Well, all the signs are that you're quitting the blog... no surprise there. How did I know? It's easy. Look at the spread you put out for this presser. Pringles??? What the Hell were you thinking?
Notable by their absence from this years buffet:
1.That sweet and spicy Texas chili with the mini mountain of tortillas. Seemingly replaced by a hollowed out loaf of sourdough bread filled with what seems to be creamed llama vomit.
2. The ice-filled galvanized horse trough topped with bottles of Lone Star. Now we get 3 giant Sam's Club brand boxes of wine. The Don Lopez Bergundy (sic) was undrinkable. The "White House White" offered the subtle aftertaste of cod and ass. The Rose of Tulsa "Blush Pink" was usable only to top up my gas tank for the long drive home.
Other notes on your generosity:
Under what circumstances would you imagine that any self-respecting member of the press would be drawn to a series of steam tables offering "A World of Flavors" only to discover 6 lukewarm stainless steel tubs of Vienna sausages, each tub offering it's own vile sauce including "Indoneeshin (sic) Peanut Butter, Aussie Down Under, and Pakistani Curry Surprise?
I won't even mention the bowl of generic M&Ms (W&Ws??) obviously left over from a 2000 Dubya fundraiser. And there was general agreement by all attendants that the ominous orange "Daisy Cutter Dip" was best avoided.
I will probably never cleanse my memory bank of the image of Rhod, balancing a plate of trifle (certainly no understatement there) while successfully dislodging a Cherry-Vanilla Vienna sausage from Helen Thomas' windpipe. Without his quick response to the still-haunting gurgles, we mighta lost the old girl.
If this is the best that DC can provide for the press, perhaps it is time for you to leave the stage.
Glad you enjoyed the hospitality, Nick. It took some doin'.
Correction: The "llama vomit" around these parts is actually known as burro caviar.
As for Helen, it seems you are always looking for an excuse to apply mouth-to-mouth. At least this year you just whacked her a good 'un right b/t the shoulder blades. That was a good move, except for the fact that she blew her Cherry Vanilla Vienna sausage into the bed of my truck. We had to don MOPP IV gear and utilize a long set of tongs to get it out.
Thanks for coming. Maybe next year we can take a "midnight train to Georgia" and have Gladys Knight there in person.
I'm reeling..unable...to...
Snap out of it man. You gotta work past the trauma.
Wait a minute ... If Rhod dislodged the CV Vienna (pronounced like "Hyena" around Cut 'n Shoot), then what was that thing you knocked out of Helen's pie hole, Goomba?
I am going to get it to the lab ASAP.
Well, the Librium, Thorazine and Reds are kickin' in, now, and that leftover moon/insecticide from The Presser tastes a bit like possum, but it's doing the job. Nickie is back in ways too numerous and alarming to mention...except in the manner once set aside for French Postacards and diseases treated with arsenic and chicken blood.
It's appalling to see DC dragged into the sulphurous, glowing portal to The Underworld that emitted Goomba, but as they say, what the Hell. Tails and pitchforks for everyone. Considering the food, the tail can be used as an emergency stopper, and with the pitchfork, you can kill yourself.
DC, where were the goons, and why couldn't you eject him? I could have Odd-Job'd him with that plate of trifles, but his neck was so engorged with the wine-soaked tablecloth that I couldn't even have bruised the windpipe. The man's invincible, a bizarro mountain of personal disasters, but beyond even me and Mark armed with gobs of HE.
DC, despite the chaos, your performance was spectacular. I understand that Daisy Cutter allows the Left a rhetorical advantage. One of the complainers about it even closed his post with "Semper Rictus"; thinking he was being scatalogical, he was saying something like "Always Muscular". Idiot.
The distaff side was over-represented in this affair, DC. I could smell the estrogen, and around Goomba, that's a feat in itself. More later.
Hey, when it comes to my aftershave, if 5 splashes smell good then 10 splashes smell twice as good.... and so on.
See how the return of Goomba has affected us all? It's an amazing thing.
Rhod, I guess I could have called for some goons but I might have shut down Cut 'n Shoot.
This just in from the lab ... Initial reports that the HT projectile was her dentures turned out to be false.
The object is, by all indications, merely congealed ... never mind.
But why the hard smack on the back, Goomba?
Hey, I hear that there is a grainy cell phone video of the whole thing floating around somewhere.
If I find who took the film, I'll have him arrested.
This just in ... This site comes up #3 on a Google search for: "light brown explosive Christmas music". We are going places, people.
All Right DC you have gotten away with it long enough, now its my turn.
Ohio State is number one for a reason
To start off with a fun stat, if you're a trends believer, a one-loss team has never beaten an undefeated team for the BCS championship. the Buckeyes were a pillar-to-post number one with a balanced offense that was able throw when Texas shut down the ground game, and ran to support the passing attack throughout the second half of the season. They've played in pressure packed games against Texas, Penn State, Iowa and Michigan, and came out with wins. Troy Smith is a proven, big-game winner, while the defense was better all season long than it got credit for since all the attention was on the dynamic offense. And then there's Jim Tressel. The Buckeye head man is 62-13 in his six years with a 5-1 record against Michigan while winning his last four bowl games after the stunning 31-28 defeat to South Carolina in the 2002 Outback Bowl. No, the 2006 Buckeyes aren't 2005 Texas, 2005 USC, or 2004 USC, but it's a solid team that should win the national title as long as it doesn't screw up big-
Florida can't outathletic the Buckeyes
Even by SEC standards, Florida is athletic with only LSU having equal all-around team speed (at least in the way it played week in and week out). Ohio State is just as fast. The Buckeye defensive back seven can move, the offensive skill guys can all fly, and Troy Smith is mobile enough to slide around and buy himself time to make plays, which will be a plus since ...
