After basking in the afterglow of the absolute best day that I've ever had in terms of traffic, I figured I'd continue with the Red Sox postings. It's not like I have a lot of other material banging on the doors to get out.
I always like to look for hindsight coincidences, because either I'm good at constructing them, or there really are odd things where events arrange themselves to lead to an interesting conclusion. Some time last week, and prior to the completion of the ALCS comeback, a card arrived in the mail from Best Buy. It was addressed to me, and announced that I was now a subscriber to Sports Illustrated. OK, I said. That's nice. It'll join Computer Gaming World on the list of "Magazines I Don't Subscribe To But Which Come Anyways".
Fast forward to two days ago. The Red Sox win the World Series, and I start trying to preserve the newspaper coverage of the event. (Yes, I'm going to call the Boston Globe and ask them about buying a copy of the celebratory paper; surely to God they'll have extras printed.) I go to the mailbox yesterday, and pick up the contents, idly leafing through them. Lo and behold, an issue of Sports Illustrated had arrived, and it was the mid-point of the World Series issue. Boston's Mark Bellhorn is flying over top of St. Louis' Mike Matheny in Game Two on the cover, and I'll probably try to have the thing framed.
It simply happened that way. I never lifted a finger to subscribe, and this near-perfect condition magazine arrives in my mailbox the day after the victory, free of charge. How's that for strange?
On top of all that, Curt Schilling had something nice to say about the re-election of the President. This is, of course, a good thing, even if it's a complete surprise to me. (Come off it. Schilling pitched in Philadelphia, home of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Children for years were taught to pray for the Republican Party, the Girard Bank, and the PRR. Are you really surprised? --Ed.) John Kerry's team, my foot. Hopefully, Massachusetts has used up all its fall luck, and the Senator will be sent home to ponder the folly of his run.
(Meanwhile, registration is still closed at the fora of Red Sox Nation.)
The Lopez-Lowry Axis is apparently exerting its editorial powers, because Yankee Kathy has banned Shannen Coffin from posting in The Corner for the time being.
I'd give her a Bronx cheer---if I knew what that was---but then again, it might inspire her to further acts of Boston hatred. Bah! You're not going to sell any subscriptions like that, Ms. Lopez.
UPDATE: Er, go out of the area for several hours and look what happens. Eh, heh heh...er, it's all in good fun and I'm really glad I'm underground in an undisclosed location at the moment. Wow, the power of the blogosphere.
Howdy to all visitors from The Corner; I hope there's something worth viewing here for y'all. I'm, er, in a rebuilding phase, but come on in and browse about. If anyone's got something they'd like to see or hear about, well, I've got my e-mail account operational.
Three thousand hits in less than four hours. That's only a hundred times the daily average. Lord, I hope my host's bill is paid.
UPDATE II: It has occurred to me that, since Ms. Lopez has been gracious enough to give me in four hours what took six months to get (in terms of traffic), I ought to give them something. To muddle something from W.S. Churchill about magnanimity in victory, let me suggest the following: Click here and subscribe to the print version of National Review. Ms. Lopez, once I scrape together enough money, I'll be subscribing; I seem to have spent my immediately surplus reserves of capital on the very hat that I'm wearing.
UPDATE III: Mr. Coffin posted a rather touching and heartfelt missive on the subject, and there will be no celebratory column. That's all right; it is easy even for me to understand that eighty-six years of emotions---as Chris Myers put it, "generations"---are difficult to air in a web column.
Eighty-six years swept away. Curse? Reversed. Annihilated.
Hooray.
Thank you God.
Methinks I detect a whiff of sour grapes emanating from the confines of the Lopez-Lowry Axis. Sayeth K-Lo at 0555: COME ON, CARDINALS!!
Yankee Kathy (c.f. "Axis Sully", although solely in jest; Axis Sully is a nuisance whereas Yankee Kathy is endearing in her support) had been silent for a while---and Lowry seems to have been out of sight since---but she comes roaring striking back, with a little swipe by way of hyperlink.
The article she was linking to is here. It's just your basic "Sox win!" with some treacly stuff about Pedro Martinez and a description of St. Louis pitcher Jeff Suppan's base-running error, which allowed the Red Sox to escape a bases loaded situation by the Cardinals. The little I've learned about baseball in the time I've been watching had me worried (albeit in a rather uninformed way) and so when Mr. Suppan made his mistake, I let out a cheer , immediately followed by a 'Thank you, God!'
At any rate, Game 4 is tonight in St. Louis, broadcast on Fox. Someone please hand Jeanne Zelasko a picture of herself back when she was doing NASCAR Winston Cup coverage in the pits, and remind her that once upon a time, she was good looking. Bloody Fox makeup crews could mess up if Helen of Troy (preferably Diane Kruger or Sienna Guillory) was their subject.
Life is good. Two reasons:
1. The Boston Red Sox moved to 3-0 in the World Series, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals. The page will tell you the score and everything else that you need to know. On the side, I'm trying to figure out how best to extend this recent interest in the Red Sox past whatever outcome results.
I could try to go back and read George F. Will's book on baseball, and make a concerted effort to get to more of the local farm club's home games, which is actually on a 'to-do list'.
Oddly enough, I was speaking recently with a fixture in the local Republican Party, and I got asked who I was backing in the Series. I replied that I was for the Red Sox. Several seconds of quiet ensued on the telephone line, and then the caller said, "But that's John Kerry's team."
At this point, I had to think fast. Luckily, I'd come up with some lines earlier in the day about what I should say when something like the "Kerry's team" bit came up. Thanks to Jonah Goldberg, I was able to reference things like this, wherein Senator Kerry managed to bungle the score of the team he should know best. Although I am a fan of subtlety and nuance ("Knife in the kidney, or silenced pistol to the back of the head? No need to make much of a mess, and so forth...") I'm not entirely sure how one can nuance one's way through getting the wrong score. That is, if you're a dedicated long-time fan. Me, I have an excuse; numbers aren't my strength to begin with.
