Wednesday, November 15. 2006
 Lazy Mom? Embroidered needlepoint Christmas stockings at Land's End. But you should make them yourself, or let Grandma make them. It means more, and they sure won't be thrown in the garbage when they get dirty, and you are dead.
Castro is terminal? Duh. AOL calls it "dire news." Are they nuts? It's called good news. The jerk was a totalitarian monster. Calling him a Stalinist would be a compliment: he has destroyed three generations of Cubans - and Cuba. EU bureaucracy warns against referendums. Duh, again. They would throw them all out. The general rule is that elected pompous jackasses are preferable to unelected pompous jackasses. Inside college admissions. Read it and weep: they actually have conventions! Inside baseball re the Repub leadership, by Barnett Fleeing Massachusetts. Many are doing so. NE Repub. Our opinion? Either MA needs a wall to keep 'em in, or NH needs a wall to keep 'em out. They are immigrants who want freedom, but are accustomed to freebies. Impossible people. Hispanic family breakdown, at home and now in the US. Heather MacDonald at City Journal. This is not good news. Was abandoning "real conservatism" the Repub problem? Nyhan doubts it. What is sloe gin? Mr. Free Market makes his own - out of sloes. I don't think we have sloes in America, but we do have plums. Wonder whether you could make this from Beach Plums. Heavy, dude. Giant meteor craters underseas. Global warming is nothing, compared to the next hit. Anchoress takes on scientific utilitarianism. A quote: Birth control was supposed to free women (mostly it freed men) and abortion was supposed to make “every child a wanted child.” Now, if your child is not the right sort of child, it doesn’t matter if you want it or not, you should not have it. If you (or your growing baby) are not fit to be perfectly productive, then you owe it to society to either kill the baby or die yourself, rather than inflict such vulgar weaknesses upon the rest of us. Society has nothing to learn from you, and you have nothing to teach it. Better to die and, as old Scrooge noted, “decrease the surplus population”. All these decades later, the “enlightened” boomers have learned nothing about The Holiness of Be-ing, even though they have had some great instruction put before them. As we watch this seemingly inexorable march toward the elimination of imperfect or sickly people for the good of humankind, I wonder, sometimes, if the Michael J Fox’s of the world realize that they are advocating the sorts of people and policies that will one day tell him that if he really cared about being a good citizen in the world, he’d take himself out.
Tuesday, November 14. 2006
 Literally.
The new head of American Episcopalians doubts Jesus' unique divine nature. (h/t, News for Christians). Maybe she should find another job? But could she find one? Divinity School does not prepare anyone for anything but help with worship. That is a fine thing indeed, but what if you want to worship anything? What if everything and anything is sacred? That's not religion - that's something else. WalMart always needs cheerful greeters. I have no doubt that she is a bright gal, but I am not sure that she has heard the music. Image: Yes, that is the golden calf which is, no doubt, a path to God for modern Episcopalians. And all the people said "Moooo." Hey - we do dig cows, but we do not worship them, golden, or otherwise. Hmmm... if those ancients had discovered ice cream from those cattle, they might have had a worthy object of devotion. Just kidding.
Not entirely thought through in Denmark? And what do the Moslems think? Quick peek speedbandits.wmv. Yes, it is mildly but cheerfully T-rated.
 Canada takes a step forward towards permitting smoking in schools. Blue Crab. Teacher, I can't think without my cigarettes, due to my inherited tobacco deficiency disorder.
From Boortz (h/t, Instap): It is clear that something is terribly wrong in Washington right now. We just went through an election where principles of individual liberty and limited government were not even on the table. I am hard-pressed to name one leading Republican or Democrat who still extols the virtues of freedom, individualism, free markets and limited government.
