Category: Uncategorized

Week 2: 9-7. Overall: 20-12.

W – Atlanta Falcons over Arizona Cardinals

W – Seattle Seahawks over San Francisco 49ers

L – Tennessee Titans over Jacksonville Jaguars

W – Minnesota Vikings over Chicago Bears

W – Philadelphia Eagles over Detroit Lions

Oakland Raiders over Tampa Bay Buccaneers

W – Denver Broncos over San Diego Chargers

Indianapolis Colts over Green Bay Packers

L – St. Louis Rams over New Orleans Saints

W – New York Giants over Cleveland Browns

L – Kansas City Chiefs over Houston Texans

Miami Dolphins over Pittsburgh Steelers

Washington Redskins over Dallas Cowboys

L – Cincinnati Bengals over Baltimore Ravens

Last week was tough for Chokechain and I, as we lost our 16-point game with the upset of Green Bay. To give you an idea of what a massive upset that was, only two of 99 people in the pool had Chicago winning, with very low confidence ratings of two and three points, respectively. But we’re still towards the top of the second quartile, while Annabella, (the artist formerly known as the White Buffalo), languishes in the bottom half. That being said, the real Annabella beat us by 30 points last week, so we may need to find a new and more insulting appellation.

Fantasy looks pretty good this weekend, as the Robin’s Egg Blue and Gentle Yellow of Big Chilly’s Hummingbirds are forced to start Joey Harrington at quarterback. The Piranha also feature the Oakland D going up against Tampa’s putrescent offense and Ahman Green looking to make up for last week’s disaster against a questionable Indy run defense that gives up five yards per carry, third worst in the NFL.

Mark Alexander writes on useful idiots:

FDR, perhaps unwittingly, used the Great Depression to establish a solid foundation for socialism in America, as best evidenced in this dubious proclamation: “Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.”

….Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev said of Roosevelt’s “New Deal” paradigm shift, “We can’t expect the American people to jump from capitalism to communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have communism.”

Not just AN American principle, the ONLY one. Interesting. I would submit to every conservative defender of WWII-internment that any time you discover that your opinion is running in parallel with FDR’s, you should probably consider taking a good hard look at your reasoning to figure out where you went off the rails of fact, logic and true American principle.

Sarah writes:

Vox, when I say that she is ignoring you, it is mostly true. Where she is directly and publicly confronted with you, she will make an attempt at evading your points by brushing it off. As far as I’m concerned, that is functionally equivalent to ignoring you. After all, what does anyone care whether she acknowledges your existence? It is your points that matter in this particular context, not the source (unless it is to ensure that that source is trustworthy).

Of course, you can get all literal about ‘ignoring’ if you want to…

You know, you’d think it would be so easy for Malkin. If she doesn’t want to be exposed as a liar and incompetent, then all that she would have to do is ensure that she knows what she is talking about and that she is careful to tell the truth. I really hope this bites her in the ass in the end.

Actually, I pretty much agree with you. Nor do I care that she is ignoring me on a personal level, as I firmly believe that she will treat anyone who brings up the question of military necessity in precisely the same way, even if their name were Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh. She has to, because even opening her mouth on the question will reveal her ignorance. I mean, look what level of total cluelessness she managed to reveal in only two blog posts on the subject!

I find it rather strange that she chose to lie in public rather than completely ignore me. That was just weird. Perhaps she needs to take lessons from Al Davis. Oakland is playing Tampa Bay tomorrow, and when a sportswriter asked a Raiders official why it was Derrick Thomas doing the weekly press conference for Tampa and not Tim Brown, the former Raider who was their number one draft pick and All-Pro wide receiver who caught 99 touchdowns for them before his acrimonious departure from Oakland this summer, the Raiders executive replied: “Tim who?”

Now, THAT’S ignoring!

While it would have been far more satisfying to debate Mrs. Malkin directly, I think I answered the questions to the satisfaction of Captain Ed, King, St. Paul and the Elder. If I sounded a little more awkward than normal, it felt rather like trying to pour water from a keg into a tiny little funnel. There were so many things I would have liked to get into, but couldn’t in the interest of keeping things moving along. I did hit the primary points I wanted to address, though, so I’ll have to be satisfied with that.

MikeF wrote:

Honestly Vox, except for a minority of people, I’m not sure who you plan on converting anymore. The ardent defenders of Malkin are often those who think that Bush is the spittin image of Reagan. IMO you’re in the end what you’re doing amounts to trying to appeal to the dumb and willfully ignorant.

You can’t win this because her supporters desparately want to support anything they feel will get back a quieter, simpler, more traditional America. Malkin offers some of that, you offer a deep challenge.

Space Bunny and I were talking about this a few days ago. She pointed out that regardless of what the facts are, most people will assume that Malkin knows what she’s talking about because they have not heard of me nor do they know the historical facts. I laughed and pointed out that the vast majority of Americans have never heard of Malkin, indeed, most people have not heard of Bill O’Reilly and could not place Dick Cheney if you paid them.

It amuses me when people talk about cable news figures as if they are well-known. If we are going to abandon the truth and concern ourselves with popularity, then the only people whose opinion truly matters are the Britney Spears, Brad Pitts and Jenna Jamesons of the world. I daresay ten times more people would recognize Jenna Jameson’s not-exactly-private parts than Michelle Malkin’s face. The top cable news show is watched by barely one percent of the population, after all.

