Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Rest in Peace, Mrs. King

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One last thing about the court...

For those who say that the court is now tilted to the right, the following needs to be said in order for you to return from the bizarre universe you live in.

The "conservatives" on the court now include:

Scalia, Roberts, Allito and Thomas. That's 4, in case you can't count. They are actually constructionists, to be accurate.

The "liberals" are these justices:

Ginsburg, Breyer, Stevens, and Souter. 4 more, if you are counting. These justices usually vote together, are not big fans of Federalism or states rights and generally subscribe to the "living document" view of the constitution.

So where is number 9? Kennedy. He is a wild card, and always has been. So the count is now 4 to 4 to 1. That is called a "tie" on this planet. Stop delluding yourselves into thinking that it is now in some way uneven in conservatives favor. It's just not true. Stop saying it. Stop stop stop.

Who is playing politics with nominations?

President Clinton nominated 2 supreme court justices, Breyer and Ginsburg. At the time, Republicans controlled the Senate. Here are the numbers:

Breyer:

87 Yea
9 Nay
4 Not voting

Ginsburg:

96 Yea
3 Nay
1 Not voting

President Bush has also had 2 nominations, here is how those turned out, with the Republicans still in control of the Senate:

Roberts:

78 Yea
22 Nay
0 Not voting

Allito:

58 Yea
42 Nay
0 Not voting

Who exactly is playing politics with supreme court nominations?

New Weekly Feature

I am quite sure that my readers are interested in this, so I will be posting my weekly run times. I've been trying to get back into some kind of shape since right before Christmas. This feature includes the catchy little names I have given to these runs so I can remember where to go when I take off. Exciting!

Airport Run. Distance unknown
34.00--Jan 31 (Record since December 20--37.02--December 20)

Athletic Center Run. Distance Unknown
25.29--Jan 30 (Record since December 20--24.15--January 24)

Jack in the Box Run. 3.2 Miles
26.44--Jan 29 (Record since December 20--25.38--Jan 21)

Salvation Army Run. 3.0 Miles
24.48--Jan 28 (Record since December 20--24.46--Jan 22)

Middle School Run. 4.6 Miles
39.52--Jan 27 (Record since December 20--39.40--Date?)

Jan 26--Rest

Jack in the Box Run. 3.2 Miles
27.26--Jan 25 (Record since December 20--25.38--Jan 21)

Gelatinous Mutant Coconut

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Monday, January 30, 2006

Request for this again

I have had a couple requests for a repost of the "Kitty Cat Dance."

Knock youself out...

Kitty Cat Dance

My Kind of Bar

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No pretense, no delusions about what "having fun" means.

And now for something completely different...

Here is a website devoted to explaining (scientifically, apparently) why elderly people are migrating south.

Special Relativistic Time Dilation As A Cause Of Geriatric Southern Migrations In The Northern Hemisphere

Ken Blackwell Chime In

As usual, Thomas Sowell is right.

It has always seemed strange to me that the Republican strategy for getting more of the black vote is to be more liberal. As Sowell puts it "why would anyone who wants liberalism go for a Republican imitation when they can get the real thing from Democrats?"

Changing the political landscape, and the current paradigm of black=Democrat should be thought of as a long-term process having the basic presupposition that we will never get the whole pie. Blacks, who are predominately pro-life and anti-gay marriage, are the best place to start. Of course, what is funny about that for me is that I am neither pro-life or anti-gay marriage. I am capable of getting the logic, however.

Ken Blackwell, hailed as a "black Ronald Reagan" is running for Governor of Ohio, and actually has a chance to win. Silly rheotric aside, for the party to ask him to be more liberal in order to get more black votes is the same as Newt Gingrich apologizing to Jesse Jackson for J.C. Watts comments back in 95. Blackwell is a human being, with a mind of his own. Maybe he ACTUALLY BELIEVES what he says?

Here is the entire artice.

Republicans and Blacks

Beating up Bullies

Remember the movie "A Christmas Story?" The main character, "Ralphie," is a little neurotic, but otherwise normal, midwestern American kid growing up in the 40's.

"Scott Farkus," the "kid with the yellow eyes" is the school bully and he visits terror upon all the other kids. In one scene, he traps Ralphie and his friends on their way home from school, and it is the last straw for poor little Ralphie. He snaps and goes berserk on Farkus, beating him to a bloody pulp. As far as we can tell, Farkus never bothers Ralphie and his friends again.

When I was a young boy, there was a bully at my school too. He used to take some of the weaker kids lunch money and generally make their lives miserable. It always made me mad to see them getting beat up and I knew I could take him. I wasn't huge, but I was bigger than him.

So I beat him up. Beating up the bully was the right thing to do, because bullies only respond to their own language--violence.

I believe if you live in a neighborhood with a bully, and you have the capacity to do something about it, you have a moral obligation to. EVEN IF THE PEOPLE YOU ARE PROTECTING DON"T APPRECIATE IT! Just sitting back and saying to yourself "well, he never beats ME up, so I guess it's not my problem" is wimpy. That person has no courage.

For those who are confused about what America does in the world, it is simple. We beat up the bullies. Either you believe that it is a good thing to beat up bullies or you don't. If America doesn't beat them up, they will continue to take the other kids' lunch money and ruin everything.

The fact that we don't beat up ALL the bullies is irrelevant. Foreign policy is obviously more complicated than the school yard, so for instance, we don't pick a fight with North Korea because we are afraid of China. But we stop aggression when and where we can.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Stein on Supporting the Troops

Why are liberals AND conservatives mad at Joel Stein for his comments in the LA Times yesterday? I mean it, I really want to know.

