The LLama Butchers

What the.....

Someone found us today on google looking for "Omorosa smiley emoticon"

For the love of gawd, NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Kerry said WHAT?

Please, please, please, PLEASE!

UPDATE: The "Torch" Song is playing rather loudly these days. The funny thing about this article is how all these leading Democratic "strategists" point all sorts of fingers as to who is to blame that Kerry is doing so poorly and Bush is surviving---what these geniuses haven't figured out is that they've set up a circular firing squad, and that Bush has hit the deck.... About five years from now they'll have a seminar at the K School and figure it out. That's Adlai Stevenson political smarts at work for ya.

Why you should never trust a monkey with your heart

Our old pal INDCent Bill tipped us off to a "make fun of Frank J." contest going on over at The Frank J. Fan Club.

We all know of Frank J.'s thing about monkeys, and his even bigger thing about Glenn Reynolds. But did you know he's even bigger thing about David Hasselhoff?

I didn't think so (mainly because we are making that up).

Anyhoo, here's our entry into the contest:

Because I have a reputation to protect

To blot out any sneaking suspicions possibly planted by my post below about Umberto Eco, I just wanted to post the following two things side by side and ask, "does this creep anybody else out?"







I mean, I knew David Hasselhoff was a god, if only a back-waxed one, in Taiwan and Germany, but in ancient Rome?

AIIEEE!! Another Diane Chambers Moment!

Sheila, who probably thinks I'm stalking her by now (and if so, it's her own damn fault for posting such interesting material), asks which books you compulsively re-read and why.

I remember one time causing a fellow lawyer's jaw to swing down into his Adam's-apple by bringing up this topic. He said, "You mean, you read books more than once?"

Well, yes. In some cases, lots and lots and lots of times. Not only is there the pleasure of revisiting the book itself. There is also a kind of anticipatory delight when you first sit down with your old favorite once again, coupled with a vague sense of guilt that you Really Ought To Be Reading Something New.

As to why I reread some books compulsively, well that's tricky. I'd say there are a variety of reasons, dependent on subject matter, plot, style, craftsmanship, "message" and a variety of other factors. It would be interesting to develop them, but I really don't have time now.

A short list of books that I read regularly (say 2 or 3 times a year) would include, on a non-exclusive basis, at least the following:

-Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series;

-J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy;

-P.J. O'Rourke's All The Trouble In The World, Give War A Chance, Holidays In Hell and Parliament of Whores;

-Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honor Trilogy, Scoop, A Handful of Dust and Decline and Fall;

-P.G. Wodehouse's Summer Lightning, Money In The Bank, Hot Water and Uneasy Money;

-C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia (with or without kiddies present);

-James Thurber's My Life And Welcome To It;

-John Mortimer's Rumpole stories.

And in the spirit of full disclosure, I have to confess that I frequently read Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising and Hunt for Red October. This is one of those examples that makes the "why" question so difficult to answer completely and succinctly. Outside his obvious grasp of military matters, I think Clancy is an awful writer. His characters are cardboard, his non-military dialogue (especially in his love scenes) is cringe-making and his name and place dropping, although encyclopedic, is adolescent. Nonetheless, I enjoy the books because I like a good story about Our Boys taking down Ivan. Go figure.

So. How about you?

YIPS from Steve: Okay, I'm going to lose all the fan base I've developed posting such erudite things as the poster of the new CHiPs Movie, starring Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Richard Simmons, but the book I've re-read the most is easily The Name of the Rose. I've been through it about eleven times---it's the same paperback copy, and after the second or third time I started writing on the inside cover when I did it. I've only seen part of the movie once, and just walked away from it (and not just because of Christian Slater's ugly teenage butt). Second place (other than the complete corpus of Calvin & Hobbes, Bloom County, the Far Side, and the Dave Barry books which all don't count because it's just assumed everybody does that) would be Dune, but that would only be five or six and that would have been about ten years ago. Willow's going to come and dump patcholi on my head for admitting this, but I've only been through LOTR once, and that was just a couple of years ago. Most novels that I like I usually go through again at least once (except for the Scarpetta books, which are great the first time but like smoking fiberglass a second). One that stood out in my mind this way was a book called Fatherland, that came out about a dozen years ago, a sort of alt-history (before the term was popular) murder mystery set in Nazi Germany in 1963. That book just freaked the bejeebus out of me at the time, and still does. Good alt-history can do that. I'm looking forward to going through Cryptonomicon again. Clancy alas I have to put in the "like smoking used fiberglass" category. But who am I to criticize, since I love reading the John Weisman novels....

Good biographies are like that too. One that keeps getting better with multiple re-readings is William Manchester's second (and sadly last) volume in his biography of Winston Churchill, Alone. What a simply stunning read.

One book I would love to re-read is Christopher Buckley's Thank You For Smoking; I would love to except I loaned my copy to a certain, ahem, fellow Llamabutcher who has yet to return it....

Java U

Now here's a great idea - coffee school!

Think about this:

"Class, for your lab work today, I want you to brew and consume coffee."

"Hey, Joe! C'mon over to Delta Tau tonight! We're doin' espresso shots! Par-TEEE!!!"

And the school saves an enormous amount on overhead because it doesn't have to furnish beds - everyone is so jacked up on the caffeine that they never go to sleep!

I guess the downside would be in football - the QB would have such a bad case of the shakes that he'd fumble every snap.

Heh.

(The subject of this gentle ribbing brought to you again courtesy of Lynn, who puts together such interesting multi-link posts that I can just float around them like a hummingbird, gathering all sorts of material.)

Harpsichord Music

Here is a nice little review by Ionarts of a recent harpsichord concert here in Your Nation's Capitol. (HT to Lynn.)

I don't recognize some of the composers included in the concert, especially the Americans, but they sound quite interesting from a curiosity stand-point. I sight-read the Handel d minor suite mentioned every now and again, although Handel does not translate very well to the piano. I also occasionally take a whack at Couperin, but his music fares even worse in translation.

One thing that has always got my goat was the performance of baroque keyboard music on a piano, particularly by professionals in live concerts and in recordings. A few years back, the local public radio station got it into their collective heads that such music is more "accessible" when heard on a piano. So now whenever they play a Bach keyboard concerto, for example, you can forget about hearing a harpsichord.

Feh, says I. Baroque keyboard music was written with the plucking, almost percussive tonal quality of the harpsichord (and its cousins like the cembalo, etc.) in mind. The piano, using a hammer technique for tone production, has none of that about it, making baroque pieces sound mushy where they should be sharp, clear and crisp. Now I play them on a piano because I don't have any choice in the matter. But I feel there is no excuse for professionals to do so, given the easy availability of good quality instruments. (Actually, I've a sneaking suspicion that many pros prefer to play them on the piano because, as the article notes, there is much more room for histrionic grandstanding and other forms of flagrant self-promotion. But showing off on stage is a topic for another day.)

Friday Afternoon Silliness

Okay, everyone else is playing this game, so here goes:

1. Grab the nearest CD.
2. Put it in your CD-Player (or start your mp3-player, I-tunes, etc.).
3. Skip to Song 3 (or load the 3rd song in your 3rd playlist)
4. Post the first verse in your journal along with these instructions. Don't name the band, nor the album-title.

And here is the result:

Laocoon and her two sons
Pressured storm, tried to move
No other more, emotion bound
Martyred, misconstrued

(Actually, the CD is in my car down in the building's parking garage, but I figure that's good enough.)

Should be an easy one to figure out.

HT to Tainted Bill, among dozens of others.

UPDATE from Steve: Here goes....

hips like cinderalla
most B avenue good shame (?)
talking sweet about nothing
cookie out bit you (?)

TAME TAME TAME TAME (for years I thought it was PAIN, but no)

makin good friends with you
when you shaking your good frame
following your face in those bad shoes
something something LACTOSE

TAME TAME TAME TAME

a-huh a-huh a-huh a-huh

TAME TAME TAME TAME

Gratuitous Blogging on Blogging

Allison at An Unsealed Room has a nifty metaphor to explain the difference between journalism and blogging.

I think the idea can be stretched even farther to include any amateur blogger who makes his or her living by some other form of writing. After all, as a lawyer I face many of the same pressures and constraints on my professional writing as does a journalist like Allison. And I'm sure as hell not writing about the heartbreak of radio spectrum reallocation and the fierce rivalry for satellite orbital slots out of any burning love for the subject matter - I'm doing it because I get paid to.

