COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Masquerade Ball at The Elephant & Belmont. Who the hell are you?




You know who you are. Now you may think you have gone undetected but Whit and I have been paying attention. It has come to our attention that some of you have been changing your identities more often than some people change their knickers in polite society. I sent a memo to Whit on the subject and he replied that he was not sure that we have more than three actual discreet people who comment. I could tell by the tone that the very subject had him wondering if there really was a 2164th. It got me wondering. Who am I?

If someone puts up a post but is really not a person, is it possible the person reading the post is not really listening because he or she does not exist?

We are looking for theories. I have speculated on Hu Dat and Cedarford. Those of you who lurk and are intimidated by some of the phantom posters should shed your inhibitions and tell us what you think.


110 comments:

  1. Really an angel--even if temporarily twisted into a monstrous reptilicus from the darkest swamps of hell.

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  2. Put in a good word for me with the Boss Upstairs, wouldja, once you shed your reptilicus swamp beast thingie?

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  3. 2164th said, "If someone puts up a post but is really not a person, is it possible the person reading the post is not really listening because he or she does not exist?"

    You will recognize Woman Catholic and me, we're both wearing t-shirts that say, "I'm with Stupid"

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  4. Nah, that was Frank Sinatra, who said "I Gotta Be Me", for the record (which sold millions, BTW).

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  5. Larsen, that upstairs downstairs slapstick comedy is all it is.

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  6. But if I'm wrong, the Boss is going to get a punch in the teeth.

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  7. On the BC, Cedarford wrote, "It apears from a warning by Elephant Club regulars that DrivebyBlogger is Teresita, who is Woman Catholic and who appears to be using multiple aliases to stir stuff up."

    1. As Woman Catholic, Teresita only posts to BC or EB on the topic of religion, and that sparingly. WC is a civilian.

    2. As Drive-by Blogger, Teresita engages more frequently and in a lighter vein on political topics and general badinage. DbB is a student of Sun Tzu and returns incoming fire.

    3. The original "Teresita" login has been subsumed into the WC login, and there are no other logins used.

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  8. Teresita,

    Are you vertically integrated? How can I get a prospectus?

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  9. Buddy Larsen said, "Nude Surfette!"

    Surfer Girl Dictum: IF IT SWELLS, RIDE IT!

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  10. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  11. buddy larsen,

    This little jewel says so much. Also from Maggie’s Farm:

    And remember DbB, this is “very serious”.

    “We’re trying to develop the perfect condom for men that’s suited to every size of penis,” he said. “We’re very serious.”
    “Germany has demanded a rethink on EU guidelines on condom size after finding its average penis did not measure up.”
    What! Germany has a penis? Wow! That’s something you don’t see everyday. And that does seem to be the problem, doesn’t it.

    “They reported the EU has overestimated the size of the average penis by almost 20% and insist other countries will discover the same.”
    This is beginning to sound like the EU Budget Office.



    Link

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  12. buzz has a point--hey that sounds like a mosquito warning--but, the word is the word. the bird, too.

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  13. hey, allen, on the dictum/condom topic:

    "The Purpose-Driven Condom"

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  14. Thank you for remembering my ass, it's the only one I have.

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  15. losing your ass is a terrible thing

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  16. buddy larsen,

    re: a p***k with a brain (That has got to rate up there with Relativity; it could also be autobiographical :-/)

    That was good! Scrapple Face had better watch his backside though; those Eunics are catching up.

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  17. buddy,

    Meant biographical...Hmmm..."auto" could have been Freudian.
    ;-)

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  18. Ash said...
    I am really all of you.

    So, all that medication, all these years, has been a waste?

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  19. nope, no waste, damn fine trip...look at the world I created here ;)

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  20. re: losing your ass is a terrible thing

    And then there is this,

    Saudi Head-Chopper Discusses His Craft

    This guy just kills me. What a party animal.

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  21. Lessee, what part of me is my ash--oh, of course--that's a no-brainer!

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  22. never much interested in autobiography anyway, allen--i mean, you got yer make, model, year, and mileage, then what else is there?

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  23. man, the Fox newsgals are looking good this season. i guess they're all mostly "winter" colored.

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  24. Guess the place is taking a day off from drinking battery acid

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  25. "Jeez, Tonto, look at all them friggin indians--we're in trouble, now!"

    "What do you mean, 'we', Paleface?"

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  26. This just in from ace AP source Sheik Slowhand-al-Shitie:

    "19) Mujahideen are not allowed to take young boys with no facial hair onto the battlefield or into their private quarters."

    Brother Abdul Camelbanger is most unhappy:

    "WTF is this Rule 19? It's cold up in these mountains! So what if my Allahstick happens to slip into a youngster's mecca? It builds character. It certainly didn't do me any harm."

