Lazy Saturday
Another lazy link roundup:
- The USS Constitution defeated HMS Java 200 years ago today. Follow the action at @1812now.
- Mickey Mouse is bad at committing suicide.
- Looking forward to Django Unchained. Tarantino on John Ford is worth the read.
- How has the UN failed Congo?
- The legal ins and outs of potential Syrian chemical weapons use.
- The US-India nuclear deal four years on.
- This is awesome.
Finally, the first LGM podcast is provisionally scheduled for publication the week of January 14, and will concentrate on “The Hobbit.” Updates as they come.
Jonathan:
December 29th, 2012 at 2:35 pm
Fixed.
Fred:
December 29th, 2012 at 3:29 pm
That Friedman article has got to be the sappiest and most banal piece of editorial journamalism I’ve seen from him in years. It made me feel all fuzzy (and snarky, and fuzzy for being snarky) inside. Glorious.
Hogan:
December 29th, 2012 at 3:39 pm
(At this fine newspaper we’ve substituted a bunch of lazily written made-up shit for Thomas Friedman’s column. Let’s see if the readers can tell the difference!)
Atticus Dogsbody:
December 29th, 2012 at 3:44 pm
Ummm…
cpinva:
December 29th, 2012 at 3:46 pm
when i first opened that link, i read “The Onion Page”, instead of “The Opinion Page”. not sure if there was much difference.
J. Otto Pohl:
December 29th, 2012 at 3:47 pm
Well they certainly failed in Rwanda if Linda Melvern’s account is to be believed and she seems to be quite credible.
efgoldman:
December 29th, 2012 at 3:51 pm
Constitution vs Java? Video or it didn’t happen.
efgoldman:
December 29th, 2012 at 3:53 pm
I read the first few paragraphs, saw at least four phrases for which my high-school creative writing teacher would have failed me, and I gave up.
cpinva:
December 29th, 2012 at 3:56 pm
the vegas line on this was HMS Java, by -3.5.
for those of you that have never seen the USS Constitution in person, it is a stunning sight. i saw it years ago, the first time i was ever in boston. i was about 12 at the time, and i was mightily impressed. it still looked like it could kick ass and take names.
joe from Lowell:
December 29th, 2012 at 3:58 pm
The UN is not an entity with agency of its own. The blue helmets go where they’re told to go, and do what they’re told to do.
Blaming “the UN” for failures only helps to shift the blame away from the state actors who decided not to use the available tool.
greylocks:
December 29th, 2012 at 3:59 pm
The Onion is better-written and usually makes sense.
Colin Day:
December 29th, 2012 at 4:10 pm
Does this mean that Java is unconstitutional? It might make some programmers’ lives easier.
Uncle Kvetch:
December 29th, 2012 at 4:39 pm
Hee hee hee.
Sly:
December 29th, 2012 at 4:47 pm
I got as far as this sentence in the Friedman piece…
… and simply stopped to marvel at a pristine example of classic Friedmanese:
“Predictably, Friedman spends the rest of [The World is Flat] piling one insane image on top of the other, so that by the end – and I’m not joking here – we are meant to understand that the flat world is a giant ice-cream sundae that is more beef than sizzle, in which everyone can fit his hose into his fire hydrant, and in which most but not all of us are covered with a mostly good special sauce. Moreover, Friedman’s book is the first I have encountered, anywhere, in which the reader needs a calculator to figure the value of the author’s metaphors.”
Leeds man:
December 29th, 2012 at 4:47 pm
Roméo Dallaire had a few words about that as well.
Leeds man:
December 29th, 2012 at 4:54 pm
The only thing in common between Friedman and Taibbi (apart from the fact that they both write in English, except maybe Friedman); given a few sentences, you know who it is.
JoyfulA:
December 29th, 2012 at 5:59 pm
I haven’t read any Friedman in years, and his cacophony of mixed metaphors reminded me of why I don’t, unless tricked.
Now I have to go find out what happened in Zimbabwe yesterday, because he never did say.
cpinva:
December 29th, 2012 at 6:05 pm
true, that should have been a tip off right there.
toma:
December 29th, 2012 at 6:31 pm
The Friedman generator was excellent.
–”Just call it missing the battle for the bullets.”
–”Just call it missing the myths for the lie.”
–”Just call it missing the shirts for the cloth.”
One of those has got to be real.
Mister Harvest:
December 29th, 2012 at 6:44 pm
So, that Friedman piece was a parody, right? He didn’t actually mean that seriously, right? Please?
Mister Harvest:
December 29th, 2012 at 6:46 pm
Never mind; I missed the context entirely. Bravo! More coffee for me…
Mister Harvest:
December 29th, 2012 at 6:47 pm
If the Eighth Amendment means anything, it means no more Java programming.
