Sidebar Update III

Just updated my sidebar to include “Good Lieutenant” and his blog, Mein Blogovault. He was kind enough, at the beginning of this month, to link to one of my posts and then drone on a bit about what a good post it is, which is always a good thing.

I’ve included a few others, including my friend Stephen VanDyke over at Hammer of Truth who’s agitated about how long my posts are. VanDyke has redeemed himself in my eyes, partially, although I’m pretty sure the feeling isn’t mutual — he had a priceless entry about the author of “Why Mommy’s A Democrat.” I already made up my mind to include him, before I tripped across that, but it’s still good.

There are a lot of other folks who have been giving me much better treatment than Mr. VanDyke, and they all deserve mention. However, after my recent past screw-ups leaving people out I lack the confidence necessary to list them all over again. My recent post where I apologize to all of them probably includes, after several patchwork sessions, as complete a list as I may gather at this point. It also includes notes as to exactly why I’m including them, and you’ll notice some of them have something to do with topical things and others have to do with just-plain-interesting things. So I’ll just include a pointer down there.

Blogs that are linked here, are ranked. That’s kind of unusual. We use metals here to rank the blogs, like you do with “medals.” There is a reason for this. When you rank medals, like olympic medals, there is a sense of honor that is “vertical,” as in gold is better than silver, and there is a sense of honor that is “horizontal” — there is an important honor extended to each recipient, for simply having been included. And that’s why we do that here. A “bronze blog” is looked-upon with just as much of a sense of “You Belong Here” as any much-higher-ranked blog. Many of the bronze blogs are included because they took the time to read my stuff, and applied the necessary analytical power to figure out what they liked about it, and write about it. Bronze blogs are blogs just like me: some guy writing about stuff. You folks are doing the work that our news resources simply will not do.

A silver blog is, basically, a bronze blog that has either busted something wide open, or has acquired the resources needed to do such a thing or to make it more likely. Usually, that means starting a membership roll and handing out accounts to groups of trusted individuals, who in turn submit semi-regular columns. This applies to my friends at News Blog Central. Some of the silver blogs have achieved high visibility, being included in several other blog sidebars. Some of them are byproducts of other things the author is doing, as is the case with Hugh Hewitt.

A gold blog is something with extraordinarily high profile, visible all across the national stage. These blogs have achieved more fame than I, personally, would ever want. Malkin’s blog is gold. You meet strangers and talk about blogs, and those-in-the-know will immediately start talking about Glenn Reynolds or Chuck Johnson. That’s “gold” stuff, kind of like the New York Times of blogging, except with more common sense and less nepotism. If there’s a picture of you taking a crap or picking your nose, you kind of wouldn’t want that on a blog, but you really wouldn’t want it on a “gold” blog.

And a “platinum” blog is a resource to which I’ve formed an addiction bordering on the unhealthy. If I must go without these because I’m on a camping trip for four days, once I’m back I’m probably hitting these before I even take my shower. Eww. I roll out of bed, I click on these. These are FARK and Boortz, period. Nothing else. For now.

One more thing. I’m not here to get attention, and the blog is kind of dedicated to the idea about rambling away without excessive concern about who’s reading. We think, here, when you’re too worried about who’s paying attention, the stuff you say starts to make a little bit less sense than it otherwise would — that’s a prevailing theme that resurfaces often here. But when people take the trouble to link back to me, I give them as good a treatment as I possibly can. And hey, I like traffic as much as the next guy. So I’m thinking about you folks. Now you can link to my blog with some good fashion sense. Samples below, code in the new sidebar.

Have fun.

Update: Note to self: Next time, hit Holtie’s House by Peter Gympie, and his friend Miss Cellania. Don’t forget to tell the readers that some of Peter’s pictures are unsafe for work, if, that is, said readers work with a bunch of crybaby pussies.

Also, don’t forget Annoyances and Dislikes which is run by some girl, of some undetermined age and location, who’s generally pissed off and annoyed by the same things that annoy me. You are inspired to do this because of a plurality of entries, not the least among them being this one…

You can’t even bring a bible to school without someone crying because they don’t believe in God. Ok, you don’t believe in God, fine by me, but don’t try to make others put their beliefs under a blanket because you’re too sensitive to even see a cross, let alone a book with a cross on it. If I can handle people wearing satanic necklaces, or even having the satanic star in their signatures ONLINE,mind you, you can tolerate someone holding a bible in their hand. America has become too sensitive.

And this one about smug, snotty atheists…

Yeah, they know who they are. I don’t care if they’re athiests,but I do care that they have to foam at the mouth everytime someone mentions the word Christianity and make personal attacks at everyone who believes in God. These particular kind of athiests think that we’re weak because we believe in God. So I guess, having a belief is considered being weak then,right? Wrong, we all have something to believe in. Christian or not. You believe that there is no God,right? So does that make YOU weak as well? Think about it.

Fix the spelling mistake. You know which one.

Get Papa Knows in there. Seems like a good, sensible guy.

Also, be Pro-Victory.

Ordinary Americans

A Google search on the phrase “Ordinary Americans” returns 1,410,000 results. Around sixty percent of these, give or take, have to do with surveillance programs. You know, the ol’ “George Bush is spying on ordinary Americans” thing.

So we’re talking about a million items taking this intellectually-sparse talking point and running with it, maybe 800,000 or 900,000 web log entries, essays, newsletters, magazine articles, newspaper articles, etc. Obviously, some of the 900,000 are being read by more people and some of the 900,000 are being read by less. But if the average circulation of each item is presumed to be two or three hundred, and this is exceedingly low, then within the United States it could be postulated that we’ve reached complete saturation. Everyone has heard the term; everyone has heard that President Bush is conducting surveillance on “ordinary Americans.” Certainly everybody who speaks English.

Time to ask: What exactly is an “ordinary American”? It seems like a fair question, if that’s what the fuss is about.

If I’m providing aid and comfort to Al Qaeda, but I have not yet been arrested for it much less convicted, is the absence of such a conviction the thing that makes me an “ordinary American”? Since when was a conviction obtained before the investigation was even begun?

Is Rush Limbaugh an “ordinary American”? What if he was under investigation for conspiring with Al Qaeda, would it be a fair assessment to say this is an example of “Bush spying on ordinary Americans”? I note with interest that many of the people who claim to be concerned about this surveillance activity, would probably need to know why Limbaugh is being characterized in such a way, before they could make the decision about supporting or deploring such a characterization.

What about immigration status? What if you’re in America on a student visa? What if the visa is expired? What if it was a counterfeit job to begin with? Does that make you an “ordinary American”?

Do the people who write these news stories about “ordinary Americans,” consider themselves to be within that group? Or are they altruistic ivory-tower elites, doing us little people the favor of letting us know we’re being spied on? As if to say, hey, you poor peasants down in those ditches digging away…you might want to know while you’re down there, you’re being spied on. Too bad you’re not up here like us, free of such concerns. Good thing for you we’ve taken the time to let you know.

If it’s fair to throw around the intellectually-vacant phrase, as in, “the White House is spying on ordinary Americans,” can I do other intellectually-vacant things with it too, like lament “why can’t everybody speak English like ordinary Americans do?” Would that be okay? Or would that be just a little too rustic, a little too Archie-Bunkerish. It would? Why is one exercise of this term unacceptably slope-headed and neanderthal, and the other exercise is not? It doesn’t appear that much more thought has gone into one than the other.

What is the sexual preference of an ordinary American? Do ordinary women like to sleep with men, and do ordinary men like to sleep with women? Do ordinary Americans eat meat? Once you’ve had your eyebrow pierced, are you no longer an ordinary American? If you still are one, then isn’t this a lot of money spent on making you “extraordinary” that is, in fact, going to waste? What about people who are missing fingers and toes? Don’t ordinary Americans have twenty digits? If you’re an albino, are you an ordinary American? What if you’re forty years old and have never been married? What if your parents were never married? What if you don’t believe in God?

Oh I’m being so silly. That’s the point, though. To tell me people are “ordinary” is a useless thing to do if criteria are not being applied, and it’s useless to inform me of qualification for the criteria if you refuse to tell me what the criteria are. Many among the 1,410,000 go much further than refusing to divulge the criteria; it has become commonplace to tiptoe around anything that might invite inquiry about the criteria.

Nobody ever says “the NSA has collected information about three million Americans some seventy-five percent of whom are estimated to be ordinary.” I’ve not heard anyone say anything like that. And yet, if “ordinary” is something more meaningful than a figure-of-speech, shouldn’t someone have said something like that by now?

I understand what I’m supposed to be thinking: An ordinary American is, simply, me. I’m supposed to worry that President Bush is going to spy on me when I read about these “ordinary Americans.” Once again, though, it seems nobody has the balls to come out and say that outright. So I have to wonder if the facts would support it.

Speak Spanish Or You’re Fired

Fire departments in Oregon need to operate with good communication in order to fight fires. So, in Oregon, it just logically follows, no way of getting ’round it, that if you’re a crew boss in a fire department in Oregon, and you can’t speak Spanish, and one or more of the firefighters on your crew speaks Spanish only, you’ll have to be demoted.

With 24 major wildfires burning across the southwestern United States, fire officials need every firefighter they can get. They’ve done that in Oregon but it’s created another problem.

Officials are now having to lay off some of the bosses who manage those firefighting crews because the bosses are not bilingual. Many of the newer hires in Oregon only speak Spanish.

The state said all bosses must speak the same language of their crew on the fire lines for safety reasons. They want to make sure that the leader of the crews can quickly communicate during an emergencey if the fire turns or if there is another problem on the fire lines.

“Our main concern is that they are safe, and they are in a safe environment, and a lot of that deals with communication,” said Jim Walker, with the Oregon Department of Forestry.

“If you have one Spanish guy on the crew, as an English crew boss, you can no longer be a crew boss. You have to step back to a squad boss, which is a demotion,” said Jaime Pickering, a firefighter squad boss.

The state of Oregon actually made the change in 2003. It just started strictly monitoring the law this year.

I know of no similar policy for fire crews in Arizona. Or California. Or New Mexico, or Washington State, or Texas. In those states, either they can hire an adequate number of firefighters who speak English, or the fires can be fought by fire crews who can’t commuicate amongst themselves, or both.

I’m being instructed to believe that proper safety procedures necessitate the demotion or dismissal of crew bosses who don’t speak Spanish, yet if it works that way in one place why doesn’t it work that way everywhere?

The most obvious explanation would have to be that Oregon has lost control of the criteria applied to new recruits. Slide down the pole in X seconds, lift X many pounds, X many push ups, and oh by the way you must speak English. I mean, Jim Walker spoke; you heard the man. Proper communication is essential for safety. Wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.

And yet, they didn’t insist that firefighters speak English; they did the opposite. They insisted the crew boss speak Spanish.

What’s wrong with the way they did it? Well let’s start with the obvious. When the inmates run the asylum and their bosses are demoted for failure to master some marginal-appendage language, an issue must arise wherein the firefighters’ ability to communicate amongst themselves, must be called into question. You’re not expecting me to sit here and start believing that everything a firefighter does, is a one-man job, are you? Because that’s what you’d have to do if I’m to believe the firefighter has a need to communicate with the crew boss, and with nobody else. Gimme a break. There’s heavy shit to be carried around. There are hoses to be hooked up. Even fishing the legendary kitty out of the tree, could be a tough row to hoe if only one guy’s doing it.

Come to think of it, how many tasks does a firefighter have to do, which can be completed if he can just communicate with the crew boss — but with nobody else?

I mean I don’t want to decide how the Department of Forestry does its job, but I’d certainly like this to be explained. Safety protocols are concerned with the ability of each firefighter, to communicate with his boss. The crew boss, not the squad boss, the latter of whom can keep his job if he doesn’t speak Spanish. So just the crew boss. But there’s no requirement for all the firefighters to speak any one particular language. I’d just like to know — how’s that work? How is it, that there’s no equivalent pressing urgency for the firefighters to communicate amongst themselves?

What are the situations that emerge wherein there’s no time to call an interpreter? That would be an emergency, usually involving a fire, right? Wouldn’t the safety/communication protocols apply, first-and-foremost, to the boots on the ground?

Monday, I wrote about Lou Barletta, mayor of Hazelton, PA, who has made English the official language of his city. Jim Walker, of the Department of Forestry, talks about “safety” while Mayor Barletta talks about a “drain on city resources.” The two concerns, I would argue, are practically equivalent: Agencies are finding it difficult to complete their missions when they have to screw around with multiple languages. And yet the remedies they’ve selected are a hundred and eighty degrees opposite.

The comments I made about Mayor Barletta, still hold true: “If he can do it, anybody can.” That means Oregon could do what Barletta did, starting out first and foremost with their fire departments. Speak English, just enough so you can communicate effectively and get the job done, or no go.

I mean, safety first after all. Wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.

CALWWNTY

C.A.L.W.W.N.T.Y. is what we call it, here at The Blog That Nobody Reads, when you purport to be engaged in an effort to equalize one class with another but you don’t want anyone to go questioning what it means to “equalize,” you don’t want anyone to dissect what it is you are specifically doing to achieve this equality, and most of all, you really don’t want anybody to measure the progress made against the length of time your efforts have been going on. C.A.L.W.W.N.T.Y. is an eight-letter acronym that stands for “Come A Long Way, We’re Not There Yet.” I wrote about it in January and again in February.

It is a tactic of evasion. The proclamation, “we’ve come a long way” naturally inspires logical questions: What have we done? Is it consistent with what we had committed to doing? Does any of it fall outside the expectations of those who joined our fight in good faith? What options have we closed off to make this progress come about? And the other half, “We’re not there yet” inspires other questions an irresponsible leader would find to be intrusive, a more responsible leader finding them to be far less so: What is there left to be done? How do we ensure that all the stakeholders agree these are the things we want to do? What are we going to leave undone, after we have declared complete success? What are we willing to sacrifice for the things we still want to do? What help do we need from outside interests to make these things happen? Are we relying on altruistic motives in these outside interests, or have we made sure the outside interests are dissatisfied in their own enterprises until our own goals are realized?

Those who support the feminist movement, have done an abysmal job of seeking further details behind CALWWNTY. In so doing, they’ve done severe injury to men, and haven’t done right by women either. Their leaders throw the sentiment around all the time, and nobody I can see ever calls them on it. Look how far we come! Oh dear, what a terribly long way we still have to go!

Long way to go? What do we need to do? Many will agree amongst themselves that yes, indeed, there still is a lot to be done — but how often do they collaborate on what, exactly, that is?

Sometimes, men are accused of raping women, and are subsequently acquitted. The case may fall apart for procedural reasons, perhaps there is exculpatory evidence, or maybe it’s just a matter of you can’t honor the accused’s constitutional guarantees, and still sustain a conviction. Is that part of the long way we still have to go? That rape suspects have the same constitutional protections that murder suspects do? Some would say yes; some would say no. My question is, where is the effort to reconcile these sides? If there’s still a long way to go, should a strong leader not emerge, and articulate what exactly this long way is?

