I nevertheless doubt it’s possible to make fun of CloseCombatTraining.com as much as they deserve.

It is, however, our patriotic duty to make the attempt.

Indeed. Why does CloseCombatTraining.com hate America?

I believe that among the cognoscenti it's called Chicago Style, or deep dish, fighting.

Kinda like this? Fragano?

Fragano @3: I though Chicago Style was more appropriate for Our Hosts?

Fragano, you're good. The third ad in that series was for "Chicago Self Defense."

Move 1 - Convince the leader of your opponent's movement to screw everything up so badly the nation has no choice but you

Move 2 - Get elected

Move 3 - Profit!

Ginger, that version of "Chicago style" would require the ad to hyphenate "self defense."

I'm wondering if the ad itself is a joke. Tongue in cheek.

Teresa, it's been years since I had to refer to a Chicago Manual, and I used it only for my high school papers. Luckily for me, scientific publications don't require CMS (they tend to follow medical style manuals).

For some reason, even though I have a copy of the 15th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style close to hand, the last two articles I've written have required that I go over to the Dark Side (or MLA).

I can't help noticing that ad was served up on a page about LAW rocket launchers. I'd love to know what the crippling self defense against them is!

Does it involve magnets, a plate of birdshot and a u-shaped tube?

No, no, Ginger, not that Chicago Style! It refers to the other traditional Chicago Style at which our hostess is adept.

I want to know the crippling self-defense against the MLA handbook. That thing is godawful.

As long as nobody tries to master crippling-self defense moves.

Will Chicago self-defense techniques also work with Turabian? Or are we still at peace with the Turabians?

Why can't I have some goons? I've always wanted goons. I'm an American, dangit! I have the right to bare goons!

Especially if we're going to drag the MLA into this.

ROn Sullivan: I am sure you can have some goons, an entire squad of them, then you can get a barn, and put on a show.

Lois, we have always been at war with Turabia.

And how about the Jew-dropping martial arts?

Zak @ 12

The proper defense is the CHAOS rocket catcher.

If Alice the Goon and her tribe are working for Obama now, the safe thing for me to do would be to stop whining about telecom immunity and ubiquitous surveillance. (shudder)

I'm not sure that I want to know what Teresa was doing.

But I'm sure it does a man a power of good.

I visited the site. We need to work harder on making fun of this. You see, this isn't just "Close Combat Training", this is "Captain Chris' Close Combat Training(TM)"! It's "The 'Forgotten' Self Defense System That The Martial Artists and the Military Don't Want You To Know Even Exists".

I'm wondering if perhaps I should sign up (it's secure & confidential, don't you know?) for their free video, but if the moves are anything like the one that's shown in the front page animation (which a friend of mine learned in beginners-level Aikido lessons) they're anything but "'Forgotten'".

Clifton @ 13: Please note that the hat is not optional.

People@20: the Jew-dropping martial art is Krav Maga, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krav_Maga which should of course have been named Jew-Jitsu. I think Cohen the Barbarian started it.

Now the truth comes about about Rahm Emanuel's missing digit -- too much study of the cripplying self defense moves!

The Chicago Manual of Style: they stet one of yours, you hyphenate one of theirs.

My favorite claim from a self-defense site (in 2007) was that they could teach you how to survive your own beheading.

Unfortunately, it appears that the "Obama's goons" thing is not a joke. It is incitement from the far right. See for example The Patriotic Resistance: The network for idea-based resistance to Obama-led socialistic agenda. (The ref to goons is in the comment section, but I think the post and site contextualizes it.) Then consider the story of Richard Poplawski aka "Braced for Fate" who allegedly shot a bunch of cops, partly because of his belief that "federal authorities plan to confiscate guns owned lawfully by American citizens."

The Google ad may seem funny, but it's people like "Braced for Fate" that are targeted by that ad.

