THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER

Mr. B.'s big item for his and Mrs. Charm's secular Christmas celebration was Guitar Hero. When he's older he may find the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns more enlightening. Fortunately there'll be more available than the usual anti-American, anti-war movies that Hollyweird churns out:

Video "game makers aren't afraid to put players in situations where U.S. soldiers are unambiguously the good guys, while the combatants – often Muslims – are the bad guys."

Via Instapundit.

Re our secular Christmas at the rancho: This celebration of parties, presents and poinsettias has more to do with Saturnalia than Christianity. It is far older than the religious version. (Some nineteenth century Protestants found it so unnerving that they took to assuring their fellows that while they did mark the Nativity they did "not worship the tree.")

Christians still confuse the two, some of them whacking the secular version as ungodly. Well, to each his own. Mrs. C. would be lost without her favorite time of the year. And while he long ago graduated from Santa to understanding who the real gift-givers are, Mr. B. likewise would be bereft without packages to unwrap and goodies to consume. Good thing they needn't be.

Link via Power Line.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On the last night of Chanukah, a miracle occurred! I discovered a really cool hip-hop Chanukah song written by the senior senator from Utah. Who also writes love songs. And this is also one of them. Hey!

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Bring on the stone Maccabees, our favorite menorah, and the book about them I've been reading to Mr. B. since he was five. And Aish is a good, all-around, all-purpose site about Judaism.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It is to laugh, really, the notion that any sports celebrity has an ounce of integrity or ethics. So much for Tiger Woods, the golden boy of golf.

UPDATE: It has come to the WaPo's attention that all of Tiger's strumpets are, ahem, white. No women of color. He has violated the diversity ideal. Oh, boo-hoo.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

With a tomato. In the face. There's poetic justice for you. As Instapundit says, the guy, Jeremy Paul Olson who looks slightly moronic in his booking photo, was aiming at Sarah. Fortunately for her (but not for him) he throws like a girl. So he missed her by ten feet. Heh.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The beat goes on. This is the scandal that will not die. Not all are impresssed. Stay tuned for the divorce filings.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It seems the angry-wife-with-golf-club scenario is pretty well extinguished now that some neighbors have come out to say they witnessed the aftermath and saw only an accident. But this police quote is laughable:

"'Despite the celebrity status of Mr. Woods, the Florida Highway Patrol has completed its investigation in the same professional manner it strives to complete each traffic investigation,' Sgt. Kim Montes said."

Yeah, I'll just bet they let the little people put them off for four days. Read it here.

INDEED, it's the cover-up, TW's persistent silence (even in the face of a police investigation) that still makes the story intriguing. All the tsk-tsking from the high-minded is not going to change that.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

He withdraws from his own tournament, citing his injuries--which were either self-inflicted in the under 33-mph, shortly-after-2 a.m. vehicle "accident" or by his wife allegedly upset at his reported affair with another woman. Hard to understand if it's just a few bandaids. Easier if his wife hit him in the mouth with a golf club. In which case, he ought to be getting a divorce. She might kill him next time.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 05:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My dear mother, in one of her less-perceptive moments many years ago, turned from her dressing table to address my seven-year-old self with the following admonition: "Men work, women stay home."

In other words, I was to steel myself psychologically for being in harness until I finally collapsed in the traces, good for only one thing: endless, muleish toil to provide the wherewithall for some woman to take it easy.

Poor mother, her zeitgeist was already on the way out. Today it is long gone and we who once could look forward only to continuous labor on behalf of some nail-polishing parasite have been liberated beyond common understanding. But at least one of us gets it. Haw.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It was pretty obvious from the get-go that Tiger Woods and his wife had a little dustup that resulted in her breaking the window of their Cadillac SUV with one of his golf clubs and him ramming the vehicle into a fire hydrant and a tree. As usual it was the attempted cover-up that made their private argument more interesting than it probably deserved to be. Whether the dispute was over his Dubai investment losses or an alleged affair with another woman.

But the cover-up that's continuing, where the world's No. 1 golfer and his former-model wife keep ducking the Florida Highway Patrol's investigation interviews, is making the whole thing uglier than it needs to be. True, domestic calls seldom result in arrests and, sure, wealth has its privileges, but stiffing the cops is not supposed to be one of them. Hard to have much respect for people who play these games. Not that I would expect them to be punished. As they are doing their best to underscore for the rest of us, the law is for the little people.

UPDATE: Late Sunday, TW was still refusing to talk to the FHP. They, apparently, are just shuffling their flat feet. Probably standing, smoky-bear hat in hand, at the jefe's closed front door. Underscoring the double-standard of American justice. Then, on Monday, the FHP finally was getting around to seeking a search warrant, accroding to TMZ.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hm. This is pathetic. What next?  Ken as a suicide bomber? Or maybe an Army psychiatrist.

UPDATE:  Boycott them? Well, at the very least, Ken should have three or four Burqua Barbie wives.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This post is as star-crossed as the docudrama it's about. Twice now, Movable Type has trashed it before I could get it on the site. Grrrr. Once more with feeling: I missed the 2006 ABC airing of this Disney film. I figured it was probably just more Hollyweird drek like Moore's crockumentary on GWB.

Apparently not. This one dared to come down on the Clintons. Whoa. And they, who have famously always depended on Hollyweird for campaign cash, couldn't keep it off the air. But they have succeeded in stopping its sale as a DVD, according to various sources including conservative talker John Ziegler. The trailer to his documentary Blocking The Path to 9/11 was compelling enough that I bought one.

Then I went to Amazon looking for a copy of the old series, just in case it was now available. Nope. But one of the reviewers there had an url to an import version. So I went there and got a copy. Amazing, you can buy the Disney production overseas or on the Web. You just can't buy it in this country or on Amazon. Well, anything Slick Willie and Hilarity (She was under fire in Bosnia!) don't want me to see is a tantalizing draw. More on all this when I've received and watched both productions.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Louis Armstrong undoubtedly would not be politically correct were he still alive. But he was a great trumpet player and jazz performer and his signature song, which he recorded dozens of times, lately keeps running through my mind:

"Pale moon shining on the fields below
Folks are crooning songs soft and low
Needn't tell me so because I know
It's sleepy time down south

"Soft winds blowing through the pinewood trees
Folks down there like a life of ease
When old mammy falls upon her knees
It's sleepy time down south

"Steamboats on the river a coming or a going
Splashing the night away
Hear those banjos ringing, the people are singing
They dance til the break of day, hey

"Dear old southland with his dreamy songs
Takes me back there where I belong
How I'd love to be in my mammy's arms
When it's sleepy time way down south

"Dear old southland with his dreamy songs
Take me back there where I belong
How I'd love to be in my mammy's arms
When it's sleepy time down south
Sleepy time down south."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I haven't taken the logo off the sidebar, but I'll get around to it. Sooner than I will waste time writing another 140-character Tweet. What a nothing. This sums it up as well as anything can:

"As a blogging, Facebooking, texting American who values the explosion of democratic user-generated Internet content and its contribution to intellectual debate, political activism, government transparency, entertainment, access to data and community, I can safely say I still see no reason to tweet."

No kiddin'. Twitter is, indeed, useless.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Whoa. The Oasis of the Sea is a biggie. Got to be impressed with the engineering.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've been in a few, from Shenandoah Caverns in Virginia to Inner Space under I-35 north of Austin. But this, apparently, is the largest found to date. It's in Viet Nam, oddly enough. Another tourist attraction for a country that can always use another one.

Via Naturography.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So the Austin daily finally figured it out and put an advertisement on the front page of the paper version. Good for them, I say. That's realism of the realistic kind, even if it is below the fold. Moving it up would be better, make it worth more if it could be seen in the rack.

Course the usual crew of journalism purists--most of them, ahem, former employees--are bellyaching about it. Oh the shame, the horror. Their "calling" has been sullied. As if. Makes me laugh.

UPDATE: Dramatic graphic telling of the history of major newspaper circulation since 1990.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let's face it, even for dedicated Jihadists, there's a right way and a wrong way to martyrdom. Humor from The Whited Sepulchre.

Via Simply Jews.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, after today's events at Fort Hood, this is no longer particularly funny. My bad.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 04:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Life in the shallow end of the gene pool gets more entertaining by the minute: from the burglar pair who drew their masks on their faces with black markers to the clown who was captured on burglar cam getting into the liquor store (with only a few broken bones) but then being unable to get out. Heh.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Not the fellow on the sign, the "Fighting Sioux" of the University of North Dakota. This one. OKS fired him. But they haven't been able to silence the Comanche conservative. He's even going after the usual liberal suspects who are still battling the American Indian mascot tradition. Racist, you know. Uh huh. Bad Eagle's great, great grandson begs to disagree. And not politely, either. Heh.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The latter is what drove Abby Johnson out of her directorship of the Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan, northeast of Austin. That and watching an ultrasound view of an abortion itself. Funny how seeing it done gives people qualms.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 03:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1249)

That's the trouble with the global warm-mongers. You can shoot down their arguments time and again and they just keep recycling them. Comes now an Ohio State researcher riding Al Gore's favorite pony in claiming that global warming is doing in the glaciers on the famous African mountain. Only problem is there's been no global warming for more than a decade.

That's why the warm-mongers have taken to calling it "climate change." Get it? Anthony Watts shot this one down just last year, with data from a Harvard researcher, among others. Can you say: evapotranspiration impeded by deforestation from intensive farming? Sure you can. Fortunately, Watts is game to explain it once again, and with two new contradicting studies.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1873)

I think you will agree that this is a very funny YouTube video. But if you don't, well then, move along to the next item. Everything is OK. I'm glad it was made in Britain. I don't think this would go unpunished in a Texas city. There'd be very little chance, for instance, of the perp getting to hug the coppers.

Via Simply Jews.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Jewish/Israeli blog carnival Vanity of Vanities is up. Never better, I say modestly, as it has two entries of my own.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sometimes the memories of the first daily you worked at are the best. Certainly the most fun. But even as today's newspapers fade away, mainly from business pressures, but also some political ones, there's always hope in an old editor's eye.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

* Back when I used to eat sugar with abandon, Necco wafers were my favorites. Just as well I can't eat them anymore. They've turned organic, flavored by such as red beet juice. Sounds dreadful.

* Dick Cheney is backing Kay Bailey Hutchinson for governor. Lordy. While Sarah plumps for Rick Perry. This could be a dustup. What is it about Republicans? Why do they so often choose suicide?

* This weekend I expect to be eating leftover, stale candy corn. A little, anyhow. Might as try a Necco.

* Mr. B., upon learning that his cub scout pack will be picking up trash after his school's Halloween carnival on Saturday: "That's the thing about the scouts. There's the good parts and the bad parts."

* Happy to see this old photo I snatched years ago still draws 'em in. A score or more hits a day, in fact.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

That's the name of Mr. B.'s "newspaper," a two- to three-page stapled collection of brief items, generally about favorite video games, bloopers at recess or clandestine food fights in the cafeteria. Some kids sell lemonade. Mr. B., being the child of two ink-stained wretches, is venturing into journalism.

I worry about possible angry administrators or even parents if some of his items wind up embarrassing another child. Mrs. Charm says I'm making too much of it. Mr. B. wants to sell his papers for twenty-five cents each at recess. He's got visions of more than a hundred potential dollars. I demur, figuring the school will not like him doing that. Mrs. C., well, you know. It's certainly not at this level, but I worry that the consequences could be similar. So far I'm losing. So we shall see what we see.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Caption says the "reporters" are studying the inscriptions on the shovels for the ceremonial dirt-turning for a memorial tree for fallen American troops. You know, while Barry dithers about whether they need reinforcements or not. This is what the legacy media does these days instead of asking hard questions. Bush quietly met with the survivors of the fallen. Barry turns their deaths into a photo op and a tree-planting. Frankly I think he prefers them fallen. The fallen don't talk back.

Via Mudville Gazette.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 05:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Absent from all the Soupy obits I have seen is the most famous episode known among us (then) adolescents back in the days of his show. He is said to have been fired for holding up his hand, palm inward, to the camera, with the index, middle and ring fingers showing.

He lowered the index finger saying that it was for his producer, then the ring finger saying it was for his director. The middle finger, which he left standing in the classic configuration, he said was for the sponsor. I have no idea whether the story was true, but being high adolescent humor, of course, it circulated like wildfire among us at the time. It made the man a myth in our hearts.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

And, not incidentally, the people who use its many varieties. Pictures by Rick Lee of Charleston, WVA.

