Never Better Mood: loud
I have never had better seats for anything than I had tonight: front row and center and laughing my ass off with Dave Chappelle.
Is That Gingerbreadman Humping a Test Tube? Now Playing: "It Keeps You Running" by the Doobie Brothers
I went to read Pincus' and Milbank's steaming load in today's Washington Post ---but cannot concentrate on the column because of this extremely disturbing mortgage company advertisement moving back and forth on the left margin of the screen.
It's some sort of FlashMedia movie or a .gif file of some kind, but just look at it. What the hell is that thing doing? It's a gingerbreadman stuck in a test tube along with ---what? And why is he humping the tube like that?
Just what the hell is going on?! If you can figure out the significance of that, you must be some sort of genius or something because, to me, that ad is weird and against God's law.
Why Ron Jeremy Masturbates with His Pinky Out Now Playing: "Because it's classy!"
With much thanks to Jeff Goldstein, here's a great essay on Sarah Silverman ---a very tasty Jewish girl who tells amazingly offensive jokes. She's been giving me a college boy boner ever since I saw her on The Larry Sanders Show.
Dead Reckonings
Robert Mayer at Publius Pundit says:
Those most affected by the riots — who had their cars torched, windows smashed, and who live among this on a daily basis — are those same blue-collar ethnic French most likely to vote for the National Front and politicians like Le Pen. Now that widespread fear of these rioters has gripped the entire ethnic French population completely, it is possible that, should the National Front moderate its rhetoric and capitalize on the situation, it could see even more improved poll results over a short period of time across the entire spectrum of the population. Even more possible than that, this crisis will force the moderate center-right, which has shown itself now to be entirely too weak, to move farther to the right, therefore culminating in a greater consensus on simply cracking down on the immigrant population instead of addressing the the fundamental problem of the lack of opportunity created by the French social model.
I know it's irrational, but I think that the Parisian Intifada of 2005 is a good thing. It has helped many in America to see what a Western European country with a full tenth of its population being Muslim looks like. It also explains why France is so careful to defend the Arab/Islamic status quo of fascist and authoritarian tyrannies.
Your hand is forced, Chirac. Don't stumble now, though: Mo is staring you down and sizing you up.
Scrambling
At this point, I'd say that the White House's best bet is to either find Osama bin Laden and parade him down the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue in the manner of an ancient Roman triumph or immediately legalize, incentivize, and promote the widespread use of marihuana in hopes that the public will just let it go, man... Just blow it off and kick back. I just got Season Six of The Simpsons on DVD and we can order in some pizzas... What are these clowns doing? Hey, are you gonna finish the ---yeah, they said they'd throw in the garlic dipping sauce for free....zzzzzz......Huh?
Posted by Toby Petzold
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Updated: Wednesday, 9 November 2005 12:10 AM CST
Monday, 7 November 2005
Megiddo
The following story reminds me of the intense interest I once had (around the age of 12) in the notion of the End Times and Biblical prophecy. I studied Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth and Countdown to Armageddon with real passion and learned to see History as emanent truth ---full of the Providence that would permit me to evolve to the next thing after God. And I'm sure I would have made much of this:
November 7, 2005—A mosaic featuring fish surrounded by geometric patterns decorates the floor of what archaeologists said on Sunday could be the oldest Christian church in Israel. The ruins of the church, which was likely built in the third or fourth century A.D., were recently discovered on the grounds of Megiddo Prison in northern Israel.
"What's clear today is that it's the oldest archaeological remains of a church in Israel, maybe even in the entire region," Yotam Tepper, the excavation's head archaeologist, told the Associated Press.
But other experts remain skeptical. Anthropologist Joe Zias, a former curator at the Israel Antiquities Authority, questions the date of the find. Zias told the Associated Press that there is no evidence that Christians built churches before the fourth century.
Cringe
I will happily defer to Patterico for his near-daily demolitions of the Los Angeles Times. He's kicked enough ass and taken enough names over there to be noticed. There's that. But then he'll rattle off some stuff like this that just makes you cringe (emphasis mine):
I take a backseat to no-one in my desire to see the stain of Roe removed from the Court’s set of constitutional precedents. This is primarily a concern for the integrity of constitutional jurisprudence, rather than a simple desire to see an end to abortion on demand. While I think reasonable people can disagree as to whether there should be abortion rights under some circumstances, I don’t think that rational and informed observers can deny two facts.
