Hello, GOP?? Anybody Home?

Fiddling while opportunity is knocking your goddamn door down.

Read it all.

I'll say it again - the Tea Party Movement was not born simply out of frustration with the agenda of The Left / Mainstream Media, but equally from... listen closely here... the Republican Party's utter inability and indifference to effectively articulate and advocate conservative (Reagan) values!! The GOP should win - and win big - in November, but Dan is right: It will be because of disgust with Democrat arrogance and fiscal incompetence, not because of anything the GOP offers. I really thought they got the message after SRLC, but no. We need a visionary, and right now all we got pretty much are reactionary navel-gazers. (And - yuck - Ron Paul.) No time like the present for y'all to grow a pair.

UPDATE: OK, not all the GOP are candidates for Monty Python's 'Twit of the Year Contest':

Newt Gingrich is still a towering intellect and idea man, but he doesn't communicate those well enough to fire up the masses (activists, yes).

Sarah Palin is a great motivator and communicator (and really easy on the eyes...), but on the wonky end, she isn't. That's OK, but her ideas are essentially reactionary when we need pro-active. She'd be my choice for Secretary of State. (And show up in Saudi Arabia, without a headscarf...)

My governor, Bobby Jindal, is 'wonk' personified - he has shown himself to be a Mister Fix-It in any situation; he knows how to be an executive. But he is, like Gingrich, too wonky; and as his disastrous leashed-in-by-handlers State of the Union response showed, not an able motivator. He'd make a great VP.

Fred Thompson has the stones, the values and the communication skills, but, as he showed in 2008, he hasn't got the stomach for the fight.

Which leaves, in my opinion, New Jersey's Chris Christie. Christie has proven he has the values, ability, and communication skills we need. Plus he has the stomach for the fight. (Some would say he has enough stomach for rather a few fights...) He is, and this is important, a new face on the scene. Right now, putting up McConnell, etc., to defend values that they themselves won't stand up for (except during election time) is a joke.

Yet Another Gratuitous Beaver Shot.

Right here.

Made you look, didn't I? C'mon... admit it...

My stats are down. Once this gets on the Google servers they should perk right up.

Another Anglican Blogger.

ANGLICAN YINZER. Head on over and say hello.

Hattip: Midwest Conservative Journal.

11 Reasons To Vote Democrat.

I mean, if these are the kind of people you want running our government:

Moratoria, Shmaratoria.

The Episcopal Church (tm), fresh from shredding the Windsor Report last month, decides to do it again:

The Episcopal Church Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music June 28 announced the names of task force leaders charged with leading the development of theological resources and liturgies for same-sex blessings, according to a news release. (Emphasis mine.)

The Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music has a blog, too. I checked it out, and it seems the definition of 'liturgy and music' in The Episcopal Church (tm) anymore is limited to 1) promoting the gay agenda, and 2) getting Lefty martyrs included in the collects and prayers.

The Dollars Next Time.

Is flooding the economy with newly-printed dollars Team Hopenchange's next reaction to their European Keynesian/Marxist economic policies falling flat? Some folks think so. With an election looming, the pressure to "do something" about the economy is huge.

Maybe buying gold, art, and guns ain't that bad of an investment strategy right now. If the Obama Administration and Congress turn on the printing presses full tilt, your IRA and 401(k) will end up pretty worthless after inflation does its work. And, with Obama's new financial "reforms" looming, money in a bank may not be such a good idea, either.

Discovered...

...One of M. C. Escher's early study models:


Image stolen from here.

Today's Required Viewing.

Dennis Prager on our biggest danger. This has been banging round the 'Net for a couple weeks, but it really is worth watching. If you've seen it before, it's worth watching again.

Just Close Your Eyes And Think Of Global Warming.

Details of ManBearPoodle's alleged love massage come to light. I loved this:

Finally she got away. Later, she talked to friends, liberals like herself, who advised against telling police. One asked her "to just suck it up; otherwise, the world's going to be destroyed from global warming."

