Punch it up

Here’s a punch recipe my Wonder Woman glommed onto at a teacher luncheon, slightly edited with a third world county “flavor”:

Ingredients:
3oz package Jello (sugared or artificially sweetened, your choice)
One or two 2-litre bottle of Sprite (the pop, not some fairy, OK?)
[N.B. the recipe I was handed had no amounts for the pop]

Method:
Dissolve the Jello (strawberry-banana or your choice) in 2C boiling water as per package directions.
Add 1 can (size not given–assume large) Dole Pineapple juice (or better if you have a fav)
1 can water equal to pineapple juice
[N.B.–I’d have a can of crushed or chunk pineapple handy for later if it were me]
Stir. Freeze for 48 hrs. Thaw three hours and chunk it up with a large fork.
Serve in punch bowl with Sprite. [Add pineapple chunks or slices if you want–I would.]

I imagine this would work as well served from a pitcher on a hot summer’s evening as an accompaniment to a barbeque meal on the deck.

Teaser—the psychotic world of modern liberalism

I hesitated to even use the word “liberalism” in the post title, because that’s actually a part of the “liberal psychosis”—amphibolous use of terms that mean something until, finally, the term has been used so many different and contradictory ways that it is virtually meaningless.

That’s the first clue one often has that someone in a conversation is a liberal psychotic: they use words in ways that make one think they are sane, but eventually one realizes that when they say “white” they are talking about what every sane person knows is “black”.

Example: free speech. Seems plain enough, doesn’t it?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The “free speech” clause is plain, simple, readily understandable by anyone who has grade school literacy. “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech…” Currently, “liberals” take that clause to mean that common folks have no right to speak out publicly against a candidate for election within a certain period of time before said election occurs (McCain-Feingold–arch-“liberal” Feingold and snake-in-the-grass McCain, who pretends to call himself a conservative), and that Congress ought to abrogate the free speech of organizations that offer women an alternative to abortion.

“Free speech” is only allowed in the liberal psychotic’s view when that speech either agrees with the preconceptual biases of the liberal psychotic or can be marginalized, demonized or simply shut up. That’s right: as the two examples already cited demonstrate, if a view opposing that of “liberals” can be silenced, then it is deemed “free speech”.

Crazy, huh?

OK, I said this was a teaser, and it is. This is an extremely brief intro to a multi-post exploration of “liberal psychosis”—also known as “reality-based fantasy”—that I expect to post in small pieces over the next few weeks. If I had not posted this teaser, I probably would have simply let the thing slide, but now I have to get it out.

Tell you what. Post your contributions or arguments in comments here and I’ll include or rebut them—giving credit where due—as time goes on.

BTW, Angel has her first OTA Open Trackback party this weekend. Go ahead and trackback to her post, wouldya?

“Medicare (Mis)management”

Via email from Hugh H., this lil morality play in one act…


The phone rings and the lady of the house
answers, “Hello”?

“Mrs. Walker, please.”

“Speaking.”

“Mrs. Walker, this is Doctor Jones at the
Medical Testing Laboratory. When your
doctor sent your husband’s biopsy to the
lab yesterday, a biopsy from another Mr.
Walker arrived as well, and we are now
uncertain which one is your husband’s.
Frankly the results are either bad or terrible.”

“What do you mean?” Mrs. Walker asks
nervously.

“Well, one of the specimens tested positive
for Alzheimer’s and the other one tested
positive for AIDS. We can’t tell which is
your husband’s.”

“That’s dreadful! Can’t you do the test again?”
questioned Mrs. Walker.

“Normally we can, but Medicare will only pay
for these expensive tests one time.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do now?”
asked Mrs. Walker.

“The people at Medicare recommend that
you drop your husband off somewhere in
the middle of town. If he finds his way
home, don’t sleep with him!”


You know, this sort of humor just doesn’t work without a real world meme to support it, in this case, Medicare itself, in all its bureaucratic “glory”, conflated with AIDS and Alzheimers… The sad truth that so many government programs, like Medicare, are fundamentally broken and cannot be fixed without cures that are worse than the diseases makes this classic humor: we laugh simply because it’s better than crying or attempting to storm the Bastille, as it were.

Checking my deductible and Medicare co-pay at Conservative Cat, Outside the Beltway, and at TMH’s Bacon Bits, where The Mary Hunter is taking the high road this Palm Sunday weekend.

Friday, Weekend Open Post/Short Roundup

(Yeh, Friday’s Open Trackback Alliance post is open All Weekend Long—link to this post and trackback. See more info below the post body.)


If you’ve missed these gems in the last few days, buckle up, start clicking and enjoy the ride.

Christine just won’t put her teacup down… unless there’s a good cuppa joe or a luscious piece of chocolate needing her attention. Check out Jerry Garcia’s Magic Herb Tea and Yesterday & Today for samples. And DO click on over to her Flikr CTC photoset (get the link at her place) for pics of enough goodies to put on five ten pounds just from looking at the pics. She even throws a lil bit of jazz music history in for spice!

The Random Yak has The Random Carnival up, and it’s a wittier roundup of interesting material than I can do (though somehow one of my posts even ended up there! Miracles happen, eh? :-)). Well, even the carnival name and format is… uniquely Yak-ish: Carnival of Random Posts I Think You Should Read. *heh* Commenting is still “unenabled” there, so send ’em an e-, wouldya?