On the other hand, when in the Butcher's Shop.....Well Lawd knows we're up for just about anything!

The funny thing is that while I like to maintain that I would keep writing about whatever strikes my fancy no matter whether anyone actually reads it or not, the delight I get in seeing a comment left after one of my posts or a link from another site or a steady rise in traffic renders this notion a bunch of horse-hockey. But then again, I think this is more akin to trying to win your way into a circle of friends than it is trying to sell your product to an audience.

HT to Sheila.

Jeez-Loueeze!

How does this man do it? Bill gets his 200th Insta-link in about 72 hours!

Just don't be surprised when the Insta-Wife shows up on your doorstep in a fit of jealous rage and kicks your ass!

Ted "Takin' It To The Airwaves" Koppel

Anybody out there reeeaaally believe that Teddy-Boy's planned reading of the names of U.S. casualties in Iraq on the air tonight is not politically motivated? Wha - you do? Do your parents know you're online, young man?

Anyway, why don't we let the Big Guy tell us what he was thinking himself.

Money quote:

My executive producer Leroy Sievers remembered, and asked me if I remembered and I did, a two-page spread in Life magazine back in 1969 on the Vietnam war dead for one week and the impact; he reminded me of the impact that that had had. And said, why don't we try to do something similar?

Gee. No political motivation there.....

Also, some advice to Teddy on the other criticism that this is a cheap ratings stunt. Fer chrissake, if you're gonna fib about something, at least make it plausible:

But quite apart from that, it seems to me absolutely silly that anyone would suggest that we were doing this for ratings. In point of fact, we were sitting around (a) unaware that it was sweeps, that's how dumb we are at "Nightline."

Not as dumb as you evidently think readers of this interview are.

Go read the whole thing. Frankly, I think this whole business is pretty cheesy and I certainly don't intend to watch the program (well, I don't anyway). As for others who do watch it, the question will be whether they consider those soldiers killed to be heroes or victims. I know which one I think.

HT to the Mox.

New Literature Imitates Bad Science Fiction

Glenn is recommending a new novel depicting an alternate history in which Rome never fell. (I fail to see what Moses has to do with it, btw.)

Funnily enough, I'm pretty sure I've seen this idea somewhere before.

Change your summer travel plans now!

Lawren Mills (who should be studying for finals but is instead blogging) links to the fabulous news that a museum in St. Petersburg is putting Rasputin's schlong on display.

Unfortunately, that's St. Petersburg Russia, but you can imagine how that would have helped the city by the bay compete with Orlando.

What's distinctive about the story is the claim of, er, how do I put this delicately? Ah yes, size.

No word on whether Ron Jeremy will now be appointed Ambassador to Russia.

Friday morning SMACK-down

Watch out, mon! Our pal Willow is opening up a can of Mega-whup ass over at Whomping Willow, with lots of casualties, including innocent bystander INDCent Bill. Something about defending the honor of patchouli-stanked art students.....

Who new blogging could be such a bloodsport?

PS--confidential to Willow: You are our choice in the FrankJ LMAO Hawk-girl t-shirt contest, but to be perfectly honest you could have sown the competition up if you had put a little StarTrek Comm badge on the outfit. I mean, after, Glenn Reynolds is a judge and all.....



(How's that for completely self-absorbed and inbred?)

Spirit of America Update - Thank You

We received the following email from Jim Hake, founder of Spirit of America:

Greetings,

Today we delivered to Marines at Camp Pendleton, CA the equipment that will be used to equip Iraqi-owned and operated television stations in Al Anbar province. On Saturday, May 1 the Marines will fly the equipment from March Air Force Base to Iraq. This initiative and the original request is described here: http://www.spiritofamerica.net/req_12/request.html. We try hard to provide rapid response to requests we receive. Here is the timeline of this project:

April 8: SoA receives Marines request for television equipment.
April 14: SoA posts the request on our Web site and begins fundraising.
April 29: SoA delivers $82,687 of TV studio equipment to Camp Pendleton.
April 29: Marines pack donated equipment and prepare for shipment to Iraq.
May 1: Marines fly equipment to Iraq.

This rapid turnaround makes a difference in Iraq.

********

Please check Friday's Wall St. Journal, Dan Henninger talks about Spirit of America in his column on the editorial. You can find it online here: http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/

We have received $1,532,931 in donations in the last two weeks. Contributions from 7,438 donors have been made to every request and every area of Spirit of America's operations. I can't begin to describe the effects this generosity will have on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan - both in helping the people of those countries and in supporting the hard work of those serving there.

As encouraging as the last 14 days have been, I believe we are just at the beginning of seeing homefront support for America's efforts in Iraq. We're fortunate to receive emails, letters and handwritten notes from our donors that thank us for finally getting the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution. Since 9/11 many have felt helpless. That no longer need be the case.

You can find more on what's happened and what next at: http://www.spiritofamerica.net/blog. As promised, we have an accounting there of how the money was spent on the first phase of the Marines TV request.

All the best,
Jim Hake

On top of that, we received word from fearless leader Kevin that the combined forces of the three blogger coalitions - The Victory Coalition, the Castle Aaarrghhh Fighting Fusileers and the Liberty Alliance - managed to meet our goal of raising $50,000 for the cause.

Well done, everybody!

Uh, you mean that cheesy hot-coroner tee-vee show starring the dead chick from Law & Order?

NE Republican has got the goods on the other crossing Jordan story, of the AQ dog that didn't bark: the thwarted AQ gas attack in Amman.

This is why the 9/11 Commission is such a cruel joke: it's not just the now irredeemable hack Bob Kerrey appearing on Comedy Central to get pointers from Jon Stewart on interviewing the President. It's the simple fact of asking what if Atta and his AQ buddies were thwarted on the tenth or early in the eleventh---how would the left have responded? Racist discrimination against Arab men? Where was the law-enforcement violation?

Here you have a bona fide attack thwarted and not a peep from the American press.

Pathetic.

With Friends Like These

Blogs for Bush (which the Llamas have recently joined) notes that the WaPo editorial page is once more putting the boot to Kerry's backside.

Heh, indeed.

Maginot Candidate Watch

We may have to switch metaphors very soon, because a certain haughty, French-looking Massachusetts liberal, who by the way served in Vietnam, is beginning to sound an aweful lot like Howard Dean.

Stand by for a "Yeeeeagggghhh!!!" Moment.

HT to Taranto.

Refreshing Candor From The World Of Natural Disaster

Big Llama Yips! go to Gary Pearl, one of the executive producers of the upcoming earthquake miniseries 10.5 for stating publicly in response to those who get their shorts in a twist over the flick's scientific accuracy, "Lighten up, Francis, it's a movie."

Too bad the producers of this upcoming doomfest can't get into the same spirit.

Of course, no one has successfully figured out how to blame George Bush for earthquakes yet. Have they?

SPIRIT OF AMERICA - UPDATE

Folks, we're into the final eight or so hours of the drive (extended from yesterday). According to the latest update, the combined blogger forces have raised a total of $45,068.83. This is fantastic! But here's the thing: Why not make it a round $50K?

Remember, this is all for a very worthy cause. Also, our various fellow bloggers have rounded up a fantastic variety of cool stuff that could be yours for contributing.

So go, already. Donate now!

Yip! Yip! Yip!

Right Wing Babes

Frank J. has posted the bios and pics of the contestants in his IMAO T-Shirt Babe Competition. Go on over and, heh, read the entries. (Like you're not going to click straight to the pictures, you geeky horndogs!)

Judging is this weekend, with results posted Monday.

All we can say is Good Luck and Llama Yips! to our pal Willow!

Gosh, those new "truth in publishing" laws really sting!

Some fun weekend reading around Rancho Non-sequitur

Afternoon Snark

A hi-larious parody interview with Noam Chomsky, brought to you by Protein Wisdom.

All this, in turn, brought to you courtesy of the Pious Agnostic.

Gratuitous Classical Civ Posting

Now this is the sort of thing that will always immediately grab my attention: Ghost of a Flea has a piece up on new efforts to understand how triremes worked. The plan apparently is to emphasize efforts to collect examples of Greek and Persian remains to try and figure out why modern recreations cannot perform to what are believed to be the ancient technical specs. (I dimly remember from other readings that much is made of statements by authors such as Herodotus and Thucydides about triremes traveling from point A to point B from one sunrise to the next. The estimated speed of such a ship on such a journey has been calculated to be something between 7 and 10 knots, I think, which is really booking for an oared ship.)