Via Instapundit.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's not a Republican. She's backing Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman for congress from New York. Rogue, indeed. But when the NY Republicans nominate a RINO liberal, and the national party poohbahs are studiously ignoring her and touting Romney, Huckabee and the other usual retreads, she had to do something stunning. Looks like a good start.

Via Instapundit.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It informed the operation of many of today's computer games. Did it need a story? Nah. It was fine the way it was. Fourteen years later I still remember trying to jump over those chasms at the end of one episode to avoid the water below while the monsters shoot fireballs at me. And all via the keyboard. Not a single mouse click. Quake was better. Halo is better still. So is Half-Life. But only because of DOOM. And their stories are beside the point.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Most modern, academic artists, the ones who get the grants and the publicity, couldn't draw a real cow if their life depended on it. Let alone a real tree. Their work is junk. This is not. And we need more of this natural art of real human experience.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The worst thing about meteor showers is the best time to see them often is right before dawn. So, unless you can afford to stay up all night, you need to get up early Wednesday to see the Orionids--a stream of debris from Halley's Comet falling through the atmosphere. Where to look? Overhead.

The next-to-worst thing about meteor showers is that the skies are often cloudy. So you go back to bed. Then, the astronomers who predict the next one will be the best in a long time are often wrong. They're predicting the Orionids this year will be the best in a while. Dozens an hour. But, once again, if they're wrong, you can always go back to bed. And, if they're not and the skies are clear, enjoy the show.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Unless, of course, those initials really do stand for the Negro Football League. In which case, the other N-word works for them, I guess. Otherwise...

Posted by Dick Stanley at 05:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

They're an old, disreputable story, from the early days of journalism where publishers competed in cutthroat fashion to the modern where most of the practitioners have certificates from like-minded liberal degree mills. Hence the reporting and commentary of the majority resembles an echo chamber.

The media (and political, let's not forget) effort to lynch Rush Limbaugh because he dared consider investing in an NFL franchise is the latest case in point. One outfit after another snatched up scurrilous racist quotes to hang him with, and even when they were exposed as lies, implied that well, they could be true, and therefore...

Rare reader Veeshir contends it is such behavior that is killing newspapers and reducing the viewership of television operations like CNN and MSNBC. I tend to think it's a business-model problem, but the Limbaugh lynch mob, and the fact that it takes a British newspaper to perform a dispassionate analysis of it is a strong argument for his point of view.

MORE from Instapundit. And this is one nice retraction and apology. Of course libel can be costly.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Science fiction writer Charles Stross ruined his Merchant Princes series for me with its explicit anti-Bush politics, but I agree with him about Star Trek. I liked it when it was new in the 60s, even retained some interest in it in the 80s. Now I see it's as bad as the old Edgar Rice Burroughs' tales of Mars.

That's because, as CS says, ST merely pastes the sci and tech on top of its storyline, whereas good scifi builds the storyline out of plausible sci and tech which informs the story's world. Now if he'd just forgone using his fiction for his personal political propaganda, I'd still be looking forward to his books.

Via Instapundit.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

If you're not quite bold about flying, you may not find a lot of reassurance in Captain Dave's writing. But the reality behind his poetry sure beats sitting in an office chair under a cluster of gas balloons (see below).

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, he made it to 14,783 feet asl and lived to tell about it on a colorful Web page. Actually, that was low. He'd previously been above 17,000 feet asl. But the higher ascent had been in the gondola of a gas balloon. His lower achievement was in an office chair. Sort of like Lawn Chair Larry (aka Danny Deckchair), only, thoughtfully, with portable oxygen and a GPS. And he wasn't drunk. Just, obviously, insane.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Thinking ahead for Airbus aircrews, whose Air India version has way too much time on their hands.

Link via Simply Jews.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 03:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize for Veterinary Medicine goes to Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows [who] are nameless. Makes sense to me, but, then, I am not a dairy farmer. How about it, Diller?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The Rocky Mountain News closed in February, the first large daily to do so in the Internet age. In a lengthy but candid postmortem, John Temple, editor and publisher in the paper's last eleven years, wields the scalpel. Quite fairly, for one who shares the blame:

"We didn't understand the Web...Our online objectives kept changing...The Web was an afterthought all along....There's still too much of a sense of entitlement in the industry." Audio and transcript here. Temple also has a blog.

Neither television or radio killed newspapers, though both give the news away free. So that bugaboo should be put to rest. But the Web is primarily text, which competes directly, and also can be accessed at any hour, as well as old or new teevee and radio newsclips. Thus. Still, it's management's appalling lack of imagination to find ways to compete with Craigslist, et al, that has hurt the most.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 04:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

The Roman Polanski travesty reminds me of the Fatty Arbuckle scandal of 1920s Hollyweird. But Fatty's alleged rape victim, who died, wasn't thirteen and, at trial, he was acquitted. And the industry and its journalist sycophants didn't line up to excuse him (indeed he was convicted by the media and blackballed by the studios) like they're doing for Polanski, the child rapist. Who was not only convicted, but then fled the country rather than serve his time. Of course American society has changed. But that much?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 04:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Of course they continue. But I expect her support among voters, particular those in the heartland, will only grow. Who, after all, put the "death plan" dagger in Barry's socialized medicine? This sort of misogyny, reported by the WaPo's Howard Kurtz, already is becoming irrelevant:

"At the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Managing Editor Rod Boyce writes:

'I must apologize to Mrs. Palin personally and on behalf of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner for the choice of words used on the bottom of Wednesday's front page regarding her speaking engagement in Hong Kong this week to a group of global investors.

'We used offensive language -- 'A broad in Asia' -- above a small photograph of the former governor to direct readers inside the newspaper to a full story of her Hong Kong appearance.

'There can be no argument that our use of the word 'broad' is anything but offensive. To use this word to describe someone of the stature of the former governor -- who is also the former vice presidential nominee of the Republican Party -- only adds to the anger that many people appropriately feel.'

"How on earth did that get in the paper?"

Come now, Howard. You know how it got in. When newsrooms commonly mock Mrs. Palin, day in and day out, such headlines are considered cute. Everyone grins-- even the feminists who should know better--and they let it slide. It's symptomatic of the institution's decline.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"It will be fun reading the New York Times tomorrow morning as it tries to explain another controversy that it failed to report."

                    --Don Surber on Glenn Beck, a sort of serial Matt Drudge, "the guy who ran the gift shop at CBS [and later] made Monica Lewinsky a household name."

Via Instapundit.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As long as we're on a musical kick, let's not leave off with poking fun at the Rooskies below. For sheer unlistenability, you can't beat Edinburgh's musical train wreck. Try to pick out a group of similar instruments in the overall noise. Go ahead, just try.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

China's experience with the unintended consequence of their one-family, one-child edict is quite amusing. We've struggled with some of that with Mr. B., of course, as probably any parent of an only child can attest. I took to calling him "your lordship" when he was a Terrible Two. But he's improved.

Via the Seablogger.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

One of these days, I'm going to get through to the link on this Instapundit item:

A GOVERNMENT THAT FEARS ITS PEOPLE: SONIC WEAPONS USED IN IRAQ POSITIONED AT CONGRESSIONAL TOWNHALL MEETINGS IN SAN DIEGO COUNTY.

But, so far, I can't.

UPDATE:  I finally got it to work. Now I'm not so sure I should have linked to it. The headline is correct. But there doesn't seem to have been any intent to harm.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Oh boo-hoo. The hypocritical political dynasty will not continue, apparently. Whew. That was close. We almost got RFK's son, whose good works include taking more than half a million dollars in salary as president of something called Citizens Energy Corp. It buys fuel oil from Venezuela to give to Boston's poor. Isn't that precious. Another publically "progressive" Kennedy privately raking it in, Enron-style. One CEO taking high pay that Obamalot isn't interested in demeaning or investigating. Course not.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Before it was in North Dakota. Now it's deep under the Gulf of Mexico. Whether we need it or not is one thing. (Although it would be good not to be so dependent on dictators and absolute monarchs for it.) But the idea that we're running out of it is pure baloney.

Via The Seablogger.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

The title phrase is an old Austin expression, which I lightheartedly used the other day for the first time in years. It was the slogan of Oat Willie, Austin artist Gilbert Shelton's comic book character. The Oatman was often seen in his underwear, astraddle a wheeled trash receptacle holding aloft a blazing torch.

Later Oat Willie's became the name of a local head shop. By which some understandably assume the fog was a cloud of happy weed. But I suspect that since the expression has been known to be used in the drug law-enforcing Texas Legislature, what is meant is that the future is foggy under most conditions.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Thirty years ago this fall, the first daily newspaper I worked for went under. It was a PM and they were dying everywhere then, apparently unable to compete with television news. Or so it was said at the time, though this was in the days before cable and the rise of local teevee news.

You might say the old Huntington (WVA) Advertiser (which hit the streets in 1874) was a trend setter, in the vanguard of today's newspaper debacle, in which AMs are collapsing like the PMs of old. Blamed, now, on the Internet. Maybe.

Anyhow, the folks who were in at the end of the old paper are having a reunion in October in the city (famous for its Swinefest--Think Pig) that has grown with a stylish new bridge among other things. My at-home dad schedule will prevent me from attending, but I'll link their good reunion web site here for anyone interested. And wish them well. The how-it-all-began. More or less.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

One of Mr. B.'s best buddies is back from his annual family trip to see the in-laws his grandparents in India. So we'll thank the Hindu remover of obstacles and hope we can have a little bit of that rub off on us.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have ignored the wall-to-wall media coverage of the death, the Valentine (and airbrushing) analysis and the funeral. It was easy to do because I rarely watch television or read newspapers anyhow. But when I heard that the ol' fraud would be buried in Arlington, well...

I know, as many people do not seem to, that Arlington National Cemetery is full of military paper-pushers who never spent two seconds in combat. It is not just heroic ground, despite the heroes who are buried there. But, really, now, Ted never served in the military, and he had zero to do with the assassinations of his brothers. (We can hope.) He doesn't deserve to be there just because he was part of one of the most ambitious, political and publicity-hungry families in American history. Bah.

UPDATE: I'm wrong. He served as a private in the Army, from 1951-53, after he was expelled from Harvard. But, according to this report, his daddy made sure he never had to fight in Korea.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 04:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

No luck finding a YouTube of Duke's band charting HAS, but this cover outfit has the talent and spirit.

UPDATE:  Good quote here, which I will lift:

"And take my Harlem Air Shaft. So much goes on in a Harlem air shaft. You get the full essence of Harlem in an air shaft. You hear fights, you smell dinner, you hear the radio. An air shaft is one great big loudspeaker. You see your neighbor's laundry. You hear the janitor's dogs. The man upstairs' aerial falls down and breaks your window. You smell coffee. A wonderful thing, that smell. An air shaft has got every contrast. One guy is cooking dried fish and rice, and another guy's got a great big turkey. Guy-with-fish's wife is a terrific cooker, but the guy's wife with the turkey is doing a sad job. You hear people praying, fighting, snoring...I tried to put that in Air Shaft...." Duke Ellington, quoted by Dr. Ron Pen of the University of Kentucky.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Winnie the Pooh is now banned in Russia. Winnie the Pooh with a swastika, that is. Huh? The lunatic Musselmen already were giving Pooh and Piglet a hard time.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

There is life after journalism. Especially for the deep of pocket.

Ellie, consumer columnist for the daily many years ago who is now retired in San Antonio, apparently has endowed an academic chair: The Ellie Rucker Clinical Psychology Professor in Psychotherapy Training. Way to go, Ellie!

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"The bad news is that North Korea can hit the U.S. with nukes. The good news is that they can only hit San Francisco and Seattle."

Via Premier Betty.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

He had one this morning, at the Dell Children's Hospital, in search of something that might, or might not, be wrong. They put him under anesthetic so he could hold still inside the hole of the big donut for thirty minutes to an hour. He came out of it okay, just groggy and dehydrated. They gave him a popsicle and let him sleep a while. At home he lay on the couch and watched cartoons all afternoon.

The worst part, for us, was waiting in the outpatient-surgery waiting room. There were several other couples, presumably waiting out something more serious than an MRI. One couple I remember especially. The woman looked stunned. The man looked angry, which I took to be anger at fate. Another man was crying. He had his head down by his knees, trying to hide the fact. The woman was stroking his back. Tough morning. Tougher for them. We got off easy. This time.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

What lengths some people will go to revile a mere confection. Me, I still prefer Twinkies. There's no indigestion quite like the one they perpetrate.

But anything has to be better than these Japanese candy drops that taste like, wait for it, hamburger.

