Thoughts on the Ft. Hood attack

• Will November 5th go down as the day that we stopped fighting them over there and they started fighting us over here?
• What the hell is this? We knew that he was trying to contact Al Qaeda and we didn't do a damn thing about it?
• Could he have just been insane? Maybe. Psychiatrists can go crazy too (though his fellow psychiatrists should have noticed something was up). However, the fact that he gave away all his furniture the morning of the shooting indicates that he had probably been putting some rational thought into it.
• Don't blame this on bullying and harassment. Blaming Columbine on bullies was enough of a stretch. This is a 39-year-old man with two kids who should've known a lot better. Yes, if people were harassing him about his religion then that was bad, but killing fourteen people in an act of war is a little bit worse.
• I have no problems with someone who says "I'm a Muslim first and an American second" serving in the military. I will always be a Christian before I'm an American, and I think pretty much anyone who takes their religion seriously would, if they had to choose, pick an omnipotent deity over a fallible human entity. However, when you have someone who says that and then says that America is fighting a war against Islam, it comes time to put two and two together. If he believes that America is fighting against Islam, and he considers himself a Muslim before an American, which side do you think he's going to pick?
• Incidentally, this guy worked with Obama's transition team. He wasn't part of the team, nor was he hired by Obama, but it's still a bit close for comfort. Let's just say we all know people would be paying attention to this part of the story if it were a different president.

Hopefully half of this will sound really familiar and the other half will sound weird

You may have heard about V and its political undertones already, but in case you haven't, go ahead and watch that clip. Watch the whole episode too if you have time. Quick, before it expires.

If you're one of those people I've heard about who can't see embedded videos, go here and watch from 31:34 to 37:43 to see the clip I posted.

I want to know what Sherry Shriner thinks about this.

What. The. Eff.

A Nobel Peace Prize? For what? Especially remembering that the deadline for nominating Nobellers was 12 days into his presidency. So virtually none of the semi-accomplishments you can think of should probably have even been taken into consideration.

I'm going to have to agree with Michelle on this one:

Wolf Blitzer sucks at Jeopardy

Chances are if you'd be interested in this, you've already seen it, but let's enjoy it again anyway.

It's a good thing game shows always guarantee minimum winnings on celebrity shows, or else charities would never get any money. How do you get -$4600? No one ever gets -$4600. Not to mention that Andy Richter ended up with one of the highest total scores ever in the history of Jeopardy -- I'm pretty sure only Ken Jennings has gotten more than that in one day.

The weird part is that Wolf didn't actually suck nearly that bad in his last appearance from twelve years ago, where he played against Arianna Huffington and Oliver Stone (I'm pretty sure that had to be the most liberal episode of Jeopardy ever). Of course, Andy kicked a good amount of butt the last time he was on, winning nearly $25,000 in pre-doubled amounts. He wagered much more cautiously this time, though -- in that game, he nearly pulled a Clavin; this time, he bet just under the maximum safe amount.

Incidentally, this is my first time seeing the new set, and I like it. Combines some of the best elements from all the previous sets, including the two panels that open up for Alex to walk through them from the late-90s set. Some giant Jeopardy letters somewhere would be nice, though; it's always seemed a bit low-key without them. They may have gone a little overboard on the blue, but better this than the overdose of faux-wooden parallelograms everywhere from a few years ago. I like how the set turns red for Final Jeopardy, but I wish they'd do it for Double Jeopardy too like they did in the old days. Glad to see that they've brought back the board-filling beeps in some capacity, but it'll take me a while to warm up to the new version.

While I'm on the topic of game shows, let's talk Wheel. (I know, I know; of all the things I could be talking about from the last eight days, I choose this. Again, I'm glad that this isn't strictly a political blog, though you could have fooled me)



Much less dramatic set changes than Jeopardy, but all nice. I like that the puzzle board always has a goldish border now; the neon cyan border never felt right. Here's the real story:



Free Spin is gone. I mean, I'm trying to keep an open mind on this, but holy crap, you can't just get rid of Free Spin like that.

