Just...Remember!...

Executive Mansion,

Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

Dear Madam,--

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln


God Bless America!

Video of deaf baby hearing for the first time...

If this doesn't bring at least a smile to your face, you're evil.

Huh?...

It is no secret that many of us who reject Obama's neo-communist agenda have turned to the Founding Fathers for guidance; when you think your country's founding principles are under attack, it's natural to re-acquaint yourself with the writings of the extraordinary group of men who wrote our founding documents.

When we examine this genius cluster, George Washington is perhaps the best loved. Last week Glenn Beck recommended the four-year old, 1208-page tome, George Washington's Sacred Fire, which discusses pop culture fave topics like the religious beliefs of our first President. The book shot to number one on Amazon's bestseller list. It has recently been bumped to #2 by an R-rated Swedish detective series.

It was therefore understandable that a Boston Globe editorial felt the need to compare Washington and Jefferson unfavorably to...Bill Clinton.


George Washington's parents no doubt took pride in his childhood honesty, but therein may lie the reason he was among the least intellectual of the Founding Fathers. A Canadian study last week declared that children who lie are actually showing their mental acuity and creativity. "Parents should not be alarmed if their child tells a fib,'' Kang Lee, director of the Institute of Child Study at the University of Toronto, told the Telegraph of London. In fact, children who are making things up at age 2 have fast-developing brains, which portend greater intellectual achievements. Thomas Jefferson, whose genius sometimes led him down a twisty path around the truth, may have been an example. So might his mentally agile successor, William Jefferson Clinton. As for Washington - perhaps there's a new explanation for why he confessed, in the great Parson Weems legend, to chopping down the cherry tree: Maybe young George just couldn't come up with a good enough cover story.


It's amazing how many wrong ideas can be crammed into one short piece of writing: The "I cannot tell a lie" fable about the cherry tree proves that 10-year old George Washington was a bit of a dim bulb, while Bill Clinton's lies offer evidence that he is "mentally agile"? I didn't realize that Clinton was President at age 2.

As for the second most loved Founding Father, did you know that Thomas Jefferson was a liar who sometimes followed "twisty paths around the truth"? Apparently it's such common knowledge that no further explanation is required.

Now this, my friends, is a toilet paper ad...

Ian, Ian, Ian...

Last week we get through swimming and we come into the house. He begins to take off his bathing suit in the family room...

"Don't take off your suit here. Go upstairs and do it."
"Why?"
Because the painter is here and might see you."
(We were having our bedroom painted.)

A few minutes later he comes down the stairs. Walks to the door of our bedroom. Raises his arm and points with his thumb into the bedroom and says..."This guy doesn't want to see my tee-tee."

Today I am on my computer and I hear Ian start laughing and say "Daddy, I'm your huckleberry!"

I go into the bedroom and he is on my itouch watching Tombstone. Val Kilmer just got through shooting Johnny.

He pretty much watched the whole thing. He loves the western-cowboy-horses shoot em up stuff. Although the other day I caught him watching The Untouchables and he didn't seem to mind the cops-mafia-bootlegging shoot em up stuff either.

From the WTF department...

They're builing a WHAT at ground zero?

Funny retort by Arizona...

RIF

Can she take Handy Mandy with her?...

I think you all know Dora but Handy Mandy, for those who don't know, is another cartoon character of Hispanic descent who haunts the Disney channel.

This cartoon was obviously made by the pro-illegal immigration crowd but it's still funny...

Yea, that Mother Theresa could be a real...

This sounds like an obvious jazzy story for national news. Last September, the Empire State Building drew controversy (at least in anti-communist circles) for honoring the 60th anniversary of the communist revolution in China with red and yellow floodlights. But now, as Lou Young of WCBS-TV reports, the same brass at the Empire State Building refuse to honor saintly Mother Teresa with blue and white lights, the colors of her religious order. "It's kind of hard to be against Mother Teresa," said Archbishop Timothy Dolan.

The lighting would consist of a simple tribute in blue and white, the same colors used for a Yankees World Series win or an Israeli Independence Day. In this case it would be the colors worn by a crusader for the poor and a candidate for sainthood, the venerable Mother Teresa. Yet the people who own the Empire State Building said they won't pay this simple tribute in blue and white for the 100th anniversary of her birth this coming August, and they refuse to offer an explanation to people who made the application....

Is Mick Jagger a (gasp) conservative?...

Mick Jagger Recounts Fleeing High Tax Rates in England, Success ‘Resented’ Unlike in America NewsBusters.org

I'm getting a little perterbed...

I have a brother, who shall remain nameless, who has a blog. He posted this week for the first time in almost 2 months. A cute story about his youngest and the trials and tribulations of being such.

3 people commented on his blog...

After almost 2 months.

I have 19 posts in the month of May alone and do you know how many comments I have?

2

...