Be sure to check out the photos of the Greek Navy's very own trireme, the Olympias, whose existence is certainly very cool, but might also go a long way in explaining why Greece is not exactly a naval powerhouse in the Eastern Med. Also, if you're really feeling like a classical civ nerd, check out this dissertation on ancient trireme construction funding. (Okay, I only looked at the table of contents.)

HT to Rocket Jones.

Ouch, That's Gonna Hurt!

BTW, have you noticed the blogads for "Quent Cordair Fine Art" running over at Glenn's and elsewhere? Right now, there is one up for a piece called "Self-Made Man." (I'd link it, but can't owing to Internet filtering problems here.) Suffice to say, the way that guy's got his chisel positioned and his hammer poised makes me wince every time I see it. Certainly worthy of a Darwin Awards Honorable Mention.

Space: The No Noogie Frontier

Here is a sure-fire way to keep Jim Kirk from ever joining Starfleet, instead staying in Riverside, Iowa to raise hogs, brew his own apple-jack and raise hell at Shriner's conventions.

Ben Affleck, son of David Hasselhoff?

My analysis of this nascent threat to the republic is up over at Truly Bad Films.

Let's just say this gets mentioned as a possibility:

Ray of Sunshine

The New England Republican does much to ameliorate at least one source of my crabbiness this morning. Thanks!

The Llama Butchers - Today With Free Side of X-tra Curmudgeon Fries!

I apologize if I'm in something of a foul mood today. Go to Drudge and you'll see today is one of the Press's Blizt Bush days. That always makes me crabby. Then note the plain wickedness discussed in the two posts below. Enough to rile anybody.

But on top of that, I spent forty-five minutes this morning practically coughing up a lung. This has been going on for better than a week now. At first I thought it was just allergies. Then I thought it might be a sinus infection. Now I'm thinking tuberculosis. Whatever it is, it leaves me feeling less than sunny.

Oh, and memo to the woman who was driving the green Suburban with Maryland tags down the GW Parkway about 7:30 this morning: Madam - people can see you!

Today's Choice Cut

Peggy Noonan has a piece up today that starts out innocently enough as a review of a new production of "Raisin In The Sun" featuring Puff Daddy (or whatever he calls himself) and then morphs into withering commentary on a horrifying aspect of our collective social conscience. What have we become and what can we do about it? Peggy has a small suggestion. Go and read.

Un-Effin-Bulievable!

Want to start your morning with a blood-pressure spike? Want that blue backgrounder on your computer screen to go red? Want to hurl your coffee cup against the far wall and kick the cat down the stairs? Then read this unbelievable piece of filth penned by one Rene Gonzales for the Daily Collegean. The title - "Pat Tillman Was Not A Hero: He Got What Was Coming To Him" is probably the least offensive part of the screed.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph.

Well. I don't have time to take this bit of pond scum apart. But fortunately, I don't have to - Michele has already done it.

It's not your machine!

The server where all your Llamabutcher graphics are ensconsed like little stowaways seems to be down at the moment. Sorry!

Blogistan Institute of Technology, Department of Forensic Moonbatological Studies

Outakes from the INDC/PBS Special "Get a Life on Earth", the tragic story of when moonbatis oberlinis escapes from its natural environment and accidently tries to take over the set of "Walking Tall II."

Serious thoughts

We've been heady on the snark as of late, in an almost Bugs Bunny-ian fit of contempt and defiance as a means to address serious times.

But here are two rather serious and absolutely vital posts, from Wretchard over at Belmont Club, that shows why Blogistan is good for more than Moonbat Jokes and Olson sister parodies:

the first is on contrasting Vietnam with Algeria, and how America has adapted strategically and tactically to fight in the Arab Way of War;

the other looks at the ongoing Battle of Fallujah from a tactical perspective with some solid conclusions that don't fit the Nightline/NPR view of the world because they are based in, oh, a sound understanding of doctrine as well as history.

Yet Another List

The NY Times film critic puts together the 1000 Best Movies Ever Made. As is always the case, arbitrariness reigns. For instance, how is it that "Total Recall" made the list but "The Great Escape" didn't? An outrage, I tells ya!

Release the hounds!

HT to Lawren, who should be studying.

Cats and Dogs Living Together!

It's official, all three Blogger Alliances raising money for Spirit of America have joined forces. The goal? To hit $50,000 by midnight tonight, which is now just under eight hours away. How close are we? Pretty damn close - somewhere in the high 30's by the latest info I have.

So you know what to do: give, give, give!

Why I Love Doing What I Do

Don't ever say the FCC isn't looking out for all of us, even murderous Communist dictators. Here is the text of a recent order in which the Commission fined a Miami radio station $4000 because of a prank phone call a couple of its jocks pulled on Fidel Castro and then broadcast over the air. (The stunt violated FCC rules because you cannot record a telephone conversation for broadcast without first informing the person with whom you're speaking that they will be put on the air.)

So how are the jocks planning to respond to the forfeiture order? Pay it in pennies!

The FCC generally only investigates this sort of thing when someone complains. I'd really really like to know who the wanker is who believed making Fidel look like a fool was sufficient cause for filing a complaint and bringing the gov'mint down on the radio station.

Welcome to the Department of Forensic Moonbatology, Blogistan Institute of Technology

Welcome visitors from INDC's Documentary on Migrating Moonbats in the Wild, aka the "Get a Life on Earth" science series.

The Llamabutchers are the proud musical producers behind Dr. Werner Van Schtrudenbacher's recent phenomenal musicological discovery, The New Chomsky Minstrels:



Given the fabulous success of Moonbat music, in conjunction with Al-Jazeera records, the Llamabutchers and INDC Bill are coming out with some all new recordings from Dr. Van Schtrudenbacher: look soon for "Meet the Moonbats," "Comrade Pepper's Lonely Moonbat Band," not to mention the Moonbat-boy band "38 theses on Feuerbach."

We're also the executive producers for the new tee-vee sensation taking Al-Jazeera by storm:



That's the Llamabutchers---cover the waterfront so you don't have to (and coming back with the rats all nicely roasted on a stick, with a nice cilantro sauce)

Don't Pop The Champagne Corks Yet

Glenn is cautioning Republicans not to get too cocky about Kerry's recent attempts to play Russian Roulette with an automatic pistol. He also has some thoughts on the advantages to Bush of getting rid of Cheney and subbing in Condi instead, claiming Cheney is a liability to the ticket.

Let me throw this open to discussion (That means you, Professor): I have always believed that the significance of VP choice is wildely overrated. Where, in the past 30 or 40 years, has it really made that much difference? Quayle? Ferrarro? Algore? Am I correct in believing that whether Cheney stays or goes is really not going to make that much of a difference this time around?

Famous Last Words

Having written the post below rallying us all to keep a smile on our faces, I just received word from home that the compressor on our air-conditioner is, in fact, shot and has to be replaced to the tune of $2,500.

Fortunately, that's not politics. So I can say this without violating my own principles: Son of a BITCH!

Crankiness With A Smile

Joseph Epstein could very well be an honorary Llama Butcher. In a piece in today's Wall Street Journal, he instructs conservatives to cheer up. (The piece is available in the On-Line Journal, but it's subscription only. I saw it in the Dead Tree edition.)

Here is a sample:

[A conservative] takes the world as given, a place always full of sin, silliness, and a rich surplus of stupidity - but also much goodness and mirth. The conservative fancies he views the world, as the philosopher says, as in itself it really is. Utopia is not his idea of a good time; it is not, for him, an idea at all but an illusion. If he is sensible, he understands the need to alter social arrangements that are cruel or grossly unfair. But the installation of perfection in a patently permanently imperfect world is not something he has signed on to deliver. This in itself ought to bring a smile to his face.

Buh-LIEVE me, it does. And I like to think that is a guiding philosophy 'round here. Oh sure, we occasionally get very serious indeed. But for the most part, we like to think of ourselves as a pair of Happy Warriors in the great cultural and political wars of our time.

Always remember, people: Have some fun with it.

Yip! Yip!

FREE MONTESSORI!

Not exactly "Free Mumia!" but unlike Mumia, free Montessori is coming soon to Chicago.

