Bring Back Tech Central Station!
Another milestone in the death of parody, from the National Review cruise:
That prompted a tall, extremely tanned blonde named Kay, from Old Greenwich, Connecticut, to ask Hassett, the co-author of the 1999 book Dow 36,000, “So what do we do with our money?”
The contact list from the people who paid money for this cruise has to be among the most valuable set of leads in history. I’m pretty sure Mitch and Murray have already given NRO a six-figure bid.
UberMitch:
December 27th, 2012 at 12:40 am
“A-B-C. A, always. B, be. C, cruising. Always be cruising with NRO.”
Dano:
December 27th, 2012 at 12:43 am
Dano, at this same e-mail address, was one of the first commenters on TCS to deconstruct their BS, including exposing Alex Avery’s lies about Tyrone Hayes.
Those were the days, when there were only a few outfits shilling for the corporations. Now they are every 7th website on the Internets.
Best,
D
wjts:
December 27th, 2012 at 1:51 am
This charming bit of insight into Australian race relations from Mrs. John O’Sullivan has been quoted elsewhere:
But I haven’t seen anyone quote the punchline yet:
Elsewhere in the article, James Lileks can’t understand why people stereotype Republicans as “the stupid people… the yokels… the dumb… the racists… the hicks… against everything that’s hip and cool.” Slander, of course: us groovy Republicans are still with it! Unless “it” is metaphorical miscegenation or drunken, lazy ape-brutes. We’re not with that at all.
Why’s everybody looking at me like that?
montag2:
December 27th, 2012 at 2:07 am
I think it’s very much in character for a racist defender of the British colonial empire to have married an Alabama belle….
Still, the whole event seems like the 3% to 1% on parade, with all their fear and prejudice hanging out like flab at the beach.
STH:
December 27th, 2012 at 2:33 am
The best part is when one of the cruisers tells the writer to write how scared they all are.
Yes, we know.
Murc:
December 27th, 2012 at 3:24 am
Correction, they used to be with it. Now what they’re with isn’t it anymore, and what’s it seems weird and scary to them.
It’ll happen to you!
JimmyZ:
December 27th, 2012 at 4:41 am
I got a catalog in the mail with $1000 coffee table books they claim can go up in value. I told my friends it was a sign that there would be a violent revolution in America soon. I didn’t know about the cruise with wealthy folks trying to figure out what to do with all their money.
Anonymous37:
December 27th, 2012 at 4:48 am
The contact list from the people who paid money for this cruise has to be among the most valuable set of leads in history.
Okay, everyone here who would have enjoyed going on the cruise (not alone: I wouldn’t be able to do that) in order to see how long it would take before you’d burst out laughing raise your hands.
Mine is up. Look, am I the only person here who spends some of their money on entertainment?
witless chum:
December 27th, 2012 at 6:39 am
As I remember, One Market Under God by Thomas Frank contains about 31 percent just mocking that stupid Dow 36,000 guy. But, if anything, liberals don’t hate him enough.
Warren Terra:
December 27th, 2012 at 6:52 am
I remember the line Krugman often used during the market collapse in 2008 (I don’t know if it was his originally) about how the prediction made in the title of Dow 36,000 might be correct except for containing an extra digit – and we had better hope the extra digit was the “3″ and not the “6″ or one of the “0″s.
rea:
December 27th, 2012 at 6:56 am
I would have been snickering as I walked up the gangway.
TT:
December 27th, 2012 at 8:00 am
Humanity produces an inexhaustible supply of easy marks. Conservatives in America know this.
R. Porrofatto:
December 27th, 2012 at 8:20 am
Hassett’s 36,000 Dow prediction was supposed to come true somewhere around 2003-2004. Missing the mark didn’t stop John McCain from making him senior economic adviser to his 2008 campaign. However, the prize for investment wrongness must go, as usual, to the Blowy Kudload. Larry’s “conservative forecast” in 1999 was a Dow of 50,000 by the year 2020. Still 7 years left to go on that one, but it doesn’t look good.
evodevo:
December 27th, 2012 at 8:23 am
How DOES the 1% hang on to their money?! What a bunch of morans.
There’s a sucker born every minute. PT Barnum
DrDick:
December 27th, 2012 at 8:24 am
The stains in the back of their pants tell the whole story.
