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2009 Resolution-Per-Day #4

Develop a deeper appreciation for the people of our armed forces. I like to think I appreciate their service, but I doubt my appreciation is as deep or wide as it ought to be. Here, try this for a semi-musical thought-provoker (Thanks, Hugh, for sending this):

While listening to this, I was reminded of the (apocryphal, perhaps) “comment from a centurion” often referred to by Jerry Pournelle:

“We hear that there are tumults and riots in Rome, and that voices are raised concerning the army and the quality of our soldiers. Make haste to reassure us that you love and support us as we love and support you, for if we find that we have left our bones to bleach in these sands in vain, then beware the fury of the legions.”…” (Centurion in a letter home from North Africa, 3rd Century)

Now, I do not fear “the fury of the legions,” but I do fear our society becoming callous to their dedication, their service, their honor, their sacrifices*. A society that ceases to value such service is a society that does not deserve to survive.

Continue reading “2009 Resolution-Per-Day #4”

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Ave Jerry! *heh*

Ave Jerry!

If we have to be ruled by an elite (and it seems we are *sigh), I’d rather have such an elite ruled by an emperor with views such as these:

There will always be a ruling class. What I want is to limit its power over us, and where there is real personal power keep that local and responsible.

What I’d rather be governed by is a combination of local leaders, justices of the peace who live in their neighborhoods, school boards that control local schools and local taxation to finance them and hire the teachers and leave neighbors in the next community to run their schools as they wish; local constables who live in the neighborhoods they police and bring in the Big City cops only when they have to; and in general the horse whip theory of government: I want the guy who makes most of the decisions critical to my life to be accessible to a group of constituents with a horsewhip. I want Roe vs. Wade thrown out on the grounds of Federalism and States rights. I want Washington DC to be mostly irrelevant to my life, and make Congress learn to govern that city before it tries to govern me directly.

It seems to me that that is the view most favored by the Framers. After all, it is the primary reason they framed the Constitution to form a Republic and not a democracy and then gave that republic a very strictly delineated and restricted set of powers, subservient to the States and the People whose interests it was to serve.

And, further, it seem that only one sane candidate for the presidency has even the remotest idea what the Founders and Framers were about, or even with the slightest respect for the Constitution and its republic which they created for our benefit:

The Framers drew their design for our Constitution from a basic understanding of human nature. From the wisdom of the ages and from fresh experience, they understood the better angels of our nature, and the less admirable qualities of human beings entrusted with power.

The Framers believed in free markets, rights of property and the rule of law, and they set these principles firmly in the Constitution. Above all, the Framers enshrined in our founding documents, and left to our care, the principle that rights come from our Creator and not from our government.

We developed institutions that allowed these principles to take root and flourish: a government of limited powers derived from, and assigned to, first the people, then the states, and finally the national government. A government strong enough to protect us and do its job competently, but modest and humane enough to let the people govern themselves. Centralized government is not the solution to all of our problems and – with too much power – such centralization has a way of compounding our problems. This was among the great insights of 1787, and it is just as vital in 2007…

…It is as true today as it ever was: the closer a government is to its people, the more responsive it is to the felt needs of its constituencies. Too often, however, state and local leaders have to answer to federal bureaucrats first and their constituents second. When the federal government mandates a program that states and localities are forced to implement, or when a federal grant program is created to fund a specific state or community need, it blurs the lines of accountability…

[More, much more, at the link above.]

If we can’t have Jerry for emperor, I’d be satisfied with Fred as president, I suppose. *heh* In fact, if this were Fred’s only position, it would be enough to raise him head and shoulders above any other supposedly sane candidate.

Trackposted to Rosemary’s Thoughts, Faultline USA, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Adam’s Blog, The World According to Carl, Shadowscope, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, The Amboy Times, Conservative Cat, and Adeline and Hazel, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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People are stupid

You know it’s true. One can scarcely get through a morning without being reminded multiple times that 99% (plus) of Americans are proof that the counter-evolutionary pressures of a modern society are enabling people who are too stupid to survive outside a cocoon.

