Channeling, books, shoes, and Carnival

Channeling:
GM Roper channels Elizabeth Barret Browning.

Siggy channels A Post Modern Christmas.

No Pasaran channels a VW van.

An illegal alien wants to cross the channel...again.
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Speaking of immigration, lose weight before you move to New Zealand (h/t Mark Steyn/The Corner)
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This week's WSJ's Five Best, on "extraordinary journeys of discovery", chosen by Dava Sobel:


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This week's shoes:

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CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITIES - Happy Thanksgiving!

Last night's therapy session with the Sanity Squad

Listen to the podcast and benefit from the insights of the best four shrinks around (six, if you count Carl and Alfred, too).

We talked about how Siggy's past-life regression ended up with three people, how Hollywood celebrities admire goose-stepping tyrants, and why Dr. Sanity walked out on a date. ShrinkWrapped explained Anthetic Liberalism while NeoNeocon brought some insights on the goings-on at the Church of the Politically Correct Jesus Christ of the Later Day Globally Warmed Organic Socially Aware Saints.

My heartfelt thanks to Dr. Sanity, Neoneocon, ShrinkWrapped and Siggy for a great podcast and a fun time!

Sunday books, shoes, and Carnival

This week's "Five Best" from the WSJ, business books:


The only book I haven't read of these five is the Email book. I highly recommend Twyla Tharpe's book: entertaining, insightful, and very enjoyable.
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This week's shoes, Ugg's Tie Bow:
Yes, I know they're ugly, but these will keep your toes warm

A slipper with a sheepskin insole and driving shoe treads on the outside. Make sure to change into dress shoes when you get to the office!
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The Carnival of the Insanities is up.


If that's not enough insanity for you, read about what happened when Bill Richardson started wathing the X-Files.

The three stooges

The UN, Columbia, and the National Press Club

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got a really big send-off before his trip to NYC

In the parade, some of the trucks carrying Iranian missiles were painted with popular slogans: "Down with the U.S." and "Down with Israel."

Later today I'll be posting about the three stooges that will be entertaining 'Jad once he gets to the US.
As I mentioned Thursday, Iran is

intent on wiping Israel off the map,
financing Hezbolla,
arming Shiia terrorists in Iraq,
and swearing to develop nuclear weapons

For this, Ahmadinejad gets rewarded and feasted by the three stooges:
Curly/The UN,
Larry/Columbia University,
and Moe/the National Press Club.

Curly:
The UN invites him as a speaker. That is hardly surprising, since the UN has distinguished itself as a cesspool of tyrants. The UN is officially a platfrom from which tyrants can harange againt the USA. We have witnessed this time and time again.

Larry:
Columbia University, however, has shown it true colors. While the Minutemen and the ROTC are not allowed to speak, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the anti-Semite terrorost-in-chief, who believes in the Mahdi but not in the Holocaust, is featured Monday as part of its series entitled "World Leaders Forum". As The Oxford Medievalist explains,

Apparently, Columbia University feels they should provide Ahmadinejad with a forum to further air his prima facie absurd and hateful rhetoric, so long as he's willing to debate. I didn't know his rhetoric needed to be debated, let alone given yet another platform; I thought the conclusion was plainly known: Mahmoud is an apocalyptic madman Jew-hating president of a regime bent on spreading its Islamist revolution throughout the Middle East and, eventually, the world.

But you see, Columbia is so open-minded that they would "invite Hitler to engage in debate by Columbia's students and faculty."

Additionally, The Columbia Coalition Against the War doesn't want progressives to demonstrate against 'Jad because they are worried about publicity:

A rally where each speaker denounces Ahmadinejad's reactionary policies and just a few call explicitly for military action will still be perceived, on campus and around the U.S., as pro-war.

Mind you, the Coalition is echoing Iran's top diplomat in Argentina, who has said that criticizing Iran means supporting war against Iran (h/t Harry's Place).

The Coalition has not given one moment's thought to the fact that Ahmadinejad's entire trip is already being touted as a propaganda victory for the murderous Iranian regime.

Moe:
The National Press Club's innagurates its first-ever videoconference luncheon by having Ahmadinejad speaking and taking questions. Rest assured that 'Jad's replies will be spun and respun as propaganda soundbites all across the Islamic world.

Not that coddling tyrants is new at the NPC. Earlier this summer the National Press Club cancelled a "newsmaker" event on press freedom organized by Venezuelan students, at the request of the Venezuelan Embassy.

The bottom line on Ahmadinejad is, if he can demonstrate that he is treated abroad as a respected leader, he will be better able to counter his critics at home.

'Jad belongs in Gitmo.

And for the record, I like Ike.

In the meantime, Dr Sanity has The Carnival of the Insanities.


