House of Eratosthenes

I hope 2008 sees the end of this brand of feminism, I really do. The subject of the link in question is Page 8 of possible reasons Home Improvement jumped the shark, and “Guest” writes in with…

The show jumped with the “sandwich episode” where Jill really started to assert her own special brand of aggressive feminism. It was angering to watch Jill call her son a sexist because his girlfriend did his housework; the problem couldn’t possibly be on the girlfriend’s end, it must be the EVIL MISOGYNIST BRAD at fault because he LET her do his housework. In the end, everything was resolved, of course, when Jill converted everyone over to her point of view, aka the right one, including dimwitted Tim, who, of course, buckled under his wife’s demands yet again. Was there ever a single episode where Tim said, “Tough crap, Jill, this time it’s my way”?

I was watching this episode with my ten-year-old son, and found myself answering some complicated questions.

See, here’s the deal: Brad’s new girlfriend makes him sandwiches. Sometimes he (politely) asks her, and sometimes she offers. Jill the Mom is having a hissy-fit about it. Everybody else thinks it’s just fine. Girlfriend included.

I recall vividly at about the halfway mark, the point of view that I know to be the “right” one, was nailed…perfect bulls-eye…and then ritually abandoned. The son reminded his mother, in quite a civil manner, that if the objective was to uphold and respect the individual preferences of women, it should be noted the individual preference of his girlfriend was to make him a sandwich. So by interfering with that, Jill cemented her position as the one person who was interfering with womens’ choice, when everybody else, was not. She didn’t have a comeback to that one. The scriptwriters solved that in short order by simply abandoning that train of thought and pursuing some whacky slapstick courtesy of Husband Tim.

Of course the lone hold-out Jill is in the “right.” Should the long precedent of Home Improvement episodes not be sufficient to convince someone of this, the episode’s conclusion pounds the final nail into the coffin holding any doubts. She does, as “Guest” says, convert everyone to her point of view.

I do think there’s something amiss when Brad starts to count on his girlfriend making sandwiches. But when you’re insinuating something evil and wrong is happening whenever a lady does something to lighten a gentleman’s heavy load, a line is being crossed. If she’s serving some ideal higher and more noble than helping her fella out for the sake of helping him, well, I would just hope that ideal is higher and more noble than sitting on the couch watching her favorite soap opera munching on a sack of chips. And regardless of what that ideal is, I’d say they’re just about finished as a couple.

And that goes for him too.

There simply isn’t anything glorious or morally pristine about refusing to help people, especially people with whom you’re supposed to be sharing your life. Sorry, but I have to agree if we’re looking for points at which the show jumped the shark, I’d say 6×23 is a great place to start.

Sorry if I’m taking this way to seriously. Hey, looks to me like they did. Here it is just eleven years later, and this paleofeminism has a dated feeling to it already. Hyper-dated. Like Dick van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore sleeping in separate beds…that kind of dated. So maybe we’re past this already.

God, I seriously hope so. My sweetheart can run circles around me in the sandwich-making department.

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Dave Barry’s Year in Review
Monday, December 31st, 2007

These are always good. Here’s this year’s installment.

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Seven Things That Only Make Sense When You’re Drunk
Monday, December 31st, 2007

Oh, I’d like to think we’ve all been there…

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On Ambition
Monday, December 31st, 2007

Sometimes, the nature of a complaint is much less important than how the complaint came to be. Some complaints materialize because they’re so important you can’t avoid them…some complaints come under consideration because someone was looking for a complaint to have. Imagine yourself as half of a married couple buying a car. You’re ready to sign and your spouse says hey — we discussed doing something we can’t do in this vehicle. Maybe it’s going off-road, and this isn’t a four wheel drive model. Maybe it’s driving the kids somewhere, and you can’t have a DVD player in the back seat. That’s in a completely different light, regardless of the substance of the complaint, than something like “I was looking for a complaint to have, since I have a hidden agenda I’m not willing to admit to you, and finally I stumbled across this thing I’d like you to take seriously even though I don’t.”

…which is exactly the nature of complaints against my favorite candidate. They’re all stupid complaints. They exist simply for the purpose of being there…because someone flailed around, looking for bad things to say about Fred, and finally settled on something that might be silly, but at least is better-n-nothin’. He entered late. He looks tired. He isn’t a Senator anymore. His wife is too hot. He made some bad movies.