Its replacement, of sorts, is a color-changing wedge called Free Play. Land on it and you can call a consonant or a free vowel, and calling a letter that's not in the puzzle won't hurt you either way. As Pat says, it is a bit more logical than the Free Spin, since you didn't necessarily have to spin after using a Free Spin. Still, I can't help thinking that it's a bit too unnecessarily complicated. Complex play mechanics never last long on Wheel. Double Play, the Megaword category, the red-letter puzzles, shopping, and more that I can't think of because they got rid of them even faster. However, like the Wild Card, it seems to do complexity in a relatively nonthreatening way. Also, I'm pretty sure that someday they're going to have an all-video wheel. My guess is 2015.

Eight years ago

I was in eighth grade. It was a very small private school, out in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York, and, it being 2001, few if any of us had cell phones, certainly not any that got reception there. With no TV channels nearby and slower-than-dialup internet, the teachers couldn't have showed it to us as it happened, if they even wanted to. Did we need to know? They called us all in last period, after a little bit of the panic had subsided, and gave us the lowdown as best as anyone knew it at the time. We prayed (it was a Christian school). Then we went back to history class, and instead of taking a test, we watched Robin Hood (the furry version). It hadn't sunk in. I don't know if it ever really sunk in for me until I finally got to see the news footage myself (do me a favor and don't read any of the comments over there -- nothing but people claiming that the planes never actually existed and that it's suspicious that some security guards thought an explosion meant there was, like, a bomb instead of a fricking plane).

I almost wish I had a more interesting story. I don't, really; I feel very grateful, and maybe a little guilty, that it really didn't affect me. No, that's not right. It didn't hurt me, other than the brief unbearable pain that all of us felt, but it definitely affected me. Allahpundit and Jake Tapper have some very gripping recounts on their Twitter accounts (scroll down a bit). I haven't been able to watch the whole thing yet, but what I saw of this film is... whatever adjective works for this kind of thing. I don't think there is one. But since I haven't watched the whole thing, don't blame me if there's something weird in there.

Whatever you do, remember it somehow.

"You lie!"

From about an hour ago:



According to several reports, the one calling the president out on blatant misrepresentations is Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina. Already, his website is down, his Wikipedia page is protected, and his Twitter account gains about fifty followers every time I reload the page. Considering that Obama's speech didn't have anything other than the same old platitudes, it's not like there's much else to talk about.

Why America needs God

From John Holdren's 1973 classic Ecoscience (bolds mine):

Individual rights must be balanced against the power of the government to control human reproduction. Some people—respected legislators, judges, and lawyers included—have viewed the right to have children as a fundamental and inalienable right. Yet neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions a right to reproduce. Nor does the UN Charter describe such a right, although a resolution of the United Nations affirms the “right responsibly to choose” the number and spacing of children (our emphasis). In the United States, individuals have a constitutional right to privacy and it has been held that the right to privacy includes the right to choose whether or not to have children, at least to the extent that a woman has a right to choose not to have children. But the right is not unlimited. Where the society has a “compelling, subordinating interest” in regulating population size, the right of the individual may be curtailed. If society’s survival depended on having more children, women could he required to bear children, just as men can constitutionally be required to serve in the armed forces. Similarly, given a crisis caused by overpopulation, reasonably necessary laws to control excessive reproduction could be enacted.

It is often argued that the right to have children is so personal that the government should not regulate it. In an ideal society, no doubt the state should leave family size and composition solely to the desires of the parents. In today’s world, however, the number of children in a family is a matter of profound public concern. The law regulates other highly personal matters. For example, no one may lawfully have more than one spouse at a time. Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children?

