In Which I Condemn Glenn Greenwald for Failing to Condemn Some Stuff
I have a screenshot of that Sadly, No! online store with the T-shirts advocating the murder of conservatives — the one Glenn Greenwald failed to condemn. But before we get to the screenshot, let’s recap, for humor purposes.
Recall Glenn Greenwald from the other day. He quotes Misha, an over-the-top conservative blogger with a well-known schtick of saying outrageous things, as saying the following:
Five ropes, five robes, five trees.
Some assembly required.
Greenwald condemns this in no uncertain terms:
He’s advocating that the five Supreme Court Justices in the Hamdan majority be hanged from the neck until they’re dead. His homicidal formulation is a play on the more standard call of the Right for American journalists to be hanged — “Journalists. Rope. Tree. Some assembly required” — another death call which, it just so happens, Misha also issued just a few days ago.
He next refers to Misha’s nutcase ravings as “deranged pleas that journalists and Supreme Court Justices be murdered.”
Heavens!
The very first two links in Greenwald’s post are to a web site called Sadly, No! — a web site that, until today, sold items with the slogan: “Rope. Tree. Conservative. Some assembly required.”
I think it’s time for that screenshot:
That’s a close-up of the image, taken by Confederate Yankee from the Sadly, No! archives. Here is a screenshot of that slogan on various forms of merchandise being sold at a Sadly, No! online store:
(There’s also an item with a nude picture of Jeff Gannon. Such pictures are another staple of the sober left that Glenn Greenwald likes to associate with.)
Until today, when I first pointed it out, this store was linked at Sadly, No! and the above items were for sale. I have these screenshots because Sadly, No!’s Gavin M. has been doing some obfuscating about the merchandise — including trying to hide it from your view. Details on that in the extended entry.)
My commenter LoafingOaf said it pretty well:
So let me get this straight. Greenwald was writing 10,000 word posts last week condemning something and one of the sites he linked to in support of this condemnation was selling t-shirts with the exact same joke (except with the word “conservative”) as Greenwald was condemning?
Douchebag is right.
Hey, he said it, not me. I condemn it!
P.S. Does Greenwald have an obligation to denounce Sadly, No!? I don’t think so, personally — but he sure ripped into some conservatives for not denouncing Misha, even though many of us 1) had not claimed that the left’s silence on Deb Frisch was assent; and 2) had vociferously denounced actual vile rhetoric coming from Ann Coulter and others.
To decide whether Greenwald has such an obligation, let’s consult well-known Greenwald sycophant Mona, who says in comments to this Q&O post:
And really finally, Greenwald DOES NOT THINK any blogger actually has an obligation to denounce other bloggers on their “side,” and that only bloggers who have promoted someone who is filthy, or becomes so, arguably incur any such obligation.
As I noted earlier today, Greenwald has linked Sadly, No! three times in recent days. Sounds like he’s promoting them. I guess, according to Mona, he’d better get busy denouncing.
I look forward to Greenwald’s ever-so-civil response — such as his civil responses on my blog in recent days, wherein he called me a “liar,” “obsessive,” “hypocritical,” “hysterical,” “petulant,” and “shrieking.” And that was in just one comment (albeit one of which he was so proud that he posted it in five completely separate places).
More on the interesting evolution of the Sadly, No! online store in the extended entry.
[Extended entry]
P.S. Gavin at Sadly, No! is obviously embarrassed about having decided to sell this T-shirt. When I posted a link to the online store, he altered the merchandise being sold so you couldn’t see it — or so he thought.
He tried less drastic measures first, including saying many things that weren’t true. (I should note that I think he can be a funny guy. However, being funny doesn’t give you a license to say untrue things seriously.)
For example, he came on to Xrlq’s comments and first tried to deny that the store existed:
You’re referring to the shirts we’re not actually selling, in the store which hasn’t even opened yet?
…Because the only way you could have gotten there is via a link that says we’re not selling those shirts.
Patterico, Patterico. That’s the old ‘pretending not to know things’ trick.
Actually, the store did exist. I got there by clicking on “store” on the main page for Sadly, No! The link did not say they were not selling the shirts. And I somehow managed to get the screenshot shown above. Other people saw the shirts for sale. As Pablo said at Xrlq’s:
It looks to me like you could check out just fine with one of those shirts that isn’t for sale. Of course, it ain’t worth the $20.00 to test the thesis, but I call bullshit on the “We’re not selling them” claim.
Yup. Oh — and the Googlebot saw the store too, and recorded this cached image.
Why, even Gavin’s own commenters weren’t buying Gavin’s little story:
Gavin, I saw the contents of that store the other day, so it was accessible to the general public at one point.
Gavin gamely tried to support the theory that the store wasn’t really in operation. On Xrlq’s site, he said:
That’s certainly odd. I get a null page from that link, as usual.
And on his own site, he said:
There was a prototype, but that was before all the Times stuff started boiling over. We voted not to use it.
The store isn’t even supposed to be open yet. I get a null page when I click the ’store’ tab, but apparently some people can see it from there.
Apparently fearful that some people really could see it (after all, why would I be sending readers to a “null page”?), he rushed to clean up the evidence. He replaced the offending items with other merchandise talking about hitting me in the face with a pie. He then declared me “pwned.” Sadly for him, I had the above screenshots, and Gavin’s desperate bid to kick the kitty litter over his poo turned out to be a failure.
