WFB's latest

those who know what WFB really stands for won't be surprised by the title. And the photograph on the cover is excellent.

American Conservatism

Encyclopedia

This blog's reading level:

Cash Advance Loans

(hat tip: The WWS:

The Campaign Standard (and the Corner)

(Hillary spot:

Cash Advance Loans

esterday All my troubles seemed so far away Now it looks as though they're here to stay ...

Huffington Post:

Point taken. But could you set the record straight about the tip? Your manager says they left something but you contend it never happened.
If your phone is ringing from six in the morning till four in the afternoon and customers are saying what's wrong, the telephone lines are down, and it's because reporters are trying to get through, you say whatever you have to say [to get them to go away]. I don't know if they left a $100 tip or not but I haven't seen it yet. And none of the other waitresses have said they got the tip. [Editor's Note: after the tip controversy became a national story, the Clinton campaign returned to the restaurant and left $20].

Sen. Clinton talked about you - following this incident - in some of her speeches about women earning minimum wage and you seemed upset about it.
To all the politicians, if you talk to somebody and maybe their life interests you, don't just go down the road then and use them as part of your speech to get votes. I was never even asked that day if I'm a Democrat or a Republican or whatever. I was never asked whom I was behind. And then to go down and be called up that night [in a speech by Clinton], was I angry about it? Yes I was. Don't get me wrong they called me a few days later to ask if they could use me in the speech. And they sent me a release form, but they were already using me. So what the hell, I signed it.

How has this whole saga affected you and the restaurant?
There were phone calls going off the wall. It disrupted business and hurt it in some ways. I'm thankful I still have a job there and thank them very much for that. I'm sure it took money away from them. Out of my life, from day one of meeting her it has been turned upside down and not in a good way.

Does this change the way you are approaching the presidential election?
I've been an independent all my life. My mom was a Democrat and my father a Republican. I just sat back and watched them argue and stayed in the middle. But I'm not going to vote for Hillary. That is a definite. No one could pay me enough money. My opinion of her has changed drastically. The more I read and find out about her it changes more and more to the negative. I don't believe she can help out the working women of this world because I don't believe she gets it.

andrew sullivan

And what's with this weird $20 pay-off to Esterday? If they'd left $100, and knew it had been shared by the wait-staff, why would they need to add $20? Esterday says it was completely improbable that her fellow servers would have received a $100 tip and not shared it with her. I don't know what to believe. I hope someone interviews the fellow servers and gets to the real bottom of this. Yes: it matters. We need to get the name of the staffer who allegedly left the $100 in cash. We need a name of the person who accepted that $100. It wasn't Crawford, because surely he would have immediately told reporters that he had gotten $100 in cash for the wait-staff. It's not something you forget. So who gave it and who received it? Let's find out, shall we?

Why? It's an absolutely trivial story - but its triviality is what's telling.

It is simply unsurprising that a story like this pops up with the Clinton machine - especially that quintessential Clinton touch of the ready $20 pressed into Esterday's hand the day after the story. A classic bribe to keep quiet perhaps? The kind of petty, cheesy sleaze that Clinton engaged in for decades, as he wove his way through every skirt in Arkansas and beyond.

I covered the Clintons for eight years. The one thing I learned about them is that they lie. It's reflexive to them; after decades of the lying that tends to infect the households of addicts, they don't have a normal person's understanding of truth and falsehood. They have an average sociopath's understanding of truth and falsehood. They lie about big things; they lie about small things; and they lie about things that are so trivial you can't believe anyone would bother lying about them. But the Clintons do. They did for eight years. They put the entire country through a trauma because they have no sense of what's true and false any more. Living in a relationship where lying has been integrated into its very essence will do that. They can't help it. Lying is their entropic state of being - big lies, small lies, and everything in between.

You can't trust a word from them. If that's what you want in a war leader, go ahead and vote for her.

Invention of Millenium

Hundred Hillary March

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Lamest Campaign Idea of 2007

I know I should take this in the spirit of Halloween, and chuckle with mirth upon hearing the wacky fun proposed by those crazy kids on the Dodd campaign, but... I just can't. And instead, I'm looking for some way to un-read the epic-level lameness they have offered (hat tip, Influence Peddler).

