Monthly Archives: May 2009
For Jeff…
Came across this at Maggie’s Farm. It made me think of you.
If I read the lyrics to some of my favourite songs, they don’t mean shit to me. But if I hear ‘When A Man Loves A Woman’, it is so powerful and emotional. All I want out of any of these songs is the right emotion. I don’t give a shit what the lyrics are. Dylan rambled on way too much for my liking. I remember years ago saying to him: ‘listen to ‘When A Man Loves A Woman’; I like this more than any of the songs we’re playing. This is emotional to me; our songs are clever. I don’t care for clever. Let’s try and get somewhere that has an emotional thing.
- Robbie Robertson
Don’t blame your messenger – Sotomayor said it!
“All of the legal defense funds out there, they’re looking for people with Court of Appeals experience. Because it is — Court of Appeals is where policy is made,” she said. “And I know, and I know, that this is on tape, and I should never say that. Because we don’t ‘make law,’ I know. [Laughter from audience] Okay, I know. I know. I’m not promoting it, and I’m not advocating it. I’m, you know. [More laughter] Having said that, the Court of Appeals is where, before the Supreme Court makes the final decision, the law is percolating. Its interpretation, its application.”
At Berkeley…
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,”
Still, Judge Sotomayor questioned whether achieving impartiality “is possible in all, or even, in most, cases.” She added, “And I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society.”
She also approvingly quoted several law professors who said that “to judge is an exercise of power” and that “there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives.”
Dave’s Quote(s) of the Day
“I have no illusions about what little I can add now to the silent testimony of those who gave their lives willingly for their country. Words are even more feeble on this Memorial Day, for the sight before us is that of a strong and good nation that stands in silence and remembers those who were loved and who, in return, loved their countrymen enough to die for them. Yet, we must try to honor them — not for their sakes alone, but for our own. And if words cannot repay the debt we owe these men, surely with our actions we must strive to keep faith with them and with the vision that led them to battle and to final sacrifice. Our first obligation to them and ourselves is plain enough: The United States and the freedom for which it stands, the freedom for which they died, must endure and prosper.”
“From Bunker Hill to the walls of the Alamo, from the farm fields at Gettysburg to the beaches at Normandy and Iwo Jima, from the Afghanistan mountains to every other piece of hallowed ground where Americans have fought and died in freedom’s name, Old Glory still proudly dances in the wind of freedom. In paying the ultimate sacrifice, American warriors ensured that not only would America continue to be free but that America would continue to be a beacon of freedom so intense that it no threat of oppression can extinguish it. So long as Old Glory flutters in the wind, there is hope. So long as American warriors are willing to carry Old Glory into battle, freedom’s flame will never be extinguished. Our enemies can knock sometimes down our buildings, but mortar, brick and steel does not America make. It is the irrepressible spirit and undying love of freedom that is uniquely America and it is the American warrior who is willing to fight and die to protect the God-given freedoms and rights of all people. On this Memorial Day, I encourage each of you to spend a few moments and quietly offer a prayer of thanks to those who paid for your freedom with their lives. If you have the chance, take your children and walk quietly and reverently through a military cemetery. Stop at each white cross. Read the names carefully on the tombstones. These are the names of freedom. Look up at Old Glory as she dances in the breeze. Surely you will agree there is no more solemn and beautiful sight than to see our sacred stars and stripes fluttering quietly in the breeze above a military cemetery. It is our duty as parents and citizens to ensure that our children and grandchildren know that freedom is not free, that it is paid for with the blood and lives of warriors. Do not shirk this responsibility. It is one of the most important lessons you can ever impart to your children. To quote President Reagan: ‘We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so that we may always be free.’ Memorial Day is the most important American holiday. May God eternally bless the American warrior — the protector of freedom and liberty.”
*****
Freedom Is Not Free
To all those who thank us and commemorate our service, we humbly reply
“It was an honor”.
Freedom is not free.
The Veterans
Memorial Day – 2009
Have a great Memorial Day. A solumn and sincere thank you to all who have ever worn the uniform and sacrificed for this great nation. My stars and stripes are displayed from the front porch and the Revolutionary War Gadsen “Don’t tread on me” flag flutters from the flagpole in the backyard. Here are a few different renditions of The Battle Hymn of the Republic for your enjoyment.
Amen. God bless you and your family this day and may God bless America.
Text of Cheney’s speech on national security
Text of former Vice President Dick Cheney’s speech Thursday on national security at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington:
Dave’s Quote of the Day
“Families should not have to stare down loaded AK-47s on nature hikes.”
–Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign in response to a buried provision in the credit card reform bill that restores the Bush administration policy that allowed law abiding citizens to carry loaded and concealed firearms in national parks.
