the Hyacinth Girl

New stuff.

2009-01-06T00:11:00.000-08:00

I've posted some new material at the new site. It's still a work in progress and I'm still getting used to the format, but I think it's going to work out well. I'm very excited.

Oh, FYI: don't waste your time on the newest XFiles movie. It's basically a very long, very slow episode as riddled with plot holes as many of the episodes in the show's nine season run. But the gag reel is very funny.

Under construction.

2009-01-05T02:39:00.000-08:00

I am working on something big--a move, an upgrade, a journey to a strange land. I like Blogger and have been with it in one form or another since 2002, but I am looking for something a bit more professional. I'm scoping out Wordpress, and I'm currently working on the new site.

Don't worry, I'll give you all plenty of advance notice if I go this route, and I'll try to make this site redirect automagically when and if I make the switch. I hate making big moves, but Wordpress is so configurable and so slick. I also hate coding and I know nothing about CSS, but WP makes it easy for lazy people like me. We'll see where this goes, and I'll keep you posted. (No pun intended.)

Update:

If you to check out the work in progress, here's the url: http://thehyacinthgirl.wordpress.com/. Let me know what you think.

Oh well, whatever, nevermind.

2009-01-05T01:14:00.000-08:00

I haven't listened to Nirvana in about ten years, mostly because I don't think I could have handled hearing Smells Like Teen Spirit one more time. Nirvana exploded halfway through my first year of high school, and I'd been listening to them for about a year before that, so I had a tiny bit of seniority when it came to grunge and whatnot at my school. I loved grunge--I actually still enjoy some of the stuff I listened to back then. So today, when Teen Spirit popped up in the shuffle, I let it play, apparently less sick of Nirvana than I've been in over a decade. It was the same as I remember, contagious and lazily contemptuous. And I still know all of the words.

I was struck by how well the line "Oh well, whatever, nevermind" sums up my generation. Our apathetic cynicism is legendary, a generation of kids who affected such world-weary disdain for anything and everything outside the realm of Self that it became real. I've got it, sometimes finding myself so complacently jaded that I can scarcely rouse myself when my supposed moral boundaries are infringed upon. War on Christmas? Who cares? Not like anyone cares about the reality of Christmas anyway. What began as a Catholic usurpation of a pagan fertility rite and became a massive glut of unbridled consumerism is now supposed to take on its pure and most noble meaning (the birth of the Christian Messiah) because the heathen atheist liberals are saying "Happy Holidays?" Yeah, okay. Whatever.

I have to fight it, but in truth I say "whatever" far too frequently. I should be more concerned about stuff. And though I write obsessively about current events, politics and pop culture, I still find myself battling inertia when it comes to caring about my subjects or taking many things seriously. Glib is the go-to reaction of my generation. Oh well. Whatever.

Shut up and hold on.

2009-01-03T00:51:00.000-08:00

Happy 32nd birthday to me. I bought myself a red velvet cupcake at Barnes & Noble and got my truck working. That's right, I drove my girl today. I'd forgotten how much fun she is. You don't drive the '79 Bronco, baby--you ride her. Just shut up and hold on.

Birthdays are snoozefests anymore. I suppose I'll have a mini-meltdown when I turn 40, but until then, I'm content with buying myself a book and a red velvet cupcake.

Priorities.

2009-01-02T00:12:00.001-08:00

Obama has no problem stating his opinion on the Blagojevich debacle, yet remains obstinately silent on the Gaza situation. Not that this is surprising. Obama seems absolutely disinterested in the details of events in the great big world, unless they pertain to his golden person directly. Granted, Blago may be fresh in his mind, being as "dirty Chicago pol" is not the figure he's keen on cutting as he takes office. Well, we all reap what we sow. And so on.

The Gaza situation is a bit more pressing than the crazy governor from Illinois. I know he's unstable in a particularly Tom Cruise way, but I think that the President-elect should have at least some opinion on current events outside of his home state.

But what do I know? I'm just some provincial hick from Arizona. I've never been to Europe and I can't order in French, being the arrogant American that I am. I even drive an SUV! I'm sure Obama is simply deep in thought over the current war between Israel and Hamas, biding his time until he can unleash his brilliance upon the world, blinding us with his keen insight. Or something.

Clever.

2009-01-01T23:40:00.000-08:00

My new favourite website. I don't know about you, but I trust the IDF pr folks more than I do al Jazeera or the Beeb. Just sayin'.

Question answered.

2009-01-01T17:06:00.000-08:00

What does it mean? Well, I think Allan Sherman’s English translation really gets to the heart of it:

I know a man, his name is Lang
He has a neon sign
And Mr Lang is very old
So they call it Old Lang’s Sign.

Happy New Year!

I literally read this essay a couple of weeks ago, but the holidays have apparently shorted out my short-term memory. Well, now we know.

Tie a string around your finger.

2009-01-01T16:51:00.000-08:00

Don't forget that Steyn is guest-hosting for Rush tomorrow. It's like the radio gods are giving me an early birthday present. (My birthday's on the 3rd, although I'm sure you've all had that written on your calendar already.)

I love Rush, but Mark is so terribly entertaining, I always look forward to his guest-hosting stints. What a great way to ring in the new year.

2009-01-01T00:30:00.001-08:00

It's 2009. Here's hoping it's better than 2008. Personally, 2008 was superfab for me, but I understand it was kind of crappy for everyone else.

Any way, have a safe & happy night!

I still don't know what "auld lang syne" means. . .

2008-12-31T17:44:00.000-08:00

. . . but I read an excellent column on it in Steyn's A Song for the Season.

Happy birthday Mom.

And Happy New Year to everyone else!

Useless idiot.

2008-12-30T22:53:00.000-08:00

This woman is such a tool.

Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, standing beside a damaged yacht, Tuesday accused the Israeli navy of ramming the vessel to halt the delivery of medical supplies to the embattled Gaza Strip.
“Our mission was a peaceful mission,” McKinney told CNN after she and 15 others aboard the boat made it safely to the harbor in the Lebanese seaport of Tyre.
McKinney, the recent Green Party candidate for U.S. president and frequent center of controversy, is the most prominent political figure to join the relief voyages sponsored by the Free Gaza Movement.

McKinney was slated to travel by car to Beirut where she was expected to conducted media interviews and meet with Lebanese government officials, said Paul Larudee, a co-founder of the California-based Free Gaza group.

Larudee said the organization was determined to continue the relief mission, the sixth such trip to Gaza and the first to be interrupted.

“We’re going to get it repaired,” Larudee said of the “Dignity,” the cabin cruiser which he said sustained damage to the hull, the bridge and the engine room.

A U.S. State Department spokesman said Tuesday that U.S. diplomats had issued no protests to Israeli authorities. “When you enter a zone of conflict, then you have to realize that it’s very, very dangerous,” the spokesman told reporters.

I have so much to say about Cynthia McKinney, but it's past my bedtime. She's a tool and I'm pretty sure she's nuts. Her little band of merry terrorist-sympathizers tell a story that differs from the official Israeli version, but that should come as no surprise. I'd take the word of the Israelis over that of Cynthia McKinney, (who, as we all know, can be a bit of a hysterical freak), any day of the week and twice on Shabbat.

I need to go to bed.

Voting present?

2008-12-30T16:49:00.000-08:00

This is why I could not vote for him. He appears to freeze up every time something major goes down. I may be wrong, and it may be that he will come up with some devastatingly brilliant insight and turn the entire Middle East around, but my bet is that the One is once again voting "present."

Remember, when Bush golfed as chaos reigned, he was disaffected and cold. But Obama is the most ubercool dude to ever grace the White House, so he's just chilling, right?

That settles it.

2008-12-30T16:29:00.000-08:00

Via Steyn, a Russian analyst is predicting the bust-up of the US. Yawn. These predictions get old, but at least this one comes with pictures.

If these things come to pass, I'm moving away from the California Republic as soon as is humanly possible, hightailing it for the Texas Republic. I doubt it will fall under Mexican influence (have you ever met a Texan?), and I'm pretty sure it'll be one of the last places personal freedom will be respected. Also, I've always wanted to visit the deep south.

Tarnished?

2008-12-30T15:40:00.000-08:00

After pushing a third faux memoir loaded with inaccuracies and fabrications, ABC is wondering if Oprah's brand is tarnished. She is the queen of schmaltz, the empress of melodrama, the shameless promoter of wildly unrealistic expectations (for her viewers) and the celeb asskisser-in-chief. Her endorsements are usually a signal to me that I should steer clear of the book in question, but to a lot of people, she is the sole literary authority in their lives. Which makes me sad.

I am exceedingly pessimisstic when it comes to the prospect of dethroning of Oprah. For some unfathomable reason, people love her. She's ridiculous, and her apparent cultural importance says more about us than it does about her. We thrive on schmaltz. It's depressing.

Sick.

2008-12-28T23:07:00.000-08:00

Speaking of sick, fourteen Afghani children between the ages of 8 and 10 were murdered by a bomb-laden SUV on their way to their last day of school. It is so hard to understand what motivates a person to intentionally target unsuspecting, innocent children. These fuckers have no honour, no dignity. They are cowards and deserve to die slowly and painfully. As a mother, I am simultaneously sickened, horrified and angry. I want to take the bastards responsible apart with my bare hands. The hate is there, I can feel it mixed in with the sorrow for the parents of these children, the soldiers who were unable to help them, the entire country of Afghanistan as it wrestles to free itself from this cancer of violence and brutality. God blesses the little children, gathers them to Himself, sometimes saving them from this evil, evil world. We can't know why He allows these things, and often faith alone is cold comfort. I look at this world and the evil within it and know that we deserve to be extinct. But there is goodness here that can't be ignored, shining like bright spots in the darkness.

Remember these parents tonight, remember the children who survived, and remember the Afghani people.

Protest.

2008-12-28T22:01:00.000-08:00

So my video did not come out the way I had hoped and the pictures were terrible as well. I was forbidden from wading into the throng (there had to be over a hundred people on the corner of Camelback and Central this afternoon) as I have an ever-vigiliant, level-headed bodyguard. I was shaking, I was so angry. I managed not to use coarse language or rude hand gestures, because there were a large number of children present, and regardless of how brainwashed those children may be, it's never right to use profanity in the presence of children.

Any how, there were plenty of anti-Israeli signs and calls for motorists to honk for peace as the leader of the protest led the crowd in a rousing call to push the Jews into the sea. A depressing number of Arizonans honked as I fought the urge to vomit, watching children dancing around, placing fliers on the windows of motorists stopped at the lights. A trio of young girls carrying the Palestinian flag walked across the street and stood in front of me, the seething girl on the corner, and my companion warned me silently--in a way only he can--to refrain from giving in to my anger and disgust. A bright spot was when I heard a man joking with his family as he crossed at the light, "If they want peace so bad, maybe they should stop bombing Israel."

I left disgusted and sad. It's never going to end, is it?

2008-12-28T15:03:00.000-08:00

Happened upon an anti-Israel demonstration this afternoon in Phoenix. Shot a short video & got some audio. Feel nauseated. Will properly blog later this evening.

White noise.

2008-12-27T18:32:00.000-08:00

Near the end of Steyn's excellent weekend column there is a line, a brilliant observation (amongst a sea of brilliant observations) on the state of western society.

Best not to take any chances. That's another way societies seize up – by obsessing on phantom threats rather than real ones.

Though the column is on the faltering world economy, taken out of context, these lines could very well apply to nearly all of the cultural neuroses that plague my country. Aside from the obvious "global warming is a greater threat than global jihad" nonsense, there are myriad bogeymen prowling the edges of American imaginations.

