Vista, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, October 20, 2007
Fast fires consume California. They take men's homes and the habitat of "protected" and unprotected species without fear or favor; without asking permission of the coastal commission or the EPA. Whether sparked by nature or arson, the decades of overbuilding, misbegotten "environmentally correct" management policies, the logjam of litigation that prevents stewardship, all combine -- like the fires and the winds themselves combine -- into "the perfect firestorm."
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
I've got a little list--I've got a little list.... - W. S. Gilbert
"The List" is the bane of testosterone-driven humans. "The List" is kept in the secret mental lock-box of human beings of the estrogen persuasion. Some believe that "The List" is a social construct, while others believe that "The List" is hard-wired into the DNA of the human female. I favor the latter theory since it seems to me that "The List" is merely a subset of "The Plan" -- and "The Plan" is not only part and parcel of the basic makeup of the human female regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, or historic epoch, it is also the reason that -- over time -- women triumph over men. Women, in short, always have a life plan while men are stuck with something that looks like a cross between a spread sheet without a recalc button and a really slick marketing idea.
Continued...
The Asheville, North Carolina restaurant was one of those common to our post-post-modern world. Open and airy with a wall of windows framing hanging plants. Casual to the point of paper napkins. Sporting a list of local beers and -- surprise -- local wines. Tarted up with the kind of overtly ironic art on the walls where the painter has one statement and one image in his repertoire and repeats it ad nauseam. This time it seemed that the sensibility being trotted out was one of Hieronymous Bosch meets Hello Kitty.
The menu, a litany of updated regional classics such as black-eyed pea cakes, was relentlessly "improved" by garnishes such as avocados and Basmati rice. The joint's "philosophy" -- since all new restaurants must now publish a justifying manifesto along with their menu -- centered on the now tedious homage to "local" "organic" produce and a dedication to "reviving tradition" -- plus the removal of trans-fats. Collard greens, sweetened lima beans, and salty sweet potatoes bracketed the entrees. In the center you'd find rib-eyes under slathers of sauteed onions, broiled slabs of local fish dusted with some orange spice, chickens with a roasted-on glaze, pork in five different variations, and dried cranberries slipped into cakes on the sly just when you thought it was safe.
It was a boutique version of the kind of food once common to the region, but that now survived either in roadside diners named "Granny's" and "Hubert and Sal's,"or at upscale nostalgic eateries such
Continued...[Note: First published on September 22, 2004 as WHY WE ARE IN IRAQ : Military Bases Are A Requirement, Democracy is Merely an Elective. Only the names have changed. The songs remain the same.]
"Did you ever get the feeling that you wanted to go?
And still get the feeling that you wanted to stay?"
-- Jimmy Durante
Resolved: To safeguard the personal and economic wellbeing of the civilized world in the 21st century, it is essential for the United States to control Iraq for strategic and tactical military purposes alone.
Let's take a step back from our always entertaining electoral circus to cast a cold eye on what needs to be done in Iraq beyond November and far beyond 2005. Don't watch the hand waving the magic wand around, watch the hand held behind the back. It holds what is going to be pulled out of the hat.
Instead of spending untold hours listening to this or that speech from the two sides of the American coin, it's more instructive to take down an atlas, turn to a spread displaying the middle-east and meditate on what needs to be done to control that section of the world.
And while you're at it here's a couple of things you can forget about:
- 1) Democracy in Iraq at all costs. Forget that "We" are in Iraq to bring the blessings of "democracy" to the people. It would be a nice gift to instill "democracy" in an Islamic state of the middle-east. We will spend a lot of money trying to achieve this. We will be sincere in our desire for it to be born. It will make our task easier in the short and long term. But "democracy" is not strictly necessary for the current strategic interests of the United States in the region.
"Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a 'cowardly' attack on 'civilization' or 'liberty' or 'humanity' or 'the free world' but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions?" Susan Sontag, September 24, 2001
A more cynical person might believe that the only reason Obama is in the race is to make Hillary look like an actual patriot, and is, in fact, working for the Clintons on a nod and wink for 2012. But why would I believe something like that?
Continued...
"A man's got to have a code, a creed to live by, no matter his job." -- John Wayne
Once upon a time, there was "The Code of the West." [Original here] That was long ago, far away and in another country. Now there is only, "The Code of the Left." I've compared the two here. The Code of the West is in plain text. The Code of the Left is in italics because, well, it is just so damned important!
* Don't inquire into a person's past. Take the measure of a man for what he is today.
* There are no "people," only "social policies." Don't inquire into a social policy's past or that policy's likely consequences for the future. Take the measure of a policy by how closely it maps to the Socialist Utopia that has already killed and crippled hundreds of millions of people. Dream big nightmares.
* Never steal another man's horse. A horse thief pays with his life.
* Always look to steal another man's money with a "tax." Always ask your fellow citizen to reach for his wallet. All tax thieves are rewarded with a fat government pension and fatter health plan.
* Defend yourself whenever necessary.
* Do not defend yourself or the country under any circumstances. Killers are just grown-up kids who were abused. Terrorists are just people who haven't had their issues listened to with compassion. Make sure nobody else can defend themselves. Use only diplomacy to defend your country. Armies are raised only to place sandbags around towns about to be flooded for the fifth time. When that happens use government money to enable the fools who built them to rebuild them.
Since the Democrat Party seems to be having problems coming up with a way to end the war in Iraq, it may be time to look into folk wisdom to help these afflicted souls out.
According to Old Time Cures and Remedies here's how people dealt with wars when people were self-reliant.
Wars [Stopping them]
- Make a paste of baking soda and spirits of camphor and apply every night. Cover with a bandage. Remove in morning. Removes all kinds of wars, even stubborn planter's wars that resist every "medical" treatment.
- Rub the war with a rock.* Put the rock in a tobacco sack and throw it over your left shoulder.
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"Children seem to be 'diagnosed' with lots of things lately. It has become customary for at least one of their parents to be somehow 'enthusiastic' about said diagnosis, sometimes even confessing to having requested or demanded the diagnosis. Said parent is invariably female. Said child is invariably male. The lopsided gender trend is curious, and so is the spectacle of parents ordering diagnoses for their children, like pizzas or textbooks." - House of Eratosthenes
Please study this evidence carefully. The saints of San Diego and surrounding areas in California NEED TO BE WARNED of the MAJOR JUDGMENT coming upon them that will be MUCH WORSE THAN 911. This evidence shows JULY 8, 2008 is hard coded in the Word of God as the next Major Judgment Date that will fulfill scripture just like the attack on the Twin Towers Sept 11, 2001 and Hurricane Katrina fulfilled scripture . It cannot be prayed away and It will not be delayed. -- !!! 2,492 DAYS !!!
"I'm surprised at how finely calibrated every single word was measured. I wasn't saying anything I hadn't said before, that I didn't say a year ago or when I was a United States senator," said Obama, who is still a senator from Illinois. -- Obama puzzled by Iraq comment frenzy
A woman fell into a tank of slurry as she tried to make "manure bombs" using her stockings, German police today said. The unfortunate woman stripped off her foul smelling clothes and fled the scene naked, along with a female accomplice wearing just her bra and pants, a police spokesman told Reuters. - Cow dung fate for 'manure bomber' | World news | guardian.co.uk
"As Marie-Antoinette is said to have remarked about her starving subjects who were demanding bread, "Let then eat cake," our elected Democratic members of Congress are in effect saying of Americans, "Let them ride bikes." -- It's Time for Rage - HUMAN EVENTS
"500 years ago, oil was not a resource. Neither was uranium. People around at the time didn't know how to use them. Things that weren't resources became resources. Our ability to use new resources made old resources obsolete. Now, no home in the UK needs to burn wood for heat, for example. Or, as Bjorn Lomborg has put it, the Stone Age didn't come to an end because we ran out of stones." - Climate Resistance: Infinite Regress
"Seattle Police opened fire on a suspect in Downtown Seattle this morning who they say robbed a West Seattle bank wearing black shoe polish on his face and a wig." - Police shoot bank robbery suspect Seattle, Washington
So there I was, in the lion's den, calling Joe Lieberman an asshole. And people applauded and cheered. - Kos: Into the tiger's den
Kaboom: A Soldier's War Journal: News Well, LT G got the order from his chain-of-command to delete his blog. I guess no longer posting wasn't good enough.Archive survives at the link.
Howard Dean in 2004: "Military experience is vital"
"Who would you rather have in charge of the defense of the United States of America, a group of people who never served a day overseas in their life, or a guy who served his country honorably and has three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star on the battlefields of Vietnam?" McCain, by the way, has been awarded the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, two Bronze Star Medals, a Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross.
"All the News that's Fit to Print"? How about "Yesterday's News, Spun and Bent"? - Roger's Rules - The New York Times catches up with Mark Steyn (sort of)
"Let's assume that talking on a hands-free cellphone indeed leads to higher accident rates. So I ask: What is the difference between talking over a hands-free cellphone and talking to a passenger in the car? I say there is no difference; both can present distractions. Therefore, in the name of public safety, I strongly urge -- no, demand -- that state legislatures immediately act to prohibit all talk in moving automobiles." - Donald Pittenger
Washington DC - In a sweeping 4 1/2 to 3.14159 decision with 1.35841 abstaining, the United States Supreme Court handed down a ruling this morning in the landmark Abdul the Party Clown v. U.S case, recognizing the individual rights to gun ownership by child rapists and Guantanamo detainees. The decision was immediately hailed by international human rights activists and child rape organizations..... In his dissenting opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said "I totally fucking give up." -- iowahawk: Court Okays Gun Rights for Detainees, Child Rapists
S+ = F- (More Safety equals less Freedom)
"In government economics, supply and demand are irrelevant -- what counts are the feelings of major campaign contributors and large voting blocks. In government economics, you take money based on rate of increase of profits, not on actual profits. In government economics, you claim that a program's funding was cut because you decreased its annual rate of funding increases. In government economics, forcing businesses to increase wages is improving the free market. In government economics, you repeatedly overestimate tax revenues and economic growth and repeatedly underestimate government expenditures, interest on debt, and future obligations. There must be some secret place where government economics is taught, since it doesn't appear in university catalogs. Maybe that's what goes on at Area 51." -- Dr. T @ Coyote Blog: Economic Morons in Europe, but is Congress Much Better?
Obama was introduced by Karen Bass, the California Assembly Speaker. Donors sipped wine and bottled water. Waiters wearing black vests, white shirts and black ties served hors d'oeuvres: endive spears of brie, toasted almonds and truffle oil; tuna tartare with passion fruit ponzu and macadamia nut on wonton crisp; beef short rib skewers with Asian flavors." -- Lynn Sweet: Obama Hollywood fund-raiser. Pool reports
"In many ways nonsense is a more effective organizing tool than the truth. Anyone can believe in the truth. To believe in nonsense is an unforgeable demonstration of loyalty. It serves as a political uniform. And if you have a uniform, you have an army." - Unqualified Reservations: OL4: Dr. Johnson's hypothesis
"It's also critical that you avoid the fatal mistake of getting creative and comparing people you don't like to other evil dictators, such as Joseph Stalin or Fidel Castro. With few exceptions, white people are actually fond of almost any dictator not named Hitler...." - Stuff White People Like
Power has all the usual reasons to hide. Power is delicious, and everyone wants it. To bite into its crisp, sweet flesh, to lick its juices off your lips -- this is more than pleasure. It is satisfaction. It is fulfillment. It is meaning. The love of a bird for a caterpillar is a tenuous and passing attachment next to the bond between man and power." - Unqualified Reservations: OL7: the ugly truth about government
"A listing of books, a Web site, movies and restaurants on Friday with the Weekend Explorer column, about sites in New York associated with the photographer Weegee, referred incorrectly to Lombardi’s Pizza, at 32 Spring Street on the Lower East Side, an area where Weegee lived and worked. It sells pizza only as pies, not by the slice." - Corrections - For the Record - NYTimes.com
"Here we stand. We have squandered great wealth to defeat death -- only to find ourselves impoverished, and turning to death itself for our answers. The succubus we sought to defeat now dominates us, for she is a lusty and insatiable whore. We have sacrificed our humanity, our compassion, our empathy, our humility in the face of a force far greater than ourselves, while forgetting the power and grace and the vision which first led us and empowered us on this grand crusade. Our weapons are now turned upon us; let the slaughter begin." - Crossing That Dark River | The Doctor Is InOn the Oregon Health Plan that will pay for cancer patients to die, but not to live.