The Buckeyes are physical on the defensive front and Florida's ground game simply isn't good enough to take over if Leak and the passing attack aren't rocking and rolling.
So good luck with your prediction, but don't bet the farm on the 'Gators' bringing it home.
As I said in an earlier post...
Boise State over Oklahoma
Buckeyes whup the Gators
Take it to the bank.
Light brown explosive Christmas music? Helen Thomas's dentures? All churned up in sports? This stuff is spinning off into space. Hilarious. God moves in mysterious ways. And that's not a U2 song, Goomba.
Hyderabad, Dec 30 (IANS) The execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein Saturday evoked sharp reactions from people and Muslim leaders in Andhra Pradesh.
Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen president and former MP Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi said if Saddam had committed crimes he should have been punished by the people of Iraq or their elected government. "He was tried and punished the way the US wanted. The trial was big charade," he said.
"We are not saying that he should not have been punished but the question is who has the right to punish him. Certainly not a country which invaded Iraq," Owaisi told IANS."This is a murder of justice. Bush has proved that he is the Hitler of the 21st century," and Owaisi added "It is Bush who should be hanged for killing thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan," and Further said "If Saddam committed crimes against humanity, the crimes committed by Bush across the world are equally heinous. If he has been hanged for his crimes why Bush should go scot-free?"
mIm,
Did I miss something? Was Saddam hanged by Americans? Give me a break.
Why can't you make your case instead of hiding behind quotes and press releases? You have no case to make. You don't even know how to properly abuse the freedom that the West affords you.
Saddam deserved his fate. You admit as much. The problem in Iraq remains the problem in the rest of the Muslim world. Moqtada, whose name was chanted at the execution, deserves a similar fate.
Sadam didn't deserve his punishment ? No Sh*t, Really he wasn't guilty...Oops our mistake, oh well, just think MIM, now he is enjoying the 72 hairy goats in paradise, oops again that's virgins...ahhh same thing when you compare moslum women with the heard.
Bush is guilty of what defending his country. Gee MIM sounds like you write talking points for the democrat party, you're as big an A-hole as Dick Durbin is but I digress.
Mim we were attacked, you MORON, they or YOU killed 3000 innocent civilians, of course when you run around with your head covered and hide behind women and children to try to fight You are not men you are all Pu**ies, a bunch of gutless jive-ass punks.
Hey mIm,
You need to master this English language thing a little better to get the irony of talking about the execution of Saddam evoking "sharp" reactions from Muslims.
I know, it offends you that he didn't have his head lopped off by Muslims. But at least he was hanged by Muslims. This is progress, no?
I want you to go to the nearest cave and write on the wall with your piece of coal 100 times: "If learn what morals mean and/or locate one, I will not saw its head off."
sIgned,
dC
Mark,
That's got to be a nice bonus, coming back looking for a little football smack and getting a jihadi sympathizer instead. Priceless.
I had a great retort for you and Haloscan ate it. Oh, well ... I have stated my case re: Ohio St. We'll see.
Wow, I'll bet mim was more than upset by the presser. Come for the news, stay for the drunken tantrums and hangings.
Wow, this is a great blog. Where did Lower-Upper-Lower-Case-Em come from? He's a "member" all right. Lord of the pants, if you catch my drift.
Was he Jihadi Spam, or a no-pork version? Sprat, made with rat, or Sprog, made with dog? Good grief. Maybe he's annoyed about The Presser.
Mark, good point. The first sign of a low-watt intellect is the quotation, and the wattage drops in inverse proportion to its size. mIm was blazing like the headlight on my American Flyer.
This is good stuff. Andrha Pradesh is the lower of the Pradeshes of India, as I recall from Int Rel years ago, with Utra Pradesh on top and Madya Pradesh in the middle. Indian Muslims there are known for their sensitivity. Right mIm? Bangladesh comes to mind, and a few exploded trains. But, who's counting?
How many Hindus are welcome in Pakistan, mIm? When you can answer that question, come and bump heads with us about Saddam Hussein. Until then, go suck a curry.
To sundry issues from the press conference. I don't think I can bring myself to vote for McCain. Two troublesome issues are force-increase in Iraq and the border. I can't overcome the contradiction of defending the Iraqis from themselves while not defending the borders. McCain is also crazy.
"Muslim hoard like fickle blogfather - privileged to often change mind, but rarely change shorts."
Saddam he dead. This mim make me hot mad. Good life like Saddam's neck. Better when you make it longer.
Get mad DC. Don't be crying boy. Don't be quitting boy. Here new nickname: Double Crusty. That you.
I'm with Rhod on this one. When McCain displays some teabags by supporting a real border policy, then maybe I'll consider him for the big chair.
From the SiteMeter, a little info on mIm ... He came to this site from India, indeed (central to southern part). And he came here at 1:20 a.m. India time.
He did a search for "Islam" on blogger and found this site, so he is pasting his Islamist propaganda here (and probably everywhere else that references Islam.)
A little evangelism, I guess. Nice touch. The only problem is ... He probably won't come back. But if he does, his lack of English mastery will no doubt cause him to miss some great stuff. Thanks Rhod, Mark, and Nick.
And yes ... I may be heading toward "Daisy Clutcher", but I am watching all you bad guys out there.
Teabags? Nick, you must have Asia on your mind.
And Hop? Wow, that is something. Whenever I hear from H. Sing, I personally consider it a message from on high. So, I will have to take his admonition very seriously.
Rhod, that's a great point. Plus, that's very funny, too. I like the dispassionate arguments re: the border and Iraq juxtaposed with: "Plus, he's a maniacal madman."
Good point.