Well, before we get to those two facts, let's share a few moments of lit crit, which, inevitably, involves the use of pop psychology.
First, if you think that Roe is a "stain" upon the Constitution, then you have to be lying when you say that it's the integrity of the Constitution that is your primary concern, and not the issue of abortion itself. This is further evidenced by the use of the phrase "abortion on demand," which is indisputably the language of the zealot.
Second, the idea that "reasonable people can disagree as to whether there should be abortion rights under some circumstances" is one of those insincere concessions that makes the listener's buttocks clench up a little. You just know that Patterico didn't want to have to include such a superfluity, but thought he'd so so, anyway, just to mimic the tone of dispassion.
(The fact is that, if abortion is wrong, then no agency or mitigating factor can make it less wrong. "Some" circumstances? To commit your party to overturning Roe through the appointment of amenable justices is one hell of a political risk to take if you do not believe that the right to an abortion ought to absolutely be revoked. You'd better get straight on that, sir, because it makes little sense to only go half way.)
So, Patterico continues:
First, Roe was an act of pure judicial legislation by judges who were more concerned with their policy preferences than with properly interpreting the Constitution. This conclusion is supported by the structure of the decision, which created a trimester framework out of thin air, as well as by historical accounts of how individual Justices came to their decisions [...]. The Court’s jurisprudence suffers every day that it continues to defend its decision to resolve an “intensely divisive controversy” without constitutional authority to do so.
The Constitution of the United States is a remarkable document ---a moment of genius in the life of Political Man. But it is not a purposefully omniscient instrument. It has no agenda in itself. And on that non-existent agenda is this idea that the Constitution exists to be interpreted narrowly or literally at all times.
One reason we know this is that the Constitution was ratified as a document thats framers knew was incomplete even as it was submitted. It was understood then that it would have to be amended. That's what the Bill of Rights is: an acknowledgement that the structure of the Government is one thing but that the rights of the people must admit of being amended and expanded as the life of the Republic progresses.
It is absurd to think that the authority or integrity of the Supreme Court of the United States is somehow compromised by Roe. In fact, just as with Brown and Lawrence, the Supreme Court has a societal obligation to ensure the people of the United States of their most basic rights. The right of a woman to choose whether she will be a mother is unquestionably a human right. The Supreme Court has honored that ---and John Roberts has a reason to let precedent stand.
Second, the constitutionalization of abortion law by Roe and its progeny has led to a set of abortion rights far more expansive than would otherwise exist. The horror of partial-birth abortion offends the majority of Americans, who also support reasonable restrictions on abortion that have been struck down by the courts, such as spousal notification laws of the sort upheld by Judge Alito in his Casey dissent.
"Constitutionalization," as Patterico uses it, means the trumping of states' rights. Which is a rather pejorative view to take of the Constitution for someone who professes to be concerned "primarily" with its integrity. But maybe he can also explain why it's so necessary to pass a Constitutional ban on gay marriage. Does he not trust the judgement of the several states to establish their own marital law? If the Right is going to resort to the Constitution of the United States for that purpose, then how can they deny the legitimacy of the pro-choice movement obtaining its own protections through that same instrument?
So, I fully agree with Robert Bork: Roe must be overruled. The only question is how. And with the makeup of the Court we have now, my guess is that an incrementalist approach will be required.
Well. At least Patterico isn't concealing his true opinion of court-as-legislature with this! He wants it all overturned, brick by brick.
And what do you get out of this again? The guaranteed destruction of the Republican Party? Smooth move, Ex-Lax.
A Bunch of Un-American Nonsense Is What It is!
I can't remember if I've asked this yet, but what the fuck is going on? It was ninety at Barbara Jordan Elementary School today? Why? That's ridiculous. This is November. Okay, so it's also Texas, but let's get serious: I want some cold weather now. How is my head going to know it's time for some holiday cheerfulness if my integumentochronologicality remains untriggered? That is to say, if it's bright and hot all the time, it's not Thanksgiving; it's Australia.
And another thing: I disapprove of this format change-thing they've got going on at KXAN TV. I don't like it one bit. For one thing, it cuts deeply into my Michelle Valles-leering time. I'm not getting half my usual allotment and it's pissing me off. Get serious and get rid of this format. That or give her more stories to read to me.
