THIS MACHINE KILLS LEFTISTS
You know why extraterrestrial aliens built pyramids all over the Earth in ancient times?
Because no human would have ever realized on his own that the most logical vertical arrangement of as many stones as possible is the pyramidal shape.
It has dropped probably 50 degrees since yesterday evening. It was downright cold all day —and when it blew in last night, it was all thunder, lightning, rain, and power outages. My own lights went out for probably three hours early this morning.
Glad I woke up in time for work today, though. I had a rather productive one at that.
I’m still laughing about this:
Democratic Sen John Kerry, considering a second bid for the US presidency, finished dead last in a poll on the likeability of 20 top American political figures.
Among those placed ahead of Kerry were about a dozen potential 2008 White House rivals, including Democratic Sen Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Republican Sen John McCain of Arizona.
“This is bad bad news for Kerry,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute in Hamden, Connecticut, which conducted the survey.
“Americans know who he is, and have pretty much decided they don’t like him,” said Brown. He noted the poll found that 95 per cent of respondents said they had heard enough about Kerry, who lost in 2004 to President George W. Bush, to rate the Massachusetts Democrat.
Kerry, of course, has responded to this by saying that his ranking must have come as a result of his slanderous remarks about the quality of America’s fighting men and women just before the election earlier this month. But that isn’t true.
Kerry was sucking long before that.
Kerry-Edwards ‘04: the bullet that keeps getting dodged.
Okay, but tell me this much: do I have to agree that we’ve been defeated in Iraq? I mean, is there a penalty for my obtuseness and for that of the others who don’t want to submit to the orthodoxy? Maybe.
Maybe the penalty is to not be taken seriously. But why would any American not take our achievements in Iraq seriously?
Our military overthrew and captured Saddam Hussein, the Butcher of Baghdad. And now his own people —by virtue of a judicial system rooted in a democratically-elected government that we made possible— have tried, convicted, and sentenced the Butcher of Baghdad to death. The Iraqi people braved everything to create such a government! Why isn’t that a serious accomplishment that bears serious consequences for the Arab world as a whole and History itself? How is that a defeat? In a definitive way, America demonstrated through the War for Iraq that it will hold Muslim autocracies responsible for the shit they stir. Moreover, our military and this Administration stood —and stands— for the triumph of democratic values.
But our fighting men and women get no credit for what they have done to liberate the Iraqi people because Iraq is not what we would have it be? That’s absurd and here’s why: because when great wars end on the battlefield, they don’t always end on the streets.
But they do eventually. When Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, it took many years before the violence the Civil War had spawned was finally stilled. There was retaliation in a great many places for a lot longer than we would like to remember now. But, soon enough, the societies that went to war against each other began to heal. Even so, one of the Civil War’s great purposes wasn’t even realized for another century —the liberation of black America.
Do we say now that the American Civil War was a defeat? Be serious! It was, except for the Revolution itself, the greatest triumph of American Civilization. And I say that as a Southerner whose ancestors were destroyed by that war. And, now, I can say for sure that I wouldn’t want to live in an America or a Texas that hadn’t been shaped by those forces —and by that destruction. Something very bad in our character had to be burnt out —and was. I accept that because I have no choice. Not because I wouldn’t make the right choice to be done with slavery, but because History demanded that America be free. I’m an American. I believe in what it is we do to make the world free.
Iraq, too, must pay for its freedom. We didn’t annihilate their society like others we have done. Think we should have? Okay. But because we didn’t firebomb their cities, we gave more people a choice to have a new Iraq. If too many of the wrong people are still around to have a say, then maybe they will have to commit even more violence against each other themselves. They will have to make sacrifices in that way —through civil war— until they are done making them. Then, they will have something that they will have earned. But just as we can’t literally force democracy on a people at the point of a gun, we can’t instantaneously endow them with the desire for peace. They will have to come to that on their knees.
So fuck you if you think America’s been defeated in Iraq. We will never be defeated there. Our best and bravest have made possible a new Iraq —and, ultimately, a new Muslim world— that will owe everything to their sacrifice. The problem you might have with seeing that now is an individual’s problem and, thus, unimportant in the grand scheme of things.
Wow. Look at it snowing in Seattle. I guess that happens there often enough, but you always hear about the rain instead.
Maybe whatever’s bringing all of that down on tonight’s game will make it here to Central Texas by the end of the week. I sure hope so. I’d like to have a real bug-killer of a cold snap around here for once.
Heh, heh. Look at the players make Bill Keane tracks in the snow.
I’m watching Sunday night football on NBC and Al Michaels keeps on talking about Indianapolis head coach Tony Dungy as “implacable.”
What’s he talking about? Dungy is one of the calmest guys in the NFL.