Sadly, Pwn3d!
By the way, the idea to sell these items occurred to the Sadly, No! folks back on June 1, 2006. The commenters were largely appalled at the “parody”:
Shoelimpy™ said,
June 1, 2006 at 21:21
So you don’t like conservatives, therefore you make shirts to express your hatred against them and recommend that they be killed?
Imagine a shirt like that except with the word “nigger” in the place of conservative. You can’t imagine it, can’t you? But conservatives aren’t worthy of the same rights as others, now are they?
#Cameron said,
June 1, 2006 at 21:24
Um, maybe I’m cofused, but it looks this could be taken as a threat rather than snark. sorry
. . . .
Shoelimpy™ said,
June 1, 2006 at 21:30
Cameron, Khonsu I am glad to see that I am not the only person appalled by this image.
. . . .
mikey said,
June 1, 2006 at 21:35
Hmm. I don’t like the whole rope thing because of the KKK conotations. Seems like maybe the focus group is a little, well, taken aback around that one. What else ya got?
mikey
. . . .
Ben said,
June 1, 2006 at 21:47
I agree w/ El Gato & the other focus group members. We can’t rely on a random viewer getting the context; I sure didn’t. (Although I assumed there was something like it from the comment about wingnuts having their nasty shirts.)
It is all well and good that readers might get the context in a blog post, although it’s clear that many regular Sadly, No! readers did not. What is confusing is, once the actual shirts were sold (and they were for sale in a real online store), how were people in the public supposed to know that the shirts were some kind of parody?
It’s no wonder that even dedicated Sadly, No! readers didn’t get the extreme brilliance of the Sadly, No! T-shirt parodies. Because they weren’t really that funny. They simply took an offensive slogan threatening people from the left, and substituted people from the right. That’s about as funny as the following “parody,” which I am directing at everyone who says I’m missing the joke:
If [your name here] were to be shot, it wouldn’t slow me down one iota.
See? It’s “parody” of Deb Frisch, because I am substituting [your name here] for Jeff Goldstein’s two-year-old son. Ergo, rather than simply doing the same thing as Frisch but directing it at you, I am engaging in “wit” and “satire” and “parody” which we can all have a good laugh at.
Sorry, the parody claim doesn’t fly. Sadly, No! promoted the same kind of junk that Glenn Greenwald denounced when done by those on the right — and he failed to condemn it because it came from those on the left.
And note well: the logo was first published on the Sadly, No! web site on June 1 — weeks before Greenwald linked Sadly, No!. By contrast, he gave us only hours to denounce Misha.
Again, to me, this is all utter silliness. I don’t believe in the “everyone must denounce their side’s vile rhetoric” principle. Also, I have already condemned everything in the world, so I’m protected from charges of failure to condemn.
But none of that saved me from getting unfairly pilloried and lied about by Glenn Greenwald. And you know what he says: Goose, gander.
So: to Glenn Greenwald:
Sadly, No!’s Death Store is DERANGED HATE SPEECH THAT MUST BE CONDEMNED!
I condemn him in advance for his expected failure to do so.
UPDATE: Greenwald fails to respond.
Why am I just not surprised. Deja Vu?
Authoritarian Kult = TownHouse
topsecretk9 (049a27) — 7/19/2006 @ 12:17 amI believe this makes “Sadly, No!” a hate site, according to the usual liberal calculus. Of course, hating conservatives is politically correct (and probably mandated by law in certain Northern California cities), so maybe we just have to accept it as our due for being such mean people.
Kevin Murphy (0b2493) — 7/19/2006 @ 12:30 am[…] We have to denounce LC & IB Patterico for utterly deconstructing the Douchebag and the Douchelettes with this post. How he can live with himself after having made so much fun of the mentally-challenged-Americans of the Doucheosphere is beyond us. […]
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler » Blog Archive » Queen Gwendolyn of the Doucheosphere and Sadly, No!(signs of intelligence) Gets Taken to the Cleaners (502642) — 7/19/2006 @ 12:52 amCoolio. I got a comment elevated. Couldn’t be happier it was a comment calling Greenwald a douche. 🙂
Game, set, and match to you, Patterico.
LoafingOaf (a90377) — 7/19/2006 @ 2:14 amLike the “Scary Movie” franchise, this thing just keeps tossing up the yuks.
Pablo (08e1e8) — 7/19/2006 @ 2:48 amI believe this makes “Sadly, No!” a hate site, according to the usual liberal calculus.
Kevin, Kevin, Kevin… when are you going to learn?
It *would* be hate speech if there were any human beings who were conservatives. However, all right…err…left-thinking individuals realize that it is acceptable to marginalize conservatives and treat them as Other because there are no persuns of cholor on the Reich. This is the only way they will ever understand what they are doing to real people! Do unto others, before they can do unto you! Get it?
Sure, there are a few “token” African-American conservatives, but everyone knows they’re not really “black” – they are race traitors who deserve whatever treatment is handed out to them for accepting unearned race and gender privileges at the hand of the Man.
I find it unbearably annoying to have to interrupt my organic free-range Yerba Mate to come over here and remind you yayhoos of this stuff. Try to retain it. ‘Kay?
Cassandra (c9069a) — 7/19/2006 @ 5:39 amLOL! You rule, Patterico! Good catch 🙂
Sister Toldjah (d81da5) — 7/19/2006 @ 5:41 amSo that is the stuff they were trying to sell… certianly does not leave anything to the imagination does it?
