April 04, 2008
Ummm, this is a really good article on security...
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April 02, 2008
Oh, shootings, yes. But that doesnt mean Americans are more violent than other people...
Spoiler alert:
Some more quotes from the movie here.
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March 19, 2008
We want to increase our school breakfast participation and BreakfastBreaks is going to be the way to do it, says Demetrious Giovas, foodservicedirector for Gadsden Independent School District, Anthony, New Mexico.(there are some links in the original, make sure you click through to get those)(Heres the whole article.)
Shouldnt it be, We want to encourage all parents who are capable to serve their children a nutritious breakfast at home, so their kids can have a great start to the day? I cant for the life of me see why theyd be pushing for more students eating breakfast at school. Except, of course, for financial reasons.
I have noticed this quite a bit lately. My school sent home a note saying please sign up for free lunch. Even if you dont need it, the school gets money for having you qualify. I tried hard to not be offended by this. Since when do we not encourage parents to prepare healthy meals for their children?
[snip]
Spunkyhomeschooler had this to say. Why dont they just take the children full time and let the parents check them out like a library book when they want to spend time with them? It seems to be the next logical step dont you think? I gotta say, I agree with her on this one.
That's the thing, isn't it? The government wants to have more and more control over more and more of your life, justifying taking more and more of your money and giving you less and less control over the decision you would like to make in life.
Vote GOP, Mr Lady. It may not help much, but voting the other will absolutely make things worse.
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March 05, 2008
Via Ace O' Spades
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March 01, 2008
By Joan of Argghh!*
Just reading the Google search terms on your site meter will deprive you of the last of your innocence.
Anyone who's been blogging more than about 6 months should be completely familiar with that concept, even if (like me), they wouldn't have been able to articulate it so well.
Read More "Brilliance" »Show Comments »
I don't recall how my surfing led me to this page, but it really is worth reading the whole thing.
Watch for such quotes as:
I have personally saved the ass-virginity of several young boys in my days. But there are many brave men like myself out there who risk their lives daily, so that boys like yourself can live a normal heterosexual life.
BTW A one time experiementation while in the military, does not make one a homosexual.
Keep reading to the end, or you'll miss:
I crept behind the Mrs. PacMan game, and when I heard the perp reload, jumped up with my trusty K-Bar, and threw it into the perps arm, pinning him against the wall behind him.
The poster writes as if it actually happened.
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February 29, 2008
Via Ace O' Spades
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February 24, 2008
February 23, 2008
February 03, 2008
To get to prosperity, head directly away from the Clintons.
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January 30, 2008
"Cant we do without a president for the next four years or so?"
I see absolutely no reason why not.
Oh, and be sure to read the whole thing.
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January 29, 2008
As a Patriot fan, I find this several times more disturbing than SpyGate.
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December 04, 2007
Summed up with two perfect statements:
2) This country seems to be suffering from a deficit of serious, adult leadership.
The even better one, the one that I will now take as my personal mantra, below the fold:
Read More "David J Expresses My Current Political Thinking" »Show Comments »
October 18, 2007
Check it out: Hoax letter with a nice ending.
Even the response is a hoax, of course. Part of the humor.
I'll be having fun poking around that site, I'm sure.
Found via David J Zombyboy.
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September 20, 2007
When will the madness end?!?!?
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September 18, 2007
Snarky take on factual reports over at Scrappleface.
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September 17, 2007
September 14, 2007
Not really, but cool, nonetheless.
Here's the trick:
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August 30, 2007
I learned some stuff in this article. You probably will, too.
It's worth your time.
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August 21, 2007
August 20, 2007
The answer is "None. None More Cute.
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Via Robb of Sharp as a Marble.
You have 4 boxes to use, and in this order: 1. Soap 2. Ballot 3. Jury 4. Ammo
I'm grudgingly giving Robb credit; from what I know of his intellect, it's a cinch he stole it from someone else...
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August 12, 2007
Yeah, I like guitar stuff. So what?
This guy needs to put out albums. He's the best technical wizard I've ever seen.
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August 11, 2007
Truly Amazing.
UPDATE: This guy clearly has lots of flemenco guitar training. Watch the point where his thumb just about vibrates to staccato pick, the full-string finger flutter. Those aren't the technical terms for the technique (because I don't know the terms), but that's what he does. He's a good finger-picker, as well.
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August 10, 2007
Destruction Of National Pastime Given Two-Minute Standing Ovation
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August 06, 2007
Still, it's good to have people jumping back on the bandwagon again.
People, there's plenty of room for more. It would be nice to get a supermajority of support again.
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August 03, 2007
Rather, "Bad Stats on a Subway." Or maybe, "Jerks at a Newspaper."
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July 18, 2007
Pretty much accurate, from where I stand at least.
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If you have only been listening to Al Gore, you will have missed the news that the most direct correlation between warming and anything else is the inverse of the number of pirate attacks, NOT the level of CO2 in the atmosphere.
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July 16, 2007
Well, this is intentional. But it is unintentionally accurate, methinks. At least, most Democratic Party platforms sound like this to me:
...former Sen. John Edwards made his most ambitious policy announcement yet at a campaign event in Iowa Monday: a promise to eliminate all unpleasant, disagreeable, or otherwise bad things from all aspects of American life by the end of his second year in office.
Via the Blogfather.
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July 10, 2007
Stopping spam apparently sucks even worse.
Visits to other spam-related addresses by IronPort employees led to an empty parking lot in Toronto and a London office building where the receptionist had never heard of the company name given on the Web site. MasterCard refused to reveal details about a Russian account that charged his MasterCard, beyond saying it belonged to a business called #Pharmacyclient1.com. A few weeks later, he was reimbursed. MasterCard says it has ceased to process transactions for 500 fake Web pharma sites but that many of these sites reopen with a new bank and name.
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July 06, 2007
Apparently, Sony VAIO Custumer Support stinks. Badly.
I'm really surprised to hear that Sony VAIO Customer Service is that amazingly bad. I thought, wrongly, it seems, that Sony's quality would be serviced by an equally quality Sony VAIO Customer Support center. That thought is in vain, because Sony VAIO Customer Support has clearly one of the worst attitudes toward customer service that I've seen in a long time.
It's really bad.
Let me say it again, Sony VAIO Customer Service is atrocious. Sony VAIO Customer Service is horrible. Sony VAIO Customer Service is terrible.
I might even say (with apologies to Monty Python fans everywhere):
Sony VAIO Customer Service has passed on! Sony VAIO Customer Service is no more! Sony VAIO Customer Service has ceased to be! Sony VAIO Customer Service has expired and gone to meet its maker! Sony VAIO Customer Service is a stiff! Bereft of life, Sony VAIO Customer Service rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed Sony VAIO Customer Service to the perch Sony VAIO Customer Service'd be pushing up the daisies! Sony VAIO Customer Service's metabolic processes are now history! Sony VAIO Customer Service is off the twig! Sony VAIO Customer Service has kicked the bucket, Sony VAIO Customer Service has shuffled off the mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-Sony VAIO Customer Service!!Read More "Japanese Companies Don't Know How to Show Contrition, Either" »
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July 05, 2007
Welcome, AoS HQ readers! (Thanks for the link, Ace!)
So let's say you think the Beholder was a real animal. And you can talk forever about the advantages of a bastard sword against ring mail armor, despite not actually knowing what either one of those objects really looks like, or the proper way to use them.
Well, you may now have a place in Medieval Studies.
Medieval Studies Makes Room for Those Raised on D&D
For Dorks everywhere, this may just be your best chance to get lucky.*
Read More "Write Your Own Punchline" »Show Comments »
July 02, 2007
Some people with too much time on their hands, probably due to not ever being able to get a date.
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July 01, 2007
June 27, 2007
Lie-detecting brain scanners probably don't work.
Apparently, lying is easier for some people than others.
Isn't that always the problem, though?
But critics like Elizabeth Phelps, a cognitive neuroscientist at New York University, say the assumption that lying requires more mental exertion might hold true of the college students used in most studies so far, but not of hardened criminals or sociopaths. It also could be easy to cheat on fMRI tests, since the large regions of the brain that apparently are activated by lies also involve other activities. Mentally reciting poetry might be enough to throw off the tests, says a cognitive scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Accomplished liars are very good at the mental games that help them get away with lying. Things like saying "I did not sleep with that woman" before saying her name, leading people to believe a lie.
Conclusion: It's not likely to stymie the typical Democrat methods.
