Thursday, November 22, 2012

An Interesting Article on the "Fast and Furious" Operation

According to this, the Obama Administration leaked information to the press blaming gun dealers involved in the "Fast and Furious" operation for selling guns that went south of the border.

This certainly lends credence to the theory that "Fast and Furious" was an attempt to create a justification for more gun control.

But of course, we are supposed to think that this is nothing but a crazy conspiracy theory.

That is all.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Incompetence and "Racism"

Jim Clyburn thinks that "incompetent" is a racially charged code word when applied to Susan Rice.

The proper response to this is to tell Mr. Clyburn:

"Regarding my feelings toward you and Mrs. Rice, let me say that my comments are not in any way racist.  And to prove my lack of racism, let me quote a famous black poet in regards to how I feel about these accusations."

That is all.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

A Quote for Our Times

If the federal government gets to decide what the Constitution says, then the Constitution is nothing more than a suggestion box for the feds.

-Ryan W. McMacken

That is all.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Name-Calling and Assassination are Equivalent

In the grand tradition of the Michael Richards fiasco*, we get this headline:

Woman fired for Obama racial slur on Facebook.

The article goes on to say:

TURLOCK, Calif. (AP) — A California woman has been fired and reported to the Secret Service for her President Barack Obama racial slur and assassination comment on Facebook.

Maybe it's just me, but if I were writing the story, I would have led with the "assassination" part, but calling him a bad name is... uh... wrong too.

That is all.

*The fiasco is that everyone concentrated on the fact he said the "n"-word rather than the fact that he referenced lynching favorably.


Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Nicholas Stix, Are You Okay?

Update:  Peter Brimelow has posted that Stix is okay.

Does anyone know if Nicholas Stix is okay?  He hasn't posted on his blog for a week.  I hope he is getting through Sandy and the aftermath okay.

That is all.

Maine Approves Same-Sex "Marriage"

At this time, I am starting to suspect that the storms that are coming the way of the Northeast may be God's judgment on this country. 

Perhaps, like ancient Israel, we have fallen and now it is time to face the consequences.

That is all.

Sunday, November 04, 2012

Commenting at The American Conservative

UPDATE:

It appears to be a technical issue. 

For the past week, none of my comments at The American Conservative have gotten through.  I have emailed both Rod Dreher (whose blog I comment on most often, to see if he banned me or something) and the Webmaster.  No one has gotten back to me.  Is anyone else having this problem?

That is all.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Don't Be a Condescending Twit

From Lawrence Auster's recent post on how to write when commenting on his blog:

Mathematical symbols should also be avoided. For example, many people today will write “30+” instead of “more than 30.” This is not desirable. Our medium of communication is the English language.

My advice:

People take more kindly to explanations of the rules when you don't do it in a way that makes you look like a condescending twit.

In fact, that is the biggest problem I have with Mr. Auster.  He has a lot of good ideas, but he gets a particular bee in his bonnet (like the split infinitive) and starts acting as if anyone who does not share his preferences is somehow subhuman or an illiterate.

By the way, there is no actual rule against the split infinitive, and the reason people don't like splitting it is because in many languages it is a single word.  Yet, I have never seen people argue that "I am not going" is a bad construction (as compared to "I am going not") because it splits a present construction that is a single word in many languages.  I really would not be annoyed if not for his statement (in one of his first posts on the subject, one I cannot find at the moment) that if there is no way to avoid splitting the infinitive without being ambiguous, that you should just jettison the adverb altogether, meaning that obeying a non-rule guideline is more important that expressing your precise meaning.

That is all.

Barack Obama is Partly Responsible for the 2008 Crash

What, you think he only started tearing down the country after becoming president?

Nicholas Stix explains Obama's involvement in the mortgage shakedown that led to the mortgage meltdown.

That is all.

Sunday, October 07, 2012

New Ad from NumbersUSA


                                                                                                


I like it.

That is all.

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

All Good Things

About 10-12 years ago, I was in a Dollar Tree store when I heard a song (barely) playing on the intercom.  I remembered the tune, but I did not know what the song was or who sang it.  It reminded me a little of "True" by Spandau Ballet, but I knew that was not it.