    Ace of Spades

    Link

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  27. Little Green Footballs had this headline. I always thought that's what you covered it with.

    Crackdown on Uncovered Meat (in Gaza)

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  28. I saw dat, rufus--Fox is always fussin' about "girls gone wild'--they always show lots o dat condemning filum, too!

    Allen--i figured it was Al Gayda from the get-go, from reading Mohammad Atta's diaries. Plus the soldiers find all sorts of stuff in the hellholes--especially Fallujah--syringes, dope, other clues.

    Not that there's anything wrong with that.

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  29. i don't see anything but trouble, win or lose, he ain't leaving. AMLO has already set up the gig, if Hugo gets "robbed" by fewer people voting for him than Rosales.

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  30. true enough. Oahaca still's fightin' in the streets, tho. Costing billions.

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  31. buddy larsen,

    re: Allen--i figured it was Al Gayda from the get-go

    I don't know, Brother Goatsta Ram al-Pootie reports that Al Gayda is running a 711 in Peoria. But it is the AP, you know?

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  32. Now, that's Al Bundy, in Peoria.

    on the latin thugs, Publius and others have been reporting Morales in Bolivia is having fits with his "reforms". Seems foreign investment dried up when he siezed those oil & gas properties. who'd a thunk it?

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  33. I haven't heard much on Calderone, but there's little chance that he's not one of the Ollie Garks. Po' ass Mexicans--what a choice--a Red and a Rico. but at least Calderone can keep on Fox's path--which was slow, but steadily moving forward on some important banking financial, and political reform.

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  34. habu, glad to see you recovered from them alligator bites. how's the one-handed, standing-up typing going?

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  35. It'll be Chavez by 100,000.

    If not votes, then AKs.

    But in reality they have gotten the 2 million "new" voters registered.
    Vote early, vote often.

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  36. yep--and motor-scooter brigades to haul 'em to the polls, probably again and again. your Citgo at work.

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  37. TigerHawk is carrying a thread using an opinion peace by the non-radioactive Gary Kasparov. Given the lead in, TigerHawk may have South America in mind.

    “For the past few years, the dictators and terrorists have been gaining ground, and with good reason.” (probably written before Senor Castro’s complete non-recovery)

    “This dire situation is a result of the only thing worse than a failed strategy: the inability to recognize, or to admit, that a strategy has failed.”

    Gary Kasparov tells the United States how to play chess

    Kasparov has a prescription.

    H/T WSJ

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  38. I read that this a.m.--it sounded like the Dem position--as much as i admire Kasparov--as if USA is responsible for how the rest of the world runs itself, and we can't afford to leave the room and go to Iraq, 'cause the rest of the kids will rip the globe to pieces.

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  39. Doug and Teresita have both been absent for sometime now. Indeed, "Who the hell are you?"

    Hold on now, Catherine has been AWOL as well.

    Holy Cow!

    I'll be back shortly, going to check my blood pressure and pulse. I mean, who can you trust anymore?

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  40. buddy larsen,

    TigerHawk did not give the piece a ringing endorsement. He was interested in the workings of Kasparov's mind.

    It is getting harder daily to distinguish one position from another. Positions are blending into bland homogeneity.

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  41. Before crashing, let me say to the infinitely small audience, "A mind is a terrible thing to paste."

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  42. I like the dieter's lament, "a waist is a terrible thing to mind".

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  43. Was watching good old FOX on a Saturday night, the WSJ Show, man, I'm gettin' old, but anyway...

    This one fellow says that after watching the B&M Show from Jordan and reading the prelim of the Baker & Hamilton Report, the newest magic words of choice
    EMBEDDING US Troops with Iraqi units

    The way forward is being revealed, per the talking head, as the next course.

    Going Native

    When & where have I read that before...
    I'm sure I'll think of it soon.

    Just a few klicks behind on that old learning curve, the Bush Team and his Generals are. Years late, 300 Billion USD over budget, gotta love it.

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  44. Integration, not segregation

    Who would have ever thought that was how to train a foreign Army, except those of US that had done it, before.

    Everything old is new again.

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  45. maybe it has just taken this long and this much fear of disaster, to focus everybody, and to have the local ability to even *do* it that way.

    Boy, they put the wood on USSR in that WSJ show, didn't they.

    You oughtta be on History ch 271 right now, rat--"Barbarians".

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  46. me, too, rufus--I like the guy. and trust him. WH released his final memo today--from 2 days prior to the sack. It largely goes with what rat was just saying. learning curve. Took kasserine Pass to give us Patton.

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  47. I like the masquerade ball analogy. I think it means any lurkers that think to post may find themselves in a Stanley kubrick movey with tom curise and nicle woats her face or whatever. Eyes wisde shut or some bulshit.