2

What's up with that? One of them is from someone I don't even know.

I realize most of my posts are political in nature and may be harder to comment on but I have a plethora of other subjects as well.

Cartoons

Personal stories

I have a Star Wars lego story for crying out loud. That's good stuff.

Even when I spill my guts I get squat.

I am as close to a girl as you can get without actually being one. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I worry about being color coordinated. I can act gay like nobody's business.

I mean come on people I need some feedback here. "You Suck!". "You Rock!".

Something

I realize this post may be a little petty, shallow and selfish but I did say...I was as...close...(don't got there)...to...a girl...as you...could...get...

Alabama politics...

Gotta love it.

If this guy is on the level, he would have my vote.

Driving home from...

seeing Robin Hood listening to Katrina and the Waves and I thought to myself..."Why in the heck are you listening to Katrina and the Waves?" So I changed the channel and one of my favorite songs was just finishing.

I hate it when that happens.

Robin Hood was good. Not great unfortunately. I love Russell Crowe. I think he's dreamy. But I wasn't impressed. The movie seemed to be more about what a bad ass Maid Marion was. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But I signed on for scalp splitting, arrow flying mayhem. Got some. Not enough.

The story was more about how Robin got his start. He actually fought with King John against the French.

The Catholic church was a villain here. And heck, it was only 300 years before the reformation. I guess they had to start somewhere.

Watched Edge of Darkness with Mel Gibson last night. That was OK too.

Plot line revolves around a cop, defense contractor and a Senator. The movie takes place in Massachusetts so naturally the senator was a Republican. Because in the past 40 years Mass has had no Republican senators. Zero. Zip. Nada. Nil. Zilch.

That kind of stuff is why I find it very hard to give my money to those bozos.

For those of you that don't know, I have 3 kids. Which means cartoons are on a lot. One thing I have noticed is the use of pigs as cartoon characters. More it seems recently. Olivia. Toot and Puddle.

What's up with that?

Have these people not seen Amityville Horror or read Animal Farm? Pigs are either the devils minion or communist. Personally, I don't know which is more frightening. I do know the only thing pigs are good for is bacon. And the occasional honey glazed ham. Maybe a pork chop now and then.

But cartoon characters? Never.

Why doesn't anyone care about the Soviet Document Archives?

That’s the question Claire Berlinski asks in the latest issue of City Journal, but the answer is rather easy to surmise. Michael Moynihan wrote about the problem from a different angle in an excellent article for Reason last year, and various pundits have noted the dearth of admissions over the true nature of the Soviet regime in the period since the end of the Cold War. The archives gathered by Pavel Stroilov and Vladimir Bukovsky, among others, provide evidence in stark terms of the end result of collectivist impulses — and challenge the academic conclusions about the nature of Soviet leaders, especially Mikhail Gorbachev:

In the world’s collective consciousness, the word “Nazi” is synonymous with evil. It is widely understood that the Nazis’ ideology—nationalism, anti-Semitism, the autarkic ethnic state, the Führer principle—led directly to the furnaces of Auschwitz. It is not nearly as well understood that Communism led just as inexorably, everywhere on the globe where it was applied, to starvation, torture, and slave-labor camps. Nor is it widely acknowledged that Communism was responsible for the deaths of some 150 million human beings during the twentieth century. The world remains inexplicably indifferent and uncurious about the deadliest ideology in history.

For evidence of this indifference, consider the unread Soviet archives. Pavel Stroilov, a Russian exile in London, has on his computer 50,000 unpublished, untranslated, top-secret Kremlin documents, mostly dating from the close of the Cold War. He stole them in 2003 and fled Russia. Within living memory, they would have been worth millions to the CIA; they surely tell a story about Communism and its collapse that the world needs to know. Yet he can’t get anyone to house them in a reputable library, publish them, or fund their translation. In fact, he can’t get anyone to take much interest in them at all.

Then there’s Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, who once spent 12 years in the USSR’s prisons, labor camps, and psikhushkas—political psychiatric hospitals—after being convicted of copying anti-Soviet literature. He, too, possesses a massive collection of stolen and smuggled papers from the archives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, which, as he writes, “contain the beginnings and the ends of all the tragedies of our bloodstained century.” These documents are available online at bukovsky-archives.net, but most are not translated. They are unorganized; there are no summaries; there is no search or index function. “I offer them free of charge to the most influential newspapers and journals in the world, but nobody wants to print them,” Bukovsky writes. “Editors shrug indifferently: So what? Who cares?”

The problem isn’t apathy as much as it is fear. The narrative among popular academics and media is that the Soviet Union collapsed out of a too-generous sense of glasnost and perestroika, with Mikhail Gorbachev as the benevolent national leader whose love of freedom inadvertently ended the Soviet empire. The documentation of the Kremlin’s activities and transcripts of Gorbachev’s own conversations put an end to that mythology. For instance, Berlinski quotes this passage from Politburo minutes of a discussion of the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989:

Lukyanov reports that the real number of casualties on Tiananmen Square was 3,000.

