Category: Uncategorized

GS is not happy:

My mind and heart would not let me believe it. You have probably already seen this:

I hate to admit that you were right.

Actually, I’m against federal involvement in marriage too, so I’m not sure what GS thinks I’m right about unless he was still under the illusion that George Delano either was a conservative or actually gave a damn about them. I have no problem with this action, but I can certainly see where it is a stunning slap in the face to social conservatives who saw George as their last bastion of hope against the moral libertines.

Nevertheless, I’d encourage GS to console himself with the reminder that government doesn’t solve problems of moral debauchery. It solves very few problems of any kind. Far more often, it creates them.

From Slashdot:

Cray’s XT-3 has shipped. Using AMD’s Opteron processor, it scales to a total of 30,580 CPUs. The starting price is $2 million for a 200 processor system. One of its strongest advantages over the std linux cluster is that it has an excellent interconnect built by Cray.

Cool, here’s hoping that the OC, (also known as Craydaddy), can hook me up with a discount! Now that it’s running Linux, I’m in the market for a laptop.

The Evangelical Outpost brought up an interesting point the other day. What’s going to happen after the election, when all the Republican blogs won’t have any scary John Kerry stories to get everyone’s panties in a bunch, and when the lefty blogs will have to simply deal with the fact that Hitler just got re-elected rather handily?

Most of my favorite blogs aren’t overly engaged in the election, so they’ll still make for entertaining reading, but for the life of me, I have no idea what the horserace blogs are going to write about. I mean, I assume it’s too early to start scaring people about the next election before the second term has even started, but then, I also think that Christmas decorations should not go up in stores until after Thanksgiving. Clearly, yet another matter with regards to which I am in the distinct minority.

Anyhow, I will still be here doing my best to resolutely ignore the post-election hooplah – I mean, sure, I’ll comment on it but it’s not going to be the primary subject at hand. Perhaps we’ll have to have another contest, this time devoted to guessing a) how long will it take for George Delano to give conservatives another case of buyer’s remorse, and, b) what administration policy will be the culprit?

GA ponders the Inferno:

To what circle Dante’s Hell do you feel yourself sentenced, Vox? It is good that you have WND to vent your spleen as all other earthly forms of mass communication are controlled by liberal/communists who refuse to see the Truth. Terrible to be the sole Keeper of the Faith/Truth!

Actually, it’s a tremendous relief to understand how the system works. It was very confusing and disenchanting when I was first being syndicated and signed to multiple book deals while simultaneously being told by editors in my home town, (from the very paper for which I had written non-political columns for five years), that my writing was suddenly not good enough to put on the editorial page. It was bizarre to see a very average columnist like Michelle Malkin go from zero to over 100 papers in a flash while a far more original and far more successful writer like Ann Coulter struggled to sell into half that many; meanwhile my column has not been picked up by a single paper anywhere even though it has been a strong third behind Ann and Pat Buchanan on WND for two years now.

I had a choice. To go along to get along and write Three Monkey material or to stand by what I believe to be the truth and accept a career outside the media. I chose the latter, and if my contempt for the former path shows through from time to time, that’s only because the opportunity to hop back on it occasionally presents itself and I am forced to consider the question again, if only briefly.

The truth is that if I was going to sell out my principles, I would devote my time to producing the adult computer games that Big Chilly and I flirted with designing ten years ago. I still possess the technology, the contacts and the knowledge; I could produce Strip Club Manager and sell five million copies within eighteen months if I was so inclined. Believe me, I find that a lot more tempting than going media whore and swapping spit with Sean Hannity on Fox.

Bill is happy with some libertarians: “he [Bush] has instead decided to remove the war from New York City and Washington DC back to the region that spawned and supports the Islamic crusaders.”

Yes, that’s why we’re fighting that war in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan…. Good quotes? I’d say silly and beside the point would be a more accurate description. Badnarik isn’t qualified to be CEO of a socialist-corporate state, he is much better qualified than most to begin the job of dismantling it. George Bush, I have no doubt, will do a very good job of continuing to construct the American Union while working to bolster the legitimacy of the United Nations as well as finding direct financing for it.

This sort of thing, the chickens returning to the roost, doesn’t concern me in the least. You se, the course is set and easily predictable. Bush will win, as I said months ago, and the vast majority of weak-spined but genuine conservatives and frightened libertarians supporting him will be outraged with his administration before the end of his sixth year in office.

BM squeezes out the following:

I’ve read several of your articles. You seem to be a young clone of Pat Buchanan, basically repeating his lines. I don’t intend the comparison to be an insult or a compliment, just an observation by one of your new readers. I agree with you and Mr. Buchanan on some issues, mainly your conservative social positions, however, I disagree with you on the Iraq war, the USA’s strong support of Israel and other neoconservative goals. You claim to be a libertarian; do you have any original ideas of your own, or at least a different position on some issues than the paleocon establishment?