This is the fundamental difference between constitutionalists and progressives. Holdren here says that if the Constitution doesn't mention a right to reproduce, we don't have it. That is a gross misuse of the Constitution -- though, like most progressive ideology, it's close enough that they can get away with it. The Constitution was never meant to be an exhaustive list of personal rights guaranteed by the government. Quite the opposite, in fact. Let's take a close look at the Declaration, which ought to be part of the lens through which we see the Constitution:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Our rights come from God, not the government. This is why healthcare can't be a right, or at least not the same kind of right as life and liberty. Healthcare doesn't come from God, it comes from the government. You're born with life, liberty, and the right to pursue happiness, but things like healthcare and a job and all that have to come from man, and therefore can be taken away by man.

The Constitution and Bill of Rights are about negative rights -- things that God gave you that the government is not allowed to take away -- rather than positive rights -- things that you don't have that the government must give you. The Constitution itself lays out the only powers the government has over you, and the Bill of Rights drills that into our heads even more.

First Amendment: You have the right to think and say and believe what you want. The government can't take that away from you. (This is different from "The government must give you a forum in which to speak")
Second Amendment: You have the right to go buy guns to defend yourself if you want. The government can't take that away from you. (Not "You have a right to a gun, and the government will buy one for you")
Third Amendment: You have a right to decide who can and can't be in your house. The government can't force you to hold soldiers if you don't want to. (Not "The government will pay for you to remodel your house and mandate that cool people have to visit you or they'll be arrested")
Fourth Amendment: The government can't go through your property and possessions without a damn good reason.
Fifth Amendment: The government can't force you to incriminate yourself in court; nor can they take your property without at least paying you for what it's worth.
Sixth and Seventh Amendments: Because of your rights, including those of life and liberty, the government can't put you in jail unless they can prove in a fair trial that you're guilty.
Eighth Amendment: Even in the cases where your liberty can be infringed by the government, it can't be infringed too much.
Ninth Amendment: None of the powers given to the federal government in the Constitution can be interpreted in ways that interfere with individual rights.
Tenth Amendment: If a power is not assigned to the federal government in the Constitution, it belongs to the people.

It's the tenth one that's especially applicable to Holdren's comments: If neither the Declaration or Constitution says anything about reproduction, that means the government has no jurisdiction over it.

Under the Constitution, Declaration, and Bill of Rights, rights and powers are given to us by God, and we then give a few of those powers to the government for the greater good. However, under progressivism, there is no God, at least not of any significance, and rights come from the government.

In FDR's 1944 State of the Union address, he spoke of a "Second Bill of Rights":

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
- The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
- The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
- The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
- The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
- The right of every family to a decent home;
- The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
- The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
- The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.

Obama expressed a similar sentiment in a 2001 radio interview:

[The Warren Court] didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren Court interpreted it in the same way: that essentially the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn't shifted, and one of the, I think, the tragedies of the civil rights movement was, because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and in some ways, we still suffer from that.

As Obama himself admits here, negative rights, like what the Constitution is made out of, are things that the government can't take away from you, while positive rights, which are not in the Constitution, are (or, rather, would be) things that you don't have that the government must give you.

Among the myriad reasons that each one of us needs God, America as a whole needs God in order for our system to work. Rights have to come from somewhere other than the government, because without God, all rights become positive rights -- given to you by the government, and able to be taken away by the government at any time.

Van Jones resigns

Ooh... it's kind of hard not to feel a little bit giddy about this. Well, okay, it's not that hard once you start reading Van's comments. About how all this stuff is made up and lies and distortions. You know, total lies and distortions and wonders of editing software like this video, which the White House has previously assured us doesn't actually exist (by the way, as you may have noticed, flag@whitehouse.gov has been shut down). Or how about the fact that his stated motives for resigning are almost exactly the same as Sarah Palin's, and yet the same people who called her an idiot and a quitter and insane for that are going to praise Van for his level-headedness and humility. Bleck.