This election has, among other candidates, an antisemite who regularly opposes things because they’re ostensibly contrary to the “Constitution,” without ever offering anything resembling an argument about how such things are in any way incompatible with the Constitution. Among those things, are efforts to safeguard the national security. So indirectly, this campaign has turned into a debate about whether national defense is constitutional…do we really give a rat’s ass whether one of the other candidates has a much younger wife or made some mediocre movies?

But the one complaint against Thompson that might possibly have some relevance to it — and in conceding that, by no means am I abandoning my contention that it has been vastly overplayed — is this assertion that he lacks ambition. Well if he does, then ambition must be defined as something short of ambition to pulverize. Because time after time, when Fred engages something, he engages to win. To beat. To maul. To grind into the ground. And then beat some more…eviscerate…rip the sinew from bone, grind the whole thing into dust to butter his bread…finis. No need for a tie-breaking rematch. The man has a long fuse, but he simply doesn’t believe in warning shots, and that makes him the very picture of what the country needs now.

Fred’s peace plan is to wait awhile before engaging the fight. Once the fight is engaged, it’s a quick one. He’s done this time after time; it is his style.

And in this column, he takes on the whole “lack of ambition” argument. It’s like watching a stick of butter gobbled up by a high-powered kitchen blender. Really high powered. Like some Tool Time contraption powered by a 10HP Briggs & Stratton ripped out of a rider lawnmower.

Just watch this guy go to work, and imagine this kind of dignified calm coupled with “in it to win it” in the Oval Office — exactly where it belongs.

My only problem with you and why I haven’t thrown all my support behind you is that I don’t know if you have the desire to be President. If I caucus for you next week, are you still going to be there two months from now?
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I don’t know that they ever asked George Washington a question like this. I don’t know that they ever asked Dwight D. Eisenhower a question like this. But nowadays, it’s all about fire in the belly. I’m not sure in the world we live in today it’s a good thing if a president has too much fire in the belly. I approach life differently than a lot of people. People, I guess, wonder how I’ve been as successful as I’ve been in everything that I’ve done. I won two races in TN by 20 point margins in a state that bill Clinton carried twice. I’ve never had an acting lesson. I guess that’s obvious by people who’ve watched me…

When I did it, I did it. Wasn’t just a lark. Anything that’s worth doing is worth doing well. But I’ve always been a little more laid back than most. I’m only consumed by very, very few things. Politics is not one of them. The welfare of our country and our kids and grandkids is one of them.

If people really want in their president super type-a personality, someone who has gotten up every morning and gone to bed every night and been thinking about for years how they win the presidency of the united states, someone who can look you straight in the eye and say they enjoy every minute of campaigning, I ain’t that guy. So I hope I’ve discussed that and didn’t talk you out of anything. I honestly want – I can’t imagine a worse set of circumstances [than] achieving the Presidency of the United States under false pretenses. I go out of my way to be myself.

Ambition, it turns out, is a word that benefits from a variety of different definitions. According to some of those definitions, Fred’s got none of it; according to others, he’s got all of it. We need as much as we can get of what Fred’s got, and none at all of what he has not.

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The Latest Assault on Capitalism
Monday, December 31st, 2007

…involves replacing an iPod, right out of its box, with a note.

If you thought the war on capitalism died with the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, you’d be wrong. Agitators are still hard at work at bringing down capitalism, but now they have a new weapon, the Apple iPod.

When a little girl in Maryland recently opened her Christmas presents, she thought she’d received exactly what she’d been hoping for, an iPod. Unfortunately, when she actually opened the box, instead of an iPod, she received a very strange note instead:

RECLAIM YOUR MIND FROM THE MEDIA SHACKLES. READ A BOOK AND RESURRECT YOURSELF.

TO CLAIM YOUR CAPITALISTIC GARBAGE GO TO YOUR NEAREST APPLE STORE.

The girl’s father, Joe Ellis, returned the box and note to the Walmart store where he had originally purchased it. According to Fox 5, he was not the only customer to have had his iPod switched for anti-capitalist propaganda.

I really wasn’t aware until now there was some kind of inimical relationship going on between our free-market way of life, and PEOPLE WHO USE CAPITAL LETTERS ALL THE DAMN TIME. I’m going to update my “reasons to support capitalism” file accordingly.

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Infant Skeleton Found in Suitcase
Monday, December 31st, 2007

Pretty creepy story from Pittsburgh…

An infant’s skeleton was found in a suitcase by adult siblings cleaning out their elderly mother’s house after she died, state police said.

The siblings did not recognize the suitcase as their mother’s, but said clothes found inside belonged to her, Trooper Lisa Jobe said.

