I'm told that Movable Type's "Allow comments" setting on WoC now works -- which is to say, Marshals ought to be able to lock threads, disallowing new posts temporarily or permanently. This is something I'd prefer would only be used to combat sp*m on sessile entries, not to restrict discussion. But having the option is important.
To celebrate, I think a spirited "food fight" is called for. Here. In this thread.
Here are the ground rules...
1a) No proper names, that is, blog thread participant names mentioned in body copy must be Xs and Ys and Foos and Bars and so on.
1b) No using post numbers, either; it's not surreal enough if you don't have to guess who the h*ll is talking to whom. The object is to make a big mess and wear each other out!
1c) Post as yourself, please, or as a throwaway/artistic sockpuppet on this thread only. See No Impersonation (Rule 3). Impersonating any other poster, even on this thread, is grounds for permanent banning.
2) Notwithstanding Rule 1a, public figures may be named explicitly. Here, I include my handle and those of the other active Marshals.
3) No Sp*M, no impersonation, no threats. Also, no blatant / boring "ism" of a skinhead, Millennial or other bent, as determined by The Entry Author (me).
4) On this specific thread only, SHOUTING IS OK, scurrilous invective is welcome, as long as it isn't over the line that might get us banned at some net-nannied sites that have a right to read the blog as a whole. See also: NO THREATS.
5) Substantiveness. For this specific FOOD FIGHT! thread, a "substantive" post is one that makes me spew out diet cola all over my keyboard from laughter at recognition of human folly. Especially my own.
Knock yourselves out.
Cross the lines too far and I'll zap your post. Cross 'em a little and I'll touch it up to comply. I'm going to get the ball rolling by gaming out a few threads, playing Doubles comment tennis with myself. Think of my contributions as found poetry: Masks of Comedy, Masks of Tragedy by Nortius Maximus.
In the movie Shooter, Bob Lee Swagger mentioned "spin-drift" AND the "Coreolis Effect" in one sentence - I think Stephen Hunter may have spewed a little Diet Coke when he heard that. Ha!
I was watching Bill Moyers. Actually, I wasn't watching Bill Moyers because that would be an INSANELY STUPID WASTE OF TIME, but I happened to be flipping by PBS - which is what I always do on 'It's Friday Night, we can say whatever we want because no one is watching'. Anyway, while flipping by Bill Moyers, I happened to catch this exchange (or something quite like it):
Bill: Tell me, is George Bush the worst President ever, or is he simply a psychopath?
Syncopant #1: Why can't it be both? George Bush is the worst President ever because he always goes his own way, at the expense of the Constitution, the American people, our National unity, and small furry animals. And he scares robots! He has acquired unprecedented power to imfringe upon our daily freedoms through unilateral actions like the Patriot Act, and he never consults congress.
Bill: What about you, do you also agree that George Bush is power mad to the point of insanity?
Syncopant #2: Oh, absolutely Bill. Only a completely insane person would have gone to war in Iraq without the approval and consultation of Congress. The truly great Presidents of our history - men like Abraham Lincoln or FDR - always went and got the advice of congress and never acrued power to themselves in times of emergency without first going to Congress and begging, and then of course Congress magnimously agreed to follow along.
Martin Van Crevald: THE WORST MILITARY DISASTER SINCE CAESAR CROSSED THE RHINE!!! DEATH! DESTRUCTION! WHOLE ARMY CORPS ANIHILATTED! THE END OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION! FIRE! FLOOD! FAMINE! SSSSSSMMMMMMMMOOOOOGGG!
Some Other Liberal Commentator: We are experiencing the worst natural disasters in human history! This is the reason that people can no longer believe in God.
Al Gore: After I invented the internet to save us from having to do work on work days, I decided to learn how to control the weather and fight against rationality. I mean, learn to control rationality and fight against the weather. With movies.
Marylin Mason: I believe Hell is like Santa Claus. The constant agony of our daily struggle forces me to create Hell to escape from the agony of living in the USA.
Ok, so those last two might not actually have been on the same channel, but they might as well have been.
Anyway, so I turned the TV off. That's probably proof that I'm an insane, maladjusted, socio-path that doesn't play well with others. After all, everyone on the TV is sane. They told me so. "It's those other guys that are insane", they said with big wild eyes.