But not Senator Kerry. Must be too busy working on his plan to declare victory before all the votes are cast. At any rate, the individual on the other end of the conversation wasn't convinced by that and other justifications I trotted out. Gonna have to do some damage control, or something. Maybe if I burn a large "W '04" into the yard with fertilizer, I'll be able to escape suspicion.
2. While on the way home from watching the game, I also heard a Liz Phair song on the radio. It was one of her last singles, "Extraordinary", but nevertheless, it was Liz Phair on the radio, which is not something one hears every day.
She's a babe, eh.
It appears that I managed to miss my one-year anniversary (technically) of blogging. Way back on 25 October 2003, I shambled into the blogosphere with nary a clue about what I was doing, but a bit of eagerness to get in on this blog thing.
Well, I'm still here, the traffic's still low, and I spent months away from the thing. Enh. In the manner of Eeyore, happy birthday to my blog!
And yes, comments are off until I figure out a way to deal with 800+ comments for some kind of poker and a lot of other worthless stuff that I'd like to send jack-booted thugs to deal with.
Several things have been happening in the absence, which I assure you was related to various things that were beyond my control yet which required my oversight and participation.
1. Much in the manner of a small Latin American country declaring war on National Socialist Germany in late March of 1945, I actually got around to buying a Boston Red Sox hat. I had to search all over the local mall and its three sporting goods stores to find one; the options usually ranged between gas station-quality hats---no thanks---to fitted players' hats with the usual problems that entails, i.e. cutting the backing out of the front, bending the bill, having a hat that looks brand new and the like. I settled for a 100% cotton one-size-fits-all model with a pre-bent bill and pre-washed appearance, sporting a red 'B' and a small pair of red socks on a tag in the back. Come to think of it, it looks more or less like a hat that I wore throughout law school, but which is now too damaged to wear.
2. This blog is number one on Google for the search terms of "Doris Kearns Goodwin Curt Schilling". I am, of course, happy. I don't know why anyone would pair those two, but it has been done and people are searching for the phrase. On a side note, I went and got the relevant book by Hunter S. Thompson which had her picture in it. If you're following along at home. the book is Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist - The Gonzo Letters, Volume II, 1968-1976. If you're in the trade paperback version, go to ~p. 568 and look at the photos. They're from Thompson's Elko, Nevada, conference in February 1974 of "the best liberal thinkers from the staffs of the 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns of Robert F. Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, and George McGovern". HST managed to put Jann Wenner, the head honcho at Rolling Stone, up to the task of funding the thing, with the aim of "[hashing] (no pun intended?) out an issues agenda for America's future, which Straight Arrow would publish in book form and distribute to the nation's decision-makers."
I've forgotten how it went, but it's really irrelevant other than to note that Doris Kearns---no Goodwin yet, apparently---and Samuel L. Berger were in attendance. Anyways, yes, Ms. Kearns wasn't exactly a shining light of beautiful American womanhood then, and certainly isn't now.
3. It is fun to watch baseball, for once. I'll be doing so tonight; that could either go well or not. Too bad I haven't arranged a gig with some friends to watch this. Apparently, no one in the area cares. Might have to wander down to the local sports bar or something. ("We don't serve your kind here!" "Huh?" "Your hat. It'll have to wait outside!")
At any rate, I'm still hoping for a) a World Series victory for the Boston Red Sox and b) a victory in November by President George W. Bush in the manner of a brutal FSU-over-ACC teams in the early 1990s, so that the Democratic strategy of 'proclaim victory and litigate until it is so' won't even have a chance at viability.
1941: Class J locomotive, #600, departs the N&W's Roanoke Shops establishment. The locomotive, using the 4-8-4 ("Northern") wheel arrangement, was the first of fourteen to be built, from 1941-1950. They would see service in the N&W's passenger service, pulling the railway's Powhatan Arrow, Pocahontas, the N&W-Southern Tennessean, and other passenger trains throughout the then-small N&W system.
The locomotives would serve from 1941 until 24 October, 1959, when #611's last run was made. By this point, the Norfolk and Western's new management. i.e. Stuart T. Saunders, had committed to a program of diesel locomotives, thus obviating the need for steam locomotives. Locomotive #600 had been retired at Lambert's Point on 16 June 1959.
The subject of the post is, perhaps, obvious: The Boston Red Sox have triumphed again over the New York Yankees, thus forcing a seventh game for the American League Championship Series.
At first, this whole Yankees-Red Sox rivalry had the appeal of watching the People's Liberation Army fight the Red Army across the Sino-Soviet border in the 1960s. One hopes for a mutually disastrous outcome to two hated parties. I despised the City of New York for a variety of reasons, and Boston is the home base for, among others, Tip O'Neill and John Kerry.
Then, the Northeasterners at National Review managed to go and infest The Corner with their peculiar brand of Yankee triumphalism, along with a lot of other self-important tripe about how great Steinbrenner's loathsome creation was.1 At this point, I figured that it was about time to take sides in the great debate, and I chose oddly. Despite my lack of regard for Massachusetts and its politicians---except for Henry Cabot Lodge, of course; Nixon/Lodge '60 for life, yo---I decided that I might as well choose the team that , when the going got tough, didn't just cut another check.
At any rate, I realized that this decision put me in the ranks along with the noted plagarizer, Doris Kearns Goodwin.2 Politics sure make for strange bedfellows, as do the politics of a Southerner choosing sides in a cultural divide. Well, if the supporters of Islamist terror groups can march side by side with militant homosexualists against the United States and get away with it, I suppose I can get away with backing the Red Sox. Fast forward through God only knows how much time and a lot of other crap, to the present day.