Via Dustbury.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I habitually avoid enterprises that charge for water, as all cruise ships do. In fact, having heard the expression "cruise ship prices" this doesn't really surprise. Sounds awful. Especially the lack of soda pop machines. How declasse can you get?

Via Simply Jews.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My self-published book of short stories, available for free in pdf in the upper part of the sidebar on the blog's main page, or for a mere eleven bucks in paperbook at the link above it, has a new fan. Lucky for me, he even posted an appreciation on his own blog. Thank you.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The helicopter that was to hoist the one kilometer cable "beanstalk" for the entrant "crawlers" to climb has proved unable to hold the thing taut. So the games that were to have started today at Edwards AFB in California have been delayed "at least" a month. Pity. But it was an ambitious plan. It ain't rocket science. It might be harder.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the, "If it ain't broke, government will fix it until it is" department:

Congress has banned "distributing children's books printed before 1985."

Why? Because the ink might contain lead. Are our pols brilliant? They probably only watch TV anyhow.

Via Instapundit.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The last time I bought a new headphone for the Skype system, the salesman at Radio Shack claimed most people his age (i.e. in their 20s) used Skype instead of landlines. If so, they must make up a good part of the intertubes phone service's 450 million customers who will be calling the old landline company if a lawsuit comes out the way Swedish company Joltid wants it. It would be a pity, for sure.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The French research vessel, the Pourquoi Pas? (the Why Not?) is still searching for AF 447 and its black boxes, an effort due to end in mid-August. Now Airbus is offering to pay for another search after that.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Amazing, crazy amazing, Brit bicycle stunts. Fun to watch and imagine. But, uh, do? Uh uh. Not me. My thighs could never take it. Not to mention the rest of me. (Makes sense, too, that you would need a special machine to withstand all the punishment.)

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Best use for old tires. Besides selling them. Most of us don't have this much talent. But for them as does: get. it. on.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Not Francis, from whence this comes. But these folks. Life for them must be awfully grim.

Via Dustbury.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pure eye candy for those who like to watch Mirage fighter jocks spar and do victory rolls. Taken from a bad French movie, they say, called Les Chevaliers du Cie (or Knights of the Air) but the aerial is worth watching. And, if you can't get enuff, there's the Swiss Air Force version set to music. Tally Ho!

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Just a really fun video clip that's gone mega-viral. View count, sez Hot Air, already up to five million. G-d bless the innertubes. No NYC/LA gatekeepers to spoil the fun.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The first launch of SpaceX's heavy lift vehicle, Falcon 9, may be delayed until fall, but its Falcon 1's orbiting of a Malaysian sat ten days ago was a plus. Fun to have their Merlin engine test facilities just up the road in McGregor, southwest of Waco.

Might not be if they were rattling our windows, but they don't do tests very often. Since their founder Elon Musk is the co-founder of PayPal, I hope my use of that service helps SpaceX, too. Falcon 9 was designed from the start to fly a four-man crew and service the International Space Station once the shuttles are retired.

Good luck, guys. It might not be in your plans but I hope you can beat the Indians and Chinese to the moon.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Ever wonder what the household elixir's name stood for? “...water displacement, formulation successful in 40th attempt.” I find it usually removes gum from hair on the first attempt, not to mention crayons from wood floors and freeing stuck sliding glass doors.

Via Althouse.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Not exactly, but close. Mr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., that is. The big shot who decides to argue with a cop and try to pull rank on him. Then, when he's arrested for disorderly conduct, he cries racism. Figures.

What else is new? Barry, our alleged post-racial president, admitting he doesn't know the facts, but immediately siding with Gates. Whoa. The only person looking good here, so far, is the cop. Until his bosses dropped the charges, making Gates look justified. It all would be silly if it wasn't so sad.

UPDATE:  The cop's police report with addendum by a second officer who also heard Gates.

AND: VDH-- "There were no winners in this comic tragedy — but one clear loser: last night, the president of the United States."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the "It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time Department." A chain of nuclear lighthouses to guide ships through the dark polar night along the Soviet Empire's northern coast. Wonder what is taking their place.

Via Cobb.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I think this is howlingly funny. Your mileage may vary.

Via Simply Jews.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How bad is our drought? This bad. But I feel sure there'll be major flooding by late fall.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 03:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've discovered that you have to log in twice to get through the Typepad comment system here before it will recognize you. The first time it rejects you. Persist. You will get in on the second try. I have no idea why this is so. I considered moving the blog to Wordpress with Scott Chaffin's help, but decided I had better things to do than fiddle with a whole new system.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nevermind the ease of reading and the low cost of electronic publishing. Amazon reserves the legal right to reach out across the airwaves and remotely delete books from your Kindle wherever you are. Might not be long before the government is examining your reading habits and deleting what it doesn't like.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

...and begging to go higher and faster." Captain Dave, somewhere over the Heartland of the Empire, does it again. Poetically.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Via Dust My Broom and Simply Jews.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So they say, and the offer looks legit. Not for me, though. I've already got mine.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (760)

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1035)

It's the dancer Michael Jackson that I remember. That was years ago, before the plastic surgery and the scandals. He did and still reminds me of Jimmy Cagney, not because I'm old enough to have seen Cagney in person or his movies upon their release. I saw these two (in three clips) on television when I was a kid in the 1950s and the boob tube played lots of old black-n-white movies. What a dancer Cagney was.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Though, not necessarily, with a Hello Kitty logo. Oh, too bad. Watch yourself out there.

Via Dustbury.

On the other hand, there is a Hello Kitty AR 15. And, of course, it also comes in pink.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

"She's like the ex-girlfriend they're SO over, never want to see again, have already forgotten about -- really, it's O-ver -- but they just can't stop talking about her."

                                                                                    --Ann Coulter.

Or filing frivolous ethics complaints, after first issuing a press release about them. But of course.

UPDATE:  Willie Brown's take: Sarah Palin, political genius.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Belated, of course. About sixty-six years belated, but who's counting? I'm still waiting for some smart cookie to figure out how to transmit electricity wirelessly. Nikola ran out of money with it, alas. So far, we haven't even figured out how to store electricity. Problems, problems. Come back Nikola, all is forgiven.

Via Simply Jews.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I got wrist pain playing Doom and its successor Quake years ago. Later, it came back with Halo 1 (whose space music I still listen to incessantly). So, each time, I used a little wrist brace and wore it until the pain went away. Fortunately, it was nothing like this.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We mock the French and their military losses. But only they have the guts to ban the burqa. Not that I expect our affirmative action president to have the nerve to sack the head-to-toe shroud, but still...

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

From her FaceBook account today regarding her announcement Friday that she will be resigning:

"The response in the main stream media has been most predictable, ironic, and as always, detached from the lives of ordinary Americans who are sick of the 'politics of personal destruction.' How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it’s about country."

Heh.

UPDATE:  I laugh at all the "wise ones" who contend that her political career is over, etc. My bet is: She's going to become the campaigner who makes it possible for the Republicans to win back one or both houses of Congress, then use that IOU to take the nomination in 2012.  

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm still hopeful. Her resignation eliminates any claims of conflict-of-interest between running for the 2012 nomination and her job as Alaska's governor. The Left will continue to hate and mock her, as this low blow demonstrates. So what's new about their lack of taste? The Right will continue to love her, especially us commoners. The Independents, as always, will get to decide.

UPDATE:  The Puffington Host pulled the mockery at the second link, which was, once again, about Sarah's retarded son. But Michele Malkin captured the page for, uh, "posterity."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So this view from the 103rd floor of the Sears Tower makes my palms tingle and my toes curl. Ouch.

Via Drudge.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

One of the five following keyword phrases likely brought you here, according to search analytics at compete dot com:

* Texas fry pans

* Pictures of thunderheads

* Rabbit coloring sheets

* Love is a wild assault

* Dr. Perper's head

Well, I can vouch for the popularity of the last two, which, indeed, correspond to onetime posts. I also recall a picture of a thunderhead from space. But fry pans? Rabbit coloring sheets? Ahem. No, I think not.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Is this just an unlucky break for the French aircraft manufacturer? Two ocean crashes in the same month. Is it the weather, again? Or is something else afoot?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Captain Dave uses his weather radar to thread his A321 through a Southern thunderstorm:

"Before we picked our way through this line-up of Thor's children, the co-pilot told the lead flight attendant to batten down the hatches. I woke the passengers up, using my best imitation of the mythological captain's voice, and told them to take their seats and strap in tight. After I put the PA handset back in it's cradle, I remark to the co-pilot, 'The passengers are probably freaking out back there because of AF447.'"

Good writing. Good read.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

"Since June 12, Austin-Travis County EMS paramedics have responded to 37 heat emergencies. Included in the elevated response data for heat emergencies [were] construction workers, patients with pre-existing conditions including pregnancy, also several very young patients."

Meanwhile, the forecast is for more of the same through the July 4 weekend. And probably thereafter.

UPDATE:  Thursday's highs at Camp Mabry and the airport were records: 106 at Mabry, 107 at ABIA. The LCRA's Bob Rose says those were the second hottest June days in recorded Austin history, which I might add only goes back to the 1840s or so.

The warmists will say this is Global Warming. That's what  they say when it's freezing, too. And, probably, when there's a big sale on at Fry's. Nevertheless, with the ground thoroughly heated after weeks of this, we can expect plenty more records ahead.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Seventeen is the official number killed in the Iranian election protests, but one hundred fifty is closer to the truth, according to some witnesses on the ground. After today's "massacre," both totals are bound to go higher. The whole thing now looks like a repeat of Tiananmen Square.

UPDATE:  So it seems. June 24. Remember the date. Although the open chest wound photo at the second link is (as stated) older--from June 20.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

From what I've read so far, she was more of a bystander to the Iranian election protest than an active participant. But it's probable that her Bassij assassin singled her out because she was a woman living in a misogynistic dictatorship. There's no doubt that Neda Agha-Soltan is a martyr now--though it may be only to a failed revolution.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Heh.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Zahra Rahnavard, Mousavi's wife, has drawn Iranian women into the streets with her demands for their equal rights.

"I am not Iran's Michelle Obama. I am Zahra, the follower of Fatimah Zahra [the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad]. I respect all women who are active."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If such it be. We can only hope. Instapundit's flag is green. Popular Science mag has links to following it all in near-real time, mostly via Twitter (you'll need a free registration) and Facebook (likewise) and others.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

While the crazed shooter, as usual, gets the news, the dead security guard plays second fiddle. Pity. Stephen Tyrone Johns, 39, was a brave man, obviously, and well worth remembering.

Via Simply Jews.

UPDATE:  The American Jewish Committee has set up a fund to raise money for his family, which includes a new child.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This photoshopped image, by a commenter on this pilot's forum, shows where the jet's recovered vertical stabilizer apparently tore off--though whether in mid-air or on impact with the ocean is unknown. Meanwhile, previous notions of a superbolt of lightning frying the plane's electronics apparently have been quashed by this updated meteorological analysis:

"* Lightning -- Though in earlier versions of this study I had identified lightning as occurring in this mesoscale convective system, recent evidence from spaceborne and sferic sensors is pointing to the possibility that this system contained no lightning. Soundings do indicate moderate levels of instability, but there are indications in the literature that cumulonimbus clouds in oceanic equatorial regions entrain considerable quantities of drier, cooler air that dampen upward vertical motion in the lower portions of the storm, and in some way this reduces charge separation. In any case it does look fairly likely that we can rule out a lightning strike as being a factor in the A330 crash."

Indicating that turbulence within the storm apparently was the cause of the breakup at altitude unless there was some other factor which only analysis of the debris and/or the voice and data recordings could show.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I keep thinking back to the scenes of four pilots on separate flight decks unknowingly converging over the Amazon jungle. The Brazilian 737 pilots are sharing family photographs and flirting with a flight attendant. The American pilots in the Legacy biz jet are puzzling over how to operate a digital camera.

Both groups are at Flight Level 370 (37,000 feet) in normal mode: eyes inside the boat, letting their autopilots, transponders and collision-avoidance gear do the work while assuming that Air Traffic Control has things well in hand. But the Legacy's transponder was on the blink and the controllers were asleep at the switch. Heckuva tale about what happened, here by journalist William Langewiesche.