The English Guy Discovers Dawn; alarm clock works. *heh*

Civilization committing suicide: responsible behavior and welfare. *sigh* Would that it were a joke.

TSA goons abuse 83-year-old woman. Move along. Nothing to see here… Anarcho-tyranny. “When a stupid man does something he knows is wrong, he always insists it is his duty” or something to that effect… Just read it. You’ll feel oh so very much safer. I promise. (And I have some wonderful ocean-front property in Arizona I think you’d find interesting, too.)

Angel is getting focused on what’s important this time of year, here and here. (Thanks for the reminder, Angel. I’ve been meaning to get a couple of those kindsa posts up myself.)

Woody does a riff off a piece from the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiller.

Alexandra keeps attracting the poles apart folks: reasonable folk who appreciate arguing from fact and the “usual suspects” from the realm of internet trolldom who think endless links to fantasies and repeated lies constitute argument. Hey, Alexandra! Don’t hog all the trolls, OK? 🙂 Some of us like to dress them up and use them as rhetorical targets. Cute lil buggers spouting gibberish and all that…

And over at Big Lizards, Daffy ab Hugh points out an insidious polemic fallacy. I try to make a similar argument from time to time, but he does it in his typically pellucid style.

S’all for now.


As I said, this is an Open Trackbacks post all weekend long. Link this post and track back.

Also note the other fine blogs featuring linkfests at Linkfest Haven.

Linkfest Haven

ACLU moves to quench free speech

crossposted from Stop The ACLU

Via BP News

A new congressional effort to police advertising by crisis pregnancy centers is unnecessary, pro-life advocates said,
and unconstitutional, free-speech defenders charged.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has long promoted itself as the leading defender of freedom of speech and civil rights, is
right in the middle of the controversy, promoting the new legislation to the surprise of some.

However, this is not suprising to us at all. The ACLU have a long history of being selective in defending free speech, especially when it comes to pro-lifers. Besides, defending the first amendment is only third on the ACLU’s list of priorities, abortion is their number one priority.

Continue reading “ACLU moves to quench free speech”

Selling out

when I read this I heard, in my mind’s ear, Tennessee Ernie Ford singing

Sixteen tons and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
St peter don’t you call me, ’cause I can’t go;
I owe my soul to the company store

Chinese man tries to sell his soul online

The man, in his late 20s, from Jiaxing, near Shanghai, attempted to sell his soul on Taobao, China’s top online auction site.

He attracted bids from some 58 potential buyers before the posting was pulled, reports China Daily.

I wonder what the bids were…

See today’s linkfests at Linkfest Haven

Linkfest Haven

Here’s an idea…

Why don’t alla youse guys who are on blogger who have me blogrolled and multi-linked in posts go ahead and switch over to WordPress. Here’s how ya do it (to benefit ME, of course! :-)):

1.) Set up your new WordPress Blog
2.) Make sure I’m the first one you put on your blogroll (that’s a very important step! Don’t forget: this is all about ME. heh)
3.) Import alla your old Blogger posts.
4.) Go back through all of ’em and change the links from any old Blogger twc links to the New! Improved! twc address.
5.) Make sure you leave your old Blogger blog up forever (after all, you DO want folks to find you, and I can tell ya, about half my traffic is still folks finding me from my Blogger blog… )

See? You’ve just doubled your links to me. Thank you very much!

Oh, and you would have helped me in my nevernding search for Truth! justice! and The American Way! as I keep trying to get Technorati to let me claim my own blog…

Just an idea. Now, get busy, ‘K?

Give ’em a taste of what they say they want

John Stephemson sent out a lil note about this monument to educratic stupidity:

Schools Ban Patriotic Clothes, Flags

Reason given?

“According to school officials, some students are using the garments and flags to taunt classmates.”

If the students wear/wave the American flag AND taunt kids who identify with the “reconquistas” movement, THEN they are ENGAGING IN POLITICAL SPEECH, WHICH IS SPECIFICALLY THE _ONLY_ KIND OF SPEECH THE FIRST AMENDMENT ADDRESSES, apart from religious practice, which can contain speech and other aspects of expression.

(Minor apologies for the “shouting” but it’s either that or increase the font size by an order of magnitude… at least *sigh*)

I do with our judges and justices had the sense God gave a head of cabbage and could actually read what the First Amendment says, what the Framers said they intended it to mean (which is, shock!, exactly what it does say, no more and no less), and then say clearly: “Political SPEECH (not “expression”—the Framers SPECIFICALLY excluded that as an interpretation!) is protected by the Constitution. For protection of other speech or expression, look to state or local government.”

School officials who do not

a.) expel students who provoke AMERICAN students by proclaiming allegiance to another country and intent to conquer (at least portions of) America and
b.) affirm and support students who proclaim their alliegiance to the U.S.

…need an introduction to Dr. Tarr and Mr. Fether… and “rail transport” out of town… and across the nearest border to “Aztlan”.

Students waving a Mexican flag and proclaiming allegiance to “reconquista” are engaging NOT in free political speech but in sedition and should be punished… or deported to the land of their affections.

Hoisting the AMERICAN flag at Basil’s Blog, The Real Ugly American and Jo’s Cafe.

Yeh, yeh: it took me forever to catch the typo in the post title. Fixed now.