DrDick:
December 27th, 2012 at 8:27 am
Just further proof that, despite what their PR people in the press tell you, the rich really are not all that bright.
witless chum:
December 27th, 2012 at 8:34 am
There’s lots of answers to this, but one of the most important is that they spend a lot of money to create nerf capitalism for themselves. Golden parachutes, understanding regulators, government contracting, etc.
Donald Trump is a special case because of his media celebrity, but that guy is pretty terrible at business and he wouldn’t be out on the street even if people didn’t like to watch him yell at other minor celebrities.
Incontinentia Buttocks:
December 27th, 2012 at 8:37 am
See this brilliant Rick Perlstein piece from a couple months ago.
c u n d gulag:
December 27th, 2012 at 8:38 am
John Yoo had to bring his Mommy?
What, his Mrs didn’t want to be seen with him, while he trolled for bucks on this “Ship of Fools?”
Either that, or she backed out when she saw him packing a whip, a blindfold, some handfuffs and thumbscrews, a Taser, and a 5 gallon water bottle, for the trip.
Timb:
December 27th, 2012 at 8:38 am
That IS the organizing principle of the conservative movement
Timb:
December 27th, 2012 at 8:41 am
That’s why I couldn’t go. Nothing would stop me from punching John Yoo in the face
For Stacy McCain’s “readers,” that was hyperbole
rea:
December 27th, 2012 at 8:47 am
Not only did he bring his mommy, but shes’s a distinguished geriatic psychiatrist, and appears to have concluded that the cruisers were all crazy.
spencer:
December 27th, 2012 at 8:51 am
James Lileks? Wow, there’s a name I haven’t seen in a good long while.
spencer:
December 27th, 2012 at 8:54 am
It wouldn’t be hyperbole for me.
witless chum:
December 27th, 2012 at 9:02 am
If there were a benevolent, or even a little bit just, God running this universe that cruise ship would have hit a reef, an iceberg and Cuba simultaneously.
Not at all hyperbole and it contains no metaphor.
Malaclypse:
December 27th, 2012 at 9:09 am
The more appropriate, reasoned response would be to crush his testicles in a vise.
Emily:
December 27th, 2012 at 9:21 am
My dad, who was pretty good at business and who liked to do crossword puzzles, said the puzzle in the Wall Street Journal on Fridays was pretty easy because business men aren’t very smart.
The Kenosha Kid:
December 27th, 2012 at 9:32 am
Crush his testicles in a vise, with votes.
Speak Truth:
December 27th, 2012 at 9:43 am
I like hating on the rich.
Yeah, I hate those actors that demand (and get) millions per picture that only takes them a few months to complete.
LaBron James makes $53 million a year and God knows what some of the higher paid sports starts earn.
And then there’s Oprah Winfrey that makes more than a quarter billion a year. What does George Soros earn in a year? Who knows but it’s HUGE!!
What do the successful music stars make? Christina Aguilera? Rascal Flatts?
Successful New York artists that command hundreds of thousands for just one painting!!
The list is endless and they’re all capitalists. They aren’t wage earners. They’re all selling a product.
c u n d gulag:
December 27th, 2012 at 9:46 am
We could also wish for Legionnaire’s Disease, but no one on the trip even served in the military, let alone the Legion.
Uncle Kvetch:
December 27th, 2012 at 9:47 am
I like hating on the rich.
And I like waffles. Let us come together in a spirit of comity at this holiday season.
Uncle Kvetch:
December 27th, 2012 at 9:51 am
OK, I need a little help here. I hate not being aware of all Internet traditions, and I’m not getting the “with votes” meme (and Google isn’t helping with this one). Help an uncle out, somebody?
Warren Terra:
December 27th, 2012 at 9:54 am
I think it’s a version of adding “metaphorically speaking”. As in, “when I said that I wanted to see all that you loved rendered unto nothingness and to see you wracked with despair, I mean that I wanted your side to lose a fair vote, for your ideas to be crushingly rejected by the electorate”.
olexicon:
December 27th, 2012 at 9:55 am
The Rich hate you and want you to die in the gutter so they can have another ivory backscratcher
Uncle Kvetch:
December 27th, 2012 at 9:56 am
No matter how much the rich hate Mr. Twoofy, Mr. Twoofy will always love the rich. He knows his place, like a good prole.
Malaclypse:
December 27th, 2012 at 9:59 am
Oh. I meant his literal testicles, literally crushed, in a literal vise. But not his child’s testicles, because unlike Yoo, I’m not a monster.