[Clarification and apology:
I am using the Stooges as a metaphor for clownish behavior. My apologies to the descendants of the Three Stooges - Larry Fine (Larry), Joe deRita (CurlyJoe), and the Howard brothers, Curly, Moe and Shemp - whose parents and grandparents have brought so much enjoyment togenerations of Americans and who supported the war effort during World War II.]



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Sunday books, Sunday shoes, Sunday Carnival

First the books:
Here are the books the WSJ reviewed this weekend, which include two about Hugo.

You can read Mary Anastasia O'Grady's review of both books here







Sunday Shoes:
I just bought these downtown, and I love them:

While they look a little clunky in the photo, they look great when you're wearing them and you can spend hours walking in them.

Sunday Carnival:
Dr. Sanity has it!

Two Nice Matters Blog Awards in one day!

Both Dr. Sanity and Spanish Pundit have awarded me the Nice Matters Blog Award, on the same day. I am truly thankful for being esteemed by two great ladies who blog.

Dr Sanity explains,

The Nice Matters Blog Award is for ladies who:

...are nice people; good blog friends and those who inspire good feelings and inspiration. Also, for those who are a positive influence on our blogging world. Once you've been awarded please pass it on to 7 others who you feel are deserving of this award. have not only great blogs, but also who have more to them, there is caring, friendship and inspiration too.

Now I'll have to live up to it.

I am awarding the Nice Matters Blog Award to:

Conservative Beach Girl

Mary of Exit Zero

Judith of Kesher Talk

Little Miss Attila

Obi's Sister

Mamacita of Scheiss Weekly

Jane of SeeJaneMom

Of course, I listed the winners in alphabetical order by blog name because I'm so nice I don't play favorites.

20 Questions

GM Roper asked me 20 Questions this week, and I am honored to answer them. GM's one of the "Friends I Haven't Met Yet", and I'm a big fan of his blog so this is a real treat.
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There's a big bruhaha over a new book about Mother Theresa. Mother Theresa had doubts!

Well, I submit to you this thought:
That's what made her a saint.

Blind faith isn't.
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Dr. Sanity has the Carnival

Teach your Children Well

Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by. Schools are run by Islamic group Blair pledged to ban

Members of a radical Muslim group that Tony Blair promised to ban after the July 7 bombings have set up two schools in Britain to educate primary age children.

The Islamic Shaksiyah Foundation, a registered charity that runs private schools in Haringey, north London, and in Slough in Berkshire, was established two years ago by female members of the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Between them, the schools educate more than 100 children. A 2005 Ofsted inspection report for the school in Slough was glowing about its work, stating: "The school's provision for the pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is very good."

The schools' curriculum contains elements of Hizb ut-Tahrir's ideology, which calls for the union of all Muslim states into a worldwide empire, the khilafah (caliphate).
...
Although Hizb ut-Tahrir states it is nonviolent, the organisation has radicalised a number of British Muslims who have gone on to commit terrorist acts after leaving the group.
...
According to the Islamic Shaksiyah Foundation's curriculum document, children aged 7-8 are taught "our rules and laws come from Allah" and asked to contrast Islam with "other belief systems where human beings make rules". At age 9-10 children should be taught: "There must be one khali-fah [ruler of the caliphate]."

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Dr. Sanity has The Carnival of the Insanities

Harry Potter, shoes, The Carnival, and tomorrow on BTR

UPDATED
Check out the Blogathon!
Since a family member is away and took with him HP7, last evening I went and bought another copy. Blogging will be light until I finish the book (halfway there).

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The subject of shoes proved popular in the It'll Never Happen post. Here's my latest purchase - mine are black patent:

Comfortable, goes well with slacks and skirts, and on sale.
(Let's hope Amazon doesn't show the HP book link instead of the shoes! Here's the direct link)
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Tomorrow July 30 at noon (EDT), my guests will be Baron Bodissey and Dymphna of Gates of Vienna, along with Siggy. We will be discussing Hazelton, Gates of Vienna's new calendar, and Sarkozy's visit to Libya.

My first BTR show with GoV and SC&A was fascinating and very popular, and I'm sure this one will be, too.
Please join us!

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Dr. Sanity has the Carnival of the Insanities

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UPDATEAlabama Improper is having a Blogathon for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Please visit.

Dear Ada Brunstein, and other matters

DEAR ADA BRUNSTEIN,
I was reading the NYT this morning looking for blogging material while on the road and came across your article in the NY Times Styles Modern Love section, The House of No Personal Pronouns.

We have never met and will probably never meet, but it's time someone took you by the hand and gave you some sound advice. I normally don't give advice to strangers but recently I have come across a number of people (men and women) in situations comparable to yours. Two have confided in me. Believe me, you are not alone in your dilemma. There are many Adas out there.

