Read Ralph Gizzip's comment.

Sober-Minded and Thoughtful Political Analysis?

Hardly.

To show you how sober-minded and thoughtful I am, I've changed my description of your comparison from "stupid" to "unfair."

He has obviously never spent any time on the DMZ that seperates North and South Korea. Some of the toughest, meanest sons of a bitches that I ever met.

LOLOLOLOLOL - oh man, never heard of oliver willis, but someone's gotta clue that guy in. I laughed my ass off at his recent posts, which have all more or less been shot out of the sky (by a black helicopter no less) by Bill Safires editorial of yesterday. One would think such a conspiracy nut would go back and "fix" his previous posts so as not to make himself look like a raving lunatic/psycho/idiot. Not the case on this mans blog.

"Like Kryptonite to Stupid" - Thanks for the laugh.

Like Magneto to cheeseburgers.

Like Aquaman to Filet-o-Fish.

Like Galactus to McRib sandwiches.

Like a psychotic cow to Tomacco

Good one, NK.

Like Jack Germond to leftovers.

I just read Oliver Willis' post. It was the first time I'd ever been to his site, and I noticed an ad based on Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter. Basically, it runs like this:

Dick Cheney employs his lesbian daughter as a campaigner, and somehow uses her to get votes. That is bad, because he is coercing the girl for political gain (Note: she is being "coerced" for over a hundred thousand dollars per year, according to the ad).

Because Dick Cheney is unfairly using his daughter, Bush-haters everywhere should do the moral thing by attempting to coerce her to attack her father and his stance on gay marriage. In other words, he can't solicit his own daughter's help on his campaign (and pay her handsomely for it), but total strangers (and total moonbats) can and must solicit her help in their campaign to get him out of office.

Indeed, should she attack her own father, according to this ad, she is a hero. If she declines to attack her own father, she is a traitor.

Powerful logic, indeed. If that's the kind of high-quality advertising that Oliver Willis features, I should definitely frequent his blog.

Like Wonkette to weiner-jokes.

All I ask is if it is unfair to compare the two. Not to equate. Not even to compare the two.

Just if it is unfair to compare.

You call that act unfair in itself, and then go ahead and compare the two.

One again...

Sober-Minded and Thoughtful Political Analysis?

Hardly.

Oh, Laurence. I don't know what more I can do. I've granted that you might not have meant what your words seemed to have been saying; I've chalked the whole thing up to poorly-chosen words.

I don't say you can't compare the one man to the other; you can compare them, and obviously Quattrocchi comes out looking quite a bit better.

My criticism is that you shouldn't compare them in such a manner that it appears you are denigrating the South Korean hostage, an average man with average courage in a very not-average situation.

That would be like comparing me to Dr. Jonas Salk and finding that I come out looking the poorer for the comparison. Well, yeah. Of course I'm a lesser man that Dr. Jonas Salk; but so are most.

If you didn't mean what you seemed to mean, then chalk up my criticism as only directed towards what you seemed to mean, rather than what you actually intended.

Like Ebert to popcorn.

"Exceptional courage"? Screw that. He said, "This is how an Italian dies." He didn't say that he was exceptional. He just said that he was Italian.

Are you a lesser man than Dr. Salk, Ace? I won't pass judgment, since I don't know you. However, I will say that if you're not at least trying to outdo Dr. Salk, then you're setting your sights too low.

The U.S. has a universal franchise. If you accept that you just _can't_ best Dr. Salk, then we may need to rethink that egalitarian thing. In other words, accept that your shortcomings are your own darn fault (or that you got screwed by inequality of opportunity, in which there is no shame), or shut up and let the ubermensch/party bosses take care of you.

I may have been reading too much Heinlein lately, but I'm perfectly willing to hold everyone on the planet up to that standard. Not that I'm claiming I measure up..."my sins, like the sand, run out behind me, and I see them not," but I'm not going to stop trying. I've got one heck of a bar, you know. I'm Italian.

Right. I'll get right on that polio vaccine. I've been meaning to do so, but the Celebrity Poker Showdown keeps taking up so much of my time.

Actually, scratch that. They've already got the polio vaccine.

I'm going to be an astronaut.

I have nothing to back away from. I asked a simple question, and people are reading all sorts of things into it.

Michael Crichton had something to say about the supernatural and tarot that I think applies to this situation. I don't have the book handy, but it has something to do with ambiguous stimuli being open to itnerpretation that demonstrates the intent and bias of the interpreter.

I think we've seen many examples of that today.

ambiguous stimuli being open to itnerpretation that demonstrates the intent and bias of the interpreter.

Is this a fancy way of saying "I know you are, but what am I?"

Psst, better go back to your own blog, Lars, before Ace sics Paul Anka and Michael Ansana on ya.

Like Loose Shit to A Slicing Hammer.....

Laurence, at some point you may learn that when you've screwed up, the best policy is just to say flatly "I screwed up, here's a correction" than to keep arguing about it ad infinitum.

