Obama’s Biggest Asset: Denial
April 8th, 2009Proven Idiot Supposedly Deserves Chance Bush Never Got
I am sad to report a setback in the quest for the ultimate pillow. Night before last I tried a memory foam pillow and slept extremely well, and all day yesterday I felt almost as though I were on speed. It made a big difference. Yesterday I got a second pillow–a fake down product called Indulgence–and I thought my joy would be complete. But I had a little congestion anyway, and on top of that, I couldn’t get to sleep on time. It’s as if the extra energy from sleeping well made me more sensitive to caffeine. So today, no coffee, and I’m drinking my daily ration of revolting green tea as early as possible, to give the caffeine time to wear off.
I still feel much better than I used to.
I just skimmed Camille Paglia’s latest. I never read anything she has written in its entirety. She has not mastered the humane tool known as the paragraph, and she seems to write defensively, the way a lot of self-proclaimed intellectuals do. They’re used to hanging around with people who correct each other and whose big thrill in life is pretending to be much smarter than they really are. They always end up using bigger words than they need and giving unhelpful references to show you how much they’ve read. They do this to discourage other pretentious effetes from finding opportunities to show them up. Yes, Camille, we know you own four tons of books and actually made it through Ulysses. Just write like a human being, okay? Be like Billy Joel, who said he never wanted to work that hard. There’s a reference for you. I’m sorry it couldn’t be Krishnamurti or Ezra Pound.
Sooner or later, she’s going to snap and admit she’s conservative. She’s like Dennis Miller and Ron Silver. She keeps saying the same things about liberals that conservatives say. This is why a lot of liberals hate her. Eventually she’s going to break down and say, “Okay, I’m a lesbian, but I can’t take these hippies any more, and I am just not stupid enough to think socialism works.”
She’s secure enough to get herself in trouble by criticizing the left, but she’s not secure enough to abandon it. Which is all right, I guess, since we already seem to have enough conservatives who want nothing to do with God or morality. I refer to the actual God, not the one Joseph Smith made up.
Today she admits that Barack Obama is an embarassment. Hello? Where was she when he was using a childish gesture to give Hillary Clinton the finger on camera? Where was she when we learned that he belonged to an anti-Semitic church, and that the pastor was one of his closest associates? Where was she when we found out one of his buddies was a terrorist who belongs on death row?
Wake up, lady. Barack Obama has been an embarassment for a long time. And his wife is downright disgusting. You don’t grab the Queen of England with your big Amazon paws and wool her around like a puppy. You don’t go on TV and tell America you’ve been ashamed of it for virtually all of the four decades of your pampered life, which was made possible by America’s misguided generosity and bizarre notions of collective guilt.
Michelle Obama is like the relative you pray won’t show up at your wedding. And now she is the face our womanhood presents to the world.
Paglia says the “major” media has been remiss in not howling over Obama’s horrific bow the to the despotic ruler of Saudi Arabia. No duh. Thanks for pointing out the obvious and expecting people to applaud your remarkable insight. And where have you been, woman? How could you not expect this kind of thing, from a guy who spent most of his life as a glorified bagman for the chicago machine? He’s been kissing the rings of corrupt tyrants for decades; he probably bowed out of habit.
It’s revealing that Paglia admits that the mainstream press is unfair in Obama’s favor, but notice she won’t go the whole distance. She won’t call them “the liberal media.” She’s thinking it, people. This woman has only made it out of one closet. The other one is yet to burst open.
Too funny. Free thinking is good when it gets you attention and lands you book deals, but when it threatens your social life, suddenly it’s SCARY. Ann Coulter appears to be mentally ill, but give her credit. She isn’t afraid to say what she feels like saying, and as a result, she has probably lost more friends and eaten more gay-waiter boogers than anyone in history.
I will never be able to make the kind of clever references Camille Paglia makes, because I pretty much abandoned literature over twenty years ago. I realized that literature was unrealistic; it was written from the point of view of people who had great faith in despair and none in God. The world of literature is distorted, because God doesn’t exist there. Henry Miller said the first thing you scratch down when you start to write is “the cry of the wounded angel: pain.” How right he was. But here’s an equally accurate way to put it. To a large degree, literature is an elaborate form of whining. I don’t think that would have pleased Miller’s readers as much as the angel thing.
Ahab ends up tied to the whale, sort of like a big dead suction-cup Garfield on a white minivan. The savage hangs himself because he can’t find his place in man’s squeaky clean, genetically engineered world. The smelly old Italian guy who hangs out at the whorehouse says, “It’s better to live on your feet than die on your knees,” because there is no divine mathematician up there, balancing the moral equations. My world isn’t like that. Is yours? Why should I read books in which my views will be shaped by unfortunate fictional people who DON’T GET IT? If I want to be pelted with wrongness, I don’t need a book. I can turn on Air America. Assuming it still exists.
Did I get the references wrong? If so, good for me. It shows I haven’t been wasting my time.
Speaking of ways to spend time, I’ve been thinking about the amazing tools I saw over at Practical Machinist. I linked to a thread started by a guy who says he’s a starting machinist. He made his own quick-change tool post set, plus other helpful machining items you would ordinarily have to buy. It makes me wonder if I should try to make a few tools for myself. Example: a Criterion boring head costs hundreds of dollars. The metal used it in can probably be had for two figures. Some people make their own boring heads with little mills and lathes. Maybe I could do that.
I wish I could make a milling attachment for the lathe, but that appears to be a milling job, so like I said in an earlier post, I think you need a milling attachment in order to make a milling attachment.
Someone posted a question here about small lathes, like Sherlines and Taigs. I’d recommend looking at W.R. Smith’s video about tooling up for clockmaking. He says Sherline now provides so much milling paraphernalia for lathes, you can do a ton of stuff without springing for a second machine.
I bought some lathe DVDs. Smartflix is useful, but they’re very slow. I can’t wait two months. Besides, I like to support the people who create educational materials when I can. Some video sets, like the ones from ATI, are obscenely expensive. Others cost a little over twice as much as Smartflix charges to rent them. I can swing that.
I hope more junk arrives today. I can sit in the garage and fondle it until the lathe gets here.
April 8th, 2009 at 10:53 AM
Steve, I was the one that asked about the small machines. I didn’t know that Sherline made a small lathe with 17″ between centers. Looks like a pretty amazing machine with their C package and DRO. Not cheap, but one could at least make non-NFA-length rifle barrels with it. Thanks for the tip!
April 8th, 2009 at 11:54 AM
“…I think you need a milling attachment in order to make a milling attachment”
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Heh. It’s like that with “real” woodworking benches (the ones that neanderthals lust after, with all the stuff that makes tooling wood a joy): to make a woodworking bench well, you really need a woodworking bench to start with.
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(It’s not that it can’t be done: it’s that it’s much more difficult to do …let alone do well… if you don’t have [access to] a “real” one already.)
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…actually, after rewiring my 220 outlets this week sometime, turning my crappy workbench (a $100 Chinese job that I got for $50 on sale at Home Depot: hey, it was real hardwood, and the top is almost 3 inches thick …and I’m a sucker for a good deal …but at least I know a “good deal” when I see one) into a workable, “real”, woodworking bench is my VERY next project.
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…but I admit your writings on the subject are inspiring me to push the metal projects up closer to the top of the to-do list.
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I’m even shopping for a welder (I haven’t welded anything in 30 years). On Craigslist, of course. Heh.
April 8th, 2009 at 11:57 AM
…er, for “tooling wood”, I meant to say hand tooling wood.
April 8th, 2009 at 12:37 PM
Camille Paglia writes the way she talks: a long-winded stream of consciousness ramble. It’s amazing to hear – even though she jumps from point to point, she never makes it seem incoherent. It’s just too bad that her pen doesn’t act as a sort of filter. I had always thought that writing something down was supposed to give you time to tighten up and order your thoughts. Heck, I just edited this comment 3 times before submitting, and I’m barely saying anything.
April 8th, 2009 at 12:52 PM
Hi Steve,
Here’s something that might interest you. Maybe you can check it out when you’re done fondling your junk.
http://thehostages.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/president-obama-denies-the-black-baby-jesus/#comments
April 8th, 2009 at 1:03 PM
That’s why I love Florence King (in a purely platonic way) – she’s been saying that for years.
April 8th, 2009 at 1:10 PM
Pagilia is one of the few liberal writers I can really fairly consistently stand. Perhaps you’ve identified why.
April 8th, 2009 at 1:21 PM
oh:
To a large degree, literature is an elaborate form of whining.
THANK YOU.
April 8th, 2009 at 3:29 PM
Why so much hate?
April 8th, 2009 at 3:30 PM
Paglia has lambasted Obama before, and she stood up for Sarah Palin in more than one column. My guess is, she doesn’t get to cover everything reprehensible he does, simply because she writes only once a month. The column would be 80 pages long to cover all his gaffes.
I always read Paglia’s entire column, and can’t help but love her. Then again, I love anyone who pisses of the liberals.
If she comes out, my money is on as a libertarian.
April 8th, 2009 at 4:28 PM
Steve… STEVE. This is classic! I’d be tempted to give up coffee if I could write like this. Seriously, you just grabbed me and ran me around the field and back again — with a stomach aching from “gay waiter boogers.” I absolutely love your take on literature. Yah! Keep writing for the plebes, promise me! Very, very good stuff with real insight, entertainingly delivered.
April 8th, 2009 at 5:11 PM
To whom are you attributing hate, and what is your evidence?
