Oh My.
June 7th, 2009 / No Comments » / by ligneus1
The worst Obama appointment yet can you believe.
Norm on Obama’s Cairo Speech.
June 7th, 2009 / No Comments » / by ligneus1
Some reactions to the Obama speech
Some strange reactions is what I mean. A Times leader this morning:
He did not, sadly, address the issue of democracy.
I could swear I heard him doing so: ‘the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose’; ‘there are some who advocate for democracy only when they are out of power’; ‘government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities’; and so forth. The Times’s own correspondent, James Hider, also noticed. Stranger still, here’s a researcher for Human Rights Watch for whom what Obama said about human rights was less satisfactory than what Condoleezza Rice said four years before him in the same city. Obama, she thinks, didn’t go beyond generalities. No, but the burden of them was entirely clear. What is more, one of those generalities sounded pretty much like this, the words of none other than Condoleezza Rice: ‘America will not impose our style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, to attain their own freedom, make their own way.’
Then there is the suggestion that merely by including a reference to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa in the same speech as a discussion of Israel and Palestine, Obama might be taken to have licensed the Israel/apartheid analogy. He did no such thing. The South Africa reference came in a passage designed to illustrate the point that violent resistance is ‘a dead end’ – nothing more. Otherwise we should have to conclude that Obama sees the situation of the Palestinians as similar to that of the Jews during the Holocaust – on the grounds that, not merely in the same speech, but in two consecutive paragraphs, he spoke first of the Holocaust and then of the plight of the Palestinians. These are whimsical interpretations.
Finally Ahdaf Soueif, for her part, was waiting for Obama to assume global leadership; but ‘[h]e did not; he remained the President of the United States.’ Welcome to the real world.
I suppose it was inevitable, since Obama was trying to bring greater understanding to issues that have divided people, and this meant that he spoke, and spoke forthrightly, on more than one side of the issues – inevitable, consequently, that there would be those who would fasten on to some particular and miss what they had no appetite for. For my money, this was one very impressive speech – hard to improve upon, in fact, given everything Obama was trying to do with it – and an exercise in international leadership indeed.
Norm doesn’t have comments so I e-mailed him:
Hi Norm, How can a speech be deemed good when it contains such as this.
As Obama has said, ‘words have consequences’. If the words are misinformation then the consequences will not be good.
I got this reply:
I wasn’t rating the speech as a piece of history. As a political intervention, and on key questions like Israel-Palestine, war on terror, attitude to human rights and democracy vis-a-vis sovereignty, etc, I think he struck a good balance.
and replied:
Hi Norm, I take your point but at that level to perpetuate these myths doesn’t bode well for the future and in the ME history and politics are so interwoven that to sound reasonable on one and misrepresent the other ain’t gonna work in the long term, Was it a ‘good balance’ or was it moral equivalence?
Obama has the lawyers’ slippery way with words, they can mean whatever anyone wants to read into them, he is not to be trusted as his record between his words and his actions shows.I expect you know about this but just for interest….
It’s difficult for the likes of me to argue even briefly with a respected prof from Manchester U, so am I missing something or is he? I don’t expect a further reply from him.
Sphere: Related ContentWislawa Szymborska.
June 2nd, 2009 / No Comments » / by ligneus1
It’s been a long time since I posted one of my favourite poems, here for you to enjoy, one of Wislawa Szymborska’s.
A Few Words on the Soul
by Wislawa Szymborska
translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare CavanaghWe have a soul at times.
No one’s got it non-stop,
for keeps.Day after day,
year after year
may pass without it.Sometimes
it will settle for awhile
only in childhood’s fears and raptures.
Sometimes only in astonishment
that we are old.It rarely lends a hand
in uphill tasks,
like moving furniture,
or lifting luggage,
or going miles in shoes that pinch.It usually steps out
whenever meat needs chopping
or forms have to be filled.For every thousand conversations
it participates in one,
if even that,
since it prefers silence.Just when our body goes from ache to pain,
it slips off-duty.It’s picky:
it doesn’t like seeing us in crowds,
our hustling for a dubious advantage
and creaky machinations make it sick.Joy and sorrow
aren’t two different feelings for it.
