I wish that I was born a thousand years ago

Are you normal? Jack Thomas, creator of Non-Normie.com has a simple 100 question test that can help you determine your normalness. Let's check out a few of the questions. Incidentally, each yes answer moves you closer to non-normie-ness, while a no answer indicates that you are normal.

17. Do you work in any of the following occupational fields: nursing, mental health, politics, law, care-giving, social work, teaching, journalism, media, entertainment or religion?

Everybody in those fields is apparently less than totally normal.

38. Do you either: Favor gay marriage? or... Believe that gay people should be arrested for practicing homosexual acts in private?

Again - each yes answer subtracts from your normalness quotient.

43. Do you either: Wear Birkenstocks? or...Regularly wear camouflage outfits?

I guess this one is self explanatory - look down - if you see Birkenstocks, you are not normal.

55. Do you like to mock things or people?

I know I do.

57. Do you either: Believe that feminism hasn't achieved all of its goals yet? or... Think that a woman's place is only in the home, doing a woman's work

Believing that there's still some work to be done in the field of gender equality is not normal.

64. Have you been single for a very long time?

I refuse to answer on the grounds that I might incriminate myself.

85. Do you either: Believe that the United States is imperialistic and should be made to decrease its influence in the world? or... Think that the United States is not imperialistic enough and should spread its influence even further?

It's normal to think that the United States is doing everything right, apparently. Stupid eyes, stop looking at Iraq.

Here's a final one, out of order.

33. Do you pathologize normal behavior (look upon normal behavior as being abnormal)?

When it comes to Mr. Thomas's definition of "Normal" I sure as hell do. And I doubt I'd be alone. I took the test, incidentally, and came up with a score of 25% - I'm normal but borderline.

Of course here Mr. Thomas is pretending to be even handed, but when you get into his Non-Normie of the day feature you find out which political philosophy he has declared Normal, and what philosophy is good for us non-normies.

Incidentally we are continuing our post titles as being lyrics from songs - all of yesterdays and todays lyrics share a common theme - how many songs can you guess and what's the theme linking them together?

A lazy little tear running from each eye, they could never be blue

Are you normal? Or to put it another way, are you a normie? Or a non normie? Well if you don't know the answer to this important question, there's a website you should check out. It's called Non-normie.com. This website is apparently dedicated to promoting normalness.

This is not a web/blog site for whackos. This is a web/blog site for normal people, which exposes the psychologically driven non-normal people who haunt and affect your daily life, in business, politics and personally, unless you live in a cave. You cannot get this information from any other source-because it simply doesn't exist.

Yes Jack Thomas alone possesses the information you need to fight against the wierdos out there. Jack Thomas, owner of the website, chosen by God to expose non-Normals, many of whom are motivated by delusions of grandeur.

I could be at this website for a while.

Anyway Mr. Thomas is promoting a vision of normalness that existed sometime in the 1950s and then mostly on television. He's written a string of posts highlighting the Non-Normie of the day, and he has a quiz which will help you determine your normie-ness. Both of those pages deserve some examination. So expect some more insights from Jack Thomas on what makes people normal.

desperation, dislocation, separation, condemnation, revelation, in temptation, isolation, desolation

David Limbaugh's latest article takes Senator Barbara Boxer for her rudeness to Condoleeza Rice. What is said rudeness? I'll reprint it here for you to gasp at.

Who pays the price? I'm not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old and my grandchild is too young. You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family. So who pays the price? The American military and their families.

What rudeness. Apparently reminding the Secretary of State that the American Military and our Soldiers are paying for her and President Bush's war is very rude.

Limbaugh dives into the chicken hawk argument - i.e. that Conservatives who haven't served should shut up because they haven't served. That's an oversimplification of what Democrats actually say, but it's easier to argue against, so most Conservatives stop there.

It's understandable why Limbaugh would want to shift the terrain of this debate from what Ms. Boxer actually said to the theory that by saying it, she was telling Rice to shut up.

What this really boils down to is the antiwar left's intolerance for dissenting opinions and their propensity to make decisions on an emotional, rather than logical basis. If you don't agree with them, you either aren't listening -- another charge Boxer leveled at Rice -- or you don't have the right to opine.

This is nonsense. Of course Rice and Bush and Limbaugh all have the right to opine. But if you opine you have to expect to have your opinions challenged. That's America, Mr. Limbaugh.

I will note parenthetically that Limbaugh posts on the same page as Ann Coulter, who's made it very clear what she would like to see happen to Liberals in America. And she says things a lot more direct that Ms. Boxer.

I do want to go back to Ms. Boxers statement at the beginning though, and remind us all why David Limbaugh wants to confuse this issue. The military is paying a price for the decisions that President Bush and Secretary Rice and others made. They were bad decisions. And David Limbaugh himself has been a tireless supporter of those decisions. I don't doubt that Bush and Rice and Limbaugh regret the deaths of our Soldiers, but they are the ones who put them there.

Maybe it is inconvenient for Limbaugh to have Sen. Boxer remind us who is paying the price for their decisions. But, again, this is America. This isn't the middle ages when we owe fealty to our leaders regardless of what they do. We have both the right and duty to ask hard and unpleasant questions about why are troops are giving their lives.

Anybody know what song this post title comes from?

And So I Drank One that Became Four and When I Fell on the Floor I Drank More!

Bark Bark Woof Woof pointed out that i don't have individual links to posts, so I have changed that. I am looking forward to getting rid of this new format in two weeks.

A Make Me A Commentator!!! salute if you remember the tune from which the above lyrics were taken.

Who's tying our troops hands?

Once again we read from Thomas Sowell about how our troops hand are being tied, preventing them from winning in Iraq.

American and other coalition troops in Iraq have had their hands tied with "rules of engagement" based on political, rather than military, considerations.

How long will President Bush allow our militaries hands to be tied? How long will he let our troops fight with one hand behind their back? Who is responsible for the military anyway? Who is the chief commander of our military forces, and if he can't give our military the tools they need, why is he still in power?

The rest of Sowells article is about how Iraq is just like Vietnam. We could have won in Vietnam and we can win in Iraq, if we keep the liberals and media from undercutting our efforts. Nonsense, but to conservatives, very believable nonsense.

Slow Posting Ahead

Dark Times have overtaken Brytopia - so I probably won't be posting till later on today.

Hugh Hewitt Pt 2

After his post at his blog last night, he's written a whole article today. His post last night looks, in fact, suspiciously like a rough draft for today's article. He leaves out the bit about how we need to be careful not to criticize the President if we love the troops. He underlines that the Military is apparently going to be unshackled, echoing comments the President made last night.

Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. . . . In earlier operations, political and sectarian interference prevented Iraqi and American forces from going into neighborhoods that are home to those fueling the sectarian violence. This time, Iraqi and American forces will have a green light to enter those neighborhoods -- and Prime Minister Maliki has pledged that political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated.

That's the president. Let's see how Hewitt interprets that.

Supporters of the war at home heard what they have long hoped to hear: The rules of engagement are changing.

Yep. Up until the American military in Iraqi has been handcuffed to a policy of being wusses and avoiding taking the steps we need to take if we are going to win this war. Now they are going to be able to take the fight to the enemy. They will have a green light to pursue victory.

But wait, who handcuffed our military before now? Who was running around putting up red lights? Who's in charge anyway? Whoever has been keeping our troops from fighting this war to win had better watch out for President Bush - cause he's coming for you, whoever you are. How dare you run this war in such a bad way, creating rules of engagement that hamper our troops! Thank goodness President Bush is standing up to you, whoever you are.

Commander in Chief!

Rich Galen's written an article to remind us all that President Bush is the Commandeer in Chief. So even if most of America concludes his new plan is a timid escalation of an unwinnable war, we pretty much have to do it.

Neither Nancy Pelosi, nor Harry Reid, nor Joe Biden nor any other member of the House or Senate nor anyone running for US President from either party has the right to deny the President the power granted to him as commander-in-chief.

So thank you for that clarification. But each of those people has the right and even the duty to speak out when the President is busy shooting our collective foot. Speaking out doesn't deprive the President of his rights; it merely makes it unpleasant for him to exercise those rights foolishly.

He points out that Congress could cut funding, but that they wouldn't dare do it. He might be right there. On the other hand, opposition to this plan from Democrats, Republicans and the Military has been pretty vocal, so perhaps it will be revised as time goes on.

