Initial thoughts on Sarah Palin

I like her. She gives me hope for the future of our country - and maybe even that of the republican party, though that's arguably not as important.

She reminds me of my two daughters. Tough, smart, feminine and flexible. I think if the three of them were ever stuck together in a room for 30 minutes they'd become friends, not that they'd agree on everything.

I think she has become a significant problem for the media. She boldly says she isn't running for office to be seek their approval. They, otoh, pretty uniformly let everyone know last week they considered her a lightweight and desperate choice from a weakened and fading politician. Now, to their chagrin, she turns out to be an articulate scrapper - somewhat akin to a pit bull with lipstick - and went right over the media's heads directly to 40 million or so potential voters with the result that a vast number of them join me in "loving" her. All this without the media's permission or approval. To them, its "unthinkable". <Sad shake of head>

Much lies ahead during the next two months for Governor Palin. She will have many chances to stumble, slip and fall - or to rise to new and glorious heights in the public's mind and eyes. I wish her well. I would suggest her detractors stick to the facts, though, and not the rumors. But wonkers will be snarky, and few looney liberals will be able to refrain from "trashing" [in their minds] a strong woman candidate who scares them stupid.

The Gap widens. What fun.

The French

Say what you want about the French, and I sometimes have, at least they drive on the proper side of the road.

What I love about the Obama "assumers"

So many well-meaning folk in other parts of the world have "assumed" points of view they believe conservative US voters hold concerning BHO that I will address this first.

What I find so funny - actually laughable - is that the "common knowledge" others hold of US attitudes is media driven. And in the US today the media [formerly the MSM] is bankrupt and failing, so what they are printing and broadcasting is misleading to outsiders in the extreme. But if one is used to relying on media then one doesn't really understand this fine point. It is as if the media are preaching to the choir, not knowing the congregation left the building six months ago, formed another group and are now meeting elsewhere. Not secretly but openly - something the media types would have known if only they listened to someone other than themselves.

To their credit a few have. But most egg-headed stalwarts are living in denial and cannot conceive of any set of circumstances that could cause their pronouncements to be ignored by their lessers - the listeners.

First there is a general assumption a huge number of ultra right-wing voters would never vote for a black man. There are fools who feel this way, no doubt, but their numbers are so low as to be imo less than half the number of folks who would simply vote for a black man BECAUSE he is black. Which - to my mind - is just as intellectually dishonest as the former.

Second is the assumption folks who voted for GWB would never vote for a democrat. I'm sorry, but for all he's done right, Mr. Bush has pretty well blown his gravitas with most conservatives and they would vote for any candidate who could attend a few of their interests. Changing the current political polarization process rampant in DC would be one of those interests.

So this year I really wanted to be able to vote for a black candidate. My mix-raced grandson now lives with me and I want him to be successful in life and have inspiring role models. Almost eight years ago I thought the smartest thing the repubs could do would be to run Condi Rice for prez in '08. Four years ago I was still pushing for Ms. Rice, but have now come to believe her executive abilities were regretfully overtaxed by the State Department and GWB. Not even taking at face value her reluctance to run.

Eventually I looked at several other blacks who were conservative, but none came to the fore during the run-up to the primaries. So I seriously looked at BHO. And inititally liked what I saw. He has been a great communicator, and inspired a new generation of followers to become politically active. Thats all to the good, imo. I did have a few questions, though, over his lack of experience, his choice of mentors and his Chicago political base. Imo Chicago has been and still is the most corrupt political environment in the US. So I wanted to see him - if he truly believed in change - to push himself away from that cesspool. There were other questions, too. Bill Ayers, pastor Jeremiah Wright, etc., but in my mind they were secondary.

Well when I went to the media to find answers to these puzzles I couldn't even find a discussion of most of the questions. What gives? Why hasn't our "professional" journalist corps done their jobs? Are they knowingly or unknowlingly "in the tank"? There are too many unanswered questions for someone who wants to be our president. Questions were being ignored by the candidate and his staff, and also by the media. The stench soon became overwhelming. So while I WANTED to vote for a black candidate, I couldn't find a black candidate who was qualified to serve in the office.