Although this should thrill Robbo's dearly betrothed, won't this reduce the cachet of Montessori among the goat-cheese, chablis, and Volvo crowd?

Mid-Day Diversion

Looking for something to do at lunchtime on a glorious day like this? Why not try squirrel fishing?

HT to Jonah.

Akalaka-CHING! Update

Looks like my old crew split a pair of races with arch-rival Trin-Face this past weekend, with the 1st Eight losing by two seconds and the 2nd Eight finishing up an undefeated season with a nine second win. (Forget about the Varsity Four - which lost again. It was never competitive.)

Overall, 7-3 and 8-0 records are not too shabby at all. I can't believe next weekend is the New Englands regatta already. Good luck to Wescrew!

Bad Flashbacks....

Have you checked out Bill's outstanding field work, complete with photos, on the Seasonal Moonbat IMF Migration? I felt like I was looking at the courtyard of my undergrad dorm from 18 years ago right down to the Che Berets, the aggressive hairstyling and the Soviet flag. I swear I even recognized a few of these people.

By now, I'm sure a few of you are thinking, "Jim, why were you there?" Well, the answer is really pretty simple: Everyone in WestCo mouthed platitudes about the joys of Diversity, but they were really all the same: same politics, same music, same drugs, same clothing, same damn' everything. As a stolid conservative, anti-P.C. academic traditionalist and high-culture snob, I was the only person in the asylum who really was different. And they hated that. Which is why I stayed.

Heh.

Well, THAT stinks

I was going to needle Rob by linking to an old classic story in the Onion:

Mom Finds Out About Blog
MINNEAPOLIS, MN—In a turn of events the 30-year-old characterized as "horrifying," Kevin Widmar announced Tuesday that his mother Lillian has discovered his weblog. "Apparently, Mom typed...
3944 | 12 November 2003 | News

but the bastages now have a subscription requirement to get into their archives! Damn capitalism......

Cackling sounds

Hugh Hewitt on the impending breakup of the Kerry Nomination.

This has been such a bizarre year, one wonders why the heck not?

UPDATE: What do the British Bookies have to say about Kerry NOT getting the nomination?

Over at Tradesports.com the Kerry getting the nomination contract has started to slip, but not in a way that I'd call significant. It's till trading at $96, but there's a queue of "bids" much lower:



The way Tradesports anticipated the collapse of Dean-O well before the public opinion polls, I'm following this like a hawk. This market is a measurement of what people think is going to happen, not what they want to happen, and therefore is fundamentally different than a typical poll. But that's it's value---precisely because there is some serious money to be made here if you sell Kerry at $97 and he doesn't get the nomination (and if he does, you're only out $3 plus fees), this will focus the revealing of information much better than any poll.

If Kerry drops below $94, he's in serious trouble.

And somewhere, sitting in traffic in south Burlington VT, cursing at Air America while on his way to the CVS, Howard Dean is laughing....

It's The End of the WUUUUUURLLLDDD!!!!

Apparently, the Greenie Fringe, aided and abetted by Al "Mr. Kyoto" Gore, are going to try and make some political hay out of the upcoming release of Fox's The Day After Tomorrow, the tale of insta-enviro-apocalypse-that-is-All-Our-Fault.

Well, good luck with that. I think most people's reaction on coming out of the theatre is not going to be "Could this really happen? What can we do to stop it? Let's go home and study the isssues of Global Warming right now!" No, it's be something more like, "That scene with the twisters in Los Angeles was way cool, Dude!"

The hoopla reminds me a bit of what happened when The Day After, a movie about nuclear holocaust, came to television in 1983. I was a fresher at The Glorious Worker's Soviet of Middletown at the time and vividly remember the pre-airing frenzy. Counselling Hot Lines were set up. Discussion and Support Groups were formed. The school infirmary stocked up on sedatives. In short, everyone was expecting (and looking forward to) mass panic - and a corresponding outburst of fury against Reagan's aggressive nuclear stance towards the Soviets in Europe.

Waaaaal.......

We all gathered in one of the lounges for the Big Event. Everyone fidgeted nervously until the Big One was dropped, and there was a reasonable amount of shock and awe as Kansas City was wiped off the map. But later on, well, it's always a sign you've lost your audience when people start critiquing performances. And giggling. By the end of the evening, there was a good deal of laughter, as the movie devolved into a stock tale of post-disaster survival.

Mind you, this was in the Den of the Moonbats, too. And I never did hear any tales of suicide or Crisis Hotline phonebanks being swamped by distraught viewers from anywhere else either.

I guess if you're hoping to rally a flagging political campaign via a cheesy disaster flick, you've got some serious problems.

One more than back to work

Darwin Awards, Gaza Division


Thugs try to mug a suicide bomber. As they say at Fark, Hilarity Ensues....

Final Score: Humanity 3, Muggers & bombers 0

HT to master of all that is evil yet funny Laurence Simon, lunatic in chief at Amish Tech Support

Cool.

Read James Dunnigan's StrategyPage article on sniper and sharpshooter operations in Iraq and their growing importance from a tactical standpoint.

HT to James Joyner who calls snipers "the ultimate smart weapon."

BUSH LIED!

Except that he didn't.

Oh, those WMD.....

HT to the Omniscient One.

Another Book Meme

I know, I know. But I can't resist. Here is another set of book-y questions to ponder:

Q - What did you last read?

I think the last book I finished was C.S. Forster's Ship of the Line, one of the Hornblower series.

Q - What are you reading now?

Teddy Roosevelt's History of the Naval War of 1812. I've managed to slog through the first part, which is a long statistical account of shipping tonnage, comparative weaponry and manpower and the like, and am now getting into the good parts - descriptions of actual combat.

Q - What do you plan to read next?

Some fiction. I don't know what, exactly, but it has to be something I either haven't read before or else read so long ago that I've forgotten about it. I have a big collection of Joseph Conrad that I picked up at a library sale last year - perhaps I'll dip into that. I never did read Lord Jim and I should.

Q - What would you like to read, but don't have?

Victor David Hanson's Ripples of Battle and Florence King's STET, Dammit! Despite everything short of outright pleading over the holidays and my birthday, nobody gave me either one of these.

Q - What would you recommend for others to read?

Well that depends, of course, on what interests them. Just a few authors that come to mind (in no particular order and on no particular subject): Patrick O'Brian, P.J. O'Rourke, C.S. Lewis, Evelyn Waugh, P.G. Wodehouse, Tom Wolfe.

Q - What's your favorite book from childhood?

The one I remember most vividly is Rascal by Sterling North. It was an autobiographical story about a boy who adopts a raccoon cub. When the raccoon grows up, the boy has to let him go. I used to cry bitterly at the ending, but read the book over and over.

Q - What book last made you laugh?

Christopher Buckley's Little Green Men. Wicked.

Q - What book last made you weep?

Other than noted above, I honestly don't remember. I don't tend to get weepy about books.

Q - What book last made you angry?

That depends - angry at the author or angry about the subject matter? I got angry with Patrick O'Brian towards the end of the Aubrey/Maturin series because he gratuitously killed off several major characters and because the last couple of books became increasingly formulaic and melancholy. I got angry with Douglas Adams because the last two books of the Hitchhiker's Guide series ought never to have been written. As for subject matter, well the thing that seems to get my goat the most is studies of the deplorable mess our educational system has become, particularly accounts of the P.C. cancer that has swept Academia. A number of books on this subject by Dinesh D'Souza, Roger Kimbell and Nat Hentoff, for example, regularly make my blood boil.

Thanks for your indulgence. This was all Lynn's fault.

Victory Coalition Update!

First Allahpundit, now Lileks has thrown in with the Victory Coalition!

Now, for those keeping score at home:

People who don't want you to contribute to the Victory Coalition:
Chirac, Kofi Anan, the Baldwin Brothers (with the possible exception of Skippy Baldwin, who is actually quite reasonable), James Brolin, John Kerry, Muqtada al-Sadr, and Ayatollah Bill.

People who want you to contribute to the Victory Coalition:

James Lileks.

'Nuff said.

Support the Victory Coaltion today!

UPDATE!: Add Stephen Green to the Victory Coalition! Neener!

Gratuitous Domestic Blogging (TM) - Parallel Tracks Dept.