And what is is with the lefts obsession with Jeff Gannon? The guy is gay, so what? Let it go.
Deathknyte (034c6e) — 7/19/2006 @ 6:40 am“pwnd??” What is he, 14??? What adult says that?
Ahh.. you gotta love the screenshot. How many times has that proven the lies of the left?
Good job Patterico. It’s always nice to see the slimy ones squirm.
Rightwingsparkle (e5d6a3) — 7/19/2006 @ 6:42 amAnd you want to treat these scumbags fairly? And continue to criticize conservatives? What’s balanced about that, Patterico?
Bob Roof (8c0efd) — 7/19/2006 @ 6:54 am[…] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your ownsite. […]
Decision ‘08 » Blog Archive » Pugnacious Pontificator Patterico Powerfully Pummels Pusillanimous, Preening Progressive Pundit (1b383c) — 7/19/2006 @ 7:21 am“You’re gay!” is the first and last insults these morons have to work with. I believe I’ve had that inference slung at me by Sadly, Complete Fucking Idiots! five or six times on this blog in the last week. Pressed for an explanation, they tend to things like “Uh….You’re dumb!” and run away. It happened twice yesterday on this thread with Doug and Big Worm playing the part of the the immature nine-year-old together, sort of like Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen playing the baby on Full House but without the gravitas that John Stamos brings to a situation.
As insults go, “GAY!!!!” it TEH R0XXOR!!!111! Unless you’ve turned 13, in which case, it’s pathetic and hypocritical.
Pablo (efa871) — 7/19/2006 @ 7:41 amI don’t even know how one would pronounce “pwned”. What the hell is that, one of those Eastern European languages where you have to buy vowels with body parts, which is why all their words have ninety-seven consonants per vowel?
Tennessee Budd (2b60c5) — 7/19/2006 @ 7:52 am[…] Patterico condemns Glenn Greenwald and everyone else for everything. (this one is fun) […]
The Real Ugly American.com » Blog Archive » Blogrolls Best 7.19.06 (4e8dcb) — 7/19/2006 @ 7:55 amI read the other day that the UAW helped Kos with a big ad buy. Maybe we should condemn that Union for underwriting anti semitism. Call them out on it..Glenn? Anyone on the left?
clarice (c49871) — 7/19/2006 @ 8:34 amBTW, does “Sadly, No!” have a license to sell PattericoTM merchandise?
Kevin Murphy (0b2493) — 7/19/2006 @ 8:41 amIn this piece Chuck Schumer seems to have a “moment of reality.”
“His imaginary couple, Schumer says, are glad people can get rich — so long as they don’t get hurt in the process. But they don’t like to be preached at either, he seems to be saying, observing at one point that “the hard left has a moral eliteness that is obnoxious.”
That “imaginary couple” seems pretty spot-on.
Neo (cba5df) — 7/19/2006 @ 8:46 am[…] ….and, as Patterico says, Sadly, Pwn3d!, too. Dumb Lefty liars brought knives to a gunfight. […]
Cold Fury » Blog Archive » Busted! (6f4592) — 7/19/2006 @ 8:55 amActually, Pablo, I make fun of you for being both extremely stupid and a Goldstein groupie, and nothing else. Just thought I’d clear that up.
Big Worm (d00104) — 7/19/2006 @ 9:21 am“Pwned” is online gamer slang for “Owned” which means to utterly defeat someone consistently, by one guy usually. It’s actually the common typo for “Owned” as the “P” is right next to the “O” that has stuck as slang.
SGT Ted (bfe21a) — 7/19/2006 @ 9:26 amI never even heard of Glenn Greenwald.
George (2e865d) — 7/19/2006 @ 9:33 amNot to delve too deeply into the psychoses of the Left, ’cause, really, who has the time – It’s not like I’m not an unemployed psychology professor, or anything – but I think this touches on one of the major failings of the Liberal commentariat; many of them seem to have no sense of humor.
None.
It’s as if they think it’s ok to substitute a sense of righteous rage for genuine wit.
The reasoning seems to be:
1) Person A said something witty about Liberals, but I am offended by his making fun of me (personalizing the “insult” – another hallmark of lefties).
2) I must seek revenge (ie. “engage in a teachable moment”)
3) I will say the *exact* same thing about conservatives that was said about liberals never MIND that in the REVERSE case IT ISN’T TRUE AND ISN’T FUNNY AND I CAN’T THINK OF ANYTHING ORIGINAL BECAUSE I’M TOO ENRAGED AND DON’T YOU KNOW IT’S HATE SPEECH ANYWAY YOU WINGER A**HOLE CO*KSU*KER FU*K! FU*CKITY FU*K FU*K FU*K!!!! EEAAAAHHHRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!
Their “See how *you* like it” rhetoric smacks of second grade; hence the arch, sniggering “PWN3D!!!11!!!1” type of comments following such a display of vacuity. I imagine the Leftists would like to believe they’re engaging in post-modern Leet-speak, and Conservatives “just don’t get it”; another sign of the Right’s supposed inhumanity, greed, callousness and, worst of all, un-hipness.
They don’t know what’s going on, they don’t know how to argue, and they certainly don’t know how to make a point with any kind of panache, so they’re reduced to the drool-inducing prose of a Greenwald, or the “humor” of frothing, seething rage.
