You gotta think about it eventually.

I don't who the author of this is. It was part of a local list-serv e-mail (posted anonymously). While the comparison isn't a true apples-to-apples, it should get everyone to thinking.

Recently large demonstrations have taken place across the country protesting the fact that Congress is finally addressing the issue of illegal immigration.

Certain people are angry that the US might protect its own borders, might make it harder to sneak into this country and, once here, to stay indefinitely.

Let me see if I correctly understand the thinking behind these protests.

Let's say I sneak into your house. Let's say that when you discover me in your house, you insist that I leave. But I say, "I've made all the beds and washed the dishes and did the laundry and swept the floors. I've done all the things you don't like to do. I'm hard-working and honest (except for when I broke into your house).

According to the protesters:
*You are required to let me stay in your house.
*You are required to add me to your family's insurance plan.
*You are required to educate my kids.
*You are required to provide other benefits to me and to my family (my husband will do all of your yard work because he is also hard-working and honest, except for that breaking in part).
*If you try to call the police or force me out, I will call my friends who will picket your house carrying signs that proclaim my RIGHT to be there.

It's only fair, after all, because you have a nicer house than I do, and I'm just trying to better myself. I'm a hard-working and honest person, except for, well, you know, I did break into your house illegally. And what a deal it is for me!!!

I live in your house, contributing only a fraction of the cost of my keep, and there is nothing you can do about it without being accused of cold, uncaring, selfish, prejudiced, and bigoted behavior.

Oh yeah, I DEMAND that you learn MY LANGUAGE so you can communicate with me.

Why can't people see how ridiculous this is?!
Only in America. What do you think?

If don't agree, blow it off, along with your future, Social Security funds, and a lot of other things.

I just do not understand folk sometimes. It's called illegal immigration for a reason. What part of illegal don't you get?

I love this video

This has been out on the web for a long while, so I'm sure many of you who surf or get random, "you've got to check this out" type e-mail regularly have seen this, so here it is again. Those of you who haven't, enjoy.

It's got two of the things I like best, The Beatles and juggling, all in the same package.

Comments about it are cool.

A Great Movie Line

OK, I know this has been out there for a year or more, but I still think it's funny. As Homer would say, "It's funny 'cause it's true."

Little Rock schools out from under federal court supervision

Little Rock's school district has been freed from federal supervision, a federal judge ruled Friday. His ruling is here.

Little Rock, which now has a black-majority school board, was satisfactorily evaluating its academic programs in the effort to improve achievement on blacks, the ruling found.

Of course, there are those who aren't happy, natch.

"We're certainly disappointed in view of the lack of progress this district has made in addressing the needs of African-American students," said John Walker, a lawyer for Joshua Intervenors, which represents black students. "The standard was not high for the district to meet, but they certainly have not met it. We will have to pursue other means."

All I've got to say is it's about bloody time. There comes a point, and everyone needs to acknowledge this as distasteful as it may be, where those in the underachieving strata and their communities need to look inwardly at themselves and ask the hard questions as to why they are underachieving, and what cultural and social pressures are at play that keep them underachieving.

Every child can learn, but the schools and school administrators can only do so much. They can set the table as immaculately as possible, but if the children aren't motivated to learn, they won't learn. And try as the schools might, they will be hard-pressed to overcome the lack of meaningful parental involvement and motivation and the intense cultural and peer pressure to view getting a good education and wanting to succeed as somehow selling out to the establishment.

It will be up to not the larger community but the on-the-ground community of these underachieving pupils -- the parents, grandparents, friends, etc. -- that will have to change attitudes and behaviours and work to keep the pernicious influences away and keep the children's' focus on success at school.

The school districts will fail where that at-the-source influence and effort is lacking.

People, it's time to look at yourselves and to yourselves and not to a school district or a federal judge or a government.

Time to get out the popcorn

Oooh, the Democratic (Dhimmicratic) back-biting has already begun, a full year before the election season gets underway.

Maureen Dowd Column Incites Hillary-Obama War of Words

Apparently, David Geffen of Dreamworks and a thoroughly loaded dude, has lost his affection for the Clintons.