The Independent and the Times online each have an article chronicling the scientific illiteracy of many of our most prominent public figures, including both of America's recent presidential candidates.

To its credit, the Independent takes on the frightfully widespread belief that preservatives in children's vaccines can cause autism.

"We've seen just a skyrocketing autism rate," said President-elect Obama. "Some people are suspicious that it's connected to the vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it," he said.
His words were echoed by Mr McCain. "It's indisputable that [autism] is on the rise among children, the question is what's causing it," he said. "There's strong evidence that indicates it's got to do with a preservative in the vaccines."

Exhaustive research has failed to substantiate any link to vaccines or any preservatives. The rise in autism is thought to be due to an increased awareness of the condition.

The Times echoes this in its column. I see so much of it in southern California, even among women I believe to be on the higher end of the intelligence scale. I used to work out with a paediatrician who lamented the rise of "Jenny McCarthy science." "I see this all of the time with the parents of autistic kids; they need someone to blame, so they blame the vaccinations. And you get some bimbo who goes on Oprah claiming that her son's autism was caused by vaccines and then the movement gains national attention, which legitimises it. And then I get to deal with kids becoming gravely ill and dying from easily preventable diseases, things we haven't seen in forty, fifty years. It's irresponsible." Even if the science did support it, the benefits of not losing one's child to whooping cough outweigh the minuscule risks.

So while there is a real war going on, a war waged on the west by backward religious radicals whose aim is to throw civilization back a thousand years or so and restore the global caliphate, we are worrying about junk science and faux food allergies. [H/t: Kathy Shaidle.]

[An off-topic aside: Why is my browser's spellcheck dictionary still speaking to me in British English?]

It's too bad.

2008-12-27T17:27:00.000-08:00

I'm terribly sorry that all of those people had to die because Hamas won't stop lobbing rockets into Israel, but I'm not sure the message has been received. I can only hope that Israel stays the course and sees this through. It has ceased to surprise me that the international community is repeatedly taken in by the distortions, manipulations, and downright lies of these so-called Palestinian freedom fighters. In these conflagrations, high civilian casualties on the Palestinian side are all too common, primarily because the "freedom fighters" hide amongst the general populace while carrying out their war on the imperialist occupiers. Israel, like any grown-up, civilized country, has a real military that actively avoids waging war from suburban areas. Putting the large number of casualties into perspective is paramount in these situations, but I'm not holding my breath. The world will condemn Israel because it is the easy, trendy thing to do.

"We will not leave our land, we will not raise white flags and we will not kneel except before God," Haniyeh said.

The thing is--and I make this statement with much certainty--that most Israelis do not want the Palestinians to leave their land or kneel before anyone. Israelis would just like to be left in peace, without the daily threat of rockets indiscriminately falling on the border cities, without psychos bulldozing pedestrians, without suicide bombers detonating themselves in Tel Aviv marketplaces or shooting up religious schools. Apparently, this is just too much for the Palestinian leadership, who feel compelled to push and push until the Israelis are forced to take action.

It's a shame that all of those Palestinians have to die because their leadership views their lives as valuable for propaganda purposes only.

Ouch.

2008-12-26T18:56:00.000-08:00

Heh. Ouch.

President-elect Obama stopped by the Marine Corps base in Hawaii Kaneche Bay where servicemen and -women were eating Christmas dinner in Kailua Thursday evening.
“Just wanted to say hi, hey guys,” Obama said as he walked into the Anderson dining hall which was decked out in Christmas decorations.

The diners represented seven military units -- Marine and Navy -- some of whom were joined by their families for Christmas dinner.

As Obama entered the room, it was absent of the regular fanfare of cheering and clapping. The diners were polite, staying seated at their respective tables and waited for the president-elect to come to them to stand up.

He can't expect to be embraced by the military enthusiastically, not after he trashed them for most of his campaign. For the most part--and the Blackfive guys can correct me if I'm wrong--our soldiers, sailors, airmen, et. al, don't necessarily appreciate being told that they're fighting and dying for nothing, for oil, for Bush's cronies, or whatever the lefty conspiracy du jour may be. I'm also pretty sure that our guys don't like the prospect of cutting and running from a war they've worked so hard to win. And I'm fairly certain that our military does not enjoy being portrayed as hillbilly illiterate children with no other prospects, forcing them to turn to the volunteer armed services, and then being pandered to and patronized when political expediency dictates. Our guys aren't stupid. They're not about to disrespect their commander in chief (having, for the most part, an understanding of things like honor and respect--unlike those who choose to disregard them), but you can't expect them to get too excited when he takes time out of his busy workout schedule to photo op with them.

As Gateway Pundit notes, Obama's no George W. Bush.

Obsessed.

2008-12-25T21:46:00.000-08:00

Eh. I've seen better. In person. Obama's such a prissy peacock, it's hard to not become nauseated by the media's obsession with his mediocre physique. It's not like we've never had a fit president before. George W. Bush is in wicked shape, especially for a man of his age. He's in better shape than men much younger, but, you know, he's evil and Satan incarnate and whatnot. All hail the kwisatz haderach or something.

[Just to be clear, I've never seen the nude torso of Leonidas in person. I'm just using him as an example of the complete opposite end of the spectrum. And while Leonidas' physique has had the benefit of cinematic magic, I have literally seen bodies as close to perfection as humanly possible in person. What can I say? I CrossFit.]

A good man.

2008-12-25T14:59:00.000-08:00

Interesting. Reviled in his own country, lauded in eastern Europe.

Kosovo decided Wednesday to name a central street of its capital Pristina after outgoing US President George W. Bush for his support of the territory's split from Serbia.
Backed unanimously by Kosovo's cabinet, Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said the move was "a sign of the huge state and national respect and appreciation" for the United States' contribution to independence, declared earlier this year.

He's a good man. At least there are those out there who recognize this.

Merry Christmas, dhimmi style.

2008-12-25T14:23:00.000-08:00

I know that everyone has been atwitter about this for the last week, but I've got to weigh in on this. Unbelievable, this man. More unbelievable is the comfort with which the British have settled into dhimmi status. I know it is not inborn, as we in the US come from the same stock, my only explanation is that decades of the brutal imposition of state-mandated multiculturalism and an intrusive nanny state have rendered the proud and noble English complacent and apathetic.

Now, I've got a real problem with an unbeliever telling me how to be a good Christian, let alone claiming to know the mind of the Son of God, in whose divinity Mahmoud does not believe. He and his co-religionists call Christians polytheists and idolaters, and yet here he is, soft spoken and decidedly less crazy-eyed than usual, choosing his words carefully so as to lead the sheep to believe that somehow the three Abrahamic religions aren't so different after all.

As would be expected, our friends at JihadWatch have the details>, as well as the proper context in which to put this tiny tyrant's statements.

2008-12-25T00:00:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

Freedom of expression?

2008-12-24T16:22:00.000-08:00

Regardless of whether you agree with the man, the Pope's got a right to say whatever the hell he wants to say. Wouldn't you agree? I mean, he's the leader of a conservative Christian religion, and he's got to speak what he believes to be true according to the Bible. So, his freedom of expression should outweigh any concerns about political correctness, right?

Ha! Keep dreamin'.

Congratulations are in order.

2008-12-24T16:19:00.001-08:00

Congratulations to my trainer and his wife on the birth of their long-awaited, long-anticipated, much discussed twins yesterday afternoon. I've seen pictures, and those babies are hella big for twins, and very, very cute. His wife is a superhero.

Muse.

2008-12-24T15:48:00.000-08:00

I don't care. The Boss was before my time, and anything I've heard of his sounds dated and lacks that timeless quality inherent to really classic rock. I remember the theme songs from Philadelphia and Jerry Maguire as sappy, with Springsteen warbling on about sad things and social consciousness and other boring things. I'm not even illegally downloading his shite. If his hatred of Bush gets him up in the morning, so be it. What's he going to do for inspiration now that his reason for living is gone? I'm sorry, but it seems a tad pathetic when your muse is someone whose very existence you deplore. My muses tend to be creatures I desire, find beautiful, am intrigued by, &etc. I mean, why not keep a thing of beauty in one's mind when creating something? When you single-mindedly create around an obsessive hatred, your work tends to come out small and petty. Just look at Hollywood's recent box office bombs.

I'd love to sit and talk muses all day, but it's Christmas Eve. I'd share my Christmas list with you, but that'd be wildly inappropriate.

Party poopers!

2008-12-24T15:43:00.000-08:00

These guys are the worst. The worst! Talk about party poopers. One day, scientists will find a way to convert the self-satisfaction of ecovangelists into electricity and thus tap into a power source that can last us for an eternity.

Last act.

2008-12-24T15:23:00.001-08:00

This is a neat story, though it might not help to ease the minds of the paranoid "Israel Lobby" conspiracy theorists. Oh well, they can suck it.

What Charlie Winters did all those years ago is a righteous act. I can say without much doubt that I'd have done the same and willingly served time for it. In the months and years immediately following the discovery of Hitler's atrocities, people still remembered the horror of what had been done and how very close Hitler (with the help his cronies, many high profile Muslims included) had come to accomplishing this goal. The urgency of a Jewish homeland was recognized as imperative, and Charlie Winters took action to make it so.

God bless President Bush for pardoning this man and clearing his name, for though he did not live to see it, his children and grandchildren will now have that comfort.

Brilliant!

2008-12-24T00:14:00.000-08:00

I was just reading "David Kahane" at NRO, who refers to Obama as the Kwisatz Haderach in his newest piece. Brilliant! If only I had thought of that, as I am a huge fan of the Dune series. Truly, the media may very well believe that Obama is Muad'Dib--at least that's the conclusion I've come to, based on the obsessive fawning and worship I've observed. Just as long as the One doesn't start a massive jihad to convert entire solar systems to a brutal, totalitarian hybridization of hyper-violent future Islam and Buddhism.

To tangent briefly, having read the Dune series well before 9/11 brought Islam to the attention of the modern world, I had not realized how much the more violent strains of Islam were featured in Frank Herbert's world. The future as he sees it belongs to Islam. It's been at least one hundred centuries since Earth was abandoned and yet Wahhabi-esque strains of Islam are still viral in the most desolate pockets of the wide universe. It's very interesting. The series is fantastic for its studies of morality, the dangers of blending politics and religion, the ethical ramifications of scientific intrusion into the natural world, and the limits, if any, of scientific progress. Herbert's examination of messianic prophecy and objective morality are worth reading the first three books. His future is bleak and cynical, a universe with no use for innocence and kindness, but it is quite thought-provoking. Herbert addresses social planning, benevolent dictatorship, the role of government in the lives' of its subjects, the willing capitulation of truly free men when they are convinced that the man they follow is their Messiah, the Change that they've been waiting for.

I would recommend the first three books only to non-scifi folks, as the books grow ever weirder and more intensely philosophical. Kind of like the third installment of the Matrix, only more coherent and interesting.

I'm done with my tangent now. Great reference, Kahane. Pure scifi gold. I'm going to try to remember that Obama is now the kwisatz haderach.

Surprise! Obama's economic policy is wrong.

2008-12-23T12:39:00.000-08:00

As you know, economics is not my strong point. Numbers and whatnot are, speaking candidly, a bore to me. Which is no excuse for ignoring such an important issue, but it is my reason. Thankfully, the Center for Freedom and Prosperity has been releasing a series of videos aiming to educate the economically disabled, such as myself. Here is an especially informative one on the obsession with Keynesian policy in the coming Obama administration.

One of my New Year's resolutions is to develop my weaknesses in all areas, from CrossFit to mathematics. I'm not looking forward to extra box jumps and reviewing algebraic formulas. Yuck.

