Another issue of "Not 'The Essay'... Again"

:-) Needed to add this comment, again from Pournelle: "Jane Jacobs points out that a Dark Age isn't when you have forgotten how to do things. It is when you have forgotten that you ever could. French peasants in 650 AD were entirely unaware that Roman farmers could get yields of 10 bushels harvest for 1 bushel planted: they thought it a gift of God if they could get 3 bushels from each bushel planted, and generally didn't get more than 2. And American educators have apparently forgotten that there was a time when 96% of the people who finished 4th grade could read; we now have 100% attendance at schools and a literacy rate somewhat lower than Iraq's. But all will be well and No Child Will Be Left Behind, so long as we can juggle the tests and get increasing test scores. The purpose of the education system is no longer to educate but to produce people with certain credentials. Hurrah for the educational reforms of the past three decades." And so it goes. Another axe in the hands of the barbarians vigorously hacking away at the roots of Western Civilization... The MMPA, the LLMB and their partners in crime must thank god for government schools (they do that only while looking in the mirror, you know, since that is where they see their god... ).

Not "The Essay"... Again

Well, as you may have discerned by now, "The Essay" concerning the conspiracy to murder Western Civilization, etc., is going to be even longer in coming... Nevertheless, I'll probably be posting snippets concerning the signs of that "conspiracy" from time to time. Here is one such snippet, from Jerry E. Pournelle: "In every college classroom in the nation nothing is taught that is inconsistent with the view that within every oppressed human lurks a burning desire for freedom. In my view in every human heart beats a desire, sometimes burning sometimes not to rob his neighbor and possess his wife: it was once known as the doctrine of original sin. Chesterton once said that anyone who didn't believe in original sin could not possibly be reading the newspapers." While this may be a slight exaggeration (I suspect there may be as many as two classrooms in a Bible College somewhere in a hick "red state" that still teach about original sin and man's depravity), it is close enough to the mark. And it is symptomatic of one of the axes weilded at the roots of Western Civilization by the barbarians in academia, in the ranks of the Mass Media Podpeoples' Army and the Loony Left Moonbat Brigade. That, of course, is the current preconceptual bias against the concept of right and wrong. The concept that there is anything that is clearly always, immutably right and thus there are behaviors that are always clearly immutably wrong is the only "always wrong" concept to the barbarians in academia, in the ranks of the Mass Media Podpeoples' Army and the Loony Left Moonbat Brigade. To them right and wrong are opinions, and that is the only correct opinion about right and wrong. Try to have a civilization where "every man [does] what is right in his own eyes". Go ahead. Try it. Meanwhile, I need to clean this keyboard... (tired of re-typing every blasted "d").

Values Clarification

Carol Platt Liebau has an interesting article and a blogpost (actually, a series of posts) on the "values vs. issues" argument about the outcome of the last national election. One of the key arguments is over the effect of loosely-defined "values" vs. the national security issue. She asks whether nationalk security might actually be seen as a moral value. Consider: "...It is not without purpose that the ruler carries the sword; he is God's servant, to inflict his wrath upon the wrongdoer..." Romans 13: 4 And Romans 13 is not the only passage that makes clear that civil government has a primary role: creating fear in outlaws by means of the sword. Did the campaigns in Afganistan and Iraq improve our national security by means of punishing outlaws and creating fear of wrongdoing in other outlaws? Ask Qadaffi. But this is not solely applicable to so-called national security issues. We have outlaws a-plenty here at home, as well. The political class as a whole is talking about extending amnesty to one whole class of outlaws: illegal aliens (while disingenuously calling them illegal immigrants). Martha Stewart was sent to prison NOT for illegal insider trading but for asserting to investigators and the public that she did not engage insider trading. They say she lied, and so they sent her to prison for "lying" to them about something they did not even charge her with. Meanwhile, large numbers of U.S. Senators engage in insider trading on a regular basis and are given a bye. Jerry Pournelle has famously said (well, if it's not yet a famous saying, it ought to be), "We don't have a rule of law, we have so many laws that if all were enforced impartially we would every one of us be ruined by fines, or in jail, or both. And we know this." And this is one major reason why respect for lawful behavior is so low. When you can follow a speeding highway patrolman to his coffee break, you know that not even the law enforcement officers take traffic laws seriously--unless they want to write a ticket. And I doubt that there are many citizens who have not--probably unintentionally!--broken tax laws simply because the laws on what the government takes from our pockets to put in others' pockets are so arcane as to need a voodoo magister to keep them straight. With laws designed to make outlaws of everyone and civil government determinbed to NOT make horrible examples of violent outlaws who rape and steal and murder, is it any wonder respect for thr rule of law is a laughable concept today? A civil government determined to NOT horribly punish ("pour encourager les autres" [heh]) violent criminals and equally determined to have a big stick wherewith to beat citizens into submission, just in case they ever want to (as if that were a remote possibility--ask Martha) is an immoral government. The primary justification for civil government is to get the outlaws--those who would steal and kill and destroy--off the backs of common citizens. And there's not much else that is justifiable in our national government functions either biblically or constitutionally. Yep. Security is a moral values issue.

Addendum

Just a lil addendum to yesterday's "thanksgiving"... Here's the rub: in a civilized society, civil government is tasked with hounding thieves with "the sword" so that they at least fear being caught out. The response of the company that shows no shame at having stolen from me (delivered less than what they sold me) seems to indicate they see their behavior as simply business as usual. When that kind of attitude holds sway, thieves run free. And vigilance committees come into being, because civil government isn't aprehending such thieves and meting out punishment severe enough to not only discourage them but at least make other potential thieves like them hesitate to show such brazen behavior. But we can be glad that the choice between civilization and barbarity is becoming plainer. For example, politicians on evbery side of nearly every aisle in this country are calling for "amnesty" for a major class of outlaws, a class that poses a serious threat to the safety and security of citizens of this country: the huge class of illegal aliens. Most Americans (the polls show roughly 3/4) agree that illegal aliens, those who are in the country without valid visas or work permits or legal attempts to gain citizenship, ought to at the very least be expelled. But our masters in the political realm see it otherwise. And in pushing for amnesty for outlaws, they make clear one line in the war to save (or kill) civilization: honest government. As Jerry Pournelle put it, "A country that has an elite leadership that defies the vast majority of the citizens is neither a republic nor a democracy." OK, back on track, now. Every instance of barbarians at the gate (like the shamefully dishonest merchant I mentioned yesterday and above) or in seats of power (like the politicians who want to give a "bye" to outlaws), there are others who advance the cause of civilization just by holding themselves to a higher standard. Looked around for another motherboard to suit my needs (because even IF the scoundrels attempt to send me the merchandise I paid for, there's no telling how long and how much effort it might take to force an ethical response from them). Found one for about the same total cost (delivered) as the one that was NOT delivered... with a case and power supply and other lil goodies thrown in. And—surprise!—it was from a retailer I'd dealt with before and had simply kind of lost track of over the years. No manual. (The other had no manual either, but a manual was easily downloaded.) Problem. It's an "orphaned" board—the company is still around, but no longer produces motherboards and has removed all documentation for mobos from their website. No search engine produced anything usable. Hmmm... not good. Nevertheless, I had had good experiences shopping with this small company several years ago, and the same people owned and were running it. Submitted my order, then emailed the company's owner for help locating a manual or tech sheet. And on a Saturday evening—Thanksgiving Holiday weekend, no less—Steve Weigle at The Village Geek emailed me back with help. http://www.villagegeek.net Decent folks, one and all, who have a personal stake in helping their customers. So, yes, I have seen more and more evidence of creeps, cretins and crooks peopling the landscape of our society, but there does seem to be a remnant of decent folk. Nice. (Yes, there are more than a few other decent, honest business folk doing business on the web, but none of the ones I know seemed to have exactly what I needed—except for the ONE left at The Village Geek, a great place to do business. :-)

On topic

I think the "Western Civ" t-shirt from http://www.protestwarrior.com is a good way to key in on a few of the issues in the current culture war: "Besides Monotheism, Code of Law, Philosophy, Mathematics, Chemistry, Literacy, Physics, Modern Medicine, Sanitation, Electricity, Transportation, Electronics, Computers and Space Travel, WHAT HAS WESTERN CIV EVER DONE FOR THE WORLD?" Indeed. Let the game begin.

