It is legal to make your own gun

If you can legally own a gun in the United States, then you can legally make your own gun in the United States. Excerpt:

It is 100 percent legal for a private citizen who is not barred from owning or possessing a firearm to manufacture a firearm, creating a ghost gun, as long as the resultant firearm does not violate any state or federal laws. This means that as long as you are manufacturing a firearm that would be normally sold over the counter where you live with a standard 4473, and as long as it is legal for you to walk into a store and purchase such a firearm, you are not breaking the law. This has always been the case, and as long as you are not then selling those firearms, you are in the clear. (If you’re looking to manufacture anything more exotic than a regular old pistol, rifle or shotgun, you’d better have your federal NFA paperwork in order and your NFA taxes paid. If not, you’ll end up committing one of the only types of gun-related crime the feds DO, in fact, seem very interested in prosecuting...

Like it says, "ghost gun" is just one more imprecise, scary word used for political purposes. We should not use it unless we clarify what we mean by it. It is not an illegal gun, just a gun made by a private individual and as such, it will not have a serial number on it. Serial numbers provide some degree of traceability and thus makes it much easier for the geovernment to regulate serilaized guns.

If I was going to sell a gun which I made myself, I would just sell it in two parts to someone on different days. Then I would tell the person that if they are asked where they got the gun that they should answer that the bought the parts separtely and assembled it themselves. This is still 100% legal. If the buyer said "Pauli sold me the gun," and then I was questioned I would state that I sold parts and not a fully operational gun. That is just what I would do.

Father Longenecker corrects Father Martin's slippery language

Father Martin is a pro-gay, liberal priest, and he has a large following among intellectual liberal Catholics. Some of his messaging I can sign onto 100%, e.g., be kind to everybody, don't judge people solely by their faults, etc. Other people communicate these things better and less jargonistically, but ok.

However by conflating terms that mean different things, Father Martin justifies behavior which the church teaches is sinful. Father Dwight Longenecker deals adeptly with this tendency in this article, especially in dealing with his recent assertion "Being gay isn't a sin," which he uses to scold Franklin Graham. Excerpt:

I should say that this post is not a comment on homosexuality per se. I have no opinion on that matter other than the teaching of the Sacred Scriptures and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

What I would like to comment on is Fr Martin’s deceitful use of language.

First he says “Being gay is not a sin.” Yes. We all agree that experiencing same sex attraction is not a sin. I’m sure Franklin Graham also agrees with this. Fr Martin knows that we agree with him on this, but without saying so, he conflates “Being gay” with gay sexual activity. How do I know this? Because Fr Martin supports New Ways Ministry and one of their constant refrains is, “You can’t pretend to accept gay people if you do not accept the way they love.”

He knows “being gay” for the vast majority of his readers means “living gay.” He is quite content to use fuzzy language in order to blur the distinctions.

Second, he states the lie that God makes people gay. The genesis of the homosexual condition is, no doubt, complex and clearly many people who are attracted to people of the same sex truly believe they were born that way. While one ought to respect their feelings it is also true that their feelings do not match the facts.

This slipperiness is a major temptation for people who want the church to change 2,000+ years worth of tradition and teach that homosexual acts are not intrinsically wrong and not intrinsically disordered. The word gay is merely a jargonistic way to refer to someone who acts on homosexual desires. So they talk about people being born gay and "let's be loving toward gays" and skirt the issue of what said person does about their tendencies. If we bring up that people need to abstain from illicit sexual relations at this point we lose points in their minds because we brought up something unmentionable. We've taken the discussion into the gutter. We are the judgemental people who cannot be trusted to not be bigoted, so we can hardly teach catechism or religious education because who knows what might come out our mouths.

I have seen this over and over again among the little elites at the parish level who are at this point conditioned to not bring up any hot-button issue if it directly or indirectly touch sexual morality. Abortion, contraception, divorce suffer the same fate as homosexuality among the people dealing with religious formation and education. But anything political is 100% fair game, believe me. With regard to abortion: I remember a presentation about the 10 Commandments given by 8th graders. They were listing examples of sins which are a breach of the Fifth Commandment — "Thou shalt not murder," — and they mentioned bullying, littering and failing to recycle as ways to break this commandment, along with actually committing murder of another human. They did not mention abortion.