It attends us
only when the two are joined.We can count on it
when we’re sure of nothing
and curious about everything.Among the material objects
it favors clocks with pendulums
and mirrors, which keep on working
even when no one is looking.It won’t say where it comes from
or when it’s taking off again,
though it’s clearly expecting such questions.We need it
but apparently
it needs us
for some reason too.
Isn’t that fabulous? So simple on the surface, so deep below.
Sphere: Related ContentD-Day.
June 1st, 2009 / No Comments » / by ligneus1
A timely book for the 65th anniversary of D Day. [I can remember it! I was eight years old and can remember writing the date on my bedroom wall in a little square stuccoed farm house with 12 inch thick walls, that was at Wiblings Farm just outside the village of Graffham in West Sussex.]
Much in the book about the ‘heroic’ resistance of the Germans and the consequences of that resistance, inc delaying the inevitable end of the war thus giving the Russians more time to advance into Berlin and the heart of Germany. If the Germans were as smart as they think they are they would have surrendered as soon as the Normandy landings were successfully accomplished and let the allies take over before the Russians got anywhere near. Sometimes you can understand the peaceniks’ revulsion of all things military except they are even more stupid than the Germans were since by their lights the Germans would have had free rein and then they’d know unending horror.
I like this from the comments recognizing the contribution of the Canadians. In too many accounts you’d think they weren’t anywhere near Normandy in ‘44.
#
Sphere: Related ContentI would like to pay tribute to the Canadians who fought in the Battle for Normandy.
All too often their contribution is lost – or forgotten – although the battle could not have been won without them. The Falaise Gap could not have been closed without them. In consequence Paris would not have been liberated in August and the war in Europe would have dragged on past the following May with potentially disastrous consequences.
The Canadians have always been with us. They are the most valiant, honourable, steadfast allies and we all too often forget that.
It is time that we remembered and honoured their sacrifice.
GWB’s Big Idea……….
June 1st, 2009 / No Comments » / by ligneus1
…….is gaining ground in the Middle East.
From The Wall Street Journal:
The results of Kuwait’s elections last month — in which Islamists were rebuffed and four women were elected to parliament — will likely reinvigorate the movement for greater democracy in the region that has stalled since the hopeful “Arab spring” of 2005. It also puts pressure on the Obama administration to end its deafening silence on democracy promotion.
Now if only Backwards Obama doesn’t blow it the intervention in the ME by Bush after 60 years and more of failed policy is bearing fruit. Another little sign, Syria in order to assist its moribund economy is seeking more commercial ties with Iraq whose economy is thriving. In my understanding at the time this is what the whole invasion of Iraq was about, to start the process of changing the Islamic ME and bring it into the post medieval era. A hell of a tall order, no wonder we saw so much scoffing and pessimism from the bien pensant elites, otherwise known as clever dicks with no balls.
Sphere: Related ContentIn Passing.
May 31st, 2009 / No Comments » / by ligneus1
I’ve been a bit overwhelmed lately to even think about posting but I couldn’t miss passing on a link to this column on the Sotomayor nomination at the corner by Andy McCarthy, entitled Forget Whether She Qualifies as a “Racist.” Would Judge Sotomayor Qualifiy as a Juror?
He quotes the instructions given to jurors:
You have two duties as a jury. Your first duty is to decide the facts from the evidence in the case. This is your job, and yours alone. Your second duty is to apply the law that I give you to the facts. You must follow these instructions, even if you disagree with them…. Perform these duties fairly and impartially. Do not allow sympathy, prejudice, fear, or public opinion to influence you. You should not be influenced by any person’s race, color, religion, national ancestry, or sex.
Do read it all.
I hate to give more space to Obama, he himself is not worth it, but America made such a huge mistake electing him and the consequences of that could be so horrendous that it would be dereliction of duty to stay away from sounding the warning as often as possible. So from the Christian Science Monitor, ‘The Emptiness of Obama’s Pragmatism’ by Jacob Bronsther.