Let me start by pointing out that you are in a long-term relationship. You may refer to your lover as "boyfriend" but after a year of this, recognize the fact that you are in a long-term relationship. Call him boyfriend, lover, paramour or whatever else.

The short version of my advice is this:
Leave him right now, cold turkey, permanently, and don't ever go back to him.

That means getting up, walking away, throwing away the key to his house and changing the key to your place (maybe even moving to a new place of your own). Erase his phone number off your phones and block his calls.

Here is why:
In your article you mention how

"in the past my jealousies have gotten the better of me".

Allow me a small digression from your current dilemma to explain that it is not wise to engage in prolonged arguments with your man as to whether you would be OK with him sleeping with Uma Thurman, be it in theory or in practice. The appropriate response on your part would be to state in abruptly clear unambiguous terms that of course it would not be OK with you. If he protests, complains, or doesn't acknowledge that you're not putting up with any of that, it's time to break up.

If you expect an exclusive, monogamous relationship, you must make it absolutely clear.

But back to your current dilemma:
You entered into this relationship for the purpose of proving a point:

"This was going to be the new me. A stronger, cooler, nothing-fazes-me sort of girlfriend who would prove I've outgrown the formerly jealous me. I would be unconventional, brave, hip and oh-so-bohemian in my nonchalance."

Congratulations; you have proved your point. You are cool, nonchalant, bohemian, brave, and everything you set out to demonstrate. And you have done so in spades.

And here's the rub: While relationships with divorced men are very difficult because a great many men still love their ex-wives, you are in the middle of an even greater mess because he's not a divorced man.

Two questions:
Is he still married?
Is he still living in the same house as his wife, sharing living quarters?

Of course, the answer to these two questions is yes. While you would like to think that there has been a separation, that they have moved on and moved out, the physical fact remains that neither of them have. They both remain exactly where they choose to be: smack in the middle of each other's lives and living together under the same jointly-owned roof.

And now for the skinny, from two points of view:
First the cynical, since I'm not above cynicism:

A great deal of satisfaction in life comes from being able to 'play your game'. You are 'playing your game' when you are in control of your circumstances. The situation you describe where you have to ask, "does she mean to lay claim to her place while putting me in mine?" is a situation where you are playing her game. And legally it is her place.

Make no mistake: you will be playing her game for as long as you are attached to her man.

Yes, he is her man.

And the second point of view,
From the point of view of love:
Nowhere in the article did you mention the word love.

I have to assume that, since you are a writer, this is not a mere lapse.

Love is not an easy thing. Poets, philosopher, and psychologists have spent whole lives trying to decipher, explain, and understand it. All of them would probably agree that love means commitment.

This man has shown absolutely no commitment to you. In addition, by remaining in a relationship with him, you are denying yourself the opportunity to find someone who would love you , who would commit to you.

Ask yourself, Are you so afraid of love that you must remain with this man?

Give yourself a chance at love and leave this situation, where you are allowing a marriage to drag you into their very dysfunctional and downright perverse "whirlwind of ifs and thens", to use your phrase, and leave him.

You have already wasted a year. Don't waste a minute more.

I realize that the odds are that you will not read my advice, and that even if you read it you won't follow it, but you have been told. You can't use "nobody told me" as an excuse.

Update, Monday 23 July
Welcome, Dr Helen readers. You'll probably enjoy this post, too.
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In other insanities, it's time for the Carnival


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I'll be on the road for the greater part of tomorrow so there won't be a podcast, but you can listen to the Gerard and Siggy show.

The full story, the modern Wife of Bath, and today's other items

My friend Captain Ed posts on A Case Of Missing Context At The Gray Lady

Readers who want the whole story have to read the Los Angeles Times to find out what else Maliki said about the Iraqi position:

Maliki, a Shiite, put on a brave face in the wake of the rising demand in the U.S. among Democratic and Republican legislators for withdrawal from Iraq.
He pleaded for time, pledging to achieve the passage of legislation that Washington has demanded as a condition of its continuing support, including an oil revenue sharing law, a revised constitution and the easing of government work restrictions for former supporters of President Saddam Hussein, who was captured, tried and executed after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Maliki also said that Iraqi security forces could use more training from U.S.-led forces and needed more weaponry.

You know the NYT's faltering when you get the full story from the LAT.

Also via Captain Ed, a terrific article by Rod Liddle, Having a torrid time at the BBC - Busy Blurting Confessions. Nobody lets it rip like the Brits, and Liddle's in fine form. Read it all, but here's a sample,

Then came the television news teams 'fessing up that they may have inadvertently misled the public over the single European currency, the inherent competence and decency of Hamas, Fatah and the Taliban, the desirability of unconstrained immigration and the notion that bunging loads of money in aid to Africa would solve that continent's problems. Oh, and a whole bunch of other stuff about the dangers of smoking and global warming and being fat. The BBC's "gypsy unit" turned up too, to confess that not everyone who had reservations about encroachment by Britain's traveller community were necessarily racist middle-class bigots. They were late, though, because their cars had been nicked.