Of the many examples I’ve witnessed just today, one was truly irritating. Kathleen Parker, a syndicated supposedly “conservative” columnist (add 5 IQ points to the Mass Media Podpeople average–*heh*) had this to say in a column about–Barack Hussein Obama-Winfrey and Billary “Whitewater” Clinton duking it out over their respective foreign policy dredentials,

“…this presidential election isn’t about hair-poofing, cross-dressing or floating crosses, entertaining as those digressions have been. Until further notice, it’s primarily about terror…”

Please. Perhaps the election can be characterized as “primarily about terrorism” but few folks I know feel terror when contemplating the election. Well, unless it really sinks in what electing someone like The Breck Girl (Or The Prancing Pony–whichever works better for you in thinking about Little Johnnie Edwards’ campaign) to the presidency might mean *shudder*.

That dispensed with (it’s “terrorism” not “terror”–think it through, please), the American electorate is being told loudly and clearly: “You are all idiots!” After all, what are the two major parties offering to this election that is “primarily about terrorISM“–and what is the Mass Media Podpeople’s Hivemind elevating with its attention?

Billary Whitewater Clinton–what you see is what you get: someone who is better suited to a role that deposits her under a house blown by a Kansas tornado.

Barack Hussein Obama-Winfrey–give him a talk show, but never the presidency.

The Breck Girl. There’s really no “there” there.

Senator Plagiarism. Cheap, crooked politician; sells his soul for a law school paper or a stolen speech. All the character of a person who cheats at solitaire.

None of them have the character OR experience to provide what is needed.

Rudy “Grab the Govt Money and Run” Guiliani. Just another shadow of Tamany Hall.

The Holier-than-thou Governor from Tyson Foods. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him, even if I could throw him from the pulpit to the mourners’ bench.

John Never-Saw-a-Free-Speech-Right-I-Didn’t-Hate-or-a-Wetback-I-Didn’t-Love McCainiac. Snake McCain. Serial liar.

Nutso Paul. Gee, I want to like the guy, but I’m seriously afraid that he’d get mistaken for a garden gnome in the Rose Garden. Or maybe not mistaken for…

The Android Which Will Say ANYTHING to Get Elected Romney. About as much integrity as The Governor from Tyson Foods, but with less consistency of position.

Again, nothing in character or experience commends any of these to office higher than they have already attained (and at least two were obviously elected to offices they should not have been, IMO).

But what of Fred, who appears to be the only person whose views and public life are fairly consistent with the Founders’ and Framers’ views? Obviously that renders him unelectable by an electorate dominated by subliterate sheeple who have no idea (nor any means to gain any idea) what that means.

The vote come election day will be mostly neither “Nay” nor “Yea” on any candidates but simply a loud and grating “Baaaah.”

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New Year’s Wishes

A few New Year’s wishes (and some stinky fishes) to spread around…

For Mass Media Podpeople, I wish for a year in which the Hivemind from the Mothership orbiting Uranus gets a severe head cold and sets you free from its control. *heh*

For Academia Nuthouse Fruitcakes, I wish a year at hard labor. No, NOT deconstructing Western Civilization, you dopes: making small rocks out of big ones. Using your heads for hammers.

For the vast (VAST) majority of politicians *spit*, I wish you far, far better than you deserve: another year of grace allowing you time to repent (instead of the mass necktie party hosted by Dr. Tarr and Mr. Fether that you so richly deserve).

For public school (AKA “prisons for kids”) administrators, remote educrats and their ilk, I wish you a future in a society peopleed by the dummies you are intent on creating. I just hope (a continually diminishing hope) that it doesn’t have to be our society. *sigh*

For Islamic splodydopes everywhere, if you cannot find within you the intelligence of a head of cabbage (and thereby the ability to reject the religion of hate you espouse), I wish you premature explodiation and a quick trip to hell where you can commune with your “prophet” *gag*.

For the American electorate, I wish a falling of scales from eyes made blind by Mass Media Podpeople, Academia Nut Fruitcakes and politicians *spit* and an awakening to the dire peril presented by the ballot box–dire peril and faint hope. *sigh*

Lastly, I wish for all men of good will (that’s a generic “men” for those pseudo feminists out there who don’t understand plain English) a prosperous, healthy and interesting 2008.

