I swore I wouldn't comment on this



There once was a congressman named Weiner

Who had a perverted demeanor

Forced from the Hill

For acting like Bill

Now Congress is one weiner leaner.

Hat Tip to Mike L!
OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson

eonvrye taht can raed tihs rsaie yuor hnad.

Only great minds can read this!

This is weird, but interesting!

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Hat tip to Mike L!

OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson

Walmart, chain sawing, baseball and use to be

Yes, I remain busy. Chain sawing, gardening, yard maintenance and baseball has disrupted my blogging.

I don’t care. All of that is real. Something that I can see, hear and touch. Blogging is interesting, but not really as important as picking fresh veggies and watching Grandson play. This week is the playoffs. They won their first game tonight, 8 to 6. He made the last out, fielding a routine ground ball at second and tossing it to first base.

I gave him a fist bump as he came to the dugout. “Nice,” I said. “Nothing to it,” he replied. “Who do we beat next?”

The confidence of youth. I just wish the country had it. We use to. What happened?

When did we decide that success is terrible? And when did we decide that small local shops with local owners become the goal? When did Walmart become evil because it offers a wide selection at low prices? Perhaps it was when most of us forgot what those shops actually meant.

I grew up in a small town in the 40’s and early 50's.

All the stores were locally owned and while it's true that the local stores employed local people, so does Walmart. While it is true they were locally owned, local people own Walmart stock.

The local store owners were the second part of the "gentry." You had them and the land owners. To fill out the foursome there were the poor white farmers and poor blacks. The local bankers, doctors, lawyers, teachers and law enforcement worked as management.

The stores’ merchandise selection was poor, the quality low and prices high. Sharecroppers and such white trash were automatically steered to the low end merchandise.

If you were white you escaped by saving enough money to buy a small piece of land and farming it while renting additional land. Your wife worked at the local shoe, shirt or coat factory. Of course this was possible only if you had an impeccable reputation and had never failed to pay back a loan.

Blacks could do that too but the odds were way higher that something would happen, an arrest for being uppity, etc., that would suck up resources needed otherwise.

I know this because I lived it.

Now I have no love from Walmart, or any large corporation for that matter.

But do be careful what you ask for when you wishfully remember the small shops and local ownership and hope for a return to yesteryear. You probably won't like what you get.

Part of the above also published in TalkLeft.

OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson

A golden oldie

I posted this about three years ago. I still like it.


These are all famous lines from movies.


SCENE I: A Bar: The Dew Drop Inn

Stella: Make me a martini, baby, and don't be stingy.
Bartender: Show me the money.
Stella: I've always depended on the kindness of strangers...
Bartender (aside): Of all the gin-joints in all the towns
in all the world, she walks into mine.
Stella: You talking to ME? Surely you can't be serious.
Bartender: I am serious, and don't call me Shirley.
Stella (gets up to leave): I'll be baaack...

James (enters bar): Stella! Hey Stellaaa!!
Stella: Hello gorgeous! Gotta name?
James: Bond, James Bond. Remember last year in Kansas City?
You were polymorphously perverse.
Stella: Yeh, I used to be pure as the driven snow, but I've
drifted a little. Buy a little lady a drink, my preciousss?
James: Bartender, two martinis, shaken not stirred.
Bartender (aside): Hang on to your seatbelts, it's gonna be a bumpy night.

Stella: Here's looking at you, kid. I think this is the
beginning of a beautiful friendship.
James: Tonight I consider myself the luckiest man
on the face of the earth.
Stella (aside): I need him like an axe needs a turkey.
James: I'm crazy about you, baby.
Stella: Is that a pistol in your pocket
or are you just glad to see me?
James: I feel the need, the need for speed.
Stella: I'd say you're doin' ninety.
James: You've got to ask yourself one question:
'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya...?

