William F. Buckley Jr. died today. There is already a touching tribute, or more appropriately a series of tributes up at National Review. He is an icon in the conservative movement. I personally enjoy the debate he had with Gore Vidal (due to language I am only posting a link). He wasn’t a party man but a man of principals and he would take on anyone. May there be more like him. My sympathies and prayers to all who loved him and cared for him.
Now I know where I have seen John McCain before. Apparently he is Colonel Tigh (or a replecant model of;)who was revealed as a Cylon. For those who don’t watch Battlestar Galactica (Why don’t you? I have been meaning to talk to you about this) the Cylons are robots who are trying to eliminate humanity. I love the images that appear to be done by the Metamerist for Pieniazek.
(HT: Adam Pieniazek)
Technorati Tags: McCain, Battlestar Galactica, ScifiChannel
I have heard all the hubbub about Mike Huckabee’s subliminal ad, which I thought was hogwash. But I hadn’t heard about Hilary’s ad where she give us many “great gifts” (including universal healthcare, universal pre-k, etc) until I was reading Jonah Goldberg’s piece at National Review. He pointed out the obvious point to me…. Gifts are given freely and cost the receiver nothing and that isn’t the case with these things. As a matter of fact I think they could bankrupt us. Jonah went on to quote one of my favorites (both the book and the author) in comparing the candidates, P. J. O’Rourke’s Parliament of Whores
“I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat,” wrote the indispensable O’Rourke.
“God” he explained, is “a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men strictly accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material well being of the disadvantaged. … God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God’s heavenly country club.”
P. J. continues: “Santa Claus is another matter. … He’s nonthreatening. He’s always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without the thought of a quid pro quo.”
“Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one,” O’Rourke concluded. “There is no such thing as Santa Claus.”
I have included both commercials so you can get the feel.
I got this from my friend Heather. Normally, I don’t encourage such thing but I really liked this one.
OLD VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building
his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and
plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!
———————————————————————
MODERN VERSION:
The ant works ha rd in the withering heat all summer long,
building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances
and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and
demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well-fed while
others are cold and starving.
CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the
shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable
home with a table filled with food. Americans are stunned by the sharp
contrast.
How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor
grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and
everybody cries when they sing, “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”
Jesse Jackson stages a demon stration in front of the ant’s house
where the news stations film the group singing, ‘We shall overcome.’
Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s
sake.
Nancy Pelosi & John Kerry explain in an interview with Larry King
that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and
both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair
share.
Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper
Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs
and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is
confiscated by the government.
Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation
suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges
that Bill Clint on appointed from a list of
single-parent welfare recipients.
The ant loses the case.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last
bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which
just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around him because
he doesn’t maintain it.
The ant has disappeared in the snow.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the
house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who
terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote
With Fred Thompson being a bit of a disappointment I am going to start looking into Mike Huckabee. While I only saw part of the debate last night, I was impressed by what I saw and what I have heard. My concern is that NerdDad has heard that he is a big spending Republican. That is my one really big problem with George W. Bush. So what do you all think of Mike Huckabee?
Is there really anything more I need to say?
NerdDad found this great article by John Stossel over at RealClearPolitics about Thanksgiving. It point out that communal living spelled disaster for the Pilgrims and that it was only through individual land (and therefore production) that the Pilgrims were able to survive.
“So as it well appeared that famine must still ensue the next year also, if not some way prevented,” wrote Gov. William Bradford in his diary. The colonists, he said, “began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length after much debate of things, [I] (with the advice of the chiefest among them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves. … And so assigned to every family a parcel of land.”
If only they pointed that out in school.
A interesting development came up when Lynne Chenney was researching a memoir of growing up in the western state of Wyoming. Come to find out Dick Chenney and Barak Obama are 8th or 9th cousins. So is it true that we are all being ruled by these uber-families;)? You know, the Kennedy/Schwarzeneggers and the Obama/Chenneys;).
I just think this is all cute and funny.
Planned Parenthood in Kansas has been charged with 107 criminal counts. About time they got charged. What I find sad is that False Information is a Non-Person Felony but a Unlawful Late Term Abortion is a Misdemeanor.
(HT: Michelle Malkin)