It took Obama about a second to come to the conclusion that the Cambridge police who arrested his jackass friend acted “stupidly.” When it comes to the worst act of terror on US soil since 9/11, “I would caution against jumping to conclusions.”
Do not expect a ceremony where Obama bestows a medal on Sergeant Kimberly Munley for her blazing courage, the grace under pressure that saved lives.
Do not expect Munley to be invited to the White House to meet Obama and the Missus.
Do not expect a photo op of Obama with Munley.
Compare Obama’s reaction to his friend’s arrest in Cambridge for disorderly conduct to Obama’s reaction to this slaughter.
Remember when Sen. Inhofe (R-OK) said of Obama’s Cairo speech: “I just don’t know whose side he’s on.”
Well, I do. I know whose side he’s on. And I think we’re getting a clearer and clearer idea.
Who was in Major Malik Nidal Hasan’s Chain of Command? Who Were His Commanding Officers? Who Made Him a Major?
Hasan was very vocal about his views, which were your typical Islamist terrorist views:
Col Terry Lee, a retired officer who worked with him at the military base in Texas, alleged Maj Hasan had angry confrontations with other officers over his views.
Maj Hasan was reportedly fighting orders to be deployed to Iraq at the end of the month, claiming that he was the victim of harassment and insults because of his Arab background and his faith.
“He was making outlandish comments condemning our foreign policy and claimed Muslims had the right to rise up and attack Americans,” Col Lee told Fox News.
“He said Muslims should stand up and fight the aggressor and that we should not be in the war in the first place.” He said that Maj Hasan said he was “happy” when a US soldier was killed in an attack on a military recruitment centre in Arkansas in June. An American convert to Islam was accused of the shootings.
Col Lee alleged that other officers had told him that Maj Hasan had said “maybe people should strap bombs on themselves and go to Time Square” in New York.
He claimed he was aware that the major had been subject to “name calling” during heated arguments with other officers.
Federal law enforcement officials have said Maj Hasan had come to their attention at least six months ago because of internet postings that discussed suicide bombings and other threats.
How did anyone miss this?
As Ralph Peters writes:
Maj. Hasan will be a hero to Islamist terrorists abroad and their sympathizers here. While US Muslim organizations decry his acts publicly, Hasan will be praised privately. And he’ll have the last laugh.
But Hasan isn’t the sole guilty party. The US Army’s unforgivable political correctness is also to blame for the casualties at Fort Hood.
Given the myriad warning signs, it’s appalling that no action was taken against a man apparently known to praise suicide bombers and openly damn US policy. But no officer in his chain of command,* either at Walter Reed Army Medical Center or at Fort Hood, had the guts to take meaningful action against a dysfunctional soldier and an incompetent doctor.
Had Hasan been a Lutheran or a Methodist, he would’ve been gone with the simoom. But officers fear charges of discrimination when faced with misconduct among protected minorities.
*In the print version Peters wrote “this maggot’s chain of command,” which I liked better.
While Hasan is certainly a hero to Islamist terrorists and their sympathizers, I would like to point out that Hasan was taken down by one, itty-bitty, American woman.
What is up with Lieutenant General Robert Cone?
He initially gave everybody wrong information:
“The shooter was killed. He was a soldier. We since then have apprehended two additional soldiers who are suspects, and I would go into the point that there were eyewitness accounts that there may have been more than one shooter.”
On the day of the shooting, ABC news reported:
Cone called the attack “a terrible tragedy, stunning.” He said the community was “absolutely devastated.”
. . .
Cone said the motive for the attack, which took place just after 1:30 p.m. CT, is unclear. While he said he could not rule out the incident as an act of terrorism, evidence does not support that theory.
Cone’s statement that the evidence does not support terrorism is patently false. It was patently false the moment that the gunman’s name was known.
This is not a “terrible tragedy.” This is war.
“As horrible as this was, I think it could have been much worse,” Cone said.
This man has a perspective on things that I would not expect to come from a Lieutenant-General in the US military: A tragedy, and it’s very sad, but come, come, now, it could have been much worse.
On Hero Kimberly Munley, Cone had this to say:
Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone, the post commander, praised Sergeant Munley on Friday for reacting so swiftly and without hesitation. “It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer,” General Cone told The Associated Press.
Aggression is unprovoked. See Merriam Webster. Munley’s performance was not aggressive, Munley’s performance was defensive. Hasan’s performance was aggressive, Hasan was the aggressor. He was the one shooting people. Munley shooting on Hasan was not an unprovoked attack. Not only was her shooting of Hasan provoked, it was defensive, and it was her duty.
So when Cone mischaracterizes Munley’s shooting of the gunman as “aggressive,” I ask myself why he does so.
43 American Lives, the Best of Our People, Our Soldiers, Sacrificed on the Altar of Allah and Political Correctness
I say 43 American lives sacrificed because when you’ve been shot in the stomach like one of the victims, a 19 year-old girl, your life is irredeemably changed forever, it’s been sacrificed.