His father's classic, Stick and Rudder, led me to try flying back in 1974 in a Cessna 150 over South Florida. I was defeated practicing stalls above Boca Raton. Could not get the feel of falling out of my stomach or the picture of disaster out of my head. And it was too expensive. I stuck to scuba diving.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Fifty percent composite airframe (read plastic) and its first fly-by-wire is Boeing's new airliner aborning. If, as some speculate, Air France 447 crashed into the Atlantic May 31 because of lightning-induced electrical problems with its computers, Boeing's robotic Dreamliner could turn into its Nightmare--and ours. But, then, with half the airline market already invested in fly-by-wire Airbus, well... There'll be plenty of pain to go around.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

The Saturn was as close as I ever got to buying a GM product. Thank goodness I didn't:

"...why Saturn flopped: The company had built a popular brand as a sort of feel-good anti-car--vaguely tractor-like, noisy, but made of semi-indestructible plastic by dedicated Tennessee workers and--unique in nearly all of GM--actually reliable. GM threw all this away and filled Saturn showrooms with cars designed to appeal to totally different buyers: rebadged mainstream Opels. They were OK, but creepily overstyled and not so reliable. End of explanation."

I drove a Ford pickup and a Jeep Cherokee, but otherwise have stuck to Volkswagens and Hondas. Whew.

Via Instapundit.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was willing to hear out the warmists on their Chicken Little bit until the Dictator's Club weighed into it. I mean, come on, this is the outfit whose human rights council is run by tyrants who spend its time condemning Israel, while its Muslim members oppress women, gays, Christians, Jews, etc.

Now comes that paragon of corruption, Kofi Annan, issuing a phony little warmist addendum that draws a sneer from an expert that it is "a poster child for how to lie with statistics...worse than fiction." Isn't it about time somebody figured out what's going on here? It ain't science, that's for sure.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 04:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Back in the day, Air Force pilots used to joke about "Air Chance." Some civilians still mutter darkly about the fly-by-wire, automated Airbus, although this apparently is its first major crash with passengers. For now the proposed explanation for the disappearance of Flight 447 over the mid-Atlantic, is severe turbulence, a possible lightning strike and hail damage.

Yet airliners are designed and pilots are trained to handle weather. It's tempting, in this day of terrorism, to assume it was a bomb. Reports of simultaneous electrical failure and loss of cabin pressure suggest something like that. But they'll have to find the wreckage, and hopefully the black (actually orange) flight data and voice recorders before we will ever know the cause for certain. If then.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Henry Ford used to say you could have any color car you wanted as long as it was black. Now, course, you can have just about any color, but they all nag you to fasten your seat belt, close open doors, change the oil, etc. And the Japanese cupholders are better placed than Detroit's. P.J. O'Rourke sums up why Detroit may not come back this time. Done in by the arrogance of government, labor unions and their own executive sloth. Once, they would have been missed. Now, maybe not. The romance of the automobile died too long ago. It's just another appliance now.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

"The police of a state should never be stronger or better armed than the citizenry. An armed citizenry, willing to fight, is the foundation of civil freedom."

                                              --Robert A. Heinlein, in Beyond This Horizon

All I would add is that the best way to maintain civil freedom is to permit licensed, open carry of firearms.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

It's about time young men stopped being wimps and starting speaking up for themselves in the overly-feminized world of "higher" education. Mr. B. already has his struggles with girls who know full well they are the favored ones these days. And he's only in third grade.

Via Instapundit.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fun to watch the freighters make their way through the Miraflores Locks of the engineering marvel.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Consider St. Croix, where his daughter Bree got hitched, as described by my former editor Ed Crowell.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"When I think of the people with serious physical or mental handicaps who nevertheless work, I find it hard to sympathize with able-bodied men who stand on the streets and beg. Nor can I sympathize with those who give them money that subsidizes a parasitic lifestyle which allows such men to be a constant nuisance, or even a danger, to others."

Thomas Sowell's Random Thoughts.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Except this is not a scene from the 1987 Wim Wenders' movie (an old favorite of mine), but angel statues overlooking the rooftops of St. Petersburg, Russia, in a collection of extraordinary photos of the city.

Via The 8th Circle.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"...there's no telling how many motorists across the nation have had to pay for fuel pumps, or fuel systems, that ethanol damaged. Most were probably unaware of the real culprit behind the breakdown, because virtually no repair shop tests the level of ethanol in the gasoline when these fuel system problems occur."

Not even Lexus drivers are immune. Big Corn's also worse than Big Oil when it comes to pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere--and guess who's known that all along? Why Big Agriculture and Big Government, of course.

Via Slashdot.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

If the Air Force isn't telling the truth and the GPS system does go down, it would mean chaos for the aviation industry. Me, I could always go back to map and compass. I taught both as a counselor in Boy Scouts many moons ago. But I'll keep my fingers crossed that the sat system isn't really in jeopardy.

Cause we like our TomTom. We use the Jane voice, which is British. You have to remember to update the memory every so often. But even when the route she suggests is more circuitous than we like, she picks up on where we're going and adjusts her guidance. Lots easier than when Mrs. Charm navigates.

Via The Fat Guy.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The waterboarding-as-torture meme and subsequent political "debate" is piffle. Real torture is mutilation: burning, cutting, breaking. Practiced by all races and all cultures for all of history.

Start with the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet: burn them until the nerves die. Cut genitals. Break bones. The Comanches liked to remove eyelids and stake the victim facing the rising sun. Waterboarding, or simulated drowning, is frightening, I'm sure. But real torture means permanent damage.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's always hard to tell with the Hill Country Fruit Council's guide to finding peaches, whether the "closed for season" remarks for some growers are for this year or refer to last year and just haven't been updated yet. But the April 7 freeze appears to have zapped more than a few of them, including the Marburger Orchard in Fredericksburg. They say "No Peaches" straight out on their site. So I expect we will see a slimmer supply at the H.E.B. than usual this year. Alas.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My year and my color of Karmann Ghia, though mine had a tan convertible top. First it was stove in on the passenger side by a distracted retiree in Palm Beach, FL, then the same door was rammed once more by a youngish driver in Austin. In between, the car hauled a trailer loaded with, mainly, books across the Alleghaney Mountains with the truckers (on the CB) making bets on when the engine would explode. It didn't, which gives the lie to the second (ad) video at the second link above. But, add to all that a crumpled nose from the bumper of a backing-up pickup, and I finally got rid of it in 1980. Miss it yet.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Even if you don't believe the globe is warming, painting roofs and roads white, or some other light color, would sure cut air-conditioning bills and go far in eliminating the heat-island effect. Not that I want the rancho's roof white. But I don't have to worry. Simple solutions never appeal to big government. They don't produce new jobs for the bureaucracy or more tax money for pet projects. Still... Painting roofs and roads white. What a concept.

Via Instapundit.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I've seen more than one photojournalist rearrange a fire or flood scene to make his photo more poignant. So I had to chuckle when I saw this accusation. In my experience, teddy bears are, by far, the preferrence, but a doll will do. Helps, though, to choose one that's a bit more charred than this, possibly, throw-down one from some clicker's car trunk.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Politics and crime have always been the mainstays of American newspaper journalism. The latter is easy to report on since (even if the cops refuse to cooperate) the relevant documents generally are considered public information, and the former fulfills the newspaper's alleged role of watchdog--although the ink pols generate isn't very often of the watchdog variety. So it's no surprise that congressmen like Kerry want to save the industry from itself. I mean get this:

"Lawmakers are witnessing the crisis firsthand. Press watchdogs who once prowled Capitol Hill are disappearing, replaced by special-interest publications and foreign news organizations."

If they were really watchdogs, i.e. thorns in the politicians' sides, why would the lawmakers care about losing them? In any case, not even newspaper executives think public financing will stave off bankruptcy for long. Nationalizing them, like some talk of doing for the big, insolvent banks? That might only accelerate their demise, since their role as government mouthpiece would be obvious.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Seablogger makes a good point about the liberal media, which explains why FoxNews, the news that liberals and their running buddies in Big Media love to hate, has outstripped CNN and MSNBC combined in viewership: it is not boring. CNN, et al, have the same predictable la-de-da day after day. Comforting to the convinced, I suppose, but not very interesting to anybody else.

I've opined before that this could be one of the biggest problems newspapers have today: they are so predictable. Not only do they all look the same, having the same layouts, the same focus, etc., but they have the same NYTimes and WaPo stories on their front pages. We also know they're all for diversity, multiculturalism, affirmative action, gun control, abortion, illegal immigration from Mexico, and that they just love Barry and Michelle, and distrust Republicans. So where do those who argue with some or all of that stuff--which is a lot of people, altogether--go? Well, the Internet, for one. And FoxNews, for another.

I kind of like it when CNN, et al, attack FoxNews for whatever. That is the way American journalism used to be. Newspapers not only tried to outdo each other, they attacked each other. And made $$$. But that was before credential creep, where every journalist now needs a degree from similar liberal journalism schools to get a Big Media job. Pity them not their decline. They fouled their own nests.

UPDATE:  A perfect example of how in-the-tank CNN is for Barry: You could compare W to Hitler and they'd never bat an eye. Do it to Barry and you get a microphone stuck in your face.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's about time the porkers who take up more than one seat on an airliner, finally had to pay for their indulgence in sugary foods. Good on ya, United Airlines. I hope you survive the inevitable litigation from the irresponsible obese, including the ones who will claim that they can't do a thing about it.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The liberal daily did a fair job of reporting the local conservative-libertarian rally against anticipated higher federal taxes, the pork-barrel "stimulus," and other "change," which tied up downtown rush hour traffic, drawing people (according to the selected quotes) who had never marched before.

There were none of the overhead crowd photos reported in the conservative blogosphere, however--including the estimated more than ten thousand marchers in San Antonio and St. Louis--which readily show crowd size. Instead, there was an enigmatic quote from the state police that they wouldn't estimate the size of the Austin crowd "for safety reasons." Huh? Interesting as it all is, I'm still not convinced that it will amount to much in the long run.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Mr. B.'s grandma, a rare reader who joined us at the rancho for Easter weekend, asked me if I was reading the book "everyone is reading" (meaning conservatives like us) i.e. Mark Levin's Liberty And Tyranny. I haven't yet, and probably won't, until and unless I see that it is actually changing anything. Which I doubt it could.

I've read too many similar political polemics already. In this case I have to think it's like that science book of physicist Stephen Hawking's, A Brief History of Time. Millions of people climbed on its bangwagon to get a copy, but how many actually read it, or understood it? Much less did anything about it? Different horses, of course, and maybe the Tea Party movement will elevate Levin's work to practice. The TP has lately become a Left Wing media target of ridicule, which is a start of sorts.

Via Instapundit.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mailed our income taxes this morning, a day early for a change. Surprised only at the almost seven thousand dollars we still owed after all the takeouts over 2008. Not surprised at how ridiculously difficult it is to fill out the Form 1040 and attachments. Stuff like, "see page A-14 if your step-mother is a red-haired, gray-eyed Puerto Rican born on Dec. 25, but only except in a Leap Year, in which case you must see page B-23 and subtract $11.98 from the total on Line 66." The pols perennially promise they're going to simplify this malarky, but they never seem to get around to it. Maybe it's because they don't have to low-crawl their way through this muck every April the way the rest of us do.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This is old, but it's the first I've seen it. The best I could do was "cabin manager." Try your luck at dodging birds or landing on the Hudson River. There's another one, which is a lot harder, here. I crashed, repeatly.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I knew some newspaper executives would figure out a way to make money on the Web. I just didn't stretch my imagination as far as the Houston Chronicle did. Of course, the money is yet to be made and some readers already think it is just tacky.

Via The Brazosport News.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Birkat Hachamah - Blessing G-d for the sun every twenty-eight years. A thank you for something we couldn't live without.

Via Lone Star Times.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

For some reason they think they can put stuff on YouTube but then ban even one of their paid subscribers from linking or embedding it. Rotsa ruck, dumbos. I knew most of the print dinosaurs didn't understand the Web. They're still in denial. But I didn't think they were this schtoopid.

Via Instapundit.

UPDATE:  Must have finally checked with their lawyers. AP apologizes to the subscriber.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Secular Big Media likes to use Easter week for its anti-religion broadsides. Thus Newsweak is out proclaiming Christian America's "decline and fall."  The Wall Street Journal shows how the dying news weakly's reading of the latest stats is, uh, weak. Heck, even the godless commies are getting religion:

"There are probably close to 100 million Christians in China, most of them following a very individualistic American-style faith. Already more people attend church each Sunday than are members of the Communist Party."

Heh.

Via the Seablogger. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 03:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Or, rather, among Alaskans who live near Mt. Redoubt, the volcano that's erupted nineteen times since March 22. It's coated the countryside nearby in something very like moondust: "gritty, abrasive, electrostatically-charged," according to NASA, "giving Alaskans an unexpected taste of what it's like to live on the Moon."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 04:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is just sick. However you cut it. I can't imagine any American police doing it under any circumstances. Anywhere. Ever. Tar and feathers, as Instapundit suggests, is too good for them.

