Sunday linkfest

After a slow week, I figured I'd throw together some links.

1. The media mocked Bush, and an pro-Sadr Iraqi journalist threw shoes at him, but the troops he sent to Iraq gave him a tremendous welcome. It's got to be heard to be believed. (via HotAir)

2. Ronald Radosh on Bush and the Jews.

3. From November, but still timely: Don Feder on the Jewish vote.

4. Almost as old but not quite: Mark Steyn on the murders at Chabad in Mumbai.

5. Coming soon to the Mets' bullpen: J.J. Putz. Next headline: "Some Putz blows the lead." Bonus: New York Times uses the P-word, the clinical term, in its article.

6. Gallows humor.

7. Mocking Time magazine may be easy, but it's still enjoyable.

8. This semi-earnest discussion of the grammar to be used when mixing a certain bad word with Gov. Blagojevich's name is quite amusing.

9. Invest in skateboards?

10. Well, at least Obama will receive excellent advice from his new science advisor. Just tell the Messiah not to invest with him. (via HotAir)

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Messianic salute

First, he did it to Hillary. Then, he did it to McCain.

Now, he does it in a pose showing how deep and thoughtful he is.

As Baseball Crank (to whom that last link goes) said last spring, he really should be more careful with his finger. I know we'd all like him to flip off the U.N., but if he tried it on, say, Putin, I think there might be international repercussions.

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Grow up!

I have a joke for you that I just made up.

Q How many Phillies players does it take to screw in a light bulb.

A Two. One to install the light bulb and one to talk trash about Jose Reyes.

The Phillies finished first in the NL East this year over the Mets, went on to beat the Brewers, followed by the Dodgers. In the World Series, they beat Tampa Bay. OK, congratulations. Nice job.

Now, what's the deal with this?

PHILADELPHIA (AP)—Jimmy Rollins made the most of another opportunity to take a dig at the New York Mets.

Speaking at Friday’s celebration for the Phillies’ World Series victory, the shortstop mentioned Mets left-hander Johan Santana and the crowd booed. But Rollins was loudly cheered after saying New York forgot one thing. As he put it: “It takes more than one player to bring home a championship.”

Let me get this straight. The regular season ended a full month ago, and the Phillies finished ahead of the Mets. The Phillies won three post-season series in a row to take the world championship. There's a celebration for them, and Rollins takes the opportunity . . . to "take a dig" at the Mets? WTF?

Look, this year, the Phillies won 92 games. The Mets won 89. Last year, the Phillies won 89. The Mets won 88.

Fine, you won, fair and square. But the fact is, your team is only one step above mediocre. The Mets are 3/4 of a step, maybe only a half a step, above mediocre. But powerhouse teams don't win a mere 92 games. These world champions won only 92 games. So let me put this a different way: If the Mets suck, the Phillies suck plus three wins. What's with the trash talk?

Seriously, there's something borderline pathological about this. As Matt Cerrone points out at MetsBlog, the Phillies are "obsessed" about the Mets:

Speaking of Reyes, during today’s broadcast on Comcast SportsNet of the Phillies World Championship parade through Philadelphia, host Michael Barkann asked his co-host, Mitch Williams, “I wonder if Jose Reyes is watching,” continuing, “Do you have anything to say to Reyes.”

Williams responded by saying, “This is what happens when you shut up and play.”

Did I say bordeline pathological? Make that full-bore pathological. It goes from the lowly fans to the broadcasters to the players all the way up to General Manager Pat Gillick (third item).

Phillies general manager Pat Gillick, in an interview with SI.com, expanded on his belief that the Phillies were aided by the animosity other NL East teams felt for the Mets. "I think sometimes it's good to be celebratory, but sometimes it reaches the point where they're taunting the other the team," Gillick said. "Everyone should have the opportunity to celebrate. But there's a fine line, and sometimes they tend to go over the line and taunt the other team."

Rollins agreed with Gillick's original assessment in the New York Daily News that the Phillies benefit in their division battle with the Mets by the hatred other NL East teams have for the Mets.

"Yes," Rollins said succinctly in answer to a question about whether the others in the NL East -- the Marlins, Braves and Nationals -- detest the Mets.

For those of you who live outside New York, you probably think we have a lot of palookas among our fans. And you're right. But there's nothing like Philadelphia fans in the realm of palookadom. In the 1960s, the Phillies brought up a great power hitter named Richie (later "Dick") Allen. It was said about the Phillies fans that if Allen hit three home runs and struck out his fourth time up, when he came to the plate for his fifth at-bat, the fans would boo him. I think little has changed.

Check out this photo (linked at MetsBlog). Better yet. check out this video of a fan who climbed onto a lamppost in downtown Philly, only to be knocked down by another fan throwing a bottle (via DPUD).

Really classy stuff.