My primary motivation in all of this was to simply stand up for the truth here because apparently almost no one in the supposedly intellectual commentariat has any idea what it is. Ignorance is rampant; the History Channel – which is the only exposure that many people who consider themselves to be thinking men will have to the matter – recently did a Decisive Battles series on Pharsalus. At one point, the narrator mentioned that Julius Caesar had been married to Pompey’s daughter, Julia. The program got it entirely backwards, however, as it was actually Pompey married to Caesar’s daughter Julia, the episode serves to demonstrate how utterly hopeless the media can be when it comes to matters of iron-clad historical fact. In addition to the easily verified lineage, you’d think the name alone might have given the idiot a hint.

I suspect that not only will the reason for my contempt for Malkin’s grasp on history be very clear to you all within a few hours, I expect most of you will likely share it.

To total Windows-free operation, not counting games. It’s been a hassle to transfer my writing from the laptop to my Dana; while it’s doable, it’s enough of a pain that for the most part, I only use my Dana for reading. However, after I started using Blue Nomad’s Wordsmith on the Dana, which serves as both an ebook reader and a word processor, I decided to check out the Linux utility they had available for download.

What’s nice is that the combination of Blue Nomad’s wsconv utility with a pair of scripts allows me to save a file as an RTF, right-click on it to convert it to a Palm-readable PDB format, then fire it over to the Dana. That last step still requires hopping into Windows for now since the Dana , but someone’s already figured out how to get the Dana hotsyncing in Linux using infrared, so it’s only a matter of time before there’s a decent USB option as well.

MS writes:

I’ve been meaning to ask this question for awhile, but have been hesitant to given the rather un-pc nature of the question. I’d also be interested in comments from your vox folk. This has been touched upon just a bit in the comments from your “Homologic” blog, but –

I assume that you believe that most if not all of the factors that cause a teen to think they are gay are a result of things that happen to them in their childhood as opposed being born with it. If this is the case, what suggestions do you have for parents raising kids to prevent this from

happening (them thinking they are gay) I have my own thoughts about this (Basically – Dads: Stay in the picture and don’t be a jerk with your kids) but I wonder what your thoughts are.

This is really out of my league, and there are certainly those who will have more personal experience on which to base their opinions, but from a strictly material point of view, I tend to follow Paglia in her quasi-Freudian take on it. There seem to be numerous potential factors involved, but what appears to be a dependable nurturing environment to ensure that your line is not passed on is a dominant mother and an absent or rejecting father.

As for women, Paglia – more than a bit of a lesbian herself – quotes a friend in saying “too much tit or not enough.”

Strangely, it would seem to come down to the wisdom of .38 Special, who recommended holding on loosely, but not letting go. To be honest, I don’t think there is an answer, except that love, prayer, attention and affection are never wasted.

And if you happen to lose the genetic lottery or manage to screw it up and turn your boy into a flaming fairy whose heartfelt dream is to choreograph a drag show in Vegas, then continue to love them, pray for them and give them attention and affection anyhow.

If you’re interested in listening to the Northern Alliance Radio Show tomorrow, the live web stream is here. I’ll be on with the Fraters Libertas and SCSU Scholars at 2 PM Central time, discussing WWII military history, internment and the implications for future actions by the federal government, among other things.

Saint Paul said we will take 2 or 3 callers, so if you’d like to call in you can do so at 651-289-4488. I think Rush has a good point with his time-saving “dittos”, so, in honor of the infamous battle cry, you can simply say “azaleas” to indicate a strong level of agreement, sympathy or simply an appreciation for the general bonhomie on this blog.

As El Zinko Pinko, (President, VPQF), Snowdog and Bane can all attest*, I am one of the more gay-friendly Bible-thumping intolerant Christian bigots of the right.

But here’s one thing that puzzles me about what appears to be the Official Party Line of the Lavender Brigades. Feel free to correct me if I’m mischaracterizing something here, but it seems to me that the assertions are:

1. An individual is gay because he knows he is. The assertion is the proof.

2. There are no external causes, a gay individual simply knows he has always been that way.

3. If someone decides he is not, in fact, gay, he is incorrect and is only deceiving himself.

Now, if it is possible for someone to be mistaken about their sexual orientation, how is it possible that only those who are insisting that they are not gay that can be mistaken? If it is not possible for someone to be mistaken about their sexual orientation, how is it possible to deny the testimony of someone who was gay, but now is not, that it is possible for sexual orientation to change?

I don’t have an actual point here, I was just wondering. Not that this will likely do any good, but in the comments, please do try to stick to the logical aspects and not digress into verses about sin, smiting and Sodom. We pretty much covered that yesterday following the Swaggart post.

Craig, that gushing over Sean Hannity’s hair only earned you probationary VPQF status. Until we get a ruling from Zinky, you don’t get a vote.

Iraq Guy doesn’t buy the Novak float suggesting the likelihood of withdrawal.

“One reason we might not be taking it seriously is that we’re planning to do the wise thing and withdraw.”

Not very likely. A Democrat might “un-ass the AO” if elected, but right now having a US footprint in the Middle East is priceless as far as senior DOD planners are concerned. Centrally located and able to project power to all the other trouble spots in the region – in fact, this is the hot zone now, not Europe. Word is that this is going to be the new Korea as far as 1 year short tours go.

Yes, the obvious usefulness of the new bases they’ve constructed in Iraq are too great to be ignored, but I thought perhaps they’d make do with those they’ve built in Afghanistan and Qatar. We did abandon the big one in Saudi Arabia after all. But it was just a suggestion, I have no hard or even mildly rigid information.