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August 15, 2009

Comments

Joan

Tom, I love this article -- re your take on the pretentious NY Times and its writer's wailing re art and civilization, plus the shotgun toting store owner. Your crowning glory is the phrase 'intellectual equivalent of a can of Crisco.' :) May I borrow that line?

Gmax

rising tide of intolerance in Germany and throughout Europe was not attributed to Obama.

Didnt you mean Bush? And the fact that the NYT has lost that crutch to fall back upon upon which to blame all that fails their steely scrutiny, is progress.

After all, as with the Soviets, if its not full success, they will be soon enough another 5 year plan to declare the full progress just around the corner.

pagar

"rising tide of intolerance in Germany and throughout Europe was not attributed to Obama."

Sweden Tops Europe for Number of Rapes = Muslim Rape Jihad
Lesley

There's something I'd like to add to the pump shotgun angle. To those of you unaccustomed to using a shotgun, the sound of the heavy schwook/schwook of the pump action at close range would have instantly turned the perp's bowels to exploding mush the moment they heard it. It is a very distinctive, very deadly sound.

Moreover, a shotgun blast at close range can cut a man in half.

At least those criminal bastards experienced, if even for the last moment of their worthless lives, the fear their victims felt because of that sound, something which gives me a sense of satisfaction.

Ok. I'll denounce myself so the rest of you won't have to.

Lesley

Oh, nevermind my pre-emptive denunciation. I can see by TM's header I may now monger evil 24-7. Kewl. I expect I shall now comment more often.

Sam W

It would be very interesting to know some details about the firearm and ammunition involved. Birdshot or buckshot ? How old was the ammo ? How often was the shotgun cleaned ? Was it stored with a shell already chambered ?

PaulL

That was a fine job, Mr. Augusto.

daveinboca

Parche was charged following the incident but was not jailed because he was found to be psychologically abnormal and was instead sentenced to two years’ probation and psychological treatment. The German version of "tough love." Monica never really got back to top form and fell into a depression and an eating disorder. The Deutsche Volke just love those pendulum swings between arrogant militarism and arrogant leftist mammary pap. [I am half German by ancestry and speak and read German.]

I recently watched Spike Channel's series on the DEA in Detroit and time after time when a big bust would take place in a semi-suburban area, people of color in the neighborhood would clap and applaud when the bust was finished and the perps paraded off their narcotics-dealing premises. Also, a black DEA officer was extremely incensed when he captured a perp who was living next to a Catholic School because in the words of the DEA cop, "These people are REALLY TRYING TO STOP drugs in this neighborhood." The strong implication in his intonation was, the public schools not so much......

Blacks in Milwaukee fight and claw to get their kids into Catholic grade and high schools, where my brother works as a virtually unpaid employee......

pagar

Sweetness and Light points out that in the USA:

As we posted just two days ago (and several dozen times previously), the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s ‘Intelligence Project’ and Huffington Post correspondent Mark Potok is the source of all of these hate crime stories, and he has been for years.

The key word is ALL! The leftist press just copies what he sends out.

Gmax

Just for the record can we note in the meme that punishment does not deter violence, that at least for 3 losers, they are considered unlikely to offend again.

tega

I find it funny the Times is reporting about Ahmadinejad decrying the brutality of the Germans given what he and his thugs have done to their own people in the past couple of weeks.

hit and run

GMax:
that at least for 3 losers, they are considered unlikely to offend again.

Yeah, but I bet they end up voting for Obama in 2012

JM Hanes

"What we can also do, though, is accept that while the arts won’t save us, we should save them anyway. Because the enemies of civilized society are always just outside the door."

Apparently, nobody has ever told Mr. Kimmelman that the essay you write is supposed to lead logically to your conclusion. Nobody seems to have told him that xenophobia in Germany has always put even France to shame either. The Interior Minister was shocked, just shocked, to discover how many German teenagers are carrying on that tradition.

Captain Hate

I find it funny the Times is reporting about Ahmadinejad decrying the brutality of the Germans given what he and his thugs have done to their own people in the past couple of weeks.

What's funny is that anybody pays attention to anything the Times and their cluelessly snotty reporters have to say about anything. Based on what a few of my friends say who ACTUALLY LIVE IN GERMANY, the immigrant rock worshippers and the locals get along quite well since most of the outsiders are from Turkey, a very western oriented culture. That's not to say that random nutjobs can't exist in the mix but their actions shouldn't be extrapolated to the society as a whole, as the Times continually does as it's dimwitted concept of adding value to just reporting the facts.

matt

Having lived and worked in Germany and spent inordinate amounts of time studying and combating the East Bloc, it bemuses me that the so called experts are surprised at the xenophobia and hatred of the former East Germany. Much of it is very uncomfortable for foreigners still unless one blends in.

