"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
And a well deserved “2X4 upside the head” delivered to “racist and sexist… misogynistic moonbats with Asian whore fixations…”
Just read Michelle Malkin’s perfect 600 score. (Hint: 400 is a perfect score for women in match point shooting. A score of 600 is perfect for men. She can shoot this way in any competition!).
[N.B. edited 11-21-05]
…then you need a heart and soul transplant.
Just CLICK HERE or on the pic below
If you can watch the linked Flash presentation and not be moved deeply, just go away. I don’t want to know you.
Linked at The Uncooperative Blogger, Don Surber, Peakah’s Productions, Stop the ACLU, Soldier’s Angel, Common Sense Runs Wild, MVRWC, Outside the Beltway, MacStansbury, Right Wing Nation, Where are my socks?, TMH’s Bacon Bits, NIF (where TJ continues to “blog by trackback-proxy”), Basil’s Sunday Brunch, and Mensa Barbie.
[BTW, click here for an explanation of an obscure term used in the background music.]
Crossposted to Cathouse Chat
Found at Committees of Correspondence (thanks, Dan!), via a link in yesterday’s Open Post. See? People do read those thing!
🙂
Regular Ole Black Beans and Rice
Ingredients
Preparation
Start this one the night before. (You can move that to morning and do step 4 all day) Black beans just take more prep than pintos. Go ahead and don’t do it this way. You can always load your 00 shells with the resultant rocks.
Serve scoops of the beans over rice.
Regular readers will know The Boys. My son’s dogs are outside dogs, allowed in the house for what is for them a special treat. Except that now, for Big Boy—Leo—it has become less of a treat and more… terror!
The other day, I had The Boys in to be fed, cos it was lousy weather outside. Leo was merrily chomping away, in his oh-so-messy way, when one of the cats startled him.
Now, I didn’t know this about dogs—or maybe it’s just Leo. When startled, they (or at least he) grips his footing with their claws, apparently for better traction.
Doesn’t work so well on tile flooring.
Leo went sprawling, tried to get up (still attempting to grip the floor with his claws) and fell again. He sprawled like that, with terror written on his face, all the way to the french doors to the deck. Never could get his footing.
Now, ever since that incident, when I allow The Boys in, Buttons is just happy as a lark and Leo, poor Leo, tries once agaion to get a grip on that slippery tile flooring with his claws, sprawls, panics and just WILL NOT STAND UP.
It’s funny, but kinda sad. Going to look up the dog nail clippers I have and get his claws as short as I can, safely. Maybe that’ll help the guy. Otherwise, he’s doomed to no more pleasure trips inside.
(yeh, I’m too lazy to check my archives and see how many of these I’ve done or on what days. So sue me.)
Saturday was originally a day “someone” (not you, Mr. Big–you’re cool, dude. 🙂 had me listed for an Open Trackbacks Post, and I did one last weekend, so if y’all wanna consider this an open post, feel free. See the instructions below my collection of “not-quite-NIF” style links (NIF’s baaaaaaack! Sorta.)
In important news, Ferdy discusses priorities. 🙂
Conservative Teen posts Dems Fail to Put Money Where Their Mouth Is. (Well, duh. They were being asked to use their own “money”. heh) Cao and many others (here, here and here for example) are all over this, so I’ll let them do the heavy lifting. Cao’s most telling comment?
“When my son was home from Iraq a few months ago, he said there is no way we’re going to leave Iraq.”
You tell ’em Mama!
Cao also posts about Women Over 30. (She adds a disclaimer 🙂
Oh, and she reminded me to check in with the Protest Warriors (haven’t been there in a while.) Check out this video.
Check out some Dr. Seuss Parodies! And do NOT miss your P.E.R.V. meeting! Lallygaggers will be planted…
How ’bout the Dafydd ab Hugh? Great post, as usual: Agnostic Defends Faithful Against Atheist. Or how about Lies and the Lying Congressliars Who Lie Them, eh? Building a blog, one great post at a time… Spend some time at Big Lizards.
Committees of Correspondence asks the rhetorical question, Can Blogging Be Addictive? (well, duh!) Then points to something that’ll stop your blogging for a bit…
In the news…
Congresscritters mug taxpayers… again.
Al-Zarqawi threatens to shoot himself in the foot. (What a doof! He’s almost as stupid as those Muslim idiots who kidnapped Ghurkas last year… speech impaired piscines…)
No France for Depp. Poor baby. Too hot for ya?
Point/Counterpoint: Fair Tax v Flat Tax-I’ll keep pushing this til I hear some voices!
Bush stands firm on Iraq. Yeah Bubba!
S’all for now.