To stretch the point, I’m not aware of there being on the Left a comparable figure to Mark Steyn or James Lileks, or heck, even Jonah Goldberg on a (very) good day. If there is, someone please let me know – I would love to read a minority point of view that isn’t absolutely dripping with postmodern sarcasm, irony and hate masquerading as wit.
The supposed bucolic lights on the left; James Wolcott, Garrison Keillor and the like? Feh. Same hate, same rage.
That’s one of the reasons they will continue to be unimpressive at the polls. Thus fueling the rage, thus giving way to Tourette’s-like explosions of frothy abhorrence for the “other” … and the cycle of lefty animus continues, just like Karl Rove intended.
(Cue maniacal laughter or Darth Vader breathing fx, your choice.)
Abraxas (6742f0) — 7/19/2006 @ 9:54 amThen what’s with the gay cracks, young moron? You’ve been hanging out with Greenwald again, haven’t you Worm?
That said, I’d love for you to point out an example of my stupidity, and one of your fierce blogospheric independence.
And also, please fill in how I’m a Goldstein groupie, but not an Allah, or a Johnson or a Reynolds or Hynes groupie.
Let me know if you need another shovel, k?
Pablo (08e1e8) — 7/19/2006 @ 9:59 amDid you condemn the condenmnation of your blanket condemnation?
The clock is ticking…
Mikey NTH (36b985) — 7/19/2006 @ 10:11 amCondemnation…
Patterico condemns Greenwald in advance for not condemning Sadly No for the same thing Greenwald condemned the entire right side of the blogosphere for not condemning Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiller for.
Stop The ACLU (aa6604) — 7/19/2006 @ 10:17 amAnti Idiotarian Rottweiller condemns Sadly No, and…
And what is is with the left’s obsession with Jeff Gannon?
Near as I can tell it seems to be an excuse to plaster as many nude photos of the poor guy as possible to hell and gone while bashing the Right our hypocrisy in allowing a gay dude to have a White House press pass.
Which seems odd, given that we’re supposed to be the ones who ostensibly loathe gays. This is akin to our hypocrisy in electing a President who wants to perpetrate some kind of New Theocracy on us all but whose wife enjoys ‘barnyard humor’ and who secretly uses Really, Really bad words like sh*t and even flipped off Karen Hughes in jest. Sometimes I wish these folks would get their story straight. Is the The Shrub a moron who was reading a book to a goat on 9/11 or an evil mastermind who is taking over the world?
Make up your mind.
Cassandra (c9069a) — 7/19/2006 @ 10:21 amI retroactively condemn the incoherency of that last comment.
I need to find my reading glasses. Sheesh.
Cassandra (c9069a) — 7/19/2006 @ 10:24 amWho on earth is this “Glenn Greenwald?” He sounds like he might be a disbarred lawyer from NYC who used to represent bigoted white racists. If so, then he is really just a great big lying sack of crap.
Terry (9f37aa) — 7/19/2006 @ 10:58 amI’m smiling all the way to the bank. Would you like to know why? I shorted Glenn Greenwald’s stock quite a while ago.
I win some and I lose some, but Glenn Greenwald is hard to beat when it comes to a stock headed down…
Curtis (2ff825) — 7/19/2006 @ 11:05 amAnd what is with the left’s obsession with Jeff Gannon?
This is the only “journalist” scalp the left has been able to collect. The Right has collected Rather, Jordan [CNN], a few at the New York Times, and most recently Hiltzik.
The best they can do is try and get more mileage out of Gannon by further demonizing him and believe they can provoke some outrage on right by pointing out a HOMOSEXUAL! was allowed into the Whitehouse.
TakeFive (2bf7bd) — 7/19/2006 @ 11:17 amSigh. I guess I just don’t understand tolerance, sophistication or nuance.
Bleepless (1eb317) — 7/19/2006 @ 11:18 amI don’t even know how one would pronounce “pwned”. What the hell is that, one of those Eastern European languages…
The slang term pwn (past tense: pwned, pwn3d, pwnd, pwnt, or “p00n”, various pronunciations) as used by the Internet gaming culture, means to defeat an opponent in a video-game in a manner so harsh it is indescribable in words.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwnd
TakeFive (2bf7bd) — 7/19/2006 @ 11:21 amSadly, Jeff Gannon is not really conservative…he’s just queer w/ a fetish for 322 frat boys. Perhaps he is better off dead. Just ask ken lay – he’ll know the answer to that question. Also the guy they found in the park. Let me get my oujia board out and i’ll get back with you on that.
Ms. Regan from Georgetown (9f357c) — 7/19/2006 @ 11:44 amTypical tactics. Continue to focus on the trumped up ‘denounce’ issue to avoid actually discussing or accepting responsibility of the original hate messages and death threats.
So transparent, and for all of you people it really seems to work. Well, it’s not that funny to begin with, not accurate, and the rest of show has moved on.
km (625b5d) — 7/19/2006 @ 11:55 amJust painful. Let me spell it out for you.
Parody.
Satire.
Not real.
Funny.
Used to make a point.
My God, there’s really no point in satire anymore, is there? You folks self-parody by definition. Like the gentleman who used an article in The Onion to confirm his views on people who are pro-choice. Advice: remove head from posterior, pick up a few books and expand your horizons. Sheesh.
[Some (not all) of you Sadly, No! folks are kind of reading comprehension challenged, so I’ll give you a hint: this argument is addressed in the post. Summary for you: I am already aware it’s parody, but (like many Sadly, No! commenters) I didn’t think it was very funny. It would be like someone saying “Rope. Tree. mmmm . . . lemonheads.” Still, I don’t see the need to condemn it — but Greenwald (were he consistent) should. That short enough for ya? — P]
mmm...lemonheads (7410b5) — 7/19/2006 @ 11:57 amMy opinion is that Greenwald is the blog comment troll who actually did go out and start his own blog.
It seems the only time he gets a link is when he insults or offends someone. Then there is a link-storm over his posts….. until the next time.
_Jon (2bffe1) — 7/19/2006 @ 12:12 pm“That short enough for ya?”
No, please write a post about it and stretch the non issue out for several weeks please.
km (625b5d) — 7/19/2006 @ 12:23 pmRope, Tree, People…
Some Assembly Required.
Imagine a world without people…
……
Radioactive Liberty (20b016) — 7/19/2006 @ 12:27 pm“No, please write a post about it and stretch the non issue out for several weeks please.”
So you can comment on how it’s a non-issue?
sharon (03e82c) — 7/19/2006 @ 12:45 pm[…] Dear God, Patterico is still at it. I have a screenshot of that Sadly, No! online store with the T-shirts advocating the murder of conservatives the one Glenn Greenwald failed to condemn. But before we get to the screenshot, lets recap, for humor purposes. […]
[Here come the monkeys! Quiz for the Sadly, No! set: do I know that the T-shirts are irony? Hint: scroll up and read the post. Now watch the fun as the monkeys swarm in and claim the exact opposite. This should be good. — P]
Sadly, No! » Return Of The Man From U.R.K.E.L. (d83a19) — 7/19/2006 @ 12:53 pmManual Trackback™. And I condemn you for allowing the likes of me in these comments.
Ken S (833660) — 7/19/2006 @ 1:07 pmBah. Deb’s 15 minutes are up.
Or were you talking about the hanging message that Sadly, No! put on a T-shirt back in June?
Who’s supposed to be taking responsibility for what here, km?
Pablo (08e1e8) — 7/19/2006 @ 1:11 pmMmmmmm….what I wouldn’t give for a little Gannon right now. Thanks for posting that image, Patty. Your site is the only one the Secret Service doesn’t monitor…”something about it being completely trivial and of no strategic importance at all”…or something.
Pickles Bush (193139) — 7/19/2006 @ 1:30 pmHmmmm.
1.
Are they trying to build a child’s swing set? If so they forgot the tire.
2. It’s rather amusing that Greenwald hasn’t shown up yet. You’d think he’d have noticed this by now. Particularly with the issue over the t-shirts and the post on Little Green Footballs.
ed (0b5c51) — 7/19/2006 @ 1:32 pmIs it possible that some things are worthy of ignoring, rather than condemnation? I know there was a discussion on the merits of ignoring vs. responding to “insulting++” posts in the blogosphere a while ago.
I agree that outrageous behavior should be given exposure to sunlight, at least while some shame may still exist; but I think all of intelligence and wisdom that post on this site have more worthwhile and respectable things to do than continue the topic.
Is there not a term in law for a fact that proves a case just by it’s existence, you document the fact and the case is over, no further comment necessary?? Can we apply that principle where appropriate, and use some British understatement, such as, “Any chap who puts something like this in public view should be banned from the universe”.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/19/2006 @ 1:35 pmHmmmm.
Just curious about this:
To my rather limited knowledge about the internet and image copyrights I believe that you are allowed to *reference*, by linking, to an image without the owner’s explicit permission because an implicit permission has already been given with the posting of the image in a way that is easily accessible to the viewer.
But that implicit permission to view is *not* the equivalent of an explicit permission to commerically exploit that image.
I’m specifically referencing the nude/semi-nude Jeff Gannon image on the t-shirt.
Unless “Sadly, No!” has explicit written permission from Jeff Gannon to use that image in a commerical venture, i.e. the t-shirts, then I’d suggest that Jeff Gannon could have grounds for a copyright infringement lawsuit against “Sadly, No!” or anyone else (mis-)using his images without explicit permission.
Even copying the image onto a server and then referencing that image on various webpages is probably a violation of copyright since the implicit permission is solely to view the image. A possible out would be a provision of “Fair Use” where the image is used as a source for a derivative image, but that’s usually constrained by just how derivative the subsequent image is.
Frankly I don’t think whiting out some portions of the image and then adding some text really makes that a derivative.
It’s a curious question though as to whether or not “Sadly, No!” has violated Jeff Gannon’s copyright.
ed (0b5c51) — 7/19/2006 @ 1:41 pmHmmmm.
IMHO there are tens of thousands of highly partisan politically oriented blogs out there. If I were forced to police those blogs in order to publish my Greenwald-required condemnations I wouldn’t have time to do anything else.
All in all, it’s a rather silly thing. I wonder what the guys of Monty Python would make of this. They ended their run prior to the whole internet generation. I can almost envision The Ministry of Crazy Bloggers.
ed (0b5c51) — 7/19/2006 @ 1:45 pmMD – The term is “res ipsa loquitur” and means the thing speaks for itself.
