I passed on the mocha latte at Dairy Queen: LOLconservatives

[dieblucasdie]

Old thread is at 20, and here's the perfect thing to kick off a new one:

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/34381?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4dd95e8ad58fece1%2C0

Deserves to be quoted in full here.

$4 a gallon gasoline will kill the American automobile and a big hunk of our freedom.

I spent most of Saturday just driving around.

It was a beautiful gorgeous day in the Greater Poca Metropolis.

Bancroft blooms.

Rock Branch rocks.

Nitro glistens.

I am enjoying the sun and the fun while I can.

As I drove, I calculated that every 6 miles, I have spent another dollar.

I passed on the mocha latte at Dairy Queen.

It now costs $6 to make that daily commute to work and back.

At some point, this becomes too expensive.

Buses, largely subsidized, are an inconvenience.

You wait in the snow and the cold.

If you miss a bus, that’s another 20 minutes.

I can drive to work in 20 minutes from where the last bus stop is (I would have to drive a couple miles and park to catch a bus.

On the weekend, forget it.

I grew up in a free land where people were encouraged to see the USA in their Chevrolet — America is asking you to call.

The song also said, America’s the greatest land of all.

So how do you undermine it?

Stop drilling for oil.

Cut off our gasoline.

The SUVs are lined up for sale at the Rock Branch Community Bank parking lot.

This is West Virginia.

You need a pickup or an SUV.

A few of us live in the flatlands and eschew a truck or SUV.

$10 a gallon?

I will have to move to the city.

And that is the plan.

Herd us back to the cities.

We’re easier to control.

They already seized 9/11 to kick us off the airplanes.

Does anyone really think the humiliation of a full body search and frisking is to stop terrorists?

The more I think about it, the more I realize, they don’t want us to fly.

They being the government.

It keeps expanding.

Our freedom keeps contracting.

[dieblucasdie]

A few of us live in the flatlands and eschew a truck or SUV.

[elpollodiablo]

Man I love prose poetry

[jm]

I could take the bus, but I don't waaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnaaaaaa

[davy]

Man I love prose poetry

Haha

[dieblucasdie]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/opinion/24brooks.html?_r=1&ref=davidbrooks

In which David Brooks tells us how to build a "functioning political system."  We do it by having both parties made up of old prep school buddies, duh!

Britain is also blessed with a functioning political culture. It is dominated by people who live in London and who have often known each other since prep school. This makes it gossipy and often incestuous.

But the plusses outweigh the minuses. The big newspapers still set the agenda, not cable TV or talk radio. If the quintessential American pol is standing in his sandbox screaming affirmations to members of his own tribe, the quintessential British pol is standing across a table arguing face to face with his opponents.

British leaders and pundits know their counterparts better. They are less likely to get away with distortions and factual howlers. They are less likely to believe the other party is homogenously evil. They are more likely to learn from a wide range of people. When they do hate, their hatreds are more likely to be personal and less likely to take on the tenor of a holy war.

Can't we just have a more rigid plutocracy, guys?  There'd be so much less yelling

[ellaguru]

I don't know how fair it is to pretend that he's saying the minusses are somehow the cause of the plusses, there, bluc.

[FreddyKnuckles]

Also there'd be more yelling.

[dieblucasdie]

I don't know how fair it is to pretend that he's saying the minusses are somehow the cause of the plusses, there, bluc.

Again:

Britain is also blessed with a functioning political culture. It is dominated by people who live in London and who have often known each other since prep school. This makes it gossipy and often incestuous.

But the plusses outweigh the minuses.

I'm sure Brooks would prescribe a technocracy with "merit-based" entry requirements for his ideal setup, but he's unambiguously repping for an entrenched political class, here, and doing so in a particularly icky way, by insinuating that, if it came to it, he'd rather throw his hands up and let the rich kids rule than continue to deal with all this lack of cordiality.

And also, doesn't he realize that we already have that?

