That's what it is! It's EVIL!

Someday my mental health will demand that I curtail my daily dose of stupidity.
But, at present, I'm still cranin' the ol' neck out the car window as I drive by the accident that is "Conservative Thought".
Got some actual insight today though.
Picked this up from "The Omega-con" at "Whored Nation".
It's a bit long and, really it could be condensed to about 40 seconds except that conservatives benefit from repetition.

Dennis Prager on America, Liberals, Jihad and More
Uploaded by Thanx-A-Lott

Got that? It's EVIL.
This clown, Dennis Prager is praised by the Hobbit as providing "... some of the most coherent and cognative thinking on Liberalism out there."
A better man than I am would quit jiggling poor old George about his spelling but that just doesn't sound like something I'd do.
Look, if you're going to constantly tout yourself as a "Writer", learn how to spell. At least learn what the little red line under some of the words on your monitor means. Like the line I now see under "cognative" on my own ancient Mac (All of us gay-marrying, baby-aborting, redneck-disarming "Libs" use Macs).
Now I don't have a radio show, a huge gut and lots of nice suits. I do like to think that my COGNITIVE skills are such that I can RECOGNIZE the kind of silly little typo that really jumps out at the reader thus making the writer look stupid no matter how impassioned he may be.
Really, the details matter. You can takes Milton's view or that of Mies van der Rohe.
Good or bad, they matter.

Evil. Definition please. And a definition with some depth.
Not like the teacher on "South Park",
"Evil's bad, nnkay."
I've got a definition that I'll be happy to share. I just want to see what the Omega-cons think before I give them the answer.

Two groups bug me here:
The old Conservatives, like this putz; If fighting evil is so important, where was your pudgy, privileged butt when everyone without a school deferment was actually in SE Asia taking care of business - or at least showing up for some sort of service to the nation?
"Other priorities" right...
This dork, Cheney, Pimplebutt Limbaugh, Kristol, Krauthammer, Fat-assed O'Reilly, all these assholes who are between 55 and 70 need to be either showing a DD214 or, as far as I'm concerned, shutting the hell up.
If you're of that age, and have had military service and you still don't cringe when these scared, old bastards spout off, well, your problem can probably be controlled with medication.

The young cons really frost me as well. The Generation Xer's, say 25 to 40 years old now.
First off, unless you're 4F or in the service or discharged, keep your silly mouths shut about "our glorious quest".
Join up or shut up.
And have you noticed how plugged-in these folks are concerning how we got here?
Such a brilliant generation.
I can just see the veritable Algonquin Round Table that must have been taking place around the monkey bars at elementary and middle-schools throughout the nation.
All the earnest pundit larvae furrowing their little brows while they discuss Carter's weak foreign policy, the threat posed by the USSR, the need for "individual responsibility" and "Why did Mom and Dad pull us out of Vietnam? It was going so well."
The (stupid) statement is made repeatedly that "...it took a Carter to get us Reagan."
Don't say that. I like Carter.
What's wrong, in my view with modern "Conservative Thought"?
It doesn't exist.
This wasn't always true.
In fact, back when I was conservative, I'd argue that, in general, conservatives had a far more coherent world-view than liberals.
No longer the case.
What happened is Reagan came along and actual thinking was forever discredited, not to mention Keynesian economics.
So, I'll make it easy for you.
Draw a "9". Now draw twelve "0"s. Putting a comma every three zeros makes it less confusing.
That's our collective debt, more than 50% of which is held by China and Japan.
I don't know why anyone should panic if all of a sudden their assets don't balance out with their debits.
The government's been operating like that for thirty years.
Just buy something big and shiny. You'll feel better.

So, to get the taste out of my mouth we'll get in the Wayback Machine and go back to that special time when the intellect of our nation was a-borning:
April 22, 1978, Detroit.
Elvis Costello and the Attractions.
Notice how the hairstyles have "evolved" over the years.
Somebody get old Prager on the horn and tell him grownups don't wear bangs (my own fell out on the pillow years ago).
And tell John Bolton too.
PS; Provided for your instruction and edification:
Button to the left (Where else would it be?):
The Fourteen Points of Facism.

"Ils ne passeront pas"

It's such a nice day.
The west coast is arguing with the east coast about climate change.
I'm not sure which is winning but the payoff is sweet for yours truly.
However, at this time of year in 1916 one of the longest (9 months), most costly (More than a quarter of a million battlefield deaths and at least half a million wounded) and pyrotechnicaly intense (40 million artillery shells expended by both sides) battles in "the history of the world" as famed historical hack Dennis Prager would put it, was on the cusp of its second, merry week.
Fifteen years ago I spent an amusing part of an afternoon, bantering with a bartender in my old hometown, Helena, MT.
He was a young, frustrated, thwarted-marine. He'd gotten as far as boot camp but was sent home for some medical reason - and he would have been prime First Gulf War material.
I wasn't unsympathetic.
But, he had this Jonah Goldbergesque take on the French. The "surrender monkey" thing so beloved by the historically ignorant.
He'd said that, in the First War the French hadn't done anything until we showed up - essentially.
I tried to point out, with as much grace as I could pull off at such a time, that the French had had quite a busy time of it at Verdun - and that more than a year before the first US troops arrived, and two years before any significant US contribution.
Nope, says he. He knew from Verdun and it happened when the Americans were there (They/we were there, just for the record - just a bit later but no less gallantly).
Anyway, I have no staggering insights on Verdun. That information is all available and all I'd do is repeat it. That's why the links are there.
This post, by the way, was made possible by longtime, faithful friend, Kevin the Heroic French Guy who sent me the definitive book on the subject for my birthday and thus broke my obsession with the Brit war.
His merde is way ragged now though. Thanks to the miracle (Demonic curse) of FaceBook - I know his birthday as well.
Feel my gratitude, Toadeater!
Second picture, an armored observation cupola at Fort Douaumont. Someone, at some point, has expressed a keen interest in this bit of steel and concrete - and expressed it with a machine gun. Rather emphatically, I'd say.
The fort mentioned, by the way, fell without a shot on 2/24 when, due to some serious strategic blockheadery on the part of the French, a German pioneer Sgt managed, without having to work very hard at it - and without being shot at, to find his way in.
What this really is though is this: A GoogleMap thing.
I've mentioned the Zone Rouge earlier, albeit briefly here.

That's the places you don't gets to go...
even if they rock for a kegger, yo.
Only the guys in the blue jumpsuits get to go there and several die every year doing it.You may recall the blue jumpsuits from the Big Bertha post earlier.
Here's the above map superimposed on the real world (such as it is).

Now, again courtesy of Kevin the French, some photos of the things you'd get to warn your kids about if you lived in the vicinity.

Some interesting petards and other things I'm seriously glad I have chance absolutely no of finding in my garden.

Hey, as the Brits would say; "Mortar Bombs".
Now, these were seriously improvised.
Therefore they, as projectiles, were cheap and expedient and thus, plentiful.
But, being cobbled-together pieces of shit, lots of them didn't detonate.
I wonder what happened to them?
Okay, it's getting late.
One last shot - just for Jonah Goldberg:
Can't recall where I got it.
It's titled "Sniper Hunt".

Early war; kepis and, in all liklehood, red pants.
Would you run headlong into machine guns wearing red pants?
I'm looking at you, Jonah.

I'm thinking, the toadeaters would eat your lunch, Goldberg.
"Sneak home and pray you'll never know the hell where youth and laughter go" you sorry SOB.