Great, the right wing facists are already taking over this board with their little #@$!#ing echo chamber. Wasn't this supposed to be a comedy thread? Trust a #$@$ing conservative to have no !#!#!ing sense of humor. It's comedy, stupid!!! It's supposed to make you laugh! How can you be funning without some @#$@ing profanity? Duh!
A clue: Isn't your point that you can tell who is insance by the fact that they call other people insane? Well, doesn't that make you insance too?
The closed-mindedness of some people just makes me want to cry.
FIRST!
Aw, heck, wrong blog.
Jane, you ignorant slut!
No, that's not right either. Nappy h... nah, that's been done.
Let me see let me see.... Ah!
I'll just clip together my impressions of a certain kind of, well, not a thread exactly, more of a milieu, I've seen around here recently. Like a bad Reno standup guy DOING AN IMPRESSION OF AN IRC CHANNEL FOR 'TARDS.
1. THERE YOU GO AGAIN. YOU'RE CRAZY, HOAGY CARMICHAEL.
2. I MEAN, YOU'RE CRAAAZY. STUFF A SOCK IN IT, RACIST!
AND {SO AND SO} AGREES WITH ME.
3. {Unrelated post: it's on-topic}
4. I AM {SO AND SO}, AND I AGREE. YEP YEP YEPPERS.
"HAGY CRUNBOOGER" IS TEH CRAZY SHIZNIT.
LIKE A WARMONGER AND EVERYTHING.
5. YUP, SEE? STILL CRAZY, THAT SETTLES IT. AND REPTETITIVE. YOU'RE LIKE
SOME KIND OF MONKEY OR SOMETHING.
WHY DO THEY KEEP YOU AROUND?
YOU'RE NOT EVEN A FUNNY MONKEY.
6. HOW COME THE MARSHALS LET CRAZY PEOPLE POST HERE?
7. I DON'T KNOW THEY MUST BE STUPID OR CRAZY OR SOMETHING.
8. HIGH FIVE
9. OR MONKEYS
10. Yeah, OR MONKEYS!!!!! HAHAHAHA ROFLMAOTSETUNG
WE R0XX0R!
11. BY THE WAY, HAVE I TOLD YOU THAT I NEED TO HIJACK THREADS
BECAUSE I'M INCAPABLE OF ASKING FOR THE CHANCE TO POST
AN ENTRY HERE BECAUSE I'D HAVE TO REVEAL I'M A
SOCK PUPPET? OR MAYBE I'M A GIRL. NO, WAIT,
I AM TWO SEPARATE GORILLAS! BUT REALLY,
REALLY, I AND EVEYONE AM DOING IMPROTANT STUFF BUT YOU
ARE TOO DUMB TO LET ME LECTURE YOU ABOUT IT
12. DUDE, DON'T BE GHEY. WE ARE NOT SOCK PUPPETS
AND GORILLAS ARE TOO MUCH LIKE MONKEYS, K?
13. {sound of crickets chirping}
WE THINK YOU ARE MEAN
AND WE DON"T THINK "TARD
IS A NICE NAME AND SO
YOU ARE MEAN BUT WE LIKE
ICE CREAM SO LET"S HAVE
SOME SOON OK?
I will come to your next ice cream party just to FART on your ice cream. HA! By the way, ZIONIST is a fine name for people I don't like. I like to use it whether I need to or not. It makes an impression.
BTW, about the threatening tone you just got from my first paragraph? You're hallucinating. Maybe they should take your driver's license away.
Just a thought. It's your safety that concerns me.
Certainly Bush scares robots. Bush even puts robots in water sometimes.
We have to scare robots. We no longer have any choice, the robots scares us first. And there are zillions of them; we're not breeding fast enough. Tiny ones, and they want to make us eat jizya. And then no one will kiss us any more not likethe first time I miss her i GOD i miss her I blew it it;s just like Chasing Amy Damnit they took her and maed a DAMN DURACELL out of her. And she was THE ONE, man; I know that now.
No, that's twenty years from now and two different movies too. I get timelines confused. It's these Merlin pills I'm on, now that they have me medictated and have taken my driver's license away.