HA HA HA OH, lord, HA HA HA 
HA HA, ULP, HA HA HA. HELP ME... HA HA HA, I'VE FALLEN AND CAN'T GET UP... HAH HA....
Sorry. I'm feeling better now, thanks.
Um, DC? I remember the last "name change" fling that you had. You remember the whole "DAISY" discussion led to questioning your gender and/or your sexual orientation? Do you REALLY want to go down that road again?
Cool. Go for it. It was pretty funny.
Have you got a "new name" list yet?
Can we, uh, make suggestions??? 
P.S. - its been a really lousy afternoon at work and you guys made me laugh alot. Thanks.
And yes, Mark, that is why I hang around, because DC is funnier than most of my liberal buddies.
Julieb
I don't know what I did, but no matter, you said DC is funnier than most of your 'Lib buddies', since when has a liberal ever had a sense of humor...Libs are about as much fun as a dose of the clap, I have never seen people likes libs, who ever smile, they are always so uptight as if their thong isn't quite tight enough and it needs to be cranked up a notch or two.
Your a hoot Julieb, as funny as your liberal buddies, that is almost an insult.
JulieB:
Now for the politics.
Ahem. A witticism is an epitaph on the death of a feeling, somebody said. Conservatives have suffered so much in the liberal world that we have only our senses of humor left.
I like you, JulieB. You're that rare creature. A good-natured liberal. When the revolution comes, no harm will come to you. Tell them you know Goomba.
Julie:
DC is gay? That explains the officer's hat/cover, the dandy little moustache and the velvet lapels in the pic at Goomba's.
Hop Sing. Go get me a menu and be quick about it.
JulieB:
One more. I tried to answer you about the Pentax and the Yashica (ah, the old J-7)but Haloscan rejected me.
You and I must have the only two brown Penti in existence.
See, we got something good going here with the eerie combination of old people and the internets. It's kinda like old people and well ... other things. Humor just naturally flows.
And Julie ... you know I second what Rhod said. You are good people. Don't tell the hard lefties how much we like you. Could be dangerous.
And yes, you can make suggestions on the new name. It was a publicity stunt before, but now I am serious, I think.
But Hop Sing appeared out of nowhere and threw a bucket of cold won ton soup on the idea. Now, I don't know what to do.
Awww, thanks guys!
Mark - Liberals are funny, its just dry humor. Although, by one definition, that would be "dull, or wearisome" humor.... or you could go with "dry" like a martini - using very little vermouth... or uncouth or something like that...
I suspect what is funny to me, is not funny to you - for instance "Jesus General" is funny to me.
Rhod - If you can't laugh then all is lost! Left/Right there are always moments where that is all you can do. Ask DC about Charlie - Charlie "knows" DC's orientation.
DC - I'll go "have a word" with Hop Sing......
Julie,
I see you working and I agree to a point, but I have to go with my fellow troglodyte Mark by noting that conservatives are just funnier than liberals.
And why? Well, it kinda gets back to something Rhod said ...
Winston Churchill said that those who have a good sense of humor understand the difference between the way the world is and the way it ought to be.
Hence, conservatives like H. Sing are funnier.
Hop Sing is a Maoist of the first order. He and JulieB share a blind obediance to the big yellow Tsar in the sky.
Their homespun propaganda fills me with rage.
When I look at a lib, I see someone who's frustrated, and really at odds with the world, whether it comes from not being able to make... 'a difference' or they are unable to impose their will on some unsuspecting conservative.
Take for example James Carvelle, who is the ugliest SOB and the nastiest person there is. When his time comes to go he's not going to go like everyone else, he is just going to 'Nasty away'.
Or maybe it comes from being so impotent, Take another example, Susan Estrichgen, is there another woman on the face of the earth with a bigger mouth that absolutely nothing comes out except garbage and hate.
Their is a reason Liberals are so unhappy. Its the Womens movement, they have emasculated all the male candidates of their party to the point that even they STILL believe that they are men, the new men, this is what they want but the rest of the country does not.
I mean look at the candidates they have offered, Carter, Dukakis, Mondull, Clinton here are four emasculated non-females, each with the personality of a clam, or in Kerry's case, a snake. Who in their right mind could get excited about that bunch. Dondi in a Tank ?, and the Violent Criminal weekend furlough program, now there is a stellar idea.
Who else but a non-female would take a Kodak Brownie 8mm to Vietnam and make his own war-movies, without the enemy present, of course.
Is it any wonder Liberals are the most dour, sour people on the face of the earth. Sense of humor...Where ?
Last two post are the better than coffee this morning. The Tsar in the sky? Carville is going to "Nasty Away"? Haahahaaha...Ohhh.
Well, here's a wet blanket. More troops in Iraq. Abizaid is out, Casey is out, Rumsfeld is out, Bush ought to be out, McCain is out of his mind, Lindsey Graham is outed as McCain's bitch, and like McCain, is asking for more troops. Hagel says more troops is "Alice in Wonderland".
He's right. The difficult questions for a guy like me are whether the war was a primary mistake or a secondary screw-up. I have, also, the experience of our boys...one is home and not hopeful at all, and the others are just like me years ago. All they/I want(ed) is to get home in a piece larger enough to continue walking under my own power.
The bottom has dropped out of the military polls on the war, with, among other data, amost 34% of deployed troops saying we should not even have invaded Iraq.
Oak Leaf at Polipundit, no pacifist, has now written an open letters to Kos, in the hope that Kos can use his leverage to have the Donks end the war. Now. This stinks, but Oak Leaf has good points about deployment contracts, draw-downs, retirements from the field and other technical matters that are exhausting our military.
Soldiers see only a piece of the entire narrative, so I discount their opinions by half.
