Thursday, June 30, 2011

Happy Feet Friday

He’s low, short and squatty, but that’s ok with Vanita Smythe.

Chris Wallace: So, Mr. President, are you a dick?

Why not ask Obama that question, Chris? Nobody had publicly called Michele Bachmann a “flake” when you claimed that that was her “rap”. Obama, at least, has now been called a “dick”, on television, by a certified talking news head.

C’mon, Chris, do it! Don’t be a…you know.

The Hugo Chavez Death Watch

Porky the Presidente has been captured on film - reportedly after his surgery – talking with Fidel Castro.

Here’s what I think. Chavez died on the operating table in that dissection lab in the veterinary hospital, but Castro, employing the services of a santería priest, turned him into a zombie. Now, Chavez will return to Venezuela to do Castro’s bidding.

Kinda redundant, if you ask me.

Assortment

William Shawcross is in danger of being stripped of the American Spectator’s first J. Gordon Coogler award.

Richard McEnroe has a video of the Obama legacy (described in in under four minutes; not sure that’s long enough).

Mr. Bingley looks at a tale of two dicks.

Pixie Place has several good music clips, including one of the great Chet Atkins playing a duet with Jerry Reed (the classic “Summertime”).

Do not miss this hilarious collection of actual word verifications (H/T: The Shadowlands).

Looks like Obama may have to completely drain the Strategic Oil Reserve to have an impact on his poll numbers gasoline prices (or better yet, how about just lifting the “permitorium”?)

Troglopundit hopes to benefit from increasingly loose court interpretations of the Constitution.

Kae’s dog plays innocent.

People who know more about economics than Barack Obama: John Mariotti, James Taranto, Jim Hoft, and, er, Lindsay Lohan.

Mika Brzezinski, of MSNBC, recently implied that Sarah Palin was famous for being famous – you know, like Paris Hilton. At least Sarah’s not trading on the name of her famous father.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

A Republican victory means corporate jets strafing crippled children as they limp to the cafeteria for their one decent daily meal

The preshizzle gave his usual class-warfare-I-shot-Bin-Ladin-Oh, look! A squirrel! press conference yesterday. Professor Jacobson jotted down a "rough transcription" of one particularly absurd comment:
Republican leaders need to ask their consituents if they are willing to sacrifice the safety of their children for a tax break for a corporate jet owner.
Readers are invited to compose their own Barackesque false choices and post in the comments section.

David Brooks: the grit in the critic's oyster

John Gray has written a review of David Brooks' new book (The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement) that is doubtless far more interesting than the book itself.

And Ruth Franklin at Book Forum has a fascinating article about the history of the best seller. Loved this anecdote:
In Making the List, his 2001 book about best sellers, former Simon & Schuster editor in chief Michael Korda recalls that the publishing house once commissioned a study of which books made the most money. After a detailed presentation, the consultant said to the editors, "Do you guys realize how much money the company would make if you only published best sellers?"

When economists go bad

James Bowman makes several shrewd observations in this piece at The American Spectator, but the thing that really grabbed my attention was this comment about Paul Krugman, one of the loudest haranguers in the NYT's liberal revival tent:
[Krugman is] one of three men to have won Nobel Prizes, the other two being Jimmy Carter and Al Gore, for not being George W. Bush -- which would seem to be a greater distinction for President Bush than it is for any of them.

The Baracktopus


By the very talented William Warren.

Pope’s first tweet

A historic moment for the Vatican.

In reality, that’s the first papal tweet that received press coverage. He did his first actual tweet a month ago, which caused me no little embarrassment:
LOL! No way Paco Enterprises is getting rights to a worldwide dealer network for selling papal indulgences.
The Holy Father also sent me a direct message on Facebook shooting down a proposal for a television program that would be produced by a three-way partnership composed of him, me and Donald Trump (You’re Excommunicated!).

He’s a tough sell, no two ways about it.

Wednesday sightings

IOwnTheWorld has the perfect election poster for Obama's 2012 campaign.

Meanwhile, cartoonist Michael Ramirez updates the Hokey Pokey.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The Hugo Chavez death watch

Still no word from the Maximum Leader, but he’s said to be in critical condition. Me? I’m sticking with my story that he was inadvertently sent to the dissection lab at a veterinary hospital in Santiago de Cuba, where he starred in a lecture on the internal diseases of Sus scrofa domesticus.

Adam Bitely reports on the illness affecting both Chavez and his regime.


So, a guy with a parrot on his shoulder walks into the doctor’s office and the doctor says, “What seems to be your trouble?” and the parrot says, “Doc, I’ve got this huge wart on my ass…”

Socialism, Be Careful What You Wish For Division

Victor Davis Hanson wonders what socialists actually expected.
Here at home, Obama got his ObamaCare. Why, then, did he grant hundreds of exemptions — many to northern California liberals? Should they instead not have lined up to volunteer to implement such a wonderful, long-needed entitlement?

He said energy would rightly sky-rocket, given his determination to curb fossil fuel production (cf. “bankrupt” coal companies). Why then is Obama concerned that gas hit $4; is not such a high price a welcomed retardant to burning hot fuels? The higher the gas prices, the more that subsidized wind and solar power, and electric cars are attractive, and thus the more we enjoy “sustainable” power. Right? Am I missing something about this desire within our grasp of “living within our means”?
Ah, there’s always the pesky problem of the breaking-a-few-eggs phase before our omelet utopia gets served up. Yet, come to think of it, has socialism ever managed to do anything beyond breaking eggs? Has anyone ever seen the great egalitarian omelet? I believe Hanson is definitely on to something in identifying what is essentially the criminal fraud that is socialism (or liberalism or progressivism – name your poison). Back to VDH:
So what is socialism? It is a sort of modern version of Louis XV’s “Après moi, le déluge” – an unsustainable Ponzi scheme in which elite overseers, for the duration of their own lives, enjoy power, influence, and gratuities by implementing a system that destroys the sort of wealth for others that they depend upon for themselves.
Bingo. Socialism is unsustainable and everybody knows it, even its proponents.So, what happens when democracy approaches the stage in which the larcenous majority, or their representatives – democratically elected, mind you – start confiscating private property, either through the subterfuge of taxation and regulation, or just plain outright through executive fiat? Oh, wait. GM…Chrysler…Why, it’s already happening! It will be more than simply mildly interesting to see if the voters, in 2012, express buyer’s remorse on a grand scale, or decide, instead, to become accessories to the fraud. No, it will be a fascinating, mesmerizing election, filled with portents of our country’s future, the fork in the road leading to a resurgence of personal freedom and responsible government, or to the sterile, soul-destroying society of the welfare state – or to civil war.

