A shameless plug…

…for someone else’s blog
 
Kris, of Anywhere But Here, has a very good “journal-type” blog with interesting posts and some newsy things as well.  And every now and then she pops in one of her out-of-the-way internet discoveries that are just pure fun.
 
Here’s one such post pointing to a comprehensive answer to that age-old question: Why did the chicken cross the road?
 
Check things out over at Kris’ place.  You might decide it’s one to blogroll.  I did.

My poly-compass…

You might have thought, reading some of my posts about schools, congresscritters, Islamic jihadists, etc., that I’m a right-wing extremist of some sort.
 
Nothing (except assuming me to be a flaming anarchist :-) could be further from the truth:
 

Not a surprise to folks who know me well, perhaps. I’m just about as centrist as can be. (Although I have some libertarian leanings the test did not ask particular questions to uncover. heh 🙂 
 
Take the test yourself and see where it marks your political compass.  As these things go, it seems to be better than most.
 
By contrast to my scores, Ted Kennedy would likely fit in the far, far upper left-hand corner (slotting in by his soul mate Joseph Stalin), George W. Bush would fit about midway in the upper right hand quadrant, close to Margaret Thatcher, and Jean Fraud sKerry would be wandering aimlessly around the upper left hand quadrant (with furtive and abortive forays into uncharted territory in the upper right hand quadrant), depending upon the latest wind—and accusing some Secret Service agent of pushing him around the compass.

Sympathy for the Devil

From the depths of my most charitable being I offer this sympathy card to the wounded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi…
 
 
To: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
(I’ve addressed this to you in Malawi,
Cos I hear you’re running
From folks who’re gunning
For you, for a lark on safari.)
 
Your wounds may be sorely pressing,
And even, perhaps, quite distressing,
But I take hope in this,
You insufferable piss-
They’ve poisoned your surgical dressing.
 
So, as your wounds fill with puss,
We’ll charter a big Grehound bus
To haul in the tourists
(We need no jurists)
To jeer as you whine, moan and fuss.
 
Your passing will leave us distressed,
For really, in case you’ve not guessed,
We all think it fitter
You suffer long, bitter
Agonies; yes, that is best.
 
(Yeh, it’s doggerel. What? I’m going to spend time polishing actual poetry for that scabrous, mangy dog?)

A troubling sight…

Whoa, there, fellas! Let’s hold our horses!
 
The picture below might wrongly offend some folks.  Wrongly, because in order to take offense they’d have to be historical illiterates.
 
Let me backtrack a bit…
 
As often happens with me, several disparate thoughts crowded into the narrow space between my ears and began duking it out. One was the relatively recent (in blogosphere “years” 🙂 brouhaha over senate rules regarding filibusters.  Senator Robert C. Byrd waxed eloquent (well, as eloquent as that cracker—with my apologies to illiterate crackers everywhere for associating your ilk with that slimy _____ —ever gets) about senate traditions and respect for minority positions, yadayadayada  Complete and utter B.S.
 
Let’s take a trip in the Wayback Machine and let Mr. Peabody clear the record a bit.
 
It’s June 10, 1964, and “…Senator Robert C. Byrd completed an address that he had begun fourteen hours and thirteen minutes earlier. The subject was the pending Civil Rights Act of 1964, a measure that occupied the Senate for fifty-seven working days, including six Saturdays.”* And what, pray tell was the context of Byrd’s address? Oh, it was a Democratic filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964!  Yep.  Just as the Democrats had filibustered against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, they did again, led by Byrd this time, in 1964.
 
Byrd’s filibuster was just the capstone to 57 days of Democratic stalling.
 
So much for giving minority voices a hearing. 
 
Indeed, had not Republicans strongly backed the bill, Hubert Humphrey, the putative Democratic hero of the story, would never have been able to overcome defecting Democrats to obtain a 67-vote cloture.
 
And yet, despite steady Republican support and even leadership in genuine Civil Rights issues (as opposed to phony issues like assuring the patronizing and racist quota system—otherwise known as “affirmative action”), the Democrats still have an apparent lock on the Black vote.  Keep ’em on the plantation, eh, Byrd?
 
Disgusting racists.
 

A troubling sight… 
 
So, the lawn “jockey” pictured above… There’s a long (and disputed by recent arguments, all from a perspective of “feeling” that historical accounts must be wrong, rather than from facts) story behind these things.  I’m leaving that aside for now.  Just look at the picture of the one above as dispassionately as possible, for just a moment. This is one of the early ones, dressed not in jockey attire but in the common clothing of an 18th century slave. 
 
That picture above, quite frankly, my friends is what Robert C. Byrd sees when he looks upon a black person: Property of the DNC.  What gain to be free of chattel slavery if one is simply to sell onself into political, economic and social bondage for a pottage?
 
Robert C. Byrd, indeed the entire racist, race-baiting DNC is beyond disgusting. And the blacks who have sold out to the DNC and work to keep their brothers in chains are worse.
 
OK, so I’m a white boy and have no right to say these things?  Wrong. Read the First Amendment again, bubba.
 

Music Quasi-not-so-meme-ish music “meme” update

There.  Confused are we now?
 
