Citizens
Military veterans US Army Sgt. (Ret.) Dan Nevins, left, and North Carolina National Guard SSgt. (Ret.) Dale Beatty, look on as former President George W. Bush tees off during a practice round in the two-day Warrior Open tournament at Las Colinas Country Club, in Irving, Texas on Sunday, Oct. 9.
Former President George Bush hosted the Warrior Open golf tournament this past Sunday in Irving, Tex.
The competition for wounded veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, gave Bush the opportunity to interact with soldiers. While Bush has had few public appearances since leaving office, showing his support of the U.S troops has been one of his priorities. In April, he hosted Warrior 100, a similar event where he biked 62 miles (100 kilometers) with injured servicemen. -- PhotoBlog - Bush tees off with wounded veterans
Scratch what I said about trying to become more cynical below. This is a man who knows how to be an inspiring leader.
1) She's going to attend a Marine Ball with a real Marine. (Yes, contrary to malicious rumors she's going to be there.)
2) She's exposed (in passing) the unremitting failures of Communism:
GQ: Your new movie is called Friends with Benefits. Ever been in one of those relationships?
Mila Kunis: Oy. I haven’t, but I can give you my stance on it: It’s like communism—good in theory, in execution it fails. Friends of mine have done it, and it never ends well. Why do people put themselves through that torture?Having been born under Communism she probably has, through her family at least, some understanding of how awful it is.
3) Her forthright and patriotic actions give me an excuse to post more hot pictures of her.
Caption: [Note the unusually tall man at rear with tie pattern .... This photo is taken in the principal space of the Situation Room complex.] President Barack Obama talks with members of the national security team at the conclusion of one in a series of meetings discussing the mission against Osama bin Laden, in the Situation Room of the White House, May 1, 2011. Gen. James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is seen on the screen. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
CIA John Who Hunted Osama bin Laden Photos
CIA John was at Alec Station for many years, maybe for all its existence. Then after Alec Station was allegedly dissolved in 2006, he probably moved to the CTC and on to the NCTC, chasing OBL with a bevy of cohorts. There may still be a hidden remnant of Alex Station at Gloucester (or the nearby Stafford building) -- the CIA never fully joins with the other natsec players, just pretends to do so, keeping its hardcore CTC going in contempt of PR-driven NCTC.
HT: Iconic Photos
Ann Barnhardt:
"The Obama regime continues to illegally impose “laws”, edicts and executive fiats that are in direct violation of the Constitution and of fundamental human rights, and they have declared their intention to impose more of these intrinsically invalid laws, such as disarmament laws. And it isn’t just the Obama regime. These sorts of tyrannical “laws” are being passed all throughout the land. Valedictorians are forbidden from praying or mentioning God in their speeches. A National Cemetery has forbidden the utterance of the word “God” during FUNERALS. The good people of Chicago are forbidden from arming and protecting themselves and their families. A police chief has been fired for refusing to attend a musloid “worship service”. A bank is forced by regulators to remove all Christmas decorations. The federal government through “Obamacare” intends to tax human beings on their EXISTENCE by demanding that they either buy a specific service commodity or pay a penalty tax.
"I don’t marvel at the actions of these Marxist usurpers. They are entirely predictable. What I marvel at is the unending parade of Americans who simply roll over and comply with these violations of their human rights. People, you don’t have to comply with laws that are intrinsically in violation of your human rights. I don’t care what the superintendant says, if you want to give glory to God and witness to His love and His centrality in your life in your graduation speech, then Kid, YOU DO IT. And if they cut your mike, well then you just SHOUT IT AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS. Make them physically drag you off the stage if that is what they want to do, and then put it on YouTube. If you want your Dad to have a Christian burial at the National Cemetery, then YOU DO IT. Make them arrest you, your family and the clergyman for daring to utter the word, “God”. -- Barnhardt.biz - Commodity Brokerage
Mark Steyn on Free Speech at the IPA from Institute of Public Affairs on Vimeo.
If you didn't like the Health Insurance videos, you'll hate these. The truth hurts sometimes.
More sense about health insurance in 15 minutes than you've heard from politicians of all parties in the last 15 years.
Barnhardt from the prologue: "I would like to restate for the record how disgusting it is that I am the person apparently who has to be the voice of logic and reason and obvious common sense for a nation of 310 million people....
"Who the hell am I? I am not well educated. I have an undergraduate degree in Animal Husbandry which I consider to be nothing more than a formality. My real education consists first and foremost of real life experience and the responsibilities and performance demanded therein, which is nothing rare, along with an Amazon.com Prime account.
Continued...[Bumped due to popular demand]
"I'm not addicted to oil.
I'm addicted to being able to drive into town on my own schedule. I'm addicted to being able to haul home a week's worth of groceries with two little kids in tow without having to wait for the fucking bus with eighty pounds of filled plastic bags in my hands. (That's disregarding the fact that I live out in the sticks, and the nearest bus stop is four miles away, which is one hell of a hike with the aforementioned two little kids and week's worth of groceries.)
"I don't give a shit what kind of substance I have to put in the tank of the minivan to feed that particular addiction. I don't care about oil. If my minivan ran on distilled cow piss, I'd fill up with distilled cow piss. If they ever come up with an electric minivan that goes the speed limit on the Interstate, accelerates to highway speeds in less time than a geologic epoch, and doesn't need to be recharged every fifty miles with electricity that comes from a coal-powered plant anyway, I'll gladly buy one of those and deep-six the old combustion engine. -- Marko @ the always entertaining and often correct munchkin wrangler.
The always brilliant but today luminous Chris Muir explains the deeper meaning of the latest sex scandal at Day by Day Cartoon by Chris Muir. Like Sarah Palin's letter this is well worth sending around.
It is unlikely that many of us will be famous...
Continued...D-DAY, JUNE 6
"Good will always prevail, but there is no limit to the amount of suffering that will be required for that victory to occur. If men stand up early on, the suffering will be minimized because it will be spread over many people. The worst that might happen is that some folks go to bed scared for a while, but widespread bravery will allow good to prevail without much suffering. If, however, there is a decided lack of courage displayed by a large group or society early on in an advance by the powers of evil, that aggregated courage requirement will be borne by a relative few at a later time. The longer this goes on, the worse it will be for the few who have to bear the weight of the cowardice of the broad society." -- Ann Barnhardt
"Full victory - nothing else." On D-Day, 67 years ago, this was what was done...
Continued...Geert Wilders (Dutch pronunciation:born September 6, 1963) is a Dutch politician and leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV), the third-largest political party in the Netherlands.
Background: Trial of Geert Wilders
As the spectacle of a man being tried for speaking the truth about Islam comes to its end in the Netherlands, the accused continues to assert that the accusations of “hate speech” that have been made against him are baseless — the problem is that Islam is an ideology of hatred.Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV), has been on trial in Amsterdam on the accusation that he was “inciting hatred and discrimination” against Muslims. It appears, however, that not even prosecutors believe Wilders to be guilty of the charges against him. -- Trial of Geert Wilders Nears Verdict
Speech with Sub-titltes. Text in the continued section. HT: Ann Barnhardt.
Continued..."Every day you'll see the dust (Too much, the Magic Bus)
As I drive my baby in my Magic Bus (Too much, the Magic Bus)
I want it, i want it, I want it, I want it ..."
(Click all images to enlarge)
It was a darkening and stormy night in New Hampshire. As I was leaving dinner in Portsmouth this evening, I drove down a street and there it was, Palin's Ride. It was, as they say, hard to miss and I took the opportunity to pull over, get out, and take some close-up pictures to share with my readers.
Palin, as it turned out, was off somewhere on the New Hampshire seacoast at a New England clam bake -- or so it was rumored. In the meantime, her bus was sending out her message loud and clear: "One nation. Under God. With Liberty and justice for all."
This would be in stark contrast to the current message being broadcast from the White House: "Many diverse groups pretending to be one. Under someone who has no divinity but a lot of gall. With liberty and justice for a few favored groups and individuals."
I'd be proud to ride in Palin's bus.
Continued...
Hello, my name is Ann Barnhardt and I am the person who says the things that everyone else is too terrified to say.
This is the speech that I was going to deliver in Boston today, May 15, 2011 had a facility been available to me. Unfortunately, no facilities were willing to host my speech, sponsored by Rabbi Jon Hausmann, because I was deemed to be “hateful”, “bigoted” and “potentially violent”. Well, we’ll see about that.
In this speech we are going to cover a lot of intellectual and theological ground. I tend to set my goals extremely high, and this speech is no exception.
iOwnTheWorld has an interview with the outspoken Ann Barnhardt.Barnhardt is the person who made the videos seen here yesterday at Koran Burning Page by Evil Page: Ann Barnhardt Lays It All on the Line. Some excerpts:
iOTW - Have you been a political activist in the past and were there particular issues, apart from Islam, that you focused on?
Ann – I am not a political activist. I am the owner of three small businesses who looked around two and a half years ago and said, “Oh, HELL no.” Politicians make me ill. I can never and will never be a politician. For the last two to three years I have been focusing heavily on explaining and exposing Marxism, Islam and the fraud that is Obama. But that is triple-redundant, isn’t it?
Continued...Dear Friends,
Though we seem to agree so little these days, surely we must agree that in the pantheon of our Presidents, from the honorable and brave of old to the craven and corrupt of today, Abraham Lincoln is one of the few we all revere. Knowing that I direct your attention to his Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address when on the eve of civil war and caught in the vortex that swirled before that long fire in men's minds, he still held out his hand:
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.Lincoln knew, as we know, that citizens with the best of intentions can still be used by politicians with the most rapacious of intents. There's no shame in that. It is only human.
We too have been ill-used by many of those politicians we have trusted even if we have not been so ill-used as your trusting souls and easily gulled credulity have of late. We have had our Nixons and our know-nothings in our turn as well. We share, even though we are at times ashamed to admit it, you embarrassment of being taken by the bright and shining lie.
Still, there is nothing for it now except to make your wrong turn right. Slogans and bamboozling have fogged your minds. It is time now, as this essential election approaches, for you to get your mind right; to return to your right mind.