Let's just do a quick recap of Van, since I haven't actually posted anything about him yet (in fact, I haven't posted much of anything lately) and I feel like I should (though if you don't think I'm credible enough, you can take it from Jake Tapper): He said himself that he became a communist in August of 1993. He co-founded STORM: Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement. STORM disbanded in 2002, and in 2005, Van said "I'm willing to forgo the cheap satisfaction of the radical pose for the deep satisfaction of radical ends." In February of this year, he said that Republicans "are assholes. That's a technical political science term. And Barack Obama's not an asshole, so, um, I'll say this: I can be an asshole. And some of those of us who aren't Barack Hussein Obama are gonna have to start getting uppity." (He seems to like Obama -- he once said of him "The true genius of Barack Obama is that the first black president is the first green president -- he's not just trying to save you, he's gon' save the whole wide world.") So, after his history of being a radical revolutionary Marxist, Obama hires him to create jobs. Yeah. That'll work.

And he's a 9/11 Truther. You know, those guys who believe that there weren't actually any planes hitting the Twin Towers and the towers are still actually there underneath an elaborate series of mirrors because steel can't melt and it was all faked so we could have an excuse go do whatever the hell it is we're doing in Iraq so that gas prices would go down as much as they have.

In his statement, he showed that perfecting the Bill Clinton apology takes some effort, saying "In recent days some in the news media have reported on past statements I made before I joined the administration – some of which were made years ago. If I have offended anyone with statements I made in the past, I apologize."

So anyway, he's out now. And while it may not have that much effect on the administration, it's still a victory. Now how about we move on to John Holdren, who wants forced abortions and a global police force, or Cass Sunstein, who wants rats to be able to sue people, or Zeke Emanuel, who doesn't think old people deserve government healthcare if it comes down to the wire.

How many more free passes is Obama going to get? How many crazy friends does he have to have before we start taking seriously what he said in the third debate:

Let me tell you who I associate with. On economic policy, I associate with Warren Buffett and former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker. If I'm interested in figuring out my foreign policy, I associate myself with my running mate, Joe Biden, or with Dick Lugar, the Republican ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, or General Jim Jones, the former supreme allied commander of NATO. Those are the people, Democrats and Republicans, who have shaped my ideas and who will be surrounding me in the White House.

Look at who surrounds him. Bill Ayers. Jeremiah Wright. Van Jones. John Holdren. Cass Sunstein. The Apollo Alliance, who wrote the stimulus bill, and whose New York branch is headed up by Jeff Jones -- the other Weather Underground founder. How many more times before we realize that this isn't coincidence and it isn't stupidity -- it's what he actually believes.

Obama brings religion back into the debate

H/t Ann Althouse

So, apparently healthcare is a theological issue now.

“I know there’s been a lot of misinformation in this debate, and there are some folks out there who are frankly bearing false witness,” Mr. Obama told a multidenominational group of pastors, rabbis and other religious leaders who support his goal to remake the nation’s health care system.

Really, Mr. President? You, the man who voted against the Born Alive act three times, are going to tell me what's right and wrong? Not only that, but you're apparently going to tell me that it's immoral to recognize the existence of this video? You, the man who spent twenty years in Jeremiah Wright's church, suddenly want us all to be talking about religion again?

No, I will not stop talking about Wright. Twenty years don't get erased by a single last-minute move of political opportunism. And I especially won't talking about Wright now that religion is apparently supposed to be the frame for this debate.

You want to make this a religious debate, Mr. President? All right, then. Free will. Charity. Personal responsibility. The son shall not be held responsible for the sins of the father. Hypocrisy -- how much did you guys complain when Bush even acknowledged the existence of churches? Stuff like that. Bone up on that and we can talk.

You want to be generous, do it with your money. Donate your presidential salary to charity -- you've got enough from book sales to live off of for at least eight years, if you cut back a bit on the dinner dates in Paris.

These are all fabrications that have been put out there in order to discourage people from meeting what I consider to be a core ethical and moral obligation. That is that we look out for one other, that I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper. And in the wealthiest nation on earth right now, we are neglecting to live up to that call.