Rod Liddle knows what he's talking about since,

Rod Liddle left his post as editor of the BBC's Today programme in 2002, after a row about impartiality in an article he wrote for The Guardian.

Rod, if you're reading this, email me when you come to Princeton and I'll buy you a beer.

Rod also writes about Jane Felix-Browne, a.k.a. Zaina Mohamad al-Sabah, the latest incarnation of the Wife of Bath who was fond of pilgrimage and fond of a much younger man. Jane/Zaina, like the Wife, has been married five times, is middle-aged (if people live to be 102, since she's 51), enjoys travel, and married a much younger man (a 26 yr-old).

There ends the resemblance to the WoB: the WoB might have been madly in love with her young husband but she wasn't crazy enough to marry the 1380s equivalent of Osama Bin-Laden's son and move to Saudi Arabia.

One must consider, however, that the WoB was a woman of the 14th Century, and Jane/Zaina's now the daughter-in-law of a guy that wants to send us back to the 10th Century, so it's all in the spirit of the times.

Time and time again I have seen many marriages fall apart where the age difference was >15 years (but never one where the husband already had another wife since I've never met any polygamists), but let's just say that'll be the least of Jane/Zaina's troubles.

Osama, or so they say, is praising the martyrdom of others:

"The happy (man) is the one that God has chosen him to be a martyr,"

says he, while depriving himself of that happiness. it's time to resurrect one of my old limericks from back in 2004:

There once was a boy named Osama
who never respected his mamma.
He blew up the World Trade
and is now in a cave,
hiding away, like Saddam-a

I realize that my limerick is a rerun, but so is Osama's video; that completes the trio.

Venezue-lan-born Vladimir Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a.k.a. Carlos the Jackal, sneers at Al-Qaeda's 'amateur' killers from his prison cell in France.

Not that that makes them less deadly.

On to unrelated stuff:
The French are a lot bigger optimists than I thought: Now they have free bicycles. Bon chance on that, mes amis!

Francis Porretto has a post on Fred Thompson which convinced me that the Dems must see Fred as the first viable Southern Presidential candidate since Bill Clinton - and they are scared.

Never mind men's neckties; how do you walk in these?

Should a country this crazy have nuclear weapons?
Speaking of insanities, Dr Sanity has the Carnival




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Among the greenery

UPDATED
NJ is toast as Corzine signs a law mandating sharp greenhouse gas reductions by 2050 to help fight climate change.

That won't do much to help the NJ jobs deficit and its continued economic low gear.

I know that I'm planning to leave the state, which has been my home for decades now, as soon as conditions allow me to.

I'm not alone in that sentiment. If you browse through Jew Nersey Magazine while you wait in line at McCaffrey's, you find page after page of ads from adjacent states (particularly Delaware and Pennsylvania) inviting businesses and individuals to relocate to their states, which are more tax favorable and business friendly.
Meanwhile, over at PRS...

In other green news
Larwyn sent a whole round-up of Live Earth posts:
Death-for-Rushdie Advocate Headlining Live Earth Concert
7 Things to See That Are More Entertaining Than Watching Al Gore and Fellow Deranged Narcissists Pollute the Atmosphere: A great selection of videos, among them "Tell us about the drying paint"
Live Earth Performers Urge Earthlings to Sacrifice for Green Future. Enrique Iglesias's house makes Vizcaya look humble.
More greenflation: Green Fuels Could Raise Food Prices by Half
And a Live Earth postmortem that would make Horatio proud,

but it sure didn't sound like the kind of music we might be listening to in our putatively greener future

Heh.
Live Earth a Bust
Via Jeremayakovka, Jihadists against climate change
Updates
Via Maria, Live Earth London's Glacial Pacing
Mixing Music and a Serious Message Gives Concert a Clunky Rhythm
Al Gore's Scientific Consensus Collapses
Ella sent this, and says, "Raise your hand if you're Sure!"

Strong enough for a man, but unused.

A haircut and a Carnival
Dr Sanity has The Carnival of the Insanities, and GM Roper shows John Edwards How To Get A Good Haircut And Save $387.00

At Johnny's you could save $387.00 if you went to Johnny's when you get down here and then you could donate the difference to say The Food Bank where it might help poor people more than rhetoric does. And, you would even get a tax deduction. AND, if I may be so bold, you could even use that in your campaign against Hillary who asked for a deduction based on giving Bills "used silk underwear" to charity. That ought to be worth something don't you think?