[As an example of how much I do not want to work on my weaknesses, I initially typed that I was going to "work on my strengths" during the new year. Can we say Freudian slip?]

A dream has been realized...

2008-12-23T00:22:00.000-08:00

I've been linked in Steyn's Song of the Week. He's probably right; I've probably heard the song a thousand times during my last thirty-one Christmases but never paid attention until this year. In my defense, as a kid Christmas music all started to blur around December 14th, when I'd been listening to it since October 31st. (My mom's a bit of a Christmas nut, and ever since I moved away I've avoided Christmas music as much as possible.) It absolutely sounds like a song my mother would love, and I'm going to break out the CD for her tomorrow.

The song did get stuck in my head, and I can't help smiling every time I hear it--which seems to be every time I walk into a department store. I love it. Steyn is such a weirdo, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. I admire his fearlessness, which, coupled with the wide array of topics about which he is knowledgeable, always makes for an interesting, adventurous read. I mean, I've never heard a Jonah Goldberg single or seen KLo putting on a festive dance number, (though I'm sure she'd do very nicely). And I can't imagine Ann Coulter churning out an Anne Murray cover album. (Why did I choose Anne Murray? I've no idea.) Although, to be fair, I can definitely imagine Kathy Shaidle in a punk band. That would be awesome, and I'd pay for those tickets.

Any way, being linked from the SotW this week is indeed a magical experience. Merry Christmas to me! (Which reminds me, I need to hang some mistletoe on this blog.) As I've mentioned a zillion times, the SotWs are my favorite, always introducing me to the most interesting music. I recently downloaded a grip of Sinatra just to have the song "I'll Never Smile Again" in my iPod playlist, having recently learned the sad story behind it from A Song for the Season.

I must now bow out, having driven 8+ hours through rain, slush and extreme boredom. I've got to get some sleep.

The sweetest Christmas.

2008-12-21T23:17:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm not happy with my previous post. I wrote it too quickly with a small one leaping from the back of the couch onto my head, which did nothing for my concentration. I will probably rewrite it at some point this week.

During the holidays, it is so easy to lose perspective. I'm stressed about money, stressed about getting everything packed up for the holiday trek east, stressed about the dogs and bills and any other excuse I can find to be stressed, so that the holiday itself becomes just one more day. I have the freedom to go to a Christmas Eve service or to light the candles on a menorah or refuse to celebrate anything at all and yet I choose to fret about transient matters, missing out on the limited time I will be able to spend with my family. It becomes routine.

But this Christmas, something decidedly less routine is happening in Baghdad. Iraqis are celebrating Christmas together, openly and without fear. From the CNN website comes this beautiful account of the first Iraqi public celebration of Christmas in modern memory. It's a great reminder of just how good we have it, and just how close the Iraqis are to becoming free, permanently.

On a large stage, children dressed in costumes representing Iraq's many ethnic and religious groups -- Kurds, Turkmen, Yazidis, Christians, Arab Muslims not defined as Sunni or Shiite -- hold their hands aloft and sing "We are building Iraq!" Two young boys, a mini-policeman and a mini-soldier sporting painted-on mustaches, march stiffly and salute.
[. . .]
In the middle of the park there's an art exhibit, the creation of 11- and 12-year-olds: six displays, each about three feet wide, constructed of cardboard and Styrofoam, filled with tiny dolls dressed like ordinary people, along with model soldiers and police. They look like model movie sets depicting everyday life in Baghdad.
Afnan, 12 years old, shows me her model called "Arresting the Terrorists."
"These are the terrorists," she tells me. "They were trying to blow up the school." In the middle of the street a dead "terrorist" sprawls on the asphalt, his bloody arm torn from his body by an explosion. Afnan tells me she used red nail polish to paint the blood. A little plastic dog stands nearby. "What is he doing?" I ask. "He looks for terrorists and searches for weapons and explosives," Afnan says.

I don't know what Iraq will look like in five years, but this sort of thing was unheard of less than five years ago. The progress made is taking root and millions of children's lives will be better for it. I find dark irony in the fact that Muslim schoolchildren are celebrating with the Christian minority in Iraq without the ACLU getting involved, while American schools are so bound up by the fear of offending someone, holidays have become bland, joyless, empty ritual. It's pathetic.

Merry Christmas, Iraq, and here's to many, many more.

Glamazon.

2008-12-20T16:11:00.000-08:00

At this point in my life, CrossFit is as much a part of my daily routine as is writing. I'd say that I hold an equal amount of affection for each of these activities, as disparate as they are. Over the course of the last year and a half, I've explained to many women just what it is I do five times a week, every week (even on holiday), and invariably they've expressed the concern that were they to take up such a regimen, they'd get "big" and "bulky" from all of the weight-lifting. This is a common misconception on the part of most people, this belief that somehow weight training affects men and women separately. As if it were physiologically possible for the muscles of different sexes to react differently to the same stimuli. Of course men and women are made differently, but we're still very much the same. This article, the link to which was posted on my CF affiliate's site, does an excellent job of addressing the myth that girls can't play as hard as the boys.

As a fitness trainer, I often see women afraid to push their limits during a workout. I often see women give up when they could go further. I often see women shy away from weights and high intensity effort.
Let’s be absolutely clear, there is nothing that a man can do in the gym, on the field, in the ring or anywhere else that a woman can’t do too.

It’s a matter of changing the way you perceive exercise and physical challenges. The harder you work, the more amazing your results will be. The better your results, the more you want to train. It’s a positively reinforcing cycle.

All of the above is true. While I cannot lift as much as my trainer, I can lift quite a lot--much more than I ever dreamed possible. As for getting bulkier, while CF has changed my body's shape, it is now a shape I like quite a bit. In fact, I'd say that I look more feminine than I did before, which sounds odd coming from the girl with the callused hands. As the author states, women have to try very hard to get bulky, whereas mixing intensity, weights and cardio will produce the body you were meant to have.

We were designed to move, to run, to lift, to do--things we rarely think about anymore. Though we claim to be a "fitness" obsessed nation, we are really just an appearance-obsessed nation, a nation obsessed with jeans size and the number on the scale. At this point in my life, I have no idea how much I weigh, but I know that all but one pair of my jeans are too big, and that one pair of jeans looks phenomenal. I know that I love my shape and I really like my butt, which is something I've never been able to say before. The funny thing is that though I started CF to "get in shape", I don't think about that anymore. I think about improving my next set of cleans, or getting that overhead squat under control. I think about improving my run times or getting one more pull up during the warm-up. Once freed from the unrealistic expectations of society, we're finally able to find what it means to be healthy.

Women need to strip unrealistic, dangerous, culturally-imposed restrictions of their value. Very few of us will have to worry about becoming bulky or unfeminine, because women are not designed to be that way. Fit, strong, healthy, irrepressibly feminine--like Amazons, only much nicer. To bring back the old late '80's term: we need to become glamazons.

Smarty.

2008-12-19T01:21:00.000-08:00

Michael Crichton wasn't the only one to think so.

“You know, to think that we could affect weather all that much is pretty arrogant,” Myers said. “Mother Nature is so big, the world is so big, the oceans are so big – I think we’re going to die from a lack of fresh water or we’re going to die from ocean acidification before we die from global warming, for sure.”

Myers is the second CNN meteorologist to challenge the global warming conventions common in the media. He also said trying to determine patterns occurring in the climate would be difficult based on such a short span.

“But this is like, you know you said – in your career – my career has been 22 years long,” Myers said. “That’s a good career in TV, but talking about climate – it’s like having a car for three days and saying, ‘This is a great car.’ Well, yeah – it was for three days, but maybe in days five, six and seven it won’t be so good. And that’s what we’re doing here.”

“We have 100 years worth of data, not millions of years that the world’s been around,” Myers continued.

Not to toot my own horn, (at least not in public), but I've been saying the same thing for awhile now. I'm no scientist, but I am a big smarty.

Wow.

2008-12-19T00:38:00.000-08:00

Wow. The South and the Mormons are just the favorite scapegoats of the left right now. The Mormons are intolerant oppressors of the gays, while the South is eternally waging war on the North, by whatever means necessary. In Lind's case, he believes the war is an economic one and he's calling for a Third Reconstruction--which would be gross if it weren't so unintentionally hilarious. The Left really gets their panties in a twist about southerners, don't they? I find it sickly fascinating, as lefty writers again and again talk down to an entire section of thi country and then wonder why they never gain any ground in those areas.

I've got no desire to debate Lind's economic argument, I just can't get over the fact that he seems to believe that the South is still consciously fighting the Civil War. I mean, doesn't that seem a bit crazy?

A U.S. economic development strategy would make it more difficult for individual state governments and their crony capitalist allies to engage in the beggar-thy-neighbor policies that the Southern elites have specialized in for nearly a century. And a national economic development system would thwart the ultimate goal of the extreme right in America -- the leveling down of the entire U.S. to the South's inhumane and primitive standards.

Man, I'd be pissed if I were a Southerner. This is what the "North" thinks of you all. Me, I'm not quite sure where Arizona fits into the whole North/South thing, but that's immaterial. We're a bunch of rednecks at war with Mexico or something. Maybe i'm missing some larger point here, but the distance between reality and fantasy when it comes to the left's perception of any area outside of New England is a yawning chasm.

Weird.

Something to look forward to.

2008-12-18T20:17:00.000-08:00

You know, I've been wondering the same thing for the last two and a half years. Especially as my Jeep bangs over enormous potholes and snakes of uneven asphalt patches.

One of the strangest things about the current California meltdown is how no one in state government here ever pauses to ask simple questions like: Why do we have the largest annual deficit with one of the highest sales tax and income tax rates in the country?

VDH identifies the culprit: wealth redistribution. So, if we look at California as a failed experiment in socialism, is this the country in miniature come ten years?

Taking out the mental garbage.

2008-12-18T18:53:00.000-08:00

Hairy, not so hairy... who cares? While a smooth, oiled chest obviously belongs to a gay man or someone equally unconcerned with a woman's, uh, happiness, between the choices given (at least the choice between Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman), who cares about the rug? The Hasselhoff/Prince Charles pictures are just unnecessary, however. Regardless of chest hair, that's just not happening. Bleh.

All in moderation, my friends, as with everything else. Too hairy is just as bad as metrosexual smooth. Is it just me, or is Daniel Craig the most perfect blond since Steve McQueen? Sheesh.

From a purely evolutionary standpoint, I'm assuming that more chest hair would be indicative of a higher level of testosterone, therefore signifying a more virile mate or something. Whatever. Men should be at least slightly hairy. And infragrant. Or they should at least smell like men. (What is that? you ask. Obviously, "man" smell is comprised of truck exhaust, skin, and a tiny hint of sweat.)

I know that the last several posts have been noticably calorie-free, but I need a break sometimes. I've been reading Page Six, virtual shoe-shopping, and eating cookies. I will resume the seriousness shortly.

I could die.

2008-12-18T13:40:00.000-08:00

Does this guy ever tire of hearing his own voice? I doubt it. All I know is that I tired of him long ago, and actively avoid anything he's in. I have an allergy to self-important, out-of-touch, insulated idiots. I could die if I were exposed to too much Redford.

Pretty much perfect.

2008-12-18T13:23:00.000-08:00

Heroic.

2008-12-18T10:55:00.000-08:00

Some hero.

A spokesman for Iraq's prime minister says the journalist who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush has asked for a pardon.
Spokesman Yassin Majid says that in a letter sent Thursday to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki the journalist described his behavior as "an ugly act" and asked to be pardoned.
Majid says that Muntadhar al-Zeidi in the letter recalls the kindness the prime minister once showed him during an interview in 2005 and asked for al-Maliki to show him kindness once again.

