Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Felonious Use Of Methane

Man loses pressure at police headquarters, is charged with battery.

"'The gas was very odorous and created contact of an insulting or provoking nature with Patrolman Parsons,' the complaint alleged."

The judge who can read that in his courtroom without laughing is a better man than I am.

Question for Undecided Voters Leaning Towards Obama

The Democrats created, perpetuated and exacerbated the present credit crisis. Do you really think the solution is to elect more of them? If your house were infested with cockroaches, would you scatter breadcrumbs on the floor? If you suffered from diabetes, would you scarf down a pint of French vanilla ice cream every night?

If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions, please contact me via this blog for a free holiday catalog of fine products offered by Paco Enterprises. Whether you’re in the market for butane-powered camping televisions, children’s items like the Li’l Dracula Bat Farm, the latest fashions in leather halters for your Kuwaiti racing camels, or lederhosen for your little Obamajugend cadet, Paco Enterprises has that perfect gift that will leave your special someone, er, gaping in astonishment on Christmas morning.

On Target

How about a little gun porn to start the day?

Update: And, for those who prefer a more classic form of warfare... (H/T: Captain Heinrichs)

Monday, September 29, 2008

Random Thoughts on the Bailout From a Guy Who Hated Economics Classes

1) Market problems generally require market solutions; however, the current crisis is not a failure of a free market, it is the natural consequence of distorting a free market by encumbering it with economically unsound lending practices. If the Democrats were the only ones saying we need to “do something”, I’d discount their claims. If President Bush, alone, were saying that we’re facing an emergency, I’d take his statement with a grain of salt. But there are enough people out there whose opinions I respect saying that we have to take extraordinary action to make me believe that some kind of plan, resembling, if not identical to, the plan that was voted down today is probably necessary. There are no easy fixes, but a fix of some kind is now required. But the malefactors have to pay a price.

2) The only long-range solution to problems of this kind is to vote out the Democrats. Period. Republicans in the next few election cycles need to remember a lesson from history. Harry Truman won in 1948, not by running against Tom Dewey, but by running against the entire Republican Party and its “do-nothing” congress. Legitimate bipartisanship on a workaday basis, when it makes sense, is fine; but come election time, Republicans need to pull out all the stops and denounce the Democrats from the roof-tops. Name names, and marshal your facts, and be ever-mindful of the fact that any speech or press conference that doesn’t (a) trumpet your positive vision while simultaneously (b) damning the Democrats is a wasted opportunity. Unless the MSM decides to launch a total blackout of coverage, Republican talking points will eventually get into circulation and will have an impact.

3) Still sitting on the fence about the upcoming election? Think about the Democrats controlling the White House and both houses of congress; this would mean (a) an unfocused foreign policy marked by fundamental weakness, with sporadic outbursts of saber-rattling at the wrong time and in the wrong place; (b) a Supreme Court with a long-term liberal majority; (c) a Department of Justice in the hands of someone who is a friend of unrepentant “former” terrorists, and who has not been shy about using force to choke off debate during the presidential campaign; and (d) another shot in the arm for the intellectually moribund doctrine of socialism. God delivered the Ten Commandments to Moses, and they are with us always; but the constitution was made by man, and like everything made by man, it can be destroyed overnight, or it can be so completely emptied of significance over time that it becomes a dead letter.

Vote like your future depended on it - because it does.

Update: A principled contrary view to my first item above (H/T to Captain Heinrichs). And after listening to Karl Rove's fascinating account of the vote, I'm again wondering exactly what, if anything, is really needed in the way of government assistance. The Democrats obviously aren't serious about the bailout. According to Rove, at least five Democratic committee chairmen were permitted to vote against the bill. I think maybe I smell the aroma of BS.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Change

Missouri's old nickname: The Show Me State

Missouri's new nickname: The Show Me Your Papers! State

A Detective Paco Rerun - Detective Paco and the Girl from the EU

This one requires some context. Tim Blair once did a post poking fun at the European Union’s attempt to interest young people in the EU by means of comic books. One of the comics featured a sexy member of the European Parliament. I brought her to life for this very short skit.

It was the hottest day of the year. I looked out of my office window and saw a dog chasing a squirrel and they were both walking. I took a Dixie cup from the dispenser and turned to pour myself a short cold one from the water cooler, when I heard a light, almost timid rapping on the opaque glass of my office door. I issued my usual gracious invitation.

“Yeah?”

The door opened and she stepped in. She was a brunette with eyes like expertly cut amethyst and skin the color of caramel and her second story was loosely wrapped in an ultra-sheer black blouse that made her breasts look like two golden-brown loaves of French bread glimpsed through the smoked glass of an oven door. I was speechless. And not just because I had swallowed my Dixie cup. It was the EU gal. But not the badly-drawn, two-dimensional figure from the comic book; this was the genuine three-dimensional thing, very much in the flesh - about 125 luscious pounds of it.

“Ah! You are Monsieur Paqeau, the famous American detecteeve, no?”

I choked down the Dixie cup and managed a reply. “Yes, ma’am”.

“Oh, Monsieur Paqeau! We are having the major crisis in Europe because the yutes, they are not taking the European Union seriously! What can we do?”

“Lady, in this age of IPods, DVD’s and special effects, the average kid is going to find a comic book about as interesting as the U.S. tax code. Make a movie, throw in some mutants, some aliens and a killer sound track - American music, mind you, none of that lame French ballad crap - and you’ll get their attention. Case solved. That’ll be a hundred euros”.

She beamed. “Oh, merci, Monsieur Paqeau! By the way, the cabs, they are so hard to . . . how do you say, ‘flag down’? Would you be so kind as to take me back to my hotel?”

"Sure thing, ma’am. Wait downstairs by the entrance and I’ll get my car from the garage and swing around front. You can’t miss it: it’s a canary-yellow, 1938 Packard roadster. And say, have you had lunch yet? I know this great little continental place around the corner, and for some reason I’ve got this real craving for French bread.”

Divine Intervention

Secretary of the Treasury Paulson went down on one knee before Nancy Pelosi and begged her for a deal, to which Speaker Nancy Pelosi is said to have joked, “I didn’t know you were Catholic.”

Even funnier, I didn't know Pelosi was Jesus (I thought Obama was Jesus).

Update: Ted Nugent has some good advice.

Update II: Courtesy of an anonymous commenter, and pertaining to the earlier post linking a story about Missouri law enforcement officials' threat to abridge freedom of speech -


Come an' get me, coppers!

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Never Mind the “3 A.M. Call to the White House”; It’s the 3 A.M. Knock on the Door At My House That I’m Worried About

Some people see it, but not those who get their news from ABC or MSNBC or the New York Times. The American Left and their fellow-travelers in the media are mounting an all-out putsch to secure the victory of Barack Obama, and a "New Order" more to their liking, and they’re not about to let something as petty as the Bill of Rights stand in their way, let alone simple notions of fairness and human decency. A few ominous facts:

1) Executive officers at various levels of state and local government in Missouri, at the behest of the Obama campaign, are threatening legal action against people who make “false” charges against Obama.

2) Obama’s lawyers are trying to block the NRA ads that are being run in various swing states.

3) Democrat Secretary of State for Ohio, Jennifer Brunner, is trying to disqualify thousands of absentee ballots cast for McCain.

4) Democrats continue their open attempts at voter-registration fraud through their alliance with ACORN, and Senate and House Democrats even want to offer these crooks an enormous slice of the bailout pie.

5) The nutroot blogs circulate scurrilous rumors, stories and viral videos which the MSM dutifully scoop up and turn into headlines.

6) The Department of Justice seems to be changing the focus of its enforcement of civil rights law in a way that threatens protected, legal activity (unfortunately, we’ve got Bush to blame for this one).

You know, we either laugh or shake our heads sadly at the erosion of individual liberty in Great Britain. Why should we be so smug?

Update: Currency Lad finds yet another example.

Mighty Frauds From Little ACORNs Grow

I've had mixed feelings about the bailout, but no mixed feelings at all about opposing it if it contains Senator Dodd's amendment to skim 20% of the income off the top of revenues and hand it over to the Democratic Party voter-fraud mafia known as ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). If any further evidence was needed to prove the Democrats' fundamental lack of seriousness in passing emergency economic measures, this is it.

