There is a disease called pseudopseudohyperparathyroidism and it is not hyphenated.

[substitute]

1. Hey Stuart! Carlos has some competition. WFMU presents some serious puppet speedmetal action. This is seriously the most metal thing I've seen in forever.
   
   
2. Via robotwisdom, this scopitone video circa 1965 suggests that some mixture of martinis and curare was a recreational drug then. Holy cow. More of the same at scopitones.com also.
   
   
3. Let's sprinkle tiny spy sensors all over the place! It'll be cool!
   
   
4. It had to happen. After all, the Clash have action figures now. This kind of marketing is stupid and contagious.
   
   
5. As Bob Trout would say: "I was in the Navy. No boats. Lots of guns and helicopters."
   
   
6. What's funnier than an increasingly oppressive, authoritarian society? I'll tell you what! Banning high school students from doing a play written to criticize the last oppressive, authoritarian mess we had 50 years ago, that's what! An iron curtain has fallen over Fulton, Missouri...
   
   
7. I'm not sure, but it looks like Tom Stoppard has had some kind of disabling stroke.

Comments

[changeng.livejournal.com]

MAGNIFICENT.

I've been looking into doing something like that with Carlos's groupies section. Any mechanical geniuses out there wanna hot wire 10 barbie dolls?

[maps-or-guitars.livejournal.com]

1 + 2 = AWEsome
3 = damn, those things just get EVERYWHERE.
4 = Shotgun. Where's the SHOTGUN.
5 = Why not the Navy? I think they've got line cooks from the commissary running ahead of convoys over there already.
6 = That just totally cancels out all the awesome.
7 = I just read it twice and I still don't know what he's after. I feel no more enlightened than I do after reading the manual for a VCR.

navy

[substitute.livejournal.com]

Right, plus the cooks on their ships are all kick ass indestructible martial arts action movie heroes with ponytails!

Re: navy

[maps-or-guitars.livejournal.com]

Yeah!

...


What. You mean they're not?

[dr-strych9.livejournal.com]

I don't think Stoppard has had a stroke, but I do think he's been reading a neopragmatist like Rorty or someone like that. I don't understand why neopragmatists inspire such fear and loathing among my friends. I really don't get it.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

Explain, specify.

[dr-strych9.livejournal.com]

He's basically, without actually making it himself, dancing around the neopragmatic case against the existence of natural rights— which scares people who've grown up comfortable without questioning the intellectual foundations of the idea— and you can see it by looking for his uses of the word "pragmatic" and cognates. There are two of them in this essay.

On what ground can we stand and declare the decision to be deplorable? We may say that it's deplorable because, for example, it would lead to that society becoming moribund, or for other pragmatic reasons.

...and...

To use an old-fashioned phrase, we mean that it is good in itself. How can we support this idea, other than pragmatically?

In each of these cases, you can deconstruct what he's saying like this: If only pragmatism could suffice to support these arguments, then there wouldn't be any trouble. The neopragmatist, of course, will simply ask, "So, what's wrong with pragmatism?" And patiently nod and smile while the appeals to virtues of fundamentalism come rolling back.

It's pretty tough to make a pragmatic argument against pragmatism. Still, some people insist on doing it anyway.

I will not drop names here, but some of my friends have expressed horror and approbation when I tell them that I really like the philosophy of neopragmatists like Richard Rorty. I particularly enjoyed his essay, Trotsky and the Wild Orchids (1992), and I've taken my lumps from friends for singing its praises.

So, mostly, I don't do that anymore— but you insisted. There you go. Feel free to join in the ass-kicking already under weigh.

[brianenigma.livejournal.com]

One of the best puppet bands is Captured! By Robots!, assuming you can call a bunch of robotic band members "puppets."

[substitute.livejournal.com]

I'll go read some of this. I have to say, looking at your response I felt like I was peeking into a room full of bear traps. You can switch off some of the spikier rhetorical devices here! Whoof!

Spiky

[torgo-x.livejournal.com]

~~ divine, to define / she is moving to define / so say so / so say so ~~



I personally just shorthand this all as "nothing exists [ref Gorgias], starting with your bank account as of five minutes ago! haw haw haw! on what ground can we stand and declare the decision to be deplorable? your neck!!!".

[dr-strych9.livejournal.com]

Read the essay I linked, then tell me you don't think there are any bear traps in that room. Most people hate neopragmatists as much as— or more than— they hate Nazis. Rorty explains pretty cogently why they do. Try defending the views of Richard Rorty sometime. You'll see.