GM Roper has pictures to prove his point, and I like his haircut.

So much for the "unsophisticated terrorist" meme

As I write this post, the TV news reports that police bomb squads in Scotland have blown up a suspicious car.

In yesterday's podcast Siggy and I were asking what unsophisticated terrorists?, since an often-repeated meme has been that "we need not worry since the terrorists are unsophisticated", bumblers.

I heard this argument when people discussed the plot to blow up NY airports, the Fort Dix six, and now with the three (possibly four) car bombs in the UK.

Here we are, at war with the world's most depraved beasts, and their attempts at killing us are dismissed because they are "unsophisticated".

As many as five of the eight people in police custody in the fast-moving investigation are either doctors or doctors in training (including the much-touted NHS, to which they all were connected), and they are part of an international plot that spans years. Two of the doctors are in Australia legally, where they passed all the security checks.


These are well-educated, well-travelled, well-connected people who have had every opportunity the best of Western societies can offer.

Today Dr Sanity explains DOCTORS, SADISTS, AND THE BEASTS OF RADICAL ISLAM. I would add another motivation to the ones she lists: the desire to play god. If you, as a believer of a death cult, relish the power over life and death, what more amenable to your mentality than bringing the infidels to the fate they deserve? What better than sending the faithful to their reward?

It all boils down to one thing: a war for supremacy.

Any of us who have been lulling ourselves to sleep by sucking our thumbs and holding on to the "unsophisticated terrorist" security blanky should, by now, wake up to the fact that brute force is deadly, no matter its level of sophistication.

Update
A friend emailed this: Gordon Brown has banned ministers from using the word "Muslim" in connection with the terrorism crisis.

The Prime Minister has also instructed his team - including new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith - that the phrase "war on terror" is to be dropped.

The shake-up is part of a fresh attempt to improve community relations and avoid offending Muslims, adopting a more "consensual" tone than existed under Tony Blair

I'd prefer to call it the war against Caliphate Islam, but Caliophate Islamists aren't consensual at all.



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Sunday reads

It's time for a book post:

In today's Opinion Journal, Robin Aitken writes about The Beeb's Bias
Britain's public broadcaster is a major source of anti-American propaganda.

On every issue of public policy and political controversy, the BBC's instincts are to side with the progressive, liberal wing of politics.

The war in Iraq? Opinion within the London newsrooms was overwhelmingly opposed to military action from the start and has never wavered since. Man-made climate change? The BBC has jettisoned all semblance of impartiality on the issue; it now openly campaigns with a constant stream of scare stories. The Arab-Israeli conflict? The BBC's sympathies are firmly on the side of the Palestinians, who, having achieved the status of permanent victims, escape skeptical examination of their actions and motives.

The same biases color attitudes on moral issues. Abortion? BBC reportage invariably starts from the premise that it is an unquestioned social good, and the company has close links with pro-abortion groups like the International Planned Parenthood Federation. Multiculturalism? The BBC enthusiastically embraces a relativism that treats all cultures, no matter how backward, as equally valid and gives our own democratic traditions no special weight. Homosexuality? The BBC has consistently pushed the agenda of gay-rights activists on issues like same-sex marriage and the adoption of children by gay couples.

The reverse of the coin is that the BBC has its own in-house pariah groups: the "Christian Right," neocons, climate-change skeptics, "homophobes," George W. Bush. These people will never get the soft interview or helpful publicity.

This week's WSJ's book selections:
Author David Gelenrter chooses the "Best 5" books about America:

Also in Geletner's list, The Religion of Abraham Lincoln by William J. Wolf, and The Two-Ocean War by Samuel Eliot Morison, both published in 1963.

The WSj also has reviews of


While I was at the beach I was reading,


But before you buy your books, don't miss Dr. Sanity's Carnival of the Insanities,


Update. LINK NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK
Ace posts on Peter Green's new translation of the poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus.

You gotta love the Classics.

Drink deeply from your BDS mug, and praise the freedom to do so

Updated
Yesterday I was in downtown Princeton walking down Witherspoon Street when I saw something in the window of a local shop that caught my attention: George W. Bush dog biscuits.
(I hasten to clarify that I didn't see them at this shop which is not on Witherspoon; their dog biscuits are different).

The store is not a political artifacts store, it's a hippie shop: It specializes in "hippie clothes" - i.e., t-shirts and tops in prints and batik, made in exotic (and low-wage labor) locales abroad from hemp, cotton and rough-spun linen - plus it carries stained glass, inexpensive jewelry, and pottery.

As I said, a hippie shop. I bought a sterling silver ring there a few years ago.

The biscuits were displayed in a cardboard box that said something to the effect of, "...crunch, crunch...he's gone!".

