Oh So Tired-

of cheap glory from folks who do a head-bob at "oh, yeah, the Dems are pretty bad"-- and then dive head-first into ranting about how horrible conservatives are, for sending out "orders" to "shout down" opposition.

 Guys, look: I know you really, really want to be taken seriously as a "fair minded" person, but the facts simply don't fit.

  There's *one* memo, sent out back in JUNE, to a handful of people-- and it doesn't actually say to shout down opposition. It's on tactics to use to get folks off of their prepared statements, and the guy who sent it out is proud to have never voted for a Dem or Repub for national office. And I know you should know this because there is a post three in front of your 'to be fair' cheap glory post.

Frankly, I'm tired enough that I'm unsubscribing from every RSS feed where this shows up-- I don't mind fair arguments against "our" side; for crying out loud, I play devil's advocate so much that I need to get a pitchfork. I've spent weeks arguing for things I don't even agree with, just because the folks I did agree with were using such horrible arguments-- sometimes, we even managed to improve their arguments to the point where someone who agreed with them would be willing to publicly state so.

 Meanwhile, we've got a guy in the hospital for handing out conservative flags around union members while the wrong color.
 We've got a woman in political position physically assaulting a man who makes a point she disagrees with.
Oh, and this happens after the White House says to "hit back twice as hard."
 Um... inciting violence, a little?

AP Acts Brainlessly.

Hey, guys? Don't set up a program that 1) can't tell it's not your words being quoted, and 2) makes threats on your behalf to defend these words.

The Associated Press has become so deranged, so disconnected from reality, that it will sell you a “license” to quote words it didn’t write and doesn’t own. Here, check it out: (go here to see picture and read the rest) I paid $12 for this “license.” Those words don’t even come from the article they charged me 46 cents a word to quote from (and that’s with the educational discount). No, they’re from Thomas Jefferson’s letter to Isaac McPherson, in which Jefferson argues that copyright has no basis in natural law.

Oh, it gets better. The AP responded, and the blogger re-responded. h/t CLD.

In Case It Wasn't Clear

Commenting here? Not a right. You post something that shows you didn't bother to read what I posted, pontificate at me, and then accuse me of being "pissy," not "understanding" what you wrote and being a liar-- hey, jerk, go away. I haven't got the time to deal with saving your ego. Go make your own blog if you want to do that garbage.

Good Lord....

Law enforcement officials were reviewing evidence yesterday and had not decided whether to file charges. Their preliminary account of the incident broadly matches that of the boy and his mother. The case presents exceedingly unusual circumstances: Rarely is a 12-year-old implicated in a homicide, and even less often does a child that age take a life to protect his mother. "In Maryland, there can be a legitimate defense of third parties in the event of a violent attack," State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey said. "That is a possibility in this case."

What is WRONG with these people? The kid saved his mother's life-- what, was he supposed to kung-fu an adult man off of his mother? More boys that proved to be better men than the adults around them, here.

Honorable Work

Hanging out with friends and kids from church, I saw their fathers come home dirty and sweaty and smelly... and I admired them for it because I knew it meant they had been working hard to make something tangible, something with lasting impact--whether they'd been tilling a field, carrying around heavy bricks, framing a house, or fixing a broken car... because it doesn't matter how educated or even brilliant you are if you have no place to live, no food to buy, or no way to get to your high-paying desk job 30 miles away.

Dang skippy! Head over and check out what set FBL off-- someone doing something useful to help kids!

Just because it's awesome

Turn it up....

Do Ya Feel Fishy?

Well, do ya, punk? (The logo 'quite possibly translates to: "Get the fish"') UPDATE: guide to ID'ing K-street mob-sters.

Unexpected, But Nice Move!

via the indespensable Gateway Pundit:

On today’s call with reporters, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele took credit for the RNC’s response to a new Democratic National Committee ad asking voters to call Republicans and tell them to stop ginning up town hall heckling. The RNC redirected these calls from its main switchboard over to the DNC’s switchboard — a response, said Steele, to the White House arrogantly blaming regular Americans “like my mother, like my sister” for the health care impasse. “I thought it was a good idea,” Steele said. “Don’t sit there and think you’re going to direct a bunch of angry liberals to call the RNC when I know full well what that’s all about. I get the joke. My response was, talk to your own party, because they’re the ones ginning this up.”

Makes me want to get too "well dressed" and "carry a swastika," you know? Well dressed like this guy? Hey, here's a hint: some folks, when they want to make a public statement, dress nicely. UPDATE: the disruptive, scary, "Astroturf" memo revealed!

