Miss Rosita Marple Tries Her Hand at Solving a Couple Popular Mysteries

2009 November 19
by Rosita

Child, I ain’t passed the bar, but I know a little bit.
Enough that you won’t illegally search my shit.

Jay-Z, 99 Problems

I actually did pass the bar, and I know a little bit. Enough that I’d like to try my hand at explaining a couple of the grand mysteries turning up in the papers these days. To me, they don’t seem very mysterious.

1) The Case of the Dramatic, Unexplained Pro-Life Surge Under Obama.

In the largest shift in sentiment since pollsters began asking about the topic in 1995, support dropped from 54 to 47 percent in one year.

“To explain this riddle,” said Miss Rosita Marple, with a twinkle in her eye, bringing her rocking chair to a standstill and pausing over her needlework (cross-stitch sampler: Down With the Marxist Pissant.), “Let’s play a game of ‘Which Would You Rather?’”

Which would you rather? The government prohibits abortion or the government provides and thereby authorizes (and the logical extension is eventually mandates) abortions.

The Wall Street Journal pointed out the other day that only about 13% of women who get abortions put it on their health insurance.

The Democrats, stymied on the abortion health reform issue, have suggested that women can get separate “abortion insurance.” Huh? Exhibit Nine Hundred of the Airtight Case that the Democrats are Insane.

2) The Case of the Missing Young Workers.

An article in the Times compares this recession with the two other periods since World War II when unemployment went above 8% (they’ve changed how they count unemployment, by the way).

There are fewer jobs for workers age 54 to 64 than when the cycle began, but that group has done much better than younger workers.

By contrast, younger workers were more likely to hold on to their jobs in the two previous downturns.

It is not clear why that pattern has changed.

Miss Rosita Marple, laying a finger aside of her nose, twittered. She laughed, that is. Not that she broadcast some half-wit scrambled internet message.

“Well,” she chuckled, “maybe that’s because younger workers are useless gits who don’t know shit these days because they have been Very. Badly. Educated. and they have Zero Character. Would you want them working for you?”

Two examples of the effects of cronyism, being badly educated, and natural stupidity within the past couple weeks:

1. 911 operator makes a mistake, sends firefighters to the wrong house. Ha ha, right? Two people died.

2. New York City Buildings Department workers mark the wrong house for demolition, authorizing the locks on the house cut. Junkies move in, steal and destroy.

The reason why companies are retaining or hiring older workers rather than younger workers is that plummeting standards, both educational standards and standards of comportment, moral standards, and diminised work ethic and loyalty have rendered younger workers less employable than their older counterparts.

Rosita being the exception that proves the rule.

Review of “The Revolution, A Manifesto” by Ron Paul

2009 November 13
by Rosita

Ron Paul is the living American politician who has the courage, honesty, integrity, intellect, experience, and idealism to present ideas that offer a solution to the state we are now in, which seems to me approaching dire.

It took me about two days to read “The Revolution.” The writing style was plain-spoken. It was very clearly written, so it had the inestimable advantage that it made Rep. Paul’s analysis and ideas very accessible. Rep. Paul was able to explain concepts, some of which related to convoluted government workings, very simply. It shows that he has a great deal of government experience. Sometimes the style was a bit dry, but it was never boring. He wrote it himself, without any help to “jazz it up,” that’s why it might be a bit dry.

I was very very happy that there’s an American politician who does not need a professional co-author to write a book. There’s a very interesting reading list at the end as well. The book is comprised of seven chapters.

Chapter 3, “The Constitution” begins with a quote from Thomas Jefferson (page 41):

Though written constitutions “may be violated in moments of passion or delusion,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1802, “yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people.”

Page 43:

When the president signs a bill into law, he sometimes accompanies the signing with a statement, not necessarily read aloud at the signing ceremony but inserted into the record all the same.
. . .
The Bush administration . . . has very often used the signing statement as a vehicle either for expressing the manner in which the president intends to interpret certain provisions of a law (his interpretation being frequently at odds with the one Congress obviously intended), or even for making clear his intention of not enforcing the provision in question at all. It is not always easy to determine whether the president has followed through on these threats, since they are so often made in areas that the White House shrouds in secrecy: foreign policy and privacy violations. In 2005, though, the Government Accountability Office gave us a very rough estimate of how many of these threatened refusals to enforce legislative provisions were followed up on: in about one-third of the nineteen cases it examined, the provision was not being enforced. Law professor Jonathon Turley was blunt: “By using signing statements to this extent, the president becomes a government unto himself.”