Keeping score with Shannen Coffin's conservative Red Sox fans, count me as #23. It is always good to see professional sports teams from the vile City of New York be beaten.3 It was even better for the country to see boorish New Yawkers require a police presence on the field simply to keep the fans from costing their team a game. Admittedly, I don't envy being Joe Torre or anyone in the Yankees organization at that point. What do you do, walk out with a bullhorn and tell people to knock it off?
At any rate, thanks for this victory will be included as a line item in the evening/morning prayer, as will a request for continued Red Sox success. I realize that in the great Manichean struggle between good and evil, the Almighty's got better things to do than pay attention to a baseball series, but at the same time, there might be a "baseball desk" staffed by a bored heavenly bureaucrat who could be influenced by a simple and humble request.
Good luck and Godspeed, Boston.
UPDATE: M.T. Owens has weighed in with his view of the situation, thus hopefully rubbing things in the face of the Lopez-Lowry axis.
UPDATE II: It appears that someone in the National Review office is a good sport. Recently posted is a piece from Shannen Coffin about the heroics of Boston pitcher Curt Schilling. Mr. Schilling, a veteran with some fame to his credit, pitched several innings in last night's game with a dislocated tendon in his leg. Ouch!
1 That, and hearing John Sterling of WABC make one too many "Yankees win! Yankees win! Aaaaaaaaaaohohohoahaohohaohoa!" calls as reproduced on Imus in the Morning. I'm not even really sure how to type out the curiously glossolaliac sound he makes at that point, other than to say it sounds like he's being strangled, something that I might approve of. Lisa Gerrard might be able to reproduce it, but even that's a bit of conjecture.
2 While reading one of the collections of letters by Hunter S. Thompson, I found a picture of Goodwin wearing go-go boots and hanging out with HST and Sandy Berger in the early 1970s. Suffice it to say that this woman has been ugly since before I was born. Doris Kearns Goodwin: Stealing scholarship and searing retinae since the Seventies.
3 I sat down and thought about it, and I couldn't think of many present day good things about the City of New York. USS Intrepid and her associated museum seem to be the sum of it, although Grand Central Terminal is also up there. I'd almost suggest that the things that once made the city grand are gone and done, at least in my book. In the glory days of the White Star Line, the Pennsylvania, New York Central, New Haven, and Penn Central railroads, and perhaps BOAC, Pan Am, and the like at JFK in the late propliner/early jet eras. Oh, and Richard Nixon at Nixon, Rose & Mudge and William F. Buckley for mayor.
The forces of evil have been thwarted for another day! The Boston Red Sox have triumphed in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series, scoring the winning run in the 14th inning. The series is now 3-2 in favor of the New York Yankees, and the series returns to the City of New York for the remaining 1 or 2 games scheduled.
Some guy named David Ortiz got what appears to have been a base hit, which allowed a fellow named Johnny Damon to score from second base.
Hooray.
According to a report from CNN, Russian leader Vladimir Putin has endorsed President Bush's re-election. Call me crazy, but I read this story and I didn't get a specific statement by Mr. Putin saying "vote for Bush". Yet, the tagline is, "Putin urges voters to back Bush".
Mr. Putin does, however, say that the recent spate of attacks in Iraq are not so much aimed at the coalition forces there, but rather are aimed at causing political damage to the re-election of President Bush. Interestingly enough, Mr. Putin said that this was understood by "any unbiased observer". Geez. when the Kremlin's doing fairness doctrine and talking about unbiased analysis, you know something's out of whack.
Speaking at the Central Asian Cooperation Organization, Mr. Putin went on to say that, "If [terror groups] succeed in [defeating President Bush] , they will celebrate a victory over America and over the entire anti-terror coalition." He also predicted that such an outcome could theoretically lead to a broader range of terror attacks on new fronts.
However, all isn't sunshine between George and Vlad; Putin also noted that Russian views on Iraq differ from that of the President.
Well, for what it's worth, I don't care that views differ. That is, to my opinion, irrelevant. I'm also unconcerned that the Russians were dealing under the table with Saddam Hussein. Big deal; the more important issue is to keep them more or less on our side. And big deal if Putin decides to bring the hurt in Chechnya in retaliation for Beslan, although I am curious as to how much tougher the Russians could actually be. Isn't there an upward limit to how many troops, how many stricter policies and the like, can be brought forward? Of course I'm not on the ground over there, but when you've got an existing policy of "kill 'em all", I don't know how much more one can ratchet it up.
Meanwhile, I think a brutal Russian effort serves our purposes. Since I am unencumbered by the baggage of wanting to democratize the Middle East or to teach them peace, love, tolerance, and a lot of other rot, I can sit back and think about varied applications of force. This means that there's a place for Russia in my ideal anti-terror policy. What place is that, you ask? The place of "bad---or worse---cop".
However, that's another post for another day.
Land of Hope and Glory time, people! Because God's in His Heaven and all's right with the world, Erin Gray's Colonel Wilma Deering has triumphed in the TexasBestGrok weekly poll.
The final results are posted at the link above; 75 voters chose Colonel Deering for 53%, while 67 voters and 47% chose Princess Ardala. You latter folk line up over here; the NKVD assassins will be by later to deal with you.
The new poll is dealing with the women of Space: 1999. I've seen some of this series, but I'm willing to bet that a lot of people haven't. If you feel like voting, however, I'm recommending the gal who I think hung out with that ersatz Alphan porn star-wannabe, Paul Morrow: Tanya Alexandria. She's in second, as of this writing.
UPDATE: The Space: 1999 poll is closed, and Tanya Alexandria remained in second, finishing behind some nominally Asian gal. Tanya was able to edge out the second-season addition, Catherine Schell's Maya, while also leaving Barbara Bain's Dr. Helena Russell, M.D., in the dust. Hooray.
P.J. O'Rourke has some remarks on things that Bush should say/have said in the debate of last night. Much thanks to The Weekly Standard for running a piece by P.J.