In 1945, they simply changed the signs from the Swastika to the Hammer & Sickle. Not a damned thing changed in their mentality nor much actually in their underlying philosophy. anyone who had any experience there knew this long ago.

Same holds true for the Soviet Union, where African students at Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow used to be beaten, threatened, degraded and even murdered on a regular basis.

The hypocrisy of communism/leftism is only matched by that of the Nazis.

bgates

I'll bear this post title in mind the next time I replace rock-paper-scissors with pen-sword-pump shotgun-fine architecture.

Though it's not as rich a system as rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock. (Scissors cut paper, paper covers rock, rock crushes lizard, lizard poisons Spock, Spock smashes scissors,
scissors decapitate lizard, lizard eats paper, paper disproves Spock, Spock vaporizes rock, and of course, rock crushes scissors.)

bad to the bone

lol bgates

Charlie (Colorado)

Rock worshippers?

Biz Markie

How do you say "man bites dog" in German?

torabora

Our shotgun toting hero isn't facing capital murder charges in NYC???

Isn't this cowboy Bush art writ real?

bgates

Rock worshippers?

...Muslim worships rock, rock crushes scissors, scissors cut paper, (cartoon on) paper enrages Muslim, Muslim wages jihad on Spock...

PDinDetroit

Carrying of Firearms are necessary for Personal Protection for the following reasons:

1. SCOTUS has held that the Police are not responsible for Personal Protection of individuals.

2. Police can be there in minutes when seconds count. Average 911 Response Time is 9 minutes nationwide and is 3 hours, 3 days, or never in Southwest Detroit.

3. Because of the Economy, the Cop that was assigned to protect me was laid off.

4. Because carrying a Cop is too heavy.

I would imagine the Mr Augusto would have loaded heavy being in the city and that would most likely mean 2 3/4 Inch 00 Buck Shot shells. This has 9 .36 caliber pellets per shell, the equivalent of a sub-machinegun blast, 27 pellets for 3 shotgun blasts. The shotty is still the best Home Protection option available.

From the NYT Article: We are treating Mr. Augusto as a witness.

The problem is that he is most likely going to be a witness against himself as talking with the Police gains you nothing. I just hope he has a GREAT Attorney that knows NY City/State Gun Laws and Use of Deadly Force. It would appear that NY has the same Deadly Force rules that MI used to have and got rid of. If you can reasonably retreat, then Deadly Force cannot be authorized/used. The worst part is probably the Civil Lawsuits that are sure to come, unless NY put in the Castle Doctrine.

Captain Hate

Rock worshippers?

That rock/meteor/fossilized dinosaur turd at Mecca that Mo the Pedophile (Piss all over him) wiped his ass with? That one.

Ignatz

I guess I kind of have my bgates/Captain Hate blog here on this thread.

docweasel

This article is an outlier - actually, we've pretty much come down to a binary "blame or credit" system for any event in the world today, according to the MSM, to whit:

Any bad result is due to *global warmism

Any good result is due to Barack Hussein Obama.

*replacing #1 pick GW Bush since 01.09.09

I once tried to drink a gallon of milk.  The sixteenth little carton wouldn't go down.  .

Do you have any idea how much energy there is in a can of Crisco? There are 9 cal/gm of fat and only 5 cal/gm of carbohydrate or protein. Alcohol, incidentally, has 7 cal/gm which explains why some people can live on booze alone. There isn't much nutrition in those alcoholic grams other than energy, though.

A can of alcohol, though has more intellectual equivalents in it, by weight or by volume, than a pint of crisco. Just try the experiment yourself if you doubt me.

tinkerdad

Imagine how low the crime stats would be if only we could get Obama to institute a national police force.

Flame War

If you hear me cock my shotgun that is because I missed with the first round.

I always keep on chambered, safety off, and all one might hear, were one listening carefully, would be the click of the trigger. But you wouldn't hear that over the barking of the dogs, so there you have it.

Victim or victor - we know what liberals want to be.