Via Althouse.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm using this as my avatar for Twitter. I forget where I got it. Their 1932 classic, and Oscar winner, The Music Box, is my favorite. Though Flying Deuces ain't bad, either.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Or, maybe, I should say, strange search engine results that bring the uncounted millions here.

Mercenary fighter in jeans. Why would these words lead to a picture of George Washington? Beats me.

How to make Texas Alamo out of paper. Hmm. Well, this is somewhat closer to what I had.

Mysterious rocks of the batholic. Now we're getting closer to the truth. So-called.

Do people drown in Canyon Lake? Uh, don't they drown everywhere?

Saloon northern Ontario. No, but you might be able to see it from here.

Saudi road sky eye. I qualified for two of the four. Not too shabby.

Importance of the flag raising in Iowa Jima. This was my fault, sending Iowa to the Pacific. Still.

Comic man falling from sky. I suppose it is comic, if you're in Hamas or Hezbollah.

Jack by the great horn spoon. Very curious, indeed.

The lovely Roberta Vasquez. This is a standing joke here and there by shameless traffic seekers.

I could go on forever. But that's more than enough for now.

Inspiration by Dustbury, who remembers to do it a lot more often than me.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Continuing my fascination with the B-29 Stratofortress Superfortress begun here, here, and here. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Gad, how I wish our politicians had the sense to end this Daylight Savings Time fiasco. We're getting up in the dark now to get Mr. B. off to school, in exchange for the illusion that he has more time to play outside in the evening. Spring ahead. The reality of that awful phrase leaves you staggering for a week. And for what? To save utility bills? Ha.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This is the most hopeful sign I've seen in many years. I knew there were honest cops out there.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

More on the B-29s, from Phil Crowther's 6th Bomb Group memorial site. This is from the log of navigator Don Kearney:

"Briefed at 1430 [2:30PM]. Took off at 1732 [5:32PM]. It got dark when we were out just a little ways. The APN-4 Loran inverter was out. Trouble, always trouble. However, the radar did work, although it wasn’t operating on beacon.

"As we passed Iwo, hit some rough weather just north of it. We flew close to the Jap islands going on up to the Empire so that we could check course with radar. We passed within visual distance of Hachijo Jima.

"Heard Birddog 1, a destroyer, talk to 4V705, a superdumbo, about lights.

"We made landfall on the Empire at Omaesaki at 2355 [11:55PM], turned up past the east side of Fuji again. It was easily visible outside the window. Same way we started in the night before last. Way out front Charlie [Lt. Charles Hall, Bombardier] saw a bright red light going down. At first he thought it was a ball of fire but later decided it must have been a B-29.

"As we rolled out of the turn we hit our first opposition, still 15 to 20 miles west of Tokyo...Within a minute we were in it thick. About 15 searchlights picked us up and they began throwing stuff at us. A plane out to our left had 20 lights on him and was catching hell. Still in the lights, we plowed on. We never had less than about 15 searchlights on us at any one time from then on. We flew though the remainder of the target area in a bright cone of lights..."

Read the rest.  Go to the main page at the link, click on Air Crews in the left sidebar, then scroll down to crew #3909, Reamatroid, click on the number, then scroll down and start at the beginning of the log.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An interesting site worth a visit. A reminder that not even Muslims are a monolithic group, despite the stereotype. Still, it's worth keeping in mind that the threat is real. And the war ain't over--not by a long chalk.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Just think, nine more years and I won't have to get up early... Meanwhile, he opened his first present: a new batting helmet for his spring season with the Grasshoppers. Maybe it can break his hitting slump. More tonight when Mrs. Charm makes cowboy hamburgers, etc.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

PBS's favorite sanctimonious liberal commentator Bill Moyers wasn't just involved in the wiretapping of MLK. He also investigated the sexual preferences of Sen. Barry Goldwater's aides. Where will Bad Bill II strike next?

Via Ace of Spades.

UPDATE:  J. Edgar Moyers is an even better name for him. Love to see the Fairness Doctrine applied to him.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

When she started chewing on Sarah last fall, along with the rest of the worthless snooze media, I finally realized that Peggy Noonan wasn't the far-seeing iconoclast I had thought. Now, as the Seablogger suggests, when she can encounter a continent-spanning technology like wi-fi on a jet flight and somehow equate it to garage-level industry, it shows she's just another empty head with a deadline and no original (much less logical) thought.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Via Treppenwitz. More of these funnies here. Also this one.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Nevertheless, it's interesting that the civil unions allowed to homosexuals are becoming increasingly popular with heterosexuals in France. The reason: you can get out of them without losing property or paying alimony. (These people are childless, obviously.) Thus to the conservative "fear" that gay marriage would undermine traditional marriage. The civil union alternative, at least in France, is already undermining traditional marriage. Me, I still can't get exercised over the gay marriage issue. Even if most of them married and divorced monthly, they'd only match what heterosexuals already are doing.

Via The Seablogger.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Religion of Peace is at it again. It's just changed venues. An old tale told in a new setting. Lucky us.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, this crime has become one more illustration of why American newspapers are dying. They could puff this guy - before he became a murderer in a typically-Muslim fashion - but now they not only can't report what he did on the front page but they try to excuse his method on page twenty-six. Pathetic.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Via House of Eratosthenes.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Speaking of suckers, why should we spend our money to bail out a bankrupt California which has spent decades looking down their oh-so-much-better noses at the rest of us? They have it all. They just can't pay for it.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Personally, I couldn't care less who wins the Super Bowl. But Mr. B., for whom all things sports are important, is rooting for Arizona. So, by all means, fight fiercely Arizona. You probably have the best-looking cheerleaders, anyhow.

UPDATE:  Didn't matter, apparently. Steelers won. Mr. B. forgot to watch, maybe that was it. I didn't care to.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I enjoyed seeing the old Radio Shack PC, and the telephone-receiver modems of the day. But the day being in 1981 (still a few years before the GUI), I'm wondering how they got those front page photos to show up, even if they are only in black-n-white. Much more fun to read now. Still hard to make anywhere near the print version's profit, tho. Which is why, as the print paper craters in 2009, and more papers move to the Web, the staff is being radically reduced.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 05:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It doesn't surprise me that some of the U.S. Airways passengers who got dipped in the freezing Hudson River would want to sue. Not because I'm cynical about our litigious society, or Americans, but because I can imagine how they feel. They were frightfully lucky, so frightfully that they can imagine better than any of us what might have happened but for their good luck. Moreover they lost who knows what in their luggage and the airline's $5,000 compensation surely won't be enough for some. Add in the inevitably-lasting trauma and nightmares which some of them are inherently ill-equipped to handle.

Of course they should thank the skilled pilot and the airline for employing him (and I'm sure they do) but, really, couldn't both have been a bit more careful about taking off into a flock of geese? Even if not, even if it was all an unavoidable accident (and we will know when the official reports are released), there is the unsettling news that one engine on the plane had suffered problems on the previous flight. Moreover, you have to remember that the airlines continuously sell what is an inherently dangerous means of transportation as natural, safe, etc. In that sense, they deserve to be at risk of lawsuit and to draw a few when something like this happens. And, face it, they know it and have plenty of insurance

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Good for her. Sure, it will be an uphill climb, especially when Big Media and assorted others are in the tank for The One. But persistence makes perfect. Or something like that. And, like they say, "hope dies when Barry lies."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 04:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Waiting for deicing at JFK. The view from the cockpit, flight deck, here, on the A320 crash and much else in a unique specialist's blog by another "electric bus" pilot.

MORE: What went right in the ditching. Reminds me I forgot the Airbus was loaded with jet fuel, which means if they had tried to land at an airport and run off the runway, it might have exploded. As it was, the fuel being lighter than water, the fuel helped it stay afloat as long as it did.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Be sure to watch the video of the Canadian soldiers' "embedding" themselves in the beachhead. Be afraid. Be very afraid. When you can stop laughing.

Via Simply Jews.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Of course, the two-engine A320 with 155 people was no glider, but it still could be flown like one. Meanwhile, the non-pilot nitwits at the AP, who used to have more sense than this, already are criticising the guy.

UPDATE:  A security camera video shows the Airbus floated for at least six minutes. Amazing in itself.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This trend to turning English into a foreign language based on misspellings, faulty typing, and computerese is not a good thing, as far as I can tell. Face it, we already have plenty of wouldbe citizens struggling with the old form of the language. Why complicate things for them? Or me?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Her name was McGill and she called herself Lil
But everyone knew her as Nancy..."

Not my Magill, who isn't from "the black mountain hills of Dakota," either. And, as far as I know, never knew Rocky Raccoon. But she does seem to have disappeared in recent years, possibly having to do with some heart surgery she had a few years ago. Where have you gone, Magill? Get in touch, okay?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The daily's good sportswriters, Kirk Bohls, Cedric Golden, Suzanne Halliburton and Alan Trubow are the icing on the cake after a satisfying Texas win. Even when the Longhorns lose, KB, CG, SH, and AT are there to explain why. Around the rancho, they complement the good game announcing/commentary of KVET-FM ("The Genuine Austin Original") and their Longhorn Radio Network. Thanks, guys, we wouldn't enjoy it half as much without you.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More improvements in the shallow end of the gene pool, in the 2008 Darwin Awards. Heh.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mr. Boy certainly got Viacom's message on Time-Warner's threat to remove SpongeBob and some of Mr. B.'s other favorites from TW's cable (our primary local provider). We do appreciate his little lesson in cutthroat capitalism and also the temporary agreement forestalling the Sponge's demise. But he and we wonder why Viacom really needs an extra four dollars per cable customer from TW to keep providing the Sponge and his pals? Must be all that debt Viacom is carrying. But TW has its share.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Instapundit remembers hearing it on Armed Forces Radio as a teenager in Germany. I was twenty-four in 1968 when it was broadcast from the moon. I was duty officer that Christmas Eve night at squadron headquarters of the Sixth Armored Cavalry Regiment at Fort Meade, MD. The duty NCO and I were transfixed.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 03:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I remember the annoying stories in the early oughts about this made-up holiday of multicultural nonsense mainly celebrated by white liberals. Fortunately I never had to write one. Little did I know that the phony-balony ethnocentric (read "black racist") looney-toons was even phonier and balonier than I realized. For instance, Kwanzaa's "seven principals." They just happen to match the names of the seven heads of the Symbionese Liberation Army's symbolic cobra. Luckily, Ann Coulter has finally set me straight. Yes, that Ann Coulter.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 05:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You've got to journey deep into far South Austin, around Congress Avenue and Slaughter Lane, to find it that low. (It's a few pennies higher up here in the Northwest.) But these are prices even Santa would love. Assuming the reindeer run on unleaded. Doesn't everything?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Mrs. Charm, good liberal that she is, faithfully listens to NPR every morning. I stopped years ago. And their recent attempt to rehabilitate belt-and-suspender-man Dan Rather to cover up his anti-Bush election fraud of 2004 is a good reminder why. It still amazes me that we have to pay tax money for NPR's crap-as-news-and-analysis. How much nicer it would be if they were forced to be wholly self-supporting. You know, like Air America on which soon-to-be U.S. Sen. Al Franken couldn't make a living? Heh.

As it happens, I knew Rather's source before his crazy fraud. I had dealt with the guy on a pre-Bush piece he wanted on the Texas National Guard. My editors decided it was bosh, and I had to admit that it was pretty flaky. So it never ran. The guy later tried to get even by libeling me on a Web site that I won't link to. A few years later I heard from other ink-stained wretches that he was playing Dan Rather for a chump. About the same time, Charles Johnson at LGF wonderfully exposed DR's fraud, in the simplest way possible: showing that the source's material was forged. All it has left DR with, four years later, is to keep trying to muddy the waters. Good luck with that. Even with NPR providing him a free, obfuscating tongue-bath.

Via LGF.