Chris Dodd did lay out step-by-step instructions today for kids to dress up like him in hopes of bagging lots of candy:

• Use coloring to turn your white (representing the Democratic presidential candidate's 26 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee).
• Carry a copy of the Constitution (demonstrating Dodd's vow to restore what he calls the Bush administrations assaults on civil liberties).
• Wield a folder of Dodd's campaign proposals (showing his "bold ideas" for a corporate carbon tax, free community college, and a comprehensive national service plan)

"Every year, parents and their children struggle to find that perfect Halloween costume," Dodd spokesman Bryan DeAngelis said in a statement. "We wanted to do our part to help by providing them with the option of going as the one candidate who has the proven leadership, record of results, and bold ideas that we need in our next president — Chris Dodd."

Somehow I suspect trick-or-treating in this costume would go something like this:

Suburban Resident Answering Door: Who are you supposed to be?

Child: I'm Senator Chris Dodd!

(long pause)

Suburban Eesident Answering Door: Who?

Child: Look, this is my white hair, representing my 26 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee! And this is my copy of the Constitution, demonstrating my vow to restore what I call the Bush administrations assaults on civil liberties! And this is my folder of my campaign proposals, showing my "bold ideas" for a corporate carbon tax, free community college, and a comprehensive national service plan!

(long pause)

Suburban Resident Answering Door: I'm calling Child Protective Services.

I wonder if Giuliani will start quoting this, instead of constantly just saying that George Will said something about his conservative governance:

Giuliani has echoed the language of economic libertarianism with more
frankness, and less pretense of compassion, than any recent Republican
presidential candidate

it is intended as an insult, but hey.

Rebbe Reichman

I remember watching the 2001 World Series (against the Diamondbacks) in Morg Lounge. Amongst all the students sat Rabbi Heshy Reichman on the edge of his seat. When Tino Martinez hit his home run with 2 outs in the ninth to tie up game 4, Rabbi Reichman got everyone there to start dancing around in a circle, singing "ki va moed". When the exact thing happened the next night (game 5-Scott Brosius tying the game in the ninth), there was more dancing. Only the incredible-ness of the event made the dancing that much more leibadik.

interesting machloket at tnr:

"I don't quite understand Ross Douthat's take on Hillary Clinton and the Democratic field. He writes:

As I've probably said before, Hillary may not be the best choice for the Democrats, but she's definitely the safest; I think nominating her more or less guarantees the party 48 percent of the vote, since she's sufficiently tested and savvy and all the rest of it to make a Dukakis or Dole-style wipeout almost completely unimaginable. And in a year when things will (probably) be going the Democrats' way anyway, there's a lot to be said for nominating a known quantity and assuming that, in spite of what Jonah rightly calls the "irreducible core" of anti-Hillary sentiment, the political landscape alone will ensure that her guaranteed 48 percent rises to 51-53 percent by November '08. Whereas Obama and to a lesser extent Edwards both have a higher ceiling, but also a much lower floor, since neither has been through the fire already the way Hillary has (indeed, Obama has never run against significant GOP opposition of any kind), and either one could flame out disastrously in the heat of a general-election campaign.

Remember, John Kerry received 48% of the vote; it's extremely unlikely any Democrat is going to do worse than that next year. Moreover, it seems to me like you could just as easily make the opposite case: Hillary's "ceiling" is just what is so worrying about her. Because the senator is so polarizing, it's likely that some of the numerous advantages the Dems have in 2008 will be subsumed by personal animosity. Why not choose someone like Obama or Edwards, who both have greater upside potential, and are assured of being competitive because of the climate?

--Isaac Chotiner

(immanent eschaton is inclined towards the first approach, וצ"ע)

suggest your own caption

in case you were wondering what has become of the Rush Limbaugh scandal, click here.
UPDATE to previous post: it seems ann coulter's comments were taken out of context too. link

the reason ann coulter's comments were ever noteworthy

"What we seem to have forgotten is how unique the circumstances were that made possible the establishment of the American compact on religion and politics. Perhaps now is the time to restore the much needed concept of American exceptionalism and remind ourselves of some basic facts. The most important one that set our experience apart from that of Europe was the absence of a strong Roman Catholic Church as a redoubt of intellectual and political opposition to the liberal-democratic ideas hatched by the Enlightenment – and thus also, the absence of a radical, atheist Enlightenment convinced that l’infâme must be écrasé. For over two centuries France, Italy, and Spain were rent by what can only be called existential struggles over the legitimacy of Catholic political theology and the revolutionary heritage of 1789. (Though the term “liberalism” is of Spanish coinage, as a political force it was weak in the whole of Catholic Europe until after the Second World War.) Neither side in this epic struggle was remotely interested in “toleration”; they wanted victory.
"Looking beyond Europe, we note other things missing from the American landscape, quite literally. For example, there were no religious shrines to fight over, no holy cities, no temples, no sacred burial grounds (except those of the Native Americans, which were shamefully ignored). There also was a complete absence of what we would today call diversity: America was racially and culturally homogeneous in the early years of the republic, even if there were differences – in retrospect, incredibly minor – in Protestant affiliation. Yes, there were a few Catholics and Jews among the early immigrants, but the tone was set by Protestants of dissenting tendencies from the British Isles. The theological differences among them were swamped by the fact that everyone spoke the same language, cooked the same food, and looked to a shared history of persecution and emigration. It was a homogeneous country, and what comes with homogeneity, along with some troubling things, is trust...