Page 53. Ron Paul quotes Senator Robert A. Taft criticizing President Truman’s decision to send troops to Korea, as Ron Paul puts it, “without so much as a nod in the direction of Congress.” (Page 52) Truman thought his power to do so came from UN authorization and an interpretation of the “commander-in-chief clause” in the Constitution that Ron Paul calls “untenable” as “nothing in American history supports it.”

Robert Taft said (page 53):

“I deny the conclusions of the documents presented by the President or by the executive department, and I would say that if the doctrines therein proclaimed prevailed, they would bring an end to government by the people, because our foreign interests are going gradually to predominate and require a larger and larger place in the field of the activities of our people.”

In 2002, when Ron Paul proposed that Congress make an official declaration of war against Iraq, in accordance with the Constitution (Paul made it clear he was going to oppose the declaration), the Chairman of the International Relations Committee’s response was (page 54):

“There are things in the Constitution that have been overtaken by events, by time. Declaration of war is one of them. There are things no longer relevant to a modern society. We are saying to the president, use your judgment. [What you have proposed is] inappropriate, anachronistic; it isn’t done anymore.”

I’d love to know who said this. The person isn’t named.

From Chapter 4 “Economic Freedom,” page 76:

To get an appreciation for the difference between public and private administration in terms of bureaucracy and cost-effectiveness, consider this. The Brookings Institution’s John Chubb once investigated the number of bureaucrats working in the central administration offices of New York City public schools. Six telephone calls finally yielded someone who knew the answer, but that person was not allowed to disclose it. Another six calls later, Chubb had at last pinned down someone who knew the answer AND could tell him what it was: there were 6,000 bureaucrats working in the central office.
Then Chubb called the Archdiocese of New York, to find out the figure there. (The city’s Catholic schools educated one-fifth as many students as did the government-run schools.) Chubb’s first telephone call was taken by someone who did not know the answer. Here we go again, he thought. But after a moment she said, “Wait a minute; let me count.” Her answer: 26.

Rep. Paul has championed the abolition of income tax.

He makes the point that we do not have the resources to sustain Social Security and Medicare. That’s another depressing point about all this healthcare debate, is that it’s largely moot. Medicare and Medicaid are going to go bust- like tomorrow. Rep. Paul also makes the point that health care was more affordable and accessible before government got involved. He relates the following anecdote (pages 89-90):

Several years ago I had a chance to meet Dr. Robert Berry, who had come to Washington to offer testimony before the congressional Joint Economic Committee, of which I am a member. Dr. Berry had opened a low-cost health clinic in rural Tennessee. The clinic does not accept insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid, a policy that allows Dr. Berry to treat patients without interference from third-party government bureaucrats or HMO administrators. He and his patients can therefore decide for themselves on appropriate treatments.
In other words, Dr. Berry practices medicine as most doctors did 40 years ago, when patients paid cash for ordinary services and had inexpensive catastrophic insurance for serious injuries or illnesses.

Ron Paul states that this doctor usually charges about $35 for routine maladies, and his patients are mostly low-income people who can’t afford health insurance but don’t might not qualify for assistance (page 90).

Rep. Paul is also absolutely against foreign aid, believes “foreign aid should be absolutely rejected” (page 99):

Morally, I cannot justify the violent seizure of property from Americans in order to redistribute that property to a foreign government . . . Surely we can agree that Americans ought not to be doing forced labor on behalf of other regimes, and that is exactly what foreign aid is.

In Chapter 6, “Civil Liberties and Personal Freedom,” Rep. Paul speaks out against the Patriot Act and describes some of its terrifying powers: privacy violations, unconstitutional searches (and detainments, right?), and torture.

I think torture of enemy combatants is a useful technique. So I’m also for a lot of transparency as to who is and who is not considered an enemy combatant, and who exactly’s being tortured and exactly how. Transparency solves a lot of problems.

