Thirty-six points too high.

Socialism

Socialism had the lowest percentage positive rating and the highest negative rating of any term tested. Still, more than a third of Americans say they have a positive image of socialism.

Exactly how Americans define “socialism” or what exactly they think of when they hear the word is not known. The research simply measures Americans’ reactions when a survey interviewer reads the word to them — an exercise that helps shed light on connotations associated with this frequently used term.

There are significant differences in reactions to “socialism” across ideological and partisan groups:

* A majority of 53% of Democrats have a positive image of socialism, compared to 17% of Republicans.
* Sixty-one percent of liberals say their image of socialism is positive, compared to 39% of moderates and 20% of conservatives.

Capitalism

“Capitalism,” the word typically used to describe the United States’ prevailing economic system, generates positive ratings from a majority of Americans, with a third saying their reaction is negative.

As was the case with “socialism,” there are differences across population segments.

* Republicans are significantly more positive than Democrats in their reactions to “capitalism,” although majorities of both groups have favorable opinions.
* Opinions of the word by ideology are divided in an unusual, though modest, way. Conservatives have the highest positive image, followed by liberals. Moderates have somewhat lower positive ratings than either of these groups.

This nation, contrary to what’s being bullyingly implied in all walks of life, is actually about something and it isn’t just about the freedom to be an atheist. If that’s all the freedom you want, you can do that just about anywhere now.

It’s about having your own turf, and running it as you see fit so long as you abide by the laws and pay your bills. Being governed and not ruled.

This vision is not compatible with socialism, not even a little tiny bit.

Having 36% of us say socialism is okay, is no better than having 36% of us saying white supremacy is okay. It is every bit as alarming and every bit as much an offense to our founding principles. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: You want socialism? There’s over a hundred other spots on the earth you can go. Keep it outta here.

Hat tip again to Miss C.

Obviously it’s an attention-getting ploy…so let’s accommodate her.

Without further comment.

Willa Ford, who starred in the Friday the Thirteenth remake. She’s appealing enough we decided to go ahead and rent it…

Xenia Seeberg, known as Xev Bellringer, half-lizard pleasure creature in the dark science fiction non-anthology Lexx.

Which one?

We-ell…tough choice. I would say Willa easily beats the later Xenia, with her her all cropped down. On another note, how come it is that actresses do that? They get a successful gig going, men start tuning in just to watch them — and then the hair gets chopped.

In fact, I would say with the longer locks, Xenia just b-a-r-e-l-y squeaks out ahead. Just barely. Photo finish.

True Crime Report:

When police in Navarre, Florida received a call for a noise complaint, they arrived to find a bleeding man running toward them along with his girlfriend. The man’s groin was dripping blood, and he was screaming that he’d been shot…

Amanda Kelly told a deputy that her dad, William Russell Kelly Jr., had shot her boyfriend Randall Carter at their home. The reason for dad’s ire, according to the younger Kelly: “He hates him, dude.”

William readily admitted to the shooting, but claims a different motive. He says he unloaded his .45 revolver, which he affectionately calls “The Judge,” because Carter was assaulting this daughter. “I shot him in the nuts with bird-shot because he was beating my daughter,” Kelly told police.

He’s been charged with aggravated battery. Carter, meanwhile, has already received his sentence for messing with an armed man’s daughter.

Newsbusters…

HOW JOURNALISTS VOTE

■ More than four-fifths of surveyed journalists voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election between 1964 and 1976.

■ More than three-fourths of “elite journalists” (76%) said they voted for Michael Dukakis in 1988.

■ 89% of Washington-based reporters said they voted for Bill Clinton in 1992. Only seven percent voted for George Bush, with two percent choosing Ross Perot.

■ An informal survey of Washington-based journalists in the summer of 2004 found them backing John Kerry over George W. Bush by a 12-to-1 margin.

■ In 2008, 96% of staffers at the online Slate magazine said they were supporting Barack Obama for president.

Americans don’t trust them.

Since the news is waning in its value as a friendly liberal bastion, the liberals are retreating to the world of comedy:

Since it was shown on Sunday, an episode of the Fox animated comedy “Family Guy” has drawn the repeated condemnation of Sarah Palin, the former Republican governor of Alaska and 2008 vice-presidential nominee.

In the episode, the teenage character Chris dates a girl named Ellen, who has Down syndrome, and who tells him over dinner that her mother is “the former governor of Alaska.” Ms. Palin, whose son Trig also has Down syndrome, has said that the “Family Guy” show “really isn’t funny” and was the work of “cruel, cold-hearted people.” Ms. Palin’s daughter Bristol has written that the “Family Guy” writers were “mocking my brother and my family,” and called them “heartless jerks.”