The suitcase was found under a bed Saturday. The woman, who lived about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh in Hempfield Township, died earlier this month. She was in her 80s and her surviving children are in their 40s and 50s.

Police did not immediately release the dead woman’s name. They hope that a forensic pathologist can determine the infant’s gender and how and when the child died.

The woman’s husband died about three years ago, police said. The surviving children could not give police any information about the remains or how long they may have been under the bed.

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The Fourth Most Important Issue
Monday, December 31st, 2007

The most important issue of the 2008 elections is: Who is going to bring me, in discharging the duties of President of the United States, the biggest pile of crispy smoking terrorist carcasses, hopefully with agonized and horrified expressions frozen onto their damn dirty dead terrorist faces? Two thousand a month is inadequate if another candidate will deliver three thousand.

The second most important issue is: What is up with that strange, surreal, self-obsessed political party supposedly named after democracy? Are they stupid or just plain crazy? Millions of people may sacrifice much to avoid admitting it, but I think the question is troubling to everybody, even the most loyal supporters. And it’s relevant. We know this political party must go away, for the continuing survival of the country, we just don’t quite understand how urgent this is.

The third most important issue is: What are illegal aliens up to when they come here? Not the visa-overstayers; the turnstyle-hoppers. Are they really after a better way of life for themselves and their kids? Are they here to pursue that way of life by working hard? And if so, at what exactly? Manual labor that “Americans won’t do?” Or milking the system? A combination of both? If they’re here to do the work Americans won’t do, is it possible some of those hard workers are one and the same with the illegal aliens who kidnap and molest our children, and kill our innocents on the backroads and highways while driving drunk? Should I stop worrying about any of this once I’m assured they “work hard and follow the law”? How do you know someone follows the law when you know he broke it by coming here? And when you don’t even know for sure who he is and have no way of finding out? Most perplexing within the third issue…what in the world does a candidate for a high political office, know about any of this? And how irresponsible is it to form such a crude and clumsy stereotype, even if it’s a flattering one, about twelve to fifteen million people?

And the fourth most important issue…

Is this thing called “identity politics” not just the biggest old bucket o’ crap to hang around humanity’s neck since the constitutional republic was invented?

Elaborate efforts are afoot on the Democratic side to convince Iowa women to ignore the popular phenomenon that is Barack Obama, to dismiss loyalty to familiar favorite John Edwards, and to caucus for the woman who is running for president.

With Hillary Clinton’s dream steeped in uncertainty, her campaign and other backers are banking on women to carry her through Thursday night.

“I think most women, our internal research shows, they’re not-fly-by-nights, they’re strongly enthusiastic: ‘We’re going to show up in the sleet, snow, the ice, we’re going to be there,’ ” said Clinton’s campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle. “I know the strength of our support.”

The campaign is expecting women to dominate the caucus by as much as 60 percent. To recruit more into their sisterhood of politics and to bump up the urgency for backbone supporters, an army of Clinton volunteers logged more than 10,000 house calls and 8,500 phone conversations on Saturday alone.

But some female Democrats are rejecting the message they’re hearing about Clinton, long a controversial political figure. And some men are turned off by what they see as an estrogen-soaked campaign.
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Des Moines Democrat Marc Wallace, 40, said he thinks Clinton’s gender-based campaigning is a mistake. He intends to caucus for Obama,he said today.

“The Clinton campaign has not reached out to me in any real way beyond automated calls, bulk mail and having a local volunteer call to see what my candidate preference might be,” said Wallace, a John Kerry caucus campaign volunteer and a Polk County Democratic Central Committee member.

West Des Moines Democrat Mike Boltz also questions an apparent lack of attention to men.

“I think she’s been targeting women too much,” said Boltz, 44, who works in the insurance industry. “Her commercials are very female-centric. I think she needs to cater to the male population, too.”

You know, just putting aside all of the candidates, I think that’s a great debate we can have now. Form the issue first…and then let the candidates address it. Is it possible to represent someone in a high political office, such as President of the United States, who is not part of your personal demographic group? Or is a woman guaranteed superior representation from someone else who is a woman, compared to what she’d ever get from a man?

I personally favor the first of those two options. I know if Condoleeza Rice was running, as a straight white man who is a parent and has been married before, I’d put her ahead of a lot of married-and-divorced straight white fathers who are in the race now. I’d vote for her over Giulliani, McCain, definitely over that crackpot Ron Paul. She’d come in behind Thompson, because Thompson has actually been consistent and stalwart on things that I think are important. I’d put her on par with Romney, I think. Maybe a little bit ahead of Mitt.