Anyway, I enjoy watching the Eagles lose. I hope they keep it up.
I went up to Valley Mills, Texas yesterday to attend a “gathering of the clan.”
Which, for me, meant seeing all of my Grandma’s kinfolks.
In attendance were probably 50-60 descendants —either by blood or marriage— of my great-great-grandparents, Andrew Jackson McNeill (1847-1914) and Mary Jane (Thompson) McNeill (1849-1922). There was lots of great food, pretty cousins, and amazing old photographs and stories.
A.J. came to Valley Mills with his momma around 1867 from Robeson Co., North Carolina where they had pretty much exhausted their welcome with the local Presbyterian church and community, which was overwhelmingly Scotch. It’s said that, as a teenager, A.J. had joined the Confederate Army in some capacity, maybe as a flagbearer or some sort of servant. I don’t know. There’s no record of it I’ve ever seen, but it’s certainly not unthinkable.
In any event, years later, A.J. met and married Mary Jane Thomspon there in Bosque Co., Texas. As a young girl, she had come from Cass Co., Missouri —by way of Lewisville, Texas— with her family of devout Baptists and lawmen. Her momma was either half or full-blood Cherokee, which is something you can still see in the faces of my Grandma’s kin.
A.J. and Mary Jane had five kids. There may have been a sixth, but I’ve never been sure.
Robert Alexander McNeill (1878-1950) was the eldest. They called him Bob. Bob was my great-grandfather. He had two sisters who survived to adulthood: Mary Melissa (”Aunt Lissa”) and Anne Elizabeth (”Aunt Annie”). There was also a little boy, James Lee, and a little girl, Sarah Mae (”Sally”), who died young.
Of my great-grandfather Bob’s eight children, five lived to have children of their own. I am proud to say that every one of them was represented yesterday by at least one descendant. I was the sole descendant of my Grandma’s children who was in attendance. I am also pleased to note that Lissa and Annie were both represented by their descendants, the many Moore families of Bosque County.
If you ever get a chance to attend such a gathering of a clan, I recommend you go. There’s nothing like being in a roomful of folks —who are mostly strangers at first —and knowing that you do your beloved grandparents and great-grandparents honor by remembering them in the flesh.
Timothy Noah at Slate thinks the Democrats should probably dump Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House for her blunder in trying to get Jack Murtha elected Majority Leader over Steny Hoyer.
Hoyer’s victory is already being portrayed as a humiliating defeat for Pelosi, which it was. But it would have been an even greater defeat for Pelosi to push Murtha through and then suffer the consequences of her own idiotic decision. I doubt she understands that.
I’m not so sure I buy that. Pelosi’s reason for supporting Murtha was to recognize his position on withdrawal from Iraq. The election was about Iraq. Murtha’s rise to prominence was due to Iraq. And, if Murtha was to become Majority Leader as a reward for his anti-war antics, it was necessarily going to have to happen up front.
So, Pelosi did what she did, I figure, not because it was the truly smart move to make, but because she thought it the shrewdest way to placate the anti-war crowd inside the Democratic Party.
Enjoy the little sacrifice Pelosi made of her authority, comrades. She did it for you. She did it so you couldn’t say she wasn’t listening to your sage advice.
Gee whiz! At about two this morning, my left calf decided to climb into my ass and see what was going on upstairs. I hate that! First of all, I always do a lot of talking when that happens. Lots of pleading and reasoning: “You gotta stop it, man! You gotta stop it, man! Okay! Okay! I’m getting up! Gimme a chance! Oh, Jesus! Oh, Jesus!”
And I’m still sore.
I remember once when I was in high school, I had a double cramp and couldn’t even stand up at all. I was begging for someone to just shoot me. Right between the eyes. Oh, brother!
I just saw an all-new episode of The Simpsons and I was extremely disappointed.
It wasn’t the fact that the entire episode was just a heavy-handed jack-off about how stupid the American military and the people who support it are that bugged me so much; it was that it was unfunny. I didn’t laugh once. I usually don’t when I’m being lectured instead of being entertained.
The Simpsons is unquestionably one of the greatest comedies in the history of television, but I don’t remember the last time I enjoyed watching it. The past couple of seasons? I may have looked in on a couple episodes. In light of its former self, The Simpsons has become a disgrace and a burden to sit through.
Oh, yeah —and they also ran a trailer of the upcoming movie. It looks like it’s going to suck just as hard as the series does. Do they even make episodes anymore where Homer doesn’t just scream and get hurt?
What a tiresome load of crap The Simpsons has become. It’s a disaster. How can Matt Groening even look at himself in the mirror anymore? The only conceivable reason why he continues with The Simpsons is for money. It cannot be because he believes it’s still artistically or culturally relevant.