One person who supports the “Family Guy” staff is Andrea Fay Friedman, the 39-year-old actor and public speaker who played Ellen in that episode. Like the character, Ms. Friedman also has Down syndrome.

In an e-mail message sent on Thursday to The New York Times, Ms. Friedman wrote:

I guess former Governor Palin does not have a sense of humor. I thought the line “I am the daughter of the former governor of Alaska” was very funny. I think the word is “sarcasm.”

In my family we think laughing is good. My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life.

I don’t know what impresses me more: The borderline-rebellious reaction of the public on the news front, after generations of being told what to think; or the sycophants commenting under the story about Ms. Friedman’s quarrel with the Palin family. I know they’re New York Times readers, but still.

We’re told what to think about what’s going on, and after forty years or so we start to rebel. We’re told what’s funny…and mmmm, more, my compliments to the chef, om nom nom nom.

Look at it objectively: They want to show that the girl has Downs’, so she says “My Mom’s the former Governor of Alaska.” Yuk, yuk. Funny? I suppose some might think so, but what’s with the bullying attitude that everyone else has to do the obligatory guffawing? Does it work the same way if I make fun of Barbra Streisand’s big schnoz?

See, this is how I think it ties in with media bias. Hardcore left-wing liberals, going back quite aways, seem to insist each and every single time on the last word insofar as who’s decent, who’s a jerk, what’s funny and what’s not. So of course if I made fun of an ugly dress worn by one of Barack Obama’s daughters, no, I would not have the right or privilege to order people to laugh at my joke.

Make fun of a prominent Republican and her family, and our liberals, who pride themselves so much on their ability to “think for themselves,” consider us all to be obligated to laugh. You aren’t allowed to say “I don’t think it’s funny but I won’t begrudge someone else a chuckle or two.” Read those comments, that isn’t good enough for them. You have to find it funny or you are not a decent person.

The Media Bias Report shows what happens to this viewpoint when we leave that safe zone of comedy. We get tired of this. We get tired of these pre-canned instructions about who we’re supposed to support, or what we’re supposed to want to have done to our health care system.

But our liberals don’t see it. They give each other orders, and that is how they live their lives. Kind of like ants, really.

Hat tip to Viral Footage.

Rickety-Click:

“Stand Back! I’m Going To Try SCIENCE!”

Shit fire and give up matches, who’da guessed?

Secondary sexual characteristics convey information about reproductive potential. In the same way that facial symmetry and masculinity, and shoulder-to-hip ratio convey information about reproductive/genetic quality in males, waist-to-hip-ratio (WHR) is a phenotypic cue to fertility, fecundity, neurodevelopmental resources in offspring, and overall health, and is indicative of “good genes” in women. Here, using fMRI, we found that males show activation in brain reward centers in response to naked female bodies when surgically altered to express an optimal (~0.7) WHR with redistributed body fat, but relatively unaffected body mass index (BMI).

Jeez, women let themselves get cut on to make men happy? Holy crap. Who knew?

So the science guys are discovering that it pleases the gentlemen when the ladies cavort around in skimpy clothing showing off their WHR’s. (WHR’s…hmmm…is there a hidden meaning buried in this report I wonder?) Statements like “These findings suggest that an hourglass figure activates brain centers that drive appetitive sociality/attention toward females that represent the highest-quality reproductive partners” make me wonder, who funded this? I could probably find out with a little bit of searching and skimming, starting with “This work was supported by a faculty induction award from the University of Liverpool and a grant from the Pioneer Fund.” And then figger out where that takes me. But something tells me I don’t really want to know.

Also, how come it fell to me to fancy things up with a picture of a nice-looking lady in a swimsuit? They’ll pump out this dry language with words like “appetitive” and “phenotypic” but they won’t use any pleasing visual aids, on that one-out-of-a-thousand occasion on which it is directly related to the chosen topic.

I got a study for you. My study says when it comes to the written word, some people just aren’t trying.

Victor Davis Hanson:

Biden’s Timeline —”Dead, flat wrong”

1990: Biden votes against the first Gulf War and Bush I’s efforts to get Saddam out of Kuwait.

1998: Biden supports Bill Clinton’s call for regime change and “to dethrone Saddam Hussein over the long haul.”

2002: Biden asserts that Saddam has biological and chemical weapons and is seeking a nuclear arsenal, proclaiming, “We have no choice but to eliminate the threat.” He then votes in October for 23 writs authorizing President Bush to remove the dictator by force if need be.

2005: Joe Biden reassures the country that we must stay in Iraq: “We can call it quits and withdraw from Iraq. I think that would be a gigantic mistake. Or we can set a deadline for pulling out, which I fear will only encourage our enemies to wait us out – equally a mistake.”