Eloise the Spitbull has a post up that comes awefully close to perfectly describing life with the Llama-ettes. It's comforting, in a way, to know that we're not the only ones dealing with this sort of thing.

You can always tell when the four year old needs to make a pit stop because she suddenly starts trying to pretend she's not really there, frequently going so far as to stand stock still or hide behind whatever is available. And it usually takes about ten minutes' worth of commands like "Go.....POTTY!" to get her to finally come to roost. The six year old isn't so bad and is pretty self-sufficient. The two year old is still in diapers and I shudder to think about having to go through potty-training one more time.

I'm always reminded of one of Letterman's old Top Ten Lists entitled "Children's Books You Won't See," or something like that. My favorite among them was: Daddy Drinks Because You Cry.

Llamabutcher Science Channel

Here's your "spray coffee out your nose onto the computer screen" pointer for the day:

Bill from INDC Journal has the pics + commentary on the Seasonal Moonbat IMF Migration Study he conducted last weekend in DC.

Not to toot our own horns, but the expose features some Llambutcher art, to boot:

Punching out

What a day. I actually got a ton done in the grading department--got my senior's grades in on time, and have been attacking the pile of all the others.

Also had time for a little diversion photoshopping some Moonbat album covers for our pal Bill over at INDC Journal. Let's just say MeatLoaf never looked so good.

WE HAVE A WINNER!

A-double-lizzle is cheesed off, as usual, and has some great suggestions for the new Iraqi flag: the third one is priceless.

UPDATE! NEWS FLASH!

You know things are gettin' weird when the creator of worlds himself is shilling for the Victory Coalition!

Evening Reading

Want to blow that pre-dinner martini all over your library in rage and disgust? Then read this update on UNSCAM from James Morrow in the Australian.

And just bear in mind as you read that John Kerry's sole proposal for dealing with Iraq now is preemptive surrender to the U.N.

Via Glenn.

Huge Llama Yips! - Spirit of America Update

Wow. Would you believe it? So far we bloggers have raised almost $30,000.00 to help Spirit of America help the Marines equip Iraqi television stations in order to give the Iraqi people an alternative to Al Jazeera's 24 hour a day reruns of "Fatwa Eye for the Saddam Guy."

Out-bloody-standing!

Remember - the pledge drive goes through midnight Thursday, so there is still plenty of time to chip in. If you haven't yet, go do it. If you have, think about doing it again. And don't forget to check out all the valuable prizes available from the Victory Coalition via Fearless Leaders Michele and Kevin!

Extra Added Bonus! Remember - Donating will cheese off these guys:



Support the Victory Coaltion today!

Yip! Yip! Yip!

Postcards From The Fever Swamps

Every now and again, we like to don fake mustaches and sunglasses and stroll over to the Democratic Underground to see what our friends on the other side are up to.

Apparently, the Dizzy Girl likes to make these incognito trips as well. (How she looks in a mustache is a matter of pure conjecture.) Recently, she came across this delightful entry, in which one "Mo" proceeds to swallow his tongue over the idea of reinstating the draft.

Of course, one of Mo's more serious problems (and he seems to have many) is that he doesn't seem to realize the draft idea didn't exactly originate in the White House. As this article about recent comments by Sen. Chuck Hagel (hardly an Administration Favorite) notes, current legislation to revive the draft was actually introduced in the Senate by Fritz Hollings (D-SC) and in the House by Charlie Rangel (D-NY). That's "D" as in Democrat. Now I admit the VRWC is pretty large, but we haven't quite got those guys to join yet.

Hammer Time

It looks like we really are pulling the trigger in Fallujah. 'Bout bloody time, as Jed Babbin and others have been arguing. Get all the latest from the Command Post, including info on the AC-130 gunship, one serious piece of butt-kicking hardware.

In the meantime, what in the world is going on in Damascus?

Request Post

Fellow LB Steve asked in a comment a while back why I hadn't posted anything yet about new Astro Roger Clemens. Well, let's see.....Last evening I spread slug poison all over my flower garden. Does that count?

Who's Got Your Back, Senator?

The haughty, French-looking Massachusetts liberal, who by the way served in Vietnam, takes one between the shoulder blades from The Village Voice.

Let's go to the tape:

With growing issues over his wealth (which makes fellow plutocrat Bush seem a charity case by comparison), the miasma over his medals and ribbons (or ribbons and medals), his uninspiring record in the Senate (yes war, no war), and wishy-washy efforts to mimic Bill Clinton's triangulation gimmickry (the protractor factor), Kerry sinks day by day. The pros all know that the candidate who starts each morning by having to explain himself is a goner.

Yeeowch! That's gotta smart. The V V's solution?

What to do? Look for the Dem biggies, whoever they are these days, to sit down with the rich and arrogant presumptive nominee and try to persuade him to take a hike. Then they can return to business as usual— resurrecting John Edwards, who is still hanging around, or staging an open convention in Boston, or both.

Does the Voice really think that Edwards would be a viable candidate anymore? If the relentless press hammering of the past couple months has done anything, it has finally started to convince significant numbers of people that we really are in a war and one that we have to win. It has also started to convince people that Bush means to do just that - thus the rise in his poll numbers. John Edwards is a light-weight pretty boy. During the false peace of the 90's he might have stood a chance. But now? I don't think so. People aren't going to change commanders in the middle of a battle just because they want something new and different.

The Voice also looks wistfully at What Might Have Been:

If things proceed as they are, the dim-bulb Dem leaders are going to be very sorry they screwed Howard Dean.

See! Dean didn't self-destruct, he was screwed by the Establishment! If only they'd have let him be, the Glass-Jawed Porcupine would be wiping the floor with Dubya right now!!

The Dems' basic problem now is that they don't have anybody other than Kerry. Hillary's not going to run, not with the economy rising and people getting serious about the war. Aside from her, try thinking fast of another nationally-prominant Dem who could garner enough support to take the convention and plausibly challenge Bush. C'mon........We're waiting.......Time's up! See? I tried that thought experiment myself and the first name that flashed into my mind was Al Gore. When I had finished laughing, I couldn't come up with anyone else. There is simply no Dem bench.

Note to Dems: You took the tags off Kerry. You can't return him to the store now. Too bad.

HT to Jonah.

The Maginot Candidate's Medal Mania

Power Line has a great round up of links on John Kerry's Medal Meltdown, including embarrasing evidence that the "D-Bunker" screenpage dealing with the medal business on Kerry's own website has been fiddled with recently. They also link to Kaus and a must-read John Podheretz NY Post opinion piece.

Go on over and wallow!

Nudge Nudge

The California Milk Processors Board are either a bunch of hopelessly naive dorks or else a gang of filthy pervs. Check out their latest Got Milk? Ad featuring the Olsen Twins complete with, er, milk on their faces and ridiculously suggestive t-shirt.

HT to Bill, who picked it up from Jeff at Shape of Days, both of whom, I am sure, posted the piece as part of their tireless crusade to ensure that our nation's young people get sufficient daily amounts of calcium.

I Had To Ask

My oldest daughter has been talking a lot about the planets lately - how big they are, which ones have rings, how many moons each, gaseous or rock, how long it would take to get to them, etc. (Well, she is very talkative.)

Anyhoo, when she names them, she always sort of slurs over the name of the one just recently discovered - it comes out as "Sedmnff." And for a long while, I couldn't think what she was trying to say.

Well finally, this intrepid Truth Hound had enough. A quick check on Google produced this article, which claims the planet, Sedna, is named after the Inuit goddess of the ocean.

Does nobody who attends to these matters have any aesthetic sense? Here you have a solar system with eight planets named after perfectly good classical Roman gods and goddesses and someone, overcome with PC disease, has to spike the whole thing. You can argue all you want one way or another about religious/cultural inclusiveness and dead white male Euro-centrism. To me, this is just an example of exceedingly bad taste.

While thinking about this, it occurred to me that I don't know more than a handful of moon names, a mere fraction of the 137 or so known moons in the solar system. Here is a chart breaking them down and naming them all. As you'll see, most of the names keep to the classical tradition. The last 12 of Saturn's 31 are an exception - they seem to have been named by someone who likes to dress up as a klingon for Star Trek conventions. And all of Uranus' moons are named after Shakespearean characters for some reason or another.

Thought For The Day

"She liked to think of herself as a straightforward person. 'People always know where they are with me,' she would say rather smugly; it never occurred to her that people might not always want to know such things."

