Dylan Meets the Beatles

What really happened, man.

Obamboozled?

Whoa.

Hugh Hewitt's Interview with Jonah Goldberg

Thanks to Cubeland Mystic for sending me these links.

Here's the first part.

Here's the second part.

During the second clip we get to hear Michelle Obama's secular messianic totalitarian pitch and Jonah's reaction.

It's spooky. I don't want her to shut up, though, because this is what the Obama's campaign is really about. Not America's "hope", but their hope that no one notices the invisible power fist.

Perfunction on Obama

Over at Perfunction, blogger Cuffy Meigs has two great recent posts on Obama. The first regarding the "Obama bubble" is very insightful, and the second is just plain funny. I include the excellent mock motivational poster here.

MKH on the "Reverse Pyramid"

She's such a great writer. Excerpt:

This doesn't reflect badly on anyone but the Times, as far as I'm concerned. The innuendo and full-on craptastic nature of the lede alone is enough to damn any actual facts that follow, which are few and far between.

I'm not even going to pull the passage for further circulation, but unnamed sources think there might have been a sex scandal but aren't really sure, which may or may not have been connected to an ethics scandal that they're not even sure existed, the evidence for which all comes from eight years ago, and which naturally warrants dredging up the details of an actual ethics scandal for which McCain was punished and has duly apologized and seen-the-light for incessantly since it happened, ahem, 20 years ago.

Let's run Kirk Schuring for Congress in OH-16

Pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, pro-business, spending hawk... Kirk Schuring is the man.

Funny Science Fair Experiments

These are funny. Which is your favorite? I liked "Do video games affect you?" The picture appears to answer the question.

Chris Matthews wants to be educated on Obama's legislative accomplishments

Earlier, Matthews famously admitted that Obama gave him a "thrill going up his leg".



Well, the "thrill" must be gone and now Mr. Hardball remembers that a leg shiver doth not a President make. Maybe this hardball to Obama is a softball for Hillary? Either way, nice job, Chris. What do you think, Jonathan Carpenter?

Hat tip RCP.

Cats Chase Mice, Cute Blonds Make Headlines

That's my statement on the Vicki Iseman thing. It's kind of detailed here, although with a long interruption in the middle going over the Keating Five snooze rehash to pad the story. Whenever a newspaper has to make a "scandal collage" it to make a story seem substantial, especially if there's a pretty blond involved, you have to ask if there's really a smoking gun. The "evidence" of McCain and Iseman alleged involvement is presented mostly in the form of staffers trying to keep her away from the Senator on the campaign trail and earlier in the senate office.

The article is mainly accusing McCain of hypocrisy which is somewhat akin to accusing him of having vocal chords. Each is almost universally found in humans, but both are more annoying when their presences are noticed in a politician.

It looks like desperate smear material to me. A posed picture of Iseman and Bush is appearing on Wonkette, Huffington, etc., most likely because a photo of her with McCain wearing sunglasses at a hotel piano bar at 2:30am was not available. Her bio has reportedly been pulled from her firm's website which I won't doubt has probably been suffering many bandwidth limit related issues. So we'll have to wait and see what develops. At this point it seems as likely as that loser white guy who said he had a gay relationship with Obama. Dream on, honky.

Here's the official response from the McCain campaign:

It is a shame that The New York Times has lowered its standards to engage in a hit-and-run smear campaign. John McCain has a 24-year record of serving our country with honor and integrity. He has never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists, and he will not allow a smear campaign to distract from the issues at stake in this election.

Americans are sick and tired of this kind of gutter politics, and there is nothing in this story to suggest that John McCain has ever violated the principles that have guided his career.

Poem Etc

I'm not much into poetry. Good poetry, maybe, but the truth is most poetry sucks. But here's one that I just found which kind of tickled me. It's from a 1991 student publication from SRU called "Ginger Hill".

Generosity
Fred P. Hoffman

I gave some,
From a few there came nothing,
But most managed a bit.
And though I pledged more than usual,
More than I can even afford,
Some hated me for giving too much,
Others for not giving enough.
To all these appreciations
Politely I smilingly reply,
"You're welcome."

This reminded me of some "riddles" directed to my bro-in-law from some pan-handling street dwellers in NYC back in the late 80s.

Q: What's the greatest city in the world?
A: Generosity.

Q: What's the greatest nation in the world?
A: Donation.

Still Love These Guys

All the media saturation about Castro and Little Havana put this song into my head.

Is Obama a Macintosh?

Really good analysis about message, style, perception and political campaigns. Excerpt:

But Emily Chang, the cofounder of Ideacodes, a Web designing and consulting firm, detected consistent messages, and summed them up: “His site is more youthful and hers more regal.”

Mr. Obama’s site is almost universally praised. Even Martin Avila, the general manager of the company responsible for the Republican Ron Paul’s Web site, said simply, “Barack’s site is amazing.”

But the compliments are clearly double-edged.

While Apple’s ad campaign maligns the PC by using an annoying man in a plain suit as its personification, it is not clear that aligning with the trendy Mac aesthetic is good politics. The iPod may be a dominant music player, but the Mac is still a niche computer. PC, no doubt, would win the Electoral College by historic proportions (with Mac perhaps carrying Vermont).

The author, Noam Cohen, goes on to point out that the hectic style of Hillary's web-site might evoke a sense of hard work and accomplishment while Obama's softer-feel, although providing a sense of comfort to visitors, doesn't say much beyond the attractive welcome mat.

Kickin' Sand Castles

The genius who created Is Barack Obama the Messiah?, Christopher, sometimes known as "blostopher", closed all the comment boxes on the site except for this one which is a sand-castle kicking blast. Haven't had this much fun since the that Nutrasweet overdose back in '06.


The latest find, discovered by commenter Ninja Pirate, is by a Deepak Chopra wanna-be named Saniel Bonder and is entitled "I Dreamt That Lincoln Had a Dream: Barack Obama, the American Theodicy, and the Spirit of American Democracy". You just have to read it, it's too priceless.

David Brooks on Hope-amine Madness

Dudes, don't stare at that picture for too long. You'll have a freak-out.

But this is so funny.

The afflicted had already been through the phases of Obama-mania — fainting at rallies, weeping over their touch screens while watching Obama videos, spending hours making folk crafts featuring Michelle Obama’s face. These patients had experienced intense surges of hope-amine, the brain chemical that fuels euphoric sensations of historic change and personal salvation.

But they found that as the weeks went on, they needed more and purer hope-injections just to preserve the rush. They wound up craving more hope than even the Hope Pope could provide, and they began experiencing brooding moments of suboptimal hopefulness. Anxious posts began to appear on the Yes We Can! Facebook pages. A sense of ennui began to creep through the nation’s Ian McEwan-centered book clubs.

The description of Hillary as Richard Nixon is satisfying. But it gets better.

As the syndrome progresses, they begin to ask questions about The Presence himself:

Barack Obama vowed to abide by the public finance campaign-spending rules in the general election if his opponent did. But now he’s waffling on his promise. Why does he need to check with his campaign staff members when deciding whether to keep his word?

Obama says he is practicing a new kind of politics, but why has his PAC sloshed $698,000 to the campaigns of the superdelegates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics? Is giving Robert Byrd’s campaign $10,000 the kind of change we can believe in?

If he values independent thinking, why is his the most predictable liberal vote in the Senate? A People for the American Way computer program would cast the same votes for cheaper.

Obama donates $10K to former Klansman Byrd. File that under only in America. Of course, none of Obama's ancestors got lynched by Byrd's drankin' buddies. But this is a digression. I know the GOP is not immaculate, but I'm just glad I'm a member of a party without this "super-delegate" sham.

But Brooks goes on to point out that as much lip service as Obama pays to bringing everyone together, he has been conspicuously absent on most of the hands-across-the-aisle deals in the Senate. Judging from the record, his ideological purity rivals that of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. And speaking of Republicans, if there are as many "Obamacans" out there as the Obama camp is claiming, I have a public service announcement for them: "Don't take the brown acid!"

Castro Resigns

Good news. Here's an excerpt from this article:

"My wishes have always been to discharge my duties to my last breath. That's all I can offer," Castro wrote. But, he continued, "it would be a betrayal to my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am physically able to offer. This I say devoid of all drama."

Questions for Fidel: What conscience? and... Have you ever done anything without plenty of drama?

At least no one faints

Via Kathleen, here is the pathetic speech by Michelle Obama where she says that for the first time in her adult life she is proud of her country because it's moving in "that direction". What direction? The direction of CHANGE, of course.

Go, Hillary.

He may look like your accountant, but Tommy Emmanuel is a MONSTER

Sticks, Stones and Google

Andy rightly accuses me of not responding to something he said about William Kristol being an "Israel-firster" a while back. He didn't provide a link and I'm too lazy to look for it. So instead, I suggest everyone google the term "Israel-firster", just for hits and giggles. If you're bored.

Those are big meatballs, dude

Also check out the Donald Duck impersonator around halfway through.

"Liturgy is the visible expression of the arrangement of power"

I heaved a coughing "Yeah, whatever" at that line from a NCR article in an Op/Ed by Matt Abbott from last month. Mr. Abbott asked three priests to respond to NCR's bilge and they did so eloqently, persuavisely and comprehensively so as to illuminate the reader on what the Council and the reform of the liturgy were and are all about.

Hitchcock on the Unhinged "Catholic Right"

Via Christopher at Catholics in the Public Square comes this scathing article by James Hitchcock about the neglect of the pro-life movement on the part of fanatical Catholic paleo-cons like Joe Sobran and Paul Likoudis.

I guess I should warn you that you aren't going to like this piece if you hate Bush, idolize Pat Buchanan or think Rick Santorum is a puppet of the insidious Masonic/Neocon conspiracy.

Hitchcock penned the very readable Recovery of the Sacred which I found to be one of the most balanced accounts of the introduction of goofiness into the Catholic liturgy during the sixties and seventies. Needless to say I read the whole thing in one sitting, and I enjoin upon you to do likewise, nonetheless here are some of my favorite passages to serve as teasers.

After a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court upheld a federal law regulating partial-birth abortions, Sobran (May 3) acknowledged that a Republican defeat in 2008 would be bad for the pro-life movement, but he blamed that likely outcome primarily on the President himself. A week later he praised the pro-abortion Democratic Senator Joseph Biden as "someone who takes his faith very seriously" and announced that, although the office of the presidency "ought not to exist," he found Biden to be a trustworthy candidate.

By the way, these people are mostly big secessionists. Anyway, Sobran advocated voting Democratic in 2006 with an Obama-like "change is good" justification since he didn't like the invisible neo-conservatives who were running congress. Then, lo and behold....

A month after the [2006] election (December 7), Sobran lamented that "just when many were hoping for relief as the Age of Bush begins to wind down," Democrats were talking about reintroducing the Equal Rights Amendment in Congress. After having said practically nothing on the subject during the campaign, Sobran at last acknowledged that "the Democrats will now have more to say about the direction of the federal judiciary," as though that had not occurred to him before.

What, did he think that the Democrats were going to give obeisance to the combined subscriber lists of the Remnant and the Wanderer who helped them beat the Republicans? Yeaaaaaaaah! Meet the new boss, Joe!

The economist Rupert Ederer has asserted (December 7) that there is an authentically "Catholic" position on such issues as trade, tax, and monetary policies: "We need to recognize that there are Ten Commandments, not one or two. Along with the Fifth Commandment (murder of the innocent) and the Sixth Commandment (against sodomy) there is also the Seventh, about stealing (depriving the working man of his just wages), and the Eighth, about lying (a devastating war based on lying)." His exhortation repeated the familiar liberal accusation that pro-lifers care only about the unborn and are preoccupied with sexual behavior rather than with justice, and it also used the common liberal Catholic ploy of equating absolute moral principles with prudential judgments about particular situations, a ploy that is the basis of the "seamless garment" by which some Catholics justify support for abortion by weighing it against the policies of the welfare state.

