah thinks he understood it. It's not actually about some apocalyptic fantasy disease like the world has never seen, it's more about how society today would deal with a similar-to-past-diseases-but-a-bit-worse scenario.

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  88. tigrismus5:57 PM

    Plus it's not like the rest of the X-Files, filmed mostly during the Clinton years, painted the government in a much better light than the 2008 movie did.

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  89. glennisw6:01 PM

    it's more about how society today would deal with a similar...scenario
    You mean with ignorance, fear-mongering, panic and hysteria, conspiracy theories and exploitation of public fear for personal or political gain?
    Nah. Never happen.

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  90. BigHank536:01 PM

    Having read Richard Preston's book The Hot Zone, I can confidently state that I know about 10,000 times more about Ebola than Mr. Brown, that strapping piece of man-candy. Ebola is a goddamned terrible bioweapon. It's hard to catch. It kills people too quickly, which makes it slow to spread--your carriers deteriorate too fast and don't infect many others. By the time you know you have it, it's too late to do anything with it, because you'll be dead in a week.


    Christ, we're going to stupid ourselves right back to the Bronze Age.

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  91. glennisw6:09 PM

    Plus, the most likely people to catch Ebola are caregivers, loved-ones and family, and people cleaning up or tending corpses.
    It's not likely that any Republicans will be performing such compassionate duties. The likes of Scott Brown are the people in the least amount of danger. He's never going to wipe an Ebola patient's fevered brow.

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  92. Megalon6:20 PM

    He does not deny it. Indeed, it is central to his point!

    ReplyDelete
  93. smut clyde6:22 PM

    I saw that in a Japanese horror movie so it must be true.

    ReplyDelete
  94. Another Kiwi6:35 PM

    “who has names very similar to two of our archenemies, Osama, well, Obama. And Hussein.”
    Ah, crikey. I mean, maybe a lie down and a cup of tea? That is unhinged, even for Fux.

    ReplyDelete
  95. J Neo Marvin6:50 PM

    The spontaneous dance routines were awesome.

    ReplyDelete
  96. Chris Anderson6:52 PM

    Nobody calls disasters tickle-parties, but disastrous tickle-parties may be referred to as disasters.

    ReplyDelete
  97. Robert Massing7:09 PM

    "Oprah Winfrey is not really like Lizzie Borden. Still, I'm sure she has nice table manners, just like Lizzie Borden."

    Isn't that the whole argument of "Liberal Fascism," in a nutshell? Hitler was a vegetarian, some liberals are vegetarians, ergo . . . .

    ReplyDelete
  98. M. Krebs7:16 PM

    Doo-dah, doo-dah.

    ReplyDelete
  99. M. Krebs7:21 PM

    I have to confess that any movie in which Gwyneth Paltrow dies a painful death is a movie I want to see.

    ReplyDelete
  100. M. Krebs7:27 PM

    The Andromeda Strain!

    ReplyDelete
  101. M. Krebs7:29 PM

    No, that would be ∞%.

    ReplyDelete
  102. Don't boggart the joint, man.

    ReplyDelete
  103. Brian Schlosser7:32 PM

    Don't bother me with your "facts" and "math"

    ReplyDelete
  104. tigrismus7:33 PM

    They keep telling us they know what can’t happen right up until the
    moment it happens.


    This is such bullshit. Every actual CDC announcement I've read has been very good about saying things are unlikely, not impossible. Of course, they assume most people won't be complete fucking idiots, eg. that hospitals have and follow infectious disease protocols, that people who know they're infected won't purposefully expose the public, etc. Obviously not a given in a nation where Jonah is paid to write, but I still think they're right that what has happened in west Africa is highly unlikely to happen in the US.

    They put the theory of their expertise ahead of the
    facts on the ground...


    Jonah can take his bullshit "facts on the ground" and shove it so far up his ass he tickles his uvula. The "theory of their expertise" is based on knowing shit, like how this disease actually works.

    ReplyDelete
  105. Another Kiwi7:34 PM

    "Imagine, if you will, that we are in a lifeboat and there is only you, me and a bottle of ketchup."