Assault with a deadly fun bag

An Ohio woman gets, er, uniquely disorderly.

A really wrong turn

As Kathy Shaidle points out, getting lost in Jerusalem can have near-fatal consequences.

Monday, June 27, 2011

The Wisconsin Supreme Court

I think the justices settle their differences this way...

News from all over

Hey, who’s up for moving the Dodgers back to Brooklyn? The Los Angeles Dodgers have filed for bankruptcy.

Good news for lonely male sharks.

Callipygian update: Kim Kardashian’s butt is not only huge, but 100% natural.

Pinch Sulzberger prepares the New York Times for a kamikaze mission (it’ll be spectacular, Pinch, but remember: you can only do it once).

Captain Consensus rebranding himself as Chief Lone Wolf.

Bashar al-Assad turns to elf power to improve Syrian regime’s international image.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Rough justice in Spain

Mother incinerates her daughter's rapist (H/T: the Conservatory).

Do you feel safer today?

Me neither.

Monday movie

Bing Crosby teaches English in three easy lessons (from The Road to Rio).

The Michele Bachmann interview

Just caught Chris Wallace's "are you a flake?" interview with Michele Bachmann (Wallace has now apologized for that question; I don't think he intended to charge her with being a flake, but, as he admits, the question overshadowed the answer. She'll face much worse from the legacy media).

Wallace was hard-hitting, but Bachmann was poised, articulate and informed, and never struck me as sounding defensive. I found her impressive.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Heart of darkness

It is a savage land, a veritable moonscape, almost three thousand uncivilized miles stretching between the fragile civilized coastal regions, filled with superstitious tribal hostility and the bonfires of devil-worshipers, something to make Road Warrior look like a Disney travelogue.

That's right, I'm talking about Middle America. Flyover country. The fruited plains. The hunting ground of slope-headed neanderthals. Or at least, that's the way New York Times media reporter David Carr sees things. Bible-thumpers and gun-clingers, most of them probably the product of incest, I bet. You can tell, you know. The genetic deterioration shows. For example, here's an obvious specimen of Homo Missouriensis:



Oh, wait. That's not a Missouri aborigine. That's...David Carr. One of our cultural and intellectual betters. The aforementioned reporter for the NYT. Here's another picture of him looking - in his own words - "kind of dickish".



I guess we should all scurry into our holes, now that we've been dissed by a former crack addict.

Sunday funny

An academic discipline with genuine appeal

Beer archaeology.

Another sad departure from the blogosphere

Carol of No Sheeples Here has retired from blogging and has already deleted her blog. I will miss her witty posts and outstanding photoshops, and I hope she will return someday.

Never mind about high gasoline prices

Lance Burri has discovered a for more ominous threat.

Happy feet Friday (Saturday edition)

Maurice Rocco makes with some lighting-fast boogie-woogie.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Where is Hugo?

The Conservatory ponders the mystery of Hugo Chavez' great silence. He checked into a Cuban hospital a couple of weeks ago [digression: Why? I thought Cuba had sent several hundred doctors to Venezuela] for what appeared to be relatively minor surgery, and a series of announcements of his imminent return to Venezuela have turned out to be mistaken.

His malady, incidentally, is said to have been a pelvic abscess: probably the result of sitting on his fat ass in front of a microphone several hours a day, haranguing his unfortunate countrymen on television and radio.

While nothing would give me greater happiness than to learn that angels had wafted him to his eternal reward, I suspect his prolonged silence is just showmanship - building up a state of suspense prior to a flashy and triumphant return home. Although there is a rumor (there is now, anyway) that he was accidentally sent to the dissection lab at a veterinary hospital in Santiago de Cuba.

Some whistleblowers are more equal than others

30-year veteran of the ATF is fired - one day after Rep. Issa demanded assurances from the agency that no retaliatory action be taken against whistleblowers in the Gunwalker investigation.

Update: Another murder is tied to the Gunwalker operation.

Paco's diary

I see that Al Capone’s gun has been sold at auction. I’m not a fan of nickel-plated firearms, but I wouldn’t have minded having this one. Too pricey, though. With respect to guns, by the way, I got my NRA membership card in the mail yesterday; still looking for the ammo ATMs (I mean, that’s what the card’s for, right?)

On his radio program Wednesday evening, Mark Levin, after reciting a litany of the Obama administration’s destructive policies, closed the segment by saying “My God! If we don’t destroy the Democrat Party, it’s going to destroy us!” I believe he’s right. We’re getting whipsawed by political crimes of omission as well as commission, and it won’t be too long before the donks have created such vast dependencies held together by fear and ignorance that the rest of us are likely to become a permanent (and shrinking) minority. 2012 is going to be a watershed year.

In response to a national emergency (his poll numbers are down), the preshizzle has decided to release oil from the strategic reserve. I’m not the only one who thinks this smells like desperation.

I would not live in Chicago on a bet. Not only do I find the prospect of residing under the mayoralty of Rahm “Tiny Dancer” Emanuel odious, I would not want to have to rely on the police chief, Garry McCarthy, for anything resembling law and order. Here he is, blaming violence among blacks and Latinos on racism and Sarah Palin. Oh, and I’ll be happy to answer your question, Chief:
“Let’s see if we can make a connection here. Slavery. Segregation. Black codes. Jim Crow. What, what did they all have in common?”
What did they have in common? The Democratic Party. Dumbass.

It will be interesting, as well as instructive, to see how Australia’s Labor Party makes out in trying to ram through its increasingly unpopular carbon tax. Maybe carbon-cap politicos in the U.S. will discover that this kind of heavy-handedness could result in their involuntary retirement from elective office.

Washington, D.C: fighting transparency at both the national and the local level. Jason Epstein found out, the hard way, that public meetings in D.C. aren’t as public as all that.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Better think of something else

Think Global AS, a start-up venture which manufactures – or rather, manufactured - electric cars, has filed for bankruptcy.

This reminds me of the sad end of an earlier electric car dream (from the excellent Martin Mull talk-show comedy series, Fernwood 2 Night).

Helping America’s workers

Well, not all of them. Looks like Timmy Geithner, Boy Treasury Secretary, helped GM eliminate the pensions of some 20,000 non-union employees. So now these non-union workers join GM’s creditors, stockholders and the U.S. taxpayer as certified losers in the government bailout of GM GM’s unions.

Just another good reason to buy a Toyota.

So, what are you saying? The internet's going to be shot to death in Bolivia?