A mind is a difficult thing to change. I know this well having struggled with it and paid the price in property, position, and lost friends. It can be done but it cannot be done overnight. My fellow colleagues who have come late to their right minds can sometimes expect too much of you. They expect you to travel ten leagues beyond the wide world's end in the time a reasonable person can only attempt a city block.
There is a middle way for this November and I urge you to consider it.
If you have read this far you know that this looming election must be one in which the nation, without ambiguity, rejects the ruinous path on which it has been set by an administration and congress that is nothing short of monarchical in its structure and tyrannical in its aims. Power is too much in the hands of a criminal establishment with only the ruin of the nation as its goal. We see it in every action. We hear it in every speech. We feel it daily as we walk about our streets.
For the system of a democratic republic to sustain itself, it must check and balance power. Surely we all remember that from our school days -- "the system of checks and balances." For nearly two years now we have witnessed the unappealing spectacle of a system which has no balance and no effective check upon it. The result is a machine with no governor on its spending, its intrusiveness, its ability to cripple our economy, to weaken our armies, and to -- by removing itself from effective diplomacy -- destabilize the world. All history tells us, as our own ancestors -- no matter what their origins -- would tell us that this situation inevitably and invariably ends in guns. If not here, elsewhere in the world. If not now, later.
I implore all of you of good heart and clear sense to help us begin to restore checks and balance to our nation in November. Help us check this monarchical disaster and balance the ship of state.
It may well be that your own heritage and background may be such that it is anathema for you to vote against any candidate the Democrats may see fit to offer. I know that feeling well. It is not something cast off in a day, a week, or even years. The conditioning starts early and is continued in family, school, and work for many decades. It is not easily broken.
There are two alternatives.
The first is quite simple. Vote with your absence. Stay home on election day. Cast no vote. Let us carry the weight. We shall do so. As a wise man once said, "Sometimes the best action is to do nothing."
The second is nearly as simple and answers to the call of duty in a democratic republic which is to vote whenever you have an opportunity to vote. All this entails is to remind yourself that when you are in that voting booth, you are sovereign and your ballot is what strong ballots always are, secret. Knowing that and holding that as the single secret that can keep the blessings of liberty for yourself and your posterity, step into that booth and this time, I implore you, vote right.
Sincerely,
Gerard Van der Leun
HT: Porretto who writes, "Finally, a YouTube video that deserves to go viral."
Make it so.
Time to be great again.
Imagine coming home to this: George W. Bush makes surprise visit to U.S. troops
Neoneocon found this commenter’s cri du Coeur deep inside the Washington Post’s long stream of comments castigating the Journolist quislings it still keeps on the payroll. I've corrected the spelling and punctuation and added paragraphing for pacing. Otherwise I have changed "Syoung809132001" words not one whit.
These words are long, strong, worth reading and absorbing. This is Whitman’s “barbaric yawp sounded over the roofs of the world.” This is an American Citizen speaking, and it is the sound and sign of Democracy awakened. It is the voice of the people betrayed:
I urge the new Republicans who are now running to reach out to the unions. We are weary. We know we are a big part of the problem and we are ready to compromise and work together.
Hell, I used to buy all of the spin. I am guilty of doing too little research and just toeing the party line because I was too busy. I’ve got plenty of time now. I’ve got plenty of will now. To say I regret all of the above doesn’t do it justice.
However, as a penance for the error of my ways, I am willing to take any kind of pay cut, benefit cut, furlough, whatever just to be able to feed my family and not have to worry about the bills and the roof over our heads. I am willing to cut whatever corners are necessary, learn whatever new skill is required to just get people working again.
If I never have to hear the words GREEN JOBS from my governor’s mouth again I would fall on my knees in gratitude. Fancy ideas, cotton candy spun dreams do not materialize into real paying jobs.
Our entire state of Michigan was sacrificed to the green job pie in the sky promise. Michigan now resembles a third world country. Whatever it takes, with whatever party candidate who has a realistic, adult answer will get our union votes.
Best post written in the month of July:
Here is what I am trying to tell you: the country is not ready for conservatism. It flirts with it, as it did with the Bush'es and Reagan, but doesn't fight for it. It sits in a stupor while some goofball from Chicago openly and consciously kills the constitution. No, ladies and gentlemen, you are not the men and women your grandparents hoped you would be. Your old man "didn't get his seed back", as my Dad used to say. -- What to Do? - Washington Rebel
File under: All. Read it.
It's only human to want to fix blame for the slobbering disasters that have befallen the United States of America since November, 2008. The problem is to know exactly who is to blame.
Fortunately for us, the solution to our problem is simple: Glenn Reynolds.
Not only is Reynolds to blame for this fine mess, he has confessed it in public over and over again. Herewith, although his sins are both numerous and multiple, I have collected a mere 39 of his confessions . As he freely, but as yet without forgiveness, acknowledges Reynolds has caused all these things and more by casting his 2008 vote for John McCain.
These are those confessions -- IN HIS OWN WORDS! -- by which he stands CONDEMNED! As you can see there is almost nothing that has happened in the Obama years that Reynolds is not directly responsible for (Except, perhaps, Michelle Obama's recent nip and tuck. Developing.).
Consequently this summer's full series of the Orwell Network's "Two Minutes Hate" will be focused on Glenn Reynolds exclusively.
Gentlemen, start your loathings!
Continued...An amazing moment. This is your antidote to Helen Thomas and all of her ilk.
"Herman Cain lead a Q&A session at the Douglas County Tea Party when a young woman asked him about the attack by the Left on our Judeo-Christian heritage in America...He addressed her question, then went to the last question of the night, and the crowd was not expecting what happened next..."
[HT: “Oh! Thus be it ever…” - Maggie's Farm]
| Gov Christie calls S-L columnist thin-skinned for inquiring about his 'confrontational tone' |
Dear Lord, please let us elect a host of men and women like this to every office in the land. And, dear Lord, please let them all crush the insects of the media as completely as this one is crushed:
Via Matt Rooney @ The Save Jersey Blog who writes:
The antics of liberal columnist Tom Moran (and the anti-Christie curmudgeon Paul Mulshine Moonshine) are topics of regular discussion here at Save Jersey. Until now, however, no one else has had the intestinal fortitude to put them in their place except for your beloved and revered Blogger-in-Chief.
Then came along Governor Christopher J. Christie! Check out the INCREDIBLE (and entertaining) exchange he had with Moran at yesterday's "33 bills" press conference. When was the last time we saw a Republican elected official display this much backbone with the media, Save Jerseyans? Not since Reagan...
Makes you want to move to New Jersey just to campaign and vote for this man.
HT: James Simpson
"It's time for a king again, a Papa Joe or a Ho-Chi-Minh...."
Pass it on.
[HT: iOwntheWorld ]
American Digest commenter Nicole was wondering: "I was listening to that (Leonard Cohen song) with my mom and aunt. We all thought it was particularly appropriate for the times. Wonder why someone in a Tea Party group hasn't picked it up?"
We'll get there.
"I'm stubborn as those garbage bags that Time cannot decay,
I'm junk but I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet..."
I've often described online discussions and essays as "Brain Jazz." Like a lot of modern jazz one musician (writer) riffing off another can be irritating. But when it works, when it comes together, brain jazz can be transcendent. An example coming off my RSS stream this morning is when Stuart Schneiderman of the wonderfully titled therapist's page "Had Enough Therapy" takes up Victor David Hanson's latest essay Reflections on the Revolution in America and "free associates" on Hanson's theme with Revolution or Coup d'Etat? As readers know I always try to note a new essay by Professor Hanson with a quote or a link in the sidebar. But this morning, Schneiderman takes it, as they say, up a few notches with his own insights. A sample:
As I was reading ["Reflections on the Revolution in America"], a thought popped into mind-- that, after all, is the definition of free association--- and that thought was a book: The Russian Revolution by Richard Pipes.
Harvard Professor Pipes wrote a long, difficult, extensively documented tome to demonstrate that the Russian Revolution was not really a revolution. It was not about what Hanson describes as: "the abject poor and starving storming the Bastille." Not at all. According to Pipes the Russian Revolution was a coup d'etat, an overthrow of the government by a small group that arrogated all power to itself in the name of the poor and the starving.
The Russian Revolution was not an uprising of the proletariat against their capitalist masters. It was not a Hegelian rebellion of slaves against their masters. All of that is mythology, well suited for philosophy and literature classes but having little to do with reality.
In the Russian Revolution a small group that thought it knew what was best for everyone took power in the name of the working class and the peasantry.
So, where Hanson calls what is happening in Washington today a revolution, he is more clearly describing a coup d'etat. As long as we understand that a coup d'etat does not have to be violent, but can easily use the mechanisms of government to subvert the system, we have no problem grasping what is going on.That's just the lead in to a longer reflection on what to call the current "Cosa Nostra" moment unfolding in the capitol.
You might want to read Hanson's Reflections on the Revolution in America before reading Revolution or Coup d'Etat? But either way, they'll enhance your day.
Continued...This May Be the Greatest Campaign Web Video of All Time
"In California’s GOP Senate primary, Carly Fiorina released a web attack ad against Tom Campbell that is being called “psychedelic.” I think it’s destined to be remembered as a classic. It combines what sounds like the soundtrack to “The Exorcist,” a narrator who sounds like he's imitating Morgan Freeman with the stratospheric dudgeon of Keith Olbermann’s “Special Comments,” and then the grand finale: evil, menacing, vaguely cybernetic sheep with glowing red eyes. Two minutes and thirty seconds into the video, you will be screaming, “What the hell is that?!?” and reaching for any available firearms." -- Jim Geraghty
What can I say? Around here, it's just all videos all the time lately. It's a great thing that folks everywhere are starting to use original videos as the attack dogs of alternative media. Keep it up and it won't be so "alternative" any more.
Come to think of it, it's not. It's "Citizen Media."
The Post-American Bandstand with Pat Boone. Yes, Pat Boone.
In which the Founding Fathers rock the house world! Amazing.
Glenn Beck is good on TV but his real genius blooms on the radio. Here he takes on Chris Matthews' racist statement,"I forgot Obama was black for an hour," and riffs it into shreds.
"Boy this surgeon that was doing the surgery on me was so unbelievable I forgot he was black for an hour."