SmokeVanThorn (51058c) — 7/19/2006 @ 1:51 pmBy no means did I suggest any attempt to police all blogs.* All I meant was that once sunlight shines on a blameworthy site, the minimal discussion there is after that, the better.
C’mon, what’s that Latin phrase for “the thing speaks for itself”?
*Actually, perhaps this would be a task given to educated convicts as part of their sentence. Whether cooperation would be reason for early parole, or the practice would be deemed unconstitutional by being “cruel and unusual”, I will leave to the esquires out there.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/19/2006 @ 1:56 pmOops! Thank you, SmokeVanThorn, I was posting while you posted, so my request was unnecessary, “res ipsa loquitur”.
Could we make up a phrase that combines the Latin for “I think, therefore I am” with the above, something that would translate, “I think, therefore the utter absurdity of that speaks for itself”. You could Copywrite it and put it on Mugs for Patterico… feel free to play with the idea.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/19/2006 @ 2:02 pmAll animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. — George Orwell
Purple Avenger (f4e021) — 7/19/2006 @ 2:02 pm#46 ed – that gannon merchandise is not a t-shirt, it’s a light switch cover plate. get it? power on, erect switch…hence the ‘conserve energy’ printed on it.
doofusgumby (433709) — 7/19/2006 @ 2:13 pmAhhh…so it’s yet another Sadly, Obsessed! reference to the penis of an ideological adversary. Thanks for pointing that out.
Pablo (08e1e8) — 7/19/2006 @ 2:55 pmYall are kinda slow. Short bus slow.
jpe (b6f687) — 7/19/2006 @ 4:58 pmYall are kinda slow. Short bus slow.
Well, your momma sews socks that smell!
New requirement for commenters: send me a .pdf of your high school diploma. No .pdf, no comment. Effective five minutes ago.
Patterico (50c3cd) — 7/19/2006 @ 5:38 pmActually, I thought the T-shirt was pretty funny. I mean, let’s face it: the Cheney Adminitsration’s foreign policy — not to mention all the kowtowing to the Christianist nutcase right — is undercutting conservative principles like balanced budgets, smaller government and individual freedom. And I like that. So does Cheney. He’ll take on Rope Tree Conservative shirt in extra-large…
Dick Cheney's Cancerous Prostate (8a6ab8) — 7/19/2006 @ 6:00 pm[Some (not all) of you Sadly, No! folks are kind of reading comprehension challenged, so I’ll give you a hint: this argument is addressed in the post. Summary for you: I am already aware it’s parody, but (like many Sadly, No! commenters) I didn’t think it was very funny. It would be like someone saying “Rope. Tree. mmmm . . . lemonheads.” Still, I don’t see the need to condemn it — but Greenwald (were he consistent) should. That short enough for ya? — P]
This is going to be a challenge, but I’m up for it. When condemning something you find morally unacceptable, it is not necessary to condemn a version of said unacceptable comments or behavior that are a satire or parody of the comments or behavior in question. Why, you ask? Because the satire or parody in question is, by default, a condemnation of the original unacceptable comment or behavior. Satire or parody is, by definition, a smack-down of the original idea it is satirizing or portraying. That is the essential elements of those concepts. Whether or not a particular individual finds the humor in the satire or parody is irrelevant; the response is a condemnation in and of itself, and requires no equivalence. If this does not clear it up for you, I would suggest enrolling in Humor 101 at your nearest community college.
mmm...lemonheads (7410b5) — 7/19/2006 @ 6:42 pmOh Puhleeze they only copied what the conservatives said so you guys would get all upset and realize the hypocrisy of the pundits.
Yet here we have a Nationalist web site selling T-shirts…http://www.theync.com/tshirts.htm
And holy horrors a Jesus is a liberal T-shirt.
Cool Breeze (b187f1) — 7/19/2006 @ 6:53 pmhttp://www.superherostuff.com/bush_sucks_tshirts/images/jesusliberal.html
I already responded to this in a couple of places. Try going here.
Bottom line: it wasn’t very funny, and many Sadly, No! commenters agreed. It was more like a “right back at you” statement.
Patterico (50c3cd) — 7/19/2006 @ 6:55 pmPatterico –
_Jon (280b91) — 7/19/2006 @ 7:07 pmIn order for the .pdf requirement to have been effective wrt to the “short bus” comment, it would have had to have taken effect 30 minutes before you made your post. 🙂
But I could post mine.
I would post the results of my eight years in college, but … uhhhh.. … my dog ate it. Yeah, that’s it. dog. ate. diploma.
heh
🙂
Shorter Patterico:
Liberals are stupid and evil because they took things conservatives said and made them not terribly funny.
Of course, since that summary doesn’t make your post look wonderful and full of sensible reasoning, I must be “reading comprehension challenged”.
As for the nude Gannon pics, they were taken from Gannon’s old site, I’m sure of which you’re well aware. It was nothing they had created, nothing representative of them as the “sober left”, which was kind of their point. What’s yours?
Remember, disciple of Goldstein: context is everything!
dgbellak (f8adc2) — 7/19/2006 @ 7:22 pmBTW…this old instapundit link makes Glenn Greenwald look stupid again…
Typical Lefty fake outrage. Wouldn’t he have just been better saying Deb’s ladies comments were lame or nothing?
topsecretk9 (e53383) — 7/19/2006 @ 7:23 pmFurther, I love how you went to the trouble of posting a screenshot, as if the page does not exist and you can’t link to it. Perhaps you don’t want to link to it for fear of revealing the…what was that word again? Ah, yes: context!