Son One at home has fourteen more months...was recently pulled from an instructor's position at Fort Knox because, in that capacity, he couldn't be redeployed to Iraq.
Son Two in Afghanistan, as part of the 82nd, might come home briefly and then be redeployed to Iraq. He has eighteen months to go.
Son Three in Iraq, who has intimate knowledge of the recent execution, is luckily near the end of his active duty tour, although he's already had a tour ferrying prisoners from Afghanistan to Gitmo.
(Contd)
I've forgotten where I read this, but the troop increase might be a tactical measure for a precipitous withdrawl. Kick some serious ass, degrade the enemy big time, and withdraw while everything is still on fire. If so, history will judge this as the biggest screw-up since all of history's Russian campaigns combined.
Brief Postscript:
Christopher Hitchens was on Laura Ingraham's show last week. He told the story of an Iraq-American who went to Iraq as an interpreter, was kidnapped and taken to Sadr City. We initiated a search. Maliki called off the search because it was disturbing the locals. We agreed. The interpreter has not been seen since. Hitchens said this was "disgraceful".
Son One, who's AO included Sadr City, said, on the way home from the airport, that "we've lost the initiative. They aren't afraid of us anymore". One of his was killed from fire from Sadr City two weeks before rotation. Nothing was done.
In the end, this is why we lost this battle in the WOT. It's over, and no amount of babbling by radio pundits about "winning" alters the equation. In Vietnam we alienated the population by killing too many non-combatants in S & D. In Iraq, we've alienated the population by not standing with them. They don't trust us, they don't fear us, and they don't respect us. They take paychecks from both sides because Bush hadn't the balls or smarts to show them who's boss. This isn't war, it's a bloodletting.
Disgraceful.
Rhod
I agree with about 80 % of what you say, I believe Bush has been downgrading this War from a war to a police action. I also believe that the Army is too damned PC to run an effective campaign anymore, they are too worried with what the press will say about them, so too many soldiers and Marines are being charged with Murder for doing what we have trained them to do and that is to kil the enemy.
I do believe the troops there are too many of them saying what they are doing that is not being reported they report all the gore they report and show video tapes of American Troops getting whacked by enemy snipers, and then say we have a 'RIGHT' to see that but are the first to complain that Saddams hanging was too graphic, too cruel, and the American People suck it up like a month without sunshine, WTF do they want this is war people die in war, that is why it is so terrible.
We have one party in this country that doesn't have the balls to stand up for their own country they would rather trash it and sabotage it through their words and deeds, then they turn around and say they support the troops the whole scenario is bullshit.
The democrat party is nothing but a bunch or traitors,liars and cheats, Pure and simple. I hate them all and wish them the worst. Even the enemy has taken credit for the democrat victory in November, what the hell is wrong with these people .
Cont.
We can't win a war with one hand tied behind our back, we can't win a war when the democrat party is running a rear guard action for the enemy and attacking us from behind.
You blame Bush and the rest of them,...You are right to a point, he lost something, his fire in the belly, something but it is hard to lead when even memebers of your own party are as corrupted as the scumbag democrats, and also running supplies to the democrats running the rear guard action.
We had the will to win this war on Terror after 9-11, but complacency set in again and I-pods and Game boys pre-empted the war effort, we have had too soft for too long, to get involved in a war of this kind.
The American public is spoiled, we are so spoiled we cannot secure our own borders, we can't protect ourselves from intruders, we cannot do anything without permission from a nanny government that wants to control our every aspect of our life.
Who is losing this war we all are, You can't just blame it one person, it is the whole damn country that has pussied out. We are granting Constitutional rights to people who aren't even citizens, the Gitmo prisoneers, the Imams, Mexicans, everyone of these sons of bitches who want to kill us, we are granting Constitutional rights to.
It is going to take a couple of Nukes set off in New York, Chicago and San Francisco and Tenss of thousands of our fellow citizens slaughtered in order to wake up this country and if that doesn't do then we deserve it.
Thanks for the discussion, Rhod and Mark. Rhod, you make telling and compelling points ... what really gets me is the failure to do something when we lose people. We should respond 100-fold. You are right that failure to do so encourages more of the same.
But I think Mark is right re: Pres. Bush. I think he's facing forces within and outside of Washington that none of us can know or imagine. This is no excuse for failure to lead, but there are a lot of forces at work.
Mark mentioned the prosecutions. I am withholding judgment here, particularly since Gen. Mattis is involved. But there is a lot that is troubling to me.
The phrase in Mark's comment that really struck me is: "We had the will to win this war on Terror after 9-11, but complacency set in again and I-pods and Game boys pre-empted the war effort ... "
We need to get the initiative again, and I pray that it won't take another huge attack for us to do so.
Much calmer now, as Rhod points out we have lost the inititive and that is key. Any time a superior force cedes the inititive to an inforior force, the lesser can keep the greater at bay and fighting fires that keep popping up, and that is what we are doing now. We are trying to fight a gentlemens war, where we try to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people and at the same time trying to fight an enemy, who, while we are trying to appease, on the other hand is using intimidation to frighten and terrorize the civilian population. There tactic is working ours is not. We need to attack something, and Mookie would be a perfect target. Since we have the superior force getting the inititive back should not be a problem, Militarily, Politically there is a problem.
Politics has been the problem all along and now a dem congress is just going to make the problem worse.
Sending more troops sounds like a good idea, but if they are going to maintain the status quo, i.e.,having more 'good will' ambassadors then why bother, we already have 140,000 of them there already.
Rhod & Mark... Thanks for excellent posts. I would have to disagree about Bush's handling of the war. He was anxious to go into police mode almost immediately. The more naive among us (me) believed this was part of a bigger plan to gather intelligence and muster forces for a massive offensive. I have learned the painful truth.
