"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."
Well, duh. Of course.
Varifrank has a proposal I wish our Congresscritters were intelligent enough to understand. It’s not for everyone, but a large portion of our population (and the businesses they work for) could benefit from this concept.
Smart businesses already are.
And, as a side-effect, it promotes fuel efficiency.
(h.t. Glenn Reynolds)
The L.A. Times prints an article critical of… the L.A. Times.
The least likely of those three statements is true.
Read it here.
(h.t. Glenn Reynolds.)
I stole the subject of this post from Kipling for a reason…
Lynne Stewart, so-called “activist” lawyer, is convicted of aiding her client, has been convicted “…of helping terrorists by smuggling messages of violence from one of her imprisoned clients — a radical Egyptian sheik — to his terrorist disciples on the outside.” Promptly squeals, whines and goes running to sympathetic fellow-travelers in the Mass Media Podpeople’s Army.
Eason Jordan, erstwhile vice-president at CNN, in charge of CNN “News”—the most busted name in news—quits in hopes that the furor over his accusations of the U.S. military deliberately targeting jourmalists for assassination will die on the vine. He has the power—he sits on the board of the sponsoring group—to get the tape of his Davos conference remarks released but won’t. Yeh, that tells us all we need to know about what he said, as opposed to what he now says he said.
Harry Reid can do nothing in the face of Republicans citing his actual words and deeds of record except whine that citations of fact are “personal attacks.” (Poor baby. If his public life were factually different, he’d have nothing to whine about at all, it seems.)
Teddy Kennedy. ’nuff said.
Jean Fraud sKerry. Too much said.
Why detail all the corruption and evil commited by people in positions of trust? Kipling said it as well as can be said. (And no apologies from me to people who’ve heard me quote this for years):
WE ARE very slightly changed
From the semi-apes who ranged
India’s prehistoric clay;
He that drew the longest bow
Ran his brother down, you know,
As we run men down to-day.
“Dowb,†the first of all his race,
Met the Mammoth face to face
On the lake or in the cave:
Stole the steadiest canoe,
Ate the quarry others slew,
Died—and took the finest grave.
When they scratched the reindeer-bone,
Some one made the sketch his own,
Filched it from the artist—then,
Even in those early days,
Won a simple Viceroy’s praise
Through the toil of other men.
Ere they hewed the Sphinx’s visage
Favouritism governed kissage,
Even as it does in this age.
Who shall doubt “the secret hid
Under Cheops’ pyramidâ€
Was that the contractor did
Cheops out of several millions?
Or that Joseph’s sudden rise
To Comptroller of Supplies
Was a fraud of monstrous size
On King Pharaoh’s swart Civilians?
Thus, the artless songs I sing
Do not deal with anything
New or never said before.
As it was in the beginning
Is to-day official sinning,
And shall be for evermore!
NorthEAST AR, that is, along the New Madrid fault
Nothing here, just north of WallyWorld Central.
As usual.
::yawn::
This one is NASTY!
My daughter, a couple of hundred miles away, has the flu. I think I caught it from her emails.
Be careful out there. It seems the flu isn’t caught by anti-virus scanners but by users of anti-virus scanners.
Oh, the humanity of it all…
Heading on home
Cal Thomas’ most recent column (up today at Townhall.com) included one comment that has me strongly considering a change of pace.
“Light dispels darkness and good can overcome evil. But a light won’t shine if it isn’t lit and cursing the darkness illuminates nothing.”
Sounds like something I might think to post on my “Whistling in the Light” blog…
So, I’m considering
1.) Less blogging overall but especially here. Perhaps cut myself back even further to something like once a week more or less.
2.) A little more posting over at “Whistling in the Light”
and, what the heck,
3.) Spending less time on this computer and more time on another that’s set up to be more useful with my music transcription software, writing more music again. Maybe post more new music (or links to songs) at “Whistling in the Light”, etc.
Let’s see if I can break the cycle, or at least bend it a bit, eh?
🙂
Mostly off-topic for this blog, but I certainly hope this reaches a broader-than-usual audience…
My daughter’s, ummm, “guy friend” has proposed teaching her how to drive his stick-shift Mazda R. Thinking back on her initial driving lessons in our old Chevy Nova, I’m hereby declaring the institution of a fund to pay for his psychiatric counseling. It’s non-tax-deductible and I’ll be happy to administer it in any way I see fit. If you want to help this poor soul out, just let me know.
🙂
A note to Congress
On January 17, 1935, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (you know, the patron saint of Democrats) presented his administration’s case for enactment of Social Security. The full text is here. below is a one-paragraph excerpt that the Bush administration should throw in the current crop of Dems faces at every turn:
“In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles–first, noncontributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance; it is, of course, clear that for perhaps thirty years to come funds will have to be provided by the states and the federal government to meet these pensions. Second, compulsory contributory annuities, which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations. Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the federal government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.”
It’s obvious that the current Social Security program ought not to be dealing with the first issue mentioned by Roosevelt at all, by now. It’s equally obvious that the fact that the program is NOT annuity based is a large contributor to the current mess that the Social Security System is in now. And it’s is stomp-on-your-face obvious that the current generation of Dems will say anything and do darned near anything to prevent the third principle voiced by Roosevelt from being enacted.
There you have it: the patron saint of the Social Security System sepaks from the grave in favor of the Bush proposal for private accounts.
Mike, over at Half-Bakered posted this modified screencap of Janeane Garofolo moking the Iraqi ink-stained voters (and those who expressed “solidarity” with them) with a Nazi salute. The “Nazi News Network” logo and “Luft Amerika… ” were added as slams on CNN and Air America, naturally. Picking on half-wits: not nice, Mike. (But better than they deserve.)
Read his whole post here. He has links to more on the story No kidding: Garofolo really mocked the Iraqi voters and those who supported the Iraqi voters with that Nazi salute in an appearance on MSNBC.
Where are the British Royals and the Britpress when you need them? Garofolo doesn’t need a trip to Auschwitz for sensitivity training; she needs to be locked in a cell, alone with Saddam for a few weeks… Although, that could be considered torture enough to gain lenience for Saddam.
Or, sowing dissent in the ranks of the Dems?
Was I the only one who heard the theme to The Godfather during “the kiss” after the SOTU? That wily Bush. Who woulda thunk it?