Meditation On Geekery

A snippet:

When Wordsworth wrote his poem about being lonely as a cloud, his reference to “daffodils” was probably not just specific, but obscure to those outside his region. Daffodils were Welsh and western English wildflowers, and probably cultivated by few. You didn’t read about them in poems or novels before then, unless maybe in Welsh. Now they’re synonymous with Spring for us, but not when the poem was written. I don’t think daffodils really became popular until generations of English and American poetry readers decided that they’d really like to know what a daffodil looked like and maybe grow some. What would our lives be like, had Wordsworth just decided to go with, “I found a meadow full of bright spring flowers bobbing in the wind”?

I had no idea... does explain why Grandma was so protective of her daffodil patch, though-- besides the fact that they are lovely. Go read the rest. Utterly unrelated, but good brain-fodder.

Chuck Norris

Simi-random clip from the middle of his article:

If the birther movement is truly full of a bunch of conspiracy-fringed kooks or "zombies," as the Los Angeles Times proclaims, then prove once and for all that you are a naturally born citizen by posting your original birth certificate. And all the controversy will fade away like the pains of childbirth. I agree with CNN's Lou Dobbs, who was chastised by his own media outlet for demanding the release of your original birth certificate. So why is that such a bad request? We certainly know why CNN/U.S. President Jon Klein thought it was a bad idea: because he previously declared that CNN researchers determined that Obama's 1961 birth certificate no longer existed. But Hawaii's officials confirmed again last week that they indeed have your original birth certificate on file. Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaiian State Department of Health, repeated her October 2008 statement that she had personally seen with her own eyes the "original vital records." Some claim that even you cannot see or request your own personal birth certificate, because Hawai'i's disclosure law (Hawai'i Revised Statutes 338-18) states that "it shall be unlawful for any person to permit inspection of, or to disclose information contained in vital statistics records, or to copy or issue a copy of all or part on any such record ... " But the law further states that the Health Department "shall not permit inspection of public health statistics records, or issue a certified copy of any such record or part thereof, unless it is satisfied that the applicant has a direct and tangible interest in the record." (Italics mine) Isn't categorically satisfying constitutional requirements for a president, or answering the First Amendment grievances of hundreds of thousands of Americans, or ending a national debate or healing a country's divisions enough "direct and tangible interest"? Mr. President, as more and more people realize that you are refusing to release your original birth certificate, further questions will fuel the fires of debate or at least hinder the embers from ever being snuffed out. Questions like, "Does it really contain the Hawaiian physician's name?" Or "Does it disclose something other than his birth place that he wishes others not to see?"

There's also a link to certificates for girls born about the same time as Obama, at Kapiolani Maternity. I have a strong desire to make a joke about round-house kicks, but I'll control myself.... H/t CLD.

Heart Of A Warrior

quite literally: one of our Army Rangers that got fatally injured in a fire fight in Afghanistan was an organ donor. Cpl Kopp's cousin is a friend of a gal named Judy Meikle, and called her up to let her know that her cousin had wanted to save lives with his organs. One in a million, the heart was a match. If this lady is the same one that I find by googling, she looks like a very nice gal-- a bit ill, but vibrant. (Hey, healthy folks don't need new tickers, right?) No way for me to know if my google-fu is weak or not, so I'm not going to link to any of the pictures... but she looks like a very nice lady, and I'm glad that the loss of Cpl Kopp had some hint of silver lining. After saving his six comrades, he's now saved a woman who was half a world away. Thank you, Jawa, for sharing this story--head over to his place if you want more information. Prayers for the Army guy's family, and for Ms. Meikle's speedy recovery.

Good Question

Which leads me to ask: if you buy into the notion that putting more guns on the street causes more gun-related crime, on what rational basis do you discount the idea that leaving more criminals on the street inevitably leads to more gun-related crime?

And Cassandra's got charts and everything! Go look! (now, someone might ask: "well, if you believe more criminals on the street means more crime, why WOULDN'T more guns mean more crime?" My answer, of course, is that guns are tools-- it takes a criminal to commit a crime, no matter how many tools are around that could be useful to him)

Ah, The Anchoress

Obama’s predecessor endured 8 Years of Assassination Fascination. Actually, the “Assassinate Bush Chic” began even before the 2000 election, when Craig Kilborn flashed “snipers wanted” under a picture of Bush. So-called “newsmen” like Keith Olbermann repeatedly called the president “a fascist” and “a terrorist.” And Obama supporters can’t handle The Joker and the word “Socialism”? Politics is ugly, and it is often over-the-top but that’s not new. Photoshop happens; it’s a free country. I myself have been photoshopped next to a dancing condom, a commentary on my annoying habit of being a Catholic.