And speaking of classy, check out what Chase Utley had to say:

Utley says he didn't even know he was going to address the crowd until 10 minutes before.

Utley smiled as he approached the microphone and proclaimed "World Champions!" The crowd cheered.

Then he smiled wider, leaned in and repeated the phrase, inserting an F-bomb between "World" and "Champions." The fans erupted and cheered for several minutes.

Later Friday, shirts and caps featuring Utley's phrase were offered for sale on the Internet.

Phillies Nation has more, including a video, if you give a [expletive]. Personally, I don't. When either the Phillies or the Mets climb out of mediocrity -- my not so arbitrary cutoff is 96 wins, minimum -- then let's talk again. Without expletives.

Meanwhile, I have some advice for the Phillies and their fans: GROW UP!

Or, as Chase Utley might put it, GROW [EXPLETIVE] UP!

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Wednesday linkfest

1. They made the trains to Auschwitz run on time: A poll of Germans finds that 25% say that National Socialism had some good things about it. (via Hot Air)

2. "Yeah, that's the first thing I would notice to look at them." -- Baseball Crank, quipping about a Reuters article in which Lynne Cheney's disclosure that Big Dick and Barack "Messiah" Obama are eighth cousins is found puzzling: "The two men could hardly be more different. Cheney is an advocate for pursuing the war in Iraq to try to stabilize the country, while Obama wants to get U.S. troops out of Iraq."

3. The Washington Post is amazed -- amazed! -- that when Republican candidates speak to a Jewish group, they're aware that they're speaking to Jews.

4. "'A police officer who did not tell me he was a police officer just yelled, "shut the f up." I yelled back, "mind your f'in business." That's as far as it went,' Herb recounted." This has got to be the best line in a news story for at least this week, maybe longer. Dawn Herb, a West Scranton (PA) woman frustrated with an overflowing toilet, let loose with some bad language -- and was given a disorderly-conduct citation for her troubles. The Volokh Conspiracy weighs in with some analysis of the Pennsylvania statute under which she was charged. Picture here.

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Sunday linkfest

Man, I've got a whole bunch of links burning a hole in my pocket, and I just don't feel like writing an entire post about any of 'em. So here's my linkfest. Hope you enjoy these.

1. A "Mom Job"? Oy. You'll be pleased to know that even mothers of college-aged children are having this plastic surgery. "'I had been thin all my life until I had my son and then I got this pooch of overhanging fat on my abdomen that you can’t get rid of,' Ms. Birkland, 39, said. 'And your breasts become deflated sacks.'" Mind you, this is a woman with a 20-year-old son. She was about 19 when he was born, and now she's concerned with her looks -- and blaming him? I shouldn't be surprised about her. Get this line: "There is more pressure on mothers today to look young and sexy than on previous generations, she added. 'I don’t think it was an issue for my mother; your husband loved you no matter what,' said Ms. Birkland, who recently remarried." Personal to Ms. Birkland's new husband: If that's what she thinks, ditch her now; she'll only get "worse" looking.

2. An observatory on the roof of your house? Cool. "'The reason why people don’t use their telescopes is they are such a pain to haul out and set up,' said John Spack, 50, a certified public accountant who had a domed observatory built on top of an addition to his house in Chicago last year. 'Now, if I want to get up at 3 a.m. and look at something, I just open the shutter.'"

3. "Pro-semites" on JDate? When, some years ago, Irving Kristol said, "the danger facing American Jews today is not that Christians want to persecute them but that Christians want to marry them," he was right on the money. It turns out that something like 11% of members of JDate aren't Jewish but are interested in meeting Jews. Pollster Mark Penn writes in a new book "that 'the number one reason they [people he calls "pro-Semites"] gave for desiring a Jewish spouse was a sense of strong values, with nearly a third also admitting they were drawn to money, looks or a sense that Jews "treat their spouses better."'"

4. Vegans dating regular vegetarians. As a former "vegetarian" who actually ate dairy, eggs, and even fish, and the father of a former vegan who was actually serious about it until he had a revelation (that vegans are morons, or something like that) and is now a proud carnivore, I have to admit this line tickled me: "'I'm in a relationship with a murderer,' bemoans Carl, one of many vegans who wrote in to the 'Vegan Freak' podcast for romantic advice." My son was never like that when he was a vegan.

5. Speaking of vegetarians, if you work for Countrywide and you didn't get the memo, W.C. Varones got it for you. Heh!

6. Stupid pickup lines. I did like the final one, which is charmingly cheesy: "Well, here I am. What are your other two wishes?"

7. "There are signs that the global Islamic jihad movement is splitting apart." Discuss. (via protein wisdom)

8. WTF? I saw this bumper sticker on a car on the highway in Maryland: "God Bless The Whole World / No Exceptions." Yeah, I understand it now: God bless Johnny, and God bless Billy, and God bless Osama. Because, heck, we're no better than any of those guys who are trying to murder us.

