A Technical Note: The National Review Cruise portraits messed up my line wraparound length. My attempts to fix this caused an implosion of the very fabric of space and time. In an effort to get things back to normal, I have deleted all photos of ugly people from my blog. Please let me know if you are still experiencing any wraparound problems, so I can kill myself. Oh, and I am apparently suffering from a rare virus imported from West Virginia by my mother. Therefore, instead of another chapter in Agatha Christie's National Review's Death Cruise, I will instead report on my evening lying on the couch watching the Fox Scott Peterson New Channel ("All News about Scott Peterson, All the Time) because I was too weak to find the remote and change the channel. But first, I am going to drink some hot Kool-Aid and suck some zinc. 10:05:24 PM  |
One of our favorite Salon blogs, Fried Green al-Qaedas, has an interesting piece about variations in intelligence. In it Mark asks for some scientific data:
If you know of anything like this, let Mark know. However, if you want to present anecdotal evidence about how IQ effects one's perception of Bush speeches, you're free to do that here. (Personally, I find the Bush speeches very amusing, especially the mangled rhetorical flourishes and all the allusions to farm implementation dealers -- am I experiencing them the right way?) But why you should really visit Fried Green al-Qaedas if for Mark's piece about the Chatty Ann Coulter Ann Figure & Sex Toy. Funny stuff. (But I resent any attempts to put what I feel for Ann into mere words.) 9:59:05 PM |
The Plot Thickens With MURDER! TALKN' TO YOU POOLSIDE [Jonah Goldberg] Sorry for the radio silence. But between drinking, schmoozing, and detecting (not to mention technical issues with my dying laptop), I just haven't had much time to update you on recent events. Rich Lowry is a jerk. Kate O'Beirne is dead. Stephen Moore is deader. I may have uncovered a vast wing conspiracy (I'm not sure of its direction). Etc. Well, let me start where I left off yesterday, which was in finding Kate stabbed to death with a corkscrew. While Norman Podhoretz was stabbed with a letter opener (part of a nice souvenir desk set from the Ronald Reagan library) rather than a wine implement, I immediately concluded that the two murders were connected, and called Mr. Buckley. He wasn't home -- or at least, that's what his butler said. So, I decided to do some more investigating on his behalf. After ordering the purser to take Kate's body away so it wouldn't alarm the passengers (she was a scary old bat while alive, but death made her even creepier somehow), I asked the deck attendant if he had seen anyone near Kate this afternoon. He replied that people tended to stay clear of her, and that's why it stuck in his mind when he saw a dark-skinned passenger talking to her about 30 minutes before I found her disgusting corpse. A dark-skinned man! That could only be Ramesh Ponnuru! (There aren't any other dark-skinned people on this cruse -- except the hired help, of course.) I raced to his cabin where he was preparing his notes for his upcoming panel on "How to Put the Pub Back in Republican," and informed him of Kate's death. He said that she had a lived a long, full life, and her passing was part of the circle of life, in that her parking space would now pass to some other editor. I hadn't considered this aspect of the matter, and we chatted about it for a while. And then I told him about how Mr. Buckley had charged me with investigating the murders, and sprang my accusation on him: "Ramesh, YOU killed Kate! You were seen talking to her shortly before her death! You have dark skin! And, um, well, that's enough to convict you in any Ashcroft-run court in the land!" He seemed mildly perturbed at my words, but not as ready to confess as I had hoped. He admitted that he had been talking to Kate, but claimed that he hadn't killed her. However, he indicated that he had information which might be relevant to her death -- and while he didn't know what Bill was thinking, putting me in charge of the investigation, he would share what he knew. He said that after Norman's murder, Kate had seemed very upset -- more upset than anyone should be about the death of a pretentious, boring blowhard. And so he joined her on deck and asked her what was bothering her. She had seemed uncertain about opening up, but then had muttered, more to herself than to Ramesh, that he was the only one she could trust because no decent conspiracy would admit people of color. She then recounted a tale that was worthy of an Ann Coulter or a Mark Steyn in its unbelievably and lack of proof. Per Ramesh, Kate indicated that while covering the D.C. beat (attending fundraisers, gossiping with her friends at the Heritage Society, reading the Washington Times, etc.), she had heard rumors about ungodly