The refrain of New Ways which Father L. brings is is particularly problematic. "You can’t pretend to accept gay people if you do not accept the way they love." But the "way they love" is harmful, not just spiritually. I invite everyone to read about the spiritual and psychological dangers of homosexuality. I invite everyone who has a very, very strong stomach to read about the physical dangers — you have been warned. Saying that these acts are loving is neglecting an enormous impact from their behavior, i.e., the destruction of their own bodies, not to mention their souls.

Good for Father Longenecker for not being afraid to give Father Martin the moniker "Slippery Jim". It fits.

Educational Video about Islamic Jihad and Sharia

Hat-tip to the Clarion Project for this succinct and accurate video about the threat of civilizational jihad and sharia as the motives behind terrorist acts. This is the sort of thing people in the west need to know. So what did YouTube do. They banned the video. read more about that at the Counter Jihad link.

This video was produced by the Center for Security Policy, an excellent organization started by very knowledgeable people in the world of fighting Islamic terrorism.

What could possibly explain Alasdair MacIntyre's regret?

One of our faithful Anonymous commenters deserves recognition (although he/she obviously doesn't want any) for linking to an interview between a liberal protestant theologian, Stanley Hauerwas, and someone from Bruderhof a quasi-commune of sorts. My main interest is the exchange right at the beginning:

Peter Mommsen: You’ve written extensively about how the church should respond to the “end of Christendom” – the fact that we no longer live in a culture whose ground rules stem from Christianity. What about the “Benedict Option” proposed by the writer Rod Dreher? He argues that Christians should respond to secularization by following the example of the early monastics, withdrawing from a heathen civilization to build alternative communities where Christian virtues can be nourished and passed on. Is he right?

Standley Hauerwas: This Benedict Option idea comes from the last line of Alasdair MacIntyre’s book After Virtue, in which he observes that the barbarians have been ruling us for some time and that our future is “no doubt to have a Benedict, no doubt a very different Benedict.” Here’s the problem: Alasdair once told me that this is the line he most regrets ever having written! He wasn’t advocating some kind of withdrawal strategy – he was only pointing out that we can’t be compromised by the world in which we find ourselves. I don’t think your community, the Bruderhof, takes a withdrawal strategy, for instance.

I think it is appropriate to underscore MacIntyre's entire disapproval of the Benedict Option as well as his recognition for what it is, in the words of his theologian friend Stanley Hauerwas, "some kind of withdrawal strategy." Everybody using common English parlance recognizes two things: one, the intention of Alasdair MacIntyre's quip in After Virtue was not a fugit mundi and two, Rod Dreher's Benedict Option—if it is anything more than hashtag Christianity or fodder for a grad school mint julep fueled bull session—is most definitely a flight from the world, albeit with a few oddments crammed into one's pockets. Examples of the oddments would seem to include Diamond Dogs by David Bowie, Bitch by the Rolling Stones, a bottle of trendy French wine and a cell-phone photo of a one-legged stripper. Among other things.

Somewhere on the internets there is an article by a Benedict Option devotee wondering in print if MacIntyre was ever going to "break his silence" on the whole Benedict Option concept. I think the silence spoke loudly enough that, in the words of T. S. Eliot, it had the equivalence to a "That is not what I meant at all; that is not it, at all", and the development of the quasi-monastic lifestyle choice called the Benedict Option was based on a misperception of his original words. To put it mildly.

....What they set themselves to achieve instead—often not recognising fully what they were doing—was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness. If my account of our moral condition is correct [one characterized by moral incoherence and unsettlable moral disputes in the modern world], we ought to conclude that for some time now we too have reached that turning point. What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us. And if the tradition of the virtues was able to survive the horrors of the last dark ages, we are not entirely without grounds for hope. This time however the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament. We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another—doubtless very different—St. Benedict. (Source.)

Each Christian man or woman of good will must ultimately judge whether this paragraph has anything to do with the upcoming book about craft beer, communes, trips to Italy, photos of restaurant tables and thick glasses lying on stacks of books, etc. Personally I think MacIntyre would join the chorus of other thinkers we've noted—Bruce Frohnen, Joseph Shaw, John Zmirak (several times actually), Brendan Eich, Austin Ruse, William Briggs and Father Richard Heilman—and shout in unison: "BATS AREN'T BUGS!"

Well, if he were a shouting type of guy. By the way, yYou can add my voice to the mix as well if you'd like. That's my original thought on why we don't need the Benedict Option, or already have it and just don't use it enough.