It bothers me that we gave the Republicans the presidency, the senate and the house... and they squandered the opportunities to provide dynamic leadership. Let's not tear down that gallows quite yet.
I'm going to leave the gated city of our conservativism for a minute, and speak my heart.
Mark's point has expanded a lot upon mine, and it's true that there's rot at the center in America. I've never wanted to say this, but Islamists have taken our measure, and they're right. We're weak, indulgent and arrogant. And by "arrogant", I mean we arrogate to ourselves qualities we don't have.
But according to conservatives, "liberals" are the problem. And liberals are militating against the conservative narrative that America is a conservative country, that we have what it takes for the tough times, that there's a tipping point....but only for those liberals. No one loathes modern liberalism more than I do, but this is all wrong.
I'm sick of hearing it. Conservatives are failing in large part because of the slick portrayal of our creed as that of success and "excellence", of any superficial religiosity as long as its Christian, of scorn for science, social studies, research and open investigation into life as some form of "liberal" plot against American Exceptionalism. This is absolute, Ivory Pure bullshit.
Someday we'll look back at the talk radio era as the point at which enlightened consevativism decayed into...yes, utilitarianism, which is the worship of what works! Not what is right! We cannot workship a shiny machine, because the machine isn't its own justification. Life needs to be better for everyone, and liberalism and its lunacies is often the creation of modern conservative banality, and the standing offer of mammom for every ailment. WE are also the problem.
Victor Davis Hanson himself has concluded that the lies we've told ourselves will only be washed away, ultimately, by the blood of our citizens at home. The web of self-deceit and delusion is so dense that it can't be shaken loose by Reason.
Our religion is consumption, our temples are stores, our artifacts and relics are possessions, and our proselytizers are the sales people from Circuit City to Red Lobster. Believe me, in the torrent of disgust I have for modern Western life, is a little island of understanding for deracinated Muslims. They don't want what we're offering, and the unalloyed, toxic hatred they feel for all of us is irrational. What's my reaction supposed to be? They need more feminism and satellite dishes?
Sure, there's spirituality at the margins of The Heartland, and maybe even in the lib arts departments of our universities and the liberal seminaries, but the first kind will sustain the faith in the darkness and the second and third will surrender to the first angry enemy. (contd)
...gone on too long. There's a point to all this. I dislike Bush for other reasons, for his entire Better Life fetish for Mexicans and Americans and everyone in the Western Hemisphere, for Free Trade as a form of salvation, for his conflicted religion which is blind to real evil (apparently), and for his inability to sweep up after himself in this war.
Bush is turning into Longstreet, and we're all Pickett's. The charge will look good to future generations sympathetic to the benighted tribe known as Americans, now gone, because they went to the soil in defense of a decrepit and moribund culture that was dying by itself, and ran into a tribe more determined to prevail.
I don't think this is difficult. I jsut need to find the historical analogy to explain it to myself. It's happened before and it's happening again.
And I still count everyone here as the best, most loyal and upright friends I've ever had. And I don't even know what you look like.
Rhod, Mark, et al.,
Well, if it ends there, then we might as well fold up and wait until the lights are completely out.
We've had this discussion before (optimism v. pessimism, how bad is it really, etc.) in a multitude of forms, but in the end, we fight on because it's the right thing to do.
Good people are always in the minority. It's always been that way, and it will always be that way.
The laws of inertia, entropy, nature, etc. all militate against America. But I will stand with America and against them all.
I almost wrote a post on this recently ... about being in the minority ... but I refrained. Maybe now is the time to do it.
DC:
Critical judgement isn't the same as futility. We're at a critical point in our history, and optimism isn't going to save us. Neither will pessimism, but taking a long, hard look at the facts is a start.
Holy shit... I look away and you guys are running off at the mouth.
Mark:"Their is a reason Liberals are so unhappy. Its the Womens movement, they have emasculated all the male candidates of their party to the point that even they STILL believe that they are men, the new men, this is what they want but the rest of the country does not."
I shudder to think what you feel a woman's role is, however, the world has moved beyond your narrow mindedness. True,in the beginning it was pretty ugly - we either had to look and behave as men or as whores to rise through the ranks of male dominated industries. West coast has been a good place to be in that regard, yet, when our publishing company was brought out by a midwestern branch of Simon and Shuster, it took almost 9 months for the other managers to take me seriously. But I did it by being good at my job and not backing down when others ridiculed.
Why is it that you feel women be able in business and politics emasculates men?
DC - "Winston Churchill said that those who have a good sense of humor understand the difference between the way the world is and the way it ought to be."
However, that doesn't mean you should just shrug at the sadness in the world and walk away. You acknowledge what is, and work to make what changes for the better of mankind that you can.
Where I work there are a couple companies, but the proceeds from one of them funded the construction of an eye hospital in Madagascar and continues to fund the training of physicians to staff it. Rather than saying, "what a shame about that 3rd world issue of blindness" we work to make a difference.
So far my sense of humor is still intact.
Rhod and DC and et al,
I love to use big German words...er Latin.
You mention Bush turning into a Longstreet, and basically the theme of the 'Lost Cause'. And you are right Longstreet was a mope, he was in a fit of depression after receiving his orders the morning of the Second day, who knows what would have happened had he acted immediately on his orders instead of waiting until 4 pm to start an offensive. We might well be two countries now.
This is my belief, this country was founded on a Christian-Judeo ethic, that all rights are given by God, not the Government, not from Bill Clinton or John Kerry. Some Christians scorn science, this is true most of us don't, I spent 5 years learning to be an engineer, all science, and from what I have seen and read the Liberals are the ones who scorn science.