Speaking truth to power, one shoe at a time.

Oh, how embarrassing.

2008-12-18T01:46:00.000-08:00

I'd almost feel sorry for the "reporter" in question if he hadn't been such a hand-wringing wuss trying to pass off hysteria as a "news story." Who do we have to bribe to get real reporting these days? I've got to go donate some money to Michael Yon so I can get some sleep. For Pete's sake, people, what passes as the high and noble calling of contemporary journalism is little more than anointing oneself a priest of the order of the Leftist agenda. There are some amazing reporters working today, Eli Lake and Michael Yon being my two favorites, but most of them, like this AP Science writer, need to get a little perspective.

I could literally talk about this sort of thing all day.

2008-12-18T01:16:00.000-08:00

For some reason, my browser's spell check function is utilizing a U.K. English dictionary. Therefore I am getting yelled at for "color" and "favorite" and so on. As much fun as it is to pretend to be British, I am hopelessly, unapologetically American. I do love Southern dialects of American English, however. My friends Charlotte and Clark have the most wonderful, melodic accents. I could listen to them all day long. We southern Arizonans have very slight accents on certain words. We mostly drop our 'g's and get lazy with our vowels. We also butcher grammar quite a bit, but not in the delicious Texan/Louisianan/deeply Southern way. We're in some sort of idiomatic no man's land, vacillating between SoCal slang and something very similar to what I hear when I visit my cousins in southernmost Illinois. I'm as comfortable throwing "ain't" around as I am drawing out the 'u' in "dude." Very confusing from a linguistic standpoint. Accentwise, I'd rather sound like a hillbilly or a Valley Girl circa 1989. None of this in-between garbage. I'm such an absolutist.

Did I really just write a post complaining about the middling nature of southern Arizonan dialects? I've got to start managing my time better.

PS--Girls, can I get an amen concerning the sexiness of Southern accents? Rhapsodize in my comments section, 'cause you know you want to.

I just didn't have my priorities straight.

2008-12-17T19:47:00.000-08:00

Honey, I should have got me one of these in college. I think, while the subject is trite and shallow, that the comparisons to prostitution are unfair. If this is prostitution, so are many relationships I've observed over the course of my lifetime. What about girls who shack up with their boyfriends and are obviously benefiting from their man's financial situation? What about the expectation women have that men will shower them with gifts simply because they "deserve it"? I think that there may be not a little jealousy involved in the woman's reader response, as well as "shock" over the straightforward business arrangement it seems she and her man have. God, not like a majority of people in this country don't have similar relationships but lie to themselves daily, fantasizing that "love" is some sort of vapid romantic comedy.

Love should be like a Guy Ritchie movie, but I digress.

I think it's obvious that the writer of the sugar daddy article is basically courting all of that jealousy, but that's her problem. She's gets the attention she craves, she gets to include a shot of her man and his amazing (!) body, and we all get to talk about her. Congrats, girlie.

Rainy day.

2008-12-17T19:32:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but nothing cures the rainy day blues like a little Squirrel Nut Zippers on the stereo as you're running your errands.

I was catching up on the goings on at the Corner, and I read that KLo cringed when she heard that the shoe-throwing "hero" of the Arab world may have been beaten in prison. I think that she may be a better person than I, because I am unaffected if not secretly pleased that he may have been roughed up. Call me uncharitable, but who cares? The guy's lucky he didn't get shot. I agree with KLo's plea for restraint for p.r.'s sake, however.

She included this link, a WaPo profile of that same hero, and it made me slightly nauseated. The lack of perspective exibited by a) the shoe-thrower, and b) most everyone else is just depressing.

Hey, Johnny.

2008-12-17T13:03:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry, but the last thing Taliban Johnny should get is a commutation. What he did was treasonous, and he should have been dealt with accordingly. Citing "sanction violations" and slapping him with 20 years was letting that little shite off easily. Look, I'm all for freedom of expression and whatnot, but when you decide to take up arms against your countrymen, it's firing squad time, in my opinion.

So, while I feel for his parents, they should be counting their blessings that they live in such a softly suicidal nation.

Discussion question:
What about Mike Spann? Can Bush commute his sentence?

Classic.

2008-12-17T00:15:00.000-08:00

It is always amazing to me how well the classics hold up. I wanted something light to read, so I picked up Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and the Damned, which I have not yet read. I love the '20's and '30's; that's one of the reasons I love Fitzgerald. He was a magnificent writer, such a wonderful chronicler of his times. Being of them, it's amazing that he could be as objective as he was, seeing through the frivolous and shallow fascade while seemingly falling for it. Brilliant work.

I will never be Fitzgerald, nor will I ever be Hemingway or Austen, Zola or Eliot. I will, however, read them and those of similar quality, teaching the wee one to love great books over popular ones, to love words for the pictures that they paint and the worlds they create. You just can't do that with a library of Oprah's Book of the Months, you know?

Pardon?

2008-12-16T00:31:00.000-08:00

I haven't been agreeing with David Frum on much lately, but he's on target with this plea.

Pardon Conrad Black.

You all are crazy.

2008-12-15T22:22:00.000-08:00

Gay penguin adoptions? The entire world has lost its damn mind.

What to say?

2008-12-15T21:38:00.000-08:00

Not only is my country half-full of useful idiots, (some might say half-empty, but I am ever the optimist), we've also got one about to take the highest office in the land. Amir Taheri lays it out.

Idiots.

2008-12-15T19:56:00.000-08:00

Drudge is telling me that the Arab world is all in an uproar about the shoe-throwing incident this weekend, which is just, uh, super. The stupidest thing about this whole mess of stupid is that the self-righteous jackass chucking his dress shoes would have never been able to register even a hint of protest under Saddam without ending up in a rape room.

"I swear by God that all Iraqis with their different nationalities are glad about this act," said Yaareb Yousif Matti, a 45-year-old teacher from Mosul, a northern city that has is contested by Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen.

Really, now. Yeah, that guy who liberated you from Saddam is a real bastard. Kind of pathetic, you know?

I found Bush's reaction amusing, laughing the way he did. He's a better person than I am, because I'd have chucked that shoe right back at that prick and aimed to knock his teeth out. Which is why, among other reasons, I will never run a country. Bush has got thick skin, mostly because he has to, but what drives me crazy is the fact that much of the world has decied that Bush isn't even a person. He's treated as less than human by many in my country who claim to have only love, peace and harmony in mind for their fellow man. Hypocrites. Liars. Hippies.

Me, I've never claimed to have any of that in mind for my fellow man. I dole out the love on a case by case basis, and if you're chucking shoes at a man whose goal has been to end tyranny and oppression, you've lost my sympathy and my concern. As for the Bush-bashers in my own country, you're worse than useless. Don't be preaching to me about loving my fellow man when you can so easily write off one of your own species because his politics are not palatable to you.

Perspective.

2008-12-15T00:07:00.000-08:00

I've got cherished company in town until Monday night, therefore posting will remain light. I could not resist, however, this hysterical (by all known definitions of the word) report from the AP. Breathlessly and unselfconsciously indulging in the least attractive aspects of thinly veiled advocacy journalism, this piece prevails upon the One to heal the planet. You know, like he promised he would.

When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, global warming was a slow-moving environmental problem that was easy to ignore. Now it is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid.

Since Clinton's inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton's second inauguration. Global warming is accelerating. Time is close to running out, and Obama knows it.

The End is Near! Stop being so goshdarn selfish, worrying about your family's economic health, and call your senator to make sure you'll be penalized for that SUV you're driving. Why stop there? Let's make it illegal to drive anything but the Prius, environmentally devastating nickel mining be damned.

The article is fraught with references to all of the usual eco-bogeymen: "powerful economic and political realities" that must be overcome, the "years of inaction" that lead us to this global disaster that the "experts" assure us is Already Here (it's calling from Inside the House!), even as New Hampshire has been flash frozen in some sort of perfect ice storm (which I understand is some sort of storm that dumps a slushie-like deluge that freezes upon contact and destroys everything) and it's been raining for ages in sunny SoCal. (It's below sixty degrees! I've been whining for a week. I had to wear a sweater over my tank top and under my hoodie. I had to wear socks and close-toed shoes!) But, least us skeptics get too smug, we are reminded that the apparent cooling trend is really just another sign that the earth is actually warming. For real. Promise.cle

Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it's thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.

I mean,duh. Anyone can see that.

I'll leave you with the timeless words of wisdom from one of the most sage philosophers of our time, the Goracle.

Gore called the situation "the equivalent of a five-alarm fire that has to be addressed immediately."

Of course it does. Not like there's anything else going on.

A Song for the Season.

2008-12-12T21:57:00.001-08:00

As you know, I've been reading Steyn's A Song for the Season, which is absolutely engrossing. I've been spending a lot of time calling up songs on YouTube. Right now I'm stuck in a Sinatra loop, listening to song after song after song. I"m listening to "Where Are You?" at the moment. Love it.

I've explained before how exhausting 24/7 political and social commentary can become, even if you are the one writing it. (I may not like to hear my own voice, but I do like to read what I've got to say.) One needs to take a break, and that's where the Song of the Week columns come in. I like to learn as I relax--in fact, learning is pretty much my only form of relaxation, save UFC and theTerminator series--and if there's one thing we can all learn more about, it's music. I'm not necessarily a music person, though I like it very much, and my musical knowledge could be more extensive. So a SotW column is really serving multiple purposes for me. i'm learning something, I'm entertained, and I'm reading Steyn. There's really nothing more one could ask for.

If you haven't picked it up yet, order yourself a copy of A Song. It'll give you something to read at the in-laws and you'll have tons of trivia for your next holiday party.

Bettie Page, RIP.

2008-12-12T10:15:00.000-08:00

Via Kathy Shaidle, today we say goodbye to an icon. Miss Bettie Page has passed away. Her black hair and short, blunt fringe are iconic, as is her legendary figure. She was very naturally beautiful, great bone structure and a brilliant smile. Her pre-fame photos show a Bettie that looked very much like the Bettie we're all familiar with, which, in this age of airbrushing, widespread plastic surgery and stylists, may be a part of her longstanding appeal. I've always found the enduring popularity of Bettie Page, Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe to be somewhat reassuring, signaling that perhaps not all men prefer the tiny, scrawny, pin-thin, indistinguishable bubble-heads Hollywood has declared the pop culture ideal. Bettie--like her latter-day successor, Dita--was a subversive icon, and she remains so to this day.

The fact that she understood her appeal well enough to step away at the height of her fame, leaving a pristine legacy is fascinating. Most modern celebs (or "celebutards," as Camille Paglia calls them) have no concept of leaving on a high note, preserving their dignity and giving at least the semblance of self-respect. Madonna--with her glaring paranoia, insecurity and desperation--could learn a thing or two about graceful exits from Miss Page.

At a Comicon a couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to meet Olivia, the talented artist who has painted countless portraits of Bettie Page and other pin-ups. She signed her book of paintings, American Geisha, and a Bettie Page calendar that I was puchasing and we chatted for a moment. The fact that I, in 2006, shelled out $15 for 12 prints of an artist's rendering of a model long retired--and that I kept the old calendar so as to clip out the pictures and do something artsy with them--speaks to that special something that Bettie possessed.

Thanks for being gorgeous, Bettie. I'm positive your rest will be peaceful, for you've known where you'd be going for awhile.

Consistently interesting.

2008-12-12T02:00:00.000-08:00

As always, Camille Paglia is well worth the read.

Unmarked.