SCENE II: A Motel: The Do Flop Inn

Stella: What a dump.
James: Say hello to my little friend...
Stella: Well, nobody's perfect.
James: It's alive! It's alive!!
Stella: May I feel it?
James: Might go off in your face.
Stella: Listen, mister. You're gonna get on the horse
and I'm gonna hold on tight and away we're gonna
go, go, go!
James: So go ahead, make my day.
Stella: Ohhh...I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.

SCENE III: Later

James: Woh! I'm king of the world! Woh!
Stella: Life is a banquet, and most poor sons of bitches
are starving to death. Did FuzzyWuzzy enjoy his dinner?
James: That's the most fun I've ever had without laughing.
Stella: Snap out of it! Pay me! Whaddyagot?
James: What we got here is a failure to communicate.
Hasta la vista, baby.
Stella: I'll GET you, my pretty!
James: Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.
La-dee-da...yeh...la-dee-da...


Link to SharePoetry

Click on the link and you can find the movies they came from. A very nice job.

But they missed my favorite:


"Fill your hands you son of a bitch!"


and


Mattie Ross: You are too old and fat to be jumping horses.
Rooster Cogburn: Well, come see a fat old man some time!
[jumps the fence and rides away]


And if I have to tell you the last two are from "True Grit," well then...

"You aint never caught a rabbit and you aint no friend of mine!"

OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson

Why centrally controlled economies fail

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote Pasco pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?"

Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASApage on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany ..

Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're an aide in the Obama Administration", says Bud.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter. This is a herd of sheep. ...

Now give me back my dog

Hat tip to Mike L!


OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson

Angels and other stuff

I read somewhere that in the Middle Ages monks were known to sit around and debate how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. The answer, of course, is as many as God wants. And you would think that would end the discussion and the monks could then go into the village and help the locals feed and clothe themselves.

Of course they didn’t. Esoteric arguments are always more fun than actually doing things. Besides, arguments require no effort and your hands don’t get dirty and you can refuse to lose an argument but in the real world results can be denied for a time, but sooner or later they are known.

I mention the above because while I have been busy gardening and cleaning up the mess caused by the tornados and high winds the media has been busy telling us not about why gasoline prices or so high, but why Weiner should resign. And that definitely includes the conservative side of the page. Could I mention something?

I think Weiner is not qualified to be a Congressman and that he should have resigned immediately. But his mental health and employment intentions pale alongside sky high gasoline and soaring prices at the grocery. I mean, if you want to indict a Democrat just throw out some facts regarding Obama’s energy policy which is designed to raise gasoline process.

And, as an aside, I remind all the Repubs out there that they let Clinton win in ’96 by worrying more about the BJ’s he received than how he was doing his job.

At the risk of repeating myself, we have this damning statement made by him in the summer of 2008 and then the actions by Udal immediately after the election.

Link

Yeah, I know. The account has been cancelled. Well, what was in it was an interview with candidate Obama saying that high gas prices would be okay if they increased slowly….. Aint it funny how things that show Obama’s real positions just disappear.

Oh well, here is what Udall did at Obama’s direction.

Facing gas prices near $4 a gallon and a pivotal national election, congressional Democrats allowed a ban on offshore drilling to lapse in September

But times change, and on Tuesday, the Obama administration - with gas prices roughly half what they were and many Democrats’ having been swept into office - blocked offshore drilling plans put in place at the last minute by the Bush administration, including plans to open the national outer continental shelf for drilling.

Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar also announced last week that his agency would block drilling on public lands in Utah, criticizing the Bush administration for releasing its offshore drilling plan just days before leaving office.

Link

And gas went from $1.81 to above $4.00

Link

As the man said, “There is no shortage of gasoline. There is a shortage of cheap gasoline."

And in the meantime we have Obama’s Justice Department doing what it does best. Ignoring voter intimidation by the New Black Panthers….

When none of the defendants filed any response to the complaint or appeared in federal district court in Philadelphia to answer the suit, it appeared almost certain Justice would have prevailed by default. Instead, the department in May suddenly allowed the party and two of the three defendants to walk away. Against the third defendant, Minister King Samir Shabazz, it sought only an injunction barring him from displaying a weapon within 100 feet of a Philadelphia polling place for the next three years—action that's already illegal under existing law.

