Dum Pendebat Filius

I haven’t posted Thursday MP3s in a couple of months, readers, but better late than never.

Today’s album is Disc One of Underground London (1995). This is a twelve-track compilation of British techno. I still listen to it fairly often, and it still sounds good, despite the fact that it’s now twelve years old. If you like electronic music, you will enjoy this compilation. Click on the album-cover image to download the album (in ZIP format):

Underground London (1995)

Track listing:

1. Sound Enforcer: “Flys and Cows of Coldharbour Lane”
2. Plantastik: “Merlin Street Magic”
3. Mark Broom: “Brick Lane Bagel”
4. Space DJz: “Hornsey Rise”
5. aD&T Project: “Centrepoint”
6. The Advent: “W10″
7. Soundscape: “The Ark”
8. Steve Paton: “Mean Streets”
9. Mandrill: “Traffic”
10. Spira: “Signals From South West Four”
11. Gigglatron: “Sprawl”
12. Sapiano: “Metropolis”

Jonah Goldberg’s new joint Liberal Fascism: Words Mean Whatever I Want Them To dropped today, and Dave Neiwert reviews it at The American Prospect.

Goldberg, who has no credentials beyond the right-wing nepotism that has enabled his career as a pundit, has drawn a kind of history in absurdly broad and comically wrongheaded strokes. It is not just history done badly, or mere revisionism. It’s a caricature of reality, like something from a comic-book alternative universe: Bizarro history.

UPDATE, 2008/01/11 17:05 EST

Jonah Goldberg has posted a response to Dave Neiwert’s review. Neiwert has, in turn, posted a preliminary response to Jonah’s response. Keep an eye on Orcinus and NRO if you want to follow their discussion.

Readers, I’m confused. Help me out here:

First, Global Warming was refuted by the fact that it snowed in Michigan. In January.

But yesterday (Monday, 2008/01/07) it was 65 degrees Fahrenheit here on the East Side of Pittsburgh. According to my trusty digital thermometer, it’s 68.8 degrees Fahrenheit on my front porch right now at 14:47 in the afternoon. So Global Warming must be for real: after all, I now have anecdotal data to match that of my Michigan counterparts.

But wait a second, readers! It’s been so cold in the Florida Keys that iguanas are falling out of trees! And if it gets cold anywhere, that means Global Warming is a liberal lie!

Oh, well. Consider this an open thread.

Who among us, readers, can predict the vagaries of the human heart?

Rugged French President Nicolas Sarkozy is talking wedding bells with his girlfriend. Crazy Pammy, who has a penchant for tales of romance, makes goo-goo eyes and says she’s “loving dah love.” Ain’t that sweet?

But meanwhile, the Costco Coulter hisses that Sarkozy’s girlfriend “is the most used piece of equipment in the international gym.”

Now that Barack Obama has won the Iowa caucus and looks like a safe bet to win the New Hampshire primaries tomorrow, it seems that Clinton Derangement Syndrome has taken a back burner to Obama Derangement Syndrome.

Crazy Pammy took a break from trying to involve Obama in the Kenyan unrest to proclaim “Fact: Obama Hussein Practiced Islam”. She links to a FrontPage piece by Daniel Pipes in which Pipes pretends the silly Obama = Secret Muslim fairy tales haven’t really been refuted (although they have, by CNN, the AP, and ABC News). He’s careful to use plenty of weasel words (“Obama… had a reasonably Muslim upbringing“) to call the eight-year-old Barack Obama “an irregularly practicing Muslim who rarely or occasionally prayed with his step-father in a mosque.”

And by now you are probably aware that Jonah “Vegetarians Are Nazis” Goldberg and the execrable Instapundit are publicly fretting that, should Barack Obama win the Dem nomination, everyone will feel obligated to vote for him, because the darkies will riot if he loses. (Instapundit later updated his post to claim that’s not what he meant at all, and also to claim that “Democratic proxies” are responsible for the Obama = Secret Muslim fairy tales. Yep.)

Any worries over the “electability” of the various Democratic candidates are a waste of time, readers. Whoever gets the nomination is going to be in for a long, long year of nasty personal attacks.

Could Adam Yoshida already have produced the wingnuttiest blog post of the year? 2008 is only a week old, readers, but Internet wingnuts are going to have their work cut out for them all year long. Look at what they’ll have to compete with:

One: Obama Can’t Prove He’s Not A Secret Muslim

Both Obama’s father and his step-father were Moslems. That’s a fact. He also went to Islamic schools as a child. Really, at the moment, we know very little about what he believed and professed in the years between then and when he was first getting into public life in the mid-1990’s. Is it really all that implausible that a young black man – especially one with as intense an interest in his family background as Obama professes – wouldn’t have flirted with the faith of his fathers at some point during his young adult years?