Think I'm exaggerating the risk? Well, then, try this on for size.

Freedom of Speech is So Yesterday

This ought to put McCain ahead in Missouri.

Paul Newman - RIP



Paul Newman has died at age 83.

I never cared for his politics, but he was a genuine philanthropist, and, most importantly, of course, one of the finest actors of his generation. What other actor - living today - can claim such a long list of memorable films? Hud, Cool Hand Luke, The Hustler, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting - a great loss to cinema; irreplaceable.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Country Last

The Washington headquarters of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign

Secretary: Good morning, Hope and Change central, how may I help you?

Congressman Barney Frank: Heh-wo. Bawack Obama?

Secretary (with sniffish disdain): I beg your pardon?

Frank: Bawack Obama?

Secretary: Sir, I’m afraid I don’t have time to listen to you play your trombone with a Derby mute.

Frank: What? No, no, no. I want to tawk to Senatuh Bawack Obama! Dis is Congwessman Bahney Fwank.

Secretary: Oh, I see now. One moment, sir…Senator Obama? There’s a Mr. Fwank on line one.

Obama: Barney! How are you?

Frank: Just fine, Senatuh Obama. Except dese wascawy wepublicans ahn’t makin’ things easy. Dey got a pwobwem wif dat widdle change givin’ a hundwed million to ouah fwiends at Acohn. Huh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh!

Obama: That doesn’t matter. The main thing is to keep them tied up so that we can melt a few hundred more points off the Dow, create some additional panic in the markets, and knock McCain down further in the polls. You know, characterize him as the opportunistic grandstander, while I, on the other hand, remain serenely above the fray, dedicating myself to more important things, like deciding which color necktie is best at conveying “experience” during the debate tonight. Incidentally, what’s your opinion about that; the tie, I mean?

Frank: I’m vewwy pahtial to mauve.

Obama: Hmm. Well, while I’ve got you on the line, let me ask you another question. Since the first debate’s going to be on foreign policy and the war, tell me something: who first came up with the idea of the surge?

Frank: The what?

Obama: The surge; you know, sending additional troops to Iraq and changing some of our tactics there.

Frank: Oh, dat. I dunno.

Obama: You don’t suppose it might have been based on a concept devised by Hitler or Nixon or somebody like that, do you?

Frank: No, I don’t think so. But you could insinuate as much; I mean, who’s gonna challenge it? De New Yuk Times? Huh-uh-uh-uh-uh!

Obama: You’re absolutely right, Barney! Thanks. Oh, sorry; gotta go. There’s a call on line 2. Hello, Senator Reid?

Senator Harry Reid: Gawrsh, Senator Obama, a-hyuck!, all h-e-double toothpicks is breakin’ out over here!

Obama: Keep it going, keep it going. Just keep stirring the pot.

Reid: Ok, Barrie, a-hyuck!, I’ll see yuh later!

Secretary: Excuse me, Senator Obama, there’s a William Ayers on line 3.

Obama: Tell him I’m in a meeting until November 5th.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Happy Feet Friday

Bing Crosby’s little brother, Bob, fronted an exciting and very popular band during the late 1930’s called the Bobcats. In 1938, bassist Bob Haggart and drummer Ray Bauduc scored a hit with “Big Noise from Winnetka”, a duet featuring Haggart whistling the melody and playing his bass, and Bauduc beating out the rhythm on his drums. For the 1943 movie, Reveille with Beverley, the composition received the full orchestral treatment, and lyrics were added, but Haggart and Bauduc still steal the show with their duet (although stay alert for the brief, but electrifying, trumpet solo at the end of Haggart and Bauduc’s performance).

The Pied Piper of Nutbuckets

Babalu has an interesting list of beloved quotations provided by some of Obama's faithful followers.

Does Rudd Have a Plan to Combat This Sort of Thing?

I invite all concerned Australian readers to comment on this appalling act of antipodean domestic violence.

(H/T: Mrs. Paco)

Bottoms Up!

I’m a little late with this, but friend and commenter KC sent me a link to this site which has some wonderful hurricane season refreshment ideas.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

From the Shelves of the Paco Library




I am not a great fan of science fiction, fantasy or horror stories, except for Ray Bradbury, and C.S. Lewis’s science fiction trilogy; however, I did stumble across a horror/fantasy novel some time ago that I found vastly entertaining.

The House on the Borderland, first published in 1908, was written by British author William Hope Hodgson. Hodgson led an interesting and varied, but relatively short life (he was killed during WWI at the age of 40), and became a writer primarily from economic necessity. He authored a number of stories about the sea, many based on his experiences as a sailor, but eventually found his real niche as a highly original and imaginative writer of strange tales (according to the article linked above, he was an important influence on H.P. Lovecraft).

Borderland is considered to be a classic among fantasy stories, and I can easily understand why. The action in the novel is not strictly “linear”, but rather, a series of more or less "free-standing" episodes linked together in a curious manuscript discovered in the ruins of an old house by two men on a fishing trip. The setting is an eerie wasteland in Ireland, and there is, throughout the novel, the running theme of a veil that generally, and mercifully, but not always, closes us off from the knowledge of another, and more savage, reality.

The narrator describes the environs of the country, which his friend Tonnison had come across on a previous walking tour, and which has prompted the two to take a vacation in the area in order to have a go at fishing in the local river. From the outset, there is an undertone of vague menace, due, in part, to the sheer remoteness of the place:

“Right away in the west of Ireland lies a tiny hamlet called Kraighten. It is situated, alone, at the base of a low hill. Far around there spreads a waste of bleak and totally inhospitable country, where, here and there at great intervals, one may come upon the ruins of some long desolate cottage – unthatched and stark. The whole land is bare and unpeopled, the very earth scarcely covering the rock that lies beneath it, and with which the country abounds, in places rising out of the soil in wave-shaped ridges…I have said that the river is without name; I may add that no map that I have hitherto consulted has shown either village or stream…”

The two men follow the river downstream one day, and find that it disappears into the ground. Scouting about they find that the river reemerges farther on into a huge chasm, and that on the far side stands an old ruin. They eventually find a way to the place, and discover a moldering diary half buried under loose rock. The balance of the novel is concerned with the contents of that diary, and of the horrible events described therein by the original owner of the house that once stood alone in this desolate country, and that is now hardly more than a crumbling wall and a mound of rubble.

The author of the diary recounts a descent into a living hell of supposed nightmares that turn out to be true, of demons from a great pit, of a vision of the death of the world (strikingly imagined), and of the final deadly encounter with a thing only heard, not seen.

It is a strange, but mesmerizing, novel, and there is imagery here that I still recall as clearly as if I had read the book only yesterday, though it has easily been ten years since, in my mind’s eye, I have stood at the edge of the chasm with the two fishermen, looking through the fine mist of the roaring cataract at the ruins of the house on the borderland.

"Dear Friend"

Hmm. Seems like Barack Obama’s brother, George Hussein Obama, isn’t doing so well. Maybe that explains this strange e:mail I received today.

To: Paco
From: George H. Obama
Subject: Legitimit business preposition for Paco

Dear Friend:

Permit me to introduce myself. I am George Hussein Obama. I live in a slum in Kenya, and am appealing to your compassion and American goodwill to provide assistance. But I guarantee it will be worth your while.

As you probably heard, my brother, Barack Hussein Obama, is running for the president of your wonderful United States of America (home of the brave and land of the free things!) Over the last two years, Barack received friendly money gifts from the Fanny Mac, which is a wonderful bank that helps you Americans to get the sub-prone mortgages. He sent the money to Kenya for safe-keeping because of the nosy Republicans and the dangerous Eskimos who were jealous of his friends and their friendly money gifts to my brother. He has also sent a stash of Barack Bucks that will become the new money for United States.

My brother now needs this moneys to help him beat the corrupt McCain bandits in the election. He is willing to buy me a new pair of shoes and a beautiful Hope and Change t-shirt if I help him get the money out of Kenya and back to America. My own role is modest; but he needs a sharp person in America to collect the money when it arrives in a shipment of arugula in the Port of Miami, Florida, USA, and he is willing to share his monies with you 50% if you will help him. Your share will be $50,000!! But I need your assistance to clear the shipment of arugula and the monies through Kenyan customs. If you will give me your credit card number, I will process the shipment; should cost only a few hundred dollars (I promise to destroy the credit card number, word of honor, cross my heart). This is a real good business for you. For a small amount of adventure capital, you get big return.