Let’s see, I don’t support government financial aid to Israel or anyone else, I am against the Iraqi occupation but supported the concept of declaring war on the global jihad. This makes me a paleoconservative, when I’m against government recognition of marriage, against the use of government to enforce cultural and social mores and pro-drug legalization?

I don’t think he’s read too many of my columns.

UPDATE: To his credit, BM wrote back thusly: “Thank you very much for taking the time to clarify your positions with a new reader. From a personal perspective, I appreciate your support of Israel and I respect your libertarian goals. I also agree that Mr. PB does not share many of your libertarian positions and I stand corrected on my assertion that you are a PB clone. I look forward to reading your future essays.”

And to be fair, his instincts were not completely amiss. I am a clone, but one of George Will that went horribly wrong and escaped from the laboratory in company with an experimental Norwegian supernanny.

The Original Cyberpunk waxes annoyed:

So I’m in the local Blockbuster the other night, returning some DVDs. It was a slow night, and the clerks were ignoring me and talking with each other while I was popping open cases and making sure my kids had put the right discs back in the right boxes. As I snapped the last case shut and dropped it down the return chute, I began to pay some minor attention to the clerks’ conversation, and that is when I heard one of them utter the most absolutely amazing statement:

“No, dude, I cannot vote for George Bush, ’cause, like, I am so much smarter than him.”

This, I must admit, caused a moment of sheer stunned silence on my part. I wondered: should I just shake my head and go off to look at the new releases? Bite my tongue and quietly leave the store? Or should I slap that little turd down without the slightest hint of mercy?

“Ah, I see. You’re smarter than a Harvard MBA. That must be why you’re a fat, pimply guy with a greasy pony-tail who works for minimum wage at Blockbuster.”

I do find this sort of thing ironic. I mean, the man has an IQ of around 120 as far as we can tell. That’s underwhelming if you’re looking for the perfect philosopher-king, sure, but it is significantly above average. And yet, manifestly sub-par intelligences don’t hesitate to describe him as a dummy, (although to be fair, dim bulb conservatives often do the same with Kerry).

Intelligence isn’t everything, but it is not reasonably hard to discern. Jokers of the sort that the OC is writing about are only revealing their own complete lack of it when they spout off such wonderfully illuminating opinions.

1. Can we end the Michael Vick: Superstar nonsense? He’s not a superstar, in fact, he’s not even a star. He’s nothing but a sub-par quarterback in the Kordell Stewart mode at this point. Sure, he doesn’t have good receivers, but going 7-21, 119 yards, 0 TD, 2 INT against the Kansas City defense, (which is admittedly playing better this year, thought it would have been hard to do worse), is ridiculous. Drew Brees could make a far more reasonable claim to stardom.

2. The Patriots are a machine. But you have to respect Herm Edwards and his stones of steel. Going for it on fourth down inside his own thirty with seven minutes left was the right call, but it was an extremely gutsy one. You can’t beat the champ on points.

3a. Despite the win, the Patriots cheerleaders did not display cold weather cheerbabe professionalism. You know the Eagles girls would have been out there in their Vera Wang hot shorts, heck, they’d probably wear what they are not exactly wearing in their lingerie calendar if the team would only let them. They may not be the most attractive cheerleader corps out there, but you have to respect their weirdly competitive spirit.

3b. No other cheerleading corps does so little with so much sartorial possibility as the Vikings cheerleaders. The blueish purple doesn’t even match the royal purple of the team’s jerseys, for crying out loud. Let’s see some leather, chains and wolf furs instead.

4. It’s nice to see the Vikings win a game they should win against an inferior team. People are rightly blown away by Daunte’s 5-TD games, but it’s his one interception in six games that impresses me most. He even runs out of bounds instead of trying to plow over linebackers for an extra yard on first down now. That’s called the wisdom of experience.

5. I liked Jack del Rio as a player, (although not as much as some….) I think I like him even better as a coach. Did you have them in first place in the AFC South at this point? I sure didn’t.

6. Is Mike Martz certifiably insane? I just want to get a doctor’s opinion on this. I have no clue what he’s trying to do and I’m not sure anyone on his staff does either.

7. Ahman Green is back. Yes! Now, the Sports Guy is probably right in saying that Mike Sherman is a horrible coach, but it doesn’t take a rocket science to note that there is a causal relationship between Ahman carrying the ball and the Packers’ ability to win. Mike Fisher did the right thing in playing ball control to slow down the Vikings as did Jack del Rio with Indy yesterday. Mike Sherman tried to shoot it out with Indy in the RCA Dome, you may remember how well that worked.

