Hitler Zombie
oracknows | January 17, 2008Things are crazy now for me, both at home and at work. I mean really, really crazy. So crazy that even I, one of the most verbose bloggers out there, am forced to take two or three days off from my little addiction--I mean habit. Consequently, having foreseen that this time would come around these dates, I, Orac, your benevolent (and, above all verbose) blogger have thought of you, my readers. I realize the cries and lamentations that the lack of fresh material inevitably causes. That, I cannot completely obviate. However, I can ease the pain somewhat, and I can do this by continuing my…
oracknows | October 16, 2007Work and a conference intervene to prevent a fresh dose of Respectful Insolence today. Fortunately, there's still classic Insolence from the archives that hasn't been moved over to the new blog. This amusing little trifle originally appeared on August 25, 2005.
Well, I'm back.
Yes, I know I blogged a fair amount while on vacation, my promise to restrain myself notwithstanding. Nonetheless, with the exception of the posts about the traffic wreck that screwed up our trip home and the tragic death of an autistic boy receiving chelation therapy this week, it was mostly fluff or carnival barking.…
oracknows | August 26, 2007Vacation time! While Orac is gone recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on July 25, 2005 . Although the Undead Führer himself has made only one appearance, but the concept is there, and this forms the basis for what the monster became. Enjoy!
As for all the Hitler Zombie reruns, don't worry. I decided to do that over the weekend, and now I'll change to reposts of different topics for a while.
In the most recent issue…
oracknows | August 26, 2007Vacation time! While Orac is gone recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on July 6, 2005 and is the very first time ever that the Hitler Zombie appeared in a horror story form. As such, it was a landmark day in the annals of Respectful Insolence. Appropriately enough, it's over what had become a frequent blogging topic even back in those early days. Enjoy!
Deep within a dark crypt, far beneath the ground, it slept. The…
oracknows | August 26, 2007Vacation time! While Orac is gone recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on June 26, 2005 and is the fifth ever Hitler Zombie post. Although the Undead Führer himself has not yet made an appearance, the concept is there, and this forms the basis for what the monster ultimately became. Enjoy!
The Hitler zombie's been a busy undead Führer the last three weeks (1, 2, 3, 4), and it's time (I hope) for him to go back into…
oracknows | August 25, 2007Vacation time! While Orac is gone recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on June 23, 2005 and is the fourth ever Hitler Zombie post. Although the Undead Fuhrer himself has not yet made an appearance, the concept is there, and this forms the basis for what the monster became. Enjoy!
It would be no fun at all to write this blog if everyone always agreed with me. (Of course, it would be even less fun if everyone violently…
oracknows | August 25, 2007Vacation time! While Orac off in London recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on June 22, 2005 and is the third ever Hitler Zombie post. Although the Undead Führer himself has not yet made an appearance, the concept is there, and this forms the basis for what the monster evolved into. Enjoy! (Note: I did not check all of the links; if some of them are now dead, I'm sorry.)
I've been wanting to write about Senator Dick…
oracknows | August 25, 2007Vacation time! While Orac is off in London recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on June 10, 2005 and is the second ever Hitler Zombie post. Although the Undead Fuhrer himself has not yet made an appearance, the concept is there, and this forms the basis for what the monster became. Enjoy!
Last week, inspired by this post, I discussed how quick politicians and pundits are these days to make fallacious comparisons to…
oracknows | August 8, 2007&uotI've been on call and grant writing, both of which have put a major crimp in my blogging time, preventing my usual daily magnum opus and leaving me reposts and pithy link-and-comment posts, at least for today. Since having become a little irritated by comparisons to Nazis by a certain opponent of bans on indoor smoking, I thought now would be a great time to show you something that I've been meaning to show since the time that I moved the old Blogspot blog over to ScienceBlogs. Yes, I'm talking about the origin of the Hitler Zombie. This post, which appeared on June 2, 2005, is in…
oracknows | May 31, 2007Via Ed Brayton, I've learned of an interesting commentary by Sasha Abramsky on a topic that's near and dear to my heart. Well, its' more like a major pet peeve, one that irritates me so much that two years ago I even created a character who's made regular, albeit increasingly infrequent, appearances on this blog. I'm talking, of course, about the Hitler Zombie, everybody's favorite undead Führer whose chomp on a pundit's brain results in stupid and ridiculously overblown Nazi analogies. Indeed, such analogies irritate me sufficiently that at times my attacks on them have been described by…
oracknows | May 17, 2007
When I learned of this, I had been highly tempted trot out everybody's favorite undead Führer for a little fun with the Church of Scientology's latest antics. Indeed, when you find out what I'm about to discuss, you'll see why it was a candidate for the loving chomp of his rotting jaws. Heck, I even started to do the whole Hitler zombie schtick that regular readers all know and some even love (or at least tolerate--well, most of you, anyway). As I typed away, though, I was having more and more trouble. My conscience was feeling more and more troubled. After all, I've lovingly crafted…
oracknows | April 2, 2007...of this:
Horror film fans dressed up to look like an army of the undead have been stomping the streets of Brisbane, Australia, in an annual Zombie Walk.