April 8th, 2009 at 5:13 PM
Oh, wait. You must be referring to Obama’s Jew-hating pastor, who spewed venom for twenty years, while Obama sat in a pew offering his approval. The pastor who was such a close friend, he was asked to officiate at Obama’s wedding. Good question. You would think a prominent black activist would have some gratitude toward the many Jews who helped in the civil rights struggle, and you would think any Christian clergyman would understand his obligation to support Israel and Jewry.
April 8th, 2009 at 5:14 PM
I’m sorry, were you referring to Michelle Obama’s feelings for America? I wouldn’t call it hate. Just contempt. Let’s be fair.
April 8th, 2009 at 5:16 PM
I’m wrong again. You mean the hate that drove close Obama associate Bill Ayers and his friends to try to maim and murder innocent people, right? I agree. It’s hard to understand a person who would build a bomb that shot construction staples through the eyes, face, and throat of a policeman. That’s hate, all right. I could not agree more. As for “why?”, it’s beyond me.
April 8th, 2009 at 5:56 PM
“gay waiter boogers.”
This is good stuff, don’t worry about the hate thing, I don’t get that at all.
April 8th, 2009 at 6:02 PM
I attribute my hatred of what Our Betters have designated “literature” to the college-level English classes I took in high school. In tenth grade I signed up for a course in Fantasy Writing, which would have studied writers like Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, among others (and this was in the Seventies, when the idea of genre fiction as being worthy of study even by high school students was a new notion), but it wasn’t CP or AP (College Prep or Advanced Placement), and the teacher said “you’re too smart for that” and changed my class to one in the Absurdist playwrights, so I got to suffer through a year of the exudations of Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett. And they wonder why kids today cut themselves.
April 9th, 2009 at 7:22 AM
If you’re going to spend a lot of time machining a head, the least you can do is work on an interesting one.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:00 AM
Some times its worth buying toolposts etc., because you can spend your time making laser holders instead of tools/toolholders. used tooling (if you know what you want) can be found on craigslist/ebay/ estate sales in fine shape. do your homework first.
look into community college classes in machine shop to get good basics under your belt.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:01 AM
There are no machining courses anywhere near me, unless I want to put in 1300 hours and pay thousands of dollars. Sad.
April 10th, 2009 at 10:30 AM
Steve,
Travis from SmartFlix here.
A friends pointed me to your blog post, because you referenced SmartFlix. However, the main thrust of your blog post is Paglia’s most recent column, which I also read a few days back, and loved. Paglia and Hitchens are, IMO, about the only two people on the Left who make any sense at all. My political stance is, I suspect based on just this one post of yours, pretty darned close to yours.
Anyway, on to the SmartFlix issue you raise:
I apologize that the DVD took a while to get to you. We try to have lots of copies of everything, but unfortunately, often due to problems getting copies from vendors (titles go out of print, or are in short supply, etc.), sometimes we do run waits.
Of the approximately 6,000 DVD titles we carry, almost 80% ship immediately, and another 10% ship within a business week. Only 10% of titles take more than one week to ship.
Customers have contacted us about this, and we’ve developed a program to make sure that customers always get DVDs of interest to them ASAP – with no late fees for extra weeks of rental, and at a discount. That program is SmartFlix Universities. It’s sort of like a cross between NetFlix and the old Time-Life books: using the input of our customers and outside experts, we build up sets of how-to DVDs on certain topics.
For just $22.95 per month, you get 3 dvds to keep as long as you want. Send them back, and get three more.
You mentioned both woodworking and metalworking above, so check out:
http://smartflix.com/store/video/6266/Lathe-and-Milling-Machine-University
http://smartflix.com/store/video/6348/Woodworking-University
We’ve got several other universities as well. In a “I’m not just the president – I’m a customer!” hair-club-for-men style appeal, I’ll point out that I’m a woodturner and a woodcarver, and I’m subscribed to both
Woodturner University
http://smartflix.com/store/video/6215/Woodturner-University
and Woodcarving University
http://smartflix.com/store/video/6223/Woodcarving-University
If you, or any of your readers, ever have a question about SmartFlix, you can reach me directly at tjic (AT) smartflix (DOT) com.
Thanks for your business.
(and now, thanks to your sidebar ad, I’m off to Amazon to pick up a copy of Eat What You Want and Die Like a Man…
Travis J I Corcoran, President
SmartFlix
—
http://SmartFlix.com/
web’s biggest how-to DVD rental store
April 10th, 2009 at 10:34 AM
Steve,
One last comment.
Based on your posts and your blog-roll, you might enjoy my personal blog, over at http://tjic.com. Lots of anti-socialist, pro-gun, pro-liberty blogging.
I gave up blogging for Lent, but I’ll be back posting my diatribes again this weekend!
TJIC
April 10th, 2009 at 10:57 AM
Why is it that so many people who love tools are conservative?
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I guess it’s because conservatives build and grow, and liberals only show up at the end, to spoil and consume.