An exercise in giving thanks

[heh] [Speaking to self: Self, read yesterday's post. OK, now you can write this one. :-) ] Wednesday, I recieved the motherboard I was waiting on. Put it away, cos, well, family was here, it was The Anniversary and the next day was Thanksgiving. Very "righteously" avoided even looking at it on Thanksgiving Day. This morning, opened it up, put all tools, etc., out, arranged everything and began the process of installing the new board. It was not the board I ordered and paid for. It was not at all the board advertised, promised for delivery or confirmed as being shipped. The company I ordered from stiffed me by shipping me an inferior product. Not an explosion, but a very, very fast burn... Later, more calmly, after being stiffed multiple times by a disfunctional voicemail/phone system at the other end of the pipe, I sent an email detailing the need the company had to make me whole, in order to demonstrate good faith. Hours went by... more attempts to penetrate the impregnable defenses of a disfunctional voicemail/phone system. Nearly twelve hours later, an email. Their remedy? They're sending me an RMA#. I am to ship the inferior product that I did not order back to them. The company makes NO representation in the email concerning either replacing the inferior product with the product they advertised, which I ordered and paid for and they said they had shipped OR any reference to a refund! Now, am I thankful for this lil difficulty (and admittedly, it is a small difficulty)? Well, yes. And here's why. I responded to the "RMA" email by detailing a few of the ethical and legal lapses in the company's behavior. I very truthfully pointed out that should the company NOT make every effort to make me whole that I would bring their illegal bait and switch behavior to the attention of the federal fraud folks (http://www.consumer.gov/sentinel/ ;-) and two States' Attorneys General, as well as complaints to Yahoo (since it was a "Yahoo Store"). Why take such a hard line? Well, while it's no big deal for such companies to cheat me on such a small scale, unless a few folks (metaphorically) rap them upside the head with a brick bat for such behavior, they can mulitiply it hundreds or thousands of times, defrauding--harming--hundreds or thousands of other people. So, I am grateful for the opportunity to climb on my swaybacked white horse, don my flowerpot helmet and take up my mop-handle in poor imitation of Don Quixote in hopes that this lil inconvenience for me may not be so readily perpetrated upon others, who may very well not find it a small inconcenience, but a heavier burden. BTW, if you want to drop by the business that stiffed me and just let them know you'll be spreading the word that you give credence to my opinion (based on my experience with them) that they are unethical, unreliable and altogether despicable, here's their site and email: http://www.justdeals.com customerservice@justdeals.net One more dishonest place to avoid doing business with, IMO. Update [11/30/04] Spent an hour on the phone with a "manager" at Justdeals.com having the distinct pleasure of lecturing him on the moral. ethical and legal failings of his firm. Finally wringed from him the "concession" that he would refund the transaction on our credit card (as though he could avoid doing so: by this time, our next step was calling the credit card company to report their fraud and have the CC company get the charge reversed, which they would certainly do [heh]—and he very well knew it by the time he made the "concession".) By this time, he was also offering to avert complaints to the California Attorney General's office and the FCC as well, so he told me to simply keep the product we had not ordered (as though he had the ability to demand a return of something we had not ordered! [heh]). [sigh] Some people are really dense. (Of course, there was also the language barrier... :-) I had both those "offers" in my pocket to begin with! Well, eventually (when it's convenient for me to be near a UPS dropoff) they'll get their inferior product back. IF the refund is posted to our account by Thursday. Warn folks you know: in my opinion doing business with this company means you don't necessarily have any kind of chance of getting what you pay for and getting any kind of good faith behavior out of them after the sale is a chancy thing at best. But when you get right down to it, having the distinct pleasure of exercising my "prophetic gift" (speaking forth hard truths, clearly, unequivocally, unreservedly) was nearly worth the inconvenience of doing so while burdened with a (temporarily) deaf "phone ear"... (Laid up today with a frequently painful stopped up left ear... sometimes clears temporarily only to plug up again... drainage? wax? If it goes on, I'll have it seen to [sigh]). But man! The guy had to deal with me while I was nursing a case of deaf phone ear... Personally, I bet he'd rather have had to deal with a bear with a tootheache. [heh... heh]

Thanksgiving

The story of the following hymn speaks for itself. Draw your own comparisons to your own life and responses to your own struggles. Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices, Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices; Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today. O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us, With ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us; And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed; And free us from all ills, in this world and the next! All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given; The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven; The one eternal God, Whom earth and Heaven adore; For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore. Here's what one account of the circumstances surrounding this hymn's authorship says: "Martin Rinkart was a pastor in the little city of Eisenberg [sic] in Saxony during the Thirty Years' War. This walled city was the goal of refugees during that time. They came and ate all the food, and then there was starvation. With the starvation came pestilence, until practically the whole population of the city died. Martin Rinkart, the only pastor left in the city, had as many as fifty funerals in one day. One evening after having conducted funerals all day, he sank down exhausted, thinking that he could bear it no longer..." Actually, Eilenberg was the town's name, and it was sacked three times during Rinkart's pastorate. One of those many funerals Rinkart held was for his own wife. And yet, he wrote the words of this hymn as a response to the trials of the Thirty Years' War in 1644, toward the end of active conflict. Consider that as today's turkey and dressing and the sauces and pies and trimmings wend their way slowly through your system, likely adding another five pounds' weight by the end of the holidays... Got troubles? Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices, Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices; Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

'Twas the day before Thanksgiving...

Twenty-six years ago today, two became one. Eventually, two more were added. Today, the children are home from college/grad school celebrating that day with us. Nice. I certainly know that I had no idea how much getting married during Thanksgiving weekend 26 years ago would make this holiday so very special in years to come. Yeh, it was a great time for obvious logistical reasons: families used to getting together for the day/weekend, several days "off" for most, etc., but that future Thanksgivings would always carry the blessing of the intervening years' time spent together building family—that I, at least, had no way to foresee. Tomorrow, I'll probably post my typical Thanksgiving note. Today, spent with Sue at her cardio appointment, shopping, then at home with the kids, was filled with reflection on all the years spent together... so far. And hopeful prayer for more years together to come. That's all. Back to "fam time"...

Too Little, Too Late

I'm a little out of the loop, so I just now heard (thx, Meg) that Dan Blather is leaving CBS "News" in March. Too little, too late. I've not watched ANY CBS programming since Rathergate. Not missed it either. (What's to miss? Their flagship entertainment franchise, the "CSI" stuff, is lame; what else is there?) Nope, I think that CBS has probably lost more than a few viewers of ALL their programming. Better stuff all over the place. And news? C'mon! None of the Mass Media Podpeoples' Army on ANY channel report news. Fugeddaboutit. Nope, CBS: too little, too late. B'bye!