I don't know what country you live in, but where I am, we the people are living up to the call quite well. In general, no one gives more to charity than Americans -- and that would go up even higher if you took out misers like Joey, who has not once in the past decade given even one half of one percent of his six-figure income to charity. Because as I've said before, "Socialism creates Scrooges where there ought to be Ebenezers."

Speaking of charity, looks like Cash for Clunkers is hurting it. Is there anything that program can't screw up?

At best, Obama is once again diving deep into the philosophy of "if it's a good thing, the government should do it, because people can't be trusted to do it." Funny thing is, the people who don't believe that tend to be the ones who actually can be trusted to do it. Furthermore, since we're not a theocracy, a monarchy, or a dictatorship, if you want the government to do something, you either need to find where the Constitution gives it that power, or change the constitution.

Or, you know, just do it yourself.

But that won't happen, will it? Because, as you may remember, Obama apparently does not consider himself to be his brother's keeper.

Hey, he's the one who wanted to bring religion back into this.

Teeth

I still believe one of the most profound things I ever saw on TV was an episode of Adventures in Wonderland. The Queen played a game of bridge with the Duchess, and despite how much she had been looking forward to it, she had a horrible time -- she had forgotten how much the Duchess was capable of out-obnoxiousing even her. She loudly proclaimed that if anyone could go back in time and prevent her from having to deal with the whole matter, she would give them a million dollars. The Hatter and Hare overheard this, and set to work building a time machine for that very purpose.

The White Rabbit, skeptical of their achievements, asked to see a demonstration. With him aboard, the Hatter and Hare turned the dial from "Today" to "Yesterday," and after the machine spun around a few times, the Hatter said "See? It's yesterday!" Once they were sure that the machine was in working order, they used it to go back to yesterday and trap the Queen in her palace, keeping her from going to Duchess's. However, they didn't get the promised cash prize -- they had gone back in time to before the Queen knew she didn't want to go to the game. At that point, she was still looking forward to the game, and it was only by sheer luck and the power of syndicated TV show status quo that the two of them didn't lose their heads.

The moral I always got out of that story, which has stuck with me up to today, is from the Queen's perspective: you never know what misfortune an inconvenience now may have saved you from in the future. In my family, events like this, when recognized, are called "sippy cup incidents," after one particular one from when I was in day care. My mom had picked me up and was driving me home, when, about halfway back, I realized I had left my sippy cup. Because of the time we took driving back and making small talk with the day care teacher, we narrowly missed being in the path of a tornado on the way back. The moments where irksome happenstance turns out to be the hand of God -- and I feel that most of them won't be appreciated until we're able to see everything.

Well, I hope that's what my recent dental work is. I went into the dentist for the first time in two or three years, my mouth feeling perfectly fine, even that one tooth that somehow grew in with no enamel on it however many years back. Now, about a month later, I've got a filling in a tooth that didn't have a cavity, the metal seeming to leak slowly out into the rest of my mouth, and I can't chew anything with that tooth or allow any cold liquids near it, because it somehow became incredibly sensitive since then. The dentist says I needed it to keep that tooth from decaying in the future. I hope she's right.

Flipnote Studio is pretty awesome you guys

Go here and check me out. I should be adding more before too long. And hurry up and get your own DSi already.

Yabba Dogma Do!

I normally refrain from punny titles, but I couldn't resist this one. An apparently notable British professor has expressed the belief that The Flintstones is part of a Young-Earth Creationist conspiracy to undermine science. He further implies, not in so many words, that freedom of religion is overrated, that parents do not have an inherent right to teach their children, and that the government knows what your kids need better than you do. I only wish this kind of worldview was rare enough to be laughable rather than inevitable.

Distractions

Best as I can tell, it's been close to a year since the last (and, until now, only) time I said anything on here about Obama's birth certificate. For some reason, I feel like I should weigh in again.