Once, David Geffen and Bill Clinton were tight as ticks. Mr. Geffen helped raise some $18 million for Bill and slept in the Lincoln Bedroom twice. Bill chilled at Chateau Geffen. Now, the Dreamworks co-chairman calls the former president “a reckless guy” who “gave his enemies a lot of ammunition to hurt him and to distract the country.”

And then this.

They fell out in 2000, when Mr. Clinton gave a pardon to Marc Rich after rebuffing Mr. Geffen’s request for one for Leonard Peltier. “Marc Rich getting pardoned? An oil-profiteer expatriate who left the country rather than pay taxes or face justice?” Mr. Geffen says. “Yet another time when the Clintons were unwilling to stand for the things that they genuinely believe in. Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”

OK, so what, you may say, and you may well be right. But understand, Geffen is leading the Hollywood fund-raising effort for Barack Hussein Obama. Ah, well, Hillary!'s team lept into full attack response.

Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson released the following statement this morning: "While Senator Obama was denouncing slash and burn politics yesterday, his campaign's finance chair was viciously and personally attacking Senator Clinton and her husband.

"If Senator Obama is indeed sincere about his repeated claims to change the tone of our politics, he should immediately denounce these remarks, remove Mr. Geffen from his campaign and return his money.

I love that if only for its sheer absurdity. Wolfson knows that Obama's not going to return any more of that money than I have winged rectal simians. Nor would Hillary! do so if (I should say when, 'cause it's gonna happen) similarly challenged.

"While Democrats should engage in a vigorous debate on the issues, there is no place in our party or our politics for the kind of personal insults made by Senator Obama's principal fundraiser."

I love Obama's people's retort, a carefully couched political way of saying "bugger off."

“We aren’t going to get in the middle of a disagreement between the Clintons and someone who was once one of their biggest supporters. It is ironic that the Clintons had no problem with David Geffen when was raising them $18 million and sleeping at their invitation in the Lincoln bedroom. It is also ironic that Senator Clinton lavished praise on Monday and is fully willing to accept today the support of South Carolina State Sen. Robert Ford, who said if Barack Obama were to win the nomination, he would drag down the rest of the Democratic Party because he's black."

I love it when Dhimmicrats attack their own. Now that's entertainment.


Oh, yeah!

UPDATE: Now, apparently, Bill Richardson, that (along with Dennis Kucinich) back-of-the-bus Dem candidate, thinks Barack Hussein Obama should denounce Geffen's remarks.

I say, keep it going. Gives us all something to watch now that football season is over.

It is to be hoped that she eventually gets hoisted by her own petard.

But with our celebrity-obsessed culture, I'm not keeping my hopes up.

From Michelle Malkin.

Just thought I'd post this.

I think it's cool.

Lambro on the "pastor populist"

Conservative pundit Donald Lambro takes a look at former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, calling him the "pastor populist."

Pastor-Populist Mike Huckabee.

Lambro talks about Huckabee's charm and they way he dismisses critics, such as the Cato Institute and the Club For Growth, who have labeled him a tax-hiker.

Huckabee defends himself by saying that he responded to court demands for added educational funding and pushed for a gas tax raise because 80 percent of Arkansans want improved highways. But his willingness to consider tax increases reflects a populist impulse that could make or break his candidacy. He readily describes the sins of economic and political elites: "the greed of Wall Street, the corruption of K Street."

I will say, as an Arkansan, that Huckabee's tax record was, in my opinion, on the whole favorable. There was an education crisis, or so the state Supreme Court said, and money had to be raised to bring the state schools up to the vague level the court mandated. The highways have long been terrible and are now better. And building and improving roads is something government is actually supposed to do. And there were other things.

However, early in his administration, Huckabee led the charge to cut income tax rates, the first time that had been done in Arkansas in years. And Arkansas is still, comparatively speaking, a fairly low-tax state. And the roads are better, and my front-end alignment thanks you.

Lambro ends his column this way.