That really left me in a funk, because the other candidate was not mine. He was a showboating maverick who failed so many position tests that I almost lost interest in the race. Then I started reading Thomas Sowell every few days. He cheered me up and helped me see the "bigger" picture. Finally today I read Spengler in the Asia Times and it all became clear. It is time to rise up from my doldrums and leap back into the fray.

Mind the Gap, everyone, I'm back!

Waking up midst the ashes - sort of

OK, I'm coming out of my self-imposed funk and will start blogging again. Mainly about politics - because its going to be so much fun now that we have a race again.

Feel free to comment, but keep it civil.

Cheers

Lunch Room Economics

Suppose that every day ten men go out for lunch and the tab for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
All for the same meal.

So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men ate lunch every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. He said, "Since you are all such good customers, I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily lunches by $20. Food for the ten will now cost just $80."

The group still wanted to pay their bill the same way we pay our taxes, so the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six men -- the actual 'paying' customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share"? They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being "paid" to eat his lunch. So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same formula based on what was paid, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay!

And so: The first four continued to eat lunch for free (no change)
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $50 instead of $59 (15% savings).

Each of the six who had been paying was now better off than before, and they all still ate the same meal. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar back out of the $20 savings," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got $9"! "Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got back nine times more than I!" "That's true!!"shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $9 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. This payment system exploits the poor!"

So the nine men surrounded the tenth guy and beat him up. The next day the tenth man didn't show up for lunch, but the other men sat down and ate without him, anyway. When it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something interesting. Between them all they didn't even have enough money to pay half the bill!

And that, boys and girls, presidential candidates and economic pundits, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much or attack them for being wealthy and they might not show up to eat with us any more. In fact, they could start eating lunch some other place where the atmosphere turns out to be a lot friendlier.

Struggling Back to - - - - -normalcy?

It'll be slow, but am trying to get back to some type of blogging schedule. Wasn't my health, wasn't my age, wasn't even the fact Blogger got a little cantankerous several months ago.

Will explain fully later but thanks for whatever visits are made from now on.

The Gap between what’s said and what’s meant

“Or, the shame of cheapening and trashing perfectly good words, eventually causing them to become worthless and unusable.”

The Belmont Club’s Wretchard discusses a post from The Smoking Gun (careful, some images may be crude and shocking) describing the content of documents allegedly recently captured from al-qaeda in Iraq. The problem with the subject matter is that in former years it could reasonably have been called a “torture manual”. But alas, that term no longer seems to work.

The world is apparently no longer interested in hearing about “torture” per se, probably because we dirty rotten Yanks are hands down the acknowledged leaders at “torturing” large quantities of common prisoners taken in warfare, and the topic is no longer of international interest - unless, of course, more US troops are thought to be caught up in it again. Then it becomes important to discuss.

The problem is quite simple. The rest of us permitted the warm-hearted fuzzy thinkers of the world to misuse and misapply a perfectly good word, “torture”. They were describing - for the most part - torment or humiliation, but were overstating the case - as seems to be the wont of certain overly-liberal wonks - as if what was occurring was actually harming or maybe even permanently disfiguring the subjects of the interrogations and so-called “torture”. I hold that in all but a few rare cases, it wasn’t.

Was it fun to undergo? No! Was it nice and polite? No! Was it reasonably applied? Can’t tell! Has it worked? Probably pretty well! Was it actually “torture”? With few exceptions, No!

The question I have for my liberal friends - the same ones who “tsked, tsked” over Abu Ghraib prison and the camp at Guantanamo Bay - how are they going to respond to (and classify) what is being done by AQ per the “manuals” referenced in The Smoking Gun ? What should they (or we) call that level of interrogation? Or do they even care?