    ReplyDelete
  106. Another Kiwi7:35 PM

    HAH! Knowing stuff is not something that Joberg has ever tried and he is not about to start now"

    ReplyDelete
  107. Another Kiwi7:44 PM

    Apparently she dies very well.

    ReplyDelete
  108. Another Kiwi7:46 PM

    Yeah, good innit. Rudy's probably in Switzerland mincing monkey pituitary glands for his nightcap right now.

    ReplyDelete
  109. M. Krebs7:51 PM

    Has there been a glitch in the matrix or something?


    There's little but glitches in this matrix.

    ReplyDelete
  110. M. Krebs7:52 PM

    That was a Hitchcock film, right?

    ReplyDelete
  111. Derelict7:54 PM

    Allow me to sum up Jonah the Fail: Actual real doctors are laying out facts and taking tangible steps to combat this disease. Therefore, I will turn to the world of movies where everything is completely made up and use THAT to bolster my complete bullshit argument.

    ReplyDelete
  112. Derelict7:57 PM

    What can people who have trained all their lives to deal with this exact situation know that a half-assed graduate of Gaucher doesn't?

    ReplyDelete
  113. Another Kiwi8:03 PM

    Yeah, Carey Grant gets chased through a tomato field. Hitchcock floats past the lifeboat I think

    ReplyDelete
  114. redoubtagain8:16 PM

    "My gut says Mussolini and Hillary Clinton would have been best friends, and you can't prove otherwise."


    Jonah LePetomane would spray say that, wouldn't he?

    ReplyDelete
  115. Thank you for the handy-dandy summary to every RW column ever written that mentions some form of popular entertainment, including the Bible.

    ReplyDelete
  116. redoubtagain8:40 PM

    “We need a surgeon general. We need a pinpoint
    person..."

    Dr. Joycelyn Elders would like a word.

    ReplyDelete
  117. redoubtagain8:41 PM

    Jonah is everybody's idea of what a talking asshole sounds like.

    ReplyDelete
  118. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person8:48 PM

    If Jonah was forbidden to use the word "still", he'd be fucking mute...

    ReplyDelete
  119. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person8:52 PM

    What the fuck does that even mean?

    Pretty much my reaction to every farticle that wafts up from his keyboard...

    ReplyDelete
  120. redoubtagain8:55 PM

    Upvoted for "farticle"

    ReplyDelete
  121. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person8:55 PM

    "Were protocols ignored? There *were* no protocols".


    Mt Medicare just kicked in. Man, I hope I don't find out all Texas hospitals are run this way...

    ReplyDelete
  122. PIC-TURE YOURSELF ON A GOAT ON A RIVER
    WITH DOR-I-TO TEETH, AND SHARTS DRAWING FLIES.
    SOME-BOD-Y POKES YOU, YOU FLAT-U-LATE SLOWLY,
    THE MAN WITH THE MOUNTAIN DEW EYES.

    ReplyDelete
  123. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person9:29 PM

    How fast was that generation ship in Heinlein's Universe going? Because "Lost at C" would make a great name for the movie version.
    Except for the fact that almost nobody would get the pun...

    ReplyDelete
  124. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person9:31 PM

    Medical Professionals: A bunch of assholes always tryin' to know stuff...

    ReplyDelete
  125. Another Kiwi9:31 PM

    Lucianne in the Sky with Pie Mounds

    ReplyDelete
  126. TGuerrant9:47 PM

    You and your tickle parties.

    ReplyDelete
  127. TGuerrant9:53 PM

    Still, I have little doubt that your breaking away from the shackles of your genre is a fascinating departure, and it is no accident that you are as well-intentioned as your cinematic version.


    Awright, Lowry - sends me a money.

    ReplyDelete
  128. Derelict9:54 PM

    See the previous thread for the astounding conservative ability to change positions on something instantaneously. They can whipsaw through 180 degrees that they actually give off Cherenkov radiation.

    ReplyDelete
  129. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person9:54 PM

    For whom?

    ReplyDelete
  130. Derelict9:57 PM

    I was finally able to cure my sister from voting Republican by asking her if she would hire someone for her flower shop that stated in the interview that they hated flowers and thought flower shops were really the problem.