2006: Biden declares that a sovereign Iraq is not sustainable, calls for trisecting Iraq into three separate entities and demands that President Bush “must direct the military to design a plan for withdrawing and redeploying our troops from Iraq by 2008.”

It goes on and on.

Funny, isn’t it? The minute Joe Biden’s name comes up — suddenly, the Vice President does not have to be qualified to assume the responsibilities of the Presidency. He just has to be a “distinguished elder statesman.” And “distinguished elder statesman” seems to be some kind of fancy cliche for drunken Irishman.

Newsbusters:

Shortly after 8:00 a.m. on Monday’s Morning Joe on MSNBC, noting that it was Presidents Day, host Joe Scarborough asked the day’s panel members who was their favorite President. After the first two guests named Abraham Lincoln, to which co-host Mika Brzezinski agreed, she then announced her admiration for Jimmy Carter’s post-presidential activities calling him her “favorite former President.” She went on to call him the “best former President we’ve ever had,” prompting Scarborough to quip, “You should be paid.”

After Willie Geist poked fun at Brzezinski by declaring that Jimmy Carter was the best President because of “his bravery against that killer rabbit in Plains, Georgia,” Brzezinski sulked: “Stop mocking him.”

It’s not really news, I’ve seen it all before. In fact, if you Google the words “best ex-president” you’ll see Carter’s name mentioned prominently. It’s a way of getting the word out about Habitat For Humanity, and his other post-1980 activities — that have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with his performance as our nation’s 39th president.

His activities that do have something to do with the presidency, after we got rid of him — they all concern his readiness, willingness and ability to be a clueless, classless loudmouth and a jerk.

The churlish command “stop mocking him” — that is part of the script too. What’s up with that? It’s offensive to someone’s religion or something? He’s St. James now? You’re eligible for canonization if you lick the boots of enough terrorists?

Jimmy Carter is our “best ex-President” the way political correctness is correct. You have to attach the modifier. It’s mandatory. Absolutely required. Or else all sane persons, of all ideological flavorings, would instantly see you shouldn’t be allowed to walk around with all the rights, privileges and perks of the competent. They’d come after you with a great big net.

LATimes Blogs Top of the Ticket:

So, is California’s brittle Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer about to become the next Harry Reid? Which is to say, embattled at home.

As [Senate Maj. Leader Harry] Reid worked the wallets of San Francisco on Presidents’ Day to raise money for his endangered seat in Nevada, some stunning new Rasmussen Reports poll out today makes a compelling point:

For the second straight month the three-term senator is unable to break the 50% mark against any potential Republican opponents, the historical measuring mark of vulnerability for an incumbent nine months before an election.

For a Democrat in a Democrat state that gave Barack Obama 61% of its votes in 2008 (and still likes him more than many other places) to be mired in the mid-40’s is a sign of real trouble. This is especially so given the fact that disgruntled voters gave Democrats control of the House, Senate and White House in 2008…

Abboutfuckingoddamntime.

I don’t know which is worse: The votes that seem to be cast according to the absolute direct opposite of my own likings, as if the Senator was spying on me to find out what would tick me off the most; the non-responsiveness from her office, “replying” to my messages with more democrat party talking point boilerplate crap; or the twice-monthly embarrassment from when she says something truly, truly asinine and brings discredit on any & all who might possibly be associated with her. It’s that crazy-cat-lady smell. Just has a way of rubbing off on you after awhile.

Prelutsky nailed it.

Frankly, I don’t know what it is about California, but we seem to have a strange urge to elect really obnoxious women to high office. I’m not bragging, you understand, but no other state, including Maine, even comes close. When it comes to sending left-wing dingbats to Washington, we’re number one. There’s no getting around the fact that the last time anyone saw the likes of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi, they were stirring a cauldron when the curtain went up on ‘Macbeth’. The three of them are like jackasses who happen to possess the gift of speech. You don’t know if you should condemn them for their stupidity or simply marvel at their ability to form words.

Few things in the news make me happier than dead terrorists. Crispy ones are best, with looks of real horror and agony frozen forever on their dead crispy faces.

Hat tip to Viral Footage, via Linkiest.

Kevin at The Smallest Minority is apparently on a mission to find the perfect statement of what the tea parties are all about.

We applaud the effort, and will do whatever we can to highlight the (many) successes.

Quote of the Day – American Dream Edition

Their (Tea Party supporter) values are pretty much mine. I live in a town in North Alabama where there are plenty of blacks driving Mercedes and living in big houses. Only in America can someone come from a little island and live the dream. I’ve liked it, and that’s what I want for my children. [But] I saw the window closing for my own kids.