The biscuits were displayed on a shelf with other goods that carried the logo 01.20.09
I had no idea what 01.20.09 stood for until I read on the mugs "Bush's Last Day", which was explanation enough (click on photo to enlarge):

I stared at the goods in bewilderment and admiration.

I was bewildered (yes, I bewilder easily) that anyone would spend their hard-earned after-tax money on this kind of stuff. As you all know by now, I'd rather spend my hard-earned after-tax money on books and shoes, and I don't wear clothes with writing on them (except for the logo of this company, since I own their stock).

Bewildered, also, that one would hate our President so much that they'd buy a mug and start their morning focusing on his last day in office.

And then I admired how free we are to produce, market, wear and talk about merchandise like this.

I looked at the date and appreciated greatly how our Constitution provides for presidential term limits. It's a wonderful country where you can tell with certainty the date in the future when one ruler leaves. Britain, France, and many other democracies don't provide for that. Putin has no sense of humor so I don't expect any Russian stores will be carrying any such merchandise. Chavez is pushing to end term limits in Venezuela. Castro, Assad, Kim, and other revel in their never-ending tyranny; the very notion of term limits in their societies would mean a death sentence.

I looked at the merchandise and was pleased to see how we have the technology and the means of producing the items, transporting them to the stores and keeping track of the inventory so the stores can reorder.

And I looked in wonderment at the dog buiscuits - the Iranian mullahs consider owning a dog "moral depravity". How amazing that some people can feed their dogs the effigy of the President, who they despise for confronting the Iran-sponsored terrorism in Iraq, while being blind to the fact that the nuclearly-armed Iranian theocrats would not even allow them to have a dog.

Not only that: people from much poorer countries arrive at our country and can't believe that we have whole stores and aisles at the supermarkets dedicated to dog food.

We live in a land of abundance, prosperity and opportunity indeed.

Of course, I fully expect that the irony-poor Left will get together for coffee, sipping from their 01.20.09 black mug, proudly wearing the (symbollic, of course) pink 01.20.09 t-shirt and the 01.20.09 black baseball cap and feed the dog GWB biskits (what's with the spelling? Can't they spell, or is there a copyright on the word biscuit?), all the while bemoaning how our President's turning the country into a dictatorship, where we're all being repressed while the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy oppresses the heck out of our lives.

The disconnection between the fact that they can wear the stuff while making such arguments makes my head swim (* see footnote).

Dr Krauthammer diagnosed BDS as,

the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency -- nay -- the very existence of George W. Bush.

Drink deeply from your BDS mug, and praise the freedom to do so, folks.

* Footnote: I was talking to a friend yesterday who told me that "makes my head swim" doesn't mean the same as "makes my head spin", which I have been using interchangeably.
She says that "makes my head swim" implies delight, and "makes my head spin" implies confusion.
Any clarification on this matter will be greatly welcome.
Update Beth emails,

my head swims means that you are dizzy or lose your balance. So, that seems to me it would be the same as my head spins.

Thanks!

Update 2 My neighbor TigerHawk posts that The New York Times discovers jihadi ideology
More The Albanians won't be buying any of those dog biscuits
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Dr. Sanity has The Carnival of the Insanities:



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Jimmy, the worst president ever, and today's items

Investor's Business Daily has Profiles in Incompetence: a 10-part series on the worst president in American history
Part one: Look who's talking
Go and read all of them.

Monica Showalter, editorial writer for IBD, was one of my podcast guests. You can listen to the podcast here
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Who's feeding Cuba, you ask?
The US:

Cuba expects to sign deals worth $150 million with American food producers at talks starting on Monday that point to sustained U.S. interest in the Cuban market despite political hurdles.
...
One U.S. farm state delegation after another has gone to Havana this year to pitch sales of wheat, corn, beans, peas, lentils, chicken and other products needed by communist Cuba to feed its people.
...
U.S. sales to Cuba are allowed on a cash-only basis under an exception to the embargo enforced against Castro's leftist government since 1962. Despite the hostility between Washington and Havana, [US] exports have totaled $1.55 billion since 2001.

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Sigmund, Carl and Alfred has an excellent post on Memorial Day And The Mirror Of Hope,

Americans talk about freedom so passionately because we are passionate about that great ideal.

Freedom is the foundation of our beliefs. Because of freedom we free to choose the things we believe in, without fear of violence or repercussion. Freedom is the only ideology that wants to make the world a better place, a place where each and every one of us can author our own destiny- and do so without without stripping others of their rights. In a free society, we are free to exercise free will. We can choose to believe in God or we can exercise that free will and choose not to believe in God. In a free society, God takes care of His affairs. In a society that isn't free, the tyranny du jour takes it upon itself to handle God's affairs for Him.