The Surge

Didn't catch the President's speech tonight, but according to Conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt, it was a humdinger. Apparently he struck just the right tone, reminding us all that we have to win in Iraq no matter how unlikely that seems. And our enemies should expect that we will beat the pants off of them. And of course we should support the troops. Thank you Mr. Hewitt for reminding us of this crucial duty.

Even as the debate carries forward, we cannot often enough remember that all of the cost is born by the men and women in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps Coast Guard, National Guard. and their families. The "decisive ideological struggle of our time" is being waged by them, and even the most sincere critics of the president's policy ought to convey that criticism while keeping in mind that not only are the troops real time observors of this debate, so too are our enemies.

Let me unpack that for you - people who criticize this president should shut the hell up because it puts our troops at risk. Also Hewitt should have spell checked before posting, but I can't really complain because I've made that mistake often enough.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

This is the theme of Paul Weyrich's latest article, and he's talking about his buddies in the Conservatoid movement.

There are times I am so frustrated I want to scream. Such was the case this past week. I was in a gathering of around twenty well-educated and informed conservatives. The topic turned to the Presidential election. Mind you, I had written months ago that we had best find a candidate who agreed with us and then back him to the hilt. If we did so we might be able to move that candidate to the top tier. It has not happened.

Moreover, exactly what I predicted would happen has taken place. Some of our group is in every camp.

The problem is that every part of his movement has their own ideas of what constitutes real conservativism. Is it Christian Conservativism? Is it Libertarianism? Fighting for a candidate that represents their point of view is what a primary season is for, even if, at the end of the day, you lose a bit of what you want.

He does write this humorous passage.

I am morally certain that if we do cast aside our principles to support a candidate who does well in the polls, as soon as that person gets the nomination there will be a savage attack on the GOP nominee, leaving our side in shambles.

I have to believe that both Al Gore and John Kerry would feel some sympathy for that hypothetical candidate.

Family Values

Or woman are great at raising kids but let's not pretend that being a Mother is real work. Ben Shapiro's latest article is all about how Nancy Pelosi's status as a Mother shouldn't protect her from criticism. Brilliant work there.

This is absurd. There are literally billions of mothers in the world. I love motherhood as much as the next fellow, but it has absolutely nothing to do with running the House of Representatives. Lady Macbeth had a child (Act I, Scene 7), but she wouldn't be my first choice to run a country. It is no less offensive for Pelosi to run based on her uterus than it would be for a man to campaign based on his working prostate.

I don't mean to be vulgar but how many of you believe that Prostate was young Ben's first choice of a body part to end that sentence with?

Secondly, it's clear that Ben's objections aren't to Ms. Pelosi's motherhood but to her liberalism. This is similar to Conservativism's objections to professors and journalists. They hate those guys, unless, of course, they are saying things that Conservatives want to hear. By the same token, they love their mothers, unless, of course, those mothers happen to be saying something they don't want to hear.

Dark Times

There's a really good article on the Bush Administration and revenge over at Salon. Very dark, suggesting that president Bush might have something in common with the protagonists of jacobin revenge dramas.

It may seem a stretch to compare the political beliefs of George W. Bush and his right-wing supporters with a death-obsessed, grimly self-destroying dramatic genre that is now more than 400 years old. Certainly the parallels cannot be drawn too closely. But the comparison sheds light on Bush's moral vision. Like a protagonist in a revenge tragedy, Bush sees himself as surrounded by evil, one-dimensional villains, whom he has sworn a solemn oath to defeat. Like Vindice, he figuratively carries around a skull -- in his case the shield of a policeman who died on 9/11 -- to spur himself on.

But like so many revenge tragedy protagonists, Bush is fatally flawed. By taking revenge against a foe who had not actually injured him, he opened a Pandora's Box of gratuitous violence, one he cannot now close.

Anyway it's well worth considering, despite being quite depressing.

While you have access to Salon you might also check out their War Room - they've been on fire the last few days.

All the Lonely People

I don't really have any thing to say right now. Just thought I'd quote the Beatles momentarily.

Is Conservativism Dead?

Nope - and it's probably not going anywhere either. But that doesn't stop Conservative commentators from writing articles explaining that Conservativism isn't dying. I suppose these articles are more enjoyable than the articles they were writing two years ago about how liberalism is basically over and conservatives are going to run things from now.

Todays article is from Suzanne Fields, and she argues, unsurprisingly, that Conservativism is not dead. Specifically she is talking about Reagan conservativism, which is a smart move. Reagan is one of the more unifying figures in Conservativism, someone both free market libertarians and family values voters can agree on. The article might not be as much about conservativism as it is about those who honor Reagan's legacy, which it seems clear many will still do.

How will George W. Bush fit into this legacy? Probably not well.

George W. Bush is not Ronald Reagan, but in some ways he echoes the earlier president's foreign policy vision. He has not fought the war in Iraq with the competence we expected, but his vision sounds like the vision Ronald Reagan shared with the British parliament in 1982: "We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable right of all human beings. It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy."

We'll have to wait and see whether this can apply in Iraq. That will be the president's legacy, for better or worse, no matter how we characterize his ideology.

It is a noble vision I admit - it's just a shame that said vision lead America through Abu Ghraib, Haditha, and our eventual defeat in Iraq. But I suppose that's the lack of competence fields notes.

McCain in 2008

Does McCain have a prayer of winning next November? He worries me more than anybody else, but, then again, he has to go through the nominating process. And Kevin McCullough's latest article reminds us that the Republicans just don't cotton to him. But first let's point out a typo.

His most signature work in the U.S. Senate sought to undue [sic] guaranteed protections for free speech – particularly in an election cycle where free speech is of most importance.

Of course you have to remember that Republicans consider money to be speech for this argument to make sense.

Among McCains other sins are his participation in the Gang of 14, his lack of connection to the dominionists, and his mockery of building a wall along our southern boarder. Oh and he took the Lords name in vain as well.

What's funny is that the very qualities that make McCain a bad nominee are the same ones that make him a good candidate. Assuming the Bush Administration's track record of failure continues as it has, the Republican nominee in 2008 will want to look like a break from the past. McCain can sell himself as a contrast to Bush because he seems pretty different. I wouldn't vote for him, given that his position on the war is exactly the same as Bush's but I can understand how others might.

Ann Coulter sez - Democrats are Traitors

I'm so tired of Ann Coulter, it's a chore to even read her articles anymore. Her latest is about how this war is a lot like Vietnam. We could have won Vietnam if there were no liberals and we can win Iraq if we get rid of or ignore the liberals. She starts with this truly breathtaking display of hatred for Democrats.

Fortunately for liberals, the Iraqis executed Saddam Hussein the exact same week that former President Ford died, so it didn't seem strange that Nancy Pelosi's flag was at half-staff.

Nice. Coulter claims to believe that Democrats are mourning the death of Saddam Hussein a mass murderer - is there any lie that Ann Coulter won't tell?

Being Wealthy is only Shameful if you are a Liberal

Daily Howler is quite good these days, and I was struck by a post he wrote on David Brooks writing on Nancy Pelosi.

Was Nancy Pelosi "chauffeured [i.e., driven] to school as a child?" We don't have the slightest idea. (A Nexis search on "Pelsoi AND chauffeur!" failed to produce any meaningful matches. Other searches got us nowhere.) But Brooks' crafting is sadly familiar; he pictures Pelosi as a pampered child, just as his class contrived to do, in various ways, to Gore and Kerry before her. Indeed, this very image-the image of the child being driven to school-was often used, in precisely this way, to drive the image of rich, pampered Gore. We weren't told that he was "driven to school" (at St. Albans) by a DC transit bus. Over-class craftsmen chose their words well-and we rubes were encouraged to conjure.

In this passage, Brooks conflates Pelosi's wealth as a married adult with her life as a child-when she lived in Baltimore's (working class) Little Italy, with her father, then Baltimore's (working class) mayor. Was Pelosi a child of the pampered rich-the image one takes from Brooks' paragraph 2?

What strikes me about this is how angry Rush and them get when we start talking about taxing the rich - then it's all about how we shouldn't punish or resent the wealthy for being wealthy. But when it's a Democrat wealthy person, than all bets are off. Then they didn't earn their money and they are out of touch and don't understand America in the slightest.

Or to put it another way, it's funny how Rush's wealth doesn't distort his vision, at least according to him.

Oh and apparently I'm not changing the look of the blog after all, it looks like the feeds are working again.

You Need Not Exist to Contribute to this Blog

There is a big to do over in the right wing blog-o-sphere about how the awful reporting coming out of Iraq. Exhibit A - there was a report about six people being burned and shot in a sectarian attack at a Sunni Mosque. The Right Wing blog-o-sphere determined that this report was clearly fictitious because one of the key sources for the report, Capt. Jamil Hussein, does not actually exist.