MORE: Beldar also had a small but prominent role of his own in exposing the fraud.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Maybe there's not as much difference as some conservatives think. As for the liberals? Who cares.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Stephen King-esque clown Al Franken, possible the most obnoxious Bush-hater of the past eight years (excepting only crockumentary filmmaker Michael Moore) seems to be headed for the U.S. Senate. Bleh.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If I had more email to do, a smart phone would be more enticing. That seems to be the main thing people do with them, besides voice calls, camera snaps, note-taking, and minimal surfing within the confines of a very small screen. The netbook is more appealing to me since it's mainly about web wandering which is what I'd mainly use it for, besides some note taking. Probably could post with it, as well. I'm going to wait until after Christmas to decide, when I expect the pre-holiday sale prices to be even lower.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Joey Hairplugs on the economy: We've got to have Socialism to save Capitalism. Er, or something.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Naturally, nine of them are Detroit-made losers. You know, the companies our tax monies are about to bailout? Although one of the skunks, the Dodge Nitro, might make a passable artillery shell.

Via Instapundit. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm not so sure that Barry's idea to throw money at the nation's sagging infrastructure amounts to no more than one guy digging a hole and another guy filling it in, as some conservatives are suggesting. I see no reason to be that cynical yet.

I agree that it probably won't do much for recovery from the recession. But there undoubtedly is work to be done--see Minnesota's bridge disaster of 2007. Some of what the old CCC did survives today in such as state park facilities in Texas. There are going to be lots of ways to ridicule Barry's presidency, but I don't think this is going to be one of them.

Via Instapundit.

UPDATE:  Well, it turns out I'm a bit naive. Seems to be more about parks and sports centers than pot-holed roads and falling-apart bridges. It really wouldn't be like pols to fix the obvious stuff since at best the only thing they could point to would be a little sign with their name on it. Feh! 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is an obvious photoshop, but it's a useful image when talking about what a dubious idea proliferation of these things will be. For one thing, they can be dangerous to people as well as to  migrating birds. For another, the hundreds of gallons of oil they use for lubrication can spill and contaminate the environment, or even start a forest fire. Even their Dem champions don't want them marring the view in their neighborhood. But the worst thing about them, in addition to their noise, is that they are so darned inefficient. They will never replace oil and gas, not to mention coal.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since a continuation of the culture war (anti-gay marriage, etc.) has been cited as one reason the Reps lost the election, it would seem to be a perfect time to end the drug war, which has failed to do anything but strain government spending, raise the price to the consumer and destablize producing countries like Mexico, Columbia and Afghanistan.

Plus, if you're going to nationalize health care, anyway, which Barry seems intent on doing, it would be a perfect time to offer "free" drug treatment to all who need it. But pols are such cowards, never doing anything that might cost them re-election. So we stumble along, with cops devoting too much energy to seizing marijuana and cocaine and, increasingly, needing automatic rifles to defend themselves against the foot soldiers of the drug cartels. Can Barry fix it? Yes, he can! If he only has the nerve.

UPDATE:  It's not a unique idea, of course, but I knew that. On the other hand, it may be a bit much expecting a progressive to end drug prohibition, considering it began on FDR's watch. Alcohol prohibition, the previous failed effort, was pushed through by "progressives," as well.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

President Andrew Jackson broke with tradition and invited the common people to the White House reception after his inauguration in 1829 and they tracked in mud and otherwise left him a big cleaning bill. But history has recorded no sniping remarks from him about it. The snark is left to his Democrat party descendents such as (who else?) Harry Reid. Thanks to the air-conditioning (wind or solar-generated, surely, can't be from oil or coal) in the new Capitol Visitors Center, Reid's delicate olfactory sensibilities will no longer be troubled by commoner body odor. Term limits, please.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 04:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reality check from Doug Ross @ Journal.

UPDATE:  Meanwhile, the Dems and their state-run media are playing up the stock market jitters (largely over Barry's ascendency) while national output has declined just one half of one percent. But, hey, it's a great time to spend tax money in the name of "job creation," mainly for their buds. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I could have asked for a lot more communication with us all on the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, Gitmo, the Patriot Act, etc. George fell on his butt there. Quite inexplicably. Maybe someday we'll find out why. But, in general, as John Weidner lists so well, the fellow I voted for in 2004 will leave office with a lot more accomplished than the partisan Big Media would have you believe--certainly more than his despicable predecessor Slick Wllie who always has communicated well but delivered little but sleeze. All in all, a very tough act for Barry to follow, which Barry is already dropping the ball on by appointing that lying dimwit Hilarity as his secretary of state. If he doesn't want to go down in history as merely the first (half) black man in the White House, he'd better get it together. Not that I care. I want him to be a one-termer.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You can see in this U.S. News & World Report recent sliming of Sarah just how afraid the Big Media continue to be of her chances in 2012. But it's worth the read for the fisking mockery John Weidner applies to it. No wonder USNWP has had to terminate their print magazine. Time was when they produced a reasonable alternative to the liberal pablum of their competitors. Now they are no different than the rest--all of them declining in circulation and bound to soon follow USNWP's lead.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 05:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Victor Davis Hanson, a classics professor, wants high school students to have four years of it:

"...such instruction would do more for minority youths than all the ‘role model’ diversity sermons on Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, Montezuma, and Caesar Chavez put together. Nothing so enriches the vocabulary, so instructs about English grammar and syntax, so creates a discipline of the mind, an elegance of expression, and serves as a gateway to the thinking and values of Western civilization as mastery of a page of Virgil or Livy (except perhaps Sophocles’s Antigone in Greek or Thucydides’ dialogue at Melos)."

He's right, of course, though I don't think I'd want to take four years of it. I only had to take one year, in 1960-61, and I still remember how cool it was to translate text so old yet still recognizable in its human concern. My grandmother taught Latin at Southern Methodist University in Dallas in the 1920s. But that was college. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Al Gore, call your office. Seems those allegedly "indisputable" climate forecast models lack a reliable estimate of the soil's significant (but very slow) contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide. Meaning global warming predictions are overestimated.

Via Hot Air.

MORE GLOBAL WARMING DEBUNKING: From, of all places, the U.S. Senate. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Or, rather, the first facillitator of crooks: Barry's apparent nominee for attorney general. Eric Holder, Slick Willie's pardon-adviser. Well, he is black, and all that.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"The Governor of California has just said that the US is the greatest polluter in the world, which is manifestly untrue on any level."

In politics, distraction is always good. For the politician. Keep your eye on the moving pea.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Folks who think today's politics are particularly vicious should read up on their American history. For instance, once upon a time, especially during slavery days, a speech-giving white politician might suddenly be interrupted by a handful of black children paid by his opponent to rush at him yelling "Daddy! Daddy!"

Nowadays the old slanders are being put to new use. Diversity Inc. magazine is giving away a poster (for a $19.99 one-year subscription) claiming that Barry isn't the first black president but merely joins Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge in the distinction. The proof? Black People and Their Place in World History, a littleknown self-published 2002 book by an amateur historian and professional eye doctor named Leroy Vaughn. Vaughn uses hearsay, mostly from the aforementioned presidents' enemies, to claim they were of mixed race.

Which leads me to the inevitable comment: that Vaughn's and Diversity Inc.'s claim is an obvious case of eyewash.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This traditional fiddler's ditty is described as a "wild melody" in H.W. Brand's 2005 book Andrew Jackson, His Life and Times, which I'm enjoying. It was apparently played for Jackson and his wife, Rachel, to dance to at one of several dinners held in their honor after the defeat of the British at New Orleans in 1814 1815.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Time for a little fractured Jewish prayer via Miss Celenia.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Amusing little article here in Columbia Journalism Review followed by even more amusing comments.

The top half of the comments are the usual remarks from the usual crowd of Big Media players or wannabees, fiddling around as though nothing much is happening to the craft other than a vexing problem of layoffs and declining profits. The bottom half is the angry audience, lured to the site by Instapundit. They are burning (and sometimes a little shrill) to let the fiddlers know that their Barrymania is going to lead to far more losses. Indeed, it may be too late to turn it around even if the fiddlers were inclined to play a new, objective tune. Assuming they still have the chops for objectivity, which is doubtful.

UPDATE: Indeed, the lickspittle reporting continues, as Iraq suicide bombings become "progress" on Barry's watch. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Doesn't this look like the most fun day ever?" -- Squidward.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I would prefer to see her run for president in 2012, but this also makes a certain amount of sense.

Alhough it would be best  for her to ignore the alleged (always anonymous) insiders twisting the knife the pro-Barry Big Media put in her back, continue to be a good governor, add to her political accomplishments, write a bestselling memoir, and form a SarahPAC to raise money for conservative candidates in 2010.

Whatever the sixty-six million who voted for Barry think of her, we in the fifty-eight million who voted for Mac are impressed. And by 2012, at least nine million more could be well fed up with him.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Disney's incredibly inept coverup is finally, sadly, but voluminously (and, indeed, artfully) exposed.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Barry's apparent aim to force middle and high school students to do federally-supervised community service is still in the planning stages. The details continue to be left purposely vague, even to the extent of more of his campaign's airbrushing of previous Web disclosures. I suppose it will be some form of selective service, minus the selective part. Unless some animals on the farm are to be more equal than others, as the old military draft worked it. Sounds so progressive, why, how could anyone complain? Only, you know, the lazy and the anti-social. Will the children get nice armbands, too?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Barry's already planning to throw about $50 billion in tax money at the incompetent makers of crummy cars too few people want to buy, even though they just opened a new plant in St. Petersburg. Not Florida. Russia.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey, Barry did compare himself to JFK--minus the military service, war-hero part, of course:

"The terrorists won’t bother us again
Because everyone on Earth is now our friend
Charisma he has lots
Specifics he has not
But happily we really don’t care here
In Obamalot."

Chuckle. 

Via Don Suber. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

President-elect Barry backtracks a bit on Iran at his first news conference since the election:

"Iran's development of a nuclear weapon I believe is unacceptable. And we have to mount a international effort to prevent that from happening. Iran's support of terrorist organizations I think is something that has to cease."

No talk at all of welcoming the loudmouth Iranian dictator to the White House. But these are still early days.

MORE:  Barry's apologizing already for a careless joke. That was fast. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Sucking up to a black politician does not mean that you are colorblind," says the subhead on this delightful analysis at National Review Online, a conservative publication the Dems' proposed assault on conservative talk radio will not affect, unless they try to repeal the First Amendment.

Indeed, we've been through this before. In the 1980s when Jesse Jackson ran for the Dem nomination, and again about ten years later when Gen. Colin Powell was touted by insiders for the Rep nomination. Jackson lost, Powell declined to run (and now we know why, he wasn't a conservative).

Not to mention the Rep appointment of two black secretaries of state, though only Powell was celebrated. Condoleeza Rice was villified even by some American Africans (my preferred locution).

It's touching to see some American Africans get emotional at Barry's election. But Big Media's claim that only now could a black man have been elected is the usual liberal blather. I wish that Barry was descended from American Africans, as Jackson, Powell and Rice are. Instead he's the first Kenyan-American elected president (his Kenyan father never became a citizen). That's not nearly the same thing as an election finally resolving America's racial past and continuing combustion, as Barry's cult would have us believe. It's also sad that the first black man elected president is a dishonest radical more skilled at speechifying, breaking campaign finance laws, and promoting vote fraud than anything else.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If Barry was a white Republican, this would be obvious and the subject of much Big Media complaint. Instead, silence is the rule, and on to the gala inauguration. So much for campaign finance reform.

Via NewsMax. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ann Coulter nails it, as usual:

"We have a new president-elect. In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, we owe it to the Democrats to show their president the exact same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president."

Don't all get in line at once, now. Take your turns. We've got  four years, after all.

Via Sonia-Belle. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 05:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Miriam, a librarian, after all, summons William Butler Yeats for a poetic reaction to Barry's ascendence:

"...what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?"

Ouch.  

Posted by Dick Stanley at 05:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, maybe they did back in the days of green eyeshades. I can remember a lot of uncorrected mistakes in the '80s and '90s. They certainly don't hasten to balance their obvious bias anymore. Like most of the nation's newsrooms, AP is staffed by liberals who vote Democrat. How could they not be when the journalism schools are liberal and a journalism degree has become the entry requirement?

Fox's Hannity says Big Media's obvious Barry-bias in the campaign just departed signified "the death of journalism," as in its credibility. But did it ever have any? Journalists have long been even less popular than lawyers. My old colleague Pantrypuff defends such partisan reporting as natural emotional involvement, but adds that newsrooms do not encourage innovation. They certainly don't encourage political balance, either, despite pretending to be objective.

Via Lileks.

UPDATE: MSNBC, still in Barry's bag. They can't help themselves. It just comes bubbling out. And that's why this media analyst thinks Big Media's influence over presidential elections is over.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The biggest post-election drop in history. Investors ain't too thrilled with Barry, either. Must be racists.