"I was talking to my pharmacist behind the counter, and he was such a nice guy I forgot he was black for an hour."
HT: The Morgan.
A question that will grow more poignant with every passing disaster.
"A year ago President George W. Bush left the White House. Since that time the unemployment has nearly doubled, the national deficit has tripled, government has grown in leaps and bounds, and the current president has blamed his predecessor for every problem he has encountered. President Obama even blamed George Bush for the Coakley loss yesterday in Massachusetts." -- Gateway Pundit
Abraham Lincoln? "He freed the slaves." Ronald Reagan? "He won the Cold War." George Bush? "He kept America safe." Barack Obama? To date.... "Putz."
Whew! That was not even close. Now I can take a break from politics for a bit and get back to slapping around the idiots of the media and the blogsphere for a bit.
This post by NeoNeoCon sums up the present state of play in the Republic right now:
Continued...For the record: Scott Brown's remarks at his victory rally. Note that he only mentions "Republicans" and "Democrats" once, as those that he will work with. All else is "independents" and "the people."
Thank you very much. I’ll bet they can hear all this cheering down in Washington, D.C.
And I hope they’re paying close attention, because tonight the independent voice of Massachusetts has spoken.
From the Berkshires to Boston, from Springfield to Cape Cod, the voters of this Commonwealth defied the odds and the experts. And tonight, the independent majority has delivered a great victory.
If you're in Massachusetts and you've got a vote coming, go get it. Here's some traveling music.
Arrows of neon and flashing marquees out on Main Street.
Chicago, New York, Detroit and it's all on the same street.
Your typical city involved in a typical daydream
Hang it up and see what tomorrow brings.
Dallas, got a soft machine; Houston, too close to New Orleans;
Boston's got Scott Brown and beans; vote or it won't let you be, oh no.
You can never go wrong by spending some time each week browsing Jerry Pournelle's The View From Chaos Manor, an effort he describes as, "Think of VIEW as my column on the installment plan, but there are major differences; here you see what happens as it happened."
Pournelle is an eminence gris of computers (They continue after all these years to vex him.), science fiction and history. He's got a keen sense of the novel and the classical. This morning is no exception. View 604 January 4 - 10, 2010
Western intellectuals used to share far more common education -- novels, familiarity with myth and legend, Iliad and Odyssey and Aeschylus and Sophocles and -- ah, well. There is a great deal of more modern stuff that we must know now, and perhaps a neglect of the classics was an inevitable result of all our modern scientific discoveries. Jacques Barzun told a story of the days in the 19th Century when Harvard instituted the Bachelor of Science degree; something new at the time. It did not guarantee that its recipient knew any science, but it certainly guaranteed that he would know neither Greek nor Latin... Today's graduate can add history and philosophy to those guarantees; all of which makes communication more difficult. If I say David and Goliath most readers will understand the reference and the image of the underdog winning; but the days when there were thousands of such colorful images for a writer to draw on in the sure knowledge that the reader would understand are long gone. Alas. I am not sure we are the better for it.A smart man and a fine American. Recommended. (And don't miss his "Daily Mail" feature to see what his fine collection of correspondents is highlighting.)
Pure. Political. Gold. How golden is it? Watch him say it.
“Promise, big promise, is the soul of an advertisement.” -- Samuel Johnson
Ways to start winning. Excerpts from Restoration Weekend's Lunch Keynote with Newt Gingrich. Important messages: "The combination of Obama, Pelosi and Reid is creating the most decisive moment since the 1850s."
Continued...Scott Brown is running for Ted Kennedy's Senate seat against a Democrat party hack. He's getting within striking distance. Neonocon makes the case. And I say "Hey, Massachusetts, isn't time you voted for someone you can stand to look at for a change?"
In the AMERICAN DIGEST comments on "Afghanistan: The Failure to Plan Is "The Plan"" reader BGR asks:
"What can we do to stop him? What can I do to fight the hordes of people who agree with Obama? Whatever are we to do?I cannot take much more jawboning. We all know the score. What good do we do by talking to one another night after night, day after day, lamenting the truth that we see?
The invaders are taking over and we are just chewing the fat?"
And... a few comments later... Askmom answers:
Continued...
Kimberly Munley, the police officer who shot the Fort Hood gunman, with the country singer Dierks Bentley.
"Prayers and thanks flooded the apparent Twitter feed of Sgt. Kimberly Munley, the civilian police officer hailed as a hero for stopping the shooting rampage at Fort Hood.
"One admirer sent a “bear hug.” She “is one outstanding brave cop!” another wrote. And from a third: “thank you for stopping that mad man.”
"The Twitter feed includes what appears to be a photo of Sgt. Munley. Sgt. Munley, 34 years old, was credited by Army officials with firing the bullets that brought down Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who allegedly opened fire in the base’s Soldier Readiness Processing Center on Thursday afternoon.
"Survivors described the scene as chaotic: the lone gunman spraying bullets in all directions, unarmed soldiers falling, screaming, scrambling to respond. Many soldiers ripped off their uniforms to use as tourniquets; others ignored their own injuries to help those more gravely wounded.
"Lt. Gen. Bob Cone, the top commander at Fort Hood, said Friday that Sgt. Munley and her partner responded within three minutes of reported gunfire. Gen. Cone said Sgt. Munley shot the gunman four times despite being shot herself. “It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer,” he said.
-- Police Sgt. Kimberly Munley Hailed as Hero After Fort Hood Shooting - Dispatch - WSJ
How it went down:
Kimberly Munley, a 35-year-old police officer, happened to be nearby, waiting for her squad car to get a tune-up, when she heard the commotion. She raced to the scene, according to her boss, Chuck Medley, director of emergency services on base.As she rounded a corner, she saw Maj. Hasan chasing a wounded soldier through an open courtyard. He looked as though he was trying to "finish off" the wounded soldier, Mr. Medley said.
"He looked extremely focused," said Francisco De La Serna, a 23-year-old medic who had fled the building and was watching the same scene unfold from a hiding spot across the street.
Ms. Munley's first shot missed Maj. Hasan. He spun to face her and began charging, Mr. Medley said.
The time was 1:27 p.m., just four minutes after the initial 911 call.
Authorities haven't said precisely how many shots were fired during the running gun battle between Maj. Hasan and Ms. Munley. But one of her shots hit Mr. Hasan in the torso, knocking him to the ground. With that, officials say, she quite likely prevented more injuries or deaths on the base.
Ms. Munley took two bullets to her legs. Both entered her left thigh, ripped through the flesh and lodged in her right thigh. She also received a minor wound to the right wrist. -- Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan Kills 13 in Shooting at Fort Hood Army Base; Suspect in Stable Condition - WSJ.com
No wonder the left hates Walmart. The company feeds more people more for less than any socialist system you can imagine today.
"As shoppers evaluate the impact of tight budgets on holiday meal planning, beginning today Walmart will feature select 12-pound turkeys for less than $5, helping families serve a complete Thanksgiving meal for eight this year as low as $20.*
“We’re proving that we’re committed to helping moms afford the holidays in these tough economic times,” said Jack Sinclair, executive vice president, groceries, Walmart. “That’s why we’re offering incredible pricing on the turkey and all the fixings.”
A turkey dinner for eight as low as $20
According to a survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation, last year’s average cost of a turkey was roughly $1.19 per pound. Beginning today, select Grade A turkeys are available for 40 cents per pound at Walmart.* These gobblers are part of Walmart’s $20 Thanksgiving menu guaranteeing family favorites will be on the dinner table this holiday season. Walmart’s $20 Thanksgiving feast includes:
* One 12-pound Grade A turkey*
* Three 11 to 15.5-ounce cans Green Giant vegetables
* Two 14-ounce cans Ocean Spray cranberry sauce
* Three 6-ounce boxes of Stove Top stuffing
* One 5-pound bag of red potatoes
* One 12-count package of Sara Lee dinner rolls
* One 22-ounce pumpkin roll cake
-- Walmartstores.com:
Like a fine wine, Julia's personality and just continues to improve with age. (The science not so much)
"Today I've turned my kitchen into a bio-chemical laboratory." Julia Child cooks up a batch of primordial soup and explains how these simple ingredients produce amino acids - the building blocks of life. (via airandspace)
Yesterday the German news magazine Der Spiegel published in SPIEGEL ONLINE an interview with Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post, one of the most influential conservative commentators in the United States. The result is an interview of over 4,000 words giving us in-depth look at Krauthammer's thinking and observations that we'd never see in the American news media. Since a wide-ranging interview of this length is a rarity in any medium, I'd urge you to read the entire piece. It will give you a sense of the Krauthammer's wide-ranging intellect that you can't get from newspaper columns and brief television appearances. That said, here are a few choice excerpts:
On the Nobel "Prize"
SPIEGEL: Mr. Krauthammer, did the Nobel Commitee in Oslo honor or doom the Obama presidency by awarding him the Peace Prize?Charles Krauthammer: It is so comical. Absurd. Any prize that goes to Kellogg and Briand, Le Duc Tho and Arafat, and Rigoberta Menchú, and ends up with Obama, tells you all you need to know. For Obama it's not very good because it reaffirms the stereotypes about him as the empty celebrity.
SPIEGEL: Why does it?
Krauthammer: He is a man of perpetual promise. There used to be a cruel joke that said Brazil is the country of the future, and always will be; Obama is the Brazil of today's politicians. He has obviously achieved nothing. And in the American context, to be the hero of five Norwegian leftists, is not exactly politically positive.
Emerging Powers?
Krauthammer: The Chinese are rising, the Indians have a very long way to go. But I'm old enough to remember the late 1980s, "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" by Paul Kennedy and the prevailing view that America was in decline and Japan was the rising power. The fashion now is that the Chinese will overtake the United States. As with the great Japan panic, there are all kinds of reasons why that will not happen.
Wars of Necessity, Wars of Choice
Krauthammer: The phrase "war of necessity and war of choice" is a phrase that came out of a different context. Milan Kundera once wrote, "a small country is a country that can disappear and knows it." He was thinking of prewar Czechoslovakia. Israel is a country that can disappear and knows it. America, Germany, France, Britain, are not countries that can disappear. They can be defeated but they cannot disappear. For the great powers, and especially for the world superpower, very few wars are wars of necessity. In theory, America could adopt a foreign policy of isolationism and survive. We could fight nowhere, withdraw from everywhere -- South Korea, Germany, Japan, NATO, the United Nations -- if we so chose. From that perspective, every war since World War II has been a war of choice.
