Two points:

Any English major in college would identify the reference to Moby Dick's Ishmael. They would also see a reference to the real beginning of the book, a section titled "Etymology." I'm sure the shooter overloaded those terms as a way to create multiple references, some of them public, some of them private.

It doesn't really matter. I'm guessing he got what he wanted: revenge against who knows what and "fame" in the form of media attention. He was obviously in deep trouble psychologically and emotionally long before he did this. His plan worked. At least the media attention part of it.

We shouldn't reward evil with fame. It leads to more suffering.

Point two.

Krauthhammer is a very good example of rewarding evil with fame. He and his journalistic, political and business buddies are like Falconetti in the movie "Rich Man, Poor Man". They come after you tooth and claw. You defend yourself. They will not relent. You knock them down. They cry "Uncle!" You put a hand out to pick them up and try to establish a civil dialogue and they put a knife into you. They have become the poster children for the Republican party. To those moderates in the Republican party who say, "But I'm not like that," I respond, "Then do something about your brats, before they get us all killed."

Digby put it in a nutshell. "Republican politicians are crooks. Always have been. Always will be. Never forget it."

About to be kicked out of Oxford, the satirist Tom Brown extemporaneously translated The 33rd epigram of the Roman poet Martial "Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere - quare; Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te," (which I most certainly cannot translate) into:

I do not love thee, Dr Fell,

The reason why I cannot tell;

But this I know, and know full well,

I do not love thee, Dr Fell.

Dr. John Fell, a clergyman and Oxford's dean, has a place in history as a sanctimonious and vindictive prick but, overall, not such a bad guy.

I don't feel the same way about Krauthammer or his friends. I don't care who he writes for or how much money he makes.

Where people like Krauthammer are concerned, this poem says it all for me. The "cannot tell" translating, not into "will not tell," but into "cannot seem to convince a full third of America of, no matter what."

Re: the Dr. Krauthammer to Dr. Fell to Sabidi (Sabidius) connection or, Tom Brown knew exactly what he was doing.

Also (translated) from the poet Martial:

At dessert, we passed around a hot cheese tart for a long time because it was burning our hands, but the greediness of Sabidius (see also Krauthammer, Kristol, Podhoretz, Kagan, et al) was burning hotter: so, he blew on it with his cheeks (i.e., he farted on it, ed.) three and four times. Indeed, he cooled that tart down and it seemed ready to grab, but no one could touch it: it was shit.

http://www.marshall.edu/classical-studies/translations.htm

keywords: Iraq, Iran, current administration, etc.

Sorry, Glenn. I really can't stand these guys. They are the worst!

Like it or not, the Vice President still speaks for many millions of people. Krauthammer isn't just a fringe figure. Krauthammer is respected (even if not by Salon-dot-Com fans) and Krauthammer is influential. Why are we even debating whether he is?

-- sysprog

I don't disagree. They represent around 33% of the U.S. citizenry at present. But they only represent around 1.3% of the world population.

I'm not really debating whether they are influential. The MSM makes them influential and keeps them influential. I'm stating that they are a dark and imminent danger to civilization. Forget imminent. "They're heere."

I have been spending way to much time on the political blogs. I need to slow down a little while I still have a life. One observation on the Jacks and Figgs and shooters of the world before I go for the day.

On blogs like Huffington, Think Progress, Crooks and Liars, etc., there are people who will wait for a post to occur and then jump into the comments and do their best to prevent any substantive dialogue from occuring. They will call names, cut-and-paste their own prior comments, throw red herrings at everyone in the room, you name it. Yesterday on Huffington, somebody named Michale (sad that I would remember that) did their very best to screw up Sen. Robert Byrd's comment section. He (or she) had everybody in the place jumping in to argue with him (or her). He (or she) was easily posting 1 out of every 4-5 comments. One person did that.

To my mind, it's the blog equivalent of a denial of service attack.

The problem gets so bad on some of the blogs that they are forced to moderate just to enable a minimal 50-50 signal to noise ratio.

I take today's troll infested thread as a sign that Glenn's blog is going bigtime. He's getting prime time TV coverage. He's got a book coming out. Those are great things.

As he gains in influence, however, he is likely to attract more and more of this type of behavior.

Oh, well.

You're doing what every journalist should do, pursuing the truth of the facts as both a personal and a public duty.