    WATCH OUT LURKERS! You may think that unsuspecting tiff between allen and catherine is a free-fer-all but if you butt in, you may be stripped of any illusions as hastily as teresita logs entries into her barb log.

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  48. "B-but I thought it was just ane intellectual free-for-all"

    So whats the dead chick equivalent in this extended metaphor? Cedarford's posts? Habu's bawdy showboating? Allen's prank debating?

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  49. Is doug on his nude calasthetics routines?

    I feel the burn and feel the flap.

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  50. Ok, I'm tired - time to count redingers

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  51. Whit and Deuce

    I've got two posts here:
    http://drivebytimes.blogspot.com/

    For you to copy and post here if you want to, or better yet, read the two Newsweek articles and write better ones yourselves.
    ---
    When I was reading about Harith Al Dhari, the light bulb went on:

    This guy is talking about REALITY.

    He like 'Rat, Reocon, me and a few others know that GWB has NOT BEEN ADDRESSING REALITY for several years now.
    Al Dhari mentions that no one is in Washington.
    Everybody can prattle on and defend Bush from now til doomsday, but until he starts dealing with reality again, he will continue to compound all the problems he has piled on this great country.

    If anyone wants to claim he has not made one empty threat after another for some time now, I say you are simply continuing to deceive yourselves and others!

    No way to lead, no way to gain respect of friends or foes.
    ---
    'Rat, please read Al Dhari, and tell me whether you think he's right or not about it being too late to start doing now what we SHOULD HAVE DONE 3 YEARS AGO!

    Thanks.

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  52. Hey drive by blogger:
    The whole time I was publishing those two posts it didn't occur to me that I had your blog before you were born!

    When I got here, I smiled.
    Maybe I should put your picture on the Letterhead? :-)

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  53. hu dat?
    Steel don't burn, and steel don't flap!

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  54. Just a Singaporean chinese whose political and social views veer quite significantly from the rest of my folks. No pretenses as to who I am!

    I also think my posts, rare as they may be, are quite distinctive in tone, style, and content from the rest of the commentariat.

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  55. Goldberg's piece is pretty funny, except it's not supposed to be, I guess:

    "Rumsfeld's way is better.
    Except it didn't work.
    "

    Brilliant!

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  56. wobbly guy:
    You think.
    You Singaporeans are all alike!
    :-)

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  57. Doug, you are on at the next post.

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  58. Welcome wobbly guy. We like fellow bloggers at The Elephant and their participation in running commentary. I encourage them to bring to our attention their posts that they feel should be above the fold here at The Elephant.Stop by often. It is good for business.

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  59. Damn!
    I left out ALLEN again, but I always make ammends, (when I remember) just as I did In this Thread
    ---
    Then of course there's Deuce, Whit, Tiger, and others.
    Sorry Guys, now get back to work bashing Bush!

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  60. doug, what's your last name? I'm coming to Hawaii to kick yer ass.

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  61. You've finally gotten too ignorant, loud, unpleasant, stupid, vile, and achmadinejade even for a nice guy like me. Now I have to come kick yer ass.

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  62. Sorry--I won't break any bones, probably. Just a little slapping around for fun.

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  63. To our brave b-squad boys in Iraq, my salute:

    A mine is a terrible thing, waste it!

    ********

    I have only one alias, more than one is too muddlesome for me.

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  64. Yes, Doug, after Taiwan we come for you. We will have you don traditional Sichuan costume of public shame and parade you around your town. "Where is your Dog, now?" we shall ask rhetorically, while tugging on the yankee's leash.

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  65. I think i'll ear tag him, and put him up at the next hog auction in Seguin.

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  66. So, hu Dat, are you really a communist, or is it just a corporate culture thing?

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  67. A nation of fire eaters, ice heads, dirt-worshippers and nudist supremacists.

    Buddy Larsen will clean house, a manchurian candidate for the Ministry of Whoop-Ass.

    It'll be like Leslie Nielsen against the airport Hari Krishnas, except different sound effects when his war hammer crushes the cachetic meth users.

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  68. aHA, i knew the little pineapple jerk was a meth head!

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  69. hu Dat, before we exhaust the 'masquerade' thread, is you really catherine?

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  70. I've been hoping she'd show back up, since I want to run away to Shangri-La with her, but if you're her, I'm afraid I'll find your visage a little off-putting in the bridal suite.

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  71. Buddy, What is the riddle of steel?

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  72. "No matter how strong the steel, it's no stronger than the hand that wields it"

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  73. what is the Riddle of the Sphinx ?

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  74. as opposed to the Riddle of Leon Spinx

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  75. Unfortunately, I am not Catherine, who has the best chance of carrying the BC and EB fire when Teresita, the lesbian's Sayyid Qutb, begins her campaigns of purifying the lands.

