Did I hear that correctly?

"The average South Korean is three inches taller than the average North Korean, a huge gulag."  — John "Angry Mummy" McCain

All I can say is: what a terrible thing to have lost one's mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is.

Comments

[Joan of Snark]

"My fellow astronauts..."

[Donald Johnson]

Um, I don't know if it's true or what study could have been done to measure average heights in both countries, and maybe that's what you mean, but it's not implausible, since North Korea had a major famine. There was an article in the New Yorker in the past year or so about average height and how it is correlated with nutrition in a country--Americans are significantly shorter than people in Holland, presumably because of poverty levels and poorer nutrition here.

[John Caruso]

I'd agree that partially logical inferences could be made from what McCain said, but the remark itself (especially in the larger context that I didn't include) basically seemed like free association from the inchoate propaganda stew sloshing around in his brain—what you get when a mind filled solely with ideologically-dictated sound bites starts firing off at random.

[Donald Johnson]

Well, that could be--I didn't watch the debate. I have watched them in the past, but last night I wasn't in the mood to listen to bullshit.

[pc loadletter]

I think the inchoate propaganda stew with the ideological random sound bites is probably the correct explanation.

[John Caruso]

I can empathize, Donald. For some reason I was feeling masochistic, so I subjected myself to it. Plus I wanted to see if Senator Tigercage could manage to contain his boiling rage through the entire event; it was a close call, but he did make it to the end, though he probably had to punch an aide backstage to let the steam off.

[Quin]

When I first read the "gulag" bit, I actually didn't notice how nonsensical it was. I just assumed it was some kind of overheated rhetoric saying that North Korea is like a huge gulag where all of its citizens are like political prisoners with poor nutrition. Or something.

John, am I missing some way to write you an e-mail? I'd like to write you a private note. Not in any bad way-- I love your site and your writing.

By the way, completely OT, but-- Donald, a few weeks ago, I caught your engagement a few weeks ago with commenters at Pandagon, defending misunderstood Arthur Silber from misled progressive hordes. I just wanted to say well done. I not only got there too late, I probably would have been too spineless to get involved anyway (the group blog I'm at started as kind of a younger sister site to Pandagon, and I'm still working to get over not wanting to bite the hand that feeds me), and besides you did a much better job of talking to them than I would have.

[John Caruso]

Nope, you didn't miss anything; I used to have an address on the "About" page, but I took it down since the main people using it were spammers. You can reach me by putting my first name together in the usual way with the domain name (minus the www).

[Quin]

Thanks, will do.