Rep. Paul talks about the case of Jose Padilla, the aspiring “dirty bomber” (page 121). He was American, which I did not know before reading this book, and he was detained for three and a half years before charges were brought against him, during which time he was tortured. Albeit mildly, about as bad as Obama’s Chicago buddies like Anthony Rezko and Valerie Jarrett torture their poor slum tenants: he was subjected to noxious fumes, and his cell was kept cold for long periods of time. He was also drugged and threatened.

Rep. Paul discusses the ramifications to civil liberties and personal freedom of the war on terror and the war on drugs.

As far as the war on drugs, Rep. Paul gives voice to something I’ve thought a lot: that if drugs were legalized (AND TAXED), their market value immediately depreciates and associated drug crime is mitigated. Drug dealing ceases to be as profitable. (Pages 125-126).

As far as the vice of drug-taking, Rep. Paul quotes Thomas Aquinas, that the law cannot make people virtuous (page 126). Rep. Paul also points out the fact that even though drugs are illegal, they’re widely available, so making them illegal is ineffective (page 131).

Lastly, Rep. Paul writes (page 133) that, “In 2004, a presidential initiative called the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health issued a report calling for forced mental health screening for all American children, beginning in preschool.” Rep. Paul (who is in a position to know) considers that the “obvious beneficiary” of such a program is the pharmaceutical industry who can basically use this program as a prescription medicine recruitment drive. I also see political implications, and it goes along with a measures Phyllis Schlafly recently wrote about, about a national database on school-children.

I remember when I read Clarence Thomas’s autobiography, which was a great- and moving- read, Thomas, who was educated in Catholic schools (the nuns taught him that the racism in the society he was growing up in was morally wrong), wrote that even if he had no money, the very last thing that would go would be his son’s private school tuition. He said that no matter how much debt or how many bills he had to pay (Thomas grew up shockingly dirt poor and even after attending graduate schools was in deep, deep debt. Didn’t pay off his debts until around the time he became a Supreme Court Justice.) he would never send his son to public school, that that was his sine qua non that his son attend private school. I think the reasons why become clearer and clearer.

Lastly, in Chapter 6 “Money: The Forbidden Issue in American Politics,” Rep. Paul addresses… (drumroll, please) the Fed. He explains what the Fed is doing when it tinkers with the interest rates by buying bonds from banks (“Where does the Fed get the money to buy the bonds? It creates it out of thin air, simply writing checks on itself and giving them to banks. If that sounds fishy, then you understand it just fine.” [page 141]).

Rep. Paul also criticizes the fact that America ceased to back up its currency with gold (“the gold standard”). This makes us more prone to Weimar Republic-esque hyperinflation (and oh, you know, Weimar Republic-esque mass hysteria, mass hypnosis, and mass madness). (Pages 140, 149-150).

I totally recommend this book. I’ve only been able to extract a few nuggets to give you an idea. It’s a fascinating book, it will really open your eyes, and it is written like a manifesto, as the title says, so it’s an easy read and the concepts are easy to understand.

Yeah, I think the concept that the country’s going to hell in a handbasket is pretty easy to grasp at this point. Rep. Paul is sensible and wise. He offers solutions. I pray people will simply listen to him.

Thanks, Guys, for Paving the Way for Vigilante-ism!

2009 November 11
by Rosita

When authorities do not protect people, people protect themselves.

I’m not starting some citizen militia here (yet). As a woman and a mother, I have a lot to fear from the breakdown of civilization (and I have about as much to fear from vigilante-ism as I do from terrorism.) Uh, who doesn’t? But as we see in countries where civilization has broken down, in an inverse formula to the Titanic’s gentlemen’s creed, women and children get it first.

There is a vacuum. An Islamist terrorist was ALLOWED to kill our TROOPS. The heads of the military and the commander-in-chief have made EXCUSES for him. He most certainly did not snap. “Snapping” is when one does something uncharacteristic. All the evidence shows that what he did was completely within character and absolutely consistent with his ideology- an ideology he wouldn’t shut up about.