Bless you, "youareallmeat". I needed help but was blind. Now all I have to worry about is never knowing how important you truly are. But that's because the pills make me underwear salivate motorcycle pickle and then there's therthe tarddardradive ddyskinesia so I can't email.
Is it time for my cocoa?
Hate. Hate hate hatehatehatehatatatate
Robots are scary, right?
Nort, if you don't email me in the next 39 seconds I am banning you from this planet and taking away all your credit cards because you used direct address in violation of your own rules.
I'm sorry it has come to this.
{In a pig's eye!}
Sanctimoniously,
Hoit
I did warn you.
Marilyn Mason gets it almost right.
Hell is other people's Santa Claus.
Wait. I'm banned. How is this possible? ...ossible? ...ossible?
Has this place turned into an echo chamber? ...amber? ...amber?
WHERE ARE ALL THE THINKING HUMANS? WHERE, DAMN YOU?
DAMN DIRTY ROBOTS
We are all robots. And we are all monkeys. Deep, isn't it?
We of the Robot Monkey Party revile the Monkey Robot Party. No, make that the Monkey Robot Farty. Heh. Eheheh. Heheheheheehheheeeeeaaaarrcuuckg coff coff co-oooguhh bonghit
Splitters...
A.L.
You shut up.
The nerve of that guy, One Armed Paperhanger! If there's one thing we of the Robot Monkey Party hate MORE than the Monkey Robot Party, it's the One Armed Paperhanging Mostly Monkey With Some Robot Aspects And A Little Off The Sides Party. Bunch of NEOCON A-hole splitters! Revisionists! Trotskyites! Br*ast F**ders!
Who do you think you are, constructing and maintaining your little Potemkin village of doom and despair and denial? God, my mouth is like two separate gorillas. Maybe I should get my fli-flops on and go to the liquor store for a 40...
Where was I? Oh yeah. Try to learn from your betters when we school you and don't come on so high and mighty. One of our drivebys is worth twenty pages of updates from Joe Katzman, who probably needs to be hosed down every Monday morning. You know it's got to be a sick person who spends that much time thinking about p*nis substitutes like tanks and stufff. Especially since he wets the bed and admits to not liking his compulsory French lessons. Selfish chickenhawk bastard!
Sick. And he even had the nerve to move to the US when Alec Baldwin isn't even packed yet. Fscking syrup eater. Sick and sticky.
I don't know why I waste my time with you guys.
Me, I'm off to Camp Casey to freshen up the fake grave headstones.
That'll speak truth to power to that Monkey Robot and his cronies at HELLiburton!
What? Aw, gee. She sold it to WHO?
I'm not right sure I'm seein' these ROBOTS you're talking about, Katzman. That is you, ain't it?
Now the monkeys, them I can get a bead on. Might be time to fetch my rifle and log in to windsofchange.net...
M.F.
...teach them invisitble robots how to shoot? Good! The sooner we're rid of all these damn monkeys, the better!
It is weird, but talking about that doesn't count as a threat, or nothin'... but being rude to particular monkeys or robots gets you in dutch with these yokels.
I do not cotton to it.
SavoirFaire eez everywhere!
Great, just great. We start having a serious discussion on the philosophical, political, and social character of monkeys and the cheese-eating surrender types show up with their high-brow invective robed in happy-go-lucky courtesies.
One can be sure the arrival wasn't in defense of a questionably glancing slur of their tulip-tending, wooden clip-cloppering neighbors.
Can we get back on topic, pleeeease, so I can go back to lurking? Thank you.
BTW, turning the tv off is not a mark of the insane. Turning it on, is, the only exception to which is for watching The Three Stooges. Oh, and an occasional Benny Hill.
You lay off the Amish, pal. They're practically Luddites and that makes them Conservatives, thus sacrosanct. We only let people bash Liberals around here. Didn't you get the memo? Let me see your papers...
Can I call them excessively frugal or is that also a CHEAP shot?
Anyway, why do you lump them with conservatives? I thought they were basically anti-baptists or something. Doesn't that put them in the same camp as those who quake or shake at hearing the name of the Lord? I mean none of them are doing their part to prevent global warming. Heck, they use way more than 1/1,000,000th of what Gore does!
Read the memos? Of course I read the ... oh, wait. Dammit, these things are from Gravel-Paul '08. Yikes, I've been phished!!1!