Crippling Self Defense Moves Used by Obama’s Goons

I don't know if it's just me, but the lack of commas and dashes makes me read this as "Yes you too can have your self-defense moves backfiring at you like Wile E Coyote's inventions."

I would like some clarity on the role played in all this by Ned Seagoon.

Kathryn Cramer @ 30... It is incitement from the far right

After Obama won the Election, some people wondered what would be left for our side's comedians to make jokes about. Since then, we've had Jon Stewart who, after watching the Prez's speech about ridding the world of nukes, accused him of stealing his lines from the ghastly Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and wishing he had instead used lines from the earlier movies - for example "Kneel before Zod!" Also, we had someohow forgotten that the Right's reactions to a Democratic President would provide such a wealth of inspiration. (I'm still amused by the time our building's security guard said that I didn't need to take money out of the lobby's ATM anymore because Obama was going to give me all the money I wanted. I'm still waiting for that big fund transfer, by the way. Maybe I should send Obama an email to remind him.)

Fragano @32 I would like some clarity on the role played in all this by Ned Seagoon.

You silly twisted boy.

This sounds like the perfect course for aspiring mall ninjas.

Kathryn Cramer @ 29

Ah, the lost defensive arts of Rasputin, "Survive your own death, and confound your enemies! Be as twisted as you can be!"

dsr @ 26

Wasn't my idea, that stuff's nowhere near barbaric enough for my taste. Liquorice whip flails or vats of boiling kimchi, now that's a different thing. Without a significant agricultural class, barbarians have to work hard to get enough food. Edible weapons can get you through times of no food better than food can get you through times of no weapons. Now you know what good a glacé knife is.

Evan Goer @ 35

Mail Ninjas? You mean letter opener carriers?

Well, here's your mistake: "Since Obama is the legitimately elected POTUS..."

That's simply not possible. The wingnuts are the Permanent Majority, remember? If they're a majority, how can Obama's election possibly have been legitimate? And they wouldn't lie to us about something like that!

On the other hand, I sneer at CMS (and Turabian), and the MLA Manual, and the lowly APA and Cambridge manuals. If you want to see truly screwed-up style, you must bow before the Bluebook... which dictates exactly how many spaces must be after a period in an abbreviation, and the answer depends in part on whether the document you're writing is intended for submission to a court or not. Or whether an abbreviation that seems perfectly clear to you is, in fact, clear enough to appear in the 70-page multicolumn appendices, which include usage rules themselves.

And that's just the citation rules. Wait until you try to figure out exactly what gets italicized, or the circumstances under which the first line of a block quote is indented, or (actual example from the 12th Edition) whether "Turabian style" is hypenated or not!

Bruce Cohen the Barbarian @ 36... Did you say Rasputin?

Agent Serge: Possibly you mean Rasputin

If it weren't for Krav Maga, the J-Lo drama "Enough" would have been completely different. Stoogejitsu would have made it a lot more upbeat; motion-capture animation would have been the way to go with that one.

coffeedryad @ 40... Phew! When I clicked on your link, I was quite afraid I'd wind up listening to the disco song.

Wouldn't that kind of make a cool new tagline for the Democratic Party?

This November:

Republicans: Smaller government, lower taxes (and this time, we really mean it)

Democrats: Master Crippling Self Defense Moves Used by Obama’s Goons & Special Ops

Maybe that self-defense firm -- the one claiming you can survive your own beheading -- is actually a cryonics firm?

#44, etc: Vecna Inc?

I had to go look at Kathryn's screen capture.

I was a bit disappointed to realize it was really just your garden-variety Comma Punctuation Fail:

Surviving Execution,Beheading,Assassinations
Attempts & Escaping From Captivity Course

I suppose the "Attempts" was intended to distribute over the "Execution, Beheading, [and] Assassinations" (sic). In this case, adequate instruction would presumably be along the lines, of "Don't let them do that then."

It's nice that they have a course on surviving their "Escaping From Captivity Course." I wonder if it's a prerequisite?...