And the black civil rights movement has done a still-worse job. What’s the list of things still left yet-undone? It’s one thing to say there are some things; it’s quite another to assert that some pressing need exists to get them achieved, while at the same time, no similarly pressing need exists to articulate what those things are.

And that’s where my friend at “Left Behinds” comes in. I seem to have bothered this person…which I’m not terribly happy about, I certainly don’t like to go out of my way to bother people. But the thing of it is, whoever this person is, he or she seems to be hopelessly entangled in an endless mess of CALWWNTY.

Here’s the crux of it: mkfreeberg seems to think there’s something controversial in saying that we’ve made enormous progress in racial equality since the 1960s, yet racial tensions remain. He writes about it here at length. Now, I grant him that in some ways it’s a platitude. But it is nevertheless true on its face. Races are more equal now than they were fifty years ago. Yet all is not healed and perfect. Instead, mkfreeberg says:

I’ll believe racial division is healed when whites let blacks represent them, and vice-versa. It does not appear to me that those who direct the course of these movements, even have a plan for such a thing, let alone can point to any progress toward it.

False choice in the first sentence: either we heal all divisions or we haven’t made any progress. The implication is that we must ignore all messy, real-world problems that don’t have neat solutions.

As to the second sentence, I don’t know how to communicate with someone who argues that racial divisions in this country have not lessened since the 1960s. Not any progress? What?

PS: After I turned off the computer last night I finally identified why this argument bothers me quite so much. Its natural conclusion is for government at all levels to stop trying doing anything to address any inequalities (since they are simultaneously unimportant and intractible). Based on what I can confirm cursorily, mkfreeberg is definitely male, not Jewish or black. I’m about 95% sure he’s a white guy (I’m pretty sure only a white person would so blithely identify race as a problem for other people to fix). In other words, while it’s very sad, all the unfairness and ugliness and all, we can’t ever make any progress toward fixing it, we just have to leave things as they are–which only happens to leave him on top.

I’m not entirely sure who this person is talking to. He, or she, does single me out by name — I am “mkfreeberg” — but the discourse I remember, was quite different from what’s represented here. I don’t recall saying that nothing has been accomplished, although for reasons explained above it would be a good exercise to put this to some question. Nor do I recall lamenting the controversial nature of saying that something has, indeed, been accomplished. And I do recall a lot of talk about how much racial tension has lessened since the 1960s — not very much of it on my end, since this isn’t a very meaningful metric to me in measuring racial harmony or lack thereof. To me, simmering resentments, people of one skin color agitated into voting against candidates of a different skin color, these are just as bad as race riots even if they may result in less property damage or human injury.

Most pointedly, I don’t recall posing the premise that either we have accomplished everything, or else we have accomplished nothing. I would like to see the leaders of the civil rights movement held to account, if what’s been accomplished is somewhere between those two extremes. Answering the questions I posed above, would be a dandy start.

To summarize, the discussion was one in which I was insisting not upon absolutes, but simply on goals. And the goal upon which I insist, if we’re all about healing racial division, is simply this — to heal the racial division. That seems only sensible, right?

Well, therein lies the problem: There is a significant weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth, on the prospect of having Congressional Candidate David Yassky representing the 13th district of New York, which is what’s called a “Voting Rights” district. Why is there weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth? Because a “Voting Rights” district is a euphemism — it means black people live here, and only a black guy can represent a black district. Yassky is a white jewish city councilman.

There’s some kind of “rule,” which lots of people want to make some noise about, but nobody seems to have the balls to put in writing, that a white guy can’t represent a “Voting Rights” district.

So according to my premise — which has not been directly challenged, I note — the last four letters of CALWWNTY are off the table. We’re not there yet? Where exactly, I must ask rhretorically, are we going?

In a world where all blacks are too savage to represent white guys in Congress, and no white guy is pristine enough to represent blacks in Congress, what kind of “equality” are you gonna get that you don’t already have? I submit that with this premise left standing, further progress is impossible. Progress…towards what?

We have a black country and a white country, haphazardly thrown together, unable to mix with one another. That’s not the situation I want and that’s not the situation I brought about — that’s the way the civil rights “leaders” want it, so long as they’re protesting against Yassky’s candidacy on the basis of his skin color. Yassky appears to be a left-wing liberal democrat. Nobody has articulated any concerns, none that I’m aware of, that his actual voting record would be out of kilter with the desires of the 13th district voters-at-large. He just happens to be jewish, and to have a different tint.

Should the “rule” that nobody has the balls to write down, remain in force, there isn’t an awful lot that can be done. You could get 218 or more black congressmen elected to Congress…you could…I don’t see anyone working toward that goal. And if it came to pass, then what? We go a few years with the “black country” getting everything it wants, to have these achievements reversed when the “white country” takes control of the House again? Excuse me, this is exactly the situation we have now with Republicans and Democrats. They go, two years at a time, with one party or the other having 218+ representatives under the dome.

You see a lot of “equality” and “harmony” among donkeys and elephants?

So, no, I don’t think much of the “rule” that nobody has the testicular fortitude to actually write down. I think it’s stupid. I think that’s why nobody’s written it down — it makes no sense. “Antid Oto” is 95% certain I’m a white guy, which means there is 5% uncertainty about the issue. I’ll settle that — I’m a white guy, not jewish, but I’ll tell you this. If some black jewish guy wants to represent me in Congress, and I think he’s an okay guy, you’d better tell me something more compelling than “but he’s a black jewish guy” if you don’t want me voting for him. Because if he’s got the right positions on the issues and he’s got balls of steel, I don’t care. I’m voting for him.

And it cuts the other way, too. If I’m running for Congress, don’t bother coming up to me and saying “Hey, you can’t do that. This district is full of jews! This district is full of black people! You can’t represent them!” Don’t even bother voicing the concern to me. Nuts to you. I come from a weird planet in a far-off part of the galaxy — I guess — where white guys can represent black guys, and black guys represent white guys.

If that isn’t what we have going on here…then trust me on this. Forget CALWWNTY. Forget all about “We’re Not There Yet.” Forget all about it…because you’re there. You’re all the way there, the way your car is all the way there after the engine has exploded. Break out a tent. Build a fire. Car no go. You’re “there.”

How, in the world, can you have any sort of “equality” when we aren’t fit to live together just because of the color of our skin? Especially when the people who say we shouldn’t be intermingling in this way, don’t even have the balls to write down the rules, and have no cojones at all over & above what it takes to get the masses stirred up, more-or-less anonymously?

It’s called “identity politics.” It’s a thoroughly reprehensible practice, and it reflects poorly on all of us when we let the charlatans get away with this for just a year or two, let alone fifty of them.

I don’t blame Antid Oto for the “reprehensible” part. This person has fallen for a scam, not, so far as I know, indulged in the evil of perpetuating it. And yet it says something…his/her/it’s point depends on the premise that I’m a white guy, I’m not jewish, and I’m male. These things are all correct. The “Antid” entity has established itself as being of the jewish faith. I don’t know if it’s male or female. I don’t know if it’s black or white. Don’t know, don’t care, it’s not relevant to my point…although, curiously, my own race and gender have some vital ramifications to the point the other party is trying to make.

Yet if my faith was different or my skin color was different or my gender was different, all my points would remain standing. All my unanswered questions, would remain unanswered. And the silence on the part of those who ought to be engaged in trying to answer them, would be just as deafening.

M. Oto has inscribed his/her/it’s remarks on the Left Behinds website, not notifying me about them, leaving it up to me to find them during a routine search. For the next day or two, I plan to return the favor.

Compare and Contrast

For comparison’s sake, take the carefully-prepared Amnesty International hair-splitting er, uh, let’s say it’s a rather limp-wristed “Call To Action” I was carping about yesterday. Review…

Amnesty International condemns the torture or summary killing of anyone who has been taken prisoner and reiterates that such acts are absolutely prohibited in international humanitarian law…Those who order or commit such atrocities must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law without recourse to the death penalty.

Got that? They deplore the torture and murder of our brave soldiers, but in our punishment of the wicked we are to abstain from the death penalty. Should we have to choose between subjecting the villains to the death penalty, or letting them go free, I’m not clear which course Amnesty International prefers. It appears they won’t say.

There’s something damned disturbing about this. Like, Amnesty International, and other people who aren’t supposed to be cool with what happened to these two soldiers, if they were really uppity and angsty about it, they’d be saying and doing things just a tad differently. Kind of reminds me of…of…

Now let us cleanse our collective palette of this half-assed weasel-wording, and lay our eyes on the not quite as cool-headed, but far more refreshing, words of Robert Stokley, proud father of KIA SGT Mike Stokley (IED, 8/16/05) (H/T The Thunder Run via Sneakeasy’s Joint via The Rottweiler — Bless you all).

We must hunt these dogs down and eradicate them from the face of this earth.

This moment in time takes me back to my last instructions to Mike � don�t let them take you alive son, for they will execute you anyway, so go down fighting and take as many as you can with you � I was concerned about him being taken prisoner by these barbaric and cruel assassins who push aside all ethical and moral considerations of human dignity. To slit the throats and then put it on for display is a horror no family should suffer. It is a moment like this that I feel our family is extremely lucky.

Let us not forget this and let us seek maximum retribution to teach them and those around the world who would dare contemplate such acts a lesson. Let us not forget and let us deal harshly with those that lend assistance to such individuals in any way, at any place, at any time.

My point? Absolute statements do have a home. And one of the places where absolute statements are most appropriate, is within the issue of deterrent effects. As I was pointing out yesterday, you just can’t supply an adequate deterrent effect when you say “don’t do any more of A, because if you do, we’re going to do B and C and maybe a little bit of D. But rest assured that since we’re trying to set a good example, we’ll never ever do E F G or H, even though you’re doing them all the time.”

Lectures like those, examples like those, don’t quite set up the deterrent effect. The deterrent effect requires an absolute to be effective. And what more noble purpose can there be for a deterrent effect, might I ask, but to deter people from beheading, castrating and mutilating our soldiers?

Remember back in the eighties? Even left-wing Hollywood weanie types, made movies that were all about how some monsters can only be stopped by other monsters, and good men must become monsters themselves in order to carry the fight. Whatever happened to the days when even our Hollywood liberals understood this?

Memo For File VII

That this blog is called “The Blog That Nobody Reads,” indicates that topics are selected and opinions are formed in the only honest way such things can be done: with complete apathy about who is expected to come along and read the resulting product. “Memo For File” means these things are recorded for my benefit and mine alone — gotta jot ’em down somewhere, and for whatever reason I don’t think the Palm Pilot is the right notebooking device so I’ve elected to use the blog instead. Your ability to subsequently come along and read the notes, while not a cause for concern, isn’t a pressing objective on my part. Whether it is worth your time to do so, is a question for you to decide, and you alone. But as is the case with everything else you can find while surfing, you might find it interesting.

Having said that, however, readers are entitled to some background information before I get into the meat of things. No sense deliberately confusing denizens of the “innernets.”

As is explained in the FAQ (Question #1), I’m not a California native. I’m not that carefree or jolly, I’m not that fashionable, I’m not that concerned about what others think, and I’m certainly not all that nice. I’m a native of the Pacific Northwest, birthplace of Starbuck’s and “grunge,” the nation’s capital of rainy weather, homeless people, serial killers, roadside diners and clamdigging. Rambo: First Blood was filmed there, for the gloomy effect afforded when you climb a not-all-that-tall foothill, and look down on the clouds. Ted Bundy dumped the bodies there, as did more than one serial killer who came after him.

In a valley of Valley Girls, I am a redneck. I’m a pariah even among the rednecks here, because most rednecks in California don’t have webbed feet.

Because the economy sucked ass so hard in the early nineties, I had to leave Seattle and move to Detroit when my mother had terminal brain cancer. In the fourteen months between that relocation and her death, I saw her three more times. Once when she could speak, that unfortunate Christmas where she no longer could, and once after she lapsed into the coma from which she would never awaken. Dad was dead-set against this move. She was not. By the time a special Christmas rolled around which we all knew would be her last, I made the first of what would would become a series of annual car trips home, having relocated again, fortunately, to where I am now. Eight hundred miles isn’t quite so foolish in a car…not compared to three times that much, from Detroit.

On the advice of friends who had been questioning what remained of my common-sense faculties, I made one trip from Sacramento to Seattle by plane, right before she died. Never again. Even without the personal things that were going on at the time, this was a thoroughly miserable trip, a raging pus-filled pain in the ass. Even before 9-11, I made the choice that eight hundred miles was a tad bit below the point-of-diminishing-return; henceforth, airplane no, car yes. I don’t care what people think about it. The ensuing decade-and-a-half of saddle-sores have done nothing to temper this feeling.

The point, dear reader, is not about my being batted around from one piece of the country to the other, “exert[ing] roughly the same amount of control over [my] destiny, as a pinball exerts over its direction as it tumbles through a machine,” or about the things that were left unsaid to a dying mother, coming to my conscious attention when it was far too late to say them. The point is the stretch: the 851 miles of I-5 between the Highway 50 junction in downtown Sacramento, and the Super 8 Motel in Lynden, Washington. It has become my more-or-less annual habit to Hoof It, spending the holidays with the relatives who are left up there. I find it relaxing. I know the people who run the roadside eateries and hotels — not on a first-name basis; to those with a memory up to the task, I’m nothing more than “that guy.” But I know them, and I know this road. I know it well, the way a trucker would know it.

And toward the end of the journey there is an interesting landmark. “That billboard.” Not too many Christmas travels had already been completed, before I started the habit of looking for it. It’s at the halfway point between Centralia and Chehalis, Washington. Last Thanksgiving, taking my young son with me, I made a mental note that I found it at Exit 72. And RoadsideAmerica.com has an article all about it.

The Right-Wing Uncle Sam billboard is in the city of Chehalis (but everybody thinks it’s in Centralia). I talked to the guys who run the Country Canopy & RV Center — they rent from the Hamilton Family. Sam is on their land. Since this Sam is somewhat conservative in his beliefs, ahem — he doesn’t draw respect like the original Uncle Sam in Troy, NY — this Sam’s critics respond with debris, paintballs sometimes. Sam’s days were assumed to be numbered when Alfred Hamilton died, but his son took over, cooking up more slogans to annoy Hilary Clinton.

You may be driving through a state where the politicians have rubbed elbows with Saddam Hussein, praised the non-existent accomplishments of Osama bin Laden to schoolchildren, and won elections with more votes than there are registered voters. But Chehalis’ Uncle Sam will remind you he’s keeping tabs on it all, right off the I-5.