I look forward to your confidential reply.

Sincerely,

George H. Obama

P.S. I also have options on Fanny Mac monies being held in Kenya for your Senators Cris Dodd and John Kerry if you are interested.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Better Late Than Never...

You know, I'm finally starting to like this Clinton guy (just a little).

A Rant on the Credit Crisis

The main thing that worries me about the credit crisis is how we respond to it. Perhaps the proposed bailout is necessary, perhaps not. I suppose, in the absence of something like it, we may be looking at a major recession, which prospect substantially narrows the range of options that will be seriously considered in an election year. Like everybody else, I would prefer to avoid economic pain, if possible; however, I would rather see a recession, which would result in a sharp correction in the investment and job markets, but which would ultimately instill the discipline required for a healthy, long-term recovery, if the only alternative is a sea-change in our economic system that envisions a more or less permanent nationalization of private debt, and the preservation of the political class that has caused this ruinous state of affairs.

The great danger lies in the possibility that the American people will see the latest credit crisis as a failure of capitalism. It is undoubtedly a failure by certain capitalists, but it is, more importantly, overwhelmingly a failure by our political class to refrain from turning financial institutions into enormous slush funds. I have always been appalled by the fact that Senate and House Committee members have been able to receive political contributions from the very businesses that their committees regulate. But even worse than that is the legislative extortion that is applied by congressional majorities whenever the executive branch (in conjunction with a congressional minority) attempts to impose fiscal responsibility. When it became evident several years ago that Fannie Mae had been using bogus accounting to generate paper profits (in order to inflate the bonuses paid to its executives), which ultimately led to nearly a $10 billion “adjustment” to its books, President Bush (and John McCain) tried to tighten up the accounting principles and the regulation of this institution. Congress pretty much said, Ok, but in return for greater transparency in reporting, we’d like to broaden the definition of acceptable risk; so - voila! - we got the sub-prime mortgage nightmare. The necessary quid always seems to involve the self-defeating quo.

While I think Americans would be willing to accept some kind of emergency measures, they most definitely do not wish to preserve the rot that gave rise to the crisis in the first place. I believe the first presidential candidate to outline a workable emergency plan – even if it involves a bailout – and to link it with a program for dismantling the incestuous relationship between the regulated and the regulators will enjoy a distinct advantage in the coming election.

And in case politicians need reminding: the next revolution isn’t likely to be started by shrieking cyber-pamphleteers and professional grievance mongers whose dreams of class warfare are constantly being thwarted by the reality of their historical ignorance and pathological anti-Americanism; the next revolution will be set in motion by people who have played by the rules and who value their liberty and independence and who deeply resent the wholesale plundering of the nation’s wealth by the pompous ideologues, the clueless incompetents and the glad-handing thieves who constitute the no-longer sustainable core of our present governing class.

You Say You Want a Revolution

Some of the nutroots are claiming that, if Obama isn't elected, the "people" may need to take matters into their own hands. This guy seems to have the best take on the subject.

(H/T: Cold Fury)

Monday, September 22, 2008

Chicago Politics Writ Large


“I don’t know nuttin’ about no viral videos; how about you, Mr. Axelrod?”

“Viral videos? Nah, I don’t know from nuttin’ about no viral videos, Mister Winner. But I’m tellin’ yez, anybody says I do, he’s gonna wind up under six feet ‘a Astroturf.”

Once again, the blogs are doing the work that the MSM refuses to do. And it looks like the McCain campaign is starting to fight back.

Now, if I were an enterprising reporter (there must be at least one out there, somewhere), I’d submit the so-called “viral video”, and one or more videos produced by the Obama campaign, to a lab for voice analysis testing. If the test confirms that it’s the same person doing the voice-over on both the viral and the "official" campaign video ads, I’d find the name of the person who did the official Obama video narration, contact her, and get her response to certain questions on record (Do you admit that you did the voice-over for the viral video? Did you receive monetary compensation? If so, from whom?). Even if my hypothetical reporter gets a big fat “No comment”, that would speak volumes. Oh, and the McCain campaign ought to take advantage of every single public appearance by McCain and Palin to work in one or more pointed questions about where the Press is on...well, fill in the blank: the connections between the viral videos and the Obama campaign people; the Ayers association; the thuggish attempts to silence critics like Freddoso; etc., etc.

And for those who fret over the ominous polls, take a gander at this.

Finally, your Monday fix of the great orator swallowing his silver tongue.

Update on the viral video: From The Weekly Standard Blog.

Audacity, Indeed

You know, the more I reflect upon this article, to which I previously linked, the more breathtaking do I find Obama’s hypocrisy. I mean, here you have Mr. Hope-A-Long ChangeSpots, claiming to be trying to bring more people into the political process, and virtually his first tactic as a campaigner for state office was to find ways to disenfranchise as many voters as possible - and then subsequently fitting into the Cook County machine like a well-oiled, shiny new cog. Obama wouldn’t be entering the White House with any genuine plans to clean up Washington; he’d just be expanding his “territory.”

If he’s got to stay in Washington, folks, let’s make sure it’s as Senator, not President.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Assortment

1) First crop circles, now this: "Purloined Mechanical Gorilla Found in Cornfield".

2) Face it; a cat would never even bother.

3) Let's hear it for clean, renewable energy!

Clean, renewable and safe energy:



4) Kae finds a fun site.



Saturday, September 20, 2008

What's Good for Cook County is Good for America

David Freddoso shows how Obama does, indeed, play according to Chicago Rules.


"That's m'boy!"

Update: Uh-oh. A rift between Obama and Joe "Two-Gun" Biden?

Our Tax Dollars At Rest!



Charles Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, appears to have collapsed from exhaustion after another hard day of, er, finding ways and coming up with means. How surpassing strange that the man who heads up a congressional committee charged with legislating fiscal policy should have absentmindedly forgotten to pay his own taxes.

He should step down (or perhaps "roll over" would be a better way of putting it).

Update: Babalu has an excellent visual aid to help you understand the extent of the accomplishments of the Democratic Party over the last few decades.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Obama Gets in McCain's Face


Senator Obama is the Chicago machine politician on the left, dressed in the sharkskin suit.

Update: Hey, boys and girls, would you like to sign up for Camp Obama? Earn merit badges in sleaze, slime and slander! (Infiltration, anyone?)

Just for Laughs

I was talking on the telephone yesterday to my father, Old Paco, and he said a couple of things that gave me a chuckle.

1) As we usually do, we got around pretty quickly to discussing politics, and we were both damning the Democrats and the Press for jumping on Sarah Palin's lack of foreign policy expertise. "Hell," he said. "You know what an expert is don't you? It's a son of a bitch from outta town carryin' a briefcase."

2) He also told me a joke. An old feller goes into the drug store and gets to talkin' with his friend, the pharmacist, and winds up, kinda sheepishly, mentioning the subject of sexual dysfunction. The pharmacist tells him about Viagra, and what it does. The old feller says, "I reckon that might work. Will I be able to git it over the counter?" The pharmacist looks at his friend intently for a few seconds, nods, and says, "Maybe. If you double the dosage."

Update: Also good for a laugh.

VP or not VP

Rumors continue to circulate that Joe Biden may withdraw as the Democratic VP nominee in favor of Hillary after the vice presidential debate on October 2nd, due to “health reasons”. I think this is unlikely, but stranger things have happened in politics. I therefore invite readers to cast their vote for the most likely health concern that will be floated as the cause for Biden’s withdrawal.


What health reason will be used to justify Biden's withdrawal
Hair-plug root-rot
Athlete's foot in the mouth
Loss of miracle healing powers
  
pollcode.com free polls


Big, fat unrelated update: Now, here's a guy who ought to step down.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Happy Feet Friday

Charlie Barnett was a popular big band leader and saxophonist in the 1930's and 1940's who was an enthusiastic admirer of Duke Ellington. He was one of the first white band leaders to integrate his band, and his style was so "hep" that he was also one of the few white band leaders who could hold their own with black audiences, accustomed, as they were, to the wide-open swing music of Count Basie and Jimmy Lunceford.