What an idiot.
Thus speaketh Hillary to Hsu
From the Patriotpost…
Democrat fundraiser Norman Hsu was convicted Tuesday of violating campaign finance laws by making thousands of dollars of donations through straw donors in order to bypass limits on individual contributions to a candidate. Hsu also pleaded guilty to wire fraud in a Ponzi scheme he used to bilk investors out of more than $20 million. He faces 30 years in prison. Hsu has been most visibly associated with Hillary Clinton’s failed campaign for the Democrat presidential nomination last year, but he is also linked to other prominent Democrats — including the current occupant of the White House. Clinton returned $850,000 to donors linked to Hsu; Obama’s Hopefund PAC took in at least $24,000 from him and his associates from 2005 to 2007.
“Norman! It’s Hillary. What am I going to do with you Norman? You are working so hard for me, that I, I just don’t know what to say anymore. I’ve never seen anybody who has been more loyal and more effective and really just having greater success supporting someone, uh, than you. Everywhere I go, you’re there. If you’re not, you’re sending people to be part of my events. You know, we’re going to win this campaign, Norman, because you single-handedly are going to make that happen. … Lots of love. Bye-bye.”
–Hillary Clinton on a March 2007 voicemail to Norman Hsu
Saturday Night Rock: Cardigans- My Favorite Game
Had strange dream last night…this song was the soundtrack.
Congratulations to the class of 2021
My sweet little Liberty graduated Kindergarten today. It was a very touching and fun experience for the kids in front of hundreds of beaming and extremely proud parents, siblings, and assorted relatives. Whoever came up with the idea of incorporating the full graduation ceremony, pomp and circumstance and cap and gown into the transition from kindergarten to first grade should be roundly praised. What a lot of fun.
The Obama Youth Brigades
The propaganda has begun… and will be coming soon to every town and school near you!
And for any of you who have actually been made through eight hours of mandatory multiculturalism training (like I have) by some of the finest the cult of diversity and tolerance had to offer, can you imagine giving your children over to such people for months and even years of indoctrination? Perish the thought.
Dancing with the devil
David Goldman, the man formerly known as Spengler, illustrates that actions have consequences…
This is just grand. First the Obama administration pulls the rug out from under the insurance industry by playing politics with credit seniority in the Chrysler bankruptcy, adding to the uncertainty of valuing trillions of dollars of corporate and commercial real estate debt. It then offers a bailout to the investors.
It’s not just Chrysler, of course: it’s the fact of loan modification that skims money for the servicers and starves the subprime pools, it’s the threat of cramdown in mortgages, it’s an administration that is applying banana republic finance techniques. There is a reason that subprime home equity AAA’s are trading at 27 cents on the dollar — that’s what you would get if you have 100% defaults and a 27% recovery rate. It’s practically impossible for things to get that bad, so there must be another explanation. And there is: the threat of government programs pushing recovery into the distant future and diverting cash flows away from bondholders makes this asset class extremely uncertain.
I mentioned to Phooey in a comment a few days ago that line from 8mm “If you dance with the devil, the devil don’t change. The devil changes you.” What is worrisome to me is that Obama knows why these laws and customs where in place. The explanation is that he has bigger plans.
Dave’s quote of the day
We must have no carelessness in our dealings with public property or the expenditure of public money. Such a condition is characteristic either of an undeveloped people, or of a decadent civilization. America is neither.
~ Calvin Coolidge
Trout Trip Down Memory Lane
The beast got a nice suprise for his birthday. His mom unlocked a closet and pulled out an aluminum tube. In the tube was a fly rod. It was a Loomis three weight, GLX. A tiny rod – maybe the thickness of a pencil, as whippy as a willow twig. And on the base was inscribed the following words: “Made by Jack Brock, 1988″.
The Beast-Dad had made this rod from a blank and signed it. It was a custom job.
So let’s spin the calendar back. In 1988 the Beast- Dad suffered a Myocardial Infarction – heart attack. He was house-bound for six months and kept the ticking of the deathwatch beetle at bay over a long, cold winter by making fly rods. Everybody got one – the beast got a nice 5wt Sage which he promptly broke. No big deal at the time, the Beast-Dad was alive then and everybody assumed there would be plenty more rods.
But he died in 2001. Cancer got him. The Beast has dozens of handcrafted jigs his dad made in the last 4 months of his life – the stripes on the jigs have a beautiful shivery quality to them – caused by tremors, it turns out.
So now there’s this rod. It needs a reel and a line. It needs to be fished. So the beast got a Redington and a double taper floater for it. Dumped about $200 by the time he was done – not counting the rod, which is priceless to him, but he figured there was no way he could put a cheap rig on a rod his dad made.