Churchill had ADHD and Alan Turing had Aspergers. Tangled Web. Yes - you can have such difficulties and be smart, and successful, as hell. We knew, thanks to Powerline, that Rep Ellison was a closeted jihad sympathizer, but did we know that Conyers probably is too? Singleton. Carnival of Capitalists, at Casey's Software this week. Cool. Feminism alive and well, quoted from Augean Stables: ...the Jerusalem Post reported that an all-women’s cell of Islamic Jihad terrorists was discovered and apprehended. The women were handlers of several terror cells in the areas of Jerusalem and Judea. Among other activities, they were involved in the transferring of funds from Syria to be used for the families of suicide terrorists, and for the funding of terror attacks. One of the arrested women also oversaw the building of an explosives laboratory. The less capable women have been relegated to the position of acting as human shields for terrorists - but hey, it’s a job.
A re-post of this piece about Hamid, the ex-jihadist (thanks for the reminder, Asst. Village Idiot): He's a disarmingly gentle and courteous man. But he's determined to tell a complacent North America what he knows about fundamentalist Muslim imperialism. "Yes, 'imperialism,' " he tells me. "The deliberate and determined expansion of militant Islam and its attempt to triumph not only in the Islamic world but in Europe and North America. Pure ideology. Muslim terrorists kill and slaughter not because of what they experience but because of what they believe." Hamid drank in the message of Jihadism while at medical school in Cairo, and devoted himself to the cause. His group began meeting in a small room. Then a larger one. Then a Mosque reserved for followers of al-Zawahiri. By the time Hamid left the movement, its members were intimidating other students who were unsympathetic. He is now 45 years old, and has had many years to reflect on why he was willing to die and kill for his religion. "The first thing you have to understand is that it has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with poverty or lack of education," he says. "I was from a middle-class family and my parents were not religious. Hardly anyone in the movement at university came from a background that was different from mine.
Whole thing here.
Some years we can have roses in bloom in the garden on Thanksgiving, in Yankeeland, especially if they are well-protected by a house, wall, or protection from cold wind. These sent in by a reader in CT, photos taken yesterday. Blooms among the falling leaves - there's a metaphor hiding in there. 
A few Steyn quotes from Interview #3 by Hawkins: On statism: ...this idea that it's normal for the state to be as big as it is in advanced social democratic societies is something that would have seemed incredible to anyone a hundred years ago. I mean, I remember being struck by - on September 11th - and I was writing a column a couple of days afterwards and, you know, we're all done with our initial reaction, so you're trying to think a couple of days ahead and find a new angle on it, and I happen to just notice that it was more or less (a hundred years after the) assassination of President McKinley. I was thinking, well, maybe I could tie these two things together, these two big traumatizing events and, you know, bookending the century, whatever - you know, just peck, peck, peck - we journalists always are going to peck.
So I sort of rummaged around the clippings of President McKinley's assassination and realized that while people were upset about it, they essentially regarded it as the removal of a remote figure who played a peripheral part in their lives. To that point for most people in most parts of the U.S. the federal government did not impinge on their life in any way.
On immigration: That's the beginning and end of it - and so, in effect, I would say again, to make a point that I make in the book, immigration has its merits. I live in northern New Hampshire and I would certainly value it if there were a kind of a better of a range of Thai restaurants in this part of the world. So if I know a restaurateur in Thailand and I say, "Hey, there's an empty building on Main Street. You could come run a great Thai restaurant there," I mean, that's fine and dandy - but when you become dependent on immigration as Europe is and Canada is, then that's a sign of structural weakness.
On Islam in Europe: If Islam is incompatible with democracy, that's not a problem for Iraq, it's a problem for Belgium, you know, because Iraq until, you know, a few months back had no democracy to lose. They can easily adjust to the way it's always been.