— Les Phillip, candidate for Alabama’s fifth congressional district challenging Republican incumbent Parker Griffith, as reported in Glenn Reynolds’ WSJ piece, What I Saw at the Tea Party Convention

“I saw the window closing for my own kids.” Ab-so-freakin’-lutely perfect. Just change that verb to present tense.

Kevin offered us some linkage to humble ol’ us, when we clued him in on Phil’s post. Kevin said much the same thing in a few more words, and seemed to feel Phil’s polished prose put him to shame.

I’m not sure I agree with that. They’re all good words, proud words, nevermind how many of them there are. I’m sure there were some drafts of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, that were shorter than the final version, but some of the subsequent polishings embiggened the product a little. Shorter isn’t always better.

“Seeing the window closing on my own kids,” however…that is a brilliant summation. That expresses a noble human struggle, one of the oldest ones. It is a primal urge. And a sacred human right. To make things better, or at least try to make things better, for your children.

And this effort is confined to no color, gender or sexual preference.

The Other McCain says ugly women do not have a right to a pretty woman’s job.

Attention, Ugly Women: You Do Not Have the Right to a Job as a Stripper

You might not need to be told this. Obviously, being a stripper is one of those jobs — like NASCAR driver — where good looks are very important. Most ugly women understand this concept, and therefore seek careers as tenured university professors, a field where looks are inconsequential. However, vocational guidance counselors forgot to explain this to Rianne Theriault-Odom:

VAN NUYS – A Tarzana woman was found guilty Thursday of dousing an exotic dancer and single mother with gasoline and setting her on fire last year outside the Tarzana bikini bar Babes N’ Beer.

Rianne Theriault-Odom, 28, who had been rejected as a dancer at the club, faces mandatory life sentences for the guilty verdicts of one count each of aggravated mayhem and torture. The Los Angeles Superior Court jury acquitted her of a third count, attempted murder and the lesser charge of attempted voluntary manslaughter…

During the trial, witnesses said that Theriault-Odom, who had been rejected for a job at Babes N’ Beer, had feuded with Busby and felt disrespected by her.

Theriault-Odom testified that “I felt offended – I felt she was trying to punk me. I had to stand up for myself. That’s the way it is on the streets.”

The victim, Roberta Dos Santos Busby is – or at least prior to this crime was – an attractive woman. Theriault-Odom is ugly. And therefore, when Theriault-Odom didn’t get a stripper job, she blamed Busby.

That may not make sense to you, but I’m sure Robert Reich or Paul Krugman could explain it. As every liberal knows, poor people are poor because rich people have all the money.

Theriault-Odom was just applying Liberal Logic^TM to her own situation: Ugly women are ugly because beautiful women are monopolizing all the good looks.

There is legal precedent for Theriault-Odom’s belief. About 30 years ago, during the Carter administration, feminists noticed that airline flight attendants — who were called “stewardesses” back then – tended to be young, attractive and cheerful.

This was clearly unfair, so there was a federal civil-rights lawsuit and now all U.S. airline flight attendants are either ill-tempered, middle-aged, homely women or snarky unhelpful gay men.

However, during the Reagan years, Ed Meese put a stop to such shenanigans before the courts could apply that social-justice principle to the strip-club industry, which is why most strippers don’t look like Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg or Andrew Sullivan.

Yet.

God help us if the Rianne Theriault-Odoms of the world unite for a class-action lawsuit now. There can be no doubt which side of that issue Sonia Sotomayor would be on.

I’m just sayin’…

Blame the liberals? Rightly so, I say.

It’s supposed to be all about making sure everyone’s treated right. It ends up being about forming a criticism-proof umbrella weatherproofed with the epoxy of irrational populism, extending it over all kinds and types of violations of genuine God-given human rights…like not being burned alive, as one of the basics…and then deliberating to see what atrocities could & should be hauled under that umbrella.

There’s a scene in Atlas Shrugged in which Henry Rearden acts as his own defense at trial, and completely stymies the judges as well as the system itself — simply by cornering them and making them admit to what they are doing, rather than conveniently pretending to be doing something else. It may be a little bit of a stretch, but I think that fits this. The trial is not about all of mankind being treated equitably and each individual enjoying an avenue of redress of grievances. It cannot be about a civilized society, and what it takes to make one go. It must, of necessity, disintegrate into a deliberation about the conditions under which we do not want a civilized society anymore. About when and if barbaric behavior becomes okay.

Because of a person’s feeeeeeeelings.