They use the lack of knowledge of science to scare and basically terrorise the public, it is the publics lack of understanding of the basic sciences (and who controls the teaching in the schools...Liberals) that gets them into trouble. Two good examples are Global Warming and Evolution both are corruptions of the basic premise good solid scientific research.
They are now teaching evolution as a 'Hard Science', it is not, there is less evidence to prove evolution than there is to prove creationism, yet they scorn the idea that someone or something out there, that is bigger than they are, Evolution is bogus. They call it the 'theory of Evolution', a theory by itself is an assumption, a guess based on limited knowledge or information. This is the liberals way of teaching science...???
No I will not blame conservatism because it works everytime it is tried all of our ideas when used work. Theirs do not, they started their war on poverty 45 years ago, it was a real feel good idea and it kept getting them re-elected. This war has been going on so long, and we have spent so much money on it, that we all should be millionares. But we still have plenty of poor and plenty of crime to go along with it, the Libs solution is always bigger and bigger government. They don't fix problems they create more and then attempt a solution by creating another bureaucracy, then another bureaucracy to watch the first burearcracy and before you know it, our former God given rights become priviledges granted by the state. So much for Liberal based policies.
DC
As I have said before, if and when the Muslims come for me I aint going down without a fight. I haven't given up I am just damn mad at the way the war has been waged or better yet not waged, and the PC crap they try to pass of as rules of engagement.
William T. Sherman had it right, "War is the solution the enemy has chosen, and I say lets give them all they want until they cry enough".
Julie,
I think you misunderstand the larger point that Mark is making, but he can probably state it better than I can.
As for humor, I don't think any one is advocating just looking at the way things are and shrugging. Obviously, I don't. The point in Sir Winston's comment was that the humorless fail on either end ... the way things are or the way they ought to be.
Liberals, by and large, get it wrong on both ends. You are different, but you are in the minority. You call yourself a centrist, too. That is funny, but it is illustrative of some of what I am saying.
Rhod, what can we say? I am looking over your pithy comment and I agree with it, pretty much. It just depends what the words mean, I guess (cont.)
Mark,
I just saw your last comment and it is "spot on". Dead center.
Rhod ... going back to your comment:
"Critical judgement isn't the same as futility. We're at a critical point in our history, and optimism isn't going to save us. Neither will pessimism, but taking a long, hard look at the facts is a start."
I think we agree, but there's more in terms of context that I would like to mention. To be of any value, either optimism or pessimism has to be based in reality. In other words, for lemmings going over a cliff, it doesn't really matter if they are optimistic or pessimistic. They are going down (although the ride for the optimists will probably be better).
But most of life is not played out like that. There are positives, and there are negatives in most every situation. Dwelling on either for its own sake isn't particularly helpful, but all things being equal, being positive has instrinsic benefits that being negative does not. Leaders find possibilities and get out of jams. They maximize the positive and deal with the negative. That is positive thinking in the true sense, the one that I embrace.
I am all about taking a hard look at the facts. But you are dead on when you say that doing so is merely a "start". To merely observe that life is full of disaster, unspeakable pain, unexplainable sorrow and then go no further is a cop out. The realities we face now (and have always faced) are discouraging for sure, and the easy thing would be to give up in the face of it all. It's easier to be pessimistic. After all, it doesn't take good vision to note what we can all plainly see -- that the evil prosper, that undeserved suffering persists, and that it's harder for the bad to get ahead than the good.
Most pessimists stop here with these easy observations (and I don't lump you in here, by any stretch). What we need to do is move beyond the bad facts. We need to do something with them. Or we will become another bad fact in the part of another bad story ourselves.
Remember when Churchill sat on the rooftops during the Battle of Britain? What a numbskull he was.
Good answer, DC. And Mark, especially. Man, terrific.
JulieB: That's what happens on a conservative blog. Thinkers abound. Change the mood on yours and you'll have 55 posts, too.
There's too much to answer, and I find fault with my own comments and no one else's...except Julie's.
To clarify, VERY briefly. Liberalism is odious and destructive. Conservativism is the remedy. All our spokespeople seem to be pointing out the error of the opposition, and allowing that to define us. Bad move. We are slipping into irrelevance because we have no analogue to Pelosi, Reid, Durbin and the other worms in the baitbox. We need thinkers, not complainers.
DC: Maybe you mean that states of mind are the principle element of success. Can't argue with that, but alarm and recognition precede action, and neither of those states of mind are agreeable.
Finally, success depends upon a system of defense, and the ability to use it. Chaos seems to rule right now, from border control to war-making to the civil institutions that clarify the American ethos. We haven't faced a danger like this, at least in living memory.
Remember that old comment by MacMillian. When asked what the most significant factor is in governing, he said "Events, dear boy. Events."
Oh, I've been known to sit atop a bunker during mortar attacks too.
Churchill just wanted a front row seat to something that few people get to see.
"...the lies we've told ourselves will only be washed away, ultimately, by the blood of our citizens at home."
Rhod,
This sentiment has been the haunting subtext to all my personal theories. I sometimes imagine myself walking down America's main street sporting the stereotypical New Yorker sandwich board advising all to REPENT followed by a scribbled litany of horrors. But, on my board, the REPENT is replaced by REJOICE.
We need more than a bracing slap to the chops to bring us to sanity and true Conservatism. The only force to counter the mall-ipod-feminist-consumerist-selfish culture will be a years-long alley beating spiced with bovver boots and insults. And there are plenty of forces in this world anxious to provide it.
And who will soothe the pain of that beating. Who will avenge the act? Who will restore our pride? Go to the mall this afternoon. Then drive over to City Hall. And don't forget to stroll through your local college campus. And while doing so, make a mental list of those you see with the dignity, passion, presence and education to lead the next revolution. It'll be a short list, I assure you. You will find more success if you wander through your local ghetto.