For Belgium or for Denmark or for the Netherlands, they've got real democracies and they are likely to lose and as you see, I think that is really the issue here, that when these contradictions are pointed out, Europeans essentially refuse to acknowledge them. Yet at the same time they're making capitulations to the most naked form of political bullying --and that's when Islam is officially a minority of, you know, 10% or so. In those cities it's a lot higher already. What happens when it's 30%? I mean, this is a question they never, ever ask themselves and you're right, they do take a dim view. I think at some level there's something else going on there, too, that a lot of these countries, you know, -- we talk about the Middle East, democratize the Middle East - we forget Spain was a dictatorship 30 years ago, Portugal, a little over 30 years ago, Greece, same 30 years ago.
Italy and Germany and France, you've got to go back half a century, but in essence the idea of living under non-democratic regimes is not foreign to these people and I think they think of themselves, their identities less as Europeans are less bound up with ideas of liberty than it is for the U.S. You know, the U.S. is an ideological project in a way that Italy isn't and so I do think that also accounts for part of the way they look at it.
The whole interview is here.
Monday, November 13. 2006
 Tillich, quoted by Jimmy J, quoted by Shrinkwrapped:
Do we know what it means to be struck by grace? It does not mean that we suddenly believe that God exists, or that Jesus is the Savior, or that the Bible contains the truth. To believe that something is, is almost contrary to the meaning of grace. Furthermore, grace does not mean simply that we are making progress in our moral self-control, in our fight against special faults, and in our relationships to men and to society. Moral progress may be a fruit of grace; but it is not grace itself, and it can even prevent us from receiving grace. Too often there is a graceless acceptance of Christian doctrines and a graceless battle against the structures of evil in our personalities. Such a graceless relation to God may lead us either to arrogance or to despair. It would be far better to refuse God and the Christ and the Bible than to accept them without grace. If we accept without grace, we do so in the state of separation, and can only succeed in deepening the separation.
We cannot transform our lives, unless we allow them to be transformed by that stroke of grace. It happens; or it does not happen. And certainly it does not happen if we try to force it upon ourselves, just as it shall not happen as long as we think, in our self-complacency, that we have no need of it. Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility and our lack of direction and composure has become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: "You are accepted. You are accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted. If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of the experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition-nothing but acceptance."
Image is William Blake's
Norm gets it: [L]et me repeat what I often say to students who come braying to me with postmodernist ideas: Suppose that I return a term paper to you with a failing grade and a note that reads, "I should give you a much better grade, but I hate your guts, so there." You will scream bloody murder, go to the dean, possibly sue me. What is the assumption behind your outrage? Obviously, you expect me to grade your paper fairly - that is, objectively - regardless of my feelings about you. But why do you demand this of me as a teacher while denying my ability to do it as a researcher?I've found, from my own experience, that when this kind of objection is put to them people of postmodernist outlook are not in fact lost for an answer. They will say something like this: 'Of course, there is an existing language game here, with its own rules, conventions and understandings, and within that language game we too know how to grade papers fairly and objectively.' Hooray, they know how to do it. They only fail to note how damaging this answer is for their opposition to the possibility of there being objective criteria. If everything is relative to one or another perspective, or cultural or intellectual framework, ruling out that there could be right and wrong (albeit always provisionally) about historical events, explanations of illness, ditto of the origin of species, and what have you, how does it suddenly happen that there's this thing called a language game which can be referred to just like that, as though what it is is clear to the vision, its rules are uncontroversial, its inner meanings and deployment of criteria supply a definitive way of resolving disagreement? If the pomo answer to this is to say that there is no such solid ground, because the language game itself is subject to the same relativizing effects that multiple different perspectives produce upon historical events, illness, and so forth, then the language game-type response to Berger's question is merely a delaying tactic. Once you fall through this particular floor, the relativist drop is bottomless. (See also this earlier post.)
Indeed, the drop is the fall into the abyss, and is not safe for children, or for anyone who cannot handle the metaphysical depths.