I’m sure the jury will be availed of all the expert testimony from mental health professionals about what might have temporarily legitimized this brutal assault. These days, that is just a given. I would hope they also hear from some burn victims, and their doctors. I hope the jury is told about how incredibly agonizing it must be to have burning gasoline sizzling away against your skin, destroying it layer by layer. I hope they hear from some victims who were conscious during their injuries, trying to put the fire out, and failing to. Ever see gasoline burn?

Hang the bitch. Yeah, I mean it. She doesn’t possess sufficient recognition of the implied social code that exists among us, to co-exist safely with others. That’s my litmus test. Scaffold in the town square, re-create that scene from the pilot episode of Deadwood, and when it’s over you can line up to congratulate me on my incredible left-wing liberal compassion. Because a middle-of-the-road solution, in my book, is she goes out by the same means she deployed to deal with others.

Hey, that’s not right wing crazy talk. That’s ultra-lib anarchist cartoon guy Ted Rall!

Every time it counts, Obama doesn’t have a clue. Consider, for example, the $700 billion TARP bailout.

The CEOs of Bank of America, Citibank, AIG, Goldman Sachs and several other giant corporations came to the Administration early in their term, wailing that (a) they would go out of business unless the feds bailed them out and (b) they would take a chunk of the economy with them, what with them being “too big to fail” and all.

Put yourself in Obama’s position. I would have replied Tony Soprano-style: “OK, fellows, I’ll help you out. I’ll save your stupid asses. In return, the Treasury will take your next 10 years of profits. Your shareholders get squat. No bonuses. Your execs stay until we say they can quit, for $50,000 a year. If they don’t like it, we prosecute them for fraud or unpaid parking tickets or terrorism, whatever, we’ll come up with something. If you don’t pay a decent return, we nationalize you.”

“After all, if you’re too big to fail, maybe you need to become part of the government.”

Obama held all the cards. But he was stupid. And he was corrupt. But more stupid than corrupt. And so, after AIG and Goldman used taxpayer bailout funds to redecorate their offices and pay extravagant bonuses to the corporate turds who ruined their companies in the first place, Obama was surprised. How could he be dismayed at “reports of massive profits and obscene bonuses at some of the very firms who owe their continued existence to the American people”? He let them get away with it.

You can hardly blame greedheads for taking money when you give it to them, no strings attached. But that’s what he’s doing…

Hat tip to fellow Right Wing News contributor William Teach.

Cincinnati.com:

Don’t call her the Crazy Cat Lady.

Tonya Parrish is a victim of domestic abuse. She has the cats – lots of them – to prove it.

The animals were unwanted gifts from her husband, Ed Mitcheff. He took in strays and never let them go.

Parrish met Mitcheff online. The self-proclaimed preacher from Chicago is a poster child for avoiding Internet romance.

“Ed put me through four years of hell,” Parrish said. He kicked her. He threatened to kill her. He spied on her phone calls. He alienated her from family and friends. He brought hoards of cats into her home and her life.

Now, he’s gone. Mitcheff died from a drug overdose July 4. Seven months after his death, however, Parrish must clean up the mess caused by a house-full of cats.

How many cats? Dozens and dozens. There were so many, in fact, public health officials lost track when they tried to count them.

“I’m so embarrassed by this,” said the 43-year-old graphic artist whose favorite subjects to paint – in a style where cubism meets cave painting – are horses, not cats. “I’m so ashamed.”

Parrish stood on her front porch. Behind her, six cats perched on her living room’s windowsill. Their eyes peered through the picture window as their tails slowly waved like fury, headless cobras.
:
It was feline-based psychological abuse.

“He used those cats as a weapon,” said Kendall Fisher, executive director of Women Helping Women, an oasis for abuse victims. “He used them to control, to isolate her. Isolation is one form of abuse.”

Probably a good time to load this clip up one more time. Just, y’know, to see if it has the same punch that it had eight months ago.

Punch a robot, in the face…

Related: Gerard says the former Governor of Alaska has set the catchphrase of the decade: “How’s That Hope and Change Workin’ Out?”

For when your fragile male ego cannot handle admitting that some repair job is too much for you to handle. It’s Capable Woman!

Wonder if she can manage to fly out to 1600 Pennsylvania sometime…say, at 3 in the morning? When the phone’s ringing?

Bloomberg:

“Washington doesn’t get it.”

That generic statement is tripping off the tongues of populists and Tea Partiers, business groups and bankers alike. In short, the public is peeved at the politicians.

I heard it this week from William Dunkelberg, chief economist of the National Federation of Independent Business, who used his group’s latest survey to opine on Washington’s deaf ear for helping small business.