At least I’m sure of one wish coming to pass: 2008 will be interesting. (Though that may be more curse than blessing; we shall see, eh? :-))

Trackposted to Nuke’s, Outside the Beltway, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, Stageleft, and Church and State, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Stop. Look. Listen. To Fred

h.t. Leaning Straight Up

One thing that struck me was what Fred said about the possible efficacy of his candidacy in… salvaging the Democratic party:

You know, when I’m asked which of the current group of Democratic candidates I prefer to run against, I always say it really doesn’t matter…These days all those candidates, all the Democratic leaders, are one and the same. They’re all NEA-MoveOn.org-ACLU-Michael Moore Democrats. They’ve allowed these radicals to take control of their party and dictate their course.

So this election is important not just to enact our conservative principles. This election is important to salvage a once-great political party from the grip of extremism and shake it back to its senses. It’s time to give not just Republicans but independents, and, yes, good Democrats a chance to call a halt to the leftward lurch of the once-proud party of working people.

So in seeking the nomination of my own party, I want to say something a little unusual. I am asking my fellow Republicans to vote for me not only for what I have to say to them, but for what I have to say to the members of the other party—the millions of Democrats who haven’t left the Democratic party so much as their party’s national leadership has left them.

As I’ve said before, only one man is running as a truly presidential candidate. The others all seem to be running for sophomore class clown.

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Is It Just Me?, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Adam’s Blog, Right Truth, The World According to Carl, Shadowscope, Cao’s Blog, Right Voices, and Pursuing Holiness, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day: Pig in a Blanket

That’s me: staying warm n toasty and “pigging out” on Bryn Terfel while enjoying some home brewed wheat beer (yeh, yeh: from a kit ;-)).

*heh*

This kinda stuff can easily carry me through New Year’s Day.

🙂

Bryn Terfel - We'll Keep a Welcome

Bryn Terfel – We’ll Keep a Welcome

and

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Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Adam’s Blog, Right Truth, The World According to Carl, Shadowscope, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Leaning Straight Up, Big Dog’s Weblog, Pursuing Holiness, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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There Seems to Be Only One Presidential Candidate

Only one guy running for president right now can even possibly say things that remind one of truly great presidents of the past.

For example:

“Anything worth doing is worth doing well. I’ve always been a little more laid back than most. I like to say I’m only consumed by very few things, and politics is not one of them. The welfare of my country, and my kids and grandkids, growing up, is one of them.

“If what people really want in their president is a super type A personality, someone who has gotten up every morning and gone to bed every night and been thinking about, for years how they can be president of the United States… someone who can look you straight in the eye and say they’ve enjoyed every minute of campaigning… I ain’t that guy. So I hope I’ve discussed that, or I haven’t talked you out of anything. I honestly want… I can’t imagine a worse set of circumstances than achieving the presidency under false pretenses, especially if you feel the way I do. I’ve gone out of my way to be myself, because I don’t want anybody to think they’re getting something they’re not getting. I’m not consumed by this process, I’m not consumed with the notion of being president. I’m simply saying I’m willing to do what’s necessary to achieve it if I’m in sync with the people. And if the people want me, or somebody like me, I will do what I’ve always done with everything else in my life. I will take it on and do a good job. You’ll have the disadvantage of having someone who probably can’t jump up and click their heels three times, but will tell you the truth. And you’ll know where the president stands at all times.”

Go back and look at what it took to persuade George Washington to become president. If this guy’s for real (and nothing yet indicates he is not–quite unlike all the other candidates out there), this is the quality of person I want in politics.

Need you ask who could say such things?

Hint: It ain’t Billary Obama Winfrey.

It ain’t the Breck Girl.

It ain’t Mr. Plagiarism

And it ain’t The Android from Planet “Say-anything-to-get-elected,” the two crooks pretending to be conservatives, Mr. “I Ain’t the Hero I Claim to Be, but At Least I Hate Free Speech” McCain, or Nutso Paul.

If Fred isn’t tapped to be the conservative presidential candidate, I’ll not move to Canada or any such stupid thing, but I may counsel my children to start learning Polish, to prepare for an exit strategy to what might well turn out to be the last bastion of Western Civilization.

*sigh*

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IF Presidential Promises Meant Anything…

Then THIS would represent the Saudi regime today:

OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

IF President Bush meant what he said when he proclaimed, “Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them,” and “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.,” and “…the only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it, and destroy it where it grows,” and especially “And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,” then Saudi Arabia would no longer be “Saudi” Arabia, for the Saudi regime is indeed the world leader in supporting Islamic terrorism.

