Category Archives: Intelligence

Update III: A Cow Is Born (About The Title)

America, Ann Coulter, Film, Intelligence, John McCain, Pop-Culture, Relatives, The Zeitgeist

“Ann Coulter could have easily dispatched of the ding-dong, as she did Keith Olbermann. A couple of masterful syllogisms mixed in with a few devastating facts, and that would be it. Alas, by denying Meghan McCain the satisfaction, Annie Orkin has left us with a pest-control problem.”

The excerpt is from “A Cow Is Born,” my latest WND column. You can catch it now on Taki’s Magazine, where the weekly column appears each Saturday. The current column is titled deliciously, “Media Discovers Woman Even Dumber Than John McCain.” Here’s more:

“… Just as you thought American pop-politics could go no lower, a woman with real curb appeal appears on the political scene. Meghan McCain might just be the greatest ditz to date to emerge from that big tent Republicans keep touting.

… Ms. McCain is not working with much—and is eminently qualified to dim debate in the Age of the Idiot. …

Yes, idiots have come into their own in a big way, courtesy of depraved consumers, and complicit TV producers and publishers, of pixel and paper alike. The duller you are and the louder you crow in contemporary America, the better you do. …

The housing house-of-cards was not the only ‘bubble in search of a pin’ in the modern-day USA. The intellectual bubble is also begging to be burst.

As for Republicans, if they don’t stop their love affair with idiots, it’s not a bigger tent they’ll be seeking, but a giant tin-foil hat.”

Read the complete column, “Media Discovers Woman Even Dumber Than John McCain,” now on Taki’s.

Update I (May 8): ABOUT THE WND TITLE. The original column came with an asterisk near the title and the following explanation and link:

*Title: “A Star Is Born” was a 1976 film starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, about a love affair between two rock stars; one a has-been, the other a wanna-be.

Ira, a reader (and BAB resident composer), was the only one to date who was familiar with the reference. I see that Free Republic has a lengthy thread about the title, asserting that the reference is to the heft of the heifer discussed.

An email to me would have clarified the matter, but, hey, this is the Age of the idiot. Complete knowledge is assumed. Conjecture soon morphs into assertion and certainty, and no one is the wiser. Curiosity can kill.

Incidentally, I owe the Age of the Idiot concept to my father, Rabbi Ben Isaacson. He truly captured the Zeitgeist with that one.

Update II: My dear WND editor added the original asterisked title explanation. I’ll have to avoid esoterica; it dates me. My editor at Taki’s simply chose to improve the title. Good call.

Updated: Conservatives Add Another Blond To The Brain Trust

Celebrity, Christian Right, Conservatism, Gender, Homosexuality, Intelligence, Pop-Culture, Republicans

Michael Musto, the Village Voice’s machine gun, on Miss California: “This girl is a ding-dong. She’s not just a boob, but a fake boob. (An allusion to Carrie Prejean’s breast augmentation.) A beauty contestant with falsies and an opinion. Let the babe who needs a brain implant deflate. You’re telling me a lot of beauty contestants are fake? Next you’re going to be telling me their personalities are artificial too. There is no talent, no personality to these contestants, just parading down the runway like a ding-dong trying to cure cancer and find the right handbag to match her navel.”

Ding-dong has been stumble-bumbling on the morning shows. Expect Hannity’s Great American Panel to be next, the slutty Kim Kardashian having already blazed a trail with her famous tail on that Fox News show. I never thought I’d come to think of “Hannity and Colmes,” “Hannity” in his previous incarnation, as an intellectual high-water mark for this “news” program.

From the bimbo burlesque, let’s move on to the ding-dong’s area of expertise, same-sex nuptials. This is from my “MARRIAGE AND THE MANUFACTURING OF RIGHTS”:

“Not conferring the benefits of marriage on homosexual unions does not violate the rights of gays. Not if we adhere to the libertarian definition of rights as the inalienable rights to life, liberty and property. Since these are the only rights libertarians wish the state to enforce, equality under the law is thus the requirement that the state not deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process. …

“If we define rights properly, we must conclude that gay couples are not being denied their individual rights.” …

“Ideally, government should be entirely divorced from the nuptial business. But from the fact that the state upholds traditional marriage, why does it follow that it is violating the individual rights of same-sex couples who clearly don’t fit the definition or the profile?”

“Religious institutions ought to act as the ministers of marriage. If marriage were privatized, conservatives would have to accept that some liberal churches and synagogues (the mullahs in their mosques would resist) will wed homosexuals.”

Update (May 1): To read about other “conservative,” blond, ding-dongs, see:

A Cow Is Born

Elizabeth Hasselbeck

Top House Democrat Dumbfounded By Report On ‘Right-Wing Extremism’

Fascism, Homeland Security, Intelligence, Military, Propaganda, Terrorism

By now most of you will have heard that, as the Washington Times divulged, the Department of Homeland Security, headed by Janet Napolitano, “issued April 7 a nine-page document titled ‘Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.'”

Rightwing extremism,” the report said in a footnote on Page 2, goes beyond religious and racial hate groups and extends to “those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely.”

“It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,” said the report, which also listed gun owners and veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as potential risks.

To one Democrat’s credit, he protested. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top House Democrat with oversight of the Department of Homeland Security, demanded that “Homeland Security officials explain how and why they wrote the report and whether it poses any threat to civil liberties.”

“As I am certain you agree, freedom of association and freedom of speech are guaranteed to all Americans – whether a person’s beliefs, whatever their political orientation, are ‘extremist’ or not,” Mr. Thompson said.

Everyone is up in arms about the libel this is to army men. What about to immigration patriots? Second Amendment defenders? Limited government crusaders? Tax protesters?

Every time, someone cries “the children; we’re saddling our children with debt, ” I cringe. F-ck the children. What about We the Workings Stiffs? I’m beginning to feel the same about “our men and women in the military” mantra. The military is not more deserving than the rest of us.

One more thing: The report was commissioned during the administration of President George W. Bush and completed by his worthy successor.

Top House Democrat Dumbfounded By Report On 'Right-Wing Extremism'

Fascism, Homeland Security, Intelligence, Military, Propaganda, Terrorism

By now most of you will have heard that, as the Washington Times divulged, the Department of Homeland Security, headed by Janet Napolitano, “issued April 7 a nine-page document titled ‘Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.'”

Rightwing extremism,” the report said in a footnote on Page 2, goes beyond religious and racial hate groups and extends to “those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely.”

“It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,” said the report, which also listed gun owners and veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as potential risks.

To one Democrat’s credit, he protested. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top House Democrat with oversight of the Department of Homeland Security, demanded that “Homeland Security officials explain how and why they wrote the report and whether it poses any threat to civil liberties.”

“As I am certain you agree, freedom of association and freedom of speech are guaranteed to all Americans – whether a person’s beliefs, whatever their political orientation, are ‘extremist’ or not,” Mr. Thompson said.

Everyone is up in arms about the libel this is to army men. What about to immigration patriots? Second Amendment defenders? Limited government crusaders? Tax protesters?

Every time, someone cries “the children; we’re saddling our children with debt, ” I cringe. F-ck the children. What about We the Workings Stiffs? I’m beginning to feel the same about “our men and women in the military” mantra. The military is not more deserving than the rest of us.

One more thing: The report was commissioned during the administration of President George W. Bush and completed by his worthy successor.