Except as it turns out, he does.

For the rightwing response to this error on their part check out this long and typically brilliant post at Orcinus. My favorite line comes from right wing blogger Micky Kaus.

Capt. Jamil Hussein, controversial AP source, seems to exist. That's one important component of credibility!

I was going to joke about only allowing people who exist to contribute to the blog, but then I realized that with Space Lobster, McIckelson and others, I couldn't really make that fly.

Speaking of people who do exist, however, Random Goblin has a great post over at his blog on the coming political landscape.

Also you'll note that the look of the blog has changed - hopefully this will allow my feeds to work, as they haven't previously.

Turn this Mother Out

I'm in my new local and I feel like I am becoming more leathery.

I'm also concerned that my feeds might be el busteroni, so working to fix that.

Update

I mentioned last week that I am moving across town - well the big moving day is today and today is the day we pack up. Because I'm capable of seeing the future (using common sense) I got ready for the move last week while it was quiet and consequently don't have much to do. The other two people moving, being smarter than me, are doing it today so I get to help them. Hence i'm unlikely to post again today and tomorrow will be the actual move which means I might be without a computer for a day or so.

Anyway if you don't hear from me, that's why.

The Boy Prognosticator Rides Again

You know what's fun and easy? Writing about the election two years before it will actually happen. You just pull some crap out of your place you pull crap from and mention McCain and Hillary Clinton and whammo - you got a column.

It's kind of a shame that so many conservatoid columnists are taking this route. I mean not all of them have Ben Shapiro's gift of prophecy, which he sprinkles all over his latest article. Apparently, using his prophetic vision, Ben Shapiro has noted that McCain, Guiliani, Gingrich are running for President. And they all have drawbacks - McCain and Guiliani with the base, and Gingrich in the general. He then sums up the Democratic race.

For the Democrats, the choice is clearer: It's Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York all the way. Although constant media attention has elevated rookie Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the polls, this is part of a broader Democratic strategy to boost Clinton. The Democratic Party believes deeply that the illusion of political momentum for a candidate emerging from the primaries is more important than actual political momentum. To that end, the Democrats dub a challenger every four years. Every four years, they talk about how popular the new kid is. Every four years, the old warhorse, the candidate obscured by the blinding brightness of the hot new star, emerges victorious. In 2000, the hot new thing was Bill Bradley; the old warhorse was Al Gore. In 2004, the hot new thing was Howard Dean; the old warhorse was John Kerry.

Of course in 2000 the hot new thing on the Republican side of the fence was McCain - and we know how that ended up. But I suppose it's only phoney when Democrats do it.

Actually now that I think about it, I'm not sure Shapiro has the gift of prophecy at all. I was so sure he did, once upon a time.

I can't think of a good title for this post

Debra Saunder's latest article makes fun of some of the cliches opponents of the Iraq War have repeated over the year.

The Pottery Barn Rule: You broke it, you own it. There was a time you couldn't go a day without hearing an Iraq war opponent invoke former Secretary of State Colin Powell's famous warning about sending U.S. troops into Iraq. Apparently, these folks never really believed in the rule, because they now want America to disown an Iraq mired in chaos.

Well the rule was used in two senses, the political and the practical. Now that Iraq is a mess the practical effect is that we have a duty to do what's right by the Iraqi people (although we might clearly disagree on what that right is). We wrecked their country so we owe it to them to help rebuild. I buy that. I suspect most liberals would. The question is what is the best way to help our Iraqi victims. Should we stick around, continuing the cycle of violence? Or should we depart, learn a lesson about the limits of our power, and provide financial and humanitarian aid to the Iraqi people as they rebuild? Or something in between?

On the political side of the fence, which you would think Karl Rove will have at least considered, the Republicans blew the call on Iraq - the American people should keep that in mind when considering whether or not they want to trust Republicans with power.

Here's another

Impeachment is an attempt to overturn a popular election. The left used that argument repeatedly when the GOP House impeached President Bill Clinton. Funny, you don't hear the left making that argument when Democrats call for the House to start impeachment proceedings against President Bush.

She leaves out an article, which is probably a smart move all things considered. Impeachment should be a mechanism of protecting America from a wrongdoing President. In the 1990s Republicans felt that the union had to be protected from a President who had sex with an intern and lied about it. In the 2000s some Democrats believe that the Union has to be protected from a President who systematically deceived the American people into invading Iraq while committing several violations of their basic rights.

You might disagree with their assessment but at least the Democrats reasons seem a bit more serious, don't they?

Contest!

I will note that I will be changing the look of the blog about once a month, rather than weekly as I did previously (you'll just have to take my word for it).

I will note that the design to the left there is taken from a major world city. It's from "Taking the Long View" a website by the Library of Congress dedicated to panoramic pictures. I downloaded one of those pictures, of a major city, cut it into pieces, improved it, till the contrast was pretty great, then watercolored it.

So what major city is it? Only I know the answer, but feel free to guess. If one of you is right, I will acknowledge your rightness, which is certainly a wonderful prize.

New Format

This new format may stay up for a while - it's hard to publish in but is easy enough to read once it's published. What do you think?

Pax Americana or Isolationism

This is the subject of Patrick J. Buchanan's latest article. For those of you interested in what he has to say but lacking more than 15 seconds to spend on the matter, I'll summarize his point.

"Neener neener neener. I was right and everybody else was wrong."

To be more concrete - America made a mistake in deciding it could fix the world (particularly in Iraq) and should instead withdraw from the world. He's partly right of course; Iraq has been a disaster. On the other hand it's clear that he sees no middle ground between the dunderheaded way the Bush administration has gone about fixing the middle east and his own policy of shutting our borders and ignoring the rest of the world.

Events abroad and disillusionment at home are causing more and more to ask whether what we call the American Empire or Pax Americana is really worth the aggravation, the cost and the ingratitude.

Interventionism has failed us. Americans are groping toward a new foreign policy that puts America first and a trade policy that puts Americans first.

First of all the people most likely to use the terms Pax Americana or the American Empire are those who oppose us being involved in the rest of the world. People like Mr. Buchanan, for example.

Secondly, while people are clearly upset with the Bush Administrations blunders, I doubt that really implies that they are open to his policy of isolationism. Rather I think they are looking for a more reasonable and rational foreign policy between these two extremes. Most people still remember how Isolationism worked in the 1930s (although Mr. Buchanan has done his best to confuse that particular issue).

New look

This new look will last tonight and I will change it in the morning, because it takes to long to load. But if you want to get an idea of what i worked on all day, click on the link to this post, and you can see it.

Saddam Hussein's Dead

Undead Undead Undead.

This is going to be an annoying week coming up. We are going to get a bunch of articles by Conservatives congratulating themselves on ridding the world of this murderous tyrant and castigating Liberals for not wanting to rid the world of the murderous tyrant. So that will be fun.

Juan Cole has an interesting article on the death over at Salon, in which he talks about how the Bush Administration and the new Iraqi administration may have bungled this (at least from the point of view that it would be better to avoid sectarian violence).

The tribunal also had a unique sense of timing when choosing the day for Saddam's hanging. It was a slap in the face to Sunni Arabs. This weekend marks Eid al-Adha, the Holy Day of Sacrifice, on which Muslims commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son for God. Shiites celebrate it Sunday. Sunnis celebrate it Saturday –- and Iraqi law forbids executing the condemned on a major holiday. Hanging Saddam on Saturday was perceived by Sunni Arabs as the act of a Shiite government that had accepted the Shiite ritual calendar.

The timing also allowed Saddam, in his farewell address to Iraq, to pose as a “sacrifice” for his nation, an explicit reference to Eid al-Adha.

So that's nice. Of course some people in this process might be in favor of sectarian violence (at least until their side wins) and others, presumably, just don't care.

David Limbaugh Condemns the Democrats for Being Right

No, seriously. He's upset that Democrats were apparently correct in the run up to the Iraq war, and their accuracy during the run up to the Iraq war proves that they don't have what it takes to deal with Iran.

Remember that Democrats were the last to believe (and probably never did believe) we should take action against Saddam Hussein. They opposed the war until the last minute, when they were coerced, through public opinion, to support the war resolution.

It's easy to dismiss their appeasement mindset now since we haven't confirmed Saddam had new stockpiles of WMD and because we've had so much difficulty in the post-regime-change phase of the war. But don't forget that Democrats were initially opposed to the war even when they were thoroughly convinced Saddam had WMD and was pursuing more .