But of course, we now know that President Bush did not mean what he said. He uttered what we can see with perfect hindsight were simply political lies.

*sigh*

I have no further use for this man. Bring me another, better one to serve in his place, please.

(Well, the request for a “better man” excludes the entire field of Democrappic candidates and darned near all the Republican’ts… *sigh*)

Oh, and for those Saudis who like to press “libel” suits in countries with friendly libel laws in order to suppress truth, bring it on. You’d have to come to my neck of the woods to collect, and I don’t think your collection agents would appreciate the reception committee…

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Who’s in the JW’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2007?

Well, at least Mike and Rudy are safe from stones cast by each other…

h.t. STACLU

Although the Judicial Watch’s Top Ten list of corrupt politicians is weighted heavily on the Democrappic side of the aisle (and how could it not be with such excellent examples of slime as Billary Clintoon, John Con(you)yers, Barrack Hussein Obama (Winfrey), and Feinstein-Pelosi-Reid?), a couple of standouts from the Republican’t crowd are no surprise to those of us who view the pronouncements of the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind with scepticism:

#6. Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR): Governor Huckabee enjoyed a meteoric rise in the polls in December 2007, which prompted a more thorough review of his ethics record. According to The Associated Press: “[Huckabee’s] career has also been colored by 14 ethics complaints and a volley of questions about his integrity, ranging from his management of campaign cash to his use of a nonprofit organization to subsidize his income to his destruction of state computer files on his way out of the governor’s office.” And what was Governor Huckabee’s response to these ethics allegations? Rather than cooperating with investigators, Huckabee sued the state ethics commission twice and attempted to shut the ethics process down.

*heh*

And that’s not even exploring the Governor from Tyson Foods’ record on illegal aliens. (See HERE as well.)

Of course, we mustn’t neglect “Mr. Tough On Crime” Giuliani:

5. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-NY): Giuliani came under fire in late 2007 after it was discovered the former New York mayor’s office “billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons…” ABC News also reported that Giuliani provided Nathan with a police vehicle and a city driver at taxpayer expense. All of this news came on the heels of the federal indictment on corruption charges of Giuliani’s former Police Chief and business partner Bernard Kerik, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to accepting a $165,000 bribe in the form of renovations to his Bronx apartment from a construction company attempting to land city contracts.

These are two guys who are not only monumental liars (each claims conservative values drive their bid for the presidency: that alone should be enough to shoot them down in flames for such bald-faced, arrogant lying to the electorate), they are also monumental hypocrites, each running as “clean” guys when they are no such thing.

Bah. I have NO use for such as these. As landfill or garden mulch, even, they’d just be toxic waste. Better for them to just shuffle off to an afterlife in a garage in Buffalo (with apologies to Timothy Leary, “Really Leary” and George Carlin).

Sad, though, that some folks consider John “I-Never-Met-a-Free-Speech-I-Didn’t-Hate” McCain and Mitt “Android from the planet I’ll-say-anything-to-get-elected” Romney to be viable alternatives to such as these.

*sigh*

I suspect the main reason Thompson’s had a hard time getting traction is that he’s the only one with a consistent record (well, far more consistent than anyone else running, if one throws out consistently crooked as a criterion) who talks sense. I mean, have you actually read the other guys’ “positions”? Piffle. Fluff. Bullshit talking points. Nothing of any real substance.

If anything kills political aspirations in this day of a dumbass sheeple electorate, it’s saying something–anything–of substance.

*profound sigh*

Well, at least Fred’s also got a sense of humor (something McCainac, The Android, The Crook and the Crooked Preacherboy have yet to show any genuine evidence of)…

Trackposted to Nuke’s, Woman Honor Thyself, Adam’s Blog, Right Truth, Blue Star Chronicles, Pirate’s Cove, Conservative Cat, Right Voices, and Pursuing Holiness, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Only 3,346 to go…

…to reach 200,000 comments on this blog (not counting, of course, the Haloscan comments “lost” in a failed import in January, 2006).

Why! That’s nearly 1/3 the number of SPAM “comments” Askimet has blocked in the last year!

*heh*