The president and Congress “pay lip service to the fact that small business generates half of private-sector GDP and employs 60 percent or more of private-sector workers,” Dunkelberg says. As far as Washington’s efforts to help this sector of the economy, “instead of stimulus, give consumers a tax cut,” he says.

If Obama was a conciliatory force ushering us into a post-partisan age of beltway harmony, He’d do the one smart thing that might possibly appeal to everyone: Push a genuine tax cut and call it a stimulus.

Die-hard liberals would come out of the woodwork to give form and voice to Item #7 on the list of things that give clueless idiot dipshits away,

Speaking of a tax cut as something that “costs” money.

…with their theatrical outrage that President Obama is “spending” this money on a tax cut, like some kind of a Republian. And Obama would say to them “yes, I’m spending money, it’s My new stimulus plan. For far too long we have thought of stimulus as something that has to go through Washington, and now we must reject the false choice…” and sprinkle all kinds of other Obama Speech Bingo tidbits in there.

The point is, it would help us and it would help Him.

But He won’t do it. Apparently, we cannot become this Utopia in which everyone is equal, until we have a relatively small crowd of people pulling the strings on the daily miseries and fortunes of a much larger crowd of people. And so the money has to flow in one direction, and then — based on certain conditions — maybe flow back again. Once you elect democrats, it’s got to work that way. A non-negotiable item.

It starts out as one military WAG critiquing the actions of another…one who figured out the chosen life was not for her, and then wrote those two most deplorable things, a Dear John letter and a kiss-and-tell.

Meet Courtney Cook, an extraordinarily shallow and callous woman.

I can chart the entire history of my first marriage along the lines of U.S. military engagements. I fell in love with my ex-husband in no small part because he was a soldier. He was a Dartmouth senior on a ROTC scholarship, and his heroes were George Patton and Ulysses S. Grant. He could use words like “valor” and “courage” without irony. I liked the way he carried himself — taller it seemed, and with honor.

So they fell in love, got pregnant, and then got married. Her then-husband was activated due to Operation Desert Shield. Long story short, she ended up not having a clue what she was getting into and wanted to leave her husband because she couldn’t handle the separation.

Now, I know firsthand how difficult a relationship in the military is. I don’t begrudge someone who acknowledges that they can’t handle it. It takes a special kind of person to be able to endure this lifestyle. Camp Lejeune is full of women who make it through with grace, dignity, and class — and women who just couldn’t do it. There’s no shame in admitting that you just can’t handle it…

We’re going to take this bit by bit, because the entire article is long and doesn’t need to be excerpted. So with that, away we go…

As Cassy points out, it is a tough, tough life. And I’m really in no position to comment on it from any angle. BUT — Ms. Cook’s epistle seems to nudge up against the line, and maybe cross it, that forms the perimeter around guidance for the unproductive, narcissistic and self-absorbed to get all their things at the expense of those who are equipped with, and ultimately burdened by, the sense of dedication and duty that they themselves lack.

And I do have some experience with that part of it. As is to be expected from anyone who was fleeced in this manner, through his own sense of obligation and decency, I find the word “deplorable” fails to condemn it with a sufficient level of severity. No adjective does.

It’s sad, because there are many people out there who hold the same contempt for the military in their hearts. These men and women put their lives on the line, and yet they unfortunately are treated so low by so many. And only on a liberal website like Salon would this be featured.

This article is despicable because it’s really a how-to manual of how to ruin a soldier’s life, not just how to leave him. But for someone so self-absorbed, what does it really matter if she leaves a soldier’s heart shattered in her selfish, cowardly wake?

In the military and outside of it, I’m afraid we’ve entered an era in which, if a man is married, he really can’t make sure he’s sufficiently intact to attend to his day-to-day commitments as a professional and as a father until & unless he has some say about who is wife is allowed to talk to, and what she reads. That seems pretty harsh — but come on. Articles in Salon about how to leave your husband with a minimum of fuss and bother? Let him, and the kids, just pick up the pieces? Not How to get out of an abusive relationship. Not How to find a place to stay. Not How to get a good lawyer to make sure you don’t get screwed. But instead…How to sucker everyone else into doing all the hard stuff so you don’t have to. Including the kids.

This is why we have the “Family” item in My 42 Definitions of a Strong Society, because of brittle bitches like this:

26. Family first. Nobody who lives in a household ever tolerates disparaging comments about anybody else who lives in that household.

If a fella has a best-bud who thinks divorce is cool…then, once he’s a husband, he has an obligation not to talk to that guy anymore. Yeah, I mean it, and the same goes for the ladies. Once you’re married there’s no room for you to be sticking your nose into articles “guiding” you on how to go through an easy divorce. That’s just sick. Unless you absolutely, positively need that kind of help because things have deteriorated past some point of no return.