Let's see do we have any lies? Yes. Democrats obviously favored taking action against Saddam Hussein, they just felt that that action didn't need to be a mindless rush to war. Distortions? We've had the country and scoured it for several years now - if there were stockpiles of WMD we would have found them, dimwit.

Finally how many Americans today believe that Bush made the right call on Iraq? Does Limbaugh really want to hold up Iraq as an example of how we need to trust Republicans on how to handle Iran?

Website Update

This is been a more difficult than normal holiday season because I have found out that I am being moved across town work wise. Also I made a mistake in publishing this blog and lost a lot of my format. Hence all the madness last week, and the very mild design today (and the total lack of update over at Seventy Sketches).

All that is behind me (well sort of). This weekend I will be updating this websites look, and if you have any recommendations, by all means put them in the comments section. And hopefully we can enter the new year meeting all of your blogging needs. Or at least a certain percentage of them.

Godless

That's the song I happen to be listening too, off of The Dandy Warhols' "Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia." Good song. Eclipsed by "Bohemian Like You," of course, but still a nice album opening.

I suppose it could tie into the subject of this post, one of the more bombastic "War on Christmas" articles I've had the Misfortune to read, by Emmett Tyrell.

Ah, the Christmas season is about over, and soon I shall be liberated from the alarm I experience every time some benevolent authoritarians accosts me with the line "have a happy holiday." . . . These are the moralists who somehow always manage simultaneously to identify iniquity of one sort or another in conventional behavior and stamp it out good and hard. Some years ago they discovered cruelty and intolerance laden in the term "Merry Christmas," and now the term is gone or nearly gone.

It has been replaced with "happy holiday," and anyone who stands by the term "Merry Christmas" is immediately marked down as a provocateur, probably a bigot and possibly a cigarette smoker. At this time of year the use of the term "Merry Christmas" is viewed by the politically correct as a rude and aggressive act. Oddly enough it just might be by now. The politically correct have an inordinate influence over our language and manners. They have lured enough politically innocent Americans to their view that "Merry Christmas" is indeed a term of controversy and a consensus has probably formed. "Merry Christmas" is at least bad manners.

Laughable, really. I mean there's barely any point to refuting this, because if you believe this is what is happening, you are so deluded as to make rational discourse pointless. I might as well call you an artichoke and be done with it.

But I will point out one niggling point. The War on Christmas is not being fought by the hated mavans of political correctness; it's being fought by right wing pundits, who want to convince Christians that they are being persecuted because it suits their political ambitions (and cause writing articles of this strip is dead easy, and many of them are very lazy).

Beware of Republicans Bearing Gifts

The recent election indicated, to those with brains, that America may not be as rock ribbed conservative as some of our friends on the right would like us to believe. This revelation has cracked the worldview of many conservatives. Some paint fantastical mythologies in which right wing militias take over. Others, of a more practical bent, want to give advice to the Democratic Party.

One such advice giver is Donald Lambro. His advice? Remember that America is Rock-Ribbed conservative.

Yeah, apparently he slept through the last election.

He also apparently thinks that Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama are far leftists. It's hard to tell what Obama is exactly, but certainly there's just as much evidence that he's a centrist as there is that he's a liberal. With Hillary Clinton though, the evidence is clear - she's a moderate liberal at best. I think Mr. Lambro's confusion comes from where he stands on the left right spectrum. The further right one moves on that spectrum, the more even moderate liberals look like crazed extremists.

I remember Rush Limbaugh saying being a proud Democrat was equal to being a liberal extremist. I guess a moderate liberal would have to be an ashamed Democrat.

Anyway I'd look for a lot of these articles over the next two years; Republicans love to give the Democrats advice. But when evaluating that advice, I'd advise you to consider the source.

Now for something completely different

Here's an article at Townhall that's not about war. Well it is about war. But not the war on Liberals. It's on the Iraq war and the Vietnam war.

Rich Lowry points out that one of the big lessons conservatives have taken from the Vietnam war may not be accurate. Specifically he references that the civilian leaders over managed the Vietnam war and should have left things up to the Generals.

The true lesson of Vietnam is that the civilian leadership should exercise close supervision of the military and ensure that, when fighting an insurgency, it acts in ways that don't come naturally to a U.S. Army that is most comfortable when smashing a conventional enemy.

He makes a pretty convincing argument - but of course it helps that this war is pretty much entirely a Conservative war. It's hard for them to blame this war on the civilian leadership when they are the civilian leadership.

That said the article is pretty good and worth reading, even if I totally disagree with Lowry's conclusions (we should send a bunch more troops to Iraq).

Black Hole Sun

Dennis Prager also sees a war brewing between Conservatives and Liberals, although he sees it as a culture war. Culture war is conservative slang for "We wish we could start a real war over this, but we're cowards, so we are going to stick to a war of words." In this case, Dennis Prager believes that the war is over the divinity of the Bible; specifically the Torah.

The Torah is the first five books of the Bible, i.e. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Carl. No just kidding. The last book in that set is Deutoronomy. Leviticus is the most boring, and the one that calls for you to kill your kids if they are disrespectful. Genesis is the one that most people get to because it contains a lot of the classic bible stories. Exodus has the Ten Commandments and the Plagues.

I just wrote that bit because of course Mr. Prager believes that you can't be a Liberal and reverence or even know about the Torah.

What matters is not whether people believe in God but what text, if any, they believe to be divine. Those who believe that He has spoken through a given text will generally think differently from those who believe that no text is divine. Such people will usually get their values from other texts, or more likely from their conscience and heart.

Of course this implies that Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Atheists, and other believers who don't happen to follow the Torah line up automatically on the wrong side of the Cultural war. But of course I believe in the Torah (although I think you have to read it through the lens of the New Testament (for example, considering the Prodigal Son as more important than the suggestion that you off your disobedient children)), but I'm also on the opposite side of the cultural divide. So I guess it's not so much that you believe it is divine, you also have to believe a specific interpretation of it.

Dennis Prager has already made it clear what he's looking for with his article on the Second Civil War. We'll have to see if he gets his way. But Republicans have believed they were dominent for a long time, and now that the recent midterms have hinted that they may not be, they are getting a little angry. And a little violent, at least in their rhetoric.

The Revolution

Some conservatives fantasize about revolution as much as far leftists these days. Douglas MacKinnon has written a book called America's Last Days fictionalizing this fantasy, and Townhall gave him room to write about his book. He's surprised that anybody would be critical of a book in which a conservative militia takes over America (yeah, who could have seen that reaction coming). But he says that his book explains why such a revolution is plausible and quotes two passages from his book. Here's a bit of one of them.

"How did we get this way, John? Why are they forcing us to do this terrible thing?"

"Why did the Roman Empire crumble, sir? Complacency, ignorance and lack of a moral compass. They lost it all because they took the things that really count for granted. They became fat, lazy, and sinful. They were overcome by lust, greed and a gradual lowering of standards. The United States of today is exactly the same. We have lost our moral compass. Our country has become more classist, elitist and separatist. Political correctness prevents us from targeting the enemy within our own borders who harbor the very Al Qaida terrorists who attacked us. We can’t protect our own borders with Mexico and Canada. In a country that is over eighty-five percent Christian, those very same Christians can no longer say 'Merry Christmas,' and can barely celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. We’re on the verge of a race war, our inner-cities are on the brink of collapse, our educational system is a joke, teachers are not held accountable, affirmative action has destroyed trust and self-esteem, the growing rich are walling themselves off from the ninety-five percent of other Americans, our politicians are all corrupt, stupid, taking bribes, or shunned by the few honest ones.

The Second American Civil War indeed. Let's start stringing up liberals, that'll solve America's problems.

While the author claims that this is simply a work of fiction, he ends by saying that those few who care about America (i.e. have his opinion on political matters) are running out of options and ends with "Beware the Revolution."

Part of me wants to be amused at the fantasy (and at the idea that our politicians are "corrupt, stupid, taking bribes, or shunned by the few honest ones." I think what the author meant to say is "corrupt, stupid, taking bribes, or shunned for being one of the few honest ones." But what do I know?). Mostly it just depresses me. Because the fact that such sentiment exists and the fact that it's encouraged by Townhall, makes the possibility of violence plausible. I doubt there will be a successful revolution, but some nutcases might well read this sort of fantasy and decide to pitch in.

My Platform

Mike S. Adams is considering a run for the presidency, and has written an article about a big new entitlement program he's proposing.