2008-12-12T01:47:00.000-08:00

Via Steyn, this truly heartbreaking story from the Toronto Sun about a reporter's visit to the unmarked grave of a teen victim of an "honor" killing. I think Mark accurately sums up the disgust I feel with his parting shot:

But a Minnesotan suicide bomber gets his remains brought home from Somalia at taxpayer expense for what looks here like a very respectful and well-attended funeral. An honorable death, presumably.

What a twisted world we live in.

There's always a Siren singing you to shipwreck.

2008-12-12T00:44:00.000-08:00

I'll stipulate that the GOP has not had a very good year. A few bad years have passed, in fact, with the Republicans floundering about and muddying the message of the conservative movement. But the conservative movement I belong to, the movement I love, is not exclusionary when it comes to minorities. It is popular opinion (and by that I mean media/leftie blogs/Hollywood) that the conservative movement is ruled by fear of a) Muslims hiding under their beds; b) Mexicans hiding under their beds; or c) both of the above. Why? Because most conservatives oppose affirmative action and unchecked illegal immigration, and most conservatives believe that Islamist radicals actually mean what they say when they rant about killing Americans.

I find affirmative action to be incredibly insulting. The idea that concessions must be made for you, a minority, because you aren't good enough to keep up with us white folks is pretty damn insulting, don't you think? I'm also not quite sure why opposing open borders and supporting legal immigration is an affront to Mexicans, but apparently there are those who think it is. I guess believing that all people, regardless of race, are equally capable is exclusionary. So is the idea that those who enter this country should do it legally, not just from a national security standpoint but also so that the immigrants themselves can be protected from the kind of swine that will pick them up at Home Depot and pay them a few bucks an hour for a lot of hard work.

I'm speculating about what Colin Powell must be referring to when he says things like this:

The Republican party must stop "shouting at the world" and start listening to minority groups if it is to win elections in the 21st century, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday.
In an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria for Sunday's "GPS" program, President Bush's former secretary of state said his party's attempt "to use polarization for political advantage" backfired last month.

"I think the party has to take a hard look at itself," Powell said in the interview, which was taped Wednesday. "There is nothing wrong with being conservative. There is nothing wrong with having socially conservative views — I don't object to that. But if the party wants to have a future in this country, it has to face some realities. In another 20 years, the majority in
this country will be the minority."

Powell also believes that the GOP should stop listening to Rush Limbaugh, who appeals to our "lesser instincts." Seems like we should stop listening to Colin Powell.

He's regurgitating every tired, used-up talking point from the left's standard characterization of the GOP. Apparently, all conservatives march lockstep behind El Rushbo, chanting "Ditto" and shelling out for tickets to Hannity's Freedom concerts. We're also incapable of understanding the "hearts and minds" of minorities, presumably because we're all a bunch of lily-white, moneyed Protestant wannabe slave-owners just itching to slap a Confederate flag on our Chargers. Powell's obviously been drinking some flavor of Kool-Aid.

As far as Limbaugh goes, I listen when Steyn fills in for him. The only talk radio I listen to with some consistency is Hugh Hewitt's show. He's smart, interesting and funny. He never pulls the hysterical populist card like some other (non-Rush) hosts, which is a huge relief. Regardless of whose radio show is the most entertaining and informative (Hewitt's), the conservative movement needs to resist the Siren call of conservatives in name only who may not have our best interests at heart. We need to do some serious retooling, some deep introspection, and a lot of house-cleaning, but most importantly, we'll need to choose our leaders more wisely than we have in the past, as Colin Powell has so graciously reminded us.

Putting it off in perpetuity.

2008-12-12T00:29:00.000-08:00

Snow in the Big Easy. Beautiful photo accompanying that article. Remember all of those things you were going to do after high school? Most of you probably did them. Me, I didn't. I was broke, working three jobs and trying to get through college--everything else just sort of got shoved to the back burner. I've wanted to visit New Orleans since I was 14 years old. I even lived in Austin and never set foot in Louisiana. How pathetic is that? There is no excuse for not visiting the places you desire if they are located within your country of residence. No excuse.

I feel like such a hillbilly, like some provincial loser. Well, we all live the lives of our making, right? I am the only one in my house with any desire to visit any part of Louisiana. Which means I'll probably not get there for awhile. I feel old now, like I've missed some window of opportunity.

I'm getting dangerously close to whining right now, so I'm moving on.

Excuses, excuses.

2008-12-11T10:39:00.000-08:00

I know that I only posted once yesterday, and I've no excuse, really. When I returned home last night from errand-running and Christmas shopping, I turned on the dvr-recorded UFC Fight Night fundraiser for the Intrepid Fallen Heroes fund. A free three hour fight raising money for wounded veterans? I was so there. I had one bottle of my favorite beer left Purple Haze, thanks to Charlotte and Clark for introducing me to really good Louisiana beer), along with an outsized Mike's Hard Lemonade, (always a classic). Since it takes me about two beers to get buzzed, I tried to take it easy, but needless to say, I felt that it was safer for everyone if I didn't post last night. Friends don't let friends drink and post. I've posted tipsy once or twice before, with decidedly messy and slightly embarrassing results.

So I'll post more today, to make up for it.

A hungry, angry baby.

2008-12-10T19:04:00.000-08:00

For all of you Browncoats out there, this is going to seem all too familiar. I wonder if this dude will have a commitment ceremony for him and his "perfect woman," during which he will cry like a baby. A hungry, angry baby. Mr. Universe's lady didn't look so creepy, though.

[If my obscure references confuse you, rent the movie Serenity. After which you will want to rent the entire season of Firefly. You will then curse Fox for the remainder of your life, I promise you.]

Dhimmitude.

2008-12-09T23:13:00.000-08:00

Reader MarkD makes an interesting point in the comments section of my polygamy post:

Wow, we forced the Mormons to abandon polygamy, and now we are going to accede to it because of the Muslims?

America is not as far gone on polygamy as most of the Western world, though it may be only a matter of time, given the PC reflex of at least half of our population. Wouldn't it be interesting if, after all of the raiding of compounds and reluctance to separate present-day Mormons from their polygamous forebears, polite society offers no resistance to the institution of polygamous marriages of the Muslim variety. With the damning of fundamentalist Mormon communities for their affinity for underage brides, it will be interesting how these PC multiculturalists will react when fundamentalist Muslim men start taking 9 year olds as second and third brides.

Now, I don't agree with underage brides of any religious persuasion, but I'm wondering if there is some sort of double standard here. Bigamy and polygamy are illegal in pretty much all of the Western nations, yet when a cultural "other" comes along and demands its right to multiple wives, the bastions of civilization roll. In Britain, a non-Muslim man who decides he's just gotta have two wives will be breaking the law. Yet if said man converts (or reverts or whatever), he's going to get to keep his wives and get some government funds to help him keep his families afloat. Does that seem sane to anyone?

Tantrum.

2008-12-09T11:20:00.000-08:00

One of the things that has always made me uncomfortable with the gay rights movement is the overtly bullying tactics used against those who disagree, especially if their disagreement is predicated on personal morality. I've always been ambivalent about gay marriage and voted against Prop 8, as amending constitutions arbitrarily is a bit ridiculous. Now, however, I'm regretting that vote. When gay rights advocates start punishing individuals for their personal convictions, they've officially jumped the shark. Maggie Gallagher is absolutely right about the difference between sexual orientation and race, nullifying the argument that this is "our generation's" civil rights issue. That claim is dishonest and manipulative. I honestly don't know if people are born gay or if they "choose" to be gay, but that sort ambiguity is reason for caution before advocates begin claiming that "gay is the new black."

Regardless, publishing lists of individual pro-Prop 8 donors in hopes of punishing them for their insolence is disgusting. This isn't how we do things in this country. The people have spoken with their votes and that must be respected. Throwing a tantrum of titanic pproportions and attempting to ruin lives is not only unsightly, classless and shameful, it's bordering on criminal. And it doesn't win any converts to one's cause. We can only hope that there is a grown-up somewhere in the gay rights movement that will check this ungodly tide of hatred before it gets any worse.

One last thing. . .

2008-12-09T00:25:00.000-08:00

So I was at B&N tonight & guess what was playing? "A Marshmallow World". It was Bing or whoever sang it first, but this is the third time I've heard it this week, not counting Steyn's version. I don't recall ever hearing it before this year. Freaky.

Damn tech monkey.

2008-12-09T00:15:00.001-08:00

The internet is broken & I'm blogging from my phone. Some tech monkey must have fat-fingered a command, because all of Time Warner's service area is down. Damn tech monkey! I'll be back as soon as possible. I'll miss you.

Harems!

2008-12-08T00:58:00.000-08:00

I think that instead of making gay marriage the central issue of the GOP's agenda, we should focus on polygamy instead. Let the gays marry as long as there is only two of them per marriage. As the West kowtows to imams and rushes to remake itself in the image of Saudi Arabia, we will soon have to face this challenge here in the US. Britain's rolled already, setting up welfare and housing assistance for harems (at least Daniel Pipes calls them what they are).

Perhaps it's because I've never been any good at sharing, but I find nothing redeemable about polygamy. As if women already don't have to deal with enough societal humiliation, now the West is clamouring to institutionalize actual sexism. What does a woman get out of being one of four? Society already has beaten her senseless about her inadequacies--now it will be easier for her mate to justify his infidelity. I suppose this pro-harem stance is being couched in the most gender neutral of terms, as if polyandry will also be the norm. I'm sure that's where this is going.. I'm waiting with bated breath for the day I can start collecting husbands.

Sorry.

2008-12-08T00:53:00.000-08:00

I know that some really decent and non-crazy people have serious questions about Obama's citizenship, but I just can't get on board with Michael Savage or Jerome Corsi. To me, anything involving Savage is off the deep end. I'm sorry, and I don't aim to disparage anyone who's really believes this rumor, but the company you keep is very important. There are some loons involved in this Obama conspiracy theory. The involvement of Savage especially sets off alarms for me.

No white Christmases.

2008-12-07T22:57:00.000-08:00

As the small one was singing her eighth version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," I realized that I have never had a "white Christmas." I'm fine with this, as I get painfully cold when the temperature drops below 80 degrees, but it seems a shame to have never frozen solid while celebrating Christmas. I whine a lot when I'm cold, however, so it's probably better this way.

I actually don't even know if I've ever even seen it snow outside, being the desert creature I am. It snowed for a minute as i was leaving Austin, Texas. It may have snowed once when I was visiting my aunt in the Pacific Northwest. I've often thought of living somewhere with actual seasons for a little while, as leaves turning and white Christmases would be a novelty, but as I mentioned above, cold and I just don't get along that well. I'd get to wear cute clothes, however, which might make it all worthwhile.

In which I begin to think deeply.

2008-12-07T01:02:00.001-08:00

This guy is a badass. Referring to a 70-something Coptic priest as a "badass" may seem odd, but after you read the post cited above and this NRO article, (both by Raymond Ibrahim), you won't find it strange at all.

"Fear? I fear nothing," says Botros. "My dictionary does not contain the word fear. I believe in God and I believe that the epistle of Ephesians says we are created in Jesus Christ for a plan, which was engaged from the early beginning. No one can cut it, and when it is completed no one can continue it."

This kind of strength and courage is so inspiring. Men and women who lead lives of this caliber often make me wonder if I'd live as courageously. I'd like to think I would; I don't think I could live with myself if I betrayed my beliefs. My entire life has been a study in moving through, not around, difficulty and I'd hope that I'd continue to do the same in the face of real adversity. Actually, predicating a desire to be brave with an "I hope" is setting oneself up for failure. To truly have the courage of one's convictions, one must decide in advance that one will not easily give in to the flight response. Committing to a response beforehand makes it harder to rationalize one's way out of conflict.