 Kaminer on the academic disease of intolerance and the new authoritarianism. One quote:
Kaminer’s description of a free university, where challenging and even confrontational ideas are batted between and among teachers and students, sounds very appealing – but all too often today, the reality is quite different. She says: ‘There are still a lot of very good schools and very good teachers, who try to stimulate their students and expose them to different ideas.’ No doubt that is true. But in some universities there is also a creeping culture of conformism, a sense that certain ideas are beyond the pale and thus must be crushed by the long arm of the censor (often, these days, a university-appointed ethics committee or a self-righteous students’ union).
From Rick Moran: The Iranians don’t only want us defeated. They want the US humiliated. Any negotiations with the mullahs will be long, drawn out, and designed to show the world how powerless we are to affect events in the region. In the meantime, our soldiers will continue to die, the Iraqi government will continue to dither, and the body count of civilians will spiral upwards. Phased withdrawal my ass. If we have decided to bug out, let’s leave as quickly as possible. If victory is not to be had at any price then it is immoral to keep our men and women in harms way simply to appease domestic sensibilities. Yes Iraq will devolve into madness and chaos. We can deal with that situation in the context of the War on Terror. Asking someone to put their life on the line for no reason save assuaging the consciences of politicians is stupid. If we’re not going to stay until the situation is stabilized leave now. Leave as quickly as we went in. The Saudis, the Iranians and the Syrians all helped sow the wind. Now let them reap the whirlwind.
Intellectuals love defeat. Hey, aren't we intellectuals?...Maybe not.
The granddaughter dared me to post these two YouTubes from Borat: 1. The Khazakstan national Anthem 2. Throw the Jew Down the Well
 As one of those employers who supposedly wants illegals for cheap labor, forget it.
I like legal immigration, but I believe that it is up to the people of the country to decide who comes in, and how they enter, and why. A nation without a boundary is not a nation. That does not make me a "racist," although I do tend to believe that folks with northern European backgrounds seem to understand American ways, traditions, social habits and values most readily and adapt most easily. But everyone knows that. But let me ask our readers a simple question: Would you enter a country illegally? And if not, why not? Illegals are simply taking advantage of us (which probably means they are that sort of people), and of our our soft-heartedness. It's as simple as that. But no good deed goes unpunished. Here's what happens when you decide to base your new life on breaking the law (data from PoliPundit): CRIME STATISTICS
95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens. 83% of warrants for murder in Phoenix are for illegal aliens. 86% of warrants for murder in Albuquerque are for illegal aliens. 75% of those on the most wanted list in Los Angeles, Phoenix and Albuquerque are illegal aliens. 24.9% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally 40.1% of all inmates in Arizona detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally 48.2% of all inmates in New Mexico detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally 29% (630,000) convicted illegal alien felons fill our state and federal prisons at a cost of $1.6 billion annually 53% plus of all investigated burglaries reported in California, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and Texas are perpetrated by illegal aliens. 50% plus of all gang members in Los Angeles are illegal aliens from south of the border. 71% plus of all apprehended cars stolen in 2005 in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California were stolen by Illegal aliens or “transport coyotes". 47% of cited/stopped drivers in California have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 47%, 92% are illegal aliens. 63% of cited/stopped drivers in Arizona have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 63%, 97% are illegal aliens 66% of cited/stopped drivers in New Mexico have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 66% 98% are illegal aliens. BIRTH STATISTICS
380,000 plus “anchor babies” were born in the U.S. in 2005 to illegal alien parents, making 380,000 babies automatically U.S.citizens. 97.2% of all costs incurred from those births were paid by the American taxpayers. 66% plus of all births in California are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal whose births were paid for by taxpayers.
Benjamin Franklin Unmasked, at Moderate Voice Libraries in the sand: 13th century texts in Timbuktu Barbados invaded by giant ,man-eating snails The F-35 Lightning and pilotless jets Hezbollah has re-armed. 30,000 rockets, says Belmont Club, ready to go. Why don't the Brits love Americans? RWN ponders it.