Pundits count three or four seats on the GOP presidential campaign plane, and say they're occupied by McCain, Giuliani, Romney and (maybe) Gingrich. Might there be one more?

Yes, I should think so.

No dissent, please. We're Cuban.

A Castronista Cuban official defends his country's restrictions on Internet access. It's all about America, natch.

Money quote:

He defended Cuba's "rational and efficient" use of the Internet, which puts computers in schools and government computer clubs while prohibiting home connections for most citizens and blocking many sites with anti-government material.

Can't have people criticizing their government, don'cha know, or freely reading other people who do. That might make Cuba more like, oh, I don't know, America?

Update: Some DUmmies -- well, one, really -- are defending Cuba's policy.

Some quotes from a DU-enizen (who, not unsurprisingly, uses an image of Che Guevara as his/her avatar):

The question of censorship is different. One must take into account the fact that the US is doing everything it can to bring down the Cuban system, which would suggest that such actions are not inappropriate.

here

and

They're trying to balance access (in schools no less, which is laudable) with the fact that the US government is doing everything it can to bring down the Cuban system, which includes working through misinformation.

here

You love my husband; vote for me.

Is this Hillary! the Wellesley feminist?

NYT is reporting that Hillary! is traipsing around New Hampshire invoking her husband's name at every turn.

Is this the kind of feminism they taught her at Wellesley, "Vote for me because of who my husband is"?

But then maybe merely using a man to get what she wants is what she learned.

Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied. -- Niccolo Machiavelli

Edwards' blogger is out.

Amanda Marcotte, blogger for Pandagon, tendered her resignation today as chief blogger for the John Edwards campaign.

This is the same Austin-based blogger who, prior to joining the Edwards team,had some rather unspeakable euphemism for things like the Virgin birth of Christ, as well as other assorted nastiness and vulgarities.

Now she says she is the target of an anti-Semite, i.e., Bill Donohue of the Catholic League. The invective and ranting goes on from there, as you can read.

In fact, he’s made no bones about the fact that his intent is to “silence” me, as if he—a perfect stranger—should have a right to curtail my freedom of speech. Why? Because I’m a woman? Because I’m pro-choice? Because I’m not religious? All of the above, it seems.

Regardless, it was creating a situation where I felt that every time I coughed, I was risking the Edwards campaign. No matter what you think about the campaign, I signed on to be a supporter and a tireless employee for them, and if I can’t do the job I was hired to do because Bill Donohue doesn’t have anything better to do with his time than harass me, then I won’t do it. I resigned my position today and they accepted.

She goes on:

Bill Donohue doesn’t speak for Catholics, he speaks for the right wing noise machine. You guys pointed this out, you made a stink, you refused to walk into the same stupid trap that is laid out for liberals and Democrats by the right wing noise machine and I think you made a difference. While loyalty played into the pushback some, the real story is that we liberals are not taking this crap any longer and we’re pushing back. And now that I’m attached to only myself again, I’m ready and eager to join in the pushing back with you. Like Lorraine say, Jesus did not say to shut your piehole.

Well, isn't that special?

This does call into question here "apology" she rendered just last week. Was she lying then, then? Obviously so.

Liberals simply do not get it. People, folk, Joe Six-pack and Mary Punchclock are not at all interested in the kind of blather and vulgar and debasing cant that passes for enlightened analysis in the angst-ridden world of the lefty activist. And feminists of the hard-core variety like Marcotte are the worst of the lot.

That may play over at DU or DailyKos, but not to the voters Edwards or any Democrat will need in the long run. Fortunately, BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) is not a widespread malady as it is in the LoonyLeftVille.

Update: Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom, had this to say, which cannot be said often enough:

The rest of Marcotte’s resignation announcement decries attacks on her free speech—which is, of course, absurd. It was her choice to step down; the government didn’t demand she do so. And coming from someone who routinely deletes comments that challenge her worldview—both on Pandagon and during her brief stint working for Edwards—the charge is doubly ironic.