***********************
Also linked at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The Political Teen, The Uncooperative Blogger, TMH’s Bacon Bits, MacStansbury, Point Five, California Conservative, Jo’s Cafe, Bloggin Outloud, Basil’s Blog (thanks again for the Haloscan hack!), bRight & Early, Whizbang!, Outside the Beltway, Holly Aho, The Florida Masochist (who does not take the cake in knucklehood-dom, as long as I’m around! heh) and Choose Life!
***********************
Open Post info: Edit a post (or posts 🙂 of your own that you want to have featured here to include a link to this post. Trackback to my trackback URI (just right-click on “trackback” at the end of this post and select “copy link” or “copy link location”–however your browser indicates). If your blog software can’t send trackback pings you can use Wizbang’s Standalone Trackback Pinger. If you have trouble, please leave a comment. I’ll try to help.
This is not an attempt to argue the scientific merits or lack thereof of any of the specific positions of Neodarwinists, Creationists or Intelligent Design researchers.
But just consider for a moment this snippet from a blog post by Scott Adams (yes, Dilbert creator-not a scientist, but an apparently honest and intelligent man):
“Intelligent Design accepts an old earth and even accepts the fact that species probably evolved. They only question the “how.” Creationists have jumped on that bandwagon as a way to poke holes in Darwinism. The Creationists and the Intelligent Design folks have the same target (Darwin), but they don’t have the same argument. The average person who has a strong opinion on this topic doesn’t understand that distinction because the political agenda of the creationists makes things murky.” _1_
While Scott makes the error here of not taking note of the political agendas of Neodarwinists, he does show an understanding of some of the differences between Intelligent Design and Creationism-an understanding almiost entirely lacking in Mass Media Podpeople ranks, as well most in the ranks of Academia Nuts and Blogger Pseudopundits. He also makes the mistake, IMO, of assuming a monolithic “evolution” camp of thought, even though most evolutionists today are Neodarwinists.
The rest of his post is a darned good place to start in debunking much of the B.S. that both Neodarwinists and Creationists have pushed and that simple-minded (read “stupid”) Mass Media Podpeople have promoted.
Then there is this, from someone with impeccable scientific training, longtime experience in hard and “soft” (he would say has said, “voodoo sciences”) sciences, engineering and the arts. A very smart and knowedgeable man, a specifically non-scientifically jargoned comment:
Either there is a purpose to the universe or there is not. If there is not, then we have the problem of deriving purpose to our own existence. Existentialists say there is now. Existence precedes essence, and does not imply purpose; and thus our lives are absurd. After which Sartre became a communist. Apparently Marxism substituted for purpose. Camus concludes that life consists of doing one’s job; but he could not get far behind that statement, and though less alienated than some, remained essentially a stranger in a strange land.-Jerry Pournelle _2_
Let me encourage you who read this to junk whatever propoganda being bruited about in the media or in B.S. sessions in the blogosphere or wherever to assess the claims of “fact” and arguments of parties in the debate according to central scientific principles:
Is what is being said fact, hypothesis, unintentional falsehood or a lie?
What is the degree of confidence for whatever fact is brought forth, and are any conceptual/prconceptual biases of the observers being injected into interpretive statements made about the facts? If so, what degree of confidence can you attempt to assign the representations of fact? Why?
And lastly, and most importantly,
Is the argument a statement of falsifiable hypothesis subject to testing or is it a statement of faith, not subject to testing or falsifying?
Right now, Neodarwinists mostly just do not want to debate on fact or submit to examinations for falsifiability. Creationists are for the most part cherrypickers and twisters of fact with no falsifiable positions. Only ID research is-for the most part-still doing serious science of any kind, it appears.
None of the three camps have completely clean hands, but at least the IDers do not yet seem to be outright liars like the other two camps.
But-MOST OF ALL-do not take my word for that statement! Check for yourself. The Wittingshire blog has some decent links to start folks off at the layman’s level, as Scott Adams did. Try it out. Look around. Ask questions. Oh, and check Bloggin Outloud for a timely ID post.
Linked also at TMH’s Bacon Bits’ Misappropriating Intelligent Design and Overstating Evolution.
Technorati : Creationism, Intelligent Design, Neodarwinism, evolution
The email reproduced below is the one Heidi at Euphoric Reality has asked folks repost-really disseminate as far and wide as possible. She recieved word of it from Sgt. Hook and has posted it here (as I note in my “PSA” below). Heidi’s comment, in part asks of us, “If you have your own blog, you now have the chance to show your support for the troops in a very small way that costs you NOTHING. Can Will you do it? I really want to know, so I await your reply.”
