Friday, March 21, 2008

C-SPAN GONE WILD!

Ok, maybe not boobs, as in girls, but boobs I watch on c-span all the time, and as you know, it's usually dry and informative. But this day, it was all about having some immature fun. Heh.



What makes it so funny is that is in such a smug prudish atmosphere. Be ready. I am going to show you some real entertaining fun close to home very soon.

One more thing...

I guess I have to address what Obama said about his white grandmother since everyone else seems to:

This is what he said:

610 WIP host Angelo Cataldi asked Obama about his Tuesday morning speech on race at the National Constitution Center in which he referenced his own white grandmother and her prejudice. Obama told Cataldi that “The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity, she doesn’t, but that she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know (pause) there’s a reaction in her that doesn’t go away and it comes out in the wrong way.”

He was referring to what he said this in his speech:

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

Let me say this first. I cannot imagine in a thousand years a grandmother who would use a racial stereotype in front of a grandson who is black. I just cannot. At least not one who described in such a way as Obama describes her, as loving and caring.

I also cannot imagine a grandmother like that who would tell a black grandchild that she was afraid of black men that passed her on the street.

I just find that hard to believe. Sorry. I could see it from some sorry abusive racist grandmother, but one who loves her grandson as much as "anything?" No. it just doesn't fit.

But let me address the "fear of black men who passed her on the street." Let's be honest here. If a black man or black men (or boys) dressed nicely smiling and talking to each other passed by anyone, I can't imagine anyone being afraid. Give me a break. It isn't so much about being black, but about the look. If they look like thugs with their shirts big and pants hung low and they look like freakin gang members, well hell yeah, anyone might be afraid, no matter what color they were.

You cannot tell me that a black man dressed in suit, well groomed, walking down the street gives cause to fear to anyone except the most racist among us, which I certainly don't believe Obama's grandmother to be.

It's starting to really irritate me for us to couch this discussion in terms of simply black and white. It is about so much more. It's about this culture. It's about stereotypes. It's about distortions of racism. It's about what people really believe.

Maybe Obama is really telling the truth. But it strikes me that he is using politically convenient stories to make a point and they being personal makes it even better. It's a typical political ploy. I guess I didn't expect Obama to use it in such a way.

Can you take one more opinion on Obama/Wright?

Being gone for spring break, I had to catch up on all the Obama/Pastor Wright controversy. I wonder where the MSM was last year when the those on the right discovered Pastor Wright and his crazy rhetoric? Now I see that all kinds of people had this information. But it took ABC news ordering copies of the sermons for it to get out there now. You have to wonder what the difference is though. I can only speculate that Hillary's camp pushed this. There is no way to prove it, but who has the most to gain here by this?

There are the MSM hypocrites of course. Who denounced Hillary for Ferraro, but make excuses for Obama and Pastor Wright. Then there are those on the left who denounced any politician for for not denouncing Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, and yet they also make excuses for Pastor Wright.

So the question comes down to this. If Obama was offended with Pastor Wright saying that 9-11 was America's "chickens coming home to roost," or that Bill Clinton was "riding dirty" with blacks just as he was with Monica Lewinsky, and "no one had ever called Hillary "a Ni**ger," (btw, I'm thinking no one has ever called Obama a b*tch either, so there is that) then why did he continue to go to church there for 20 yrs?

Reasonable people aren't buying it. It wasn't just one statement or one sermon. It is obvious what Pastor Wright believes about America. He believes, for example, that the govt introduced AIDS and drugs into the black community to dispose of them and built more prisons to hold them. With Wright it seems to be all about victimhood and lets' be honest, white people just can't stand the whole victimhood thing.

If you believe the govt did all those things, then you are just crazy. But what is crazier is that so many do believe it.