So last saturday he threw a float tube in the van and took off for a local pond – Stone House. This pond is special to the family because after his dad died his angling club held a raffle (the Beast donated two dozen of his hand tied flies) to raise money to put a memorial to him on the shore. It’s a granite bench with his picture etched into it and the words:
“This bench is dedicated to the memory of Walter “Jack” Brock. Angler, sportsman, friend.”
The Beast thought that this would be the perfect spot to try out the new rod, reel and line.
Well, the Beast got there and waded in. There were maybe 4 other people there – all fishing from canoes or Kayaks. Nobody had caught anything. The Beast had a book of flies that had all been tied by his dad and the beast put one on.
He caught 15 trout (Landed and released) in 2 hours. Nobody else got anything. It was almost embarrassing. After a while the others started yelling comments at him.
By trout 10 one guy yelled “I’m gonna come over there and take that fly away from you!” The Beast was hooking so many that he’d throw out the fly and after 5 minutes somebody else would yell “What? You haven’t got one yet?”
And the beast has got video. He always got video!
The Biggest
The First
Three of fifteen
Six of Fifteen
Wrap-up
Today the beast hit the same spot and nailed 8 in an hour. Again, nobody else got squat – including a Maine Guide. Maybe the rod is haunted….
Do your part to help fight cancer
This is a note my wife composed and I decided to “help out” by posting it here. Any donations and support would be greatly appreciated.
Dear Family and Friends:
Alexandria and I have decided to join the Relay for Life to raise money for cancer research.
The theme of the Relay this year is “Show us your Hope” and our team is called “Hope’s Heros.” Last year Alexandria and her classmates lost a good friend named Hope Herman to a rare form of Leukemia. The girls want to raise money in her honor. These twelve-year old girls are amazing and we wanted to actively support their decision to join the Relay for Life in honor of their friend Hope.
This cause also hits home because on May 26, 2000 Alexandria was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblast Leukemia. She was just three years old. She has made an amazing recovery and has been in remission for 6 ½ years! We thank God every day that she is still with us.
One in three people will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetime. The American Cancer Society Relay For Life® is a life-changing event that brings together more than 3.5 million people across the country each year to celebrate the lives of those who have battled cancer, remember loved ones lost, and fight back against a disease that takes too much.
More people are surviving cancer than ever before, and there are many reasons to celebrate. However, we know that more than 1.4 million people will be diagnosed with cancer this year and many will need a place to turn for inspiration, hope, and support.
Relay For Life is a life-changing event that brings together more than 3.5 million people to:
- Celebrate the lives of those who have battled cancer. The strength of survivors inspires others to continue to fight.
- Remember loved ones lost to the disease. At Relay, people who have walked alongside people battling cancer can grieve and find healing.
- Fight Back. We Relay because we have been touched by cancer and desperately want to put an end to the disease.
We would love you to join us by donating money for cancer research. Each team member needs to raise at least $100.00 but we would like to raise more if possible. We are asking all our friends to prayerfully consider pledging at least ten dollars towards this worthy cause and help Alexandria, a cancer survivor, in her quest to help others.
Please go to the following link to donate to our cause.
To Donate to Alexandria: copy and paste the following address:
http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFLFY09National?px=10966364&pg=personal&fr_id=14616
To Donate to Karena: copy and paste the following address:
http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFLFY09National?px=10966231&pg=personal&fr_id=14616
Thank you for your support in our cause.
Karena & Alexandria
What An Asinine Comment
Your messenger thinks those little brown people should have known better.
“The situation should have never gotten to that point,” he said. “If you don’t enforce the laws steadily, then when you suddenly enforce them, there is more collateral damage.”
Good old Roy Beck and NumbersUSA - what would America do without your nativist actions on her behalf? Its always good to be supported by a pro-abortion eugenicist like John Tanton isn’t it? My-o-my it must be rewarding to think you worked for the removal of those identity thieves and helped clean up Northeastern Iowa.
Since federal helicopters raced over cornfields on May 12, 2008, en route to arresting 389 illegal workers at a sprawling kosher meatpacking plant, what was a center of commerce in northeastern Iowa teeters toward collapse as the plant sputters in bankruptcy, its managers face prison time and the town fights to stay solvent.
