What’s new about FAILure?
Failure has been part of the human condition ever since the Fall of Man. Every one of us learns of the ubiquity of failure, almost from birth. Failure generally means that you tried something that didn’t work, with consequences all too often catastrophic. In a larger sense, you can also fail by not bothering to make an adequate effort in the first place.
Failure, actual and impending, of every stripe, is celebrated hilariously on an ever-growing cornucopia of blogs and websites, such as The Darwin Awards, Fark.com, There, I Fixed It, The Smoking Gun, numerous demotivational poster sites, and one of my own favorites, the Lords of Logistics series on Dark Roasted Blend.
During the past decade, the familiar word “failure” has become the Internet meme “FAIL”. The infamous Urban Dictionary defines Fail in various ways, including “The glorious lack of success.” The FAIL meme has propagated in tandem with the seemingly exponential growth of FAILure in the world at large.
I’ve occasionally experimented with the FAIL meme myself, both on deviantART and on 1389 Blog. The following example suddenly became more relevant after John McCain won the 2010 Arizona Republican primary election:
The unfortunately leftist online Slate Magazine contends that the growth of the FAIL meme reflects Schadenfreude, defined as pleasure at the misfortunes of others:
Slate: Why is everyone saying “fail” all of a sudden?
the good word
Epic Win: Goodbye, schadenfreude; hello, fail.
By Christopher Beam
Posted Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2008, at 11:55 AM ET…What’s with all the failing lately? Why fail instead of failure? Why FAIL instead of fail? And why, for that matter, does it have to be “epic”?
It’s nearly impossible to pinpoint the first reference, given how common the verb fail is, but online commenters suggest it started with a 1998 Neo Geo arcade game called Blazing Star. (References to the fail meme go as far back as 2003.) Of all the game’s obvious draws—among them fast-paced action, disco music, and anime-style cut scenes—its staying power comes from its wonderfully terrible Japanese-to-English translations. If you beat a level, the screen flashes with the words: “You beat it! Your skill is great!” If you lose, you are mocked: “You fail it! Your skill is not enough! See you next time! Bye bye!”
Normally, this sort of game would vanish into the cultural ether. But in the lulz-obsessed echo chamber of online message boards—lulz being the questionable pleasure of hurting someone’s feelings on the Web—”You fail it” became the shorthand way to gloat about any humiliation, major or minor. “It” could be anything, from getting a joke to executing a basic mental task. For example, if you told me, “Hey, I liked your article in Salon today,” I could say, “You fail it.” Convention dictates that I could also add, in parentheses, “(it being reading the titles of publications).” The phrase was soon shortened to fail—or, thanks to the caps-is-always-funnier school of Web writing, FAIL. People started pasting the word in block letters over photos of shameful screw-ups, and a meme was born.
The fail meme hit the big time this year with the May launch of Failblog, an assiduous chronicler of humiliation and a guide to the taxonomy of fail. The most basic fails—a truck getting sideswiped by an oncoming train, say, or a National Anthem singer falling down on the ice—are usually the most boring, as obvious as a clip from America’s Funniest Home Videos. Another easy laugh is the translation fail, such as the unfortunately named “Universidad de Moron.” This is the same genre of fail that spawned Engrish, an entire site devoted to poor English translations of Asian languages, not to mention the fail meme itself. A notch above those are unintentional-contradiction fails, like “seedless” sunflower seeds or a door with two signs on it: “Welcome” and “Keep Out.” Architectural fails have the added misfortune of being semipermanent, such as the handicapped ramp that leads the disabled to a set of stairs or the second-story door that opens out onto nothing. Even more embarrassing are simple information fails, like the brochure that invites students to “Study Spanish in Mexico” with photos of the Egyptian pyramids. These fails often expose deep ignorance: One woman thinks her sprinkler makes a rainbow because of toxins in the water and air.
The highest form of fail—the epic fail—involves not just catastrophic failure but hubris as well. Not just coming in second in a bike race but doing so because you fell off your bike after prematurely raising your arms in victory. Totaling your pickup not because the brakes failed but because you were trying to ride on the windshield. Not just destroying your fish tank but doing it while trying to film yourself lifting weights.
Why has fail become so popular? It may simply be that people are thrilled to finally have a way to express their schadenfreude out loud. Schadenfreude, after all, is what you feel when someone else executes a fail. But the fail meme also changes our experience of schadenfreude. What was once a quiet pleasure-taking is now a public—and competitive—sport.
It’s no wonder, then, that the fail meme gained wider currency with the advent of the financial crisis. Some observers relished watching wealthier-than-God investment bankers get their comeuppance. It helped that the two events occurred at the same time—Google searches for fail surged in early 2008, around the same time the mortgage crisis started to pick up steam. And the ubiquity of phrases like “failed mortgages” and “bank failures” seemed to echo the popular meme, which may have helped usher the term out of 4chan boards and onto blogs.It’s rare that an Internet fad finds such a suitable mainstream vehicle for its dissemination. It’s as if LOLcats coincided with a global outbreak of some feline adorability virus. The financial crisis also fits neatly into the Internet’s tendency toward overstatement. (Worst. Subprime mortgage crisis. Ever.) Only this time, it’s not an exaggeration….
Somebody else’s troubles may be our own
As with the gapers block phenomenon, we can never quite look away from failures that are not our own. Whether trivial or spectacular, whether humiliating or oddly heroic, whether well-deserved or the outcome of pure happenstance, failure gets our attention, and well it should.
I don’t think it’s always schadenfreude. Sometimes we laugh out of relief because the troubles belong to somebody else this time around, even though we know it could have happened to us.
