A Smog Monster? Lookshury! Read this and weep:

http://nymag.com/daily/inte...

Tour the nation with the Bundy boys and other newly-exonerated Malheur occupiers, taking over federal facilities as they go, looting the gift shops and throwing the booty to their howling mobs

If only someone had informed the Native Americans protesting the violation of their rights in North Dakota about this apparently much more successful strategy of petitioning for redress. (Though I'll admit I see the logic of only using overwhelming force against unarmed protestors with substantive grievances. Try to use force against armed seditionist fuckwit whackaloons championing a cause composed entirely of hog shit, and someone in law enforcement might get their goddamned hair mussed.)

DRUMPFMENTUM!

https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

"Aye, 'twas Comey fucked the rat"

"Dear Humans,

Kindly leave us the fuck out of it.

Love, The Rats

P.S. Tell Ivana Trump to stop dislocating her jaw & swallowing us whole."

Anthony's Weiner: The Doombringer™

taking on the group’s respectable positions [...] and rendering them into an
indefensible state.

Rendering in which sense? Boiling the fat out, or handing over to another legal jurisdiction?
If the latter sense, the "indefensible state" is possibly Mississippi.

It certainly stinks like the former.

Radio & TV host John Zacherle has died at 98.

In 1958, he had a big hit with "Dinner With Drac".

I can't remember the details, but I remember hearing a friend of mine play a recording of Zacherle around about 1996 that "Zach is Back!" He seemed to do the horror host thing a long time; it's good that guys like Svengoolie are keeping the tradition alive so it doesn't die the ignominious death that midnight spook shows did.

I used to watch Zacherle back in the early 1960s. I must have been about five or six years old. Most of the jokes went over my head, but it was entertainment.

Saw my first Drumpf campaign commercial this morn - distinctly underwhelming. He just can't resist attacking HITLERY, even when he's trying to be positive. She's been in Washington for THIRTY YEARS! Something something change! (Cue Palin's "How's that HOPEY CHANGEY thing working out for ya?") Vote for him because reasons!

Wow, that Eric Trump sure is a top-notch political strategist. The "big league" idea that he "came up with" is so big that it's a plan, really, a tremendous plan. Here are the step:

1. Raise money from idiots.

Eric's calculations revealed that each idiot should give $20.17. Of course he doesn't mean it has to be exactly that much, down to the penny - what are you, stupid? The point is that Eric knows how much is optimal. X idiots times $20.17 equals Y and that's precisely enough.

https://www.youtube.com/wat... Boppin the Blues

Oy oy oy, the drama. Always with the drama in this country.

Most young conservatives are comfortable with ethnic diversity and are weary of the Fox News media-politico complex.

One has to ask, if conservatives (even young ones) hold NON-conservative perspectives, then why the fuck are they "conservatives" again?

No, seriously, what makes one a "conservative" in the minds of dreamers like Brooks? Is it financial and social security? Is it national defense? Is it love of family and community? Is it belief in the promise of Mankind? Because all of those are human desires; not political.

Open invite to all these "young conservatives" that Brooks sees as future mulch for his rotting, degenerate political party: If you are comfortable with diversity, weary of propaganda, inspired by the human potential, exhausted by angry and fearful "leaders," tired and confused by having to sort every cultural event into Conservative or Evil, and basically just want to live an exciting life filled with promise in the company of human beings with the same respect for you, then just drop the idea that you are a conservative. It's not a hereditary trait; it's learned behavior (and a terribly self-destructive one, at that).

In fact, you are a Liberal, and we invite you to come out of the closet and be proud of who you are. Embrace it and relax. You don't have to be a Democrat; in fact, feel free to abandon all labels. Just be human, think for yourself, respect others, and get on with enjoying life.