"Except for Joseph Smith in his last days and a few other colorful exceptions, no serious American religious thinker ever developed a full-blown theology of government throwing the basic legitimacy of American democracy into question. It is something of a miracle. But whatever its source, it is exceptional and we need to recognize its consequences. Though the long tradition of Christian political theology eventually died in twentieth-century Europe, memory of it is still strong and laced with fear. But the American founding took place as a self-conscious break with Europe’s traditional political theologies and so memory of the world we left behind is somewhat vague. We were born, so to speak, on the other shore.
So successful has our passage been to this other shore that it is sometimes difficult to remind Americans that political theology is the primordial form of political thought. Virtually every civilization known to us began with an image of itself as set within a divine nexus of God, man, and world, and based its understanding of legitimate authority on that theological picture. This is true of all the civilizations of the ancient Near East, and of many in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Political theology seems to be the default condition of civilizations as they try to articulate how their political order relates to the natural order, and how both stand under a divine order. It is a rational construct with its own concepts and terms, and a long history of intellectual debates that are still alive for those who believe. In it, arguments about authority and legitimacy, or rights and duties, travel up and down a ladder connecting human reasons to divine ones. Making those connections and developing a comprehensive account of God, man, and world simply is what it is to think politically for political theologians.

Freakin' Maniac Breaking News

the Freakin' Maniac, or something like that, is announcing that due to the high annoyingness of his blog, or something like that, he will no longer be posting. (we have an understanding that a majority of the "annoying" votes were actually cast by immanent eschaton staff, which just shows again the immense influence immanent eschaton wields.)
in a related note, the aforementioned maniac also reveals that one of the leaders of the dark forces (with out giving too much away, his last name rhymes with shmize l. man) will be publishing a book on why he really should be leader of the moetzes gedolei hatorah after all, especially because the rest of them are only there because they were once married to the unnamed rosh yeshiva's second cousins; that is he is writing a book Torah vs. Science: A Polemic.

methinks he protesteth too much

remarkably creative and extremely erudite important and delightful delightful because of the intellectual excitement which her conceptual breakthrough generates. exciting, new historical framework extremely erudite, highly stimulating monograph. excitingly original and remarkably erudite monograph unquestionably exciting, valid and important.

*(if you do not understand this try googling the above paragraph. notice that all of the other results are word lists which are the only other place you will find so many permutations of exciting.) or else maybe it is really really exciting.

Outhing (no typo) Maimonidean

ever wonder who the blogger "maimonidean" (or something like that) is? immanent eschaton investegative reporters may have found the answer...
in the revealingly bizarrely named blog "hirhurim" one "yissachar" left a comment reading:

Nachum *Eliezer Rabinovitch
Yissachar Homepage 08.24.07 - 1:57 am #

This comment is entirely cryptic. It seems to contain an encoded message, which perhaps can help reveal the true identity of "yissachar" or "the maimonidean." In fact this comment was reminiscent of similarly indecipherable comments/posts which were left on a variety of pruzhaner blogs during the spring of 2007 e.g. :

Wanneer de zestiende Nissan, de dag waarop de ‘omer meel geofferd werd in de
Tempel, op een Sjabbat viel, werd de voor het offer vereiste gerst op die
heilige dag afgesneden, omdat de Tora verordend heeft dat het verbod om op
Sjabbat te oogsten, opzij gezet moet worden om dit offer mogelijk te maken. Uit
eerbeid voor de Sjabbat besliste Rabbi Jismaël dat slechts drie se’a gerst
afgesneden mochten worden om het meel te maken, in plaats van de vijf se’a die
op een werkdag afgesneden werden voor het meel.

upon further investigation, immanent eschaton staff revealed that besides for the shared literary style roughly resembling finnegan's wake, there is also the shared fondness for multiple, and stolen, identities.
as anonymous would say "w'dzoq"

Best of The Best of the Web

'It's From the Sun, All Right'
"Scientists Confirm Long-Held Theory About Source of Sunlight"--headline, Princeton University press release, Aug. 20

Chaitred

As Jonathan Chait has been taking a beating lately, I thought it would be a good idea to pile on by attacking his defense of Bush hatred. In this post Chait argues that Bush hatred is perfectly understandable because Bush refused to give out his signature as freely as his predecessor.

Dick Armey, the House Republican majority leader when Bush took office (and no more a shrinking violet than DeLay), told me a story that captures the exquisite pettiness of most members of Congress and the arrogance that made Bush and Rove so inept at handling them. "For all the years he was president," Armey told me, "Bill Clinton and I had a little thing we'd do where every time I went to the White House, I would take the little name tag they give you and pass it to the president, who, without saying a word, would sign and date it. Bill Clinton and I didn't like each other. He said I was his least-favorite member of Congress. But he knew that when I left his office, the first schoolkid I came across would be given that card, and some kid who had come to Washington with his mama would go home with the president's autograph. I think Clinton thought it was a nice thing to do for some kid, and he was happy to do it." Armey said that when he went to his first meeting in the White House with President Bush, he explained the tradition with Clinton and asked the president if he would care to continue it. "Bush refused to sign the card. Rove, who was sitting across the table, said, 'It would probably wind up on eBay,'" Armey continued.

When I wrote an article several years ago defending Bush hatred, numerous conservative critics were incredulous that I could find the man personally distasteful. Everybody knows Bush is a great guy! This just showed what a crazy liberal I was! But Bush isn't a great guy. He's a jerk. -Jonathan Chait

me: A cursory glance at the comments however, do about as good a job of destroying his justification as one could ask for:

Those of us who did our home-work knew that G.W. Bush was a petty, mean-spirited, malicious jerk way back in 2000, and before. Drunken pissing all over people's cars at a fancy party, leading the hazing and tormenting of frat pledges, his condescending habit of giving essentially diminutive nicknames to his underlings, skipping out on his Guard service, all around sense of entitlement, etc., etc. If just a few hundred more Americans had done their home-work, this arrogant cretin wouldn't be in the White House. Think of it! Only the most brain-dead wing-nut would dare to assert we wouldn't be vastly better off today.

me: hmm, that would make a good bumper sticker

National Unity

Although the Weekly Standard and the New Republic agree about very little lately, its nice to see that they can bipartisanly agree that the Simpson's Movie stunk.

Imagine A World Without Global Warming

Arctic August: NYC Sets Record For Coldest Day
High Of 59 Degrees Ties Chilliest August High Set In 1911

"This unusual blast of cold air smashed our previous record for the coldest high temperature on August 21, which is 64 degrees, set back in 1999," CBS 2 meteorologist Jason Cali told wcbstv.com.
In fact, the 59-degree high tied the record for the coldest high temperature ever for the month of August in New York City, when it reached just 59 degrees in 1911.Today's highs are more common in the city for the final days of October, when the average high ranges from 59 degrees to 61 degrees.

immanent eschaton, however takes this as just another sign of the impending ice age.

Its Like 2004 All Over Again

Hurricane Dean devastates before downgrade

Breaking News!

CHAVRUSA TUMULT AT BMG

B"H there have been no casualties, sources say.

Not Too Bright

From the Guardian online:

News agency Reuters has been forced to admit that footage it released last week purportedly showing Russian submersibles on the seabed of the North Pole actually came from the movie Titanic.

The images were reproduced around the world - including by the Guardian and Guardian Unlimited - alongside the story of Russia planting its flag below the North Pole on Thursday last week.

But it has now emerged that the footage actually showed two Finnish-made Mir submersibles that were employed on location filming at the scene of the wreck of the RMS Titanic ship in the north Atlantic some 10 years ago.

This footage was used in sequences in James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster about the 1912 disaster.

The mistake was only revealed after a 13-year-old Finnish schoolboy contacted a local newspaper to tell them the images looked identical to those used in the movie.

Reuters has admitted that it took the images from Russian state television channel RTR and wrongly captioned them as file footage originating from the Arctic.

Oddly enough, this story did not appear in Reuters Oddly Enough!

gil incites violence

i think gil student needs to be strongly condemned by the MO community for his incitement to violence recently. while it is true that he does claim he is not being literal, we cannot be sure someone won't act before reading his parenthetical addendum.

is bush pulling a clinton?

as a president's tenure approaches its close, what better time to look for a more positive place in the history books than by selling out israel? perhaps by funding the moderate wing of al queida. or arranging for a peace conference between moderate so-called militants and their western "victims".