Looking up the word “maim” in the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006, shows the following synonyms and explanations:
“—1. Maim, lacerate, mangle, mutilate indicate the infliction of painful and severe injuries on the body. To maim is to injure by giving a disabling wound, or by depriving a person of one or more members or their use: maimed in an accident. To lacerate is to inflict severe cuts and tears on the flesh or skin: to lacerate an arm. To mangle is to chop undiscriminatingly or to crush or rend by blows or pressure, as if by machinery: bodies mangled in a train wreck. To mutilate is to injure the completeness or beauty of a body, esp. by cutting off an important member: to mutilate a statue, a tree, a person. 2. injure, disable, deface, mar.” In my view that is what is being proposed by the found documents.

Yes, I know the current definition of "torture" can be stretched to include tormenting and causing anguish, but should it be spread over so wide a plain? I conclude a word applied so thinly soon loses its value.

So my question again is, “What should we call torture when it mains, lacerates, mangles or mutilates its subject”? It certainly cannot be considered merely “torment”, can it? And yet that’s what the sloppy and over-reaching politicalization of certain English language terms has seemed to have brought about.

As ever, I await correction and rebuke. Cheers

Cross posted on http://mindingthegap.wordpress.com/

Iran - 15; U.K. - nil

Publication withheld until after the tars were back home.

If it had been a soccer game (OK, futball), it would have been a blowout. But it was much worse than that. It was reality. Real life. And the UK has been humiliated so much by a psychopath that it has probably lost forever the last shred of its formerly fearless reputation. Lets tally up some of the side-effects of the Brits whimpering behavior the past two weeks.

Royal Navy - now proven to be gutless, incompetent and foolish. The skipper of the HMS Pinafore - sorry, Cornwall demonstrated he is not even responsible enough toward his crew as to captain a tugboat, let alone an ocean-going vessel. And certainly not a warship. Would definitely not want to see him at the helm of a London taxi or a Jubilee line train. As for the crew? No stalwarts there.

PM Tony Blair - Utterly, utterly clueless. Said he did not, could not, would not negotiate, and then sent his guy to Tehran to "talk". Hmmm. "If it sounds like, looks like and smells like a duck, et al." Sadly, if he possesses the slightest degree of integrity, the thing for Blair to do now is visit the queen within a few days and submit his resignation.

Brits in general - Chamberlainish - 70%, it seems, and Churchillish - 30%. Admittedly unscientific estimates, possibly, but loosely based on observed numbers of pro/con comments in several UK on-line media outlets. Sad state of affairs. But what can one expect of a nation where one who breaks into another's home has superior safety and security rights over the homeowner citizen.

The EU - Morally, ethically and spiritually bankrupt and clueless. Chamberlainish - 85% versus Churchillish - 15%, maybe. In a situation where the EU could have won back some respect, they stalled, stumbled, fumbled and blew it. Written off by the rest of the world as nothing more than a flock of hens in a weakly defended chicken coop. The foxes of the world have taken note, and the EU now lives on borrowed time.

The UN - Nada. Even less relevant than the EU - if that's possible. They just huff, puff, whine and dine. And then do it all over again. But that won't matter a whit because most of the world expects this of them.

Nothing good will come from any of this - unless and until other responsible citizens speak up and force changes. Little hope this will occur, however.

Sad and discouraging for freedom, everywhere.

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London West End Theatre Reviews

During the past fortnight Mrs. Dweet and 49er were pleased to be entertained by several London plays. For those visiting the UK soon and wondering what others think of the offered fare, herewith a short review on each.

The Lady from Dubuque. Starring Dame Maggie Smith. At the Haymarket. 2 Acts. ˜**** First act a little tense. Second act brilliantly funny and dramatic. Plot resolution a little weird. Good fun.

The History Boys. Large cast. At the Wyndhams. 3 Acts. * Don't waste your time/money. Exposes basic intellectual dishonesty and perverted mindset of elitist UK houses of higher education. 15% of the dialog in the first act rendered in French.

Boeing-Boeing. Cast of six. At the Comedy. 3 Acts. **** Classic comedy, very well done. Lots of fun and interesting plot twists.