That’s the fourth most important issue right there: Is this something I’m not supposed to be doing? I just stacked Condi in behind Fred but ahead of Mitt and Rudy and John and Ron. White guy, black girl, white guy white guy white guy. Hey, I’m a white guy and I put a black lady in as #2. Is there a “Stick To Your Own Kind” police coming over to put me under arrest now? Or am I simply betraying my own interests, with my readiness to vote for someone who’s a woman when I’m not one myself?

There, that’s the issue right there…for surely whatever answer applies correctly to me, applies to everyone else right? Okay, so now that the question is defined, will someone please pose it to Hillary — and everybody else running? Just to get their opinions on the record. Let’s just stop tip-toeing around this thing, and finally address it head-on.

America deserves to know.

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Superman is for Obama
Monday, December 31st, 2007

Superman Obama …and is “excited” by Barack’s ability to unite the country.

There must be some telescopic-vision power I’m lacking here — it had completely escaped me that Obama was a uniter. Yeah sure he’s “Mister Positive” but that’s not necessarily a uniter.

And who’d have thought Superman and Obama had anything in common with each other whatsoever? Can you imagine a Superman movie in which the Last Son of Krypton handles a crisis according to principles and methods associated with Obamamania? Try to envision it…a huge killer robot is attacking Metropolis. Clark Kent disappears, and in his place is — SUPERMAN! He, um…well, it’s obvious what the first step would be. He’d blame George W. Bush for the killer robot. When American troops arrive on the scene and start firing bullets and rockets at the killer robot he “redeploys” them somewhere else. Gives a rousing speech about health care. Points out how he’s for stem cell research and the robot isn’t. Uses his super-charisma power to…uh…you know, be charismatic.

Boy, that’d really show that killer robot.

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Casual Nudity Perplexes Neighbor
Monday, December 31st, 2007

Aighh…I’m missing something here…

DEAR ABBY: I have lived next door to the “Smiths” for 18 years. They’re nice people. When problems have arisen, they have helped me out, and I have done the same for them. We’re good neighbors and friends.

I have known the Smiths’ children their whole lives. Their daughter is now 17. Their son was born a year later.

My question: Is it normal for a 16-year-old boy to walk around the house naked, in plain view of family members? No one seems to notice or care. There are no looks or comments.

In the morning he gets up around 6:45. He walks into the kitchen and fixes a bowl of cereal. Then he stands at the counter, watching the morning sports shows while eating his breakfast in the nude. There is absolutely no evidence of arousal of any kind. When the bathroom becomes available, he goes in for a shower.

I have never seen any of the other family members naked. This boy has no compunctions about being seen by his father, mother, sister or next-door neighbor. He’s been nude in my presence dozens of times. I know it’s common for little boys to run around without clothes on sometimes, but, Abby, he’s not a little boy anymore. — CLOTHES-MINDED IN WISCONSIN

DEAR CLOTHES-MINDED: Standards regarding nudity vary from family to family, and obviously the Smiths are casual and open-minded on the subject. It’s possible that you have been their neighbor so long that the young man considers you part of the family.

Because he has matured sufficiently that his nudity now makes you uncomfortable, you should hang curtains on your windows that face the Smiths’ kitchen — and before dropping over there, call to ask whether he’s presentable. If he’s not, then don’t go over.

So the neighbor is physically there at 6:45? Or, is she back at her own place, watching the Smith’s kitchen through binoculars or telescope.

It’s one of those things were not much seems amiss, until you try to reconstruct it in your mind and then you run into problems. Lessee…I’m a sixteen year old boy who walks around the house naked. It’s 6:45 and I’m lumbering around my parents’ kitchen with my dongle dangling, pouring myself some cereal. Now, the bathroom is not yet available so I’m waiting around…in my birthday suit…neighbor watching me, somehow, the entire time. Actively? Passively? “There is absolutely no evidence of arousal of any kind.” That’s just disturbing. I can just see her removing her eye from a powerful telescope and turning to a camera, a la Marvin the Martian, and commenting “No evidence of arousal of any kind” and then plastering her face right back on the telescope again, twiddling the focus dial for a sharper view, licking her lips maybe.

Ya gotta love Dear Abby. It seems so boring until you stop and ask yourself seriously, “Waitaminnit, who writes to Dear Abby about this?”

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Is Global Warming Over Already?
Monday, December 31st, 2007

“Global warming has temporarily or permanently ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should, according to the fundamental theory behind global warming — the greenhouse effect. Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly.”