Friends and neighbors, there comes a time when a man has to take a stand for something, a cause for which all must be sacrificed and nothing short of absolute victory accepted. I'm not talking about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness which is understood to mean the private ownership of property, but the victory of Erin Gray's Colonel Wilma Deering over Pamela Hensley's Princess Ardala.
These two actresses, and their characters, hailed from the late 1970s/early 1980s NBC camp sci-fi program, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Both had the regrettable duty of playing love interests to the dimwitted Gil Gerard, who hammed his way through the title role. I'd post pictures, but something's afuzz with my FTP access, and I can't do that right now.
Anyways. Wilma's a babe in Lycra, and she's one leg of the Holy Trinity of 1970ish Sci-Fi Television. Just punch that name into Google, and see what you get. She's far better looking than the evil Princess Ardala, and could use your support. Head on over to TexasBestGrok, and look on the left, where you can cast a vote, once per day, for this beautiful gal. See here for the post on the poll. Yours truly has already signalled his support for Wilma.
Enthusiastic waving of the Wisconsin hat to The Llama Butchers, where a campaign for Wilma's victory began and continues. To steal from a bumper sticker I see regularly, vote "W" in '04, whether it be W. the President or Wilma the Colonel.
A prior positive reference to Colonel Deering appeared here.
I shamelessly stole this from Mark Steyn's website. Entitled 'President Gollum', it's sort of a hobbit viewpoint of the election. In a manner of speaking.
Since I don't know how long it might be accessible there, the whole thing's reproduced in the extended entry.
Bush made an excellent point today when he said that Kerry could debate himself for 90 minutes. Does Kerry in fact stand in front of a mirror arguing with himself about policy or does he look into a pond (like Gollum in Return of the King) and have a frenzied argument about his positions?
Gollum Kerry: It?s ours it is. We wants it, we needs it, we must have the White House.
Smeagol Kerry: No, they know, they suspects us. That Karl Rove is always watching me with his eyeses.
Gollum Kerry: Then we stabs them out and s ends him to Iraq.
Smeagol Kerry: Yes, yes. What shall we say in the debateses precious? Am I for it or against it?
Gollum Kerry: Oh, we likes the war precious, we does. It means we can look mean and tough. We have to outwits the Bushobbits.
Smeagol Kerry: No, it?s too risky, too risky. We hates the war, please let me be against the war, I don?t like it. People gets killed and the Jihad-Orcses will be upset with us.
Gollum Kerry: We don?t care what you thinks, precious. You be for the warses but against the moneyses.
Smeagol Kerry: Yes, yes. we can say, ?we voted for the £87 billionses before we voted against it.? Then we ca n get those sneaky little Bushobbits.
Gollum Kerry: Yes precious we can. And then we can rule the world with the Heinzes.
Smeagol Kerry: Yes, "One baked bean to rule them all". Will we ever be able to just agree on an issue? I get so confused. I have to google our own name just to see what our position is .
Gollum Kerry: If we keeps changing our mind, they can?t pins us down can they my love. The precious will be ours once the Bushobbits are dead.
Smeagol Kerry: Yes, yes. Then we can take it for meeeeee!
Gollum Kerry: Quiet. For us precious.
Smeagol Kerry: Yes, I meant for us. We can take the Bushobbits up the winding staircase to HER!
Gollum Kerry: We must be nice to her love. Thereshelob always needs to feed and I needs her 500 million dollar fortune precious.
Smeagol Kerry: Yes, we can take the Bushobbits and the Republicaneleves into the Rather-tunnel where the bones of Orcses, Elveses and discredited CBS reporters hang from the roof.
Gollum Kerry: Yes, we can. Now don?t for get to change your mindses again precious before you see the media today. The Bushobbitses will never be able to work out what we are thinking. So on FrodoBush and Samwise Cheney will be no more.
Silly but quite appropriate.
David Miles
Knutsford, England
I'm not much for baseball, unless it's our local farm club team, which I've been known to go and watch in the summers.They play in a ratty stadium, and they're not too good, but that's not what going to the game's about. Of course, if the Washington Senators arise from the mists of history, I might start caring about the majors again, but until then, this'll have to do.
Meanwhile, I'm subjected to the fanatical devotions of the NRO crowd to the New York Yankees. Rich Lowry, I'm talking to you. Yeah, I'm not big on baseball, but I loathe the Yankees. Why? Is it because they're from the city of New York? Possibly. Is it because they're named Yankees? Very good chance. Or is it because, like the Atlanta Braves or the Dallas Cowboys in the 1990s, you're being told that a team whose home is a single city, is somehow "America's Team"? We have a winner, folks. I really resent being instructed as to who "my" team is.
As a result, the application of Nixonian geopolitical principles to something other than geopolitics leads to a whacked-out result. In this case, I'm in the ranks with Doris Kearns Goodwin and a lot of other noxious liberal types, by liking, for sheer spite on the part of Lowry and others, the Boston Red Sox.
Shannen Coffin, an NRO contributor, is somewhat in the same bucket, although he's an authentic Boston fan. Read his article, the piece that spurred me to write this vituperative jag, by clicking here.
Shannen, another East Coast conservative stands beside you. Even if he has to be told what's going on on the field.
Grumbling about the importance of the debates to "undecided" voters, Cliff May at National Review Online had this to say"
"I don?t think we know squat about the dynamics of opinion formation among that segment of the public that has little interest in politics, AKA undecided voters."
I tend to agree with Mr. May on this, and I think it's probably a weakness of the amateur political blogging community as a whole. Anyone who runs a political blog is probably politically savvy and active to one extent or the other. From The Corner to the newest Blogspot Democrat, I can guarantee you that the authors(s) of the blog probably have a better picture, more or less, of the election than the "undecided voter".