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June 22, 2007
Um, not including a monitor.
And only 512MB processor.
And only if you get a couple of key parts for free from someone.
Still, I'm thinking about trying it out, just to see about playing the free games on LINUX.
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June 21, 2007
From Free Geekery.
Interesting article. Have fun reading it!
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May 06, 2007
...but it's the accompanying commentary that makes this a "Must See"
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November 30, 2006
I'm going to have some fun at this site.
Courtesy of The Corner.
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July 25, 2005
And a Kevin is involved, naturally.
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July 18, 2005
July 06, 2005
...I find myself on someone new's list of "Favorite Blogs". And I think of a new way to make fun of a fellow blogger (coming soon).
How can I feel the doldroms with inspiring moments like these??!?
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June 10, 2005
Cool People Like H. Beam Piper.
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June 06, 2005
June 03, 2005
I have to admit, I generally don't like Phillip Carter. He's my ideological opposite in many ways, despite being a former Army officer (which shouldn't surprise me, I guess, but it does).
I kept wanting to pick holes in his arguments in a piece he co-wrote over on Slate. But although I disagree with many of his assumptions and arguments in the beginning part of the piece*.
But then when he actually starts making recommendations on how to fix things, I can't help but agree nearly 100%. We could retain more quality soldiers if we improved Basic Training, to include more effort preparing people for basic training. I know I wasn't borderline or anything, but even though I was practicing doing push-ups, I wasn't practicing correctly, and I would have benefited greatly from a mandatory exercise program while I was on the Delayed Entry Program. It would probably reduce exercise-related injuries, as well. I have several friends who at least wouldn't mind joining the military but know they are too far out of shape to meet even initial standards without help.
And Mr. Carter also argues that the Reserve system needs to be changed, and even makes a suggestion of how to do so. I find both of these to be spot on. Go read the article for yourself. If you are interested in military matters, you won't be disappointed.
Read More "Some Good Points" »Show Comments »
June 01, 2005
Check this out to see what I'm talking about.
Brilliant.
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May 26, 2005
I agree, it is.
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April 28, 2005
He made it sound pretty good. Although, I gotta tell ya, with all the 'gotta's, 'making progress's, and other style renditions Dale through in there, it really seemed like W was channeling the elder Bush. I kept expecting him to transcribe, "Not Gonna Do It" and "Wouldn't be prudent at this juncture".
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April 13, 2005
He didn't say he got it from somewhere else, so I guess the wisdom is Jay's alone.
What's it about? A brief compare/contrast of "Who Owns Your Body?"
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March 27, 2005
Michelle Malkin describes a reader's letter that notes Google didn't do an Easter Logo this year and wonders if it was a snub.
They did do a special logo for Easter back in 2000:
Logo
It included this pretty cool little java applet.
Just hazarding a guess, this leads me to believe that a lack of Easter logos this year isn't so much a snub as an oversight; they probably do new logos when the mood strikes them, and no one had what they thought was a cool idea the past few years...
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March 24, 2005
...and, GM Sucks!
Well, that's not really his point. But another commenter did express my feelings in saying the Chevy Malibu is pretty atrocious-looking.
It's weird, it was a decent-looking car in 2002-3, but wimpy under the skin. So they use the Saab underpinnings, give it more performance....and proceed to give it one of the cheesiest looks I've seen in the past decade.
Don't pull the tube on Terry, pull it on GM!
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Yep, the latest edition is up.
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March 17, 2005
And here we can see the great flaw in Chait’s wishful thinking about liberal realism. Clinton agreed to welfare reform — over the objections of most liberals, including his own wife — because the Republicans forced him to and he’d have lost the 1996 election if he didn’t. That was the beginning and the ending of Bill Clinton’s fact-finding. The New York Times's editorial page — a better representative of elite liberalism’s worldview than The New Republic, alas — called welfare reform “atrocious” and an outrage. “This is not reform, it is punishment” they declared.Last summer, the Times reported that welfare reform was one of the “acclaimed successes of the past decade” and its renewal is a “no-brainer.” Chait would no doubt salute the newspaper for its empiricism. But how would we have known they were empiricists in 1996? Real empiricists express skepticism toward their own predictions, not moral outrage and — often — charges of racism at those who doubt them.
Indeed, that’s the story writ small of liberalism’s alleged acceptance of “new realities.” It’s not that liberals have maturely adapted to new data, it’s that they’ve been proven wrong so often — either empirically or at the polls — that they’ve had to change, and each time they do it, it’s not with the empiricist’s joy of learning new things, it’s with grumbling through gnashed teeth and amidst much caterwauling about liberal “sellouts” and political opportunism. For more than three decades, liberals swore there was no evidence that there was anything wrong with welfare reform until even the public knew they were lying.
Lastly there’s Chait’s solipsism. His version of reality cannot explain liberals who disagree with him. Are liberals who oppose free trade simply morons who can’t do the math? Was Hillary Clinton less of a liberal because she opposed welfare reform? What about Marian Wright Edelman? Are the Europeans who’ve refused to recognize that the economic rot of their welfare states really conservatives because they can’t face facts? Are liberals in America who envy Europe’s economic model incapable of recognizing its flaws? How does Chait explain anybody to his left — either ideologically or simply in the next office over from him — who disagrees with him? If liberals always go where the facts take them — you in the back, stop laughing — how is it that liberals ever disagree? He might say that only conservatives operate in ideologically blinkered bad faith and God-defying false-consciousness. But I think the real answer is that in Chait’s formulation the facts can only be what he finds them to be. And one senses that he really thinks God should come down and tell everyone that’s the case.
...and:
On almost every significant area of public policy the Democrats are atrophied, rusty, and calcified. They're dependent upon old (condescending) notions about blacks, the patronage of teacher’s unions which care very little for the facts, and feminists who define liberation almost exclusively as the freedom to abort pregnancies despite all of the new, inconvenient facts science is bringing to bear. Liberals are not the “reality-based community,” they are the status-quo based community. They wish to stand athwart history yelling "Stop" — in some rare cases, even when history is advancing liberalism in tyrannical lands. The Buckleyite formulation of standing athwart history yelling "Stop" was aimed at a world where the rise of Communism abroad and soft-liberalism at home were seen as linked trends. Today, liberals yell "Stop" almost entirely because they don’t enjoy being in the backseat. If they cannot drive, no one can.
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March 16, 2005
One of the things I think is true about blogging is that if you do real work, real journalism, or provide something unique, you will get noticed.
To back up my belief, I'm going to highlight some good work going on. It's mostly political activism, but also could be considered grass-roots lobbying, and has the potential to transform into true journalism, if the situation warrants it and it is handled right.
Whatever you want to call what she's doing, the proprietor of "Oregon Racing" is tracking the responses to a letter-writing campaign initiated to determine (and hopefully shore up) support for Oregon Senate Bill 929. If you don't feel like following that link, the aim is to provide some relief to the parimutual industry by eliminating a rather arbitrary and onerous restriction regarding bets on simul-casts of races.
You may not care about horse racing...but this is intimately involved with the issue of slot machines, lotteries, casinos, and scratch-offs that many states are turning to for revenue. You may not be from Oregon, but other state legislatures will consider their own decisions based on how this turns out.
The blog proprietor is taking some pretty impressive steps. Please do me the favor of linking or otherwise supporting her efforts.
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Good stuff there today. What am I saying? There's always good stuff in Asia By Blog!
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March 15, 2005
Via Q and O Blog comes this excellent point by Justice Scalia:
Scalia said increased politics on the court will create a bitter nomination fight for the next Supreme Court appointee, since judges are now more concerned with promoting their personal policy preferences rather than interpreting the law."If we're picking people to draw out of their own conscience and experience a 'new' Constitution, we should not look principally for good lawyers. We should look to people who agree with us," he said, explaining that's why senators increasingly probe nominees for their personal views on positions such as abortion.
"When we are in that mode, you realize we have rendered the Constitution useless," Scalia said.
McQ echoes that point with his own words, worth repeating:
The future battle for the replacement of retiring justices obviously looms large. In my opinion the placing of anymore justices such as Anthony Kennedy, who feels the use of foreign precedent is acceptable and sees it as the court's job to decide on "notions of evolving decency" ( "It is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty.") instead of strict Constitutional relevancy will spell the death knell of our Constitutional way of life. It will open an era of activist courts from which we might never be able to recover and it would cement in place the tyranny of the minority .... the black clad coterie of jurists who would decide what is "decent" and what isn't.
