More from Andrew C. McCarthy: what’s in a name? — 25 Comments
I do believe that in his last few missives there is solid evidence that Andrew McCarthy is losing both his patience and his willingness to extend to the relevant Federal bureaucracies any further benefit of the doubt. And when you’ve lost “just the facts ma’am” Andy McCarthy… “you’ve got trouble, trouble right here in River City”…
With a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for POOL.
Jeepers!
It’s as bad as Twitter, where they
Pick a little talk a little
Pick a little talk a little,
Cheep cheep cheep
Talk a lot pick a little more….
I am sure Scott Adams has or will be vlogging about Trump’s SPYGATE branding, but I think it is perfection. Not a fan of the unoriginal, constant “-gate” naming for scandals; however, it does make sense to reference Nixon’s scandal. The other part – “spy” – works so darn well because this not only refers to the spies/”informants” the FBI used, but as a verb “spy” encompasses the outrageous FISA abuse, all of that the surveillance, the unmasking, the leaks. Obama’s state actively spied on Trump and his team (and how many others?) for months.
As to Trump’s other name for this, WITCH HUNT?
Heh, I think I know why he chose that one, too!
I thought McCarthy much more convincingly than he usually does or others do managed to expose the kind of mental process that has caused the bureaucracy to go over into actual criminal behaviour while sincerely seeing itself a virtuous. Comey strikes me as a florid hypocrite, McCabe as a soulless bureaucrat, Mueller as a stonefaced functionary. I feel I understand them better now.
“I feel I understand them better now.”
Yes, he really does “humanize” them….
And Brennan and Clapper being hired by CNN is simply….perfect!
(Wonder who they’ll hire next?….)
@Barry Meislin
Aye, there’s the rub…they are human – all too human, like the rest of us. With great power comes great temptation – not that i’d know first hand. (Sigh) Still, the Ottomans tried to ensure a disinterested civil service by gelding young captives and promoting them. The Chinese and British by requiring very high standards in the study of classics – Confucian and Ancient Greek and Roman. While the Ottoman solution is attractive in the case of Comey and his friends, it is perhaps a bit late for them. I personally support the removal of all ‘studies’ departments from our universities and replacing them with the study of the Greco-Roman classics in the original languages and make mastery of same the requirement of senior government service.
“…replacing them with the study of the Greco-Roman classics…”
I suppose the sentiment is right….
On the other hand, reading Tacitus and Suetonius on the policies and decisions of Tiberius, Claudius and Nero might give them a few ideas of which it were best they’d remain ignorant…
(Though perhaps such behavior is simply natural for certain types…. Shall we call them “No Scandals Here” people?)
Not related:
Did you have hear what Ama Zone did to Legal Insurrection? I mention this because they will probably eventually come for you, too.
@Barry Meislin
To be semi serious for a moment I think it was the content of the Confucian classics that led to the comparative virtue of Chinese bureaucracy, while it was the discipline of learning two dead languages that filtered out the worst of the careerists in the British system. I concede in advance it also produced ‘idealists’ like Philby. As to the actual content of classical works I would argue that have a prophylactic effect because they are the very same vices that rule our beloved swamp.
Lee:
Neo writes for Legal Insurrection so she is probably aware of what Bezos’s flunkies are doing to enforce Right Thought.
Amazon’s demonetization of the website Legal Insurrection is part of a campaign by the internet giants to shut down speech with which they disagree. Sooner or later, Amazon will get to neo.
Geoffrey,
Thanks for the link. I really knew nothing about Mr. Willson, and certainly not that among other things he attended Juilliard, and wrote classical music as well as “popular” stuff. I wonder if any of that is on UT…will have to check.
As for The Music Man, my hands-down favorite numbers are “We Got Trouble” and “Pick-a-Little Talk-a-Little.” Both are brilliant, as is the old-hens-picking scene in which the latter occurs. :>))!!
–Although one oughtn’t to forget “Marion.” Rabelais!BALZAC!!!