One of Hillary’s flunkies recently launched the most bizarre metaphor I think I’ve ever encountered.
Hillary Clinton's senior adviser for innovation at the US state department has lauded the way the internet has become "the Che Guevara of the 21st century" in the Arab Spring uprisings.
Humberto Fontova is not amused.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Alcee Hastings still going strong

Alcee Hastings was only the 6th federal judge in U.S. history to be removed from office, having been impeached by the House, and tried and convicted by the Senate on the grounds of bribery and perjury. Unfortunately, the misguided voters of Florida’s 23rd district, in an excess of mercy, heaved him into the House of Representatives in 1993, where he has suckled at the taxpayer teat ever since.

Hastings would have done well to hunker down in relative obscurity, and, indeed, perhaps that has always been his plan; however, he finds himself in the media spotlight once again, as he faces sexual harassment charges lodged by a woman with the almost too-good-to-be-true name of Winsome Packer.
Accusations include "unwelcome sexual advances," and "unwelcome touching," according to March reports of the lawsuit. Packer had accused Hastings of offering her invitations to his hotel room, asking inappropriate questions in public including "What kind of underwear are you wearing?" as well as pressuring her to give him gifts and donate to his re-election campaign.
What is it about Democrats and underwear? They’re either displaying a bizarre interest in the smallclothes of others, or broadcasting photographs of their own, unsolicited, to the world at large.

Now, to be absolutely fair, these are only allegations at this time; Hastings has not been convicted. And, since Ms. Packer is a black Republican – which means, of course, that she is both inauthentic and evil - I expect that Hastings will weather the current storm easily.


Alcee Hastings discusses international security policy with Winsome Packer when, suddenly, the Viagra kicks in.

Globaloney

Al Gore has written a 7,000-word essay for Rolling Stone in which he criticizes President Obama for not completely sharing his climate-change monomania.
"President Obama has never presented to the American people the magnitude of the climate crisis," Gore says. "He has not defended the science against the ongoing withering and dishonest attacks. Nor has he provided a presidential venue for the scientific community ... to bring the reality of the science before the public."
I cannot imagine wading through 7,000 words of Gore’s sanctimonious, leaden prose on any subject – not even on his late-night experiences with comely masseuses – without the fortification of massive amounts of alcoholic refreshment. And since I am only a very occasional drinker, other pathologists of the Cli-Fi hysteria, suitably hollow-legged, will have to do the honors.

But even the snippets in the Fox News piece linked above are sufficient to plausibly suggest the utter worthlessness of Gore’s latest pronouncements as pontifex maximus of the global warming religion: more cries of “Hi-yo, Kyoto!” and the same old mulish resistance to scientific points of view that don’t fit the narrative to which he has permanently harnessed his energies; mere ideological leftovers that have acquired a coat of fungus and begun to stink up the refrigerator. Seven thousand words worth.

Update: Haw! Steven Hayward at Powerline rounds up some of the pithy observations appearing in the comment thread at Rolling Stone.

Update II: An Australian acolyte of the Gorean flapdoodle writes one of the stupidest articles in history. Upside? It's far less than 7,000 words.

Update III: Looks like Al is entering a new line of business.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Departures

Chief administration pervert and “Safe Schools Czar” Kevin Jennings has resigned, and ATF boss Kenneth Melson appears to be on the way out.

Now, Barry, how about Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano?

On the Republican side, Wes Pruden suggests that it’s time for complacent RINO blowhard Dick Lugar to exit stage left (pursued by Tea Party). By the way, I've said it before and I'll say it again: never trust a male politician who looks like Eleanor Roosevelt.

Oh, and there’s one new arrival: Republican Jon Huntsman has officially tossed his hat in the ring. I don’t feel so bad, now, about spelling his name with an ‘h’ the first time I mentioned him, since his own staff doesn’t seem to know any better. And what’s with the weird motorcycle ads?

Bad officiating…

…has been a problem since time out of mind.

Frying pan vs. shotgun

Home invasion fail.

New conservative web site

Bloggers Little Miss Attila and Dan Collins have created a conservative cyber community and news-aggregation site called The Conservatory. Looks promising.

Monday, June 20, 2011

E.J. Dionne, Jr: race detective

I know, I know; it's not exactly the most arduous task in the world to catch E.J.Dionne, Jr. writing something vitriolic and stupid. But Smitty has taken the intellectual rubble of another Dionne column and constructed a solid, logical refutation of "Junior's" original hypothesis.

Fast and spurious

I have not highlighted one potential aspect of the ATF’s notorious “gunwalking” operation (a/k/a "Fast and Furious"), because, in spite of my distrust of this administration, the possibility struck me as something too utterly cynical and ham-fisted for even this crowd to have contemplated. But the more I read about the subject (thanks, Bob Owens!), the more difficult it becomes to explain away the hypothesis that the whole thing may have had, either as its primary or at least secondary goal, the object of expanding gun control in the United States.

In a nutshell, the operation involved permitting straw purchases by gun smugglers from stores in border states, with the foreknowledge that all or most of these weapons would wind up in the hands of drug traffickers in Mexico. The stated goal was to track the movement of these guns, supposedly to identify illegal gun-trafficking networks. But as one of Bob’s linked writers (Michael Walsh at the New York Post) points out…
Oops No 1: The agency had no real way to trace the guns once they left the country -- and no real power to operate in Mexico.

Oops No. 2: The gangs used the weapons for what you'd expect. At least two American agents have been killed with Fast and Furious guns. God knows how many Mexicans have died; since 2006, more than 40,000 have died in the drug wars.
If the ATF couldn’t track the guns, how was the agency going to crack the gun-smuggling networks? If the only way the final disposition of the guns could be determined was in the event of crimes being committed, wouldn’t this reflect an unconscionable level of tolerance for the risk to innocent lives?

Well, apparently so, but the ATF brass was fine with that. The testimony before Daryl Issa’s congressional committee by ATF whistleblowers clearly indicates that the higher-ups at the ATF (and possibly at the DOJ and other agencies) were willing to put up with a certain amount of actual carnage.

But to accomplish what, exactly? Here’s Michael Bane:
1) The ONLY way Fast & Furious makes sense is as a direct attack on the Second Amendment. Otherwise, it makes no sense at all. The idea of "rolling up" a firearms trafficking ring is nonsense. If that had been the intent, it would have been a joint operation with the Mexican government. It wasn't...in fact, ATF went to some length to keep the Mexicans in the dark.

2) The idea of getting a gunrunning indictment against any of the cartel heads is equal nonsense. A gunrunning indictment? Against men that are, in effect, men with standing death warrants on their heads, mass murderers with their own private armies? Wow, they'd be shaking in their boots!

