Friday, March 31. 2006
 Borders is as chicken as City Lights Bookstore is hypocritical.
But you can have an impact on Borders, if you believe their cowardice in the face of Jihad is shameful and un-American. And dumb: When you cringe in the face of bullies, you only encourage them. Samizdata has two pieces on the subject, and supplied their email address: ccare@bordersstores.com Why not send 'em a friendly email? Personally, I like their stores, but this kind of dhimmitudinous, weak-sister behavior cannot be rewarded in the proud USA. We are not the UK or Canada. (And also, if you are the only person in the world who has not seen those silly, harmless cartoons, here they are, via Jihad Watch.) Image: Borders chicken dinner tonight, but we will add some Gibier sauce with fresh porcini mushrooms, and a mountain of Smashed Potatos potatoes taters.
 From ABC News:
"We construct your schools. We cook your food," rapper Jorge Ruiz said after performing at a Dallas rally that drew 1,500. "We are the motor of this nation, but people don't see us. Blacks and whites, they had their revolution. They had their Martin Luther King. Now it is time for us."
From an excellent piece in The Daily Pundit: The tactically astute -- and blindingly obvious -- approach for the Administration and Senate would have been to let their open borders/amnesty plan sleep until after the November elections, when there would be a better chance of getting concessions from the House. But these folks aren’t the Stupid Party for nothing...
Flag image from Whittier, California, posted in a long and comprehensive piece at Michelle.
Mexico invades and defeats the 
United States of America, without a shot being fired. "Nothing will stop us," they declare. The Dems and the Repubs have figured it out together, in Washington over cigars and double Laphroiags, and the hell with the voters. Guess what? The entire illegal immigration issue is about a complicated partisan maneuvering, and has nothing to do with the interests of Americans. And if both parties can conspire together against the voters, who can you punish with your vote? This is one of those cases where politics trumps reason, law, national sovereignty, economics, common sense, and the will of the people. People bitch about contentiousness in DC - but look what happens when both sides are on the same page, and against the voters. As the rapist said, "There's nothing you can do, so just sit back and enjoy it." The fix is in. Just watch it unfold. As Mark Levin says, regular Americans are just too busy to protest. Image from the LA march of Illegals on Parade, via Moonbattery
 This man cannot help pandering to, or seducing, or flattering anyone he encounters.
It is a disease in him. At Gateway, Clinton tells the Brits that their economy and system is the envy of the US. Let's hope the Brits don't believe that steaming pile of happy horsesh-t, because not a solitary soul in America envies the Brit government-stifled economy. And very few envy their antiquated socialistic and statist tendencies, and their Nanny-style emasculating Government. On the contrary, Brits have every reason to envy the US economy and American freedom from an oppressive state. Image, from Gateway, of Clinton reacting with his trademarked modesty to applause, recently in Britain.
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected. G.K. Chesterton (1924)
Thursday, March 30. 2006
First, read this advice and these US State Dept. 
rules and regulations. Second, read this on Mexican immigration laws and regulations. Remember, it is a felony to be in Mexico illegally. And their jails are not very nice - no TV and no A/C. And their guards and police are not well-schooled in multicultural sensitivity. And the suggestion for the Minutemen and those who wish to support the laws of the US: Get a thousand folks to cross the border into Mexico without money and without passports. Seriously. See what happens. It would make an effective statement.
 A 16 and 19 year-old posted photos of themselves on MySpace, the popular kids' social site, and are arrested for child pornography.
Three questions: 1. Can you commit pornography on yourself? 2. Are 16 and 19 year-olds children? 3. And what about this guy? (quote from The Globe article) "A police officer assigned to Lincoln High School, where the girl was a student, discovered the photographs while monitoring the Web site."
 The world is nuts. From Heather MacDonald with yet another great Heather MacDonald piece in City Journal - read it all, but here's a quote:
And so the future is clear. That rustling sound you hear is the migration of university deans and associate provosts, “managing differences” consultants, and ed school faculty to the next big employment bonanza: helping boys succeed! Boys are poised to become the newest victim class, requiring a sturdy structure of advisors, trainers, and counselors just to get by. The requisite helping apparatus is already in place: the professions and academia overflow with committees on the recruitment and retention of minorities and women; they will undoubtedly be only too happy to expand their mandate to boys. But what, you say, about girls’ hallowed victim status—how can it co-exist with a newly designated male oppressed class? Not to worry. The great thing about victim thinking is that it is not zero-sum; it is win-win. Each individual, each group, can be a victim in his or her or his/her own special way.