That’s post-traumatic stress disorder. Getting fired upon and shot by a fellow soldier as you’re waiting for medical exams or attending a graduation ceremony. Having your mother or father or son or daughter shot, that’s post-traumatic stress disorder.
Nidal Malik Hasan had never even been deployed. Contrary to suggestion, he did not have post-traumatic stress disorder.
Of course, post-traumatic stress disorder is better than being dead. Thirteen people are dead.
It was a female soldier who shot Hasan. A female soldier who herself had been shot. What a hero. I would like to know her name.
The police officer who brought down a gunman after he went on a shooting rampage at the Fort Hood Army base was on the way to have her car repaired when she heard a report over a police radio that someone was shooting people in a center where soldiers are processed before they are deployed abroad, authorities said on Friday.
As she pulled up to the center, the officer, Kimberly Munley, spotted the gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, brandishing a pistol and chasing a wounded soldier outside the building, said Chuck Medley, the director of emergency services at the base.
Sergeant Munley bolted from her car and shot at Major Hasan. He turned toward her and began to fire. She ran toward him, continuing to fire, and both she and the gunmen went down with several bullet wounds, Mr. Medley said.
Six months ago, federal authorities learned that Hasan was posting praise for Muslim suicide bombers on the internet. I listened to the incomparable Mark Steyn today, filling in for Rush Limbaugh, and according to him, also six months ago, May 2009, Hasan was promoted to Major. According to Steyn, the regular route to becoming a major takes about 9 years, but Hasan was fast-tracked and made Major in 6 or 7 years.
Why was he fast-tracked? Political correctness. Why wasn’t he investigated? Political correctness.
Why did he do it? Allahu akbar.
Obama has this to say:
“We don’t know all the answers yet. And I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts.”
And his relatives said that American soldiers had harassed him for being a Muslim.
Remember the Grand Westchesterian Forced Relocation/ Social Engineering/ Wealth Distribution Experiment?
The Obama Administration forced Westchester to settle an anti-discrimination lawsuit by agreeing to spend its own money to build housing for blacks and Hispanics in parts of Westchester that the Obama Administration considered too white.
“This is historic, because we are going to hold people’s feet to the fire,” said Obama’s deputy secretary of housing and urban development.
It’s historic all right. We haven’t had much forced relocation/ social engineering/ wealth distribution round these parts (these parts being the United States of America). Goes with the whole “liberty” thing.
Residents of Westchester who were interviewed by the New York Times expressed reservations about the arrangement- purely out of concern as to whether it would truly serve the best interest of their new potential black and Hispanic neighbors, you understand:
Children are children, and they can be mean,” said Bill Ward, 54, an accountant. “If a child has less fancy clothing to wear, they’re going to be put outside the group.”
. . .
The housing plan is “a great idea” in theory, said Carol Kornheiser, 61, a market researcher. But she wondered how children from moderate-income families would cope with the signs of wealth all around them, including a high school parking lot dappled with expensive cars.
“I think it’s hard to be in a town where your kid doesn’t have what other kids have,” she said.
She also questioned whether modest earners could thrive in the suburbs if they could not afford a car or two for driving to work and ferrying children to play dates and sports practices.
“It’s hard to do the fetching,” she said. “You need two cars.”
County Executive Andrew Spano made a“rare and emotional appearance” before the County Legislature to urge them to ratify the “historic” agreement:
“Do not make us the symbol of racism . . . this is about African-Americans and Hispanics . . . I’m here to ask you to do the right thing . . .”
I am sure there was not a dry eye in the house.
Mr. Spano is no longer “here to ask you to do the right thing.”
It would seem that Mr. Spano’s fear of becoming a symbol of sorts has proved true. He’s become a symbol of what happens to politicians who force social engineering/ wealth distribution plans on voters who live in what is still, lest we forget, a democracy.
If Hoffman hadn’t had the backing of tons of big-name conservatives, one might have suspected him of being a stealth agent.
(I frankly suspect everyone of being a stealth agent, including myself sometimes- whose side am I on- but that’s a horse of a different color.)
So the upshot is a Democrat won the North Country for the first time since about the Civil War.
I feel very frustrated. Very very frustrated. I want limited government. Limited government has been proved the most natural, fruitful, productive, happiness-inducing form of government. When government leaves the people alone more, the people do better. I sound like Confucius.
In fact, Confucius would have espoused limited government. Limited government is the natural way. The people do their thing, and the government steps in when it comes to tasks like prosecuting thieves, killers, and the like. The government should not step in to tell us how to wipe our noses and our asses and which scientists we should believe. The government should not teach our children to worship it like a god. The government should be like a gardener who trims the rot, kills the pests, and allows the plant to grow and flourish. Unfortunately, this government has grown out of control, and the money tree is dying.
Sometimes the only way to destroy a parasite is for the host animal to die. And from the ashes rises the phoenix.
