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Archive for December 1st, 2010

Who’s That Clip-Clopping on Robin’s Bridge?

Posted by s.z. on December 1st, 2010

This just in: Robin of Berkeley has trolls! And not your ordinary trolls; no, she has progressive trolls, the worst kind!

When I started my little blog, it didn’t occur to me that trolls would come out in droves. Why would leftists expend their energies on me?

Aw, you’re just being modest, Robin. After all, you’re a reformed liberal and a licensed psychotherapist!

And why would they subject themselves to scrutiny by a licensed psychotherapist?

Yes, you’d think that knowing that a licensed psychotherapist was scrutinizing their anonymous, hasty, remarks would keep them cowering in shame. But yet they still dare post their unflattering comments. What is this world coming to?

But apparently, numerous trolls have been drawn to me, like venomous bees to honey.

Robin, you routinely diagnose mental illness in the Left while being a nut yourself. You’re a humorless, tone-deaf scold. And you tell the most far-fetched, improbable, entertaining stories about the trials and tribulations of being you. Of COURSE the trolls are going to be drawn to you. You’re their queen!

As a psychotherapist, I can see right through them to who they are and how they operate.

And as a layperson, I can recognize projection (I learned about it from Tucker Carlson).

I wonder to myself: Where do these trolls come from? Where do they live and breed?

Do they write in dank basement rooms while their bedraggled girlfriends (or moms) pick up their dirty shorts? Do they intermix trolling with downloading internet porn? (I’m not being snarky here; I’d bet good money that violent smut gives them endless inspiration.)

Sadly, no. Seriously, I think she’s talking about Sadly, No! readers. (Hey, just joshing with you, Tintin and crew.)

Anyway, as usual, Robin takes a horrific incident from her everyday life (in this, case, somebody disagreeing with her in the comments of her blog), and extrapolates it into an indictment of that part of the country that didn’t vote for Bristol Palin, and ends up in a froth of righteous indignation that this country allows people who think differently from her to even live.

The most hardcore of the leftists seem almost feral, wild, and undomesticated. Many lack even the most rudimentary of social skills; some people may very well be diagnosable on the autism spectrum.

Many militants are devoid of an essential ingredient of being human: empathy.

I’d say something about pots and kettles, but doubt that Robin would realize what I’m talking about, what with her total lack of self-awareness. But really, Robin of all people should refrain from accusing people of a lack of empathy – especially because what she is really saying is, “Somebody posted a comment I don’t like; they must be a feral, evil Socialist/progressive/liberal sociopath to do such a thing, because words can hurt and they don’t even care!”

In conclusion, if you have ever had the impudence to criticize Robin of Berkeley, consider yourself put in your place, you troll, you. She knows where you live!

UPDATE:

I just googled Robin of Berkeley to see if I could anything more about her professional background. I didn’t, but I did find an interesting thread about Robin from a couple of weeks ago in the comments section at the American Spectator.

Here are some excerpts:

D — I used to try and post comments on American Thinker, but my comments were either continuously edited (to their liking) or not printed at all.

G — I was actually asked to be a moderator on that site [...]

It’s funny how I got started.

I wrote a scathing comment about something Robin of Berkeley had written; I believed Robin was a phony, since she had been a die-hard liberal for, like, 40 years – and then suddenly embraced every single conservative principle so thoroughly and articulately that it just smelled wrong. [...] I smelled a rat.

Well, my comment disappeared after about 10 minutes, and I wrote to [American Thinker Publisher and Editor] Lifson to complain. [...]

He actually wrote back to me assuring me that Robin of Berkeley does exist, that she’s a friend of his and he’s physically been in her company several times. [...] A day or so later, I got an email from the chief moderator, who told me she shared my suspicions about Robin and she asked me if I was interested in being a contributor to the moderating team.

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/11/18/pat-me-pat-me

Anyway, G. took the position [insert joke here], but very quickly became disillusioned because of what the job entailed (mainly, deleting or editing all posts critical of the AT columnists, especially Robin), and because of all the behind the scenes power plays and nonsense (“I felt like I had fallen in with a Nazi cult). He added that he suspected that the chief moderator, who had a LOT of vitriol to vent about Robin, was jealous of Robin’s friendship with Lifson.

Make of all that whatever you think appropriate.

Stossel Park is Melting in the Dark

Posted by s.z. on December 1st, 2010

Author’s note: this post is dedicated to D Sidhe, in the hopes that she will draw Stossel as the appropriate parasite.

This week John Stossel shows us how the private sector is Making Parks Decent Again (for decent people only).

Yes, Stossel says that the way to fix “badly maintained” public parks is simple: give them, as tax-free gifts, to “entrepreneurs” who will run them as for-profit enterprises. That way, the public doesn’t have to fund them anymore, they are available for use by concession sellers, special event planners, local businesses, and real estate owners who want to sell park-front property to rich people. And, best of all, only the homeless people who play by the rules get in.

Here’s Stossel!

America is filled with parks that are filthy, dangerous and badly maintained. The governments in charge plead: We can’t help it. Our budgets have been slashed. We don’t have enough money!

Bryant Park, in midtown Manhattan, was once such an unsavory place. But now it’s nice. What changed? Dan Biederman essentially privatized the park.

With permission from frustrated officials who’d watch government repeatedly fail to clean up the park, Biederman raised private funds from “businesses around the park, real estate owners, concessions and events sponsorships. … (S)ince 1996, we have not asked the city government for a single dollar.”

Sounds good to me.

Of course it does. Stossel would think it sounded good to give the state of West Virginia to Donald Trump to use as a game preserve for rich guys who want to hunt the most dangerous game. (After all, many West Virginians are poor, and would probably welcome the chance to be hunted for money, if they had no better prospects. And anyway, the government hasn’t made a financial windfall off of the state, so it should be turned over to somebody who could make it a paying proposition.

But Shirley Kressel, a Boston journalist, doesn’t agree with the idea of giving Boston Common to Dan, the guy who now basically owns Bryant Park.

“(W)e don’t need … to teach our next generation of children that the only way they can get a public realm is as the charity ward of rich people and corporations,” she said. “We can afford our public realm. We’re entitled to it. We pay taxes, and that’s the government’s job.”

Silly journalist, haven’t you been paying attention to Stossel: NOTHING is the government’s job! Except to contract out for-profit wars and the American justice system! And anyway, you pay your taxes in order to allow corporations to make the world a better place for corporations, not to provide any personal benefit to you.

And when she objected that privatized parks won’t allow the homeless to use them, Dan said that this just isn’t so.

“The homeless people are welcomed into Bryant Park if they follow the rules. And those same 13 people are there almost every day. We know their names.”

And doesn’t sound that great! A park where 13 select homeless are allowed to visit, and everyone knows their names! And the rules are followed! And if they aren’t, well, Dan knows their names . . .

But let’s let Stossel give us the lesson to be learned from the shining example of Bryant Park:

Once again, the creative minds of the private sector invent solutions that never occur to government bureaucrats. If government would just get out of the way, entrepreneurship and innovation, stimulated by the profit motive, will make our lives better.

Yes, greedy bastards, stimulated by the profit motive, will make our lives better, if only we will welcome this brave new corporate world.