Day: November 23, 2005

With apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien and the members of the Pennsylvania delegation to the Continental Congress, 1777.

Time: December 17, 1777

Place: Valley Forge, PA; tent of General Washington; the commons, before the Standard

Dramatis Personae: General George Washington, commander of the Continental Army; James McHenry, General Washington’s secretary; Grimma Wormtongue, attorney for the ACLU

General Washington [writing]: Tomorrow being the day set apart by the honorable Congress for Public Thanksgiving and praise, and duty calling us devoutly to express our grateful acknowledgments to God for the manifold blessings he has granted us, the general directs … that the chaplains perform divine service…

[a knock interrupts, General Washington’s secretary enters]

McHenry: General, a Mr. Wormtongue insists on seeing you immediately.

Washington: What does he want?

McHenry: He says he has a letter from the Pennsylvania delegates to the Continental Congress declaring that any proclamation of thanksgiving cannot make reference to God.

Washington: [stunned silence, then] Show him in.

Wormtongue: General Washington. Thank you for seeing me. I have here a letter enjoining you—

Washington: Give it to me, sir. [Washington reads] I also have these men’s signatures on a proclamation to be read from the Continental Congress giving thanks to God for our victories and asking The Almighty to intercede on our just behalf. How do you then give me this?

Wormtongue: I met with the gentlemen privately and convinced them it would impose an undue coercion upon those who do not hold your—or their—Judeo-Christian religious beliefs, and persuaded them to urge you to issue a non-religious statement of gratitude.

Washington: Who then would you have us express gratitude to, if not to the Providential Hand of the Most High God? I have my authorization and your plea has no virtue. Mr. McHenry? See this man from the camp.

[December 18, in the commons before the Standard, the army assembled. We laggards come in late…]

Washington: …for solemn thanksgiving and praise. That with one heart and one voice the good people may express the grateful feelings of their hearts, and consecrate themselves to the service of their Divine Benefactor;… and their humble and earnest supplication that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them (their manifold sins) out of remembrance… ”

[fade]

As a start. Then we could work on the rest of the year.

CLICK HERE for more.

And be sure to catch Jay’s Thanksgiving post at Stop the ACLU, as well as “Happy Thanksgiving, ACLU” at TMH’s Bacon Bits.

Crossposted at Stop the ACLU

Linked at Diane’s Stuff, TMH’s BAcon Bits, Don Surber’s After Hours’ “Anonymous Open Post” (heh), Pajamas Media/Stuck on Stupid, Robinik.net, Basil’s Thanks Giving” and Cao’s Blog

This was a production of Stop The ACLU Blogburst. If you would like to join us, please email Jay at Jay@stoptheaclu.com or Gribbit at GribbitR@gmail.com. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll. Over 130 blogs already onboard.

THE Quote of the Day is from Jo’s Cafe referring to the flap about N.Z. Bear’s arcane and idiosyncratic ranking system, “spam” filtration, etc. Jo hits the nail on the head and then clenches it tight with:

Amen. Preach on sister!

Some posts I’ve *cough* “noticed” today…

Committees of Correspondence says “I support the Fiscal Watch Team Offset Package [well, I would too, except I’m also waging a small guerilla war against a certain ursine… ] Help curb all the unnecessary spending in Congress.”

The Real Ugly American posts, “From France: What Fires? What Riots? It is a matter of riots in certain neighborhoods around urban centers, those infamous ghettos which one finds in American Cities too. Elsewhere life goes on as usual.”

[The peasants are revolting. Now, if they’d simply bathe more often and eschew their goat-loving, woman-stoning, head-chopping ways… ]

Those Bastards! posts: Man, that’s really not holding your liquor. From MSNBC.com: A 32-year-old Norwegian bartender was sentenced to six months in prison Wednesday for serving a customer so much tequila that he fell into a coma and died..

[Yep. But I’d call this as much a case of Darwinian micro-evolution as anything else.]

Once more, from Committees of Correspondence, an observation about the benefits of violence: “One Tin Soldier-The Rest of the Story. One Tin Soldier also known as The Ballad of Billy Joe had a certain vogue once as a Peace Anti-War Song, whose message is, “Violence is Never the Answer”. I never understood that… Today we have those who genuinely believe that “Violence is Never the Answer”. To the Evil in the World they are like Dodos.” 

[Duh, of course. “But the meek shall inherit the earth!” Yep. About 6’x6’x2′ worth… ]

Those Bastards! proclaims, “Man, that’s really not holding your liquor” and notes the story: “A 32-year-old Norwegian bartender was sentenced to six months in prison Wednesday for serving a customer so much tequila that he fell into a coma and died… “

[A case of Darwinian micro-evolution at work, friends. Charge the bartender with being a practicing Neodarwinist and move it right along...]