The Obama "Doctrine"
Krauthammer: I would say his vision of the world appears to me to be so naïve that I am not even sure he's able to develop a doctrine. He has a view of the world as regulated by self-enforcing international norms, where the peace is kept by some kind of vague international consensus, something called the international community, which to me is a fiction, acting through obviously inadequate and worthless international agencies. I wouldn't elevate that kind of thinking to a doctrine because I have too much respect for the word doctrine.The full interview is HERE.
[HT: Wheat & Weeds: But He Could Be Re-Elected Anyway?]
You just have to love John Nese and spend 12 great minutes with a great American businessman. As Chow.comtells it:
John Nese is the proprietor of Galcos Soda Pop Stop in LA. His father ran it as a grocery store, and when the time came for John to take charge, he decided to convert it into the ultimate soda-lovers destination. About 500 pops line the shelves, sourced lovingly by John from around the world. John has made it his mission to keep small soda-makers afloat and help them find their consumers. Galcos also acts as a distributor for restaurants and bars along the West Coast, spreading the gospel of soda made with cane sugar (no high-fructose corn syrup if John can avoid it).No high-fructose corn syrup? Yes, yes, and yes! High-fructose corn syrup is perhaps the single most invidious ingredient in super-market foods. When I scan ingredients and see it on the list that item goes back on the shelf. It's not only calories consumed to no purpose, it's calories that taste crummy.
I've been dining out lately on the incredible difference between Mexican Coke (sane cane sugar) and the swill passed off as American coke (high-fructose corn crapola). It's true and you can taste and feel the difference with one sip. As a result I am very pleased to listen to this high-priest of boutique sodas, a man who knows what he's talking about.
Here's a few choice quotes pulled from the video:
Corn syrup is totally unnecessary. Why would you use corn as the sweetener? Once a year Coca Cola makes a kosher Coke. It's got a yellow cap. Try it side by side with the regular Coke. The one with the cane sugar just goes pop! And it explodes and it's delicious., The one with the corn just goes fzzzzt.....
"Energy drinks? UGH! Energy drinks just taste bad."
"Big business loves big government. It just uses it to take over the market and then jack up prices."
"What I always wanted to do was to do business with other businesses my size."
"People still come in looking for RC Draft which was a soft cola. Very smooth."
"Coke and Pepsi love recycling. It gets them out of ever have to wash a bottle. If we really cared about the environment you'd have 're-use' and not 'recycling.'"
Re-use rather than recycling. I guess he's hip to the ever expanding glass mountains accruing at municipal garbage dumps around the nation since, surprise, it's cheaper to make glass from sand that to recycle it. Men like Nese should be in government rather than the substandard toads, right and left, that currently infest it. But then again, no. If he did we'd be out one really great soda store and that is just not worth it.
[UPDATE: Yes, Nese's Galcos Soda Pop Shop lets you buy on line for shipping to your parched home address. Check out Galco's Soda Pop Stop for details. ]
"Americans voted for 'change' in the last election. They didn't vote for 'surrender. " A bookend to the video of Penn Jillette is this hard jolt of sense from Pat Condell. He lays out how the forces of darkness now are chipping away at the First Amendment.
Continued...
"I sat on TV, while my hero Tommy Smothers yelled in my face how pissed off he was at me for appearing on Glenn Beck. It broke my heart. "
Portrait of a man trying to come to terms with friendship versus the truth.
Continued...Americans at Their Very Best: Why this isn't clocking upwards of a million views on YouTube is beyond me. Stick around for the slo-mo instant replay.
"This pie fight was held the day before my sister's wedding to celebrate the occasion. In all, 78 pies (54 Lemon Meringue and 24 Boston Cream Pies) were disposed of in approximately 78 seconds! "
Today we all love saying "Massive ordinance penetrator" six times swiftly. US giant bunker-buster bomb project rushed since Iran's Qom site discovered 28 September @ All Things News Function?
15-ton super bunker-buster bomb (GBU-57A/B) Massive Ordinance Penetrator, which can reach a depth of 60.09 meters underground before exploding.Here's the team of "Can do" Americans that made it all possible. Applause please.
Now I'm not saying George W. Bush doesn't love America. He clearly does. And I'm not saying he's the kind of man who takes pleasure in watching his successor slowly pinned and wriggling on the wall. He probably doesn't. ("Karl, what say we let that doofus with the Howdy Doody ears win the next one? It'll be good for at least another decade of those Pelosi losers eviscerating themselves. Put up... oh... I don't know... that McCain character. He's so dim he'll actually think it'll be an honor.")
And I'm not saying he likes watching prestige, power, wealth, and lives slowly being drained out of the body politic. He clearly loathes it. And I'm not saying that he's the sort of guy that say's "I told you so..." when he hasn't. He doesn't have to. Everyone except the most besotted core of Obamallationists knows the deep and sucking morass that is enveloping the Wunderkind with every passing day.
I'm just saying that sometimes, late at night on the ranch in Crawford, George W. Bush has to wander out onto the land and wonder....
Continued..."Obama is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is the Obama interest." -- Apologies to Churchill
Spare a moment for Mary Travers, 1936-2009. We shall not see her like again.
She could touch your heart...
and she could turn you on with a signature hair flip. (:32)....
Continued...Citizen and patriot Andrew Brietbart, the man behind Breitbart News, Breitbart.tv Big Hollywood, and now Big Government.
The Always Trenchant Jim Treacher commenting on the four-day-old Big Government: "I don't want to say Andrew Breitbart is a genius, but the last guy with a launch this successful was Neil Armstrong."
Andrew Breitbart: Hear him now and hear him later.
"An environmental impact statement (EIS) under United States environmental law, is a document required by the National Environmental Policy Act for federal government for ps3 users agency actions "significantly affecting the quality of the human environment."[1]
It's difficult to think of a "policy" more likely to impact "the quality of the human environment" than the current behemoth of a bill before the congress. We've had press conferences and postings, meetings and punditocracy without number. We've not seen the background documents used to create this legislation except in a few leaked memos. Nor have we seen a summation of those documents except in a few descriptions offered by the President or the boosters of the bill in speeches or declarations. These are inadequate. There's another way; an extant process. One that the government is already set up to produce....
Seattle's Mayor Gregory "Greg" Nickels (D) admits you won't have him to kick around anymore.
After a surprising primary in which the two-term mayor of Seattle ran third, the Mayor has bitten the bullet:
Nickels bows out; spotlight shifts to Mallahan, McGinnWith his re-election prospects dimming by the day, Mayor Greg Nickels conceded Friday morning that he had lost the primary election. It's a stunning defeat for the two-term incumbent....
It's also a stunning opportunity for me to launch, at last, my fiendish plan for Seattle by taking advantage of the opening and having myself elected as Mayor. Here's my platform from 2007. I'm still convinced it's a winner.
Continued...Desire Grover is making sense out of Gates' stupidity.
Or, "Gosh, he has rediscovered the 20's and Hugo Gernsback." -- Chuck
Sixteen provocative minutes with "the man who helped usher in the environmental movement in the 1960s and '70s has been rethinking his positions on cities, nuclear power, genetic modification and geo-engineering. This talk at the US State Department is a foretaste of his major new book, sure to provoke widespread debate." -- Stewart Brand proclaims 4 environmental 'heresies' | Video on TED.com Recorded June 2009.
"I will go around the country on behalf of candidates who believe in the right things, regardless of their party label or affiliation," she said over lunch in her downtown office, 40 miles from her now-famous hometown of Wasilla — population 7,000 — where she began her political career. "People are so tired of the partisan stuff — even my own son is not a Republican," said Mrs. Palin. -- Palin to stump for conservative Democrats - Washington Times
Humm, sounds like Governor Palin may be casting an even wider net than I supposed the other day in: How Sarah Palin Will Become the Most Powerful Republican
A little night music from my channel at Blip.
Set List:
♫ Bob Dylan – Forever Young
♫ Van Morrison – Queen Of The Slipstream
♫ Bob Dylan – What Was It You Wanted
♫ Gretchen Peters – American Tune (live)
♫ Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – Grandpa Was a Carpenter
♫ Eva Cassidy – People Get Ready
♫ The Band – Ophelia
♫ Bryan Ferry – A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
♫ Yardbirds – Stroll On
♫ You Got Another Thing Coming
♫ Talking Heads – Life During Wartime
♫ Natalie Merchant – Carnival (LP Version)
♫ Richie Havens – I Was Educated by Myself
♫ Ben E. King – Stand by Me (Single/LP Version)
♫ David Bowie – Heroes (1999 Digital Remaster)
♫ America – A Horse With No Name
♫ Roll Me Away-Bob Seger-(Lyrics and Song)
♫ Linda Ronstadt – Life Is Like a Mountain Railway (2006 Digital Remaster)
♫ Van Morrison – You Don't Pull No Punches, but You Don't Push the River
Pamela at Atlas Shrugs says Happy Birthday Irving! And so say we all.
Berlin originally wrote the song in 1918 while serving in the U.S. Army at Camp Upton in Yaphank, New York.
I窶况e been with the Charleston Daily Mail for 24 years, the last 21 as an editorial writer and columnist. The National Society of Newspaper Columnists named me the best columnist in the land, under 100,000 circulation, in 2000.
Jules Crittenden
Jules Crittenden ｻ About
Jules Crittenden is a Boston Heraldeditor and columnist who has reported on politics, crime, science, foreign affairs, and maritime and military matters in the United States, Asia, the Balkans and the Middle East.
"Imagine if God existed but was sufficiently advanced such that we couldn't identify him for another 1000 years. Where does that leave the scientific atheist?"
Three Kinds of Black: "It turned out that I have no 'own people,' and it's the hardest lesson of all. No black Americans have their own people because we, of all people, have striven the most against being owned. So I keep repeating that question, a basic human question -- when are people going to realize that they don't own people? When are black people going to learn that they don't own black people? When is humanity going to realize that they don't own humanity? I suppose never, which is when we'll all realize at once that we are God's children -- and we don't even really know God. The alternative belief is more comforting and wrong."