So, clearly, if elected president, I must wage my war on liberalism with the goal of somehow getting these liberals to listen to what I'm saying. That is why I plan to provide (at government expense) an unlimited supply of Murine Ear Wax Removal Drops. This Carbamide Peroxide Ear Wax Removal Aid will be given to every man, woman, and child in America upon request. We will even give them to illegal aliens if our budget permits.

I predict that when these stubborn liberals get the wax out of their ears, they will subsequently be able to pull the corn cobs out of their (backsides).

. . . Whoever came up with such a grand idea clearly deserves to be President. I thank you in advance for your vote.

Well first of all I think it's nice for a man wanting to be President of the United States to describe himself as at war with half of us. But let that slide, because I hav even more visionary program. How is it more visionary? It's much cheaper for one.

Let's give Mike S. Adams a hug.

It's clear that poor Mr. Adams feels picked on for his conservative opinions - he feels persecuted like he doesn't have any friends. Well we need to change that! A daily hug will help poor Mr. Adams feel more secure and be less inclined to see enemies everywhere. And the price of paying a designated hugger to hug Mr. Adams would be far less than his ear drop solution.

Oh and I'm not interested in the presidency, although I can see why you might think I'd be a good candidate.

Everything changed and then it changed again

This is what we will be using for the next week, as I work up the new format.

Hillary in '08

I'm not keen on Hillary in '08. I think her candidency will galvanize the Republicans and discourage Liberals, who see her (rightly) as a moderate Democrat at best who's done little to deserve her reputation as a far-leftist. That said I'm not sure how to take this article over at Townhall, by Donald Lambro.

He basically argues that there are some real questions about how far Hillary can go. Sure she's got quite a war chest, but that doesn't always translate into victory in the primaries. Another question is how interesting her story is really going to be. She's a well known public figure and she's been on the public stage for years.

"I think the question is, as Clinton continues to grow her support, has she already topped off? Has she already reached her maximum level of support in the Democratic primaries?" said Bud Jackson, a Democratic media consultant. Jackson, who produced a TV video touting Sen. Barack Obama's possible candidacy for the "Draft Obama" committee, said that, although Obama "is far less known than Hillary, he still has room to grow his support."

It's a fair question. I'd say both Obama and Edwards have room to grow - but does Hillary? Hard to say.

At any rate we have some two years to hash this out, so that gives us something to look forward to.

The Hulk

In Defenders 22 Hulk made some trenchant comments about racism in America, which I think resonate even today.





I chose to omit the bit where Dr. Strange says "You know, maybe it would be better if I moved out of Greenwich Village and into a gated community." I'm a fair-minded person.

Reality is what Reality does

There do seem to be a run of Conservatives complaining about how stupid we all are. Tony Blankley's latest article is about the democratization of information and how this is a bad thing.

How different, functionally, is the man or woman of 2006 who mentally checks out from the chaos of the world's events and news to that European villager of 1400 who isn't sure who his king is, what he looks like, or what he is doing?

Well, one difference is that today, the people -- whether ignorant or informed, whether wise or foolish -- can strongly influence the state actions of their country. In the 14th Century, kings and princes were free to act unhindered by a public opinion that didn't exist -- although the contingency of riots, rebellions, and revolutions usually hovered at the back of kingly minds.

Of course the sovereignty of the people has -- and I hope will continue to be -- the benefactor of their happiness and dignity. But in the technologically driven growing chaos of public information overload and distortion, the leader must -- by force of mind, word, image and personality -- define for the public some semblance of objective reality. As never before, the leader who fails in that mission will fail in his office.

This is an interesting complaint because Mr. Blankley has been largely supportive of President Bush who, at first glance, would seem to have failed at this task.

President Bush and his advisors claimed we would find Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. That proved not to be the case.

President Bush and his advisors claimed that we would find operational ties between Sadddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Again that didn't pan out.

President Bush and his advisors claimed we'd be welcomed as liberators. 0 for 3 so far.

OF course I don't want to make it seem like President Bush is wrong all the time. Just when he speaks.

Anyway I tend to agree with Tony Blankley that we do need to focus on objective reality, but I don't think the way to do that is by supporting an administration that believes it can define the objective reality as it sees fit.

Your Number #1

Time's person of the year is, well, everybody. And Ben Shapiro is annoyed at that. He's so angry that people he doesn't like get the nod. People like drunk girls with webcams and, well, me.

Congratulations, rambling drunk college girl with a Webcam. You're changing the world with your profile on MySpace. Sure, those photos will come back to haunt you when you go job-searching, let alone when your future children Google you. But revel in the fact that you are Time's Person of the Year.

. . . Three cheers for Democratic Underground posters, shaking things up with your regular psychotic breakdowns. Without you, we'd never know about the threat of President-select Smirky Chimp Bushitler.

Psychotic breakdowns eh? I think saying mean things about President Bush doesn't quite qualify as a psychotic breakdown. But perhaps those charming lads at Free Republic, one of whom turned out to be guilty of causing the Anthrax scare, would know better than me.

If you are wondering who Make me a Commentator!!!'s person of the year is, once again it's me. I've won four years in a row, which is pretty impressive, you have to admit.

Did you know?

If you click on the recent posts along the right there you can see the recent types of templates we've used.

Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires

But why would you want to?

Actually years ago I came up with a simple foolproof way to keep myself from setting forest fires. I rarely if ever go to the forest. Because of this I have not set a forest fire since 1987.

Yeah me.

Assimilation

I gave up on that last skin quick, didn't I?

Henry Edmonson has just written an article entitled "It's all about assimilation." Apparently these Borg chaps have a plan that will make things better for all of us. No actually it's about . . . well a few things. It starts out being about how we should teach those Mexicans to learn English, but then shifts gears and complains about how college students aren't as well informed as they should be.

Thus we have the bizarre situation today in which students are today coached to think "critically" - in the absence of civic and historical knowledge. This means that they have little to think critically about. Anyone who doubts that this is the case need only listen to students-high school or college-debate important current events. They demonstrate plenty of passion, but a dearth of information.

It's fun to be lectured about passion without information by Conservatives. I mean these are the folks who brought us such nuggets as;

We will be greeted as liberators in Iraq.

We can't wait for the smoking gun to appear in the form of a mushroom cloud.

The Social Security Trust Fund doesn't exist.

And so on and so forth. Perhaps it's cynical to assume that Mr. Edmonson only wants a certain type of information taught to America's children, but frankly I'm pretty cynical these days.

Hmmmmmm

This one has no titles either - I guess for certain types of blogs they aren't really necessary - like if this blog were just a review of my life, I suspect I wouldn't bother with them. Every post would be about me and everyone would have about the same point of view. The words might change but the content of the words wouldn't - reading one post of my runon sentance life would be about the same as any of the other posts. Which is why I write about politics and not my life.

This one is less girly, but not by too much.

Cruel and Unusual

Cal Thomas's latest article is about cruel and unusual punishment. Essentially he feels that we should be a little less strict in defining what cruel and unusual means. He references a recent case in California in which it more than 30 minutes for a person to die after receiving a lethal injection. Apparently he's just fine with that. After all who should we as society worry about, murderers or victims?

Cal Thomas does not properly under the concept of spheres of influence. We might wish to prevent all murders and save all victims (I certainly would) but we lack the power to do so (or, to be more specific, in order to accomplish this we would have to abandon most of our ideals, such as they are). We do, on the other hand, have control over how humanely or cruelly we execute those we have decided to put to death. That is within our sphere of influence as a society. And things within our sphere of influence take priority over things that our outside of it. We must tend to our gardens.

Channeling Rush Limbaugh

The current set up won't last long because there are not titles. Anyway I just read an article at Salon about an organization being set up to push for a more nuanced relationship with Israel. In brief, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is the current big dog representing Israel's interests in Washington. And when I say Israel's interests I mean the interests of Israel Right Wing who are not keen on any compromise (but are fine with blowing the hell out of the Palestinians). However, recent electoral events have shown that American Jews are not as keen on the blow them all up approach. So a new organization is forming to push a more moderate path.

Levy, the former Barak advisor, explained that the movement is "coming from a place where inside the mainstream Jewish community, people are increasingly confused about something that describes itself as pro-Israel, but is so out of sync with what they believe are good politics for the U.S. or Israel."

"The right-wing orientation in the community is losing people by the droves, particularly young people," M.J. Rosenberg of the Israel Policy Forum, one of the main groups involved, added. "Most U.S. Jews support peace in the Middle East, and don't want to shoot down doves anytime they appear."