3) Fast & Furious worked exactly as the ATF and the people holding its strings -- the Department of Justice and probably Homeland -- planned for it to work. That is, it put demonstrably made-in-America, sold-in-America guns at Mexican crime scenes, waiting for the largely inept, totally corrupt Mexican law enforcement to find them, submit them to the US for tracing and shout loudly that they had found the literal "smoking gun," that American gun shops/shows were flooding Mexico with arms. That's why supervisors were "jovial, if not giddy" when the first Gunwalker guns began turning up at Mexican crime scenes...it was working!

4) I think ATF believed it had enough regulatory juice to keep the gun stores involved from talking, or if not keeping them from talking demonizing them, and maybe driving them out of business, if they did.
I would still rather believe that the whole thing was just an incredibly moronic idea, gone horribly wrong; however, with Eric Holder’s continued stonewalling and mendacity, and a level of idiocy and irresponsibility, perhaps unprecedented, that would have to have prevailed at the highest levels of several agencies for this to have been merely a specimen of “stupid, not evil” planning, it’s becoming tougher to accept the argument that more gun control wasn’t at least a hoped-for byproduct of this operation.

Whatever the motivations, the results have been a disaster, and heads should roll…including this one.

Good to see that so many people are admitting that they’re morons

And in writing, too.

Pardon me, but who did you say the stupid one was?

Jim Treacher has a video from IOwnTheWorld that juxtaposes some of the more scathing comments made by Sarah Palin’s critics with a goodly number of hilarious gaffes committed by Barack H. Obama, Super Genius.

Nope. No double-standard at work that I can see.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Correction

Hey, I'm just like the New York Times!

The dog blood libel story I included in my Around the World post happily turned out to be a hoax.

Big H/T to Five Feet of Fury.

Monday movie

Barbara Stanwyck is a witness to murder. In this scene, she confronts the silkily sinister George Sanders.

Enjoy it, fellas!

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Sunday funnies



Plus - Maybe you don’t go in for country music, but you’ve got to admit: the songwriters are mighty inventive.

Update: The latest from my campaign manager, Field Marshal Milquetoast.

Computer security

We should all pay more attention to it. 36 Chambers has a good post on the subject, with several valuable links.

Around the world

Women drivers hit the road in Saudi Arabia.

It used to be that the victims of gangsters were primarily other gangsters. Mexico’s drug cartels ratchet up the savagery.

Paco Enterprises studying German insurance company compensation plan.

Kevin Rudd plans an Assassination Day party. I invite Australian readers to provide additional context; however, it does strike me that the Labor Party is in a state of chaos. Are things always this lively down under?

Man arrested (again) for selling Obama condoms.

The weirdest reincarnation story I have ever read.

Chinese virgins wanted.

Y in Vyborg

Joe Bendel over at Libertas reviews what looks to be an interesting documentary on the Soviet war of aggression against Finland. He also writes about another documentary that covers the attempts by many Finns to resettle their children in Sweden ( War Children).

Friday, June 17, 2011

Sheila Jackson Lee: Hey, why aren't you worrying about Christian militants?

That intellectual titan of the House of Representatives, Sheila Jackson Lee, said at a congressional hearing about Muslim radicalization in U.S. prisons that "investigators needed to analyze Christian militants in America because they too might try to 'bring down the country.'"

Witness Patrick Dunleavy, the former deputy inspector of the criminal intelligence unit, New York Department of Correctional Services, responded, "I don’t know that Christian militants have foreign country backing or foreign country financing. Dumbass." Oh, wait; that last bit seems to be an editorial comment added by, er, somebody else.

You know he was thinking it, though.

(H/T: Protein Wisdom)

Jon Huntsman: Recognized by 32% of the people who were at his last family reunion

Pat Austin is unimpressed with the coming announcement by Huntsman that he will be running for president.

I'm with Pat. The news of a Huntsman candidacy resonates with me in the same way that the chance awareness of a traffic jam in far-off Omaha would. Besides, I am inherently distrustful of a fellow who spells his first name as "Jon". Minimalist pretentiousness, it seems to me. Oh, I know: his parents are the ones who are responsible. But this is America. A man who lacks the ambition to acquire that all-important 'h' simply doesn't have the requisite fire in the belly to be running for president.

Oh, and of course he's a RINO.

The Democratic dream ticket

Instapundit has spotted it.

Millennialists, old school and new

Most people had a good laugh at Harold Camping's expense when the world didn't end on schedule; but Camping's dogged faith in his ability to predict the end times doesn't strike me as much more preposterous than Obama's belief in the panacea of "green jobs" and the likelihood of shifting the bulk of our energy production to the "renewable" variety. Indeed, Obama's hostility to traditional sources of energy - petroleum and coal - threatens not only to lead to soaring energy prices, but to massive job losses; and there's no way that we're going to make up all those lost jobs through the manufacture of solar panels and windmills, let alone produce power from renewable sources in the kind of volume that will come anywhere close to replacing the old forms (and, naturally, the one commercially viable form of renewable energy - nuclear - remains stuck in the limbo of fear and ignorance).

The most worrisome thing about liberal policy continues to be the almost complete absence of logic and empirical analysis, which lack places the liberal ideology squarely in the category of bogus religion. And there are few things more ultimately absurd, and dangerous, than a religion in which a transcendent God is replaced by a gaggle of secular Ivy League ignoramuses who look upon society as a giant box of Legos, to be assembled according to a diagram drawn up by M.C. Escher.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Happy Feet Friday

The great Billie Holiday sings “Farewell to Storyville”, with an assist from Louis Armstrong.

Bumper sticker genius

Professor William Jacobson's Legal Insurrection blog is one of my daily must-reads. Among other delights that one finds there are new entries in the Professor's series of interesting bumper stickers. He has some good ones today, and this particular item made me laugh out loud:

From the shelves of the Paco library


I find myself in the unusual position this morning of writing a post on a non-fiction work by a celebrated author of fiction – none of whose fictional works I have read. Nonetheless, I believe I’ll be better prepared to appreciate the author’s novels having read Strong Opinions, a collection of interviews, letters and essays by Vladimir Nabakov.

Nabakov was born in Russia in 1899 and fled with his family to Berlin after the Bolshevik Revolution. In 1939, he moved with his wife, Vera, to France, and in 1940 left for the U.S., where they settled in Manhattan. Nabakov was bilingual in Russian and English from his youth, and wrote novels in both languages. In addition to being a novelist, he had perhaps the unique distinction among artists of also being a serious lepidopterist, writing numerous scientific papers on the subject of butterflies.