Update: Well, there’s another problem associated with globular wormening, and that’s Green Fatigue. That’s where you get tired of doing something to fight it, as if you have been doing something to fight it, even if you might have been doing absolutely nothing at all.

British people are now convinced about the dangers of global warming but are either baffled about how to stop it or are ignoring the issue.

Analysts say few people are taking action to deal with the threat of climate change, although over the past 12 months the vast majority have come to accept that it poses a real threat to the world. Opinion polls reveal much confusion among the public about what Britain should do to combat the problem.

What a sad construct humanity has become. To paint an accurate picture, I have to depict someone who drives to work…shuttling nothing, absolutely nothing, over those five-to-twenty-five miles save his own ass and a lunchbox, in a gasoline powered vehicle that gets — what? Eighteen miles a gallon? Fourteen? Eleven? And is terribly concerned about the earth heating up. Says so constantly. But is sick of sacrificing to help solve the problem…in spite of doing nothing.

Put aside this little scam called “global warming” and look at the rest of what’s going on, you learn something interesting about human nature. We have a unique and intriguing situation where sacrifice is demanded, for the well-being of us all — but nobody ever, ever, ever talks about how the sacrifice will lead to salvation. It’s very rare that anybody even pretends to understand such a thing, and nobody ever defines how it all works. And really, nobody in any position of authority has even put a reputation at risk in saying “if we make sacrifices, the problem will be solved.” People imply that all the time, but that’s different from coming out and saying it.

And the effect this has, ultimately, on the globular-wormening True Believers? Sacrifice is perfectly acceptable for the next guy. Only for the next guy. For our own sacrifices, we demand to see just a little bit more of an actual plan, than we want to see for the sacrifices of others. That’s human nature for you, in a nutshell.

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Long Live Closed-Source Software
Monday, December 31st, 2007

“An honest empiricist must conclude that while the open approach has been able to create lovely, polished copies, it hasn’t been so good at creating notable originals.”

Not sure I agree, but he makes some good points and inspires some thought that might not otherwise take place.

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Bill Cosby’s Speech
Monday, December 31st, 2007

Learn it, live it, love it. It doesn’t have that much to do with skin color, in the final analysis. Nothing at all, really.

“Why you ain’t where you is go, ra.” I don’t know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it’s important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can’t land a plane with, “Why you ain’t…” You can’t be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth.

Regrettably, the audio clips are edited, somewhat. But you get the idea.

I work in Information Technology…a field in which we look to professionals to solve problems. But it turns out when you work here, you can solve as many problems as you want to solve, and nobody’s going to give a crap about it until you have the right sheepskins on your wall.

I didn’t think that was a serious problem until I met some “skilled” engineers who had all the coveted “sertifikayshuns” and therefore enjoyed career portability I didn’t have…who could not write and could not spell. Now, is this still not quite a serious problem? Hey. These are our problem solvers. These are our technology-bringers. These are our make-things-work-ers. They think “affect” and “effect” are interchangeable words…and trust me on this, it goes sharply downhill from there. Many of them can not type. Why on earth should they have to know how? The median birth date is about 1976, or later. If you’re my age, which is just a decade senior to that, you think a mouse is a luxury item. Well yeah, have you really worked at re-thinking that lately? You also probably know what an eight-track is, GRAMPS.

It should be mentioned that my complaint is different from Mr. Cosby’s, although when you get down to it, we’re both a couple of old men grousing about the next generation, with a mixture of sour grapes and some other stuff that is not just sour grapes. Stuff that might be thought of has having real legitimacy to it. Stuff that could be thought of as a real wake-up call. Cosby is talking about a culture in which intellectual achievement is frowned-upon, in which people actually channel their energies — vast sums of energy — into staying stupid and keeping their kids stupid, and then blame their problems on other classes of people with lighter skin. Yeah that’s pretty foolish alright…I’m talking about a culture endemic to a universality of skin colors, in which intellectual competence is thought to be synonymous with the seals and signatures which are imposed simply for the purpose of manifesting it. To the extent that we end up buried in a tidal wave of “knowledgeable” professionals who are supposed to know everything, and in actuality when it comes time to getting things done, can’t really be counted on to do any of it. I’m griping about paperwork being treated as an acceptable substitute for skill — paperwork treated with greater respect than skill. To the point where those with the authority to do so, reject skill, replace it with paperwork, think the exchange to be a costless one, and then coast along in blissful ignorance of the fact that this is what was just done. If we were talking about installing seat belts or brake pads, we’d have to wake up to what we’re doing…but we don’t have to…and what we’re talking about, is all the stuff in our lives that is supported by technology. Which is pretty much everything, lock stock & barrel.