Gorbachev: We must be realists. They, like us, have to defend themselves. Three thousands . . . So what?

So what, indeed! What’s the death of 3,000 unarmed men and women when it comes to preserving the power of the dictatorial state? One must crack a few (thousand) bourgeois eggs to make the Communist omelette, after all. That comes to light again in a transcript of a Gorbachev conversation with a West German politician in which he defends a similar massacre of protesters in Tbilisi by Soviet troops.

These documents have the power to destroy the carefully constructed facade of Gorbachev by his Western apologists as somehow different from his Soviet predecessors. He was not; he could hardly have risen to the Politburo had he not been an advocate of totalitarian control. He had a much better sense of his enemies than his predecessors, and knew how to charm the media better than any of them. And charm them Gorbachev did, enough to get them to make the argument over the last 20 years that Gorbachev won the Cold War by dismantling the Soviet Union, rather than the obvious conclusion that the US won it by forcing the Soviets into an economic war they couldn’t possibly hope to win.

That is why the term “Nazi” rightly remains synonymous with evil, while “Communist” gets more of a pass. (When was the last time we saw a movie with a Communist villain? 1959?) The Soviet Communists killed tens of millions of people through malice and neglect over a far longer period of time, and that includes Mikhail Gorbachev, who spent decades working in that system. The documents saved at so much risk to these archivists would show that unequivocally — and that should prompt us to ask, as Berlinski does, why that seems to threaten so many in the media and academia to the point of attempting to ignore their existence.

This is Chris Christie...

Governor of New Jersey. Republican. Funny.

Gov Christie calls S-L columnist thin-skinned for inquiring about his 'confrontational tone'

Stay Classy, Man-Child...

When President Obama was asked if he would play a round of golf with his talk-radio nemesis Rush Limbaugh, the response, relayed by a top Democrat, was: "Limbaugh can play with himself."

This is according to Zev Chafets in his new book, "Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One," due May 25 from Sentinel.

Mark Steyn: Times Square bomber just overeager - Opinion - The Orange County Register

Mark Steyn: Times Square bomber just overeager - Opinion - The Orange County Register

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Right on...

Just Dam!...

That's some Busy Beavers.

Name Change...

Let it be known that on this website The One will from now on forever be referred to as Man-Child.

Stay Classy Obama...

I'm a grower, not a shower...

If you've been wondering how much of your body airport full-body scanners actually do reveal, a recent TSA training session in Miami shows the answer: enough for your co-workers to mock the size of your genitals.

The target of the mockery eventually found it unbearable, and police say that he "could not take the jokes anymore and lost his mind," attacking one of his colleagues in the parking lot. He was arrested for aggravated battery.

From the police report:
"The investigation revealed that the [suspect] was upset after a training with "Whole Body Image" machine. The X-Ray revealed [the suspect] has a small penis and co-workers made fun of him on a daily basis. [He] stated he could not take the jokes anymore and lost his mind. ”

Not so Famous Quotes...

Under Capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism it's just the opposite.

John Kenneth Galbraith

The WTF department is busy today...

From Hot Air -

I’ve watched South Park for years, and have watched other Comedy Central programming more occasionally, believing until recently that it provided a cutting-edge environment for satire. Unfortunately, the network has now caved twice to radical Islamist terrorism, once in 2006 and again last month, in two episodes of South Park that skewered major religious figures while censoring the satire of Trey Parker and Matt Stone on Mohammed. Instead of staying out of religious satire altogether, the brave souls at Viacom have apparently green-lit a new series that will poke fun at Jesus … again:

Comedy Central might censor every image of the Prophet Muhammad on “South Park,” yet the network is developing a whole animated series around Jesus Christ.

As part of the network’s upfront presentation to advertisers (full slate here), the network is set to announce “JC,” a half-hour show about Christ wanting to escape the shadow of his “powerful but apathetic father” and live a regular life in New York City.

In the show, God is preoccupied with playing video games while Christ, “the ultimate fish out of water,” tries to adjust to life in the big city.

“In general, comedy in purist form always makes some people uncomfortable,” said Comedy Central’s head of original programming Kent Alterman.

Yes, Kent Alterman, you’re quite the brave individual for making “some” people uncomfortable. Those would be the “some” people who won’t issue threats of violence for your satires. Comedy Central and Viacom have no appetite for making some other people uncomfortable — the very people who would not waste a moment in shutting down Comedy Central if given the opportunity.

South Park takes an honest approach to satire by skewering everyone equally. They lost a major cast member when they satirized Scientology, and no doubt have had complaints from many groups about their portrayal of Jesus, Buddha, Joseph Smith, Lao Tze, and other religious figures. But one never got the sense that Parker and Stone had it out for any one group because their satires ran the entire gamut, at least until Comedy Central began censoring them.