I do have a theory, however. Stein is SOLIDLY on the left, and has basically stated that it is impossible to "support the troops" while simultaneously calling the war immoral, unjust, evil, and claiming that the troops are engaged in mass murder.

The problem liberals have with this darling of their own ilk is that he pointed out the obvious truth about their war position. You cannot say to someone, "we think what you are doing is evil, murderous, and genocidal" while saying out of the other side of your mouth "but we support you."

What if you had a child about to compete in a sporting event, but for some bizarre reason, you wanted them to lose. Try to imagine sending them a message of "support" while simultaneoulsy telling them "I hope the other team wins." Gee dad, thanks. I really feel the support.

If your postion is "I like them personally, but I don't like what they are doing," that makes sense. But YOU DON'T SUPPORT THEM.

How do you support someone while loathing what they are doing? Most of them actually believe that they are doing something good. I know that's hard to understand for most on the left because they think believing in something is tantamount to being "close minded," one of their favorite insults to throw.

He says he feels sorry for soldiers who signed up to fight terrorism after 9/11 and then were "tricked" into going to Iraq. But then goes on to say that they should have known that joining the Army might put them in this position.

Another throw away line was this one:

"Sometimes you get lucky and get to fight ethnic genocide in Kosovo, but other times it's Vietnam."

News flash, Mr Stein. Some Americans actually think that stopping genocide in Iraq is equally as valuable. Apparently only certain ethnicities and demographic groups deserve protection from the United States. Kurds and Shiites don't count, right?

It is actually the conservatives I don't get on this one. They should be happy, because a liberal commentator in a major US newspaper finally told the truth. They don't support the troops. Because they hate the mission. In other words, they want us to fail in Iraq. It's a simple equation really:

I don't want you to succeed=I don't support you.

That's good news, because it will cause the liberal politicians to lose votes and become even more marginalized and out of the mainstream than they already are. Remember folks, the Democrats have not had a major victory since 1996. They become more and more out of touch with regular Americans almost daily.

I support the troops. I support the mission. I want to win. Thank God I do not have to walk a tight rope of ambivalence caused by the knowledge that my position is impossible to explain. That's because it would be political suicide to say "I don't support the troops." The truth is, they don't--and now we all know it.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Sometimes, more is better.

Dude. We get it. You think you have a nice body.

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Welcome

...and what took you so long?

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Still Think the Media is "Impartial?"

I was interested in “proving” the bias in the media (As if it needed to be). So I went to Google News Search and used the following criteria to find the terms “ultra liberal,” vs “ultra conservative, “arch liberal” vs “arch conservative,” and “liberal” vs “conservative”:

Exact Phrase only
Articles that originate from CNN, New York Times, LA Times, NBC, CBS, AP
ONE DAY ONLY—Jan 24-25 2006

The results are astounding.

Ultra liberal- 83 times
Ultra conservative- 408 times
"Ultra Conservative" used 4.92 times for every 1 time the term "ultra liberal" used.

Arch liberal- 2
Arch conservative- 114
"Arch conservative" used 57 times for every 1 time the term "arch liberal" used.

Liberal- 28,800
Conservative- 37,000
"Conservative" used 1.28 times for every 1 time the term "liberal" used.

Also, it should be noted that when the terms “ultra liberal,” “arch liberal,” and “liberal” are used, they are usually quoting a conservative who is using the term to identify a person or organization on the left.

ONE DAMN DAY!

This can be explained easily: Reporters in the main stream media AGREE with AARP, the ACLU, Bill Clinton, and the rest of them, AND they consider themselves to be moderate or “impartial.” Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that they would not attach to these and other entities labels such as “liberal.” It is also reasonable to assume that anyone to the right of them politically would be identified as “conservative.” In their world, there is no such thing as an “arch liberal,” or even a “liberal” for that matter. It does not occur to them that they are the ones who need to move to the center. You really can’t even blame them.

Try it yourself--Google News Search

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Anyone surprised?

Of course, I don't particularly care about same sex marriage, but that is because I am cynical about marriage in general. However, I do acknowledge the consequences of my positions. If "love" is the only criterion for marriage, then who are we to say that Woman/Dolphin marriage is wrong?


Man bites dog? No - woman marries dolphin 15:08:07 EST Dec 31, 2005

JERUSALEM (AP) - Sharon Tendler met Cindy 15 years ago. She said it was love at first sight. This week she finally took the plunge and proposed. The lucky "guy" plunged right back.
In a modest ceremony at Dolphin Reef in the southern Israeli port of Eilat, Tendler, a 41-year-old British citizen, apparently became the world's first person to "marry" a dolphin. Dressed in a white dress, a veil and pink flowers in her hair, Tendler got down on one knee on the dock and gave Cindy a kiss. And a piece of herring.


"It's not a perverted thing. I do love this dolphin. He's the love of my life," she said Saturday, upon her return to London.

Tendler, who said she imports clothes and promotes rock bands in England, has visited Israel several times a year since first meeting the dolphin.

When asked in the past if she had a boyfriend, she would always reply, "No. I'm going to end up with Cindy." On Wednesday, she made it official, sort of. While she acknowledged the "wedding" had no legal bearing she did say it reflected her deep feelings toward the bottlenosed, 35-year-old object of her affection.

"It's not a bad thing. It just something that we did because I love him, but not in the way that you love a man. It's just a pure love that I have for this animal," she said.
While she still kept open the option of "marrying human" at some stage, she said for now she was strictly a "one-dolphin woman."


She's hardly the jealous type, though.

"He will still play with all the other girls there," she said, of their prenuptial agreement. "I hope he has a lot of baby dolphins with the other dolphins. The more dolphins the better."

© The Canadian Press, 2005