The graphic on the billboard stays the same, at least since I first noticed the billboard while still a Washington resident and native. The lettering changes. And it’s different on the front than it is on the back. (First observed caption, on North side, noticed during motorcycle trip to Portland: “IF DUKAKIS BECOMES PRESIDENT, KEEP ONE HAND ON YOUR WALLET.”)

You can only read the North side when you’re headed South, and vice-versa. I have tried to read both on one sprint, and this is poorly-advised. If you want to read both you must either leave the freeway, adding miles and minutes to your itinerary, or resolve catch the back-side on the way back home. I have found it is much safer to opt for the latter. It gives me something to anticipate during a boring road trip. This is the region in which I was raised to eschew the notion of “instant gratification.”

The Alfred Hamilton referenced in the Roadside America blurb, passed away in 2004. His itinerary his here.

Alfred Hamilton, whose billboard emblazoned with conservative messages engaged drivers on Interstate 5 for decades, has died.

Hamilton, 84, suffered from Parkinson’s disease and cancer. He died Tuesday at his home in this southwestern Washington town.

His two-sided “Uncle Sam” billboard dates back to 1971. Over the years, it has carried a litany of messages aimed at politicians Hamilton didn’t like as well as homosexuals, Russia, abortion, communism, big government, the United Nations and gun control, to name a few.

“He was a fighter,” Sherryl Zurek, one of his daughters, told The (Centralia) Chronicle. “He loved a fight. He loved to argue or discuss.”
:
In 1971, then-state Attorney General Slade Gorton sued Hamilton under the Scenic Vista Act. The case was resolved eight years later in Hamilton’s favor.
:
“He stood about 6-3 or 6-4, and weighed 200 pounds or so,” Bradshaw said. “He gave you the feeling he was the kind of man you wouldn’t want to mess with.”

Hamilton’s wife died in 2001. He is survived by his sister, Betty; his children; and 12 grandchildren.

Free Republic thread under that article is here. Someone there called Time Is Now was kind enough to upload the obituary picture you see below.

It is chilling that the above-mentioned case dragged on for eight years. Of course I’d be saying that if there was a greater differential between Hamilton’s place on the spectrum, and my own. I swear, I would. I wish I could point to a real-world example of that.

But I don’t know of any left-wing RV park owners who are being sued for their left-wing new-age progressive “Eat The Rich” type billboard messages. I don’t know of anyone displaying a billboard that says “Clinton lied, nobody died,” and being taken to court because of the billboard. Nor do I anticipate such a test case will come to pass. My knowledge of free-speech issues involving outspoken liberals, just covers pompous asshole hippies who make jokes about bombs, and then start crying “civil liberties” when they get kicked off the flight. Nothing about billboards. Not to my personal knowledge. Certainly nothing that spans eight years, involving the state Attorney General.

Do let me know if something like that, an “Anti-Alfred-Hamilton” case, comes up, will you?

Must-Tards VII

Thanks to Malkin, we have a bizarrely-worded press release from Amnesty International about the two soldiers kidnapped over the weekend and then found dead earlier this week:

Amnesty International condemns the torture or summary killing of anyone who has been taken prisoner and reiterates that such acts are absolutely prohibited in international humanitarian law. This prohibition applies at all times, even during armed conflict. There is no honor or heroism in torturing or killing individuals. Those who order or commit such atrocities must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law without recourse to the death penalty. [emphasis mine]

Boy, that’s pretty tough talk there. Full extent of the law without recourse to the death penalty. How’s that going to go?

Hey United States? Amnesty International here. We got some contacts who claim to have caught the scum that killed your two soldiers. You want ’em? Okay, we’re all willing to agree, but first…no death penalty, okay? Okay? You heard me. So, what’s it gonna be? C’mon…no? You might kill ’em? *sigh* All right then, if that’s the way you want it, we’ll just have to cut ’em loose…you sure now? Okay. Damn shame, we really wanted these guys prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Anti-death penalty folks say that pro-death penalty folks like me, contradict ourselves. They say we want to kill people, to show that killing people is wrong. I think they’re the ones contradicting themselves, and Amnesty International does a great job of demonstrating how.

DON’T KILL. And just to make sure the point sinks in, if you DO kill, we’re going to prosecute you “to the full extent of the law.” Kinda. Not really. We mean, to the full extent, short of actually killing you. You might say, “you stop killing people, because if you do not, we will become very angry with you, and we will write a letter to you, telling you how angry we are.”

How incredibly sensible. How incredibly EUROPEAN.

And I don’t mean that in a good way. It seems we have a lot of people who are in positions of high authority and visibility, who are convinced when you draw a line and someone steps over it, you can simply draw another line and hopefully THAT one they’ll leave alone.

When you think about it, it’s pretty scary. We’re fighting people who like to fly planes into our buildings…with their pathologically screwed-up butts sitting right in those planes. They give their lives for the cause. Well, the ones who do the actual work, are willing to.

So recap. Some greasy goat-molester is ready to kill himself to kill us. And Amnesty International goes on record saying “if you kill anybody, we’re on record as demanding you be punished to the full extent of the law short of being subjected to the death penalty.” And Muhammad Al-Weirdbeard says to himself, ooh, better call the whole plan off then. I mean, I’d be dead, but they could still go after my boss, Mahmoud Al-Tons-o-fun, and I sure wouldn’t want that to happen.

These Amnesty people aren’t making any decisions that actually matter, are they?

Thing I Know #46. No statement achieves a unifying force without first achieving unidirectional flow. People aren’t inspired by slogans containing the word “but”.

This Is Good X

Now this is why I have a blog. Wall Street Journal, online ed., presents us with a story about the dark seamy underbelly of our society, all that is wrong with the world in which we live. And yet, how come it is that every paragraph I read I can’t stop giggling?

One sunny afternoon in January, Vicki Chandler, a 55-year-old underwriting associate at Cigna HealthCare in Chattanooga, Tenn., was walking to her car when a teenager in loose khaki pants approached her, pointed to her pocketbook and said, “I need that.” As she recounts the incident, he snatched the purse and took off. But then he ran into trouble. As he ran, his loose trousers slipped down below his hips. As he reached down to hold them up, the teen was forced to throw the purse aside.

“That boy, he could run fast but he got caught up by his pants, which were real big and baggy,” says Ms. Chandler, whose purse was retrieved by a parking attendant who had heard her cries for help. It’s a problem for perpetrators. Young men and teens wearing low-slung, baggy pants fairly regularly get tripped up in their getaways, a development that has given amused police officers and law-abiding citizens a welcome edge in the fight against crime.

James Green might have made a clean getaway when he stole seven DVDs from a Blockbuster store in Ferndale, Mich., last October. But he, too, was undone by his baggy pants. Mr. Green, 30, rode away on a bicycle, with copies of “Donnie Brasco,” “The Bourne Identity” and “Sin City.” When a patrol car knocked over the bike, he fled on foot. As he ran, his trousers slipped down past his hips, and he tripped. He hitched up his pants and ran a few more yards before falling again.

Things got worse and worse for Mr. Green. He finally kicked off his pants and shoes and “ran into the yard of 1720 Beaufield,” police officer Kenneth Jaklic said in a report of the incident. “I ran after [Mr. Green], yelling at him to stop.” Instead, Mr. Green jumped over a fence behind a garage, and Mr. Jaklic immobilized him with two Taser darts in the back.

I was discussing this last year, the phenomenon of men “wearing looooooong shorts that extend past your knees, almost to your ankles, and the ass of those shorts dangles so low that you could zip up a cantaloupe in there.”

It is yet another thing I just don’t get. It’s like the Clintons’ marriage; you know, this world is fairly neck-deep in things of which I personally disapprove, but things that I, nevertheless, get. I don’t understand the baggy-pants look. You see it on one guy, and you think okay, hmm, well that’s kind of different. A little on the silly side. Just a little. But you see a room with a hundred guys in it, and ninety-nine of them look like they’re wearing their wearing daddy’s pants when they’re not big enough, and it looks ninety-nine times sillier.

Isn’t fashion supposed to start to look “more hip” when more people conform with it?

Now watch me get all confused and bollywonkers yet one more time — because in the world from which I come, if you have a widespread phenomenon of people getting tasered because their getaways don’t quite work, and their getaways aren’t working because they can’t run, and they can’t run because of the latest fashion fad, this is the beginning of the end of said fad. So I would expect the baggy-pants look to be starting its fifteenth minute right about now.

But better than even odds, I’ll be surprised one more time. Just watch what happens.

How do they keep those pants up, anyway? Do they use tape?

One Big Happy Family

This weekend I was in a pissy mood about California politics and, I think, justifiably so. I’ve spent fourteen years, my entire residence in this state, and her entire tenure in the Senate, writing to Dianne Feinstein. When she’s announces her position on something, I send a very tactfully-worded “Are You Out Of Your Freakin’ Gourd?” letter. And what I get back is a boilerplate letter thanking me for my inquiry, and proceeding to inform me of what her position is, as if I didn’t already know, and as if she was the constituent and I was the Senator.

It doesn’t cheese me off because it’s boilerplate; it doesn’t cheese me off because she won’t do what I tell her to do. I understand there are thirty million people in this state. What cheeses me off, is that the process of representation has been nibbled away, and nibbled away, to the point where it no longer exists anymore. Nobody ever seems to question this process. There is Feinstein; there are her advisors; there are who-knows-what: lobbyists, trusted advisors, confidants, cronies; they all get together and decide how things are going to be. And oh lookee lookee, she’s nice enough to tell me in case someone asks for my opinion, and I want it to be just like hers.

Occasionally an issue will surface and I will take the time to let her know how I, as a constituent, would like to see her vote, before she’s had time to form a position for herself. This was the case when Samuel A. Alito was nominated to fill the Supreme Court seat of Sandra Day O’Connor. Things get much worse then. In that case, as I recall, Feinstein was kind enough to send me a blurb letting me know that she hadn’t quite decided how she would vote, but she’d get it all figured out soon and be sure and let me know. Feinstein sits on the Senate Judicial Committee, so I was happy to see she’d have it figured out soon.

Well, it took about a month, give or take, and sure enough she decided to do everything she could to defeat Alito. Now, I suppose reasonable minds could disagree as to whether her reasons were logically sustainable. Were her opinions formed with a decent respect to the desires of her constituents, the rule of law, and a desire for civility, decorum, restraint, and a solid interpretation of law taking place on our nation’s highest bench? Suffice to say I have my doubts.

So I was pretty cynical when, coming off fourteen years of failing to have any influence at all, whatsoever, participating in the electoral representation process or seeing a decent opportunity accorded to my viewpoint for representation in the upper house of Congress, I come to learn a shocking thing: You can change Dianne Feinstein’s mind on something by blowing seven things up in a day when you’re not even a California resident. That came as a bit of a shock. I’m not about to blow up one thing, let alone seven, so I guess all you out-of-state people can keep your two senators and I’ll just make do with none.

Well, Gov. Scwarzenegger thinks she’s just doing a peachy job, and took the time to say so, or at least his spokesman did. They’re both up this year, you know. Maybe they sat down and figured out that like the Founding Fathers, if they don’t hang together, they’ll surely hang separately.

I’d just like to know what kind of peachy job she’s doing. Listening to her constituents?

While the governor didn’t name any names, Steve Schmidt, his campaign manager, wasn’t quite so circumspect.

“Like most Californians, (Schwarzenegger) thinks Dianne Feinstein is a great senator,” Schmidt said.

While Schwarzenegger has made a blanket endorsement of the other Republicans on the statewide ticket, he has pointedly left the Senate seat out of the mix.

The governor “has not made an endorsement in the Senate race,” Julie Soderlund, a spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger’s campaign, said Friday. “We have nothing to announce at this time.”

The governor’s reluctance to back Mountjoy has made a tough campaign even more of a longshot. The 74-year-old Monrovia (Los Angeles County) resident only jumped into the race after Republicans failed to recruit a better-known candidate and finds himself running far behind Feinstein in the polls and the quest for campaign cash.

“I realized this was an uphill battle from the start,” Mountjoy said in an interview.

Another thing I’d like to know, and it regards this facade of camaraderie between Republicans and Democrats. From whence does this dictate come? Who are all these voters who want to see Republicans and Democrats stop fighting and get along? And wherever this surfaces as a paramount issue, does any agenda ever win in the long haul, save for the most extreme left-wing liberal ones?

What has Feinstein done, exactly, to reach across the aisle, as conservatives are now prevailed to do so often that it’s become a routine expectation? She’s had fourteen years, remember. How long is the list of compromises she has actually made?

You know, to the extent I can recall the topic at hand, I think I made this point in the letter about Alito. I wanted to see if a Democrat could support a Bush nominee now that the nominee was extremely well-qualified, and the circumstances were ideal. If this thing is a two-way street and there’s some expectation on Feinstein to show some bipartisanship, that would have been a good time — she could have voted for Alito. There really wasn’t any sound reason not to. Well, she didn’t. And come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time a liberal Democrat did any compromising here, anywhere. Wherever Republicans and Democrats suddenly find ways to play nice together, it seems an off-the-charts liberal left-wing victory is about to be given life, or a renewed lease on it.

So as far as I’m concerned, it’s too late for this kind of go-along-to-get-along. Democrats and Republicans are far too incompatible to ever reconcile their differences. And that’s not my decision, it’s Dianne Feinstein’s.

Apologies To…

I had been trying to get around to making a list of other blogs that had linked back here. Somehow, I didn’t quite get around to it, but last night had satisfied myself that the Technorati listing was probably comprehensive. This morning I was supposed to do one more query, get everyone gathered up, and link back to you.

Well, the Technorati service is on the fritz. “High volume of requests right now.” Now, at three in the morning. Great minds think alike, I suppose.

I don’t like leaving people out in the cold after they’ve had the decency to give me a mention. We’ll get this done. Soon.

Update: For the record, this is who I’m talking about. I need a list somewhere, and what better place to stick it. After all, if Blogger is down too hard for me to read my list, Blogger will be down too hard for me to make any updates anyway. Better to depend on one link in the chain than two, right?

Philmon

Dean’s World (No sidebar reference, just a link from someone else’s material, but I’m getting significant traffic from it)

Aw what the heck…we threw a few punches last December, but my sparring partner Stephen VanDyke and I both got traffic out of it, more to my benefit than his. It’s the least I can do for the Hammer of Truth. Of course any time their name is mentioned I have to include the cool cartoon you see to the right.

Just Muttering, which is the whole point of the list. I keep forgetting this guy and I think he’s been waiting the longest.

Maggie’s Farm. No links from them just yet, but they were kind enough to answer my e-mail and they have some cool stuff. Like, for example, the cartoon below came from there.

The Pungeoning.

Building a Timerframe Home From Scratch. Just plain interesting.

Update 6/22/06: Done. You’re all in. Excuse my tardiness.

Update 6/23/06: I’m a silly-wicket. Poo on me. I forgot Mein Blogovault, who was good enough to link back to me earlier this month. I’ll get you.

Update: Okay, that’s done. This post is closed.

Vernon Robinson Commercial

Rightwingsparkle points us to the television ad everybody’s talking about, a spot for Vernon Robinson, running to represent the 13th district of North Carolina.

I heard my morning radio guys talk about this when it first came out. One of them mentioned this wouldn’t fly out here on the west coast. The other one agreed. This is one of those things of which I’m ignorant, although everyone else seems to be knowledgeable. I wonder who it would piss off, and why.

See, I come from that weird planet where if you’re ticked, and you’re so ticked you want to change something, being able to articulate the reason why ought to be Step One. Maybe that’s not the planet I’m living on anymore. If someone’s offended by this commercial, I’d sure love to watch them explain how.

Wimpy II

Via Feisty Republican Whore, yet another tale of responsibility comin’ a tumblin’ down, and once again all it takes is one more legal filing…

Girl sues MySpace because they didn’t hold her hand on the way to meet an older man

Today, officially, you, me, and everyone else is not personally responsible for anything we do. PARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!

AUSTIN, Texas – A 14-year-old girl who says she was sexually assaulted by another user of MySpace.com sued the social networking Web site Monday, claiming it does not take sufficient steps to protect underage members.

The girl says a 19-year-old man lied in his profile about being a senior on a football team to gain her trust and phone number.

Pete Solis was arrested in May on a charge of sexual assault of a child. He could not immediately be reached Monday evening.

The suit alleges that MySpace has “absolutely no meaningful protections or security measures to protect underage users.”

That sucks and all. I wonder how much this girl’s lack of common sense and parental supervision should cost MySpace?

“(MySpace) has got to take this seriously,” said attorney Carl Barry, who is representing the girl and her mother. The suit seeks $30 million.

Oh, 30 mil eh? Sounds reasonable, given the fact that MySpace didn’t offer her Rightwingsparkle or a ju-jitsu specialist with a concealed carry permit.

I like The Whore. I’ve been meaning to link to her for a long time. Whether or not she really is a streetwalker, I don’t know, I don’t care, I’m on a budget at the moment and have to keep taking what I’m getting for free. But her sense of humor is wonderful and she fights the good fight.

My James Bond Drinking Game

My James Bond drinking game is much better than anyone else’s, because I’ve had the benefit of peeking at all the other ones and then sitting down in front of a “Spike TV 007 Days of Christmas” marathon with nothing else to do for days at a time, a few months back. Don’t ask.

The drinking game doesn’t start until Bond requests, or comments on, a drink by name. The drink is then a much cheaper version of whatever Bond mentioned. Dom Perignon ’55 (mentioned in Dr. No (1962)) becomes Andre Cold Duck. Mint Julep (Goldfinger (1964)) becomes Peppermint Schapps.

Take a drink when a bad girl turns out to be good, or when James Bond’s fantastic performance in bed persuades her to turn away from a life of crime. Take two drinks if she spares Bond’s life because of this. You might as well take another drink when a good girl turns out to be bad.

Take a drink when Bond engages in some kind of “friendly” competition with the bad guy, like golf, cards, horse racing, skeet shooting or fencing. Take two drinks if Bond loses.

Take a drink when the henchman dies. You know who it is. There’s always one.

Take a drink when Bond is escorted to, or stumbles upon, the villain’s inner sanctum.

Pour a drink when Bond arrives at the villain’s outer sanctum (corporate headquarters, sprawling mansion, chateau), and sip it slowly as he is escorted around.

Take a drink when the villain goes way out of his way to show Bond, other bad guys, his henchmen, his wench, or just the audience what an incredibly sadistic badass he is.

Take a drink when, in a rare moment of carelessness, Bond fails to protect an innocent woman or a female ally, and as the life drains from her body, silently vows revenge.

Take a drink when the bad guys sneak up on Bond’s right-hand-man, surround him, and kill him off in some highly unorthodox manner.

Take a drink when the scene is abruptly terminated because Bond is about to have sex with a woman. If it’s the woman Bond will be making-out with during the closing credits, take two drinks.

Take a drink when Bond is introduced to a foreign operative, such as Felix Liter. If this foreign operative is a complete stranger to Bond, and he trusts him/her implicitly even though he is not shown any paper credentials whatsoever (“I’m Harvey with the Portugese Secret Service!”), take two drinks.

Take a drink when Q and/or M explain to Bond the significance of a “Maguffin,” such as a weapons controlling device, decoding device, antiquity with clue hidden inside it, microfilm, etc.

Take a drink when Bond acquires the Maguffin.

Take a drink when Bond loses the Maguffin.

Take a drink when the villain has Bond over for dinner.

Take a drink when someone suffers a truly bizarre death about halfway through the movie, or when the villain shows off a highly unorthodox weapon that portends doom for the entire civilized world.

Take a drink when Bond meets a troubled young woman who has sworn revenge after the death of her parents, brother or boyfriend, and wisely counsels her to leave things to him or else take time to let her emotions cool.

Of course, you should take a drink when the bad guy plots an extraordinarily elaborate execution for Bond. Take two drinks if he tells Bond some vital detail of his dastardly plan, which of course he would never reveal if he thought there was the faintest chance Bond might survive.

Take a drink when Bond is rescued or assisted, quite unexpectedly, by “the cavalry” which is some branch of the United States or British military.

Take a drink when Bond appears before the bad guy with some outrageous pseudonym. Try to have the drink finished before the bad guy figures out who Bond really is, which he surely will, and of course you better drink fast.

Take a drink when Bond discovers a clue which will lead him to some other exotic locale.

Take a drink when M discusses the threat to national security.

Take a drink at the beginning of a chase.

Take a drink when Bond begins to defuse a bomb.

Take a drink when Bond is held in captivity.

Take a drink when Bond shows his dark side. Grrr!

Take a drink when Bond meets a girl from his past and sad, nostalgic/romantic music about the-life-that-might-have-been starts playing.

Take a drink when the bad guy begins to recite the significant events from his life-story to Bond, which can be used to help explain his twisted motivations.

Take a drink when the bad guy ridicules James Bond for his incompetence.

Take a drink when Bond collaborates with his superior officers and/or foreign intelligence officers, out in the field, right before a final assault.

Take a drink when the villain, or his henchman, has his personal scientist executed because the scientist has outlived his usefulness.

Kneel before the Porcelain God before the closing credits say “James Bond Will Return In…”

Memo For File VI

Normblog has a bunch of blogger profiles. I recognize a lot of these folks, some of them have extremely high visibility, others have very little. Van Der Leun is in there as #114, and it’s interesting to find out about his background. Read his interview first. Gerard Van Der Leun could explain how to scrape old paint off a fascia board, and make it fascinating.

Yet More Inconvenience

Via Dagney’s Rant, an analysis of what the “real scientists” have to say about Al Gore’s movie.

“Scientists have an independent obligation to respect and present the truth as they see it,” Al Gore sensibly asserts in his film “An Inconvenient Truth”, showing at Cumberland 4 Cinemas in Toronto since Jun 2. With that outlook in mind, what do world climate experts actually think about the science of his movie?

Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: “Gore’s circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention.”

But surely Carter is merely part of what most people regard as a tiny cadre of “climate change skeptics” who disagree with the “vast majority of scientists” Gore cites?

No; Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change. “Climate experts” is the operative term here. Why? Because what Gore’s “majority of scientists” think is immaterial when only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field.

Mmmm…yeah…that would be a little bit of a problem.

Update: Via Best of the Web, I see a request from ABC to any concerned viewer/citizens to share their personal stories about how global warming has affected their lives…

Global Warming Affecting Your Life? E-Mail Us
Send Us Your Stories and Video…Extend the Reach of ABC News’ Reporting by Sharing Your Observations

Witnessing the impact of global warming in your life?

ABC News wants to hear from you. We’re currently producing a report on the increasing changes in our physical environment, and are looking for interesting examples of people coping with the differences in their daily lives. Has your life been directly affected by global warming?

We want to hear and see your stories. Have you noticed changes in your own backyard or hometown? The differences can be large or small � altered blooming schedules, unusual animals that have arrived in your community, higher water levels encroaching on your property.

Show us what you’ve seen. You can include video material of the environmental change, or simply tell your story via webcam. Please fill out the form below, and be sure to include captions or other descriptive information if you’re sending video. We hope to hear from you. Thank you.

How messed up are things, really, when you have to go to these kind of lengths for your disaster reporting? Well, how messed up could they possibly be?

Union Seeks Ethics Probe of McKinney

Cynthia McKinney, from what I’m reading here, is not quite out of the woods yet.

Union seeks ethics probe of McKinney
By Jackie Kucinich

Members of national and local chapters of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) expressed anger and disappointment yesterday with the D.C. Office of the Attorney General for refusing to indict Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) for striking a police officer. The union chapters are calling on the House ethics committee to investigate the incident.

�Although she was not indicted by the grand jury, we hope that members of Congress will review her actions in light of their own rules within the ethics committee,� said Andy Maybo, chairman of the U.S. Capitol Police Fraternal Order of Police chapter.

Maybo said he plans to send a letter later this week to the ethics committee, known formally as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, requesting an investigation into the incident.

A spokesman for the ethics committee did not immediately return a call for comment. While it is unclear what House rule the FOP members believe McKinney violated, the first rule in the ethics manual states: �A Member, officer, or employee of the House of Representatives shall conduct himself at all times in a manner which shall reflect creditably on the House of Representatives.�

�Congresswoman McKinney�s assault on Officer [Paul] McKenna was not only unprofessional for her position as a member of Congress, but we believe it puts out the wrong message across America, that it is OK to strike a police officer,� he said.

Cynthia McKinney went to Congress. Cynthia McKinney did not have her Member Of Congress pin on. Cynthia McKinney had a new hairstyle. Paul McKenna did not recognize her. Paul McKenna confronted Cynthia McKinney. Cynthia McKinney clocked Paul McKenna in the chest with her closed fist, and proceeded onward.

These are facts. They are undisputed. At least, so far as I know, they are undisputed.

What we have here, is a lawmaker refusing to abide by laws. The government can operate from the principle that laws are legislated and enforced out of allegiance and fidelity to We, The People; or, it can operate out of holy terror that if it doesn’t legislate and enforce in such a way that certain people are pleased, it will be called bigoted. Who is We? What kind of People?

Not both. Government cannot serve two masters; it cannot serve both all of us, and some of us. Either we have equal protection under the law, or we do not.

Time for a choice.

Godspeed to the FOP.

This Is Good IX

Dennis Prager starts out writing a column about global warming, and ends up writing a column about other stuff. The central topic is how, and why, liberals and conservatives go about confronting problems in different ways, and how it comes to pass that they end up confronting entirely different problems. His theory is that conservatives confront big meaningful problems like communism and totalitarianism, and liberals confront petty, meaningless bullshit.

People who don’t confront the greatest evils will confront far lesser ones. Most humans know the world is morally disordered — and socially conscious humans therefore try to fight what they deem to be most responsible for that disorder. The Right tends to fight human evil such as communism and Islamic totalitarianism. The Left avoids confronting such evils and concentrates its attention instead on socioeconomic inequality, environmental problems and capitalism. Global warming meets all three of these criteria of evil. By burning fossil fuels, rich countries pollute more, the environment is being despoiled and big business increases its profits.

It’s a good, logical, meaty article. If I could offer one critique, and it’s probably a critique that is meaningless once you factor in that Prager has to come in under a strict word-count for his material, whereas I labor under no such restriction — it would be good to analyze, further, how & why this came about. Our country, after all, is over two centuries old. It has always had a left and a right. And yet it didn’t always have Republicans and it didn’t always have Democrats. The left and the right, at one time or another, were each more concerned about equality between the races than their opposites. They have, at one time or another, each been more concerned about spreading democracy throughout the world than their opposites. Even today you can come up with some issues on which conservatives seem to be apathetic to issues related to privacy and freedom, and you can come up with some other issues on which liberals show equivalent apathy to equivalent concerns.

What’s the consistent theme, going all the way back to the days after Washington’s Farewell Address, when our First President’s words were promptly forgotten and the hobgoblin of partisan politics was born, when the Federalists were on the left and Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans were on the right?

I think it is this:

Throughout the 210-or-so years of partisan politics, people on the “right” labor under a theory that “evil” has a pinpoint-precise definition. It doesn’t represent malicious intentions, quite so much as a set of principles whose exercise results in policies deleterious to the harmony of mankind, and destined to be everlastingly so. And the core among these principles resulting in injury to the harmony of mankind, is that some people are masters, and other people are drones. The people we call “conservatives” are people who point out the simple dictum that when we proceed forward from this premise, that some people are masters and other people are drones, all the world over the ultimate result is always death, or at the very least, wasted human opportunity on a massive scale. The conservative axiom is that this must always be the case; it cannot turn out any other way.

Federalists wanted the federal government to have strong authority, via legislation such as the Alien and Sedition Act, while the opinions of people and the sovereign states were ignored. Southern Democrats wanted slavery to be kept in place, while the fundamental human rights of the slaves were ignored. Franklin Roosevelt wanted tailors to be thrown in jail if they charged more than 35 cents for hemming a shirt, while the principles of the free market were ignored. Lyndon Johnson wanted a Great Society in which the sovereign rights of the states were ignored. Throughout the eighties and nineties, liberals were all about raising taxes, which would mean the drones labor onward year after year, giving up huge pieces of their lives for the benefit of The Queen, who is kept in power making arbitrary decisions about how the lucre will be spent. Under Clinton we had “hate crime legislation,” so that now The Queen could make decisions about how these little drones should be thinking, punishing them if they didn’t think the right way.

It all has to do with whether we are Lord and Master of our destinies. All of us, right down to the lowliest among us. Are we cells of a larger organism, unable to make weighty decisions unless we’ve been vested into an office fit for such things, or are we sovereign beings as individuals, all of us, right down to the ugliest pariahs. People on the “right,” since the John Adams administration, say of course we are sovereign beings. If we are not, what was the point of America in the first place?

That is the “conservative” message — the “liberal” message is simply a lot of stuff that distracts from it. Hey look, 2500 dead soldiers in Iraq. Hey look, Al Gore has a movie out about global warming. Hey look, Bush has been spying on “ordinary Americans.” Hey look, Cheney worked for Halliburton. Hey look, our “allies” don’t look favorably upon us. Hey look, President Bush just choked on a pretzel because he’s so stupid. Hey look, Jesse Jackson says vicious attack dogs kept poor blacks from voting in Florida.

This, I think, is why Prager is seeing what he is seeing. His article is made all the more durable, because this is a situation that has remained unchanged for two centuries, while so much other substance has changed drastically. Conservatives believe we have God-given rights — because an important part of the conservative movement, is people who believe in God — including the personal right to make boneheaded decisions. Ronald Reagan famously said, and I believe this captures the spirit of the conservative movement, back to 1797: “I don’t believe in a government that protects us from ourselves.” Life is a car, and each person who owns that life, is the driver — let his hand, and his alone, be upon the steering wheel. Let the government get involved when he smacks into, or threatens the safety of, other cars — or when others vandalize his tires, gas tank or battery cables. Not one minute before.

One day, our grandchildren may ask us what we did when Islamic fascism threatened the free world. Some of us will say we were preoccupied with fighting that threat wherever possible; others will be able to say they fought carbon dioxide emissions. One of us will look bad.

There ya go.

Sad News

Hat tip to Sister Toldjah for this sad entry from the Washington Post:

Two U.S. Soldiers Found Dead, Iraq Official Says
By Jonathan Finer and Joshua Partlow
Tuesday, June 20, 2006; 8:20 AM

Two U.S. soldiers missing since an attack on a checkpoint last week have been found dead near a power plant in Yusifiyah, south of Baghdad, according to an Iraqi defense official.

Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Muhammed-Jassim, head of operations at the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, said the soldiers had been “barbarically” killed and that there were traces of torture on their bodies. He offered no further details.

U.S. military officials told the Associated Press that two bodies had been recovered, but would not confirm their identities. A military spokesman said a news briefing had been scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Baghdad time, or 8:30 a.m. EDT.

The Army on Monday identified the missing soldiers as Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore. They were attacked at a checkpoint near Yusufiyah. A third soldier, Spec. David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass., was killed in the incident.

May their memory live on, may it strengthen America’s resolve, and may her retribution be swift.

A White Individual

Healing racial/gender division. Getting drunk drivers off the road. Ending poverty, prostitution, unwanted pregnancies, and the use of illegal drugs.

We never seem to make a dent in any of this stuff. We make new programs and laws, the money sloshes around, people inside the system get rich off the rest of us, and the problems continue. And if the statistics on this bad stuff do indeed go down, the next year they’re right back up again.

Just once, I wish Congress could pass a resolution saying something to the effect of “it seems this whole problem is out of harmony with the class of things that government can solve, and when we try, all we do is make men rich who have a vested interest in keeping the problem going.” Just to show me Congress has what it takes to come to this realization, when there is adequate reason to do so. Especially with regard to that first one, the racial/gender division.

This morning, the following editorial in the Wall Street Journal reached my e-mail:

‘A White Individual’
How the Voting Rights Act promotes racial polarization.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

With Congress poised to extend, for another quarter-century, certain “temporary” provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, it’s worth pondering some of the political mischief taking place these days in the name of “voting rights.”

Take New York’s 11th Congressional District, a safe Democratic seat covering several neighborhoods in Brooklyn. The seat is currently occupied by Major Owens, a black Democrat who has held it since 1983 and is retiring this year. One of the four candidates to replace him is David Yassky, a white Democrat who represents some of the same Brooklyn neighborhoods as a city councilman.

Mr. Owens has one of Congress’s most liberal voting records, and there’s nothing in the background of Mr. Yassky, a prot�g� of New York Senator Chuck Schumer, that suggests he would vote much differently. Even so, Mr. Owens and the three other candidates, all of whom are black, are on a mission to force Mr. Yassky out of the race. In the case of Mr. Owens, this has partly to do with the fact that his son is among those running in the September 12 Democratic primary. But Mr. Owens, the other black candidates and local black officials have stressed that their overriding concern is the color of Mr. Yassky’s skin. And they’re using the Voting Right Act to justify old-fashioned race-baiting.

New York’s 11th District is a product of racial gerrymandering linked to passage of the Voting Rights Act. When Congress passed the law 40 years ago to address black disenfranchisement primarily in the Deep South, some provisions were made permanent and others temporary. Gone forever were poll taxes and grandfather clauses, but Section 5 provisions of the law dealing with “preclearance,” or federal oversight of local election practices, were meant to be short-term.

Study after study shows that preclearance is no longer necessary. Black voter registration and participation rates, along with the growth of minority officeholders–often elected with white “cross-over” votes–demonstrate that blacks are no longer disenfranchised. Yet Congress continues to reauthorize these Section 5 provisions because they allow both Republicans and Democrats to keep drawing racially gerrymandered districts in the name of protecting voting rights.

“A law passed to protect minority voters–to ensure free and fair access to the polls–has become much like every other affirmative action policy,” says Edward Blum, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of a forthcoming book on the unintended consequences of the Voting Rights Act. “It has become, literally, a racial set-aside. The law is being used to justify actual racial proportionality.”

It’s bad enough that such gerrymandering has all but eviscerated inter-party competition for seats in Congress, creating so many “safe” Republican and Democratic strongholds that the outcome of most races is a foregone conclusion. But another pernicious byproduct of gerrymandering is the racial polarization and hyper-partisanship that we see in places like New York’s 11th District. These so-called “majority-minority” gerrymanders tend to nurture political division and extremism by reducing incentives for candidates to make appeals to anyone other than their racial or ethnic voting base.

Representative Owens has labeled Mr. Yassky a “colonizer.” Al Sharpton, ever the statesman, has called the candidate, who is Jewish, “greedy.” And the New York Sun reported last week that Albert Vann, a city councilman who opposes Mr. Yassky’s candidacy, sent an email to black elected officials nationwide announcing that “we are in peril of losing a ‘Voting Rights’ district . . . as a result of the well financed candidacy of Council Member David Yassky, a white individual.”

Ironically, such rhetoric is one reason so few minorities are able to seek and win higher office. Once you’re appealing to people on completely racial grounds in order to win a House seat, you have a hard time making the broader appeals necessary to win statewide.

But don’t expect any of this to matter as Congress ramrods through another extension of the provisions that feed these bad outcomes. A House vote is due any day, and the Senate is expected to follow sometime prior to the July 4 recess. Congress has never let balkanization of the electorate get in the way of protecting its own political hide, especially when it can claim to be siding with the “voting rights” angels.

Huh. Now, I’m not black, nor am I jewish, nor do I live in the 11th district of New York, nor have I very often ventured within three thousand miles of said area. And I’m certainly not a left-wing Democrat. But I was born within a short time of the forementioned Civil Rights Act, and it’s interesting to me what’s going on now that I’m an old man. Congress has had the chance to twiddle around with this issue of racial division for all of my mortal life, every single second of it. Well, how we doin’?

Not so hot. Jesse Jackson is a rich man, but other than that, in places like the 11th district black-and-white might as well be two separate countries.

I “did a Google” on this guy Yassky. The results are pretty interesting. One of the pieces I got back was this New York Times article (link requires registration):

Black Leaders Fear Loss of Brooklyn House Seat
By JONATHAN P. HICKS
Published: June 12, 2006

A group of black and Hispanic elected officials from Brooklyn are scheduled to meet this morning to devise strategies to keep a white candidate from winning a Congressional seat of historical significance in black politics.

City Councilman David Yassky, who is running against three black candidates in the 11th Congressional District in Brooklyn, campaigned Sunday at the Jesus Is Lord Ministry, in a community center in Flatbush.

It is not the first such meeting of these officials, nor is it likely to be the last. That there are talks so steeped in ethnicity indicates that race is not just one of the issues in determining who will succeed Representative Major R. Owens. It seems to be the dominant one.

Mr. Owens, a veteran of more than two decades in Congress who turns 70 this month, is not running for re-election. The black and Hispanic officials gathering today are discussing how to prevent David Yassky, a white city councilman from Brooklyn Heights, from winning a seat that once belonged to Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress.

Mr. Yassky, a former law professor, has collected as much in campaign contributions as his rivals combined, more than $800,000 at the time of the last campaign finance filing.

And his three black opponents in the Democratic primary � as well as many black and Hispanic officials throughout the borough � have become increasingly agitated by the possibility that blacks would split their vote, allowing him to win.

Today’s meeting, which was called by City Councilman Albert Vann, a Brooklyn Democrat, will focus in part on whether one or two of the three black candidates might be willing to drop out of the campaign.

Two weeks ago, a fourth black candidate, Assemblyman N. Nick Perry, announced that he was withdrawing from the Congressional campaign and running instead for re-election. He said one reason was to reduce the number of black candidates and make it harder for Mr. Yassky to succeed.

Some black and Hispanic officials in Brooklyn have said they believe that the district � which, according to the Almanac of American Politics, is 58.5 percent black, 21.4 percent white and 12.1 percent Hispanic � would be best served by a black representative. But they also talked of the emotional importance of sending a black representative to Washington from the district.

As a result of a lawsuit under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, several predominantly black neighborhoods of Brooklyn were consolidated into the 12th Congressional District. In 1968 it elected Ms. Chisholm, who in 1972 sought the Democratic presidential nomination. Mr. Owens succeeded her in 1983.

The district lines were later shifted, and much of the 12th District was incorporated into what is now the 11th.

“We want to see if there is a way that we might unite behind one black candidate in the race, as opposed to several black candidates running along with Yassky,” said Assemblywoman Annette Robinson, an organizer of the meeting. “We’re going to try to work this out, reminding the candidates that people have fought for this district to be a Voting Rights district.”

There have been many discussions by elected officials over the last year, since Mr. Yassky emerged as a candidate, about how the field of black candidates might be narrowed. And Mr. Perry’s withdrawal has fueled speculation about whether any of the others might follow.

All this talk about a “Voting Rights district” is troubling. Amongst the people who want to stop David Yassky, there appears to be a fundamental agreement on the task at hand — keep the cracker out of there. Make sure the district is represented by a black guy. You may like that mission or you may not, but like any other mission, it strikes me as having a better shot at success if people who support it, call it what it is.

A “Voting Rights district,” here, is a “black district.” It’s a concern echoed by this anonymous source quoted on the website of Chris Owens, son of incumbent congressman Major Owens:

Two additional white Democratic leaders told The Brooklyn Papers this week that they will not endorse Yassky because they feel the 11th Congressional district was drawn to elect a black candidate. One of the leaders, who requested anonymity, … added, “I don’t think he should be running in this district.”

This is the argument against David Yassky, that his skin is the wrong color. That’s right. Weird-beards out in the Middle East want to incinerate us, some people think our President lied to get us into a war, and is spying on us, plus maybe our megacorporations are warming the globe with their toxic emissions, making the planet ultimately uninhabitable. And the paramount concern for some is the color of a congressman’s skin.

And, his support of Israel…

David Yassky is pissing me off

The primary race in NY-11 has been fairly nasty on some levels, and a lot of that nastiness–especially race-based nastiness–has been aimed David Yassky’s way. See, for example, today’s New York Times article on the subject:

Black Leaders Fear Loss of Brooklyn House Seat
By JONATHAN P. HICKS

A group of black and Hispanic elected officials from Brooklyn are scheduled to meet this morning to devise strategies to keep a white candidate from winning a Congressional seat of historical significance in black politics.

It is not the first such meeting of these officials, nor is it likely to be the last. That there are talks so steeped in ethnicity indicates that race is not just one of the issues in determining who will succeed Representative Major R. Owens. It seems to be the dominant one.

Mr. Owens, a veteran of more than two decades in Congress who turns 70 this month, is not running for re-election. The black and Hispanic officials gathering today are discussing how to prevent David Yassky, a white city councilman from Brooklyn Heights, from winning a seat that once belonged to Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress.

While I don’t support the guy or agree with him on many issues, I thought this was a little unfair. That was before this morning, when I went to look for some things on Yassky’s website in order to comment on this post of Steve Gilliard’s on that NYT article. That’s when I started to believe there might be something to Bouldin’s claim that

…[t]he Yassky strategy is cynical, reaching out as it does to Jewish voters on Jewish issues, and otherwise appealing to other voters on the basis of color-blind competence. That is not merely starkly hypocritical, it is intentionally and knowingly divisive.

Yassky used to have a page in the issues section of his website that pandered pretty outrageously to religious Jewish voters, talking about his efforts to divert funding to religious schools and to get a state-paid nurse in every yeshiva. When I went to look for it this morning, though, it wasn’t there.

I mentioned that in my comments at Gilliard’s, and reproduced a snippet of my brilliant Left Behinds analysis on that NY-11 poll, which included a link to the “Defending Israel” issues section of the Yassky website. Lo and behold, the Yassky team redesigned its website today, and perhaps coincidentally (as an anonymous user alerted us in the comment thread later) the “Defending Israel” section is gone and my link is dead.

Excuse me, but fuck that. Yassky doesn’t get to pander and run a second time. This time I went to the Google cache and got screenshots of that issue page, which I will now post so they don’t disappear forever. Again.

Full sizes here and here.

Kind of interesting how a subtle bigotry can stumble onward, decades and decades into our modernized era of Harmony between Ebony and Ivory, if the bigots just pay the proper lip service to “Voting Rights.” And, of course, exercise their bigotry in the right direction. Against Israel, and against anybody who isn’t black.

I just don’t understand, poor living conditions or no, how & why anybody thinks this is on any kind of path to success. If identity politics must be the order of the day, because only a black guy can represent other black guys, then why keep sending someone to Congress? You need 218 people to agree to do something there, or to stop something from happening; there are far less than 218 black congressmen there. White guys can represent the issues of black guys and black guys can address the issues of white guys — yes, or no. If no, then the exercise is futile, as it is an exercise in getting black guys elected to represent black districts in Congress, on the floor of which they will be systematically outvoted. The premise, after all, dictates that no multi-racial coalitions will be formed, on anything. Ever. So they get their asses kicked. If the answer to the premise is yes, so that the multi-racial coalitions can be formed on the floor of Congress, what then happens to the argument that Yassky has to be defeated because he’s a white guy? What happens to the whole “Voting Rights district” angle? It is decimated, that’s what.

See, I don’t think the rank-and-file voters are noodling this out. In order for grievances like these to attract any sort of currency, voters have to be hauling resentment and hatred into the voting booth, and not a whole lot of anything else.

This is one of those deals where the other fellow’s comments speak for themselves, and require little additional verbiage from me. So with a link to the original, and a link to the Yahoo News story about the poo poo storm he’s stirring up that shouldn’t be stirred up, off we go.

An Open Letter from Mayor Lou Barletta:

I believe the United States of America is the greatest nation on Earth. People who are in this country have an incredible amount of opportunities and blessings. But some people have taken advantage of America�s openness and tolerance. Some come to this country and refuse to learn English, creating a language barrier for city employees. Others enter the country illegally and use government services by not paying taxes or by committing crime on our streets, further draining resources here in Hazleton.

Illegal immigration leads to higher crime rates, contributes to overcrowded classrooms and failing schools, subjects our hospitals to fiscal hardship and legal residents to substandard quality of care, and destroys our neighborhoods and diminishes our overall quality of life.

The City of Hazleton is empowered and mandated by the people of Hazleton to abate the nuisance of illegal immigration by aggressively prohibiting and punishing the acts, policies, people and businesses that aid and abet illegal aliens. That is why I proposed the Illegal Immigration Relief Act.

Part of this ordinance, if enacted, would punish companies that hire illegal immigrants by denying them permits, making it harder for them to renew permits and forcing their loss of city business.

Another part would hold landlords accountable. Because people moving into the city naturally require a place to sleep, our landlords are our first line of defense. Landlords who rent to illegal immigrants�that is, who rent to people without checking their documentation, may be fined $1,000.00 for every illegal immigrant staying on their properties.

The final part of this ordinance makes English the official language of Hazleton. All city documents will only be available in English. Those applying for a permit would have to speak English. While our emergency services will never be denied to anyone because of a language barrier, every other aspect of city business will be conducted only in English. Let me be clear, this ordinance is intended to make Hazleton one of the most difficult places in the U.S. for illegal immigrants.

This measure is not racist because it does not target one particular race. The Illegal Immigration Relief Act is intended to deter and punish any illegal immigration in the City of Hazleton. Requiring the use of English does not target any other language; it merely states that no matter what language you prefer to speak at home, English will be spoken when you conduct business with Hazleton officials.

Illegal Immigration is a drain on city resources. Every domestic incident, every traffic accident, every noise complaint, each time we send our police department, fire department or code enforcement officer to respond, it costs taxpayer dollars.

If the City of Hazleton began publishing official documents or conducting business in a second language, how would we respond when someone asks us to use a third, or fourth language?

Recent crimes � the shooting on Chestnut Street, the discharge of firearms at the Pine Street Playground, and high profile drug busts � have involved illegal immigrants. Sadly, some of those allegedly involved in those crimes were detained by other law enforcement officials over the years, but were somehow allowed to remain in this country. They eventually migrated into Hazleton, where they helped create a sense of fear in the good, hardworking residents who are here legally.

This ordinance does not roll back the welcome mat to those who are legally in the United States. This country was built on the backs of legal immigrants. My own great grandparents came to this country seeking a better life. Rather, this ordinance seeks to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into Hazleton. They are not welcome here!

To the residents of Hazleton, I say thank you for your continued support. Hazleton is moving forward and becoming an even better place to live. To our recently arrived legal immigrants, I say welcome. I personally wish you all the best. With hard work and determination, the United States and Hazleton can be a place where your dreams come true. And to illegal immigrants and those who would hire or abet them in any way, I say your time is up. You are no longer welcome.

If you support this measure, please click this link to email us your support . You can also show your support by attending the City Council meeting on Thursday, June 15th @ 7:00 P.M. where this ordinance will be presented to Council for approval. The next council meeting where the second reading will take place is July 13th @ 7:00 P.M. Please mail your petition in before that date to show your support. You may also contact my office at 570-459-4910.

Thank you and God Bless America.

Louis J. Barletta, Mayor of Hazelton, PA, we here at The Blog That Nobody Reads salute you and your enormous balls. Clearly, it is cosmically possible for you to set the example, which means it is all the more possible for other mayors to follow it.

Other mayors? The Blog That Nobody Reads is now looking at YOU. Stop with the endless excuses, and LET’S ROLL.

Feelings First, Education Second III

A month and a half ago I wrote about Marissa Leigh’s mother who is burning both ends of the candle, and spending Marissa’s dad’s money, to make sure Marissa turns out just right. Pretty, popular, conceited, spoiled rotten, and stunningly useless. This kind of parenting fits into my Yin and Yang theory, which explains what nothing else can: People who go through life looking for attention rather than to actually achieve anything, want everybody else around them to also look for attention rather than to actually achieve anything. This kind of person is actually offended once they become aware of someone else, within line-of-sight, actually trying to achieve something, and/or willing to sacrifice or waive surplus attention. They’re offended by such a thing. Nothing else explains the determination and drive on the part of Marissa’s mom, to raise Marissa the way Marissa is being raised. Nothing else, save for abject parental hatred, which does not seem to be the case there.

Well, the same thing must be going on with these parents — “helicopter parents” who “hover” over their college-attending children, waking up said children in time for the first class, logging on to the university web site to check on grades, calling up the Dean on the cell phone if they don’t like what they see.

Mommy, tell my professor he’s not nice!
By Janet Zink and Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler, Times Staff Writer
Published June 19, 2006

Parents of University of Florida students log on to their children’s personal Gator-Link accounts to check grades, then call deans when they don’t like what they see.

University of Central Florida parents call administrators to complain when their kids can’t get into classes they want.

At Florida State University, parents of graduating seniors haggle with job recruiters. They want to make sure Junior gets a good salary and work schedule.

University administrators have a name for these baby boomer moms and dads who hover over their offspring’s college lives.

“Helicopter parents,” says Patrick Heaton, FSU’s assistant dean of student affairs.

The worst of them – those who do unethical things, like write their kid’s term papers – are branded “Black Hawks,” a nod to the souped-up military helicopters.

“I also call them tether parents,” says Heaton, who directs FSU’s freshman orientation program. “It’s like a leash. Students are afraid to make decisions about classes or anything without calling home.”

Good luck finding a parent who admits being a helicopter, much less a Black Hawk. But across the nation, college administrators are struggling with what they say is a growing phenomenon, a product of the unique relationship between many boomer parents and their millennial-generation children.

Administrators say they know these parents mean well. But their frequent phone calls and unreasonable demands stunt student development and test the patience of college officials.

“Where parent behavior becomes a challenge for us is when they encourage dependence, and they become too involved because they are afraid their son or daughter will make a mistake,” says Tom Miller, a University of South Florida dean of students.

“Our students are graduating,” says Jeanna Mastrodicasa, associate dean of the UF honors college. “But they are not ready to go into the real world.”

Administrators noticed the hovering problem a few years ago, when the first members of the so-called millennial generation entered college. Millennials are the children of baby boomers, born between the early 1980s and 2000. Sociologists and higher education officials say this generation is unlike any other, thanks to the child-rearing approach of their parents and the unprecedented influence of technology.
:
“The biggest change is technology,” says Robin Leach, interim dean of students at FSU. “Where students in the past might just write home, now they’re on the phone with their parents all day, every day. If something goes wrong or right, parents know about it very quickly.”

An online survey in March by College Parents of America, an advocacy group formed 2� years ago for the parents of college children, found that one out of three parents communicates with their child daily two to three times a day, typically via cell phone. More than half of the 839 parent respondents said their involvement with their children is “much more” than what they experienced with their own parents during their college years.

“When I went to college in the ’70s, contact with my parents was standing at a pay phone on Sunday afternoon,” says James Boyle, College Parents of America president. “And there was no expectation beyond that.”

I’ve seen parents like this. I’ve spoken with them. I’ve lived with them. I’ve had sex with them. And hell yes, this subject comes up: What is up with this promotion of dependency?

It’s not ignorance.

It’s not apathy.

It’s not “concern.”

I have not been chastised to mind my own business. I have not been asked “gee, come to think of it, do you suppose maybe I could be crippling them in the long run?” It has not been asserted to me that, don’t worry, I can make this one harmless phone call and it won’t hurt anything. No, I’ve never seen any of that, not once.

It’s a drive. It’s a mission. Parents like this want to make their children more dependent. They know something else must suffer in order to bring about this dependency, like independence, individual creativity and and personal resourcefulness — and they simply don’t care. The parents’ sense of “I’m still relevant” is more important than these things.

It’s the promotion of one culture over another. They are driven to contribute their own offspring toward a movement, and they hope the offspring contributed toward the competing culture are outvoted, converted, or simply go away. Like I said, resourcefulness and creativity offend these people. They don’t like having it, they don’t like dealing with it, they don’t like seeing it.

And if their precious babums is off to college, and they’ve only talked to that precious babums five times on the cell phone that day, they’d rather make the sixth phone call than sit in a bucket when their asses are on fire. And it isn’t to tell the babums how much they love them, it’s got nothing to do with companionship or supporting anybody. Those things could easily wait until later in the week. No, it’s to keep a job. To keep a sense of importance. To make sure we still live in a world where everybody leans on everybody else for the basics of life, and nobody rises above mediocrity to actually make a unique contribution or to make something work better than it did before. That would be awful and must be prevented at all costs.

So the cell phone calls continue…

I Don’t Get It

If Hillary Clinton becomes our next President, her husband plans to do whatever she tells him to do.

Former President Bill Clinton said Saturday that, if he returns to the White House in 2008 because his wife becomes president, his role would be to “do whatever she wants” because that’s what a good citizen would do.

Clinton said he didn’t know if U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Democrat from New York seeking re-election this year, would run for president in two years as some have speculated, but he predicted a woman could win the most powerful office in the world.

Asked at an Association of Alternative Newsweeklies convention what his role would be if his wife were elected, the former two-term president said, “I’ll do whatever she wants, and I have no idea what that is. I honestly don’t know whether she’s going to run.”

I find the Clintons to be incredibly disturbing, and not just because I disagree with them about political issues.

I don’t understand their marriage. That is none of my business, of course. But it’s not exactly off the table, is it? Here is our former President using his subservient role as one of the selling points, for her. It’s not a first. So the family life is, indeed, an important factor in the connection between the Clintons, and their constituents. There is a huge cadre within my nation of people who either understand the Clintons’ marriage better than I do, or think that they do, and are thus compelled to support the Clintons or else further galvanized in the support they would otherwise have. I don’t get it.

It’s got something to do, clearly, with Hillary ordering Bill around. People like that. She tells Bill to jump, he asks how high…

…and they pick up votes. Or “virtual” votes. People think, I can’t vote for Bill again, but if I could, I would.

Hillary is loud, too. Stories get spread around about her cussing Bill out, F-word this, C-word that, and the stories may be true or they may not. But always, Bill is standing there just absorbing it with a deer-in-the-headlights look on his face, a stream of hot urine running down his inseam. People hear about the unpleasant side of the Clintons’ marriage…

…and the Clintons pick up votes.

Hillary may or may not be smart, but Bill says that she is. On how smart Hillary thinks Bill is, I don’t hear very much. People hear about all the positive things Bill has to say about his wife, who has never actually achieved much of anything in public service…

…and the Clintons pick up votes.

The Clintons continue to live their lives apart, with Hillary establishing residence in one place and Bill setting up shop hundreds of mile away. Word gets out that the marriage will stumble onward, with man and wife not even seeing each other for months at a time, clearly living a marital life most of us wouldn’t want to live…

…and the Clintons pick up votes.

And of course true to his rep, Bill isn’t taking cold showers waiting for Hillary to let him back in the marital bed. He has affairs. He lies about the affairs. He sends his friends, associates and acquaintances, Hillary included, to make asses out of themselves stating for the record that Bill must have been telling the truth when he said “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.” Bill’s friends, Hillary included, look like morons. And Hillary looks like a woman who won’t satisfy her husband, because she can’t. Bill humiliates Hillary.

…and for this, the Clintons still pick up votes!

I don’t understand all this because I see no common thread consistently running through all of it. Plainly, it has little to do with some fantasy about a powerful man adoring his wife and putting her on a pedestal, out of his personal respect for her. It isn’t about that. Because if that’s what it was about, Bill would lie to Hillary and the rest of us, get nailed on his lie, and the couple would lose points. Him at least, if not her as well. What has been taking place, is the exact opposite. Yay, that Bill Clinton is so awesome, he got away with it.

If it’s all about showing due respect for the Smartest Woman in the World, how come the popularity goes up when he lies to her and humiliates her? If it’s all about screwing around when she isn’t looking and getting away with it, how come the popularity goes up with this sick fantasy about Hillary yelling at Bill, making him pee his pants? In other words, since being a marital role model has something to do with it — and it seems this has been established beyond reasonable question, Clinton-haters didn’t decide that, Clinton-fans did — what is the example being set, exactly? Does anybody, anywhere, know? The qualities being promoted in this bellwether “marriage,” if you want to call it a marriage, don’t seem to be the kind of qualities that make a marriage a happy one.

The whole thing has a subtle tinge of chauvinism, the kind even the most knuckle-dragging slope-headed Republican would never nurture, let alone show. What if Hillary is the next President and First-Man Bill starts doing everything she tells him to do? What if those things include taking long trips out of town, so she can start having an affair with a male White House intern? What if she then says it never happened, sends First Man Bill out to convince everyone she’s telling the truth, and then gets nailed by DNA evidence?

Not too much of a leap of faith to suppose Democrats would be among the first to run her out of Washington on a rail. And yet a male President does exactly that, and wins points.

The PR folks who work for the Clintons are really earning their money. This is one job I would never be able to do. Good on Bill when he does what Hillary says; good on Bill when he cheats on her; Good on Bill when he lies about it; good on Hillary when she yells at Bill. Whoever is counseling them, it would appear, knows what they’re talking about. Whoever is counseling them, can predict with pinpoint accuracy what will make them popular, versus what is bound to make them less so. I’d be lost. This is just an unworkable maze, to me.

I got a gut feel the folks who are buying it up, aren’t too clear on it either.

How To Get Representation In Washington

I popped in to Sacramento the year Dianne Feinstein became a California Senator. In the other places I had lived, one way or t’other, here and there, my senators and congressmen at least paid some lip service to the idea that they were representing me, so I naively expected the same from her. When that didn’t work, I started writing letters. Fourteen years into that misguided effort, all I have is a small selection of boilerplates from the Feinstein web server, instructing me on the Senator’s wishes as to what my opinions are supposed to be — like I’m the one representing her.

Ah, well now I see it has nothing to do with letters, it has to do with blowing things up.

“Three years and three months into the war, with all of the losses, the insurgency, the burgeoning civil war that’s taking place — what was it, seven bombings in Baghdad yesterday? — an open-ended time commitment is no longer sustainable,” Feinstein said on CNN’s “Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.”

“I don’t think it’s sustainable from the military point of view in terms of troop commitments. I don’t think it’s sustainable in terms of what Americans think about the war,” Feinstein said.

“A timetable, some goals, some discussion with the Congress by the administration. The president might not have wanted to have done that early on, but three years and three months and a bogging down, I think, suggests that the time has come for some discussion as to where we go from here.”

There ya have it, you can get your ass kicked completely to hell and gone, have your head Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq guy blown to kingdom come, and yet a Senator from the country that is administering your ass-kicking can start whining as if you’re the guy who’s winning. What do you have to do that? Looks like Feinstein isn’t that happy about thirty-nine months, so I’m to presume that’s not it…no mention about the soldiers taken hostage, none that I see…seven explosions will do the job. Yeah, your head guy is blown up, you’re on the run, and you can turn the enemy on himself with seven holes in the ground. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and oopsie…you won!