Our powerful middle-class has been destroyed. Our future Greatest Generations have been outsourced by our Free Market elite... the traitors and moneylenders who now foul our sacred temples.
Great retorts, Rhod and Nicholas.
Here's some pith for the mill ...
Nick, it's always been a short list, and it always will be.
Rhod, a state of mind is a part of success, not the principal means to it. God is the author of success and the remedy for what ails us.
Rhod
Sitting on top of the world or bunker during a mortor attack ? I almost tried that, a buddy of mine did though and he had to go home early, after that I gave up on the idea. And after that whenever I heard, 'Incoming' I did my duty, filled my skivvies and ran for cover.I don't think I could move that fast ever again.
All things liberal bother me especially taxes, if I were to steal money from my neighbor and give it to someone who I deemed needed it more than my neighbor did, I would be arrested. Yet we let the government get away with it year in and year out.
We who work for a living now have to take a drug test before we can start work. I have an idea, how about before the section 8's get their welfare check they have to take a drug test in order to get their check.
I mean fair is fair right, in order to earn just so I can give it to the government I am tested they should too.
Rhod
You are 'spot on' with not having an analog to Nazi Pelosi and company, we need to get the 'Hammer' back.
No now we have 'Steny', What the hell kind of name is Steny. What is that short for I can only guess. The name sounds more like a tackling dummy than a leader.
Nickie:
You are, indeed, Nickie. It's uncanny. Truly impressive.
I think the post-WWII world raced right past those of us born into it, stopped down the road, flipped us the finger, and drove away. Things changed too fast.
The Greatest Generation didn't stay around long enough; they left us in this mysteryscape without any roadmap, and unintentionally created a lot of our problems.
I'm a little wary of their thinking. They enjoyed the longest and most lavish period of prosperity in history; they developed unrealistic expectations of gain alongside their expectations of hardship because of The War and The Depression. A very confused group.
I was raised by them, and consequently have two simultaneous and conflicting ideas in my head about how life should be. Most conservatives expect people to be stronger than they are, when there's nothing to make them strong. You can't invent hardship, and there's doubt about the character-building quality of hardship anyway.
You're right. We're rudderless, a technology without an ethos, and those adapted to it will never understand us, and we'll never forgive them for it or trust them with what they've inherited.
We're all alone, Goomba.
Jeez, this is a great blog. Great thoughts and great commentors. What a shame it would be to abandon it for Dukie Clinger's Garage or Dhimmi Clamato's Funhouse.
Mark:
Steny? Hahaha. Yeah. If you can't say "I love you (insert name)" or "get over here (insert name)" or "I'm gonna kick your ass (insert name)" without laughing, the name is a curse. Hoyer? Same thing. Stenyhoyer sounds like a plumbing tool. Hand me the stenyhoyer, Mark, I need to clear that hairball!
Well, 60 MM's trying to hit the fly- swatter antennas was distance enough. No one was so foolish or drunk enough to stay topside when Charlie was serious. Never saw a rocket. Son One told me a 240 hit a Conex container next to him last month, but the fuse was reversed. Therefore he's walking around today. Go figure.
Hmmmm. Clamato.
Easy boy, STDs are nothing to joke about.
The agony of bivalve-itis. Treat with melted butter and beer.
Hey, Great news! Bush is appointing Zalmay Khalilizad to be the US Ambassador to the UN. He's an Afghan Muslim! I love the melting pot of America.
Zalmay Khalilizad, huh? I need a moustache update.
Wow - very interesting thread - love to read you guys.
The only real competition liberals offer to conservatism is in the euphemism department.
Taxes are government endorsed covetousness. Since when did earning become a bad thing and government handouts a good thing?
Play the lottery? Getting something for nothing is a modern American value.
Taxing the rich to support the feckless - an American value.
Earning is for the stupid, those not smart enough to play the system and get something without working for it.
So when a country goes to war with this mentality, it is no wonder they can be defeated when something they have not earned, only coveted, is not immediately forthcoming.
When we lost the desire to earn outcomes, we lost the ability to achieve them.
My 2 cents.
And JulieB - if you have to announce that you have a sense of humor - you don't have one. It's not something you perceive in yourself - it's an attribute awarded you by others.
Kathy,
You get a prize for making it all the way to the end. Great comment, too. A lot more than two cents worth.
Julie does have a good sense of humor, but you make a very good point. And it was funny, too.
DC - Just the voice of experience - Many moons ago, I worked with a stoic female Russian chemist who announced to a group of astonished lab rats (like me) that she had a sense of humor. It was the funniest thing we'd ever heard her say - there wasn't a dry eye in the house. She was a brilliant chemist, but that was the only funny thing she ever said to me. "People do not know, but Ella has sense of humor" - still makes me howl with laughter.
JulieB - if DC says your funny, then by heaven, you must be funny!
Kathy
Excellant points.
Also I have found that a persons sense of humor diminishes at a rate that is the inverse proportion to the number of degrees they hold.
The problem is I think they take themselves way too seriously. I asked one PhD, what exactly does PhD stand for, Piled Higher and Deeper ? He could not see the humor in it. Our relationship changed immediately after that, I suspect I had been dropped a letter grade after that one.
Agreed Mark, and thanks for the compliment.
Educational level also inversely proportional to social perceptions; this creates the enormous divide between reality and perception to which Rhod refers. It's that cognitive dissonance which drives rational thought deep into the recesses of powerful minds; hubris seizes more and more mental real estate. They are simply too smart for us - in their own minds.
From this vacuum of logic liberalism is born.