It is worthy to note that the Bruderhof community is exactly the kind of group that cracks me up as much as Rod Dreher's silliness does. At one and the same time, they publish left-wing condemnations of private property as evil in and of itself and boast of the prime real-estate they own on their web-site. It's a cushy life-style; it reminds me one of my favorite scenes ever.



"You don't care about money because you have it."

Tom on the Benedict Option

Over at Disputations, Tom's not in the mood to waste words on the Benedict Option.

If you ever come across the term "the Benedict Option," there's really only one thing you need to know about: It's nonsense.

More precisely, it's a meaningless term, a cypher. The thing it refers to is a non-thing. As such, it can mean anything. And a term that can mean anything isn't worth talking about.

I agree with this assessment entirely. And yet the correction of errors often requires the dealing with non-things patiently and tirelessly. For example, the monster under the bed is a non-thing, but some people require night after night of sleeping in their parents' bed because they are obsessed with that non-thing, until finally they figure out it doesn't exist. Also some people don't want to go to the basement without at least their big brother because there's something scary down there if you happen to be alone.

Those are two examples that come to mind immediately, and it hasn't escaped my notice that they pertain to very immature minds. This is probably accordant with the whole point; Tom goes on:

"The Benedict Option" was a cypher when Rod Dreher coined the term nine or ten years ago, a contentless label generated as a placeholder for the idea he hoped would follow from his feelings on reading the last paragraph of Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue.

Waiting, waiting, waiting for an "idea he hoped would follow from his feelings". Waiting not for Godot, not for Benedict.... merely waiting for an idea that never took any discernible shape....

Since then, Rod has written a lot about "the Benedict Option" without managing to define it in a way anyone who doesn't find what he writes convincing can comprehend. These days, although he still can't say what it is, he does insist it's hugely important to every Christian in America:

Again and again: these are not normal times. We can’t be about business as usual. The future of Christianity in America will be Benedictine — as in Benedict Option — or it won’t be at all.

That might give one pause.

The Pause it gives me is akin to the town council's pause after Corky St. Clair announces his dollar figure in Waiting for Guffman.



The Pause is more real than the non-thing that is the Benedict Option because it actually does something. It asks a single, one-word question:

"Seriously?"

Read the whole thing over at Tom's. He really does have a great blog, and I don't check it out nearly enough. I'll just leave you with one more line of his which could serve as a conclusion to any and every post we do on the Benedict Option:

My advice to anyone who might be interested in "new forms of community within which the moral life [can] be sustained" is to think about them without reference to Rod Dreher or "the Benedict Option."

Hear, hear.

Catching up with Caspar and Lonnie

In which we discover that Lonnie has the power of exorcism. You really need to read the whole thing, but here's an excerpt which I was going to comment on:

"Well, I think it started because old Pastor Moses didn't like that you started casting demons out of people. Besides preaching, you had the gift of exorcism. You were a demon buster. I remember one time especially. There came a young lady who had been dabbling in witchcraft for years. She had invited seven different spirits to inhabit her. At first they probably gave her clairvoyant abilities that astounded her friends. Demons always offer something to entice a human. It is not until later they started controlling and tormenting her, as demons always come to do. They always hate the people they inhabit. But somehow or another she came to the church one night. You don't recall it, Lonnie? When you told them to come out of her, at first they caused a big commotion. Exorcisms can be messy affairs and shocking to watch happen. But they finally popped out of her and couldn't reenter. They were ever so angry that they were forced to leave the poor woman. She was set free from their grip. Then they looked up at the ceiling and saw me clinging there, looking down at them. They were shocked to see that a gargoyle was guarding the place. I gave them a big raspberry, and they fled the scene."

This reminds me of a funny story told by a newly-ordained Oratorian priest. He was having dinner with a group of my friends circa 1997. Because we were all YUCIs (Young Urban Catholic Intellectuals) he was regaling us with funny Catholic stories. That is, stories about funny Catholics.

One was about a woman who always came up to him after he celebrated daily Mass to perform the important service of telling him what was wrong with the church architecture, or what was wrong with him, or how spiritual she herself was. One time she told him she had an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He decided to have the following conversation with her at that point.

"Did you spit at the apparition?" the priest inquired.

"Excuse me?" replied the spiritual lady, no doubt shocked that the young priest would suggest such a blasphemous act, not to mention being oblivious to the impressiveness of her revelation.