(digressive point: isn't the 6th commandment about more than sodomy? not the first thing my mind jumps to, but YMMV....)

And not just equating prudential judgements with formal doctrine but reversing the order to make them more important...

There is an obvious but unacknowledged internal conflict here, in that Sobran espouses a minimalist view of the state, according to which almost every project that government undertakes does nothing but harm, yet at the same time seems to justify voting Democratic, in order to punish Republicans who have betrayed authentic conservatism. Rao (The Remnant, September 15) has used the same ploys, accusing pro-lifers of being indifferent to the death of "live innocent babies" in the Near East, and, in a breathtaking slight-of-hand, reversing the traditional relationship between formal doctrine and prudential judgments, treating the decrees of Vatican II as highly debatable but any kind of statement by the Holy See about the Near East (although not necessarily about other issues) as infallible. He charged that conservative Catholics "seem eager to hop on board any aircraft available to aid Israel that can be guilty of no wrong, no matter who it bombs and how it does so" and, despite positing the existence of a "Catholic teaching" about the Near East, accused the Vatican of failing to condemn "imperialist warmongering" out of cowardice and a fear of losing American money.

Falling back on the old standby of "it's all Israel's fault." Lastly...

Hard-core conservatives tend now to hearken back nostalgically to the days of Barry Goldwater, ignoring the fact the Goldwater turned out to be fanatically pro-abortion, as well as very liberal on most other social issues, something that gives pro-lifers little reason to want to be "true" conservatives. Sobran's way of dealing with the life issues can then be seen as the conservative counterpart to the liberals' "seamless garment"-an attempt to persuade pro-lifers to transcend their "narrow" outlook and support a wider agenda.

To be fair, Goldwater set the stage for Ronald Reagan who famously endorsed him and who converted to the pro-life cause as many other Republicans did at the time. But this is an example of why I'm not a "hard-code conservative" or, according to some of my readers, a "true" conservative at all. (Maybe I'm a... Konservative?) I would still rather see George Allen and Rick Santorum in the Senate. And Link Chafee for that matter... here's a quiz: Is Sheldon Whitehouse pro-life or pro-choice? Clue: he's a Democrat Senator from Rhode Island.

Will Duct Tape Work?

Heard this on Hewitt. Scary.

That we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done. That is why I am here, because Barack Obama is the ONLY person in this who understands that. That before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation.

I wonder... will duct tape not work to fix broken souls? Seriously, would it be more offensive for me to tell Michelle Obama that she needed to confess her sins to a Catholic priest or for her to insinuate that I have to pull a lever for her husband to "fix my soul"? Ms. Obama, please let me decide to sacrifice on my own time for the sake of my own soul, 'K?

These people are younger and better looking than the old Democrat guard, otherwise they strike me as more insidious in their ability to hoodwink the dim-witted. Certainly they have quite a bit of skill in addition to the audacity -- their big word of the year -- in borrowing religious images and concepts to push "social gospel"-style collectivism.

Here's a good point from an atheist:

If I was a believer and was seeking something like that, a church is where I would look, not the government. I mean, really, considering what they do to things, why would anyone trust the government with something like that!

He Sure Does Talk Funny

Not funny as in ha-ha-ha either. Via Diane, some satirical comment'ry on the demented Anglican Archbishop. Naturally my favorite comment to the piece was this one:

Very amusing. Also rather points up why so many people are defecting to Roman Catholicism. Say what you like about Pope Benedict, but you always know where he stands on things. No ambiguity there.

Sports Revisionism in Nicaragua

I found this story funny.

Hundreds of shirts and caps, which had been manufactured in advance to celebrate the Patriots' expected victory over the New York Giants, were handed over to children in the southern city of Diriamba [Nicaragua].

"The children are the winners," said Miriam Diaz, of World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization.