Category: Uncategorized

Doubts on National Review:

This has become the conventional wisdom (I mean, of the last month or so) among conservatives who support the admin. on Iraq: That if only the President and his people would get out there and explain their case, public support would firm up.

I beg leave to doubt this. The admin. case on Iraq is not hard to grasp, and is, if my own conversations with friends & neighbors can be judged by, widely understood: A secure & stable Iraq is essential to our nation’s long-term security.

I’m not sure the problem is that people haven’t heard this. It may be that people have heard it, but just don’t believe it.

Probably because it’s a crock of equine fertilizer. Iraq was secure and stable prior to the US invasion and occupation. Saddam Hussein was no more of a threat to the USA in 2003 than he was in 1983.

China is a serious threat to our nation’s long-term security and it is both secure and stable. The Congo is insecure and unstable, but it is no threat. As usual, the gap between the administration’s pronouncements and logical credibility is enormous, which is why people, even rock-solid Republicans, no longer believe anything that comes out of the Bush White House.

Peter King defends his critique of two Fathers of the Year:

FATHER’S DAY LEFTOVER. From Tim Novak of Pittsburgh: “Your Larry King and Donald Trump comments aside, I hope you are not classifying all divorced men as poor fathers. I would be very disappointed, if you were.”

I am classifying two men with a total of 10 marriages as highly, highly questionable choices as Fathers of the Fear. I understand divorce happens. But don’t tell me if you’re divorced six times, as King was, you could qualify as a father of the year. Part of fatherhood is staying around. One divorce, I can see it. Two, well, starting to go over the line. Six? Gimme a break.

It does bring to mind the Oscar Wilde quote about losing more than one parent, doesn’t it? My theories about fatherhood are inchoate, but I believe Chris Rock has the right of it when it comes to daughters. While I have no lack of respect for dancers of any sort and have probably been acquainted with more than is the norm, I nevertheless think his fathering imperative is a wise one.

“You’ve got to keep them off that pole!”

In any event, Donald Trump and Larry King should not even be mentioned in the same sentence as fathers of repute, unless the adjective preceding the last word is “ill”.

The Right Wing News reports on who is screwing up America:

10) Nancy Pelosi (13)
8) John Kerry (14)
8) Barbara Boxer (14)
7) Dick Durbin (17)
6) Hillary Clinton (19)
4) George Soros (23)
4) Harry Reid (23)
3) Ted Kennedy (24)
1) Michael Moore (26)
1) Howard Dean (26)

So apparently the right wing blogosphere believes that two men whose highest political attainment is the governorship of Vermont are to blame for the current state of America. This might as well have been a poll to list “people that you think are poopyheads”. Why not throw Tom Cruise and Michael Jackson in there while you’re at it?

I noticed that neither of my top nominees, Alan Greenspan and George W. Bush, didn’t even make the top 23. I’m officially embarrassed for the blogs.

G fancies himself an armchair general:

Business “is” war young fellow, and not because Sun said so; it has always been that way. The law of business that is never taught in business school is “eliminate the competition.” The ideal of “mutually benefiting agreements” is window dressing for the dull mass; you are smarter than that.

This is absurd, given that the vast majority of a company’s interactions are with its customers, not its competition. Business, (or trade, exchange, call it what you will), exists regardless of whether there is competition or not, and especially at the most crucial point in a company’s life, the beginning, there usually isn’t any significant competition.

Even when competition exists early in the cycle, the market is usually expanding faster than one single company can grow anyhow. EBay, Amazon and Google are moving into competition with each other now, but coexisted quite amicably in their separate market niches until they had grown into the giants they are today and needed to expand their markets in order to continue their revenue growth.

Competition is the hallmark of a mature industry, which is the least important aspect of the business cycle. Sun Tzu has literally nothing to say about the postive and entrepeneurial elements of business; the fact that this is where the venture capitalists and investors concentrate their best minds and greatest assortment of talent lends support to my position.

The Sports Guy gets much better email from his readers than I do:

Q: I fully expect that after Clemens wins his 333rd game, in his press conference, he will take off his cap and will pull back his hair – revealing an identical 333 burned into his scalp; thus fulfilling the prophecy. This will immediately be followed by all the reporters in the room melting away, with their bones exploding like in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
–William S., New York

SG: The best part about this would be Wilbon and Kornheiser discussing the incident on PTI the following day.