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I found this through Michelle Malkin, so I'm sure Teflon's getting a deluge of hits from here. In comparison, a BrainStorm from me isn't going to be more than a light drizzle. Still, I think it's pretty cool, so I'm still going to link his piece on the highly-edited PC Bible.
Including his take on a modern version of the 10 Commandments:
1. I am the cool mack daddy of the dope hype flow. Give me props and mad respect.
2. Don't be kneeling for some bling bling.
3. Don't be throwing my name around, be it J. Hovah or Yah Diddy.
4. Yo, Sunday is "funday", ya dig?
5. Respect your moms, your pops, or whoever it was raised you, unless they whack.
6. Thou shalt not bust a cap in someone's ass.
7. Don't be running around on people like they don't know.
8. No five-finger discounts.
9. Don't front.
10. If your neighbor's got a fly crib or a pimped-out set of wheels, that's they bidness, not yours
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March 14, 2005
A good post on what led a liberal to change his opinion on abortion.
Nobody expects the Law of Unintended Consequences!
(Related) ...so maybe we do need a Federal Marriage Amendment after all? Their assurances of "letting the States decide" might have been deliberate misrepresentations? Perish the thought!
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March 11, 2005
I had never heard the story of the cellphones.
FAD usually makes me laugh out loud. He's got me choked up and moved to tears, this time.
Read More "Moving Tribute to 3/11" »Show Comments »
March 10, 2005
More from today's Impromptus.
There are some people who would rather homosexuals be stoned to death than that they be liberated by George W. Bush and the "Right."Our liberals were crabby about the eastern Europeans' freedom, and the collapse of the Soviet Union — that might credit the despised Gipper. And they're crabby about the possibilities of freedom for Middle Easterners. This does not say something very nice about human beings.
--or is it really more just about liberals?
Much analysis has been done concerning the Supreme Court's recent death-penalty decision — that lawless disgrace — and I can add little. But I would like to say this: Doesn't 18 seem to you blatantly random? I mean, why not 19? Why not 18 and a half? Why not 20? Why not 17? Should not these things be judged case by case? But the fivesome's conscience can't allow it. Besides, Americans in Europe are so sick of being hectored about our barbaric practice of executing vicious killers.
But one must not spoil the martyrology of the likes of Martha Burk.
First, what is the "international community," or "world community"? Do Biden, Kerry, and the others mean the world's governments? The world's governments are diverse: There's Kim Jong Il; and then there's the Czech Republic. They probably mean the French, the Belgians, and Kofi Annan. Quite possibly Hugo Chávez (even Castro?).
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March 07, 2005
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March 03, 2005
Go see Simon.
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February 25, 2005
Great discussion on the USAF here. It touches on the history of the USAF, interservice rivalry, Close Air Support needs/methods, new military technology, future warfare...it is the best thread ever, and I'm not saying that just because I'm a participant. Honestly.
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Specifically, an appropriate and amusing reponse to Mommy Madness.
There's even a Manolo Blahnik reference for you!
...I just wish I'd gotten more links for commenting on this within hours of the article being posted...one of the first, although probably not the first to do so...
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Okay, I think I understand what Chris was getting at: Apparently, he's a Cobbler to the Stars. I'm not sure why that is particularly relevant today. Did Hunter S. Thompson have a secret collection? Or is it just the Oscars?
Can someone clue me in?
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The very excellent Asia By Blog is up over at Simon's World. Go check it out, ok?
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February 18, 2005
Lord have mercy on my soul, I'm laughing uncontrollably at this right now.
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February 09, 2005
Simply amazing what IowaHawk can do on a consistent basis.
If I were trying to run a humor blog, I'd probably have to give it up.
Luckily, I'm only trying to put out crap and stuff not worth linking. I appear to be doing an excellent job at that so far!
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February 08, 2005
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Be prepared for the long haul.
When I entered Active Duty, it took six months to finish Basic Training, the Security Police Academy, and Air Base Ground Defense (the USAF version of advanced infantry training). After all of that, when I arrived at my first duty station, I was qualified to do nothing. Instead, I immediately had to begin another 6 month on-the job training course in order to perferm the duties appropriate to my rank.Nothing magical happens during 2 or three months of Basic Training that turns you into a competent soldier. All that does is turn you into a competent recruit. It takes months of training in basic military skills, weapons handling, fire and movement, and more just to prepare you for the basic demands of soldiering.
Then, of course, there are the two or three years of experience and schooling that you must have before you can be promoted to the most junior NCO position.
For senior leadership positions at the regimental level and above, it takes a generation.
That's all mostly true. I disagree with a few things...it doesn't take quite as long to develop a quality officer as it does a quality NCO, in my opinion. Good officers are only good if they depend on their NCOs, anyway, but even more than that, officers are largely managers rather than tacticians, these days. You could pull a few successful businessmen into the military and at least not have a disaster.
But without a professional and trainied NCO corps, you are headed for a disaster. I don't think even most US NCOs truly realize how special and unique they are.
For the most part, officers set direction and set the standard. But it is NCOs who ensure that junior enlisted are trained to that standard and continue to meet it.
And it will take 3-5 years to get a fully trained NCO corps. The interesting thing is that after we are done in Iraq, they should have the best military in the entire region, by far.
Good luck, Iraq!
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February 07, 2005
Little Miss Attila appears to be suffering something of a crisis of nerve...
I thought about answering her, but my response is probably going to be long enough to warrant its own post. Furthermore, I want my own readers to be able to see what I have to say, too.
I don't want to do a fisking, but I do want to respond to several points.
She starts off by saying:
Christmas
... is just like planning a wedding. Someone (generally the woman, if one's available) works her ass off, forfeits sleep, spends evey penny she owns, and sacrifices endlessly so a bunch of other people can have a good time.
The thing is, those "bunch of other people" probably include women, too, right? So why try to start off with an inflammatory gender issue? Some people give, and some people take, and gender has little to do with it. Now, this doesn't change that Miss Attila sounds like a giver who is often taken advantage of. That's sad, unfair, and she should be applauded for her sacrifice. But not by insisting that men are lazy slobs and only women work around the house.
Next, she says:
Naturally, I'm frightened about the child or children: I know this will be a life-changing experience. I know it will be a lot of hard work. I just don't know if I'll end up feeling used, or taken for granted. I just don't want it to be like all the other projects I've worked hard on for essentially no payoff. (The assumption out there being that women simply like to work really hard to make other people happy, so the act itself is its own reward.)What they tell me is that kids are so wonderful that it's terrific to have them around (once you're past babyhood and the terrible twos). They say it's different. They say the work is grueling, but at the end of the day you don't really mind.
Now, I don't read Little Miss Attila enough to get the full backstory on this. Too many great blogs out there, yanno?
The thing is, from personal experience: you don't do it because you don't really mind at the end of the day. You don't do it because there is a payoff later.
You do it because they depend on you. You do it because there is no one else. You do it because, if you don't, no one else will.
The military talks about "selfless service" and at times we really approximate that. But most of the time there's awards and punishments and added benefits to keep us in and working for the nation. Not that there aren't real sacrifices going on all the time...but to be totally honest, I think there are non-tangible rewards that make up for the tangible sacrifices. Esprit de Corps is not a fable.
But parenting is pretty much the most selfless thing a person can ever do. You do it, not for thanks or respect or to get anything back, but because they need you, as I said.
I spend no less than 60 hours a week (sometimes more) involved with my work (including getting the kids up and dressed, commuting, dropping off at daycare, working, picking up from daycare, commuting home...). Once I get home, I make dinner, apply management techniques to get kids to eat, wash the dishes, play with them and make sure they have everything they need, take them to the library, give them their bath, help them brush their teeth and get ready for bed, read them a bed-time story and devotions, pray with them, and do "restless child watch" for an hour, then clean the house and do laundry.
I do the same on the weekends, including getting up with the children and taking them out to play at the playground, throw rocks in the river, go feed the ducks, go play at the mall, etc. I potty-trained my daughter with zero help. There is no reward for dealing with training pants filled with a mixture of excrement and urine. But you do it because they cannot do it themselves.
There are moments of joy in that. The hug of a child who loves you is wonderful. But you don't do it for those rewards. You simply do it for them.
That's why you hear people say "That one smile makes it worthwhile" or whatever...because they got past the "what's in it for me?" mentality and whatever crumb of happy memory they get is more than they expected and is wonderful.