Warren Terra:
December 29th, 2012 at 6:49 pm
Poe’s law is killing me here. This is about the third commenter convinced they’ve read a real Friedman column, or at least purporting to believe so.
Leeds man:
December 29th, 2012 at 7:26 pm
It’s a double reverse Poe’s Law with a twist.
James E Powell:
December 29th, 2012 at 7:44 pm
It would be very hard to write a parody that was as good as that. Doesn’t anyone at the Times see this? Isn’t it like so obvious that the people who clean the offices realize it?
James E Powell:
December 29th, 2012 at 8:05 pm
I totally fell for it, unless it was real, in which case I totally fell for it.
Bill Cross:
December 29th, 2012 at 8:10 pm
I think java and a poor constitution ends with an ulcer
Bill Cross:
December 29th, 2012 at 8:11 pm
a twist of 180 degrees
Uncle Ebeneezer:
December 29th, 2012 at 8:43 pm
Here was one of my alternate articles:
UserGoogol:
December 29th, 2012 at 8:51 pm
It tricked me too, but yeah, it’s fake. When you look at the rest of the page aside from the article itself it explicitly says it’s a parody although it’s subtle enough about it that you can easily miss them if you’re in the habit of ignoring sidebars.
The big green buttons generate new articles. The website does simple mad libs on about two templates, so some are more self-evidently silly than others.
greylocks:
December 29th, 2012 at 9:39 pm
I got lost right around where he started talking about Muppets.
greylocks:
December 29th, 2012 at 9:43 pm
Hey, it’s not C#. That should count for something.
Erik Loomis:
December 29th, 2012 at 9:44 pm
Suffice it to say that I will not be part of the Hobbit podcast.
efgoldman:
December 29th, 2012 at 10:36 pm
I was born in the Boston area, and lived there for most of my first 55 years. Yes, USS Constitution is a wonderful visit. When they take it out into the harbor every year to turn it around, even more so. (They put an alternate side against the dock, for even wear and sun.)
When I was a kid, it was somewhat preserved, but just sitting there in the middle of a working Navy yard. Hell of a thing to get a bus full of kids through the area and back again. When the shipyard was closed in 1974, the property was properly deeded to the Park Service, which created the park and facility as we know it today.
That area was industrial/blighted for most of my childhood. Now it is yuppie heaven, much to the dislike of the old townies.
cpinva:
December 29th, 2012 at 11:45 pm
i remain unconvinced.
where is the bright line, between “real” friedman, and “parody” friedman? how can you parody parody?
people want to know, dammit!
Warren Terra:
December 30th, 2012 at 12:39 am
So what you’re saying is that not only are people’s ingenuous responses to a declared Friedman parody Poe’s law in action, Friedman himself has become an example of Poe’s law in action?
rea:
December 30th, 2012 at 8:09 am
The Java used to be the Renommée before they renamed it . . .
Leeds man:
December 30th, 2012 at 10:02 am
And the Parody was made flesh, and dwelt among us.
Walt:
December 30th, 2012 at 10:22 am
Because you are a Hobbit nationalist offended by the way Hollywood has reduced your proud people to a stereotype of thievery and stuffed-shirtedness?
Substance McGravitas:
December 30th, 2012 at 10:48 am
Sensitive souls need not contemplate beheadings.
Walt:
December 30th, 2012 at 11:31 am
Erik knows all too well now what it would be like to be Smaug.
Djur:
December 30th, 2012 at 12:13 pm
I am exceedingly amused by how many people thought that was an actual Thomas Friedman piece. I think it’s madlibbed together from stuff he actually wrote, though, so I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising.
But what this does tell me is that nobody looks at their location bar anymore.
Djur:
December 30th, 2012 at 12:13 pm
Perhaps this will be illuminating.
manta:
December 30th, 2012 at 1:05 pm
From the article “the UN has been stripped of what it does best, brokering a political peace process and has been reduced to what it is worst at––military protection.”
I think the article is spot on.
Halloween Jack:
December 31st, 2012 at 9:57 am
Just wait ’til someone cobbles together a Friedman TED talk generator and you have people puzzling over why his shirt seems to change from one shot to the next. (Unless he wears the same type and color of shirt all the time, in which case we’re golden.)
Halloween Jack:
December 31st, 2012 at 10:01 am
…a lemon twist?
Halloween Jack:
December 31st, 2012 at 10:02 am
…wait, Henry Louis Gates Jr. interviewing Quentin Tarantino? Holy shit.
toma:
December 31st, 2012 at 6:56 pm
Vishnu, that is funny. And eerie.