The New Role of the DNC

This observation at Polipundit inspired the comparison that follows... "Well, it has been 28 years since a Democratic nominee for president won a bare majority (50.1%) of the popular vote. And no Northeasterner has won the presidency in 44 years. And that guy, the real JFK, hardly could be described even as resembling a liberal on such things as, oh, say, foreign policy, taxes, and law enforcement. Of course, over the past 14 years, the Democratic Party has lost 12 net U.S. Senate seats, as many as 67 net U.S. House seats, and has gone from holding a 30-18 advantage, in state governorships, to possibly facing a 21-29 disadvantage in governorships (depending on the Rossi-Gregoire recount)..." That lil set of facts leads to the inevitable conclusion that the DNC has cast itself in the role of the Black Knight in Monty Python's "Search for the Holy Grail"... Just substitute the DNC for Black Knight in the dialog below: __________________________________ Scene 4 The black knight [King Arthur music] [music stops] BLACK KNIGHT: Aaaagh! [King Arthur music] [music stops] BLACK KNIGHT: Aaagh! GREEN KNIGHT: Ooh! [King Arthur music] [music stops] [stab] BLACK KNIGHT: Aagh! GREEN KNIGHT: Oh! [King Arthur music] Ooh! Uuh. [music stops] BLACK KNIGHT: Aaaagh! [clang] BLACK KNIGHT and GREEN KNIGHT: Agh!, oh!, etc. GREEN KNIGHT: Aaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaah! [woosh] [BLACK KNIGHT kills GREEN KNIGHT] [thud] [scrape] BLACK KNIGHT: Umm! [clop clop clop] ARTHUR: You fight with the strength of many men, Sir Knight. [pause] I am Arthur, King of the Britons. [pause] I seek the finest and the bravest knights in the land to join me in my court at Camelot. [pause] You have proved yourself worthy. Will you join me? [pause] You make me sad. So be it. Come, Patsy. BLACK KNIGHT: None shall pass. ARTHUR: What? BLACK KNIGHT: None shall pass. ARTHUR: I have no quarrel with you, good Sir Knight, but I must cross this bridge. BLACK KNIGHT: Then you shall die. ARTHUR: I command you, as King of the Britons, to stand aside! BLACK KNIGHT: I move for no man. ARTHUR: So be it! ARTHUR and BLACK KNIGHT: Aaah!, hiyaah!, etc. [ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's left arm off] ARTHUR: Now stand aside, worthy adversary. BLACK KNIGHT: 'Tis but a scratch. ARTHUR: A scratch? Your arm's off! BLACK KNIGHT: No, it isn't. ARTHUR: Well, what's that, then? BLACK KNIGHT: I've had worse. ARTHUR: You liar! BLACK KNIGHT: Come on, you pansy! [clang] Huyah! [clang] Hiyaah! [clang] Aaaaaaaah! [ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's right arm off] ARTHUR: Victory is mine! [kneeling] We thank Thee Lord, that in Thy mer-- BLACK KNIGHT: Hah! [kick] Come on, then. ARTHUR: What? BLACK KNIGHT: Have at you! [kick] ARTHUR: Eh. You are indeed brave, Sir Knight, but the fight is mine. BLACK KNIGHT: Oh, had enough, eh? ARTHUR: Look, you stupid bastard. You've got no arms left. BLACK KNIGHT: Yes, I have. ARTHUR: Look! BLACK KNIGHT: Just a flesh wound. [kick] ARTHUR: Look, stop that. BLACK KNIGHT: Chicken! [kick] Chickennn! ARTHUR: Look, I'll have your leg. [kick] Right! [whop] [ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's right leg off] BLACK KNIGHT: Right. I'll do you for that! ARTHUR: You'll what? BLACK KNIGHT: Come here! ARTHUR: What are you going to do, bleed on me? BLACK KNIGHT: I'm invincible! ARTHUR: You're a looney. BLACK KNIGHT: The Black Knight always triumphs! Have at you! Come on, then. [whop] [ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's last leg off] BLACK KNIGHT: Oh? All right, we'll call it a draw. ARTHUR: Come, Patsy. BLACK KNIGHT: Oh. Oh, I see. Running away, eh? You yellow bastards! Come back here and take what's coming to you. I'll bite your legs off! __________________________________ Yep. The DNC has become the Black Knight of American politics, all right.

Scrooge Target

Target for the holidays? I say Scrooge 'em! It's all over the web, the blogosphere and even in the mouths of some few Mass Media Podpeople: Target has given the Salvation Army "ringers" the boot. Do your shopping elsewhere for the holidays... and perhaps even beyond. And tell Target you're "Scrooging" them with an email or a call. guest.relations@target.com 1-800-440-0680 Be polite, but be assertive. I canned my first couple of tries at an email cos they spoke my mind too clearly. [heh] Take aim at target. Fire away (with some "Scrooge you" messages... :-)

Rules of Engagement

All the bloviating by LLMs and MMPs about a marine shooting a supposedly unarmed and wounded terrorist in fallujah and a "RCB" (Red Curtain of Blood) threatens to descend over my eyes. Placing these folks one at a time in a pool of hungry —unarmed and wounded—sharks seems to be the only proper response. "Terrorists wear no uniforms, and answer to no government; under all the Laws of War they may be shot out of hand. The only reason to preserve their lives is for the information they can give, or as an act of grace by civilized people to barbarians. And this be law... " Jerry E. Pournelle Idiots who can't tell the difference between an accidnetal shooting of an unarmed civilian by police in an American city and shooting a terrorist combatant who is feigning death (as so many of his comrades have done while holding armed grenades, etc.) are less than Loony Left Moonbats; they are idiots who ought to be cleaned from the shallow end of the gene pool by being fed to the sharks. And they'd probably even give sharks indigestion. Citing the Geneva Convention only demostrates how idiotic they are. Sure, if the terrorists would sign the accords and abide by them, they might be afforded some of their protections, but even under the Geneva Conventions, it's legal to kill an enemy combatant who is feigning death in order to facilitate an attack... But since they are not signatories or the representatives of signatories and are themselves of a class of combatants outlawed by the Convention and completely outside of any protections it might otherwise offer, NO SOLDIER is obligated IN ANY WAY to place themselves at greater risk by giving them a pass because they have feigned being dead... So there, idiot LLMs. Go put a rag on your heads and play dead in Fallujah. Please. Update: Well, more of an addendum. I am disappointed that the marine filmed shooting a terrorist is "under investigation" at all. Ideally, everyone in his chain of command—all the way up to his CINC, President Bush—would have said to the LLMB and the MMPA, "Tough noogies, losers. It's open season on terrorists. A bullet (or five or six) is the best that they can reasonably expect. Spread the news. I say again: it is open season on terrorists. Hands in the air, playing dead, unconscious, wounded, unarmed: no matter their contemporary condition, they are under sentence of death. Should any soldier decide it is safe to spare a terrorist in hopes of gaining information on where to find more terrorists to kill, well, we'll allow a certain amount of thyat, but the rule of engagement is this: dead terrorists are preferred 100 to 1 over live ones." Now, that would be an appropriate response to the weenies in the LLMB and MMPA who want to excuse the barbarians. Of the two best things about four more years of a Bush administration, I'd be happy to give up four more years of lower taxes if it would contribute to four more years of (many more) dead Islamic jihadist terrorists. Hands in the air, playing dead, unconscious, wounded, unarmed: dead is the preferred condition. And as many of them as possible. They're slow learners (besides being about 80% illiterate). But "evolution in action" might, just might teach the few that remained that their idea of Islamic jihad is just plain counter-survival.

Just a note for both of the regular readers of this blog

You noticed no blogging yesterday? Yeh, well. My "blogging" comp is under the weather. You know the old saw about the cobbler's kids needing shoes? Yep. The comp guy's computer needs a new mobo. Soooo.... I'm getting what lil bit I'm doing on comp done on two other machines not situated in my "nesting zone" but elsewhere on the lil network here (could be larger network, but the cobbler's kids don't get new connections, eh?). Light reading suggests that Bush's re-election is the gift that keeps on giving. Powell out at State. Was a good general and indifferent Sec of State. Sure, he had lotsa dead weight to push/pull in the Dip Corps(e), but he was NOT the consumate team player COndi will be. Dems are already bad-mouthing her appointment cos some are saying she's "too close" to the President, reads too much from the same page. Well, of course that's pure and simple bullshit. The State Department has too long been an advocate of other countries' agendas and MUCH too much in the pocket of the Saudis, kissing up to the French and so many of the other "Hate America First" crowd. It's about time someone rattled their cages. And similarly for the CIA (ought to be re-named CYA [heh]). I do very sincerely hop that a crackdown by a new head of th4 agency DOES result in mass self-firings. Badly needs a shakeup. Badly. Can anyone say "Valerie Plame"? I'd have been even happier, in terms of shakeup potential, to see Rumsfeld at either post, but there's only one of him to spread around. As it is, Condi at State makes it possible to groom her for 2008, at least for the VP slot. And boy, will it put Chirac's panties in a knot! (BTW, lotsa grinning going on over Chirac's need to hang onto the presidency of his beloved cash cow because it shields him from prosecution for his corruption... ) Lotsa good stuff going on. Check the Belmont Club and Chrenkoff regularly for the real news from Iraq.

Was that an honorable discharge, or what?

Apparently, Kerry supporters couldn't find any Jewish folks who actually read Hebrew... From the Protocols of the Yuppies of Zion came a link to this, at INDC Journal: A reader [of the INDC Journal] e-mails: Have a good friend in NYC who's a hebrew scholar. He sent me the following about his dad wearing the button below. Kerry's campaign apparently "misfired" again. I'll let the story speak for itself: "Did my father tell you about his Hebrew Kerry button? The democrats, trying to drum up more Jewish vote, printed campaign buttons with "Kerry" spelled phonetically in Hebrew. Unforturnately, no one told them that that spelling happens to be a Hebrew word. It means: "Seminal discharge"! Maybe we can save them for Clinton rallies..." Apparently, there was a 'dishonorable discharge' after all ... [heh] Now, while I do not have independant verification from an Hebrew scholar (the only one I know personally left the field and went into... lawyering [shudder] :-), this is at least humorous enough to attempt spreading the "discharge" meme a little... After all, it sure beats the LLMB/MMPA/sKerry meme of talking terriosists into being nice guys and treating Islamic jihadists blowing up civilians as a "nuisance."

Like, totally cool, dude.

IMAO has a great sendup of Demo underground conspiracy theories. I particularly enjoyed this part: Hacker1: Yeah, there's no fooling those guys [the Democratic Underground]. They're on top of everything. Luckily, Rove had a plan for them too. Hacker2: What he did was get all these mental patients - total schizos - and brainwash them about how evil the Republicans are. Then he gave them internet connections. Hacker1: Now the schizos that Rove planted totally rule the Democratic Underground discussion forum. They’re the most prolific posters. Instead of getting anywhere on all the evil plans we have, they waste time blaming a Democrat event being rained out on Karl Rove. Hacker2: Which is stupid because our weather machine is only 60% complete... [heh] Just read the whole thing.

Jen-yoo-wine satire... or is it?

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2004/11/blue_state_blue.html Blue states "invaded" by red state Dollywood values. An excerpt: " ...In one recent three-week period, fourteen high school students in Portland, Oregon were suspended for distributing pork rinds; a Burlington, Vermont high school was briefly closed for decontamination after janitors found a bible hidden in a restroom; and forty-six undergraduate coeds at Swarthmore were expelled for staging clandestine Mary Kay cosmetics parties." Dangerous trend, indeed... [heh]

"Le Sabot Post-Moderne"

Yeh, well, I kid you not... Go download/see the answer to Michael Moore-onic's Fahrenheit 9/11 that this guy's posted at his site. (It just about darned near requires Windows Media Player [spit!], but it's a telling indictment of the Moore-ons in the LLMB and MMPA.) As he says, since it's composed of actual comments made by LLMs, "***Warning -- NOT INTENDED FOR KIDS OR BOB JONES GRADUATES." [heh] A sample post from "The Discoshaman" whose site motto is, "Gentrifying the Christian Ghetto Since 2003"– "One thing you can say for Calvinists. . . Anyone who says that man is totally depraved couldn't be all bad." Oh, [heh] :-)

Force multiplier

...Launched from a site near Baghdad, the Predator UAV carried a Hellfire missile. Its crew and its video feeds were back in California. A few weeks earlier, the Watchdogs had employed Predator to hit a moving pickup with a mounted machine gun—one robot leading another robot to the target. NFL games on television allow the viewer to see the same play from different angles. But the digital pipes for battlefield imagery weren't large enough to permit the Watchdogs and the Predator crew in California to see each other's video. Instead, the Predator and Pioneer crews used e-mail chat and GPS coordinates to align their platforms.... Now, this is what Rumsfeld, et al, have been talking about when trying to pound sense about military transformation and the strategy of technology to the MMPA and LLMB, although, of course, Rummy tries to avoid the big words when speaking to the mental half-packs in the LLMB and MMPA... (h.t. to Bill @ INDC Journal) "The Watchdogs of Fallujah From: Bing West Subject: How the Pioneer Robot Plane Helped Win an Artillery Duel Thursday, Nov. 11, 2004, at 11:37 AM PT ...The two-story cement house where the insurgents were hiding between rounds had a dome roof, a large courtyard with an outside wall, and an overhang at the front door, where a sentry was posted. The Watchdogs had counted five men outside, assuming it was the same sprinters making the round trip to the mortar each time... ...The courtyard door opened, and a man walked to the truck and slowly drove away. "Boot muj sent out to get the Coke. Luckiest bastard on the planet." Both video screens suddenly flashed bright white, as if a fuse had blown. There was a collective Damn! from the watching Marines. The center of the roof was now a huge black hole... Now, that's a transformation I can get behind: Predator crew in California teaming up with the boots on the ground = smoking hole in Fallujah. Sounds good to me. Can't do that with draftees. (Well, you could, perhaps, but by the time they are trained it's time they got out... and they'd likely leave as fast as they could.) Need to have highly-trained specialists, and that means all-volunteer, there for the full ride kinda guys. Not unwilling mutts dragged in off the streets.

"Bigots to the Left of me... "

OK, that should be "Blind Hypocritical Bigots to the Left of Me," but that just doesn't scan as well... Betsy Newmark (OK, I've told you and told you to bookmark her Betsy's Page blog. So when are you going to do it, already?) points to an article by George Neumayr that contains this nugget: "The Democrats are far more interested in subduing Christianity at home than defeating militant Islam abroad. They can write acerbically about Southern Christians as jihadists, then eulogize real jihadists like Arafat as peacemakers. They can bring a very benign interpretation to Islam, insisting that the founders of Islam held the same liberal values and views as the editorial writers of the New York Times -- watch PBS's documentaries on Islam and you would think the early Muslim sultans were PBS liberals -- but offer no such generous understanding to Christian teachings."

Taking up the slack

James Taranto (Best of the Web, Opinion Journal) sees the following lil epigram by Hillaire Belloc as applicable to Arafat: Here richly, with ridiculous display, The Politician's corpse was laid away. While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged. Hmmm... can anyone think of a few others that would fit? ("Git the rope, Ma. A buncha us guys are going down to 'welcome' that politician who came to town, today.") Brings to mind one of my favorite quotes by a famous Missourian: "Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself". Mark Twain Of course, congresscritters do not, in the 21st century, comprise the sum total of the class, "idiots," in our society, as Twain impies they did in the 19th century. We have the rest of the LLMB and the MMPA to take up the slack, there.

The Culture War

No time to deal with this now. Just hie thee to the Belmont Club and read. I'll include other links—and I must remember a few to Credenda Agenda articles on the subject, as well—later.

I swear this is not off-topic :-)

Who cares, anyway? It's my blog, and I can noodle around any topic I want. Web browsers. Recently, Mozilla Firebird has gotten a LOT of "ink"—almost all from computer wonks touting it as THE answer to crappy browsing with Internet Exploder, the world's worst web browser. Well , Firebird is pretty good (in fact, I'm using it right now to blog this comment), but it's nearly as bad as Internet Exploder about some things. Sure, it's MUCH better overall than Internet Exploder, but then, browsing the internet with pen and paper would almost be better than Internet Exploder, so that's daming Firebird with faint praise. Much of the hoopla about Firebird's wonderfuliciousness in computer wonkish press is simply, IMO, because ANYTHING that works is worlds and away better than Internet Exploder. Sure it's faster than IE. And because it doesn't have deep, deep unfixable hooks into the OS, it's inherently more secure. Yes, it does have (a lame, IMO) implementation of tabbed browsing and a few other nearly OK implementations of browsing enhancements. BUT, it's so damned hard to get it to look and work like I like. In fact, I have yet to discover a way to get some of the toolbar/menu features to work like I want/prefer. And the single most significant advance in browsing ease of use, mouse gestures? It doesn't come built in! You have to choose among competing plugins to install after the fact. Dumb. "Add bookmark here"? Another plugin! Etc. Why features that ought to be built in have to be downloaded separately, instead of being enabled/disabled within the browser itself, is a puzzle and an irritant to me. And one really annoying "feature"—one that apparently cannot be fixed even with one of those annoying plugins: some sites that display line wrap fine even in Internet Exploder do NOT line wrap in Firebird. This is a real pain when changing text/display size on the fly (another thing Firebird doesn't do any better than the lame Internet Exploder implementation). In contrast, Opera, which has remained my primary web browser for some time, has mouse gestures, mouse wheel text resizing from 10% to 1000%, (which works well with line wrapping), and all those other features mentioned above (and more) built in. And it's faster loading pages. AND I can put toolbars and menu bars any damned where I want. And using CSS is a snap, and... Yeh. So, I use Firebird so I can be familiar with it. I use Internet Exploder when a site I absolutely HAVE to use has been put together by people who are so rude and stupid that they refuse to use standards-compliant html/xml coding and require IE (and I invariably send them emails about it until either they change their site or I can find a site that'll let me do without their crap). So, my take is that Firebird is mostly OK, especially when compared to the Lousy Browser, Internet Exploder. It does have popup blocking similar to Opera's and a few other nice enhancements, and if you don't mind just clunking along without the real browsing enhancements available (with Firebird) only through installing plugins, it's pretty much Just Good Enough for now. As to email clients... that's another story. In spite of some feature lacks, I'm becoming sold on Mozilla's Thunderbird email software as opposed to Outlook Express. Yes, Outlook Express is a more feature-rich free email software, but not by much. And the built-in junk mail handling in T-bird is nice, although a little quirky. In fact, the whole app is a little quirky, but still works well and is more secure by design than Outlook Express. T-bird's definitely worth a look, IMO Back to regularly scheduled snark in later posts.