I touched on this topic ages ago in a post. Oriana Fallaci, one of my heroes, lived fearlessly. Throughout her long life, she chose to face fear, to face adversity, to face death--thereby nullifying its power over her. Is bravery as simple as making the decision to be brave? Yes. So many things in our lives are over analyzed. At some point, resolution has to be enough. We can talk ourselves to death, as we are doing now in our slow spiral of civilizational suicide, or we can decide to take a stand wherever our heart is. Father Zakaria has decided to take a stand for love. He has resolved to honor God by lifting the scales from millions of eyes. It's a beautiful thing.

One of my very favorite Shakespearean plays is Hamlet. I read it first as an angsty high school senior, promptly falling in love with the angsty Hamlet. Times have changed and I prefer poor Laertes or Horatio to Hamlet now, as I am drawn to grim men of action, but one of my very favorite lines in the play belongs to the mopey prince. In Act II, scene 2, Hamlet has this to say to that dirty old bastard Polonius:

You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will
more willingly part withal: except my life, except
my life, except my life.

Lives can be taken, but dignity can only be given away. Men like Father Zakaria have dignity in spades.

Fun with Steyn.

2008-12-07T00:04:00.001-08:00

[My laptop is not quite done, so I've absconded with this one. This keyboard is so roomy and luxurious compared to my teeny Asus Eee. And I'm completely unused to seeing an entire webpage in its entirety. Freaky.]

I've got "A Marshmallow World" stuck in my head, courtesy of Mark Steyn and Jessica Martin's fun holiday single. I played it for my daughter, who at age four has developed a much more discerning musical palate than I. She approved but wanted to know why there was only one song on the CD. And then she asked me where my iPod was. Why does my four year old know about iPods?

Anyway, I'm very excited about getting into Steyn's A Song for the Season, which arrived this afternoon, bringing me a little bit of an early Christmas. I love the Song of the Week columns. When I first started reading Steyn, I wasn't quite sure what to make of the SotWs. I mean, I'd come for the political commentary, you know? But almost every song somehow reminded me of my childhood--my mother's encyclopedic knowledge of movie musicals, the music my grandmother listened to as we drove to the fabric store, my mother's vast array of Sinatra/Martin/Crosby Christmas music--and each column offered an intriguing back story. Sort of like "Behind the Music", only interesting. And without Osmonds. So, over the last couple of years, I've begun to look forward to the SotWs, looking the songs I don't know up on YouTube or iTunes, sometimes downloading them to my iPod where they coexist peacefully with the Tool, Queens of the Stone Age, PJ Harvey, Flogging Molly and the metal I keep for the odd run I try to fit in now and again.

I haven't started the book yet, but I plan on it tonight before I hit the sack. I expect to tear through it in a matter of days, as I did with Passing Parade. I can say with some confidence that it it will be fantastic, interesting and provide me with much trivia for the next holiday party I attend. Trivia about songwriting is bound to make me the hit of any party.

Update:
It's been a full 24 hours and "A Marshmallow World" is still running through my head. I caught myself singing it softly as I paid for Christmas ornaments at Target. Viral, I tell you. I love the lack of irony in the song's presentation. Is anyone else as bored by irony as I? A whole generation of smirking, cynical, arrogant bastards is what I'm a part of.

I'm not lazy, I promise.

2008-12-06T16:02:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the delay between postings, folks. My laptop is being formatted and a new flavor of Linux is being installed. Will be back online within the next 12 hours, in one form or the other.

Moving on.

2008-12-05T02:02:00.000-08:00

In my opinion, this is a colossal waste of time, and it makes conservatives look like a bunch of loons. I'm as much against Obama Derangement Syndrome as I am against Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Time to move on, people.

Has anyone been paying attention?

2008-12-05T01:55:00.000-08:00

They do realize that he is not the president yet, don't they? How could he be more assertive--should he call another press conference? He's only been having one or two a day since he was elected. I am becoming increasingly convinced that even the people running this government are unaware of how it works.

Besides, why the sudden expectation that the One will suddenly become assertive? He's never been assertive about anything before, especially when it involves decision-making or principles. He's going to vote "present" for as long as he can get away with it.

I hate to give him the link, but it's such a train wreck.

2008-12-05T00:58:00.000-08:00

Is this guy for real? You'd think after the spanking he got recently, he'd dial it down a little. I guess he liked it.

I would call upon [Steyn] now to come out with some kind of clear statement against bestiality, if not for the sake of the children, then at least for the sake of the child-like men who read his work and may otherwise show up at his next book-signing with their newly purchased bovine lover in tow.

Really? This guy can't be serous. He just can't be. It's too pathetic, too riddled with false assumptions and logical fallacies to be real. I mean, he can't truly believe that Steyn needs to clarify his stance on bestiality. He must be making a stilted attempt at this humor thing everyone's been talking about.

The comments accompanying this guy's post are priceless, especially one lib who seems to have developed an acute case of raging homophobia, obsessed with Steyn's allegedly poncy, nancy boy ass. And what's with the assumption that all of Steyn's fans are "childish men" or poofs? Just for the record, he's also got attractive, childish, mildly raunchy, CrossFit-obsessed female readers. (Not that I had anyone particular in mind when offering up that description.) While I usually stay out of this sort of thing because Steyn's a big boy and is more than capable of defending himself, I find the hateful, sexist comments directed at Kathy Shaidle to be particularly disturbing. Kathy can take care of herself, no fear, but why is it that the rabid libs feel it appropriate to pick on the girls? It's kind of sad.

I've wasted too much time on this. This guy and his freakishly angry fans are officially boring.

A man of his age.

2008-12-03T15:09:00.000-08:00

I think Barack Obama is very much a man of this age. This is the age of Oprah, of the soft-focus confessional, the age of the memoir--personal, spiritual, or other. Barack Obama has been raised to the nation's highest office on his record of accomplishing exactly nothing, and, even before he's had a chance to spoil it all by doing something, he's got schools being named after him. And now he's got his own holiday in this Alabama county.

A small central Alabama county whose mainly black residents gave Barack Obama more than 70 percent of the vote on Election Day has created an annual holiday in honor of the president-elect.
The Perry County Commission voted 4 to 1 to observe the second Monday in November as "The Barack Obama Day." County offices will close and its roughly 40 workers will get a paid holiday.

Why not wait a year or so? Is his sole laudable achievement merely that he got elected? He certainly had a lot of help from a complicit media and myriad other useful idiots. Not to denigrate the office of the President, but we live in an age which celebrates mediocrity. Hollywood is full of vapid starlets famous for being famous, Oprah shills faux memoirs that were simply too fantastic to vet, people I've never even heard of hawk spiritual/personal memoirs full of vaguely new age-y boilerplate to fulfill our society's rabid voyeurism. You are Someone because you've been Seen, not because you've accomplished anything. And now we have our first Oprah-ized president and all that goes with that.

Let's go over the wisdom of all of this in four years, when we look back on all of the nothing that's been accomplished.

Moshe.

2008-12-01T23:09:00.000-08:00

This is hard for me, as a mother, to see. This is Moshe Holtzberg at his parents' memorial service. He has grandparents that love him, who will raise him well I'm sure, but nothing can replace what those animals have taken from him. I have no doubt that his parents loved him and he knows what he has lost. My niece was two years and nine months when her partner in crime, my daughter, died. They were exactly a week apart, to the minute, and to this day, my niece talks about Mila. Five years later and she still remembers. She knew what she had lost, even at such a young age. It still hurts her, just as it hurts me, and I can't help but feel rage and sorrow at what this child has been put through. He wants his mother and she is gone.

Moshe's sorrow is India's sorrow, as the shockwaves continue to reverberate throughout the country and the world. Children shouldn't have to suffer so. No one should.

From JPost comes this account of the memorial service, which I had a very hard time reading. I don't do well with the suffering of children, and if I could change anything for this little boy and his family, I would.

Wearing a green T-shirt and clutching a red ball, Moshe had a hard time sitting still in the synagogue as he sat on the lap of Samuel's friend and looked about for his missing parents.
"Mommy, Mommy," he cried out, with his head flung back, in a voice that echoed through the sanctuary and was filmed by Israeli television and showed a number of times in Israel throughout the evening.

If the infectious radicalism of the modern jihad is not evil, I don't know what is. There is evil in this world, and there is good, as was exemplified by the actions of the woman who saved Moshe and all of the tiny miracles that were visited upon the victims by strangers throughout the crisis.

As the rabbi quoted at the memorial service, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."

Also from JPost, Shmuley Boteach makes the case for hate. I'd like to say that I am a kind and gentle spirit, adhering to the principle Jesus taught of loving one's enemy, but I see the pain etched across the faces of the Indian people as they mourn their dead and I feel that hate bubbling up inside. As soon as the towers fell in my country, I felt that hate. I hate the evil in this world that causes pain to children, to those that seek to do good, like Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg. I hate because I love, if that makes sense. And I hate the psychotic bastards who hide behind religion and use ancient grievances as an excuse to behead American journalists or contractors or nuns or Muslims who dare fight for their freedom.

Someday, God willing, each and every one of those monsters will face their eternal reward. Not virgins, not sheep, not young boys, or whatever floats their stunted, Stone Age boat--just a lot of hot, a lot of pain, and a whole lot of time to feel it.

Breath of fresh air.

2008-11-30T23:01:00.000-08:00

Blackfive is one of the first sites I check each day, along with SteynOnline and the Corner. I like the irreverence of the site, since irreverence is my native tongue.

Case in point: this response to Thomas Friedman's recent NYT Op-Ed.

Screw You Tom, and the same to the near-treasonous bastards you would try to give credit to. They tried their damndest to lose and I don't care what they do from here on out the war was won by the tremendous fortitude of W, the brains of David Petraeus, the fighting spirit of our military and the decision of the Iraqi people to take the chance they have been offered.
Obama and the Democrats will be remembered as the fools who failed to lose.

I'm no fan of Friedman's and I've got to agree with Jimbo's assessment of his op-ed. Be prepared for the hailing of Obama as the president who healed the planet and made everything right. He'll have pulled us out of the nasty Bush-Cheney-Halliburton-Patriot Act (pick a neurotic fixation and tack it onto any crisis and you've got yourself a HuffPo column) depression and won the war in Iraq. It's going to be a long four years.

Missing the point.

2008-11-30T20:59:00.000-08:00

We're missing the point. In this larger war on terror, the West is missing the point. We've become so enamoured of our own tolerant benevolence that we fail to see the whole picture and it will cost us dearly. It already has. The Clinton administration insisted that Islamist terror was a law enforcement issue, treating the 1993 WTC bombing no differently than an ordinary mugging. Unfortunately, the '93 bombing turned out to be a dry run for the Big One in September of '01. And after those planes hit, all we heard from the press was how we just never saw it coming.

We don't have the luxury of that kind of willful blindness anymore, not eight years out from the largest terrorist attack on US soil. 3/11, 7/7, the previous Mumbai bombings and now the most recent massacre in Mumbai--all of these attacks are connected. I've heard over and over that "there's no indication that al Qaeda is linked" to this particular group, as if al Qaeda is the only "real" terrorist cell and anything other group is simply a local problem to be dismissed. The connection is not the name, (any semi-intelligent jihadi can simply make up any name he pleases and he's suddenly a disenfranchised victim of imperialist oppression), but the ideology.

We are, according to Mark Steyn in his excellent weekend column, missing the forest for the trees.

This isn't law enforcement but an ideological assault – and we're fighting the symptoms not the cause. Islamic imperialists want an Islamic society, not just in Palestine and Kashmir but in the Netherlands and Britain, too. Their chances of getting it will be determined by the ideology's advance among the general Muslim population, and the general Muslim population's demographic advance among everybody else.