Strong Opinions provides extremely valuable insights into the process of artistic creation, as well as fascinating views on the works of other authors, some well known (Shakespeare, Pushkin, Borges, Poe, Melville, Hemingway), others (to me) fairly obscure (Ilf and Petrov). And while Nabakov eludes easy ideological categorization - “My loathings,” he writes, “are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music” – he always proudly considered himself an American writer, and genuinely loved his adopted country:
I am as American as April in Arizona. The flora, the fauna, the air of the Western states are my links with Asiatic and Arctic Russia…I do feel a suffusion of warm, lighthearted pride when I show my green USA passport at European frontiers. Crude criticism of American affairs offends and distresses me. In home politics I am strongly anti-segregationist. In foreign policy, I am definitely on the government’s side. And when in doubt, I always follow the simple method of choosing a line of conduct which may be the most displeasing to the Reds and the Russells.
Another thing that strongly appeals to me about Nabakov is his wit and occasional playfulness. In response to an interviewer’s question, “What scenes one would like to have filmed”, the author gives several examples, my favorites being the following:
Herman Melville at breakfast, feeding a sardine to his cat.

The Russians leaving Alaska, delighted wih the deal. Shot of a seal applauding.
This is a delightful browser for anyone interested in literature and the mysteries of its creation, and in the mind of a truly original and independent thinker.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Nice U-Turn, Debbie!

Debbie Wasserman Schultz says the Democrats are turning the economy around.

And you know what? I believe her.

And in the contest for "Least Free State", the winnah and new champeen is...

... New York!


"Gee, you say that like it's a bad thing."

Good stuff from Wes Pruden

Wes Pruden's opinion column was always the first thing I turned to when I used to get the Washington Times (which has now, sadly, fallen on hard times). He's still writing, though, and his columns are available online.

In his latest, he considers the strange dance of career-death in which Anthony Weiner seems to be waltzing about with the Democratic hierarchy.

Kompitants

Searching for incompetence in the Obama administration is like looking for a needle in a sewing kit, i.e., there's an embarrassment of riches. One story that I believe needs to get a lot more coverage is the Gun Walker scandal, and the cover-up by Eric Holder's Department of - ahem - "Justice". Bob Owens has been all over the case, and here is his latest piece at Pajamas Media.

Oh, and I don't know if I've mentioned it lately, but in my opinion, Holder is the worst attorney general in decades (if not ever). One would think that an open contempt for the law would be a pretty big disqualifier for the office, but, hey, hope and change, baby!

Update: More from Ed Morrissey.

Your House ethics watchdogs are on the job


I don't know about you, but I take great comfort in the knowledge that our country is in the best of hands.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

So, what's your handle?

You've read, of course, about the lesbian Syrian blogger hoax? Tim Blair invites us all to come out of the closet and name ourselves.

Frankly, the first comment over there was so funny I despaired of competing:
Commenter Case of Melbourne: "I use the name of the street I live in and the cigarette I smoke - Beaver Holiday."
Although, following his model...hmmm...Winchester Leghorn...sounds more like a porn name, actually.

Distinguished one-time resident of my hometown dies

She sure was unlucky when it came to husbands (although she doesn't seem to have been as unlucky as they were).

Obama's family joins the fastest growing club in America

The preshizzle's near and dear are fine with a one-term presidency.

Do tourists come to Washington to witness "democracy"?

Donald Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek has, as usual, some first-rate thoughts on the subject.

Who knew...

...that ATMs and other forms of technology are to blame for our wretched economy? Obama explains.

Meanwhile, Barney Fife Sheriff Joe Biden lops a big chunk off the deficit by deciding to eliminate the government's desert tortoise web site.


"Slap leather, tin star!"

Marco Rubio continues to impress

Senator Rubio is tackling the Medicare problem head on, in a state (Florida) where it's an extremely touchy issue. Marc Thiessen reports.

Happy Flag Day!



Here's some history on the Stars and Stripes. And here's some background on Flag Day.

Monday, June 13, 2011

A heartbeat away

It is amazing how liberals both fear and scorn Sarah Palin - entertaining surreal visions of a Palin presidency as representing something like a fascist state run by Lucy Ricardo - and yet never give a second thought to the kind of chief executive Joe Biden would make. When last seen, the Vice President of the United States - the serious, seasoned, experienced, politically savvy Vice President of the United States - was engaged in a squirt-gun fight with journalists.

Take the economy. Please.

You know what's funny? Spending almost $800 billion on shovel-ready projects that didn't exist in the first place. Obama's Jobs Council, led by head clown Jeffrey Imelt, found the president's "joke" - "Shovel-ready was not as ... uh .. shovel-ready as we expected" - to be quite the knee-slapper.

Hey, I think it's great that Michelle Obama is wearing $29 dresses from the GAP, but she could start dressing like Ma Joad to demonstrate solidarity with the unemployed and I still wouldn't believe she and her husband really "get" how bad the state of the economy is (let alone grasp the preshizzle's contributions to the problem).

Great moments in litigation

International House of Pancakes is suing International House of Prayer over the latter's use of the trademark, "IHOP". I suppose if the International House of Prayer has pancake breakfasts on Sunday mornings the issue could get pretty hairy.

In case you need some help telling the difference between the two organizations, here are a couple of tips:
If you do get confused, remember that the International House of Prayer (www.ihop.org) is the one that teaches about the End Times and sells copies of 23 Minutes in Hell, a CD on which a gentleman relates the time he spent 23 minutes in Hell and answers your questions about the afterlife (hint: Hell is unpleasant); and the International House of Pancakes (www.ihop.com) sells pancakes.
H/T: Overlawyered

Monday movie

The creepy Laird Cregar hates violins and cats.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Are you ready...

...for the Anthony Weiner action figure?

Yeah, me neither.

How do you like it, Preshizzle?

I heard on Mark Levin the other day that Obama did some serious venting with his staff after his humiliating appearance with Netanyahu. Dan Collins provides some details (some savory, hickory-smoked, barbecued shadenfreude details).

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this Australian workers' comp case

I mean, I've seen some pretty obnoxious customers from time to time. Still, doesn't seem fair to the employer. "Man Gets Workers' Comp for Injury Sustained When Punching Customer" (H/T: Overlawyered)

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Sunday funnies

Church bulletin bloopers (H/T: Captain Heinrichs).

Plus, Steve Burri introduces the new dialectic.

Update: Steve Martin and some fine harmonizing accompanists sing, "Atheists don't have no songs".

So, why, exactly, are Palin's emails being released?

Is this something that states do when their governors leave office? I don't get it.

In any event, the spectacle of the Washington Post and the New York Times pawing through the emails like feral cats poking around a landfill is extremely unedifying, as Little Miss Attila points out in this post.

If Palin is so stupid, so unelectable, so obviously unfit for higher office, then why do the liberals fear her? Because, deep down, most of them know that she's not any of these things. Even if it's only at 3 am in the morning, they have to admit to themselves - they have to know - that Palin is politically savvy, has an excellent shot at getting nominated and elected (if she so chooses), and stands a better chance than practically any other Republican of rolling back the gains liberals have made under Obama.