People aren’t going to just sit around and wait to get killed. There is a vacuum. The message Americans are getting is that the authorities are not interested in protecting us from acts of terrorism. The other message we’re getting is that Muslims in official positions have not been vetted and that if they are terrorist threats that has been swept under the carpet. Another message we’re getting is from the half-hearted apologies of, uh, one Muslim organization I’ve seen so far. Other than that, silence (satisfied silence?) on the part of the Muslim community. No protests, no vigils, no impassioned condemnations.

The other message we’re getting is that American lives are worth little, that the lives of our troops- our friends, neighbors, sons, daughters, siblings, cousins, parents- are worth little.

What matters is the ideology of those in power and them promoting an ideology that they believe will keep them in power.

I am angry.

This one goes out to General George “The Real Tragedy Would Have Been if These Young Lives Had NOT Been Sacrificed to Diversity” Casey: Baby, You Got to Be Cruel to be Kind.

2009 November 11
by Rosita

Cruel to be kind, in the right measure
Cruel to be kind, it’s a very good sign
Cruel to be kind, means that I love you
Baby, you gotta be cruel to be kind

Gen. George Casey Orders New “Jihadist Quota” for the US Military

2009 November 9
by Rosita

General George Casey, the Army’s top officer, has spoken:

Those dead and wounded in last Thursday’s attack gave their lives for Diversity [And Allah. -Ed.].

As tragic as it is when people, including 21 year-old girls who are pregnant, must sacrifice their lives to Diversity, this is the sacrifice that Diversity demands.

The real tragedy would have occurred had Diversity been stymied such that these people were walking around alive and whole today. Ah, that is where the real tragedy would be.

Diversity, you see, is a hungry death god and it must be fed. Regrettable, but, as Mao (who maybe is one of General Casey’s favorite philosophers too!) would have put it: The end justifies the means. Or, put another way, sometimes innocent people have to die.

General George Casey was actually being super-tolerant. He could have called them infidels. He didn’t, if you noticed.

The real tragedy, as General George Casey graciously informed us, would be if our military didn’t include within its ranks killer Islamist jihadists.

That would be the real tragedy.

The most effective way to satisfy the demands of Diversity would be to implement a sort of quota system where at least one tenth or something of US military were made up of killer Islamist jihadists.

Diversity demands it.

The Army could recruit them from the mosques or something. Come to think of it, maybe we could have battalions of them, and they just blow each other up. Oh wait, that wouldn’t be diversity, that would be segregation, wouldn’t it, shoot, sorry I’m new to this.

Sick thinking doesn’t come naturally to me.

Ich Bin Ein Berliner! 20 Years Ago Today the Fall of the Berlin Wall!

2009 November 9
by Rosita

Minute 4:46

The people waiting to cross the border start shouting, “Open up! Open up! Open the gate! Open the gate!”

Minute 5:44

The border guard calls his superior officer and asks for permission to stop checking passports at the border. The superior officer refuses.

Minute 6:10

The border guards, without authorization, open the gates.

Look at the people’s faces.

Ole! Ole, ole, ole!

Ronald Reagan: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

John Kennedy: “Ich bin ein Berliner.”

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.”

2009 November 7
by Rosita

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?

2009 November 7
by Rosita

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.

Lieutenant General Robert Cone Hours After Fort Hood Attack: “A Terrible Tragedy, Stunning,” Motive Unclear, Evidence Does Not Support Act of Terrorism

2009 November 7
by Rosita

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

2009 November 6
by Rosita

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.

Kimberly Munley.

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.

Red Rover, Red Rover, Send Westchester Right Over.

2009 November 5
by Rosita

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.

THE TAO OF SMALL GOVERNMENT

2009 November 4
by Rosita

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.

2009 November 3
by Rosita

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.

barack n bones drudge

Sure, I give it you. He’s really masculine.

KENYA US SENATOR BARACK OBAMA

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.”

rahm_emanuel

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.

Sharia in the USA

2009 November 3
by Rosita

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.

If the Count is Honest, Hoffman Will Win.

2009 November 3
by Rosita

I’d like to point out that I personally called about 100 people for Hoffman. My sense is that there is a lot of support for Hoffman. I stopped by one of the campaign HQ’s about three times, and on each occasion people came by. The 23rd District, the “North Country,” is very rural, remember. I called one guy to ask him if he wanted a lawn sign, and he was flabbergasted. He was like, “Not half a dozen people drive by my house every day.”