The overlap between these two old-guy complaints, is broad, deep and significant. It is a seductive cultural spirit antagonistic toward simply knowing how to do things. The shoving of the nearest nerd into the handiest garbage can. The pretending you don’t know the answer to the question so you can avoid being typecast as a “geek,” and therefore get along with your pals. The wearing of the clothes backwards. The ass crack sticking out of the pants. Ain’t. You is. Let me ax you. The Idiocracy.

Deep down, I think we all understand we can afford this nonsense because…well, we can afford it. Got a hungry belly, you take it to Taco Bell with $3.15 and the problem is solved. Boss fires you for goofing off too much, you take it up with your local union and you’ll make the sonofabitch sorry his momma ever met his daddy. Laziness…all kinds of laziness, the intellectual, the spiritual, the physical…carries no consequence as 2008 finds us. None at all. None. And so — we work hard at getting lazy. It is the one thing toward which we channel our truly dedicated, sweaty-forehead, all-other-priorities-are-trivial, white hot energy.

Because we must put that kind of energy somewhere, and there are no other challenges, dangers or problems left to absorb it. We work at staying stupid. At not speaking English. At using improper grammar. At mumbling. We are very much like the battery with one paper clip attached to both terminals. Zero resistance…and we’re overheating and melting down because zero resistance is a situation outside of our intended design.

Happy new year!

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Online Geography
Monday, December 31st, 2007

Highly addictive.

H/T: Boortz.

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Edwards Leads
Sunday, December 30th, 2007

We are big Fred-Heads here. And in our case, that means we get a lot of e-mail from others who we consider very close to us on issues and principles, exhorting us to change our minds. The one recurring theme to these off-lines, aside from Fred having made some movies that aren’t that good, is how much more important it is to promote a winner than it is to promote principles.

Well, we’re “hip” to the argument, or at least the logic involved in it — having been briefly sympathetic to H. Ross Perot’s candidacy for President in ‘92, and after that debacle having been jaded on third-party junkets of others. We’re not about to reject the “don’t throw away your vote” platform after having used it ourselves over the years.

But we see Fred as a winner. If he has a weakness now, his weakness is that there are too many candidates. He makes a much stronger impression sharing a stage with three others than with six others, and I’m probably ready to admit at this point that his late arrival hasn’t helped him much. Fred is living proof of the multi-point perspective of this apparently-simple thing we call “charisma”; he’s got quite a lot of some of the stuff that goes by that name, and suffers a glaring lack of other such stuff. Not a lively guy, that Fred.

Our hope for Fred is that he prospers once the field starts to get whittled. Obviously, such a plan depends on him not being among the whittled. We’re optimistic about that. It’s clear to us the media establishment hates him, and that is a problem, but for the last eight years the media establishment has been pretty far away from deciding everything…or for that matter, anything.

To our reasons for being optimistic, add this. No, it really doesn’t say anything good about Fred…other than him being ahead of John McCain by a good healthy margin. But it is a reminder of the cruel shake-up going on in these caucuses.

On the donk side, Edwards is in front. Barely.

And on the Republican side, this guy who is consistently mentioned by the folks lecturing at me that I should be voting for a winner…is not mentioned here. We find this amusing. Four months ago, we would not have, because we had substantially greater fondness for the former mayor of New York than we have now. Back then, we saw him the way our lecturers wanted us to see him: As a Republican powerhouse agreeing with us on the important issues, demanding compromise only on the trivial ones. Now, we see that candidate as an apologist for the corrupt businesses that have manufactured the problem we have today with illegal immigration, exacerbating it to the point that it ultimately threatens to bring the very concept of law and order to a complete standstill. And we don’t see that candidate as a winner either, with or without this poll.

We’re still in the primary process. Once the nominations are finished and the general elections are underway — and we’re convinced that across the nation, a lot of opinionated people on both sides of the conservative/liberal divide are forgetting this — the debate will change dramatically. It’s impossible to say how at this point, because the change will be a calculated consequence of the outcome of the primaries. A Clinton/Giuliani match-up would be a disaster. It is the only way, at this point, that we can see Hillary Clinton becoming our next President. Rudy Giuliani could probably beat any other democrat. Hillary Clinton would go down in flames running against any other Republican.

But Rudy Giuliani cheated on his wife.

Hillary Clinton is a wife who got cheated-upon.