Indeed, we know – thanks to Hillary Clinton’s discovery of a youthful ‘essay’ – that Obama had political ambitions from a very early age. Islam has a specific doctrine, known as “al-Taqiyya”, which permits the followers of Allah to conceal their true faith when among unbelievers. Now, let’s be very clear – I’m not saying that Obama is a concealed Moslem, a Manchurian candidate, waiting to seize the office of the Presidency in the service of sinister interests. But, on the other hand, it’s impossible to rule it out. These things are, after all, unfalsifiable by their very nature.

Is Barak [sic] Hussein Obama secretly a Moslem, pretending otherwise under the cover of a goofy Black Nationalist church? I can’t prove it and I, personally, don’t believe it – but neither I nor anyone who isn’t a telepath can disprove it either. Unfalsifiable.

Two: Obama Is A Faggot

[A] large part of Obama’s appeal comes from the fact that he’s a nonthreatening man, period. For all of the jokes about John Edwards as the “metrosexual candidate” (a label his 2008 campaign persona seems designed to shake) no one deserves the label more than the effete and gaunt Obama. There’s a reason why Obama draws the woman’s vote more than Hillary Clinton: he’s a limp-wristed weakling whose appearance and attitudes are perfectly in keeping with the cultural mores of the day. His appeal – particularly to the young and to single women – can be traced to his girlishly sensitive countenance and character.

Bonus: Wingnuttery Is Better Than Sex With An Attractive Celebrity

[A]dmittedly, I’d take a “What Should I Do, Imam?” letter signed by Obama over a weekend in bed with Jenna Fischer [...]

This blog post, readers, is just an absolute carnival of wingnuttery. I highly recommend you surf on over there and savor every word.

(via Sadly, No!)

The “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” are now calling themselves “Swift Vets and POWs for Truth”, and they’re showering money on political candidates, Mitt Romney and John McCain in particular. Taking money from the Swift Vets is something of a flip-flop for Sen. “Straight-Talk” McCain; you may recall that he condemned them back in 2004:

The most notable recipient of Swift Boat largesse is John McCain, erstwhile front-runner and Stand Up Guy. When the Swift Boat ads were first unleashed, McCain was alone among his Republican colleagues to condemn them. A fellow Vietnam veteran, a good friend of Kerry’s and a former target of smears about his own service, McCain called the ads “dishonest and dishonorable,” a “cheap stunt,” and he urged Bush to condemn them. But in pursuit of the GOP nomination, McCain ditched the mantle of maverick for that of hack, and his once-floundering, possibly rejuvenated campaign has been aided along the way by $61,650 from Swift Boat donors and their associates. “There is such a thing as dirty money,” said Senator Kerry in a statement, after The Nation informed him of McCain’s FEC records. “I’m surprised that the John McCain I knew who was smeared in 2000 and thought so-called Swift Boating was wrong in 2004 would feel comfortable taking their money after seeing the way it was used to hurt the veterans I know he loves.” (McCain’s office did not return calls for comment.)

Crazy Pammy is struggling to depict the current unrest in Kenya as part of “The Global Jihad.” That’s not at all surprising; she thinks it’s part of “The Global Jihad” every time she gets cut off in traffic or the Mets lose a game. What’s noteworthy is that she’s also trying to drag Barack Obama (who she now refers to by last name and middle name: she has taken to calling him “Obama Hussein”) into it.

She’s done no work herself, of course; she links approvingly to the work of a complete looney-tune named Jack Wheeler who publishes a subscribers-only wingnut newsletter. This Wheeler tool (whose website contains such serious insights as “All forms of leftism and liberalism are based on an atavistic belief in Black Magic,” as well as reams of braggadocio and autohagiography) paints us this picture:

1. According to the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, failed Kenyan presidential candidate Raila Odinga cut a political deal with Kenya’s Muslim political leaders.
2. According to Jack Wheeler, Barack Obama appeared in public with Raila Odinga during his August 2006 visit to Kenya.
3. Ergo, Raila Odinga (an Anglican, by the way) is a supporter of The Global Jihad.
4. Barack Obama has “close ties” with said Global Jihad supporter.
5. Ergo, Barack Obama is a Global Jihad supporter.

Credulous Crazy Pammy, eager as ever to swallow any anti-Muslim story she can get her hands on, lays on the blockquotes hot and heavy, with occasional subliterate editorial comments such as “Obama’s questionable ties with violent supporter [sic], Raila Ondinga [sic], with allegiances to Islamic fundamentalists [sic] is a frightening mistake of enormous import.”

And here’s the crux of her analphabetic ravings:

It is understandable that Obama Hussein [sic] would have Islamic sympathies having been schooled in a Jakarta madrassa, [sic] both father and stepfather are Muslim and Sarah Hussein Obama of Kenya, Barack Obama’s stepgrandmother, is a lifelong Muslim. “I am a strong believer of the Islamic faith,” she says. But even so, even Obama can see the terrible turn societies take when they embrace sharia/Islamic law.