This is what Confucius had to say about government, apparently, from a quick internet search:
Tzu-kung asked about government. The Master said, “The requisites of government are that there be sufficiency of food, sufficiency of military equipment, and the confidence of the people in their ruler.” Tzu Kung said, “If it cannot be helped, and one of these must be dispensed with, which of the three should be foregone first?” “The military equipment,” said the Master. Tzu Kung again asked, “If it cannot be helped and one of the remaining two must be dispensed with, which of them should be foregone?” The Master answered, “Part with the food. From of old, death has been the lot of humanity; but if the people have no faith in their rulers, there is no standing for the state.”
The people most definitely have no faith in their rulers.
Confucius also said:
“When a country is well governed, poverty and mean condition are things to be ashamed of. When a country is poorly governed, riches and honor are things to be ashamed of.”
If we are not in that state, we are near it.
I am frustrated because I read things like Michelle Malkin today. Michelle Malkin is a very passionate, courageous, and admirable person. I wholeheartedly agree that the Republican party- or somebody- should stand for “limited government principles.” I deeply and respectfully disagree with her definition of “limited government.”
Judges (many of whom are appointed, many of whom do not act like judges but like leftist ideologue bureaucrats) making decisions that affect personal freedoms is not limited government- and is not constitutional.
Ron Paul writes in “The Revolution: A Manifesto” (page 62, Grand Central Publishing, copyright 2008):
We have come to consider it normal for nine judges in Washington to decide on social policies that affect every neighborhood, family, and individual in America. One side of the debate hopes the nine will impose one set of values, and the other side favors a different set. The underlying premise- that this kind of monolith is desirable, or that no alternative is possible- is never examined, or at least not nearly as often as it should be. The Founding Fathers did not intend for every American neighborhood to be exactly the same- a totalitarian impulse if there ever was one- or that disputes over competing values should be decided by federal judges. This is the constitutional approach to deciding all issues that are not spelled out explicitly in our founding document: let neighbors and localities govern themselves.
The Doug Hoffman radio ad that I heard most frequently was paid for by the Campaign for Working Families (which super, super confusingly sounds a lot like the Working Families Party, which seems basically just ACORN as a political party, and which had me pricking up my ears and wrinkling my nose at the radio ad, and wondering, “Stealth agent? Stealth agent?”).
The ad featured a couple (heterosexual, presumably married, presumably high-school sweethearts who’d presumably only ever engaged in missionary-approved relations, presumably while staring doggedly into one another’s eyes and only ever thinking of each other- and presumably only then for the purposes of procreation) chatting about Doug Hoffman.
The ad starts out like this: “Do we really need another pro-abortion, pro-gay rights politician in Washington?”
I can understand being anti-abortion, I am Catholic after all, although I’m perhaps a bad Catholic (Rather be a bad Catholic than a good Protestant- what?).
I fail to understand being anti-gay rights. To whom does that appeal? Who can get all fired up about denying gays rights? Maybe this is a generational thing. (Check out the “Catholics for Marriage Equality God is Love” banner in this article on the Maine vote. More Bad Catholics Behaving Badly.)
But Doug Hoffman was presented first and foremost as a social conservative. Stacy McCain’s attitude seemed typical of Republicans (including Rush Limbaugh): “a bunch of elitist pro-choice Republicans can’t match the pro-life Catholic grandmas.”
“Grandmas” is the operative word.
Many young people are turned off by the anti-gay stance. Not because they’re starring in their own private Satyricon. Because they know people who are openly gay, who date, who want to get married. Because they know heterosexual people who do the same things that gays do. What is gay?
Gays to me seem one of those social categories that function like a canary in the coal mine as far as civil liberties go. I’m not crazy about gay male culture. (I can relate more to lesbians.) But an “anti gay rights” position gets my dander up.
It frustrates me that the social conservatives seem to also be the standard-bearers for the free-market and a return to the Constitution. Free-market principles have nothing to do with marriage and birth control, and the Constitution is silent on these issues.
Any return to Constitutional principles encompasses the Ron Paul approach (from page 63):
One-size-fits-all social policy, dicated by unelected judges from an imperial capital, is not the system Americans signed on for when they ratified the Constitution, and they have never formally sanctioned such a thing.
Or, approaching things another way, as Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) put it, who, according to the New York Times (I know, I know) has “denounced the ‘homosexual agenda’ and said he favored the death penalty ‘for abortionists and other people who take life’”:
“[N]one of these things are important right now,” he said, compared with the “fiscal ruin” he sees the country facing.
“If you look historically, every great republic has died over fiscal issues,” he said. “That is the biggest moral issue of our time.”
I agree. That’s why I would have voted for Doug Hoffman.
Um, yeah, Obama is, um, really masculine. I’m sure the North Korean press writes gushing articles about how masculine Kim Jong-Il is too.
Holy cow. I had heard about this article from Rush Limbaugh (Who is, incidentally, very attractive. Soon I will be one of those women calling his show: “Hey Ruuuuushhhh. You look really hooooooot. You make my boyfriend soooo jealooouuus…”).
You have to read it to believe it, just a few paragraphs, lest you puke:
Does the White House feel like a frat house?