Link

……..and trying to get a case against the CIA’s people who are probably guilty of no more than trying to defend us.

Link

And Southern Baptist, who have never been shy about ignoring separation of church and state have decided the way to improve declining membership is:

The Southern Baptist Convention approved a new resolution at its meeting in Arizona this week advocating a path to legal status for illegal immigrants, in a move that policy leader Richard Land described as “a really classic illustration of gospel love and gospel witness.”

Snip

All Southern Baptist churches are independent, so the resolution is not binding on them, but it does represent the will of the Nashville-based Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, with more than 16 million members.

The resolution was one of several signs at this year’s meeting that the SBC, which has been declining in membership, sees ethnic diversity as one of the keys to a turnaround.

Link

Uh, someone should tell these folks that declining membership is a sign that the people are not interested in the message from the pulpit, not a desire to expand the illegal alien population by extending amnesty. And that, despite that the Reverend says, is what this would be seen as by the 11 to 12 million illegal aliens that are now in the country.

And if they want diversity…. They can always take their kids out of the private schools they are attending and enroll them in local PUBLIC schools.

Yeah. Sure that’s gonna happen.

And I don’t blame the folks. People, who are often straining to keep their economic lives together, send their kids to private schools because the public school system has proved it cannot educate their children and it is more interested in indoctrinating them in the Leftie mind set than teaching them the basics of math, science, reading and English. You know the stuff that will let them survive in the modern world.

As many of you know, I am a fan of science fiction and fantasy and have a collection of over 4000 magazines dating from 1926 forward. And I am often amazed at just how accurate the predictions are from a genre that was largely action adventure, paid a penny a word and was mostly published on pulp paper that was designed to provide news one day and wrap the garbage in the next.

I started this post writing about angels and how monks would argue over how many could dance on the head of a pin. We now consider such actions crazy.

I now give you, “Angels in the Jets,” by Jerome Bixby and published in the Fall 1952 issue of “Fantastic.”

The story is about how an expedition is stranded on a distant planet and has discovered that the atmosphere has a trace gas in it that drives people insane…. Their supply of uncontaminated oxygen is running out and members are succumbing to the effects of the gas…. Thus, “Angels in the Jets.”

Look around you and tell me that premise is pure fantasy.


"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson

Palin and rockets and Islam

In fact, Revere’s own account of the ride in a 1798 letter seems to back up Palin’s claim. Revere describes how after his capture by British officers, he warned them “there would be five hundred Americans there in a short time for I had alarmed the Country all the way up.”

Boston University history professor Brendan McConville said, “Basically when Paul Revere was stopped by the British, he did say to them, ‘Look, there is a mobilization going on that you’ll be confronting,’ and the British are aware as they’re marching down the countryside, they hear church bells ringing — she was right about that — and warning shots being fired. That’s accurate.”

Patrick Leehey of the Paul Revere House said Revere was probably bluffing his British captors, but reluctantly conceded that it could be construed as Revere warning the British.

Ya gotta love the "reluctantly conceded."

Link

The other day over on TalkLeft some Left winger said that I have no faith in human ingenuity. Why? Because I had dared to note that solar power and wind power is kin to Unicorn farts when it comes to being a reliable, and thus usable, source of energy to power our electric generators and thus allow modern civilization to exist.

I could have accurately retorted that he was addressing someone who received an F for a science paper in high school that described space stations. Unrealistic the teacher opined. But that would have begged the issue.

The issue was that in 1955 the vast majority of educators thought that space travel was not realistic because the technology hadn't been developed. Some of us thought the technology could and would be developed, some did not.

But no one found technology harmful and inherently evil.

And that is the difference between then and now.

The Left and the environmental groups have been seized by people that, basically, hate people and love critters. And since they see the West as the culture that has produced all this excess food and energy, at the expense of the critters they love, they support whoever is attacking the West.

Thirty years ago it was the Soviets. Today it is radical Islam.







OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson