So what do we make of Herman Cain’s surprising -- and overwhelming -- victory at Saturday’s Florida Straw Poll? Call it a vote for “None of the Above” by the conservatives who gathered in Orlando.
No, you cretins. We call it a victory by Herman Cain. Pushing him to the back of the news bus isn't going to make him go away.
Anybody want to start a pool on how long it takes before the media actually acknowledge that there's a black contender in the race?
Update: Note the wording of this article in the LA Times. Any time you see someone "insisting" something in in a news story, it means you're supposed to disbelieve it.
As I've said before, I don't hate gay people. True, I have opinions about the morality of some of their actions, which is not the same thing. The few gay folks I know are probably aware of this and don't really care what I think. So the matter never comes up.
Others aren't so lucky. One blogger's expression of distaste for a homosexual display has thrust her right in the path of the gay jihad. Lavender warriors have bravely descended on her en masse (with their names courageously concealed) to clog up her comment boxes with... well, they're gay, so we can't really call it hate, can we? But certainly extreme disapproval.
Naturally, it's not just that one post that draws their righteous indignation. Anything this blogger writes is up for vilification, as well as any post in her defense. By now someone has certainly traced her home address and phone number. It took me two minutes.
But it's all right, because we're the hateful ones here. They're just loving, peaceful people who happen to form a lynch mob.
Nota bene: I'll tolerate nasty comments up to a point, provided your name and e-mail are included and you keep the language clean. Post anonymously or obscenely, and I'll edit your comments in any way that amuses me.
We allow our betters in the school system to groom kids for molestation, and call it "sex education." We bend over backwards (probably the safer direction) to pander to the Pervo-American community, and pride ourselves on our commitment to diversity. We carefully sift out any reference to homosexuality and pretend that being a priest is what makes a man a predator.
Remember, these are the people who insist they're just like anybody else. So if Buell had expressed his private opinion in favor of same-sex "marriage," would he be hounded from the classroom?
Still, it looks like we're getting a good one in his place. I did a little googling and found this article on him, coincidentally written by a friend of mine. I really like the look of the good Fr. Dufner.
I also happen to agree with him on the question of illegal immigration. My fellow conservatives can like that or lump it. But I didn't do a durn thing to earn my citizenship; I merely had the good fortune to be born into it. Some of the illegal immigrants I've known have done a lot more good than I have here, and yet they can't even apply for fear of being found out. There's something wrong with a system that gives citizenship to useless worms like my daughter's ex-loser, but denies it to people who work 16 hours a day picking asparagus and raise their kids to be upright and decent.
When I first read about the aftermath of that hockey game in Vancouver, I was floored. I mean, what does it take to be considered a riot in Canada? Bumping into someone and failing to say "Excuse me?"
I have to confess, I love Vancouver. Back in 1983 when I was 15, my dad was one of the engineers on the project that would eventually become the Skytrain. I went up there to spend a week with him at his hotel in the suburb of Richmond. Since he had to work during the day, he handed me a wad of bills and a bus schedule and said "Here, go explore." I did, as far as my 15-year-old imagination could take me. I've never quite gotten over the city since. I've always thought Vancouver was what San Francisco would have been if it was cleaner and had better weather.
So as I say, the riots surprised me. What sounds completely in character for Vancouver is the response from the ordinary, non-rioting citizens. As soon as it was safe, they came out to the streets and started cleaning up. How many cities does that happen in?
Read this. And then this. Heroism wears a uniform, or a nurse's scrubs. Common decency carries a broom.
I'd say the same thing about a ruling I agreed with. Rigging a trial or intimidating lawyers to ensure that the "good guys" win sets a dangerous precedent. More can be proud of Paul Clement, if of nobody else in this whole business.
Sir, I dislike you. Indeed, I hold you in the sort of esteem usually reserved for cockroaches and asparagus. I am in no doubt that your sexual habits are of an unsavory nature and your personal hygiene leaves much to be desired. And it is my fondest hope that one day you will be trapped aboard a boat sinking within sight of the shore, and your mother will be unable to summon help as she runs barking up and down the beach with her ears flapping in the wind.
Now that record numbers of you are heading off into your retirement, it seems like a good time to note that record numbers of you also failed to prepare for the future. This means that each of us will have to shoulder a much larger share of supporting your aging heinies.
Pregnancy, childbirth, babies, toddlers, teenagers -- they introduce uncontrollable variables into life. Having children is messy and risky, opening the door to kinds of suffering to which non-parents will be forever immune. The choice of sterility is infinitely neater and safer. Like a clean layer of asphalt instead of a garden, it makes no demands; but it doesn't give much back, either.
See, your generation wanted to have fun and stay young, and those pesky, messy, resource-consuming children didn't fit your lifestyle. We were responsibility, and you just had to have your freedom. So you contracepted like crazy, and aborted the few of us that sprouted in spite of you, to save space in your lives for your Beemers and your cocaine and your ski trips to Colorado.