Liberal Structuralism: Overwrought laws implemented by overlarge government bureaucracies for overspoiled children who cannot manage their own affairs independently, like individuals of piety and industry. So long as people will be petty and unable to resolve their differences on their own, there will always be lawyers and laws springing up to fill the vacuum of common sense and decency. Listen for the herald cry: 'There oughta be a law'.
On Listening to Rudyard Kipling's Rolling R: The reader of the audiobook reminds us of a time when the English language was closer to something it oftimes seems unable to convey, which is conviction and respect, even authority. He rolls certain Rs in words for emphasis. It used to be a more common practice to do so, even here in America. Did Dorothy Parker roll the occasional R? I can't imagine that she didn't in the course of her discourse. And so I am remembering Kipling, and Poesy and the discipline and song of adventures into the world, thankful I have been reminded of my great fortune to inherit the language of Liberty.And those are just from the last week.
I've been reading (and sometimes responding to) the essays and short notes of Michael Cobb since before there was a World Wide Web. It began in the stone age of 1200 baud dial-up when we were both members of The Well in the early 1990s. He remains a sane writer with that rare ability to startle me into thought just when I think I must know all he has to say. Sooner or later, he'll do the same for you. His mind is a work in progress.
Many writers run dry, not Cobb. He's never out. He can always "make it new." He's the real deal: a citizen.
From SXSW Interactive 2009 - a set on Flickr at Mike Rohde's Photostream
Condell tells it like it is with A word about the soldiers. The incident discussed concerns a group of Islamic Insects currently living in Britain. These vermin turned out to trash a group of British soldiers returning from Iraq this week. While this may seem to be just about Britain, it really isn't. Works for this country as well.
Condell's You Tube Channel is Here. Well worth subscribing to. I have.
[HT: Daphne @ Jaded Haven]
Of cystic fibrosis, age 41
"At the innermost point of the circle are the things that really matter: family, faith, love. These things stay with you until the day you die. At the very end, because the circle has shrunk down to its center, they’re all you have left. But as we approach that end, we finally realize that all along, they were what mattered most. As a consequence, life often remains beautiful and worthwhile right up until the end." Dean Barnett in "The Plucky Smart Kid with the Fatal Disease: A Life with Cystic Fibrosis""Not fare well,
But fare forward, voyager."
Here's 15 minutes of the brilliant Clay Shirky putting the present day in perspective for you. He centers on what to do with all your extra time to make it both valuable and transformative. What free time? How quickly we forget what life was like less than 200 years ago -- or 50 years ago for that matter.
"When all of the rest of the civilized world, as well as the Marxist world, was tossing God into the dustbin of history, Solzhenitsyn realized that only God really matters. He chided the West for embracing materialism and forgetting God, a lesson that is just as true today as thirty years ago." - Bruce Walker, "Death of a Giant"
A Titan. We shall not see his like again. In his incisive summing up, Bruce Walker at American Thinker correctly notes, " Alexander Solzhenitsyn is dead. It is a testament to the banality of our times that most people probably do not know what that means. Since the end of the Second World War there have been a very few truly great men. Out of those tiny few, fewer still have combined a great mind with a great soul."
Continued...
GILLIGAN TO MILLIONS, he'll always be Maynard G. Krebs to me: Bob Denver, TV's Gilligan, dead at 70.
In general, I don't find myself identifying with television characters. They are, after all, characters on television. But I do recall that, as a teenager stuck in the trackless suburbs of Sacramento waiting to get out of high school and into the University so my life could begin, Maynard G. Krebs was my first and last television-induced role model. I idolized this character. I had the grey sweatship with the sleeves torn off and a couple of holes I put in it myself. I had the bongos (Hey, nobody's perfect.), and I had the attitude.
Continued...BOB PARSONS, THE BIG DADDY OF GODADDY, gives us a fascinating pocket biography of his life and what he's learned in “Robert, they can’t eat you!” My rules for survival. An ex-marine, his is not your standard dotcom success model, but, come to think of it, few are. Especially interesting are his rules to live by. My favorite three are grouped together:
You could do worse than taking this quick course at the Parson's School of Business.8. Be quick to decide. Remember what the Union Civil War general, Tecumseh Sherman said: “A good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect plan tomorrow.”
9. Measure everything of significance. I swear this is true. Anything that is measured and watched, improves.
10. Anything that is not managed will deteriorate. If you want to uncover problems you don’t know about, take a few moments and look closely at the areas you haven’t examined for a while. I guarantee you problems will be there.
Texas to New Orleans and Back: The Truck That Could
HE DECIDED TO NOT JUST SIT AROUND: Lone Star MVPA - ('05 Hurricane Katrina Experience). One Man's Account from "The Lone Star Military Vehicle Preservation Association"
Excerpts:
Continued...
Yon on the Job
IT'S BEEN SOME DAYS SINCE MICHAEL YON POSTED, but his blog has undergone a redesign and has an improved look and feel. Added to the page is a forum for general remarks @ Open Forum: Michael Yon in Iraq with Yon's note:
Continued...
And the answer is....
There are about to be several million words written and published about Johnny Carson but Will Collier at Vodkapundit pretty much says it all in 97 words:
I really feel sorry for people who weren't old enough to see and appreciate Carson while he was still on the air. He was just So. Damn. Good. His successors, on every network, are decidedly pale reflections, and I doubt any of them would seriously argue that Carson was head and shoulders above anybody else who's ever hosted a talk show, anywhere. His blend of great good humor, high taste, low comedy, and refusal to condescend to anybody, regardless of who they were or where they came from, almost certainly can't be duplicated in today's mass media.
N.Z. Bear types for me in Memo to the Left:Time's Up
Alright kids. It's been over a full week now. I left you alone and let you have your pity-parties. Hopefully you've had a good long sulk and gotten it out of your system.Continued...But now, it's time to get your asses back to work. You might not expect me to be saying this, but here's the bulletin: this country needs you.
BEST OF SHOW AT THE BANTERIST today is the latest in his series Grammar Cop.
Complaint: Abuse of the homophone "flair" - a misdemeanor, but not a hate crime; making error permanent by printing it on 80# card stock; placing error behind acrylic shielding so as to prevent correction; placing error in a high visibility location. Additional charges: Blather in the Second Degree in the form of a nonsensical paragraph; failure to capitalize "Asianesque" as required by law.I find this "Banterist" theme a bracing restorative whenever I despair of our civilization.[See below] It reminds me that even in our darkest hours of linguistic genocide, there are those who still seek to enforce the law.
Their silence keeps me sleepless for I know
Within the smoke their ash revolves as snow,
To settle on our skin as fading stars
Dissolve into pure dust at break of day.
At dawn a distant shudder in the earth
Disclosed the fold of fire into steel,
The rumbles not of crossings underground
But screams from out of flowers built from flame.
We stood upon the Heights like men of straw
Transfixed by flames that started in the sky,
And watched them plunging down in deaths ballet
To land among those dying deep below.
By noon the band of smoke leaned low
Upon the harbors skin like some dark shawl,
A pall of smoke that in its curdled crawl
Kept reaching to extend its fatal fall.
The harp strung bridge held up ten thousand souls
Whod screaming run beneath the paws of death,
As dusted ghosts that lived but were not sure
They lived in light or only in reprieve.
Theyd writhed and spun within a storm of smoke
And stumbled out to light and clearer air,
To find upon the rivers further shore
That sanctuary is not savored but secured.
The sirens scraped the sky and jets carved arcs
Within a heaven empty of all hope,
And marked its epicenter with one streak
Of black on polished bone where silver stood.
By evening all their ash had settled so
That on the leaves outside my window glowed
Their souls in small bright stars until the rain
Cleaned all that could not be clean again.
We breathed the smoke that bent and crept and crawled.
We learned to hate the smoke that lingered so.
We knew that blood could only answer blood,
And so we yearned to go and not to go.
That last, lost summer faded into ash
Their faces faded as endless autumn flowed
Through chill and heat into the winter sea
Where warships prowled in search of stones.
Within the city, shrines were our resolve.
We placed them where we stood or where they lay.
Upon our bricks and stones their faces loomed
To gaze at us from times beyond repeal.
In time, their ash and smoke became the shapes
Of stories told at dinner, found in books,
Or in the comments made by magazines
For whom the larger issues were of worth.
At first their faces faded with the rains,
The little altars thick with wax were scraped,
But now beneath clear plastic they endure
To remind those passing that weve not escaped.
Their silence keeps me sleepless for I know.
41st Street, Manhattan, June, 2002, 6:30
They seek a dedication
No passion prints on stone,
Their reverie -- of clouds.
Their benedictions -- moans.
Not one can name their masters,
Nor indenture's date reveal,
Doomed to ride the animal
That runs within the wheel.
What do you make of the 9-11 commission?
Victor Davis Hanson: Nothing like it is all bad or all good. Investigations, if done properly and timed right, are, of course, essential for a democracy. But look at this present politicized charade.
Televised grandstanding; hearings sometimes held in places like Greenwich Village; former Clintonites who need to be questioned for their own laxity now questioning others (who will police the police?); a jeering gallery; generals summoned from the front to sit and be hectored; and bad timing since we are in the most critical moment in Iraq as the handover nears.
It all reminds me of the Athenian Assembly during the last phase of the Peloponnesian War when the mob adjudicated critical negotiations and always came to the wrong and ultimately fatal decision.
The most recent hair-splitting over Saddam and al Qaeda was pathetic. We all know Zarqawi was close to bin Laden and was treated in Baghdad; we all know that al Qaedists were encouraged to attack Kurds in Iraq. Add the still strong possibility that Atta was in Prague and that Saddam knew a great deal about the first World Trade Center, and the statement of the New York Times that there were no "ties" is really shameful. Saying al Qaeda and Saddam had no relations is like saying Milosevic knew nothing about the Kosovar and Bosnian holocausts. Mr. Clinton would have none of it -- and neither should we now in Iraq.
Again, the New York Times headlines say it all.
-- Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers
Now, I could have been a doctor
Helping the sick
And I could have been a lawyer
But you know that ain't my stick
'coz I feel so bad
If a patient didn't do well
And I feel just as bad
To leave a client in jail
And that is why
That's why I chose
I chose to sing the blues
Now a man has a lot
That he could present
Just to think I could have been
President
But I can't understand
What politicians say
So I wanna talk to you
In my own little way
And that is why (that is why)
That's why I chose (that's why I chose)
I chose to sing the blues
-- Ray Charles, "I Choose to Sing the Blues
THIS WEEK, THE BODY OF RONALD REAGAN will be flown to Washington for a state funeral. Following the ceremonies, the body will be returned to Caifornia. I imagine it has already been discussed and decided one way or the other, but speaking only for myself, I think it would be a fine gesture if Reagan travelled west on Air Force One.
UPDATE:
" Today and tomorrow, Mr. Reagan will lie in repose in the main lobby of his library in Simi Valley, Calif. He will then be flown to Washington with his family aboard the plane usually used as Air Force One. "
-- Reagan's state funeral
We note that for an airplane to be officially designated as "Air Force One," the current President of the United States must be aboard.
UPDATE: Reagan Makes First, Last Flight in Jet He Ordered
WASHINGTON, June 10, 2004 : The blue-and-white presidential jet that brought the flag-draped coffin of former President Ronald Reagan to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., on June 9 is an aircraft he ordered before he left office - but this was his first ride in it.
Reagan ordered two identical Boeing 747s to replace the aging presidential Boeing 707s he traveled in as president. First lady Nancy Reagan designed the interior decor of the planes in a style reminiscent of the desert Southwest.
One plane was delivered shortly after Reagan left office. President George H.W. Bush, in September 1990, was the first leader to fly in one of the new planes.
"Whatever else history may say about me when I'm gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears: to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty's lamp guiding your steps and opportunity's arm steadying your way."
-- President Ronald Reagan, 1992
The spirit of Ronald Reagan, released from the prison of his body,
this day, 2004.
"I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith."
-- Timothy 2:4:7
STEPHEN DEN BESTE says clearly what most people of good will already know:
The implication that heroes are unusual, better than the rest of us, is wrong. Most real heroes are not extraordinary men; they are ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances.And they know it, which is why they do not brag. They may have been heroes, but they saw many others be heroes. They know they are not extraordinary.
Uncommon valor is a common virtue. That's why hundreds of firemen charged into the WTC towers on September 11, 2001, and died there. And after one tower collapsed, that's why the firemen in the other tower did not flee, and in their turn also died.
Real heroes know that decorations are only given to those who were lucky enough to be heroic while someone important was watching. Real heroes will have seen many other heroic acts which were never acknowledged by anyone, except by the other members of the team. And ultimately that is the only acknowledgement they truly value, for only their teammates really understand what they went through.
A man who brags about his heroism is no hero. And the men who served with him will know it.
From -- The price of heroism
STEPHEN DEN BESTE says clearly what most people of good will already know:
The implication that heroes are unusual, better than the rest of us, is wrong. Most real heroes are not extraordinary men; they are ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances.And they know it, which is why they do not brag. They may have been heroes, but they saw many others be heroes. They know they are not extraordinary.
Uncommon valor is a common virtue. That's why hundreds of firemen charged into the WTC towers on September 11, 2001, and died there. And after one tower collapsed, that's why the firemen in the other tower did not flee, and in their turn also died.
Real heroes know that decorations are only given to those who were lucky enough to be heroic while someone important was watching. Real heroes will have seen many other heroic acts which were never acknowledged by anyone, except by the other members of the team. And ultimately that is the only acknowledgement they truly value, for only their teammates really understand what they went through.
A man who brags about his heroism is no hero. And the men who served with him will know it.
From -- The price of heroism
THIS LINK: STRENGTH (part 1) NOW.
THIS LINK: STRENGTH (part 2) NEXT
DAVID ENDERS IS A 23-YEAR OLD American spending his time as a "freelance journalist" in Iraq. His Learning Lessons of War on the Streets of Baghdad includes an interesting list of things his university somehow failed to teach him:
How to clean and fire an assault rifle. My co-workers and I had one in the house for "protection," though I'm not particularly sure what I would have done had we been in trouble. I've been encouraged, by Iraqis and foreigners, to carry a pistol as well, but can't bring myself to do it. I was robbed by the police (three of them, one of me); the neighbors killed a pair of looters on our front lawn; looters threatened to kidnap me. That, and the fact that unknown assailants are shooting at reporters, all drive home the futility of owning an assault rifle and having no intention of using it.Proper etiquette at checkpoints, American or otherwise. Even though I speak American English, I often thought the soldier was waving me through a checkpoint, when what he really meant was, "Stop or I'll put lots of holes in you and your car, [expletive expletive]!"
[snip]What to do when you're at a news conference and Donald Rumsfeld won't call on anyone but the pool reporters. It's frustrating, being the youngest person at a news conference. Rumsfeld seems to call only on the faces he recognizes, and I wasn't one of them. I considered throwing my shoe or trying my professor's tactic of simply interrupting, but I figured all the Special Forces guys in attendance would arrest me. So I never had the chance to ask the question I've been dying to know the answer to: "How can you say things are going well when people are shooting rockets at the airport before your plane lands ... sir?"
How to recognize and identify various unexploded bombs and munitions. For a short time, a land mine sat on the sidewalk outside our office, and we often saw other types of explosives lying about. And let's not forget the ones people keep planting in the roads and in front of buildings.
[snip]Making other people comfortable with my activities. "No, it's OK, Mom. That explosion wasn't anywhere near our house. No, everyone's fine. What am I eating? I'm eating Iraqi food, Mom. It's good. Lots of oil."
Determining who wants to kill me and who doesn't. "Where am I from? France. Good to meet you, too."
FROM ONE SOLDIER'S PHOTOLOG ON YAFRO:
"On the far right is a true American Hero! I want to tell you about my friend. His name is First Lieutenant Dave. Dave was the type of officer who looked after his men all the time. He had all the attributes you wanted in a leader. He was selfless, led from the front, caring, hard, tactically and technically proficient, and above all a friend. He was the man you wanted with on your right when the bullets were flying. I was engaged in a firefight with him in May and he was the bedrock of stability. He led his platoon calmly and with experience. He showed me what an officer should be. On the night of October 18, 2003, he was leading a resupply convoy when his vehicle was directly engaged with rocket propelled grenades and well aimed small arms fire. Immediately his gunner was killed by the initial onslaught. Dave was hit in the femoral artery. The vehicle hit a berm and pinned the driver underneath the front wheel. Dave immediately exited the vehicle and returned well aimed fire in order to destroy the enemy. Despite his wounds, he moved around the vehicle and freed the pinned soldier. He then moved the vehicle away from the area. He then returned fire onto the enemy prior to collapsing from his wounds..By this time, a reaction force was on site in order to kill the enemy. He fought hard and led the way saving the lives of his fellow soldiers. Dave was killed doing his job. He is sorely missed by his comrades. He was a fine man, leader, and friend..You will never be forgetten!! RLTW He is on the far right of this picture with his hand on his hip."
-- italyjumper's Yafro Moblog
WITH THE NATIONS FAUX INTELLIGENTSIA still reeling from shame-shock-horror, and the Hounds of the Blathervilles in full cry for Donald Rumsfeld's head on a pike, the likelihood of the picture above being seen on the front pages of the "leading" newspapers, or at the top of the news on any of the network news shows approaches absolute zero. After all, just what is the story here? Why should it be of interest to the Americans these news organizations supposedly serve?
The story concerns a medal given to a Marine: Marine Receives Navy Cross. The marine in question is Capt. Brian R. Chontosh. Chontosh -- an unusual name, one that should be easy to search. But go to Google News and search for Chontosh. The hits are meager to say the least. As of this writing, there are eleven. To put this in perspective, a search for Kerry Medals returns 1,680 references from Google News while Iraq Prisons is a bonanza of reports and commentary -- 8, 660 to be precise. With such an overwhelming glut of news why should any news organization feature a story about the Navy Cross being given to a Marine? Whats that story got, anyway?
The story is this:
Chontosh, 29, from Rochester, N.Y. , received the naval service's second highest award for extraordinary heroism while serving as Combined Anti-Armor Platoon Commander, Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom March 25, 2003.Try to imagine, for only a moment, what those actions entail. Try to put yourself, if for only a moment, on the ground and in the boots of Capt. Chontosh. Try to envision what it is to walk down a trench filled with people whose only mission is to kill you. They number more than 20. You are one. They are all armed. You have one rifle and one pistol. When you run out of ammunition, you have to take up the arms of the enemy. You dont know if they are loaded or to what extent. But you keep going. In time, after you have killed 20 soldiers and wounded others, the shooting finally stops. Somehow, you are still alive. Somehow, your comrades are still alive. For now.
While leading his platoon north on Highway 1 toward Ad Diwaniyah, Chontosh's platoon moved into a coordinated ambush of mortars, rocket propelled grenades and automatic weapons fire. With coalition tanks blocking the road ahead, he realized his platoon was caught in a kill zone.
He had his driver move the vehicle through a breach along his flank, where he was immediately taken under fire from an entrenched machine gun. Without hesitation, Chontosh ordered the driver to advance directly at the enemy position enabling his .50 caliber machine gunner to silence the enemy.
He then directed his driver into the enemy trench, where he exited his vehicle and began to clear the trench with an M16A2 service rifle and 9 millimeter pistol. His ammunition depleted, Chontosh, with complete disregard for his safety, twice picked up discarded enemy rifles and continued his ferocious attack.
When a Marine following him found an enemy rocket propelled grenade launcher, Chontosh used it to destroy yet another group of enemy soldiers.
When his audacious attack ended, he had cleared over 200 meters of the enemy trench, killing more than 20 enemy soldiers and wounding several others.
Could you walk down that trench? I couldnt. I know all the usual answers: training, duty, responsibility to the men under your command. None of them really answer the question, do they? Call it courage and hold your manhood cheap if you cannot begin to match it.