And even that would have been understandable — had CC made the decision to avoid religious satire altogether. Instead, they’re launching a new effort to parody Christianity while imposing the rule of radical Islamists on satires of Islam. There’s a word for the kind of people who only pick fights with no risk whatsoever: pussies.

Update: I agree with The Anchoress on this one:

As a Christian, I am unoffended by this move. The Triune God has awfully big shoulders; he can take it.

It is Comedy Central that betrays the tiny fragility that lies behind its strut.

I am embarrassed for them.

Offended? Not really. It’s more like utter contempt for their blustery cowardice.

From the WTF department...

WOW!...just...WOW!

Not enough room in the news cycle I guess...

What with an oil spill and a bomb in Times Square, Nashville just doesn't rank.

It seems to be a pretty big deal though. Bigger than I thought anyway.

In honor of...

STAR WARS DAY!!!

Question: What’s the difference between a good Star Wars lego parody and a great Star Wars lego parody? Answer: A little plastic Admiral Ackbar figure. Awesome.

Famous Quotes...

Well maybe not so famous but it was said by my son.

Disclaimer: He had just taken a bath.

I was lying in the bottom bunk talking to my son about the days events while he lay in the top bunk. After a while he said,

I don't want to talk anymore...I just want to smell my feet.

After a few seconds he started to giggle.

Los Suns...

It’s funny. Just this morning, while I was making my way through Eugene Robinson’s ode to the current state of border security, I had ESPN on and started thinking, “Why can’t sports be as tediously, tendentiously politicized as everything else in American life now is?”

Sometimes, my friends, dreams do come true.

The Phoenix Suns will wear “Los Suns” on their jerseys Wednesday for Game 2 of the Western Conference semifinals, owner Robert Sarver said, “to honor our Latino community and the diversity of our league, the state of Arizona and our nation.”…

He said that the law calls into question “our basic principles of equal rights and protection under the law” and will cause Arizona’s economy to suffer setbacks at a time when the state is already in economic distress.

First, shouldn’t “Los Suns” be “Los Sols”? Second, if this tool wants his team dudded out in protest gear, it’s his dime, but I wonder how smart of a marketing strategy it is to make a show of opposing a law favored by 60 percent of the public. Amnesty shills will love it but a larger number of amnesty opponents will hate it, and a swath of people in the middle will wonder why they’re being treated to political propaganda when all they want to do is watch hoops. Fun fact for “Los Suns” fans to chew on: Illegals are vowing that they’ll keep on coming unless and until we seal the border, which would actually be comparatively cheap to do if it weren’t so, you know, racist.

What a week I'm having...

I actually mean that in a good way. For those of you that don't know that line comes from "Splash". Euegene Levy's character says it a few times to indicate he is having a bad week.

Great movie, "Splash". John Candy is a comic genius. His timing is impeccable. Case in point: (watch to the :50 mark then fast forward to the 3:15 mark)

But the greatest thing about that movie is that it was the inspiraion for my oldest daughter's name; Madison.

Had a great weekend. Fantastic weather. Fantastic friends. Played in the Sig Ep softball tournament. Tri-State it's called. I have been involved in 24 of these now either as an ump or player dating back to 1986. I have not missed one time in all those years. We went 3-2 and played much later into the day than we ever have. Fun times...until the DJ showed up. About 2:00 they plugged in these huge speakers and started blaring their "music". Kyle Jurca put it best when he said "There is no way our music sounded this bad to our parents." It wasn't just the sound and the incessant beat. It was the cussing in the songs. I lost track of how many "f" bombs were dropped and how many "s" words the guy used and how all of the girls he knew were "b"'s. Unbelievable. I am by no means a prude or a geezer...yet...but man that was offensive not to mention annoying.

Eventually the cops showed up and started busting the underagers with MIPs. I guaranty you if they hadn't turned on that music, the cops would not have showed. We were back in the far reaches of the park. The only people there were the ones that wanted to be there. Beer was flowing as it tends to do at college get togethers. Nobody causing problems. The blaring music started and the houses that line the fields were now involved. No issues with drinking kids. However when you can't watch TV or play in the yard because of loud music filled with curse words my guess is the police were called.

We are having our backyard landscaped. It looks so much better I can't believe it. We are getting ready for the summer season and with a new backyard if we don't answer the phone, we are out swimming. Come on over.

I am debating whether to make my weight loss goals an ongoing topic on this blog. I have what some people might call a weight problem. I swallow a lot of aggression. Along with a lot of pizzas. (John Candy from Stripes) I think if I made my trials and tribulations a matter of public record I may be more inclined to do the right thing. Maybe then I'll have more triumphs. I haven't decided yet. Probably.

Stay tuned.