Here he is playing his signature theme, "Cherokee". Note, particularly, the call and response with the trumpet player - whose name I don't know; Bobby Burnet? Johnny Mandel? - about three minutes into the tune (from the 1944 movie, Jam Session).

"Will You Answer, Sir, Or Do You Intend to Continue Licking Your Paws?"

Since Senator Obama is (a) terrified of facing off against John McCain in a townhall-type debate, and, somewhat incongruously, (b) always harping about what a big, tough exponent of "Chicago Rules" he is, then I believe it might be appropriate for McCain to adopt a tactic once used by the last Republican mayor of Chicago, Big Bill Thompson, who, during the 1923 election, "held a debate between himself and two live rats which he used to portray his opponents".

Totally unrelated update: Alarming News asks an excellent question.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

From the Shelves of the Paco Library




James Norman Hall, who coauthored the Mutiny on the Bounty trilogy with Charles Bernard Nordhoff, also wrote a collection of rollicking stories set in the age of fighting sail featuring a retired, peg-legged Royal Navy surgeon by the name of F. Dogbody. Doctor Dogbody’s Leg takes us inside the snug Portsmouth tavern called The Cheerful Tortoise, where our hero spends his evenings regaling a small group of regulars, and the occasional stranger, with his seafaring yarns, each one of which affords a different explanation for the loss of the good doctor’s “larboard leg”. Along the way, Dr. Dogbody gives us thrilling accounts of battles and escapes, and of encounters with the obscure and the great, the latter category including Lord Nelson and Benjamin Franklin, among others.

The stories themselves are well-plotted, hilarious little gems, made all the more enjoyable because of the cozy, convivial environment in which they are told, and the reader might well fancy himself sitting spellbound, not unlike Dr. Dogbody’s friends, Captain Murgatroyd and Ned Balthus, gripping a tankard of ale, and following the trail of the latest yarn to its inevitable end in yet another uproarious explanation of the loss of the famous leg.

Who wouldn’t stop to inspect the fabulous inn sign of the Cheerful Tortoise, and read in its solidity and artful execution an irresistible invitation to come inside and warm oneself by the fire?

“The Cheerful Tortoise had suffered with the rest of the community from the return of peace, although the creature which gave the inn its name smiled down on passers-by with its old-time air of wistful geniality. The inn sign, as Mr. Tunn himself was willing to admit, was a veritable work of art. Carved from a huge slab of oak by an old seaman, many years before, it was impervious to wind and weather; only the strongest gale would cause it to swing slightly on its heavy gilded chain. Many a thirsty seaman, just ashore, would stop short to gaze in admiration at Will Tunn’s tortoise, touch his hat to it with a grin, and seek no farther for refreshment. The carapace was a bright sea-green, the calipee pale blue, and the flippers yellow, while the head, with its eager smiling face, was richly ornamented and picked out in gold leaf. But the tortoise was greater than the sum of its parts, thanks to a happy stroke of seaman’s genius. Its attitude of absorbed interest as it craned its neck to one side, as though to gaze past the lintel of the doorway onto the taproom, combined with its smile, in which sadness at thought of its own deprivations seemed to be mingled with unselfish delight at thought of the good cheer and good company within, had made it a famous tavern animal amongst innumerable swans, blue boars, cocks, dogs and ducks, red lions, green dragons, white harts, and horses that adorned the highroad between Portsmouth and London.”

These stories represent a delightful and unique excursion off of the normal trade routes of the well-chartered waters of nautical fiction, and you’ll find Doctor Dogbody a worthy companion for those crisp autumn nights when you’re sitting snug by the fireside (with or without a tankard of ale or a bottle of Madeira).

So, Tell Me Again Why John McCain is Dumb for not Using E:Mail?

Sarah Palin gets hacked.

John McCain Does Streisand

Sings some of Streisand’s tunes, I should say.

See Contentions for the background.

Chuck Norris Endorses McCain; Republican Presidential Ticket Expected to Receive 100% of the Popular Vote

Hey, I know I wouldn’t want to be on his bad side. (H/T to Captain Heinrichs)

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Assortment

1) All political candidates, from time to time, will speak metaphorically, and whether the metaphors are good or bad, elegant or cheesy, I usually understand the message they're trying to get across. Joe Biden, however, has come up with one that I find positively inscrutable. He seems to have invited Americans to a national pillow fight, claiming that Americans want a "sleepover." Now, perhaps this isn't a metaphor at all; maybe Biden intends his suggestion to be taken literally. If so, it's a pretty ambitious project. In fact, the only house that would seem to be big enough to accommodate it is John Edwards' place in North Carolina.

2) Five Feet of Fury believes Tina Fey accidentally made a good point (H/T to Captain Heinrichs).

3) Mac vs. PC (H/T to Don Surber)

4) What's this?!? Jules Crittenden votes Democratic? A good deed, in this case...

Big election update: McCain doesn't have to worry about Ohio; I've got a little operation up there that's going to take care of things.

The Mistress of Disaster

The career of Jamie Gorelick underscores the danger of mixing politics and money (and, frankly, the danger of a government in which lawyers have so much influence).

The Company You Keep

American Thinker has a fascinating piece up about Obama's old Weathermen pals.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Big Bro

Slublog spots an Orwellian mural of Obama staring down at his campaign proles.


I think he's working up to this:

Instant Stupid (Just Add Two Drops of Paranoia and a Pinch of College Professor)

The Philadelphia Inquirer has an online article written by one Catherine McNicol Stock, chair of the history department of Connecticut College, titled “Intolerance Thrives in Palin’s Pacific Northwest”. The hit-piece is an extraordinarily loopy attempt to bridge the gap between Sarah Palin’s politics and religious beliefs, and a variety of backwoods secessionists, bomb-mailing anarchists and red-neck terrorists – including the Montana Militia, Terry Nichols and Ted Kaczynski. It is a genuine bridge to nowhere, but Stock get’s an ‘A’ for effort.

Professor Stock tells us that “It has been years since groups such as the Montana Militia, the Posse Comitatus and the Sagebrush Rebels, and individuals such as Terry Nichols and Ted Kaczynski have made us wonder why so many ‘angry white men’ populated our rural regions. Many of us have forgotten the threat once posed by domestic terrorists and instead have turned our attention to foreign terrorists.”

In case you have forgotten, Stock is here to remind you. “Other groups, like the Aryan Nation, with headquarters in Hayden Lake, Idaho, actively planned to rid the United States of African Americans, Jews, and other ‘non-Aryan’ peoples. A few carried out their plans, murdering Jewish radio host Alan Berg in Denver, the Goldmark family in Seattle, an African American state trooper in Arkansas, Fish and Wildlife officials and FBI agents in Wyoming, North Dakota and Montana, and more than 160 federal employees and their children in Oklahoma City.”

Of course, Stock is a professor, so you know she’s got to make a stab at being objective: “There is no evidence that Palin was ever affiliated with white-supremacist groups during her years in Idaho or at home in Alaska.” Oh, what the hell! Let’s don’t be objective; Barry’s got an election to win. “On the other hand, the beliefs of ultraconservative, evangelical churches like her family's come dangerously close to those of the Christian Identity movement of those years. Likewise, Palin's husband was a member of a political party whose members favored secession for Alaska, suggesting an affiliation with radical antistatism.”

Can you imagine someone on the Right taking this line with Obama? “It has been years since Al Capone, Bugs Moran and Deanie O’Banion have made us wonder why so many violent gangsters populated the greater Chicago area. Many of us have forgotten the threat once posed by domestic criminals and instead have turned our attention to foreign drug lords. There is no evidence that Obama was ever affiliated with organized crime; on the other hand, the traditional reliance of many Cook County politicians on a political machine that has had the support of professional criminals comes dangerously close to the mob influence of that time.”

But, now, wait a minute; a thought occurs to me. Palin hasn’t ever been affiliated with any terrorists; yet it is in the back of my mind somewhere that a certain Democratic candidate for President has. Help me here; who could it be?