Sunday, November 12. 2006
From our cousin Mr. Free Market: photos like this one. What a joy. Too bad the Brits don't love us Americans as much as we love them. That war was a long time ago, and remember - it was about government power over the people, and taxation. Who had it right? At least we still speak of freedom. Nice bag, young fella. 
Silly, cute, and universal - from Avenue Q: YouTube
 Prayer (1633. Herbert's bio here.)
Prayer the Churches banquet, Angels age,
Gods breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth;
Engine against th’ Almightie, sinners towre,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six-daies world transposing in an houre,
A kinde of tune, which all things heare and fear;
Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse,
Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best,
Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest,
The Milkie way, the bird of Paradise,
Church-bels beyond the starres heard, the souls bloud,
The land of spices; something understood.
Saturday, November 11. 2006
 Re this little Pledge of Allegiance story in California, I think it's a tempest in a teapot.
Why? Because these are kids. Like many (non-Asian) kids, they try to find their own way to stand out and be noticed, and being a young rebel is one way. (Of course, being good at something, achieving something, and getting decent grades in challenging courses, might be a bit more mature.) On the other hand, getting your name in the paper about the Pledge could be the best way for an otherwise-undistinguished white boy with average grades to get into the University of Michigan Law School. In my experience, campus radicals are the guys who secretly, or even unwittingly, wish they could have been on a team - preferably the ultra-hip Lacrosse team. Name me one guy who didn't want to be on the Lacrosse team. Or at least the football... or any sports team. I know - I wasn't. The "radical" girls were just dogs with an attitude, as I recall. Hated their mothers, or something like that. Nice. Wonder what they are doing today? Probably on play dates with other moms, or, at worse, valiant single mothers by guys who just wanted to get laid... or maybe working at Vogue. But there was a basic lesson for guys: don't get involved with gals who hate their mothers, because they will hate you, too, in time. There was a line somewhere in The Strawberry Statement where someone - maybe the author James Kunin - confessed that he was attracted to radicalism to get dates, which he had trouble getting. That "statement" stood out as one truly human and humane statement in that book about that silly period. Kunin was nobody's fool and. like most Lefties, a closet capitalist - he sold a ton of books, and got a movie deal. The Che t-shirts? Means no more than James Dean t-shirts used to mean. Which is: "I wish I were a tough SOB with an edgy, pointless mission in life instead of Mom and Dad's pampered college student with a BMW and a C+ in Rocks for Jocks, in comfy, decadent, free America." Someday, these kids' kids will look at these old photos say laugh and say "Dad - I can't believe that was you!" For some kids, being obnoxiously irreverent is good sport, and can turn a nobody into a somebody. It's tough, as a young person, to accept that we are all nobodys. Does irreverence towards the things that I hold most dear piss me off? Of course. But I knew such kids in college: it is designed to have that effect. Let's not react like Moslems to foolish kids, or like our parents - or grandparents - did to the great Elvis! Or, God forbid, the Beatles. "Turn that crap down!" The thing that cracks me up most about such stories is when the grown-ups admire them. That is a sure sign of arrested development, but many college faculty never fully grow up, due to insulation from hard knocks and ordinary reality in the ivory towers. Not that I do not, in some ways, envy those who can devote their life to the world of ideas... Nice gig, but too political for me.
Several others have noted this prime example of BDS. Quite remarkable the way he is able to explain away the fact that Bush did not institute martial law after the last election. From Ted Rall (I could have written this as satire): A year of crisis commences. As ugly secrets surface, Bushists will turn desperate. Democracy has failed their grand schemes; token resignations like Rumsfeld's come too little, too late. Only tyranny can save their skins. Will the beleaguered neocons led by Cheney and Bush, cornered like rats, unleash their brand-new police state on their political opponents? Or will they tough it out and suck up the fines and prison sentences to come? The next year or two could go either way. The nightmare is not over.
The nightmare in this guy's brain isn't over, and will not be until he renews his Haldol prescription. Paranoia seems to bring meaning to his life, don't ya think? He just won't let it go. And do you think that, just maybe, he hopes something unimaginable would happen?