I've been kicking this notion around for a bit, and Mr. May's remarks helped me coalesce my thinking. I'm not sure any of "us", i.e. the pundit-bloggers, are capable of fathoming the undecided. We watch the debates and cheer, clap, laugh, point, shout, and throw things at the screen when Bush & Cheney, or Kerry & Edwards say things. We keep score. We also can't imagine anyone not doing the same.
I can sit back in my old government surplus desk chair and sneer at the undecideds, but when the time comes to figure out their logic, I haven't a clue. Does anyone out there? These people are more alien to my way of thinking than, I would think, an Islamic in Saudi Arabia; we do know to some extent what metrics a devotee of the Koran uses.
Originally contrived at 002648 on 11 October, but delayed in posting due to illness.
...to loathe Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
It's been a while back, but apparently the driver of the #8 Budweiser Chevrolet Monte Carlo said, "Hey, it'll be a good bonding experience no matter what your political belief. It's a good thing as an American to go [Fahrenheit 9/11]." This information comes from a blogger's re-posting of a letter from the disingenuous filmmaker himself, so I doubt it's admissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence, but hey, nobody said due process applies in giving the shiv to DEI's star driver.
Irate tip of the Wisconsin hat to Moolies.
Someone sent the Libertarian Party's silly little political quiz across the Blogs for Bush mailing list last night or this morning, and I decided to amuse myself by taking it to see just how non-Libertarian I am. Read on, and enjoy!
Your Political Philosophy: According to your answers, your political philosophy is: authoritarian
Statist
Statists want government to have a great deal of control over individuals and society. They support centralized planning, and often doubt whether liberty and freedom of choice are practical options. At the very bottom of the chart, left-authoritarians are usually called socialists, while right-authoritarians are generally called fascists.
Your Personal issues Score is 20%.
Your Economic issues Score is 40%.
Jawohl, mein fuhrer! We schall crusch zhe Ami schwein and achieve final victory fur Hayek!
I was so amused by this result that I went back to playing Medal of Honor: Frontline on my Xbox, where Lieutenant James Patterson is invoved in trying to bail some British troops out of the mess that Field Marshal Montgomery got them into in Arnhem. Shooting Germans is always fun, but I'd rather be doing that with the men of Easy Company.
For what it's worth, here are my answers:
Government should not censor speech, press, media or Internet: Disagree
Military service should be voluntary. There should be no draft: Disagree
There should be no laws regarding sex for consenting adults: Disagree
Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs: Disagree
End "corporate welfare." No government handouts to business: Disagree
End government barriers to international free trade: Disagree
Let people control their own retirement; privatize Social Security: Maybe
Replace government welfare with private charity: Agree
Cut taxes and government spending by 50% or more: Maybe
I think they've changed the questions some. I used to remember something about no restrictions on immigration. Seems the Libertarians got burnt on that one. Heh heh heh.
TO: K. Rove, Bush-Cheney 2004
FM: The Country Pundit
RE: Presidential Slogans
Sir:
I have not been paying attention to the President's campaign speeches, as my requests to be named 'Railroad Czar' by the President in the second term went unacknowledged, as did my requests that the Federal government formally apologize for the passage of the Interstate Highway Act, all post-WWII aviation subsidies, and for otherwise failing to fully fund Amtrak.
Nonetheless, I have observed snippets of the President's speeches on cable television. One newly-introduced phrase has brought itself to my notice, but in an unfavorable way. I saw, while otherwise ogling CNN's Rudi Bakhtiar, the President make a speech in which he twice claimed re: Senator Kerry that, "He can run, but he can't hide."
This was done twice by the President in short succession, and I can only say this: Every time the President does this, somewhere a kitten dies. Baby Jesus cries when this phrase is invoked. Needless to say, there's been a river flowing.
Please advise the President to discontinue the use of this trite and annoying phrase post-haste, or else the great tide of victory that Republicans are hoping for will be dashed upon the rocks of smarmy phraseology and bad slogans.
Sincerely,
The Country Pundit
P.S. Where's my mansion on the Main Line, you bum?
I figure I'll give an opinion: A bloody fight to the finish with insipid questions but an occasionally good moderator; call it a draw for the heck of it.
It was about time that someone called Bush on the carpet for his spending, although I found it highly ironic that a taxing-spending liberal Democrat from Massachusetts was playing the role of deficit & budget hawk.
I was busy in the Commissar's live blogging effort, so I primarily listened to the debate. I hear better than I see these days, so I went with the ear. (Yes, I'm more partial to voice than image; I'm still sore about the Nixon-Kennedy debates of 1960...)
As for the President's exasperation, part of me likes that in politics. Admittedly, that may be one of my weaknesses; a teacher I sort of had in high school said that I didn't suffer fools gladly. This was, according to someone, a weakness of Thomas E. Dewey that caused him trouble. (I think I read this anecdote in one of President Nixon's books.) Age, experience, and training have improved my tolerance for fools---primarily so I can make more use out of them, or have more fun with them---but there's still a more or less fixed hard line limit to how much I'll put up with. Suffice it to say that I would have blown up at Senator Kerry a long time ago, and probably with a streak of profanity. It's not for nothing that I'm reading a biography of General George S. Patton, Jr.
For the foregoing reason, I will probably stand opposed to the electorate when I say that I don't care that the President cut Mr. Gibson off. St. Louis wasn't a courtroom and there can be advantage in pulling something like the President did. It can be, however, a double-edged sword. I'm certain we'll hear something about this part of the debate.
I was glad that the President jumped all over the bilateral v. multilateral talks with the North Koreans. Moreso than these nebulous summit meetings that appear to be the centerpiece of a Kerry Administration foreign policy, the proposed direct bilateral talks constitute a grave weakness. And I came up with the "the Red Chinese'll drop out" bit either ahead of the President's response, or closely thereto, so I'm not taking his line.