    ReplyDelete
  131. Socialist Cubone9:58 PM

    No, but WEB Dubois once said something nice about Mussolini or something. The connections are there I tell you!

    ReplyDelete
  132. Derelict9:59 PM

    Well, to be fair, ANY tickle party involving Jonah is going to be a disaster.

    ReplyDelete
  133. TGuerrant10:02 PM

    Does the pig come through okay? I just hate it when the pig dies.

    ReplyDelete
  134. Derelict10:08 PM

    She does have a reputation for splitting hairs.

    ReplyDelete
  135. TGuerrant10:11 PM

    Accreditation? Woot! Now we can get student loans for attending the University of Clyde. Time for a tickle party!

    ReplyDelete
  136. smut clyde10:17 PM

    Rather, she had a reputation as a splitting heir.

    ReplyDelete
  137. The hilarious part (and by "hilarious" I mean JUST FUCKING SAD) is that the "there were no protocols" thing is just feeding into the wingnut "OMFG WE ALL DIE" screamfest.

    Much easier to ignore what they've caused, I suppose.

    ReplyDelete
  138. I think we should institute a travel ban to/from Texas just on general principles.

    ReplyDelete
  139. smut clyde10:23 PM

    You are thinking of "The President's Analyst".
    SPOILER ALERT: the phone companies are the baddies, passing information on to the NSA.

    ReplyDelete
  140. smut clyde10:24 PM

    Yellow matter custard NOM NOM NOM

    ReplyDelete
  141. smut clyde10:26 PM

    For the movie version of the conservative cruise, I suggest the title "Tow Zero".

    ReplyDelete
  142. TGuerrant10:29 PM

    And all the other blahs from Blafrica are in on the plot.

    ReplyDelete
  143. A pinhead looking for pinpoint.

    ReplyDelete
  144. I would like to give Jonah forty whacks with this comment.

    ReplyDelete
  145. Derelict10:34 PM

    That, too. But no matter how you slice it, she was a real swinger.

    ReplyDelete
  146. As I saw said over on RationalWiki:

    [. . .] humans are just monkeys with shiny toys, who mostly use intelligence to implement stupidity faster and better.

    ReplyDelete
  147. smut clyde10:38 PM

    I suppose that for NRO readers, one episode of marital infidelity = "promiscuous". Joberg may or may not be aware that words have meanings, but he does know what his readers want.

    ReplyDelete
  148. Jonah could afford to be Mr. Cool about Katrina; after all, there was no chance that the disaster there would ever affect him personally. Now we come to something that might (MIGHT!) possibly affect his gaseous heinder, and, of course, he's running in circles screeching like a bat.

    ReplyDelete
  149. AGoodQuestion10:53 PM

    So if I understand this depressing mess correctly, Jonah is saying that Hollywood's treatment of diseases and disasters is all aimed at giving Obama a pass on Ebola, and that they've been doing this since well before the Ebola outbreak, perhaps even long before Obama was even elected.


    Hey Roy, have you gotten tired of the "Stupidest thing Goldberg has ever written until..." header? Because this one totally earns it.

    ReplyDelete
  150. AGoodQuestion10:57 PM

    I guess they're thinking of their prophesies of doom as promises they have to keep, or at least money back guarantees.

    ReplyDelete
  151. Chris Anderson11:00 PM

    Jonah could make a disaster-disaster less fun.


    I just thought it was interesting that he -- in a throwaway line, sure -- implied that disasters and tickle-parties cannot co-occur. They can, I'm afraid.

    ReplyDelete
  152. StringOnAStick11:02 PM

    Studmuffin Rumsfeld? Even projectile vomiting will never be enough to erase that image.

    ReplyDelete
  153. AGoodQuestion11:02 PM

    Maybe with an exception for some Austin musicians.

    ReplyDelete
  154. M. Krebs11:03 PM

    It's "Stupidest thing has ever written [by anybody] until..."


    But your point stands. This one totally earns it.

    ReplyDelete
  155. AGoodQuestion11:03 PM

    It's a gift. Non-returnable, apparently.

    ReplyDelete
  156. M. Krebs11:04 PM

    We could treat Austin like West Berlin.