I sort of forgot about the song and thought eventually that I had probably misremembered the exact tune and would not recognize it again.  Then about six months ago, I heard it in Applebee's.  Unfortunately, I  was not in a position to listen carefully enough to find out more about it.  But I realized that I would likely hear it again, and maybe in another few years I would finally be able to hear it so that I could identify it.

Then I heard it today on the radio coming home from work.  I tried to memorize one line in order to look it up in Yahoo! at home.

"Now as the rain beats down."

Well, I found the song.  "Walk Away Renee" by Left Banke (I'm pretty certain that the first time I was listening to the Four Tops cover).

That is all.

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Blog Appearance Change

Dear Readers:

JS-Kit/Echo (formerly Haloscan) is closing, so I reverted to Blogger comments, which unfortunately required me to upgrade my template.

When I have both the time and inclination, I'll try to customize my blog more.  I have some old copies of my old template, so I can start to add back in things that I had before looking at the html (eventually).

In the meantime, while I have downloaded my old JS-Kit comments, they appear to have disappeared from my blog.  Those that remain appear to have been added through the Blogger comment interface, even though I have no idea how that is possible when I did not have any link to add comments through Blogger.

In any case, comments have been mostly wiped, but I doubt that anyone who reads this blog is doing so to look at two-year-old comment threads.  New comments should be working for all who wish.  I will worry about moderation settings when I get enough comments to worry about them.

So I doubt that the user experience will suffer much.

That is all.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Will Pedophilia Be Normalized?

(Note: just to be clear, I object strongly to pedophilia, child molestation, etc. This post is not promoting the normalization, just pointing out that only [socially] conservative principles offer a consistent reason to be against it).

 It has occurred to me recently that if liberal sexual mores are applied consistently, pedophilia will eventually, inevitably, become normalized.

Despite all of the protests about how this is so different than sex between consenting adults, ultimately anti-pedophilia is simply another unprincipled exception that is required in order for liberals to be accepted by society.

Now that the gay rights battle has victory on the horizon, with it soon becoming scandalous even to disapprove of people having sex with someone of the same sex (note how "tolerance" and other live and let live slogans were taken down as soon as the gays sensed that they had the power to dominate), people are starting to attack "slut-shaming," that is, the idea that one should disapprove of promiscuity. The next goal is to make it scandalous even to disapprove of someone going home with a different partner every night. This is supposedly "sex-positive," whereas disapproving of any act between consenting adults is "Sex-negative," as if there are no negative consequences to society from one's sexual behavior.

In such a milieu, I do not see how a principled opposition to adult-child sex can really be held. The response is always something along the lines of "all sex is good, but it has to be consensual, and children cannot consent," but ultimately that is utter B.S.

The fact of the matter is that except for infants and those who are too young or mentally defective to understand sentences, children can consent. It is just that we as a society have determined (correctly, don't misunderstand me here) that their consent doesn't count.

If we are truly "sex-positive," though, on what basis does someone have to "qualify" for being able to consent? Why can't a ten-year-old, if his parents allow him to order what he wants at a restaurant, decide what he wants to do sexually, unless sex is somehow special and delicate, and dare I say, dangerous? Certainly it is all three of those things, yet of course to say so is "sex negative."

What sexual liberationists fail to understand is that the concept of "age of consent" is ultimately a legal fiction, and the seemingly invulnerable barrier to normalizing adult-child relations is ultimately a social construct, one that is in opposition to the attitude toward sex that the liberationists wish to impose.

Ultimately, what we have here is another "unprincipled exception," which I would define as "fighting the logical conclusion of one's ideas."

That is all.

Monday, September 24, 2012

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Egalitarian Fundamentalism Hurting Freedom in Britain

John Derbyshire at VDARE (the link is not working currently due to the pledge drive) directs readers to this story of a politician convicted for making politically incorrect statements.

I wonder where all of the people who defended that Russian rock band named after female genitalia are?

That is all.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Jacqueline Woodhouse vs.

This recent post by John Derbyshire made me think:

Why is P*ssy Riot getting so much more recognition and support than Jacqueline Woodhouse? Why are people castigating Putin but not the Brits?

"Who, whom?" indeed.

That is all.