Also Scott Kirwin at The Scratching Post is on to something important amid all the talk of Obama being a Socialist he contends that he is in fact a Mussolinian Fascist. Don’t choke on you croissant any liberals happening by, if, as Scott says, the Socialists aim to take over the means of production while Fascists nominally leave industry in private hands but take over control of same he makes a lot of sense. See his posts here and here and he has others if you care to scroll down.
One more, Paul Schlichta at American Thinker says O is a mega-egotist rather than a narcissist as he thought, though in the end it doesn’t make much difference regarding the harm he can do.
Sphere: Related ContentDr. Sanity on Obama.
May 24th, 2009 / 1 Comment » / by ligneus1
Now and then you read something that you wish could be on the front page of every newspaper in the country, what a fantasist I am! Such a piece is Dr. Sanity’s take on Obama’s speechifying.
Over and over again I hear how “wonderful” Obama’s rhetoric is; how much everyone responds to it and how it makes them hopeful about the future etc. etc. etc.
Frankly, I can barely stand to listen to the man. I have to read transcripts of most of his speeches because my reaction to his style is so negative. I don’t like the sensation of being manipulated; nor do I like being lectured to by someone who instinctively believes they are far more virtuous than I am– and intends to show me the error of my ways.
Understand that I listen to people for a living. I hear various degrees of honesty, sincerity, and real emotional pain being expressed on a regular basis. I also hear some of the most self-serving, dishonest and completely irresponsible utterings that it is possible to imagine. Yet, in my professional career, I have to freely admit that I have heard nothing like the deceitful and self-aggrandizing utterings of Barack Obama, which seem to get more and more pathological with every speech he gives. His most recent scam, in the National Archives in front of a fake copy of the U.S. Constitution just about takes the cake. This is not irony, so much as it is the grandiosity of tyranny.
Bill Clinton–who I actually liked for the most part; even his amusing narcissism, which seems so childishly innocent in retrospect–was completely harmless compared to the sociopathic statist that is our current POTUS.
He’s a snake oil salesman non pareil.
Sphere: Related ContentA Celebrity Who Is A Grownup!
May 16th, 2009 / No Comments » / by ligneus1
Maybe this is old news to most people, but Tiger Woods gave a great little speech at the Lincoln Memorial somewhat incongruously given the content and the occasion, but for those who missed it, it’s worth reading.
I grew up in a military family — and my role models in life were my Mom and Dad, Lt. Colonel Earl Woods.
My dad was a Special Forces operator and many nights friends would visit our home. They represented every branch of service, and every rank. In my Dad, and in those guests, I saw first hand the dedication and commitment of those who serve. They come from every walk of life. From every part of our country. Time and again, across generations, they have defended our safety in the dark of night and far from home.
Each day — and particularly on this historic day — we honor the men and women in uniform who serve our country and protect our freedom. They travel to the dangerous corners of the world, and we must remember that for every person who is in uniform, there are families who wait for them to come home safely.
H/T Secular Apostate.
Sphere: Related ContentIn Passing.
May 16th, 2009 / No Comments » / by ligneus1
Gee, that Adam Smith can really hurt a guy:
What is the species of domestic industry which his capital can employ, and of which the produce is likely to be of the greatest value, every individual, it is evident, can, in his local situation, judge much better than any statesman or lawgiver can do for him. The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.
H/T Cafe Hayek.
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Charles Winecoff has left the left, read all about it at Front Page Magazine. Seems to happen a lot that people as they get older move from left to right, neo-neocon has a superb account of her move that is worth re-reading at least once a year. Those who do move the other way like Colin Powell and Arlen Specter were too soft to be real Republicans all along so I don’t count them as real conversions.
……………………………………………….
Talking of conversion, did you see Roger L Simon’s column on his move from atheism to some sort of understanding of what religion and a faith based belief in God is?
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Still on religion a bit, at the end of an article on ‘Obama, the Quintessential Liberal Fascist’, Kyle-Anne Shiver has this comment and warning from Pope Benedict:
As Pope Benedict XVI has so presciently warned:
Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic.
