November 27, 2004
Found You, You Rat Bastards!
Ever since I rebuilt my Windows box, back in... whenever it was, I've been looking for my old Sims CD cases. Not The Sims 2, but the original ones, along with the 37 (approximately) expansion packs. Because I had all the CDs, you see, in a great big CD folder, but the cases, because they have the activation codes stuck on them. I actually went and copied all my activation codes into a file, but somewhere along the line I lost the file.
And just now, while looking for more CDs to mp3ify, guess what I found? Guess what was hiding under a pile of Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller and the Andrews Sisters? Yup. (Also Rise of Nations, C&C Generals, Sim City 4 and Microsoft Office.) Now I'll just toddle off and install them all. Back in a tick.Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:40 PM | Comments (30) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Not A Good Sign
It's probably not a good sign when one of your more important servers comes up with the error:
Uhhuh. NMI received. Dazed and confused, but trying to continueIt's been one of those weeks. Actually, it's been two of those weeks, but who's counting?
You probably have a hardware problem with your RAM chips
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:30 PM | Comments (585) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
And It Was Like, Bleep Bleep Bleep Bleep Blip-Blip-Blip-Blip
I got nothin'.
Fortunately, even when I got nothin' there's always the anime version of that Apple ad. And other goodness. This comes from a longer piece called AMV Hell that you can find (along with an amazing amount of other stuff) at AnimeMusicVideos.org. Note: This little clip is work safe, but the full video isn't quite.Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:22 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
November 22, 2004
Peeve of the Day
So I select the items I don't want, and I click on Trash. And then I open the Trash Manager, and I select them again, and I click on Delete. And then I get a page saying that these items will be deleted, and I click on Delete again. Then I get a pop-up asking me if I really want to delete these items, because if I delete them they will be, like, deleted.
YES I BLOODY WANT TO DELETE THE BLOODY THINGS YOU PIECE OF CRAP!!!! If you design your software so that it treats your users like morons, you will soon find that only morons use your software. And you will have to take all the support calls because everyone else will somehow contrive to be at lunch when the phone rings. Even if it's 8 am.Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:15 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
November 12, 2004
Just Pinging In The Rain
Just testing something, don't mind me...
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:47 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
November 11, 2004
Darn Brain
"It can't have been me trying to kill you - I've never been to London. Besides", I added, "you're still alive."That seemed to do the trick. I was told to report in as soon as possible.
I pushed the button, and rockets flared beneath the house... Beneath half the house. Bricks and mortar are fine under compression loads, but not so great under tension. We watched as the other half of the house broke away and started its fall back to Earth. "Deploy parachutes!" A small parachute popped up from the falling half of the house, but did nothing to slow its descent.I wasn't the only one summoned to the meeting:
"Deploy full parachutes!" No reaction.
"Deploy cushion!" Airbags inflated out from the basement, but I doubted they'd do much to soften the landing. Crunch.
"So what do you do for a living?"By the way, whoever does the catering for those secret government gatherings of super-powered mutants should be shot. The food was terrible. And I didn't even have the pizza.
"Computer consultant. When times are good, I pick the fun projects. When times aren't so good, anything to do with computers.
"Lead and gold."
Her eyes widened.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"
"My power is to get some sort of idea of other people's powers. Probably why they brought me here. From you I'm picking up lead and gold."
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:01 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
November 09, 2004
Someone Tell My Brain To Slow Down When I'm Asleep
Okay, so discovering a hidden fourth floor in my own house wasn't so surprising. And the fact that there was a girl - actually a university student - living there didn't worry me too much. No wonder things are never where I left them! No wonder I can't keep chocolate in the house!
I was a little ticked off that she was bringing her boyfriend home - but at least he called the police when the ninja broke in. Of course, it was me and the girl who actually captured the ninja. (Take that, Frank! Your ninjas aren't so tough!) But then when the police told him they were on their way and we might hear some shots, so don't worry, he didn't find it the least bit odd. Dumbass. So they shot the ninja first, and then the boyfriend. We escaped out the top-floor window, swinging from a long extension lead. (So that's where that got to!) Unfortunately, we were facing a crooked police captain who had his entire precinct and a SWAT team hunting us. We managed to kick a couple in the head and steal their assault rifles (amazing what you can do while swinging from a fifteen-metre electrical cord!) but we were still terribly outnumbered even before the army of zombies and sorcerers arrived. So thank God for our mysterious allies, who showed up just in time, with their zippy little armoured cars (all tinted bulletproof glass and swoopy curves, plus four-wheel-steering!) and their flamethrowers! You should have seen it! Burning zombies everywhere! The tables were turned, despite an army of ninjas joining the fight - until we discovered that when you kill a sorcerer, unless you cut out his eyes, you get an unstoppable zombie sorcerer! And then I woke up. I've gotta stop eating pizza just before bedtime.Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:28 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
November 08, 2004
Trixie Told You
Who won the 2004 USA presidential election? The what? Oh, politics. I'll look it up. Hmm. It says "George W.That, for those new to this blog, is my grand-daughter Trixie reporting by chronosynclastic infundibulum from the 22nd century. You can put your trust in Trixie. Other Trixie tips: 2009: Good time to buy shares in Electronic Arts.