"I asked you if you had spit at the apparition. You see, if it truly was an apparition of Our Lady, spitting would not have harmed it. Whereas if the apparition were actually demonic in nature — as is sometimes the case — your spit would banish it immediately. That's why St. John told the early Christians to test the spirits. If it happens again, spit at it. You won't offend Our Lady; she'll know why you are doing it."

This exchange had the two intended effects. The primary effect was, of course, the instructing of the ignorant, one of the spiritual works of mercy. The other effect was that the woman never bothered him after Mass ever again.

No doubt this parting of two people with different spiritual offerings was a blessing for the Church. This is often the case, as in the story of the parting of Paul and Barnabas in Acts chapter 15. Father continued to celebrate Mass for the spiritual lady every day, and the spiritual lady no doubt begged Our Lord and every saint she knew like crazy for this priest's conversion. That's called a win-win. It's a big Church, and we all help each other get to Heaven.

Mr. Moonbones on Gargoyles

I used to think a gargoyle was a certain type of goyle, as opposed to a boy. But that silliness is only one of the many misconceptions about gargoyles. Oengus Moonbones instructs the ignorant among us with regard to these strange—but eminently good—creatures in an installment of his serial Caspar and Lonnie. Excerpt:

The best way, I suppose, to describe the appearance of a gargoyle would be to say, as a first approximation, that it is like a monstrous blend of monkey, lizard, toad, and octopus. Now gargoyles stand upright, usually, and are bipedal, mostly, and have binocular vision, if you don't take into account their auxiliary receptors. Gargoyles have very strong prehensile tails, which can be used as an extra leg. Their hands and feet are more reptilian-like with long, razor sharp nails and claws, which are retractable like in cats. The arms and legs are long and slender but surprising for their strength and agility. As for their skin, it appears more toad-like than anything, and it is covered with many protuberances, or bumps, the overall coloration ranging between a dark greyish green to a deep bluish purple. Gargoyles are odorless. Their large primary eyes are a deep red in color, with pupils resembling what you see in cats. Their heads sport multiple horns, sprouting at least six or more, which curve to sharp points. Their noses are bulbous, with a keen sense of smell, and the large mouths contain long fangs. The ears are large, and floppy, and acutely sensitive over a wide frequency range. A Gargoyle's tongues is split at the end, the tips being capable of moving independently. A gargoyle's voice is clear, well articulated and gentle sounding. If ever you have heard a very mellow, late night FM radio disk jockey, that is close to what a gargoyle sounds like when it talks.

I mentioned "auxiliary receptors". What I mean each of the protuberances on the skin houses a tentacle which can be extended or retracted, and these tentacles have visual receptors as well. And by extending its tentacles, a gargoyle has the ability to view its surroundings in many different directions simultaneously. Besides being able to see, the tentacles are also very strong and can grasp hold of objects. Now some species of octopi are famous for their ability to instantly mimic or blend into their surroundings. Gargoyles have the same ability, only carried to a much higher degree. This is how gargoyles can make themselves virtually invisible. You could have a gargoyle clinging up on the ceiling just a few feet above you, watching you, but you would never be able to see it. That is how well they can blend into their surroundings.

Read the whole thing. It's getting good.

Learn how to fire a handgun

That's an order. The nice thing is that you don't have to buy a handgun in order to learn how to fire one. You can usually rent one at any range attached to a gun store. They will usually have an assortment including a 9mm, a .22, a 38 revolver, a 45, etc. All the common calibers. You'll probably have to give them your drivers license to hold onto and sign a sheet saying that you understand the rules and all, but there is no background check required, at least not in Ohio.

You could obviously start of by shooting something really small like a 22 caliber target pistol. But since you probably want to get a handgun for personal protection, I'd start with something bigger. The first handgun I ever fired was a 38 special "police-style" revolver like this one. A revolver is a nice gun to start with, easy to load—no magazines to mess with, and a box of 50 rounds of 38 FMJ cartridges is going to be about $21, or 42 cents per round. I like the models with a little bit longer barrels, especially for beginners. The nice man or lady at the counter will be very helpful if you have any questions. You'll also need ear and eye protection. Corrective lenses can count as eye protection, but unless you have big-ass Buddy Holly-looking frames, it's probably a good idea to get a nice pair of protective goggles. Don't forget to put on your ear protection before you enter the range.