Other times, we laugh about failure even when the failure DOES embroil us in its consequences, as with the ongoing political, social, and economic debacles in the US and the EU. (If you need a good laugh right now, check out the Sunday Funnies political cartoon series on Flopping Aces.) When we can share a good laugh, it not only underlines the lessons that we can learn from these failures, but also lightens the burdens that we all must bear as we work our way through.
Tags: Art, Economy, EPIC FAIL, FAIL, Failure, Humor, John McCain, Open thread, schadenfreude, sin
See, you could have done like Delectible did yesterday and put up a post that’d piss everybody off and get 300 comments, but noyou went with a topic that won’t generate a lot of hostility (I don’t know about the comments…)
FAIL.
Iron Fist wrote:
The Jazz Man blog is fail!
Iron Fist wrote:
FAIL
@ Rodan:
You got that right. And getting worse every day. He has forgotten the First Rule of Holes.
Karzai’s brother calls for U.S. to shore up Kabul Bank as withdrawals accelerate
By Andrew Higgins and Ernesto Londoño
Thursday, September 2, 2010; 10:57 AM
DUBAI – As depositors thronged branches of Afghanistan’s biggest bank, Mahmoud Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a major shareholder in beleaguered Kabul Bank called on Thursday for intervention by the United States to head off a financial meltdown.
“America should do something,” said Karzai in a telephone interview, suggesting that the U.S. Treasury Department guarantee the funds of Kabul Bank’s clients, who number about a million and have more than a billion dollars on deposits with the bank
Would you like the USA to wipe your ass also?
They are saying an oil rig has exploded. Very interesting. Back to my other theory that no one believes. Ain’t no accidents.
Grimcargo wrote:
From what i gather no one died and only 1 or 2 injuried. But it is a BP owned well that was in the process of being sold to help pay for the last explosion?
@ Nevergiveup:
Is the Bank of Kabul FDIC insured? No? Sorry Hamid, no can do. We have our own problems.
There is so much chaos going on that one can’t keep up with it. Someone needs to be watching Obama in the midst of all of this distraction.
Got yer FAIL right here: Meltdown of the climate ‘consensus’
Grimcargo wrote:
The FAIL czar?
Iron Fist wrote:
Don’t you be talking about black holes, now…
Grimcargo wrote:
You’ve never been around real industry, have you?
I listened to B. Netanyahu this morning. Absolutely made me sick. He knows as does most everyone else that all of this bs is wasting time and causing more Israeli lives to be lost.Those freaking parasites were rejoicing yesterday at the deaths of those Israelis. Two states and who will then feed those damm parasites and give them electricity? US?
snork wrote:
Course I have. You misunderstood what I meant.
@ Nevergiveup:
With Mahmoud Karzai envolved I am a little suspicious as to what shenanigans might have gone on there.
@ Grimcargo:
Sounded an awful lot like Alex Jones, but I’m on the left coast, and haven’t fully absorbed my morning coffee.
Grimcargo wrote:
And what are the little shit king of Jordan and Mubarack doing there? Last minute shopping for Labor Day?
@ Rancher:
There is no way a Third World leader would be involved in looting his country’s major bank. That could never happen.
[/Leftists]
snork wrote:
Right now I am too tired to go into what I meant. (I’m no Alex jones though)
Iron Fist wrote:
@ Nevergiveup:
So we have to bail out their banks too? Unreal!
@ snork:
A penultimate fail mebbe? lol
Rodan wrote:
How do you tell a failed Afgan Bank from a succesfull one?
@ Nevergiveup:
One has goats? I dunno. It’s not like they use dollars as currency…
Mark Steyn is filling in for Rush today. He was great yesterday. You can listen live here: KLBJAM
Islam is a religion of peace . . . FAIL.
Arabs will seek peace with Israel . . . FAIL.
The Victory Mosque is meant to promote healing . . . FAIL.
Obama is a post racial kind of guy . . . FAIL.
This dial-up connection works fine . . . FAIL.
@ Nevergiveup:
That’s a good question!
huckfunn wrote:
I was just about to post that!
@ huckfunn:
Oh yay! Thanks for the heads up!
Iron Fist wrote:
Now that’s funny!
I was thinking, not about the number of comments, but about the quality – in particular, the lollage that this might attract. I hoped that people would be prompted to post a lot of funny examples of FAIL, especially in the political, economic, and cultural spheres.
Breaking news:
Oil rig explosion off the Gulf of Mexico
Oil rig explodes off of Louisiana coast…
@ Bob in Breckenridge:
@ m:
Steyn is a joy to listen to. Yesterday he called the career ruling class politicians “Emirs of Incumbistan”
savages_girl wrote:
Not again!
O/T, but this is too funny!
If you live in California, vote no to libturd midgets in the Senate!
huckfunn wrote:
I heard that! Major LOLZ from the Steyn Man. He really needs his own radio show.
savages_girl wrote:
According to Drudge it was inactive, though.
The Lefties overplayed the internet FAIL meme in the Bush years.
This raises an interesting question in my mind. What would the GDP growth rate look like if you factored out the growth in government? I’m betting a negative. This is good:
@ 1389AD:
Outsourcing FAIL.
Nevergiveup wrote:
Good one!
For the record, Chcuk’s site should be referred to as Little Failed Blog.
As to Hamid “America should do somthing” Karzai……go fuck yourself, and your shitty little country. What happened to ridding your lands of the infidel? Oh, except when you animals want money. Blow me.
Bob in Breckenridge wrote:
Is that why her name is BOXer?
@ The Osprey:
Hey, here’s a PASS WITH FLYING COLORS!