Then:
"How tough do we have it, really? Our most threatening menace is a gallon of gas that costs four dollars and sixty cents." -- House of Eratosthenes
Doing the Job American Journalism Won't Do By Counting the Jobs They Will:
Obama Media BJs To Date - "Not that there's anything wrong with that."
Marriage as it is known would have to end but couples could form mutually agreed unions. They would list their "desires, diseases, needs" on little cards and a central authority would decide who was fitted for whom. - Socialists made eugenics fashionable
It is weird how so many who claim to like Obama hope he is lying.
"And with the loss of transcendentals comes the loss of the human -- not to mention the hero, the saint, the sage. These are our fixed "vertical stars" that have always guided us up the ladder of ascent, but in the Darwinian paradigm, these are all illusions, pure and simple. Richard Dawkins is greater than Shankara. Chrisopher Hitchens is superior to Meister Eckhart. Ray Ingles is on a higher plane than Jesus. " - One Cosmos: Religious Humanism vs. Darwinist Animalism
"You know, I did not want Barack to go into politics because I thought politics was a mean business. And you know, I knew this man that I loved, he was sweet and pathetic, I thought. there was no way....... Lynn Sweet: "The View" ladies dive in to rescue Michelle Obama after she calls Barack "pathetic." UPDATE Obama spokesman Vietor said Michelle said "empathetic.""Empathetic" Yeah, right.
That punk Morgan over at House of Eratosthenes is "Hot Pants -- Upping the Ante". Oh, yeah? He says, "This can't possibly end well." Oh, yeah?
Dukes of Hazard
Wife #2
Wife #1
Girlfriend #49
wear them myself.
"I do have recollections of black women who aren't angry, and each and every single one of them is a person I know from talking face-to-face. Electronic media is a very different thing, because in that forum there are powerful nameless faceless people who get to decide what I'm ready to see. And for reasons I don't quite understand -- or maybe I do, and that's a loathsome thought by itself -- these nameless faceless people seem to think the black woman I'm ready to see has to be angry, or else I have little interest in seeing her." - House of Eratosthenes
This playset is one of the best purchases I have made for my three-year-old. In the past, when we have been stopped at roadblocks, or when during one of Daddy's arrests, he would start crying uncontrollably. Now, after playing with this for the past several months, he is perfectly docile. As an adjunct to this product, I would also recommend that you purchase the Playmobil Armed Standoff Playset, Fisher-Price Little People Battering Ram, and the Nerf Tear-Gas Canister Deployment Gun.