I know I'm painting a pretty bleak picture. It's not really that bad. The human mind has the ability to adapt to anything. And while it is a sacrifice, it quickly stops seeming like one. You begin to care for their welfare more than your own. You truly place their needs ahead of yours. Their happiness truly becomes your happiness.
And that's how I define "Love".
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Suddenly empowered with the vote, Iraqis no longer seem to view America as all-powerful, or themselves as unable to affect events. A result has been a suddenly more accepting view of the United States.
This is the most important paragraph of a piece at the New York Times. I'm not going to register to read the whole thing, but you can get a larger excerpt at the same place I did: Geopolitical Review.
Um, if your browser has as much problems with the columns as mine does, you'll have to scroll down a bit to see the actual article.
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Everyone go and visit Jeremy and express your condolences. (although he seems to be taking it well)
Here's hoping it doesn't take three consecutive losses at this level to finally win one.
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February 03, 2005
RaAs, with a bonus: why are white supremacists considered 'right-wingers' anyway?
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February 02, 2005
Go read this nice article about how Democrats are not bringing anything constructive to the political table.
No big surprise there, the idea has already been out there for some time. But Rodger comes at it from a good angle with nice quotations. Go check it out.
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Will there ever be accountability?
Sadly, I doubt it.
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February 01, 2005
Here's a few to whet your appetite:
6) No other entity but the United States (and her true allies) could have attained this momentous result.7) The election is unlikely to lead to a civil war.
8) 20 years from now, Syrians witnessing Iraqi expatriates voting in Damascus will be viewed as a notable factor in the Syrian dictatorship's demise.
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The latest Asia By Blog is now up. Go check it out...it looks quite interesting today.
Well, it always does. But I haven't had time yet to read any articles to point out any specific ones yet. Yet.
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January 27, 2005
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These are not the droids you are looking for, either.
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A long, but truly thought-provoking essay is up at Dean's World*
See, I don't really find it racist or sexist. I guess some would. I see it as behavioralist, but that's one of my filters.
And I also think Mr. Sad emphasizes "democracy" too much. He himself first points to the Rule of Law as being the most important thing that makes the Texas desert far safer to individuals than the Iraqi desert, then does a bait and switch to replace it with "democracy" without explaining that shift to any real extent.
He's right, however, that "democracy" can be one such path by which people lose the Rule of Law, and can be one path by which people exercise their liberty.
But I do wonder if "bringing Democracy voting to the Middle East" isn't yet another form of Cargo Cult thinking...?
Thoughts?
Read More ""I'm The Law In These Here Parts"" »Show Comments »
January 26, 2005
Sometimes, humor makes a point more effectively than addressing the issue seriously.
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January 25, 2005
In fact, I'm dang good at coming up with 'em.
But this one is masterful:
It isn't that I believed them to be cold heartless monsters set out to destroy babies in the womb, I knew that they believed deeply that they were helping women at a terrible time in their life. They still believe that. But, they are wrong. When a wolf has her leg caught in the jaws of a steel trap, it will gnaw it's leg off because it sees no other option. I think this is how most women in crisis pregnancies feel. Isn't it more compassionate to gently help remove the steel trap and help the leg to heal so that the wolf does not spend her life knowing that there is something missing that was there before?
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The latest edition of Asia By Blog is now up for your reading pleasure. Please set your watches accordingly.
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January 24, 2005
Got it? If it's a violation of privacy, then the unborn child is "medical records." If the woman has other wishes or personal beliefs, then it's a person. But in any case, neither Planned Parenthood nor Dr. Hern has ever considered giving women an opportunity to mourn—not just see a social worker, but really mourn—for their dead child. Because that, of course, would imply that the thing that was scraped out of their womb was really a child—when we all know it's really just a child-shaped political football that can be humanized or dehumanized at a woman's whim.
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From last Monday:
"The president of Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers, sparked an uproar at an academic conference Friday when he said that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers," reports the Boston Globe:Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, walked out on Summers' talk, saying later that if she hadn't left, ''I would've either blacked out or thrown up." . . . It was during his comments on ability that Hopkins, sitting only 10 feet from Summers, closed her computer, put on her coat, and walked out. ''It is so upsetting that all these brilliant young women [at Harvard] are being led by a man who views them this way," she said later in an interview.
You've just gotta love this Nancy Hopkins, who managed with her little outburst to reinforce stereotypes of feminists as humorless harpies and of women as ruled by their emotions.
This brings up a point I've been considering blogging. I read the first part of a book by a liberal who thinks that his job as a father is to "help his daughters find their voices". You hear all sorts of statistics about how girls lose interest in math and science and need to be encouraged to continue, how girls answer more in class until grade 6 or 7 and suddenly clam up, etc, etc, etc. There's more, but you know to what sort of feminist thinking I am referring.
When I hear stuff like that, I always think back to Shakespeare's admontion of "To thine ownself be true."
What if it is a necessary part of maturation for girls to not talk as much? Introspection is a necessary part of adulthood, so is silence a bad thing? Why should women remain heavily involved in math and science? Just to earn money? Who decided that earning money is the only metric by which a person's worth is judged?
I could vamp on this theme for paragraphs and pages and hours. For instance, sex used to be an obligation for the woman to the man, and in return he wasn't supposed to stray. Now if a man doesn't adopt and internalize a woman's view of sex, discarding his needs to meet only her own, she has no obligation to meet his needs and he's a heel if he doesn't remain faithful to a wife who refuses to have sex with him. Now, obviously 'sex being an obligation from a wife to her husband' isn't good, but is what we have now any better? Why should teenage girls be pressured into having sex by Planned Parenthood? Why should women have to have mid-life crises where they finally discard what the feminist movement has told them they need to be to be a success in favor of what they really want to do/be?
The sexual revolution is pretty much done. Children and men are clear losers in the battle. Women may have won a pyrrhic victory, but even that is in doubt.
That's incomplete and insufficiently insightful, but the topic depresses me too much to spend more time writing something better.
Roe v. Whale "Right Whales having Mini-Baby Boom"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 14
...well, the are right whales, after all.
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From 21 January:
- [The Inaugural] speech, my friends, should be chiseled on a wall. It is magnificent, because magnificently true and right. If ever anything deserved the adjective Lincolnesque, this is it.- Of course the Left would disrupt the speech. That's what it does; it has certainly done it all of my life, on college campuses and beyond. For them, freedom of speech means the freedom to shut you up. They, naturally, are never shut up.
Letters:
- "Over my life, I have attended three churches: a liberal church in a liberal denomination, a moderate church in a liberal denomination, and a conservative church in a conservative denomination. Need I answer any of the following questions? Which church gives the most to missions? Which has the most volunteers for missions and community services? As a bonus — which is the most ethnically diverse?"- "Jay, I'm tired of the suffix '-gate' to go with every scandal. I propose another one: '-quiddick.' Don't you think it's about time?"
From 19 January:
- I quote Coretta Scott King: "If Martin's philosophy had been lived out in Iraq, we wouldn't have bin Laden." I would think about that more, but I'm dizzy.
From 18 January:
- I have heard this baloney pretty much all my life: "You conservatives don't care about people, you're not interested in the world, you just want to sit by the pool smoking cigars." This charge is so inane, I can barely get my fingers to type in response. But . . .When I was in college, "liberals" basically cared about three groups of people: South Africans (above all), Filipinos, and Chileans. But they didn't really care about them, as I saw it; they just used those people to attack the United States. Once apartheid fell, Marcos left, and Pinochet stepped aside, who cared about those countries' citizens?
You could not get anyone — anyone — interested in the peoples behind the Iron Curtain. If you tried to do so, you were a right-wing fanatic, or "poisoning the atmosphere of détente." That was the big catchphrase of the day; I heard it constantly. Solzhenitsyn — another conservative who doesn't care about people and is not interested in the world — was vilified as a fascist, a reactionary, a warmonger.
You couldn't get liberals interested in Nicaraguans, certainly not in the Miskito Indians, who were essentially an embarrassment to them. You could not get them interested in Grenadians — not in ordinary ones, only in "leftist thugs," as Reagan aptly described them. You could not get them interested in any black Africans who were oppressed by black strongmen. A rank impossibility.
And shall we get started on Vietnam? I don't think so. Why is it that, when I was younger, I heard about the boat people, the reeducation camps, and so on only from the lips of "right-wingers"? Has anything changed? And burned into the mind of every conservative is the New York Times's headline, when the Khmer Rouge took over in Cambodia: "Indochina Without Americans: For Most, a Better Life." Nice going, guys.