. . .
The president, after all, is an unabashed First Guy’s Guy. Since being elected, he has demonstrated an encyclopedic knowledge of college hoops on ESPN, indulged a craving for weekend golf, expressed a preference for adopting a “big rambunctious dog” over a “girlie dog” and hoisted beer in a peacemaking effort.
He presides over a White House rife with fist-bumping young men who call each other “dude” and testosterone-brimming personalities like Rahm Emanuel, the often-profane chief of staff; Lawrence Summers, the brash economic adviser; and Robert Gibbs, the press secretary, who habitually speaks in sports metaphors.
MWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH! Choke. Splutter. Cough. Sigh of satisfaction.
Hmmm, a frat house isn’t exactly what comes to mind.
But, sure, whatever. Sure, the president is an “unabashed First Guy’s Guy.” Please ignore the aging drag queen on his day off who just emerged from that building.
Sure, I give it you. He’s really masculine.
And his wife is really feminine. And really desirable. Who hasn’t contemplated being trapped under a car and thought, “Boy, I wish I had a spouse who could lift a car off me one-handed?”
And the expression of his contempt for that which is “girly.” That right there is a sure indicator of his masculinity. Really masculine men wrinkle up their noses in disgust at things having to do with girls and go “yuck.”
Actually, I’m going to hand over my Ann Coulter/Joe the Plumber manuscript to whoever wrote this piece, because obviously all the glue-sniffing they do agrees with them, and they’re just off tripping the light on fanstastic flights of fancy.
To wit: the following “testerone-brimming personalities.”
Twinkletoes Emanuel, the ex-ballerina. Since when is it masculine to be a loathesome, bullying runt. I think the writer’s confusing bile with testosterone.
Remember, incidentally, what Rahm Emanuel’s father had to say when he became Chief of Staff:
“Obviously he’ll influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn’t he? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to be mopping floors at the White House.”
Right, and Fat Boy Gibbs, the White House Boss Hog. Both his whining and his combination fat ass/receding chin action are the latest thing in manliness.
As for Larry Summer, I guess they put him on the “testosterone-brimming” list because he made those remarks about women not having the same ”innate ability” or ”natural ability” as men in some fields.
Maureen Dowd, who’s really forced to stretch her literary non-talent as she’s too old to profitably sleep with her editors anymore, wrote some piece on this manliness non-phenomenon called the “Oval Man Cave,” in which she called the president, framing it as something Republicans would say of course, “a hand-wringing, Mom-jeans-wearing girly-boy.”
Many
a
true
word
is
said
in
jest.
Careful, Maureen, you self-hating loser. Your overlords might not think that little joke is a funny one.
Islamists, they’re just like us! I could totally relate to Rabia Sarwal. Yeah, I had this Jewish boyfriend once who made me eat Chinese food, play chess, drop acid, and listen to electronic music. Yes, all at once. Enraged by this imposition on my womanly virtue, this entrapment into a shameful violation of dear-held social norms, I…
(a) stabbed him in the neck while he was sleeping (taking care to hide all the phones beforehand)
(b) decided not to go out with him anymore
You know, it could be that Islamists are actually not just like us.
An otherwise excellent article in last Sunday’s New York Post examining the phenomenon notes: Barring terror attacks, independent Muslim expression of anti-Western sentiment seems to be more virulent in Europe.
Yeah, uh, that’s because there are more Muslims in Europe Eurabia. That could be why there’s also more Muslim expression of anti-Western sentiment. Just a thought.
Of All the Tea Parties in All the Towns in All the Tri-State Area, You Had to Walk into Mine
It has not escaped my notice that my most popular post is the Joe the Plumber/Ann Coulter Fantasy post. That and the “Holy shit, Patterson looks just like Gaddfi” post. My posts on “Democracy in America” not as popular, oddly enough. Maybe if I had DeTocqueville getting it on with a young Iroquois maiden or a beautiful black slave-girl or something (which he undoubtedly did, if you ask me- At the tender age of 17, DeTocqueville impregnated a maid servant in his native France, and in “Democracy in America” he displays an empathy for blacks, and especially for Indians, that borders on the suspiciously passionate).
I know that whoever is passing around the Joe the Plumber/Ann Coulter post is doing so in the spirit of, “Check this out, how funny, ha ha ha.” It may even be a leftist on the lookout for wacko stuff to discredit conservatives, “Check this out, conservative patheticism has reached a new low, ha ha ha.” (Those people really shouldn’t toy with me because I’m funnier than they are. You know why? Simple. I can tell the truth, and the truth is very funny.)
But I know the real reason people like it.
They want to see Joe the Plumber and Ann Coulter get it on.
(See e.g., The Onion, Ironic Porn Purchase Turns into Unironic Wank)
Well, I aim to please.
I think that the climax (you should pardon the expression) should be, like, a bunch of jihadists kidnap Ann Coulter (Funny sequence where one jihadist quits and goes home after she makes fun of his interrogation techniques), and Joe the Plumber, Tito the Builder, and a bunch of unemployed small businessmen free her.