- Barbara Pym, No Fond Return of Love

(Stolen lock, stock and barrel from Terry Teachout.)

More people who don't want you to support the Victory Coalition

Jane Fonda accidently supporting the Victory Coalition because she thinks it's the VC



Support the Victory Coaltion today!

Afternoon blood-pressure medication

Want to get that blood-pressure up without all the troubling of scarfing three baskets of cheese-fries?

Have a read of John Kerry's testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1971.

Remember: There are Important, Smarter-than-Thou, and More Sophisticated Blue-State Volvo-Driving, Goat-cheese eating Metrosexuals who DON'T want you to support the Victory Coalition!

Such as Jacque Chirac



Screw the French while sticking it up Ayatollah Bill's Muqtada! Support the Victory Coaltion today!

Pledge week at Llamabutchers

and unlike other people we could name, we're not raising money to get a swanky new mauve velvet ottoman for the boudoir: we're rattling the tin cup to rattle the cage of al-Jeezera



Michele has all sorts of stuff up for auction, including cool art, fab cooking, and all sorts of goodies. Stop by and help out a great cause.

What I look for in a blog

Further scrolling on Insults Unpunished produced this interesting report on environmental trends in North America. Contrary to what you would think if you read the papers (or heaven forbid talk to your average junior high school science teacher/propagandist) things are improving quite noticeably. This was a trend we discussed in the last few weeks in Legal Theory and Public Policy this semester, which I'm sure would piss off our buddy LaneH at Debunkers.org.

You got to love a blog (named after a Jefferson quote no less) that can transition from Katie Couric anti-fellatio humor straight into talking about the Julian Simon/Paul Ehlrich Malthusian Commodities bet (which the neo-Malthusians lost).

Bad mouthing, er, Katie Couric

Fabulous new-to-me blog Insults Unpunished does a double-bitch slap--aiming for and hitting John Kerry and Terry McAuliffe, with the added extra bonus of getting Katie Couric on the ricochet.

For those keeping score, that's one bitch slap, three bodies--nice shooting, Robert!

The Rocket vs. The Ferrarri

Very interesting post by Mike of Cold Fury comparing Beethoven and Mozart with some, er, colorful imagery, before going on to discuss the Emperor Concerto, and Van Cliburn's performance of it in particular. (I don't believe I've ever heard this performance.)

Generally speaking, I think Mike's right about the difference between Beethoven's rough-hewn, raw energy and Mozart's laser-like precision. (For the record, I'm a Mozart man myself.)

As it happens, I bought a copy of the full scores of Beethoven's five piano concerti the other night and on Sunday sat down to pick my way through solo bits of the 1st in C Major. I found, as I so often do while sight-reading his solo works, that a little bit of banging goes an awful long way in furthering Beethoven's musical ideas. Individual notes can be jettisoned, like children being thrown over the side of the Russian sled being chased by wolves, in order to keep the momentum going, so long as a sufficient amount of bluster is maintained.

One simply cannot do that with Mozart, either in his concerti or his solo works. Every single note has a place and a purpose. If you miss one, you and everyone else immediately knows it. And trying to bluster your way through a Mozart piece is a first class ticket to musical disaster.

Does this mean Beethoven was more passionate than Mozart? Or that he was more "authentic" or that he was more of a Man? Mike is right - Not in the least.

HT to Sheila, whose congratulations to Mike on hitting the million unique visitors mark we also share.

Things you don't see that often

Glenn Reynolds breaking out into open sarcasm. One of the things I like so much about Instapundit is how clever his writing is, how he gets right up to the edge without having to cross the line. Hacks like me, however, need GPS to find that line because we passed it eons ago.

The subject: honor killings in fundamentalist Islamic societies. But you know, according to folks like this, the Republicans are the real threat to women.

Go figure.

(See? Glenn went for pithy, I went for "hey, let's talk about the serious issue of honor killings by linking to Bill's pictures of "Shazam the super lesbian" and "Angry Troll Lady" from the Sunday Pro-Choice Rally.)

BTW, when you follow the link you'll see Bill's new look--now that he's the benefit of four Instalanches in three weeks, life is getting all swanky......

More larval Llama comments

Here's some more classic flashbacks from the Primordial Archives of the Llamabutchers:

Tue Feb 24, 10:10 AM | Steve

Campaign strategy notes

From the beginning of January to the third week of February, John Kerry's folks ran an error free campaign. Kerry kept on message, he didn't do anything to undermine the campaign's plausibility, and most importantly he resisted the greatest temptation in politics by standing back and letting Howard Dean and Wesley Clark immolate themselves in a conflagration of ego, naivete, and political idiocy. It was a nice run while it lasted.

In the past week Kerry has made two mistakes, big ones at that.

First was cutting into John Edwards' speech after his unexpectedly good showing in Wisconsin, knowing that the networks would cut away to his speech. That lacked class--and an ironclad rule of political media coverage is that the media will be as boorish and mean as it wants to be, but will not tolerate boorishness and meanness from candidates. Fair? No, but it's reality. What it led to predictably was the question why is John Kerry afraid of John Edwards? The professional politics media has an interest in drawing the primary season story out longer, if only for the ratings that the uncertainty can generate. You don't want to do anything to feed this, anything to detract from the sense of inevitability that has been the motive force of the Kerry victories so far. Any whiff of fear on Kerry's part about Edwards will produce vapor lock instantly for his prospects: think Wiley Coyote as the clouds start to dissipate. Because what Kerry would see, if he looked in the rear view mirror, is not this but this.

The second mistake was his "How dare you talk about Vietnam" letter of yesterday. I think this is why reports that his campaign was less than pleased with Terry MacAuliffe's playing of the Bush National Guard card so early make sense: the story raged for a week, but then burned out for lack of, well, substance. However, stories like that never just die--they tend to then rebound and lash back at the other side. In this case, it's not Kerry's service in country that's the problem, but rather what he did when he got home with the "Junkie Vets," as many referred to the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Kerry needed to get his image and perceptions set with the public before the story inevitably turned to the early 1970s, which he then could distance himself from. Instead, he now has to address this issue as most of the general public is getting their first full look at him. So which is he--the saluting guy with the medals in his ads, or the long haired guy throwing his medals over a fence? The problem is for Kerry that he's both: and this whole point of Kerry's having it both ways is the opening move that the Republicans are going to make on him. Worse, he's got himself in a classic two-front bind--by opening up on Bush and Vietnam, his party's leaders in effect kicked off the general election campaign before Kerry had sewed up the nomination. Terry Mac "misunderestimated" Dubya once again: they thought if they opened up on Bush and the Guard, that he wouldn't respond, at least until later. It's insane in politics to make such an assumption--they should only have raised the Guard issue if they had the proof of their charges. Instead, they've accidentally started the general election, but in a way that's going to hurt Kerry. John Edwards doesn't have to go negative on Kerry: Dubya's folks are going to do that for him. The last element to this is that letter's such as Kerry sent have the opposite effect: instead of focusing the issue back on Bush, they in effect call in the fire on Kerry himself. Kerry--if he becomes the nominee--might have to run not only against Dubya and Ralph Nader, but also against the haggard long haired John Kerry of 1971. And that's not the way to win 270 electoral votes.

That's why Terry Mac starting the general campaign boasting about John Kerry's "chestful of medals" and attacking Bush for being AWOL [without the proof to seal the deal] was politically insane.

As I said yesterday, it's almost as if Terry Mac wants Kerry to lose.

Oh, yeah, I forgot....

Gratuitous Lazy-Man Posting

I've got nothing this morning and not much time to say it anyway. Soooo...I will instead pass on to you the following sent in by the Butcher's Wife, who picked it up from an email making the rounds in our little circle. Enjoy!

These sentences actually appeared in church bulletins or were announced in
church services:

1. Bertha Belch, a missionary from Africa, will be speaking tonight at Calvary Methodist. Come hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa.

2. Announcement in a church bulletin for a national PRAYER & FASTING Conference: "The cost for attending the Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals."

3. The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water." The sermon tonight: "Searching for Jesus."

4. "Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Don't forget your husbands.

5. The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict.

7. Remember in prayer the many that are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say "Hell" to someone who doesn't care much about you.

8. Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help.

9. Miss Charlene Mason sang "I will not pass this way again," giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.

10. For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

11. Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.

12. Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for moretransfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack's sermons.