The fight for freedom has not been easy. It never is. There are those that see the cost of freedom and want us to abandon the citizens of nations that so desperately need liberation from tyranny. It is tempting indeed to walk away, in the myopic and absurd belief that we would be forever extricating ourselves from a problem.

You must read the rest. You can also vote for it at Real Clear Politics

Siggy has been my podcast guest three times and tomorrow he'll co-host with me as we welcome Gates of Vienna's Dymphna and Baron Bodissey.

If you didn't listen to Siggy's reading of School Daze, go back and listen. This was my inagural podcast and it certainly was "starting with the right foot".
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Barcepundit (who was also my podcast guest - is there a pattern here?) has a this hypothetical letter from a newspaper editor to a cartoonist.
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My neighbor TigerHawk has Operation Hero Miles: Donate your frequent flier miles to injured soldiers and their families. Here's how.
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The Carnival's not up yet, but here's the link all the same up - go check it out:


I'll be posting about last night's podcast later today.

Bette and the Joads

The guys are away camping this weekend so I'm indulging in one of my favorite pastimes (aside from listening to viola da gamba and Bryn): watching old movies. I don't rent them on Netfix, I just take pot luck with AMC and TCM.

As it turns out, AMC's playing The Grapes of Wrath,

and TCM has Dark Victory


As you can see from the trailers above, each movie had its own agenda; The Grapes is a socialist vehicle; Dark Victory was Betty's vehicle. They're both excellent films in their class. 1939-1940 was a great time for movies.

The first time I saw The Grapes I was greatly moved, both by its message and by the actors. Now I can't help but think of this


The first time I saw Dark Victory I must have been 10 or 12 years old and was probably watching it with my sister. We cried our guts out, of course.

The trailer has it right: "See Glamorous BETTE DAVIS". Glamorous she is. Bette wears a succession of spectacular outfits, including evening gowns by Orry-Kelly, that would look stylish today. You can sit there and learn all there is to be learned about what was considered The Look in 1939 just from watching this film.

Bette has an incurable brain tumor and is dying through the whole movie. George Brent is her doctor, who, unlike House - who would have laid the truth on her like a thick (and very unstylish) wet polartec blanket - doesn't want her to know that she's dying. After brain surgery that spared her hair - except for a small section that she covers with a clerical-looking beanie dyed and decorated to match each spectacular outfit - George and Bette's friends (among them Ronald Reagan) keep up a clearly contrived brave front.

And then Bette finds out.

Of course, Bette does what any reasonable glamorous socialite would do under the circumstances: she runs out in her mink coat to the barn where Irish stable boy, Michael O'Leary, played by Humphrey Bogart, awaits.

Bogey's his usual smoldering self, and has the best lines in the movie. There they are in the stables, Bette smokin' and Bogey in her presence, saying,

"I guess I was born out of my time, Miss Judith. I should have lived in the days when it counted to be a man, the way I like to ride and the way I like to fight."

Oh yes.

Michael/Bogey goes on:

"What good's riding and fighting these days? What do they get you?"

Beanie-wearing Bette appraises him with a knowing glance, lets out a puff of smoke, and replies,

"You're making love to me, aren't you?"

Hot stuff.

But wait, there's more:

Michael/Bogey: "I'm as good as some of them whose been playin' around with you. They're all afraid of you! I wish I was in their boots!"

Judy/Bette: "What then, Michael?"

Michael/Bogey: "The things I wanted to say to you ever since I first laid eyes on you... belong to me and no one else."

Then he takes her in his arms and kisses her passionately.

M'm.

Good stuff. You can watch that whole scene in the trailer above.

Now excuse me. The Joads are still having a hard time, and I just realized that the blouse and cardigan I'm wearing make me look like Ma Joad. I must go look for something more stylish.

But before I go, here's a nice photo of Bogey



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For more entertainment pleasure, Dr Sanity has the Carnival


Speaking of stylish, The Anchoress is looking beautiful.


technorati tags: Bette Davis Humphrey Bogart Ronald Reagan

Mullah Dadullah's dead, and today's items

Yallah! Mullah Dadullah's With Allah!; the BBC is less alliterative:

The Taleban's top military commander in Afghanistan, Mullah Dadullah, has been killed in fighting in the south of the country.

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Also via Pajamas Media, an article on the Islamberg Jamaat ul-Fuqra compound near Hancock, New York

Islamberg is a branch of Muslims of the Americas Inc., a tax-exempt organization formed in 1980 by Pakistani cleric Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, who refers to himself as "the sixth Sultan Ul Faqr," Gilani, has been directly linked by court documents to Jamaat ul-Fuqra or "community of the impoverished," an organization that seeks to "purify" Islam through violence.