But let's go farther back. Let's hit slavery since Pastor Wright likes to discuss it so much. Let's even go back to the 50's. Were black people treated terribly? Yes indeed. Do I have to tell you what most white people think about that? They think that it is a terrible past, but it is the past. Italians who immigrated here in the early 1900's were treated terribly. I have a book of pictures from my husband's family that would make you weep for all the sadness and hardship in their faces. Poverty doesn't even began to describe what these people went through. I am Irish. Remember the "No Irish need apply?"

We could spend all day arguing whose ancestors suffered the most as this country was finding it's feet and it's morals. Blacks would almost certainly win that hand. But it is the past.

Am I saying that blacks today have nothing to complain about? No. But you do see how legitimate concerns get dismissed with this kind of rhetoric, don't you?

Pastor Wright likes to focus on the negatives of America, which is ironic since Obama focuses on the positive. But then I am reminded of Michelle Obama saying that this was the first time in her adult life that she has been proud of American and it makes me think that maybe Pastor Wright has had more of an influence on the Obama family thinking than they are willing to admit.

It's good to discuss race. We need to get these feelings out into the open. But it's more than race, isn't it? It's about economic levels as well. I have black neighbors on either side of me. Both my son's best friends are black. But we don't have these same discussions. Why? Because once you are a success, then all things of color seem to fall away. Haven't you noticed that? People of all colors love Oprah and Bill Cosby and Colin Powell. People of all colors have been supporting Obama.

So is it really about race? Or is it about success in life? I don't mean being rich. I mean just making a good living, being a good person, getting an education, and being married and having children.

America likes that. The ordinary stuff.

This will hurt Obama because it makes us question whether he is proud of America or not.

Then there is this particular thing that Obama said in his big "race" speech. He said that the worship hour on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America. I first heard this phrase by Martin Luther King Jr.'s son a few years ago speaking at the Crystal Cathedral on TV. The irony of Obama saying that is that he chooses to go to a church that specifically segregates itself. Did anyone else notice this?

I have to toot the horn of my own church here. I have been attending Catholic Churches for 25 years. We have lived in 5 different cities. I have never attended a church that wasn't diverse. When my kids were in Catholic elementary school, I use to comment on how many different ethnicities were in the school compared to the public school they would have attended.

My point is that I feel it is important, very important that we of all colors and races, worship together, go to school, and work together. It is in knowing one another that all prejudices fall away.

But in the end all this about Obama doesn't really matter because Hillary is going to win this nomination. I have said that from the start and I still believe it. She will not let anyone take this from her. Mark my words.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Random stuff

I am very busy working and I am away for Easter weekend. Expect light blogging. Here are odds and ends to tide you folks over. Sparkle may be back before I am.

Micheal Yon has a new website. Hackers were apparently attacking the old one.

Sands of Passion is a satirical soap opera set in the Mideast. Its worth a repost. Don't worry, the rest of National Banana's material is equally brutal towards others.

Sands of Passion 1
Sands of Passion 2
Sands of Passion 3
Sands of Passion 4
Sands of Passion 5
Sands of Passion 6
Sands of Passion 7
Sands of Passion 8
Sands of Passion 9

I am eagerly awaiting the next season.

Random Quotes:

"Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good. In area after area - crime, education, housing, race relations - the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them. " - Thomas Sowell

"I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is 'needed'' before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents 'interests', I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can." - Barry Goldwater, the greatest president America never had.

"The U.S. Constitution is less than a quarter the length of the owner's manual for a 1998 Toyota Camry, and yet it has managed to keep 300 million of the world's most unruly, passionate and energetic people safe, prosperous and free." - P. J. O'Rourke

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

For fun

Edit: I took down my first headline. RWS would have swatted my nose.

Raising McCain
"Meghan McCain is a 23-year-old, socially liberal John Kerry voter who loves Superbad, Dita von Teese, Bud Light (see right hand), and campaign blogging. Trouble is, this self-described “Daddy’s girl” will do—and say—almost anything to help her 71-year-old father win the White House"

I am posting this because RWS is a staunch McCain supporter. The picture in the article was not a factor, really.