Oddly enough, it would seem that these bilateral talks would have the effect of undermining existing diplomatic efforts. I would expect such a statement to issue from the Kerry campaign, not be a direct result of their proposed policy. It may be that Senator Kerry honestly believes that multilateral talks aren't in the defense interest of America. On that point, I strongly disagree. Not much is going to happen on the Korean peninsula involving Pyongyang without the Red Chinese, and it is wiser to keep the Chinese Communists involved. North Korea is one situation where I'd prefer to talk the issue to death. If doing that requires the presence of other nations around the bargaining table and some money flowing Dear Leader's way, well, scowl and bear it.
One thing I did take exception with the President was on the question of business competitiveness. The President (and Senator Kerry) can blow as much smoke about insurance reform this, tort reform that, and the like, but their platitudes run aground on hard numbers. So long as the American people value low price over everything, then there is no way for an American-based company that has to pay each worker the equivalent of fifty bucks an hour (including health care, Social Security contributions, insurance costs, et cetera) to compete with a manufacturer in Guatemala whose entire weekly payroll is fifty bucks. This mindless devotion to "every day low prices" has pretty much destroyed any hopes we've got of competing in a globalized manufacturing market where wage standards are so grossly asymmetric. Either Americans learn to pay more and keep jobs in America, or they keep their cheap goods and shut their mouths as jobs evaporate in this country.
In any event, I have to head off to a wedding party later today, so I'll be out of town for God knows how long; if I don't have an up-to-the minute Saturday posting schedule, that's why.
This just in, from a blog named FrankLog: Radicals Penetrate St. Louis Debate
According to an un-named source (gotta love 'em!) inside the Democratic National Committee, the rumor at DNC HQ is that various groups (ostensibly 527 organizations, such as MoveOn, etc.) have instructed their St. Louis-based members to misrepresent themselves as "undecideds", in order to pass the Gallup organization's screen.
The plan for these covert types is to get up, discard their "programmed" questions, and then proceed to ask a different question. I would imagine that they'd be on the order of "When did you stop beating your wife?", so there could be something interesting about this snoozer of a debate after all.
Three or four years ago, when I was still in college, I would have cheered this on, because it's amusing, and bound to be fun. We, of course, would have anticipated this and had a retaliatory (or matching) plan in place. Nowadays, I'm a dour old graduate from law school who grimly advises sticking to the rules, so these guys are bums.
In closing, I'd like to stress that this is a rumor, and is not confirmed material. FrankLog got it from CrushKerry.com, so I'm sort of wondering why a DNC source would talk to these guys. However, the sheer chance of the thing is worth posting, since I'm not a responsible news organization. (I am, however, trying to be an honest broker of information and opinion.)
Tip of the Wisconsin hat to FrankLog.
(I don't mean to suggest that Terry McAuliffe was actually behind this, but I needed a cute title for the post, and I'd rather skewer him with the Democrats' own insult directed towards President Nixon.)
UPDATE: Well, it doesn't look like that happened, or if it did, the results were somewhat subdued. I'll quote Lefty Rosenthal as for my take on the winner: "I have no opinion on that."
Comrade Commissar over at The Politburo Diktat has announced the following:
I'll be live blogging tonight's St. Louis debate. You can bookmark this post URL.I'll also have the Politburo chat room open:
http://acepilots.com/chat/phpMyChat.php3
Create username and password; easy, no details needed.
Then click "CHAT."
Leave the default message as is: "create your own 'PUBLIC' room (leave blank).Your wit and wisdom from the chat may find it's way onto the live blogging: along with DougB.
I'm testing this PHP chat room, and it does seem to work with the latest releases of Mozilla Firefox. Check out the post here for updates as they arrive.
As of this writing, I haven't decided if I'm going to watch tonight's "debate" or not. Nobody's paying me to do it, and I'm not being paid by anyone to think about it, so my inclination is to dismiss it entirely. It's a "town hall", one of these worthless and time-wasting tricks designed to "include the voters" by asking weepy questions that invariably favor more Federal expenditures, more this and more that.
I would, however, vote for the candidate who responded in the following way:
'UNDECIDED' VOTER: I am poor. We have two televisions, two cars, cable, Internet, an SUV, clothe our 3 kids in Fubu & Tommy Hilfiger, and we go out every weekend to the local sports bar to watch the game and ring up a huge bar tab. We eat out every night and we have a house payment and our little darlings drive leased SUVs. What will your administration do to keep me from having to struggle to make ends meet?"
CANDIDATE: Ma'am, you're not poor. You're pathetic. Sit down and shoulder your burden like the rest of us. Might I suggest a course in cost control?
Of course, this isn't the way things are done. In the Oprah culture, the candidate is supposed to nearly tear up at the description of the voter's troubles, and ooze empathy. "I feel your pain", in other words. This sort of situation is nothing but a minefield for conservatives, because they should generally be loathe to prescribe yet another government program---new money---to ameliorate the "suffering" of the family that lives beyond its means. Of course our people will come off like jerks or Ebenezer Scrooge if they don't fall all over themselves to be some squishy compassionate type. (Compassion isn't solely restricted to opening one's wallet, you know...)
Thus, a problem. Senator Kerry, being of the party that prefers profligate public spending, can simply (and probably honestly say) that he and his will propose new programs. Advantage: Democrats.
I'll agree with Peggy Noonan---heard on the dreadful Sean Hannity radio program---that the President can probably come through this one alright, though. Assuming that the questions aren't all weak-kneed softballs that require the candidate to be something of a political lecher, Bush may be able to muddle his way through, and I hope he does.
Good luck, Mr. President. Under these circumstances, any Republican could use it.
After the demise of the unlamented "Assault Weapons Ban", I'm curious of something, and so I turn to you, the great silent majority... (Snap out of it, man! It's 2004, not 1974! --Ed.)