Though primarily based in Lahore, Pakistan, Jamaat ul-Fuqra has operational headquarters in New York and openly recruits through various social service organizations in the U.S., including the prison system. Members live in hamaats or compounds, such as Islamberg, where they agree to abide by the laws of Jamaat ul-Fuqra, which are considered to be above local, state and federal authority. Additional hamaats have been established in Hyattsville, Maryland; Red House, Virginia; Falls Church, Virginia; Macon, Georgia; York, South Carolina; Dover, Tennessee; Buena Vista, Colorado; Talihina, Oklahoma; Tulane Country, California; Commerce, California; and Onalaska, Washington. Others are being built, including an expansive facility in Sherman, Pennsylvania.

Before becoming a citizen of Islamberg or any of the other Fuqra compounds, the recruits - - primarily inner city black men who became converts in prison - - are compelled to sign an oath that reads: "I shall always hear and obey, and whenever given the command, I shall readily fight for Allah's sake."

Read it all.

According to Google maps, it's only 129 miles from Chappaqua to Hancock; maybe Sen. Clinton would like to take a look the next time she's at home.

Gates of Vienna has a series of posts on Jamaat ul-Fuqra (see right sidebar) in the USA.
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The Anchoress asks, Is it time for War Bonds?
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Bryn Terfel's in Utah and The Anchoress is keeping me posted. Here's one article, Regular bloke with a golden voice

"You know what an Irishman is, don't you?" he asks, then answers with a twinkle: "A Welshman that could swim."

In the interview, he says that his favorite role was Falstaff. Here you have him:

While in Utah, Bryn sang Mendelssohn's "Elijah" with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Wish I'd been there.
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Happy Mother's Day to all my visitors.

Sunday morning gossip

And now for a change of pace:
My Blog Talk Radio guest John Chappel, another Friend I Haven't Met Yet, of Inside Europe: Iberian Notes has been posting on Spanish singer/media celebrity Isabel Pantoja, who's been for decades a tabloid favorite from back in the days when her bullfighter husband got killed on the job.

The Spanish media has been portraying her life as a long-winding soap opera, and they aren't about to stop now that things got interesting.

Tawdry reporting on tawdry characters is not exclusive to the US or the UK, and this story involves a singer, undeclared earnings, a real estate developer, and yet more bullfighting. The only missing ingredients are a couple of Democrats and the story would make it to Fox News.

La Pantoja has as least as much stage "attitude" as Queen Latifa, and she knows how to work the audience. Here she is in action,


I'll be posting later today on the French election. We are blessed with another beautiful day, so until then, enjoy the day.

And for your weekly insanity fix, visit The Carnival

May Day nonsense, and today's items

May Day came and went and Fidel didn't show up. I guess he's still waiting for his suits to come back from the cleaners.

Of course all the MSM had reporters in Havana breathlessly waiting for fidel to show up. And playing right along into the revolucion propaganda games. In yesterday's bloggers' call with Tony Snow, one of the questions asked was, what did TSnow think of the allegations by the reporter yesterday that Cuba's economic disaster is due to the US "embargo"; his reply was that there's an unbroken record of economic failure in socialist states, which comes as a direct result of repressing people.

Fidel was a no-show but Che's alive, at least in the minds of some.

I firmly support Ilya Somin's May Day proposal (h/t dr. Sanity)

May Day began as a holiday for socialists and labor union activists, not just communists. But over time, the date was taken over by the Soviet Union and other communist regimes and used as a propaganda tool to prop up their regimes. I suggest that we instead use it as a day to commemorate those regimes' millions of victims. The authoritative Black Book of Communism estimates the total at 80 to 100 million dead, greater than that caused by all other twentieth century tyrannies combined. We appropriately have a Holocaust Memorial Day. It is equally appropriate to commemorate the victims of the twentieth century's other great totalitarian tyranny. And May Day is the most fitting day to do so. I suggest that May Day be turned into Victims of Communism Day. I am, of course, open to suggestions for the official name of this day of commemoration. Maybe someone will come up with a better one than I have.

The main alternative to May 1 is November 7, the anniversary of the communist coup in Russia. However, choosing that date might be interpreted as focusing exclusively on the Soviet Union, while ignoring the equally horrendous communist mass murders in China, Camobodia, and elsewhere. So May 1 is the best choice.

I have referred to in previous posts to The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. This book should be required reading at every college and university in this country and around the world.

All the same, name-calling is OK at CNN.
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Media Target: The US Military
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Taranto nails it: So according to the Beeb, you're controversial and divisive if leftists hate or distrust you.
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Speaking of controversial and divisive, NZ Bear's under attack. I suggest we all keep a cool head and give NZ a little time to reorganize his system. Dr Sanity had a moment of joy, too.

Special thanks to Larwyn for the links.