Either that, or they really are possessed of an almost diabolical kind of hatred.

Update: Rodger Thomas decides to help out.

Update II: Haw!

Another sign of inflation

The U.S. dollar is depreciating in value against...Bitcoin.

Short and sweet

Went to the grocery store this morning and found the following discarded shopping list in the cart:

cash

liquor [underlined in the original]

sandwich

Entenmann's cinnamon bars

Takes me back to my long-ago bachelor days!

The "Practically Automated Campaign Organization"

From the diabolically clever Col. Milquetoast!

Mr. Bingley is with the program.

Friday, June 10, 2011

I don’t believe it!

It’s getting to the point where, every time Obama floats some incredibly asinine new idea, I find myself automatically responding in the manner of Victor Meldrew (from the hilarious British comedy series, One Foot in the Grave).

The latest specimen of presidential preposterosity is Obama’s decision to rekindle the Falkland Islands dispute by siding with Argentina in that country’s desire to negotiate the “future” of the “Malvinas” (this puts us squarely in the camp of our trusty allies, Venezuela and Nicaragua). Inasmuch as the inhabitants are British and want to remain that way, Obama’s motives are completely inscrutable, except as another attempt on his part to oil his way into the good graces of crackpots like Hugo Chavez. Why? Why? I am reduced to simply repeating Jeff Goldstein’s lament: It’s what they do. It’s who they are.

By the way, here’s a video clip from an episode of One Foot in the Grave, which I offer as comedy relief to the relentless stupid tragedy that is the Obama administration.

Vacation!

I’ll be taking a “staycation” next week, trying manfully to get the yard in shape (and by “manfully”, I mean with plenty of breaks, naps and ice-cold sodas). It’s possible that blogging could be heavier than usual, for which I apologize in advance.

I joined the NRA last week, and am looking forward to going out to the national headquarters (right here in Fairfax, VA!) and using the underground range. Really itching to try out that Uberti top-break .44 Russian.

For those who have wondered if the Che book was ever going to materialize, I can report significant progress: the manuscript is being reviewed and my publisher even lined up an illustrator (preliminary drawings look great). And speaking of Che, here are a few revealing quotes that ought to make at least some of his admirers rethink their roles as commie sandwich boards.

Oh, no!

Isn’t this what started the whole thing in the first place? According to the New York Post’s latest hilarious headline, Weiner is going to “stick it out”.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Happy Feet Friday

The lovely Betti Mays, accompanied by Big Sid Catlett and his band, goes in for some Crazy Riffin'.

Paco sends his regrets

Well, now, that’s strange. I received an email invitation at work today to attend the “Human Capital conference”, sponsored by something called “Excellence in Government”. The email rather breathlessly announced that NBC Chief White House correspondent and political director Chuck Todd will be the luncheon keynote speaker

I googled Excellence in Government and found out that it’s an association of federal managers. The connection to excellence of any kind would seem to be tenuous, given the membership, but the presence of Todd is baffling. He is a garden-variety liberal talking head who, when he left National Journal’s Hotline to join NBC in 2007, remarked that, “It is more than a bit humbling to think I will be calling Brian Williams, Tim Russert and Chris Matthews (!) my colleagues – all three of whom I admire and respect greatly(!!!).” He has recently been detected in the act of being willfully blind to Obama’s contributions to high gas prices, he suffers occasional, sudden attacks of bitter-clinger-itis and he sees little or no difference between the media’s treatment of W and Obama. Oh, and he’s married to Democratic operative Kristian Denny Todd – a lovely woman and wonderful human being, no doubt, but does anyone really imagine that this pairing was an ideological mismatch?

I kid, of course. Who else would a group of bureaucrats tap for an hour of comforting, big-government blather besides someone from the legacy media who’s practically a gaslight sconce in the quaint old temple of inside-the-beltway navel-gazing.

I believe I shall give this luncheon the miss-in-baulk, and trickle round to Five Guys Burgers and Fries, instead.

Update: Speaking of Five Guys, here's a little background.

The Midas touch

Reverse-gear mode.

Also from Gateway Pundit: Thomas Friedman, destroyer of worlds.

Good evening, and welcome to another edition of Oddball

Caroline May at The Daily Caller poses the question, “Has Chris Matthews lost his mind?”

I’m not so sure that he’s lost it, exactly; I’m thinking it more likely that his mind has become atrophied from non-use. Perhaps it’s time that we remove the poor thing from its life-support system and permit it to expire with the dignity it knew not in life. And who knows? Maybe unplugging Matthews from MSNBC would even effect a kind of miracle cure. After all, as the linked article points out, he was not always a wild-eyed, flaming liberal with a renegade larynx; he even subbed for Rush Limbaugh one time.

Someone once said of Bill O’Reilly that he’s not really a conservative; he’s just a cab driver with a television show. Maybe Matthews isn’t really a liberal, just an ignorant misogynist beguiled by what passes for glamor inside the Beltway (with a television show).

Oh, wait…that’s pretty much the definition of the standard liberal talking head, isn’t it?

Yeah, you’re right Caroline. He’s nuts.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

One of the many things I love about baseball…

…is the multitude of wonderful, and frequently goofy, stories that have a way of developing flashpoints of contemporary relevance, even as time marches relentlessly on.

From the shelves of the Paco library



The story of Wyatt Earp and his brothers, and their famous feud with the cowboys in the environs of Tombstone, Arizona, has been told many times, from many different perspectives. I recently stumbled across the late Robert B. Parker’s fictional version, Gunfighter’s Rhapsody, and it made the old story seem fresh again.

Parker is best known as a mystery writer, perhaps especially for his Spenser series. I confess that, until now, I had only read one of his books: the “non-Spenserian” Poodle Springs, Raymond Chandler’s unfinished novel that Parker brought to a conclusion (and in my view, he did a great job). I wasn’t aware that Parker had tackled the western genre, but he does so in Rhapsody with a sure grip on the times and on the manner of men who settled in some of our country’s wilder corners.

Using a spare prose that mirrors the laconic style of speech typically associated with the hardened frontiersman, he still brilliantly manages to have these reticent men, for the most part, tell their own story. And he approaches the tale from what, I believe, is a unique angle: the romantic involvement between Wyatt and Josie Marcus, and the consequent plotting of revenge by Josie’s ex-fiancé, sheriff John Behan.