(I’m sure you think its deletion from their store is some sign of a coverup, but most sellers don’t catalog things they have never sold and don’t intend to sell. The page on which their design was presented – complete with context! – still exists, as it always has, making your use of a “screenshot” questionable. Perhaps even intellectually dishonest. Hmmm…what is it you don’t like about Greenwald again?)
dgbellak (f8adc2) — 7/19/2006 @ 7:31 pmThe page on which their design was presented – complete with context! – still exists, as it always has, making your use of a “screenshot” questionable.
That would be the page where the items were proposed and shot down by a bunch of Sadly, No! commenters — or so Gavin now claims.
Now, if Gavin wants to maintain the fiction that the items were never for sale, he can easily leave up that page.
But it’s hard for him to maintain the fiction if the items are actually right there in the store for sale.
So, what to do? Whisk the items from the store, and claim it was all a master plan to bait-and-switch me — devised . . . weeks ago.
Yeah.
So the screenshot was pretty important, dgbellak — to debunk the false story that the items were never really in the store.
Patterico (50c3cd) — 7/19/2006 @ 7:36 pmdgbellak, while you are over here saying the store screenshot isn’t necessary, another Sadly, No! commenter is asking:
Yup. Damn good thing I got that screenshot.
I won’t suggest you were being intellectually dishonest that there was an obvious need for the screenshot. You clearly just didn’t think of it.
Patterico (50c3cd) — 7/19/2006 @ 7:38 pmNow, if Gavin wants to maintain the fiction that the items were never for sale, he can easily leave up that page.
Hmmm…
Of course, we could be dishonestly lying in an untruthful fashion, and our store could have been secretly open all this time in a clever plot to sell $0.00 worth of stuff.
Talk about “reading comprehension challenged”. What’s for sale? Anything? I’d love this shirt, but I can’t seem to find any “Order” button.
You say that their store was selling things at one point? You know, proving that would be a far more useful application of that oh-so-tech-savvy “screenshot” ability.
dgbellak (f8adc2) — 7/19/2006 @ 7:43 pmYup. Damn good thing I got that screenshot.
Yup. There’s the order info and everything.
Let me just back away slowly without making any sudden movements…
Seriously, no one is denying it was there. Show me somebody who is. What they are denying is that it was ever for sale. Nothing was ever for sale in fact, but the semmingly suspicious absence of that shirt from the design page is a perfect example of that self-policing performed by more sensible purveyors of such products. Nothing was erased from existence, nothing was ever for sale, making your supposedly case-breaking use of a screenshot utterly pointless and casually context-free.
dgbellak (f8adc2) — 7/19/2006 @ 7:51 pmClick the T-shirt, stupid and it will ask you to add to your cart/how many. Welcome to the world of internet shopping. How’s it feel to be the last human with an internet connection to understand the concept?
FIAR (8ba954) — 7/19/2006 @ 7:57 pmI could have ordered the shirt and taken a picture of myself wearing it, and dgbellak would say I designed it myself.
I am going to order the mug, though, using the secret “clicking” procedure FIAR just described.
Patterico (50c3cd) — 7/19/2006 @ 8:03 pmYou’re still missing the joke. No one claimed Frisch’s comment was humorous. Everyone agrees it was vile. There’s no controversy/disconnect there – there’s nothing to satirize or parody. Many conservatives claim that comments like those on the journalist t-shirt are humorous. That creates a controversy/disconnect that’s ripe for satire and parody.
Satire and parody aren’t ‘nice’; they’re not supposed to provide light-hearted chuckles. They’re darkly humorous, and expose things that some people don’t want to see. There’s nothing to expose in Frisch’s comment, or the reaction to it. There’s much to expose about the journalist t-shirt (and similar sentiments from the right), and conservatives’ defense of them.
uberpatriot (a4dfd1) — 7/19/2006 @ 8:29 pmNo lie – it wasn’t open at one point. (I’m a regular visitor to their site, but not their store. I’m a cheapskate.)
I’d tuck my tail between my legs and flee, but I’d miss the concrete explanation of your context-sensitive point.
dgbellak (f8adc2) — 7/19/2006 @ 8:36 pmThere have always been crazies like Misha around. The difference now is that people like Greenwald really think that all Republicans are to the right of the John Birch Society. They make the worriers about the “International Jewish Bankers’ conspiracy” sound like clear-eyed realists. You can’t carry on a civil conversation with them.
What’s scary is that a major national party has been hijacked by people like Greenwald, Michael Moore, Al Franken, Barbra Streisand, etc. They’re not a party anymore, just a bunch of wealthy activists who can’t conceive that they could be mistaken or that conservatives might not be acolytes of Satan.
This is the same strain that nearly descroyed The Democrats in 1968 and 1972. Jimmy Carter is the perfect example of the kind of government they’d produce if they get any real power. These are the folk who think Hillary and Joe Lieberman ought to be drummed out of the party. Why bother trying to reason with them?
AST (63d041) — 7/19/2006 @ 8:41 pmYou’re still missing the joke. No one claimed Frisch’s comment was humorous. Everyone agrees it was vile.
I think you’re missing it. Plenty of people have claimed her language wasn’t threatening. If I take everything she said and substitute those people’s names for “Jeff Goldstein and his two-year-old son” it might help them understand how it feels to be threatened.