What about today? I am repeatedly praised — by Cubans and Cuban Americans — for my attention to Cuba, yet I do practically nothing. The reason I am praised is that I do a little more than nothing. The same with the Chinese, who are more than a billion people, aren't they? I once received an award from an exile group — a human-rights group. In my remarks to them, I said I was embarrassed to be receiving the award, because I had done so little — an article or two about Falun Gong, some acknowledgments of Laogai (the Chinese gulag), a few squibs about someone I know, Jian-li Yang, who languishes in some Chinese dungeon.
But many liberals think that to note persecution in China is, somehow, to give aid and comfort to Joe McCarthy. Really.
I think I've still got some considering to do about China, towards which I have such mixed feelings: love the people, hate the govt, and despite many friends, relatives, and contacts there haven't seen any oppression of the govt happen on anyone who wasn't breaking laws in nearly three decades. Unjust laws? Sure. But well-known laws nonetheless. But still, there's gotta be a better way for me to respond to those who call Communist China a pack of evil, oppressive commies.
They aren't, really, in many senses, but the people don't exactly enjoy freedom, either. More like a truce with the Secret Police as long as they don't cause too much trouble.
But should we nuke the country to free the people? Should we blame the people who are keeping the truce with the govt when someone deliberately chooses to breach that truce and is punished? Much progress has been made under the truce, especially toward the Rule of Law. Let it be established first, then start the counter-revolution, or you end up with difficulties in implementing liberty-based democracy. (more on that, specifically in regards to Iraq, soon)
...but back to Impromptus, same day, continuing on with the discussion of liberal vs conservative compassion:
It's hard to get liberals interested in the Sudanese, massacred as they are — because they are not massacred by the "right" murderers — and you really can't get them interested in Arabs. They care about Palestinians to the extent that they can cast Israel as a monster, and the United States as the monster's Frankenstein (Great Satan/Little Satan). What the PA does to Palestinians is of no interest to virtually any liberal. You couldn't get liberals to care about Kuwaitis, except to mock them as rich and languorous. They left the impression that they thought Kuwaitis deserved invasion, rape, and subjugation. (Do you remember Alexander Cockburn, from December 1979? "If any people deserves rape, it's the Afghans.")About the Afghans: There are liberals who would rather homosexuals be stoned to death than that they be freed by George W. Bush and the U.S. military. The latter is the greater insult.
As I said, I should perhaps have left this topic alone. The theme of "Conservatives don't care, they're insulated, they're incurious," blah, blah, blah, has been sounded all of my life, and it will be sounded until I die, I have no doubt. A person can't react to every offense.
But, you know? One of the reasons I migrated right is that I sensed that the Left didn't care about people, while "conservatives" — who were often genuine liberals — did. [...]
I don't wish to be naïve, or as categorical as Peter Beinart: Some of the conservatives' caring, no doubt, is opportunistic, as some of the liberals' is. But most of the best, most humane, and (frankly) most worldly people I know are political conservatives. I look back and think, Who were the ones who connected me to the lives of people around the globe? Solzhenitsyn, Pryce-Jones, Conquest, all the writers in Commentary, all the writers in National Review. In fact, Pryce-Jones, who is regularly denounced as anti-Arab, is now and then contacted by Arabs themselves, who, communicating furtively, say, "Why do you care about us, that you should write about us so honestly?"
Perhaps conservatives aren't credited with caring because they blather about it less; they are less self-congratulatory about it. Beinart, in his column, writes that President Bush "tries to see as little as possible of the countries he visits. (When Bill Clinton went to Africa, in 1998, he visited six countries in 11 days; when Bush went in 2003, he visited five countries in five days.)" So we're counting countries and days.
Maybe the lesson is that conservatives aren't so good at biting their lips and tearing up and otherwise emoting. Maybe conservatives are better at deeds than at words and emotions. But consider the millions whom Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have liberated. (I speak broadly — too broadly — but not inaccurately.) Isn't that a little better than biting your lip and tearing up? A little?
- By now, you surely know how Ted Kennedy referred to the new senator from Illinois, Barack Obama: "Osama bin . . . Osama . . . Obama." All I can say is, Thank goodness it was a prominent liberal who said this — an iconic, untouchable liberal. Can you imagine — can . . . you . . . imagine — if a right-winger had done this? The media outcry would have lasted a week, ringing with "How can you be so insensitive?" and "So, all the darker people look alike to you, huh?" and "So typical of the Right: Illinois elected a [partially] black senator, and you immediately equate him with Osama bin Laden."
And a letter from Armando Valldares that all Che Guevera fans should memorize:
Communist icons inevitably are found out. We need to look no further than the deaths of some 5,000 Polish officers, murdered by Communist firing squads in the Katyn Forest. The Kremlin laid the blame for this act on the Nazis, and succeeded in convincing nearly the entire world.When those of us who knew better voiced the truth, no one listened. We, and the 5,000 murdered, would have to wait until the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the Kremlin finally admitted blame for the atrocity.
It is the same with Che Guevara. I knew Che Guevara. He was an assassin, unscrupulous to the core. Many died at his hands, and many more died on his orders. His legend is pure fiction, masterfully crafted by his fellow Communists and the nostalgic Left. Add to their numbers every misguided liberal, a gullible multitude resembling the deluded masses who believed the cowardly lies of the Communists about the Katyn massacre.
[I interject to say that, when I was in college and graduate school, to finger the Soviets for Katyn was to start a furor.]
Che adulators and fans miss the logical conclusion. Had the object of their adoration and his ideology triumphed, their victory would have unleashed the Communist system worldwide, resulting in the bitterest fruits: total loss of personal freedom, execution by firing squad for dissent, concentration camps, an end to religious expression, and to a free press. Stalin's Russia replicated across a global stage.
That is the legacy Che Guevara intended for us — including for those who adulate him.
The cult of defending dictators and their henchmen is a repeating, albeit illogical, phenomenon. Stalin and Hitler, Pinochet, Castro, and Hussein ruthlessly purged millions of their compatriots and enslaved millions more. They heaped misery and horror on their own people, and yet their defenders vie with impunity against the truth. So it is with Che — a tired old tale.
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January 14, 2005
Zomby linked me regarding me linking him, so I thought I'd go ahead and return the favor.
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January 13, 2005
A- Any entitlement like this ends up costing more than initially planned and becomes a burden to the entire economy. That isn't good for American society as a whole. B- If the issue can be addressed in a way where a person actually gets to keep the money that he or she earned and recieves less in the way of old age welfare, but still maintains a reasonable standard of living in retirement, isn't that a preferable solution? C- It's my money, so the point of it is whether I find that this specific use of my tax dollars is effective or not. I find it lacking.I'm not a completely anti-tax partisan and I'm not a person who refuses to pay my taxes on principal, but I am a person who says that the electorate has a say in whether the use of that money is truly for the betterment of society and just how far the government gets to go in deciding what is best for society. The government could mandate that we all exercise, maintain a certain fat ratio, never drink, never smoke, and never eat anything other than government mandated, safe foods. That would certainly be for everyone and it would certainly be for a healthier, better society; I don't think the government gets to decide that, though.
I get the idea of Social Security, I just neither like it nor like this particular method of administering the program. If it absolutely has to exist, it should exist in a better form.
As a side note, I don't think you get one of the most important side benefits of private accounts: heritability. That is, when I die, that money gets to stay within my family as an inheritance. That would be better for society--and it isn't about me. Since my parents are already retired (although not collecting SS yet), any money that would be heritable and paid into a private account is long since spent.
What you really don't get is that I'm not suggesting this because I'm selfish. I'm saying I'm willing to continue doing what is necessary to fund current liabilities for the option of just keeping a portion of my own money. Since I'm well-advanced in my working years, this isn't asking for much and, in final analysis, is probably me being willing to give up quite a bit so that Social Security is "fixed" as well as it can be and so that our economy doesn't have to absorb a massive tax increase to fund my retirement when I get to that point.
What's best for the economy isn't high taxes. What's best for individuals isn't throwing money into a welfare tax that is poorly designed and implemented. What's best for individuals and families and societies as a whole is a thriving economy and heritable wealth that will most certainly change lives.
From this discussion.
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Good stuff, as always, over at Simon's World.
If you want to learn things about Asia, go read his link roundup.
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January 12, 2005
Right Wing Sparkle writes an open letter to Southpark Republicans.