UPDATE: Another historic decline Thursday, this one blamed on poor retail sales. Still post-election, however, and if investors were part of Barry's cult, why wouldn't they be more positive?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The novelty act was voted best of show. Good grief.

It will be fascinating to read of Rev. Wright leading future prayer breakfasts at the White House, while expounding on his theories of the differences between white and black brains. Not to mention Minister Farrakhan's bow-tied Fruit of Islam on the rope line.

I suppose the F.O.I. will form the backbone of Barry's proposed federal civilian militia. Something tells me they won't be operating in Texas, not if they value their lives. I suppose we can look forward to unrepentent terrorist Bill Ayers (the Obama family babysitter) receiving the Medal of Freedom for his bravery in cop-killing and Pentagon bombing so long ago. He has dedicated his new book to Sirhan Sirhan, RFK's assassin, which should please his acolyte Barry enormously. What will Hugo Chavez and Mamoud the Mad get? Besides state dinners, rides in the presidential helicopter, and salutes from the (choke) U.S. Marines? 

This is going to be a strange and, potentially quite bitter, four years with the nation's first radical president whose bizarre attitudes will come clear, as someone said, when the pixie dust wears off. Former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, a notorious anti-Semite whose political machine taught Barry much of what he knows of politics, including how to get around the campaign contribution laws, is probably sitting up in his grave wondering whether to cheer or spit. His machine finally took the White House, but at what cost?

As the Seablogger says, I hope the Secret Service works overtime to protect Barry. The thought of a President Biden, who is not a radical but is a fully-fledged moron, is even more fearful.

Bobby Jindal is now the best Republican hope for 2012. In the new person-of-color-game we'll trade ours for yours. At least ours has executive experience and loves his country. Sarah's another good choice. Or both--if Bobby'll take veep. ;-)

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mac's final internal polling numbers: 

 

PA: MCCAIN 52%, Obama 40%, Undecided 6%

NJ: Obama 47%, McCain 45%, Undecided 7%

MI: McCain 45%, Obama 44%, Undecided 7%

VA: McCain 53%, Obama 42%, Undecided 3%

CO: McCain 50%, Obama 44%, Undecided 4%

MO: McCain 49%, Obama 42%, Undecided 7%

FL: McCain 52%, Obama 44%, Undecided 3%

 

Via Texas Hill Country. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 04:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Prediction from HillBuzz, a P.U.M.A. still angry enough at Barry to vote for Mac:

"...young voters are the Holy Grail of election delusions, because every Democrat, every election, claims 'young people love me and will come out in record numbers to vote for me!' Well, let us just tell you that early voting ended today [Oct. 31] in Chicago. In our building, there is a suite full of about 6 frat boys who sometimes stop us in the laundry room to talk politics. They are all hot DePaul hockey players, so we are glad to chat them up any time they want. All of them said they were going to vote for Obama, and all of them forgot to early vote. All of them have class and work on Tuesday. We honestly believe all 6 of these guys are going to forget to vote on Election Day — and the polling station for our neighborhood is literally one street away. We think this will happen not just with the hot hockey players in our building, but in many other buildings in Chicago, and in cities across the US."

Heh. Good luck with the youth vote, Barry.

P.S. from HillBuzz: "Don’t be Eeyores on Tuesday! Get those Eeyore butts off your couches, away from toxic TV, and GO VOTE."

P.P.S. from me: Despite living in a neighborhood near abundant apartments filled with college students, I saw not a single one this morning when I went to vote. Just us old folks and no lines at all. I did stand out for not having on sandals and tie-dye, but 'twas nary a youth in sight. Heh.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh, yeah, that'll win votes in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Colorado, etc. Really, really smart.

Mac's sending an AIM 9 up his tailpipe on this one, however.

And while Barry's working over coal, he plans to force your electric bill through the roof. Gotta save the whales from the global warming fantasy, ya know.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

All this jabber about the socialism Barry will bring if he's elected is more than a bit silly. He might bring more welfare programs, it's true, but all he can do is add to what's already here, and that's plenty: Social Security. Medicare. Medicaid. The sacrosanct Farm Subsidies that keep agribusiness, not family farmers, in the chips. What are they if not socialism, be it with a small or a capital s?

Nevertheless, for reasons of his radical politics, campaign donation fraud, and thuggish associates, I hope Barry loses today. I did my part this morning, voting straight Republican. Not that that's likely to have any effect on liberal Dem Austin, or on Republican Texas, but it will help add to Mac's popular vote total.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Possibly the best, via Jay Nordlinger at National Review Online, in a remark about Reagan:

"Reagan spent his entire life standing up to the bully. From boyhood on, he interposed himself between the bully and the innocent. He stood up to the bullies in his schools. He stood up to the Communists in Hollywood, and to the coercive unions. He stood up to the student radicals and their abettors. He stood up to the Soviets. He simply stood up.

"In the world today are a lot of bullies to stand up to: al-Qaeda, the mullahs, the North Koreans, the Chinese Communists, the Castro brothers, Chávez. John McCain will almost certainly do it. Barack Obama will almost certainly not."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Despite what Big Media, Barry and the Democrat Party wish you to believe. Certainly not under the classic definition: two successive quarters of negative real growth. The latest quarter grew less more than expected but and still is positive. You might suspect that the diving and climbing stock market, swooping like a drunken albatross, surely indicates that we're about to see those two successive negative quarters. Nevertheless, we haven't yet, and until we do, well...

Via the Seablogger.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It may or may not be significant that the polls are all over the map, as Mac says. This analysis says that it is statistically likely that they would be varying. Statistics and I are not friends, so I can't independently say yay or nay.

But I do agree that it is probably significant that not a single poll that I am aware of (though with two hundred fifty-one this month alone, how can I be sure?) shows Mac in the lead. In 2004, some polls showed Kerry in the lead and some showed Bush in the lead. This time out, at least as of this date, all of them seem to show Barry leading. The question is: will Mac take the lead between now and Tuesday? Whatever. The voters have the last word, so the important thing is to vote!

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (359)

"What are you going to do when Obama wins?" a former colleague asked. I responded: "What are you going to do when he loses?"

Like Cobb, I'd go on as usual, though certainly less focused on politics for a while. My old colleague, I suspect, would scream and rant for several months, at a minimum--like a lot of her peers. Some say the Big Media and their fellow-traveling pollsters, who have so intently misled Barry's supporters for so long, might see their house burned down by the irate losers. At the least, if Mac wins, but not substantially, this thing will be tied up in the courts and recountings for a good while. If Barry wins even by a small margin, well, the nice thing about Republicans is that they don't riot and they seldom sue.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1378)

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (727)

Who could resist an appeal from Jeri Thompson? For that matter how many women will be able to resist voting for the first woman vice-president? Well, it didn't help Geraldine Ferraro in 1984. But that was another age. Must they wait another age before their next chance? Not these folks, anyhow.

Via The Fat Guy.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nevermind the WSJ's Peggy Noonan and the NYT's house conservative David Brooks. Elaine Lafferty, former editor-in-chief of MS Magazine has the goods on Sarah:

"Look, I am obviously personally pro-choice, and I disagree with McCain and Palin on that and a few other issues. But like many other Democrats, including Lynn Rothschild, I'm tired of the Democratic Party taking women for granted. I also happen to believe Sarah Palin supports women's rights, deeply and passionately."

Looks like others have figured it out, too, as the polls tighten to the margin of error (i.e. a tie) going into the home stretch.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

"Across the electric wires, the hum is ceaseless: Give it up, loser. Don’t go down with the ship when it’s swept away by the Obama tsunami. According to newspaper reports, polls show that most people believe newspaper reports claiming that most people believe polls showing that most people have read newspaper reports agreeing that polls show he’s going to win."

Mark Steyn, as always, is a hoot. But no funnier, in this instance, than the wide-eyed folks on the groaning Obama-Pelosi-Reid-Barney Frank-ACORN bandwagon eagerly awaiting their "spread-the-wealth" checks. Fifty-two percent of us, Gallup says, don't trust Big Media. Yet, for some reason, these sheeple trust it when it says the Daley Machine's landslide is near and y'all don't wanna be swept off your feet. Yet some of us, still, join Mac in calmly foreseeing a long night on Nov. 4.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you watch/read Big Media and pay attention to the polls they commission, you have to be anticipating Barry's landslide of a victory. Heck, he's already drafted his inaugural speech.

But if you realize that Big Media is not throwing straight dice, and the polls they commission are heavily weighted to favor Democrat for-Barry responses over Republican for-Mac and/or Independent still-Undecided ones, then you'll be more skeptical. Especially when you consider the millions of P.U.M.A. voters who don't fit Big Media's narrative and therefore are being ignored, you will come around to the idea that Mac and Sarah not only have a very good chance to win, but they could win really big.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

LGF and others are shocked, shocked that Ohio state government records were "illegally accessed" for info on Joe the Plumber which then turned up in Big Media. Shouldn't be shocking, actually, as it goes on all the time.

Most of our lives are public record and for those items that aren't, well, all a reporter needs is a friendly cop with access who is willing to do a favor. Cops love ink/air-time almost as much as donuts. So it's not usually a problem to get the behind-the-scenes favor in return for a little free publicity at a later date. The shocking part, I suppose, is that Big Media would afflict the afflicted (Joe) while comforting the comfortable (Barry). But, hey, that's hardly news, either.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Botoxed and bleached-teeth Joey Hairplugs said that to Barbara West, an Orlando, FL, reporter who proved something that's been making the rounds lately: that while the overpaid Big Media talking pinheads in NYC and LA suck up to Barry and Joey, the locals ain't being so accomodating. Ms. West proves it. And Joey's pique at what for Sarah would have been a normal interview proves that he ain't used to it. Then he punished the station by denying further access. Amazing.

Meanwhile, CNN trots out Big Media's favorite ploy, "anonymous" sources, to continue trashing Sarah. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The craziest thing about this presidential election is the way Big Media has been covering up for Barry while systematically trashing Mac, Sarah, Cindy McCain, and even Joe The Plumber:

"If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as President of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography. That isn’t Sen. Obama’s fault: his job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media’s fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so."

He could turn out to be a well-meaning, nice guy, however incompetent due to lack of any meaningful executive experience. Or he could turn out to be the biggest crook in the White House since Slick Willie.

UPDATE:  Uh, speaking of Slick Willie, Uncle Jimbo at Black Five is reporting that Barry is cheating on his wife. Probably not healthy. Michele looks a lot tougher than Hilarity. Indeed, the story is that Michele found out and had the woman, a campaign staffer named Vera Baker, banished to Martinique. Sort of the way Rev. Jeremiah "Goddamn America" Wright was disappeared to Africa.

MORE:  Even the anti-Barry blogosphere is having trouble with this report of Black Five, so I'm going to leave it here and not make it into a separate post. But this pix of Ms. Baker that BF posted certainly explains her allure. The audio with it is worth a listen.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

UPDATE: An illustrative tale, via Rene's Apple.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Barry's campaign lawyers are trying to ban these National Rifle Association ads. You might want to check them out, just in case they succeed. ABC's Jake Tapper certifies the truth of this one.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My former colleagues in the MSM, at least the ones who still have jobs, have no shame. Their pretense of "objectivity" in reporting is so far from reality that even their defenders can no longer ignore it. They have been bought and paid for by the Democrat party and exist only to please Barry--the most secretive candidate since Nixon. So they drill into each facet of Sarah's life, while ignoring Barry's pathetic, aging fratboy Joey Hairplugs. All the President's Men, this ain't. If it ever was.

UPDATE: Indeed, Big Media's attacks on Sarah are the best evidence that there is no standard of objectivity in American journalism--despite the journalism degree now required to get a job in it.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Best analysis I've seen so far, and there are more than a few out there. Be sure to vote, especially if you're voting for Mac and Sarah. The drumbeat "news" about Barry's juggernaut lead is highly suspect, as per usual in the Dems-media symbiosis. Including longtime Dem pollster Zogby International, to mention just one. Followed by this utterly contradtictory AP poll.

Could be the "news" audience is finally catching on. How else to explain this?

Closer to home, the rancho is in a precinct that, in recent years, has been solidly Democrat--unsurprising in Austin's blue anomaly in a very red state. Yet I have noticed this month quite a number of McCain-Palin lawn signs--a few of them already detached (accidentally?) from their supports. Something is up, and the national polls and the local "news" are not reflecting it.

Via Instapundit. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Of course President Barry  could provoke a nuclear war. He can even pronounce nuclear, so he's obviously readier than most. It doesn't take a Weatherman (Ayers) to see that Barry never served, so he has to prove he has the cojones to be CINC. So, breeng heem the red button. Now, honky!