"They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row
Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says," You're in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave"
And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row" From the beginning of "Desolation Row," the closing track on 1965's Highway 61 Revisited. Now that Bob has finally allowed himself a lyric cheat-sheet at concerts, fans are finally getting to hear all the verses to this long, bizarre and incredible song, one that really has no counterpart or equal anywhere else in popular music. Try a live version from 2003 here.
Continue reading "Thursday Free Advt for Bob: Dylan Lyrics + Live Download"
Hahaha. What a funny spat. At least The Globe didn't refer to Scalia as "a Sicilian jurist." That would be racist, right? Let's see... I guess we have two Jewish Jurists, two Italian Jurists, one Irish Jurist, one African Jurist, is it three Catholic Jurists, two or three English Jurists (not sure what white-bread country Roberts immigrated from). Gee, don't we need some American Jurists?
Stolen fron No Parasan - 
 Sick Building Syndrome exists only in the minds of trial lawyers. Doctors say the "mold" thing is a joke, too, because mold is everywhere. Just look in my fridge. h/t, Lucianne.
Having it both ways: Dems insisted that the felony concept be entered into the illegal immigration bill, then loudly complained about it. Pretty slick. Pretty slimy. Women: About cooking for hubbie, and plastic surgery. Ten Napel Is there a War on Christians in the US? RTLC has a piece on Bush's terrible salesmanship, which he equates with poor leadership. I agree with most of what he says, except I am not sure that those two can be so easily equated. You always wondered what went on inside the Teacher's Lounge, didn't you? The secrets, revealed. Springtime for Taliban in Afghanistan. And oh, I notice they have a new spokesman. When will we see him at Princeton? Steyn on the decline of national sovereignty, via Driscoll What is truth? Powerline on the reporting on the legality of the NSA taps. John follows up by reviewing the transcript - and the NYT twisted its reporting - once again. They just cannot help it. The courage that makes America great: Waldenbooks and Borders refuse to carry issue of magazine with Prophet cartoons. A good idea from SDA: ...perhaps the time has come to send sports reporters to war zones. It seems to be one of the last refuges of journalism in which a) reporters have basic knowledge of the subject matter they're assigned to, and b) they're expected to report the details and outcome of the race, even if a contestant is injured or dies during competition.
Echoes of our piece on When Illegal is not Illegal: When Illegal is Right, What is Wrong? From good ol' Orson Card, in a fine review of Three Books that Name Names, some interesting details about the women's vote: If you don't include the African-American vote, which goes overwhelmingly for the Democrat almost every time, regardless of gender, we get a very different picture. "While women have been fickle voters, backing Reagan twice and George H.W. Bush in 1988 (but not 1992)," white males have opposed the Democratic candidate by a landslide in every presidential election since 1976. "Al Gore received only 36 percent of the white male vote in 2000, John Kerry only 37 percent in 2004.... GOP congressional and gubernatorial candidates also typically win the white male vote by 20-point margins" (p.149). Well, duh. When the Democratic Party keeps screaming that white men are wrong on everything and should be shut out and excluded in order for things to be more "fair," why exactly should white males vote for Democrats? The real surprise is that John Kerry may have "carried the overall women's vote by 3 points," but he lost white women voters by 11 points.
A sampling of military staff officer quotes: "His knowledge on that topic is only power point deep..." MAJ (JS) "Ya know, in this Command, if the world were supposed to end tomorrow, it would still happen behind schedule." CWO4 (EUCOM) "No. Now I'm simply confused at a higher level..." Foreign GO/FO when asked if he had any questions following a transformation brief at JFCOM Read more of them at Irish Pennants
Wednesday, March 29. 2006
Oral Love: A review of a bowl of unusual new books on food, at Bookslut
It is a cliche that the definition of neurotic person is someone who keeps doing the same thing, while expecting a different result. There is surely a good lesson in that expression. However, I often find it useful to think about things from the outside, in ... instead of inside, out. Especially with stubborn minds. What do I mean? Erik Erikson famously said that "Psychotherapy begins where common sense ends." I like that. Despite being a psychoanalyst and thus by definition a happy diver into the human depths, I rarely take anyone deeper than is necessary. You don't want people to run out of air on the way down, or to get the bends on their way back. This is why I like the idea of Reality Therapy. You may call it God, or Life, or Reality, or Chance, or whatever you chose, but It has a funny of way of teaching, and re-teaching