[...]

What a rare opportunity we have as voters to see how Obama will handle the jihadis vs the West. A telling moment. Will he renounce his allegiance to supporters of Isalm? [sic]

This, readers, is pure political pornography. Look at the layers of question-begging and logical leaps of faith one has to make in order to swallow the Jack Wheeler/Crazy Pammy version of things:

1. First, we have to accept that the “Evangelical Alliance of Kenya” is telling the truth about Raila Odinga’s deal with the Kenyan Muslim Leaders Forum.
2. Next, Jack Wheeler (“The Indiana Jones of the Right”) says that Barack Obama “was hosted by Raila” and “spoke in praise of him” during Obama’s August 2006 visit to Kenya. We have to take his word for it.
3. If we’re on board with items one and two, now we have to believe that Odinga is a “supporter of Isalm” (to quote Crazy Pammy), and that that makes him either a “jihadi,” or a tool of “the jihadis.”
4. Now we have to believe that Barack Obama is best buddies with a “supporter of Isalm” and that that makes him, too, either a “jihadi,” or a tool of “the jihadis.”

And note, too, the casual repetition of the stupid lie, long since debunked, about Obama’s troubling childhood indoctrination in Jihad, America-Hating, and Flag-Burning in that scary Indonesian “madrassa.” This is all really nasty stuff, and the fact that it’s just jaw-droppingly, mind-bogglingly stupid doesn’t matter one bit — the Crazy Pammys and Jack Wheelers of the world will continue to dream up stupid shit like this, and wingnuts will continue to go out of their way to swallow it whole, because they want to.

Political pornography, readers, red meat for tools and fools.

Here is a phylogeny of the meme “Dollar Bill Y’All.” If you are aware of an appearance of this meme that I’ve overlooked or omitted, I want to know about it; please leave a reference in the comments.

• 1983 — Jimmy Spicer, “Money (Dollar Bill Y’All)” (mp3) The single that started it all. It’s extremely simple and repetitive, but infectious, with a synthesizer making beeps and a voice saying “Dollar bill y’all, Dollar bill y’all, Dollar-dollar-dollar-dollar Dollar bill y’all.” Who would have expected the phrase to have such resonance?
• 1993 — Wu-Tang Clan, “C.R.E.A.M.” (mp3) From Wu-Tang Clan’s seminal debut LP, Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). The chorus goes, “Cash rules everything around me/ C.R.E.A.M./ Get the money/ Dollar dollar bill y’all.” Wu-Tang Clan have always been critical darlings and are hugely influential. I believe all subsequent iterations of the “dollar bill y’all” meme to be spawned by 1993′s C.R.E.A.M., not the 1983 Jimmy Spicer single.
• 1997 — Nu-metal artists Limp Bizkit release an LP entitled Three Dollar Bill Yall$.
• 1997 — Coolio performs a cover version of Jimmy Spicer’s “Money (Dollar Bill Y’All)” on a compilation album called In Tha Beginning… There Was Rap (a collection of old-school rap standards covered by current rap artists).
• 1998 — R&B artist R. Kelly releases a double-LP entitled R., on which Disc Two, Track Four is “Dollar Bill,” which contains the lyrics “The dollar bill/ Dollar bill y’all, dollar bill y’all, dollar bill y’all.”
• 2001 — Ice Cube releases a “Greatest Hits” album, which contains a song called “$100 Bill Y’All.”
• 2007 — Swizz Beatz releases “It’s Me Bitches”, which contains a direct reference to Wu-Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.A.M.” — “Ring the alarm, man/ Call me the sandman/ When I drop beats I’m the one-man band, man/ Cash rules everything around me, C.R.E.A.M., Get the money, dollar dollar bills y’all/ Fuck it.”
• 2007 — Wyclef Jean‘s album Carnival Vol. II: Memoirs of an Immigrant has a hit single (featuring guest appearances by Akon, Lil Wayne, and Niia), entitled “Sweetest Girl (Dollar Bill).” The song contains a direct reference to Wu-Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.A.M.” — “See, I’m-a tell ya/ Like Wu told me/ Cash rules everything/ Around me/ Singin’ dollar, dollar bill y’all/ Dollar dollar bill y’all.“

Gordo put up an excellent post about Ben Stein’s foolish War on Science. I was curious to see if any of Ben Stein’s mawkish, lugubrious American Spectator columns were available on the Internet. I haven’t read that magazine since the late 1990s, but I remember Ben Stein used to have a pathetic column in which he would whine about how hard it was to be a wealthy man in Southern California, how difficult it was to have his own TV show, etc.

Well, it seems you shouldn’t be visiting the American Spectator website, readers:

It seems the American Spectator site has been infected with malware.