Sunday, April 24, 2011

Y'know what's cool about our brave new digital world?

Way out there in the darkness of the binary savanna there can be little knots of people, the existence of whom you were heretofore unaware, huddled around little campfires of zeros and ones, hatin' on you.

I mean, that's kinda awesome when you think about it.

Okay, it's not much of a "little knot"; just the one blogger, about whom I had completely forgotten since our little kerfuffle three frickin' years ago, and his one commenter. But that commenter has actually wasted neural processor cycles hating me! L'il ol' me! And I don't know him from Adam's housecat! That is cool!

Anyhow, what I really like is how the original poster, who is a peace-loving and progressive kind of dude, set out to demolish Ayn Rand's philosophy by proving that she wasn't hot. Because, really, if you wouldn't jump a woman's bones, how can you possibly respect anything she says, amirite?
"She's hot! Don't you think?
Lank hair, crooked teeth and no lips whatsover.
With the accent she's the entire package.
"
I mean, by his standard, Sarah Palin is ten times the thinker that ol' Strident Ayn ever was (not to mention wayyyy smarter than Hillary Clinton) and Kate Beckinsale is like Hobbes, Locke, and Adam Smith all rolled up in one latex-suited ball.

The blogger is, of course, entitled to these thoughts, since I'm sure he's a regular Adonis who has to beat the flocks of nubile cheerleaders off with a nine iron every time he sets foot in public.

Remember, kids: It's not ______ when we do it!

(The big irony here is that one of the things I find most annoying about Rand's generally ham-handed fiction is the fact that the good guys are all Beautiful People and if anyone appears in the dialogue who is described as unattractive, well, you know they're going to turn out to be some moral cripple. Read that dude's post while rolling that thought around in your head...)

47 comments:

Anonymous said...

paraphrase: "The movie, which I haven't seen, sucks. The book, which I haven't seen, sucks even worse."

I wish more people like that hated me.

WV: neson, the particles generated by my new Infiniti's engine...

TJIC said...

> Anyhow, what I really like is how the original poster, who is a peace-loving and progressive kind of dude, set out to demolish Ayn Rand's philosophy by proving that she wasn't hot. Because, really, if you wouldn't jump a woman's bones, how can you possibly respect anything she says?

My response is half "LOL" and half "wait - are these leftists *actually* as dumb as folks say? ...bc I've been giving them a *bit* more credence than that..."

Dan said...

Next step: Photoshopped Hitler mustache. Then you'll know you've made it to the big time.

WV : Nesse

The illusive Loch Ness word verification

Joe said...

If the word blog is derived from web log, shouldn't a blog writer be a bliter rather than a blogger? Would that then make me a bleader?

Guffaw in AZ said...

@Dan Nesse
I had a spitz I named Nessie.
One's dogs do acquire the character of their names! Watch Out!

re: that original poster
1. get a life!
b. what a MAROON!

Anonymous said...

I like that guys blog though, pretty good historical stuff on there.

Tam said...

Anon 10:34,

Yup.

og said...

I TOLD you the correct application of alcohol would kickstart the brain. That and falling hippies.

McVee said...

Hmmm. You know He's right, Paul Krugman isnt exactly Brad Pitt....

Alan J. said...

"This sad little lizard told me he was a brontosaurus on his mother's side... - RAH, the Notebooks of Lazarus Long.

That seems like an appropriate response for someone who had to wait for 3 full years just to come up with an appropriate response to a prior debate. The guy should just come out of the basement more often and see more of the world. Maybe then he'll appreciate what being snarkey really means.

Dr. Coyote said...

Read through a couple of pages of his posts. What a strange little duck he is.

Steve Skubinna said...

Mary Katharine Ham. Now she's obviously a genius. One look and all your arguments collapse. And Sonja Schmidt - not only is she smart but she's got big... ideas.