Be not fooled, America. The movement, which appears most benign is instead the most malignant growth ever seen on our soil. It’s a cancer that will kill, and however slowly it grows or however nice it may look on the surface, doesn’t change a thing.
………………………………………………
Found a baked potato recipe I just have to try as soon as possible. I love potatoes cooked any which way, the humble potato, a gift from God. [Can't get away from religion tonight!]
Sphere: Related ContentWhat Makes Us Happy?………….
May 14th, 2009 / 2 Comments » / by ligneus1
……………….is the title of an article in The Atlantic. I haven’t had time to read it all yet but wanted to bring it to your attention since it’s quite fascinating.
Sphere: Related ContentIs there a formula—some mix of love, work, and psychological adaptation—for a good life? For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been examining this question, following 268 men who entered college in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. Here, for the first time, a journalist gains access to the archive of one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies in history. Its contents, as much literature as science, offer profound insight into the human condition—and into the brilliant, complex mind of the study’s longtime director, George Vaillant.
by Joshua Wolf Shenk
What Would We Do………..
May 11th, 2009 / 2 Comments » / by ligneus1
………….without Britain’s Got Talent!
In Passing.
May 10th, 2009 / 3 Comments » / by ligneus1
If you were a hedge fund manager, given what’s happened at Chrysler, would you ever again invest in a unionized company? Because I sure as hell wouldn’t.
Update. Professor Bainbridge says:
“You don’t need banks and bondholders to make cars,” said one administration official.
As Larry’s observation suggests, that official — who’s probably never run any business more complicated than a lemonade stand — will soon discover just how wrong s/he was. It’s called CAPITALism for a reason, after all.
In fact, we know from experience that over the last 2 decades, firms are more likely to use debt than equity when relying on external financing. If creditors get tired of getting screwed, the Chrysler debacle and the looming repeat at GM may mark a major shift in the ability of American business to finance operations and growth.
Indeed, this particular chicken may come home to roost almost immediately.
…………………………………………….
I saw an ad for a hanging device for growing tomatoes. Among the selling points were that you could get thirty pounds of tomatoes from one plant and that it eliminated the back breaking work of growing them the normal way. Back breaking work? Growing a few tomatoes? All part of the wimpification of the country that someone can come up with something like that and most people will read it and think nothing of it.
……………………………………………
Norm recently had one of his polls, here is the result with what I chose in brackets.
The votes have all been counted and I can bring you the results: your choices for ‘a representative collection of the Arts of Humankind’, to be preserved in a sealed container for the benefit of future beings of intelligence who might happen upon it.
1. Poets: W.B. Yeats (15); Homer (11); T.S. Eliot (10). [Thomas Hardy]
2. Playwright: William Shakespeare (93). [Tom Stoppard]
3. Novelists: Jane Austen (24); Charles Dickens (22); Leo Tolstoy (14). [Penelope Fitzgerald]
4. Composers: J.S. Bach (40); Ludwig van Beethoven (38); Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (35) [Bach]
5. Jazz musicians: Miles Davis (25); Louis Armstrong (24). [Sidney Bechet]
6. Rock or pop stars: The Beatles (41); Bob Dylan (16). [Jane Siberry]
7. Country music stars: Johnny Cash (18); Hank Williams (17). [Hank Williams]
8. Movie directors: Alfred Hitchcock (21); John Ford (10). [Jean Renoir]
9. Painters: Rembrandt van Rijn (14); Vincent van Gogh (11); Pablo Picasso (10). [Cezanne]
10. Photographer: Henri Cartier-Bresson (12). [Richard Avedon]
11. Sculptor: Michelangelo Buonarroti (46). [Michelangelo]
12. Architects: Andrea Palladio (13); Christopher Wren (13); Frank Lloyd Wright (10). [Wren]
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Found this at Cafe Hayek:
I read Tocqueville’s Democracy in America well over a decade ago. I now want to read it again. This desire is prompted by this passage below, taken from today’s column by George Will. I’m chagrined to admit I do not recall, from my own long-ago reading of that great book, the Tocqueville quotation :
In “Democracy in America,” Alexis de Tocqueville anticipated people being governed by “an immense, tutelary power” determined to take “sole charge of assuring their enjoyment and of watching over their fate.” It would be a power “absolute, attentive to detail, regular, provident and gentle,” aiming for our happiness but wanting “to be the only agent and the sole arbiter of that happiness.” It would, Tocqueville said, provide people security, anticipate their needs, direct their industries and divide their inheritances. It would envelop society in “a network of petty regulations — complicated, minute and uniform.” But softly: “It does not break wills; it softens them, bends them, and directs them” until people resemble “a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
So what today seems as modern as Matisse once seemed was foreseen 17 decades ago.
Isn’t that amazing? That a Frenchman some 170 years ago could foresee what too many Americans [and others] can’t see when it’s right before their eyes.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Mood I’m In Tonight.
May 7th, 2009 / 2 Comments » / by ligneus1
Well that would be a bit over the top, just a bit melancholy, probably just tired. You note how she pronounces ‘careliss’, interesting, like a bit of authentic 1925 brought to life. I first got to know Bessie Smith back around 1959 when one of the guys in the factory where I was working brought in a set of three EP’s* he wanted to sell, I guess he bought them and didn’t like them too much. Anyway I bought them and was hooked immediately.
* EP’s were Extended Play 45rpm records with two songs per side, for those not in advanced old fogiedom.
Sphere: Related ContentWimpificaton by Leftism.
May 6th, 2009 / 4 Comments » / by ligneus1
Gonna be lazy tonight, just refer you to and quote from an article in The National Post by George Jonas, The Wimpification of the West. Not sure if the link will work so a long quote.
“A visitor from outer space describing our place and times (I wrote in 1989) would say that our society is split into two groups: A vast, passive, compliant majority and a tiny, vociferous, militant minority.
“In contemporary Western countries most people are law abiding, civilized and mature to an extent unknown, and perhaps even unimagined, on other planets or periods. They’re civilized and mature to a fault; to the point of parody.
“Their tolerance of crime is a dramatic illustration, but they tolerate intrusions and indignities of other kinds, too. The extent to which Western citizens allow themselves to be bullied, intimidated, expropriated and regimented — internationally, nationally and even municipally — is almost without precedent.
“Even tyrannies imposed limits on themselves. The modern state imposes none. Mediaeval rulers allowed serfs some sovereignty within their own households. Subjects of contemporary serfdoms trying to assert sovereignty at home would have restraining orders slapped on them before they could say, “Father knows best!” An intruder into a serf ’s hut used to be confronted with the best technology available to the serf — probably a pitchfork. If a Canadian householder confronted a burglar with the best technology available to him, chances are he’d be hauled away in handcuffs — the householder, not the burglar.
“In the Dark Ages a tenant farmer paid no more than a tithe of his income — 10% — to the ecclesiastical authorities or to his liege lord. On his own land, he could build a shack or a pigsty with no reference to higher authorities. Try to build a tool shed without a permit on your own land today.
“Tyrants raiding a citizen’s home could seldom count on his ‘mature’ or ‘civilized’ compliance when robbing him of his property — to say nothing of taking control of his wife or his children. Today our tax authorities, social agencies, family courts, municipal officials, environmental, labour or ‘human rights’ boards, house-or home-breakers, muggers, rapists and other terrorists can safely rely on our quiet compliance when they hand us their hold-up notes.
“In the past, bandits, dictators, officials or seducers had to fight, at some risk to themselves, for what they can now take from our mature and civilized citizenry with a flick of a pen. Today a person who isn’t ready to hand over 50% of his income to social engineers, runs the risk, in addition to being fined or jailed, of being viewed as anti-social. And if he threatens to look askance at someone who is after his wife, or keeps a shotgun in his bedroom to make things a little tougher for the uninvited, he’ll be considered a Neanderthal.
“It’s not surprising that street crime flourishes in a climate where people run almost as great a risk of a criminal charge if they defend their property as they do if they try to take somebody else’s. Where a man is less likely to find himself before a tribunal for snatching a woman’s purse than for ‘ogling’ — that is, taking a prolonged look at her.