Since the landmark raid, an economic squeeze has destroyed several businesses. Postville’s population has shrunk by nearly half, to about 1,800 residents, and townsfolk say the resulting anxiety — felt from the deli to the schoolyard — has been relentless. Read the rest of this entry
Mo’s Quote of the Day
From Mark Levin’s new book, “Liberty and Tyranny”
The Statist veils his pursuits in moral indignation, intoning in high dudgeon the injustices and inequities of liberty and life itself, for which only he can provide justice and bring a righteous resolution. And when the resolution proves elusive, as it undoubtedly does– whether the Marxist promise of ‘the workers’ paradise’ or the Great Society’s ‘war on poverty’ — the Statist demands ever more authority to wring out the imperfections of mankind’s existence. Unconstrained by constitutional prohibitions, what is left to limit the Statist’s ambitions but his own moral compass,which has already led him astray? He is never circumspect about his own shortcomings. Failure is not the product of his beliefs but merely want of power and resources. Thus are born endless rationalizations for seizing ever more governmental authority.
In the midst stands the individual, who was a predominate focus of the Founders. When living freely and pursuing his own legitimate interests, the individual displays qualities that are antithetical to the Statist’s — initiative, self-reliance, and independence. As the Statist is building a culture of conformity and dependency, where the ideal citizen takes on dronelike qualities in service to the state, the individual must be drained of uniqueness and self-worth, and deterred from independent thought or behavior. This is achieved through varying methods of economic punishment and political suppression.
The Statist also knows that despite his successful usurpations, enough citizens are still skeptical and even distrustful of politicians and gov’t that he cannot force his will all at once. Thus he marches in incremental steps, adjusting his pace as circumstances dictate. Today his pace is more rapid, for resistance has slowed. And at no time does the Statist do an about-face. But not so with some who claim the mantle of conservatism but are, in truth, neo-Statists [*cough* RiNOs *cough* -Mo], who would have the Conservative abandon the high ground of the founding principles for the quicksand of a soft tyranny.
Dave’s Quote of the Day
“It is well enough that the people of this nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
–Henry Ford
Hilarious: Eco-sailors rescued by oil tanker
That sound you hear is me laughing hysterically!
An expedition team which set sail from Plymouth on a 5,000-mile carbon emission-free trip to Greenland have been rescued by an oil tanker.
Raoul Surcouf, Richard Spink and skipper Ben Stoddart sent a mayday because they feared for their safety amid winds of 68mph (109km/h).
I wonder what the carbon footprint was of the vessels that heeded the eco-lunatics’ call. Thankfully the Skipper, Gilligan, and the rest of the ships passengers were okay.
One man’s empathy is another man’s apathy
Shortly after David Souter announced his retirement, we were treated to the legal worldview of President Obama. Far from being an advocate of sound constitutional legal reasoning, Obama indicated he would look for other “qualities” more suited for the legislature than the bench:
“We need somebody who’s got the heart to recognize–the empathy to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old. And that’s the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges.”
Profound.
Can anyone think of a worse way to select someone who will then determine the Constitutionality of law? Better put; where does empathy on the bench fit when the Court decides it’s most recent cases involving identity theft, environmental clean up liability, and juvenile sentencing (this fall)? In a case involving a homeowner, should the empathy lie with the tenant or the landlord? When Obama spouts nonsense about empathy, he is clearly playing to the base that wrongly believes the Supreme Court was created to decide nothing but abortion and civil rights cases. In fact, the staple of the SCOTUS diet is administrative law, bankruptcy, civil procedure, securities regulation and other boring procedural battles that require less empathy and more knowledge.
I have no illusions that Obama will appoint a strict Constitutionalist cut in the mold of Roberts or Alito. But with his nonsensical statement, it is clear that he is likely to appoint someone who is only there to appease the braying masses calling for judicial payback.
But at least they will be empathetic to teenage girls or old people.
Jon Stewart apologizes about Truman remark.
I didn’t make much of Stewart’s original comment stating Truman was a war criminal. I have long known that feeling was out there. I considered his remark as just red meat.
His apology is a little more interesting. In fact it is vastly more interesting. I present it here because it has not made the rounds like the accusation did.
There is a word for the position Stewart takes.
UPDATE: Big Hollywood has a peice on this that explains Jon Stewart’s hypocracy very well. It’s worth a look. Jon Stewart Courageously Defends His Bottom Flank by Eric Golub
We have a basketball team now in Denver. They are even good.
Its been quite awhile but thanks to Chauncey Billups, who played schoolboy ball right down the street from where I am typing this, the Denver Nuggets have returned. They have not just been winning, they have been demoralizing teams. Dallas gave up in the forth last night. Hey, I am even starting to dig on their tats.
I am just your humble messenger.
Some climate and carbon news from our English speaking brethen!
Britain’s only wind turbine plant to close
The UK’s only wind turbine manufacturing plant is to close, dealing a humiliating blow to the government’s promise to support low-carbon industries.