Wait, what? Dita von Teese? The old school burlesque stripper? I will let you do your own keyword searches for that, RWS won't thank me for linking smut. Bud lite? Light beer is evil. There are many American lagars that are underestimated, Bud is not one of them.

FYI, I do not read GQ. I got this link from Fark.
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Can Vegetarians be too Sexy? (warning: Annoying pop-ups)

That is the wrong question. The question is "Are these physcially attractive people single because of serious personality flaws?"

"Turn-Offs: People who don't realize how unnatural it is to eat animals." - Right. unnatural. The vegan lifestyle is unnatural, requiring a modern , expensive distribution system to even be viable. Besides, if we are not supposed to eat animals, why are they made of meat? Also, this woman needs a sandwich.

I like this one: "Hobbies: Hockey, jetting off to Europe, sports, travel, photography, discussing my unfortunate injury at the age of 19, when I was drafted into the NHL." - Um.... right. He's a catch, ladies! Jetting off to Europe is his HOBBY. He also saves cows, or something. (read the article) I have saved puppies, but that is easy. Everyone likes puppies. Cows, whew.... that takes a lot of love to bring a cow into your home, find a cowsitter while you jet off to Europe, etc. Also, he likes to talk about his 10 year old injury. Husband on the hoof, that one.

Open Thread

Open Thread. Won't be able to post until late tonight.

Quotes for edification and consternation:

"It is, I suspect, no accident that it is in Europe that climate change absolutism has found the most fertile soil. For it is Europe that has become the most secular society in the world, where the traditional religions have the weakest popular hold. Yet people still feel the need for the comfort and higher values that religion can provide; and it is the quasi-religion of Green alarmism and what has been termed global salvationism - of which the climate change issue is the most striking example, but by no means the only one - which has filled the vacuum, with reasoned questioning of its mantras regarded as a form of blasphemy." - Nigel Lawson


"All the extravagance and incompetence of our present government is due, in the main, to lawyers.They are responsible for nine-tenths of the useless and vicious laws that now clutter the statute-books, and for all the evils that go with the vain attempt to enforce them. Every Federal judge is a lawyer. So are most Congressmen. Every invasion of the plain rights of the citizen has a lawyer behind it. If all lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones sold to a mah jong factory, we'd all be freer and safer, and our taxes would be reduced by almost a half." - H.L. Mencken.

Quick Links

No Surrender

"In Iraq, America was surrounded by enemies who were sure from the start that the great foreign power was destined to fail. They could not be given the satisfaction of a hasty American retreat. The stakes had grown: We were under the gaze of populations with a keen eye for the weakness of strangers. It was apt and proper that the leader who launched this war did not give up on it."


The Myth of the "Peace-Loving Muslims"

"At this particular time, fanatical jihadists are calling the terrorism shots in many Muslim countries. Their success in committing terrorist acts is in no small part the result of the actions by the millions of peace-loving fellow Muslims. First, there is not enough condemnation of their terrorist acts by the Muslim community. More important is the direct or indirect assistance terrorists receive through the silence of their fellow Muslims. There is no way terrorists can carry on their operations, obtain explosive materials, run terrorist training camps, raise money without the knowledge of other Muslims, whether they're government officials, bankers, family members, friends or neighbors..."

Too many muslims are okay with terrorists carrying out attacks against non-muslims, even quietly approve as long as they are not affected.

In part this is our own fault. We have declared 'war' on terrorists repeatedly before Bush entered office, and then failed to follow up on our threats. Those who supported us were left hanging, exposed to violence and threats without our aid. Bush changed that paradigm, and we need to have the courage to continue.


Mexican Oil Standoff

Mexico has likely shut the door on new oil development just as its biggest fields approach depletion. Pay heed: That's our third-biggest supplier. Now we'll have to find and develop new oil — or else.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Small Bites

Human migration out of Africa may have been in two waves

"Modern humans are known to have left Africa in a wave of migration around 50,000 years ago, but another, smaller group -- possibly a different subspecies -- left the continent 50,000 years earlier, suggests a new study. "

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Free Press Stiffled at UN

Well, no kidding. The UN is not a democracy or a republic. Its a bureaucracy composed mostly of various tyrannies and their sycophants.

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Gun-Rights Showdown

"Significantly, then, both sides in Heller are making only originalist arguments. The challengers of the law contend that the original meaning of the Second Amendment protects an individual "right to keep and bear arms" that "shall not be infringed." In response, the District does not contend that this right is outmoded and that the Second Amendment should now be reinterpreted in light of changing social conditions. Not at all. It contends instead that, because the original intention of the Framers of the Second Amendment was to protect the continued existence of "a well regulated militia," the right it protects was limited to the militia context."

"So one thing is certain. Whoever prevails, Heller will be an originalist decision. This shows that originalism remains the proper method of identifying the meaning of the Constitution."

This is significant. At least the "Living Constitution" arguement is not being put forward. Probably because the "Living Constitution" arguement is nonsense that only impresses ignoramuses at cocktail parties.

For two centuries, it was obvious to everyone that the Second Ammendment was an individual right. This view of the Second ammendment was unchallanged for all that time, and the resulting LACK of rulings to set the precedent on the obvious is actually a problem now. Its only been in the last couple generations when anti-gun agitators have claimed that the second ammendement is a 'collective right', a risable claim that should have been rejected outright. The body of evidence about the Founders intent and meaning of the Constitution leave no doubt as to their meaning. You can't tell that to lawyers. Lawyers care about rulings from courts. While the First Ammendment has been again and again, no such body of rulings girds the Second, and law schools have been teaching BS about the Second for decades now.

______________________________

A Nation of Givers

Questions and answers, comparing American charitable giving to others.

Money quote:

Q. Why shouldn’t the government expand to cover our current charitable giving through taxes, as is done in Europe?

A. First, there is evidence that giving makes people happy. A number of studies have concluded that giving affects our brain chemistry. People who give often report feelings of euphoria, which psychologists have referred to as the “Helper’s High.” They believe that charitable activity induces endorphins that produce a very mild version of the sensations people get from drugs like morphine and heroin.

Second, there is evidence that private giving is implicated in economic growth. Per-capita charity and per-capita GDP in America have moved together over the years. Evidence that the two forces cause each other comes from an analysis of how past values of one variable affect future values of the other. This analysis shows that a 10 percent increase in current GDP per American would lead to a 9 percent rise in charitable giving. At the same time, a 10 percent increase in giving per person would provoke a 3 percent increase in GDP. Given the size of our economy, this means $1 given privately would increase GDP by about $15.

In sum, if we substituted our private charitable giving for government redistributive programs, we would pay a price in terms of economic growth, personal prosperity, and even happiness. Charitable giving should be seen not just as a nice detail about American life, and even less as a mere tax deduction. It should be seen as a national priority.

Emphais mine. Charity belongs at home, at the discretion of the individual. I feel the need to repeat the quote I posted yesterday:

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." - James Madison

That was fun, lets have another:

"That government is best which governs least." - Thomas Paine

Monday, March 17, 2008

On Democracy

The Lawyer Party - The Democratic Party is a party of- and for - lawyers

"The Democratic Party has become the Lawyers' Party. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are lawyers. Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are lawyers. John Edwards, the other former Democrat candidate for president, is a lawyer and so is his wife Elizabeth. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate.) Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Benson, went to law school. Look at the Democrat Party in Congress: the Majority Leader in each house is a lawyer."

"The Republican Party is different. President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not lawyers, but businessmen. The leaders of the Republican Revolution were not lawyers. Newt Gingrich was a history professor; Tom Delay was an exterminator; and Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer, not a lawyer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon."

"Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office thirty-one years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work. The Democratic Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history like Gingrich."