At any rate, what I'm wondering now is this: Is Heckler & Koch's PSG-1 now legal for civilian purchase in this country? I know it's expensive (~$10,000USD) but if I was going to be a big successful lawyer, I could score that in fees easily. (Ronald McDonald, the bullseye is on you for being a scourge to America's health...)
I figure that there are a slew of gun bloggers who could tell me this, and maybe one of them will take pity on a rather ignorant soul. Look at it this way: With a rifle that expensive and capable, there'd be no way that I could blame lack of accuracy on the equipment. Click here for more details on the thing.
Senators Kerry and Edwards have made great hay in the last two debates over a supposed figure that America is bearing 90% of the costs, 90% of the casualties, et cetera in Iraq. I think the Vice President caught Senator Edwards short on these numbers in their debate, but I never really put numbers to it.
Luckily, Jed Babbin at National Review Online has, and he finds a different arrangement than the Democratic ticket.
I thought about the whole thing, and something has occurred to me that perhaps needs to be sent to Senators Kerry and Edwards: "Gentlemen. Your statement of casualties in the current Iraqi operations, and your political conclusion subsequently drawn is erroneous. In your conclusion, you neglect the contribution of the Iraqi populace to the recovery effort, and in doing so, you slight them and their sacrifices. Indeed, the Iraqis are suffering at a greater pace than our troops are for the same period. When casualties are to be considered, it is a time for seriousness, and not for cheap electioneering. I would have expected better from someone who has made Vietnam service the centerpiece of his campaign."
It would probably be a good thing if those folks who share a common aisle with me, and also political liberals, would get this sort of message out.
NOTE: I may have found where "ninety percent" comes from, using Babbin's own numbers. Says he: If you count the number of combat dead from May 2003 to October 2004, Americans are 700 out of about 1540 total (which includes the 750 Iraqi and 90 Coalition casualties), or 45 percent.
I broke out my aging TI-85 and punched in the following equation: 700/(1540-750)
This yields 88.61% of combat dead as American troops, once one excludes 750 Iraqi casualties. Senator Edwards is factually accurate, but his fact is incomplete. The most wry thing I could think of off the cuff about this would be if one were to summarize 2004's hurricane activity, and leave the State of Florida out when calculating economic and property loss.
UPDATE: I'm curious: Are we including Iraqi casualties in "Coalition" body counts? If that's already the case, then that point needs to be made by the Administration on a regular basis. If we aren't, then I would, as a policy suggestion, recommend that we consider the Allawi Iraq as a de facto Coalition partner, and adjust our casualty accounting accordingly.
This would have the effect of taking the wind out of the sails for the Kerry charge, but it would also prevent Senator Edwards from having to fumble like he did against the Vice President's charge that he, Edwards, was demeaning the Iraqi contribution to the politico-military effort.
Microsoft's eccentric web-based magazine, Slate, has an interview with E. Howard Hunt. Mr. Hunt is one of the fellows arrested in the whole Watergate mess, after a fruitful career in the Central Intelligence Agency.
I enjoyed it, and perhaps y'all might as well.
Orin Kerr of the Volokh Conspiracy recently put some questions to the "hawkish side of the blogosphere" regarding Iraq. Although the comment period has ended, I figured I'd throw up my responses to his questions.
First, assuming that you were in favor of the invasion of Iraq at the time of the invasion, do you believe today that the invasion of Iraq was a good idea? Why/why not?
It's irrelevant what I think about the "good idea" of invading Iraq. Our forces are there, and our national honor has been committed, for better or for worse. The only acceptable scenario is to see this through to completion. That completion will, hopefully, entail the creation of a quasi-democratic Iraq that will stop a) being a Middle Eastern nuisance and b) stop acting like the kid who's hiding girlie mags under his mattress when UN/IAEA weapons inspectors show up.
I wasn't, however, impressed of the immediate urgency in invading Iraq. The months-long run-up to war signaled to me that there wasn't any real importance to doing this. The war, as sold, was about weapons of mass destruction. Instead of falling in with 82nd or 101st Airborne upon various suspect sites in a lightning attack, we gave the Baathist regime months to prepare for any such operation. And no, I'm not surprised that we haven't found anything.
Second, what reaction do you have to the not-very-upbeat news coming of Iraq these days, such as the stories I link to above?
Frankly put, I don't care. The casualties suffered in this entire campaign have been insignificant, and I'm unconcerned about our poll numbers amongst Iraqis. So long as there will be no "Islamic Republic of Iraq", I'm not too concerned about the future of the country. Furthermore, to clean up a mess, you have to make a separate mess, and thus the reports out of Iraq are not unexpected. Are they welcome? Not particularly, but I'd rather hear the whole picture rather than carefully-staged photo ops with smiling Iraqi children who just love the Army guy that they're standing around.
I do not, however, think that we are getting the full story in Iraq. On the one hand, major media outlets seem bent on describing each major attack as something just short of the 1968 Tet Offensive. On the other hand, I hear a lot about blogs posting rosy letters from soldiers and the distinct theme of "this isn't getting out but it's golden over here". To steal words from that German weasel Joschka Fischer, "Excuse me. I am not convinced."
Inasmuch as obtaining an accurate and complete picture of what is going on in Iraq is not something I'm probably able to do---oh, to have a copy of CIA intelligence estimates, NSA intercepts, and DOD information---I generally find myself actively not listening about the latest report of losses and the oh-so-obvious conclusion that it's a "quagmire". I also tune out rosy reports of how great the country is doing and so forth, and just expect good hard-working Americans, British and Iraqis (and the rest of Senator Kerry's grand diversionary coalition of the bribed and the bought...) to muddle through and make something better from the current mess in Mesopotamia.
Third, what specific criteria do you recommend that we should use over the coming months and years to measure whether the Iraq invasion has been a success?
Let me say this about that: I don't expect a carbon copy of the American process to be installed in Iraq. They're operating in a completely different civilizational, cultural and historical environment; put simply, they are not us so it is folly to expect them to be like us. I am also, to say the least, quite skeptical of Middle Eastern democratization.