My point is not that philandering is sufficient for a candidate to lose my support. Although it most certainly is…but no, the point I wish to make is that we are not yet in a position to see any evidence of how the debate would be shaped if Hillary got the donk nomination and Rudy got the Republican nomination. But we really don’t have much need for such evidence. One can guess. We would be commanded by those who have no faces or names but can direct what conversations people have nevertheless, for three or four months, to solemnly contemplate the gloom and doom and wreckage in the wake of our serious social problem of…adultery. You can bet your bottom dollar the Sunday-evening “newsy” television shows will have an anthology of “specials” about this terrible, terrible problem. Each episode of which will contain a twenty-second tangent, presented as an after-thought bunny trail but you’d better believe it’s central to the exercise, mentioning our former First Lady, the former Mayor of New York, or both. Probably both of them.

You’ll hear about adultery in those four months, as often as you’ve heard about Britney Spears’ little sister in the last two weeks.

Hillary would kick his cheating, unfaithful ass from here to Timbuktu and back again. It would be the first truly overpowering democrat victory since 1964. It would dwarf the electoral margins achieved in 1992 and 1996 by her husband…and oh Lord, you’d better believe you’re going to hear about that in the long winter ahead.

It’d be no small irony. Her husband would have been elected because adultery didn’t matter to us, and she’d have been elected because it did. About that paradox, you won’t hear a single peep. Maybe “conservative” blogs like the one you’re reading now. George Will might take notice of it. Other than that you won’t hear butkus.

So there’s quite the shake-up going on, and thus far it seems to be a healthy one. I like that the donk candidates are in a statistical dead-heat. It just goes to show what everybody paying attention already knows: donks have nothing to say. Nothing. If they could be somehow restrained from using the words “Bush’s fault,” in sequence, or from using merely the first of those two words, they’d be robbed of about 95% of the arguments they’ve made. About anything. Not just in this election campaign — in this century.

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Biggest SOB Fish
Saturday, December 29th, 2007

I’m ashamed to say that before this showed up in the e-mail, I had never before seen it or heard of it. Afterward I found copies of it here, here, here and here. It ranks pretty high on my jokes list. Maybe good enough to put a cap on 2007. Maybe. As always, it’s all in the telling of it.

Language Advisory A priest took a vacation to a fishing lodge. On the last day of his trip, he hooked a monster fish and began fighting it. A few minutes later the guide, holding a landing net, yelled, “look at the size of that Son of a Bitch!” “Please, my son, I’m a priest. Your language is uncalled for.” “No, Father, you don’t understand” explained the guide, “That’s the species of fish you have hooked; it’s called a ‘Son of a Bitch’ fish!”

“Really?” asked the surprised priest, “Well then, would you please net the Son of a Bitch?”

Once the fish was aboard, the guide marvelled at its size.

“Father, that’s the biggest Son of a Bitch I’ve ever seen!”

“It really IS a big Son of a Bitch” the priest beamed, “What should I do with it?”

“Why, eat it of course. I promise, you’ve never tasted anything as good as that Son of a bitch.”

Elated, the priest headed home. While unloading his fishing tackle and prize catch at the church’s back door, Sister Mary appeared and Inquired about his trip.

“Take a look at this huge Son of a Bitch I caught!” the priest gushed, opening his ice chest.

Sister Mary gasped and clutched her rosary, “Father, such language from a priest!” “It’s Okay, Sister. According to my guide, that’s the species of fish this one is: it’s called a ‘Son of a Bitch fish’.” “Oh, well then…what are you going to do with that huge Son of a Bitch?”

“Eat it! My guide said they’re great!”

Sister Mary then informed the priest that the Pope was scheduled to visit in a few days. “Why don’t I clean that Son of a Bitch for you, and we’ll cook it for this special occasion,” she volunteered.

On the night of the Pope’s visit, everything went perfectly. The wine was fine, the fish excellent.

The Pope leaned back from his plate and said, “This is absolutely marvellous fish — where did you buy it?”

“We didn’t buy it, Your Holiness; I caught that Son of a Bitch!” proclaimed the proud priest.

The Pope’s eyes opened wide, but he said nothing.

“And I cleaned and cooked the Son of a Bitch!,” exclaimed the Sister.

The Pope looked silently at each of them. Glancing around the dining room, he saw they were alone. A big grin spread across his face as he leaned across the table and whispered, “Go get us some more wine. You motherfuckers are my kind of people”.

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Benazir Bhutto Killed In Attack
Thursday, December 27th, 2007

Uh oh. This is going to lead to some bad things, I think.