Here's a taste (althought maybe I'm giving away the dramatic conclusion):
So this is what I have to say to my Southpark Republican friends. Let me give you a little perspective if faith is not a part of your life. Imagine that someone you love more than anything in this world; your child, is constantly being depicted in a gross or perverted manner in print, TV, and movies. Imagine a show that depicts your child, calling him by the name you have given him, being sexually raped or molested with no hint that there is anything wrong with that. I would think you would be enraged. You would scream from the roof top.That is the way religious conservatives feel about this culture. We feel that what we love is being put on display for ridicule and that we are having to raise our children in a culture than not only disrespects the faith we are trying to pass on to our children, but denigrates it in every way that it can from music, to TV, to movies. Every moral value that we convey to our children from pro-life issues to sexual issues to religious issues are considered "judgmental" or "prudish." We honestly feel our children are breathing in the venom our society puts out there and we feel helpless.
I feel exactly the same way she does.
To her letter, I would add:
And let me point out that she loves Jeff G.'s brand of humor*, as do I. I'm sure she feels, as I do, that God built us with the ability to see humor, and enjoy it, and create it. Sex can be ridiculous. Human interpretations and imperfect understandings of God can be highlighted with wit and insight**. I've never been the least offended by how South Park constantly shows Jesus as having a talk show on the local TV channel. It's funny, and it says more about talk shows than it does about Jesus.
I think the difference between the South Park Republicans and conservatives like me and Ms Sparkle is that RWS and I want to keep adult humor among adults. We recognize that the default setting should be "Child-safe", that children see alot and internalize much of it, to far more unfortunate influence than South Park Republicans realize.
And every protest of religious conservatives over public displays of crudity, obscenity, profanity is met with condescending statements of "Lighten up!" and "Stop trying to impose a Theocracy!" By doing so, South Park Republicans are demanding that we change to fit their standards. We religious conservatives aren't asking anyone to change...we're just asking you to keep it in the back room until the kids are in bed. Once we get 'em asleep, we'll probably join you for much of it, and not be bothered by what goes on that we don't personally approve of. No one wants to change you...so why can't you seem to handle voting Republican without trying to change us?
Read More "What She Said" »Show Comments »
But even though I'm going through some things that seem tough to me, it's nothing compared to the outpouring of "love" from Anti-Republicans* that Michelle Malkin undergoes on a constant basis.**
...But she doesn't let it deter her. I'm in awe.
Keep it up, Michelle. In my opinion, I never considered that Mr. Williams breach of ethics could affect you. I've never even considered you a writer and pundit first, because from the first I only considered you solely on the basis of your writing and opinions. Your nationality or gender never entered into it. My prayers will be with you.
Read More "Unexpected (To Me) Consequences of Armstrong Williams Foolishness" »Show Comments »
January 11, 2005
Ya'll go participate in this most excellent comment fundraiser, okay?
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Before, I might have pretty much ignored this news that scientists may have isolated the gene that prevents HIV infection in monkeys. I probably would have yawned and said, "Let me know after it works."
But in light of this discussion in which I took (an extremely small) part, the whole issue becomes fascinating: What if, after all this time and money spent isolating this gene, HIV infection is blocked and people still die of AIDS?
What do we do then?
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January 10, 2005
I think it is pretty much the most appropriate take on the the Kid Rock Kerfuffle. Since it's that good, he'll probably delete it within minutes.
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January 07, 2005
Man, Grayhawk can use words as devastatingly as he uses small arms. I'm glad he's on our side.
This time he's come up with a little quiz that tests how well the media has spun the facts of Abu Ghraib into an anti-military indictment. Go take the test; report what you got back here, if you want.
I got 100%. Hint: choose the answer that seems to represent the most cynical assumption about the essential dishonesty of news media. I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked! Well, okay, I'm not...exeperience has shown me that usually the most accurate response is to doubt the veracity of news media when they have an opportunity to make both the military and a Republican administration look bad. Grayhawk has the citations to back it up.
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January 05, 2005
God is God.God is our Judge.
We are not His judge.
The question is not, "Does God measure up to our (liberal, compassionate, self-deceived) standards?" The question is, "Will we learn — in silence and in awe at the far-beyond-human power of nature — how great, on a far different scale from ours, is God's love?"
It would be the greatest and most obscene of illusions for a man, any man, to imagine that he has greater love for a child mangled in the oily, dark waters of the recent tsunami than the Creator of that child has. It would be like Ivan Karamazov being unable to forgive God so long as one single child anywhere went to bed at night crying in loneliness and in pain. Who is Karamazov to think that his own love for that child — a purely abstract, speculative, hard-case, counterexample love — is greater than that of the child's Creator?
Yes. There's more. You should read the whole thing. I'd paste it all here, but I'd probably run afoul of copyright laws if I did so...
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From Mudville Gazette, I'm accepting a mission to spread some information as wide as I can:
Michael is a very well known portrait artist and a Vietnam veteran. He recently decided to retire and focus exclusively on providing free portraits of fallen service men and women for their families. He's done this for a number of our Stryker soldiers. He's trying to get the word out and I'd like to help him accomplish that. In his own words via email:"I'm about to retire early from my job and the reason for that is the love I've received from all of you.
This hasn't been an easy decision, I've prayed a lot about what to do but each time the answer is the same, do the pictures. I need to reach as many parents and families of those we are losing with my gift."
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January 04, 2005
Some brilliant stuff. Click through, okay?
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December 28, 2004
It's a point I've been wanting to make, but never quite able to think of the angle from which I wanted to approach it.
In any case, it's a good discussion, with good stuff on both sides. There are also some good (bad? ...well, egregious) examples of people using semantic or rhetorical techniques to try and put some weaker aspects of their argument beyond debate...
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December 23, 2004
I love socio-political epiphanies like this.
Meaning, I already held many of the attitudes and assumptions described, but was unable to articulate them because I hadn't ever consciously considered them.
Nice stuff, Dale!
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December 22, 2004
Learn of the hidden shame of Closet Addictions.
This is why SaaM is one of my first stops every morning.
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December 21, 2004
Check it out.
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December 20, 2004
Or Reynolds-Blogging, maybe.
Basically, I can't think of much to say myself today, so I'm letting everyone else say it for me with bunches of linky-love.
This time, it's Zombyboy pretty much exactly how I feel about the Holidays.
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Michelle Malkin asks, Question: Is there a Republican out there whom the media would ever label a "rock star?"
Yes, there is. Unfortunately, it is John McCain.*
Blah.
Read More "Republican Rock Stars?" »Show Comments »
So, you ask. How can I gain the ability to wear shorts in freezing weather?
A good question, and one that finally been answered by Farm Accident Digest.
It's only fitting.
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...about little bloggers breaking news stories, too. And yet, she inexplicably doesn't mention my breaking the all-important news of my daughter's potty-training progress. Strange, no?
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December 19, 2004
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December 16, 2004
Really good stuff over at the weekly Asia By Blog at Simonworld. This guy has the best round-ups of news from all over Asia. Check it out!
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December 15, 2004
And dead-on in this assessment.
It's all over my workplace, too,and not only does it violate regs, it's ugly.
Bleh.
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» Sharp as a Marble links with: Why I'm Thinking About Boycotting
December 14, 2004
Check out this working grandfather clock made entirely out of Lego parts. Check out all the pics.
Via Pandora at An Offering of Myself To the World.
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I don't agree with all of it...quite.
But the last line is particularly appropos:
I'm just getting started. But I've probably bored you already with my list of gripes. No one wants to listen to a whiner.Maybe that's another reason George W. Bush was re-elected by a record number of votes.
H/T to Michelle Malkin, who also explains why we still don't have a Governor in Washington.
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December 13, 2004
So, check it out.
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December 07, 2004
Craig demonstrates a good way to get a link back.
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Classic brilliance from Liberal Larry. The hyperlinks I followed were worth it.*
Dawn talks about two types of loneliness. I think this perfectly illustrates the feelings of the woman at the well who answered Jesus, "I have no husband." She knows that quenching her thirst with earthly water (casual sex) will invariably leave her even more parched. She thirsts for the love of her life, and knows once she finds him she will thirst no more. A love consummated and dwelling in Christ cannot fail. Add her to your prayers.
The Artist Formerly Known as Juan Gato makes an interesting point:
Thinking is easier when you don't have to do it.Read More "Some Linky-Ness" »
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December 04, 2004
It's always cool to find yourself on someone's blogroll that you didn't know about before. Well, at least for me, despite blogging for more than 2 years and working my way up to a tentative Large Mammal status, I still think it's cool that someone I've never heard of before thinks I'm good enough to add to their blogroll.