When will we wake up?

Unko bachana kaun chahega?

2008-11-30T12:21:00.000-08:00

Rediff is confirming that most of the hostages of the Mumbai attacks were tortured before they were killed. The doctors who were doing the postmortem exams have been rocked by what they've seen.

"Bombay has a long history of terror. I have seen bodies of riot victims, gang war and previous terror attacks like bomb blasts. But this was entirely different. It was shocking and disturbing," a doctor said.

Asked what was different about the victims of the incident, another doctor said: "It was very strange. I have seen so many dead bodies in my life, and was yet traumatised. A bomb blast victim's body might have been torn apart and could be a very disturbing sight. But the bodies of the victims in this attack bore such signs about the kind of violence of urban warfare that I am still unable to put my thoughts to words," he said.

Asked specifically if he was talking of torture marks, he said: "It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood," one doctor said.

The Israeli victims fared the worst, having been killed on the day of their capture. An article I read in JPost reported that the dead at the Chabad House were found wrapped in prayer shawls, in accordance with Jewish law. One of the hostages had apparently managed to show this respect for the dead before he was killed.

The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: "Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again," he said.

The Rediff article also states that the terrorists were not dealt a mercifully end, which I am fine with. The commandos apparently let the bastards have it when they determined no hostages were left in the buildings.

When asked if the commandos attempted to capture them alive at that stage, he replied: "Unko bachana kaun chahega (Who will want to save them)?"

Indeed.

Right rotten tart.

2008-11-29T23:35:00.000-08:00

I saw Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla this weekend. It wasn't perfect, but it was the first movie I've seen in a long time that didn't leave me feeling as if I'd just wasted $10. Toby Kebbell was phenomenal as Johnny Quid, while Mark Strong's turn as Archy really anchored the entire film. He's a striking man, impeccably dressed in the film, and he stole the show for me. Superficial, yes. But he's an excellent actor as well as being devilishly attractive, so it all works out--I can mention my appreciation for Mark Strong without sounding like a schoolgirl clutching Tiger Beat to her heaving bosom.

As for the movie itself, it was really good. It dragged along in a few places, but it was sharp, funny and full of all of the Brit slang I love so much. I nearly used my phone to change my blog's name from the theatre, but after conferencing with my companions, we decided that "Right Rotten Tart" is not exactly the message I should be sending if a) I'd like to be taken "seriously" as a "writer", b) I don't want to be getting creepy email, and c) I don't want to sound like a complete tramp. But I love the way it sounds! It's true what Cooper says in Eurotrip; the Brits are on a completely different level of swearing. It is truly awe-inspiring.

I'll admit that I did a bit of celebrating when I heard that Guy Ritchie and Madge were splitting up--it means that he'll start making good films again. Lock, Stock and Snatch are two of my favorite movies, and I want that Guy Ritchie back. Selfishly, I want some good entertainment. Sorry about his marriage and all that.

I'm looking forward to more good Brit gangster films, though I mentioned to one of my companions that if Ritchie wanted to accurately portray the seedy underbelly of Britain, he'd be having his bumbling but lovable small-time crooks going head-to-head with some psychotic Muslim extremists. Forget the Russians--it's the sheep-shaggers they've got to worry about.

So sad.

2008-11-29T22:39:00.000-08:00

Sucks to go up against Steyn and be exposed as the idiot you are. Better luck next time, guys.

Not for the first time you realise that, for the lazy white liberal, driving around with a "CELEBRATE DIVERSITY" sticker absolves one from having to take the slightest interest in other cultures.

Heh.

Perspective.

2008-11-29T15:42:00.000-08:00

We're a bunch sissies, you know that? Blackfive has this posted today, another reminder of how easy we all have it by comparison, thanks to guys like these.

Difference of opinion.

2008-11-29T11:40:00.000-08:00

While I admire the Dalai Lama for his message of nonviolence and his obvious spirituality, I've got to respectfully disagree with him on this. I'm all for devotion to one's chosen religion, but calls for lifelong chastity are just taking things too far.

[The Dalai Lama] said conjugal life caused "too much ups and downs."

Which is, in my opinion, the fun part.

In all seriousness, however, the message of non-attachment has always been where I part ways with certain flavors of Buddhism. Life is better lived messily, fully, full of attachments and distractions. Unlike the Dalai Lama, I believe that we only get one shot at this life, so we might as well do it right.

This is probably why I've never had anything more than an intellectual interest in Buddhism. I'm not a fan of this self-deprivation thing. At least when it comes to certain choice activities.

More.

2008-11-28T14:07:00.000-08:00

Yaacov Ben Moshe at Breath of the Beast has some corrections for the media on their portrayal of Rabbi Holtzberg and his wife as "ultra-orthodox" "missionaries":

I know the Lubavitchers very well. When we went to Ukraine to adopt our two boys six years ago we spent Passover with the Chabad in the Grand Synagogue of Kiev. The soviets had used it as a marionette theater. It was virtually destroyed until it was lovingly restored by the Chabad. There was no condescending pretense that our (Conservative American) brand of Judaism was less Jewish than the full Lubavitch observance. There was only the open handed, loving hearted Chabad wish to help us be the best Jews and human beings we could be. Their hospitality ad open-mindedness are the only "Ultra" thing about them.
[. . .]
Here is a question for anyone who still denies that Caliphate Islamism is a problem: If they could do this to the Holtzbergs, if they could do this to all the other innocents people in Mumbai and Madrid and Beslan and New York and Jerusalem, how long will it be before they do it to you or someone you love? When will you stop trying to minimize and even excuse what they are doing by denigrating their victims?

Kathy Shaidle has described this as "another Munich." She's right. Within the larger tragedy, the massacre at the Chabad House underscores the very essence of the global threat we face, something identified by Mark Steyn in a recent post at the Corner. This is not a localized, law-enforcement issue, though as Steyn states, there are local aspects. But it is so much more than the sum of its parts.

Clearly, India has had a Muslim problem to one degree or another in the 60 years since partition, but increasingly those locally driven grievances have been absorbed within the global pan-Islamic ideology. What strikes you, as the dust clears in Bombay, is that one assault provided an umbrella for manifestations of almost every strain of Muslim grievance.

Steyn finishes with this, a reminder of that which we in the West cannot seem to grasp, no matter how many times we are subjected to the indiscriminate murder of our fellow non-Muslims:

[T]he global ideologues correctly see our determination to attribute every attack to purely local phenomena unconnected to any bigger picture as a sign of weakness.

How many more people will have to die before we accept the post 9/11 realities?

P.S.-- If you think the above "non-Muslims" identifier was needlessly inflammatory, check out this from the inimitable Robert Spencer on the Turkish couple that was set free by the Bombay terrorists, simply because they were Muslim.

[h/t for most of this goes to Kathy Shaidle, superheroine.]

Hero.

2008-11-28T13:39:00.000-08:00

It is always encouraging to read stories like this one, which recounts the bravery and selflessness of the Taj Hotel's staff in the midst of the chaos. In a situation like this one, one is forgiven if one acts in the interest of self-preservation, but humans, for all of their flaws, are capable of such goodness and grace.

Recovering from the initial shock and chaos, hotel staff shepherded the guests, including the Mangeshikar family, through the service section upstairs -- only suddenly to come face to face with one of the gunmen.
"He looked young and did not speak to us. He just fired. We were in sort of a single file," Mangeshikar, a 52-year-old gynecologist, told Reuters. "The man in front of my wife shielded us. He was a maintenance section staff. He took the bullets."
The tale of the unnamed staff member has echoed across Mumbai where, time after time, hotel workers have emerged as the people who shielded, hid or evacuated their wealthy guests from militants at the Taj and Trident/Oberoi hotels.

I hope that man made it. The guests were able to care for him until they were evacuated.

Terrible.

2008-11-28T13:21:00.000-08:00

This is terrible. The only bright spot in this tragedy at the Chabad House is that Moshe, the young son of the rabbi, was saved by a brave employee.

Twelve hours after gunmen stormed the center Wednesday, Sandra Samuel, a cook at the center, heard little Moshe's cries outside the room in which she had barricaded herself. She opened the door, grabbed the toddler and ran outside with another center worker.
The little boy's pants were soaked with blood, and Samuel said she saw four people lying on the floor as she fled.

I only pray that he remembers nothing of what he saw there. He is two, and it sounds like his parents were killed in front of him.

When I first read of the terrorists' siege of the local Jewish center, I'll admit I wasn't very optimistic about the fate of the hostages inside. In the last eight years, I've seen enough to know that while these jihadi terrorists are ruthless, they are especially so when it comes to Jews. At least these bastards didn't force the rabbi to watch as they killed his son in an especially gruesome manner. (Perhaps that method is only preferred by Palestinian monsters.) I thank God that Moshe was saved.

My condolences to the families of those murdered at the center.

EotWATD List.

2008-11-28T00:22:00.000-08:00

I was going to write my End of the World Apocalyptic To Do List this evening, but I am so tired. I'll have to start on it tomorrow. Start sending in suggestions for your own EotWATD list, or throw them in the comments section. It'll be fun.

Giving thanks.

2008-11-27T14:52:00.000-08:00

So it's Thanksgiving. I drove seven hours last night (and well into this morning) east into Arizona. Through rain and fog and energy drink crashes, I rolled in with the storm at around 4am this morning. "Happy Thanksgiving," I mumbled before I passed out.

Thanksgiving is one of those holidays I always mean to think deeply about and then rarely follow through. Being a typical American, I am spoiled with freedoms that I take for granted--until I read of the outrageous absurdities visited upon long-suffering folk like Steyn, Shaidle and Levant. Then I am reminded of how easily a free society can slide into self-censorship, trading the freedom we cherish for the illusory approval of the "global community."

With the recent carnage in Bombay, however, the more immediate existential threat to our way of life is thrown into sharp relief. Who keeps our streets safe, our tourist attractions free of the demonic gun- and sword-wielding djinn that are visiting so much death and destruction upon the streets of Bombay? You know the answer to that: The men and women who have been tasked with taking the fight to the monsters, chasing them down and shattering their networks, disrupting their plans. We sit safely in our homes, eating turkey and dressing and sweet potato pie (my favorite), watching football and generally wasting an entire weekend because there are rough men ready to do violence on our behalf. Think about them this Thanksgiving weekend, as you fight the crowds at the mall, elbowing those bitches out of the way at Loehmann's to snag that last pair of dangerously discounted Sevens. Our guys have got much more pressing things to worry about than finding a parking spot by the food court.

On a more personal level, I am so grateful to those of you (and you know who you are) who have been so encouraging and supportive of me and this little site. To those of you who've traded emails and IMs with me, who've sent me things and politely answered my fan mail to you--thank you. Without your support and kind words, I'd have given this up long ago. I promise in the future, there will be many dinners bought by me to express my gratitude toward all of you. Email me and we'll start scheduling. I may have to start buying plane tickets.

Happy Thanksgiving to all. Tonight I'm going to do "Murph," my favorite hero workout, in honor of all of our rough men standing watch.

City on fire.

2008-11-26T18:24:00.000-08:00

I've been paying close attention to the events in Mumbai and it's truly horrifying. Hostages, pools of blood, people dazed and shocked, clustered together on the sidewalks. This kind of violence perpetrated against the innocent and the unprepared is especially infuriating. It's cowardice. Sure, you can rationalize away the puss factor by reminding everyone how hard it is to pull these sorts of things off and escape, but attacking unsuspecting civilians is hardly something to brag about. These bastards are the guys who'd rather hide, who'd rather avoid fighting trained soldiers because they know they'd never survive, who believe shooting fish in a barrel is somehow laudatory. This is the same breed of reptile that throws acid in the faces of schoolgirls in Afghanistan for daring to learn or talks the mentally handicapped into wearing a suicide vest. Monsters, cowards and thugs. Does Islamist radicalism create psychotic thugs or does it attract them? How many truly believe they are carrying out the will of Allah and how many are just having fun?