"...Magical history Tour"

Thanks to Betsy Newmark for the link to this article about a new feature exhibit at the National Archives. Wow. All that seems to be missing from this "Archives' Magical History Tour" is sKerry's magic hat. (But then, it's a little hard to include a fantasy object in a history exhibit... or ought to be.) BTW, if you haven't bookmarked Betsy's Page just do it. Right now.

Who to send?

Whizbang has a thread going on who the USA ought to send to Arafat's funeral. Some good suggestions. Personally, I'd combine a few of them and send Michael Moore-on, the Clintoons and Djimmi Carter. It might be too much to hope that Moore-on would like to show "solidarity" with the PLO and go dressed as a suicide bomber... ("Hey! Is that Osama in the Moore-on fat suit?") Still, sending Moore-on, Carter and the Clintoons to a send-off for a sorry sack of... feces is kinda like sending coals to Newcastle, isn't it? I have an idea. Let's all show our "respect" for Arafat by setting aside a moment to take a dump during his funeral. Nah. Too respectful. I'd hate to have that negative association formed with good, clean feces. Update: Lileks has this to say (among other things) about Arafat's death: "I am content to know he is not in Hell. Nope. Arafat did not go to Hell. He boards the ferry, yes; he makes it halfway across the River Styx, yes. Then the ferry blows up. Ten times a day for eternity. For a start." Well, maybe. A little too mild, IMO, but maybe a start. Perhaps a fitting torment would be bathing with Hitler. Not that the Hitler part would be a problem for Arafat, but think of the torment of forcing a piece of filth like that to bathe at all... In fact, it's almost a certainty that they each would be filthier as a result...

Hollyweird Special

Well, well. President Bush's re-election certainly is the gift that keeps on giving... Vincent D'Onofrio has held a special place in my regard ever since I first saw him act. (D'Onofrio is the annoying twitch on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and the chief reason why I have been unable to watch even one entire episode of that show.) He gives me a rash and makes me feel like hurling. I constantly expect to see him hauled off in a straight jacket in the next scene. When he isn't, I change the channel in disgust. Well, thank you President Bush. See this, from today's NYPost November 11, 2004 -- VINCENT D'Onofrio, the star of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," passed out while shooting the hit TV series yesterday morning — prompting insiders to gossip that the actor is "losing it." "Ever since John Kerry lost the election, [D'Onofrio] has lost his [bleep,]" said our on-set insider. "He has been getting into fistfights with people, and when he passed out today, we all thought he was faking it. But then he insisted they call 911." [Let me get my head around this: he passed out and asked them to call 911? Yeh, well... Conversational English isn't necessarily meant to convey meaningful information anymore, now is it?] Some are speculating that he may not be long for the show... Good ridance to bad acting, I say. (Unless, as I have long suspected about him from past roles, the twitchy freak he plays on the show isn't acting at all... ) Maybe the show's producers can replace him with a role/actor who can actually add something to the show without turning my stomach. An alternative might be to doublecheck his medications. (Thorazine, anyone? Whatever. His dosage definitely needs to be doubled.)

11/11/11

Neither I nor any current living member of my family was alive at the time, but "11/11/11" still evokes powerful "ghost" memories... memories I'll never have except as ghosts of memories shared with me over the years by people who were living when WWI ended. "Armistice Day" it was known as for years; in more recent years, Veterans Day. Stop a moment today to remember those who have paid the price for the freedom afforded by our society. And stop also, if you would, and pray for those paying the price, today, for your safety and for the predervation of that freedom.

Why study history?

The question "Why study history?" finds a ready answer on an almost daily basis on Jerry Pournelle's site. An example, built from one of the most fascinating periods of European history, the Thirty Years War: "... the world is in much the same condition now as it was during the Thirty Years War. Calvinists in that time used the notion of Sovereignty to imprison or execute people like Grotius who believed in free expression. Sovereignty allowed repressive regimes, and gave them a legal status, which both Catholics and Protestants were quick to make use of. The year 1648 is one of those dates to remember: not only did the Treaty of Westphalia change Europe forever (one of Hitler's avowed goals was to reverse that treaty) but the English killed their king and brought in Puritan rule to abolish Christmas and make Merrie England somber and pure. (Charles I was executed in January of what we now consider the year 1649, but in those times the year did not end on 31 December). The world is now larger than Europe, and the United Nations isn't united as the Papacy had been. There is no universal agreement on anything including the status of women. The United States has explicitly repudiated the notion of sovereignty as regards nations that sponsor terrorism and harbor terrorist enemies of the West. The United Nations doesn't recognize that right." Just read the whole thing. Besides evoking Gustavus Adolphus, one of the most fascinating and frustrating, truly pivotal persons of European history—and a good argument for the "great man" view of history, too—the model Pournelle extracts and applies to current events is provocative at the very least.

"Yassir Arafat: requiescat in feces"

Well, Carol, you're a better person than I am: "Yasser Arafat is dead. May God have mercy on his soul. And now, perhaps in time, there will be a chance peace for long-suffering Palestinians and Israelis."–Carol Platt Liebau Yes, of course. And the sentiment is echoed throughout the blogoshere, but more common reactions from my bookmarked sites are found here, and here and here. I am particularly drawn to Jay Tea's comment, "Good riddance to bad rubbish Yassir Arafat: requiescat in feces. Am Yisrael Chai. Ad aeternam." Yeh, maybe it's a tad small of me, but why no street parties in the US of A last night, such as the Palestinians held celebrating 9/11? Maybe the real "street partiy" is being held here. By real men. Well, now at least, more and more terrorist scum is finding out what it means to "dance with the devil" thanks to coalition forces in Iraq. "U.S. Marines said American forces had taken control Wednesday of 70 percent of Fallujah in the third day of a major offensive to retake the insurgent stronghold. Major Francis Piccoli, of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said enemy fighters were bottled up in a strip of the city flanking the major east-west highway that splits Fallujah. Army and Marine units had pushed south to the highway overnight, Piccoli said."–Bakersfield Californian (h.t. Belmont Club—where you should go to get your news on Iraq/the Fallujah push. A good clearinghouse of maps/photos of the action.) Hmmm... some have proposed that the pull out from Fallujah last Spring was an engraved invitation for terrorists to consider Fallujah a safe haven, so as to gather as many as possible to a central "roach motel" where many (and the toll is mounting hugely) will NOT be checking out. It'd be nice if the Israelis could consider Arafat's entombment seremony to be a similar ingathering... Oh. Well. At least he's dancing with the devil, now. "Yassir Arafat: requiescat in feces."

LLMB (Loony Left Moonbat Briagde) Hate Speech

Just a short note... John Ashcroft's resignation brings to mind some of the LLMB anti-christian bigotry of the LLMB, such as Anthony Lewis of the NYT and his comment, "...certainty is the enemy of decency and humanity in people who are sure they are right, like Osama bin Laden and John Ashcroft." Hmmm, I have wondered what Lewis and his ilk would say if faced with comments built around "people like John Kerry and Bennedict Arnold"? Or "Anthony Lewis and Hermann Goebels"? (Of course, the problem with addressing the LLMB with valid similes is that they can't see the difference between their fallacious ad hominem attacks and valid comparisons... :-)

"Clowns to the left of Me... " II

This comment in response to "Clowns to the Left of Me..." is typical of the experiences many have with the LLMB: "...I have been treated like an idiot because I do not fold to the LLMB ideals. When I tried to point out that it is interesting that those on the extreme left cast those on the other side as ignorant as a part of a comment about how politics tends to polarize people- I did not receive a positive response... Guess it goes to show me that I cannot expect to have a rational conversation with LLMBs... " The LLMB and the MMPA are generally composed of people with the intelligence to know better than to think that a closed mind is a smart thing. That they choose to close their minds to facts and reasoned argument is proof that intelligence and stupidity can coexist quite happily in the same person. In fact, their stupidity might easily be defined as willfully choosing to underperform intellectually.