Serge #42, coffeedryad #40: I don't know quite what that was, but mirrorball or no, I don't think it was disco! ;-)

Surviving Beheading: Or the course could be taught by the Green Knight....

Rasputin. Accept no imitations.

Kathryn Cramer @29: My favorite claim from a self-defense site (in 2007) was that they could teach you how to survive your own beheading.

Do they say why you'd want to?

I'm still waiting for my goons. I hope Popeye didn't discourage them.

Fragano:

I would like some clarity on the role played in all this by Ned Seagoon.

I'd be more worried about what side Grytpype-Thynne is on. Having listened to all the existing Crazy People/Goon Show recordings it's pretty clear that he survives to the end of the episode most frequently. Bluebottle and Eccles working together on your side, however...well best to just shoot yourself right away and avoid lots and lots of pain.

And as far as Ms. Minnie Bannister and Major Dennis Bloodnok, Indian Army, Retired go...well, don't. Just don't.

Oh, and Google Searches are wonderful. "Hercules Grytpype-thynne is on Facebook." Oh, really! Time to unsubscribe fast.

Kathryn Cramer @29: ...that they could teach you how to survive your own beheading.

Bluebottle: You rotten swine, you deaded me.

A strange trio of ads that Google ads served up and I just had to save (unfortunately I do not remember the original page context):

*
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*
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prepareforthefuture.com
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I just remembered that there's an apocryphal, and almost certainly untrue, story about the execution of Lavoisier, the French chemist. Before he was to be beheaded (very likely because he'd made an enemy of Marat), he made a promise to one of his assistants that he would try to blink his eyes as many times as possible after the blade fell, so that the assistant could determine how long the decapitated head remained functional. In various versions the story has him blink either not at all or fifteen times. Clearly more experimentation is required.

Vault-Tec is a reference to the current Fallout 3 post-apocalyptic survival computer game. The web site promotes the game; it's one of those durned Flash-required sites, though, so I won't sully my browser with it even though I play the game.

I don't understand these links that say Rasputin and are not Rasputin.

Although it doesn't seem to do much good to survive the first few assassination attempts if you can't also escape the followups; he ended up just as dead as if he had just died in the first place.

Are you sure you didn't mean Rasputin?

Tim Walters @ 49... That's the Rasputin I was thinking of. Not really disco, but early 1970s. By the way, 'Rasputin' is spelled 'Raspoutine' in French, which always makes me think of the Québec... ah... delicacy called poutine. Not exactly a word that makes people tremble up there, unless you think of what it does to your arteries to eat all that cheese.

Are you sure you didn't mean Rasputina?

Rasputin was the source of the only spontaneous pun I've ever made in Russian, referring to the present had of gov't in Russia as, Dva-putin.

This is because the Russian way of counting a series is to start with the word, "Ras".

I think the technique more commonly used by the Democratic Party is self-crippling defensiveness.

Hob @ 61... Also known as snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?

Hey, we won the election!

Now what do we do?

(It's a problem you sometimes see in warfare. It can be very hard to exploit a victory. For instance, Cambrai.)

Thinking up the alibis that everyone's forgotten
Just another mummy's boy gone to rotten
They pat some good boys on the back and put some to the rod
But I never thought they'd put me in the

Goon squad....

Dave, #63: AKA "the dog who caught the car" problem. Which, sadly, is a reasonably apt description of the mess Obama has inherited.

Terry 60: That's bloody brilliant!

Arrgh. I meant <strong>, not <strike>! So that should read

Terry 60: That's bloody brilliant!

Hob #61: I tend to think of it as "battered wife syndrome".

Xopher @67:
You delight me.

Tell me if you want anything in that message fixed, or if you'd rather leave it as it is (I think it has tremendous charm as it stands).

Amusing. Anyone else have difficulties with site? One friend says he thought malware--couldn't get the window to close?

Anyway, thanks for the laughs on teh way. :) Rasputin, Crippling Self Defense Moves, etc.