But you heard nothing about it, did you? You heard, instead, about the sadists until you couldnt stand to hear any more and then you heard more. You heard about the man from an ancient war who did or did not toss medals away until you couldnt care about it less and then you heard more.
If you were unfortunate enough to read the words of George Will, professional spinster, this morning, you read his handy guide to S&M:
Americans must not flinch from absorbing the photographs of what some Americans did in that prison. And they should not flinch from this fact: That pornography is, almost inevitably, part of what empire looks like. It does not always look like that, and does not only look like that. But empire is always about domination. Domination for self-defense, perhaps. Domination for the good of the dominated, arguably. But domination.Thats what the Washington Post brought you this morning. Why? Because you havent had your nose rubbed in this enough yet. How does George Will and the Washington Post know this? Because it would seem that, as of this morning, Donald Rumsfeld still has his job. Thats what is important to the writers and editors of the Post and the other leading news organizations today. The prison story with its tops and bottoms and naked images that can be run in the paper with a little discrete blurring here and there is important to these organizations because it is something they can understand. Its permissible porn and they like it, they really, really like it. Indeed, it would seem that George Will likes it a little too much.
--No Flinching From the Facts (washingtonpost.com)
Courage, though, real physical courage that requires a man to put the lives of his comrades above his own life, is beyond the shrunken moral scope of those whove spent the last week grinding out every last drop of rancid, phony outrage out of the Iraq Prison centerfolds they been displaying. Outrage and shock may have been permissible and even correct at the outset of the incident, but now doesnt it seem as if theres an element of perverse enjoyment creeping into the whole thing?
I began this comment thinking that it was an outrage that a report on the heroism of Capt. Brian R. Chontosh wasnt deemed worthy of comment by the leaders of the leading news organizations of the United States.
Ive changed my mind.
It is they who are not worthy of him.
===
UPDATE: More on this remarkable man at Bob Lonsberry: SOMETHING THAT DIDN'T MAKE THE NEWS
Still more at: BLACKFIVE: Captain Brian Chontosh - Someone You Should Know
Glenn Coggeshell is running for congress at The Lord of the Political Rings
The battle for middle earth has begun
In Washington DC."I fight not for what is gained, I fight for what can be lost."
With the choices we're getting , it is obviously time to send a Tolkien fan in. It might be just the ticket. At the very least, we can say "Now, he's really ready to cut the fat out of government."
Excerpt from the entire letter via The Conservative Cajun
"And oh by the way, we do have some common ground. I'm with you on not sending jobs out of the country. I have been against NAFTA since it's inception and believe it should be repealed."Now having said that I have an idea how you can help bring jobs back into the United States.
"Why don't you have your wife talk to the folks who run Heinz Foods and
get them to move all their factories into the U.S.A. since the lion's share of them are in foreign countries? That ought to help some."
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The Choice: A Scion or a Bastard
They will elect either a candidate with a famous father or with no father. The surviving serious contenders—Barack Obama, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney—all exemplify one of these two categories. For the seventh consecutive election, the winning candidate will be either a privileged prince with an adored, powerful patriarch, or an up-from-nothing scrapper with no relationship with his biological dad. -- Michael Medved: Presidential Fathers and Sons - WSJ.com
Gay Choice? Yet More "Settled Science" That Is Becoming Unsettled
who were very loosely defined as “exclusively or mostly” homosexual. He claimed to find a pattern in a specific region of the X chromosome that such brothers seemed to disproportionately share. This was widely trumpeted in the media as the landmark discovery of a “gay gene.” But Hamer and others failed to subsequently replicate his results. In fact, a 1999 Canadian study contradicted them. Hamer is a gay man who has reportedly stated he hoped his research would help end intolerance toward homosexuals. He also later claimed he’d discovered the “God gene,” so take whatever he says with a grain of DNA. --Homosexuality: What’s Choice Got to Do With it? - Taki's Magazine
Beardski: Just the Thing for the Coming Global Ice Age
Have you ever wondered where your Flying Car is, now that you live in the Age of the Jetson’s, dear reader?
When civilization abandoned institutional Christianity for liberalism, then abandoned Christian notions of decency and individualism for socialism, and then abandoned Christian notions of chivalry and truth for political correctness, and then abandoned Christian notions of the objectivity of truth, beauty and virtue for the roaring abyss of nihilism, civilization lost the engine and motive of its progress. When you stopped calling yourself sons of God and started calling yourself naked apes, you stopped climbing Jacob’s Ladder toward the angels, and slumped instead toward the jungle where Nature red in tooth and claw holds reign. -- Futurism and Shoepiles | John C. Wright's Journal
Where Christian virtues fail
"May I suggest that this is not a rejection of the Tea Party,"
Inside The Ridiculously Complicated Process Of Buying A Super Bowl Ad
And now football, like Madonna, is over...
"Then there's the other Republican Party. "
that can be settled amicably behind closed doors. It is uninterested in bipartisan great compromisers, it seeks fighters who will stand up for its agenda. It is not interested in the progressive voyage to the national future that has been taken up by both parties, what it would like is independence from their reign of policy terror. It would like to roll back the progressive policymaking of both parties. --Sultan Knish a blog by Daniel Greenfield RTWT!
Piltdown Man: Another Case in Which "The Science Is Settled"
those shards of skull were part of a scientific scam that completely fooled leading palaeontologists. For decades they believed they were the remains of a million-year-old apeman, an individual who possessed a large brain but primitive jawbone and teeth. --Piltdown Man: British archaeology's greatest hoax The Observer
"If you were an Iranian subscriber to the Post who works at Iran's "Interests Section" inside the Pakistani embassy in Washington, what would be your considered judgment? "
I think you'd end up saying: "We can't compete with the Krauthammers. They are better than us at putting together words. Therefore we can't guarantee that the ruling class in Washington won't work itself into another frenzy like it did in 2003 and do something stupid. So, we'd better get ourselves a few nukes as a deterrent." --Steve Sailer's iSteve Blog: The Great Game ain't so great anymore
The Summing Up
Citizens of Slab City
soul-searching Gypsy Kids who arrive by train with little more than the ragged clothes on their back, Spaz Kids and their electro-psychedelic outdoor parties, and Scrappers who risk life and limb to collect shrapnel from the gunnery range that flanks the camp, where Navy SEAL teams train year-round (and where rumor has it they prepared for the Osama bin Laden raid). That's to say nothing of the rowdy bikers who pass through, or the meth-addled loners on the outer edges inclined to greet a trespasser with a gunshot. -- Slab City: Living Off the Grid in California's Badlands
Big Wind: For Dummies, Chumps, and Greens
it becomes very difficult to support big wind power on any basis whatsoever. Unless, of course, you are a big developer or investor in government subsidised wind farms. In that case, there are $billions to be made, without the need to provide any useful power to the public, whatsoever. A neat scam, if you can live with yourself. Just ask Warren Buffett. --Al Fin Energy:
"There are new monsters in America, and I am starting to wonder whether I am to be considered among them: "
the never deserving of respect ones, the Vegas junketeers, the Super Bowl jet setters, the tuition stealers, the faux-Christians who do not pay higher taxes, the too much income makers, the tormenters of autistic children, the polluters, the enemies deserving of punishment, the targets to bring a gun against, the faces to get in front of, the limb-loppers, the tonsil pullers, the fat cats, the corporate jet owners, the one-percenters, the stupidly acting, the not paying their fair sharers, the discriminators on the âway you lookâ, the alligator raisers and moat builders, the vote deniers, the clingers, the typical something persons, the hunters of kids at ice cream parlors, the stereotypers and profilers, the cowards, the lazy and soft, the non-spreaders of money, the not my people people, the Tea party racists, the not been perfect and mistake makers, the disengaged and the dictating, the not the time to profiteers, the ones who did not know when to quit making money, and on and on. My God, man, how did Barack Obama & Co. conjure up so many demons? -- Works and Days » Are You "Them"?
Even a Nun Might Say, "Jesus Christ it's cold in Europe!"
And the Sammy Hager Award Goes to McCain for "You Idiots, Get Out of My Way!"
but evidently they’re issuing drivers licenses to people too stupid to understand that rule, who are probably also too stupid to figure out that passing a semi-truck might require use of the accelerator pedal. (Trust me, idiot: It’s down there on the floorboard of your car, probably somewhere on the right side.) If there were any justice in the world, state troopers wouldn’t be laying radar traps for guys doing 82 mph in a 65 mph zone, but would instead be issuing tickets to slow-moving idiots who take more than a few seconds to pass a semi-truck. -- Hate Hoax Busted by Cop’s Dash-Cam (Also: You Idiots, Get Out of My Way!) : The Other McCain
"Spoiler alert! Living in San Francisco with her gay male BFF blogging the existential ennui of being unmarried was my tip-off."
Change is nothing but the status quo
considering how predictable change has become. (Does anyone dispute at this point that, for example, gay marriage will soon be legalized, most likely by the courts?) Political action must address this change, must figure out where it stands relative to that change and act accordingly; if it limits itself to addressing the present, it may end up misdirecting its energy, addressing issues that will soon resolve themselves by pure inertia and ignoring issues for which the direction that inertia will eventually drive them in has not yet been decided. --Anonymous admits its irrelevance
The One-Check Education Bill in the United States
If Newt wasn't steeped in envy, spite, and self-pity he wouldn't have to empty his drool cup so often
"They outspent me five to one to quote destroy Newt Gingrich?" Gingrich said in an interview on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer." "You know, I think that doesn't deserve congratulations. I think that's reprehensible, I think it's dishonest, and I think it's shameful." --Gingrich: Romney didn’t deserve congrats – CNN Political TickerSigh. The person who doesn't deserve congrats for the regularly scheduled destruction of Newt Gingrich is.... Newt Gingrich!