You got it, Heidi:
Mom,
Be my voice. I want this message heard. It is mine and my platoon’s to the country. A man I know lost his legs the other night. He is in another company in our batallion. I can no longer be silent after watching the sacrifices made by Iraqis and Americans everyday. Send it to a congressman if you have to. Send it to FOX news if you have to. Let this message be heard please…
My fellow Americans, I have a task for those with the courage and fortitude to take it. I have a message that needs not fall on deaf ears. A vision the blind need to see. I am not a political man nor one with great wisdom. I am just a soldier who finds himself helping rebuild a country that he helped liberate a couple years ago.
I have watched on television how the American public questions why their mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters are fighting and dying in a country 9000 miles away from their own soil. Take the word of a soldier, for that is all I am, that our cause is a noble one. The reason we are here is one worth fighting for. A cause that has been the most costly and sought after cause in our small span of existence on our little planet. Bought in blood and paid for by those brave enough to give the ultimate sacrifice to obtain it. A right that is given to every man, woman, and child I believe by God. I am talking of freedom.
Freedom. One word but yet countless words could never capture it’s true meaning or power. “For those who have fought for it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know.” I read that once and it couldn’t be more true. It’s not the average American’s fault that he or she is “blind and deaf” to the taste of freedom. Most Americans are born into their God-given right so it is all they ever know. I was once one of them. I would even dare to say that it isn’t surprising that they take for granted what they have had all their life. My experiences in the military however opened my eyes to the truth.
Ironically you will find the biggest outcries of opposition to our cause from those who have had no military experience and haven’t had to fight for freedom. I challenge all of those who are daring enough to question such a noble cause to come here for just a month and see it first hand. I have a feeling that many voices would be silenced.
I watched Cindy Sheehan sit on the President’s lawn and say that America isn’t worth dying for. Later she corrected herself and said Iraq isn’t worth dying for. She badmouthed all that her son had fought and died for. I bet he is rolling over in his grave.
Ladies and gentleman I ask you this. What if you lived in a country that wasn’t free? What if someone told you when you could have heat, electricity, and water? What if you had no sewage systems so human waste flowed into the streets? What if someone would kill you for bad-mouthing your government? What if you weren’t allowed to watch TV, connect to the internet, or have cell phones unless under extreme censorship? What if you couldn’t put shoes on your child’s feet?
You need not have a great understanding of the world but rather common sense to realize that it is our duty as HUMAN BEINGS to free the oppressed. If you lived that way would you not want someone to help you????
The Iraqis pour into the streets to wave at us and when we liberated the cities during the war they gathered in the thousands to cheer, hug and kiss us. It was what the soldiers in WW2 experienced, yet no one questioned their cause!! Saddam was no better than Hitler! He tortured and killed thousands of innocent people. We are heroes over here, yet Americans badmouth our President for having us here.
Every police station here has a dozen or more memorials for officers that were murdered trying to ensure that their people live free. These are husbands, fathers, and sons killed every day. What if it were your country? What would your choice be? Everything we fight for is worth the blood that may be shed. The media never reports the true HEROISM I witness everyday in the Iraqis. Yes, there are bad one’s here, but I assure you they are a minuscule percent. Yet they are a number big enough to cause worry in this country’s future.
I have watched brave souls give their all and lose their lives and limbs for this cause. I will no longer stand silent and let the “deaf and blind” be the only voice shouting. Stonewall Jackson once said, “All that I have, all that I am is at the service of the country.” For these brave souls who gave the ultimate sacrifice, including your son Cindy Sheehan, I will shout till I can no longer. These men and women are heroes. Their spirit lives on in their military and they will never be forgotten. They did not die in vain but rather for a cause that is larger than all of us.
My fellow countrymen and women, we are not overseas for our country alone but also another. We are here to spread democracy and freedom to those who KNOW the true taste of it because they fight for it everyday. You can see the desire in their eyes and I am honored to fight alongside them as an Infantryman in the 101st Airborne.
Freedom is not free, but yet it is everyone’s right to have. Ironic, isn’t it? That is why we are here. Though you will always have the skeptics, I know that most of our military will agree with this message. Please, at the request of this soldier spread this message to all you know. We are in Operation Iraqi Freedom and that is our goal. It is a cause that I and thousands of others stand ready to pay the ultimate sacrifice for because, Cindy Sheehan, freedom is worth dying for, no matter what country it is! And after the world is free only then can we hope to have peace.
SGT XXX and 1st Platoon
101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)
For more real reporting of how the “boots on the ground” view their service in Iraq, be sure to touch base with Michael Yon’s blog regularly.