But, of course, these articles and books and podcasts and what-not have not been confining themselves to that turf, have they. Not by a long shot. Since that first wave of coffee-table feminist books clear back in the 1960’s, there has been a distinct flavoring of “any divorce that might possibly happen, we want it to happen” about them.

We cannot pass laws against this, I don’t think. We need a firm stigma against it. And we need it stat. Offering up quick and easy step-by-step instructions, for the Self-Entitlement 301.81 crowd to meet all their goals at the expense of everyone else, needs to be about as approved as offering step-by-step instructions for a thirteen-year-old to build a nuclear bomb in his bedroom.

Or putting a white hood over your head and burning a cross.

We need to trample this right down into the dirt. We’ve tolerated it for too long.

AOL Weird News:

All babies are beautiful, except maybe this one. Thank goodness this is not a living infant. It’s a silicon and fiberglass sculpture by Australian artist Ron Mueck. It went on display at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, on Jan. 31. This work is called “A Girl.”

More on Mr. Mueck here.

Selected works

* Dead Dad (1996–97), silicone, acrylic paint and human hair – a 2/3rds life-size sculpture of Mueck’s father lying on his back, naked – Saatchi Collection
* Pinocchio (1996), mixed media – standing boy, perhaps 5 years of age, wearing only underpants. Saatchi Collection
* Angel (1997), mixed media – a 1/3 scale boy seated on a tall stool, in a brooding pose looking down, sprouting wings made of real goose feathers – Saatchi Collection
* Ghost (1998), mixed media – 2 metres tall (3/2 scale?) adolescent girl, in swimming costume, leaning against a wall, face averted – Tate Gallery
* Boy (2000), fibreglass, resin, silicone – a 5 metre tall sculpture of a boy, crouching. First shown in the UK Millennium Dome exhibition. It is now owned by the art museum ARoS in the city of Aarhus, Denmark, who use it as a trademark piece.
* Man in Blankets (2000), mixed media – 1/2 scale – elderly naked man almost completely enveloped in blankets, which form a kind of cocoon.

Yeah…just let your mind wander, see if you can fill in those visual details.

And it features two case studies, of public figures who frequently make speeches and rely on written memory assists when they do so. Two of them…just guess who they are.

An inconvenient truth.

During an interview on MSNBC Thursday morning, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs defended the Obama administration’s handling of Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Gibbs argued that the administration was right to treat Abdulmutallab as a criminal defendant, instead of as an enemy combatant. “Just because you make somebody an enemy combatant [it] doesn’t make them talk,” Gibbs argued. He then pointed to an example from the Bush years to supposedly support his point.

“Jose Padilla was made an enemy combatant so that we could get him to talk,” Gibbs said. “And guess what happened when we made him an enemy combatant, he didn’t talk. He did talk when he was transferred back into a civilian court.”

President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, made the same point on Tuesday in an op-ed for USA Today. Brennan argued: “Terrorists such as Jose Padilla and Saleh al-Mari did not cooperate when transferred to military custody, which can harden one’s determination to resist cooperation.”

Brennan and Gibbs are wrong. In fact, Jose Padilla only started cooperating once he was transferred into the military’s custody and interrogated.
:
On June 1, 2004, the Defense Department released a memo summarizing what was known about Padilla both before and after he was transferred into the military’s custody. The second page of the memo contains two paragraphs concerning what authorities had learned about Padilla up until June 9, 2002, the day he was transferred into the military’s custody. As the aforementioned press accounts make clear, authorities had garnered no information from Padilla himself. The DoD cited “intelligence information” and “our information” but no admissions by Padilla. Nearly all of the information on Padilla up until that point came from other al Qaeda detainees and sources.

The memo then reads: “Since that time [June 9, 2002], additional and more detailed intelligence information about Jose Padilla has been developed and made available in unclassified form.”

That additional information includes several pages of unclassified intelligence, including a number of admissions by Padilla, which were corroborated by other detainees.
:
Here we reach the critical distinction between collecting evidence for a prosecution and collecting intelligence for fighting a war. We know that Padilla was here in May 2002 to carry out al Qaeda’s bidding. Padilla and multiple other al Qaeda detainees have confirmed Padilla’s role. But while Padilla was in the FBI’s custody for one month, we did not learn anything at all about Padilla’s plotting from the terrorist himself. Authorities did not complete the puzzle until he was interrogated in the military’s custody.

But by all means, keep on chattering away about people writing things on their hands. That’s what really matters, right?

Thomas Sowell is quoted in The Smallest Minority, hat tip once again to Gerard. Now there’s a triumvirate of terrifical-ness…you already know this is going to be good.