The Wages of Appeasement Are Death
Also, check out Mark Steyn's latest on the Parisian Intifada:
The notion that Texas neocon arrogance was responsible for frosting up trans-Atlantic relations was always preposterous, even for someone as complacent and blinkered as John Kerry. If you had millions of seething unassimilated Muslim youths in lawless suburbs ringing every major city, would you be so eager to send your troops into an Arab country fighting alongside the Americans? For half a decade, French Arabs have been carrying on a low-level intifada against synagogues, kosher butchers, Jewish schools, etc. The concern of the political class has been to prevent the spread of these attacks to targets of more, ah, general interest. They seem to have lost that battle. Unlike America's Europhiles, France's Arab street correctly identified Chirac's opposition to the Iraq war for what it was: a sign of weakness.
This situation is so serious that it's impossible to understand why the West's major news services are so reluctant to call this what it is. Don't think that I'm just spouting "talking points," friend: go see for yourself. You have to look long and hard to find a report from Reuters or the BBC or CNN that mentions the fact that these "French youth" are actually unassimilated Muslims who are waging a soft form of jihad in the streets of a major European city. It's burning cars this week; it will be shooting Jews and real Frenchmen on the Champs Elysees the next.
Mein Jihad
Be sure to check out Cliff May's latest essay in which he reminds us that Hitler's Kampf and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's jihad are the same word:
When Hitler made his threats he was an obscure politician whom hardly anyone took seriously.
By contrast, Ahmadinejad is the president of a large and wealthy nation that operates terrorist organizations and is well on its way to developing nuclear weapons.
Had Hitler's threatening words inspired serious action then, millions of people – Jews, Gypsies, Czechoslovaks, Americans, British, Russians and others – would not have been slaughtered in the 20th Century.
If Ahmadinejad's threatening words inspire serious action now, millions of people may be spared in this century. But while President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and others responded with strong rhetoric, neither penalties nor restraints seem likely to be imposed on the Islamist Fascist regime in Tehran. Indeed, not a single European ambassador was withdrawn – not even temporarily.
When will the youth of Iran revolt against this crap? They need to strike a blow for their own security now before the Israelis settle the question for them.
Favors the Lord
Jimmy Carter has shown up on all the cable news talk shows lately to peddle his new book. I'm sure it's got something to do with how he's morally superior to the current President, but I'll never know since I wouldn't pay a dime or waste even a moment to read it.
Anyway, Carter keeps on saying the same thing about abortion ---and I'd love to hear some of his super-liberal admirers avoid contradicting him. Carter says that abortion is wrong and that Jesus Christ himself would have thought so, too ---except in the case of the mother's health or on account of rape and/or incest.
Really? Turns out that those are the very same exceptions that Carter believes in! How has Carter divined Jesus' position down to those particulars? On what theological or exegetical basis can Mr. Nobel Peace Prize honestly claim such a thing?
It is absurd.
Look: if you don't believe in abortion, don't get one. If you do believe in it, do get one. But try to avoid projecting your own list of mitigating circumstances under which an abortion is acceptable onto the Son of Man. It is literally self-serving. And although the Lord helps those who help themselves, I doubt he meant that people should presume upon his judgement to hedge their own.
The Austin Police Department's Public Relations Scheme: (Too) Well Done
I guess Austin Chief of Police Stan Knee's overwhelming display of force at today's competing KKK and anti-KKK rallies didn't go off as he'd hoped. His plan, I'm sure, was to be as conspicuous as possible in demonstrating that the Austin Police Department stands up for blacks, Mexicans, homosexuals, vegetarians, and everybody else. That's because at least two of those groups have recently questioned his commitment to their communities. The APD was definintely needing some good PR.
Unfortunately, Knee's department did too much to keep the counter-demonstrators separated from the objects of their ire. You understand.
Of course, if Knee had let these losers within spitting distance of each other, there would almost certainly have been some violence, in which case everybody would have criticized the poor bastard for not policing the situation well enough.
Texas Civil Rights Project director Jim Harrington might even sue the city for not letting the hippies he was with get close enough to the skinheaded troglodytes to [engage them in a frank exchange of views]. Oh, just sod off, counselor! They put you on the TV and you kept it real, so just be quiet.
Does anybody know the numbers? It's usually something like a 100:25:1 ratio of counter-protesters to cops to Klansmen, but I couldn't tell from the footage.
Well, I hope everybody got their rocks off and had a nice lunch afterwards. None of you self-consciously tolerant wankers had to go down there today, but you did it, anyway, because, otherwise, people wouldn't have known that the Ku Klux Klan is a despicable organization that deserves to be ignored instead of widely advertised and fussed over.