Spattered with fake blood and their faces painted a deathly white, the "Zombies" staggered across the city to the botanical gardens.
The event originated in North America and is in its second year in Brisbane.
Its website explains that it is not an April Fool's joke "but serious, in a flippant sort of manner".
The Hitler Zombie is, however, disappointed that there was no brain-eating and no ridiculously overblown Holocaust analogies.
oracknows | January 10, 2007After having pontificated a bit longer than perhaps I should have about why Richard Dawkins' treatment of the execution of Saddam Hussein as a missed opportunity for psychological or historical research was so misguided, I thought it might be time to take a more pro-Dawkins tilt. After all, even though the majority of my posts about Richard Dawkins have been critical, on balance I do admire the man; it's just that he has a maddening penchant for using historical analogies that make me want to tear my hair out.
A while back, PZ posted something that he called The Courtier's Reply. In essence…
oracknows | December 9, 2006Whether they know it or not, Pharyngula and Mixing Memory may have provided our undead Führer with a catchy new theme song. Yes, I know. You might think the Hitler Zombie would be more partial to martial music with a Triumph des Willens sort of feel to it. The problem is, I don't think there is any such music that encompasses what our zombie is about as well as this does. The song is by Jonathan Coulton, and here he is doing a live folk version, complete with zombie audience participation:
Pretty catchy, eh?
Next, the audience will be heading out to label their political opponents Hitler.…
oracknows | December 4, 2006Note: If you're not familiar with the Hitler Zombie, here are two posts to introduce you to the creature, with the most recent installment of his terror here, in which Orac narrowly escaped the creature.
And, now, the adventures (if you can call them that) continue....
PRELUDE: SEVERAL MONTHS AGO
It was a dreary, overcast day, as so many days were there, with the clouds seeming to reach down to engulf everything with a wet chill that went straight to the bone.
An eminent professor sat in his study typing. Gray-haired, bright-eyed, and very professorial in appearance and bearing right down…
oracknows | December 2, 2006I think I may have found the guy to help me take care of something I've been meaning to do for a long time, produce a dedicated picture of a certain recurring character. Do you think this guy could help me out? Would it be worth $80? Should I e-mail the guy? I like the old Photoshopped logo that Skeptic Rant helpfully provided me months ago, but I'd like an illustration, too. Heck, I'd use both of them.
(Link via Boing Boing.)
oracknows | August 21, 2006Things had been quiet. Too quiet. So quiet that Orac couldn't even enjoy his usual recreational pastime of analyzing limericks and jokes linguistically in order to try to understand what made them so amusing to the humans among whom he was forced to exist. Even probing the perturbations in the electromagnetic fields caused by the nearest black hole wouldn't let him shake this sense that something was going to happen.
Sense? Orac is a computer; how could he have a "sense" of anything? Certainly, computers don't usually have intuition or a "sense," but Orac was a much higher order of computer,…
oracknows | August 10, 2006Deep within Yankee Stadium, a timeless evil had arrived (well, an evil around 61 years old, anyway--well, 117 years old if you count its entire existence) shambling through the dark service corridors and halls, on a never-ending quest to satisfy its unquenchable hunger. Why it had come to this place, it did not know. Perhaps it was drawn by the eminations of pure baseball evil that routinely flowed from the so-called House That Ruth Built. Maybe it was because this place was a an icon of its hated enemy from a previous life, representing the national pastime favored by that enemy and…
oracknows | August 1, 2006With the appearance of the Hitler Zombie twice in less than a month on this blog, Andrew Mathis was inspired to send me this YouTube video. He's right; it's perhaps the best commentary I've heard about the use of the Hitler analogy or argumentum ad Nazium to demonize one's political opponents.
oracknows | July 31, 2006In the quiet and still of the crypt, something stirred. It was barely perceptible at first, but became more definite.
It lived again.
In the depths of what remained of its mind, only sheer instinct prevailed. It had fed long and well recently, and had returned to its crypt to digest its unholy meal. Some primeval instict told it that it was still being hunted. How it knew this it is impossible to know, but a sense of urgency had led it back to to the safety of its crypt to ride out the storm. The peace of eternal rest denied it, it could still occasionally have a brief taste of that rest only…