Benazir Bhutto Killed In Attack

Pakistan Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has died after a suicide attack at a political rally. “At 6.16 p.m. she expired,” said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Bhutto’s party at Rawalpindi General Hospital.

“She has been martyred,” said party offical Rehman Malik.

The explosion went off just after Ms Bhutto left the rally in Rawalpindi, minutes after her speech to thousands of people. Her support[er]s have smashed windows at the entrance to the hospital where she was being treated, some calling “Dog, Musharraf, dog,”.

It is the first major attack since President General Pervez Musharraf lifted emergency rule two weeks ago. At least 15 people died in the attack in the heart of Pakistan’s military and parliamentary district.

Other headlines say different things, though.

Benazir Bhutto ‘badly injured’ in bomb attack

Another headline says she was unhurt

Another headline says no, she was killed

And another

Malkin says Bhutto was Assassinated

Update: Do not miss the FARK thread on this. Do NOT miss it…even if you haven’t bothered to start a “Rogue’s Gallery of Inane Stupid Leftwing Moonbat Bullshit Conspiracy Theories”…but most especially if you are among the ones who have. I’m tellin’ ya, it’s got everything — some of which will make you laugh, some of which will be sure to make you cry. And best of all, a whole googleplex of facepalms.

And, as you might guess, the stupid deranged crap that inspires facepalms to be put on display.

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Vindu Talks Costs
Thursday, December 27th, 2007

They’re at it again.

Except for a few persistent naysayers, there’s a broad public consensus that we need to take action against global warming. We’ll see how well that resolve holds as we start learning about the upfront costs of changing our carbon-spewing lifestyles.

I chose to link to the FARK thread instead of to the article itself, since the thread was green-lit and from there the actual San Jose Mercury News editorial is one click away.

And also, I agree with what the guy said at 2007-12-26 04:58:51 PM EST.

That’s funny; most of the people I see with their panties in a bunch over global warming don’t have any children. And most of us who have children would prefer to conserve what freedom we have left in this country for them.

There are exceptions to every trend, but now that he mentions it I see this one is pretty strong. And I find the explanation to be reasonable.

Well now that we have this “broad public consensus” here are some ideas for the next thing I’d like solved. I haven’t seen these questions answered anywhere as of yet.

How much carbon dioxide do we want to remove from the atmosphere? Or rather, prevent from being exuded into it.

What — exactl

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PaleofeminismMonday, December 31st, 2007

Dave Barry’s Year in ReviewMonday, December 31st, 2007

Seven Things That Only Make Sense When You’re DrunkMonday, December 31st, 2007

On AmbitionMonday, December 31st, 2007

The Latest Assault on CapitalismMonday, December 31st, 2007

Infant Skeleton Found in SuitcaseMonday, December 31st, 2007

The Fourth Most Important IssueMonday, December 31st, 2007

Superman is for ObamaMonday, December 31st, 2007

Casual Nudity Perplexes NeighborMonday, December 31st, 2007

Is Global Warming Over Already?Monday, December 31st, 2007

Long Live Closed-Source SoftwareMonday, December 31st, 2007

Bill Cosby’s SpeechMonday, December 31st, 2007

Online GeographyMonday, December 31st, 2007

Edwards LeadsSunday, December 30th, 2007

Biggest SOB FishSaturday, December 29th, 2007

Benazir Bhutto Killed In AttackThursday, December 27th, 2007

Vindu Talks CostsThursday, December 27th, 2007

Paleofeminism
Monday, December 31st, 2007

Dave Barry’s Year in Review
Monday, December 31st, 2007

Seven Things That Only Make Sense When You’re Drunk
Monday, December 31st, 2007

On Ambition
Monday, December 31st, 2007

The Latest Assault on Capitalism
Monday, December 31st, 2007

Infant Skeleton Found in Suitcase
Monday, December 31st, 2007

The Fourth Most Important Issue
Monday, December 31st, 2007

Superman is for Obama
Monday, December 31st, 2007

Casual Nudity Perplexes Neighbor
Monday, December 31st, 2007

Is Global Warming Over Already?
Monday, December 31st, 2007

Long Live Closed-Source Software
Monday, December 31st, 2007

Bill Cosby’s Speech
Monday, December 31st, 2007

Online Geography
Monday, December 31st, 2007

Edwards Leads
Sunday, December 30th, 2007

Biggest SOB Fish
Saturday, December 29th, 2007

Benazir Bhutto Killed In Attack
Thursday, December 27th, 2007

Vindu Talks Costs
Thursday, December 27th, 2007