Semi-Daily Journal

Reminds me of Anne Coulter's comments that the only thing wrong with Timothy McVeigh was that he didn't choose the New York Times building...

Who is Steven den Beste and what rock did he crawl out from under?

One of Max Sawicky's "Four Horseman of the Ablogalypse"...

Berkeley is one of the epicenters of radical leftism. Of course it attracts a lot of jokes like that. If it had been hit with as many bombs as people had wished on it, the Earth would be orbiting Jupiter by now.

For the record, I never wished any bombs on Berkeley. I just want to sell it to Canada.

Nice place. How much d'you want for it?

If you *live* in a place like Berkeley, it can be hard to fathom how it is seen by outsiders.

The anti-American, anti-Semitic, moral equivalence nonsense generated in Berkeley is widely disseminated and often misunderstood as being the worldview of most of its denizens, resulting in much hostility and dark humor.

I see a parallel here in New York, where folks from other areas constantly ask me how "we" could have elected Hillary Clinton to the senate, and proposing a similar nuclear option for the Empire State.

Finally, given property prices, even post-dot com bubble, Canada couldn't afford to purchase Berkeley anyway.

I think the idea is that Berkeley would like America weak and disarmed (we are the real terrorist state, after all). The inevitable result of weakness is contempt and more attacks. So, if the attacks are coming why not Berkeley?

Anyway, the way I understand it is the "townies" in Berkeley often feel that the lunatics who inhabit the university are holding them all hostage. Not in our name indeed.

Actually, Dude, in as a former Berserkeyite I can attest that for the most part the "townies" swing farther to the left than the students. 30+ years attracting every wacked-out hippie on the continent have taken their toll, and most of the students are too damn busy to worry about politics...

Jimbo is right. The townies are far more left than the students or the university community. But I never encountered Bucky Dent's anti-americanism or anti-semitism in Berkeley either. That claim rings as hollow as the bat Dent used in 1978 against the Yankees. Moral equivalence my ass when it involves a pennant.

I think it was just an excuse to link to the 'Nuke Berkeley' T-Shirt.

But remember, Berkeley is safe, we're a nuclear-free zone.

... and there's a sign on Telegraph Avenue that declares it a drug-free zone.

This reminds me, too, of Pat Robertson's frequent
little talks on the 700 Club throughout the 1990's on those specific locations in the United States God would smite using his instruments of vengeance (our Middle Eastern enemies). The locations were, in Robertson's murderous mind, hotbeds of the gay lifestyle and/or liberal centers.

I don't recall him predicting his own prostate gland as a target, though events seem to point in (up) that direction.

I'm thinking that legal procedures set into inexorable motion by the Patriot Acts and the Defense Department's new snooping software (yes, I know Congress stripped it of its funding, but considering John Poindextor's history, it is an ongoing project) will isolate the phrase "----- should be nuked" in all media and begin tracking, harassing, and persecuting those who speak thus, perhaps suspecting they will act.

As for myself, I hope I get an opportunity to deal personally with Coulter, Robertson, den Beste, and others in a literal "fisking" sort of way.

The sad thing is what Steven den Beste wrote would be considered 'patriotic' in some circles. And then they turn around and say that Berkeley is 'unpatriotic'. I've never met anyone at Berkeley, either in the University or in the city, that would suggest the demolition of another American city as a good thing.

"I've never met anyone at Berkeley, either in the University or in the city, that would suggest the demolition of another American city as a good thing."

I've met five people from Berkeley, and every single one of them was absolutely certain that, if only NYC and/or Chicago could be nuked, then we Americans could finally crawl out from under the thumb of the evil capitalist Republicans and establish a Marxist utopia.

Five bad apples is usually considered a sign of a rotten bushel...

Fergodsake lighten up people. I think Steven den Beste's serious opinions on most subjects are not worth responding to, much less so that are throwaway one-liners, and meant as such. Let it pass.

I'm a Berkeley resident, and I'm afraid Tatterdemalion is correct. The town's political culture is a subject in abnormal psychology.

A title for a thesis might be: A Study in Arrested Development.

If you want to understand "progressivism" think "spoiled child".

And I thought everybody had long given up reading Den Beste's insufferably long torrent of drivel....

>>And I thought everybody had long given up reading Den Beste's insufferably long torrent of drivel....<<

Actually, I covered this one in a summary.

dd

Don't you witless no-sense-of-humor liberals get it!? It's representative of radical right humor! Brought to you by those same hilarious folks who came up with femi-nazi's and enviroquacks. Berkeley nuked. . .Its just so funny and clever and left-wing cry babies just don't get it.