[ellaguru]

Yeah, I read that. It says:

 - Topic: British political culture in relation to American political culture.

 - There are minuses: "It is dominated by people who live in London and who have often known each other since prep school. This makes it gossipy and often incestuous."

 - There are pluses: "The big newspapers still set the agenda, not cable TV or talk radio. If the quintessential American pol is standing in his sandbox screaming affirmations to members of his own tribe, the quintessential British pol is standing across a table arguing face to face with his opponents. British leaders and pundits know their counterparts better. They are less likely to get away with distortions and factual howlers. They are less likely to believe the other party is homogenously evil. They are more likely to learn from a wide range of people. When they do hate, their hatreds are more likely to be personal and less likely to take on the tenor of a holy war.

 - His assessment: "the plusses outweigh the minuses."

 - His conclusion: "Britain is also blessed with a functioning political culture."

It does not say that an incestuous political community somehow creates this functioning political culture, it says that while the culture is functioning, it isn't perfect but has flaws.

[Antero]

He's saying, though, that the incestuous political system is the cause of the pluses.  Hence things like

When they do hate, their hatreds are more likely to be personal and less likely to take on the tenor of a holy war.

[ellaguru]

Is he saying that an incestuous political system will cause newspapers to set the agenda? That an incestuous political system will cause politicians to learn from a wider range of people?

These are pretty big leaps to make.

[mountmccabe]

The big newspapers are able to set the agenda to some extent because they are part of the same incest gang.

And everything is nicer because when the politicians are playing to their base they're playing to each other rather than trying to appeal to hicks.

That is how I read the piece.

[Thermofusion]

Wow, that is a dumb fucking piece, even for Brooks.

[dieblucasdie]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xThjQt-9toE&

The best part is the disclaimer at the end.

[Thermofusion]

Holy shit

[jm]

somebody just learned some video editing software!

[FreddyKnuckles]

This is some classic television

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP_d4J0LeYE

[dieblucasdie]

http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/052711_palin_home/palin-purchase-arizona-home-confirmed/

So, like, this Palin vs. Giffords for AZ Senate thing might actually happen?  How does one go about defecting to Cuba?

[FreddyKnuckles]

I think it's a vicious ploy to cause a brain aneurysm in as many lefties as possible to thin Obama's base in 2012.

Is Giffords even running?

Also

http://yfrog.com/h04g2cuj

[dieblucasdie]

Does Lindsay Graham just follow McCain everywhere at this point?  Are they on, like, a Florida vacation together in that picture?

[hannah]

NEW DESKTOP PICTURE

[Antero]

Ohhhhh my god.

[FreddyKnuckles]

Bbq at this guy's house

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/10/josh-bowman-man-with-gun-_n_282397.html

[dieblucasdie]

http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/24/what-a-top-aide-to-sarah-palin-really-thinks-about-mitt-romney-bristol-palin-erick-erickson-and-more/

I loled

A series of messages forwarded to The Daily Caller show a top aide to former Alaska Gov. and possible presidential candidate Sarah Palin mocking top political figures and even her boss’s own daughter, Bristol Palin.

Red State Editor-in-Chief and CNN contributor Erick Erickson is “a total douchebag,” wrote Palin speechwriter and domestic policy adviser Rebecca Mansour in a May 22, 2010, message. “Greasy dumb ass with a talent for self-promotion. He threw himself in at the Gov’s SC rally. Self-promotion.” (Erickson said South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley invited him to the rally).

And our old friend, BH contributor and failed Senate candidate Chuck DeVore (the guy who did that "Boys of Summer" parody about Obama):

Then-California Senate candidate Chuck DeVore “wants to be the next Hugh Hewitt (or Huckabee). He knows he can’t win. He wants to become a ‘personality’. Give him a show to go away,” Mansour wrote. Palin endorsed Carly Fiorina over DeVore in the GOP primary for the race, angering some conservatives.