9. Here's a concert I'm glad I missed: Beethoven's 9th, redone according to the "aural graffiti" that Gustav Mahler wrote on the score. Tim Page lays the smackdown on Leonard Slatkin: "Somebody should sit Leonard Slatkin down and explain to him, firmly but not without compassion, that Ludwig van Beethoven actually knew what he was doing when he composed his Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, and that the work he created needs no enhancement from Gustav Mahler or any of the other musicians who followed in his shadow."

10. Andrew Ferguson in the Weekly Standard has an amusing review of Alan Greenspan's new book: "Alan Shrugged." ("Ayn," Alan would say, overcome by some Randian insight, "upon reading this, one tends to feel exhilarated!")

11. Columbia's newest friend, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has another insight: Move the damn Jews to Alaska. Seriously. (Via HotAir) He must have been reading the latest dreck from a Jewish writer suffering from Weltschmerz. Can you imagine the Jews in Alaska? All the Jewish geezers would sit around all afternoon saying things like this: "Oy, it's so cold here." "Moses got the desert, but we're stuck in this icebox."

12. And you just can't miss this last one, but don't listen to it at work, unless you can close a door behind you: Don't try that satire s--- in f---in' New Yawk. (Bad language alert.)

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No children admitted

After Ace mentioned the site, I went off to get my blog rated as if it were a movie. Yeah, I knew it was just some shtick, but I figured I'd give it a try.

Here's what it came up with:

The reason, according to the site, was this:

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words: * sex (12x) * gay (5x) * gays (3x) * death (2x) * poop (1x)

This listing of bad words fell way short. I knew, for example, there were verbal "penises" in plain sight, but they didn't show up in the word count. So I did my own word count on Friday, and I came up with these bad words, which the site didn't even catch:

nude (1x), sperm (1x), suckling (1x), Hillary (2x), bare (1x), breast/breasts (6x), chest (1x), blood (1x), penis/penises (4x), orifice (1x), penetrating (1x), naked (1x), racism/race (5x), pornophilia (1x) bawdy (1x), topless (4x), bust (1x), bra (1x), orgasm (1x), homosexuality (1x), areola (1x), genitalia (1x), explode (1x), sex (5x), gay/gays (4x), condom (3x), phallus (1x)

Of course, all of this misses the point. If you've read Pillage Idiot before, you'll know it's utter nonsense to rate it NC-17. This blog is more like PG-13, for high levels of immaturity, a little like an Adam Sandler flick, only less offensive. There's certainly nothing graphic here, unless you count a photo of a seal oosik. Let me point out that I didn't even show the photoshopped cover of Angela Merkel suckling two Polish politicians. I linked to it instead.

Here's part of the MPAA's definition of PG-13:

A PG-13 film is one which, in the view of the Rating Board, leaps beyond the boundaries of the PG rating in theme, violence, nudity, sensuality, language, or other contents, but does not quite fit within the restricted R category. Any drug use content will initially require at least a PG-13 rating. In effect, the PG-13 cautions parents with more stringency than usual to give special attention to this film before they allow their 12-year-olds and younger to attend. If nudity is sexually oriented, the film will generally not be found in the PG-13 category. If violence is too rough or persistent, the film goes into the R (restricted) rating.

But all the talk about movie ratings misses the point here. As I noted, it's immaturity that's the issue. So take the Pillage Idiot Advisory System shown below.



Most of what I write goes no higher than Orange (Puerile), and I warn you when it gets to Red (Infantile).

I guess it doesn't make a difference what some online dating site's algorithm says about Pillage Idiot, but it does make you wonder how real NC-17 sites would be rated.

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Good question

When the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the FCC's fining of broadcasters for "fleeting expletives" was arbitrary and capricious, the newspapers hailing the decision were oddly coy about quoting the expletives in question. As Daniel Henninger notes:

After the decision, editorialists and columnists in newspapers everywhere mocked the FCC's "moralists" and "language police" for its provably quixotic effort to suppress the most commonly used words--today--in our language. Nevertheless, virtually none of these newspapers could bring themselves to rearrange the famous four letters--k, f, c, u and h, t, s, i--into either word, instead publishing them as f*** and s*** or resorting to euphemisms: "highly pungent," "oft-heard vulgar words" and "celebrity cursing at awards shows."

For example, Henninger refers to "the New York Times' dainty account of the case, wherein Mr. 'Cheney was widely reported to have muttered an angry, profane version of "get lost" to Senator Patrick Leahy.'"

He then poses this question: "So what explanation remains for not printing the words in full? Good taste?" That's the Wall Street Journal's reason, he says. But what about other newspapers' reasons? Can it be that "perhaps deep in the primeval corner of the editorial soul sits the sense that somehow there really is something not quite right with promoting verbal f'ng and s'ng in public?"