"The Lawyers' Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America. And so we have seen the procession of official enemies in the eyes of the Lawyers' Party grow. Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers and anyone producing anything of value in our nation."

The effect of lawyerdom are pervasive and perverse. Lawyers should not be seen as synonymous with the rule of law. Lawyers seek to change the plain language of law to make themselves indespensible, they parse words and pursue results that have no bearing on justice or common sense.

Domestic governance is not the only thing harmed by the rise of lawyerdom. Perry de Havilland sums it up neatly:

"There is a powerful strain of thought in the United States which sees the world as essentially capable of reduction to a series of legal processes, and more specifically American legal processes. Acts of war by foreigners are seen as 'crimes', legal infractions, rather than acts of war, and anything that happens anywhere can be a source of legal action (and income) for American lawyers." - Perry de Havilland

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Why US is the great democracy

"Many Australians believe they know all about America. On business trips they sidle through the galleries of New York, or amble down the boulevards of Los Angeles, and imagine that they have gained some essential insight into the American character. Back home they watch American TV and movies, and teach themselves that American society is gaudy, individualistic and lacking in decorum. "

"On the whole, though, most Australians' knowledge of American politics remains limited to a series of crude, child-like stereotypes of the type another generation may have attributed to deepest, darkest Africa."

One thing I have pointed out to foreign friends repeatedly is that TV and movies are FICTION. Watching American TV gives no more insight into America than watching Fawlty Towers gives into life in Britain. The real lives and routine of Americans is not entertaining. Violence, conflict, hot juicy scandal, car chases, torrid romances, offbeat charactors are interesting precisely because almost no one actually experiences these things in real life.

Hollywood isn't America, nor really American. Hollywood movies are designed to appeal to a worldwide audience. Explosions and special effects appeal to everyone from Minnisota to Tanzania to Hong Kong. Hollywood is populated by people from all over the world. Austrian (or Australian, German, Canadian, British, French, Chinese, Italian... etc etc) actors, Dutch directors, Spanish producers, Japanese technicians, French money. There is nothing quinessentially American about Hollywood in culture nor in product.

"One of our favourite fictions about the US is that its citizens, disillusioned by a lack of choice, don't bother to vote. And yet Americans vote, up hill and down dale, for everything and everybody that moves. For school boards, for precinct committees, for police chiefs, for judges, for district attorneys. "

more:

"In the early 1800s, the French observer Alexis de Tocqueville -- who never settled for the business traveller itinerary, or confused a gallery tour with a social insight -- investigated the American predilection for local political association. As a citizen of a frontier society, Tocqueville observed, an American "learns from birth that he must rely upon himself to combat the ills and obstacles of life". "

"Yet this didn't simply cause Americans to become hardy individualists: it also enforced upon them the importance of friends, neighbours and local community. And so it impelled them outwards as well as inwards, bonding in local associations to form clubs, organise festivities, or provide mutual aid. "

Quoting and understanding de Tocqueville is in my mind on of the esentials of understanding American democracy. Too few Americans do, and foreignors who make the effort are extraordinary.

I have little to add, so I will quote random wisdom of a Founder:

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." - James Madison

Wish Congress would have remembered that one.

The Pope Said...

What the Pope actually said:

"At the end of this solemn celebration in which we have meditated on Christ's Passion, I would like to recall the late Chaldean archbishop of Mosul, Monsignor Paulos Faraj Rahho, who tragically died a few days ago."

"His beautiful witness of fidelity to Christ, to the Church and his people, whom he did not want to abandon despite numerous threats, moves me to cry out forcefully and with distress: Enough with the bloodshed, enough with the violence, enough with the hatred in Iraq! "

more:

"And at the same time I make an appeal to the Iraqi people, who for five years have endured the consequences of a war that has provoked upheaval in its civil and social life: Beloved Iraqi people, lift up your heads and let it be you yourselves who, in the first place, rebuild your national life!"

"May reconciliation, forgiveness, justice and respect for the civil coexistence of tribes, ethnic groups and religious groups be the solidary way to peace in the name of God!"