That's why nothing is funny and 'conservatives are stupid'. We have the unmitigated temerity to challenge the false premises on which they leap stone to stone into Moonbatville.
I've always said the cure for liberalism is a day of good hard work concluded by someone confiscating that day's earnings - for the greater good of course...
Kathy:
Yes. I live in the Northeast, and political leanings here proceed from social class, or the perception of social class. Where the trappings of snobbery used to be religion, or learning first in this region, now it's shades of what they think to be "liberalism" On the other side, is the perverse and unvaried thing they call "the right wing".
I've said all this before, so my blogmates are sick of hearing it, but my theory is that Adlai Stevenson made being a Democrat respectable, and Kennedy made being a Democrat aristocratic. Democrats of all social standing in this area all share the same prejudice...that the world consists of Democrats and simians.
I have kids in the military. Though they enlisted at different times, we formerly had the smarmy approval of the locals because the boys were thought to be college-bound (one did, but activated himself), and when it was widely known that they all enlisted, the mood of our acquaintances turned to gentle condescension for this family disorder. I'm sure they all went for blood tests, too.
Rhod,
You have my sympathies!
My little consulting company takes me all over, so I frequent the enclaves of northeast thinking from time to time. There's still a few sound thinking guys up there - you are evidence of that.
It's quite alright that people find deficits in each other's intellectual prowess if they do not comprehend oppositional politics, but extraordinarily funny that they don't see the irony in it. "I don't understand you therefore YOU are stupid" seems to be more than a little humorously narrow-minded from the inventors of the Broad Mind(TM)Of The Great Politically Correct Collective, don't you think?
I understand why a democrat thinks he is entitled to redistribute my income - the fact that he is not interested in my sound historical examples as to the damage such policies create - does not stem from any actual intellectual superiority, but from the snobbery you describe. In this particular example, emotional argumentation is made to suffice along with a perversion of the word 'compassion'. Morality takes on another connotation.
Entitlement. Intellectual, social, political, and financial. It was probably the apple in Eden. They are deeply offended by our simian natures - but more so by our failure to recognize our need to intellectually capitulate. So they bring on the pies, and the shout downs lest we get a word in edgewise.
Thank you for the service of your children and sacrifices you, your children, and your family have made on behalf of our country. I am so proud and grateful.
I wish you could have heard the crowd roar at the Boston College v. Navy game when the Navy pilots flew over the field - it brought tears to my eyes. We are proud of our country, our military, and our military families.
One question, when they had those blood tests done, did they find any?
Bravo, Kathy. Knockout post!
Amen, Nick. Kathy, I appreciate your comments and your visiting this little micro-blog very much ... where, thanks to the efforts of our extraordinary commenters and friends, the home fires are still burning.
Great post D.C. and the comments once again are brilliant. I love this place, and each one of you. I read what you say, laugh along with you and feel and agree on so much from the passion from your hearts on how you feel about things. I nod in agreement and say so in comments.
Home is where we make it and this is a little home that has meant a lot to me.
I agree with what you said Rhod and Mark about America, Bush, and what has been happening. I tend to lump all our problems in what I call the enemy within (the left), but it goes deeper then that, it is us too, the right not only the left. I learn from what you share on here. I learn why it is hard for me to explain what I am feeling thus making me use it in a short way like the "enemy within"....when you say it all so much better then I could. For you take what is in my heart and put it into words so much better.
I am concerned for America, I love her so. I feel it slipping away but it is not just being taken it is being given away and it breaks my heart.
One party mine had a chance to stand strong, not only here at home but to the world. They blew it, they went PC and kissed up to the left when they didn't have to. They can't go back now on that and say, well we meant this or that. They had their chance and now we have the Dems in the Majority and it will be down hill faster then it would have been with my party in the majority.
Rhod, you are so right and I hear this from the soldiers that write to me...
"They don't trust us, they don't fear us, and they don't respect us. They take paychecks from both sides because Bush hadn't the balls or smarts to show them who's boss. This isn't war, it's a bloodletting."
It does not reflect on our troops they have been trained to do what they are the best at of any in the entire world, it reflects on the leadership caving in to a PC war run by the Media, weak politicians including Bush, and the left and their propaganda being seen and heard day in and day out. It infuriates me because our troops deserved better. They did and are willing to do what has to be done.
But like Mark said too their hands are tied behind their backs. How horrible that is, what a nightmare. Like one of the soldiers that writes to me, he said he and his men drive around every day being targets while they look for IED’s. When what they want to do is something else that would be a major attack which also would be safer for them and less injuries and deaths from the IED’s. Being police there is getting our guys killed and they want to be soldiers.
Sorry to go on so long here, I thank you all for your thoughts that help me put mine in order and I just love you all.
WT, thank you forever. You're my source for things military, and much, much more. The irony in the things you describe is that weakness is not only a vulnerability in itself, it makes one's opponents stronger. As for IED's, our guys are using weed whackers to find them, and crawling sewer pipes in open ditches looking for them. Ask me? I'd tie ropes on both ends of an Al Qaeda and pull him through the pipe and see what comes out with him. Iraqi-Rooter on the scene.
Nickie confirms and I agree, Kathy. So much insight, like WT.
As for the blood work, no Rhodovirus seems to have been found. All the little Kaitlins, Murphies, Evans and Brecks (all the permissible given names in this area) just as insufferable. Situtation normal.
As for liberals. The primary question none of them can answer convincingly is this: Why is your morality better than any other? Elaborate a little. What's the objective morality in humanism?
And I add #80 on this great thread to thank you, W. Thing. And Rhod, again, great summation.
Yes, why is their morality any better? It's not and they know it. So, when questioned they shout louder and call names. We notice.
I like that Iraqi-Rooter idea, too.
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