Vestas, the world’s biggest wind energy group, said today that it would close its Isle of Wight facility, which employs about 700 people and makes blades for wind farms in the US.
The group had planned to convert the factory in Newport so it could make blades for the British market, but said this morning that the paralysis gripping the industry meant that orders had ground to a halt. Such low demand could not justify the investment, Ditlev Engel, the chief executive, told the Guardian.
Not in my back yard you nimby S.O.B.
Engel said the weakness of the pound had also had an effect, making it more expensive to build wind farms in the UK, but the major problem lay in planning application.
“It is extremely time consuming and extremely complicated. Some of our developers, customers, will tell you it is so difficult. In the UK nimbyism is a huge challenge. This is outside of Whitehall territory.
“People talk about big offshore parks. Why not put in onshore parks? The cost of installation is half compared to offshore.”
This a real drag (I know – I’m sorry) because these technologies are needed to pull us out of our recession/depression/BDS.
Bureau blows hot and cold over Antarctica warm-up as Bureau of Metereology backs down from a claim that temperatures at Australia’s three bases in Antarctica have been warming over the past three decades
Well with only two choices you can get confused…
“You were told explicitly that the data collected by the Bureau of Metereology at the Australian bases shows a warming for maximum temperatures at all bases, and minimum temperatures at all but Mawson.”
However, Professor Turner told The Weekend Australian the data showed a cooling of the East Antarctica coast associated with the onset of the ozone layer from 1980 onwards. Professor Turner said the monthly mean temperatures for Casey station from 1980 to 2005 showed a cooling of 0.45C per decade. In autumn, the temperature trend has been a cooling of 0.93C per decade.
“These fairly small temperature trends seem to be consistent to me with the small increase in sea ice extent off the coast,” he said.
Dr Watkins did not dispute the figures referred to by Professor Turner.
Your messenger just reports folks.
NZ glacier findings upset climate theory.
Not to be out done the Kiwis get in on the act…
Glaciers are sensitive indicators of climate changes, usually advancing when it cools and retreating when it warms.
The first direct confirmation of differences in glacier behaviour between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the new work topples theories based on climate in the Northern Hemisphere changing in tandem with the climate in the Southern Hemisphere.The research argues that at times the climate in both hemispheres evolved in sync and at other times it evolved differently in different parts of the world.
Dr Barrell said their research presented “new data of novel high precision”, though the team has so far chosen not to roll out wider interpretations too quickly.
Just something to warm your heart.
Williams family OK’s Moreno’s request No. 27 is back in circulation in Denver.
By Bill Williamson
ESPN.com
The number was put on hiatus as a tribute to slain cornerback Darrent Williams. The popular Williams, who was 24 at the time of his death, was shot and killed in downtown Denver on Jan. 1, 2007, hours after the team’s season ended.
After not being used the past two seasons, the number will be worn by Denver rookie running back Knowshon Moreno.
The Broncos picked Moreno, out of Georgia, with the 12th choice in last weekend’s draft. He is expected to be the starting running back for an offense that may become more run-oriented in the wake of the Jay Cutler trade to Chicago.
Moreno, who wore No. 24 in college (currently worn by All-Pro cornerback Champ Bailey in Denver), asked the Broncos to wear No. 27. The Broncos then called Williams’ mother, Rosalind Williams, to ask permission to use the number.
The Williams family called the Broncos back and gave its blessing for Moreno to wear the number — on one condition. Read the rest of this entry
Dave’s quote of the day
“All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the essence of manhood.”
~ George S. Patton
And the Left whines about waterboarding…
We are the civilized ones. They are the barbarians howling at the gate. We must win. They must lose. We must live. They must die. It can’t get any simpler than that…
FNP – Arlen Specter Edition – Hold Steady “You Can Make Him Like You”
Kinda thought of a line from this song earlier today and it seemed appropriate.
If you get tired of your boyfriends things
There’s always other boys.
There’s always other boyfriends.
If you get tired of your boyfriends scene
There’s always other scenes.
There’s always other boyfriends.
The music starts about 45 seconds in.
The Sage
Steve
E the Wise
DFV the Scribe
hairybeast
Mo K.
Sting the Away
Rudy
Voice of Reason
Anthony Rogers
Vérité
Isaiah's Cry
danagall
Hal Jordan
The Rat
Aquinas Shrugged
jackcurtis
a west texas view
pino
Cultural Limits
Regalo Di Spine
Tokyo Tengu
Short Little Rebel
AWOL Civilization
SeePamBlog
rogueoperator
provider4many
jimmullen1
thomaspaine2nd
badoracle
ljponders
weeicemon
Daniella Nicole