Sorry to tl;dr, but I think there can be more to conservatism than bigotry, callousness, chauvinism, militarism, blinkeredness, Idiotismus, and other Trumpean ideals::

There are two strains of conservatism that can be bent toward (to grab a word at random) deplorable ends but don't have to be:

0.) Right-libertarianism, which I think demonstrates why 'simple' can mean either 'very easy to understand' or 'intellectually deficient', but I feel that an informed person making the honest value-judgement that government beyond some propertarian minimum is more dangerous than not having it is not evil, just neglugent and mistaken. (There are other right-libertarians, among others, who are in it because they think the 'inferior' would be eliminated without the danger of anyone's being particularly blamed.)
1.) Burkean conservatives who believe tradition and social structures encode and transmit wisdom beyond that accessible to individuals, and accomplishments long in the making and easily destroyed. These are people who think that maybe in the Fens it were better to scare children away from ponds with tales of Jenny Greenteeth than a simple warning because the tale evolved to hack an innate fear of sharp-toothed predators and humans of ill intent than are stronger than a child's reason. I can respect these if they're willing to accept a dose of Enlightenment objectivity about society to counter-act the tendency to confuse useful features with neutral but weighty kruft or malicious buggs;they can accept that many traditions are 'more honourable in the[ir] breach' to quote a dead, white, male. (Other traditionalist conservatives are in it because they're in love with hierarchy and their place in it.)

I think there's a third type of conservative, who's someone who's naturally risk-averse, who basically believes in a more or less laissez-faire attitude toward most things in life ("if it ain't broke, don't fix it," and/or "how does x pick my pocket or break my leg"), and who tends to be more pragmatic than idealistic, and who like things like the Precautionary Principle (see "risk-averse"), although these types are thin on the ground, but can conceivably be found haunting just about any point on the political spectrum.

("if it ain't broke, don't fix it," and/or "how does x pick my pocket or break my leg")

But if people who genuinely held those views were actually paying any fucking attention whatsoever to current events, they'd be Democrats, too.

That was pretty much my arc from libertarian to Democrat... okay, that and I got my teeth kicked in by enough different employers that I realized that laissez-faire is a terrible terrible idea.

edited for typo

I think you're basically touching on small-l libertarianism there.

One has to ask, if conservatives (even young ones) hold NON-conservative
perspectives, then why the fuck are they "conservatives" again?

Tax cuts and ahistorical readings of the Bible?

Trust funds.

Your big names are senile as well as psycho? How is that a good thing for conservatism?

Why, it's quite simple, really. Attend:

1. All the crazy conservatives die of old age.
2. ?????
3. Profit.

I believe step 2 is some fraction of young conservatives become crazy conservatives

I'll admit, I was certain that by now Brooks and Chunky Bobo Douthat would have penned their "Trump is bad but a true Burkean must realize HRC is worse" by now.

Then again, pretty sure neither of them has told us who they're going to vote for yet.

Going a slightly different direction with a song about Carl Perkins
Cadillac

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

"HELP US ROSS DOUTHAT, YOU ARE OUR ONLY HOPE!"

Aha hahahahahaha hahahaaa.

And I'm with you, Roy. Dixie Fried is the bomb.

Reminds me of one of my very favorite Sun studio production:

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

"but that crazy beat nearly knocked me dead". Awesome

It's a shame I didn't know he shared a birthday with me until he passed away
Monday. Ladies and Gentlemen, the great Bobby Vee

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Aha! (I didn't connect on who *obviously* wrote the damn thing) Behold the demo.

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Love, love, LOVE the Carl Perkins song Roy uploaded. I'd heard the George Thorogood cover before, which is good, but it turns out Uncle Carl is hard to top.

Now, just to be a little perverse...
https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Did somebody say Beatles covers?
https://youtu.be/e-FD2EIgk3Y

https://youtu.be/Dz8WORy67sw

In 1981, Paul and wife Linda invited Carl to stay with them in Montserrat. Paul wanted Carl's help recording a song called Get It for his new album, Tug of War. Carl spent eight days with them, and the remaining ex-Beatles George Harrison and Ringo Starr had been there to help out as well. It was a great time between old friends who had shared such a legendary musical past.