The 39 Steps. Cast of 4 cover over a dozen roles. At the Criterion. 3 Acts. ***** Based on classic Hickcock movie. Comedic-drama! Exciting stagecraft and plot twists. Great fun!

Guys and Dolls. Starring Don Johnson. At the Piccadilly 3 Acts. **** Traditional version of classic musical, except with modern stagecraft. Very well done. Worth it. Closes April 14.

Treats. Starring Billy Piper. At the Garrick. 3 Acts. *** Classic love-triangle plot. Not very interesting and pretty predictable. Conclusion is muddy. Excellent set, though.

Hope some of this helps.

Cheers˜

WOW! What luck! We found a GOLD ring!

It seemed too good to be true. Just walking along midday in London's west-end theater district, minding our own business, a couple of tourists from stateside, and right there on the sidewalk of a quiet side street a young woman in front of us stopped, stooped over and picked up a huge gold wedding ring! What luck!

And of course she had to share her luck with us. Because we were just behind her, and looked so - I don't know - gullible? Imagine our shared joy at discovering the "18CT" stamp inside the band. And no other inscriptions indicating any method in which to trace ownership. What good fortune!

It turned out it was not really so fortunate for the young woman. She was homeless, jobless, in the country illegally and destitute - we soon discovered from her broken-but-understandable English. And on top of that she was "Muslim", and - of course (didn't see this coming) - was not permitted by her religious laws to wear jewelry. So she graciously gave us the ring.

(All this while 49er couldn't believe Mrs. Dweet was being so kind and believing - I did say "gullible" once before, didn't I? - and was looking around for the cohort to come up and continue the old "found fortune" scam - but that was not about to happen).

This was a new twist on an old scam. It was a one-person trying to play on the sympathies of visitors operation. It ended when Mrs. Dweet reached in her pocketbook and withdrew a crumpled bill to press into the hands of the kind and benevolent found-property-finder. What a crushed look of defeat sprang to her eyes when she unfolded the bill and discovered it was merely a £5 note. But how could she back down when Mrs. Dweet was being so kind, sympathetic and understanding? It probably only cost her 80p, but still an investment is an investment!

We now possess a slightly used size 9 highly polished brass ring with a faux 18 caret stamp inside the band. What luck? So how do we know it was a total fraud? Well, sir, since you asked, during the next week or so we were present when three other "gold" rings were discovered by other individuals - rings that were just quietly lying there on London sidewalks as we strolled in prominent but temporarily quiet sight-seeing areas. My conclusion is that either Londoners have become quite careless with their wedding rings, or there is an organized scam going on. You pays your money and you takes your choice.

And yes, the found ring turns your finger green when worn for a half-day or so.

Cheers

PS: While at Hampton Court a day or so later couldn't help noticing the large "gold" ring one tourist-type gent was wearing on his pinky as he walked past. I almost said something, but decided to be nice - instead - it was a challenge, though.

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"Cowboys of the Sea"

For those interested, son of 49er has apparently been spotted in previews of an hour long National Geographic channel special scheduled to be broadcast tonight on the west coast at 6 and 9 PM. Check schedules in your area for details. Last summer BUMPER crewed for a few weeks on the "Ms. Liz" out of Naknek, Alaska, going after sockeye salmon in Bristol Bay. He will be the handsome one.

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He's slogging his way back!

In spite of a couple of weeks of struggling through this mucky swamp-like morass of California mud for way too long, 49er is finally about back to normal. Posting should resume soon. Thanks for checking in.

Cheers

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Light posting next five weeks

Due to 49er's involvement in an annual charity event, coupled with the reluctance of the National Standards and Times Commission to add six more hours to the length of each day.

Cheers

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Fallacies and wishful thinking

The following is a sad posting, and in no way is meant to imply "justice was done". It was and is a public tragedy. Instead, it is mentioned here to demonstrate the widespread dispersion of public silliness and illogical thought processes.

Last Friday night a 16 year old youth was tragically shot and killed by police after a car chase and attempted arrest in East Palo Alto when the juvenile allegedly pulled a gun on arresting officers. A second person, an 18 year old cousin, was arrested at the scene.