Strange Apparatus
Nerd Valentines
The Dead Cities of Syria
Between the cities of Aleppo and Hama there is a limestone massif and it is here these ancient settlements were built by their once prosperous peoples. The area is about thirty kilometers in width yet is several times longer – extending to almost 140 kilometers in length.... An extensive and fascinating photo essay @ Kuriositas
10-Year-Old Accidentally Creates New Molecule in Science Class
to visualize simple molecules to his fifth-grade class. But Clara put the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen atoms together in a particular complex way and asked Boehr if she'd made a real molecule. Boehr, to his surprise, wasn't sure. So he photographed the model and sent it over to a chemist friend at Humboldt State University who identified it as a wholly new but also wholly viable chemical. -- | Popular Science
In which Warren Buffet wraps up his national tour of intellectual drooling and presidential fellatio with bunny ears
The ritual ends with a photo shoot. Each student gets to take two pictures with Mr. Buffett. The first one is a serious shot, the second is a funny pose of their choosing.Would the ritual ended with sepaku for the hilariously named "Sage of Omaha."
If he's talking about prayer we know he's lying. On the other hand....
Obama: 'I have fallen on my knees with great regularity' - Investors.com
Record 1.2 Million People Fall Out Of Labor Force In One Month, Labor Force Participation Rate Tumbles To Fresh 30 Year Low
So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non institutional population increased by 242.3 million meaning, those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million. Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30 year low of 63.7% as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation. -- | ZeroHedge
Caesar Commands the Jews Eat Pork, Quakers Join Army, Amish Get i-Pods, Christians Burn Incense
Kinder, Gentler Embroidery
O’Sullivan’s First Law: Any institution that is not explicitly right wing will become left wing over time.
It is a fresh reminder that the left fully absorbed and adapted the Brezhnev Doctrine: once they capture an institution, they aren't giving it up. How dare a private foundation stop coughing up the dough. It explains why "diversity" means conformity to liberal views in newsrooms, college faculties, and Hollywood studios. It's why the left reacts with howls of outrage every time you propose reducing taxpayer funding for NPR and PBS, even as the left disingenuously argues that NPR and PBS receive only a "tiny" amount of tax subsidy. It should also remind us how the left will fight every battle to shrink government like it was Verdun. Which suggests one obvious conclusion if you're an incoming Romney Administration: go big. Go after everything at once. -- | Power Line
DIANA WEST: An Interesting, In-Depth Interview
Diana West, discusses her weekly online column syndicated in over 100 newspapers nationwide. She writes about cultural and political issues from a self-described conservative viewpoint. She talks about some themes in her columns, including the spread of Islamic law throughout formerly non-Islamic areas of the western world and her opposition to the war in Afghanistan.
"Every day we see people championing the pathetic in journalistic essays:"
No one champions the simple strivers, those who take care of themselves and in the process alleviate society of one more charity case, and along the way create wealth via 'gains from trade' implicit in market transactions. A simple prosperous mensch who does not hypocritically claim he primarily works for others is off the radar, implicitly insulting to any intellectual making considerably less than him. The kind of change Murray is talking about will not happen until productive, successful people again feel pride in their distinguishing learned characteristics, including the willingness to shame people who do not have them. -- Falkenblog: Charles Murray Reiterates Willpower
Poor Mitt Romney
I would suspect he has actually done more for the poor than anyone else in the presidential sweepstakes, by virtue of the tithes he has paid to his church and the whopping taxes he has actually paid. While we might carp and squeal about his tax rates, the actual amount of cabbage he has forked over in his career to the federal government must cover a sizable acreage indeed, and we assume that even given the spectacular ineptitude of that same government in distributing assistance to the needy without leakages of Mississippi dimensions into various private spillways and sluice gates, a fair amount of Mitt's earnings must have found its way into the pockets of the deserving. -- | The Daily Cannibal
Commenters Can Be Really Mean
2:00 PM: Golf with Plouffe
5:00 PM: Dinner with the wookie
6:00 PM: Sneak a cigarette
6:15 PM: Watch Oprah on Tivo
8:00 PM: Smoke a joint and have sex with a male campaign staffer
8:05 PM: Done with sex
8:10 PM: Watch the wookie scarf down everything in the White House refrigerator
9:00 PM: Hold the wookie's head as she "purges" her snack
9:30 PM: Watch Ray Maddow fantasize about sex with him
10:00 PM: Pass out
This is the ghetto way of life.
The ones I do are 1) really big-ass black guys with hardcore street cred, 320 pounds and a lot off tattoo chatter on their arm, 2) Mexican psycho dudes with tattoos on their face. See the commonality? Once you etch shit in your face you are telling the world that you have ceased belonging. This is a clear signal of danger. Animals use subtle aromatic spear to ward off predators. Man now uses skin ink. Heavy skin ink. -- Men in East L.A. that scare me ｫ An Unmarried Man
"Fiat, fiat, fiat": Catholics need to declare the president as anathema
Wherefore in the name of God the All-powerful, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, of Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and of all the saints, in virtue of the power which has been given us of binding and loosing in Heaven and on earth, we deprive Barack Hussain Obama himself and all his accomplices and all his abettors of the Communion of the Body and Blood of Our Lord, we separate him from the society of all Christians, we exclude him from the bosom of our Holy Mother the Church in Heaven and on earth, we declare him excommunicated and anathematized and we judge him condemned to eternal fire with Satan and his angels and all the reprobate, so long as he will not burst the fetters of the demon, do penance and satisfy the Church; we deliver him to Satan to mortify his body, that his soul may be saved on the day of judgment.That would pretty much work for me. What about the Catholics among us?
GRAPH #20
"The news. I don’t watch it and I don’t read it."
has exactly the opposite effect. At best, it only helps us think we know things. Doubtful knowledge. Or doubtable knowledge. Which is a hell of a lot worse because that makes us want to hurry up and make a whole bunch of other people think they know it, too. --How Dead Do I Have to Be? « The Dipso Chronicles
YUMM!: 64 year-old tub of lard still 'fit for consumption'
"There is of course a slight lack of smell and taste," sniffed Frerk Feldhusen,
from the office of agriculture, food safety and fisheries in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. However, "all in all, given its level of freshness and its material composition, the product is assessed as satisfactory," Feldhusen said, adding it would stand up to today's definition of being fit for the dinner table. --PhotoBlog -
And then he said, with a straight face, "An Economy Built to Last."
He's going to take ownership of the American economy. Not the real one, but the one he's just made up, "the economy built to last." It won't last long, but long enough. You'd think the best and the brightest would be beyond Mr. Obama's crude populist pitch. You of course would be wrong.... A speech that flopped among Washington's policy sophisticates is soaring out in the country. Republicans had better figure out why. --Henninger: Obama's Maddening, Winning Speech - WSJ.com
Lest We Forget What Day It Is
Looking Ahead to the Election Coverage of 2048
of most working families that they have been forced to switch to chicken, it is time that our opponents stopped dodging the issues and took a serious look at the economic consequences of their policies,” Bashar Mohammed Hussein Al-Hamdani, said during a campaign stop at a HalalBurger in Peoria, Illinois. -- by Daniel Greenfield
'Huffington Post' Employee Sucked Into Aggregation Turbine
sucks up original articles from around the web with its massive rotor assembly, re-brands them with the Huffington Post name, and then spits them back out on the company's home page. Workers said that when the machine ground to a halt at approximately 11:30 a.m., Evers reached inside to dislodge a particularly thoughtful 700-word Christian Science Monitor essay on the unrest in Syria that had become jammed. Apparently unprepared for the aggregator mechanism's quick restart, Evers was gruesomely dismembered by its rapidly spinning blades, which soaked the room in blood and unprocessed news content. -- America's Finest News Source
Mickey Kaus is sure, really sure, that President Zebra is smart, really smart
accepting the choices presented by his aides, never reaching outside them through unconventional channels or reaching unconventional thinkers, never throwing over the framework with which he is presented. .... He’s asked to check a box saying whether he wants to fund his “child nutrition agenda” out of the money for community colleges. … He’s asked about including medical malpractice reform in his health care bill, and writes (“in his characteristicaly cautious and reasonable style”) that “we should explore it.” … He’s presented a plan for a watered-down tax on multinationals or a very watered down tax. He writes “worth discussing.” --What Does Barack Obama Do All Day ? New Yorker | The Daily Caller
“The Colonels lady and Rosy O’Grady are sisters under the skin.”
Cheek implants and fillers were originally designed to offset the ravages of age, when the cheeks can lose subcutaneous fat and droop. But now even the young have them, especially if in the public eye, and the additions are so noticeable and generally odd-looking that they give their bearers an alien yet almost-familial resemblance to each other.
The great mystery of memory is how it endures.
The typical neural protein only lasts for a few weeks, the cortex in a constant state of reincarnation. How, then, do our memories persist? It’s as if our remembered past can outlast the brain itself.
From Furious to Tedious in Under 24 Hours
"Harry Truman, late in life, caught his wife, Bess, burning their letters to each other. "
- Miss Him Yet?
- "A Duty Beyond Memory:" George W. Bush Flight 93 Memorial Speech
- A Still Small Voice Says, "Are Your Kidding Me?"
- Mila Kunis Scores Big This Week in 3 Ways
- Something Wonderful: Mila Kunis Says Yes to Marine in Afghanistan
- Coming Attractions: July 15 for Sure. November 2012?
- CIA 'John:' Is this a photo of the man who really got Bin Laden?
- “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future
- "I'm phobia-phobic:" Mark Steyn on Free Speech
- SAVE THE TUMOR! Ann Barnhardt on the Raw Truth About Social Security & Medicare
- Ann Barnhardt On Health Care and Health Insurance in America Now (Updated with Full Transcript)
- Rant O' the Week: You know what I can’t stand to hear about anymore? That we Americans are addicted to oil.
- "WORD. The West, This Nation, Are All Built on a Man's Word. His Oath, His Honor, His Character."
- F.L. Lucas: The destiny of mankind is not governed wholly by its “stars.”
- On Courage: "I don't want your son to end up laying on some city street with his legs blown off by a Marxist-Islamist-Obamaist RPG bleeding to death because he had to shoulder my personal failure in courage."
- "Here I Stand. I Can Do No Other:" Geert Wilders' Final Remarks at The Amsterdam Trial - English Subtitles
- "Not for Hire:" Sarah Palin's Ride Photographed This Evening in Portsmouth, NH
- Something Wonderful: "Twenty five days before my father died, on my birthday exactly six years ago, he gave me a present.
- Ann Barnhardt: The Boston Speech.
- Ann Barnhardt on Full Auto: The IOTW Interview