I forget what handgun rental costs are exactly. I'm thinking around $15-25 per half hour. Obviously you can call ahead of time to find out. Also I think some ranges would let you try out a variety of handguns during one rental session, which usually is broken into half-hour increments. I go to a place in Lorain where the range costs are $8/half-hour, $10 on weekends.

For semi-automatics, I recommend trying out a Glock 9mm if you're ready for something with a little more recoil. Or of course you can check out some type of 1911 model like this Taurus -- I'm just partial to Glock. If you want something with a little less kick, check out a .380 ACP if they have one. I have one that Bersa makes, and I literally can't even feel the recoil from it if I pick it up and shoot it after I've been firing my Glock 40. I have a slightly funny story about purchasing it, but maybe later.

I don't consider myself an expert on any of this—just a serious student. I'm actually little more than a novice, and I know many people with more experience, practice and knowledge. But I know a lot more about it than many people I know, and I want those people to go from being completely uninitiated to becoming somewhat proficient with a handgun. You learn it by doing it, and I'm just pointing out an easy way to get going. Don't be afraid to ask anyone at the range how to hold and fire the weapon, where to put your left thumb, how to load the magazine, how to line the sites up, how to pull the trigger, etc. They'll be more than happy to show you.

We Stand With Brigitte Gabriel

Here is Brigitte Gabriel's statement on the Koran-burning nonsense. Est Quod Est stands fully behind her following statement delivered in an Act! for America email update:

We at ACT! for America denounce and condemn, in the strongest terms, the upcoming Koran burning event organized by Pastor Terry Jones and members of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida. Their proposed event is ill-conceived, counter-productive and unwelcome in a world where ideas and philosophies are best debated in the context of the issues and the facts. We find this an archaic act that serves no useful purpose, and as such is a regrettable instance of an inability or unwillingness to discuss the issues facing us in a reasonable and constructive manner.

ACT! for America is, and has always been, committed to exposing the threat of the political ideology of radical Islam and its sharia law through constructive debate, illumination of the facts, and a reasoned analysis of the implications of the threat.

Pastor Jones and his congregation are stooping to the tactics of and joining the inarticulate who express their anger and opposition through destructive and spiteful acts of denigration. What is the difference between his actions and the actions of Islamists destroying synagogues in Gaza or churches and Bibles in Lebanon, Bosnia and Egypt? We are better than that as Americans.

If you have absolutely no answer to something, or if you are itching to start fights, or if you are a perverted bed-wetting pyromaniac then I can see why burning the Koran is the option for you. But if you are a Christian then certainly you have an answer to the misstatements about God and His law which are made in the Koran. So start a blog or something, but put the matches away, Smokey.

"Reading helps you know what you're talking about."

Too funny. H/T Redstate.

Kudos to the frog puppet for doing this. My guess is that he'll suffer a lot of ostracism in the puppet community for taking the gig for a conservative issue commercial. Most puppets are hard core leftists.

OK, I know what you're thinking. The frog looks a little like McCain. Go ahead--admit it.

I like how disappointed the frog looks when he finds out Holder et al didn't read the law.

I make me laugh, part 3

Here's an old comment o' mine to go along with my continuing series on the dangers of "Living Out Loud":

I just got back from a trip to Pennsylvania and read that Hitting the Wall post. My first thought? A fat lot of good the HIPAA privacy laws do if your spouse blogs about your health conditions.

At some point this living out loud on blogs has got to stop. People who do it are going to regret it someday. My dad and I were just talking about how no one even knew FDR had polio. Now we've swung to the other extreme and we know every detail about some obscure blogger's life, if they are on sleeping pills, if they have diabetes, etc. merely because the blogger thinks everyone needs to know it.

I advise everyone to use email for personal things. If you want me to pray for you, I will, but send me a private email.

Don't blog your personal life! If you do, don't wonder why everyone is laughing at you. If you feel the need to tell the world how many hours you worked last week or the consistency of your last bowel movement, methinks you have a worse problem than constipation or diarrhea.

How many times can I post "I make me laugh" entries? How high can I count? My 6-year-old can count to one hundred, so he informed me yesterday and subsequently demonstrated. So if I get stuck I'll ask him.

Living out Loud: Just Say NO

Here's a cautionary tale which could act as a companion piece for my earlier post about Social Media Addiction. It might also go with something which I posted a long time ago.

By the way, don't forget to vote in the new poll if you have any thoughts regarding this.