    ReplyDelete
  157. StringOnAStick11:06 PM

    I wonder why he approvingly calls the gubmit, scientists and even the military "competent"? Doesn't the idea that any of these groups, well, at least the first two, as being "competent" goes completely against the Book of St. Ronnie does it not?

    ReplyDelete
  158. AGoodQuestion11:07 PM

    You might like Seven, then. Jonah would be disappointed that she's not being punished for sluttiness, though.

    ReplyDelete
  159. YNWA4051511:08 PM

    Well, to be fair, he included blacks . . . so to the right-wing brain, knockout game would be redundant.

    ReplyDelete
  160. M. Krebs11:15 PM

    God damn, that's good.

    ReplyDelete
  161. StringOnAStick11:15 PM

    And they are ably assisted by public health officials, of which we have over 40,000 less of since 2006 thanks to austerity and rethug budget slaughter.

    ReplyDelete
  162. AGoodQuestion11:18 PM

    Ablow's job at Fox is to wield his doctorate while spewing all the stupidest and vilest bullshit that the audience can take in, thus assuring a few fence sitters that some very bright people believe this. Nice work if you can get it and you don't mind the permanent stench on your soul.

    ReplyDelete
  163. AGoodQuestion11:28 PM

    I had a feeling I was a little off, but couldn't be bothered to go back and check.


    Oh my God, Jonah is patient zero and I've been infected!

    ReplyDelete
  164. Another Kiwi11:45 PM

    He always very illuminating about the contents of his arse.

    ReplyDelete
  165. "And that, children, is really how Lyndon Johnson became President."

    ReplyDelete
  166. But enough about Jonah's restroom breaks.

    ReplyDelete
  167. Christ, we're going to stupid ourselves right back to the Bronze Age.Oh, nonsense. Conservatives have already stupided themselves right back to the Bronze Age, and they're doing their damndest to drag us down with them. Feel better now?

    ReplyDelete
  168. Another Kiwi12:30 AM

    I think I see the problem. Jonah's tickle parties **are** all disasters because, well, would you go?

    ReplyDelete
  169. Just got back from an incredible performance of Lear and "witless, half thought, sulfur stank" put me in mind of this great run of invective from Kent:

    Fellow, I know thee.
    A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud,
    shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy,...
    What a brazen-fac'd varlet art thou,
    to deny thou knowest me!
    Is it two days ago since I beat thee and tripp'd up thy heels...
    Draw, you rascal! You come with letters against the King, and
    take Vanity the puppet's part against the royalty of her father....
    Strike, you slave! Stand, rogue! Stand, you neat slave!
    Strike! [Beats him.]
    With you, goodman boy, an you please! Come, I'll flesh ye!
    Come on, young master!
    No marvel, you have so bestirr'd your valour. You cowardly
    rascal, nature disclaims in thee; a tailor made thee.
    Ay, a tailor, sir. A stonecutter or a painter could not have
    made him so ill, though he had been but two hours at the trade.
    Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter! My lord, if
    you'll give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into...


    italics mine.


    Jonah and his ilk have been around a long time.

    ReplyDelete
  170. In the form of a dirty bomb.

    ReplyDelete
  171. Tickle-Me-Smut is definitely going to be the hit of the Christmas Season. If it survives the war on, that is.

    ReplyDelete
  172. freq flag12:51 AM

    Liberals. hmph!

    ReplyDelete
  173. freq flag1:03 AM

    I know--that's the dingleberry in the entire crap flush that I find most astonishing. Goldbrick includes a DoubtThat quote from his own right-wing propaganda factory for the cheapest, laziest "amirite?" dudebro corroboration, in yet another of his putrid attempts to be some kind of chin-stroking "by my lights" intellectual.

    ReplyDelete
  174. Tehanu2:24 AM

    Midge Decter, really? So her taste in men is even worse than her political opinions?

    ReplyDelete
  175. Tehanu2:28 AM

    Thus emulating their hero, Pres. Bush the First.

    ReplyDelete
  176. That no "bad stuff" happened during Jonah and his mother's late-night tickle parties is no reason not to use protection.

    ReplyDelete
  177. redoubtagain8:01 AM

    three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy,...
    All that's missing is "ye dildoes" after "three-suited", but it would have been bowdlerized out of existence anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  178. you'd think Goldberg et al would prefer to talk about something else.He is: how it's all the federal government's fault.

    ReplyDelete
  179. That's a good one alright.

    I've heard a version of this question that has to do with airline pilots. Would you board an airplane if you heard the pilot claim that man was never meant to fly?

    ReplyDelete
  180. It's getting increasingly difficult to mock the Rightwing media with hyperbole, isn't it?

    It's like Lily Tomlin said: "No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up."

    ReplyDelete
  181. Just trying to imagine what ∞% means makes my head hurt.

    ReplyDelete
  182. Derelict8:42 AM

    Consider with whom she coupled to produce her notorious offspring.

    ReplyDelete
  183. Pope Zebbidie XIII8:43 AM

    He might swipe their wallets though.

    ReplyDelete
  184. Derelict8:45 AM

    For many conservatives, any sex act not contained within strictures applied and maintained by the state is "promiscuous." Hence their battle cry: "Get government out of the boardroom and into the bedroom!"

    ReplyDelete
  185. Derelict8:49 AM

    And miss the climactic round of "pin the tall-tale on the Democrat?" What conservative could resist?

    ReplyDelete
  186. Derelict8:52 AM

    He's just taking a passage from the master. Cheney planted propaganda in the NYT, then quoted Judy Miller's article the same day as proof of what he was saying.

    ReplyDelete
  187. drspittle8:53 AM

    Shorter Jonah: "The government that is useless is failing us because it doesn't act like the competent government in the movie. I can haz tickle party now, Mommy?"

    ReplyDelete
  188. tigrismus8:58 AM

    No, but the bat is fine.

    ReplyDelete
  189. BigHank539:01 AM

    I hear they're planning a whole series:

    The Lizzie Borden Guide to Sleeping With One Eye Open

    The Lizzie Borden Guide to Family Conflict Resolution

    The Lizzie Borden Guide to Field Trepanation With Improvised Surgical Tools


    The Lizzie Borden Guide to Clever Legal Defenses

    ReplyDelete
  190. drspittle9:06 AM

    Maybe she's thinking that an Obama nominated Surgeon General candidate is a voodoo doll?

    ReplyDelete
  191. drspittle9:07 AM

    That might be a good children's book: "Jonah: The Talking Asshole"

    ReplyDelete
  192. BigHank539:08 AM

    Hey, as a personal decision, I support your right to live in whatever century, age, or era* you like. Lots of Mennonites seem to be perfectly comfortable in the nineteenth century. But (as you may have noticed) they aren't insisting that everyone join them there.

    *The PreCambrian is particularly dull.

    ReplyDelete
  193. drspittle9:11 AM

    That would depend on whose "ax" is being gored.

    ReplyDelete
  194. satch9:28 AM

    Don't we already?

    ReplyDelete
  195. satch9:41 AM

    I used to think time travel was impossible until I started reading the NRO. Thanks, Jonah!

    ReplyDelete
  196. Terrifying the public into voting for you: Priceless!

    ReplyDelete
  197. I am willing to make an exception for the Dixie Chicks.

    ReplyDelete
  198. Jonah will undoubtedly be happy to know that his wishes have been granted - the Zombie outbreak is here, and ebola is to blame.

    ReplyDelete
  199. Sweet holy fuck - the day after Jonah's FEER TEH EBOLAZ post up there, John "Everything's Better With Guns" Fund posts on how Shep Smith is trying to tamp down the Ebola hysteria.

    The lede:
    It’s a sign of the current cynicism of the public that so many people
    fear an imminent outbreak of Ebola in the U.S. But government
    incompetence that creates skepticism feeds into the fear-mongering of
    television-news divisions who seem to have turned into Ebola networks.


    Yeah, I wonder where all the fear-mongering has been coming from.
    *looks at FAUX, looks at NRO*

    ReplyDelete
  200. Jaime Oria12:04 PM

    From young Mister Burroughs - "Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk? His whole abdomen would move up and down you dig farting out the words. It was unlike anything I ever heard."

    http://realitystudio.org/texts/naked-lunch/talking-asshole/

    ReplyDelete