"I have a dream... "

Well, a guy can dream, can't he? (h.t. Instapundit)

Moby Dork

The Daily Telegraph (a Britrag) chimes in with this rhino in the livingroom comment about Nov 2: Not since Moby Dick has a great white whale been so bloodily harpooned. It took a shocked Michael Moore, director of Fahrenheit 9/11, until yesterday to comment on the US election result. When he did, he made a lame joke, offering "reasons not to slit your own throat". But if John Kerry's strategists feel like slitting anyone's throat right now, it is Mr Moore's. All i have to say to any LLMB and MMPA who happen upon a beached Moby Dork is, you catch 'em, you clean 'em. (But a fair warning: the blubber's bound to be toxic. And a real mess to dispose of. I can hear the cries of "NIMBY" already... )

Apparently, it wasn't the lies; it was the lice.

James Taranto, in Best of the Web, collected these comments (yeh, yeh: I'm qouting his quotations. So what? [g]): *** QUOTE *** "Democrats nationwide are scratching their heads today and trying to regroup after resounding defeats for the White House and in Congress." -- Katie Couric http://www.fednews.com/transcript.htm?id=20041104t0912 , "Today," Nov. 4 "Applying the tried-and-true formula for success, Democrats were scratching their heads yesterday, wondering how Sen. John Kerry lost Ohio to President Bush by 2 percentage points."-- Columbus Dispatch http://www.columbusdispatch.com/ , Nov. 4 "Sixty-five percent of the voters in Preble County backed the president this year... The support for Bush leaves the Democrats scratching their heads."-- Palladium-Item http://www.pal-item.com/ (Richmond, Ind.), Nov. 4 "The liberal wing of the Democratic Party, which has long dominated its leadership, seems stunned that a clear majority of Americans chose to re-elect a president that exudes courage, confidence and a faith that is so easily identifiable. They are scratching their heads at the polls which reveal that the issue that mattered most to voters in this election was not the economy, or security--but moral values."-- Rebecca Hagelin http://www.townhall.com/columnists/rebeccahagelin/rh20041105.shtml , TownHall.com, Nov. 5 "Other Democratic strategists (the same ones who predicted a huge pro-Kerry youth vote) are scratching their heads over the Bush victory."-- Laura Ingraham http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GuestColumns/Ingraham20041105.shtml , TownHall.com, Nov. 5 "Bush was reelected because he told Americans in the clearest possible language who is he and what he stands for. Just enough of them liked what they heard. Kerry left voters, including many people who voted for him, scratching their heads."-- Eileen McNamara http://www.boston.com/news/ , Boston Globe, Nov. 7 "When Sausalito resident Marty Krasney was in Ohio this month working on the Kerry campaign, he met a woman with a life-threatening disease who acked health care insurance and could have benefited from stem cell research. Krasney was surprised when the woman told him she planned to vote for George W. Bush, not John Kerry. 'I can't vote for a baby killer,' she told him. It is just such conundrum's [sic] that have Marin Democrats--like Democrats across the country--scratching their heads and pondering just what they need to do to restore the party's majority status."-- Marin (Calif.) Independent Journal http://www.marinij.com/Stories/0,1413,234%7E24407%7E2519930,00.html , Nov. 7 " 'Our analysis of Gwinnett County shows there are many, many more Democrats than showed up to vote,' said [Mike] Berlon, the chairman of the county party. 'We're all scratching our heads wondering why they didn't go to the polls.' "-- Gwinnett (Ga.) Daily Post http://www.gwinnettdailyonline.com/ Nov. 7 "The sound of head-scratching coming from Democratic circles will likely be as much a part of autumn as the rustle of leaves."-- Jabari Asim http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33885-2004Nov8.html , WashingtonPost.com, Nov. 8 *** END QUOTE *** [emphasis added] When there's that much scalp scratching going on it just has to be a lice or a serious skin condition. The LLMB needs to have that looked at.

Good Snark!

Jonah Goldberg, writing in National Review, has some good snark (N.B. "good snark" meets two criteria: it's witty sarcasm that hits marks you want hit [eg]) directed toward LLMB whines about the election that continue to this day and probably will continue for four more year! four more years! to come. An example: Take the two leading liberal columnists at the New York Times, Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman. As we all know, one's a whining self-parody of a hysterical liberal who lets feminine emotion and fear defeat reason and fact in almost every column. The other used to date Michael Douglas. But beyond the really good snark are some thought-provoking observations about other whiners in the LLMB such as, What Maher, Raines, and Smiley fail to grasp is that all morality is based upon transcendence — or it is merely based on utilitarianism of one kind or another, and therefore it is not morality so much as, at best, an enlightened expediency or will-to-power. It is no more rational to vote based on a desire to do "good" than it is to vote based on a desire to do God's will. Indeed, for millions of people this is a distinction without a difference — as it was for so many of the abolitionists progressives and civil-rights leaders today's liberals love to invoke but never actually learn about. Just go read it all. h.t. to Kerryspot

"Bush or Bust"

While I like the headline, "Bush or Bust" (taken from a New Orleans Time-Picayune article, found here), it's really not reflective of what happened. For accuracy, it ought to have read, "Bust or No Bush" even though that would not have been quite as catchy, If the gal had NOT stripped to her bra, she might not have gotten to vote at all... Ardent supporter, indeed. Just read. (I just wonder if anyone gave her some beads... )

Indian Anti-terrorists pro-Bush

Reuters (the formerly [?] all-anti-Bush "news" agency) reports: The chairman of the All-India Anti-Terrorist Front (AATF), and former Youth Congress chief Maninderjeet Singh Bitta holds a banner during a staged rally with school students supporting U.S. President Bush (news - web sites)'s re-election in New Delhi on November 6, 2004. Hmm... Is it possible that Maninderjeet Singh Bitta is a Sikh? (FYI, Sikh soldiers have reputations among elite fighting forces worldwide as soldiers other elite soldiers very seriously do NOT want to ummm... mess with... Their reputation as the fiercest of combatants is borne out through nearly 400 years of military contact with the West. Good folk to have on your side. Much better than having a Half-caf/Decaf No-fat Latte-with-a-twist Loony Left Moonbat Brigade and their communist partners in crime in the Mass media Podpeoples' Army...)

Defining the terms

"Mean, vicious, devisive" are terms the loony left moonbats throw around when talking about political campaigns or behaviors that they don't like. Here's a look at what those terms mean when coming from the Loony Left Moonbat Briagde and their allies in the Mass Media Podpeoples' Army. "Mean" and "vicious" are terms applies by the LLMB and MMPA to any political speech that truthfully refers to actual facts of LLMB and MMPA past (or present) behaviors, their candidates' actual words or actions, actual, verifiable facts that directly and overwhelmingly refute false claims made by LLMB, the MMPA and their candiadtes. In their eyes, facts (past comments on the record, voting record, etc.) that accurately reflect the views of their candidates are "personal attacks" and verifiable facts (actual real numbers about economy, budgets, etc) that contradict their candidates' talking points are "divisive." So, now you know. It's pretty safe, given the record of actual distortion and outright baldfaced lies about "vicious attacks" and "divisiveness" that any time you hear those terms coming from the LLMB and the MMPA you can prtty much automatically assume the opposite is true.

"Clowns to the left of me... "

Mark Steyn's got his 2004 (and, apparently, 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012) post-election column out. A select gem: "H. L. Mencken said that no one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American people. Well, George Soros, Barbra Streisand and a lot of their friends just did: The Kerry campaign and its supporters -- MoveOn.org, Rock The Vote, etc. -- were awash in bazillions of dollars, and what have they got to show for it? In this election, the plebs were more mature than the elites: They understood that war is never cost-free and that you don't run away because of a couple of setbacks; they did not accept that one jailhouse scandal should determine America's national security interest; they rejected the childish caricature of their president and paranoid ravings about Halliburton; they declined to have their vote rocked by Bruce Springsteen or any other pop culture poser." Haul yourself on over to thr Sun Times site and check it out. (Yeh, the post title is a citation of Stealers Wheel's "Stuck in the Middle With You". And when you think about the core values reflected in this past election, it's pretty much MOR vs Loony Left, so a fuller citation would work as well: "Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right, here I am, Stuck in the middle with you.")