I am sick to death of people complaining of an abridgment of their "freedom of speech" when other private actors seek to hold the speaker responsible for his comments. I'm only going to say this once: You have no freedom of speech rights that I am bound to respect. Only the government can abridge your freedom of speech, not a private actor.

Now, shut up!

Update x 2: The DUmmies are casting this as a victory for Donohue, and they arent' too happy about it.

I love it when the DUmmies are unhappy.

Ian Richardson, RIP

I totally missed this over the weekend (but then apparently so did the Washington Post), but British Shakespearean actor Ian Richardson died this past Friday. He was 72.

To the extent Americans knew him at all, they would likely best remember him as the deliciously wicked Francis Urquhart in BBC-TV mini-series House of Cards and its two sequels, To Play the King and The Final Cut.

(spoiler alert!)

Richardson played an utterly amoral, patrician conservative member of Parliament after the end of Margaret Thatcher's administration. He detested the Tories' choice for Thatcher's replacement, Henry Collingridge ("a man with no background and no bottom"). After being spurned for a Cabinet post, and with a little encouragement from his wife, Elizabeth (a role that could be the direct descendant of Lady Macbeth), Urquhart undertakes a series of clandestine acts, through other people unaware they are being used, to bring Collingridge down, all the while playing the loyal Party Whip. In order to achieve this, he gains the trust of an up-and-coming reporter, Mattie Storin, for a Tory tabloid and uses her to disseminate information against the government. His signature phrase to her probing questions, "You might very well think that. I could not possibly comment," meaning, "Yes, you're right, and I'll deny ever saying so," was absolutely priceless. I've incorporated it in my phrase lexicon ever since. Storin eventually becomes his lover, a relationship encouraged by Madame Urquhart. She, however, had been secretly recording their conversations.

Once he manipulates the prime minister to step down, he systematically destroys each of his rivals' chances at being elected prime minister. He then kills his useful, but cocaine-addicted idiot, Roger O'Neill, by putting rat poison in his stash. Meanwhile, Storin begins to piece together the one common thread in the destruction of Collingridge and the other candidates for prime minister. The day of Urquhart's election, she confronts him in the Parliament's rooftop garden about O'Neill's death and in a move that surprised the dog out of me when I first watched it, he heaves her off the rooftop.

Richardson played the role with such absolute charm that Urquhart became the premiere anti-hero. Ripping good stuff. The sequels, as sequels are wont to do, fail to live up to the wonderfulness of the original series.

Farewell, Ian Richardson. "Nothing lasts forever. Even the longest, the most glittering reign must come to an end someday."

Update:

BBC's coverage. And more. A nice obituary. Here's a BBC video.

Huckabee the darling of the evangelical vote?

U.S. News and World Report, in its Washington Whispers column, is stating that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is the out-of-the-gate favourite to capture the evangelical vote in the GOP primaries.

Evangelical Vote: Down to Two

The race to win the Christian-right vote has already narrowed to a battle between former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, say activists. And for many at this month's closed-door summit of the Council for National Policy-a top-secret club of marquee conservative advocates-Huckabee was the 60-40 fave, say attendees. This crowd counts: Members include Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and Left Behind author Tim LaHaye. Huckabee, a Baptist minister, wowed the confab, even though it's Romney who has won over evangelical leaders. What's more, activists say "in-the-pew evangelicals" will most likely gravitate toward Huckabee, who is strong on marriage and antiabortion issues.

Well, that helps Huckabee, especially after the Club For Growth, a conservative, low-tax policy group has repeatedly hammered Huckabee on his fiscal record in Arkansas. That, and the fact that hardly anyone yet knows who he is.

This could get interesting.

Huckabee, though, will not have moved into the big-time ranks until National Review Online's The Corner blog starts listing Huckabee in its daily Around the Web post, collecting news stories and such about the candidates. Maybe Huckabee actually has to get some press first, though.

I'm just sayin', y' know.

Time to re-evaluate U.S. involvement

Every day there are news reports of more deaths.

Why are we still there?

We see images of death and destruction on TV every night.

Why are we still there?

We took this land by force. We occupied it. It causes us nothing but trouble.