Colin Day:
December 27th, 2012 at 10:04 am
The forecast was not numerically conservative but conservative in the sense of being for conservatives.
Eli Rabett:
December 27th, 2012 at 10:13 am
That would be good. They should be after the way they have acted.
Kurzleg:
December 27th, 2012 at 10:19 am
Inheritance gets bestowed on both the brilliant and the stupid.
brewmn:
December 27th, 2012 at 10:21 am
The only way I would spend $1000 on a coffee table book is that if the book became its own coffee table.
Rand Careaga:
December 27th, 2012 at 10:24 am
I drew my brother’s attention to the NRO cruise story. He expressed surprise that John Yoo felt bold enough to venture into international waters. We found ourselves giggling over the notion of commando frogmen from The Hague spiriting him overboard of a moonless tropical night and taking him east to face justice in the International Criminal Court. Maybe next year?
Warren Terra:
December 27th, 2012 at 10:28 am
Julia! Cut the social safety net of Julia!
Bill Cross:
December 27th, 2012 at 10:28 am
Now you’re on the trolley. That Mrs. Grundy was getting all spifficated on the giggle water, shame she ain’t got It. 23 Skidoo
Halloween Jack:
December 27th, 2012 at 10:29 am
Copying and pasting my comment from the alicublog thread where this was linked.
Oh, Jimmers:
Can’t you just imagine Bob Hope or John Wayne saying the exact same thing at the ’72 RNC? (Of course, these days it’s the likes of Newt Gingrich that’s raring to get up there, but anyway.) Or check this out:
It’s not as if I need anything more to add to the pile of things that I can point otherwise-sensible people to when they stick up for Lileks on account of past glories such as the Gallery of Regrettable Food or guesting on Rifftrax, but that will do nicely. He’s about right for something like an NRO cruise, and I suppose that it makes for a nice break from his important duties writing things like this, sprinkled throughout with imitation humor bits and–I know that this will come as a shock to you all–getting yet another post out of his trip to a retail outlet and out of his daughter.
Halloween Jack:
December 27th, 2012 at 10:31 am
I wouldn’t even spend that much, as I tend to use coffee tables as a) footrests and b) a place to put my Chinese food during an especially difficult bit of a video game.
Linnaeus:
December 27th, 2012 at 10:33 am
Boot leather is a hell of a drug.
Uncle Kvetch:
December 27th, 2012 at 10:36 am
nerf capitalism
Excellent.
Uncle Kvetch:
December 27th, 2012 at 10:37 am
Julia! Cut the social safety net of Julia!
+100
RhZ:
December 27th, 2012 at 10:48 am
Yeah my thinking exactly. I think it was Sadly, No! (or The Poor Man) in 2005 or 6.
Malaclypse:
December 27th, 2012 at 10:56 am
Edroso still mocks him semi-regularly.
brewmn:
December 27th, 2012 at 10:56 am
I’m pretty sure that this is a reference to Obama saying “don’t boo! Get your revenge by voting!” and the wingnuts getting all apoplectic about Obama calling for the resurrection of Nat Turner.
MAJeff:
December 27th, 2012 at 10:58 am
I’m rather enjoying laughing at terrified white supremacists.
timb:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:01 am
Check out Kosmo Kramer
timb:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:04 am
I thought of that, but where would I get a vise on board? Who would help tie the Professor down?
And, remember, it’s supposed to be his child’s testicles and I ain’t messing with Peter Arnett’s grandkids
timb:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:05 am
His marriage must be on solid ground…
timb:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:08 am
I prefer to feed Jen with pancakes, although the suggestion of waffles makes me happy.
Maybe we can compromise on Belgian waffles?
fledermaus:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:09 am
Cosmo Kramer on line one for you.
timb:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:10 am
You can laugh at the protein wisdom exile while we snack on pancakes and some link sausages….anyone who loves Goldstein is a white supremacist
Bijan Parsia:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:10 am
….and then turned into a giant robot that would smite my enemies and do my grocery shopping.
timb:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:11 am
Perhaps LGM members can apprehend him next year? I’m thinking Johnny wouldn’t put up too much a fight. His mom, on the other hand, seems like she’s really with it
Malaclypse:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:11 am
I thought of that, but where would I get a vise on board?
Easily folded for transport and storage
Who would help tie the Professor down?
Just promise anybody on board a tax cut. It seems likely that that crowd will sell out anybody for a tax cut.