~:D
The Osprey wrote:
And he’s calling Moronic Lib Mayor™ Bloomberg “Nanny Bloomberg”!
@ Iron Fist:
Are there any stats on that?
If not, WHY aren’t there any stats on that?
…crickets chirping…
Bob in Breckenridge wrote:
FNC is reporting the same, and saying all 13 aboard are alive and off the platform, one person maybe having some injuries.
@ Bob in Breckenridge:
There were 13 people on board the rig.
They think they are all in the water with one who may be injured.
Gotta get back to work.
Adios!
1389AD wrote:
I thought it was because she resembles a canine.
/Sorry to all you dogs for the insult.
@ m:
Thanks for posting that. I can link back to it on an upcoming thread (hopefully I can get around to it soon).
Good grief my post was an EPIC fail. lol Little Green Failed blog! I have been sick for two days. I have lost 8 pounds in the course of a week. I don’t think my brain is working. Ugh (passes out)
Disclaimer: The “Bob” Mark Steyn is now talking about is NOT me!
F wrote:
. . . they’re saying it was BUSH’s fault./
BBC had “massive bias to left:” director general
The director general of the BBC admitted Thursday that his organisation had been guilty of a “massive bias to the left” but said “a completely different generation” of journalists now works at the broadcaster.
Mark Thompson told the right-of-centre Spectator magazine that there was an institutional bias when he joined the organisation, reinforcing the findings of a 2007 internal report which concluded that greater efforts were required to avoid liberal bias.
“In the BBC I joined 30 years ago, there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people’s personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the left,” Thompson said.
“The organisation did struggle then with impartiality. And journalistically, staff were quite mystified by the early years of Thatcher.”Now it is a completely different generation. There is much less overt tribalism among the young journalists who work for the BBC,” he added.
NoThreat2U wrote:
Your avatar even changed!
F wrote:
Had???
I’ll just bet that felt good to her. CJ would have gone totally
batshit.
@ Bob in Breckenridge:
I did that a few days ago (I believe). I have been waiting to see you here. I wanted to thank you for coming to my defense on a previous thread. I think you know what I am talking about. Thank you
spinmore wrote:
That’s not FNC saying that, that’s Press Hack Gibbs endlessly saying that.
Bob in Breckenridge wrote:
Then what’s burning?
@ 1389AD:
I’ve never seen them, and I don’t have the requisite skills to ferret the numbers out assuming I could get the raw data. But the economy is growing at a barely perceptible rate, and nearly every other sector is in pullback mode now. Government is expanding like a hydrogen bomb, though. You know it is bring the growth rate up some. When we are at what, 0.5% growth?, I think that it is entirely possible that all that growth is growth in government. Growth in the paasite class that produces nothing but waste, for the most part.
“fail” as i know it, came into prominence with computer games. i’d never heard it used in any other fashion before. the multiplayer classic ‘counter-strike’ was huuuuge in the nineties and christ’s sakes thats all you ever heard when your team lost.
RIX wrote:
Wouldn’t have been much of a change.
Bob in Breckenridge wrote:
Real boxers (the quadrupedal variety) are cute.
Could that have anything to do with this? It’s in her state, after all!
Same as it ever was…
@ Nevergiveup:
With the left hand of course. With no TP either.
@ Bob in Breckenridge:
I was thinking along the same lines, but hey it is a whole new crop of Lefties there now so the director general feels safe to admit things used to be bad now that no one can do anything to the organization for the past.
@ RIX:
Would have? I bet he re-banned her. Double-banned Mandy. Maybe even obliterated her. He is such a child, and he monitors all of these sites constantly. Look at how he picked up on mine and Arachne’s exchange on DoD. Damn, man, obsess much? I’m sure he’s reading this regularly, too. Hi, Charles! You can’t ban me here!
Curious . . . does Cheney and Dubya still have charge of the huricane steering levers? or did they have to give them up?
OK, what blog did Mandy show up at after the Stick?
Iron Fist wrote:
Are there any stats wizards here, and/or people who can figure out where to get the raw data?
If we could get the stats together and then put up some type of a graph to summarize the results, that would be an EPIC WIN for Blogmocracy!!!
Macker wrote:
C2
Macker wrote:
I heard she’s on Correspondence Committee. Haven’t gone there to look since then; I’m not a member there, and that blog is much too refined for the likes of me! I’ve probably been kicked out of at least as many places as Possum, if you count both real life and the blogosphere.
@ Iron Fist:
hey Charles, you’re a dick! get off my blog; but before you do – bite me.
@ The Osprey:
And C2 is…?
F
64 | September 2, 2010 12:37
True, to Charlie nutty days are Sunday through Saturday.
snork wrote:
Just because it was inactive doesn’t mean there wasn’t some oil in the rig, and there are lots of flammables in the equipment and other stuff.
But hey, if Barry doesn’t use this to further ratchet down on domestic oil drilling color me gob-smacked.
@ 1389AD:
It would be. I’ve only had baby statistics, and that was 15 years ago. I mad a 105.4 A in the class, though. I tried to maximize my grade as a way to stay interested in the class.
From the same blog, check out the top photo on this post. Is this where CJ will end up?
@ Iron Fist:
That was from Madys’coming out party at C2.
If she said that at LGF the hive would have swarmed.
Macker wrote:
The precursor to WD-40.
@ RIX:
Chewing on the carpet, August 1 – July 31.
1389AD wrote:
Yeah, I made one post before they went invitation-only and it was deleted. I’m not civilized enough for them. Wah
Hmmmm another oil rig explosion? Hmmm, a judge just shot down Obi’s moratorium on drilling AGAIN. Coincidence?