Be it holy coffee or telling folks to grow up, already, this lady is a good read. That said, if I hear one more "why so serious" pun (I'm now expecting satellite radio to work in "why so Sirius?") I may throw things.... Oh, there is one really grin-worthy joke in this, although you'll probably see it from a mile away:

One embraces terrorists and madmen, is dedicated to anarchy and the destruction of capitalist society, and sends the population fleeing in horror from his creations. The other is a fictional character played by the late Heath Ledger.

With variations of "burning piles of cash" and "forcing horrific choices on innocent people for his own goals."

Via Jordan179

The Lamb and the Wolves 
 The predator's cause is always good. 
Two wolves attacked a lamb in a dark wood. 
It said "I want your legal rights defined." 
"You're weak and tender, and it's dark." 
They dined.

Why I Don't Accept Wiki-

-in online arguments. Mr. Derbyshire's post starts out:

The first thing I noticed about my Wikipedia page, when someone directed my attention to it, was that they got my name wrong ... Trust me on this. It's my name. I've been pronouncing it since the Truman administration.

and gets better from there. He points out other problems, including non-standard (or even standard slang) English, flat-out lies, broken citation links, and that someone with a grudge about applying a lie can easily outlast someone with the facts on his side who has a life.

Kids These Days-

wearing too much makeup. Fah! ((What, is there some kind of rule for libs that says "when you've repeated yourself too much on the parents, go for the little girls?))

 If I'd posted something like that-- shoot, if I'd SAID something like that in public-- my mom would chew my tail....
Dad would probably look disappointed, instead. (not sure which would hurt more, either)

 Shoot, even with Obama's wife-- who, pointing out again, is a public figure and NOT a fourteen year old cop's daughter-- I try to focus on improvement.

 The outfit she wore to see the Pope was very proper, but not very flattering, for example, or the shirt that had the huge red hourglass that made it look like she was trying to imitate a black widow spider's marking-- eeep. 

Heaven knows that my looks aren't any great thing to trumpet, and that I tend towards jeans and T-shirts. (most of which are a decade old and/or hand me downs, come to think of it) But I don't work in public relations, either, and I don't have fashion advisers who SHOULD be helping with that stuff....

 Tacky, tacky, tacky.

 Then again, who's really surprised....

When Did a Military Coup Ever Take Place

that was ordered by that country's supreme court, that was supported by the political party of the president who was overthrown, in which not one person was injured, let alone killed, and which replaced the ousted the president with the president of the country's congress, a member of the same party as the ousted president?

Very well said! h/t Semper Fi

Alphainventions.com

Careful, malware site, per google. (That might mean they're deliberately trying to infect a computer, or it might mean they have REALLY poor taste in who they let write their ads.) I noticed that I'm getting some referrals from them-- they probably won't get through, since I disable anon posting, but watch yourselves. Here's a Wordpress forum on the site.

McDonald's Coffee Civil Case

(yes, I am fixated on coffee this morning. Nothing like not having real coffee to make you crave it. ;^p ) Something tells me I'm going to spend a lot of time at Overlawyered.com-- between that and listening to XLNC-1 I'm in danger of *gasp* improving myself. Anyways, here's the (coffee?) scoop:

Thirteen courts have reported opinions looking at product-liability/failure-to-warn claims alleging that coffee was “unreasonably dangerous” and the provider was thus liable when the plaintiff spilled coffee on him- or herself. Twelve courts correctly threw the case out. Another trial court in New Mexico, however, didn’t, and became a national icon when the jury claimed that Stella Liebeck deserved $2.9 million in compensatory and punitive damages because McDonald’s dared to sell the 79-year-old hot 170-degree coffee. ... Amazingly, rather than argue that the tort system shouldn’t be judged by the occasional outlier, the litigation lobby has succeeded in persuading some in the media and on the left that the Liebeck case is actually an aspirational result for the tort system, and, not only that, but that anyone who says otherwise is just a foolish right-winger buying into “urban legends” (Aug. 14, Aug. 16, and links therein). Even the Mikkelsons at snopes.com have made the mistake of buying into the trial lawyer hype, calling the case “perfectly legitimate” and effectively classifying the common-sense understanding of the case as an urban legend.

If you're interested, go read more. As useful as Snopes can be, it seems more and more often they are mistaking their own views for "proven fact"-- too bad. Didn't they have a "inconclusive" label, once?

Google-Fu

To bolster my point, I called a friend who used to run the White House vetting system and asked him how long it would have taken him to discover that someone he had to vet, but had never heard of, would be a problem that needed to be flagged for the higher ups. I then asked him to try this exercise with the name "Mary Robinson." His response, after plying his trade: "Ten seconds . . . first result in even the most basic google search."

Just mildly amused; found via mis-click.