The Grand Inquisitor

1914 posts
The Grand Inquisitor is plotting against you.

Join the Ministry of Propaganda

178 comments

Attention fellow patriots: Crasstalk needs you. It is time to spread the word to the masses about the glorious Crasstalk Revolution.

I think we want to start first by collecting the refugees from the Gawker media meltdown. We need to spread the word on all the sites and try to find those who have yet to migrate. Got an I09 or Dead Spin account? Pimp us out. Notice one of your fave commenters isn’t here? Try to hit them up to join us.

So far we have a twitter and a fancy new FaceBook (thanks BBK). We can also be Stumbled Upon thanks to Muppet Baby. However I am sure we can think of a few more ways to spread the word.

First, we need a nice logo. Anyone got a flair for design? I can also open us a YouTube if we want to make some videos, which could be fun.

Anyway, I am opening this post to see who can help, and what kinds of ideas other people have for getting the word out.

Together we can win the Internet.

UPDATE: So I think we got some good ideas. I will open a YouTube and a Drop Box over the weekend. Let’s keep getting the word out in the Gawkerverse so our friends can find us. I will post a new thread to check in over the weekend. I also just want to say thanks to all of you guys, this has been a lot of fun for me. Please email crasstalk at gmail dot com if you have questions and/or suggestions.

Night, nite.

The Blog is Dead. Long Live the Blog!

23 comments

So I guess Mr. Denton feels that the era of the blog is over and it is time to move on. Maybe this is true for Gawker, but there are still some really excellent blogs being produced by some really talented people. Blogs are a pretty democratic form of communication and they can often focus on local or niche issues that would not generate enough revenue for larger websites. While blogging may seem like a trite pastime, there are some serious issues being discussed out there. For every hipster jack ass bitching about some band there is a neighborhood activist covering issues their local papers cannot. For every dumb girl writing about how drunk she was last night there is a watchdog covering corruption and graft (often in countries that don’t take kindly to such activity). I thought I would share a couple of my favorites and I am hoping you will do the same in the comments.

Barefoot and Progressive: A fantastic blog about Kentucky politics from a liberal perspective. There is some great reporting going on here, and you get a ring-side seat to the Tea Party circus.

The BLager: Like beer? This blog is for you. Updates on beer news, beer events, and recipes in short, delicious posts. A must for the functional alcoholic in your life.

Duck of Minerva: A great foreign policy blog run by a group of international relations professors. Cool analysis and some pretty good snark.

Africa is a Country: I cannot say enough good things about this blog. Written by a South African who lives in New York it covers African politics, literature, and sports. He also has fantastic taste in music.

So there are my favorites, and yes The Grand Inquisitor has a couple of blogs (you can see them by clicking on my Intense Debate profile). Please share you favorites here and bonus points if you post one of your own.

The Night Watchman Open Thread: I

63 comments

Hello Vampires. Welcome to the late night open thread.

I am going to post a few good scary stories for you to think about before you surrender to the monsters under the bed.

First off, an educational film that explains why the Denver Airport is the center of evil:

Next we look at the threat posed by the elite New World Order:

I would be remiss if we did not have some information on the Reptilian threat:

Finally, I will leave you with the scariest Art Bell call ever.

Sleep well Crasstalkers.

Second Shift Open Thread

117 comments

Hi gang and welcome to Crasstalk. If you are new here you can take a look at this post to get you started. Please feel free to use the post as an open thread, but since we would like to see more of you writing for us, I am going to suggest that you can also use this space to kick around ideas for new articles and to ask questions about the process of posting to word press. If you need extra help please email me at [email protected]. I will be checking in throughout the evening. Since I want to encourage you to write I will give you a few handy tips to help get you started: Continue reading →

Some Thoughts on the Renunciation of Political Violence

14 comments

Yesterday a deranged young man walked up to US congresswoman and shot her in the back of the head. He then turned his gun on the crowd gathered in a sunny Arizona parking lot who had come to meet her. Gabrielle Giffords survived, but six others did not. Three of the slain were over 70 years old, one was a federal judge, another a pastor, one was a nine year-old child.

Most of us were saddened and frightened, but I doubt that more than a few were surprised.

Today, we point fingers and make accusations. Those who have cloaked themselves in the language and imagery of violence deny responsibility and angrily demand absolution. Their Second Amendment Solutions and shouts of treason and conspiracy are not meant to be taken literally, only a crazy person would think otherwise.

It does not matter if the violent rhetoric caused this young man to act, it is wrong to call for violence against your political opponent in any circumstance.

There has been an almost 250% increase in militia groups in the last two years, and citizens turn up with guns at community meetings to show the bastards who’s really in charge.

It is a sad irony that a child who was interested in public service was gunned down amidst a cacophony of claims that all of those who work for the government are lazy, corrupt, and evil. We have made those who do the work of the taxpayer an enemy that deserves no mercy.

Last night a commenter posted this on Prison Planet:

The militia crowd, that constantly evokes its right to overthrow the government by force if necessary has made itself a victim of this tragedy. They will be blamed and oppressed, their rights taken away. It is all about them, not the families who lost loved ones or those who struggle to survive in the hospital.

What made George Washington a patriot wasn’t his victories in battle, but rather his peaceful relinquishing of power when his time to rule had come to an end.

We have made violent imagery the back drop of our political theater, yet we act surprised when the afflicted among us actually perform the script. Meanwhile, those who oppose the violence have ceded the stage. Instead of meeting the rhetoric straight on and appealing to our neighbor’s sense of decency, we have retreated into sarcasm and disdain. We have taken our sense of superiority and used it as a pretext to write off entire classes and groups of people who are not like us. Even though most of those people pray and weep just as we do at times like these.

We have let the smallest of threats intimidate us. If it is more comforting to be a coward than an aggressor then feel free to embrace it, but it gives me no consolation today.

I would like to think that this will be a turning point for us in this country and that we will embrace civility, but I cannot. I would like to think that my actions and attitudes make a difference, but they will not. I would like to know that Americans are better than this, but I do not.