The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by Dustin:

I think the best indicator of Ann Coulter's relevance, or lack thereof, is the shutting down of anticoulter.com. For a while, Coulter seemed to have something of a following, and (in the sense of the Salon article this thread was originally about) to resonate with some sense of frustration on the Right, but she ended up believing her own hype or something and became a parody of herself. And nobody likes a parody of a parody.

On the other hand, I think the hype over de Genova is overblown. I think that he, too, expressed some of the frustration of the Left at the moment, and though he did it poorly and, I think, without much forethought about the implications of his words, there is some truth to what he said. Americans, especially Americans of the Left, see America becoming the world's bully. And as much as we'd all like to think that we can beat the bully with our keen wit and intellectual superiority, we all know that bullies don't stop beating on people until they've been beaten on themselves. I don't think de Genova wants to see American soldiers dead any more than he wants to see Iraqi, or any other, soldiers dead, but doesn't see how this madness is going to end without the public humiliation of the bully.

Re: "Alterman is not quite the evil, extremist piece of shit that Coulter is"

Well, that's true enough. I compared them because both were plugging their books about the alleged liberal bias in American media. And a 6-minute interview is not really long enough for Coulter to get really wound up, although she did manage, IIRC, to mention Clinton's penis. One interesting thing about Stewart's interviews is he almost never lets guests talk much about the project they are plugging, which really got under Coulter's skin, but before she could really get going it was "Thank you for coming by, we'll be right back."

Sorry, here's a clickable link: Communist theme park to open its gates.

I doubt it will take 200 years! It's only taken 11 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall for plans to build an East Germany theme park to be made. See http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=856&ncid=856&e=4&u=/nm/20030227/od_uk_nm/oukoe_odd_germany_east:

Massine Productions GmbH hopes to recreate a 10,000-square metre (107,600 sq ft) replica of East Germany, complete with surly border guards, rigorous customs inspections, authentic East German mark notes, and restaurants with regulation bland East German food.

If the suffering of millions under a system whose leaders considered the Soviet Union's brand of oppression soft can be disnified, surely the suffering of a few thousand terrorist victims can be as well.

Correction: Comedy Central is ownded by Viacom, not Vivendi. Who can keep them straight these days?

Do you really think Stewart is centrist, or just a guy doing the best he can on a network owned by Vivendi? I sometimes feel as if his heart's just not in it when he takes on the Left (except for the odd crack about protesters, which he seems to really enjoy) but really enjoy relaying the absurdities of the Right. For instance I remember when he had Coulter on, he seemed literally unable to take her seriously, but was a lot more relaxed and sympathetic when he had Alterman on.

I have a theory, call it the "Theory of Public Spaces Identity", that with the right frame of mind, air travel and other long-distance mans of transportation become unnecessary. The Identity Theory says that public spaces such as malls and airports are so similar, so devoid of meaningful distinguishing characteristics, that you may as well be in any other mall or airport than the one you're in. From "you may as well" to actually being in any of those other places is only a matter of mindset. Current research into shifting one's mindset to take advantage of this revolutionary means of travel has, unfortunately, so far been unsuccessful. But it should work...

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