And, remember, it’s supposed to be his child’s testicles and I ain’t messing with Peter Arnett’s grandkids
As I said, unlike Yoo, I’m not a monster.
Leeds man:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:22 am
Assumes glands not in evidence.
Anonymous:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:28 am
That was a very interesting piece. Perhaps the greatest restraint on political spending after Citizens United will be conservatives’ inability to resist ripping people off.
Leeds man:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:29 am
Boot leather? Koch smegma, more like.
joe from Lowell:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:29 am
I once set off a major freakout on that site. The Chair of the Iowa Republican Party wrote a column in which he made a reference to “the Southern strategy of focusing on law and order issue.” I commented, “Excuse me, sir, but is this your elephant in the living room?”
Cue fireworks. How dare I call them racists? How dare I?
Dr.KennethNoisewater:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:29 am
The lesson I take away from this is that these rich conservatives have terrible taste in clothes, which doesn’t surprise me.
Njorl:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:30 am
The 1% are often the relatives of the 0.1%.
commie atheist:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:32 am
“tightly wound,” “energetic,” “apoplectic,” “Minnesotan”… Gee, sounds like a fun guy to be around.
Dr.KennethNoisewater:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:44 am
I think I would have been mutinying fairly soon after arriving. The idea of being TRAPPED ON A BOAT with people of that ilk makes me pants-crappingly uncomfortable.
spencer:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:45 am
important duties writing things like this
Shorter Lileks link: old man yells at clouds.
wjts:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:48 am
Your chocolate ration will be increased.
wjts:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:50 am
Everybody wins.
(Except the crew.)
Pinko Punko:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:50 am
But merely because you wanted to make sure you were getting accurate directions to the washroom.
Bruce Baugh:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:56 am
Does the ICC even work with Deep Ones like that? Oh, you didn’t mean those frogmen. Never mind.
spencer:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:56 am
That depends – exactly how socialistic are the Belgians, really?
Murc:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:59 am
At least half the people you list by name, and most of the professions, are by definition wage earners. Athletes earn wages. They are LABOR. So are actors. They exchange their labor for financial remuneration. They are only capitalists inasmuch as you consider labor a product to be sold, which is laughable.
To paraphrase the great philosopher Christopher Julius Rock III, the guys you see playing professional sports may be rich, but the guys signing their checks are WEALTHY.
Finally, nobody at this blog has any problem with people adding value to the economy by using their capital to produce things to be sold. I would be surprised if you could produce a quote to that effect.
Chilly:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:59 am
He has a regular column in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, though it’s Dave Berry-style humor column largely free of political content. I hate to admit it, but sometimes it’s pretty funny.
Chilly:
December 27th, 2012 at 12:02 pm
I did say sometimes.
wjts:
December 27th, 2012 at 12:11 pm
And except for George Soros and maybe those “New York artists”, they’re all in a union.
Uncle Kvetch:
December 27th, 2012 at 12:14 pm
I think you’re right, brewmn, thanks.
Hogan:
December 27th, 2012 at 12:33 pm
A NRO cruise to Innsmouth just makes all kinds of sense.
N__B:
December 27th, 2012 at 12:37 pm
A reefer*, a head of iceberg lettuce, and Cuba is more likely.
*Belonging to a crew member, of course.
olexicon:
December 27th, 2012 at 12:37 pm
It’s called “Survival of the Fittest” and Jonah’s solution makes that easier
Shawn:
December 27th, 2012 at 12:48 pm
Anybody else hear Rush peddling the new conservative e-mail nonsense? for $40 a year, you get a Reagen.com e-mail account. I can only imagine that it’s sold exclusively to those old coots whose forwarded lunatic e-mails have completely alienated their tech savy grandchildren.
Joshua:
December 27th, 2012 at 12:58 pm
Lebron James, Xtina, movie stars, etc., are all wage earners. LeBron gets paid a negotiated salary in exchange for his services. The guy paying LeBron that salary is way richer than he is, and actually did way less than LeBron has done to get his fortune (it’s Mickey Arison, CEO of Carnival Corporation, whose father founded Carnival Corporation).
They get paid a high salary, yes a salary, because their skills are very much in demand.
it’s true that a lot of these people have “brands” that take them into quasi-capitalist territory, but in the end their “capital”, their “assets”, are the exact same thing they are earning a salary with – their in-demand skills.