That’s great, Dianne. Really great. Al Qaeda is blowing things up, and really, is there anyone with a brain, coast to coast, who doubts this is a sign of weakness rather than strength? It seems like a settled matter. And yet here you are…we’ve got our boot in their neck, making ’em eat dirt, and you’re asking them for surrender terms. They’re probably just kicking themselves for having spent the resources over 39 months that they’ve been spending. Hey what’s the matter with you guys? Everything over seven bombs was a huge waste of money! All you ever had to do from the get-go was blow up seven things! Seven loud noises, and you got your own senator. Much better than I’ve been able to do in fourteen years.

I’m ashamed the rest of the world has discovered my dirty secret. We don’t have two senators in my state, we have two spokeswomen for the Democratic party. It’s gotten so bad that a problem can come up, Republicans can have a solution to the problem, Democrats don’t…and my wonderful senators have nothing to say, except about how I shouldn’t be paying attention to the problem.

Partisan politics decides everything, at least it does here. If the whole continent was overrun by a microbial epidemic that began magically gobbling up toilet seats, and a Republican president started fighting the microbe so we could still have toilet seats, my two senators would be completely quiet on the whole issue. All they’d have to say about it is how much more wonderful and enlightened it is to take a shit in your front yard next to the dog, and wipe your ass with a pine cone.

Hat tip to Boortz for that one.

Incidentally, this year’s Republican nominee who is to be ground into the dust beneath the Feinstein campaign juggernaut, is Dick Mountjoy. I’ve been following this guy somewhat closely. He has some wonderful ideas, and he gave a meaningful boost to the Proposition 187 initiative denying social services to illegal aliens who aren’t supposed to be here. He has a unique talent for taking the right thing to do, and giving it a voice during an interview so that you can tell it’s the right thing to do. No “compromise for the sake of getting something done,” no “cutting our losses,” none of that. Of course, he’ll lose. But every vote he gets this year, is a vote that Republicans shouldn’t write the state off, and look at spending some serious resources out here.

He is a very decent candidate. A big fish. Much better than California Republicans, as a whole, deserve given their tepid participation in senate elections.

I am far, far from the only Californian who is disgusted by Feinstein’s remarks. In November, help me prove it. Remember Dick Mountjoy’s name, and explain that you’re seriously ready for a new butt in Feinstein’s seat. If you don’t, we’ll just keep tumbling onward with two San Francisco liberals in the senate, and one milquetoast after another nominated by the Republicans to run against them.

“The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his.” — Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.

It’s Father’s Day, and I’m thinking of my son. He’s nine years old, and thinks I know everything. “That’s my Dad,” he tells people, “He knows everything!” We’re finishing up another year or two, three tops, of that. By the time he’s fifteen, of course, I’ll know absolutely nothing and he’ll be the one who knows everything.

This is something I see as a very critical juncture, because up until now when I talk him I sound just like a Democrat: Do this. Don’t do that. This is right, that is wrong. Because I said so. That’s the way fathers talk to their little kids, who in turn are expected to have not yet mastered matters of common sense. Shown a proclivity for using it now and then, maybe even demonstrated what will become a good habit or two down the road. But not quite yet to be trusted, completely, with giving candy-bearing strangers the brush-off, or crossing the street unsupervised.

And yet, chances must be taken from time to time, so a not-completely-benevolent environment will nurture the growth of a not-altogether-incompetent moppet. Time’s a-wasting. Double the age he is now, and he’ll be an adult. So I’m in the middle of an important job, and I can’t share it with his mother: I’m to teach him to think like a real man. And so since he’s been six, occasionally at first, then with increasing regularity, I talk to him like a Republican: Now undo what I did, and YOU do it over again. Of course I know the answer, but go look it up anyway ’cause I’m not telling. I’m going to be dead someday and we don’t know when; you need to know how to do this.

You want me to do WHAT? What in the WORLD, are you going to call me up when you’re a grown-up? You gonna tell your wife and kids “hang on, let me get my Dad because he knows how to do this?” I don’t THINK so. C’mon, big man, show me whatcha got. You’d better do a better job catching that ball, or those other kids are gonna shove you in a locker for sure.

This is a profound transformation. Learning to work the computer, to catch the ball, to ride the bike, these are important as exercises, but conceptually, they are all beside the point. The point is learning how to think. By the time the adolescent juices start flowing, he will figure out that just because someone says a thing is so, doesn’t necessarily make it so. Should his brain lack the horsepower to come to that realization, and in his case it most certainly does not, the hormones will be released to give him the adrenal rush, so he can figure it out the way an amoeba figures things out. One way or another, the epiphany will come, as it comes to all young men: He was not put on the planet simply to do what someone else tells him to do. Now, what’s he gonna do about it? And don’t look to Dad for the answer.

Too many of us nowadays, when we come of age, seem to settle on the answer of “I’m going to stop doing what Daddy tells me to do and start doing what someone else tells me to do.” These people have to live sheltered lives. They can’t go boating. They can’t go camping. They can’t travel. For the most part, they drive to work, get told what to do, go to the store, buy the things their wives tell them to buy, go home, get told by their wives what to do, and go to bed. To do things outside of that cloistered little routine, you have to make observations and divine facts for yourself — there is a quantity of water in the bottom of my boat, and it appears to be increasing in volume. You have to draw inferences based on these observed facts — there is a leak in my boat. You have to figure out what to do based on these inferences — paddle your ass off. And, you have to divine the consequences of failing in your new task — ready or not, we’re going swimming!

Or…we are using bait X. We used bait X last time. We bought chicken from the store on the way home. Let’s use something else.

Or…there is evidence of bears here. We have food. Bears smell food. We have nothing capable of physically separating a bear from food. So let’s find another campsite.

And therein lies the intrinsic hostility toward summertime camping adventures, and pretty much any activity out of the cloistered existence described above, borne by liberal politics and politicians. People must stick to the mainstream, because to go outside the lines is to require independent thinking, and liberals can’t tolerate that in people. It has become a strictly urban ideology. This is new. When I was a kid, liberals were good-hearted, friendly outdoor-type people. They could have hidden television remotes in their beards, but they didn’t have much to do with television remotes because they tended to eschew modern conveniences. That was supposed to be why they were concerned about environmental issues. To be a liberal, meant to have a pair of hiking boots, maybe two, hanging on your front porch so that everyone could see you had them. The conservatives were people who went to the office all the time and made money, living sheltered urban lifestyles, and didn’t care about environmental issues because they were supposed to be oblivious to the deterioration going on around us. Liberals rode bikes. Conservatives drove smart little convertibles.

The environmental issues have not changed, but the cultures have done a complete one-eighty flip-flop. Conservatives are proud of the ability they have to do things that aren’t strictly necessary anymore, like hunt for meat. Or sail a boat. Or fly a plane. Liberals, now, are the ones who congregate in offices, and their office is a coffee shop. The Boy Scouts, endeavoring to teach boys on that critical path to manhood how to do such arcane things, which aren’t strictly necessary but still good to know, earn from the liberals a variety of assaults: Lawsuits, boycotts and, when the preceding two fail, a derisive sneer.

Doing things for yourself, has become anathema to liberal-ness. A generation ago, liberals grew vegetables in their own gardens so they wouldn’t have to support the evil corporate monolith by purchasing them. Today’s liberals don’t do jack squat. They buy food in restaurants and grocery stores. Getting food any other way is something for rednecks and Ted Nugent.

And when they talk, they sound just like me, as a Dad. A Dad to a pre-nine-year-old. A Dad entrenched in the pre-manhood phase of his boy, a phase my son and I are just wrapping up. The phase where nobody is actually entrusted with anything, not even their own affairs. Outside of liberal-land, those who live in this cocoon, eventually must break out of it or else shrivel up and die.

It’s an important lesson, because once you’re a man it is simply inappropriate for people to be telling you what to do, if they aren’t signing your timesheet and your paycheck. There’s no call for it; not in this country, anyway. America has, throughout its entire existence, been struggling with the meaning of the word “free,” as in “free man.” A man unbound by indentured servitude, slavery, immaturity, legal incompetence or conviction. You own you; nobody else does. Your affairs are your own, and you are Lord and Master of them. Within the domain of his own affairs, a real man has what it takes to see what needs to be done, and then do it.

Furthermore, this thoroughly anti-American ordering-around of fully-grown-up people, introduces an ambiguity to human affairs that does not serve the interests of the person speaking. The Parable of Bob’s Dollar illustrates this.

Just like a Democrat disseminator of talking-points talking down to his constituents, saying “President Bush needs to be impeached,” I tell you to give a dollar to Bob. Never mind why. Just do it. What could it be that I have in mind? The sheer number of possibilities runs high enough to make the whole exercise unworkable.

The most likely possibility is that Bob needs a dollar, or an additional dollar, to buy something. Wouldn’t you like to know what that thing is?

Perhaps, though, it’s something else. Perhaps I caught you saying a dirty word and Bob is the treasurer. Again, the exercise is unworkable. If there’s a dollar-per-dirty-word rule, shouldn’t you know what that rule is, in order for it to work? And what if someone else said the dirty word, and I’m wrong in thinking you said it?

Maybe I have gathered the impression that you have two dollars more in your pocket than Bob has in his pocket, and I want both of you to have the same amount. Again, unworkable. How do I know how much money you have? What business is it of mine? And come to think of it, what about the money in my pocket?

Maybe Bob told me he hasn’t eaten in a long time. Who is to say Bob is any hungrier than you are?

Maybe Bob likes the smell of money. Maybe Bob likes to eat it. Why can’t I be the one who gives him the dollar?

Or perhaps it doesn’t have anything to do with actually giving Bob money. Maybe Bob has twenty nickels or ten dimes, and wants to use a vending machine that only takes quarters and dollars. If that’s the case, shouldn’t I be saying that?

There are two points to be made here. The first is that it is wholly unworkable to communicate anything meaningful to you in this circumstance, and the second is that it is wholly unworkable for any one of these strategies to realize some measure of potential for real success. I have only pointed out the most obvious possibilities of what I may mind in exhorting you to fork a dollar over to Bob; if we were to give it some real thought, we could come up with a list virtually endless. In all cases, our joint venture has foundered on the rocks before we have even set sail. There is no meeting of the minds on priorities, on contingencies, on prerequisites, or any of a number of other vital things. There cannot be. By telling you what to do, and not why, and not what the expected result is to be, I have failed to treat you with the minimum respect you deserve as a thinking adult.

So now that I have explained the Parable of Bob’s Dollar, go to a liberal website or a Democrat website. Read some of the posts and look at what’s out there: Bush has to go. Rumsfeld must go. We must stop global warming. We must earn back the respect of our “allies.” Rove has to be indicted. We must pass a global test. We have to get off foreign oil. We have to get out of Iraq. We’ve got to “shore up” Social Security. We must raise the minimum wage. We’ve got to respect womens’ right to choose. We have to legalize controlled substances. We must stop the corporations from getting away with murder. We must hold them accountable. The rich must give something back to the community. We must reduce the wealth gap. We should not execute anybody no matter what. Guns should be banned. Must have more diversity. We have to we got to we must we should we ought. Got to, ought, must, should.

What happens if we do these things? Don’t even ask.

What happens if we don’t? Don’t go there.

What is known, or thought by some to be true, which convinces someone this is a good idea? Again, don’t ask. And who has been so convinced? Stop asking questions.

Is there any way we could end up sorry for having done these things if we do them? Not gonna tell.

Their ravings read like the ramblings of a bunch of Goddamned control-freak Europeans. Must, must, must.

Or…fathers just like me, talking to their small children, children too young to be trusted to look both ways before crossing the street. Children who, one would hope, have the capacity to earn more trust than that while their age is still in the single-digits. Nevermind the inferences. Nevermind the larger strategy. Just do it.

I have to call my own Dad today. He and I don’t talk to each other like we did when I was too young to cross the street…and we don’t talk to each other the way we did when I was a bitter, petulant teenager. We talk to each other like two men. From time to time, we might share some things that any-ol’ pair of grown-up men might not share; things that begin with “the older I get, the more I notice…” He says such things, at 74, about as often as I do at 39. That right there, is a little spooky.

It must have been a challenging transformation for him. I’m beginning to realize that now, myself. My son is way too bright and deserves way more respect than to simply be told to give Bob a dollar, and to not be told the reason why. He’s coming into an age where, should I want him to give Bob a dollar, it is to my benefit to let him in on the reasoning behind it — there are better-than-even odds he knows more about what’s going on than I do, and will come up with a better plan.

From time to time I see evidence of this. It is a moment that fills me with pride, although it is somewhat eerie because it is an overture to my own obsolescence. He will, it turns out, have to know how to do things after all. Because one day, I will be dead, after all. It’s not just a figure of speech. So nursemaiding him throughout his adolescence, deep into his adulthood, telling him all along when to give Bob a dollar, is out of the question. It’s not what I was designed to do.

Because someday, I’ll be pushing up daisies. My son and I may have two decades to chew the fat as two-grown men as my own father and I have had; or we may not. He may visit the headstone often, or he may be a complete stranger to it, it matters not. What matters is that wherever he is, he’ll be living a satisfying life, maybe rich, maybe poor, but definitely enriching those around him. But above all, knowing what to do, how to do it, and not being a raging helpless pain-in-the-ass.

So the terse commands about “do this,” “don’t do that,” cross my lips less often than they used to, and from here on out I will be speaking them less and less often…and one day, I’ll stop altogether. Hopefully, before he’s eighteen. After all, I’m not raising a boy, I’m raising a man. This is America, where no man is the absolute master of any other.

That is what Father’s Day is all about. Mommas give their boys what the boys need, forever and ever. Fathers plan their own obsolescence.

This is what we, today, call a “conservative” value. Some would call it “controversial.”

I don’t know why that is. And I wish it were not so.

The Real Reason

Yesterday I said I was going to be watching Coalition of the Swilling very closely, and I’m glad I did. “Mr. Bingley” decided to make a pilgrimage to Philadelphia to check out the wares at Geno’s, whose problems with city hall Michelle Malkin had described earlier this month. The owner of the cheesesteak shop, Joey Vento, is under an all-out assault from some foundation of goo-gooders, because he has put up an itty-bitty sign politely requesting customers use English when ordering their food. The sign may be violating a city ordinance against discrimination on the basis of race or national origin, might have irritated some activists. Oh, dear. Yes, we must serve some papers, and force the businessman to run his business the way the goo-gooders want. Wouldn’t want anybody to be offended.

I’m not sure how you punish Joey Vento for having a “Please Speak English” sign, without forcing him to hire translators for at least three non-English languages. One would lead to the other, right? Might as well. And then you’d have to force all retail businesses in Philadelphia to do the same thing.