"Looking at Germany, then, Iran sees a country with nothing to counter the pressure of merely an implied nuclear threat. Jihadists see the linchpin of Europe, easy of access and inadvertently hospitable to operations, that will hardly punish those who fall into its hands, and that can neither accomplish on its own a flexible expeditionary response against a hostile base or sponsor, nor reply in kind to a nuclear strike. Thus the German government should be especially nervous about cargos trucked overland from the east." - Mark Helprin - The New Soft Underbelly of Europe
"Spring is in the air! Its the time of year to release your gametes into the water and make baby barnacles. But wait a second, you are a permanent fixture on a rock. Can't move. What is a young, lovestruck sessile she-male to do? Well, if you are hung like a barnacle you don't really have to move that far." -Deep Sea News : Environment Shapes Barnacle Penis
"The easy story is the one right down the hall and the easy story that "speaks to the heart" is the one that speaks directly to the writer's heart. NBC News, I'm sorry you lost a skilled colleague and a well-liked friend but he is not the news. Report his death, cry in private and get back to work. -- And man up a little, willya? It's creepy to see grown up men blathering like schoolgirls. Ew." -- Roberta X
"I hope it was a good idea to appease those Hillfems by partnering with Elizabeth Edwards on my Health Care platform. I'll let you in on a little secret, the health care plan is one of those "throw away" platforms every candidate has. We never really plan on improving or changing it, it's what we call a "filler piece" we can fall back on if we hit a hard spot. See also the Environment. I gotta run Countdown is about to start, hit me back when you get a chance. I left you a message on myspace." - vksempireofdirt.com
"The sheer repetition of lies about Bush is wearing people down. There is not a liberal in this country worthy of kissing Bush's rear end, but the weakest members of the herd run from Bush. Compared to the lickspittles denying and attacking him, Bush is a moral giant -- if that's not damning with faint praise. John McCain should be so lucky as to be running for Bush's third term. Then he might have a chance." - Ann Coulter
In Bizarro World, illegal foreign combatants are granted constitutional rights; in Bizarro World, people react to high gas prices and energy shortfalls by refusing to boost domestic capacity. - LILEKS (James) the Bleat
"Do you really think most of the halfwit 'celebrities' who contribute to my blog even know how to write a complete sentence? So really, it's not like anyone noticed when I switched to AutoBlogger anyway."
"If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun," Obama said at a fundraiser in Philadelphia Friday, according to pool reports. Uh huh. I hope he also brings a gun permit, a trigger lock, and a good lawyer. And a health care plan. -- JustOneMinute: The Chicago Way
Yes. Hulk. Smash. Yes. Smash. Big Hulk smash. Smash cars. Buildings. Army tanks. Hulk not just smash. Hulk also go rarrr! Then smash again. Smash important, obviously. Smash Hulk's USP. What Hulk smash most? Hulk smash all hope of interesting time in cinema. Hulk take all effort of cinema, effort getting babysitter, effort finding parking, and Hulk put great green fist right through it. - Peter Bradshaw @ guardian.co.uk Film
"The Environmental Puritans agree with the ayatollahs on this one point: America is the Great Satan. And Obama echoes that view when he refers to our gasoline consumption, our eating, and our air-conditioning and heating as if they were sins for which we are accountable to the rest of the world.... Let me guess, though, where Obama's thermostat is set. You can't run for president and have people see you sweat."
The end. Who says scrolling is without rewards?
"I am going to stay optimistic. Chistendom can be revived -- not through political action, but by fulfilling the Great Commission with both word and deed. Good people create good culture, from which springs good government. By living the words of Our Lord, we have the hope of becoming good people; therefore, it is imperative that we concentrate all our energies on doing so. It's salt, light, and leaven that will defeat the Conspiracy."
"Pity the nation that reaches a point where it needs a Churchill to save it; but pity even more a nation that, needing a Churchill, fails to find one." - Adam Kirsch, The New York Sun
- Slow Fires in the Great Smoky Mountains
- The List
- Grace in the Blue Ridge Mountains
- Out? Not So Fast. Our Military Bases in Iraq Are Essential
- Obama: The 9/10 "Patriot"
- The Code of the Left
- Old Time War Remedies for New Age Democrats