My take on the matter? There are some conflicting stories and there's enough doubt that we would be justified in politely asking for proof. But I don't think it matters. Don't overestimate your political prowess. If this were any kind of serious threat to Obama, he would have fixed it by now. At this point, even if he isn't a natural-born citizen, how hard would it be for him to fake up a longform right now? After all, if you believe he's lying, then you've got to believe that he's already got the state government of Hawaii to go along with it -- who better to make a perfect forgery? And what would you do about it? By the time you manage to prove it strongly enough to convince anyone, Obama will probably already be out of office. Illuminati Pictures seems to be convinced that proving Obama's ineligibility would be a "time machine" that would undo everything he's done. I don't see that. We definitely can't unspend, and undoing by hand all the stuff he's done just in the first eight months would be incredibly complicated and controversial -- Democrats would maintain that just because an ineligible president did it doesn't mean it wasn't what we needed to do anyway. The country would be torn apart. Molotov acts like if we can just prove that the Democrats cheated, it'll be the end of them. How? They'll still be in power -- with Joe Freaking Biden as president. There's no referee here that we get to report them to.

Personally, I think the evidence suggests that if there is any kind of conspiracy here, it's that he really was born in Hawaii and is intentionally allowing doubts to build up about it, or at least taking advantage of the doubts, so that he can distract us. The more he can get his critics to focus on his birth certificate rather than his policies, the more he can get done behind the scenes. And if he ever needs a trump card, he can just pull out his longform one day (whether you believe it would be real or fake) and totally disarm the whole birther movement, which could severely discredit the conservative movement as a whole. What would you have to stand on if he ever did produce one? Nothing. You have no proof, only questions.

Don't get distracted. Find ways to criticize him and his policies in ways that the general public will care about. Most Americans, myself included, don't think it really matters where he was born other than an arbitrary requirement in the Constitution which many would consider outdated. Does Obama's birthplace have any effect on how American or un-American what he's doing now is? Does the fact that McCain was technically born in Panama make his years of military service any less valid? It only matters because it's still in the Constitution, not because of any inherent value of birthplaces, and if you think you can get Obama kicked out of office just by showing that he violated the Constitution, you're not paying attention. If you want to go for a line of attack like that, point out the ways he's clearly breaking the Constitution that are hurting us, not the one little one that no one cares about and you can't prove.

So, to sum up, because I can be pretty wordy, and stuff like this can be construed many different ways when you want it to be: I'm satisfactorily convinced that Obama is and always has been a natural-born citizen, and furthermore, if he weren't, trying to prove it would be fruitless. It'd be like if I robbed a bank and shot everyone in it, all of it caught on thirty HD cameras, and I'd already announced in a press conference that I was going to do it, and the police do nothing but try to use calculus to prove that based on the times recorded on my EZPass thing at two toll booths, I was probably going eight miles over the speed limit on the way over to the bank. Focus on the big laws that you know I've broken, not the little one that you think I might have.

Mobs

Here Glenn makes a very compelling comparison between protests on the left and protests on the right. What passes for an "angry mob" in the media's eyes is almost entirely dependent on what they're protesting for. This illustrates a point that I touched on toward the end of this post, reproduced here for your convenience.

As I said yesterday, hate only causes more hate. We (by the way, in case it isn't clear yet, I'm primarily writing to conservatives) just went through eight years of their guys showing nothing but hatred to our guy, and we feel like that justifies us in hating their guy for four or (gulp) eight years. But where is it going to stop? We alternate in feeling vindicated. If we believe half the things we say about how liberals pathologically hate us, why are we leaving it up to them to stop the hating? Let's be graceful and respectful, and then maybe, just maybe, they'll show some of that same respect when Palin becomes president in 2013.

Okay, I admit, the part about them possibly respecting Palin is far too optimistic, but I still stand by my point: we need to be the adults. People expect this crap from liberals, but we conservative Christian constitutionalists are always held to a much higher standard, and we need to live up to and exceed that standard. For all that liberals go on about how we're so violent and uncouth and uncivilized and whatnot, they know at the end of the day that we're not the ones who light stuff on fire and blow up government buildings and lie down in streets and chain ourselves to trees -- and if we ever did, it would be far more devastating to our cause than it is to their cause when they do the same thing.

As Glenn says, some people have crossed the line. Hanging Congressmen in effigy and drowning out voices with boos is the wrong way to go about this, and stuff like that needs to be even rarer than it is now. It's true that liberal protesters get away with hella more than that, but we ought to know by now that life isn't fair. We have to play the hand we're dealt. Don't even think about stooping to their level.

Go flag yourself

Looks like this stuff is catching on. Join in, won't you?

Sesame Street Thriller

I'm a bit ashamed to say that the only one I saw the first time around was Ernie and Bert in the pyramid. And that one was more funny than scary, really.

"It's the post office that's always having problems"

(h/t IMAO)

Okay, remember when I said that, lies aside, Obama's position on health care was actually rather internally consistent? Disregard that. He's not making any damn sense anymore. Or maybe I just don't know what's going on here.

Gatesgate updates, a few days late

I meant to wrap this whole Gates thing up earlier. I'll make it quick.

• Gates does something classy. Not as good as sending flowers to Crowley, but still quite admirable.
• I liked the comment one person left on this article:

  Perhaps, the most teachable moment to come out of this event was that it is always prudent to retain your composure when dealing with anyone who is carrying an instrument of human violence on his person.
  
  Cops are like armed criminals in only one regard. They are both human. As such, they are prone to doing things that they regret after the fact. An out-of-control and hysterical Professor Gates was very fortunate he was not inadvertently shot by either an angry or a fearful officer Crowley. Tragic misunderstandings like this, while infrequent, do occur in this country.
  
  If it had, Crowley would undoubtedly go to jail for a long time. The African American community would have a new martyr. Harvard would name a new building after the fallen Professor. But, Gates would still be very dead for his role in the melee.
  
  And that my friends is a teachable moment we can all learn from.

• Finally, XKCD's take on the matter:
  

My response to the president's request

Dang, I've got a lot of YouTube videos on the front page right now. Guess one more won't hurt.


(h/t DJP)

Sorry, Mr. President, but I am not going to shut up and get out of your way. Like your Secretary of State, "I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration."

On a lighter note: General Tso's pizza is the best idea we ever had. Try it yourself: Get some big flat rectangle breads, put on some cheese, some snow peas, some popcorn chicken, a General Tso's-type sauce, and some sesame seeds, bake them like pizza, and be amazed.

Obama to political opponents: STFU and GTFO

So we've got-- we've got some work to do. I don't-- I don't mind, by the way, being responsible -- I expect to be held responsible for these issues because I'm the president. (thunderous applause) But! But! *wrinkles lips pensievely; leans into microphone, every blood vessel filled with righteous fury* BUT I DON'T WANT THE FOLKS WHO CREATED THE MESS... (applause dies down, the audience captivated) I don't want the folks [who] created the mess [to] do a lot of talking, I want them just to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess! (moar applause) *surveys his kingdom, then leans back into microphone* I DON'T MIND CLEANING UP AFTER 'EM, BUT DON'T DO A LOT OF TALKING. (cheers) *stands back up, looks around, makes a goofy smile* Am I wrong, Virginia? (crowd shouts "No!") *gives an ominous look at the last second*

This is the "Lightworker" who will "help us usher in a new way of being on the planet" and "actually help us evolve." "Our product out of the all-knowing field of intelligence." "Not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair ... able to call us back to our highest selves." "An inspired leader ... calling America to exercise the noblest human qualities on behalf of the common good." "Blessed and highly favored... divinely ordered." "A tongue dipped in the unvarnished truth." The Solar Hero. Son of Promise, Child of Hope. Postpartisan, postracial, above petty bickering and divisiveness, the only one who can fix our souls.

Color me unimpressed.

Hey, Obama administration! New rule: Every time you complain about the existence of the First Amendment, you get slapped with a fish.


(Thanks to Publia for the fish stamp)

Incidentally, the buzz now is that the whole "report your naysaying neighbors to the government" thing might just be illegal. Like, Nixon-level illegal.

Speaking of which, couldn't this easily be an Obama campaign commercial?



Oh, I almost forgot: I think the White House Office of Fishiness deserves a theme song. I suggest Fish Picker.

Three things that are ticking me off, one of which is less important than the other two

• Laugh at her all you want, but Sarah was right about the "death panels." Particularly of note: In England, doctors would indeed have begged her to abort Trig so as to save the government some money.
• SEIU sucks. And the media sucks for downplaying their suckitude.
• This is the less important one. Regis is going to host some episodes of Millionaire! Yay, right? Wrong. It's not really Regis. Instead of making it a real ten-year anniversary tribute, they're keeping all the lame changes they just made to the daytime version, which I've complained about before. They're keeping the time limits, they're not bringing back 50:50, I'd be willing to bet that they're keeping the money tree going $16,000-$25,000-$50,000-$100,000 instead of the $16,000-$32,000-$64,000-$125,000 it was when Regis hosted, and REGIS IS WEARING WHITE SHIRTS FOR PETE'S SAKE. I appreciate the gesture, but what's the point of bringing back Regis if he's just going to be Meredith?

Proud to be "fishy"

The following is the text of an email I just sent to flag@whitehouse.gov. I considered attaching the full text of the healthcare bill just to clog up their servers, but I preferred being able to pretend that someone might actually read it. They probably won't, of course, so I'm putting it up here for you to read.

How bitingly ironic that the email address for this is "flag". What used to be our symbol of freedom is now where we report those who refuse to toe the Ministry of Truth's party line. Well, I'm here to report myself. I have been critical of the administration's statements about healthcare reform. I have watched and believed gratuitously edited videos like this one, and I have even shown them to others, such as on this blog post.

If you are indeed using this to compile an enemies list, as many have speculated, I would be honored to be added to that list, right underneath the entrepreneurs and small business owners, the executives who dare to have private jets as luxurious as Nancy Pelosi's, the people who ask real questions at town hall meetings, the smokers who fund S-CHIP, and Glenn Beck. If you are instead using this to correspond with Americans and clarify the finer points of the administration's healthcare policies, I would like that too, but only if you can be honest about it. Until you can admit that President Obama has clearly stated on multiple occasions that his ultimate goal is a single-payer system, we have nothing to discuss.

I am a registered Republican, as you probably assumed, but this is only because the last time I checked, in my district, Democratic primaries were open and Republican primaries were only for registered Republicans, and I want to have both options open. I identify as a libertarian independent. Republicans have been accused of being obstructionists because they are trying to defeat your healthcare plan instead of talking about it. But you have not left them any other option. You will not tell the truth about what the bill is -- a "trojan horse" for single-payer, and you will not allow any time to discuss it anyway. Just like the budget, the stimulus, the bailouts, and the Patriot Act, there is no time for debate. Until you can be honest about what you're advocating and allow time to debate it, we have no option but to obstruct.

Why is this so urgent? Healthcare has been screwed up for a while now, so why is it that we must immediately pass this specific reform proposal before anyone has time to read it? Was President Obama being an obstructionist when, as Senator, he opposed every healthcare reform bill proposed by Republicans in the admittedly short time he served there? Or was he sticking to his principles, wrong as they may be?

So, what's everyone else waiting for? Turn yourself in!

Excuse me while I OD on the late 90s

Well, just on this one TV show from the late 90s for now.




That's right, Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego. Not Where in the World. I was too young and TV-less at the time to catch that one. This was all I needed.



Lynne Thigpen was awesome. Cerebral hemorrhages suck.



Seriously, I could listen to this song all day. Even Especially the Quebec version.



Like I said, I never saw World, so I don't know this one, but if you do, you'll probably enjoy this live performance of the World theme by Rockapella:



Hey, anyone remember Puzzle Place?



That enough videos for you?