experiments being conducted in the secret labs underneath the White House (you know, the labs they use to keep Dick Cheney in a state of artificial half-life until his usefulness is at an end). As she put it, "We are on the verge of the brave new world of cloning human beings. Politics will decide whether this great country will engage in the creation of human life to serve utilitarian ends.” People she knew -- people whom she admired and trusted -- were involved. But being a traditional Catholic, she wasn't sure that cloning was a GOOD thing, per se. So, she went to consult the Pope. "So THAT's why she missed Rich Lowry's book premiere part!" I interjected! "I knew she SAID that she had to go to Rome on official business, but I thought that was just an excuse to get out of having to congratulate Rich on his oh-so marvelous book. I mean, I said I was sick, but Jay made me go anyway. So, who was doing the cloning, and who was getting cloned?" Ramesh stated that he didn't know, but he thought that it might be the same people who were trying to bring about the End of Days. Then he rambled on for a while about having learned (from an obscure website someone at work had recommended to him) that the entire fate of civilization is being determined by economics. And if Krugman is right in his theories, then we are all doomed. So Luskin is our only hope, except that he's hopelessly insane and the stem cells just aren't helping anymore. See, per the website, Krugman had found an ancient tome, supposedly written by Jesus' secret best friend, Bob the Baptist, and then protected by Essene monks for millennia in secret communes in the desert, which says that if the national deficit ever reaches the mystic number of $666 billion, then Satan will rule the Earth forever. And we were nearly there -- the Iraqi rebuilding plan could just put us over the top. And so on, per Ramesh. I asked him to just skip to the part about Kate being murdered, and who did it. He sighed and said that Norman had been working on another book designed to show how clever and warlike he was, and he had asked Kate to edit it. In the course of her efforts, she discovered something about the Vast Conspiracy (either that Norman was part of it; or that he was miffed that there was a new political trend that he wasn't part of, and was going to out its members). Kate had arranged to discuss this with him Monday night after everyone else went to bed. But when she entered the office, she found him murdered and feared she would be next! She decided to just try to act natural, and hope that this would convince the Conspiracy that she knew nothing. Ramesh told her that he thought it would work, because that was pretty much the impression everyone already had of her. But apparently it didn't work well enough, because now she was dead at the hands of this evil, arcane conspiracy (or possibly a deckside waiter whom she had stiffed, but probably the conspiracy). I asked Ramesh what he thought we should do. He said that since economics was the key, I should talk to Stephen Moore -- apparently Moore is an economist, or writes about economics, or fudges numbers about the economy or something. Meanwhile, Ramesh would interview Reverend Sirico, who is reportedly one of the priests who had muffed the assassination of Damien in The Omen 3, and so has experience with mystical crap. I said that I was SICK of economics, and wanted to do the Reverend. Ramesh raised an eyebrow, and I realized that my remarks could be misinterpreted. So I said I desired to DEBRIEF the Reverend. Ramesh smiled in that superior way of his, and said that while Moore might not be as ruggedly attractive as Sirico (everyone says that Moore is a nerd), Stephen would undoubtedly have all kinds of insights about the Evil Cabal's plan to increase the deficit, since his Club for Growth is all about slashing government spending. But since it's also all about decreasing taxation, he might be PART of the cabal. So, Ramesh told me to be careful, and gave me a realistic toy gun that he had taken away from Rich Lowry (Rich was playing with it during a panel). Nobody answered when I knocked at Moore's cabin. And nobody I talked to knew where he was. So, I decided to give up and go swimming (if I went back home as pasty-white as I left, everyone would laugh at me). And it was there that I found Stephen Moore, late of the Cato Institute. Now he was just late. As in dead, I mean. He was floating in the pool, not moving and not breathing. (I knew he wasn't breathing because there weren't any little air bubbles coming from his mouth or nose -- I stood and watched for at least 5 minutes, and there weren't any bubbles AT ALL. Mr. Buckley would be very proud of my criminological expertise.) And since Stephen was still fully attired in his dorky black suit, white shirt, black loafers, and dork glasses, this was no swimming