I foolishly had thought that Btad's comment would have led to an echo-chamber effect, everyone agreeing that making jokes about nuking American cities was not really funny. I even hoped that some people would point out that Berkeley is in many respects a better than average place, that UC Berkeley is a great university, and that that we should be proud of the place -- even if we can find people there that we dislike a lot. (Unlike Mississippi, for example, a place to be proud of where everyone is nice.)

My mistake. Brad is a nice man, but he attracts sketchier types. His very sensible piece wondering why Paul Krugman was attacked so much was entirely dominated by people who hated Paul Krugman. So this one has become a debate about how awful Berkeley is.

Osama bin Laden attacked New York -- like Berkeley a city full of leftists, secularists, Jews, homosexuals, intellectuals, and foreigners. There are many reasons why he didn't attack some nice Republican state like Kansas or Mississippi. And too many Americans share some of Osama's feelings about NYC.

If someone makes little jokes about killing me and my kind, it's my option to have a sense of humor about it or not. I don't. Jokes about death threats are not the same as real death threats, but they're still offensive. And they quite rightly, lead to real polarization, as they are intended to. The cute non-committal attitudes I see here are just more imecile liberal-baiting by people who are too chicken to support SDB.

Harv is right. Those radical right-wingers have just the greatest sense of humor. I remember reading an article in National Review about how Chelsea Clinton should be killed. It was Swiftian! Or when Ann Coulter quiped, "We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too. Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors." Such hilarity! For some reason, the left finds jokes about their mass execution unfunny. I don't understand.

I'm just thankful people no longer seem to want to nuke Cambridge - where the town also does tend to the left of the gown. Of course, when people get down on my town, I just direct them to Gold Star Road, where seven of twenty families lost a young man in WWII.

Dan, Bucky Dent hit the pop-up heard 'round the world for the Yankees and against the Red Sox. I'm sure your ongoing blinding rage at that injustice caused the slip. It weighs heavily on me still...

Why does no one ever want to nuke New Haven, CT or Northfield, MN?

Martial,
Of course I got that one backwards. Dent hit one for the Yankees. As a Dodger fan, yes I am still enraged that the Yankees were in that World Series.

>ongoing blinding rage at that injustice caused the slip.

You know, there was someone on another thread here who posted as BILLY BUCKNER!!

"The cute non-committal attitudes I see here are just more imecile liberal-baiting by people who are too chicken to support SDB."

I'm not too chicken to support SDB. He's one of my personal heroes. Of course, it's hardly an act of great courage and honor for me to pop up here and say so; as a matter of fact, it takes about two seconds and only the barest of inclination (and not even much indignation), and none of you know nor care who the hell I am anyway. Take it for what it's worth.

As regards the Berkeley comment, them's fightin' words, and if someone were to smugly excuse a nuke in my direction, I'd probably huff and puff a little as well. Pardon me while I re-think my attachment to SDB... okay, I've thought it out, and I've decided I'll keep liking him. But with New Suspicion And Revulsion for his Conspicuously Irresponsible Use of Flippancy, have no fear! (The cutely non-committal attitude you've just experienced was brought to you by the letter E and the Horseman of Pestilence.)

"But remember, Berkeley is safe, we're a nuclear-free zone."

Texas is even more "nuclear-free" - we're out of range of Red China's missiles. Yippie-ki-yay!

What's the problem? Berkeley is not an American city. It's located someplace in California.

Well, there are the "People's Republic of Berkeley T-Shirts" which could be construed as evidence against Berkeley being in the USA ...

But, I'm more curious about what Prof. DeLong thinks of SDB otherwise. Apparently he reads the U.S.S. Clueless in order to have noticed.

Well, there are the "People's Republic of Berkeley T-Shirts" which could be construed as evidence against Berkeley being in the USA ...

But, I'm more curious about what Prof. DeLong thinks of SDB otherwise. Apparently he reads the U.S.S. Clueless in order to have noticed.

I got to this thread late, but led me add my bit. Whether or not one gets upset about SDB, the simple fact is that in this particular post he was simply following an established precedent, namely that of Ronald Reagan who felt free to joke about launching a first strike against the USSR, even if the microphone caught him. Reagan significantly lowered the bar on both humor and good taste, and SDB and Thomson are merely following his tradition.

"I see a parallel here in New York, where folks from other areas constantly ask me how "we" could have elected Hillary Clinton to the senate, and proposing a similar nuclear option for the Empire State."

I would've thought that jokes about blowing up New York were beyond the pale since September 11. Guess I was wrong.

From deep in the heart of the People's Republic itself, I say:
Lighten up.
Tim