Jon H:
December 27th, 2012 at 1:09 pm
Yay, makes it easier to filter them out if they use a distinct domain.
S_noe:
December 27th, 2012 at 1:14 pm
She is definitely the hero of the piece. Or co-hero, with the gay smoking caregiver.
S_noe:
December 27th, 2012 at 1:16 pm
I was kind of wishing, as I read this piece, that David Foster Wallace had been there. With his Spider-Man hat. He would’ve given the staff a bit more attention.
MattT:
December 27th, 2012 at 1:25 pm
Anybody can get a .com account. I’m holding out for reagan.reagan.
Jon H:
December 27th, 2012 at 1:30 pm
I’d settle for a harsh strain of norovirus.
Jon H:
December 27th, 2012 at 1:35 pm
I’m sure the boat has an on-board complement of husky 14 year-olds, who will repel any attempt at boarding with human wave attacks.
Barry:
December 27th, 2012 at 1:37 pm
Simple. Those people on the cruise are not the 1%; they’re the 25% or so.
Uncle Ebeneezer:
December 27th, 2012 at 1:57 pm
This may be the smartest (an admittedly low bar) thing Jonah has ever uttered.
Major Kong:
December 27th, 2012 at 3:04 pm
Can you keel-haul someone from an ocean liner?
Hypothetically speaking of course.
mds:
December 27th, 2012 at 3:06 pm
… Goldberg concluded, stuffing more human body parts into his mouth.
Major Kong:
December 27th, 2012 at 3:30 pm
I was hoping for a similar scenario except involving Somali pirates.
The Dark Avenger:
December 27th, 2012 at 6:25 pm
He’ll go down in history with Petroleum V Nasby as a comic writer of his time and no other.
snarkout:
December 27th, 2012 at 6:25 pm
A freind kind of admired Donald Trump — I mean, the dude is an obvious hack, but he built a business empire out of selling his name to people with more money than taste, so that shows a certain Barnum-like venality worth admiring, right? I pointed out that he had inherited a real estate business worth hundreds of millions from his dad. It talks a business genius like Trump to turn a real estate empire worth hundreds of millions to a real estate-and-Atlantic City casino empire worth hundreds of millions in only forty years.
Speak Truth:
December 27th, 2012 at 7:39 pm
You know nothing. They are contractors and as such, independent business people.
Speak Truth:
December 27th, 2012 at 7:40 pm
No, it’s called envy of those who are doing better than you.
Matt:
December 27th, 2012 at 11:45 pm
Longer investment-confused wingnut on the NRO cruise: “Where can we invest that won’t be impacted by our continuing efforts to destroy the country in retribution for electing one of THOSE PEOPLE to the Presidency?”
Speak Truth:
December 28th, 2012 at 4:11 am
How’s this any different from the presidents of large corporations, hedge funds and Wall Street Banking institutions?
They also get paid well for the skill sets they have. Lawyers, Doctors all get paid pretty well for their skills.
But liberals seem to think that people with no skills should do as well as those who do.
Why would anyone think that?
Uncle Ebeneezer:
December 28th, 2012 at 1:03 pm
Given that they were probably coated in neon-orange, Cheetoh dust, who could really blame him?
joe from Lowell:
December 28th, 2012 at 1:13 pm
Athletes don’t set their own salaries, or those of their peers, where the corporate CEO/Board class in society does.
The Dark Avenger:
December 28th, 2012 at 1:59 pm
Yes, we libruls hate anyone making 1$ or more per year than us hair-shirt impoverished ideologists.
The Dark Avenger:
December 28th, 2012 at 2:10 pm
Nope, they’re paid a salary, Speak Lies. That’s why they have their own association or union depending on the sport under discussion. Some players use their earnings to start businesses on their own, but they are usually considered for tax purposes as employees, unless they do something like set up a business entity to which their salaries are paid out instead of themselves.
You really are pulling things out of your a** these days.
olexicon:
December 28th, 2012 at 4:32 pm
Envy Jonah Goldberg? That is the dumbest thing I ever read on the internet in the last five minutes
olexicon:
December 28th, 2012 at 4:34 pm
So to summarize you are pro-Union
Dano:
January 15th, 2013 at 11:32 am
I also caught several big names using sockpuppets to push their agenda (borderline lies), including Chris Horner. I wish I had gotten screenprints before it was disappeared so I could complain to the Bar.,..
Best,
D