I may be too small a fish for Amazon to care about.
neo,
I know of no website that offers a higher degree of real-world, intellectual/common sense examination of the issues you cover. There can be no greater threat to the Left’s agenda.
Their “algorithm” may be looking at quantity of clicks rather than quality of discussion. Which is the only thing that would save you from their attention. Jordan Peterson wasn’t perceived as a threat until his message spread to enough people.
Obviously, it’s the majority of people awakening to their deceitful promotion of their meme’s flawed premises and conclusions that they fear most of all.
The internet is subjecting them to a “death of a thousand cuts”, which is clearly why they are looking to censor the right’s POV on the net.
A theme developed by Thomas Sowell in Vision of the Anointed applies here. Liberal politics have decayed into a concatenation of conceits. That’s not true of the politics of those of the older generation (Alan Dershowitz, Jarilyn Merritt) nor of a few wonks like Harold Pollack. It is true, generally. They no longer maintain a conception of procedural norms because the opposition is not seen as a competing force but rather as a delinquent element to be suppressed. At the same time, electoral losses are conceptualized as a consequence of cheats no matter what were the circumstances. They conceive of legislative bodies and public agencies and courts as their property; controls of any one of these even for a brief period is an act of theft.
I’ve participated in a number of comment boards with a mixed set of participants. The decline over the last dozen years in the capacity and inclination of liberals to argue and argue without lobbing vicious insults has been distressing. (And it wasn’t great in 2006). Cutting out the emotional juveniles, many of the remainder are given to Gish Gallop filibustering.
We really don’t have anything to say to each other anymore.
You have to ask yourself what it is in the evolution of the corporate culture of the tech business that companies which were (as recently as 10 years ago) satisfied to be common carriers are now ideological enforcers so extreme that they cannot tolerate the likes of mainstream figures like Wm. Jacobson (but know at some level that what they’re doing is ignoble, which is why they lied to him repeatedly during their exchanges with him).
Over the past 24 hours or so, Disqus has been demanding that users provide information and sign a user’s agreement in order to use the Disqus system (log on, read comments—which otherwise are grayed out—make comments and, I believe, reference commenting histories).
All no doubt “benign”… But the potential for abuse, it seems to me, is ominous.
And if it can be abused, it’s pretty certain it will be—yes, color me skeptical….
It seems that Disqus is back to “normal”; that is, no graying out, no demands to sign a user agreement.
Head scratcher…
As I have complained here before, Disqus has long since denied me the ability to comment–no reason given–for months now, taking down any comments I might make–no matter how uncontroversial or innocent–within a minute or two of my posting them.
Did I say “ominous”?
Actually, it’s sinister. A means to control the narrative, or if not “control” it then manipulate it by shutting down commentators (as indicated by SoP just above).
(And it looks like I spoke too soon. The graying out is gone, but one must still register, and agree to “terms”, in order to comment.)
I guess that’s how it’s done: attract a lot of users because of your relative ease-of-use, increase your popularity and footprint; and then when you believe you have enough market share and traffic, start making demands, start manipulating information.
(On the other hand, I suppose I could be exaggerating the importance of all this, I suppose…. But I would assume that sites such as NN, which do not use Disqus, will see more traffic as potential commentors migrate to such non-regulated sites.)
I don’t call them “Dreadful Disqus” for nothing. I think they are awful to use — take forever to load and don’t save comments longer than three months, at least as the sites that I USED to frequent that use that program. They use nested comments, which I know some people love, but which I dislike for good and sufficient reasons.
I long ago quit commenting through Disqus. And now, as I understand it, they reserve the right to remove comments that they deem unsuitable for whatever reason.
Vive la WordPress, at least relative to the competition. And may the Great Frog bless the stalwarts among the weblog owners who not only stick with WP but also eschew “threaded” or “nested” comments. People like our own Neo. :>))
Anymore on the comments section I read, after the first few comments it devolves into name calling, accusations and just a bunch of troll baiting.
Water Closet, Deep Plunger, Deep State, the swamp.
Spying, colluding, denying, and a journolistic cover-up.