WW1 Vets. There are a few still around. Driscoll The Jihadists do follow American politics. Heck, they try to cocntrol it. Sister Toldjah. How naive can you be? People who want to kill you, watch you. Dobson says Repubs abandoned "values voters." I wish this good guy would learn to shut his big political mouth, and just keep doing what he is good at. h/t, News for Christians The UK: rules for cats, while country slides into Bedlam. Melanie Phillips. Creating alcoholic moms, one mom at a time? NYT 57 million blogs? Roger Simon. Glad to have you reading us! Another thing wierd about the election. Anchoress Gay Patriot says the election is Reagan's vindication. Could be. Bush can now get his illegal amnesty plan through congress. Nice. Habla espanol? Jack Murtha is getting deep into his own quagmire. Is this guy OK?
By Lieut. Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918), Canadian Army In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Friday, November 10. 2006
Marine Corps gun fighting rules, from Evangelical Outpost, on the Marine Corp's 231st Birthday:  1. Bring a gun. Preferably, bring at least two guns. Bring all of your friends who have guns.
2. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive.
3. Only hits count. The only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss.
4. If your shooting stance is good, you're probably not moving fast enough nor using cover correctly.
5. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (Lateral and diagonal movement are preferred.)
6. If you can choose what to bring to a gunfight, bring a long gun and a friend with a long gun.
7. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.
8. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating, reloading, and running.
9. Accuracy is relative: most combat shooting standards will be more dependent on "pucker factor" than the inherent accuracy of the gun.
10. Someday someone may kill you with your own gun, but they should have to beat you to death with it because it is empty.
11. Always cheat; always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.
12. Have a plan.
13. Have a back-up plan, because the first one won't work.
14. Use cover or concealment as much as possible.
15. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.
16. Don't drop your guard.
17. Always tactical load and threat scan 360 degrees.
18. Watch their hands. Hands kill. In God we trust. Everyone else, keep your hands where I can see them.
19. Decide to be aggressive ENOUGH, quickly ENOUGH.
20. The faster you finish the fight, the less shot you will get.
21. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
22. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.
23. Your number one option for personal security is a lifelong commitment to avoidance, deterrence, and de-escalation.
24. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun, the caliber of which does not start with a "4."
Image: That's a Marine with an M16A2 5.56 mm rifle
 Howler of the day: George McGovern is back. He blames the "insurgency" on Amerika. Natch. First time I read it, I thought it was a satire. But, come to think of it, I guess he is an expert on quitting and losing.
Cross Ball State U off the list. Michelle. Just another school that does not tolerate diversity. Frito-Lay's new healthy snax: One quote from the release: PLANO, TX—With the recent trend of wholesome snack foods reaching "truly ridiculous proportions," Frito-Lay announced Monday that it would, against its better judgment, roll out a new line of healthy fruit-and-vegetable-based chips next February. "Here," said Frito-Lay CEO Al Carey as he disgustedly tossed a bag of the company's new Flat Earth-brand snack crisps onto the lectern during a meeting with shareholders and members of the press. "Here's some shit that's made from beets. I hope you're all happy now that you have your precious beet chips with the recommended daily serving of fruit, or vegetables, or whatever the hell a 'beet' is."
From state icon to pest: the gator resurgence in FL. Don't they call them swimming handbags? New Hampshire needs a border fence. On the southern end. Wizbang Classical Values reflects on the election: Whether the Republicans are viewed from a libertarian perspective, an economic conservative perspective, or a social conservative perspective, they failed. I mean, the best I could come up with was "Hold your nose and vote Republican!" While that can hardly be called a winning slogan, as it turned out, I had such a terrible cold that I didn't need to hold my nose.