This is all well and good. Frankly it seems pretty sensible. But even if I didn't agree, I wouldn't criticize people who want to fight for what they think is best for Israel.

I'd leave that to Rush Limbaugh.

I can hear him now. "My fellow Americans, George Soros is organizing a new group of mushy-headed intellectuals an soft headed liberals to push America away from our support of Israel. I'd like to suggest a name for this group. Jews against Israel. Cause that's what they are. They are a bunch of people, most of them Jewish, who want to see Israel wiped off the map. I know that's not what they are saying they want; but that's what the result of them pushing Israel to be kinder and gentler will be. When will people learn that you don't win wars by talking by negotiating. You win wars by winning wars. You get peace by defeating your enemies. If Israel is going to have peace with the Palestinians it needs to defeat them."

Thank goodness Rush's power is pretty much confined to his mind and the poor shlubs who work for him.

Girl Power

I note that most of the templates I am trying out tend to be girly. This is not done intentionally but is presumably symptomatic of deep seated and barely understood psychological conditions.

Or it just so happens that a lot of blog creators at the site I am using are of the female persuasion.

The Road is Where you Are 7

Seventh in this series, here is the latest iteration.

When She Was Happy - Pluto
Bat Macumba - Os Mutantes
Naseau - Beck
Uncle John's Band - The Grateful Dead

When The Beatles Hit America - John Wesley Harding
Ventura Highway - America
Talking about a Revolution - Tracy Chapman
Bring on the Dancing Horses - Echo and the Bunnyman

Deep - Pearl Jam
First of the Gang to Die - Morrissey
Yin and Yang and the Flower Pot Man - Love and Rockets
The Rip Off Train - The Pretty Things

Leaving New York - R.E.M.
For the Price of a Cup of Tea - Belle and Sebastian
Jane Says - Jane's Addiction
Long View - Green Day

One of Us - Joan Osbourne
Don't Go Away - Oasis
King Apathy III - The Byrds
Lodi - Credence Clearwater Revival

Racism

Star Parker takes on racism in her latest article. Apparently over racism is boring to her.

Somehow, I couldn't keep from looking at my watch and thinking about my laundry, despite the revelation of such bombshells as: there are still white-supremacist Ku Klux Klanners in America; there's a little town in Texas with a racist past where those feelings may still be harbored; in association tests, psychologists show that people tend to be more positively disposed toward white faces than black faces; real estate agents can sometimes tell a black voice on the phone and decline to show a property.

I should note at this point that Parker is black, lest you get the wrong idea.

So if whites screwing blacks over is boring, what kind of racism does Parker find interesting and troubling? Whites trying to help blacks.

. . . there is indeed racism under the surface in our country today that we're neither really aware of nor willing to admit.

It's a racism of diminished expectations. A racism that says blacks still need special treatment in education and job placement, that we can't give black parents freedom to choose where to send their kids to school, that we can't let low-income black workers build wealth through a personal retirement account, instead of paying Social Security taxes, because they won't know what to do.

This is the racism that will keep this community disproportionately in trouble.

These are three different issues; affirmative action, school vouchers, and Social Security "reform." The first one is directly related to race, the later two do not. It's nice to note that Ms. Parkers position on affirmative action is more or less the same as those Ku Klux Klanners, albeit for different reasons.

Star Parker may be sincere on how school vouchers will help Black Americans - but on Social Security she is being a bit disingenuous. She's on record as being opposed to social security entirely - so this talk about personal retirement accounts is, at best, Parker settling for half a loaf.

Don't get too Comfortable

This too shall pass away. After lunch.

In the meantime check out this article by Joe Conason on Joe Lieberman's potential future position.

With a single stroke, he could restore control of the Senate to the Republicans, fill an embarrassing vacancy in his administration and score bipartisan points -- by appointing Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., to serve as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Should Lieberman be nominated and accept that position, Connecticut's Republican Gov. Jodi Rell has the constitutional authority to name a new senator.

There's a pretty strong and disturbing logic to this idea, actually. It's at Salon which means you must sit through an ad before reading it.

Church be manly! Or Else!

This is from Doug Giles latest article.

Here’s the veneer-stripped-away answer: going to church has become very dainty. That’s right. Church, for most men, has not only become irrelevant, it has also become effeminate. Hanging out in church for most Y-chromosomes seems unmanly, and most men—more than anything (at least for now)—want to be masculine!

The current lack of strong men within the Church, both in the numeric and leadership sense, has crippled our cathedrals and has helped devastate our nation ethically.

The masculine spirit being absent from the pulpit, the pew (and subsequently the public square) has not only slowed down the forward progress of the Church, it has also weakened our nation’s morality, increased our country’s secularity, done nothing for national security and has assisted (owing to our absence) the lascivious Left’s re-definition of life, sex, marriage and law.

I don't really have anything to add to this. I always believed religion could be a civilizing, a refining institution - but I guess if Giles wants church to take us back to a caveman mentality, who am I to argue?

The Hardest Fall of All

When sex is free it's so hard to sell / Bat Macumba /Now I'm a priest teenager on a tower of dust / It's the same story the crow told me; it's the only one he knows. / This is my dream I bought it. I bought the product. / Thanks a lot son just the same / Finally the tables are starting to turn / Bring on the new messiah / Can't touch the bottom / the first lost lad to go under the sod / Alcohol is your yoga baby / He was just a lonely boy, a very well known clown / You might have hidden the frown / Soul black vinyl to stop your tears / She only knows if someone wants her / I sure as hell can't do it by myself / Damn my education I can't find the words to say / Bearing looks of frenzied blankness / I guess you will know the tune.

Should Businesses be Ethical?

The surprising answer is yes, businesses should behave in an ethical manner. Because if they don't, according to Carrie Lukas, Congress might be inspired to pass new regulations.

Businesses can help themselves by examining their own practices to ensure that they meet high ethical standards. If they don’t and Congress moves toward to new regulations, it could be our economy that pays the price.

This conclusion is surprising, but her title ("Self Discipline, Not Regulation, Needed for Ethical Business") suggests that whether or not businesses exercise self discipline, Congress should still refrain from passing regulations.

We are back

After a brief burst of insanity, here's some more insanity.

This is not permanent. But then, what is?

This blog is over

For the time being. There's just no point to it until Blogger fixes my archives.

George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln

Two peas in a pod, according to Tony Blankley's latest article. You see President Lincoln was fighting to defend the union during a Civil War even though people disagreed with him, and President Bush is fighting to defend Iraq during a civil war (that he caused) even though people disagree with him.

But there are some differences as well. President Lincoln saved the union through his actions and earned the honor and love of his countrymen. President Bush has embarassed the union through his invasion of Iraq under false pretenses, and has earned the derision of his countrymen. It's important not to let the similarities blind you to the very real differences.

Farewell to the Last Golden Age

Blogger is in the process of stealing my past.

Maybe they will give it back, but I am looking forward to being informed that it wasn't really my past to begin with.

Anyway on to Ben Shapiro Boy Prognosticator. This week he's reviewing Mel Gibson's new movie, which he finds offensive. Not because of the excessive violence and gore, but because it implies that American Civilization might not last forever. Even worse it claims that our fears might undermine the things that make this society great. He's offended at this suggestion because, of course, that's what actually happening, and with Shapiros full support. We pissed away Habeas Corpus, our Privacy, our national honor, the Geneva Convention in the pursuit of safety in the face of al-Qaeda. We were told by the Bush Administration that giving up these things was necessary to protect us.

So naturally Shapiro is looking for a different culprit for the decline of civilization. And he's found one - Mel Gibson!

"Apocalypto" opens with a quotation from historian Will Durant: "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it destroys itself from within." Durant is correct -- but the film's exposition of dreamt is utterly wrong. If American (and Western) civilization falls, it will not be because our fears drove us to "ma'am barbarities," but because, like Gibson, we failed to distinguish good from evil.

. . . It is the violence Gibson does to morality that should worry us. It is that violence that contributes to the internal destruction of Western civilization. If Western civilization is doomed to failure, it will not be despite Mel gibbousness best efforts, it will be because of them.

I have noticed that we as a nation do have a hard time telling good from evil. For example at one point if you had asked if jamming flashlights up civilians butts was good or bad, you would have had most people saying that it was bad. These days people compare that to a fraternity prank.

In the old days if you had asked if starting a war on false premises was a good or bad thing, most people would have answered bad. Now people create huge billows of smoke to keep us from answering that question.

Yeah young Ben is right there do seem to be a lot of people who don't know right from wrong, and it's not despite Ben shapers best efforts that we are this way, it's, in small part, because of them.

War on Christmas

Just going to point out a humorous article over at Media Matters on the War on Christmas. Not the world's greatest article, but certainly good enough.

Being Keith Ellison Pt. 2

Mary Grabar presents an article today that would surely earn her a lot of notoriety if Dennis Prager hadn't written essentially the same article a few weeks ago. But she makes up for lost time by pouring on the insanity.

. . . the one who takes office with his hand on the Koran, as Congressman-elect Keith Ellison proposes to do, makes a profound statement. By rejecting the Bible, he rejects its and our country's principles of reason and free will. He rejects a book written and confirmed by many over thousands of years for a book based on the revelation of one man who claims to be a prophet.

Yes because if there are two words that describes Modern American Christians, particularly the Dominionists or others of their ilk, they are reason and free will. I mean they've reasoned that Americans don't need free will.

I also like how the Bible has been confirmed by many over the years, but the Koran apparently still has only the testimony of Mohammed to confirm it. Ms. Grabar is aware that there are plenty of Muslims who believe in the Koran out there, right?

But what really makes this argument stand out is how Grabar reveals the real origin of that hated political correctness.

There is a reason that after their own acts of murder, terrorism, and intimidation, the Nation of Islam radicals and their white supporters set out to destroy the curriculum. They were training the next generation. The multiculturalists presented reason and truth as notions of a Western imperialistic culture; as a result, now reigning in our educational institutions is the unquestioned dogma of multiculturalism that dismisses debate about the dangers of Keith Ellison as merely "intolerance."

Oh why oh why oh why did we listen to the Islamic Terrorists when they suggested we try being intolerant? Intolerance is what makes America great, apparently.

So maybe Grabar will get a little notoriety of her own.

Don't Be a Jerk! At least not in public!

That's my advice, particularly if you are a manager of a store. You see customers aren't stupid. So if one of your "associates" (and a what a beautifully patronizing term that is) calls you up to the front to see about opening a second register when she has six people in line, maybe you shouldn't act like a prick about her cutting into your phone time. Because your customers might pick up on the fact that you are a jerk.

I'm just saying.

Ghetto Magic

Harry R. Jackson, Jr. has written an article over at Townhall on how the Liberal Media will lose in 2008. He focuses on how Liberal Candidates will lose in 2008, but I guess Liberal Candidates and Liberal Media are really the same thing, except of course that they aren't.

He posits areas where the Liberals are apparently going to fail people the media tricked into voting for them in 2006. One group? The ghetto.

Hispanics and blacks were told repeatedly in different ways that Republicans and conservatives do not care about them. For example, a great deal of hoopla has been shared around raising the minimum wage as a symbol of democratic commitment to the average guy. The right message from the democrats is teamed with the wrong action plan. The minimum wage helps people just beginning to work or those with the least skills.

Unfortunately, a “tip” given to people on the lowest end of the economic spectrum will not change black or Hispanic ghettos. Ghettos will be changed by large scale economic development which creates new, middle class jobs in viable industries. On a “micro level” an individual will appreciate any raise in pay he is given.

Two years from now, neither blacks nor Hispanics will be able to see any lasting effect of this unimaginative approach to a major problem. These groups will be screaming the slogan of a Wendy’s commercial of twenty years ago: “Where’s the Beef?”

This assumes a couple of things. It assumes that Democrats are going to accomplish one thing (raising the minimum wage) and then ignore them. It also assumes that these poor Blacks and Hispanics are going buy the logic of "Hey helping the wealthy is the same as helping you really" Republicans are selling.

I have to think that if it's a choice between a raise in the minimum wage and a mystery box containing nothing, Blacks and Hispanics are smart enough not to take the mystery box.

Clap Trap

There's an article by Mary Katharine Ham over at Townhall today and it's entitled, "I know a Marine, and he knows the stakes." It's about the Iraq Study Group Report which she, like many Conservatives, isn't happy about. And her emotional attack on the Iraq Study Group is to say that the Marines who are fighting over there would want us to go on fighting until we win, no matter how long that is.

At Walter Reed, I doubt there are many men who think asking Iran and Syria for help is the “right thing.” They have spent years and lives and limbs trying to defeat the insurgent arms of these radical governments and the violence they foment, and now the Washington policy elite and press corps would ask them to team with them in a misguided attempt to quell violence in Iraq.

Only at Washington dinner parties could such a sell-out be worthy of so many smiles.

I don't know what Ms. Ham's solution is. Presumably it is something along the lines of stay the course or fight the war to win or some other homily that boils down to let's kill them till they love us.

Not matter how long it takes or how many more Marines we put in Walter Reed or in Arlington.

This is not a Post

In case you were wondering.

New Sketch

There's a new sketch and an episode of Sketchy Cooking up over at 70 Sketches. This sketch involves a robber, so you know it's good.

"War is not the Answer"

This is a bumper sticker.

Lazy Republican pundits like Larry Elder love Bumper Stickers.

Bumper Stickers are very easy to argue with.

They always say the same thing, and their very brevity insures you can run circles around them.

Arguing with a Bumper Sticker is like boxing a wheelchair. Not a person in the wheelchair. Just a wheelchair.

So naturally that's what Elder does in his latest article.

Needless to say he invokes World War 2 to suggest that sometimes War is the answer - I'll bet that response took all of five brain cells to come up with.

The bulk of the article is about how we need to invade Iran and Syria. Seems unlikely that this view is going to really catch on, so I can see why Elder would want a bumper sticker as his opponent. Because any living person would point out we lack the means to invade Iran and Syria, we would have no international support, and our experience in Iraq has been mixed at best, a total disaster at worst.

So it's probably better that he stuck with a bumper sticker.

Cal Thomas is a Rough Man

Today is the day we get Conservative Response to the Iraq Study Group's report. And for the most part it's pretty negative. Cal Thomas, for example chides them for their unwillingness to see the real threat that Islam presents.

Enemies like this understand only one thing: power. They do not keep promises, or honor treaties and agreements that do not serve their primary interests. For them, those interests include humiliating the United States, securing Iraq for the acolytes of Osama bin Laden and then moving on to challenge America in other places and finally on our own soil. The problem is that if we wait to crush them until they reach our shores (and too many are already among us), it will be too late.

I've made this point before, but this is standard de-humanization of the enemy. It's ok to kill the hell out of Iraqis, Muslims and Arabs because they aren't real people like we are. They aren't moved by the same emotions or desires - rather they are motivated strictly by hated of us.

Like most of Cal Thomas's "Muslim Menace" articles, this one avoids suggestion any solution to the impasse. "Muslims are our implacable enemies and they cannot be turned away by anything but violence. And there are already far to many living in our communities. OK that's all the time I have, so the solution to the problem of evil implacable Muslims living right next door to your family, you'll have to solve on your own."

If only Thomas had a few more paragraphs he could tell us what we could do about our implacable Muslim enemies. Oh well, we'll just have to hope that Thomas's readers are smart enough to figure it out own their own.

Oh the title of this post refers to the last paragraph in Mr. Thomas's article in which he quotes Orwell about "rough men standing ready." Thomas is certainly always ready to write an article attacking Muslims.

Missing the Point

Janice Shaw Crouse has written an article entitled "Mary Cheney's pregnancy affects us all." In it she decries Mary Cheney's decision to have a baby.

Mary Cheney is among that burgeoning group of adult women over age 20 that are driving the trend of women who don't want a man in the picture, but want to have a baby.

. . . Mary’s pregnancy is an "in-your-face" action countering the Bush Administration's pro-family, pro-marriage and pro-life policies. She continues to repudiate the work to which her father has devoted his life.

There are some words that don't appear in Ms. Crouses article. Word's like "Lesbian." Or "Gay." Or "Homosexual." In other words the article is written as if Mary Cheney were just deciding to have a child because she hadn't found the right man yet. The truth is Mary Cheney isn't really looking for a man, if I understand her right.

So why would Ms. Crouse leave out Ms. Cheney's sexuality? Out of respect to the Vice President? Or does she really not know? Either way it seems goofy.

Don't Be Afraid, be Paranoid.

Ben Shapiro's latest article has the charming title "Will We Ever Win Another War?" Apparently we won't, unless we adopt a paranoid stance. Here is the Math.

1. Fundamentalist Islam will not crumble from within.

2. Anything short of elimination of fundamentalist Islam is a victory for fundamentalist Islam.

3. Fundamentalist Muslims are having more babies than Americans.

4. Fundamentalist Muslims are living in the United States and their numbers are growing (because they are having more babies).