Bush". Does that sound right? It's in the chapter on the Great
Insanity Epidemic of 2005.
2017: Avoid the border between California and Nevada. Better yet, avoid California and Nevada.
2049: Avoid France. Seriously.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:35 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Poetry In Motion
From the inimitable The Iraq War Was Wrong Blog:
Read the whole thing. Including the comments. Particularly the comments.
As you can imagine I found it necessity to call emergency meeting of The Lohanim last night. We were all there except Sherrill (some lame excuse something about fender bender bla bla) so it was almost the whole gang there to wish her well Use are collective powers to raise her health back to normal (i.e. as before - healthy, vibrant the way we knew her). Cyrus brought the Thai food (I got stuck with the Pad thai which I really wanted was the red curry chicken but whatever, at least I filled up more on the spinach wrap appetizer so its even) and we (re) watched Jody's DVD of Confessions of a Teenage drama Queen at my request. I said hey we have to do this for Lindsay. Although admittingly I missed it when they were checking out most of the DVD extras (had to scare away raccoons sniffing around trash bin outside - those guys just have no fear anymore! Anyway). But I got back in and I had to remind them we didn't pray for her returning to health yet (they were all leaving - guess they forgot) (!). No not me (atheist agnostic) but, some other's, I had them praying to (their) God ect. (I think Phung just used Buddha, thats why he went back to his room where his Buddha thing is, bTW Phung must of been really broken up actually cuz he actually spent most of the evening in his room instead, I think I heard him had the Baseball World Cup game on TV - using the sound to mask his tears? Phung theres no shame in your feelings).
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:50 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
November 07, 2004
And As The Sun Sinks Slowly In The East
Note: This is not satire. Not a bit. The editors of The Guardian are noted for their insensibility to irony and lack of appreciation for the absurd.
Guantánamo Serenade (an extract from The Men Who Stare At Goats, by Jon Ronson)The more I've delved into the US military's psychological warfare, the more examples of New Age-style, First Earth Battalion tactics I've been noticing in the war on terror. I learned of one fact in particular that struck me as entirely incongruous, something at once banal and extraordinary.And what might that be, we ask?
When I met Jamal, he began to tell me about the more bewildering abuses. Prostitutes were flown in from the US - he doesn't know whether they were there to smear their menstrual blood on the faces of the more devout detainees. Or perhaps they were brought in to have sex with the soldiers, and some psychological operations (PsyOps) boffin - a resident cultural analyst - devised this other job for them as an afterthought, exploiting the resources at the army's disposal. "One or two of the British guys," Jamal told me, "said to the guards, 'Can we have the women?' But the guards said, 'No, no, no. The prostitutes are for the detainees who don't actually want them.' They explained it to us: 'If you want it, it's not going to work on you.' " "So what were the prostitutes doing to the detainees?" I asked. "Just messing about with their genitals," said Jamal. "Stripping off in front of them. Rubbing their breasts in their faces. Not all the guys would speak. They'd come back from the Brown Block [the interrogation block] and be quiet for days and cry to themselves, so you know something went on, but you don't know what.Yes, I know that the last time a woman stripped in front of me and rubbed her breasts in my face, I was so distraught I... Err, enough that. What other tricks did the fiendish Yanquis employ?
The interrogators were getting more and more cross with Jamal's apparent steely refusal to crack. Also, Jamal used his time inside the Brown Block to do stretching exercises, keeping himself sane. Jamal's exercise regime made the interrogators more angry, but instead of beating him, or threatening him, they did something very odd. A military intelligence officer brought a ghetto blaster into his room. He put it on the floor in the corner. He said, "Here's a great girl band doing Fleetwood Mac songs." He didn't blast the CD at Jamal. This wasn't sleep-deprivation, and it wasn't an attempt to induce the Bucha Effect. Instead, the agent simply put it on at normal volume. "He put it on," said Jamal, "and he left." "An all-girl Fleetwood Mac covers band?" I said. "Yeah," said Jamal.Aieee! The inhumanity of man's inhumanity to man's fellow man, or however it goes.
This sounded to me like the tip of a very strange iceberg. "And what happened next?" I asked. "When the CD was finished, he came back into the room and said, 'You might like this.' And he put on Kris Kristofferson's greatest hits. Normal volume. And he left the room again. And then, when that was finished, he came back and said, 'Here's a Matchbox Twenty CD.' " "Was he doing it for entertainment purposes?" I asked. "It's interrogation," said Jamal. "I don't think they were trying to entertain me." "Matchbox Twenty?" I said.Matchbox Twenty?
"I thought they were just playing me a CD," said Jamal. "Just playing me a CD. See if I like music or not. Now I've heard this, I'm thinking there must have been something else going on. Now I'm thinking, why did they play that same CD to me as well? They're playing this CD in Iraq and they're playing the same CD in Cuba. It means to me there is a programme. They're not playing music because they think people like or dislike Matchbox Twenty more than other music. Or Kris Kristofferson more than other music. There is a reason. There's something else going on. Obviously I don't know what it is. But there must be some other intent."Aha! Now I see the evil Yanqui scheme! No I don't.
"Hm," said Joseph. "Do you think ...?" I said. Joseph finished my sentence for me. "Subliminal messages?" he said.Subliminal messages!
"Or something like that," I said. "Something underneath the music."Underneath the music!
How could you blast someone with silent sounds "without it affecting us"? This struck me at the time as an unassailable argument, one that cut through all the paranoid theories circulating on the internet about mind-control machines putting voices into people's heads. Of course it couldn't work. The thing is, I now realised, if silent sounds had been used against Jamal inside an interrogation room at Guantánamo Bay, there was a clue in Jamal's account, a clue that suggested that military intelligence had craftily solved the vexing problem highlighted by Colonel Alexander. "He put the CD in," Jamal had said, "and he left the room."Aha! Fleeing the subliminal messages! Or possibly just a music lover. (Matchbox Twenty?)
Next, I dug out the recently leaked military report entitled Non-Lethal Weapons: Terms And References. There were a total of 21 acoustic weapons listed, in various stages of development, including the Infrasound ("Very low-frequency sound which can travel long distances and easily penetrate most buildings and vehicles ... biophysical effects: nausea, loss of bowels, disorientation, vomiting, potential internal organ damage or death may occur. Superior to ultrasound ...").You know, this is actually true. Blast someone with sufficiently loud very low-frequency sound and it basically shakes their internal organs to pieces. They tend to notice when you do this, of course.
And then, the last entry but one - the Psycho-Correction Device, which "involves influencing subjects visually or aurally with embedded subliminal messages". I turned to the front page. And there it was. The co-author of this document was Colonel John Alexander.So, not Matchbox Twenty? I'm confused. (via Tim Blair)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:36 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
November 06, 2004
Reasons From A Sad American
In stark contrast to the writers at Slate (below), Sad American explains clearly and movingly exactly how the Democratic Party lost her. An excerpt:
President Bush won on values, yes, but not hatred of gays or any other stereotype you have in your head about Bush voters like me. He won because he has values, clearly defined values, and even though I agree with little of what he believes, at least I know what he believes. At least I know that he really does believe in something. At least I know that he will do what he says he will do. That's disgustingly little, but unbelievably – you offered me less.Read, as they* say, the whole thing. * They, of course, being Glenn Reynolds, who seem to have survived their struggle with multiple-personality disorder and are back to their usual one-post-per-fifteen-minutes schedule.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:56 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
A Slate Of Pundits
Those cheerful, chirpy boys and girls at Slate are still at it. (You can find my previous commentary on Slate's series of articles, Why Americans Hate Democrats, here.)
Katha Pollitt oscillates between lucidity and insanity in a manner that seems calculated to induce sea-sickness. At one moment, we have:Sometimes I wonder if political commentators do much more than rationalize their own worldview.Which is reasonably astute, though she fails to take the analysis down the obvious path. Then she starts speaking in tongues:
The scale of the suggestions is not adequate to the scale of the problem. It's tinkering around the edges. It's assuming that Christian-right voters don't really mean what they say. If a voter wants Christian Jihad, he may not be willing to desert the cause for health insurance—especially with Republicans telling him 50 times a day that the plan is really a socialist plot to raise his taxes and poison him with Canadian drugs.From the remarkably perceptive:
My daughter, who is a high-school senior, told me months ago that Kerry would lose because people wouldn't unseat a wartime president. "What's that line about not changing horses in midstream?" She should probably have my slot in this forum.To the frankly disturbing:
And if a crucial subtext of Republicanism is—and I believe it is—the preservation of white privilege, whole swathes of the country are a lost cause for the Democrats. The Democrats had the South—and the country—when they had the racist vote. Now, thanks to Nixon's Southern strategy, the Republicans have that very large and energetic demographic.It's true enough that the Democrats did have the racist vote, forty years ago. But to claim that the Republicans have it now? Steven Waldman is the first of the writers to actually offer some worthwhile advice. Although he starts off badly:
When thinking of values, faith, and how to win elections, it's useful to ask, What Would Clinton Do? Bill Clinton always combined economic liberalism with a handful of cultural issues designed to appeal to red-state voters: welfare reform, crime, and national service. He picked these issues carefully, knowing that they would show traditional Americans that he wasn't a morally permissive liberal who didn't understand right from wrong (tee-hee).The old fake-sincerity approach - he does at least have this to say:
On some level, the hardest thing that Democratic leaders, activists, and journalists have to do is honestly ask themselves this: Do you hold very religious people in contempt? If you do, religious people will sense it—and will vote against you. And there are more of them than there are of you.Which echoes one of my own points. If you hold the voters in contempt, you can expect the same from them. Walter Dellinger doesn't say much of interest, really. He has little advice for his party, noting that
There have been 11 presidential elections since the dawn of the civil rights movement that have altered the shape of American politics. Five times the party's nominee has been from outside the South, and all five times the party has gone down to defeat ('68, '72, '84, '88, '04). Six times the Democratic nominee was from the South, and the Democrats won (or won the popular vote) in five of those six elections ('64, '76, '92, '96, '00).Yes, he's trying to count Gore as a win. To his credit, he does take Katha Pollitt to task for her remarks on the "racist vote".
Racism in Dixie is a problem, but no more today than in the rest of the country, and maybe less so. (Katha—come down to North Carolina sometime, and go with me to most any McDonald's in Durham. You are likely to see a lot more tables of whites and blacks from the office or the job site having lunch together than you will in Manhattan.)Diane McWhorter's contribution is so bizarre it is difficult to summarize, though I can tell you that she's not going to make Mr Waldman happy. Try the opening paragraph:
Before the Democrats can cure their morality deficit disorder, they must first diagnose the insidiously effective strain of virtue advanced by the Republicans. "Morality" is the new "race"—as in racism. It is the emotional linchpin of the Republicans' latest "Southern strategy," pioneered in 1968 by Richard Nixon to lure the solid (Democratic) South from the party that had betrayed its Dixie base by ending segregation through the Civil Rights Act of 1964.What can I say about this? Yes, Ms. McWhorter is saying that morality is equivalent to racism. And I'll note that although the Civil Rights Act was introduced by President Kennedy - a Democrat - its opponents were led by Senator Richard Russell - also a Democrat. She continues:
The props have changed since Nixon spoke to the smarting segregationists in the code of "states rights" and "law and order." Gun rights stood in for states rights as the animating spirit of the Gingrich Revolution of the 1990s (until the Federal Building in Oklahoma City was blasted into rubble by one of the gun lobby's constituents).She not only equates racism with morality, but also with states' rights, gun rights, and the terrorist attack in Oklahoma City. All one and the same to Ms. McWhorter. She continues:
But even as the agenda has now shifted to the sanctity of marriage, the ends and means remain remarkably consistent: Seduce the have-nots into a strange bedfellow-ship with the haves through emotional tribal markers that strike at some pre-rational sense of identity. Then they will be persuaded to vote against their own self-interest.In other words, those stupid yokels got suckered by those city slicker Republicans who appealed to their irrational beliefs in
That seems so obvious that Katha Pollitt and my fellow commentators invoke the Southern strategy as shorthand. But how does it work? Since I hail from a red state deep in the heart of Dixie—and claim many of "those people" as my friends and relatives—perhaps I can shed some light. Rather than isolating the "faith voters" as freaks and grotesques (as Southerners have historically been seen by the North), we should be analyzing what we all, as members of the human race, have in common.By this point - and we're just on the second paragraph here! - I'm astonished that Ms. McWhorter is willing to concede that Southerners are members of her species and not some strange relative of the Indonesian hobbits. Donna Brazile tells us that
Democrats can and must remain firmly rooted in the ideals of social justice.As one of the alien mice in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Gude to the Galaxy remarked, Sounds good, but doesn't tie you down to actually meaning anything.
As one of my friends in Oregon reminded me in an early morning e-mail, this is not just about the Democratic Party. It's about the democratic rights of all Americans.Well, it's nice to know that it's not just the Democrats who have democratic rights. There follow several paragraphs of discussion on religion which I am reluctant to put an interpretation on. Living in Australia, one of the most secular countries in the world, I just don't have the personal experience to deal with this. But before long we find ourselves on firmer ground:
Today, as liberals, as Democrats, and as progressive voters, we must acknowledge with humility that what we stand for no longer resonates with a sizeable chunk of voting Americans.This certainly appears to be true, and is a significant admission, but:
Democrats must speak in a language that allows all voters to know we share their outlook for a strong and prosperous country, we respect their values of tolerance, but our leaders are in public office to help make things better for us all—not worse.So the real problem is not what the Democrats stand for, it's the resonance. If they could just speak their language people would understand that Democrats are Here to Help.
This is a new moment to identify and recruit better messengers. Perhaps it's time to tap into the "Obama" factor: Scour statehouses for young, energetic, inspiring, and emerging leaders with the ability to connect the head and heart.Yes, it's Shoot the Messenger time. There can't be anything wrong with the Message, obviously.
In this coming season, Democrats must resist going back to using terms like affirmative action, pro choice, union, and "the movement" to describe what we're for. These words are limited and often open to negative interpretation from the right.Translation: They reveal the fact that many of us are still holding a candle for Karl Marx and class warfare, and we can't have that.
But once we agree on a shared vision to connect our progressive social values of faith, family, hard work, loyalty, opportunity, security, and prosperity for all, we will soar again.Yes, let me know when you work that one out. One last paragraph that I can't resist:
Democrats will build on the successes of this year. More grass-roots organizers were recruited and trained than ever before. Over $300 million was raised in one year—the most ever by the Democratic Party. We started this electoral season more unified and energized than ever before; we must continue to soar.Continue to soar? Donna, you lost.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:50 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Three In One
You know the five stages of grief? Something like this:
Numbness.Well, the left right now seems to have gotten over the numbness and is doing denial, anger and depression all at the same time. Links? Pick a lefty blog. Any lefty blog, it doesn't matter which one. And you know what? I'm getting bored already. It's like eating steak every day. Finest prime rib, grilled just so... And nothing else. After a few weeks it starts to pall. Of course, I'll continue to highlight the more inspired bits of insanity when I come across them, but right now I'm back to downloading anime. (Aishiteruze Baby, in case you're interested.)
Denial.
Anger.
Depression.
Acceptance.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:45 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
November 05, 2004
And Now For Something Completely Different, With Bunnies
I've been getting this sudden rush of Google hits, and I just realised why. Here you go, boys and girls, the complete lyrics for TISM's Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me, translated from Pub Strine into fairly standard English for your convenience:
Everyone else has had more sex than me.Videos here (pure brilliance), website here. Grab yourself a copy of the White Albun today!
Everyone else has had more sex than me. Everyone else has had more sex than me.
Does anyone else get that feeling?
Teenagers naked,
Couple and threes
Grandparents swing from the ceiling. Everyone else has had more sex than me.
Everyone else has had more sex than me. Corporate capers and office amore.
Shenanigans outdoor and in.
Resist and then later your find out there's more
Regret in not doing the sin. Our lives have to die
Of that there's no help
My favourite way to end them
Is the orb-weaver spider's whose pedipalp
Enters the female pudendum. Then dies on the spot
His corpse there still stuck,
Left for his rivals to curse at. He would rather die than not get to fuck
Personally I reckon it's worth it. Everyone else has had more sex than me.
Does anyone else get that feeling? Everyone else has had more sex than me.
Does everybody else get that feeling? ... Does everyone think...
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:44 PM | Comments (59) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
can someone plz fuck me plz lets have comp sex plz!!!!!! i want some 
and thanks for the lyrics
no #68 mwahahaYeah, Like That'll Work
On the same subject that I was just blathering on about, Slate asks Why Americans Hate Democrats - and what can be done to restore the party. (The sub-heading, Depressed liberals analyze what ails them, is a delight.)
The problem is, they only ask the question of liberals, and if liberals knew why they were in so much trouble they wouldn't be in trouble. (It's arguable that they wouldn't be liberals either, but let's leave that for the moment.) Chris Suellentrop presents a reasonably clear view of what went wrong, but provides no ideas for moving forward:My take on the election: Vision without details beats details without vision. President Bush put forward a powerful and compelling philosophy of what the government should do at home and abroad: Expand liberty. You can disagree with Bush's implementation of that vision, but objecting to it as a matter of principle isn't a political winner.William Saletan tells liberals to seek their lost sincerity. Well, it's a nice idea. But he doesn't seem to be sincere about it:
Nearly 60 million people came out to vote for George W. Bush yesterday because they think that he represents their values and that you don't. Prove them wrong and you'll be the majority party again. How? Start by changing the way you talk about pocketbook issues. Remember Bill Clinton's commitment to help people who "work hard and play by the rules"? Your positions on taxes and labor would be assets instead of liabilities if you explained them in moral terms. The minimum wage rewards work. Repealing the estate tax helps rich people get richer without risk or effort. Lax corporate oversight allows big businesses to evade taxes, deceive small investors, and raid pension funds.So, pretend to be sincere, is that the trick?
Some of you are dismayed by the emergence of a huge voting bloc of churchgoers. Stop viewing this as a threat, and start viewing it as an opportunity. Socially conservative blue-collar workers don't believe in the free market. They believe in the work ethic. Bush wins their votes by equating the free market with the work ethic. Show them where the free market betrays the work ethic, and they'll vote for the party of the work ethic—you—against the party of the free market.The free market betrays the work ethic? I'm sorry, could you repeat that?
Show them where the free market betrays the work ethic, and they'll vote for the party of the work ethic—you—against the party of the free market.Show them where the free market betrays the work ethic. Pity it ain't so. Well, not a pity exactly... Timothy Noah thinks that whether the Democrats move to the right, the left, or spin in place, they're still going to lose. I'm not arguing with that, but he also accuses the Republicans of no longer supporting the "promotion of human rights abroad", which is just plain nuts. Helloo? Afghanistan? Elections? Iraq? Complete lack of fresh mass graves?
Sometimes the need to move rightward is portrayed as more a matter of style than of policy. But John Kerry didn't get anywhere with his hunting-trip photo op, or with frequent affirmations of his Catholic faith. Democrats, I fear, are doomed to be thought phonies whenever they play this game, even when they aren't. (Kerry is a phony in some ways, but I believe him to be sincere in his faith and in his enthusiasm for hunting.)Phony in some ways? Every time Kerry tried to appeal to "the people", he came across as a stuffed shirt, phony in every possible way, a Commander McBragg for the 21st century. He wouldn't even carry his own damned goose. Robert Wright suggests that Democrats should point out that if they were elected, the world might like America better. Oh, and he suggests that they indulge in a bit of fake moralizing to sucker the evangelical types. Seriously:
If Democrats felt a little freer to moralize, they wouldn't, of course, take over Bush's evangelical base. Still, without giving an inch on gay rights, abortion rights, school prayer, etc., they can make some inroads into the "moral" component of Republican support.Robert Reich also talks about moralizing, but in the context of "social justice":
What should Democrats say now and in the future about public morality? That it's morally wrong to give huge tax cuts to the rich while cutting social programs for the poor and working class—especially when the gap between the rich and everyone else is wider than it's been in more than a century. That we have a moral obligation to give every American child a good education and decent health care. That it's morally wrong that millions of Americans who work full time don't earn enough to keep their families out of poverty. That corporate executives who steal money from their investors and employees are morally reprehensible. And that it's morally wrong to kill over a hundred thousand Iraqis and send over a thousand young Americans to their deaths for a cause that is still undefined, in a war that was unnecessary.Apart from Reich's little problem with facts, this is just taking standard Democrat talking points and sticking the word "moral" in front of each one. Ain't gonna fly. Jason Furman thinks plans are the key. But even he recognises that if you're going to use plans to win an election, you might need to tell people what they are:
Take health care. Kerry had a great plan that would have provided health insurance to virtually every single child in America and cut the cost of medical treatment. He talked about this proposal in values terms each and every day, how health care should be a right, not a privilege. He talked about how it was wrong for 45 million people to lack health insurance in the richest country in the world. But that isn't enough. I still feel the sting from a Sebastian Mallaby column in the Washington Post that praised Kerry for his health plan but complained that he only talked about it in general, values terms. Kerry's really bold and innovative ideas, Mallaby said, "languish in his advisers' files."Tom Tomorrow is... Well, I can't even be bothered to cut and paste a quote. All he offers is excuses and projection, attributing Democrat faults to the Republicans. Yawn, baby. Saving the best (so far, this is a continuing series, it seems), Jane Smiley, in a charming number entitled The unteachable ignorance of the red states, advises the Democrats to self-destruct:
Progressives have only one course of action now: React quickly to every outrage—red state types love to cheat and intimidate, so we have to assume the worst and call them on it every time. We have to give them more to think about than they can handle—to always appeal to reason and common sense, and the law, even when they can't understand it and don't respond. They cannot be allowed to keep any secrets. Tens of millions of people didn't vote—they are watching, too, and have to be shown that we are ready and willing to fight, and that the battle is worth fighting. And in addition, we have to remember that threats to democracy from the right always collapse. Whatever their short-term appeal, they are borne of hubris and hatred, and will destroy their purveyors in the end.This, of course, is how the far left have been behaving for the past four years, screeching and gibbering at every imagined slight. It hasn't done them a whole lot of good. You know what this is? Well, if you're Nathan you've already recognised it. This is Cargo Cult Politics: Copy the appearance of what the Republicans are doing, rather than looking deeper to see what actually made it successful. Mind you, unlike the original Cargo Cults, in politics this can actually work. You can win office if you can fake sincerity well enough. John Kerry, of course, was terribly bad at this. Democrats think that George Bush is the Grand Master of Fake Sincerity; the problem with that thinking is that Bush is actually sincere, which is why he appears to be, uh, so sincere about his sincerity. If you try to fake his sincerity without understanding that, you'll fall flat on your face. If you try fake moralizing in the Bible Belt, likewise. Or to put it rather more simply - though it is clear that the Democrats don't, can't see that this is what they are suggesting: Lie. Lie to the public. They're just the people, nothing more than proles, they'll never know the difference. Tell them what's good for them, loudly and clearly, using the same words they use, and you'll sucker them good. Not this prole, guys. Not this prole.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:31 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Candidate
And when you've finished reading my analysis of the political future of the Left in America and Australia (scroll down just a bit), hop on over to Ace's for more of the same, only different.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:39 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Four More Years Of Hard Work
What a month it's been, with elections in both Australia and America - and Indonesia and Afghanistan and Ukraine, even if the last was badly flawed. And the right people won, at least four out of five; certainly in Australia and America, the two that matter the most to me. For Afghanistan, just the fact of a calm and fair election is enough.