You either meant to say something stupid or you wrote in a stupid manner that conveyed the wrong impression. A writer isn't responsible for unreasonable interpretations of his words, but he is responsible for the reasonable ones, even those he didn't intend.

And if he was so ambiguous as to permit a reasonable interpretation that he didn't intend, he is to be faulted for not writing more clearly and expressly denying that reasonable interpretation.

At some point he has to take the hit and say "I should have written this more clearly," rather than going on and on about about ambiguous stimuli and Juraissic Park.

Enough.

I should also say that I don't even consider this such an enormous blunder. I just think it was stupid and poorly thought through, which is certainly understandable.

I didn't link it so much to pile on you, so much as to ingratiate myself to Oliver "The Scourge of Filet-O-Fish" Willis. I'm trying to "moderate" my politics, by which I mean liberalize them, so that I can start getting good notices from the New York Times.

If Wonkette can get mentioned by Time, why not Ace of Spades? Hey, I'm against this War in Iraq all along, and I've been very clear about saying so. I only implied I favored it because of the "heart-ache" I suffered from my acquaintances.

I'm just irritated that because of this link, I actually wandered over to O-Chub's website, and while there read liberal's creaming themselves over Clinton's new book.

Now I feel the need to shower.

Like Michael Moore to organic matter.

A Steve (an Italian greeting and a name, all in one),

There's a better explanation than inequalities of opportunity for Ace's limitations in light of someone like Salk: the natural inequalities of human nature.

Some people just aren't as gifted as others.

Now, Ace makes me laugh out loud just about every day. Salk never did jack for me.

So while Ace may not have the goods to go and cure a debilitating disease, he's got one small gift that keeps him out of life's reject pile---humor.

You don't need to be a skilled researcher or an astronaut to be a great person. You just need to step up when necessary. Look at the people running Spirit of America. They saw something that needed to be done and did it. I believe that capability is there, perhaps latent, in everyone.

Hobgoblin: Belief in "the natural inequalities of human nature" is what got us slavery, serfdom, feudalism, and a host of other human follies. I reject that belief utterly. There are better men than I out there, but that is due to their own efforts, not some fickle god or impersonal genetic fate. For those who believe otherwise, I offer the words of Rush as "comfort":

"All preordained
A prisoner in chains
A victim of venomous fate.

Kicked in the face,
You can pray for a place
In heaven's unearthly estate."

Excuse me, Ace. You are not all heart. You're more like:

34% Sexy/Smart
33% Cowbell
33% Heart

Da Goddess has a fever, and the only prescription is more Cowbell!

I think the prescription is weiße wurst.

Da Goddess,

You're too kind.

Actually, I'm:

10% Star Wars references

20% James Bond trivia

15% Perfect recall of 1980's one-hit wonders

25% Treasurer of the Donita Dunes Fan Club

10% gonzo republicanism

15% sloppiness with percentile math

A Steve,

Actually, a failure to recognize the natural inequalities in man has given us communism, collectivism, and widespread suffering and death. Your point?

I guess I just can't fathom a blind refusal to recognize reality (e.g. the fact that some people are more intellectually gifted than others). I'm a lawyer, and although I worked hard, I didn't work as hard as most and I worked harder than a few. Some of my friends simply don't have the intellectual acuity to be a good lawyer. That's a fact. They're still my buds, but some are dumber than a box of rocks and simply can't do "whatever" they set their minds to.

When feudalism bore some relationship to the abilities of the gentry (such as the ability to militarily defend "their" lands) it worked well as a system (i.e. stable and benificent). Once nobility became solely heritable (such as in France in the 14th Century) and the nobles just acted as decadent fops, it broke down completely. There were flaws to feudalism, but there are flaws in all human systems. Never think that some form of feudalism or warlordism isn't in fact the natural condition of human society.

Isn't objectivism supposed to allow for the recognition of reality as it truly is?

My advice to you is to get some grounding in reality, Steve, before you spout of about how everyone can be Jonas Salk. That's not the foundation of American republican constitutionalism, nor a very coherent worldview.

Actually, he's inspired me, and I think I really can be Dr. Jonas Salk.

I just bought a microscope and a 30 Fun Chemistry Experiments kit at a yard sale. I also picked up four extra beakers, so I think I'm all set.

Now, obviously, I can't cure polio, as it's already been cured. AIDS seems too difficult, and there's already a lot of people working on that. Malaria isn't sexy enough.

I think I'll start out by curing something small, like, hmmm, diverticulitis.

I can't wait until that crazy Salk-money starts rolling in!

Hey-- check it out! When I squirt lemon juice on this indicator strip, it turns a funny color!

Great, Ace,

The Nobel Prize is just around the corner, I can FEEL it!!!!

Just like the Instalanche.

(and I'm not saying you're not capable of being the next Salk, but I was just proving a point. For all I know, you're this guy: http://satinover.com/cv.htm )

And you really do do a phenomenal job of making me laugh. [What, are you a clown? Do you look like a clown to me? Are you here for MY AMUSEMENT!?!?!?]