I try to link reciprocally, so if you have me linked on your blogroll and don't see yours in mine, let me know and I'll come check you out.
But it's even better when the blog itself is a pleasant surprise. Preston Ledger is doing some good blogging over at Consternations. He's got some articles I haven't seen linked on most other blogs, and his insights are good. This is one I saw nowhere else at all. Go check him out.
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December 02, 2004
By Michael Ledeen at National Review Online.
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November 30, 2004
You can never have enough asymmetrical pot holders. And you gotta admire someone who can spell asymmetrical correctly.
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...you find other things, I guess.
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Lots of good stuff in today's Impromptus by Jay Nordlinger.
No, I don't think I'll give you an excerpt today. There's too much that's good, and I'd ruin some of his set-ups if I excerpted.
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November 27, 2004
There's some good thinking going on over at the Wandering Mind. Alex may end up on my blogroll soon.
In particular, check out this post on the political divide, and this related post from two days earlier. Maybe that's not the best order to read them in, but that's how I read them, so if you want to read them in the order they were written, be my guest. Or, er, Alex's, actually.
I will say that to me, Alex seems to be riding the fence a little too much, being too willing to be even-handed in his treatment of both sides. You can draw your own conclusions about that. In any case, they are well-written pieces with some good thought behind them. Enjoy!
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November 26, 2004
Apparently I was on to something with this post on the differing connotations of "Choice".
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November 24, 2004
Sharp as a Marble encounters one I've run into before, and commences beating his head against it.
You go, Mr. "Man from La Mancha"!
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November 23, 2004
So if you want to read about the problems of illegal immigration, you check out Michelle Malkin.
If you want to hear about the perfidy of Planned Parenthood and their "6-and-up" website, Teenwire, you go check out Dawn Eden.
She's right: Planned Parenthood has an agenda, and it doesn't have your child(ren)'s best interest(s) at heart.
It is becoming more and more difficult for me to resist thinking that they want to advance an ideology that makes them feel okay for embracing a lower moral standard. They want to feel okay about cheapening sex in their own lives, so they try to cheapen it in everyone else's. They aren't trying to do good, they are trying for vindication, or maybe even revenge.
And they are doing it on your dime.
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November 21, 2004
Has anyone else taken note that Day By Day returns on 1 December?
I know I could have used some of his light-heartedness during the election season, but it's not like I was paying him to cartoon, so I have no grounds upon which to complain. In any case, welcome back, Chris! We've missed you!
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If you know of a deserving blog, you might want to stop by here and nominate them in the appropriate category/categories.
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» The LLama Butchers links with: The Second Season of the LLamas begins!
November 16, 2004
I mean, aside from the links he's already given me in the past, I sense he's really reaching out to me in the last line of this conclusionary addendum to a post about "Sir Robin"-ish artistes.
"Truth to Idiots" Update: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Everyone's misinterpreting who the "idiots" are supposed to be in that line. I don't mean you. I mean the idiots who aren't reading this site, i.e., liberals.Do you really think I'd call you idiots? Come on. I'm far too brave and provocative a blogger to say anything that could possibly alienate a single reader. I spend my time bravely challenging the people who don't read me at all.
Although, let's be honest, you are all retards. But you know that already.
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November 11, 2004
This would have turned out much differently had it happened to Jesse Jackson...
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November 10, 2004
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November 08, 2004
I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard.
If it doesn't qualify as a "liquids alert" for you guys, I apologize. Somethings just hit you right, I guess.
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November 02, 2004
Llama Butchers Live Blog the election.
Funny stuff there.
...like you would expect anything else from the Llama Butchers.
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November 01, 2004
Margi's right. This is freaking brilliant. Not to mention hilarious. And a perfect tribute, even down to the meter and rhythm.
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October 10, 2004
Also, check out Dana's new look.
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Excerpt:
Your search - “Afghan voters killed in blast� - did not match any documents.
Your search - Afghan “polling station blast� - did not match any documents.
Your search - Afghan “polling station violence� - did not match any documents.
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» The LLama Butchers links with: The dog that didn't bark
October 04, 2004
He's chock-full of linky goodness. Lots of important stuff in that post. I've found stuff worth reading/remembering in every link that wasn't work-blocked.
In the next post, Allah also has this link, to which I say, "Dang Straight!"
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October 01, 2004
A more serious ultimate recap.
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September 27, 2004
[edited for clarity/accuracy, changes in italics]
I sent the following email to Michelle Malkin:
Ma'am,
In this article, you included a discussion by one of your readers who assumed the rifle in question was probably the Chinese version of the Russian Moison-Nagant M91/30. That is most likely incorrect. First of all, there was a Chinese "assault" rifle in use at that time, and it was known to be exported to North Vietnam. This is the Chinese version of the SKS, the Type 56.
Second of all, while the line that the rifles were "originally manufactured in Russia more than 100 years ago" does lead in the direction your reader went, the Chinese never used the M91/30 in any significant quantity I could discover. Just as many other nations did in the 30s, the USSR then produced a carbine version of the M91/30, the M38. Their experiences in WWII with a conscript army and ammunition shortages led them to add a permanently-attached bayonet to the carbine to make it the M44. This last version was licensed to China and produced as the Type 53 rifle. It saw extensive action in Viet Nam.
His facts about the cartridge and its performance are correct. I would add that the Russian 7.62x54R cartridge is the contemporary of and equivalent in velocity, impact, range, and accuracy to the US .30-'06 cartridge.
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» Michelle Malkin links with: JOHN KERRY'S GUN SMOKE
» The LLama Butchers links with: What Broder is afraid of
A while back (exactly 2 months ago, actually) I wrote a little article about what the beheadings really signified. It received little attention from the blogosphere at large.
Today, Michael Ledeen brings it up the beheadings again. I think there is a similarity in our understanding, in that we both think the beheadings are directed more toward other Muslims than to try to intimidate Westerners. But I thought it was a good moment to revisit the idea that the Global War on Terror is a battle against a meme rather than against a people. Sure, that's been pointed out before, but I'm not sure how often it has been stated in the terms I used: Every atrocity they commit is an attempt to show they have Allah's favor, as a way to counteract the confidence- and reputation- deflating defeats they take from our military on a weekly basis.
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Via The Chronicle to Keep You Poor and Stupid.
Update:
It's audio only, and it takes nearly a minute to start...
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September 23, 2004
Excerpt:
If one wants to debate the merits of the war in Iraq -- fine. So far, it has accomplished removing from power a dictator who liked to put people through chipper shredders -- feet first so they could be aware of the experience -- who shot bus-loads of people and buried them, in the bus -- men and children and women with infants in their arms, a dictator who condoned and funded the rape rooms and torture salons of his sons, who gassed hundreds of thousands of his people, and whose mass graves -- 236 of which have been found, so far -- contain hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who were disappeared off the streets and imprisoned at his whim. Saddam rivals Lenin, Stalin and Atilla the Hun. There was found in Baghdad a list of 70,000 people he intended to kill this coming year. Those people are alive because of the efforts of our soldiers and Marines. That is what those lives were volunteered to gain.
Excerpt:
Mr Allawi said there was evidence of "linkages" with terrorists, including Carlos the Jackal and Ansar al-Islam, an Islamist group in northern Iraq accused by the US of providing a safe haven for al-Qaida. "I am surprised when I hear people talk about whether the war was justified. If Saddam had had his way he would have turned the whole region into hell."
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I've had this conviction, and been unable to express it well.
Luckily, there's Q and O Blog.
Excerpt:
But such situations are surpassingly rare. For the most part, the enemy will do everything he can to prevent you from reaching your objectives. He will adapt his tactics to yours, will oppose in surprising ways at inconvenient times, disrupt your logistics, and generally work as hard to defeat you as you are working to defeat him.Many in the press seem to think that, if victory doesn’t come about relatively painlessly and bloodlessly, there must be some deep flaw in our planning or execution. In a sense, this is partially true, because all planning is faulty, and all execution falls short of the desired result. In a larger sense however, it is wrong, because the reason planning and execution fail is because of the existence of a living, breathing enemy that opposes you.
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September 22, 2004
As long as I'm highlighting good comments, there's this one from this post.