"What a Maroon" Watch

Bugs Bunny: "What a maroon!" (maroon: BBs unique pronunciation of moron) Headline: "Netherlands Braces for 'jihad'" (Notice that the Washinton Times puts jihad in scare quotes [sigh] ) "We are not going to tolerate this. We are going to ratchet up the fight against this sort of terrorism." [emphasis added] –Deputy Prime Minister Gerrit Zalm of the Netherlands, after the murder of Theo van Gogh and attendant death threats by Islamic jihadists on the life of a Netherlander lawmaker. (link here ) [sort, n. A category of things distinguished by some common characteristic or quality ] So, my question to this maroon is this: if "this sort of terrorism" is unacceptable and you plan to "ratchet up the fight against" it, what are the sorts of terrorism you do not feel it's necessary to fight, what sorts of terrorism are acceptable to you? What a maroon.

Stupid People in "The Stupid Party"

Validation of the "Stupid Party" label long attached to the Republican Party—by Republican Party faithful. The response to the event that spawned this headline and the accompanying report just about defines stupidity. "Vandals Hit GOP Headquarters in N.Carolina" And what's the response from Kevin Howell, communications director for the state Republican Party? "The people who did this are sick..." No, dummy, they are not sick, they are criminals. Sick people may be treated, perhaps cured. Criminals require punishment. Punishment severe enough to convince them to modify their behavior. And the proper role of civil government in cases like this is to consistently mete out punishment of sufficient severity that it discourages other criminals from perpetrating similar crimes. When so-called "communications directors" of the stupid party buy into the lies of the "Evil Party" about human nature, crime and punishment and the role of civil government, then it simply cedes authority to the opponents of civilization. It is comments like this (and policies reflecting this mindset) that remind me of what R. L. Dabney (19th century Reformed theologian, officer on R.E. Lee's general staff) said about conservatism in that century: "Its history is that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at least in the innovation. It is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward to perdition" Emphasis obviously added...

Cutting out...

Teresa Heinz-Kerry does her part in the campaign cleanup by carrying a cardboard cutout of the politician formerly known as John Kerry off the stage... (an embellishment on Ann Althouse's "cardboard cutout" phrase, photo by Stephen Crowley/NYT)

Spending Political Capital

Contra Moore's assinine "17 reasons" (below), specifically his point number 14 , Charles Krauthammer writes, concerning "political capital: Bush will not waste his. As he said explicitly during his news conference yesterday, "I earned capital on the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it." After all, in his first term, with his political career at stake, he undertook Iraq, something that no one asked him to do and that promised only terrible political risk. He knew that he was wagering his presidency but did it nonetheless because he thought it necessary for the safety of the nation. If he did not hoard his political capital then, he will not now. Knowing he will never again run for office, he is going to attempt several large things, most notably reforming Social Security and perhaps radically simplifying the tax code. He was careful to mention both in his speech on Wednesday when he claimed the election, and during his news conference yesterday when he claimed his mandate. These tasks carry such political risk that politicians rarely talk about them, let alone attempt them. In his first term Bush devoted no political capital to these domestic issues because he had spent it all on Afghanistan and Iraq. With a second term and a solid mandate, his account is replenished. He is not a man to sit on it, collecting coupons. Exactly.