You tried to pass those values on to my generation as well, but fortunately, some of us didn't listen to your "things are better than people" gospel. So now our children who are just entering the job market already have to support their grandparents before they can even think of supporting families of their own.
I have to wonder if this is part of a plan to avoid getting a conviction. Yes, I said "avoid." If the DA overreaches and Gosnell is acquitted, then he still looks good in the papers without actually having to hold an abortionist accountable.
Seth Williams is a Democrat, bought and paid for with NARAL dollars. The last thing his masters want is anything suggesting a connection between "choice" and cold-blooded murder.
No, just stupid. Try to leave aside the irony of John Kerry calling for foreign involvement, and focus on the sheer imbecility:
Senator John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, called for the United States to impose a no-fly zone over Libya. While he noted that the Libyan people weren't asking for foreign troops, he said they "do need the tools to prevent the slaughter of innocents on Libyan streets."
...
"I believe the global community cannot be on the sidelines while airplanes are allowed to bomb and strafe," said Kerry, who chairs the Senate committee. "A no-fly zone is not a long-term proposition, assuming the outcome is what all desire, and I believe that we ought to be ready to implement it as necessary."
Here's an idea: How about we just mind our own frimpin' business? Interfering in other people's civil wars is an invitation to lose no matter who wins.
For the last few years I've been a reader of cop blogs. They often post infrequently, and a lot of times they disappear without warning as their superiors figure out who they are, but while they're there, they're an invaluable window into the world that most of us never have to deal with directly.
We hear griping and dark conspiracy talk about cops a lot, but when we need them, they always show up anyway. These people take not just physical danger, but an enormous amount of verbal crap, on our behalf.
Most of their readers are other cops. I'm well aware that I'm an outsider in their sphere. That's why I don't often say anything about reading their stuff. But these guys (and the occasional lady) need to know that we appreciate them.
(Six Year Med obviously isn't a cop, but she's well worth reading with the same reverence. She's a hospital pediatrician who has to deal with the sort of emotional trauma that would leave me a hopeless drunk inside a week if I had to do her job. She makes me humble.)
That's right! It's time for Cheesy Christmas Movies!
Every so often, as the fit takes me, I'll post a movie that makes Christmas feel by turns tawdry, silly, maudlin or just plumb sentimental. There'll even be a couple of awesome flicks tossed in. Most of them come from the Internet Archive's stash of public domain film. (Some of them, the public probably should have turned down.)
The first offering comes under "sentimental." I posted it once before, but I'll re-up the commentary for the benefit of new readers:
Beyond Tomorrow is the sort of movie you simply don't see anymore. Three elderly bachelors who both live and do business together set up a little test to see what kind of people are walking outside their window. They each toss a wallet with ten dollars and a business card inside, and wait to see who returns the money. Naturally, it's a man and a woman, both single and lonely, and both at loose ends for the holiday. The bachelors invite them to Christmas dinner, and the result is what you'd expect, either in 1940 or today.
It all takes a different turn when (a) the three men are killed in a plane crash and (b) the young man finds himself being led astray by a woman of easy virtue. From here on out, it's chock-full of the sort of thing that Hollywood would roll its collective eyes at today, even for a hokey Christmas flick.
For starters, the theology is a bit clear-cut for a modern film, even though for people who take their religion seriously it's kind of facile. The afterlife is presented without self-consciousness or wisecracks. Good is good, and evil is evil, and there is forgiveness for the repentant. It's a morality tale, pure and simple. If you don't like moral absolutes, you won't get this one.
Besides that, the acting is really good for such a low-budgeter, and there's a nifty little background/subplot thing with two Russian servants, refugees with Romanov connections. Maria Ouspenskaya is the sort of treasure that belonged in a museum; to see her in this B-flick is like seeing Olivier in a soap commercial. So get the hankies out and skip the cliche repellant:
Update three years later: I always knew Jean Parker was wonderful, and this film just reaffirms it. I'm also very struck by the treatment of George's afterlife. Allan is met by his family and taken to heaven, and Michael remains Topper-like to help his friends. But George... George takes a route seldom seen in movies.
It's clear that he has some dark sin in his past, though we're never told what it is. When he steps off into his dark, ominous destination, it's very foreboding. But foreboding of what, exactly? Is that Hell he's going to? Is it Purgatory? That he goes without a fight suggests the latter, but there's no actual identification made of it and the rest of the film implies kind of a generic pseudo-Protestant heaven-and-hell-and-nothing-else. Still, he emerges after repenting and is admitted to Heaven. Very intriguing.(On re-watching the ending, no. It's very Catholic in its treatment of the afterlife. Not only does George describe Purgatory to a T, but Michael is also interceded for by his mother, which is a completely Catholic take on the Communion of Saints. I looked up both the writers, and they appear to have been solidly Catholic. It makes sense.)
So what did you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