What Nicole Winfield of the AP said he said:

"The pope also denounced the 5-year-long Iraq war, saying it had provoked the complete breakup of Iraqi civilian life."

Note the differences in the differences in the linked articles. Comparing them side by side, the ZENIT article pretty much let the Pope's own words stand verbatim with only transitional and a background information to put the Pope's words in context. The AP article by Nicole Winfield, in contrast, broke Pope Benedict's speech up into sentance fragments, removing them from context and adding editorial commentary unsupported by the actual speech.

Why, How, and What

William Kristol on the links between Saddam and Al Queda

"But here's the truth. The executive summary of the report is extraordinarily misleading. The full report, released Thursday night, states, for example, on page 42: "Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda's stated goals and objectives." In fact, as Stephen F. Hayes reports in this issue, the study outlines a startling range of connections between Saddam and various organizations associated with al Qaeda and other terror groups."

No, Saddam was not behind 9/11. The Bush administration ever said that. Nor did Fox News. Its common for many on the Left to claim that Bush linked 9/11 to Saddam and then knock down the straw man arguement they created. Bush DID link Saddam to terrorism claiming he was a state sponsor of terrorism, which is supported by the evidence.


Frederick Kagan:
"However, the most surprising phenomenon of the war has been the transformation of the United States military into the most discriminate and effective counterinsurgency force the world has ever seen, skillfully blending the most advanced technology with human interactions between soldiers and the Iraqi people. Precision-guided weapons allowed our soldiers and marines to minimize collateral damage while using our advantages in firepower to the full."

"Once we pushed most of our combat forces into close interactions with the Iraqi people, the information they obtained ensured that the targets they hit were the right ones. Above all, the compassion and concern our soldiers have consistently shown to civilians and even to defeated and captured enemies have turned the tide of Iraqi opinion."


John Bolton concerning our North Korean policy.
"Since they were conceived in spring 2003, the Six-Party Talks have stumbled around inconclusively. And for the last 13 months, Pyongyang has ignored, stalled, renegotiated and violated the Feb. 13, 2007 agreement."

"Throughout all this "negotiation," which has mostly consisted of our government negotiating with itself, North Korea has benefited enormously. It's been spared the truly punishing sanctions that concerted international effort might have produced. In large part because of the appeasement policies of the two previous South Korean governments, Pyongyang has not felt the full impact of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) on its outward proliferation efforts. The U.S. has muzzled its criticism of North Korea's atrocious oppression of its own citizens. And, perhaps most humiliatingly of all, the U.S., in a vain effort at chasing the mirage, gave up its most effective pressure point -- the financial squeeze -- allowing Pyongyang renewed access to international markets through institutions like Banco Delta Asia."

Emphasis mine. The North Koreans are adept at exploiting a major weakness in the US policymaking process. Now I can go into the causes behind the American propensity to negotiate endlessly and fruitlessly, but it can be summed up simply: Americans talk too much.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Sunday Night Socializing


For music lovers, the internet radio station site Pandora is a great resource. No commercials, the stations you create are based on your musical preferences. I have found artists that I would otherwise not have known.
For fun, What's a Girl to Do? , a music video by the Brighton, England group Bat for Lashes, led by singer/songwriter Natasha Khan. Not generally my kind of music but I rather liked it.



Doggie snacks

Mark Steyn on Obama's pastor

Victor Davis Hanson on Democrats and race

Bush's Bulls Eyes Why IBD runs many of Bush's speeches verbatum: because he's right and its rarely covered.


From the Dusty Pile of Goodies: How to explain Conservatism to your Squishy Liberal Friends by P J O'Roarke

From the Left: A 'nuanced' view of Sharia law by Noah Feldman
I considered 'fisking' this article, but I will let it stand for the reader to ponder.

I knew it!

Beer drinkers have bigger brains.

Beer is liquid bread and its good for you.