Sunday, September 14, 2008

A Detective Paco Rerun - Let Me Off Uptown

The canary-yellow 1938 Packard roadster needed some work (oil and lube, and check the walnut dashboard for termites, will ya?), so after dropping it off at Jimmy’s service station, I decided to take a cab back to the office. I was feeling cocky after solving another case: the Lancet had published a suspiciously high mortality figure for Iraq in its latest edition, and after reviewing the film from security cameras in their offices, I was able to determine that their statistician had fallen asleep with his finger on the ‘zero’ key of his calculator. But you get cocky, you get careless, and you get too careless you can get hurt – as I was about to find out.

I hailed a cab, got in, and casually noted that the driver was Muslim (no great detective work involved; the fez, burnoose and plastic dashboard Osama Bin Laden were a dead giveaway). I gave him the address and we moved into the stream of traffic.

I could have waited. I was hungry, but we were now only a few blocks from the office, so I could have waited. But the awareness of that big pork barbecue sandwich in my briefcase was preying on my mind, plus, as I said, I was feeling exultant about showing up those pill-pushers at the Lancet, so I took the sandwich out, pulled the wrapper off and took a bite.

At this precise moment, Abdullah glanced in his rearview mirror. He did a double take, glaring at me like he had just caught me in the act of cutting the hamstrings on his camel five minutes before the big race. He swerved over to the curb, where two similarly attired goons were loitering on the sidewalk.

He jumped out of the car and shouted something in what I took to be Arabic at the goons. All of a sudden they became visibly incensed and began doing that middle eastern version of the rebel yell (“ovulating”, I think it’s called). I got out to see what the problem was, and the two goons grabbed me and slammed me into the cab, one of them slapping me, hard, knocking my fedora into the gutter. By this time, I saw where they were going with this, so I brought my heel down on the instep of one goon, and then turned and delivered a right cross to jaw of the other. But the cab driver, moving like he had an IDF platoon behind him, rushed around the cab, grabbed my arms and pinned them behind my back. His buddies then began pounding me in the gut with their fists; in a few minutes it felt like Michael Moore, after a heavy meal, had been using my stomach as a trampoline. They threw me to the ground, and the cabbie began screaming. “Son of a Dhimmi whore! How dare you defile my cab with your unclean pork barbecue sandwich!”. He sniffed the air. “Western Carolina style, wasn’t it? Er, well, that’s beside the point! You will whistle a different tune now, won’t you?”

I pulled myself into a half-sitting position, wiped some of the blood off my lips with the back of my hand, and managed a grim smile. “Is that all you want, Sinbad? For me to whistle a different tune? Well, try this one.” I put two fingers in my mouth and whistled a couple of loud, short notes. Almost instantly, there was a blur of legs, fangs and gray fur shooting out of the alley located behind my office. It was Bogan.

Half German shepherd, half Tasmanian wolf, and a hundred percent savagely protective, Bogan lit into the thugs like some kind of cartoon Tasmanian devil. He knocked the cabbie down, then whirled and took a bite out of one goon’s calf. The other goon took off running down the alley, with Bogan turning the corner, hot on his heels. A moment later, there was a vicious snarl and a human scream. Bogan came trotting back, tail wagging, holding the remains of a back pocket in his mouth.
I reached up and patted him on the head. “Good boy! Let’s you and me go up to the office. I think Sheila has some Milk-Bones up there, and you’ve sure earned ‘em!”

Me, Too!

Scrappleface has the lowdown on things Obama would have done if he had had the chance.

Update: A certain Democratic fabricator experiences a conflagration in his pantaloons (H/T: Dan Riehl)

When Guns Are Outlawed, Outlaws Will Use Sausages

Not your typical home invasion.

(H/T: Something...And Half of Something)

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Imaginings

1) Tim Blair links to lefty Australian blogger, Mark Bahnisch at Larvatus Prodeo (Latin for “the grubs of God”), who writes, “McCain’s mob have worked out how to game not just the media but also the liberal blogosphere.”

“McCain’s mob”…hmmm….m’yes…

Andrew Sullivan sat in front of his computer, a pensive expression on his face. He was writing another attack piece on Sarah Palin; a poem, this time. “What rhymes,” he mused out loud, “with ‘vindictive harpy’?” He was startled by a loud knock on the door. “Oh, bother!” he muttered, as he interrupted his work to see who was paying him this unexpected visit.

As soon as Sullivan unlatched the door, it seemed to open of its own accord, as two large men burst in. They were dressed in double-breasted suits and wearing fedoras pulled down low. The first man grabbed Sullivan by his shirt front and pushed him back to an arm chair, into which he unceremoniously dumped him; the high-tension springs caused Sullivan to bounce up and down several times.

Sullivan was incensed at this gob-smackingly unwarranted intrusion. He started to rise from the chair, shouting, “How dare you come in here like this!”

The first man clapped an enormous hand on Sullivan’s bald pate and shoved him down in the chair; Sullivan again bobbed up and down, like a cork on a fishing line.

“Siddown, punk!” The first man smiled, and fished a cigarette from the recesses of his suit jacket, lighting a match with his thumbnail and touching it to the end of the coffin nail.

Sullivan looked on in horror. “Listen, I’ve got allergies! If you insist on smoking that thing, I’m going to have to turn on the ionizer.” He began to stand up.

Clap, shove, boing, boing boing…

The man turned his head slightly, and, without taking his eyes off of Sullivan, spoke to his colleague over his shoulder. “Open de windah, Johnny. Mr. Sullivan feels a little faint.”

Johnny walked to the window and threw it open. “Howzat, Tony?”

“Poifect.” Tony’s smile quickly evaporated, like the water on a hot asphalt driveway after a light rain. “Now, listen up, Andy. Mister McCain sent us, see? Mister McCain says ya got to stop writin’ dem slanders against Sarah Palin, see? Mister McCain says if you wanna do – hey, Johnny! What’s de woid? Polecats?”

“’Polemics’, Tony”.

“Yeh, dat’s right. Mister McCain says if ya wanna do polemics, dat’s ok. But ya gotta cut out de smears, see?”

Sullivan said, in a small voice, “This is an abridgment of my freedom of speech.”

Johnny – who was better educated than Tony, and who had a reputation as the mob “wit” – responded. “Well, dat’s an abridgement to nowhere, Andy, if ya see what I mean.” He idly threw a potted petunia out of the window of the high-rise apartment. After a few seconds, the far-away sound of car brakes could be heard, and a noise like an automobile careening into a row of garbage cans.

Tony concluded the interview. “Mr. McCain don’t do e:mails, Andy, so we’ve delivered the message in poi’son. Come on Johnny.” They were leaving, but Tony stopped on the way out and picked up a framed photograph from a table; it was a picture of two beagles. Tony smiled. “De family? Very nice.” He stared meaningfully at Sullivan, and gently set the picture down. Then Tony and Johnny quietly left, closing the door softly behind them.

Sullivan was, for a moment, reluctant to get out of the chair for fear of being shoved back into it. Once he was convinced that his guests had truly departed, he finally rose and ran to the door, turning the lock. Then he went into the kitchen and poured himself a crème de menthe to settle his nerves. He returned to his living room, and saw his two beagles stick their heads out from under the sofa, where they had taken cover upon the arrival of McCain’s goons. Sullivan scowled at them.

“I knew I should have bought a rottweiler!”, he said.
* * *

2) It’s 3:00 a.m. The red phone rings in the presidential sleeping quarters in the White House. Barack Obama slowly raises his hands to his face and pushes the sleeping blindfold over the top of his head. He kicks the sheets off and sits on the edge of the bed for a few seconds, yawning and lazily scratching a leg. He is wearing the sky-blue pajamas covered with a repetitive pattern of the Winnie the Pooh character, Piglet, that Michelle gave him as an inauguration day present.

He walks to the table where the red phone is located, and answers. “Yeah?”

An excited voice is speaking non-stop from the other end of the line. The sleep rapidly melts away from the President’s eyes, and his face takes on a look of horror, as an international emergency of gigantic proportions is outlined to him by the caller. The excited voice of the caller ends with a desperate interrogative (obviously a request for orders). Obama, whose brow is now covered with sweat, utters the word “Present”, and hangs up. He then sneaks into the bathroom and turns on the shower and the tap in order to mute the sound of his voice – he doesn't want to wake his wife - as he quickly punches the numbers on his cell phone.

“Hello, this is the President. I’m sorry to disturb you this time of night, Cindy, but can I please speak to John?”

The Palin Interview

The official opinion here at Paco Enterprises is that Sarah Palin held her own during the interview with Charles Gibson. In fact, if one factors in the comments that ABC edited out, she did better than just hold her own. Oh, and Charlie? Next time try to act like you're interviewing a candidate for Vice President of the United States, not the blue-ribbon winner of the Best Petunia contest at the county fair. Make some kind of effort to appear interested. I mean, Dude! You were just e:mailin' it in.

Glenn Reynolds offers an absolutely first-rate suggestion to political candidates (or anybody, really) who's going to be interviewed by someone in the media: bring your own camera.

Update: HAW!

Conversations With Oscar



I’m here with Oscar again to get his take on a news item sent to me by friend, commenter and freelance reporter Mojo. This video shows a group of people mourning the loss of old forest growth.

Paco: Oscar, what do you think of that video?

Oscar: Paco, I swear, I’d gladly permit myself to be cut down today if I could be sure that I’d be made into baseball bats to hit those idiots upside the head with.

Paco: So, you find this funereal rite for old forest growth to be offensive?

Oscar: I find this emotive caterwauling in the woods to be moronic. Let’s call a spade a spade, shall we?

Paco: But don’t you think it’s kind of touching that these people would gather to celebrate the beauty of these old trees?

Oscar: Listen; see Charlie over there?

Paco: Where?

Oscar: Right over there, across the street.



Paco: Oh, yes. What about him?

Oscar: Charlie’s got crown rot, root rot, limb disease and his hearing’s shot. I’m telling you, there’s nothing that Charlie would like better than to be cut down, made into planks, varnished and used as flooring in a new house. He’d be a new man. Tree. Well, you know what I mean. He’d be good for another forty, fifty years. In his current condition, the next good-sized storm’s likely to blow him down. Then he’ll lay there in the front yard for a week or two, like a dead brontosaurus, until the removal people come along and cut him up into fire wood.

Paco: Well, as usual, Oscar, you’ve offered us some unique insights.

Bop-bop-bop-bop-bop!

Paco: What was that?

Oscar: Oh, it’s that damned woodpecker, again. You don’t have a slingshot on you, by any chance?

Paco: No, I’m afraid not.

Oscar: Well, try to remember to bring one next time. Or a shotgun, if you have one.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Obama Tries to Mug Old Man, Gets Capped

Obama's campaign released a new ad making fun of McCain for not knowing how to send e:mails. A little research, Barrie, might have saved you from yet another gaffe.

If you've got glass knuckles, B.O., better leave the gloves on.

Maybe Biden can take another shot at faith healing: Heal, Brother McCain! Sit down at that computer and TYPE!

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Happy Feet Friday

Duke Ellington and his orchestra play their signature theme, "Take the A Train" (from the 1943 film, Reveille with Beverly).

Paco's Campaign Tips

Everybody is offering free advice to the presidential candidates (a bargain at twice the price!), so here’s my suggestion for a McCain video.

It starts out with a video of Obama giving one of his “Change” speeches:
Obama: “America demands change!”
Freeze frame, loud game-show buzzer noise, Obama’s head and hands vanish leaving an empty suit. Narrator: “Senator Obama came to power as an Illinois state senator with the help of the notorious Cook County political machine. As a U.S. senator, he has voted the party line 97% of the time, and has never taken a position at odds with the party leadership on any significant issue.”

Obama: “The surge has succeeded beyond anybody’s anticipation.”
Again: freeze frame, buzzer, empty suit. Narrator: “John McCain strongly advocated a surge years before the strategy was finally adopted and implemented. The success of the surge wasn’t unanticipated by everybody, Senator Obama.”

Obama: “Sarah Palin has accepted earmarks for Alaska.”
Freeze, buzz, empty suit. Narrator: “Senator Obama has supported nearly a billion dollars in earmarks, including funds for a hospital that employed his wife as an attorney. He unsuccessfully tried to earmark three million dollars for a museum whose chairman is one of his biggest Illinois fundraisers.”

Narrator: “Hey, Senator! Where’s our change?”

No charge, John (the “clothes have no emperor” gag, however, is copyrighted, but I can let you have it in exchange for a cushy ambassadorship; say, Australia?)

Update: The electoral map is now moving in the right direction.

Barbecued Meme

Obama: "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. And I ought to know, because I've dressed more pork than Smithfield Hams!" Quote improved by Paco Enterprises

Here's an "old saying" from where I come from, Barrie: you can put a halo on a dipstick, but it's still a dipstick.

Totally unrelated update: In international news, Hugo Chavez spells class with a capital 'K' by expelling the U.S. Ambassador.

The Museum of Hope and Change

Senator Obama attempted to earmark over $3MM for a museum whose chairman is one of his biggest Illinois fundraisers. In fact, he's tried twice; for some unfathomable reason, neither request was approved by Congress.

That "new politics" is starting to look awful familiar.

Lest We Forget



God bless the souls of those who perished at the hands of terrorists on September 11, 2001, and comfort their families.

May God preserve our honor, our liberty and our security, and enable us never to flinch in the face of evil.

May God grant us wise leaders, who will be generous to our friends, stern with our enemies, and implacable in the tracking down of those who would murder our people.

Amen.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

From the Shelves of the Paco Library



I don’t follow sports with anything like the intensity of my younger days, although I’m still a die-hard Detroit Tigers fan, and I always cheer on the North Carolina college basketball teams. I do, though, admire good sports writing, and Red Smith set the standard in that profession, combining superior powers of observation with great wit and an inimitable style.

Many of his best articles were collected in an anthology titled The Red Smith Reader, which provides a wonderful sample of his writing on baseball, boxing, football and even that celebrity phenomenon, Gorgeous George, of pro wrestling fame.

Perhaps his best-known article is the one he wrote in 1951, “Miracle at Coogan’s Bluff”, in which he recounts the thrilling end to the National League pennant race, as the New York Giants, after a lackluster performance, came back with one swing of Bobby Thompson’s bat to erase a 4-2 deficit in the ninth inning and defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers 5-4. (“Now it is done”, he writes. “Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again.”)The Dodgers had played extremely well, and the Giant’s Bobby Thompson had made a number of bonehead moves (including, in the second inning, running to second base only to find that it was already occupied by his colleague, Whitey Lockman). But Thompson redeemed himself with “the shot heard ‘round the world”, hitting a three-run homer off relief pitcher, Ralph Branca in the ninth. The closing to the piece is pitch-perfect: “Ralph Branca turned and started for the clubhouse. The number on his uniform looked huge. Thirteen.”

In 1973, on the 25th anniversary of Babe Ruth’s death, Smith recalled the Sultan of Swat:

“Roistering was a way of life, yet Ruth was no boozer. Three drinks of hard liquor left him fuzzy. He could consume great quantities of beer, he was a prodigious eater and his prowess with women was legendary. Sleep was something he got when other appetites were sated. He arose when he chose and almost invariably was the last to arrive at the clubhouse, where Doc Woods, the Yankees’ trainer, always had a bicarbonate of soda ready. Before changing clothes, the Babe would measure out a mound of bicarb smaller than the Pyramid of Cheops, mix and gulp it down.

‘Then,’ Jim Kahn says, ‘he would belch. And all the loose water in the showers would fall down.’

The man was a boy, simple, artless, genuine and unabashed. This explains his rapport with children, whom he met as intellectual equals. Probably his natural liking for people communicated itself to the public to help make him an idol.

He was buried on a sweltering day in August 1948. In the pallbearers’ pew, Waite Hoyt sat beside Joe Dugan, the third baseman. ‘I’d give a hundred dollars for a cold beer,’ Dugan whispered.

‘So would the Babe,’ Hoyt said.”

I’ve cited two baseball articles, but as I said, Smith covered the greats and the great moments of every sport: Secretariat, George Halas, Willie Shoemaker, Cassius Clay’s fishy knockout of Sonny Liston (“The Big Sleep”), the Olympics. There’s also a section – “Politics” - in which Smith writes of an interview with Leon Trotsky, of all people.

This is a great browser, and even those who may not know the difference between a safety and the infield fly rule will enjoy the fine writing, the warm humor and the shrewd insights of a master craftsman.

The Shaggy VP

You know, I bet Barry O. wakes up early every morning in a cold sweat, hops out of bed and runs directly to his computer to scour the internet in search of the latest outbreak of unsolicited support from one of his rogue acolytes.

I can see him there this morning, shivering in the pre-dawn, his face a mask of anxiety in the glow of the computer screen, his bowels tied in a knot, clicking on the mouse... clicking, clicking... and - Damn! - there’s another one.

This time it was actor Matt Damon, probably best known today as the model for one of the marionettes that appeared in Team America. And what is Matt doing by way of contributing to the public discourse and lending his weight to the noble goal of heaving B.O. into the White House? Why, he’s telling all the little people that McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin is like a “really bad Disney movie.” Apparently a scary Disney movie, to boot, because Matt feels that it would be “crazy” that this woman could become President.

Might as well go on into the kitchen and make yourself a strong cup of coffee, Senator Obama; looks like another long day.

Update: Hell, since everybody else is giving Obama advice, I might as well help out. Here's your new campaign slogan, Barry:


CHANGE AND MANGE

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Jesus Was A Healer, Too

Joe Biden, in epic faith healer FAIL

Totally unrelated update: Say, Tim Blair's running for something, too; get over there and cast your vote!

Totally unrelated update II: Jim Treacher, comic strip artist.

Crappy British Exports



The strange creature pictured above - which I at first took to be a golden lion tamarin monkey suffering from a bad case of the piles - turns out to be a British "comedian" by the name of Russell Brand, who hosted the MTV Music Awards and took advantage of the occasion to encourage Americans to vote for Obama; he also made a few locker-room cracks about Republicans. Personally, I believe that a DVD of his performance should be sent to the homes of voters in all of the swing states. It should be more than enough to put McCain over the top.

How far we have come since the early 1940's, when a real comic like Bob Hope could take a whack at the Democrats in a genuinely funny, but civilized way:

Treetards

Moonbattery has an interesting article about a group of lower primates at Berkeley that have taken to the trees in protest. Here's a photo:




If the authorities really want to get rid of these bozos, I got your solution right here:

So Long, Boys!

Keith Olbermann's ego and Chris Matthews' self-esteem have been found dead in the lobby of MSNBC. Suicide pact suspected.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Assortment

1) Kae asks if RWDB's are "heartless, compassionless, tightfisted beasts." Heartless, maybe. Compassionless, perhaps. But not tightfisted! Chip in and help this Adelaide mum in her effort to raise money for Austcare's work in Darfur.

2) Long-time cyber friend El Cid has got himself a new blog. Step over and say howdy.

3) Please note that I've added some more sites to my blog roll. There'll be more coming soon.

4) Moose makes faces at moose hunter; moose stew, anyone?

The Backfire Heard ‘Round the World

Many others – Ace, Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, etc., etc. – have done the heavy lifting, but I’ll add my two cents on the subject, anyway.

You’d think that once – just once – the headhunters residing in the leftist fever swamps would get it right, if only by accident. But they don’t, and (thank God) they probably never will.

You can’t go running around slandering candidates for high office and jibbering like rabid chimps and hurling your own feces and expect the American people to line up behind your banner. You can’t attack politicians’ children, demonize their (perfectly normal) religious and political beliefs, and create smears out of whole cloth and hope that the American people are going to jettison their sense of fair play. And you can’t inflate an empty suit and blithely assume that the American people aren’t going to see that the clothes have no emperor. Not. Going. To work.

But keep it up, guys. In your own perverse way, you’re insuring that Republicans will effectively wind up with a 99-year lease on the White House.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Detective Paco and Wronwright in, North to Alaska

Wronwright hugged the tree trunk as tightly as if it had been Kim Kardashian and he was saying goodnight after a very promising first date which, with a little aplomb, might be prolonged until breakfast. He spoke in a barely audible whisper. “Do you think it saw us?” I was sitting on a limb, level with his boots, and remembering a wildlife show I had seen recently on television, the import of which, I vaguely recalled, was the foolishness of trying to escape from a grizzly bear by climbing a tree. “No,” I said. “But if it does, I have a feeling that it’s going to get a little close up here. Don’t worry, though; I’m sure the crowd will thin out pretty quickly.” Wronwright gulped; he must have seen the same program.
* * *

Perhaps it would be useful to backtrack and explain how Wronwright and I had found ourselves barking up the wrong tree, sixty miles north of Anchorage just off an old abandoned logging road, praying that the neighborhood grizzly bear had a bad cold and poor vision.

Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska, I’m bound to point out) had been indicted on a number of charges involving the felonious theft of pork from the public larder, and as the evidence against him kept mounting, he had skipped, having figured out that, while Justice might be blind, there was certainly nothing wrong with the old girl’s sense of smell. I had gotten some leads that he was still hiding out in his home state, and after a little snooping around, discovered that he had frequently retired to this general area on camping trips; in fact, based on the careful questioning of some of his ex-flacks and a few locals, I was pretty sure that he had sequestered himself somewhere out here off the old logging road, possibly in one of the ramshackle cabins that were previously used by the timber company. My duty as a citizen – and the $25,000 bounty – had convinced me to have a go at collaring him. For that kind of getus, I figured I could afford to bring my occasional partner, Wronwright, along.

We prepared to set out that morning, shortly after Wronwright had returned to the hotel from the nearest convenience store with bottled water, snacks and a full tank of gas. Our wheels were rented – a four-wheel drive Jeep Commander - and as I opened the door on the driver’s side, Wronwright asked if he could drive. “I used to love that old TV show, Wild Kingdom”, Wronwright said, “and I’ve always wanted to drive one of these all-terrain vehicles over rough country.” So, playing Jim Fowler to Wronwright’s Marlin Perkins, I shifted to the passenger side and we took off.

We headed north from Anchorage, and after a couple of wrong turns and some backing and filling, we found the old logging road. Things were going well – except for Wronwright’s habit of singing along with the pop music tunes on the golden-oldies radio station he had found – when the engine began sputtering and the vehicle came to a halt.

There was one significant upside to the jeep conking out: it brought an abrupt end to Wronwright’s indifferent harmonizing with the Temptations on “Papa Was A Rolling Stone”. Aside from that, however, things looked grim. “Oh, that’s just swell”, I muttered. “I haven’t seen anything resembling a service station for the last 20 miles. Well, pop the hood and let’s see if we can find out what’s wrong.”

Wronwright opened the hood, and we stood there looking at the motor; because of our mutual ignorance of automobile engines, we might as well have been two Amazonian headhunters staring at a broken x-ray machine. I did a brief survey of the basics – fluids, battery cables and so forth – and there were no problems with the obvious things. “I don’t get it,” I said. “This jeep looks brand new; it’s not leaking any fluids, I don’t see any broken belts, seems to have plenty of oil. And we started out with a full tank of gas, right?”

Wronwright rolled his eyes toward the sky and squinted, as if he were checking for signs of an early snow storm.

“We did start out with a full tank of gas, didn’t we?”

Uh-oh. His face was taking on the color of a ripe tomato and he was pursing his lips. That could only mean one thing. “Er, actually,” he said, “when I went to the convenience store to stock up on supplies, I think I might have forgotten that one little thing.”

I slammed the hood. “That ‘one little thing’?” I shoved my fedora back, took a cigarette out of the pack in my shirt pocket, and lit up a gasper. I stared at him – hard – but his gaze was now fixed on his hiking boots, while he nonchalantly counted the eyelets. I sighed and decided that we weren’t going to get many miles per gallon of recrimination, so the thing to do was to figure a way out of this scrape.

“Listen. We’ve come a couple of miles up this logging road, and, according to my map, it only runs back into the hills about four, so I expect that Stevens is probably pretty close by. Why not scout ahead and see if we can find some trace of him; maybe even the cabin where he’s holed up? He’s bound to have some kind of transportation, and if we can take him, we can drive him back in his own vehicle.” Wronwright brightened considerably on hearing this plan, so we headed off up the road.

As we hiked along at a fairly brisk pace, the forest began to close in on us. It was largely mature secondary growth consisting of balsam poplars and aspens, with a more or less impenetrable tangle of small saplings growing under the larger trees. Aside from the sounds of occasional birdsong, and the steady clomping of our own feet, there was an almost palpable silence about this wild and beautiful country. Suddenly, the quiet was broken by an incredibly loud snort.

“Gesundheit”, we said to each other, simultaneously.

“I didn’t sneeze,” Wronwright said. “I thought it was you.”

“It wasn’t me.”

We stopped in our tracks and looked at each other, then swiveled our heads around searching out the dark woods. Wronwright’s hand shot out and latched onto my elbow. In a small voice, he said, “Over there!”

Perhaps forty yards ahead, a few feet off of the road, the top of a middling tall pine tree was yawing like the mast of an old sailing ship, anchored in choppy waters. There was not the slightest trace of a breeze. Something that sounded like a scratching noise, accompanied by deep moans of contentment, reached our ears.

Wronwright’s eyes were as big as silver dollars, and his chin almost touched the top button on his shirt. “You don’t suppose that might be a possum, do you?”

I shook my head in the negative, and automatically felt beneath my jacket. Shiny Sal – my faithful Ruger .38 caliber revolver – had provided useful service on many occasions, but if the critter up ahead was what I thought it was, I was afraid the old girl might not be up to the task at hand.

The pine tree, which was obviously being used as a back-scratcher by what could only be a bear, finally resumed its sedentary state; but we could see the bushes and smaller trees rippling with movement – and that movement was heading slowly in our direction.

I spoke to Wronwright out of the side of my mouth, without taking my eyes off of the approaching menace. “Let’s start moving quietly back down the road; the jeep’s about three hundred yards back, and if we don’t attract the bear’s attention, we may just make it. Ready?” No answer. “I said, ’Ready?’

I kept my right hand inside my jacket, wrapped tightly around the grip of my gun, but reached slowly to the side and behind me with my left to make contact with Wronwright. All I got was a handful of air.

That’s when I heard it: a distant sibilation, like a pocket-knife being poked into a tire on a car parked down at the end of a long block.

“Pssssssst!”

I looked around, but couldn’t see my partner.

“Paco! Up here!”

I glanced up, and there he was, standing on a high limb near the top of a quaking aspen tree; although it was a toss up as to which one was quaking the most. Against my better judgment, I shinnied up after him, bringing us full circle to where this narrative began.
* * *
“Paco, listen. I just had a thought.”

“Well, it’s about time.”

“No, seriously. Bears and dogs are supposed to have evolved from the same animal, right?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“How about this: if the bear comes sniffing around the tree and spots us, I’ll tear off a limb and throw it. You know: a game of ‘fetch’. I’ll toss it way out there in the bushes somewhere, and while he’s looking for it, we can climb down the tree and skedaddle.”

“That’s it?”, I queried with no little irritation. “That’s your Plan A?”

“Yeah. What do you think?”

“I think I want to hear your Plan B.”

From our vantage point in the tree, the underbrush seemed to be writhing. And then we saw him; it was a grizzly bear, all right. His broad, furry back could now be seen clearly as he moved into the shallow ditch by the road.

But we were interrupted in the contemplation of our likely fate by the sound of a car coming down the road from the direction toward which we had been walking. I had a second’s worth of exaltation, and then figured out that if it was Stevens, we would probably be no better off. He wouldn’t want anybody to know he was up here, and if he saw us in our current predicament, I could imagine him stopping, sizing up the situation, and then smearing honey on the trunk of our tree and hollering, “Here, boy!”

Only it wasn’t Stevens. A station wagon of some antiquity came bouncing down the road, slowed down and came to a halt – no doubt in response to Wronwright’s frantic flailing and shouting. The door opened and…she got out.

“Paco, look! Isn’t that…”

“It sure looks like her to me.”

An attractive, middle-aged woman wearing steel-rimmed spectacles, cargo pants and a khaki work shirt walked up to the tree (“our” tree, as I had come to think of it, even on so short an acquaintance).

“Hi, guys! Whatcha doin’ up there?”

Wronwright and I descended as fast as we could. I shouted out a warning on the way down. “Watch out, ma’am! There’s a grizzly over there in the trees!”

At that precise moment, the grizzly finally ambled into the road, about fifteen yards behind the station wagon. I fumbled for my gun, and had just cleared it from the shoulder holster when the woman turned, saw the bear, clapped her hands loudly and yelled, “Scat!” The bear lowered his head – looking for all the world as if his feelings had been hurt – then raised it, sniffed the air, and uttered the closest thing to a genuine “harrumph!” I’ve ever heard from man or beast. He turned and trotted off into the woods.

Wronwright and I glanced at each other, then at the woman. Her face broke into a beautiful smile. “That’s just Old Ben. He can get a little frisky from time to time, but usually he just gawks and then moves on. By the way, I’m Sarah Palin.”

We shook hands all around. The introductions out of the way, she asked, “So, what were you fellahs doin’ up the tree?”

I was so embarrassed over the whole affair that it was on the tip of my tongue to say that we were bird watching; but the governor gave the very distinct impression of not being the sort of person who would fall for that line, so I reluctantly told her the truth: that we had seen the grizzly and had scampered up a tree.

“Bad move, guys. That won’t stop a grizzly.”

We were spared any further reflections on our ignorance of woodcraft as our attention was drawn to a muffled sound coming from the governor’s car. What we saw astonished us even more than the encounter with the grizzly bear.

Tied to the bumper, in the manner of a deer carcass being transported home by a successful hunter, was a man, bound and gagged. He was an elderly fellow, but obviously very much alive and surprisingly feisty.

Wronwright found his voice first. “Pardon me, governor, but did you know that there’s a man tied to your bumper?”

Palin waved a dismissive hand in the direction of her car and said, “Oh, yeah. That’s just Ted Stevens. He’s been on the run from the law, but I figured I’d find him up here, and sure enough, he was holed up in the old foreman’s shack up the road a piece. I tied him to the bumper so I could keep an eye on him while I drive.”

Wronwright clapped me on the shoulder. “Whaddaya know, Paco! You were right!”

I explained that we had come in search of Stevens, but, obviously, our timing was just a little off.

“I’m sorry, boys, but, as they say, ‘finders keepers, losers weepers.’ This way, we save the bounty money and the citizens get to keep their $25,000.”

I easily suppressed the urge to shout, “Hurray for the citizenry!” At least it had been an exciting adventure, after a fashion, and we had gotten a chance to meet Sarah Palin in what you might call her natural habitat, so, although I was out of pocket for the trip, the connection might come in handy after the election.

A thought occurred to Wronwright – a useful one, this time. “Say, Governor, can you spare us a few gallons of gas? We ran out on the way up here.”

“Sure thing, guys! I’ve got a full five-gallon container in the back of my car.”

The governor gave us a ride down to our jeep, and we poured the contents of the gasoline container in our tank. Then, with a friendly wave, she was off. We watched her wind her way down the road in a cloud of dust. “You know, Paco,”, Wronwright said in a far-away voice, “I bet we just shook hands with the future Vice President of the United States.”

I lit another cigarette. “Wronwright, I bet we just shook hands with a future President of the United States. Let’s get going.”

I gently pointed Wronwright in the direction of the passenger side, much to his disappointment, when an idea suddenly occurred to me. “Say, Wron, let me pop the hood right quick, and you check to make sure I put the dip stick back in the well all the way.”

Wronwright looked at me quizzically. “I know you put it back all the way. I saw you.”

“Well, just to be on the safe side.” I slid behind the wheel and pulled the hood latch. “And make sure those battery terminals are ok,” I hollered.

After a few moments, Wronwright closed the hood, gave me a “thumbs up” and climbed in the jeep. I started the engine, turned the jeep around and began the long drive back to Anchorage.

Once we were under way, Wronwright cleared his throat and reached for the power button on the radio; but nothing happened. He pushed the button several times, but still, no music.

“Rats!” he said in disgust. “I was hoping to catch the Bee Gees. I really felt like joining in with ‘Stayin’ Alive’. It would have been appropriate, considering all we’ve been through today.”

I smiled sympathetically. It wasn’t until we got back to the hotel that I discovered that some wires on the radio had “accidentally” come loose.