Well now. According to Mr. Bingley, and there’s no reason to doubt him at all, there are three important revelations to come from his little trip. One, Geno’s provides an atmosphere with a wonderful sense of humor, and serves up delicious food. Two, offended the activists may be, but problems arise if the nose-count is the deciding factor — for there are a lot of people in Vento’s corner on this thing. As well there should be. Discrimination my ass — like I said before, what color is English?

Three. And this is big. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had my suspicions all along something like this might be the case. I’ll let Mr. Bingley speak for himself.

I shall not deny that our pulse quickened as we approached, mainly because we were starving, but also in part to the buzz about the place. As I said before, it was packed; the line to the window stretched halfway down the block. Parked across the street was the official Geno’s Mobile…

And then it struck me. Right in front of me was the real reason why the ‘concerned’ folks in Philly are upset with Geno’s. It really has nothing to do with the “Speak English When You Order Sign”, though I’m sure they see that as another proof of the owner’s dementia. No, my friends, the real reason Geno’s is in trouble with the City of Brotherly Love is right there on his Hummer…

The Free Mumia crowd has declared war, as Officer Faulkner’s picture is everywhere you look at Geno’s, as are window case after window case that are filled with police badges from around the country and around the world, from Anoka County, Minnesota to Australia.

Geno’s is pro-cop. The shop is pro-Daniel-Faulkner. That is why they’re in trouble. Or it’s probably a big part of the reason, anyway.

For those not already in the know, you can read up on the whole Mumia Abu-Jamal and Daniel Faulkner thing here.

Questioning Patriotism

Natalie Maines is from Texas and so is President Bush. If you live in Texas or if you are from Texas, I would like to hear from you. Are you ashamed of either one of these dynamic figures, and if so, which one?

Via Telegraph.uk, via Coalition of the Swilling which I’ll be watching very closely, via Malkin:

How the Chicks survived their scrap with Bush
Adam Sweeting assesses how the Dixie Chicks have weathered a political storm

Will it be the salmon teriyaki with organic greens, or asparagus tempura and tuna sashimi? As the waiter hovers with pencil poised, the Dixie Chicks debate the menu with the practised air of professional restaurant critics. The Chicks have traditionally been branded a country band, but clearly it’s some time since their diet consisted of ribs, tacos and pancakes.

Sisters Emily Robison and Martie Maguire project a polished Fifth Avenue elegance, and vocalist Natalie Maines is a vision of sculpted cheekbones and smoky eye-shadow.
:
When Maines made her comment on March 10 2003, 10 days before Operation Iraqi Freedom unleashed “shock and awe” over Baghdad, the Dixie Chicks were probably the biggest act in country music. Yet within days, their music vanished from the charts and the airwaves, apoplectic rednecks crushed piles of their CDs with tractors, and the FBI was feverishly monitoring death threats against the trio. It was the most heinous pop-star outrage since Ozzy Osbourne urinated on the Alamo.
:
“A lot of pandering started going on, and you’d see soldiers and the American flag in every video. It became a sickening display of ultra-patriotism.”

“The entire country may disagree with me, but I don’t understand the necessity for patriotism,” Maines resumes, through gritted teeth. “Why do you have to be a patriot? About what? This land is our land? Why? You can like where you live and like your life, but as for loving the whole country� I don’t see why people care about patriotism.”

Ultra-patriotism, huh? Well, I find Coalition of the Swilling’s headline to be ultra-appropriate: “Am I Allowed To Question Her Patriotism Now?”

If not, then what in the hell does it take?

Not In It For The Attention, Mind You…

…but we’re plumb pleased that you’re here. Welcome. Take off your coats and stay awhile.

Like it says in the FAQ (Question #12), it’a monologue by design but a dialogue is always better. Comment away. Luv to hear from ya.

For The Anti-Death-Penalty Types V

People with giant hearts like to oppose the death penalty, because they don’t like to condemn people. Sometimes their giant hearts come with teeny minds, which lack the cognitive power to figure out that gosh, maybe their opposition to the death penalty condemns the rest of us to live with people who just can’t be lived with.

I don’t mean by that “you can’t live around them because you can’t stand them.” What I mean by that, is “can’t be lived with” in the literal sense. If you are around them, you might not live. They will kill you.

Case in point, the sixteen-year-old boy in Old Bailey, UK, who two years ago wrote in his diary “Operation new life. Kill family. Lose memory. Get adopted by a rich couple. It all starts.” He then carried out a good-sized portion of Step One, clubbing his brother over the head with an axe and setting a fire which asphyxiated his sister.

He also named his parents, brother and two sisters on a List of Deaths.

He set fire to the house and attacked his sleeping brother with an axe, later telling police a gunman had forced him to do it.

Seven psychiatrists could not agree after examining the boy – his parents had not noticed anything strange about him.

But prosecution psychiatrist Dr Paul Chesterman said the boy was showing psychopathic traits, although a full assessment could not be made until he was 18.
:
Old Bailey judge Richard Horne told the boy: “You have shown no shred of evidence of remorse, nor the honesty to admit your guilt.

“In my judgment, this was pre-meditated to a high degree. Your plan was to kill four people. You intended to go from room to room and use the axe.”

Mmmm hmmm…and so what is to be done about this in that cradle of “civilisation,” Great Britain, wherein the death penalty is prohibited? Go back up to the top…

A 16-year-old boy has been jailed for life, with a minimum tariff of 15 years, for murdering his younger sister as part of a bid to kill his family.

Hey that’s some great reassurance to the rest of the population at large. The boy is supposed to spend “life” in prison, with a we-really-mean-it guarantee of a decade and a half!

Bless the anti-capital-punishment brigade for their big hearts and their good intentions. The plain truth of it is, though, that some people lack the scruples needed to live in the same society as everybody else, and always will, just like a stripped gear lacks teeth. No government can provide even the slightest reassurance to everybody else, of the sanctity of their lives, without offing the dude.

Some things that are true, sound nutty, all the moreso because they are true. This is one of them.

By the way, why is it that all around the world, the countries that prohibit their governments from executing murderers, impose little-to-no other prohibitions on said governments? If it’s all about human rights, how come wherever I have the human right to not be executed even if I burn someone to death so a rich couple might adopt me — I am all but assured not to have the right to say whatever I want, or to own a gun? One would expect it to work the exact opposite way, if opposition to the death penalty is about human rights. Country A, unrestricted gun ownership, free speech, no death penalty, Country B, death penalty, no gun ownership, no free speech. But it’s the exact opposite. Wherever the private effluence that comes dribbling out of your mouth, instantly becomes everybody else’s business, that’s where the death penalty is off the table.

Makes no sense, none at all, if a moratorium on the death penalty is about human rights. See, I don’t think it is. I think prohibitions against the death penalty are all about trivializing human life — like, it just isn’t worth defending. It’s a bad thing if your brother burns you up in a house so he can get adopted by rich people, and we hope it doesn’t happen, but if it does, aw gee sorry about that. Shucks. Well, fifteen years for him.

All For The Union

I have been repeatedly instructed that I am supposed to believe liberals, and the people we like to call “conservatives,” think in exactly the same way. Nobody who has counseled me to adopt his belief as my own, has demonstrated to my satisfaction that they would understand a difference between these two sides if said difference swam up and bit’em square in the ass, let alone satisfied me of the non-existence of said difference. These are the Dime People, those who insist, in an attempt to convince themselves, it seems, rather than those around them, that “there is not a dime’s worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats.”

I don’t agree with them because I can’t agree with them. I know better. There is a “left” way of thinking and there is a “right” way of thinking. So when someone on the left indulges in some kind of shenanigans, I’m of the belief that the other shoe is not necessarily due to drop — it doesn’t necessarily follow we’ll see the same skullduggery come from the right. We could; but it isn’t a given. Especially when the subject turns to intimidation, coercion, and punishment for having the wrong ideas.

Well “odum,” who runs the Green Mountain Daily, apparently disagrees. He’s written an excellent essay on DailyKOS about “The Four Words we Bloggers are Afraid to Hear From the Boss” — those four words being…

“It’s about your blog.”

That single sentence hit like a ton of bricks…I knew that the only reason it could possibly have become an issue at my workplace was if someone had gone out of their way to make it one.

There are few times in my life I’ve felt more vulnerable than that moment.
:
But someone didn’t like what I said. Someone not from the right, but the left.

Someone not from the right, but from the left.

This does nothing to quash odum’s faith in, well, in things to which he chooses to remain faithful.

I’d say it’s not simply that we can be targeted for this sort of intimidation and blackmail, but that we will. With even a couple heads on their wall, the rightwingers (with the help of lefties who are either witless or of poor character) will smell blood and eventually become emboldened to go on a hunting spree. Let’s not kid ourselves otherwise.

Yeah, I’m not quite getting it. I thought this scary episode had to do with an attack “not from the right, but the left.” How come the blame goes to the right?

I’ll tell you why I think this is relevant. As a non-dime person, as I’ve said above, I believe there is a fundamental difference in the ways the right and the left think. People I know, who consider themselves to be on the “right,” generally want things to stand on their own merits. People I know who consider themselves to be on the “left,” do not. I say something on my own blog, and if the left doesn’t like it, I have to be shown how wrong I am. I want to put latex over oil-based stain on an exterior, or I want to wash my whites with colors in hot — to simply let me do this and discover the mistake on my own, somehow, is out of the question. And so the snarky snippets ensue. I’m told how stupid I am. Some essay then comes back my way, short, long, somewhere in-between — it purports to show me the error of my ways, and within the substance, does no such thing. Instead, a cornucopia of little talking points, all well-digested before, and some completely unrelated to the subject at hand, assaults my senses like a hailstorm.

And it strikes me that the essay is constructed not out of concern for what shall be included therein…but out of concern for what has not yet been. Like someone will be going through it with a checklist later. Did he mention the war for oil…did he mention 70% of Fox viewers think Saddam Hussein carried out the 9-11 attacks…did he mention Dick Cheney worked for Halliburton…did he mention Bush and the pretzel…did he mention Jeff Gannon…did he mention, did he mention, did he mention.

If conservatives don’t like what I wrote, either they can prove I’m wrong, or they can’t. If they can’t, the difference of opinion is chalked up to disparate life experiences, which may or may not be smoothed out with ancillary life experience lived by both sides subsequently. And we part friends.

If the conservative thinks my idea is genuinely stupid…the very pinnacle of retribution I can potentially get back from them, is eyeball rolling. It stops there. No fire has been lit up under the conservative’s butt to get in my face about anything. Conservatives, by and large, are much like any other creature of nature. They may seem scary to some, but to them the impulse to do something about me, starts with me posing a threat to them, their loved ones, and/or their property. Not one split-second before that.

That my wrong-headed opinion could be so in need of correction, that my boss has to be told about it, I’m sorry I just don’t see that on the “right.” I see lots of evidence of it on the “left.”

The left simply doesn’t act like a wild bear minding its own business — because to them, everything is everybody else’s business. This is the home of the union-thuggery culture, in which the opinion-at-large is the property of the public. We voted to strike last night, you got outvoted, here it is the next morning and you’re crossing the line. So you get a busted kneecap, and if you’re here on crutches tomorrow, you get another. The interests of the union, after all, outweigh the interests of any one person in it, and the union of a thousand is supposed to have the leverage of a thousand empty chairs, not just 501. All for the union. Your thoughts are your thoughts so long as the majority sanctions them, and the day it does not, your thoughts become non-existent. Any and all means necessary, must be carried out, to preserve the union and the interests thereof.

So no, odum, I don’t believe it’s a given that the “right-wingers” will get you in trouble with your boss, just because it’s a matter of fact that some left-wingers did that very thing. Do let me know if & when it ever happens though. In the meantime, I suggest for your own peace-of-mind you cast the blame where it belongs, since it’s clear this has been a very disturbing event for you. As it would be for anyone.

State Worker Loses Identities To Virus After Surfing Porn

Just a tip: If you’re reading The Blog That Nobody Reads, which is this, at work, and your next web site to hit is a porn site, maybe you should just shelve that plan until you get home.

Especially if you’re using a government computer to surf for that porn.

Especially if it’s connected to a government network.

Especially if you’re on a government network because you work for the State of Oregon.

Especially if the agency for which you work is the Department of Revenue.

Especially if, in the course of surfing said porn, you download a virus.

Especially if the virus is so new that your malware detectors can’t pick it up.

Especially if the virus is a key-logger that collects passwords and sends them to the author of the virus.

Especially if, by doing this, the virus can cause 2,200 identies of Oregon taxpayers to be stolen.

I mean, if all of those things came to pass, it would be kind of bad wouldn’t it? Gee, if we don’t know for sure, I guess we’re about to find out.

More than 2,200 Oregon taxpayers’ identities were stolen by a keylogging Trojan horse that infected a state PC after an Oregon Department of Revenue worker browsed porn sites, officials admitted this week.

The identities included Social Security numbers, names, and addresses, and were transmitted to an unknown hacker by the keylogger, said the Department of Revenue in an online FAQ. According to the DOR, its anti-malware filters didn’t pick up the Trojan because it was so new that anti-virus vendors hadn’t yet created detecting signatures.

No taxpayer financial data was lost to the keylogger, the DOR claimed.

Aw gee, well that is certainly a good thing!

Although the part-time worker’s PC was infected in early January, the keylogger went undetected until May 15, when an audit of its hard drive was conducted after the employee was found downloading pornography during work hours and fired.

Monday, Oregon’s DOR began notifying taxpayers whose identities were exposed, and on Wednesday Governor Ted Kulongoski (D) promised that the state would pick up the tab for credit monitoring and other protective services.

You know what this whole identity theft thing is like? It’s like a rapidly-escalating epidemic of whatever can travel by epidemic, just any & all things, after every restaurant worker all over the civilized world develops an incurable drooling condition. From the hundred dollar plate of swordfish all the way down to a 99 cent McDonald’s cheeseburger, everything you can order & eat is just swimming in some stranger’s drool.

Sorry, I know it’s just before two o’clock on a Saturday and a lot of you bloggers are about to eat. But that’s what identity theft is like. We pay bills on the “innernets,” months go by and then a scary story comes out. Then a few more months go by, we pay some more bills, and another scary story comes out — we think very little about it.

These poor guys just had their Social Security numbers stolen because some asshole was surfing porn. With a keylogger grabbing his keystrokes for four freaking months before anyone got wise to what was going on.

So I realize my vulgar analogy might turn a few faces green out there, and I’m sorry for the momentary nausea, but I’m not sorry for my attempt to make the lesson a little more serious and a little easier to remember. If you aren’t doing anything about this…start doing something. Keep those numbers off the “innernets” until you have a good idea what’s being done with them, and where they’re going.