And no need discuss the abysmal stupidity of Nancy Pelosi, Helen Thomas, or that chubby retard Joy Behar. You can tell just by looking at them they're stoopid.

How much you wanna bet this guy's printed out a couple picture of yours, Tam?

Bill said...

Was going to comment on his blog but then thought, "This cannot actually be real, no one could that much of liberal caricature."
But then I just took a dump, made fun of everything he stood for without knowing him and then dismissed him because of his appearance. Goodness I feel so much better.........than everyone else:)

John B said...

especially the swim suit pic!

John B said...

Y'know, I always adored that genre of Science Fiction where the beautiful people are the distilled essence of evil, and the ugly ones are actually the good guys.

Maybe cos I never got to be the cool kid in high school.

Hank said...

I'll at least give the guy credit for being a bit smarter than me. I was dumb enough to actually read all of Atlas Shrugged.

Lord Almighty does that book drag! I think Ms. Rand forgot that one rule in writing fiction is to be entertaining. It works as a book of philosophy but the gal could have shortened it considerably and made it much more entertaining.

Anonymous said...

Note his jealousy at your being appropriated to spice up an article at VV. He wishes it was him. He could a' been a contender...

John B said...

he can't even be an offender.

Cond0011 said...

Wow... 3 years. I'm impressed. Whatever words you used, really must of sunk deep.

What a shame. Well... he's missing out on all the free ice cream over here.

Cond0011 said...

Yes... ALOt of historical goodness over there. Yummmy.

Though it does seem sadly tinged with liberal skew (equates 'teabaggers' to 'Johnny Reb' - verrrry interesting distortion there), it won't stop me from going and taking a peek now and then. All I will have to do mentally edit out all the liberal tripe to really enjoy all the historical factoids floating around over there.

Thanks for linking it Tam!

Robert Langham said...

I have yet to make a knifemaker who isn't a nut.

Spud said...

Thinkers can sometimes be stinkers

Borepatch said...

I kind of like hte "Sarah Palin is hot; your argument is invalid" thing. Impressive.

It looks like this guy gets 50 odd hits a day (per Sitemeter). You sent him six times that in two hours yesterday. Doesn't that make him the poster boy for "Save the Trolls" week?

Tam said...

Borepatch,

"Doesn't that make him the poster boy for "Save the Trolls" week?"

I just found it fascinating that someone I'd completely forgotten about apparently kept running over to peek through my virtual curtains. I mean, if he'd been hit by a bus yesterday, I never would have known or cared about it, but he'd have died hating me. Pretty cool, huh?

John Stephens said...

The problem with Ayn Rand is that what she was writing wasn't fiction, it was mythology. The novel really isn't a good format for that sort of thing. Probably would make some kick ass opera, if people still did that sort of thing; imagine John Galt's big speech as a Wagnerian aria with a full orchestra.

Tam said...

John Stephens,

"John Galt's big speech as a Wagnerian aria with a full orchestra."

The juxtaposition of Rand's magnum opus and Wagner's Der Ring das Nibelungen is actually quite apt.

Lazy Bike Commuter said...

That "guy" certainly "likes" his "quotation marks", doesn't he?

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
staghounds said...

Why is it that having people who fantasy hate you on the internet is a little warm fuzzy, but having people who fantasy love you is creepy?

Borepatch said...

I mean, if he'd been hit by a bus yesterday, I never would have known or cared about it, but he'd have died hating me. Pretty cool, huh?

Well, I wonder if he thinks his 10 minutes of fame are worth it. Bet that Google puts this pretty high on the search results for his name.

Weird.

global village idiot said...

Historical shmorical. If I want to read good history I'll turn to Barbara Tuchman. I see little point wasting my time on this fellow. I've known engineers who had better skills at the written word.

Snipes and barbs aside, his writing accidentally betrays something about him and I'm surprised no one here has as yet picked up on it.

Fellow sure is full of himself, ain't he?