us whatever we need to learn until we finally learn it, or die first. For me, this is analogous to the image of Christ at the door of our heart, knocking and knocking until we open the door. Life is always trying to teach us something, and we all have problems and weaknesses and blind spots and areas of stupidity and of emotional immaturity where we can improve our mastery of life and of ourselves. Sometimes, all we need to do is to stop, look, and listen to find what it is that life is trying to teach our stubborn minds. While I would rather piously - but truthfully - say that the red buds now emerging on my antique French Roses are teaching me that God is in his heaven, instead I will offer a timely but trivial example from my own life. I will quote myself: An area of life in which I do not function well is with paperwork and book-keeping. I could find plenty of excuses for this, and plenty of fancy psychological explanations, but I was raised to never make excuses. The truth is that it is a character flaw, a flaw which is thrown in my face every tax season. I procrastinate - which is precisely what I am doing right now by writing this piece. I love Quicken, but I don't enter my checks. I save business receipts, but they collect dust in piles and drawers and and pocketbooks. I have delivered three Suburban loads of good outgrown kids clothing to Goodwill this year, but God knows where those lists are. In the glove compartment, maybe? And what about cost basis for stocks bought in 1987? The computer those numbers were on died years ago. No clue. And since then, I have changed brokerages and the old guy retired. I try to pretend that April 15 is an absolute deadline, or I would never get this chore done. And I cannot rely on the hubbie, because he will have nothing to do with my mess, so we file separately. The lesson is just not the annual miserable last-minute hassle to get everything together. Last year, I had a fine of over $3000 for errors and lateness. Ouch. There is just nothing like reality to hit you over the head and force you to learn.
Life is the real final exam, but you get to take it over every day. I will never forget my favorite Neurology professor in medical school who overheard me and a friend bitching about an exam in the hallway. "This is nothing," he said. "Every patient you will ever have is the real exam. These exams are just for you to find out what you don't know, before it's too late." Keep knocking, Reality. Eventually, we will get it. Thanks to God that every day is a new chance to learn and change.
San Francisco: Ace contrasts SF's desire to remove th e Christians, with a local political bacchanalia. Maybe we should just give California to the Mexicans. The B-sub-s switches from matter to anti-matter 17 trillion times per second. I feel that way sometimes. Physics News at YARGB LaShawn thanks God for her sobriety. And the meaning of prayer, by SC&A. Excellent discussion by Auster on how classical liberalism led to the modern mega-state.
Murray's idea is far too rational to be tried, but it's a darn good mental exercise. Count me as being in favor of it. One quote: We start with a country that is the richest country in the world, with most of its people having lots of money (compared to any historical standard), ample money to provide for their own retirements, medical care, and the rest of it. On top of this national wealth, we then add more than $1 trillion to help people provide for comfortable retirement and medical care, and so forth. And guess what? We still have millions of people without comfortable retirements, without adequate medical care. And only a government can spend that much money that ineffectually. The alternative I suggest is give every adult American, age 21 and older, $10,000 a year. And let them run with it.
Read the whole thing - link above.
Your tax dollars at work. Homeland Security buys 80 security cameras for tiny Alaskan fishing village. Osama - take note. Who organized the illegal immigration marches? The Spanish radio stations. "Immigration backlash"? Saunders says no, at RCP.
Do you have Adult ADD? Take this quick test: 1. Do you sometimes get up to get something out of the refrigerator while watching TV? 2. When reading a technical text or doing homework, do you sometimes wish you were watching The Sopranos, or going to bed, or going out with friends? 3. When you have a huge pile of bills and paperwork, do you think "Aw, shit"? 4. Have you ever clicked "OK" or "I Agree" or "Next" on a website without reading all of the information? 5. When you are supposed to be focusing on something tedious, do you ever think about sex or other kinds of fun? 6. Have you ever opened a box from the bottom instead of the top? 7. Have you ever used a digital camera without memorizing the manual first? 8. Have you ever had trouble finding your keys? 9. Have you ever stared out the window, thinking "I'd rather be fishing?" 10. When you are online, do you move from site to site without spending at least 15 minutes perusing Maggie's Farm in detail? If your answer is "Yes" to one or more of these questions, you definitely have ADD. See a doctor immediately before it gets worse.