    I will surely be swept aside and kept alive only as a an archetypal male boob in commercials. We may all see one another again, but it will be in the dens of Lesbian power, dumbfounded at ordering plane tickets over the Internet, buying a car online or choosing insurance.

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  76. oh, hell, I was just learning "please don't hurt me" in Farsi, now I have learn it in Lesbo, too?

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  77. anyway, before i forget, nobody who buys a car online is ever going to establish no dens of power. i'm sorry, but the whole notion is just too ...well, i don't think there is a word for it.

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  78. Maybe Crom will be pleased with the mangled corpses and rivers of blood sewn across the land by the Lesbians. He may intervene on their behalf against the Iranians, if only to preserve thier lot for a more glorious and bloody demise against some greater foe...

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  79. Its not the superiority of female consumers that drives Lesbian radicals. Rather, theirs is a reaction to the pineapplization of their culture.

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  80. Well, Crom is in good company with them bad-asses Milius and Schwarzenegger. Stone I won't mention, as that JFK thing unnerves me some. The Pineapplized culture is a real concernm, tho, even for male lesbians. I think it's the diagonal crosshatches, and that indistinct pale green growth on top that so clashes with the burnt umber values in the body itself.

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  81. Whit just negotiated with the landlord and you will be happy to hear he has agreed to let the Ball continue through the day.

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  82. well, i don't want to spoil the fun, but I think hu Dat? is teresita. I know--call me Sherlock Holmes--

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  83. nearest new Milius film - written and directed

    And then there is this - The Chosen Few

    Wonder if Jornada del Muerte will have shades of No Country for Old Men. Cant be good for Bush's legacy.

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  84. The Wobbly Guy is the Singaporean, I thought. Yes, I believed him, too. But why do we think hu Dat? is Singaporean?

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  85. I do not think he is. The wobbly guy is for sure. I can give a confidence factor five on that.

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  86. habu started all this false fake-identity and fake false-identity stuff--and then he went and wrestled a crack-crazed gator and now is dis-armed, dis-assed, and unable to maintain order in the Everglades.

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  87. Buddy, your killing me. You and Hu dat? were on a real roll there.

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  88. lord-a-mercy, a John Milius film about the Frozen Chosin. When i was a kid, i had a summer job working with a guy who was there. He still had the shakes--really. Course he drank, too. but he said the shakes were from the Chinese. He was a machine-gunner.

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  89. 2164, i had thought hu Dat? was habu, for awhile there. But now i think teresita. but you know different, do you? i guess it's dumb to try to figure it out--as joe desert buzz rat said.

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  90. Believe me, budy, Buzz is a stand alone product.
    There are no affiliates on this Rat's ass

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  91. Npo, i was just playing off the confusion bit--i never figured you for anybody else--esp since somebody was using your handle back there a ways.

    Are you watching Fox this a.m.? I heard half of a flash about Russia and NoKo signing some sort of mutual-support pact.

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  92. i guess it's only this --nothing too grim--

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  93. Dave H said, "Kind of an irritant who puts in a well reasoned but nasty post to stir things up among the other regulars."

    http://cedarford.blogspot.com/

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  94. Dave h., I agree with you on C-4. The C-4 that posts has no ego. That is because his real ego lies elsewhere.

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  95. There's a guy commenting from time to time on the WSJ Opinion Journal site. He'll appear on union issues, on protectionist issues, the like. he writes like C4, including the use of scare/sneer quites integrated into dual purpose, dense sentences. I think he may be C4. His name is Eric (something)stahl. I can't recall the first syllable of the last name--but I do recall the two elements above. Hometown listed was in Michigan IIRC, but I can't recall the town. damn, bad memory. I think he was on the James Webb essay a couple weeks ago, tho, if anyone wants to search.

    DbB, that link is hilarious--esp the pix linked inside.
    :-D

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  96. Dave H--since we're pursuing this--who did you have in mind?

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  97. I know that wretchard know who he is.

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  98. Does Pat Buchanan have a think tank? With a roster?

    Oh, BTW, reported @ maggie's:

    Apple Computer reported today that it has developed breast-implantable computer chips
    that can store and play music.

    This is considered a major breakthrough because women are always complaining that men stare at their breasts instead of listening to them.

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  99. Buddy Larsen said, "DbB, that link is hilarious--esp the pix linked inside."

    Here's when Cedarford was actually banned from the Ace of Spades HQ Blog...."Free speech and all, yeah, but I don't need that kind of shit reflecting on me. Or, quite frankly, reflected in my advertising rates."

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  100. interesting thought. the BC commentariat as a social experiment.

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  101. Dave H, stick around pal, we need you.

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