Why are we still there?

Many of our children go there but never come back.

Why are we still there?

Murderers, Rapists, Pedophiles, and Thugs enjoy celebrity status there.

Why are we still there?

Its government is unstable.

Why are we still there?

Many of its people are uncivilized.

Why are we still there?

Its land is subject to natural disasters and we are obliged to come to its aid.

Why are we still there?

It has more than 1000 religious sects that we do not understand.

Why are we still there?

Its cultures, foods, and diverse ways of life are unfathomable to most ordinary Americans.

Why are we still there?

It cannot secure its borders.

Why are we still there?

It is billions of dollars in debt and it will cost billions more to rebuild.

Why are we still there?


It is now quite clear!


WE MUST PULL OUT OF CALIFORNIA NOW!!!

(hee hee)

Huckabee in '08?

You'll notice to your left that I have a link to an unofficial "Huckabee in 08" blog. I don't know that I'm supporting full bore the former governor just yet. I'm as yet still undecided (we're still a year away from the primaries and all, fer cryin' out loud). But I'll keep the the link there as a measure of support for a fellow Arkansan.

What clinched it for me.

I've thought long and hard about my decision to get back into the bloggist world. This clinched it for me.

Trying new element

Now that Google owns both Blogger and YouTube, I (think I) have the capability to add video to my site.

However, I've tried to add my blog to my YouTube account, but it just gets hung up in an endless loop.

We'll see if posting just the URL will suffice for now. Enjoy!

The Patriette is going off for a while

The Patriette, one of the blogs I had linked to, is taking time off, much for the same reasons I did a while back.

I will be taking a vacation from this blog for awhile. My daughter is
getting older and needs more of my time (she is playing more and sleeping less).
I am taking a graduate course this spring.

To put it simply - I'm tired. I'm tired of the politicians. I am tired
of the media. I'm tired of the people asking how I'm doing and when he'll be
home. I'm tired of people asking me what I think of the President, of the
military, of the deployment. I'm tired and I need more rest and less stress. So
I am taking a break from blogging.

I may post something now and then, but there are just not enough hours
in my day to write regularly anymore.

I'm hip. I get tired of the lot of them in that City on a Swamp. I haven't met a politician yet that was worth his weight in a bag of dead rats.

Oh, what to write about?

Y'know, my 11th-grade writing teacher, Brenda Ball, loved the way I wrote. She especially liked my free verse. She thought something was there.

People I worked with at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette liked it, too, although sometimes my literary devices were a bit too obtuse for them, and they would routinely get cut. "This ain't art, and you ain't Hemingway."

I suppose it's a skill that one must consistently work on or else it goes fallow.

I always liked writing, but I hated it at the same time. Yeah, so what?

I anticipate my re-entry into the blog world will be a mix of posts like these of a purely personal nature, plus typical blog posts commenting on the passing scene. Some Twelve-Step work may be included.

I've gone through a rough period in my personal life where I just couldn't muster up the energy to be outraged about much. I went through a period where I wasn't watching the news, reading my otherwise favourite opinion sites (i.e. National Review Online, Townhall, little green footballs, or even my perverse pornographic pleasure).

But now I'm getting better. I think trying to blog more will improve my outlook. And now that football season is over, I need something to do to keep me occupied.

I'm back (of a sort)

After taking a year and a half off from my blog, I've decided to return.

Blogging during that time was hard, if not impossible. I had a job that required massive time, I was going through a very turbulent period in my marriage, and I was right off politics and cultural issues. In other words, I couldn't gin up the energy to write, cleverly or otherwise.

Now I have a job that is much less stressful and demanding (while still making the same money -- go figure), I have developed more tools to deal with my still-less-than-wholly-satisfying marriage, and I'm slightly more interested in politics and culture again. Besides, I didn't want to lose my Blogger account for good.

So, your humble Boatswain's Mate has returned. I can't promise to post multiple times everyday. I'm not exactly a member of the Pajamas Media. I do work for a living. And I can't promise that everything will be politically or culturally relevant. But I am who I am.