The grand scheme of things metric that I'm going to use over time is whether we have to go back and do this again in the next 10-15 years. What I'm primarily looking for in terms of Iraqi development is, at best, the development of another Turkey. That is, my understanding of what Turkey is, i.e. a more-or-less democratic republic where the fanatics in the mosques are kept there by force of arms. That, and the two things I outlined earlier about no longer being a Middle Eastern nuisance and not acting like the kid with the mags under the bed.
Another metric I thought of has already been fulfilled in two places. Ostensibly, the war focused on stopping Saddam Hussein's production of/efforts towards atomic, chemical, or biological weapons, a non-proliferative war if you will. Well, we do know that Saddam Hussein'll never reach for nuclear weapons again, and perhaps the Colonel in Libya has sworn off his CBR program as well. If we can put the brakes on a couple of proliferation programs in the region, then perhaps we've already done enough good, and any success in Iraq will be sauce for the goose, Mr. Saavik.
I'm distinctly not going to establish any metrics that have anything to do with Islamist terror. The swamp-draining theory may or may nto work when you've got a potential recruit pool of one billion men, women and children. The reality is that we now live in an age of direct attempts against the several States---no, I'm not going to use that lame term of 'Homeland'---and will be so until radical Islamists either succeed in their jihad or they are snuffed out through a variety of measures.
In any event, my ultimate hope is that our troops are able to return safely, swiftly, and victoriously. I want this whole war thing to be over, dagnabbit.
Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Cold Spring Shops.
Does anyone know how I get the Blogs for Bush auto link list to appear in something other than Times New Roman, other than changing a default font in the browser? The current display doesn't work with my stylistic plan, such as it is.
Meanwhile, restoration work continues.
UPDATE: Listed item fixed. What I don't know about at this point is getting that cursed calendar back into alignment with the rest of the column. Anyone have any advice? Oh and by the way, I've managed to get the Blogshares thing working, after having finally registered and claimed the blog.
This comes to me courtesy of a contact in the Bristol, Virginia area: The Norfolk Southern Railway recently operated a journalist's special over the NSR's trackage from their Bristol, Virginia yard to somewhere in Bulls Gap, Tennessee. The train, a two coach effort pulled by EMD GP59 4637, was run in order to illustrate to journalists and others the actions of people along railroad tracks.
The Bristol Herald-Courier covered this event, and its article is here. If you're one of the cookie-blocking types, you will have to deal with a fistful of the things, mostly spawning from Media General's electronic empire.
Grade crossing safety is another one of things where transportation companies are largely forced to rely upon the common sense of their fellow Americans in automobiles. As a result, there's a fair amount of collisions and a lesser number of fatalities involved. The industry's grade crossing safety group, Operation Lifesaver, notes in its statistics that there were "2,929 highway-rail grade crossing collisions" in 2003, with those producing "329 fatalities", according to preliminary Federal Railroad Administration statistics.
This started out as more of a rail enthusiast post, but let me close with this: Ten thousand tons plus of train traveling at sixty miles an hour needs something like a mile and a half to stop from the point of emergency brake application, or so I've been told. Three thousand pounds of car can relatively stop on a dime. It is in your, the driver's, interest to defer to the train.
Something's come up: I'm trying to arrange my SiteMeter configuration so that each individual entry, the monthly archive, and the category archive are transmitting data. Does the SiteMeter code go in each of those three templates, or does it belong on the "Master Archive Index"?
Thanks!
Full disclosure: I only watched the first half of the debate.<1> Domestic policy politics as practiced in the several States is, to me, an exercise in mind-deadening tedium that a) solves nothing, b) costs me money, and c) winds up exasperating me, because the solutions to the discussed problems can't be said.
That being said, I enjoyed watching the Vice President dismantle Senator Edwards on several points. But, I won't go into that, and since I'm floundering about for the right things to say, I'll point to Jonathan V. Last's take on it at The Weekly Standard.
I'm not surprised that Last scored Edwards well in domestic policy; I had always been impressed (and dismayed) from a professional political standpoint at Edwards. When I saw him in Richmond during the primary season, he seemed to be well at ease in front of a crowd and quite capable of handling himself on the trail. Indeed, I never understood why Edwards wasn't the pick for the Democratic nominee, but it has since been explained to me that Edwards wasn't the "I-hate-Bush-who-eats-children" candidate, and that didn't fly in the era of Dr. Howard Dean.
Just another reason to turn up the nose and sniff at the former governor of Vermont.
<1> That, and I was busy watching HBO's Band of Brothers. I'd rather watch Easy Company than Edwards-Cheney.
Yes, it's been nigh on four months since I last updated The Country Pundit. Several things, i.e. the Virginia Bar, moving out from my apartment, relocating several hundred miles away, et cetera, have prevented me from being diligent about this.
Inasmuch as I'm trying a program of "returning to normalcy", I can once again take up a hobby that I'd been teetering upon burn out with. There is, as everyone in the several States knows, an election going on. That being said, I'm past the point of apathy on the election, and I'm not sure how much Bush v. Kerry stuff I'll be posting.
Please bear with me as I return various components of the blog to operational order; there were server issues that I'm vaguely cognizant of, and certain things have to be rebuilt from the ground up. To boot, even my laptop died, so I had to sort of emergency-rig my desktop for heavy Internet service. Bah.
I'm not even sure I'm on the Blogs for Bush blogroll any more. If you've been on my blogroll before, let me know and I'll re-add you.
UPDATE: After a bit of study, it appears that I indeed am no longer on the Blogs for Bush list. Bother!
UPDATE THE SECOND: Interesting. My list shows me as having never left. How's that for loyalty? Talk about a real Republican attribute, eh. On a technical note, how does one get around to changing the font from the Times New Roman-esque font of the Blogs for Bush blogroll to something else?