Linked at MacStansbury’s, Cao’s Blog, Don Surber, and Euphoric Reality
This is an Open Post-See instructions below the Fair Tax content
I’ve been touting books about the Fair Tax proposal for a while, now, and I even provided links to some blogs that cover this much-needed reform proposal. I thought this time I’d just give some gathered quotes and links and let y’all loose to look at what others who have actually looked at the Fair tax are saying. (Cos there are a lot of folks who talk about it without getting any facts first. Naturally they are almost all… but maybe I won’t go there in this post, ‘K? 🙂
Over at Americans for Fair Taxation, a site whose subtitle is, “Keep Your Entire Paycheck. Make April 15 Just Another Day”, we find this comment in a post titled, Support From the Least Expected:
I have the FairTax book, and it’s worth more than anything. What’s even funnier, I WORK FOR THE IRS over in Chamblee. I type in all the 1040’s you could ever imagine. I try to visually interpret the chicken-scratching that some people call writing. I know about the waste that goes into compliance and enforcement. All for a tax system that was never properly ratified back in 1913. Waste, Waste, Waste! I can’t wait for the FairTax !!! Sure it’ll cost me my cushy government job, but I don’t really mind. I’ll have enough money to start MY OWN BUSINESS for the first time in my life, and that feels great. Count on my vote!!!
A link to more at the post. And do check out this post as well: Zero Icome Tax and Zero Payroll Tax. Interesting stuff. At Tax Reform Fair To All.
And you know it has to be a good idea when (ignoring most of the
book and getting facts flat out wrong) the New York Times (link to a post quoting the article) gives The Fair Tax
book a tepid (at best) review.
How about this one? Fair Tax wins CNBC Poll 74% to 26%or this one: Flat Tax has Flat Tires for Our Economy; The Fair Tax Supercharges.
Key quote:
The Fair Tax is a fully researched and documented package that has already been put into full legislative form and is waiting in the garage of Congress, ready to rev up our economy and give every American Family a raise in take home pay. The AFFT (www.fairtax.org) has spent the last ten years and over 22 million dollars in focus group studies, polls and economic research to see what works well economically and works well for American families.
There’s a lot more info out there folks. Everything from the numbers the Fair Tax folks have researched to just plain old horse sense says the Fair tax proposal will significantly affect YOUR life for the better… if we can get Congresscritters to simply do what’s right. Yeh, yeh: the blind will see, the lame walk, the dead rise and we’ll all fly away before that happens… *sigh* But we ought to try.
***********************
PSA Insert:
From Heidi @ Euphoric Reality, this snippet of a letter she recieved from Iraq:
“…Freedom is not free, but yet it is everyone’s right to have. Ironic, isn’t it? That is why we are here. Though you will always have the skeptics, I know that most of our military will agree with this message. Please, at the request of this soldier spread this message to all you know.”
Read the whole thing, and pass it on, folks. [UPDATE: Well, this is now spreading pretty quickly, but one of my fav presentations of it is at Cathouse Chat. Good on you, R’Cat.]
***********************
Open Post info: Edit a post (or posts 🙂 of your own that you want to have featured here to include a link to this post. Trackback to my trackback URI (just right-click on “trackback” atthe foot of this post and select “copy link” or “copy link location”–however your browser indicates. If your blog software can’t send trackback pings you can use Wizbang’s Standalone Trackback Pinger. If you have trouble, please leave a comment. I’ll try to help. Be sure to reference the Open Trackback Alliance blogroll and the Open Trackback Provider blogroll in my left sidebar. The more you play, the more folks will see your posts!
Update: for folks that trackbacks are new to, here’s what you need to trackback to this post:
Link this URL: http://thirdworldcounty.blogspot.com/2005/11/fair-taxand-open-post.html
in your post somewhere.
Enter this trackback URI in your trackback pinger:
http://www.haloscan.com/tb/mnmus/113229845991981187/
Linked at MacStansbury’s, The Blue State Conservatives, The Conservative Cat, Bloggin’ Outloud, Friday Open Tar Pit #4, Cao’s Blog, Point Five, Big Dog’s Weblog, TMH’s Bacon Bits, Don Surber, Stuck on Stupid, NIF, (Oh, dear, what can the matter be, NIF’s so long at the fair… and “…he promised to buy me a fairing should please me… “), Adam’s Blog, Jo’s Cafe, Basil’s Blog, Stray Dog, GM Roper’s Corner -and more when folks get their Open Posts up later today.
Well, even though The Alliance still seems to be stuck on the “Mainstream Media” meme…
(Mass media Podpeople are so far OUT of the mainstream as to be lost in a backwaterstagnant pond), the latest Precision Guided Humor Assignment roundup is up over at The Alliance of Free Blogs headquarters. The assignment? A piece on so-called “MSM” Patriotism.
My answer’s here, but you really ought to check out some of the other pieces as well.