The only difference between a humorless twit and a genocidal dictator is a massive security apparatus and iron control over a gargantuan military, brutal secret police force, and a crushing bureaucracy!

But the post Harry reacted to still struck him (and me) as ridiculous, in its earnestness, its self-importance and its overtones of revivalist group-hugginess. (Even if it was meant as a joke, it came across as an earnest, self-important and group-huggy joke.)

Daniel’s comment essentially took the earnestness and self-importance seriously – why would you post something like that unless you actually thought somebody was trying to kill you? but if somebody was trying to kill you…

It seems a lot of people can’t tell the difference between “this person’s allusions to his own death are ridiculous” and “I relish the idea of this person being killed”. Shame.

As best as I can determine, there was a lot of damage. The house isn’t habitable, (it’s a rental, their landlord put them in another house, so they’re not homeless.) Much personal property in the house was destroyed/damaged, including a huge tropical fish tank, and all their fish. The newspaper ran a picture of the scene (link below). It looks bad enough. I’d be pretty freaked out if it happened to me.

THE OLYMPIAN

PICKUP SLAMS INTO DIVISION STREET HOME’S BEDROOM

A Ford F150 that police say was traveling 60-70 mph eastbound on Conger Avenue crashed into a home on Division Street just after midnight Sunday.

When the pickup finally stopped, it was all the way inside the house’s bedroom. Police arrested a man in his 20s at Jefferson Middle School, two blocks back up Conger Avenue.

Neighbors told police they believed the family in the home, a young couple with an infant, were on vacation at the time. No injuries have been reported in the crash. ..

Check out the Photo

link to article
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btw, am i really going to have to explain this joke? OK then.

The comic conceit was that the Kos commenter believed his life to have been saved by going to their conference. However, this would only be true if the car crash was an accident. If it was a sign that someone was attempting to murder him in a bizarre manner, his life would still be in danger. This was an incongrous possibility, and therefore funny. I also tried to suggest that to assume that the Kos poster was being arrogant by assuming that he was so universally popular that nobody would try to murder him. This is funny because it is such an outlandish response to the concept. So in other words, the comic conceit was to pretend that an alternative assumption (murder) was the more natural interpretation of the events (accident) than what was clearly the natural assumption.

Deep in my heart, sir, I know I’m funny.

“beyond stupid” is claiming that I said the post was “in poor taste” when that’s not something I said. I just said that it’s really not the best place to go looking for humor. Clearly Hutton got the kind of response a jokester would not ordinarily be looking for. Aside from Andy Kaufman, most people who are trying to be funny aren’t trying to simply piss off a lot of people.

Personally I didn’t think the Hutton post was in poor taste. I just thought it was bizarre to go from somebody talking about a car crashing into his house into some kind of hallucination about being attacked by Zulus. I did think dsquared’s comment was in bad taste, though. That kind of veiled threat is fairly standard operating procedure on right-wing blogs. If it was supposed to be ironic or humorous or something other than thuggish, it failed.

My peeve here is not so much whether the original post was funny or not. Some people thought it was, some didn’t. I get annoyed at the people who decide to play the humor police and start insulting others who don’t think the same things are funny.

1. Don’t react/comment on a website until you’ve read many entries and have gotten a feel for what the writer is trying to do – a leason that anyone who’s read Jesus’ General should have a pretty strong understanding.

2. The English are condescending gits.

3. Americans often have trouble with complex forms of humor (satire, sarcasm, irony, etc.)

4. Insulting people’s national identity is just plain mean.

Then go order a pizza and ask them to make you one with everything.

“At least we’re fucking well trying to make a difference, and hopefully we’ll be doing better and better.

And when we DO make a difference, the first ones to get slated for gulag work camps?? Yes, tovarischi, that would be you!”