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I do believe that in his last few missives there is solid evidence that Andrew McCarthy is losing both his patience and his willingness to extend to the relevant Federal bureaucracies any further benefit of the doubt. And when you’ve lost “just the facts ma’am” Andy McCarthy… “you’ve got trouble, trouble right here in River City”…
With a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for POOL.
Jeepers!
It’s as bad as Twitter, where they
Pick a little talk a little
Pick a little talk a little,
Cheep cheep cheep
Talk a lot pick a little more….
I am sure Scott Adams has or will be vlogging about Trump’s SPYGATE branding, but I think it is perfection. Not a fan of the unoriginal, constant “-gate” naming for scandals; however, it does make sense to reference Nixon’s scandal. The other part – “spy” – works so darn well because this not only refers to the spies/”informants” the FBI used, but as a verb “spy” encompasses the outrageous FISA abuse, all of that the surveillance, the unmasking, the leaks. Obama’s state actively spied on Trump and his team (and how many others?) for months.
As to Trump’s other name for this, WITCH HUNT?
Heh, I think I know why he chose that one, too!
Julie,
IMHO, the Music Man is an example of creative genius. Meredith Willson had an incredible resume.
Lee Smith’s twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/LeeSmithDC
I thought McCarthy much more convincingly than he usually does or others do managed to expose the kind of mental process that has caused the bureaucracy to go over into actual criminal behaviour while sincerely seeing itself a virtuous. Comey strikes me as a florid hypocrite, McCabe as a soulless bureaucrat, Mueller as a stonefaced functionary. I feel I understand them better now.
“I feel I understand them better now.”
Yes, he really does “humanize” them….
And Brennan and Clapper being hired by CNN is simply….perfect!
(Wonder who they’ll hire next?….)
@Barry Meislin
Aye, there’s the rub…they are human – all too human, like the rest of us. With great power comes great temptation – not that i’d know first hand. (Sigh) Still, the Ottomans tried to ensure a disinterested civil service by gelding young captives and promoting them. The Chinese and British by requiring very high standards in the study of classics – Confucian and Ancient Greek and Roman. While the Ottoman solution is attractive in the case of Comey and his friends, it is perhaps a bit late for them. I personally support the removal of all ‘studies’ departments from our universities and replacing them with the study of the Greco-Roman classics in the original languages and make mastery of same the requirement of senior government service.
“…replacing them with the study of the Greco-Roman classics…”
I suppose the sentiment is right….
On the other hand, reading Tacitus and Suetonius on the policies and decisions of Tiberius, Claudius and Nero might give them a few ideas of which it were best they’d remain ignorant…
(Though perhaps such behavior is simply natural for certain types…. Shall we call them “No Scandals Here” people?)
Not related:
Did you have hear what Ama Zone did to Legal Insurrection? I mention this because they will probably eventually come for you, too.
@Barry Meislin
To be semi serious for a moment I think it was the content of the Confucian classics that led to the comparative virtue of Chinese bureaucracy, while it was the discipline of learning two dead languages that filtered out the worst of the careerists in the British system. I concede in advance it also produced ‘idealists’ like Philby. As to the actual content of classical works I would argue that have a prophylactic effect because they are the very same vices that rule our beloved swamp.
Lee:
Neo writes for Legal Insurrection so she is probably aware of what Bezos’s flunkies are doing to enforce Right Thought.
Amazon’s demonetization of the website Legal Insurrection is part of a campaign by the internet giants to shut down speech with which they disagree. Sooner or later, Amazon will get to neo.
Geoffrey,
Thanks for the link. I really knew nothing about Mr. Willson, and certainly not that among other things he attended Juilliard, and wrote classical music as well as “popular” stuff. I wonder if any of that is on UT…will have to check.
As for The Music Man, my hands-down favorite numbers are “We Got Trouble” and “Pick-a-Little Talk-a-Little.” Both are brilliant, as is the old-hens-picking scene in which the latter occurs. :>))!!
–Although one oughtn’t to forget “Marion.” Rabelais! BALZAC!!!
I may be too small a fish for Amazon to care about.
neo,
I know of no website that offers a higher degree of real-world, intellectual/common sense examination of the issues you cover. There can be no greater threat to the Left’s agenda.
Their “algorithm” may be looking at quantity of clicks rather than quality of discussion. Which is the only thing that would save you from their attention. Jordan Peterson wasn’t perceived as a threat until his message spread to enough people.
Obviously, it’s the majority of people awakening to their deceitful promotion of their meme’s flawed premises and conclusions that they fear most of all.
The internet is subjecting them to a “death of a thousand cuts”, which is clearly why they are looking to censor the right’s POV on the net.
A theme developed by Thomas Sowell in Vision of the Anointed applies here. Liberal politics have decayed into a concatenation of conceits. That’s not true of the politics of those of the older generation (Alan Dershowitz, Jarilyn Merritt) nor of a few wonks like Harold Pollack. It is true, generally. They no longer maintain a conception of procedural norms because the opposition is not seen as a competing force but rather as a delinquent element to be suppressed. At the same time, electoral losses are conceptualized as a consequence of cheats no matter what were the circumstances. They conceive of legislative bodies and public agencies and courts as their property; controls of any one of these even for a brief period is an act of theft.
I’ve participated in a number of comment boards with a mixed set of participants. The decline over the last dozen years in the capacity and inclination of liberals to argue and argue without lobbing vicious insults has been distressing. (And it wasn’t great in 2006). Cutting out the emotional juveniles, many of the remainder are given to Gish Gallop filibustering.
We really don’t have anything to say to each other anymore.
You have to ask yourself what it is in the evolution of the corporate culture of the tech business that companies which were (as recently as 10 years ago) satisfied to be common carriers are now ideological enforcers so extreme that they cannot tolerate the likes of mainstream figures like Wm. Jacobson (but know at some level that what they’re doing is ignoble, which is why they lied to him repeatedly during their exchanges with him).
Over the past 24 hours or so, Disqus has been demanding that users provide information and sign a user’s agreement in order to use the Disqus system (log on, read comments—which otherwise are grayed out—make comments and, I believe, reference commenting histories).
All no doubt “benign”… But the potential for abuse, it seems to me, is ominous.
And if it can be abused, it’s pretty certain it will be—yes, color me skeptical….
(As Zuckerberg might say, “Been there, done that”….)
Odd.
It seems that Disqus is back to “normal”; that is, no graying out, no demands to sign a user agreement.
Head scratcher…
As I have complained here before, Disqus has long since denied me the ability to comment–no reason given–for months now, taking down any comments I might make–no matter how uncontroversial or innocent–within a minute or two of my posting them.
Did I say “ominous”?
Actually, it’s sinister. A means to control the narrative, or if not “control” it then manipulate it by shutting down commentators (as indicated by SoP just above).
(And it looks like I spoke too soon. The graying out is gone, but one must still register, and agree to “terms”, in order to comment.)
I guess that’s how it’s done: attract a lot of users because of your relative ease-of-use, increase your popularity and footprint; and then when you believe you have enough market share and traffic, start making demands, start manipulating information.
(On the other hand, I suppose I could be exaggerating the importance of all this, I suppose…. But I would assume that sites such as NN, which do not use Disqus, will see more traffic as potential commentors migrate to such non-regulated sites.)
I don’t call them “Dreadful Disqus” for nothing. I think they are awful to use — take forever to load and don’t save comments longer than three months, at least as the sites that I USED to frequent that use that program. They use nested comments, which I know some people love, but which I dislike for good and sufficient reasons.
I long ago quit commenting through Disqus. And now, as I understand it, they reserve the right to remove comments that they deem unsuitable for whatever reason.
Vive la WordPress, at least relative to the competition. And may the Great Frog bless the stalwarts among the weblog owners who not only stick with WP but also eschew “threaded” or “nested” comments. People like our own Neo. :>))
Anymore on the comments section I read, after the first few comments it devolves into name calling, accusations and just a bunch of troll baiting.
Water Closet, Deep Plunger, Deep State, the swamp.
Spying, colluding, denying, and a journolistic cover-up.