RRC

Actually, the conclusion of the Times article is quite conservative, even though you didn't seem to see it and the writer would doubtless be appalled by the charge. For the "civilization is fragile (and therefore requires protection)" meme, see multiple works from the Oresteia cycle of Aescylus to Goldings Lord of the Flies. Anthony Burgess examined the idea that high culture does NOT necessarily bring morality in A Clockwork Orange and Tremor of Intent. The latter, by the way, is a crackerjack spy thriller

Bullshark

Right, if the perp hears the swaock, swaock... you're doing it wrong!

Conservadick

@tinkerdad - Better still, couldn't Obama just ask the criminals to stop committing crimes?

Jim

"It would be very interesting to know some details about the firearm and ammunition involved. Birdshot or buckshot ? How old was the ammo ? How often was the shotgun cleaned ? Was it stored with a shell already chambered ?"

What's the difference, it did the job as did Mr. Augusto.

Mikey NTH

Weren't there any baliffs in the courtroom? Don't they check for weapons at the courthouse?

On the rest of the article, "Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns."

Fat Man

NYT 60 years late to the story of German Kultur and violence. Way to go guys!

celebrim

The basic problem with the art set - with the multiculturalist in general - is that they've never really understood what culture actually is.

"The lesson of Dresden, which this great city unfortunately seems doomed to repeat, is that culture is, to the contrary, impractical and fragile, helpless even."

If by culture you mean things like music, visual arts, architecture, cuisine, mannerisms, language, music, dance, literature and all the rest of the stuff like it, then yes, culture is entirely fragile, helpless, weak, and insubstantial. It is only by believing that all of that stuff is culture that you could possibly believe in 'multiculturalism'. Art is merely the most superficial expression of culture. It's culture's outward trappings, and it no more is culture than your clothing is you.

What culture really is is the collection of those beliefs which a society holds most deeply and strongly. Things like food and music and art are all things which I can partake of, sample, and even enjoy without it really transforming deeply who I am. They are all superficial. They can be shared. I can eat chinese food one day and mexican food the next without being chinese or mexican, without being a part of either culture, and indeed without knowing anything at all about either culture. You don't know what culture I'm from by what I take into me; you can only know my culture by what I express out of me.

The really fundamental problem with multiculturism is that by focusing on how different culture's art and music and food can all be appreciated and can all enrich the person that experiences them, it misses what culture actually is and assumes that culture like food and music is superficial. It's no surprise that the superficial manifestations of culture have no power.

But real culture is probably the most powerful mortal force on the planet. Real cultures aren't easily shared because they are contridictory. I can't really belong to two cultures because they can disagree, and where they disagree I will ultimately have to choose which culture I'm really a part of.

Laserlight

"Better still, couldn't Obama just ask the criminals to stop committing crimes?"

He only asks them to stop after he's offered them a Cabinet position.

bgates

I like that, celebrim.

ic

3 shots, 4 down. Wow!

RW

The Pen May Be Mightier Than The Sword....


...unless you're standing in front of the person holding the sword.

That's the thing about today's internet age, too many people sit on their arses & type things that they'd never - ever - say to someone's face.

The Napolean complex is the likely culprit for so many angry texts seen on the internet, IMO.

SDN

Actually, 00 is not the best choice. #3 or #4 (goose shot) is better for 2 reasons: The slightly smaller pellet means that more weight of pellet fits in the shell, the better to deliver 200 lbs of ground round in the room; and the slightly smaller shot is more likely to be contained by sheet rock, etc. so you don't shoot thru the wall into your neighbor's apartment. (Anyone who uses a high-powered hunting rifle in an urban / suburban environment should have the barrel bent over his skull; the damn bullet will travel for miles, and almost nothing outside of multiple brick walls, substantial trees, girders, or a car engine is going to stop the round.)

Richard Cook

The most beautiful thing I have (besides my girlfriend) is an Ithaca 37P pump with a 20 inch barrel and an eight round magazine, choate stock with a pistol grip. Behold, a thing of beauty. Parkerized too.

Strawman Cometh

I can't believe this hasn't been mentioned: "...The pen is mightier than the sword, but no match for a gun."

Brian Wilson, from the LP: Surf's Up - "There's a Riot Goin' On"

Marc malone

celebrim - Very nice post. Best thing I read all week.

As for the weakness of culture, these things of fine art are the reflections, or metrics if you will, of civilization. They don't lead to civilization. They are trailers. They are the outward expressions of established civilization.

The dearth of them, the lack of artisans and artists, demonstrates the paucity of civilization in an area. I leave it to you all to reflect upon which societies currently produce art and wonders... and which don't... and which are trending in which way.

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Wilson/Plame