Baby Boomers strike me as being singularly barefaced about their self-absorption (he admits his age on his masthead). His post reeks of "Look How Clever I Am" and yet there's little in it that qualifies as clever. It is almost as if actual cleverness and the perception of one's own cleverness existed in inverse proportion as a Law of Nature.

He and his generation are far from the first but it seems that the Baby Boomers are the first for whom self-absorption became a virtue. Now as they get older, they've begun to take on the mantle of sages, dispensing valueless little turds of Wisdom and Inner Truth, cursing us ungrateful whippersnappers for not recognizing their value.

It's impossible to imagine Socrates as a Baby Boomer. Plato yes, but Socrates was made of sterner stuff.

And because they're so damned healthy and pampered, we'll have to suffer them far longer than any previous generation had to put up with their elders.

gvi

wv: deriptic. It's a true pity this isn't a real word because no matter what its definition, it'd be perfectly descriptive.

pax said...

@ gvi,

It is almost as if actual cleverness and the perception of one's own cleverness existed in inverse proportion as a Law of Nature.

Well, yes. Yes it does.

pax

jbrock said...

But you don't see all the hatin' for Orwell; must be his svelte physique and handsome visage...

Or, just possibly, the fact that Orwell was, and remained, a Socialist himself. Euro-lefties weren't all Stalin fanboys, but that doesn't fit into the single-bit binary logic of current US political discourse.

Speaking of which, I think the blogger in question is a "liberal" about like Tam's a "conservative". Aside from the sidebar shout-outs to Socialism, some of the graphical bric-a-brac on the fellow's page leads me to think he's a sort of crypto-Wobbly, except for maybe the "crypto-" part.

Also, I'll kinda-echo Mr. Langham's observation above: In my experience, knifemakers tend to ... um, have some highly special and unique perspectives. If you haven't already done so, spend a nice long weekend at Blade show sometime and really talk with the guys from some of the more obscure one-man shops. Gawd, but I love to party with those folks.

Tam said...

jbrock,

"If you haven't already done so, spend a nice long weekend at Blade show sometime and really talk with the guys from some of the more obscure one-man shops. Gawd, but I love to party with those folks."

Oh, but I have! I've spent many a night in the pit. :)

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

GVI,

He's a blogger. Like me and Tam. The "Look over here!" syndrome is kinda par for the course.

global village idiot said...

A valid point but I've read your blog as well as Tam's.

The difference between y'all and whatshisname is precisely the difference between being self-aware and being self-absorbed.

gvi

Josh Kruschke said...

Wow, that's 30 mins of my life I'm never going to get back.

Thanks for the link, Tam. ;-)

I would of given him some credit if he had actually researched or read any of Ayn Rand's note and books. From his own words, he didn't, and what little siting he did do, he based his whole arguement using wikipedia and Video by Steve Leser.

Oh well, ignorance is bliss,
Josh

Josh Kruschke said...

Correction he did read "The Founthead," but did not like the main character, but probable because he couldn't understand anyone not giving away his stuff for free.

Josh

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

Reading back some on his stuff. LOTS of people he loathes live rent free in his head, it seems. I feel kinda bad and want to tell him that "All that hate's gonna burn you up, kid."

Tam said...

It keeps him warm. :D

Joel said...

Keeps him warm at night.

Joel said...

Damn...too late.

Mick Havoc said...

They're Nihilists Donny, nothing to be afraid of

Anonymous said...
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Justthisguy said...

Tam's "yachting" photo has a place of honor on my desktop. There are plenty of tall good-looking wimmin, but that grumpy expression on her face is priceless.

Jenn said...

Wait... He hated on Sci-fi (or Syfy to the idiots)

..but thinks Lizard people are real?

atlharp said...

Yeesh! How can anyone hate Tam outside of some wilting has-been flower at the Village Voice. Me thinks he is frightened that you know more about Mausers than him. Maybe he can get a gig over at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review as a columnist writing "satire." Beautiful!