She’d have to be held hostage in some famous landmark New York City building- maybe Joe comes up through the plumbing? Anyway, got to fit his plumbing skills in there somewhere. Tito, I guess, could get on a harness and a hard hat and shimmy up the side of the building.
They met at a tea party in Connecticut. I read about the particular tea party. In real life, it was freezing and rainy, not so many people showed up.
Perfect.
Ann and Joe stood side by side in the wings. Freezing rain pelted down on the sparse group of tea party faithful. Ann was shivering. Joe felt a sudden urge to put an arm around her thin shoulders, and just as suddenly asked himself if he were crazy. She’d bite his head off.
They had only met five minutes ago backstage. Joe was awed to meet Ann Coulter. “I’ve read all your books,” he told her. She was smaller in real life. And too thin, he thought.
They had been instructed to see whether the rain might stop before they started. The two stood gazing at the downpour. It was pretty obvious that was not going to happen.
“I am going to have a cigarette,” Ann announced, in tones reminiscent of Bette Davis pronouncing the place a dump. They stood under a no smoking sign.
She tapped out a cigarette, and then realized that Joe was silently proffering a light. “Thank you,” she said, surprised. He lit one for himself, and she laughed, “Oh.”
See, I was going to have Joe catching her “slender wrist” in his “large, calloused hand,” and admonishing her not to smoke. And then Ann was going to receive this admonishment with uncharacteristic meekness (you dig?). But then I remembered that Joe smokes too.
Their flames of passion have got to ignite over some conversation about freedom, small government, low taxes, small businesses, pursuit of happiness, Reagan.
Shoot, that would ignite my passion.
I would vote for Doug Hoffman if I lived in the 23rd district. I drove over a couple times to the campaign HQ nearest me, but it was a real trek, and with Lulu in the car. Then I had her running around the campaign HQ, and that made me a bit nervous. I made a few phone calls.
I also volunteered for Bloomberg for his campaign for re-election, UNTIL HE MADE A DEAL WITH ACORN TO ADMINISTER REMORTGAGES. Then I stopped volunteering. I emailed the vounteer coordinator that I knew best to tell him why.
Unsurprisingly, I found that that the Bloomberg campaign was better managed than the Hoffman campaign.
When I was volunteering for Bloomberg, the three coordinators I knew were young, professional, and experienced. One was a slick, young passive-aggressive type who had worked for Obama in the Mid-West (“Oh, you mean, like filling out voter registrations 76 times?,” I asked. He made a wry expression, his sang-froid disturbed, and I had an enemy. I don’t care. Fuck those people destroying my country. Ends-justifies-the-means motherfuckers. Also, I wanted him to know that while he thinks it’s this really impressive resume-builder that he worked for Obama, it actually carries the connotations of dishonesty and exploitative and unethical behavior. Voter fraud.). One was a slick but rather nice and very pretty girl who had worked for Romney; she gave off some mild vibes of integrity. The other was a black kid just out of college who had worked for a Democrat congressional candidate in Brooklyn. He was very very friendly and very very nice, but he made a lot of errors. However, friendly and nice goes a long way.
For the work I did on the Bloomberg campaign, which was just making phone calls and handing out flyers, I was profusely thanked. They really respected their volunteers and listened to their feedback.
I just wish that some one besides Ron Paul would be genuinely small government.
It seems Rep. Alan Grayon’s (D-FL) sister got all the genetic luck. While he crudely labors away as an inferior whore, she is out there plying her trade as a superior whore. The superior whore of the family. Is that how he got his congressional seat?
This is a very pretty song called “Politic Amagni” that describes third-world politics. I can relate to the sadness and resignation.
Politic needs force
Politic need cries
Politic need ignorance
Politic need lies
That’s why, my friend, it’s in evidence
Politic is violence
Why, my friend, it’s in evidence
Politic is violence
Yeah, it didn’t used to be that way here. Spending my sunset years telling my children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free sounds more like a hope than a threat.
UPDATE:
I found some of the spoken lyrics in French:
Politiciens écoutez-nous
La démagogie nous n’en voulons pas
La corruption nous n’en voulons pas
Les exactions nous n’en voulons pas
Nous voulons des hommes honnêtes
Nous voulons des hommes intègres
Politicians, listen to us
Demagogy we don’t want any of it
Corruption we don’t want any of it
Extortion we don’t want any of it
We want honest men
We want men with integrity
I don’t think we should let her back into the country.
I will personally give whoever takes her off our hands a goat. I’m sure Barack Obama or even Bill Clinton would be willing to offer considerably more.
Can’t you see her waddling into some official building in her pastel pantsuit, her broad backside made even broader by the belt of explosives…
Basically anything to do with Hillary Clinton is hilarious. Any scenario that ascribes to her qualities associated with the human.
I’m at health care reform saturation point. What an ugly morass. And absolutely moot anyway, since the system will be bankrupt in 3… 2… 1… Well, it’s bankrupt now, and running on empty.