accident! Well, I guess he could have tripped and fallen in and drowned (he WAS a dork, after all), but what the life guard told me confirmed my belief that it was MURDER. See, about then the life guard strolled in, and I ordered him to fish out the body (he muttered something about "Eww, dead nerd!") but did it anyway. And when I threatened to use the NRO's celebrated "Corner" to report to the world that he was one of the Top Ten Really Bad Liberal Lifeguards, he admitted that he had left his station -- he'd been paged and told to report to the Fiesta Deck. It was only after he'd wandered around the boat for 10 minutes or so that he realized that this ship didn't HAVE a Fiesta Deck and its Captain wasn't named Stubbing. So, the Conspiracy had struck again! They got the life guard out of the way, lured Moore to the pool, and then threw his pen protector in the water, and watched while he went in after it and drowned. It was brilliant in its simplicity. Or maybe it had actually gone down differently, and was brilliant in its complexity. But in any case, The Club For Growth was going to have to content itself with growing posies -- for their president's GRAVE! I went to find Ramesh to tell him what I'd learned (mostly that Moore was dead, but also that the Conspiracy was adept at using paging technology). But shockingly, when I finally located him slumped over a bar stool in the Crow's Nest Lounge, HE wasn't breathing either! Yes, Ramesh Ponnuru was also dead! (I guess I should have told you this at the beginning, huh?) Judging by the telltale odor of burnt almonds I detected when I sniffed his glass (hey, he didn't want it anymore, and I'd just had a bad shock), it was cyanide! (Or strychnine--I get those two confused.) He'd been killed because he knew too much. And I knew even more than him! Was he killed by the sinister Reverend Sirico? Or was it one of my remaining National Review colleagues? Or possibly one of those guys who don't work well with others, and so head their own institutes? Or maybe Midge -- I was pretty sure she hadn't told me all she knew, and I didn't believe her alibi about being with Jay at the time of her husband's death. Or did the conspiracy run even deeper? Possibly to the very top of the Republican Party (I guess that wouldn't be running deep then, would it?) I didn't know, but vowed that I would. If I managed to stay alive! So, since I needed to tell SOMEBODY about my findings, I got my laptop, brought it our here by the pool so I could alert the world while also getting a tan. But the STUPID THING WOULDN'T WORK. The keys kept sticking -- I bet that Rich dumped a Coke on the keyboard or something. But I persevered, and finally managed to type up this report. I only hope that it reaches somebody who can do something, before it's too late! LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The NR Cruise will not go on forever. Just think: If you go on the next one, you won't have to suffer through Kathryn's Corner next time. 4:51:39 AM |
Sex With Your Clothes On Standing Up In honor of TBOGG's stint as a long-distance DeeJay at Wheaton College's first dance (of course, all the students all going to hell now), I offer some advice on Courtship Vs Dating from Mom of 9's Place (#23 on theBaptist Top 1000):
Because humidity is a tool of the devil. So, avoid booger movies, dancing, and frizzy hair, unless you want to go to hell, like those Wheaton College Students. And that brings us to today's Sean Hannity Moment
From Sean Hannity Biography. I know we are all better people for having shared this Sean Hannity Moment. 2:03:32 AM |
No Farm Implementaton Dealers in Florida -- Brother Jeb Probably to Blame From the Canned Speech, as presented Thursday in Orlando:
It's really sad to see the limited sphere for community interaction they have in Florida -- if you want to remind people of how the President is going to work hard to keep America secure and prosperous (starting in 2004), you have to do it in a Denny's or a church, or you have to call people while they're eating or in the shower. It makes you nostalgic for the wholesome, corn-fed society of Alabama, Mississippi, and North Carolina, where they have active civic lives that center on the International Harvester dealership. And it makes you wonder if Folgers or Sanka is sponsoring the President's tour. Something else to ask spokesmodel Scott. 12:43:33 AM |
Mr. Fantastic While looking for info on suspected National Review Cruise Killer Ralph Reed, I found this article by Richard Reeves: Franklin Delano Reagan. Here's his topic paragraph:
Wow, and I always thought it was, for all practical purposes, Dick Cheney. I guess I should start paying more attention to my Secular Sunday School lessons. But I still am unclear about which RR's super power was to become really stretchy. 12:14:10 AM |
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