I'll be praying for the people of India, the tourists and businessmen that have been targeted and the hostages for whom I have little hope. It never gets any easier to watch a city burn. Just another reminder of the fact that this world is not safe, and not all people are intrinsically good.

Ew.

2008-11-26T15:16:00.000-08:00

Via Mark Steyn at the Corner, the most disgusting Christmas offer I've ever come across.

"Looking for an unusual, yet practical gift this holiday season? Planned Parenthood of Indiana (PPIN) is now offering gift certificates for services or the recipient's choice of birth control method," the abortion business says.

The gift certificates can be purchased in increments of $25 online at the group's web site or for any amount at some of PPIN's 35 statewide facilities.

[. . .]

"Why not buy a loved one a gift this holiday season that they really need," Cockrum says in a press release LifeNews.com obtained. "The gift certificates are also a wonderful idea for that person in your life who puts everyone else first."

"Please join Planned Parenthood of Indiana and give the gift of health this holiday season," she adds.

I don't quite know what to say. I don't use the word "appalled" very often, especially not to describe so jaded a girl as I, but I am actually appalled. (Aside: Am I allowed to continually refer to myself as a "girl" now that I'm in my early--very early--thirties? Or am I now in Maureen Dowd territory?) How disgusting. Thankfully, when words fail me, there is always Steyn, to whom words are apparently more faithful.

What to get for the girl who doesn't want to have anything? . . . Ah, if only King Herod had sent one to Mary . . . Do they have musical cards that play "When A Child Isn't Born"?

What a wonderful age we live in.

Really?

2008-11-26T00:22:00.000-08:00

I think there are more pressing issues, people. I mean, if a giant asteroid is on a collision course with the earth, I'm thinking about getting through my very important, end of the world, Apocalypse To-Do List before the crash. I haven't enough faith in humanity's collective brainpower to believe that we'd actually come up with a solution to a problem like that. I think that if there is an asteroid the size of Texas headed for us, our number is up. It's time to start getting all that stuff done you've been putting off until a global catastrophe strikes. If I've got 15 years' advance warning, I'm going to have some fun before I go out in a fiery ball of molten rock or freeze to death in the ensuing debris-imposed endless winter.

Remind me to make an Apocalypse To-Do List. That would be a fun post.

Ignore her.

2008-11-25T23:48:00.000-08:00

Just ignore her and maybe she'll go away. Lately, my four year old has been repeatedly inserting the word "poo" into every sentence so as to garner a bit of attention and possibly get some laughs. (My favorite: "CrossPoo.") If I ignore the child, sooner or later she'll stop referring to everything as "poo," which means I will no longer be annoyed. My advice to Dr. Dobson is to ignore Kathleen Parker's smug and obviously self-serving ramblings until she finds something else to complain about. Addressing her is not productive, (when I address my daughter's "poo" problem, she just ramps up the idiocy), because Parker's goal is not intellectual discourse but attention, whether it be the positive or negative. I think it's great that Dobson has tried to engage in a grown-up conversation with the increasingly ridiculous Parker, but he is only feeding her martyr complex.

It's not worth the effort, James.

The conservative movement's association with the religious right is actually beneficial, if kept in check. Solid support of so-called traditional values still must have a place within conservatism as a whole. We should not be a religious movement, however, and I believe that moving right fiscally and moving slightly more central on some social issues is key. Lots of folks are going to disagree with me, but I think that the opposition to gay marriage is something that should be moved to the back burner. It's offensive to gay conservatives and it takes the focus off of issues that are more pressing, like abortion and national security.

The reductio ad absurdum of Kathleen Parker has been monumentally disappointing, all things considered. She is a talented writer, she's got an interesting book out, and she's hot, I guess, if one is to believe Chris Buckley. But the thing is, I want her job. I think I could better serve the world by writing rational, thoughtful, interesting pieces with 95% less martyrdom. And all for a fraction of the price. Also, I'm younger, (more years to devote to WaPo or wherever), and have been told on more than one occasion that I am "hot," (if that is a job requirement).

Just think about it, that's all I'm saying.

Was it "Bring Your Daughter to Work" day or something?

2008-11-25T23:14:00.000-08:00

Give it a rest already.

But Congress is running out of time to finally make the Bush administration own up to its actions for eight years. If Congress isn’t careful, the president who already has issued 171 pardons could also pardon every appointee and employee he has ever had – and their dogs. And then Americans will never find out what happened to our country over the past eight years.

This has to be one of the most poorly-written, paranoid, ill-reasoned op-eds I've read in awhile. Amateur. This sounds like the irrational rantings of an eighth grader. What passes for "writing" these days is simply nauseating.

The entire thing is an abomination, and I could scarcely hold down my vegan portobello mushroom sandwich (served on freshly baked ciabatta) as I forced myself to finish it. It's terrible. Impeaching President Bush has been the wet dream of many a hardline lefty, that half-informed, aping, Bill Maher-worshiping horde of impressionable idiots that seems to make up the Obama base. The problem is that facts just don't seem to support the calls for impeachment, something Nancy Pelosi seems to have realized when she became Speaker of the House. I'm also betting that Obama is less enthusiastic about the prospect now that he's been brought up to speed on just what it takes to keep this country safe.

Thankfully, we've got the rest of our lives to listen to these half-wits bitch about the illegal actions of the horrible Bushitler and his destruction of the Constitution--all while they support the resurrection of the Fairness Doctrine, allow terrorists to roam the streets of this country, impose hate speech laws and use the courts to overrule the will of the American people.

Yeah, Bush is totally the bad guy here.

Yawn.

2008-11-25T14:18:00.000-08:00

How about I predict the decline and breakup of Russia? We'll see which prediction is more accurate in about twenty years. Or less.

Russia has been held together by the sheer force of Putin's will for the last several years, as the press has come under the control of the government and the political climate there begins to resemble the old Cold War model. Russia is beginning its attempt to "reclaim" that which it has "lost"--former Eastern Bloc countries that were annexed by their powerful Soviet neighbors during the Cold War. Their sovereignty has been a bee in Russia's bonnet since the collapse of the USSR and Putin's itching to forcefully regain these territories. Russia's on the rise--or so it would seem to someone who's completely unfamiliar with history. We've seen this before, this Russian power grab and, while it had a good run, it fell apart like a house of cards.

America, on the other hand, has indeed hit a rough patch economically, but it hardly on the brink of dissolution. The idea that we will break into "separate parts" is unlikely, though it does sound terribly dramatic. America, for all of her problems, is at heart a cohesive nation. We may have a lingering fascination with identity politics and multiculturalism, but I cannot conceive of a crisis that would cause various parts of the US to calve away from the whole--or that the rest of the country would allow it to happen. We fought an entire war about this awhile ago, when things were much more overtly contentious between disparate factions than they are now. It's not an option, regardless of how disappointing the election results were.

But then we come to the real issue at hand: the advancement of the old-style Cold War expansionism that characterized the USSR in its heyday:

He even suggested that "we could claim Alaska - it was only granted on lease, after all." Panarin, 60, is a professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has authored several books on information warfare.

With pitbull Sarah up there? Come and get it.

Gloomy Monday.

2008-11-24T18:11:00.000-08:00

Twitter always asks me what I'm doing, and usually, when I'm pulling up Twitter the answer to that question is a firm "Nothing." This evening I am recovering from CrossFit, watching a History Channel special on Vikings (I love Vikings!), and reading the last page of the December 1st issue of National Review. Steyn's column is reminding me of how I felt on the evening of November 4th, something I thought I'd been dealing with rather well.

"There is a great deal of ruin in a nation" indeed, and Steyn makes the case for gloominess in the face of all this HopenChange. I'll revisit this column when it's posted on Steyn's site, but until then, you'll have to go out and buy yourself a copy of this issue. It's worth it.

Station identification.

2008-11-24T11:31:00.001-08:00

I took a bit of a breather over the weekend, and I'll have to admit that my most stimulating reading consisted of a tabloid rag cover story on the war between Jen and Angelina. At a friend's house, a few of us passed the rag around, each taking a few moments to peruse its Pulitzer-worthy prose, and commenced discussing the Jen/Angie/Brad triangle with much fervor. The majority ruled that Brad had indeed traded up and that at least his children will have the benefit of their parents' obviously superior genetics, not having to contend with what their mother looked like before plastic surgery. My friend Stephanie disagreed with the adultery aspect, but Krissy and I have little expectation that the excessively famous will comport themselves in a manner befitting a normal human being, so the moral issue was taken out of our consideration. I believe Krissy and I subscribe to what Gibson so eloquently articulated in his overlooked but brilliant sequel to Neuromancer, Count Zero: "[T]he exceedingly rich are no longer even remotely human." Which I agree sounds harsh. Perhaps I'm too cynical, but after a beer or two, I tend to warm up to the subject of trash culture, and at that point, who knows where the conversation will go?

It was fun, although I felt that my IQ may have dropped a few points for entertaining the topic in the first place. I tend to spend most of my waking hours contemplating much of the heavier aspects of current events, so allowing myself a bit of snarky, catty, superficial levity is of utmost importance. I cherish thos moments. They keep me sane.

And now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Impressive.

2008-11-22T18:36:00.000-08:00

A friend sent me this story, found on the Vets for Freedom site. Sgt. Anthony Viggiani is one impressive Marine, though I'm sure he doesn't think he's done anything out of the ordinary. Anyone who shrugs off a bullet wound is probably not going to care about praise from some chick blogger. This is just what Marines do, you know?

Pansies.

2008-11-21T23:10:00.000-08:00

Good Lord, I love this guy. He's so damn funny.

After she's sworn in in 2013, I hope President Palin arranges for a ritual turkey slaughter to be going on behind her at every press conference, if only during David Shuster's questions.

(Admit it--you knew it was Steyn before you clicked the link, didn't you?)

Regarding "TurkeyGate"--when did everyone turn into such sissies? Admittedly, I've got a weak constitution when it comes to this sort of thing, having almost thrown up the other night while watching "Steak Paradise" on the Travel Channel, but I expect more from men. I guess I'm just old-fashioned like that. My fingernails always match my toenails and I never, ever wear white shoes after Labor Day. I may lift weights and sometimes swear like a sailor, but dammit, I'm a lady.

Love these guys!

2008-11-21T14:35:00.000-08:00

I've told you time and time again how much I love the Irish. This post is no different than the others. I found this via Blackfive and it's pretty awesome. The shorts and flip flops don't detract from how obviously efficient and capable these guys are, but it definitely adds a bit of that irreverent Irishness that I love so much.

I love the Irish so much, my back is covered in Celtic art. Well, not literally covered, not yet. Someday soon, however. Someday soon.

Not even sworn in yet.

2008-11-21T14:31:00.000-08:00

That's it. I'm out of here. It's like sharing a country with a bunch of cultists. Soon the courts will replace "one nation under God" with "one nation under Barack." You know it will happen. You all are crazy.

Bad idea.

2008-11-21T00:28:00.000-08:00

I really hope no one died bringing these animals in. We all know that doesn't matter, not to those who would rather see a thousand guilty terrorists go free than have one innocent freedom fighter detained at that hellhole.

Read AG Mukasey's piece on this at the WSJ page. My thoughts and prayers are with the Attorney General, who fell ill Thursday evening as he was giving a speech. May he have a speedy recovery.