8. The NFL needs to pass a rule banning short-yard specialists. This constant goal-line vulturing is a nationwide calamity affecting fantasy leagues everywhere. Do you seriously mean to tell me that Jerome Bettis has scored a single touchdown that Duce Staley would not have been able to take over the line?

9. San Diego is beginning to look like a playoff team and I really like the pickup of Keenan McArdell, who may be the one player described as underrated who actually is underrated. Seattle is beginning to look like it might have a late-season collapse in the cards.

10. Non-NFL note: Words cannot describe the antipathy I currently harbor for the loathsome whistle-carrying pond scum who “refereed” the Arsenal-Manchester United showdown. A record-setting 49-game undefeated streak should not come to an end because of a penalty gifted on a phantom foul. Unbelievable.

Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager, was characteristically eloquent:

“This defeat is very difficult to take because we feel like we were robbed today. We felt we were the better team but the referee made the difference. From out of nowhere, Riley has decided the outcome of the game. We can master our own performance but we can do nothing at all about how the referee performs.

Rooney admitted to my players that Sol Campbell did not touch him when he went down. There was no contact at all. That penalty was the turning point in the game. My players have a deep sense of injustice. But just look at Mike Riley’s record when he comes to Old Trafford and it says more than any words. He gave a penalty when it was impossible to be certain there was a foul and, especially in big games like this, you MUST be certain.”

Apparently Mike Riley is distant kin to Dick Bavetta. Sir Alex Ferguson, of course, was mealy-mouthed as ever after having yet another game handed to him by the referees. “Rooney was brought down in the box and to me that is a penalty.” When did the Premiership turn into Serie A or the NBA? I used to think I hated Manchester United, but now it’s not enough to see Arsenal win the Premiership for the second straight year. I want to see ManUre bloody relegated.

Pat Buchanan endorses George Bush:

While both men are wrong on Iraq, Ariel Sharon, NAFTA, the World Trade Organization, open borders, affirmative action, amnesty, free trade, foreign aid and Big Government, Bush is right on taxes, judges, sovereignty and values. For conservatives, Kerry is right on nothing.

Actually, Bush is not right on taxes, as he supports the criminal fraud that is the IRS. He is not right on judges, as the re-election of Arlen Spector means that any genuinely Constitution-abiding judges will be blocked. He is not right on sovereignty, as he does not respect the sovereignty of other nations nor his own, as demonstrated by his staunch support for the legitimacy of the United Nations and the Law of the Sea treaty. Values, I will concede as I have no information to the contrary. So, Mr. Buchanan’s summary is almost completely incorrect.

I cannot endorse the candidate of Michael Moore, George Soros and Barbra Streisand, no matter how deep our disagreement with the fiscal, foreign, immigration and trade policies of George W. Bush.

Then support Michael Badnarik of the Libertarian Party or Michael Peroutka of the Constitution Party. It is the height of irony for a former third-party candidate to pretend that there are no other candidates for whom Americans can vote.

As Barry Goldwater said in 1960, in urging conservatives to set aside their grievances and unite, the Republican Party is our home. It is our only hope. If an authentic conservatism rooted in the values of faith, family, community and country is ever again to become the guiding light of national policy, it will have to come through a Republican administration.

If that is true, than there is no hope and authentic conservatism will never again become the guiding light of national policy. Unfortunately, it almost surely is true, at least until the financial system fails and creates the necessary impetus for significant change. (Which, admittedly, will probably will be in the direction I would prefer.) There is as much hope of Jacksonian democrats regaining control of the Democratic party as conservatives taking control of the Republican party, because both the Republican and Democratic parties are factions of the same globalist-corporate ruling party. This has been true for over a century.

Prodigal Republicans now understand that their cohabitation with Big Government has brought their country to the brink of ruin and bought them nothing. But if we wish to be involved in the struggle for the soul of the GOP – and we intend to be there – we cannot be AWOL from the battle where the fate of that party is decided

You can fight for something that has been bought and sold, but the effort will ultimately be futile. The fate of the Republican party was decided long ago, not even a genuine conservative maverick in the White House managed to effect any lasting change. If you examine the rhetoric of Democrats from 40 years ago to the rhetoric of Republicans today, you’ll soon realize that the only significant change is that both Democrats and Republicans have moved to the left. The institutions are in Republican hands, but the long-term direction remains unchanged.

Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Farah have both made their accomodations with the corruption of American conservatism this year. Perhaps they are too old to see that the status quo is not forever, or they are simply too weary to continue fighting what certainly appears to be the inevitable. I harbor no anger or irritation over what I consider to be their momentary failures of principle here, only some pity. Because the truth is the truth, regardless of whether one man or one billion men hold to it.

And perhaps George Bush is divinely appointed to lead this nation at the present time. After all, the one-world government that the globalists are constructing and which Christians have been expecting for 2,000 years isn’t going to complete its installation without help from the leader of the once-free world.