Michael Moore: Making it easy to mock the Loony Left Moonbat Brigade

I'm not, for obvious reasons, going to post a link to it, but Michael Moore-on lists "17 reasons not to slit your [loony left moonbat] wrists" on a page devoed to loony left moonbattery. I''ve inserted some of my own "fiskatorial" **comments. I hope that by even partially exposing the Moore-onic "17 reasons" as, well, moronic, that I don't encourage any moonbats to get sharp with themselves... 1. It is against the law for George W. Bush to run for president again. That it would put Moore's (and his LLM partners-in-crime') Super-Sized Panties in a twist would be reason enough to campaign to repeal the XXII Amendment... The blown cerebral arteries in multiple moonbats' skulls would be reward enough. A few strokes probably wouldn't harm their ability to think rationally, but it'd at least be another minor "issue" for them to blame Bush for, which would have a little entertainment value. 2. Bush's victory was the NARROWEST win for a sitting president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916. Nu-uh. Just in recent memory, when Clinton was a sitting president, 50.8 didn't want Clinton in 1996, although since there were three at least semi-major candidates, he did get about 49% of the vote (neither time he won office did Clinton win a majority of the popular vote). In fact, Bush is the first person to win election with a majority of the popular vote since his father won election in 1988. Narrowest win? 3. The only age group in which the majority voted for Kerry was young adults (Kerry: 54%, Bush: 44%), proving once again that your parents are always wrong and you should never listen to them. So? The age group may have gone for sKerry, but, once again, they turned out in dismally small numbers compared to the potential for "youth" vote. And, the number of young conservatives is growing, perhaps due to the Roe Effect. 4. In spite of Bush's win, the majority of Americans still think the country is headed in the wrong direction (56%), think the war wasn't worth fighting (51%), and don’t approve of the job George W. Bush is doing (52%). Maybe, but guess who the majority of Americans trust to steer the country in the Right direction? Hmmm... looks like... George Bush. And Moore-on, typically, cherrypicks his polls/poll numbers disingenuously. 5. The Republicans will not have a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate. If the Democrats do their job, Bush won't be able to pack the Supreme Court with right-wing ideologues. Did I say "if the Democrats do their job?" Um, maybe better to scratch this one. Maybe. Maybe not. The 60-vote rule is just a rule, and it's been changed before.Did someone forget to tell Moore-on that the Senate Minority Leader went down in flames Tuesday? [heh] Nah, he heard, but it's lost in his Big Fat Stupid White Guy head. 6. Michigan voted for Kerry! So did the entire Northeast, the birthplace of our democracy. So did 6 of the 8 Great Lakes States. And the whole West Coast! Plus Hawaii. Ok, that's a start. We've got most of the fresh water, all of Broadway, and Mt. St. Helens. We can dehydrate them or bury them in lava. And no more show tunes! And he can't read a map (see the "Bush Country" map, below. He can keep Broadway. (If it's not supported by out-of-town tourists from Bush Country, it'll wither away, anyway.) The fresh water and Mt St Helens are in Bush Country.) 7. Once again we are reminded that the buckeye is a nut, and not just any old nut -- a poisonous nut. A great nation was felled by a poisonous nut. May Ohio State pay dearly this Saturday when it faces Michigan. That's the way to win Ohio: spew some vitriolic hatred their way. Works every time. Riiiight. 8. 88% of Bush's support came from white voters. In 50 years, America will no longer have a white majority. Hey, 50 years isn't such a long time! If you're ten years old and reading this, your golden years will be truly golden and you will be well cared for in your old age. And his support in the Latino community was up by 1/3; his support among blacks almost doubled; and etc., in other so-called "minority" and ethnic groups. (Again, no one's expecting Moore-on to be able to do simple math.) 9. Gays, thanks to the ballot measures passed on Tuesday, cannot get married in 11 new states. Thank God. Just think of all those wedding gifts we won't have to buy now. Well, at least I can agree with the sentiment expressed in the actual words (apart from te corrupt use of a perfectly good word that means "happy and carefree" to refer to a group that is characterized by much higher than normal neurosis and depression). 10. Five more African Americans were elected as members of Congress, including the return of Cynthia McKinney of Georgia. It's always good to have more blacks in there fighting for us and doing the job our candidates can't. [heh] Notice the divide? Moore refers to blacks as not in the group "our candidates"--the bigotted racist rat bastard. hows his true colors as a Big Fat Stupid White Guy. 11. The CEO of Coors was defeated for Senate in Colorado. Drink up! Now, this baffles me. Is he saying his readers ought to support Coors with their spending by "Drink[ing] up"? 12. Admit it: We like the Bush twins and we don't want them to go away. Yeh. But what do the Bush twins think of you? Do they need to get a restraining order against you, you letch? 13. At the state legislative level, Democrats picked up a net of at least 3 chambers in Tuesday's elections. Of the 98 partisan-controlled state legislative chambers (house/assembly and senate), Democrats went into the 2004 elections in control of 44 chambers, Republicans controlled 53 chambers, and 1 chamber was tied. After Tuesday, Democrats now control 47 chambers, Republicans control 49 chambers, 1 chamber is tied and 1 chamber (Montana House) is still undecided. [YAWN] Democratic State governments rarely reflect the loony left moonbattery of Moore-on and his ilk to any great degree. They can't cos they're too close to their constituents, in many cases. 14. Bush is now a lame duck president. He will have no greater moment than the one he's having this week. It's all downhill for him from here on out -- and, more significantly, he's just not going to want to do all the hard work that will be expected of him. It'll be like everyone's last month in 12th grade -- you've already made it, so it's party time! Perhaps he'll treat the next four years like a permanent Friday, spending even more time at the ranch or in Kennebunkport. And why shouldn't he? He's already proved his point, avenged his father and kicked our ass. Shows 1.) how little he knows Bush. Bush came out just yesterday with a strong agenda for his second term—far more ambitious than his first term agenda—and is already hard at work implementing it. 2.) shows he lacks any comprehension of the ethic driving Bush. (Well, of course: Moore-on is so ethically challenged, you'd see his picture right there beside Jean Fraud sKerry's under the definition of "sociopath" or "pathological liar".) 15. Should Bush decide to show up to work and take this country down a very dark road, it is also just as likely that either of the following two scenarios will happen: a) Now that he doesn't ever need to pander to the Christian conservatives again to get elected, someone may whisper in his ear that he should spend these last four years building "a legacy" so that history will render a kinder verdict on him and thus he will not push for too aggressive a right-wing agenda; or b) He will become so cocky and arrogant -- and thus, reckless -- that he will commit a blunder of such major proportions that even his own party will have to remove him from office. Only someone so driven by a Moore-onic egocentric personality disorder (it's been proposed for a new edition of the DSM, I hear: Planetary-Proportioned-Egocentric Disorder, caused in part by the gravitational field generated by a Big Stupid White Guy Fathead) would project such personality flaws. 16. There are nearly 300 million Americans -- 200 million of them of voting age. We only lost by three and a half million! That's not a landslide -- it means we're almost there. Imagine losing by 20 million. If you had 58 yards to go before you reached the goal line and then you barreled down 55 of those yards, would you stop on the three yard line, pick up the ball and go home crying -- especially when you get to start the next down on the three yard line? Of course not! Buck up! Have hope! More sports analogies are coming!!! Population of counties in which Bush won all the precints: 150,9 million. Population of counties in which sKerry won all the precincts: 103.6 million. Now, you tell me where the demographics are trending (Bush won more counties this year than in 2000). Total population (US Census figures): 281.4 million. There are currently about 27 million in the counties that split Bush/sKerry. So, where are Moore-ons's numbers going to come from, especially remembering the Roe Effect ? Ummm... nowhere, that's where. 17. Finally and most importantly, over 55 million Americans voted for the candidate dubbed "The #1 Liberal in the Senate." That's more than the total number of voters who voted for either Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Gore. Again, more people voted for Kerry than Reagan. If the media are looking for a trend it should be this -- that so many Americans were, for the first time since Kennedy, willing to vote for an out-and-out liberal. The country has always been filled with evangelicals -- that is not news. What IS news is that so many people have shifted toward a Massachusetts liberal. In fact, that's BIG news. Which means, don't expect the mainstream media, the ones who brought you the Iraq War, to ever report the real truth about November 2, 2004. In fact, it's better that they don't. We'll need the element of surprise in 2008. Yep, "dubbed 'the #1 Liberal'"... and he ran as far away from it as he could. Because he knew it was the kiss of death to anyone except Big Fat Stupid White Guys and their "blondes" (blondes" in behavior if not in coloration [heh]). In fact, "so many people... shifted toward a Massachusetts liberal" that he won fewer votes in Massachusetts (his home state) than Algore did in 2000. I'll cede Moore-on the element of surprise, cos I'll enjoy seeing him surprised in 2006 and 2008 all over again. I sincerely hope his fat-laden heart and arteries can take it, cos he's so easy to take pokes at. In some ways, it's kinda nice to have a big soft (headed) target handy for those days when I just don't want to hassle with the hard targets. Keep it up, Moore-on. Inspre the troops of the Loony Left Moonbat Brigade. You are your own worst enemy (and the Right's best saboteur on the Loony Left Moonbat Brigade). **fiskatorial, from "fisk, fisking" fisking: n. [blogosphere; very common] A point-by-point refutation of a blog entry or (especially) news story. A really stylish fisking is witty, logical, sarcastic and ruthlessly factual; flaming or handwaving is considered poor form. Named after Robert Fisk, a British journalist who was a frequent (and deserving) early target of such treatment. My fisk of Moore's easily mocked "17 points" does not, of course, meet the "witty" standard for a truly stylish fisk (I'm givin' it all she's got, Cap'n' but I'm only half way up the "wit" scale), but then, Moore's so very easy to mock that he's a good one to pick on when I'm feeling a little sluggish and/or decaffeinated.

Choosing candidates

Jerry Pournelle has some observations about the process of choosing presidential candidates that are typically Pournelle: thoughtful, infused with some wisdom (not just "smarts") and mostly on-target, IMO. While I disagree with him as to his characterization of Bush for my own reasons (while mostly agreeing—with a few differences—with him about the Iraq War), his observations about the process and its implications for the Republic (as opposed simply to any single political party) are serious and worth some discussion.

On the lighter side...

Go figure. In Springdale, AR, right down the road from us, a guy won a local race after backing out and not campaigning. He "withdrew" too late, so his name was on the ballots. He won the race and has decided he'll serve, anyway. In Nevada, tied races can be settled by drawing cards, and that's exactly what happened in one county commissioner race this year. At least it wasn't settled by a game of "Texas Hold 'em" poker... [heh]

Bush Country

Here's a graphic (courtesy of USA Today) of the number of counties that went for each candidate for president in this year's election. Solid red means the ALL the county's precincts went for Bush; the Blue, for sKerry. When the loony left moonbats talk about Bush winning in "flyover country" they apparently mean almost the entire country... Gee. Maybe they ought to be required to "connect the dots" to obtain a route through the foreign land they deride. It'd sure stop them flying coast-to-coast. [heh] From the USAToday page: Square miles of counties won Bush 2.51 million Kerry 511,700 Population (2003) of counties won Bush 150,9 million Kerry 103.6 million

Funding the "Evil Party"

A correspondent named "Jim" quoted on Jerry Pournelle's MAIL page observed, today: "... the Republican Party is the party of the societally secure and the Democratic Party is the party of the societally insecure. Other than its thin crust of anti-American liberal elitists, the hard core of the Evil Party are "dependents"--"lifetime-net-tax-users", while the hard core of the Republican Party are "lifetime-net-tax-payers". Taxing the latter to buy the votes of the former has been the strategy of the Democratic Party since the days of the Great Society, and it was affordable due to the huge bulge of Baby Boomers of the Productive Classes entering America's labor force just when LBJ launched that initiative." And the "Evil Party" suckers the "Stupid Party" to fund votes for the "Evil Party" year in and year out... No wonder the "Stupid Party" is the classic insiders' nickname for the GOP. Note to President Bush: no compromise. You won; they lost. Make the "Evil party" comply with the will of the people.

The Eye of the Beholder

This is—obviously—a picture, a mosaic, of President Bush, composed of "pixels" made up of faces of service personnel who have died (supposedly in combat) in Iraq. Although there are a few more than 1,000 who have died in Iraq, total, since not all those are combat-related and the composer of the pic used nearly 1,500 faces, we can assume that more than a few were used more than once. Nevertheless, depending upon the eye of the beholder, it is either a moving tribute to the heroic actions of our troops or (as the artist, "American Leftist" intended) a scathing criticism of Bush's policies. I saw it as a moving tribute to the troops... CLICK here to go to a page where you can download a large sized copy of the pic, if you wish. (h.t. to Michelle Malkin for the link.)