Kornheiser: “All right, Wilbon, some sad news last night, we found out that Roger Clemens was indeed the anti-Christ, as nearly 50 reporters – including some of the best this business had to offer – were melted to death after the prophecy was fulfilled. Wilbon, you were there, but you were able to get out of the room in time … how does this affect Roger Clemens’ legacy?

Wilbon: “Oh, it absolutely affects his legacy! There’s no question! Tony, he killed 50 media members! He melted them to death!”

Kornheiser: “But he’s still the greatest pitcher of the last 50 years!”

Wilbon: “Tony, he’s the anti-Christ!”

Kornheiser: “I don’t see how that affects his Hall of Fame resume – 333 wins, over 4,500 strikeouts, 7 Cy Youngs … “

Wilbon: “Tony, he’s a mass murderer! Pete Rose isn’t in the Hall of Fame for gambling on baseball, this guy melted 50 people! He almost killed me!”

Kornheiser: “Well, that shouldn’t affect what he accomplished on the field. Ty Cobb wasn’t a nice guy either. [We hear a bell in the background.] Moving to the NBA Finals … “

All right, well, I couldn’t have run with that one anyhow.

To have a father, even to have known a father, is to be dwarfed. No matter what we achieve, we can never scale the unthinkable heights of the giant of our childhood vision. God makes Man in His image, but we see Him through the filter of our fathers, the man that is creator, provider and protector all in one from the first moment of our memory.

It is strange, but I always feel most secure when I know that my father is nearby. It doesn’t matter that I may be stronger, faster and more dangerous now, I always sleep better in the knowledge that no matter what may come, the same man who taught me that there was nothing to fear from thunder and the dark will be there to tell me that it’s all right, there’s no reason to be afraid, everything is under control. Even when it isn’t true, even when it can’t possibly be true, I still believe it.

The need for fathers is most apparent in the eyes of those who have never known one. Such unfortunates seem to lack something in their foundation, that innocent capacity for faith. It is a terrible sadness to have never known the surety of safety in mighty arms that shield far better than any armor.

Fathers cast great shadows; it is daunting to step out from them and for the first time clearly see the man behind the role. It is both a disappointment and a relief, but it is necessary. And if we cannot hope to match the giants of our youth, we can still walk in their footsteps.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad.

And yes, I’m quite fine, thanks very much. I merely had to do a little work-related travel which, along with a new book idea, absorbed most of my available synapses.

John Hawkins has an idea:

This is John Hawkins from Right Wing News & Conservative Grapevine. On Tuesday of next week, I am going to be putting up an article entitled, “Right-Of-Center Bloggers Tell Us Who Is Screwing Up America” (The list for the left-of-center bloggers will be going up one day later). This whole idea was inspired by a book being written by Bernard Goldberg called “100 People Who Are Screwing Up America.”

There’s a lot of potential candidates, of course, but I think Alan Greenspan has to top the list. Between the economy and the bipartisan push for the Trans-Americas Union, it’s a tough choice, but I would argue that it is the distortions created in the former that are creating the latter imperative.

Of course, if his public pronouncements are any indication of what is to come, it’s entirely possible that his likely successor, Ben Bernahnke, could be worse.

We had fallen out, as friends sometimes do, over some nickle-nothing nuance of human behavior.

The White Buffalo once observed that women seldom maintain long friendships outside their families. I don’t know if this is true or not, although my own observations tend to be similar. In any case, Maralyn Lois Polak offers anecdotal evidence for the WB’s take.

It is amazing what suffices to end some friendships. When I think about it, there’s nothing an enemy has done or said to me that one of my best and oldest friends hasn’t managed to top. Easily.

Let’s face it. An enemy might punch you in the face and break your nose. A friend will punch you in the face, break your nose and laugh at you. More importantly, an enemy won’t remind you of it every chance he gets for the next 20 years.

Bastards. Now that I think about it, I may need to reconsider the potential benefits of this whole female falling-out thing.

From WND:

Therefore, be it resolved that the 33rd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America encourages all her officers and members to remove their children from the public schools and see to it that they receive a thoroughly Christian education, for the glory of God and the good of Christ’s church.

This likely won’t pass, but it’s a healthy sign that more and more Christians are turning their backs on the public schools. Of the 40-60 kids in our Minnesota social circle, Space Bunny estimates that about a third are homeschooling while almost all the rest are sending their young children to church-based private schools.

What’s exciting about this is that ten years ago, most of these parents had never heard of homeschooling, much less considered it a serious educational option. And far from being maladjusted social misfits, these are children that complete strangers regularly praise for being “delightful” and “well-behaved” kids that the parents are “lucky to have”.