The night before he left, a song came to Carl that summed up his warm feelings about the visit, and he couldn't get it out of his mind. It was so strong that Carl didn't even write it down, which he said was strange for him. He usually always wrote his songs down immediately.

In the morning, Carl Perkins sang the song, which he named My Old Friend, for Linda and Paul, saying it was his gift for having him as a guest. Half way through the song, after singing "if we never meet again this side of life, in a little while, over yonder, where there's peace and quiet, my old friend, won't you think about me every now and then?" tears streamed down Paul's face and he stood up and stepped outside.

Not knowing what the matter was, Carl stopped, a bit shaken. Didn't Paul like the song? Linda warmly put her arms around Carl, and thanked him. She said the song was getting Paul to finally connect with his grief over John Lennon's death.

Linda explained that the last time Paul talked to John, he had said the same line to Paul: "think about me every now and then, my old friend."

Carl and Linda were now convinced that the song had been channeled from John Lennon's spirit, as a gift to Paul.

Well congratulations, you've made a nasty sarcastic old man cry. Naturally there was some video to be found. That made it worse.
https://youtu.be/RywM8Xy98Ew

I've had Buddy Holly on my mind lately, mostly because of this.

https://youtu.be/tfollv1111I

https://youtu.be/l55aIpB-GI4

Not characteristic, but it's just such a great song and a great performance:
https://youtu.be/9LMN93EMyUM

I love that tune. One of Chuck Berry's best. Excellent cover too.

That’s because of an observation the writer Yuval Levin once made: That while most of the crazy progressives are young, most of the crazy conservatives are old.

Would this be a bad time to point out to Mr. Brooks that "crazy" young people are frequently just undereducated, inexperienced, impractical, etc., and that with a few more years they grow more savvy? While on the other hand crazy old people are - in general albeit not in every case - just kind of how they'll be until they shuffle off this mortal coil?

Pierce making me smile for the first time today:

As nearly as can be told, all we found out on Friday was that Anthony Weiner continues to be a stubborn skin disease on the Democratic Party, that it is very unlikely now that Huma Abedin will have a conspicuous place in any HRC administration, and that the script on the 2016 race for the presidency is now being written by five acid casualties and a basset hound.

Not a tragedy the first time, but definitely the farce this time.

October Derp-rise!

Oh, the derp has been rising for way longer than just this month...

A truckload of farm punks kept going back and forth down the road across from our Democratic headquarters today, yelling "Fuck" and holding a Trump flag out the window. Judging from their age, their florid pork-fed faces, and those deep set, stunned looking eyes, they'd better get to fucking. They gonna be dead of myocardial infarctions soon.

I couldn't find a way to tell them they are half dead, so I just yelled "white trash!" and shot them the bird. My wife wouldn't let me bring out the "Black Votes Matter" sign. She still needs me to cook and clean house.

Jesse Jackson is coming to our Roxboro office tomorrow. I'm going to ask him about Saturday Night Live.

A truckload of farm punks

Was it these guys?

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Good, but I liked their follow-up single even better.
https://www.youtube.com/wat...

sure that's a good song, but Keep your hands to yourself was the only video I could think of a truckload of farm punks

Educational!

Also, I saw The Georgia Satellites and Jason and the Scorchers at The Zephyr Club in Salt Lake City n 1986 or 87. That was either the loudest or second loudest show I have ever attended (only one close was Sugar, at the University of Utah Student Union a couple of years later).

Well, isn't this just fucking great:

Militia groups and anti-government activists rejoiced at the news that
seven defendants charged in the armed occupation earlier this year of a
remote federal wildlife refuge in Oregon were acquitted of all charges late Thursday.

Wheee, encourage the militias, why not? Isn't as if anything could go wrong! BUT HITLERY EMAIL ARGLE BARGLE!

C'mon guys - either escape saucers, or meteors. NOW.