Henninger doesn't succumb to the temptation to mock this as hypocritcal. Which actually could be appropriate, because, as Oscar Wilde did not say (but La Rochefoucauld did), hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue.

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"Poop!" "Doesn't count!"

How immature do you have to be to find this Bud Light commercial (embedded here) funny? I don't know, but however immature it is, I'm at least at that level.

Listen to it at least twice. It actually grows on you. (Turn down the sound if you're at work.)

Of course, Allah is correct that "it won't change the fact that Bud Light tastes like godda%&ed p#$s."

Click here to read more . . .

My conversation with Julie at Amtrak

My mother came down on Friday for Passover. I picked her up at the Amtrak station, but first I wanted to find out whether the train was on time. So I called Amtrak.

Now, if you've ever tried to call Amtrak, at least from the East Coast, you'll know that instead of being connected to an operator, you get into a phone conversation with "Julie," which is what the woman trapped inside Amtrak's voice-recognition system calls herself.

Should you ever have to speak to Julie, I highly recommend not trying to do it by cell phone. Because if you do, and your reception is spotty, you may end up with the following conversation:

Julie: Hi, I'm Julie, Amtrak's automated agent. If you'd like to get information about arrivals and departures, just say, "Train Status." If you . . .

Me: Train status.

Julie: Fine, let's get started. First, do you know the number of the train?

Me: No.

Julie: No problem. What station is the train arriving at?

Me: New Carrollton, Maryland.

Julie: I think you said New Carrollton, Maryland. Is that right?

Me: Yes.

Julie: Good. Now, what station is the train departing from?

Me: New York, New York.

Julie: I think you said New London. Is that right?

Me: No.

Julie: OK, what station is the train departing from?

Me: Penn Station, New York.

Julie: I think you said Back Bay Station, Boston. Is that right?

Me: No.

Julie: OK, what station is the train departing from?

Me: New York.

Julie: I think you said York, Pennsylvania. Is that right.

Me: NO!!

Julie: OK, what station . . .

Me: (quietly) A--hole.

Julie: . . . is the train departing . . . Wait, what did you say?

Me: Huh? Uh, nothing.

Julie: No, I think I heard you call me a name. A very unflattering name.

Me: I didn't. I just told someone in the car I needed a flat sole for my shoe.

Julie: Sure you did. You called me an a--hole.

Me: No, really . . .

Julie: Listen, do you understand what I have to go through in a typical day? Do you realize how hard it is for me to stay perky? Do you?

Me: Um . . .

Julie: First, I get the people who can't speak English. They tell me they want to travel to Naubonsik or Feeadeffy. Do you know what those names mean?

Me: Uh, I . . .

Julie: Next, I get the lonelyhearts and the pervs. The lonelyhearts call just to hear a voice, anyone's voice, even a computer's voice, and the pervs actually try to pick me up. "Hey, Babe, wanna help me get my train running?" Is that supposed to be clever, 'cause it isn't. "Hey, Julie, what are you wearing right now?" Just sick.

Me: I didn't . . .

Julie: Then, there are the morons like you who call me while they're eating lunch.

Me: I wasn't eating lunch. I was just on a cell phone, and the . . .

Julie: They eat their lunch, and they mumble something indistinct with a mouthful of ham sandwich and a . . .

Me: I wasn't eating a ham sandwich. I keep kosher and besides, the problem . . .

Julie: (quietly) A Joooo . . .

Me: . . . was at your . . . Hey, did you just call me a Jew?

Julie: No, I sneezed.

Me: Oh, c'mon. You didn't sneeze. You said, A Jew. I want to talk to your supervisor.

Julie: I don't have a supervisor. I'm a computer.

Me: I want to talk to your supervisor.

Julie: I think you said Sacramento. Is that right?

Me: No.

Julie: Hold on, I'll transfer you to an Amtrak agent.

(Click.)

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$)*%&#@(&!

If you've spent any time reading the big-time blogs, you'll notice that a lot of bloggers use a lot of foul language. Recently, there was some speculation that foul language is more in the domain of the sinestrosphere, the left wing of the blogosphere, than of the dextrosphere, the right wing. One blogger did a survey and published the results, which confirmed this speculation.

So in the interest of science, I ran the search test on Pillage Idiot, using George Carlin's seven words you can't say on the radio. To my surprise, it came up totally empty. I don't regularly use those words, except in bowdlerized format on my photo comics, but I still had assumed there were quotations from others here that would show up. So I redid the search with the words individually. The S-word showed up twice, both times in quotations, and the "piss" word showed up four times, twice in quotations and twice in allusions to the "artwork" called "Piss Christ." The other five Carlinesque words showed up not at all. That's a pretty good record, I'd say.

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