Increasing aggregate spending through government purchasing (war) while reducing revenues (tax reductions) is hardly fiscal conservatism. And reality is, the discretionary spending slice of the federal government expenditure pie is not really very large. So to reduce spending in any significant way, you really have to target non-discretionary spending and that won't happen.The Contract With America was brilliant in its conception. And the House delivered but as Kevin said, the Senate didn't follow through. Maybe, just maybe, that was because the Senate was/is comprised of more sane individuals that was/is the House. remember, it was the Republican House's Contract With America, not the Senate's.
Republicans were "punished" in '98 because they got into persecuting a sitting President for his sexual activity disguised as something else. The House impeached, the Senate tried and acquitted, and the public never quite bought what the Republicans were up to. Especially when the Republican persecutors (Gingrich, Hyde, Livingston to name a few) all had scandals of their own.
Gingrich, God bless him, was a change agent. He brought about a Republican majority and his lieutenants then did him in - stabbed him in the back (at least in my opinion). But it was all about politics. About power - getting it and then keeping it.
Remember, once the control of the Congress shifted, what became important to those in power was protecting that power. While some may have good intentions and really want to make change to better the Nation, I argue that most simply want to maintain their power and act accordingly. I think Gingrich wanted change. I think Delay, Armey et al wanted power. There's a difference.
I am becoming to believe that the only way to really get the Country on-track and united is a system of truly competitive congressional districts. Until redistricting is no longer performed to protect incumbents and really competitive districts are created, we will continue with polarized politics.
But hey, what do I know?
Apparently, more than I often give you credit for. The more you talk, the more you impress me, Frank. Of course, there are still many things I don't agree with, but that's life and human nature and probably your affluent Eastern Seaboard viewpoint. [grin]
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September 16, 2004
Check out this letter and compare it to My post here.
Since there's alot there, I direct you to this specific section:
Because by any rational measure, Kerry was toast before he even ran.The Office of the President is the head of the Executive Branch. As such, you need to convince people that you are the best executive for the job. There are exactly two ways to do this:
1) Provide an excellent example of your executive leadership ability.
2) Be charismatic enough to overcome a weak executive resume.Every single President over the last 40 years was either a state governer or a Vice President, right? Take that back to Herbert Hoover, and the only exceptions were John F. Kennedy (won on charisma) and Dwight D. Eisenhower, who held the highest military positions (clearly executive excellence).
What on earth convinced the Democrats that they could blaze trails with someone as obviously non-charismatic as John F. Kerry?
Aside from all that, however, John Kerry needed to show the United States public that he has the executive skills to guide the nation more ably than George Bush through any difficulty the nation might encounter. He needed to demonstrate, with examples from his past or clear and specific plans for the future, exactly why he would make a better President, executive, leader, and Commander-In-Chief than PResident Bush has. They dropped the ball when they tried to make a four-month stint as commander of a Swift Boat be the main testimony to his leadership and executive skills. They made further mistakes when they merely criticized how President Bush has handled things and gave vague mumblings of, "I would do better."
No. Not good enough. Since the choice is between someone who has years of executive experience and someone who has little to none, John Kerry should be trying to demonstrate that he has the intelligence, flexibility, humor, aplomb, grace, decisiveness, courage, innovation, etc, to handle any situation. Not only better than Bush, but better than the voters themselves. Because few people really know what it is like to be President, to deal with the leaders of other nations who will do anything to undercut and backstab the United States if it will help their position in the slightest. John Kerry has not demonstrated he even understands that, much less can help the voters understand that.
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September 14, 2004
Then again, maybe I'll just link something clever.
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September 10, 2004
A friend sent this to me. Reading the title, I was all set to be skeptical dismissive, or derisive. But the more I read, the more impressed I got.
Excerpt:
Simply put, not only do Muslims need to join the war against terror, we need to take the lead in this war.As to apologizing, we will no longer wait for our religious leaders and “intellectuals” to do the right thing. Instead, we will start by apologizing for 9-11.
and
We are so sorry for a religious education that raised killers rather than train people to do good in the world. We are sorry that we did not take the time to teach our children tolerance and respect for other people.We are so sorry for not rising up against the dictators who have ruled the Muslim world for decades.
We are so sorry for allowing corruption to spread so fast and so deep in the Muslim world that many of our youth lost hope.
We are so sorry for allowing our religious leaders to relegate women to the status of forth class citizens at best and sub-humans at worse.
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Mickey Kaus, aJohn Kerry supporter, recommended this Op/Ed by an anti-Kerry partisan trying to be fair. I do, too. It seems fair and accurate to me, according to what I've read and understood.
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August 17, 2004
I saw this and decided not to blog it. Had I done so, the intent would have been something like this, but there's no way I would have done so well.
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August 13, 2004
BIRD, er, Suzy Rice, er -S-, (just what should I call you, anyway?) has got some great looking logos at her site.
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This is about the Kansas City Chiefs, yes...but it also uses the Chiefs as a working example of a specific philosophy toward building a team, so other team fans might still enjoy reading this...
Read More "Looking to the Future" »Show Comments »
August 12, 2004
Okay, not really.
But it is really too cool to fail to link it.
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August 10, 2004
And so, obviously, not anything found on this site...
Rather, Steve at Vodkapundit really kicked butt in this post regarding winning the War on Terror. There are several truly excellent moments, and many good points made. In fact, I consider it pretty much the most succinct and most apt explanation of why we had to invade Iraq.
I would add one thing: The Islamic religious society is structured so as to make competing ideas fight to the death for supremacy.
Sunnis and Shias don't sit down and talk things out, or negotiate concessions regarding their differences. They kill each other whenever possible, and ignore each other when necessary.
My addition doesn't change one thing about what Mr. Green says, it merely underscores his point: the struggle to gain support for the War on Terror is, itself, the most important part of the battle, because the daring and resolve to fight back against those who assail us are the traits that will guarantee our eventual victory.
Hat tip to Kevin McGehee of blogoSFERICS.
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July 19, 2004
as conservatives, we believe that a more conservative society will create a better America. And it is no coincidence that America is getting healthier as it becomes more conservative. Second, attracting young people is better than the alternative and it is a sign that the unfair and irrational stigma attached to conservatism is finally washing off. We aren't now, and never were, a bunch of racist paste eaters. And then, of course, there's schadenfreude. The Left feels entitled to young people, and watching them mope like captains of the pep squad when no one shows up at the sign-in table is certainly reason enough for conservatives to celebrate.
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June 09, 2004
Heck, this is good, too:
I watched them laughing with each other and became extremely bothered. And by that, I mean jealous. These people have no debt. These people have college to look forward to. These people are as thin as they will ever be in their lives.
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June 05, 2004
The most revealing part? President Bush is hated by Democrats for the success of his tax cuts and decisions in making this country safer, as evidenced by the fact that the better the economy gets and the better the war goes, the more Democrats disapprove of President Bush. Bill Clinton was supported by Democrats for lying under oath, as evidenced by the fact that he had the highest Democrat approval rating shortly after the Monical Lewinsky story broke. Which is a rather sad glimpse into the priorities of Democrats today.
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May 21, 2004
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May 20, 2004
That's why I support him fully.
Via Kevin at his new digs. I like 'em, dude.
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Ace has the scoop on liberal writer who almost goes off message regarding WMD.
Scan copious amounts of writing.
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May 16, 2004
With a title like that, you have to read the post, dontcha?
Read More "Homosexual Blogcest" »Show Comments »
» cut on the bias links with: John the Unrepentent Homophobe
May 14, 2004
At least, I liked it.
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May 12, 2004
I hadn't seen this meme yet. But I like it.
So. What are the top ten things I know more about than is probably healthy (in no particular order)?
Read More "10 Things I Know About" »Show Comments »
April 23, 2004
Wanna shut me up? Here's your chance.
Donate now to The Spirit of America through the Liberty Alliance, and I will stop blogging for ONE FULL day for every $10 you pledge*.
Simultaneously, those days of blogging can be bought back at a rate of $20 for each day, if anyone wants to keep reading this drivel.
Read More "Tired of Me?" »Show Comments »
April 21, 2004
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» Jennifer's History and Stuff links with: Finding the Funniest Things on the Web
April 13, 2004
No, not me, although, [ahem], I certainly wouldn't object to the characterization...
Nah, Nathan Barton has a few words to say about Tribal Wisdom vs Government Practice
I'm not going to include an excerpt. I'll just say that if you don't read it, you are only hurting yourself.
Link via Dodd's Ipse Dixit.
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HammerHead