“The same climate that has ensured the general wimpification of the West has simultaneously given rise to a miniscule minority of hardened militants. These desperadoes, whether they’re muggers, house-invaders or politicalreligious-environmental-feminist-animal-rights terrorists, think nothing of stopping traffic. They’ll disrupt, threaten or mob individuals, institutions, businesses or cities to extort their demands — and the authorities give in to them.
“Our society has split into two distinct groups: A placid majority, conditioned or intimidated into believing that giving up their property, opinions, traditions or habits is a sign of maturity and civilization and a vicious minority that thinks disrupting and terrorizing peaceful citizens is a sign of commitment and justice. We’re truly reaping what we have sown.”
All these loudmouthed groups will fail, in their nature and methods is the seed of their own destruction, too many totalitarian groups have thought they were the answer to mankind’s problems and have crashed and burned simply because their philosophical underpinnings are false, they don’t work. Totalitarian utopianism sounds like an oxymoron but they are two sides of the same coin, it’s what all these systems including socialism share and they never learn. That doesn’t mean they’ll disappear, they’ll morph into another idiot group and the battle will have to be fought again. That’s far in the future, the current crop of misfits are numerous, crafty and cover a wide spectrum, so wide that if they were to triumph they would immediately turn on each other. Probably Islamism is the most dangerous system of all of them because at bottom it’s totally dishonest to the point of insanity.
Sphere: Related ContentCuriouser and Curiouser.
May 5th, 2009 / No Comments » / by ligneus1
The Alice in Wonderland reference is so apt for the Obama gang. For some really blatant thuggery see this article on the Chrysler deal.
The private question relates to the current owner of Chrysler, which is Cerberus Capital Management, one of the most powerful, most wealthy, and most feared private equity groups in the world. They easily have access to billions of dollars they could invest in Chrysler. As of a month ago, they had gotten more than $5.5 billion from the feds. The fact that they simply don’t want to invest their own money tells you that Chrysler as a company isn’t worth investing in, and ipso facto the taxpayers are flushing money down the toilet.
But I want to know much more than that. I want to know exactly what consideration will be paid to Cerberus in return for the common stock that will be ceded to Fiat, to the government, and to the UAW. I don’t think they’re cutting losses so much as turning them into gains. The question becomes: are we just bailing out a bunch of politically-connected billionaires? Whenever you get a chance, ask anyone who will listen: Why has President Obama not told us what he plans to give Cerberus in exchange for Chrysler?
I’ll say one thing for Obama winning the election, we’re going to find out more about what’s going on behind the scenes than we ever thought possible and just maybe shining a light on these shadowy merchants will be the beginning of a really big tea party movement. Come on Sarah, you be mum!
[In case the you be mum phrase is a bit obscure this side of the pond it is commonly said in UK to one who is asked to pour the tea from the teapot.]
[Hey, it's late and I'm awful tired!]
Oh yes, do follow the link and read the whole thing.
Sphere: Related ContentHey………..
May 4th, 2009 / No Comments » / by ligneus1
……..wanna see what the two little ones are up to? OK.
Reading my mail!
The Bastard Press.
May 4th, 2009 / No Comments » / by ligneus1
Even for the press actions speak louder than words.
There is a reason that both the press and Obama are sinking.
The NYT’s stock, which as recently as last spring was trading in the low $20s, tumbled down 10.75 percent to close in single-digit territory, at $9.55. The company’s debt was downgraded to “below investment grade” — or “junk” status — by Standard & Poor’s.
We sure traded down with Obama:
I had the great opportunity to see the Dalai Lama speak at MIT this afternoon. When he opened the forum to audience Q&A, the following stunning exchange occurred (I will paraphrase):
Audience member: “Can you give us an example of a leader we should look up to as a positive influence?”
Dalai Lama (after thinking for a few seconds): “President Bush. I met him personally and liked him very much. He was honest and straightforward, and that is very important. I may not have agreed with all his policies, but I thought he was very honest and a very good leader.”
All this in Cambridge . . .
H/T Jay Nordlinger at The Corner.