"The two are suspected of robbing and shooting a man earlier that night (in the same general area)."

The San Jose Mercury News story linked above goes on to quote friends and family of the young man making ridiculous statements.

"`They shot him like he was a grown man,' said Fou Malimali, 25, a close friend of Longi's. "It's going to fall right back on them,'' she said. "Now it's going to be like, `They're dirty cops.' ''

There is more tragedy to the story. The young man may have had "mental" or "developmental" problems. Read the whole thing. There are even more examples of illogical, twisted thinking, if not outright denial of reality.

Hello! It was night time when this occurred. He was a person suspected of robbing and shooting somebody just a short time earlier, and was apparently in the act of "pulling" a gun from his waist. Does anybody actually expect peace officers to allow themselves to be shot at until they are able to make a confirmed age determination? That's wishful thinking. The two officers themselves are definitely not 'dirty cops'. Instead, they are a credit to their departments and assets to their communities. A conclusion like that quoted in the story is a logical fallacy.

It is interesting to note the Mercury News frequently allows "comments" to its on-line stories. Since this particular entry seems so blatantly an attempt to curry favor with the area's Polynesian community, the editorial staff apparently wisely decided to disallow on-line comments this time. Good thinking.

It's sad to see so-called 'jounalists' prostituting themselves with wishful thinking pieces like this one.

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Illegal Immigration Issues

There are too many assumptions being bandied about by well meaning folk over what the "average" conservative US voter 'thinks' about illegal immigrants, etc.

If I may speak for a large number of fellow conservatives, what frosts our backsides is the "illegal" part of the situation. Our answer: If it's agin' the law, just don't do it! The US's entire national immigration program responds so slowly as to place folks who follow the 'rules' in a diminished or inferior position when it comes to obtaining entry permission, etc., etc. That's not fair!

And it very unfortunately financially 'rewards' those who take the law into their own hands, ignoring the proscribed process. That's just not right! That part needs to be fixed before we start talking about more and more programs designed to 'fast-track' the application system for those that are already here and want to "legalize" themselves.

This ties in with the post below to the extent that most liberals (democrats) seem to want to excuse the "claim jumper's" lawlessness (or to be more charitable "forgetfulness") on humanitarian grounds. And while that is quite tempting to do, it's also a 'feel good' solution that unfortunately teaches the wrong lesson concerning US culture and the responsibilities of US citizenship.

Somehow we need to quickly re-establish fairness in the system and then solve the extremely human problem of families divided by distance or living while eternally keeping an eye looking over their shoulder, ever watching for 'la migra'. For the most part these persons are happy to be here, consider the US their adopted country, and after a few years will never, ever 'go back home' unless to visit loved ones. They consider themselves to have become "Americans", regardless of their official status.

The phrase "Borders, language and culture" is more than a conservative creed. It is an essential foundation for nation building. A society ignoring those words is living in anarchy. Living with them encourages genuine and humane societal progress.

The US corporate and agricultural world has paid too little lip service to this issue for far too long, riding cheaply and virtually painlessly on the coat-tails of tax-paying citizens and anxious illegal immigrants alike. It's now time for them to step up to the plate and take responsibility for themsevles, and disgard their self-imposed "blinders" when it comes time to verify employee's employment eligibility. It's only the fair thing for them to do.

Cheers

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On Good Intentions and Belittlement

This will likely be a two-parter, the second addressing (in a day or so) what 49er perceives to be a typical US attitude towards illegal immigration - and illegal immigrants. (Trust him, the two subjects are related).

For now, however, one can't help but observe once more a dichodomy between what most of the world expects in the way of societal behaviour from leaders of the US and what they accept from the secretariat of the UN. 49er holds that GWB and KA are almost universally held to significanty different standards of personal integrity and job performance.

If a fair-minded reader can't see at least a modicum of truth in that assertion, then all the linkage in the world will not improve on our mutual intercommunication and understanding. So I now bid those individual readers good-bye! You will benefit from nothing further here.

