OxBlog

Friday, December 28, 2007

# Posted 4:16 PM by Taylor Owen  

OXBLOG SENTENCE OF THE YEAR?: I just wanted to make sure everyone notes Dr. Porter's awe inspiring sentence. If it takes a two month posting hiatus to produce such crackers, then see you in March my good friend:
If Kenneth Anderson’s writings are the vintage Pinot Noir of the neocon vinyard, Podhoretz’s manifesto is the rancid two-dollar Spumante.
ha!
(9) opinions -- Add your opinion

Comments:
Who are you to call anybody rancid? Parcel of wankers, you are. A mutual admiration society to say the least.

But at least you provide laughs when you tell Republicans, or conservatives, what they should think or feel or believe. You might have a higher accuracy rate advising cats or Martians, but at least it's a giggle.
 
elegantly phrased.

got any arguments?
 
Arguments, Porter? This was a confession, I don't have to prosecute. "Oh, look how clever my friend is, just in case you didn't read the last post but you read this post." Res ipsa loquitur, do I have that right? Although lulz and pwn3ge would seem to be more your speed than Latin.

I'm not actually indicting you and OxBlog in general so much as this virtual troll Owen in fine. I want his job, not yours. But yeah, I was kinda wondering how his (Podhoretz') c.v and yours would stack up together.

Who are you OxBlog people anyway? Ooh, you went to Oxford. That's the same Oxford that in 1933 refused to fight for King and country? Proud lineage of foreign policy thinking, there. The go-to guys for how to run the world, sho 'nuff.

So, great ability to trade on a great name, to dine out on a legacy of scholarship. Your own merits? Not so much. I occasionally come here - used to pop in on my own de temps en temps, now mainly on the occasional linkage from your betters.

On the busted-clock principle, you occasionally get lucky with a post; but unlike a broken clock, you seem to be getting worse.

The problem, as exemplified by Owen's shall we say excess of camaraderie, is that you all agree with each other, so there is no frisson, no spark to kindle thought. So you need only bring your preconceptions to the table and serve them raw. Presuming you have an audience (your comments are like virgin snow), it seems they lap it up, so why work?

Perhaps I'm too hard on Owen, after all, as he was only trying to help; on the (tenable) assumption that your (putative) audience would not wade through your (unrewarding) prolixity but would choke on it like a wad of (rancid) horseflesh, he decided to cut up your meat for them into bite-sized pieces.

Obliging, really. The fact that he's a no-talent hack doesn't mean that he isn't a comradely good fellow, and thus more valuable to OxBlog than an actual mind.

However, I regret to inform you that if Taylor Owen is now your house conservative, you don't know what a real one looks like. But if you decide to keep him, maybe he could cut down on the (unnecessary) adjectives.

In fact, just lock him awhile in a closet with Orwell's essays on the English language, and see if he improves.

Actually, that goes for all of you.

Arguments? "Now go away, before I taunt you a second time."

(Oh, but it's your blog. Well, TTFN.)
 
Nichevo,

calm down.

Podhoretz's cv would be easily better than mine. But I don't see why that's relevant. Are people only allowed to disagree with those with an inferior list of accomplishments?

I was simply arguing that Podhoretz's vision for the war on terror lacks a strategy. If you disagree with this argument, or think its otherwise weak, then I'd be interested to hear why.

On the issue of style, I'm sorry you found my post a little long. But judging by the length of your comment, it seems there's not much I can teach you about prolixity.

Happy New Year,
P
 
lol. i have been called many things, but a conservative is rarely one of them. Also, so much for the negative correlation between comment anonymity and quality...
 
Yes, how rude of me, Happy New Year indeed. Quite.

1) Porter, when criticizing a man who craps bigger than you, and who is not in the Hitler-Stalin-Mao-Pol Pot-Jack the Ripper-Guy Fawkes-Snidely Whiplash class of caricatured villainous evil, I feel a bit more respect is called for than "rancid." You may be right and he may be wrong, but I should think that if they teach you nothing else at Oxford, they would teach you decorum.

2) That Taylor Owen thinks this the horselaugh of the year, makes him the year's own horse's ass. I'll do you the credit of assuming it was a throwaway, an artifact of a medium where words are cheap.

3) Prolixity? Oh yes, I did comment on that (though 'twasn't the point). Well, I am not opposed to verbosity in a good cause (Allen Ginsburg was, when I met him, but that's another story), but again, the point was that out of all your jeweled prose, that sentence was what Owen thought best of it. Is that your notion of the best sentence in that post?

Besides, I wanted to make sure I gave you some arguments, as requested. Anyway, it comes readily enough; I am with Pascal when he says it can take time to trim down. Don't worry, this round is free ;>

4) Taylor Owen 9:43 PM

At the risk of repeating myself, Res ipsa loquitur. If you're gonna cut your own throat, why not put it on youtube for all to enjoy?

As previously noted, lolcats is about your speed ("I can has politikal insite?"), and also as I said, you do an awful lot of looking into conservatives' heads and telling them what they think or should think. Some quip about briar patches floats on the surface of memory, just out of reach...

I hope your Vincent Price imitation is better than your political analysis, because at least he was entertaining. You are just scary.

Oh, and the semantic content of your second sentence closely approximates zero, so why did you write it? The only thing I can glean is that you somehow wish to know my name, and frankly you don't rate at present.

Actually forget all that, Taylor, just answer me one question. How did you get into Oxford: ass, grass or cash?


Porter: this Owen is an American, isn't he? Really, he may be your necessary token, but we CAN do better on this side of the pond. Honest.

And look at him sucking up to you, to boot. The site says you're not a Ph.D yet. Isn't that obnoxious, him calling you Dr. Porter? You're an Aussie, you can't be susceptible to that kind of horse manure!
 
Nichevo,

Taylor is Canadian, and I have my phd. We haven't got around to updating Oxblog on this.

Podhoretz's book reads, at least to me, as a rancid polemic.
 
Ah, Canadian. If there's anything on this earth stupider than an American, it's a Canadian. Maybe he should go back home and fight the HRC there instead of messing about with American elections.

Thanks for the clarification, Doctor. Congratulations. A Ph.D in what?

I suppose you would have to define "rancid" as applied to a book. In fact I do not even believe the term can be properly applied to wine; IIRC, without turning to a dictionary, it has to to with the spoiling of fat. "Stale," perhaps, or "distasteful?" "Yucky?" But let me not put words in your mouth, especially distasteful ones ;>

"Polemic," of course, is a matter of opinion; as used here it seems to mean "something I don't like," but that's all right. Wiki (yes, yes) offers:

Polemics (pronounced /pəˈlɛmɪks/, /poʊ-/) is the practice of disputing or controverting religious, philosophical, or political matters. As such, a polemic text on a topic is often written specifically to dispute or refute a position or theory that is widely viewed to be beyond reproach.

The antonym of a polemic source is an apologia.

There are other meanings of the word as well. Polemic is also a branch of theology, pertaining to the history or conduct of ecclesiastical controversy.


This is inherently a bad thing? No doubt he is not offering an apologia.
 
The MacBook Pro's battery is not easy to take out. here are so many retail shops that you can go to for leather baby bags. Jordan High Heels.
 
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