A quick glimpse at Drudge Report reminds me why I have no internet. Let Sean Penn, along with Susan Sarandon, and her mentally challenged elderly toy boy move to Venezuela. Let them renounce their American citizenship- please. Let them become official Venezuela state artists and parrot praises of Chavez, Castro, and Stalin to their heart’s desire. And then, let them find out what happens when they lose their special American useful idiot status, let them find out what happens if, in singing the party line, they change some of the words, or express an original thought, or happen to own something that Chavez wants…
As for Nancy Pelosi, who let this jangling Botoxed bag of irregularly firing synapses into the House. DeTocqueville observed in his day that the US senators, who were then elected by state legislatures, tended to be rather eminent people who knew something, whereas US congressmen, elected directly by the people, represented the worst elements of society. And that’s what we have today. I would trust, like William F. said, the first few hundred names out of the phone book more easily.
You know what I’m sick of? People using the expression “Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.” Hardy-har-har. That old tired saw. When Mark Twain said it, the very first time ever, it was funny. No more. The most recent culprit? Creigh Deeds. What a name. Creigh Deeds done dirt cheap.
Exception to the umbrage I take at the Muslim headscarf: Hillary Clinton. I LOVE to see her in the headscarf. I’d love to see her broad backside swathed in a voluminous burqa.
Hillary deploying her fabled charms in Pakistan:
“I love the food, I wear shalwar kameezes,” she said to Dawn TV, referring to the traditional loose-fitting Pakistani shirt. “I mean, give me a seekh kebab and some gow, and I’ll be a happy person.”
Give her a seekh kebab and some gow, and she’ll be a happy person.
The North Koreans said it best:
“We cannot but regard Mrs Clinton as a funny lady as she likes to utter such rhetoric, unaware of the elementary etiquette in the international community,” a foreign ministry statement said. “Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping.”
The unfortunate punch line to the Hillary Goes to Pakistan joke is that we just gave them $7.5 billion goddam dollars. Excuse me, we just borrowed $7.5 billion dollars from the Chinese to give to Pakistan. I just finished Ron Paul’s “Revolution” (which, unlike Palin, he wrote by himself. Midway through I stopped and said, Man, this is kind of straightforward and dry, it reads like a report. I look at the cover. The guy wrote it all by himself. That’s the standard we should be going for here. I have to say that Palin’s resignation from her governorship and then coming out with a bestseller leaves me not over-enthusiastic. I see her as a muse. I see Bachmann as an engine.), yeah, just finished Ron Paul’s “Revolution,” and he, one of the only people on the scene who’s intelligent and principled, suggested we STOP GIVING FOREIGN AID TO ANYONE. Imagine that if you can. Here is some music to imagine by.
$ 7.5 billion we’ve given to these people. In August, Richard C. Holbrooke, the US “special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan” (all these weird never-before-seen titles rearing their ugly heads), and Judith McHale, the “under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs” (appunto), went over to Pakistan to fulfill their dark desires of writhing naked on the floor while being spit upon by contemptuous Muslims. I well realize that in these postmodern times we don’t want to condemn such kinkiness, but do they really have to do it on our dime, while representing us?
The aptly-titled Under Secretary “sat down for a one-on-one meeting” with a Pakistani journalist (which is more than she would ever do for a non-state media American journalist, by the by), and “gave her initial polite presentation about building bridges between America and the Muslim world.” The Paki’s response?
“You should know that we hate all Americans. From the bottom of our souls, we hate you.”
That’s $7.5 billion well spent, that is!
You know, between the two of them: the deranged, deracinated, bloodless shadow of a human being with her official pablum and the hate-filled Pakistani journalist, I’ll take the latter. Him I understand. He’s honest. He’s a human being. At least he hates other people- not himself. Not himself and his own country and his own culture. He should know, though, that this silly errand girl sent by a community organizer (grocery clerks would be a big improvement), does not represent America and Americans.
LIE BACK AND THINK OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION! A Review of Marc Steyn’s “America Alone.”
Luli made a new friend. The mother asked me: “Izzat her real name?” No, I said, and offered no further information.
Lightning fast review of “America Alone.” Oh, read it. Do. Absolutely great. Both my parents read excerpts and were awed. I read 2006 edition, from library. My mother got out a more recent edition and she tells me the prologue (which was fantastic, if you can only read an excerpt, read the prologue) in that edition is extended and updated.
This is basically the thesis:
(And this is fair use!)
What does it mean when the fastest-growing population on the planet is a group that, to put it at its mildest, has a somewhat fractious relationship with the characteristics of a free society? (page xxv)
[M]uch of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive the enty-first century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most European countries. (Prologue, page xiii)
The key factors are:
1. Demographic decline
2. The unsustainability of the advanced Western social-democratic state
3. Civilizational exhaustion
(page xvi)
He is very very funny too, and he is the kind of excellent writer who is mightily rare on the ground these days. He writes like an ENGLISHMAN. With the confidence, the intelligence, the sharpness, and the wit.