But in Australia, John Howard only won by a 5.5% margin, 52.75% compared to 47.25% for Mark Latham. And in America, although George Bush won by more than three million votes over John Kerry, the percentage margin was even smaller, 51% for Bush against 48% for Kerry. Why were both contests so close? Why did so many millions of people vote in favour of being governed by men I, quite frankly, loathe? Well, it's complex. Sure, some people are just batshit crazy, like the trollish denizens of MoveOn.org, Democratic Underground, Daily Kos and so on, the historical revisionists and self-confessed Marxists. But even when you count San Francisco and Berkeley, and Byron Bay and Nimbin (and, frankly, whoever lives in that house on Kurraba Road...) they can only account four ten percent of the population. Fifteen, tops. Which leaves thirty-odd percent of the apparently normal populace voting for the wrong guy. I'm not going to mess about here: Latham was not fit to be Prime Minister, nor was Kerry fit to be President. Both countries would have survived; America has of course been through worse; Australia would have just shrugged its shoulders and muddled through. But still... Part of the reason is the nature of the political systems in the two countries. For all the differences in the details - Australia's preferential voting and America's popularly elected* President - the similarities are more important. Whenever rule of law is so well established that ignoring the result of an election is unthinkable, and politics is ruled as much by pragmatism as by ideology, this is what you'll find: Two parties, opposed on a wide variety of issues, but each drawn inexorably towards the centre. Because the centre is defined by the people, and there are fifty percent of the population on either side. If you judge it just right, you will cross the line by just enough to pick up that crucial winning margin, be it 3% or 5.5% or even -0.5% if the districts are stacked the right way. If you cross the line by too much, you piss off your base, and they in turn piss off and vote for the Greens or the Libertarians or some other spoiler party - and you lose. Misjudge the line and drift too far from the centre and you make your base happy but you can't pick up enough of the ordinary Joes and Janes to make it. And as long as pragmatism doesn't get forced into the back seat, one of the key jobs of the political machines is to judge public opinion and to work out exactly where and by how much and on what issues you need to shift to win the next election. It's an incredibly complicated job, because it's not a simple continuum but a space in a hundred or more dimensions, and it's not just the distributions but the dimensions themselves that are constantly changing. And at the same time the opposition is trying to do the same thing, and doing their level best to throw spanners into your works. Which is why the parties screw it up exactly half the time. Now, the flip side to this in recent years has been the actions of the mainstream media. For some reason - I have no idea why this is so, because I can see no benefit in it for them - they have decided to throw in their lot on the side of the liberal/left. Entirely, to the point of utterly destroying their own credibility, which is their stock in trade.** What they have been trying to do, and they have been willing to not just misreport and distort the news but to fabricate and flat-out lie to do it, is to shift puplic opinion to the left.*** That would mean that either the right-of-centre party would have to shift to the left (pragmatism) or stay where they are and lose power (ideology). The problem with this plan is that the mainstream media do not have a monopoly on the distribution of information. We can thank Rush Limbaugh and other talk-radio hosts, Rupert Murdoch, small-town newspapers, and the internet for acting as a spoiler. Because what happened instead was that the opinion of roughly half the public shifted to the left. And that's no good at all; in fact, it's counter-productive. The first step in the electoral process in both countries is the selection of a leader for the party, and that selection is undertaken by the base, that same base that has now shifted to the left and opened up a public-opinion gap between itself and the other half of the population. So it was that respectable figures like Joe Lieberman and Kim Beazley, either of whom would have made an acceptable leader even to much of the other half, and might indeed have picked up some votes there; so it was that these electable men were shunted aside for someone who would appeal to the base but could never bridge the gap to pick up the votes needed to win. Which, I think, is why both races were so acrimonious. If you can't bridge the gap, if you can't count on picking up some of the moderates on the other side, all you can hope for is to energise your own side. And if you're not a remarkable man, a gifted orator (and let's face it, none of the candidates in these two elections were that), then the best way to do that is to demonise your opponent - widening the gap still further. There's always some of that in any such contest, but this time it was the primary tool of the left because they simply didn't have much else to use. In Australia, voting is compulsory, so there's not a lot of leeway there. In America, both parties did all they could to encourage voters to, well, vote, and indeed were extremely successful. And perhaps equally successful, which is not that surprising given the dynamics of public opinion and party platforms. Of course, the "youth vote" never materialised in America, but that should surprise no-one who can still remember their own youth. And so, what we have is this: Michael Moore won the election. As did