Peter Wehner Examines and Refutes Evan Bayh's Excuses

A much needed corrective to Bayh's lame emanations about partisanship, ideology, and what comprises the "people's business". I liked the whole thing; several excerpts follow:

Actually, the people's business is getting done. In this case, "the people's business" was to stop ObamaCare, which the public opposes in significant numbers (the spread between those who oppose ObamaCare and those who support it is 15-20 percentage points). Most Americans think the Democratic health care plans are badly flawed and a majority of them want Congress to begin over again.

The dominant narrative manifests a particular cast of mind, one that equates "the people's business" with passing legislation that increases the size, cost, and reach of government. In fact, sometimes the people's business involves stopping bad ideas from becoming law.

To use an analogy, heavy machinery is safer when equipped with brakes.

It's worth recalling that the Founders set up a system of government with what James Madison called the "auxiliary precautions" of American government -- meaning the separation of powers, bicameralism, and other checks and balances. Madison, who was shipped what he called a "literary cargo" of books on history and politics by Thomas Jefferson, rigorously studied the historical record of past governments. Out of that study Madison and his colleagues decided to put the emphasis on braking mechanisms, which they thought would help preserve liberty by limiting the power of government.

Then Wehner takes on an issue near and dear to my heart: the liberal's tendency to engage in word-twisting. "[I]deology can also be another word for convictions -- and one person's 'ideologue' is another person's principled politician." That sentence sums it up better than I ever could have. He takes on the "partisanship" canard in the same way, clarifying that it's not really the issue for the critics.

Many of the greatest political figures in American history -- whether we're talking about Reagan or Roosevelt, Lincoln or King, Jefferson or Hamilton -- are recognized for substance rather than process, for their commitment to American ideals rather than bipartisanship, for what they did rather than the manner in which they did it.

Yes, more substance, please. Wehner's conclusion:

It's worth recalling that in 2005 George W. Bush made a big push to reform Social Security. I thought then, and think now, that his plan was wise and necessary. But it was also undeniably unpopular, and the effort failed. Its failure did not trigger the kind of Camus-like despair we are now seeing. No one in the commentariat argued that America was, in Joe Klein's phrase, a "nation of dodos" or that Social Security's failure could be laid at James Madison's feet.

We are not facing a governing crisis today. What we are seeing is an emerging crisis for modern liberalism. And the reason is fairly straightforward: the public, having been exposed to a liberal governing agenda for the last year, is repudiating it. Liberals cannot seem to accept that, so they are lashing out at everything else. It is unwarranted and somewhat childish; and it will only accelerate The Fall.

Italics mine. Because I think it worthy to note who are the grownups in this country and who are the perpetual whiners. It's great to learn that although James Madison's "auxillary precautions" might be a little squeaky when applied at high speed, they still grab.

[Here's a related Wehner piece from a week ago to which he alludes in passing.]

A note to those involved in telephone fundraising efforts

After your shpiel, if I say to you "Please send me a letter", you really should be using your next breath to ask me my address. If instead, you choose to tell me that most people like to pay over the phone, chances are you won't get the contribution or the address.

Kessler on Obama’s Failings and his War on FOX

Ronald Kessler penned this damning piece on the failings of the Obama Administration and shows how they all in some way come to light in his war on FOX news. Here are a few of his bullet points:

* Obama is a whiner. At almost every chance he gets, the President whines about the previous administration and how it is responsible for every problem he faces. He neglects to point out that in the examples he cites — as with deficit spending — he has made the problems worse.

People used to complain that Bush was too gracious toward Bill Clinton. Well, I'll take his graciousness over Obama's assholishness any day.

* Obama is fixated on spin rather than substance. Why else would he and his aides become so agitated about what a network is reporting? Obama’s decision to outsource drafting of healthcare legislation to Congress shows his lack of interest in performing the basic functions of his job.

* Obama is ineffective. The spectacle of refusing to let Fox participate in a pool filming, then backing down when the other networks objected, shows that Obama is over his head. That same ineffectiveness prompted him to announce the closing of the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay without having any idea where he would send its prisoners.

* Obama has no appreciation for the profit motive and its importance in America’s success. In warning networks not to follow Fox, Obama adviser David Axelrod said, “Mr. [Rupert] Murdoch has a talent for making money, and I understand that their programming is geared toward making money.” Never mind that Obama is making millions in profits from book royalties.

Yes, and never mind that MSNBC, NBC et al exist to make money as well.