Pssst...PTSD
I was watching a little bit of Democracy Now! a while ago (as is consistent with my passing interest in abnormal psychology) and this craphound named Mark Crispin Miller comes on and tells Amy Goodman that John Kerry has told him that he now believes that the 2004 Election was stolen but can't come forward because of the sour grapes problem. (Naturally, Kerry confided all this to a pseudo-intellectual paranoiac whose powers of discernment are, shall we say, indiscriminate?)
It's been a year now, so I guess this is the traumatized Left's perverse anniversary celebration of some sort of alternate history.
Some other guy piped up during Miller's explanation of his grand unifying theory and said that Kerry lost because he had run such a poor campaign, but Miller was more interested in the theft angle and dismissed the idea. Or did he also advocate it, but couldn't keep his story straight?
I think George W. Bush won the election of 2004 because people trusted him to destroy our enemies ---and didn't trust Kerry to do it. The election was a referendum on Bush and his War for Iraq. He won it.
Today? He would not.
Why? Because he thinks too much of the old dictum of power: never complain, never explain.
The President needs to complain ---or, at least, get a little salty with these Leftist cowards and tell them how the cow ate the cabbage.
Hire it done, if you have to, sir, but do it. The wrong people are getting the upper hand and you're letting it happen.
Entertainment Tonight
I'm watching Hugo Chavez's endless gibberish from today on CSPAN ---and it is very entertaining.
For one thing, why is he praising John F. Kennedy? That can't sit well with Fidel, can it? He must know it can't because he cuts his remarks with plenty of caveats; still, it's interesting.
Oh, and Chavez also says that illiteracy has been eradicated from Venezuela in just the past two years. That's great. Leave no Marxist paisano behind, I say.
I Just Love Saying the Words: PARISIAN INTIFADA
The Gateway Pundit, who is quckly becoming indispensible, directs our attention to the following absurdity that has arisen from the Parisian Intifada:
Calls for calm by Chirac have largely been ignored. Chirac gave de Villepin a month to report on measures to integrate ethnic minorities and promote equal opportunity. He also called for a plan to crack down on youth gangs.
Doesn't Jacques know how deeply that's going to cut into Dominique's poetry-writing time?
Get to lovin' it, honkies. You thought you could stay on Mo's good side by taking a piss on Uncle Sam's shoes? Try again.
Oh, and here's a sou: go call Charles Martel and tell him you've undone his good work.
Cold, Blue Eyes Mood: don't ask Now Playing: "Bells for Her" by Tori Amos
I've always felt that those who abuse History ---most especially those who would liken what my country does to what was done in Nazi Germany--- should live just long enough to experience the difference for themselves.
A lot of this abuse comes from ignorance, naturally, but let us remember what the great liberator of South America, Simon Bolivar, said of his own people in 1815:
As long as our countrymen do not acquire the abilities and political virtues that distinguish our brothers of the north, wholly popular systems, far from working to our advantage, will, I greatly fear, bring about our downfall.
I think Bolivar realized nearly two centuries ago that the Latin American people have a great deal to learn from their political betters. It isn't enough to simultaneously depend upon and piss upon the state. It isn't enough to smash out the windows of a Burger King in Buenos Aires to protest a war you have no part in. These stupid peasants are going to have to mature as a political culture before anyone's going to pay attention to them.
I hear that Hugo Chavez tells his people all the time that Uncle Sam is just itching to invade. Right. We'll just wait out his sorry Marxist ass like we've done all the others. But, for now, let these impotent protesters make a mess of their own cities. It'll give the trash collectors something to do next week.
Uncle Toby's Voter Guide (Texas State Constitutional Amendment Edition)
Well, I finally got down to studying the nine proposed amendments to the Texas State Constitution that we'll be voting on next Tuesday, and I am confident in recommending that you vote NO on all nine of them.
The one getting most of the attention is the ban on gay marriage, but there's also a few other fragrant amendments, including one that basically gives private railroad interests the taxpayers' money and another that makes it easier for con artists and moneylenders to screw old people out of their houses.
loud
She's been giving me a college boy boner ever since I saw her on The Larry Sanders Show.
You have to look long and hard to find a report from Reuters or the BBC or CNN that mentions the fact that these "French youth" are actually unassimilated Muslims who are waging a soft form of jihad in the streets of a major European city. It's burning cars this week; it will be shooting Jews and real Frenchmen on the Champs Elysees the next.
don't ask