@ RIX:
If felt so good telling him exactly what I thought. I knew I was going to get banned for it, so I decided to do it with class.
Oh, yeah, I know. I don’t understand why she stayed so damn long. I certainly couldn’t have held my tounge so long nor through so much. I know this because I didn’t
Macker wrote:
CorrespondanceCommittee.
@ NoThreat2U:
Someone – pail of water… STAT! ! ! !
RIX wrote:
They can still swarm when word of that filters back into the pest hole. She will be the current Immanuel Goldstein there for the 2 Minute Hate sessions for at least a month.
Iron Fist wrote:
Someone would have to figure out where to get the raw data … the same raw data that they use to calculate the growth (or otherwise) of GDP; then figure out a way to back out the federal, state, and local government sector; then recalc the GDP from what (if anything) remains.
Are there any guests, visitors, or lurkers here who have access to any of this information or expertise?
If so, please email 2.0: The Blogmocracy…address is in the sidebar of the blog home page.
NoThreat2U wrote:
And Barry is the best president, ever.
@ m:
Something STAT! lol
F wrote:
GMTA.
‘Voted Obama? Embarrassed Yet?’ billboard leads to death threats…
You know the worst thing that could have happened to Charles has happened , he became a joke, heck he is the punch line.
He is constantly scrounging for cash & I am sure that he thought that his “Why I left the Right” manifesto would get him pub & Geller money.
Instead he came across as a semi-literate child.
his abberant behavior over there is really hurting him.
@ F:
They will only do that if she comes here.
Which she won’t.
She is the center of attention there.
She seems to need that.
@ F:
Damn! How did I forget that???????????? Personally, I think there are just too many coincidences lately. Call me paranoid, but…..
@ typicalwhitey:
Oh go piss up a rope!!! lol
@ 1389AD:
Many on C2 supported the bombing of Serbia and the recognition of Kossovo. They are no friends to Serbs.
Now for some really super important news:
RADAR EXCLUSIVE: Paris Owns Purse That Appears Identical To One She Claimed Was Borrowed Night Of Cocaine Arrest
Karma is a bitch!
Um, dude, I don’t know as you can speak forthem, butdude, shouldn’t you be embarrassed? How badly do you hate America that you aren’t?
@ Iron Fist:
The ones who run that blog are Country Club Republicans. We are grass roots Republicans. So it’s a different animal.
@ Nevergiveup:
If I had that, I would of used it for the open!
@ Iron Fist:
The Progs are so not embarrassed that they make death threats against the guys putting up the sign.
Oh… Look something shiny…——> Climbing into the Watchtower
Nevergiveup wrote:
Here we go again. Someday we may learn our lesson:
Nation-building in Muslim countries = EPIC FAIL
EPIC FAIL in the sense of hubris…the Wilsonians foolishly believe that they can change both society and human nature through temporal means. These are all spiritual issues. The sin of the Muslims and the sin of the Wilsonians is, at the root, pride…the same deadly sin as that of Lucifer.
@ typicalwhitey:
My attitude is that I don’t want to be a member of a club that won’t have me. That’s why I bailed on LGF early. I don’t get people who stick around where they’re not wanted. It’s a big world and a big internet.
Let’em enjoy their crumpets and tea.
@ 1389AD:
No American blood or treasure should be spilled for Muzzies.
I don’t know about the internets but my brother and a few of his friends were usung it in the late eighties. For them it grew out of saying just the word “not” in response to something they found disagreeable.
They were all bright talented metal heads who picked up the “not” thing from Anthrax’s NOT MAN thing and were always coming up with their own esoteric logisms.
No one probably has heard of woo! or double woo, as in she’s a woo! as in woo! look at that, but that was the kind of stuff they were coming up with all the time.
I am not crediting them for any memes but, they were Wayne’s world way before Wayne’s world was cool.
I started refering to dickheads (asshole personalities not glans) as helmets on constuction jobs back around 1982 and by 88 I would hear, what a effin’ helmet used quite frequentely.
Who knows were these things begin and were the nexus was, probably a question for a Jungian.
@ 1389AD:
Check my 99!
@ RIX:
He blew all the respect he had garnered since 9-11. That is all gone now. Nobody respects him, because from LGFWatch to Kos to HuffPo they won’t forgive him all those years on the Right, and the Right wouldn’t trust him to take out the Garbage after his knife in the back manifesto and subsequent (not to mention prior) batshit craziness. He’s done. I’m srprised he even has ads from the Muslims Hawking Society on his blog. His rates must be bottom-of-the-barrel cheap, but none of his posters have any money, and the people that give him traffic for the view to a train-wreck aren’t going to give his ads any customers. Money down a rat-hole, and sooner or later they are going to figure that out.
doriangrey wrote:
I left a comment there!
snork wrote:
Well I think Groucho’s original remark was that he would not want to be a member of any club that would have him!
Rodan wrote:
And no American land for them either!
Macker wrote:
Half the bang of C4…
The only way to go. I got nailed in one of his tantrums.
He was pissed about the prior night & a bunch found out the
next day that our accounts were blocked.
Charles, I thoought that we were pals/
@ F:
Scary, ain’t it? Maybe Lewd Wig is onto something, and the stupid shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Wouldn’t he be shocked when he found out which side of that stupid line he was on?
@ Iron Fist:
I think he’s mentally collapsed.
@ 1389AD:
No more Islamic Immigration. Period, freeze it.
Nevergiveup wrote:
And I’m disagreeing with Groucho. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, and you wouldn’t, either.
FNC just had breaking news that the Justice Department is suing AZ Sheriff Arpaio in a civil rights case.
@ 1389AD:
Damn straight on that! I wish they’d send the ones in Middle Tennessee back to Somolia. We don’t need a “Little Somolia” south of Nashville, thank you kindly. It is only a matter of time before we import a genuine warlord, and he starts trying to carve out ihis own empire. Oh, wait, that’s already happening in Arizona…
snork wrote:
Except here you don’t need permission to join. Yeah ya can be booted but it’s not like ya need an invitation? C2 yes, here no.
Nevergiveup wrote:
Fuck that noise!
Those kleptos have already pocketed a couple of billion off of us.
They must be smoking their own product…..damn what am I saying, that makes them bretheren with Zero who will probably cut a check just as soon as he finishes cutting out his next gagger of a line.
@ Rodan:
Coldwarrior would take issue with that being the BGGCC awards chair and all! ! !
@ F:
You had to know that was coming. Obama is at war with Arizona, and it is a war he intends to win. A foretaste of what things will be like when the Republicans take the House (positive thinking! Gotta have positive thinking…)
Rodan wrote:
No wonder I never got an invite from them.
I would NOT have liked it there AT ALL, and I would surely have gotten banned.
That said, their blog has an interesting visual design.
My own blog is very harshly bare-bones in appearance, partly because I want to keep down the bandwidth when people try to connect from places that don’t have broadband, but mostly because I spend my time and energy on the blog posts themselves (either writing them or persuading blog team members to send them to me
) and I just don’t have the time, energy or inclination to figure out how to make the blog look more elegant.
@ doriangrey:
Time to – take out the trash!!
RIX wrote:
CJ is just about as capable of having friends as Joe Stalin was.
Fuhgettaboutit, and don’t anybody take it personally.
If CJ were ever to like or trust you, then you’d KNOW you have a problem!
Iron Fist:
Posted this link for you on the previous thread:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
My score:
Economic Left/Right: 0.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.51
Care to take the test?
@ 1389AD:
I’ve run across a handful of news aggregator sites, and the one that gets the most hits?
Drudge with his less than bare bones layout.
Too many people think style trumps substance. Look who we have as CinC for confirmation of that.
m wrote:
AH yes, well I meant more of an elite Country Club!
Scott Madsen wrote:
ROTFLMAO… Back in those early days the
worldintewrwebs was a much smaller place and there were so many fewer of us huddling around our proverbial campfires. What so few today understand or remember if they ever knew at all was that in those twilight days you paid for your access by paying for every single character you typed.In the beginning was the web created and it was good, but before it was created there was UUNET and it was pretty damned ok, but you paid by the second you were connected to it.
And it was on UUNET and the other news group services that that terms like FAIL and pwn came into existence also 31337 speak and other such nonsense that is still with us to day, like smilies and what not…
Because you were paying by the second you shortened your messages often leaving out unnecessary consonants and vowels. The word failure become an entire concept and then got truncated to simply FAIL.
@ Iron Fist:
The fact he is throwing Arizona under the bus to the UN is actually a breach of the bond between the States and teh Federal Governmnet. In reality, that is a pretext for sucession. I’m not calling for it, just saying that Obama’s actions give a good pretext.
@ F:
I especially hate websites that demand I have to run Flash or some other bandwidth killing crap to “enjoy the experience”. I am looking for information, not some “Avatar”-style shit.
F wrote:
Fox News: Justice Dept. Sues Arizona Sheriff in Civil Rights Probe
Iron Fist wrote:
I am only surprised how long it took.
But now this will become a November issue. As it should be.
@ 1389AD:
So while they sue old Joe, they are dismissing most cases against illegal aliens? Yeah sure why not???????
Rodan wrote:
I’m calling for it…I think all 50 States need to secede from Washington DC. They can’t stop us all!
But then, I’ve been involved in real-life secessionist circles for over a decade.
Ain’t that the truth
spinmore wrote:
Good one!
@ H:
This is me:
Economic Left/Right: 3.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.21
Town’s Welcome Sign Asks Visitors To Dress, Behave In Modest Way; Maintain Gender Separation…
Wanna bet that a lot of the same people who have heartburn over this see nothing wrong with the 9/11 Islamic Victory Mosque at Ground Zero?
@ 1389AD:
. . . this is ‘good’
continued attacks by this admin. (and all like minded wackers on the Left) against those who would enforce our country’s borders and attempt to secure this nation’s best interests is what is fueling the revolution. Keep it up!
@ 1389AD:
We just will agree to disagree there.
F wrote:
Or worse yet, will only run with Internet Exploder.
Nevergiveup wrote:
And the Black Panthers…
huckfunn wrote:
Yep, that’s for sure!
The real FAIL here was the vast numbers of people suckered in by it, the huge amount of resources wasted in trying to comply with the call to “save the planet” from illusory perils, the generation of youth corrupted by bad science and bad politics in the schools, especially concerning this issue, the number of people who have DIED worldwide due to this misallocation of resources, and the loss of several decades when the US could have been working on energy independence based on our own fossil fuels.
Not just EPIC FAIL, but COSMIC FAIL here.
EPIC FAIL
Many Liberals Reject Markos Moulitsas’s Anti-Conservative Book
Ya think that The Mad King could trade a lgf cookbook for one?
Rodan wrote:
PLEASE dear God, let’s NOT start THAT shit up here.
@ Rodan:
Rodan! How did you find the test?
@ H:
Why not? I am watching a test run right now. About as exciting as watching paint dry, but it has to be done
Hard center right. For what that is worth. I am for the legalization of hard drugs, for example, so the question about marijuana seems a bit tame. There were only a few questions that really looked for the extremes.
Rodan wrote:
Fair enough.
I must point out that, once the federal gummint as we know it has been disempowered, there’s nothing to prevent any group of States from going back together under a Constitution much like the one we originally had, but without the federal bureaucracies, and with more restrictions on the accumulation of centralized power.
RIX wrote:
ROTFLMAO… How’s that old saying go… The devil knows his own… I personally don’t want to be known by the devil… Fortunately for me Chuckie decided he dont know or like me.
I may not remember the day he gave me the boot, but I certainly do remember why. The fact that he was heading toward dhimmin status at near light speed was made pretty evident when he banned me for suggesting the Islam be officially designated as a hostile political movement dedicated to the violent overthrow of the US Constitution and therefore banned from the United states of America.
Like a good little dhimmin he proceed to sacrifice all his former friends and follower to the sword to prove his loyalty.
@ snork:
I took a look at the questions on the first page of the “test” and saw they were a bunch of crap. I don’t need some quiz to tell me what I am.
A crass loud overbearing knuckle-dragging mono-syllable grunting Retrosexual.
And those are my GOOD qualities!
@ snork:
HA! I thought the same thing when I first read that comment… I was like “oh no…”
Then I realized what he was saying, LOL!
@ Rodan:
Yeah, that is an awful precedent. Unconstitutional as hell, too. The UN means exactly squat, in real terms under the Constitution. Yet Obama is appealing to its authority in a dispute with a State. Massive breach of protocol. Not quite grounds for impeachment, but I’d say Arizona would have a case on secession if they could get a truly impartial hearing from the Supreme COurt.
F wrote:
Actually I got a little problem with them hasids trying to enforce their mortality on others. It’s a hold over from when I lived in Jerusalem. As do many secular Israelis.
@ H:
What kind of a stupid question is this?
It’s a stupid test.
@ snork:
I mean test FAIL.
@ H:
Strange questions and many of them were ify. I think it can be improved. However, it does acurately describe me. Economic Conservative, Social Libertarian (Not Liberal).
@ F:
ALMOST scared to ask… retrosexual? Does that mean it’s been awhile?
*head tilt*
@ 1389AD:
Like the papal schism, a majority off statea can elect reps and send them to a capital in the west were they claim sovreignty…say Casper Wyoming…..it can be the Avingonne to DCs Rome, as long as the military goes for it Zero can just sit back in his golf cart on the Mall and cast gold plates into the Potomac to his hearts content untill the New Englanders and Rust Belt tire of it and find their gonads again.
@ F:
I was talking about the “This is me” shit. That’s Chuck’s new thang.
Da_Beerfreak wrote:
Maybe Moulitsas is getting ready to self-destruct just like CJ.
These people have no spiritual foundation and have no internal defenses against going nuts.
@ Nevergiveup:
I have a problem with anyone trying to enforce religious morality on anyone. One’s faith and actionn should be left between them and God as an individual.
@ H:
Six effin’ pages? effin’ no way!
@ waldensianspirit:
Takes 7 min
Nevergiveup wrote:
I have some problems with both this and the 9/11 Islamic Victory Mosque at Ground Zero.
@ Nevergiveup:
I always found their bed sheets a bit off putting when I walked by them hanging out to dry in public view.
@ Iron Fist:
This could be unconstitutional.
@ Da_Beerfreak:
Now that is funny! Kos has always been a failure. I think of all the people he’s backed for various offices only one has actually won. And CJ wants to be Kos when he grows up? Damn, but that gets this: EPIC FAIL.
H wrote:
7 minutes of globalization crap, no thanks. I’d prefer to spend 7 minutes doing a pre-frontal lobotomy on myself by shoving frozen peas up my nose.
@ snork:
Of course some of the questions are stupid. I can`t vouch for the test. But it offers a interesting perspective. Not THE perspective – A perspective.
And some of the questions seem stupid at first, then they make you think. It ain`t half bad.
I find it very interesting that Rodan felt the end result portrayed him fairly accurately. Remember – there`s no value judgement here.
Nevergiveup wrote:
Excessive “modesty” IMO eventually leads to sexual perversions. Societies where everybody wears fewer clothes (due to climate and the like) are no more promiscuous than any other. People need to see unrelated members of the opposite sex while growing up in order to develop healthy sexual inclinations as adults.
Looks as though the Hasids learned the excessive covering up first from the Victorians and then from the Muslims. The proper response is not respect, but ridicule.
Rodan wrote:
Sometimes it’s healthy to exclude this from your sidewalk.
@ H:
Not enough National Security questions.
m wrote:
Polar opposite of Metrosexual.
retrosexual
a guy who actually likes women instead of wanting to act like them. he uses no hair care products except for white rain shampoo, has several flannel shirts, and owns at least one pair of work boots.
waldensianspirit wrote:
Yes, there’s major lollage on POWM.
I visit there regularly.
The BLOG, not the store!
@ Iron Fist:
Heh! I must admit that I am a little ashamed of always ending almost dead center. I`ve taken that test a couple of times through the years, and for some reason I`ve gotten less libertarian over the years.
But then, I think they also might have changed some of the questions. I don`t know.
@ Rodan:
But religious morality is the fundamental basis of all law, going back to Hammurabi and the Ten Commandments. I don’t think Roman law was religiously based, but I am not sure. The Emporer was, after all, worshipped as a god. Kind of hard to call that a secular government. The notion of there needing to be a strict secular government can be traced back to Christ: “Render unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar’s and unto God that which is God’s”, but Jewish law before Him was, of course, religiously based. It really wasn’t until the French Revolution that there was a systematic effort to keep religion and morality out of State business. The First Amendment was intended to stop there from being a national Church of America, not schoolkids saying a non-sectarian prayer for safety and good fellowship before a football game.
@ Rodan:
Good point. Makes it hard to peg a neo-con?
@ H:
Sorry, I instantly recoil when faced with loaded questions, because they preclude the correct answer. Neither choice is well enough defined to be worthy of agreeing or disagreeing. I would have gone on if there were a fifth choice (no opinion, or such), but they required you to commit to one or the other of dumb interpretations.
Not going to waste my time on that. There are other similar tests out there on the internet that arrive at similar conclusions without forcing people into accepting dumb straw man answers.
Rodan wrote:
Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: 2.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.87
@ waldensianspirit:
Yuck!
Schools ban ‘I love boobies’ bracelets promoting cancer awareness…
@ snork:
I found the questions to be at the “have you stopped beating your spouse” level of crassness.
@ H:
I’ma Neo-Imperialist. Also Neo-Con is a loaded term that can mean anyone who just is a National Security Hawk, to quasi Tranzi spread Democracy at the point of a gun type and permannent nation building.
Also the Left has smeared that term and calls any Jewish Conservative a NeoCon, when that is not the cae. Jonah Goldberg’s views are radically difefrent than Bill Kristol.
It’s not a good term.
@ F:
So they ban the prmotion of heterosexuality. Interesting.
F wrote:
ROTFLMAO… Oh I dont think they were quite that polite…
@ snork:
I see what you are saying, but I think it`s possible to look beyond that.
My main objection to the test is that if you answer the questions in a way that leaves you on the economic left, you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. The hard right stuff makes you feel like a jackass sometimes.
But like I said, some of the questions seem stupid at first, but when you start analysing it, you realize it`s not so clear cut. As in “I`d support my country regardles” (Paraphrased…)
@ H:
It is OK for what it is. If you read their page, they have a definite agenda of their own, thus the tilt to the center Left of the overall drift of the questions. Take the question about someone feeling “naturally” homosexual. Well, it would feel un-natural as hell for me to feel that way, but who knows about other people? So you “agree” with it, but a more honest answer is “don’t know”. But you agreed homosexuallity is natural and that moves you Left. It is easy to write polls that produce the results you want. It is damn hard to write polls that are scientifically valid. That is why the only poll I put faith in is the actual vote, and I am beginning to believe that the nation is too equally divided for our existing polling measures to be sufficiently precise as to come up with the “correct” answer.
F wrote:
Exactly. What kind of a stupid false dichotomy is “should the power go to the people or the big, greedy corporations?”? It was obviously written by some hard core lefty who thinks that’s a reasonable question.
A Muslim soldier from Texas who joined the U.S. Army last year now wants to leave the military, claiming he is a conscientious objector whose devotion to Islam has suffered since he took an oath to defend the United States against all enemies.
Pfc. Naser Abdo, a 20-year-old infantryman assigned to the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky., filed for conscientious objector status in June because his faith and the military simply don’t mix, he told FoxNews.com. The Army has deferred his scheduled deployment to Afghanistan
A) Give me a freaken break
B) throw his ass in the brig
c) Give me a Freaken break
@ Rodan:
I`m sure you are correct. My point was, an accused “neo-con” (Wolfowitz etc) might not fit into that diagram very well – socially liberal, somewhat economically center-left, but extremely hawkish.
Just a suggestion. I`m no expert on Wolfowitz, though.
@ Nevergiveup:
brig it is. With no islamic special considerations.
@ Iron Fist:
Good point!
Listen to the harmony at 1:23 and 1:44 — late-Renaissance choral music WIN!!!
@ H:
Wolfowitz is a Muzzie loving Wilsonian Progressive. He believes we should die for Muslim Democracy. He’s leftist, not a Conservative.
@ Nevergiveup:
Why am I not surprised?
@ H:
Sorry, but that’s a bright line. Stupid answers result from stupid questions. If we stop tolerating stupid questions, the stupid answers will stop.
@ Iron Fist:
Yeah, the question regarding homosexuality is a tricky one. But that`s the whole idea, I think – the ambiguety of the question. Do you believe that it`s genetic? Natural. Do you belive people naturaly can _feel_ homosexual? Natural. Do you believe it`s against nature? Unnatural. Do you believe it`s against God`s purpose? Unnatural.
Etc.
If you dig into it, most of the questions are like that. That`s why I don`t think the test is as bad as Snork does.
But the interesting thing here is not our test scores. It`s the general idea behind the political coordinate system. And this I find interesting.
waldensianspirit wrote:
Oh I would give him special Islamic considerations, I would make sure his cellie is a very large overly muscled gay man.
@ Rodan:
So you are very much opposed to the Iraq war then?
@ Rodan:
I think Imperialism has a lot going for it. Look at sub-Saharan Africa before, during, and after it was colonized. Yes, you can blame some of even the current problems in sub-Saharan Africa on colonization (or, more accurately, the stupid, haphazard way they went about de-colonialization), but it was a basket case where tribes made war on other tribes to capture slaves for the slave trade before colonization. Had everyone not gone hippy-dippy “colonization is evil” after WWII, who is to say that it wouldn’t be a thriving society today? Certainly it is a basket-case now. At the end of the day, it is a lot simpler to set up a strongman to run the “country”, and buy whatever natural resources you need from him that it is to go in, build schools, build an economy, and civilize the nation in order to be able to exploit it properly. Was Cortez’s colonization of Mexico bad? It was for the natives, but they were under the yoke of the Aztecs who sarificed them to their bloodthirsty gods and ate human flesh. Cortez put an end to that (you can’t blame Cortez for the ravages of disease. They didn’t even know about germs or how disease was transmitted. The certainly didn’t make smalpox and influenza). I could go on. I am an American-Exceptionalist (quite the opposite of the current President), and thus would like to see American Culture and Values exported around the world. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if the Muzz converted to Christianity and the Jihad ended?