Gwynnie notes: It is a rare moment when a multitude of swirling ideas merge into a coherent concept, but the anti-semitic rants of a couple of Harvard profs and the admission of a Taliban spokesman to Yale did it. They are so similar to the relatively innocent "Mules" that the drug lords of Medellin use to move narcotics into the United States, and both are the unwitting messengers of Evil (remember Evita: "There is Evil, ever around us ..."?) Well, both the Harvard profs and the Yale admissions folk are clearly the mules for Evil, but how? What is the key to their voluntary yielding to dark forces beyond their comprehension? Hatred -- the door through which Satan enters each one of us fallable mortals. In the current case it is Bush hatred, but we have also seen Reagan hatred and, yes, Clinton hatred and Kennedy hatred (there wasn't much LBJ hatred - it was more like bi-lateral contempt). Hatred of Bush has led these ivory-tower educational employees (hard to refer to them as intellectuals) to take leave of their moral senses, and it leads them into becoming another example of our oft-discussed phenomenon of liberals not holding "brown" peoples to the same standards as "whites" (remember the 3 million Cambodian deaths - which the Left didn't protest?) We cannot believe so few people discern this incredibly clear pattern! Satan - Evil, if you will - is exploiting Mules blinded by hatred, and leading them to advocate for and even praise genocidal killers like Hamas, the Taliban, and Pol Pot, and even the Nazis if so doing might in their twisted view hurt the target of their hatred and impotent rage, "dubya", the democratically-elected President of the United States.
 This is said better, about the sad plight of the French, than I could say it, from No Parason:
Socialism teaches its citizens that they have a plethora of rights and few corresponding obligations -- except to be taxed. And that is why the citizens of less socialist -- and more religious -- America give more charity per capita and per income than do citizens of socialist countries. That is why Americans volunteer time for the needy so much more than citizens of socialist countries do. That is why citizens of conservative states in America give more charity than citizens of liberal states do. The more Left one identifies oneself on the political spectrum, the more that person is likely to believe that the state, not fellow citizens, should take care of the poor and the needy. Under socialism, one is not only liberated from having to take care of oneself; one is also liberated from having to take care of others. The state will take care of me and of everybody else.
Image of a typical French person from party theme site here.
Tuesday, March 28. 2006
"Get back to work, you lazy bastards."
MVRWC on the French. Videos and photos from the infantile French students at No Parasan. Now they are using water cannon...apres moi, la deluge! Stirrings of wisdom in the Yale Daily, quoted by Ace: Outrage over religious fascism ought to be the province of American liberals. But in Hashemi's case it has been almost entirely trumpeted by Fox News, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and right-wing bloggers. A friend of mine recently remarked that part of his and his peers' nonchalance (and in some cases, support for) Hashemi has to do with the fact that the right has seized upon the issue. Our politics have become so polarized that many are willing to take positions based on the inverse of their opponents'. This abandonment of classical liberal values at the expense of political gamesmanship has consequences that reach far beyond Yale; it hurts our national discourse.
More on Aztlan - with the map! Moonbattery.
Skiing in Dubai: Indoor skiing. Amazing Iraq claims Mosque massacre was faked. Sneaky. Too much good stuff to mention. Read Gateway today. He has become a daily must-read. How does he find the time? The government-led Mexican invasion of America, and Azatlan Irredentism (both links to Daily Pundit) Meet Yosh Bolton. Princess
 A few snippets, which require no comment because they speak for themselves. Our News Junkie posted this piece a day or so ago about the unpopularity of marriage among American blacks: Marriage is for White People. WaPo, H/T, Instapundit At the same time, Morse posted a piece at Town Hall titled Marriage: A Social Justice Issue. She points out, as has been done before by others, that most of black poverty is due to the absence of marriage. Marriage creates wealth and social stability, among other things. One quote: Marriage is a protective factor against social pathologies. Marriage generates and preserves wealth, unlike other family forms which dissipate wealth. A recent publication by the Boston-based Seymour Institute, "God’s Gift: A Christian Vision of Marriage and the Black Family", spells out the case for marriage as the most important next step for the future of black America. The report cites the fact that married families in the black community have twice as much income as unmarried black families. The founder of the Seymour Institute for Advanced Christian Studies is the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers, III, the black Pentecostal minister whose work with poor urban youth has been widely celebrated. In the introduction to God’s Gift, Rev. Rivers states his case. "The impact of the decay of marriage among black people has been enormous, resulting in higher poverty rates among black families, school failure among children, and the intergenerational transmission of high teen pregnancy rates and female-headed households. Sociological research has implicated fatherlessness in violence, drug use and criminal behavior, especially among young black males." To those who might argue that marriage is somehow alien to the black experience, linguist John McWhorter has an answer in the most recent issue of The American Enterprise. McWhorter observes that the high proportion of single parent families among blacks is a relatively new development, and not something that can be attributed to some amorphous "legacy of slavery."
And a comment from one of our readers, re the News Junkie post: What a depressing article. Marriage was ordained by God for the procreation and rearing of children in the service of God. Spouses are supposed to be helpmates to each other not playmates. Marriage is for grownups, not hedonistic children.
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