13. The Rector will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing, "Break Forth Into Joy."

14. Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24th in the
church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.

15. A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.

16. At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What Is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.

17. Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.

18. Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.

19. Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.

20. Attend and you will hear an excellent speaker and heave a healthy lunch.

21. The church will host an evening of fine dining, superb entertainment and gracious hostility.

22. Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 p.m. - prayer and medication to follow.

23. The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.

24. This evening at 7 p.m. there will be a hymn sing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.

25. Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 a.m. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B.S. is done.

26. The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.

27. Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 p.m. Please use the back door.

28. The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 p.m. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.

29. Weight Watchers will meet at 7 p.m. at the First Presbyterian church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.

30. The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new tithing campaign slogan last Sunday: "I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours."

Don't Forget!

Today's Required Reading

I have a weakness for tornado movies and shows. (Does anyone else remember the cartoon "Emergency +4," the Saturday morning animated version of the tee-vee show "Emergency" from the 70's? There was an episode about a tornado. I still remember it.) And no, it's not just because I believe Helen Hunt is the Thinking Man's Babe.

Anyhoo, t'other night I found myself watching "Tornado!" on the Hallmark Channel. Hideously enough, I'd seen it before - a production so devoid of dialogue, plot or acting that it could best be described as looking like soft-core porn without the sex. Another fav is "Night of the Twisters" starring the former Bo Duke. I read somewhere that this was the highest rated made-for-TV movie ever, in terms of audience draw. Tanta stultitia mortalium est, indeed. And let's not forget the powerful "Atomic Twister" of a few years back in which a pair of killer twisters attempt to take out an atomic power plant somewhere in Tennessee. You KNOW when Carl Lewis and Corbin Bernsen team up, we're talking movie magic.

So I figured I pretty much had the waterfront covered. Not so. Our good friend Pep stumbled across an opus on the PAX network called "Tornado Warning!" and has penned a review. Go. Read. And be advised the No Hot Beverages Rule is in full force and effect.

Yip! Yip!

Gardener's Delight

Lynn is rose-blogging. Go on over and check out the pics.

I've only got two roses. One is an Improved Blaze, a climbing rose with a bright red flower. The other is supposed to be a Blaze as well, but has never shown any inclination to climb, just to bush. They sit side by side in front of my garden fence. I'm giving the non-climber one more year to prove itself before it gets yanked.

I had tried to transplant a couple of roses into my peony bed from my folks' place up in Maine. One was a Lady Jane Grey. Forgot the name of the other. They were both very small and did not make it through the winter. Oh well.

Today the Butcher's Wife purchased for me some slug-bait. This is lovely stuff. You sprinkle the pellets all over your garden and then the next morning go out to view all the little corpses doubled over in agony. We hates slugs.

Now if only they made a deer-sized dosage.......

Want To Put Your Child In Therapy For Years To Come?

Put one of these on their pillow! Hours of psyche-damaging fun!

HT to Reen.

Signs the Victory Coalition is doing well






Although I think new fan fave Baseball Crank said it best:

WAR: The Tin Cup Is Rattling

I've post-dated this post to April 29 so it will stay at the top of the page until then (updated as necessary), humbly asking you to donate to the Spirit of America, a charitable group supporting the efforts of U.S. troops to spread good will in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. It's a worthy goal, and one that gives us private citizens a chance to do a little something to help out in the war for hearts and minds. See here and here for more details. I'm in with one of three coalitions of blogs competing in a drive to raise money for Spirit of America by April 29. For rewards, Michele is offering to dedicate posts and music to people who donate, and Dean Esmay is offering supporters of his coalition a post on a topic of their choice. Bah. I can do better: I promise that if you donate to Spirit of America, the Cubs and the Red Sox will win the World Series in your lifetime, or your money back. [disclaimer: refund may only be claimed after conclusion of lifetime] So there.

Give Victory a Chance! Please Donate Here. Thank you.

I'm going to take B'Crank and Michele at their own game and offer any donor free pics of me clad in either a Yankees or Mets shirt and hat, kissing the arse of a picture of George Steinbrenner, who makes a $50 contribution to the Victory Coalition on behalf of your humble Llamabutcher servants. Recognize that I was born in Boston and was raised a Red Sox fan, in the way only that being a guilt-ridden Boston Irish Catholic secular Calvinist can root for the Sox. PLEASE recognize that every fiber of my being will feel the presence of said shirts on my skin as burning gasoline being liberally applied by a rusty brush by Hillary Clinton. How's that for wanting to go the extra mile....

For a $200 contribution, I'm willing to be photographed walking in front of the White House at Lafayette Park wearing a tin foil hat and a sandwich board sign that says "I'm a Moonbat." (I'm calling you out, Bill!)

Cue Frank Barone: Holy crap!

I hadn't actually read the transcript of Kerry's confrontation with noted right wing bigot, uh, Charlie Gibson, on that biased, right-wing show "Good Morning America." All I can say is Holy crap.

Key exchange:

GIBSON: senator, i was there 33 years ago and i saw you throw medals over the fence and we didn't find out until later -

KERRY: no, you didn't see me throw th. charlie, charlie, you are wrong. that's not what happened. i threw my ribbons across. all you have to do -

That's REALLY going to leave a mark.

It's almost like the good olde days when Baghdad Bob was denying the Americans are in Baghdad....."You're not seeing that! It didn't happen! Who do you trust, your own lying eyes or me?"

YIPS! from Robbo: Roving Llama correspondent Paul has this to say about the GTA visit: "Karl Rove could not have written a better “flip-flop” sound bite."

Llama PSA

If you're not already reading and linking to the New England Republican, get on over there and get busy. It's your one-stop shopping event for all things Kerry and a brave outpost of conservatism in Baahston. Go check it out!

Yip! Yip!

Robbo Rantin' Interlude

This is probably going to get me sent straight to PC hell, but here goes:

I was walking back to the office from a meeting earlier. As I crossed the top of Lafayette Park, I overtook one of those wagons full of preschool kids that day care agencies use around here to give their little charges a breath of fresh air. As I passed by, one of the little tykes kept pointing at one of the accompanying attendants and saying, "Mommy! Mommy!" To which another worker would reply, "No, that's Miss Christine. Mommy's at work."

If you're a parent and that doesn't give you the creeps, something's wrong with you.

That is all.

MEDIA BIAS! GET YER MEDIA BIAS RIGHT HERE!

Came across this gem pulling together a proposal for a project:

First parapgraph:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's only Sept. 11 defendant and the government are claiming partial victories in an appeals court ruling, but the judges' ultimate message is clear: The Justice Department can prosecute Zacarias Moussaoui in a civilian courtroom and seek to kill him.

Last paragraph:

Moussaoui, while acknowledging his loyalty to Osama bin Laden, has said he was not part of the Sept. 11 plot but indicated he was to take part in a later operation.

Oh, well then, that's different---let him go!

Bizarre

I just don't know what to make of this development.

(This is one of those rare moments when I'm actually being serious.)

So what IS Howard Dean up to these days?

Dusting off that Glass-Jawed Porcupine entree brought back some nostalgia about little Dean-O--what the heck is he doing these days? Finding inner peace? Cursing at "Air America" while stuck in traffic on his way to the Burlington, VT Piggly-Wiggly?

Apparently he's been hanging around leaving desultory comments on blogs.

This gem from The Queen of Evil's site is pure Dean (second comment down):

Yeah, Kerry uses a lot of big words, and many of them have more than three syllables. He may be a deuschbag, but he's much less of one than Bush is.
Even if you're a bible-thumping, inbred southern baptist, you've got to be an idiot to vote for a man who can't pronounce the word "nuclear", who's against a medical technology that promises to end an enourmous amount of suffering worldwide, and has never done a day of hard work in his life (he's an aire to an oil fortune) while claiming to be a plain-old regular guy who relates to the common man because he doesn't use big words.
But I guess bumper stickers on pickup trucks are a lot easier to read than news sources from different parts of the country and world, so the lying dummy has a lot of support from dittoheads who listen to AM radio across the nation.
If he gets re-elected, we deserve to get nuked.