One encounters all the familiar characters: the Earp brothers and their women, the unstable and dangerous (but doggedly loyal) Doc Holliday, the politically ambitious sheriff Behan, basically likeable rustlers like Curly Bill Brocius and John Ringo (and thoroughly unlikeable ones like Ike Clanton), and a host of minor (but historically accurate) figures ranging from Earp partisans Texas Jack Vermillion and Turkey Creek Johnson, to Behan supporters William Breakenridge (vide a previous “Shelves” post) and Frank Stillwell. And there’s even a big dose of politics - the Earps were Republicans, Behan and most of the cowboys were Democrats - to add fuel to the fire.

This is a straight-forward, two-fisted western, as austere as the desert country in which the action takes place. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and plan to delve into Parker’s other offerings in the genre at the first opportunity.

Leftist protesters

Doggedly spelling class with a capital K.

Note: I changed the post-title from "union" to "leftist", since, according to Lance Burri, the protesters are students. But it doesn't make much difference: they're all on the same side, they're all butt plugs. As Jeff G. is fond of saying, "That's what they do. That's who they are."

Meh. At least he’d be more entertaining than Bloomberg

Alec Baldwin reportedly is thinking of running for mayor of NYC, now that Anthony Weiner’s prospects have, er, gone flaccid. Can you imagine him chairing a City Council meeting? I bet it might sound something like this (strong language warning):

Hunkering down beneath a wave of moonbat radiation

The Paco Command Center was on full alert today, as President Obama invaded Northern Virginia to hand out free slices of his economic baloney.

Later in the day, he entertained the president of Nigeria – the delightfully-named Goodluck Jonathan – in the Oval Office. Nigeria, interestingly, did a pretty good job of weathering its own banking and financial crisis a couple of years ago. Maybe Obama used his prominent ears as something other than cooling coils for his fevered brow in his conversation with Mr. Jonathan (although I doubt it).

Curiouser and curiouser

First there’s the video of a Martian base. Now, Australia’s UFO files have gone missing.

Wronwright, call your office.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Man confesses to future crime

I mean, that’s convenient. We’ll know who the culprit is without having to waste a lot of time investigating the incident. Just round him up and ship him off to jail. Very thoughtful, in a twisted sort of way.

Occasionally-employed comic and full-time asshat Chris Titus is making plans to assassinate Sarah Palin:
“You know what man?” Titus said. “I am going to literally — if she gets elected president, I am going to hang out on the grassy knoll all the time, just loaded and ready — because you know what? It’s for my country. It’s for my country. If I got to sacrifice myself, it’s for my country.”
He’s kidding…I presume…but my guess is if he were to try it, Sarah would outdraw him and put a window between his eyes without even having to stop waving at the crowd.

So, what kind of weapon do you think Sarah ought to carry to protect herself from the likes of Chris Titus? I figure she’d probably pack a .45 semi-auto, but for sheer dramatic effect and historical symbolism, I’d like to see her whip out a Colt dragoon.

Well, you never hear of rats boarding a sinking ship

The head of President Obama’s Economic Council, Austan Goolsbee (sounds like a character in a Charles Dickens novel), is returning to academia. He has only been in the job since September. The main downside of Goolsbee’s resignation is probably this:
Goolsbee’s departure further elevates the profile of Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who is the only original member of the president’s economic team to endure.

Now, that’s advertising!

Help construct my political platform!

Col. Milquetoast has made it possible for you to create your own slogan for the Paco presidential campaign. Let a thousand flowers bloom!

Update - Well, two flowers, anyway. Here's a poster by long-time friend, El Cid:



And here's one by the candidate:



Update: The Republican contest is getting ugly.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Can Chris Matthews even tie his own shoes?

He suggests that maybe Anthony Weiner's wife is "partly responsible".


"Boy, is Chris Matthews dumb!"


"I'll say!"

Update:


"Although, you have to admit, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is giving him a run for his money."

What’s going on in Blairistan?

Time to take a look at the doings of blogfather Tim Blair and his lieutenants.

First, kudos to Tim for his relentless coverage of the pending carbon tax in Australia; herewith, his most recent salvo.

Meanwhile, kae braves the carbon-dioxide to take some splendid photos of Avoca Beach.

Boy on a Bike whips out the camera, too.

Gavin Atkins attempts to make the “unknown” Julia Gillard a little better, er, known (also, don’t miss Gavin’s latest priceless news roundup).

Richard McEnroe on…Anthony Weiner: babe magnet.

Spot the Dog at Tizona brings us Andrew Klavan’s brilliant plan for peace in the Middle East.

Swampy gets an inspired idea for a new drink – or, rather, for a jumbo-sized version of an old standard.

El Cid has a great picture of the Preshizzle, apparently enveloped in a cloud of unknowing.

You will, of course, recall Churchill’s (apocryphal) quote about the British Navy: “rum, sodomy and the lash”. Andrea Harris provides an update.

Oh, and BTW. If you've been wondering where Wronwright is...

An ominous revival

I am convinced that there are some things you really shouldn’t mess with. Ouija boards, for example, and satanic invocations.

And anti-Semitism. Is this age-old hatred once again becoming fashionable? It’s bad enough when the dyspeptic, four-eyed turban racks that constitute the Iranian mullahcracy and the “spiritual” leadership of Hezbollah preach the death of the Jewish state. But now it’s increasingly rearing its ugly head in the U.S. and Europe. In California, we see the (admittedly bizarre) anti-circumcision group that has put out a comic book which, with its grotesque caricatures of Jews, would have met with the full approval of the late A. Hitler; and in Scotland, the West Dunbartonshire Council is banning all books produced in Israel, along with other Israeli products.

These folks would do well to pay attention to Jeff G.:
Incidentally, when we said never again? We meant it.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Man bites dog

Today's feel good story: homeowners foreclose on bank.

(H/T: Mrs. Paco)

Monday movie

Big-city reporter, Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas), hits the skids in Alburquerque and applies for a job (from the superb Ace in the Hole).

The Obama/Paco debates (or, The Legend of Bagger Vance Baggy Pants)

The scene: President Barack Obama is standing on the driving range at Fort Belvoir golf course after sundown, hitting golf balls into the gathering gloom. He is muttering oaths between swings, as he keeps hooking the ball.

Obama: Damn! All day I’ve been hooking my shots. What am I doing wrong?

Voice: You’re pulling the ball to the left; means you’ve probably got a bad case of “strong grip”. That’s the way it is with some folks; the tighter they hold on, the more success just seems to slip away.

Obama [recovering from his surprise, and lowering the club which he had automatically raised over his head as a weapon, upon being startled by the sudden appearance of a stranger]: Who…who are you?

Voice: My name? Doesn’t really matter. But if you have to have one, I’m known as Baggy Pants.

Obama: Are you some kind of instructor?

Pants: You could say that. But I’m not really about laying down rules. I’m about helping people find themselves, and one thing I’ve learned from a lifetime of observation is that every man has a swing that’s just right for him. It’s inside of him, see? Waiting to get out. Now, take you, for example. You’ve probably been going to the left your whole life long. Associating with commies and radicals and even retired terrorists.