Peter Robinson: If you had a sentence or two to say to the Cabinet assembled around President Obama, and this cabinet holds glittering degrees from one impressive institution after another, if you could beseech them to conduct themselves in one particular way between now and the time they leave office, what would you say?

Thomas Sowell: Actually, I would say only one word: Goodbye. Because I know there’s no point talking to them.

Schwing!

Thing I Know #183. When an education has given you the ability to dismiss ideas more quickly, it’s not really an education.

Thing I Know #263. The one thing that’s wrong with higher education that nobody ever seems to want to discuss, is that it is valued through something called “prestige.” Get this prestigious diploma. Get that prestigious degree. Attend a prestigious university. My alma mater is more prestigious than yours. Trouble is that genuine learning has very, very little to do with prestige. It is, arguably, the exact opposite.

So there’s this poll out now that tells us a certain unelected, unappointed private American citizen is suffering from a dwindling approval rating, and it’s also telling us that the “tea party” movement is on a similar downslide popularity-wise.

The new poll shows Republicans divided about the tea party movement, which threatens to cause a rift in the lead-up to November’s midterm elections. Two-thirds of those calling themselves “strong Republicans” view the movement favorably, compared with 33 percent among “not very strong Republicans.”

Overall opinion is about evenly split, with 35 percent of all Americans holding favorable views of the movement and 40 percent unfavorable ones. A quarter expressed no opinion. Nearly six in 10 Democrats have unfavorable views, while independents are split, 39 percent positive and 40 percent negative.

One thing that might be fair to notice about the tea party movement, but somehow didn’t make it into the official analysis: If you took a poll among those who identify with it, however many or few they may be, about whether they’re happy with the direction the government is taking lately — the results of that poll would be more-or-less on par with the country as a whole. That may not be good news for President Obama, but it would cut to the heart of the matter of whether the movement speaks with legitimacy on behalf of a meaningful cross-section of the country.

Is that the relevant question?

Well, our Vice-President certainly seems to think it is, and I agree with him about that.

Be that as it may, it seems to me with all these desperate sound bites flying around about the tea-party movement, sound bites clearly meant to dissuade us from lending any support to it, real or perceived — there is slippage taking place with the comprehension of what exactly it is. It is not a “revolution,” per se. If it were that, it might be a legitimate exercise to take a poll and see what it’s favorability ratings are, rather than a stunningly useless waste of energy, time and ink. It would be a good point to say, Look at this! Back here 55% supported it, and now 37% support it. The revolution’s running out of steam! Back to the drawing board, you revolutionaries!

Well here’s a news flash: Our new administration, barely into its second year, is the revolution. Remember that?

The tea party is the Heywaitaminnit for that revolution. The let’s-revisit. The back-up-the-truck.

In fact, the revolution that is really connected to the tea party movement, assuming that any one revolution at all anywhere ever has been, is the one that took place in 1776. The tea party is not a revolution taking place in the here-and-now; it is a point. It is a reminder that, if you really do wish to plow ahead with this dependency-oriented “single-payer health care” scheme, then the stated goals from 234 years ago are in need of serious re-alignment if not outright banishment.

You’ve probably figured out from this that I think it’s fair to conduct a poll on the Obama administration, and blast some headlines trumpeting the fact that its decrease in popularity is nothing short of historical. And also, somehow, that I think it’s silly and irrelevant to do the same with the tea party movement.

Why yes. That is precisely what I mean to say. One’s reasonable, the other is not.

Joe Biden’s boss represents a revolution that simply hasn’t panned out. Its impetus has been exhausted and at this point it is nothing more than a mistake from our past. Now, if the counter-revolutionary movement is also losing popularity at the same time that the 2008 revolution itself is losing popularity, that can only mean Americans are getting tired of the conversation.

Is my point still not quite clear? Let’s use an analogy. A telemarketer breaks the Do-Not-Call law and calls you Monday night, at dinnertime. You, with a gleam in your eye, hang up on the telemarketer, and if feels so GOOOD!. The telemarketer calls back Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Each night your final sign-off is worded a little bit more creatively, and your slamming of the phone onto whatever is a little bit more forceful. By Friday night you’re ready to reach through the phone and rip out the guy’s vocal cords, and who can blame you? You’re probably ready to buy a new phone, as well.

Polling the popularity, or lack thereof, of the tea party movement — the “Hold Up There, Barack” movement — is like pointing out that hanging up on the guy on Friday night, somehow isn’t quite as fun as it was on Monday. It’s just as silly as that. Silly and irrelevant. The answer is still no, isn’t it? And the likelihood that this might become a yes, is a tad on the low side, right? Okay then. In both situations, that’s all that really matters.