There you have the entire Dean candidacy--its ascent as well as crash--summarized in an easy five sentences. Let's go to the tape:

1. Yeah, Kerry uses a lot of big words, and many of them have more than three syllables.
Theme: We're smarter than you.

This is a DemocraticUnderground fan favorite dating back to the New Frontier---IQ=Best & Brightest=Ideal Government=Bliss. But does the highest IQ make for the best president? Looking over American history, it's pretty easy to identify the three smartest presidents in terms of pure IQ brain power: James Madison, Herbert Hoover, and Jimmy Carter. Madison's easy--he's James Freakin' Madison, after all. Highlight of his presidency? Getting the White House burned out from under him. Hoover? That one is obvious. Carter? Say what you want about Jemmah, but he got through the first course of students at Admiral Hyman Rickover's nuclear sub school in the 50s, which is about the damned hardest thing there is. Sure, you can add to the list Jefferson and Wilson, but I'm going to have to come upside your head about the failure of the League of Nations and its crappy job dealing with the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, as well as something about "if Jefferson was so damn smart how come he died so deeply in debt?" And don't make me go Sally Hemmings on you....

2. He may be a deuschbag, but he's much less of one than Bush is.
Theme: Our guy sucks, but yours is worse!

I'm not sure if "deuschbag" was an intentional pun on Kerry's francophilia (rather than a simple misspelling of feminine hygiene products), and I tend to think it's the latter. But it's interesting that the best the BusHitler crowd can come up with is admitting their candidate is akin to something used to make one's arse more fragrant.

3. Even if you're a bible-thumping, inbred southern baptist, you've got to be an idiot to vote for a man who can't pronounce the word "nuclear", who's against a medical technology that promises to end an enourmous amount of suffering worldwide, and has never done a day of hard work in his life (he's an aire to an oil fortune) while claiming to be a plain-old regular guy who relates to the common man because he doesn't use big words.
Theme: I'm a I-5/I-95 blue-state metrosexual bigot!

What's the deal with this wing of the Democratic party hating southern baptists so? It's as if they forgot that Clinton (as well as Gore), Carter, and I think LBJ all basically fit the description given of southern white-trash Southern Baptists (you capitalize religions, sonny, even the ones you have contempt for). (I'm not sure about Johnson, whether he was a Methodist, but he sure as heck fits the stereotype being thrown out here). Seriously, if someone like that talked like that to LBJ he would have broken his nose without batting an eyelash. As for Carter, he graduated from nuclear sub school and still pronounces it Nuk-leer (actually comes out closer to NUK-lah). Add these things together and you get the pervasive bigotry on the part of blue state I-5 and I-95 demos for, well, the rest of the country, and the south in particular. And the Republicans are laughing it up all the way to the Electoral College.

Then you've got to love the whole sneering condescension of the writer premised on issues of social class, elite education, and diction then misspell the word "heir." Sigh, I guess they're giving out trust funds to just anybody these days.

And maybe I too am an "enourmous" idiot for not being as smart as the poster.

Of course, what makes the sentence work is the political tone-deafness of it---oh yeah, John Kerry is a man of the people? Riiiiiiggght.

And now the closer:

4. But I guess bumper stickers on pickup trucks are a lot easier to read than news sources from different parts of the country and world, so the lying dummy has a lot of support from dittoheads who listen to AM radio across the nation.
Theme: We're only losing because the American public is stupider than sheep.

Hey, at least he credits right-wingers with the ability to read (but not notice his misspellings, of course). And it's gotta be Rush's fault somehow, because Al Franken says so!

5. If he gets re-elected, we deserve to get nuked
Theme: I'm an American-hating weasel who doesn't understand that the only thing standing between me and Muqtada al-Sadr imposing sharia is Uncle Sam's Misguided Children--the effin USMC!

This basically sums up the leftist mantra these days: better that millions of American civilians die a horrible death from terrorism than our precious slogans proven to be wrong!

This guy probably gets real touchy if you "challenge his patriotism."

There in a nutshell is the rise and fall of the Dean candidacy---all the rage, faux-intellectual arrogance, cultural bigotry, hilarious snafus, and strident anti-Americanism---packaged in a neat five sentence rant.


So I'm glad to see Dean-O has a new hobby, I mean other than picking up dry-cleaning for Dr. Steinberg and all.

SMMMMMMMACK!! [wince]....THAT'S going to leave a mark!

Democratic savant Terry MacAuliffe (he of the Bush/AWOL fame):

"It's time for Dick Cheney to call off the Republican attack dogs. The American people have better things to do with their time than listen to more misleading attacks from a man who has been misleading them from the day he took office," McAuliffe said.

Fat chance, Terry. And by the way, we laundered your pants with Milk Bones.

I'm supposed to be grading right now, so later I'll revist this digging up the quote from Howard Dean calling on Terry Mac to do the same thing back in January.

OH what the hell.

Here's the article I was thinking about, and here's what the newbie-Llamabutchers had to say about it then:

Monday December 29, 2003

Every Good Campaign Needs a Mascot

How about a glass-jawed porcupine?

Complaining about the torrent of attacks raining down on him from his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, Howard Dean on Sunday criticized his party's national chairman, Terry McAuliffe, for not intervening to tone down the debate.

Hmmm, maybe it's because you called him a prostitute just days ago in the soon to be famous Concord Monitor interview?

"If we had strong leadership in the Democratic Party, they would be calling those other candidates and saying, `Hey look, somebody's going to have to win here,' " Dr. Dean, the former governor of Vermont, told reporters trailing him as he campaigned through central Iowa. Referring to one of Mr. McAuliffe's predecessors, he added, "If Ron Brown were the chairman, this wouldn't be happening."

If there was strong leadership in the Democratic Party, Dr. Dean would be writing scrips for amoxicillin back in Burlington right now. Seriously, this guy's the front-runner? Does he realize the amount of scrutiny that's about to open up now that the regular season is starting? I remember fall last, when Steve Spurrier was starting out as coach of the Redskins, and he ran up the score against Steve Mariucci and the 49ers in a meaningless pre-season game in Tokyo. Afterwards, he was cocky and self-sure, talking about bringing the razzle-dazzle of the fun-n'-gun to the NFL. Spurrier did great that preseason, with the 'Skins winning all their preseason games except the last one by wide margins. Then the regular season began....

If he doesn't like the heat, maybe Dr. Dean should give Dan Quayle a call--perhaps they could open up a private detective agency or something.

Dr. Dean also implied that many of his supporters, particularly young people, might stay home in November if another Democrat's name ends up on the ballot.

"I don't know where they're going to go, but they're certainly not going to vote for a conventional Washington politician," he said.

Though Dr. Dean has repeatedly said he would back whichever Democrat wins the nomination, he said Sunday that support was "not transferable anymore" and that endorsements, including his own, "don't guarantee anything."

"Right now those guys think we're the front-runner, so they're saying all this stuff, `He can't win'," Dr. Dean said. "How are they going to win?

So strong party discipline is good when it benefits him, but screw everyone else?

"What I'm saying is I think we're the best and most capable candidate of beating George Bush because we're the only one that is exciting the party," he said.

The Royal We. I think I was wrong: maybe he should give this guy a call--he's not busy.

In Ames, Dr. Dean repeated his promise to support whichever Democrat wins. "Any of them are better than what we've got right now," he said. But, he added, "you can't beat George Bush if you behave like the Democrats are behaving."

That's right. Bush is very beatable in a number of ways, however not in any way the current Democrats running are going. But the answer is NOT in the way that Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Snide would have: if they want to win, they are going to start hitting much harder. MUCH harder. But the point that emerges from this piece is telling: once the real political season starts and the gloves [quite legitimately] come off, there's a good chance he's going to crumble under the scrutiny. The question is, does he [and his supporters] go and sulk like Achilles in his tent?

Free pass time is over. Cute insurgent time is over. Look for lots of stories now that have "questions linger...," "doubts are raised...," and "concerns mount over..." in the first paragraph of stories, not in NR [either National Review or New Republic] but in the Washington Post, and the NY and LA Times. If he starts to lose their political reporters, look forward to some hilariously bitter speeches for the Burlington area Kiwanis Club in about twelve months.

So my advice to you Terry is this: comments like this are like pouring blood into the Amazonian stream---any journalists not now on the attack will see the need to get in on the story. And the whole Medals story is a perfectly legitimate example of this, made the more so by your raising of the Bush/AWOL story on Day One that Kerry had the nomination in the clear.

Jeez, you almost would think that Terry is trying to help make Kerry lose or something.

Oh, yeah, I forgot.....