Dan Rather, and Martin Sheen, and Philip Adams, and Maureen Dowd, and Margo Kingston, and the editors of The Guardian, and a host of other lefty celebrities and intellectuals. Of course, they won the elections for John Howard and George Bush, which is hardly what they intended. The problem with all this is that when pragmatism fails on the left side of the centre it is weakened on the right. If your opposition is weak, you don't need to pay so much attention to them, and you can indulge your ideology. Which is fine up to a point: George Bush is now free to finish the war, and the Iraqis know that their American liberators aren't suddenly going to depart and leave them at the mercies of the insurgency. And John Howard, with control of the Senate for the first time, can pass much-needed reforms that have been stymied until now by obstructionist minor parties. But in the long run, this shift away from pragmatism is harmful, potentially deeply harmful. Four years isn't going to hurt America, but four decades likely would. Either the Democrats and the Labor Party need to abandon their ideologues and move to the centre again, or they are going to lose, and keep on losing, and hurt their respective countries in the process. Rhetoric from both camps so far shows no sign of any such process, but it's early days yet and the left has years in the wilderness in which to achieve this change of heart. As many years as it takes. * More or less.** With the exception of those parts owned by Rupert Murdoch, who is nobody's fool.
*** No, I haven't forgotten what I just said about hundred-dimensional polispace. This is shorthand here. You know what I mean.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:28 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Arafat Not Dead
A spokesman for the French military hospital housing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has told reporters the ailing leader is not dead. He added though on Thursday that the 75-year-old leader had been moved to another department within the hospital for treatment more appropriate for his condition.Huh? He was already in intensive care.
The hospital spokesman said the Palestinian leader was moved into the other department Wednesday, He said Arafat's condition had become more complex.More complex, eh?
Thursday afternoon, French President Jacques Chirac was allowed to briefly visit Arafat's room.Probably trying for those Swiss bank account numbers.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:03 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Icing On The Cake
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:45 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
November 04, 2004
Let The Meltdown Commence!
One of the reasons I was so strongly hoping for a Bush win was the ensuing meltdown of the moonbat left. I got some quiet enjoyment after John Howard's re-election here in Australia, but that didn't have the same scale, the same global impact as George Bush's victory.
The ever-reliable Little Green Footballs has a thread on Choice Moonbat Quotes. That's where I found the link to David Brin's site - but the piece de resistance* has to be this little bit of insanity:Magical Election Tampering: SHUT IT DOWN! Ok, I can understand the restlessness I've been feeling since yesterday. There's a lot riding on this election, and passions are running high on both sides, so naturally eceryone and their naked brother who has an ounce of Power and no clue about Shielding is leaking energy like a hair dryer in a bathtub. So it's Shields Up for me, but I'm still getting enough bleedover to make me jittery and a little manic if I don't concentrate. That's all to be expected. What wasn't expected was that once I filtered out all that background noise, I started hearing a calm, resonable, and powerful head-voice saying things like "Kerry doesn't have the experience we need in these troubled times." and "Give Bush a chance to make it better." Anyone who knows me KNOWS these are not my thoughts! And besides, I voted last week. No, there's no way in Hades these are my thoughts. Gods-damn it! The f*cking Republicans have got Magical help pumping out a clear, unified, focused broadcast, and you can be sure, every sensitive is picking it up. These are the people most likely to vote Kerry, and I'd like to think they are resolute enough not to be swayed by telepathic subliminal advertising, but it's such a rarely-done thing, and so few people are properly trained these days, that I fear it will be more effective. Just watch and see who says "I was going to vote for Kerry, but for some reason I changed my mind at the last minute." Who would be doing this for them? Gee, who are the Mages driving around in those black Mercedes and Lincolns with the tinted windows? The ones who live in the mansions with the hell-hounds in the yard and the 7-foot tall hairless black doormen? Every town has some, the bigger the town, the more of these "High Magi" you will find. I have no idea what their agenda may be, but you can be damn sure the welfare of the common human on the street is not a part of it. So shield, people, shield. And screen. And if you can shield a polling place, do it! I'm not saying to try to interfere with people's choices, but rather prevent them from being interfered with. This is important, people, and it may be too late already.You might as well give up now, you Democrats. Our lord and master, Supreme Archmage Rove, can see into your very souls! Bwahahahaha-cough-haha! * Just imagine the funny little ticks over the appropriate vowels, okay? It's late here.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:47 AM | Comments (30) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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