Hollywood should be making My Big Fat Uptight Protestant Wedding, in which some sad Greek only child marries into a big heartwarming New Zealand family where the spouse actually has a sibling. (page xvii)
Look how smart he is, though, he neatly wraps it up:
You may recall a pertinent detail during the bogus controversy over the “torture” of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay: U.S. guards at Gitmo are under instructions to handle copies of the Koran only when wearing gloves. The reason for this is that the detainees regard infidels as “unclean.” But it’s one thing for the Islamists to think infidels are unclean, quite another for the infidels to agree with them- and, by doing so, to validate their bigotry. Far from being tortured, the prisoners are being handled literally with kid gloves (or simulated kid-effect gloves). The U.S. military hands each jihadist his complimentary copy of the Koran as delicately as white-gloved butlers bringing His Lordship the Times of London. It’s not just unbecoming to buy in to Muslim psychoses; in the end, it’s self-defeating. And our self-defeat is their surest shot at victory. . . . A big chunk of Western civilization has given the impression that it’s dying to surrender to somebody, anybody. Reasonably enough, the jihadists figure: hey, why not us? (page xxviii)
And the bit on demographics is wild. It makes you want to go out and just:
[B]y 2050, 60 percent of Italians will have no brothers, no sisters, no cousins, no aunts, no uncles. (page xvii)
By 2050 the population of Yemen will outnumber the population of Russia. (page xxviii-xxix)
And this. So true:
[T]here’s very little difference between living under Exquisitely Refined Multicultured Sensitivity and sharia. (page xxx)
If you’re a teenager in most European cities these days, you’ve a choice between two competing identities- a robust confident Islamic identity or a tentative post-nationalist cringingly apologetic European identity. It would be a mistake to assume the former is attractive only to Arabs and North Africans. (page 90)
Even a Muslim wanted to, how would he assimilate with, say, Canadian national identity? You can’t assimilate with a nullity, which is what the modern multicultural state boils down to. It’s much easier to dismantle a society than to put anything new and lasting in its place. And across much of the developed world that’s what’s going on right now. Multiculturalism makes a nation no more than a holding pen. In the absence of cultural confidence, demography will decide the future. Or in the unimprovable summation of James C. Bennett: “Democracy, immigration, multiculturalism. Pick any two. (page 202).
This is one of the best books I have read for a while. This guy is razor sharp and writes so well. I finished it in two days.
Note to self: Next time “sperm bank” is mentioned, have the good grace to couch it in the third-person.
Split screen with Snow White and the goddam seven dwarves.
Ho-hum, the tune is dumb, the words don’t mean a thing.
I did some campaign work for Doug Hoffman, volunteered a little, made some phone calls. Became, like Snow White, disenchanted.
How come the only people who champion the free market also champion bureacrats like Sonia Effing Sotomayor handing down decisions as to social mores that will bind every citizen in this country?
I am pro gay marriage. I am pro abortion being legal. But I would gladly, nay effing ecstatically live in a state where both those things were prohibited BECAUSE THAT’S THE WAY MY FELLOW CITIZENS HAD VOTED.
There is absolutely nothing existing in the Constitution on which to say that under the Constitution abortion should be legal. There might actually be some basis in the Constitution for gay marriage, I’m not sure. Abortion we covered in law school, but not gay marriage.
Look, I don’t give a shit. I just want a job. And I want not to be blown up. Other than that, I want to be left alone.
So, small government. But the conservative party and this conservative candidate, his ad is like, “He’s pro-life, believes marriage should be between a man and a woman- and- oh! He’s into lower taxes.”
Some bureacrat proclaiming the social mores of the land sounds like big government to me.
The upshot will be that the Democrat candidate wins. What does “conservative” even mean? Does it mean conserving the government structure in our Constitution? Or does it mean condemning non-procreative sex? To me the two positions seem mutually exclusive- and unrelated.
As to abortion, there’s a reason why it’s not in the Constitution. I think the drafters would have been flabbergasted at the idea of abortion, or the morning-after pill, or similar thing, being covered in the Constitution. One, I don’t think they would have considered it of pressing national importance. Two, I think they would have considered such issues a private matter.
Lulu just gnawed a chunk out of a book. Hmmm, maybe she’s hungry. Time to go.
My whole day today was colored by a phone conversation this morning with my mother during which she expressed enormous satisfaction in her sole grandchild and suggested that artificial insemination, though not imminently necessary, may become a nice option for me in procuring another one in the future.
In some moods and on some days, this would have been water off a duck’s back, it even would have been funny.
This was not one of those days.
Ensuing crying jags and bitter recriminations against perceived uptight bourgeois parental pressure to never get married and to have a career. Enterprising me! Defying all expectations, I’ve succeeded at neither!
Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t give a shit: my master doesn’t exist.
Though I ain’t, incidentally, no freakin’ monument to justice.
My birthright, my inheritance, my dowry, if you will, was my ability, my education, and my citizenship in the richest, best country in the world.
Dammit.