* Obama is weak. The press ganged up on the Bush administration, but Bush never tried to isolate a news outlet. By showing how thin-skinned he is, Obama reveals his fragility. That is symbolized by his constant need to apologize to the world for imagined failings and by his hand-wringing, while finding time to play golf, about making a decision on his own commander’s request last August for more troops to fight the war in Afghanistan.

I read and re-read this article several times and thought about why someone would still support the guy. I decided that although these failings and weaknesses are there for all to see, only those who are really looking will see them. Those who are really looking do not include those still enamoured of him, but they do include America's enemies, unfortunately, who have been smelling his weaknesses for months now.

Larry David Part 3: Getting ready for another wave of goofballery

Now Last Day Report, a "prophecy" site, has linked to Est Quod Est with the title "Jews laugh at urinating on picture of Jesus". I feel like a kindergarten teacher 'splaining this, but here I go.

Let's take the core of it, subject-verb, "Jews laugh". As far as I know, plenty of people initially laughed about this scene in Curb Your Enthusiasm, and they weren't all Jews. I'm sure they were of many religious backgrounds, some were Catholics without a doubt, some certainly had no faith at all. I think most people watching a show like this experience a "cuing effect" which is predominantly responsible for the laughter. The audience expects to laugh and does so on cue. I say this because honestly, the actual "peeing" part of the scene--which you can see on Youtube now if you want to--is so embarrassingly puerile that most "big dick jokes" seem mature in comparison. If the camcorder kiddies next door filmed it at the mall and showed it to you, you wouldn't laugh.


As a side note, but one which might help me to explain what I mean, a lot of people pointed to this effect being responsible for all the awkward-sounding audience laughter at David Letterman's revelation of sexual misconduct on his show recently. One person laughs and everyone around thinks "This must be funny, I'm supposed to be laughing." This phenomenon was been known for years and many comedians seed audiences with "laughers" to make sure their jokes don't bomb. If you still don't know what I mean, go read the text of what Letterman said and ask yourself if that material is in the least bit funny.

Back to "Jews laugh": with regard to my link and the subsequent comments, I don't think any commenters were Jewish, laughing or not. It might be a bit unfortunate that Donohue mentioned the fact that Larry David is Jewish, but it was still a remark made only in passing, as were mentions of his being Jewish in the comments. No one focused on a Jewish aspect to this until the Rense Front Party members arrived beginning yesterday afternoon.

So to conclude, the "Jews laugh" wording in both links is fundamentally inaccurate and misleading whether it applies to the scene being discussed or our discussion of the scene. The only excuse I can offer is that the originator at Jeff Rense's site mistook my obvious sarcasm in calling the pee scene "funny" as seriousness. This speaks to his own basic unseriousness due to the blurred vision caused by obsession and bigotry. If I thought it was funny, why would I even refernce Bill Donohue's take on the subject?

Some sanity from across the pond

H/T Medved, (again). Had to post this great Telegraph piece by Toby Harnden.

But wait a minute. Mr Obama convincingly prevailed over John McCain in last November's election, an event that many American liberals argued could never happen in "racist" America. He has, moreover, not been shot by a redneck, giving the lie to an almost routine pre-election assertion in Europe that a black man could never be elected President, and if he was, he would be assassinated.

I was told to my face by a Canadian idiot that Obama was going to be shot because he was black. Those racist Americans, eh.

The election was a little over 10 months ago. Has America really turned around and stumbled back into the sulphurous swamps of racial hatred?

The short answer is no. Mr Obama is becoming a much less popular figure than he was when he entered office, partly because of the usual laws of political gravity, but also because of the unrealistic expectations he encouraged and the number of mistakes he has made.

My emphasis. He goes on:

Mr Obama was as different as it was possible to be from the likes of the Rev Jesse Jackson and the Rev Al Sharpton, black politicians who had built their careers on exploiting racial grievances. He was not the Rev Reginald Bacon, the Harlem racial agitator in Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities, the 1987 blockbuster novel that centred on racial tensions in the Big Apple; instead, he was Bishop Warren Bottomley.

The churchman, Wolfe wrote, was "one of those well-educated, urbane black people who immediately create the Halo Effect in the eyes of white people....He was handsome, slender, about forty-five, athletic in build. He had a ready smile, a glittering eye, a firm handshake..."

It was a remarkably prescient description of Mr Obama. As now Vice President Joe Biden put it in a characteristic stream of consciousness that condemned him to the ranks of also-ran presidential candidates: "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."

Nice work. It's good to see that these Brits aren't afraid to point out the stupidities of the Democratic Party like the American media is. He goes on to point out Obama's race-card mistakes including the Henry Louis Gates affair. All this race card stuff is going to backfire; people voted for Obama because he wasn't Jackson or Sharpton or the fictional Reverend Bacon.

Stanley Crouch on Gates incident: "Nothing to do with racism"

Here's a must-read by a smart black man. I always like reading Stanley Crouch—who interestingly enough has a connection to H. L. Gates, Jr. as a colleague in the Fletcher Foundation—because he's a great writer and an independent thinker. Siding with Bill Cosby in his recent criticisms of black culture, Crouch has boldly denounced "gangsta" hip-hop and Al Sharpton-style race baiting. This makes his comparison of first black President Barack Obama to rappers and second-rate black comedians all the more poignant. Excerpt:

President Obama put his big foot in it when he chose to give an uninformed opinion using words far below his expected eloquent shrewdness to describe the minor mishap. The grand irony is that Obama, who once appeared so far above the kind of overstatement one expects from a rapper talking about race politics, spoke on the amateurish level we perhaps thought was behind us, because Obama seemed to perfectly understand the restraint demanded of his enormous power and influence. Every second-rate black comedian has a routine in which black Americans get a chance for "payback" and take the white folks to task for all of the wrongs that they might not have committed but that they did not spurn whenever they resulted in skin-color privilege. The president stumbled into a version of that kind of routine when he allowed the issue to overshadow a discussion of his health-care agenda.

From his last paragraph, it seems as if Crouch is an ardent supporter of Obama. I hope his expressed opinion aids in the dismissal of any suggestion that criticism of Obama's poorly chosen words on the Gates matter is tantamount to "flopping to the floor" in support of a white cop by those less enthralled by the current prez.

The President, the Burger Joint and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

You can laugh or cry at this, take your pick. Here's the meat between the hamburger buns:

Obama: What do you do Walter?
Walter: I work at, uh, NGA, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Obama: Outstanding, how long you been doing that?
Walter: About six years
Obama: Yea?
Walter: Yes.
Obama: You like it?
Walter: I do, keeps me...
Obama: So explain to me exactly what this National Geospatial...uh...
Walter: Uh, we work with, uh, satellite imagery..
Obama: Right
Walter: [unintelligible] ...support systems, so...
Obama: Sounds like good work.
Walter: Enjoy the weekend.
Obama: Appreciate it.

Some of the comments are over the top, but some are pretty funny.

Cultural Sensitivity

HT to Dianonymous for sending me this funny-but-not-really piece about Hillary Clinton trying to be Catholic in Mexico.

During her recent visit to Mexico, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an unexpected stop at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and left a bouquet of white flowers “on behalf of the American people,” after asking who painted the famous image.

The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was miraculously imprinted by Mary on the tilma, or cloak, of St. Juan Diego in 1531. The image has numerous unexplainable phenomena, such as the appearance on Mary’s eyes of those present in the room when the tilma was opened and the image’s lack of decay.

Mrs. Clinton was received on Thursday at 8:15 a.m. by the rector of the Basilica, Msgr. Diego Monroy.

Msgr. Monroy took Mrs. Clinton to the famous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which had been previously lowered from its usual altar for the occasion.

After observing it for a while, Mrs. Clinton asked “who painted it?” to which Msgr. Monroy responded “God!”

I bet that was at least a semi-awkward moment. Maybe the Monsignor could have tried to make it less awkward by pointing out that the Holy Virgin is sort of God's Secretary of State. Or maybe not.

I suppose it would be a good thing if you were making a diplomatic visit to another country to sort of know the stories, customs and traditions of that land whether you believed in them or not. Especially if you are going for butt shark points as the big girl obviously was by giving flowers to Our Lady. Seeing that her statement would be an intentional insult had she known the story, we can only pronounce a verdict of abject ignorance.

This evening [Mar 27, day after "honoring" the Virgin] Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to receive the highest award given by Planned Parenthood Federation of America -- the Margaret Sanger Award, named for the organization's founder, a noted eugenicist. The award will be presented at a gala event in Houston, Texas.

Maybe dead flowers would be more appropriate for this occasion? We could have a human artist do an impression of Margaret Sanger as "Queen of the Underground".