Sphere: Related ContentYour Smile for Today.
May 4th, 2009 / 2 Comments » / by ligneus1
From this post by The Anchoress:
Sphere: Related ContentMr. T does not put up with jibba-jabba, which I think is important for a justice. He is very tough, but he is also compassionate (he often pities fools). Now, I don’t know Mr. T’s political stances, but one can only assume he’s not a liberal because he’s definitely not a sissy.
In Paris Obama Is A Joke.
May 4th, 2009 / 1 Comment » / by ligneus1
Success! Obama has changed the image of America in France. Yep, instead of looking down their long, haughty noses at us [or as well as...] they are laughing! Way to go Barry.
From a column at Israpundit by Dr. Jack Wheeler:
Paris, France. It is very cool to be a French intel guy. A spectacular meal at a Parisian bistro with $90 entrées and a $200 bottle of Bordeaux? No problem. I’d known this fellow since he got me out of a jam in Sudan years ago. His James Bond days are over, but still, riding a desk for the DGSE — Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure (General Directorate for External Security), France’s military intel agency – in Paris has its decided benefits.
One of them is not being infected with Obamamania. “My agency considers him a joke,” he confides. “Every day there is some fresh lunacy that we cannot believe. Mr. Bush would often make us angry. But at this man we just laugh.”
“In truth, it also makes us sad,” he continued. “French resentment towards America is strong, so being able to laugh at your country feels good. But it is such a sad and strange thing to see America – America The Great! – do something so crazy as to elect this ridiculous man.”
“There are a lot of people convinced he is a traitor who hates America and is actively determined to destroy it. Any opinion on that?”
He didn’t shrug at this. After a long slow sip of wine, he mused, “I would not go that far. Many of his actions, however, are very puzzling because they are so counter-productive regarding America’s best interests. There seems to be a consistent pattern in that direction.”
“What does Sarkozy think of him?”
“Nothing but contempt.”
After a pause he asked, “And Langley?” (the CIA)
“Well, if you thought the war they waged against Bush was intense, it was nothing compared to how they’re going to screw Obama. He has tried to gut them with the ‘torture memo’ release and slashing their budgets. The morale is depressed, sullen, and enraged. You know what a left-wing outfit Langley is. They thought he was their boy and they feel betrayed. All kinds of damaging stuff on him will be appearing via their media friends.”
Read it all.
Addendum. I can’t cite names so you’ll have to take my word for it. Someone I know interviewed a Very Famous Leftwing American Journalist and asked him for his assessment of Barry O so far. The VFLAJ replied, ‘He’s way out of his depth.’ Sometimes a simple statement like that gives you the whole picture.
Sphere: Related ContentMusic for Late at Night.
May 3rd, 2009 / No Comments » / by ligneus1
A British soprano, Kate Royal, who I had not heard of before tonight, sings Bailerou from Canteloube’s Songs of the Auverne.
Since I don’t have time to post tonight I thought I’d leave you with something more pleasant than the crappy political news that abounds these days.
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And this I can’t resist, a video of Susan Boyle at age 22.
If there was ever any question, she’s always had talent. In a 25-year-old video that recently surfaced, a fresh-faced Susan Boyle – just 22 at the time – takes the stage at a local Scottish club looking trim and youthful.
In the clip from Scotland’s Daily Record, the Britain’s Got Talent star sings “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” from Jesus Christ Superstar and Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were” in the Motherwell FC’s Fir Park Social Club singing contest. Boyle, now 47, had been a late addition to the local singing team, Coventry Tam O’Shanter, after someone had dropped out.
“I can remember that she was a shy young girl, but also very attractive back then – she turned a few heads when she came into the club,” school caretaker Gerry McGuinness, 61, told the Daily Record of her appearance, 10 years before she would take singing lessons. He was there for the performance and dug up an old tape after seeing Boyle on TV more recently.
“Even back then, I don’t think anyone expected too much from her because she was so shy, but when she began singing people took notice,” he said. “It’s great Susan is finally getting some recognition. She is a great singer and it seems right that at some point she would get the credit she deserved.”
H/T People.
Sphere: Related ContentTime for a Smile.
May 2nd, 2009 / 1 Comment » / by ligneus1
My last post is not a good way to start the day so how about a little antidote to the morbidity of the left in the shape of a humourous little story, because as we all know, lefty humour is an oxymoron.
The Hair Dryer
Getting a hairdryer through Customs…
A young woman on a flight from Ireland asked the priest beside her,
‘Father, may I ask a favour?’
‘Of course child. What can I do for you?’
‘Well, I bought an expensive woman’s electric hair dryer for my Mother’s birthday that is unopened and well over the Customs limits, and I’m afraid they’ll confiscate it. Is there any way you could carry it through Customs for me? Under your robes perhaps?’
‘I would love to help you, dear, but I must warn you: I will not lie.’
‘With your honest face, Father, no one will question you.’
When they got to Customs, she let the priest go ahead of her.
The official asked, ‘Father, do you have anything to declare?’
‘From the top of my head down to my waist, I have nothing to declare.’
The official thought this answer strange, so he asked, ‘And what do you have to declare from your waist to the floor?’
‘I have a marvellous instrument designed to be used on a woman, but which is, to date, unused.’
Roaring with laughter, the official said, ‘Go ahead, Father. Next!’
Truth and Consequence.
May 2nd, 2009 / No Comments » / by ligneus1
Someone sent me this video.
From what I know without checking it all seems to be factual, but does believing that make me a troofer, a right wing extremist, a wingnut, a racist and all the other epithets the left sling about with such abandon? What if it is all true and we have in the White House a Muslim/communist African despot? If it walks like a duck…………….
I guess it’s a little more difficult for the people to see an Emperor who is an empty suit for what he is than it is to see an Emperor with no suit but it will happen. Of course all the courtiers aka the MSM will cling to the death, their own that is, that the suit has some content instead of seeing it for what it is, a robotic front man for the Ayres, Soros, Wright, communists and America haters with not an iota of original thought or even any common sense to his name.
Dick Morris at Real Clear Politics says Obama’s High Approval Ratings Won’t Last.
When the Obama administration crashes and burns, with approval ratings that fall through the floor, political scientists can trace its demise to its first hundred days. While Americans are careful not to consign a presidency they desperately need to succeed to the dustbin of history, the fact is that this president has moved – on issue after issue – in precisely the opposite direction of what the people want him to do.
Right now, Obama’s ratings must be pleasing to his eye. Voters like him and his wife immensely and approve of his activism in the face of the economic crisis. While polls show big doubts about what he is doing, the overwhelming sense is to let him have his way and pray that it works.
But beneath this superficial support, Obama’s specific policies run afoul of the very deeply felt convictions of American voters. For example, the most recent Rasmussen Poll asked voters if they wanted an economic system of complete free enterprise or preferred more government involvement in managing the economy. By 77-19, they voted against a government role, up seven points from last month.
Like America’s many enemies in the past Obama’s ego blinds him to what he’s taken on and one hopes that Academia, the MSM and all the assorted ragbag of communists, ‘revolutionaries’, idiots and malcontents who are riding his coat tails will go down with him, he will be the catalyst for purging much of the garbage that has been blighting the American landscape ever since JFK finagled his way into power.
Sphere: Related ContentCarrie Prejean.
May 1st, 2009 / 14 Comments » / by ligneus1
Once again I’m just flabbergasted at the unthinking stupidity of the lefty morons, this time over their treatment of Carrie Prejean, Miss California. Go to this post at Hot Air and watch, in disbelief if you have a working mind, the two videos there.
The good news is that they do harm to themselves.
Sphere: Related ContentLefties Must Be Getting Nervous.
April 29th, 2009 / No Comments » / by ligneus1
USA Buys Enough Guns in 3 Months to Outfit the Entire Chinese and Indian Army
See, America is still America.
Sphere: Related Content
"Conjure magic for them and they'll be distracted. Take away their freedom, and still they'll roar. The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the Senate. It's the sand of the Coliseum. He'll bring them death... and they will love him for it."