I lost my hand.
I lost my bride.
You want me to take my heartache, put it away, and forget?
I’ve done more research on the New York 23rd Congressional district race. It is a weird race.
The Republican isn’t really a Republican, the Democrat isn’t really a Democrat, and the Conservative seems to have come out of nowhere and has never held office.
According to The Syracuse Post-Standard, the Conservative, Doug Hoffman, is “endorsed by actor and former Republican U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson; Gary Bauer, a former Reagan administration official and chairman of Campaign for Working Families; and Club for Growth, a national conservative group.” According to Stacy McCain, Hoffman is supported by Bill Kristol, the political action committee of the ACU, the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, and the GOP conservative blog Red State.
Here’s some of Hoffman’s bio from the Syracuse Post-Standard:
Doug Hoffman, 59, is managing partner of an accounting firm with five offices across the North Country. He lives in Lake Placid with his wife of 36 years, Carol. They have three grown children.
Hoffman is one of four children raised by a single mother in Saranac Lake. His campaign headquarters is on the site of an old gas station where he started working at age 14 to help pay the bills. He could not afford college, but local businesses raised the money he needed. While in college, he enlisted in the New York National Guard, then served in the Army Reserves until 1976.
At age 27, he became assistant controller for the Lake Placid 1980 Olympic Organizing Committee. On his first day on the job, his boss quit and Hoffman took over a budget of $150 million that paid 2,500 employees. After the Olympics, he bought a local accounting firm.
According to the Syracuse Post-Standard, where I suddenly get all my news, Democrat candidate, Bill Owens, is endorsed by the Working Families Party, the local chapter of the SEIU, and, thus, the spirit of Chairman Mao (from out of the fires of hell, 40-70 million people murdered under the wheels of the communist machine).
But, get this, the paper says that Owens “has been an independent voter since age 18, but has applied to enroll as a Democrat.” Huh? He’s not even a Democrat?
And the Republican sure isn’t a Republican. All you need to know about her really is that she called the cops on a journalist when he asked her her positions on the issues. That is awesome. Welcome to cow country. You outsiders give us trouble, and we sic Boss Hog on you.
Oh, and that she’s supported by ACORN. I think you get the flava.
The most recent development in this rural, out-of-the-way place turned national battleground is that Hoffman is asking the Justice Department to step in to monitor the election (whose reaction will be to send over some Black Panthers armed with billy clubs for some non-partisan poll-watching.)
Doug Hoffman is being interviewed by Glenn Beck right now, and Jim Geraghty of National Review and Moe Lane of Red State are calling for the Republican party to dump Dede Scozzafava.
I should’ve put Mark Steyn on my Top Ten Hottest Conservative Men list. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. But I didn’t know! I didn’t know! How could I have known? How could I have known? Meh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.
I am in the library. I got my hands on some Doug Hoffman literature. I am puzzled. There is not much information on the man himself. The literature was printed in Albany by unionized printers, union mark on it. The net effect of Doug Hoffman running on the Conservative ticket against the Republican is that the Democrat will win? Right?
Oh, I guess Hoffman just called on the RINO to quit the race. Uh, she might better. Else the Democrat win. Right? The 23rd District is not far from me, so I’ll be checking it out.
We went over there today, actually, to Hoffman HQ. That this election is making national news is incredible. The 23rd District is impoverished cow country. The cows don’t have nothing. When we went to the Hoffman HQ, one other person walked in. He was a gentle, elderly farmer with an honest, Irish face. He took a sign, but he said he wouldn’t have much time to help out as it was harvest time.
Is Hoffman worthy of this good man? I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on. That’s why I believe in God. The only kingdom I know that’s worthy of a good farmer is the kingdom of Heaven. There is no justice on earth but what we create, and we live in a time of great “spiritual wickedness in high places.”
I stopped reading National Review online because I got sick of the general air of smug prissiness and the simple-minded self-righteousness from Kathryn Jean Lopez. This was a non sequitur. Please do not point out the logical gaps or incoherence in my writing. It is terribly culturally insensitive. I am but a oiseau rebelle, and your “white logic” is not for me. Unless, of course, you might be hiring. I was just kidding about “white logic.” I fucking love the stuff, scored in the 96th percentile on the LSAT.
In more pressing news we had a wine and cheese party today. Gjetost cheese, which is a brown Norwegian goat cheese which is sweet and very delicious. The other cheeses were all from New York State: chevre, gouda, cheddar, and another buttery Norwegian one. And the wine was Jacob’s Creek Reserve Shiraz 2005.
Why is Gateway Pundit now on First Things? I have a theory.
Minute 1:00.
SANCTUARY! SANCTUARY! SANCTUARY! SANCTUARY!
I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you.
“Higher Jobless Rate Could be the New Normal.” Yes, this is business as usual under SOCIALISM. When I was in France, unemployment was in the high teens. When I lived in Spain, unemployment was in, what, the mid-teens or something. Italy, same. This is “Vieille Europe” style socialist life-on-the-dole.