Under the leadership of the New York Times, as quoted at Dem Project: "During the last 50 years, New York State’s share of U.S. income has declined 37%, while Minnesota’s remained constant, and New Hampshire’s increased 67%. New York State now ranks 45th among the 50 states in population and income growth, and percent of the adult population employed. Although NYS spends the most per pupil for education, our state has the 44th lowest graduation rate. Four out of ten students do not graduate from high school in New York State. "Our state has the highest per-capita tax burden of the 50 states, a burden that is 53% over the national average. Per-capita state and local government debt is 76% above the national average. Per-capita state and local government spending is 46% over the national average. State spending increased 13% this year, far faster than revenue growth, and four times the inflation rate. From 2000-2004, New York lost over one million residents to other states, 300,000 more than any other state."
More agenda-driven fear-mongering from The Lancet. This time it's evil chemicals. We are getting well past the point of taking that once-venerable mag seriously. Worstall A good word for Oprah, at Slower Pace Why do we use the word "just," especially in prayer? Middlebrow Live for today? From Viking: A quarter of Americans plan to eat cat food in retirement – From Dayton Business Journal: “While most people know that Social Security and company-provided pensions might not be available when they hit retirement, many still plan to rely on them. In the survey, a phone poll of 1,000 nonretired people throughout the United States, 23 percent say they intend to use Social Security as their primary income source in retirement.” The primary source of income! Good luck with that.
An opinion, from Shape of Days. I tend to think he just wants the world to stop turning, but I'm sure others share his feeling, which I suspect comes from too much negatively-slanted news. A quote: But ours is not a happy or healthy nation. Confidence in the American way is as low as I’ve ever known it to be. Optimism, long endangered, seems to have become extinct. I’d use the word “malaise” here, but the irony would be too much to bear. I think the first step toward restoring confidence in America — at least in my own heart, if not in the minds of the American people as a group — is for government to just slow down for a while. September 11, two wars overseas, a natural disaster at home, the Patriot Act (which has done more good than harm), the Military Commissions Act (which merely by existing does far more harm than it could ever do good) … there’s just been too much change in the past six years.
You have just made it through your wedding ceremony and step out onto the church steps. The photographer raises his camera... Following your family tradition, both of you hold white doves which you will release together. You and your new husband stand shoulder to shoulder with a dove in your hands as your friends and relatives eagerly wait. The photographer gives the ready signal and you open your hands toward the sky. Not a dry eye in the house, the camera flashes; the moment is saved for eternity.... (T-rated image on continuation page below)
Continue reading "Continuing with today's marriage theme..."
Thursday, November 9. 2006
Love is Just a Four-letter Word (1967) Seems like only yesterday
I left my mind behind
Down in the Gypsy Cafe
With a friend of a friend of mine
She sat with a baby heavy on her knee
Yet spoke of life most free from slavery
With eyes that showed no trace of misery
A phrase in connection first with she I heard
That love is just a four-letter word Outside a rambling store-front window
Cats meowed to the break of day
Me, I kept my mouth shut, too
To you I had no words to say
My experience was limited and underfed
You were talking while I hid
To the one who was the father of your kid
You probably didn't think I did, but I heard
You say that love is just a four-letter word I said goodbye unnoticed
Pushed towards things in my own games
Drifting in and out of lifetimes
Unmentionable by name
Searching for my double, looking for
Complete evaporation to the core
Though I tried and failed at finding any door
I must have thought that there was nothing more
Absurd than that love is just a four-letter word Though I never knew just what you meant
When you were speaking to your man
I can only think in terms of me
And now I understand
After waking enough times to think I see
The Holy Kiss that's supposed to last eternity
Blow up in smoke, its destiny
Falls on strangers, travels free
Yes, I know now, traps are only set by me
And I do not really need to be
Assured that love is just a four-letter word. This song never appeared on a Dylan recording, but has been covered by a number of people, and is best known in the Joan Baez version, which is performed in such a foolishly and gratingly upbeat manner that I will not link the record.
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