Patterico (50c3cd) — 7/19/2006 @ 8:52 pmThis post and comment section has been officially declared “Really Sad and Kind Of Pathetic Cry for Attention” by the American Psychological Association.
I think they’re sending you a certficate suitable for framing…
tbogg (3ec8e6) — 7/19/2006 @ 9:18 pmPlenty of people have claimed her language wasn’t threatening.
I believe you are correct — the sparly lady who linked to your post through Cassy’s post said that very thing. And she’s a big right-winger — even calls herself that.
Go figure.
fivor (c5a908) — 7/19/2006 @ 10:05 pmHow can the uneducated Greenwald actually have minions that go forth and troll other sites’ comment threads for him?
Where do these zombies come from?
Graveyard shift (05d1fe) — 7/19/2006 @ 10:48 pmWhat an even sadder joke you have become, Patterico.
mantis (1fbd4c) — 7/19/2006 @ 10:49 pmBut why did they send a guy whose handle sounds so much like a euphamism for “scrotum”? And why do you and your ilk think one line snark is so humorous and/or biting?
It isn’t, really. It just looks needy, almost desperate.
Pablo (08e1e8) — 7/20/2006 @ 3:01 amBullshit. I was able to put multiple items in a shooping cart and proceed to checkout.
I stopped at the point where it waould have been time to cough up the $$, for obvious reasons.
Are you confused, dgbellak, or flat out lying?
Pablo (08e1e8) — 7/20/2006 @ 3:03 amWhich sock puppet are you, again…?
Kent (005e8f) — 7/20/2006 @ 6:20 amHow many online identities does Greenwald’s ISP allow him to create, anyway? Anybody know…?
Kent (005e8f) — 7/20/2006 @ 6:23 amPablo, why can’t dogbollocks be both?
JorgXMckie (b2cefb) — 7/20/2006 @ 9:38 amOne week ago Patterico wrote this:
Said to self, with head bowed, eyes clenched shut, and forehead furrowed with concentration:] End the Glenn Greenwald posts, Patterico. End them. Yes, he’s a liar. Yes, he’s a putz. But he’s also not worth your time.
Life’s too short to be pissed off all the time. It’s just not worth it.
Since then he has written five Greenwald posts. But it’s not worth his time, right? His taking SadlyNo! seriously only makes him look more pathetic.
(Btw Kent I am not Greenwald, as Patterico could attest to by looking at my IP.)
mantis (1fbd4c) — 7/20/2006 @ 9:45 amOkay, I think we need to get some perspective on this. Again.
The right gets the vapors and declares a leftist conspiracy when some random nutjob suggests vile things about the offspring of someone who has himself suggested vile things. ‘Where are the condemnations from the left? Their silence implies consent!’ they shout. To which the left responds, ‘Yeah, she’s a random nutjob suggesting vile things. And, by the way, if we’re supposed to condemn a random nutjob, why haven’t you condemned the continuing veiled and not-so-veiled threats coming from the not-so-random, media-feted nutjobs that the right calls their own?” And the right cries, ‘Aha! That’s not an unequivocal condemnation! And look at… um… hey, look at that t-shirt that was at Sadly, No! that isn’t there any more. We pwn you now! I’m rubber you’re glue…’
It’s just sad.
uberpatriot (a4dfd1) — 7/20/2006 @ 11:07 amThat’s perspective, uberalles?
First off, Goldstein’s comments, whether vile or puerile, are on his own site. Deb Frisch’s comments were made at his site, and were implicitly (some would say explicitly) threats against a member of Goldstein’s family. Whether I choose to defecate in my front hall, does not give you the right to come in and defecate in my front hall.
Second, as you’d know if you’d actually read this site, the host Patterico was not one who suggested that “silence implies consent.”
Third, you leave out the bit about the Lefty showing up and decrying said host (i.e., Patterico) for first claiming that “silence implies consent” (which said host had not promulgated), and then claiming that any such failure is hypocritical.
Fourth, the issue of the t-shirt is one primarily because said Lefty commentator, having sanctimoniously denounced and condemned the host for suggesting “silence implies consent,” and argued that an unrelated party (Misha) had made veiled and not-so-veiled threats against the High Court, turns out to link to a site that itself sold t-shirts with the exact same threat made against conservatives!
All of which requires first believing that when someone says “Those Justices deserve to be shot” is somehow comparable to “uber, your three year old son is kinda cute. Be a shame if something were to happen to him. Especially on his way to Wade Park elementary.”
Of course, when the same Lefty turns out to have argued, before a part of the High Court, that such threats by a White Supremacist with something of a history of actual violence are actually protected speech, well, now, that’s not even worth thinking about, now is it?
But I’ll agree on one thing with you.
Your comment? “It’s just sad.”
Lurking Observer (ea88e8) — 7/20/2006 @ 11:24 amGiven your blog, I thought you might be interested in this new video going at Dick Cheney: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A4bveZxrBM
Jay Gish (d218af) — 7/24/2006 @ 9:14 am[…] maintains that he sincerely thought the rope/tree comment was a genuine death threat. But in a blog post from three years earlier he ridicules Glenn Greenwald for insisting that people condemn “Five ropes, five robes, five […]
Come And See The Violence Inherent In The System! (38c333) — 12/20/2009 @ 9:31 pm