The solution? Being suspicious of Muslims.

There was one Cold War tactic, however, that remains useful today: suspicion of our enemies. Winning the Cold War relied on anti-infiltration strategy, particularly in Western Europe. Unfortunately, western civilization seems unwilling to acknowledge the growing fifth column in its midst, specifically because recognizing the growing threat would seem "racist." This is a recipe for disaster. If fundamentalist Islam relies on demographics to achieve its ends, ignoring the growing demographic threat in Europe is a crucial error. If fundamentalist Islam relies on proselytizing to spread its views, ignoring that proselytizing in the United States is an unforgivable mistake.

It's unclear what Shapiro expects us to do with this information - like most of these sorts of articles, he wants to encourage fear, paranoia, and suspicion, but he's not going to tell you what you should do with that fear, paranoia, or suspicion. So if you just want to be more vigilant towards brown people, well that's fine. If you want to harass Muslims and make life harder for them? Well maybe that's fine too. Or at least there's nothing in this article to discourage doing that or worse.

The Nativity Nap

Bill Murchinson's latest article is about the poor performance of "The Nativity Story" compared to "Casino Royale" or "Happy Feet." It's actually quite good in that it does not chastise America too much for it's failure to jump on this movie (like they did on "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe" or "The Passion of the Christ"). Rather it calmly suggests that box office receipts might not be the best way to gauge the righteousness of a nation.

Truth is Truth, projected on a screen or not. I think Christians may hope for, as well as toil and labor for, the success of any commercial endeavor that throws unexpected light on doings at the Red Sea or the Sea of Galilee. And yet, in some measure the thing is out of their hands. "God doth not need man's works or his own gifts," interposed Milton. No bad realization, this. Takes the pressure off to some degree. Man is not -- repeat, not -- the measure of all things. A somewhat higher authority has claimed that prerogative, and doubtless means to keep it.

I will note that most reviews of the movie I've seen contain the words Dull and Dutiful. I like Dull and Dutiful in a way - certainly when it comes to people I'm in favor of it. But not when I go to the movies. Than I prefer words like "Exciting" and "Tour De Force" or at least (like "Deja Vu") "Interestingly Incompetent." Frankly it's hard to imagine anybody making anything that wasn't "Dull" and "Dutiful" out of the Bible store, unless they went for it and created something that they knew would anger a lot of people like, well, Bill Murchinson.

"The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe" is a great story with interesting characters, and Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" both upped the violence and gore level, and stoked controversy with accusations of Anti-Semitism. Those movies succeeded because they offered something different (or drew a line in the sand teling Christians they had to come if they loved Jesus). The Nativity Story fails (in so far as it has failed) because it doesn't.

Dennis Prager is not a racist; he's a bigot

What's good about writing one shocking column is that you get two or three weeks of columns out of it. First of all you patiently explain your absurd and bigoted idea (that Keith Ellison should not be allowed to take his oath on the Koran), and then you spend a couple of weeks defending your position while revising it down to something manageable. Last week we got Pragers crazy idea; this week we get the defense.

And apparently Prager is upset that some of us have called him a racist, and I agree with him. Prager may well be a racist, but this article doesn't prove it. Rather it proves that he's a bigot - he's bigoted against those of the Muslim faith. He denies this as well (on the grounds that as a Jew he can't be bigoted against non-Christians. But that's tripe - it's pretty clear that Prager has bought into the idea of Judeo-Christianity - in which those two faiths have a special place in America, and other faiths, particularly Islam, don't.

The LDSCP

In reading the comments to the Mike S. Adams article I posted on below, I came across this chilling letter, which literally sent chills down my spine. Townhall Poster vidyohs brings a horrifying reminder of who the real enemies are.

The problem

May I remind you good folks and Mike that the problem is not Islam, religious freedom, encouraging terrorists/islamists, all of this is distraction and symptoms of the disease that makes these symptoms visible.

The problem is the unrelenting quest of the liberal/democrat/socialist/communist/progressive (LDSCP)believers to destroy America and remove the last shred of freedom from the face of the Earth.

It is the LDSCP faithful through seizure of the Federal fool system, the courts, the media, and the entertainment industry that has reduced our population to mush brained idiots that entertain the idea of electing a radical muslim to Congress. We have been left with no standards of belief, behavior, and moral action and all because of our laziness and ignorance.

First of all LDSCP makes me think Latter Day Saint Communist Party, which is surely not the intended effect.

Secondly you'd think with their control over the Federal fool system they could keep Vidyohs from slandering them.

Adams gets it right

Mike S. Adams is a bit of a crybaby - most of his articles are complaints about the slights and insults he has to endure being a conservative teaching at UNC Wilmington. Basically he's a cranky guy who feels like everybody is picking on him. Normally that wouldn't be enough to get a regular article gig, as the world is full of cranky guys who feel like everybody is picking on them. But because he works in acedmia, a lot of Conservatoids ar eager to read his complaints, because it confirms their own prejudiceses against acedamia.

His latest article, however. He takes on the current flap surrounding Keith Ellison, and, surprisingly, comes down on Rep. Ellisons side. Now he does spend several paragraphs comparing Ellison's plight with his own suffering at the hands of his colleagues, but it wouldn't be a Mike S. Adams article without him complaining about what a tough life he has. But then he gets around to saying this.

I support Ellison’s decision to take his oath on the Koran just as I would support the decision of a President Romney to take an oath on the Book of Mormon. I would even support an atheist’s decision to take a secular oath so long as it was devised in a manner sufficient to awaken his conscience to the necessity of executing his responsibilities in a truthful manner and in accordance with the laws of this great nation.

. . . Since we can expect a negative consequence no matter what we do with Ellison’s request we should make a decision based on principle rather than pragmatism. In my view, the overriding principle is individual religious liberty, not collectivism hidden beneath the veil of mainstream conservatism.

So score one for Mike S. Adams. His readers were not impressed by this article, though, as one might expect; any article that fails to acknowledge the danger of acknowledging Islam in a non-negative way is not going to be a favorite of theirs.

Intellectual Degradation

One has a greater sense of intellectual degradation after an interview with a doctor than from any human experience. - Alice James

Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr, MD has written a book. As a trained psychiatrist, he's turned his sharp mind towards liberalism and discovered that we are crazy. Thank you Dr. Rossiter. Townhall printed a bit of it today, so we could all bask in his wisdom without shelling out 25 bucks.

Prepare to bask.

The degree of modern liberalism's irrationality far exceeds any misunderstanding that can be attributed to faulty fact gathering or logical error. Indeed, under careful scrutiny, liberalism's distortions of the normal ability to reason can only be understood as the product of psychopathology. So extravagant are the patterns of thinking, emoting, behaving and relating that characterize the liberal mind that its relentless protests and demands become understandable only as disorders of the psyche. The modern liberal mind, its distorted perceptions and its destructive agenda are the product of disturbed personalities.

Nice. Reminds me of something Rush Limbaugh said back in the day.

You people are walking around in the biggest fog that I have ever seen. You people need therapy! You people all need to be sequestered somewhere for a couple of months to get your minds right because you people can't even be honest with yourselves. You are walking delusions.

This is all pretty amusing, unless you start thinking what declaring liberals insane would justify. I mean if we really are crazy, should we be allowed to roam free across the land? Wasn't this one of the tools Stalin used to control people who might havchallengeded his regime? So while it is a little funny, I'm not laughing.

Poor President Bush

Apparently Senator Reid, in a very unsportsmanlike move, has scheduled too much work for the Senate next year. He's limiting the Senate to taking no more than a week off. That blackguard.

You see with only a week off here and there, it will be hard for President Bush to do recess appointments. Traditionally recess appointments are a convenience to the President so that he doesn't have to leave positions unfilled when the Senate is not in session. But if the Senate is only going to be gone a week, well he can't make the case that he needs to make a recess appointment to keep the government going.

So he won't be able to make any recess appointments. It's like when you want to browse a little before buying your item and the stupid clerk takes you right to your item. Helpful but frustrating. And worse in President Bush's case since he was presumably hoping to use the recess appointment to get some of his more extreme judges through. Poor guy. I guess he'll be stuck nominating candidates the Senate will actually confirm.

Robert Novak, from whom I got this info, shares my annoyance with Senator Reid for his dastardly trick of making President Bush adhere to the Constitution.

Sketch

There's a new sketch up over at Seventy Sketches, about the laziest man in Hollywood. Enjoy.