Obama: Whoa! What’s that got to do with hooking a golf ball?

Pants: Man, your swing is you! Hanging out with all those parlor revolutionaries in college and during your community organizing days, that stuff gets in your blood, it turns everything you do into a hook. But the flag’s not off to the left. It’s straight in front of you. Whether in golf or in life – and it’s all one – you’ve got to loosen your grip a little, set aside your stubborn prejudices, and go for the flag, ‘cause that flag ain’t coming to you.

Obama [loosens his grip on the club, waggles it back and forth a few times, brings the club back, up and over his right shoulder, and swings; the ball rockets off the tee in a tremendous arc, flying a good 220 yards, dead ahead]: Wow! You’re right about my grip. Say, what are you, really? Some kind of…magic Caucasian?

Pants: Magic? Who knows? You might say that I’m here to knock a hole in The One.

Obama: Er, that should be “one”, shouldn’t it, not “the one”?

Pants: We’ve all got to play the game we were meant to play.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Sunday funny

Missouri cops take on an alligator.

The strange case of Stephen Griffiths

The always excellent Theodore Dalrymple considers a particularly repellant serial killer – and the strange way liberal society views his victims.

Friday, June 3, 2011

James Arness, RIP



My fondest childhood memories are of the weeks during the summer when my parents would drop my younger brother and me off at the home of my paternal grandparents in rural Stanley County, North Carolina. We’d wake up early in the morning, a cool breeze usually stirring the white curtains in the guest bedroom, and toddle off to the kitchen where my grandmother would always have a breakfast buffet of ham, bacon, biscuits and grits (although I didn’t eat the grits), and we’d spend the day roaming the fields and the woods with our cousins, or picking strawberries and green beans in my grandmother’s “garden”, as she called it (in reality, a small farm).

In the evenings – typically balancing a plate of homemade chocolate cake on our laps, and holding a glass filled with ice and Cheerwine (a locally produced black-cherry-flavored soda pop) – my brother and I would sit in the den watching television. I usually claimed the rocker in one corner, my brother would sit in the overstuffed chair in another, and my grandparents would sit on the big leather couch (my grandfather smoking his pipe, and my grandmother sewing). And one show we never missed was Gunsmoke.

Now the hero of that series – Marshall Matt Dillon, or, as he was known in real life, James Arness – has died at age 88. I keenly feel the loss.

And not just because of the happy associations that the program has with those idyllic vacations. He was an icon of the old west whose portrayal of a good man doing a tough job provides some valuable lessons. Mrs. Paco and I watch the show now, in syndication, and it’s amazing how well the series has held up. Marshall Dillon was exhibit A for the forces of law and order, but he was not, by any means, a mere stick figure. Gunsmoke was a morally-textured series, in which the characters were often faced with difficult choices; yet it was not morally ambivalent: justice must be served, and although right and wrong were clearly delineated, there was space for the understanding of human weakness and failure.

We discovered, not too long ago, the Gunsmoke movies that were made in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and, if anything, these are even more enjoyable than the weekly television series – grittier, better production values, more complex plotting. And what a treat to find, in these movies, the central character played by an older, more weathered-looking, James Arness; a bit gaunt and wrinkled, yet still the same bold, honest and courageous frontiersman.

God rest his soul, and comfort his family and friends (and fans).

A somber H/T to Yojimbo.

Reporter attempts to grill Weiner

Sorry, just couldn’t resist.

Silky Pony headed for the knacker’s yard?

John Edwards indicted.

Conspicuous gallantry

Hats off to Corporal Dipprasad Pun, a Nepalese soldier who single-handedly held off 30 Taliban militants – in the finest tradition, I might add, of Nepalese martial prowess.

"My name is Rather.

And I'm a dick."

Another classic from the Master.

Time to celebrate!

It's National Doughnut Day.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Happy Feet Friday

The great Benny Carter swings out, with Nat King Cole and friends.

The country needs John Huntsman…

…like a submarine needs a screen door.

There are a number of Republican candidates I could support for president. Huntsman is not one of them.

Assortment

A new beer for these troubled times: WTF, from the good people at Lagunitas Brewing Company.

Is free speech a thing of the past? Mark Steyn opines (as does James Board).

Conservative talk-show host Michael Savage continues to be reviled by the British government. One of Fidel Castro’s butchers? Not so much.

The EPA seems a trifle confused.

Rep. Jeff Landry says “no, thanks” to Obama’s invitation for a chewing out.

Troglopundit is baffled .

The “Palestinian Navy” is busily planning for a late-June offensive.

News and (hilarious) analysis from the great Jim Treacher.

Update: Steve Burri catches Rep. Weiner with his pants down... again.

Crime or prank?

Donald Douglas has a video clip of Bret Baier of Fox News trying to get some straight answers from Rep. Weiner.

Frankly, I'm with Ace on this.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

You say Weiner, I say wiener, let’s call the whole thing off

On second thought, let’s not.

Hmmm. He can’t say “with certitude” whether or not that’s a picture of him, er, presenting arms. So, does that mean he has permitted such a picture to be taken before – or perhaps taken one or more himself – or that someone has, without his permission, captured Mr. Happy for the ages?

Here’s my guess. Anthony Weiner took a dose of Viagra, and, per instructions (at least, it’s what they say on the television commercials), decided to notify his doctor once the erection passed the four-hour mark. He gets the doctor on the phone, tells him the problem, doctor says, “Are you sure?”, Weiner, intending to tweet the photo-link to the doctor but, in his mounting fear that the thing might break off or something, isn’t paying attention and accidentally sends the link to some college girl in whose academic progress he has taken a fatherly interest - oh, and also accidentally, doesn't do a direct message, but broadcasts his package to all of his Twitter followers.

Could happen to anybody.

MSNBC waves the flag

Alex Fitzsimmons at NewsBusters spots one of MSNBC’s clueless news clods making a federal case against Sarah Palin for displaying the U.S. flag on her tour bus (H/T: Protein Wisdom).

Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, Martin Bashir…where do these idiots come from? And isn’t one of the main goals of being a propagandist for a major political party to successfully disguise your ulterior motives in order to expand your influence beyond the congregation of true believers, to successfully put into effect a kind of “ecumenical” outreach? These guys are all just a bellows for keeping the fanatics red hot. Not that I’m complaining; may their incompetence increase!

I do love Sarah Palin. Even if she doesn’t run for president, she makes a wonderful barrage balloon for the low-flying left-wing media.

It's Wednesday, so that must mean...

...it's time for rare photos of Marilyn Monroe.