I got an email from the volunteer coordinator at the Hoffman HQ where I volunteered a little, advising us what to pray for, as Hoffman supporters. One of the items was “that these DC folks who have been hired to help- that the Holy Spirit touches them, so they understand the bigger picture, that this is for principals, our country and God.”

Ok, does anyone see how this could be alienating?

I pray for the country all the time. But I don’t even listen to the local priest. Last Sunday on All Saints’ Day, I vaguely overheard him sermonizing as I carried Lulu in and out of the mass (much cajoling) saying something about saints being “super-heroes” of a sort. To be sure. That’s exactly what we need in the Catholic church. Dumbed-down-to-the-lowest-common-denominator, pop-culture, horse-shit. Because we don’t get enough of that message in this world today. I suspect this priest of being a stealth agent, to be honest. Thanks for crapping all over my religion, Father C——–. This is the priest who, over the summer, enjoined his parishioners to refrain from strenuously objecting to health care reform. Either he’s not smart enough to realize that religion, including the religion that provides him with an occupation, is in the cross-hairs of the leftist agenda, or he’s too craven too care. He works for the nearby liberal college. The nearby liberal college which scheduled a “rally for social justice for illegal immigrants” on 9/11 this year.

THIS IS THE KIND OF PRIEST WE NEED.

Here’s Archbishop Timothy Dolan’s blog.

The reason why I feel sure that, bar Black Panther intervention (nothing would surprise me anymore), Hoffman will win is because my mother’s friend, a farmer, a life-long Democrat, active in the Democrat party, is voting for Hoffman. Also, all the people I saw working on the campaign were extremely fired-up volunteers many of whom said they had never been active in politics before. The volunteer coordinator who sent the prayer message said that she hadn’t even voted in a lot of presidential elections. She also, I was waiting in the office for her to finish a call, and she got off the phone very abruptly with someone, and turned to me, complaining that it had been the Conservative party calling, that they shouldn’t bother her with politics, that she wasn’t a political person, that she wasn’t interested in politics, that she wasn’t about politics. I didn’t point out, say, that she was sitting at the main desk in the main entrance of a building that had a sign on it that said “Hoffman for Congress HQ.” I also didn’t mention the campaign literature and yard signs proclaiming the same message that surrounded her. And I certainly didn’t imply that she was at that very moment in possession of a list of possible voters and on the cusp of handing it to me with instructions to call these people and solicit their votes for Doug Hoffman. I just nodded and smiled.

Glenn Beck today on his show was scoffing at reports that he endorsed Hoffman, but I have to say that at the campaign office I went to, the Hoffman campaign literature was wrapped up in a 9/12 brochure. I was confused because the 9/12 brochure said explicitly, “We don’t endorse any candidate,” and there it was enrobing Hoffman’s campaign literature, such that the implication was to the contrary. Also in the Hoffman campaign HQ they had a giant list of the 9/12 principles on the wall. So I think people could be excused for thinking that Beck somehow endorsed Hoffman because the 9/12 organization, as I understood it, was Beck’s baby, and it appears like the 9/12 organization is endorsing Hoffman.

I know this is unsporting of me, but I find Beck’s principles hokey and simple-minded. I would a million, billion times, however, choose the hokey and simple-minded, but aiming towards goodness, freedom, justice, over the sophisticated and characterless. I don’t like getting my marching orders from Beck though, doesn’t sit right with me.

Oh, I get it. In that prayer email, she must have meant “principles,” as in these 9/11 principles, rather than “principals.”

Of All the Tea Parties in All the Towns in All the Tri-State Area, You Had to Walk into Mine

2009 October 31
by Rosita

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.

Campaigns

2009 October 30
by Rosita

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.

Superior Whores, Inferior Whores

2009 October 30
by Rosita

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

Oh Damn. Hillary’s Gonna Be on the Jihad Next.

2009 October 30
by Rosita

hillary-praying

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.

Somebody give her a seekh kebab and some gow.

2009 October 29
by Rosita

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.