My daughter—who just happens also to be my “blogdaughter”— (gee, how did that happen?) has also responded to the quasi-not-so-meme-ish music “meme” with “My music is… “
 
From Josh Groban to Strong Bad: She’s a chip off the old block when it comes to ecclectic tastes in listening.  (Yeh, Meg, I put the Groban album pic there just for you. heh)
 
 
 
 
That makes four, now… waiting to hear from the hinterlands…
 
 
 
 

Revenge of the Sith: the Cliff Notes

Thanks to IMAO  (and Carnival of Comedy) for the link to…
 
 
If you don’t have the time or even the remotest desire to see the movie, but do want to be able to discuss the movie intelligently, then this may fill the bill for you.
 
Warning: if you are a rabid fan, this may be a bit much.  If you are a fan and plan to see the movie soon, spoilers are abundant.

“…none so blind…”

 Keith Thompson describes his journey from wilfull blindness to the reactionary nature of modern “liberalism” to…
 
…to what I might call idealistic empiricism, or genuine liberalism that is quite similar to the liberal, progressive views of… George W. Bush… or our Founders and Framers.
 
…A left averse to making common cause with competent, self- determining individuals — people who guide their lives on the basis of received values, everyday moral understandings, traditional wisdom, and plain common sense — is a faction that deserves the marginalization it has pursued with such tenacity for so many years.
 
All of which is why I have come to believe, and gladly join with others who have discovered for themselves, that the single most important thing a genuinely liberal person can do now is walk away from the house the left has built. The renewal of any tradition that deserves the name “progressive” becomes more likely with each step in a better direction.
 
Just go read it all. Then send Keith Thompson an e- welcoming him to the land of those who choose to see.
 
Oh, and a big tip o’ the hat to Alan Woody of Woody’s News & Views.

Protest the American Criminal Libertine Union

I’d like to sign up for the Protest the ACLU Blogburst, but I’m an idiot and can’t figure out how to “forward [my] rss feed…” to the appropriate place.
 
The ACLU (insert your own snarky translation of the acronym in “comments”) is way, way off the deep end in promoting the death of Western Civilization in their defense of jihadi terrorists, among other forms of scum it loves, and in direct attacks upon freedom of speech and religion.
 
What’s with this organization?  Is societal entropy their only value?  So, I’ll take time once a week or so to locate another ACLU attack upon civilization and rant or ridicule as is appropriate.
 
Dr. Tarr and Mr. Fether are eagerly awaiting their turn at the American Criminal License Underwriters…

More on movies

Here a link, there a link, everywhere a link-link
 
(Yeh. Those who know a little about America’s Third World Countyâ„¢ will wince at that… )
 
Following up on the movie/DVD tag thingy, Kim du Toit posted a link to a commentary by Howard Veit, who posted a link to a NYT article* that he scooped—the NYT article seemed almost like a followup to Howard’s blog post. heh
 
Interesting comment from the NYT article:
 
With box-office attendance sliding, so far, for the third consecutive year, many in the industry are starting to ask whether the slump is just part of a cyclical swing driven mostly by a crop of weak movies or whether it reflects a much bigger change in the way Americans look to be entertained – a change that will pose serious new challenges to Hollywood.
 
Studios have made more on DVD sales and licensing products than on theatrical releases for some time. Now, technologies like TiVo and video-on-demand are keeping even more people at home, as are advanced home entertainment centers, with their high-definition television images on large flat screens and multichannel sound systems.
 
“It is much more chilling if there is a cultural shift in people staying away from movies,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the Exhibitor Relations Company, a box-office tracking firm. “Quality is a fixable problem.”
IF the “quality” issue can be fixed (a doubtful assertion by Dergarabedian) it still leaves Hollyweird in a difficult position. (Almost said “delicate condition”–but Hollyweird would fix that with another abortion in a New York minute)
 
Howard Veit’s post is much more insightful on the issue of quality.
 
*Note: the NYT article requires registration to view.  Ignore that.  Go to Bugmenot and get a username/password.

Comment on congresscritter gone wild

Spending my words
 
As I was posting a comment over at Curmudgeonly and Skeptical, I thought to myself, “Self, why are you ‘wasting’ (heh) a perfectly good blogpost in someone else’s comments?”
 
(Rabbit trail: a large piece of me wanted to start the sentence above off in a way such that is scanned with the tune to “The Streets of Laredo.”  You can thank me now for averting that catastrophe.  You’re welcome.)
 
So, here:
 
May I humbly offer my own suggestion concerning what to do about congresscritters and their ilk?
 
A grass roots movement for one (penultimate–the sixteenth and seventeenth amendments need nullifying) more Constitutional amendment establishing a limit on federal holidays and defining the last federal holiday as National Potomoc Day, when the citizenry is invited to descend upon Congress and dunk the entire mess in the Potomoc. Repeatedly. Until only the gasbags rise to the top for their *auto da fe* Their burning corpses would provide the light for the all-night barbeque to follow.
 
Now, note: I do NOT suggest any vigilantism here but a Constitutional amendment, brought forward by the states, to accomplish this worthy goal.
 
Enough pressure brought to bear on our congresscritters, and the thing could get ratified, followed by mass resignations before the first such holiday.
 
Ahhh… the sweet, sweet sounds of silence on Capitol Hill…
 
Of course, I’d welcome modifications to such an amendment that would include all bureaucrats, administration officials and judges.
 
(No, I’m not an anarchist, but our current crop of politicos–including the judiciary–are beginning to show me that anarchy has *some* merit… *sigh*)