@ H:
I know it is not genetic to want to consume muscle relaxes everyday…
@ Nevergiveup:
It would be the stockade since he is a soldier, but since he VOLUNTARILY joined the military time to court martial his ass and make him pay the consequences of his “stupidity”.
@ Nevergiveup:
At least this one didn’t go sudden jihadi. Give him a “less than honorable” discharge, and send him on his way. But watch the fucker like a hawk, lest his devotion become “sudden” Jihadi syndrome.
snork wrote:
`
Well, if that`s the way you feel… Heh!
snork wrote:
GIGO
PIMF relaxants
snork wrote:
No they wont, you can cure ignorance through education, you just cant fix stupid.
F wrote:
You would really think the 101st Airborne would have dad enough of Muslims after that Soldier fragged his Officers before Gulf War 1
@ H:
I don’t tolerate crap slanted/biased/loaded questions, period. Fine, you believe the test has some validity, I don’t.
To find out what I think of crap interwebs tests like the one you keep wanting to pimp, pull my finger.
@ waldensianspirit:
So I take it you went for “unnatural” then…
H wrote:
Try the original, then. This one is a lot more intelligently designed.
@ H:
I didn’t get that far. I just know certain topics aren’t well discussed; just got to celebrate
@ waldensianspirit:
But sometimes the body develops a massive deficiency of percocet, and then what’s a guy to do?
H wrote:
I am opposed to how the war was carried out. Instead of smashing the enemy, taking resources and then using Iraq to take out Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran. They turned it to some academic experiment.
So I supported the concept, but not the execution and result. We gained nothing out of it.
@ F:
I`m not pimping anything. I just found it interesting, and relevant to the discussion whether Bush is properly labeled as a “progressive”.
But fine, I`ll drop it. I just want you guys to like me.
So, drop the hostility F.
Sincerily
H
H wrote:
How about yes and no. Opposed to how it was done and what they tried to do, not opposed to the war itself. We should have rendered Iraq incapable of any aggression in any direction for at least 100 years and let them clean up the mess themselves on their own dime.
@ Nevergiveup:
This is an interesting quote from that article:
@ Iron Fist:
Damn right, I want teh US and well armed allies to be a posse beating up and taking resources from evil nations.
Rodan wrote:
I think we are, in essence, in line then. Though I`d chose slightly different words.
snork wrote:
Me from that test:
Not surprising at all.
F wrote:
Hmmm, you seem to have an unnatural supply of methane gas, perhaps we ought to stick a pipe in you and…. Ewww that would really stink… never mind… But I seriously doubt you are going to get anyone to pull your finger either…
@ H:
I’m not hostile, as you put it, I am just expressing MY opinion. So giving a different viewpoint and opinion from yours is hostility, eh?
@ F:
Pull my finger and I’ll show you how hostile I can be.
doriangrey wrote:
At the very least, both wars should have been fought in a way that would have left America look stronger. Not weaker.
snork wrote:
Meh, put’s me in pretty much the same place as the other test.
Your PERSONAL issues Score is 60%
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 70%
Slightly right of center slightly more libertarian.
@ snork:
Personal Score 60%
Economic Score 70%
I am a centrist…right on the line with libertarian. Who knew
Rodan wrote:
You’ve got that right.
My biggest problem with the NeoCon term is that, a decade ago, it served as an umbrella for Serb-haters and Slav-bashers on the putative Right.
Me:
http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz_result?e=70&i=60_70.gif&p=60
@ Nevergiveup:
It looks like the Army didn’t even learn from MAJ Hassan at Fort Hood.
F wrote:
*Flirting voice* Why, F, are you baiting me, sir?
Seriously, no. I`m just extremely touchy and insecure. I took offense with the “trying to pimp”. Left me the impression I was being obnoxious. Which is not my intent.
Cheers!
@ Rodan:
The world isn’t a Charity, after all. You would think that the people who want it to be would be hyper-Christians, but they are as hostile to Christianity as they are capitalism. Strange.
BBL Off to the doctor.
@ waldensianspirit:
We can pull each other’s fingers and solve the energy crisis!
snork wrote:
Your PERSONAL issues Score is 50%
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 80%
@ H:
And as I said earlier I am a crass loud and loud-mouthed overbearing knuckle-dragging mono-syllable grunting Retrosexual. I speak my mind, bluntly.
@ H:
3.88
-.10
@ snork:
Though “Advocates for Self-Government” is hardly an unbiased source, hahaha!
@ F:
And I`ll love you for it.
@ typicalwhitey:
Pretty woman! How are you?
@ F:
Your PERSONAL issues Score is 90%
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 80%
@ Rodan:
Shit, you guys are hard-liners!
I got a 5.5 / -0.67 on the test linked by H, and a 90% / 100% on the one linked by snork.
/ I don’t know what’s wrong with the rest of you hippies…
1389AD wrote:
“Neocon” has always been code for “Jew off the political shtetl”. Kinda like black off the plantation.
H wrote:
No less than the Hard Core Left, just at a different part of the political continuum.
Way late to the game but on test 1 I scored 50% personal, 80% economic
Test 2 Economic Left/Right: 6.38 & Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 1.79
BTW, good post, 1389AD! Sorry for not giving you credit sooner. Now yoù’ll probably never read this, but what the heck.
H wrote:
Awwww, thanks!
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