At the very least (wouldn't this be ironic), Barry might bring back the draft...

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This time it's "socialist." Isn't that convenient? Any criticism of Barry at all is racist. What a hoot these Dumbocrats are.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Uh, unless Barry is planning for all of us to be his half-brother's keeper.

Via Jessica's Well.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You betcha, Colin, as Rush puts it you have a history of endorsing "inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates." It's just not apparent, but Rush is researching. Not that it much matters. Powell's influence always has been with liberals, not conservatives or libertarians, which is why the latter were underwhelmed when W. made CP his SecState. CP's endorsement of Barry likely won't cost Mac a single vote.

UPDATE:  Go figure. Colin's son, Michael, disagrees. He's backing Mac. I should add that there was a time when I wanted to like Colin Powell, especially because he was a Vietnam combat veteran. But, over time, I began to see him as one of our weakest generals since George McClellan. Moreover, as SecState he was Big Media's most reliable leaker of administration secrets. He was far and away W.'s poorest, and least loyal appointment.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

According to the propagandists at Associated Press, anyhow, who set a new standard for bias.

UPDATE:  Meanwhile, Mac gives Letterman-the-bore his biggest audience in three years. WUWT?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2628)

Fellow Texan Beldar's take on the last formal debate before the looong election is over:

"John McCain did fine at the third debate, but he benefited mostly because Barack Obama's ordinariness became more obvious to more people. More people escaped the mass hypnosis tonight. They sat up suddenly, took a deep breath, and as they watched Barack Obama, do you know what they did next?"

(Check the headline) Heh.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (449)

What, Barry try to steal the election? When Big Media, universities, Hollyweird and the pollsters already are in his bag? Does seem like overkill. But that's what it appears his former employer ACORN has tried to do. Of course, he will say that the eight-hundred-thousand-plus his campaign gave them to get-out-the-vote wasn't for illegal porpoises. But that might be a fish story.

Via Instapundit. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 05:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Barry is no longer hiding his classic Socialist plan to turn Robin Hood and tax the rich to "spread the wealth" around to benefit his favorite losers. Of course, whenever Dems say they will tax the rich, they usually wind up taxing the middle class, as well, like the plumber who elicited the remark from Barry in the first place--doing the job the Big Media would do if it wasn't doing Barry propaganda full time. The truly rich have lots of alternatives to avoid extra taxation. The middle class, with fewer options, might just be ready for revolt.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fellow Texan Beldar (a.k.a. Daddy Conehead) notices the joy that Sarah brings to campaigning and compares her to Reagan--favorably.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A pink camo hunting and target bow from Lakota Industries Inc: The Sarah Cuda. Mr. B. would say, eeeyoo, pink! But this one works.

Via Functional Ambivalent.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This sort of thing happens every quadrennial election cycle, especially in the final, angry weeks. The racial message, however, carries a sharper point this time. The old culture wars were never more in focus, never more stark, with the Big Media piling on Sarah and her family, while a half-black, far-Left, ward-heeling presidential candidate is lately blessed by Minister Farrakhan as "the Messiah." The defeated opposition's resentful agitation is a sure thing. At least Republicans don't riot. Democrats are guaranteed to.

Via Instapundit.

ADDENDUM:  Instapundit emailers suggest what Libertarians/Conservatives will do if Barry wins. It won't be rioting, but the next best thing.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

It's not a popular opinion, of course, but I've never thought Barry could win, even with Big Media in the bag. They were in the bag for John Kerry, too. Even with the polls showing Barry ahead, a few by as much as eleven points. Most have his "lead" barely outside the margin of error. All are using other polling to weight Democrat influence ahead of Republican or Independent. Yet other results consistently show Mac ahead in the "qualified to command" and "ready to be president" categories.

The stock market is dropping like a stone, so the party in power gets the blame for economic troubles, even though unfairly. Barry will win in a landslide. Especially because Mac isn't attacking enough, but trying to win the gentlemanly way. I still don't believe it. If ever there was a time for people to vote for the tested, however boring, instead of a novelty act with a compelling demeanor but less experience than a certain maligned governor of Alaska, this is it. Times of great uncertainly call for the tried-and-true, not a sparkling, young neophyte of dubious background.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The Seablogger and others are almost convinced that Barry will be cut off at the knees by his old pal and financier Tony Rezko before election day. Chicago Tony is said to be singing like a tweety bird to the federal prosecutors to get a shorter sentence on his fraud conviction. If predictions like this one come true, whatever will Barry's Greek chorus at the NYTimes and WaPo--now busy decrying his critics as, don't you know, racists--come up with for an encore?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's easy to be pessimistic about the stock market, watching it fall and fall even farther these days. But it's smarter just to watch it go down in the expectation of discovering when it finally finds the bottom of the current descent. That will be the time to buy good stocks at low prices undreamt of in a lifetime. For one thing is pretty certain: the market will go back up again, and losers now could be gainers in the future. The only question is when to start buying again?

ADDENDUM: Meanwhile, as the Seablogger advises: "Be patient. Hold fast."

UPDATE:  Some obviously were buying in the historic, Oct. 13 rally. Remains to be seen if this is the end of the free-fall. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 03:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

It started out "unlawful abuse of power," in the AP's version, until it got rewritten by editors who  actually bothered to read the report. Jules Crittenden has a funny take:

"A hasp and a hinge or two shy of a gate, as the Alaska Legislature’s bid to shaft McCain-Palin comes up a little short. Ethics violation alleged by partisan hacks in efforts to fire the trooper. No law broken in commissioner’s firing."

Some will say this report can't be biased because it was issued by a committee that had more Republicans than Dems. But that's forgetting that she's an equal-opportunity reformer, attacking Alaska Reps as often as Dems. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Barry is an absolute cornucopia of mystery and poor judgement, as shown by Red Planet Cartoons dot com. On the other hand, Ayers has a current connection to Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is ACORN out to steal the election? asks Investor's Business Daily. The "activist" outfit that once employed Barry to sue the state of Illinois, has eight hundred thousand dollars of his campaign money to register new voters--passed to them by a false-front cut-out, the way they do things in Chicago.

But the complaints, investigations and indictments over phony registrations are rolling in--especially in states that don't require an I.D. to vote. ACORN is another of Barry's seldom-discussed "executive" positions, from 1992, when he was their executive director for voter registration--oddly enough. Mac better be ready to contest any close results.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Barry, who has accomplished nothing in his life (that he wants to talk about, anyhow) except write two memoirs and run for political office, is supposed to have "executive experience" from captaining a national presidential campaign.

Why, then, is his campaign plane seldom cleaned and his campaign staff never seems to know, in advance, where he's going? Sounds to me like a confused executive who doesn't know how to delegate. Oh, he'll make a dandy chief executive.

Via Drudge Report.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

She's still drawing big crowds, who obviously don't care what the talking pinheads say. Meanwhile, the crazed Barry supporter who broke into her email has been indicted.

Via Instapundit. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So asks a commenter at the Seablogger's post on the "debate." No kidding. This is one time that putting quotes around "debate" really makes sense. It was no debate at all. It was also no town hall. Brokaw did the questioning. As for who won? Mr. B.'s mom shrugged. Said it was another tie. Ah, but a tie for the underdog, Mac, equals a win. Underdog in the "polls," anyhow.

But he didn't even second Sarah in hitting Barry over his poor judgement. Two predictions: this "debate" drew fewer viewers than their first one. Certainly fewer than Sarah's. And this "debate" didn't change anyone's mind. In fact, just judging from the dearth of campaign signs and bumper stickers around the neighborhood, I'd say the lack of excitement for either of these candidates is, in itself, awesome. And at such a terrible time for the country.

It's Socialism Lite or Socialism Classic. Only Sarah is exciting. What G-d did we anger, indeed.

UPDATE: Well, my first prediction seems to be wrong. The second one is probably safe, being essentially unknowable. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If Barry, Acorn's onetime lawyer, wins the presidency, it will be because Big Media knuckled under to the multiculturalism and "diversity" that began taking over newsrooms in the late eighties. Thus primed to give women and minorities a pass on just about any transgression, the talking pinheads and their print cohorts simply looked the other way, rather than investigate Barry's solid connections to the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression. Electing him to solve the economic problem would be pretty funny if it weren't so pathetic. It all began with Acorn, Barry's once and future client.

Via National Review.

UPDATE:  Barry, don't look now, but your old buds are being accused of voter fraud--again.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 03:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Back when the Associated Press only reported the news, or summarized news produced by others, they would never have countenanced introducing the race card in a national political campaign:

"Palin's words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee "palling around" with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn't see their America?"

The old days are gone, obviously. Now AP is just another part of the Democrat propaganda arm.

MORE: Powerline makes this observation:

"When the McCain campaign ran an ad that had a white woman in it, it was denounced as racist. When it ran an ad that had an African-American man (Franklin Raines) in it, it was denounced as racist. Now the McCain campaign links Obama to a white man, the former terrorist, and still anti-American, Bill Ayers. That's racist too. I think we've exhausted just about all the possibilities. The only non-racist thing McCain can do, apparently, is concede the election."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In which he and unrepentent terrorist Bill Ayers blew through $160 million in charity money to no noticeable effect. It's a fascinating part of Barry's life, where he not only knew Ayers but worked for him. It's the closest Barry comes to matching Sarah's executive experience as a mayor and a governor, but one which he never mentions. Go figure.

So, today, his most influential supporter, the NYTimes, finally gets around to writing about it (on a few-reader Saturday, natch) in a white-wash article reminiscent of the way they blew off the Swift boaters in 2004. Then Sarah goes after him on it on the stump and CNN joins in the dismissive lying. Do these so-called "journalists" have no shame? That's a rhetorical question, of course.

Via Instapundit.

UPDATE: Stanley Kurtz and Steve Diamond, who know the most about Ayers' and Barry's close relationship, show what Big Media is ignoring.

OOPS:  Barry actually led another foundation, but he doesn't talk about it, either. Could be because this one was anti-gun.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Senator Foreign Policy Experience Guy. I just love Mike Ramirez' work. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 05:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The polls, can you trust them? For instance, they say Virginia is tilting to Barry. But my friend, a former Democrat county chairman in the western part of the state, says he and some of his Democrat friends will be quietly voting for Mac and Sarah.

He's retired military and, while he doesn't like it that Barry never served, he mainly feels that he can't turn his back on Mac, a fellow Vietnam veteran. His friends mainly dislike the fact that Barry has no experience to speak of. Racism may be playing some part in their calculations, given Barry's racist church of twenty years and his penchant for playing the race card, but they're not talking about that. Others, it seems, are exercised about Barry's legitimacy as a nominee.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

TOTTEN: "What on Earth is he talking about? The United States and France may have kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon in an alternate universe, but nothing even remotely like that ever happened in this one."

Vote for Barry, folks, and Joe will be your next vice-president, and you can cringe every time he opens his mouth for four years. But, really, why do they call these fantasies "gaffes"? They're baldfaced lies.

UPDATE:  Someone needs to tell him that not only does the plastic surgery on his eyebrows make him look strangely Asian, but the botox in his forehead has turned it into a beacon light-reflector.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

That's how many watched Sarah's debate last night. We can be sure they weren't tuning in to see Biden. If she gave ole Joe the business, the ones she really made look like fools were Couric and Gibson.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

"In a letter dated June 25, 2008, the FEC asked the Obama campaign to verify a series of $25 donations from a contributor identified as 'Will, Good' from Austin, Texas. Mr. Good Will listed his employer as 'Loving' and his profession as 'You.' A Newsmax analysis of the 1.4 million individual contributions in the latest master file for the Obama campaign discovered 1,000 separate entries for Mr. Good Will, most of them for $25. In total, Mr. Good Will gave $17,375."

Too bad the legal limit for an individual is only $4,600.

But my favorite in this good Newsmax piece on Barry's secret, foreign fundraising is the 520 donors who seem to be from Iran. Even the Clintons, back in Bad Bill's day, only took money from China.  

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Come on, now. You didn't really think all that glib, white-toothed rattle was truth-telling, did you? LGF has the biggest one, and a link to some of the others. Check it out. It's for sure Big Media won't tell you. They'll be too too busy, as usual, kicking Sarah around.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The liars in the U.S. Congress snuck plenty of pork into their credit "crisis" giveaway, but none so obnoxious as the one that lays the groundwork for a carbon tax. The global warmists would never be able to get such a thing passed in open discussion, especially not during a recession. So they cheated.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mr. B.'s mom rolled her eyes when I said that, after last night