For the rest of us, however, IMHO there is something much more sinister at play here. For I consider that KA has been held to a much softer world-wide standard than GWB. And if that is true, then it almost certainly reflects a personal bias on the part of the viewer. Further, this has become a destructive bias that significantly lowers world-wide expectations of the retiring UN secretary general's job performance and leadership ability. A bias that in effect says, "We recognize that KA simply can't do as competent a job at the UN as we expect GWB to do in the US."

49er further maintains that most of the world doesn't support that point of view with 'evil intentions'. Instead, the universal world has encouragingly wished to frequently give KA the 'benefit of the doubt', even when faced with conflicting information. There is nothing "wrong" with this mindset, unless it repeatedly gives the object of attention a virtual "pass" on maintaining any objective level of personal integrity. Which it eventually has done.

49er regards the repeated good intentions of the liberal world toward Mr. Annan to have in effect belittled him, saying further, "Since you don't have the ability to do the same job, nor have the same integrity, as we expect of Mr. Bush, we will accept whatever you do as being 'OK'." And that, dear readers, is a deadly, deadly, and self-fulfilling bias.

Be honest about the double-standard, or in the interest of fairness eliminate it. The leader of the UN should be held to the same standards as the leader of the US, or any other nation. IMO.

Cheers btw, Nothing here is intended to be defending the record of GWB.

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"World History - As it Really Happened"

The following is compiled from several sources, including varied iterations from at least my friend JAMES JOHNSON (12/13/06), Ran at DAIMNATION (10/27/06),and Dawg at TechRepublic (3/9/06). There may have been others. Whoever originated it is pretty much a genius, IMHO.

Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and *lobster in the winter. [*Note: only the unorthodox.]

The two most important events in all of history were the inventionof beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundations of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:

... Liberals and Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to BBQ at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly BBQ's and doing the sewing, fetching and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement. Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women.

The rest became known as girliemen.

Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy and group hugs and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.

Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant . Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.

Most modern liberals like gourmet* imported beer (with lime added), but many prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are also standard liberal fare. (*weak or watery)

Interestingly enough, one sub-set of liberals has been identified which claim to prefer the lustier beers and ales originally brewed in England or Australia. There is some DNA evidence to suggest these "liberals" are actually misguided "closet conservatives" attempting to retain some level of societal security by appearing to 'blend in' with their 'neighbours'.

Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of Liberals' women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat.

Conservatives drink domestic* beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, Marines, and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living. (*stronger flavor)

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. [Does 'enlightened' refer to the nightly bonfires in Vénisseux and Grigny?]

That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were taming America . Afterwards, when it was safe to do so, they crept in after the Wild West was "civilised" and created businesses dedicated to getting more for doing nothing.

Here ends today's lesson in world history: It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to this historic recollection before forwarding it. [Don't know why... They got it for nothing.]

Conservatives will simply laugh and be so convinced of the absolute truth of this historical essay that they will link to it immediately and pass it on to other true believers. And also on to other liberals just to [goad] them.

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Greetings of the "Season"

For my Democrat friends:

"Please accept with no obligation, implied or explicit, my best wishes for an environmentally sensitive, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, or with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or your choice to not practice religious or secular traditions at all, if you so choose.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. This is not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. And is further offered without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee(s).

By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable without alteration of the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes by himself or others, is void where prohibited or regulated by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.

This wish is warranted to perform as expected as a commerically acceptable expectation of good tidings for a period of no more than one year or until the issuance of a subsequent or replacement holiday greeting, whichever occurs first. Your only right under this warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher."

For the rest of my friends:

"Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year"

Holiday Cheers and a h/t to JAMES JOHNSON

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The Eagle has landed

And the gap between the platform of expectations and the floor of reality is once again under close observation. Cheers.

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A brief recess

The Dweet's will be in Arizona from the 3rd until the 7th representing a whole bunch of volunteers at an annual convention. Its rough duty, folks, but somebody has to 'bite the bullet' for the troops. Posting will resume afterwards.

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