[And…]

“Strategic Victory Achieved in the Ongoing War Against Israel …The Rafah Border Crossing Deal… How committed are the Palestinians themselves to preventing weapons from being smuggled from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, or from the Gaza Strip…

[And…]

“Evidence the “Paris Riots” Are Actually the “French Intifada” This entry will be updated regularly, because it may be the only comprehensive documentation of the Intifada-like elements of the French rioting.

[Yeh, and since the French don’t have a Charlemagne—oops! Charles Martel… Chalemagne was the grandson— this time, maybe the Mussie’s desire for a “do-over” of The Battle of Tours will go differently for them this time…]

More as I notice ’em… (and do notice that this includes more actual content from me than any number of comparable citations/link doobies at Instapundit and his groupies.)

Linked at bRight and Early and Basil’s Picnic Lunch

The NYT publised an at least halfway sensible piece on… nuclear energy!

Stop the world. I wanna get off and see if it’s just my head spinning or what.

Can Nuclear Power Become Just Another Business?

Well? Can it? Will loony left moonbats let it? And if it does, will some miniscule element of the Mass Media Podpeople’s Army not shoot it in the back? Perhaps even an element with Momentary Sanity “Disorder” at the NYT?

Let’s see:

Other countries, especially China and India, are likely to build more nuclear plants and to do so sooner. “People are talking about China building 20 to 21 new reactors,” said David M. Schanzer, utility analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott.

Well, in a business piece (in a paper notoriously hostile to any business that doesn’t toe its own political correctness line), this is about as good as it gets. Misses the critical information that the (many more than 20 or 21) nuclear power plants already being built by China are almost all of the ultra safe, ultra low waste pebble bed reactor type, which is also much less expensive and less technically demanding than traditional reactors of the type that Three Mile Island conjures up.

Why does the NYT article still play up the investment (and other) risks of nuclear power and ignore the safety, financial advantage and technical ease of building pebble bed reactors?

Maybe because their business section doesn’t talk to their science/technology guys or even that their sci/tech guys aren’t aware of pebble bed reactors. Heck, here’s an MIT site devoted to modular pebble bed reactors. Downsizing even what the Chinese and others are now doing.

A little homework would have improved the NYT article, but then, research in areas foreign to its political agendas isn’t exactly the NYT’s strong suit.

Heck, I’m not even going to do your work for you, it’s so easy. Just google “pebble bed reactor” now that you’ve heard about it from a long-in-the-tooth musician/comptechie.

Linked at Don Surber’s “Of Course There’s an Open Post” and others later…

Today (Wednesday) is Diane’s Thanksgiving Day, since her husband’s working all day tomorrow and it was either “A day early or six days late”. heh.

Soooo?

So how about everyone links to Diane’s Wednesday Open Trackback Alliance Post and tracksback to her with a (early) Thanksgiving Day greeting, eh? She’ll be busy putting the finishing touches on her cornbread stuffing and all the other trimmings, but when she’s able to sit down for some blogging tomorrow evening, it’s be great to have her Open Trackback Alliance post filled with well-wishers. ‘K?

Post on any topic, of course, but please put a “Happy Thanksgiving, Diane” in there somewhere with a link to her. Then trackback to her… and to here (with a link to this post in yours, of course :-).

Here’s the link to Diane’s Open Trackback Alliance Post for Wednesday.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family, Diane!

BTW, here’s the trackback URL to Diane’s post, as well:

http://www.dianesstuff.com/wp-trackback.php?p=258

BTW, Stop The ACLU is running an Open Trackback Post/Contest. Trackback to this post’s URL with something like “Contest” somewhere in the subject line and you might win a Stop the ACLU T-shirt. If I win one off this post, I’m gonna ask that they give it to “Joseph” to wear in a live nativity scene scheduled for display on public property, somewhere.

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 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!

Linked at Big Daddy, Rempelia Prime, Don Surber (of course :-), The Political Teen. (And a few more after I get some coffee in me… a few hours from now. Need. Sleep.)

No matter WHAT N.Z. Bear says… 🙂 Hey! Tell ya what. I’ll figure a way to work any trackbacks to this post into a long-winded roundup that oughta sail past N.Z. Bear’s “SPAM” filters until he decides to block alla my stuff for some arcane reason. If your trackbacks AND the roundup post are recognized, cool. If not, you’ll at least get some links counted.

heh

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