Um, that appears to be what Gore wanted her to do as well...

The Left / Mainstream Media is giving this story a huge pass, of course. Had it been a Republican who was similarly accused, this would be the lede in every paper and TV evening news for weeks on end. Every salacious detail would be discussed ad nauseum, and all the old, fat Femi-Nazis would be out shouting "When I say No, It's Rape!" (Side note for you NOW gals: If I even ask... it's closing time and I'm really drunk...)

He Has That Effect On Lots Of People.

General Electric executive collapses during a speech by Joe Biden.

UPDATE: From Fred Thompson on Twitter: "When that happens, best to just stay calm & check the victim for snoring."

Our Next Supreme Court Justice Opines...

...Before the Supreme Court. And her legal argument was, essentially: "Trust us. We're the government; we'd never do that..."

In the end, the Supremes didn't have that kind of trust.

Episco-Bunny!...

...Says the new 'Jefferts-Schori Creed':


Amen.

From here.

The Brady Bunch Has Been Cancelled!

The Supreme Court says Second Amendment to the United States Constitution DOES APPLY to the States via the Fourteenth Amendment.

UPDATE: The Brady Bunch spins. Having just lost the war, they claim to be redoubling their efforts to win battles. Bit late guys. No one ever asked for the Supremes gave the 2A a blank check. So to claim 'victory' here because SCOTUS said it - like all Rights protected by the Constitution and the 14th Amendment - isn't absolute, is REALLY grasping at straws (or barrels...). All we want is for the Second Amendment to be treated as a fundamental right - like freedom of speech, the press, religion, search and seizure, privacy, etc. - as applies to the Federal and State governments. We just got that; you opposed it. We won. You lost. Deal with it.

Have Bias, Will Travel.

Well the damn hole isn't the only thing spewing something crude and smelly all over south Louisiana. There's this from a Colorado travel agent.

Hattip: Opinionated Catholic.

OK-Go Again.

Not their best song-wise, but visually pretty creative:

Obama Ordering A Whopper.

Yes it's a Photoshop, but...

...that's funny.

From here.

EXCLUSIVE: Video Of Meeting Between TEC's Executive Committee and ACC's Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon.

Here it is. Watch it all.
For balance, here is TEC's spin.

'Top Deer' ROTFLMAO!

If you are fans of Clarky-poos, The Hamster and Captain Slow, then these videos will have you on the floor. (If you are not fans of Top Gear, then your life is not worth living. No, really; it isn't.)
I almost want to buy a Hyundai now. Almost.

Sunday Morning 'Oh Yes'!

Coolness, brought to you courtesy of the United States Air Force:

If the US government is going to waste money, this is the way to do it.

PS: Those planes don't run on presidential moratoria. Just sayin'...

Hattip: Theo Spark.

Channeling Westmorland.

The Obama oil spill plan: Destroy Louisiana in order to save it:

Mass layoffs. Double-digit unemployment. An economic recession reaching depths not experienced since the oil bust of the 1980s.

Two months into the worst oil spill in U.S. history, deepsea drilling remains stuck in neutral, and fear abounds that South Louisiana's economy could be heading toward a steep decline.

Even as oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico 40 miles off the Louisiana's coast, state government and industry leaders are calling for an end to a federal drilling moratorium, arguing that the effect of a six-month stoppage could be worse than the leak itself.

I guess Obama decided the ass he had to kick, was ours.

Related note: For those of you on the Twitter, "the damn hole" is now tweeting. Can a publicist and book deal be far behind?

UPDATE: Louisiana does not appear to be part of Obama's "recovery summer" plans.

Official: Obama Plans Even Bigger Democrat Losses In 2010.

Which is the real headline behind this headline:

Official: Justice Department plans to sue over Arizona law.

Obama is once again putting his ideology before the will of the American people, just like he did with ObamaCare, the oil spill disaster, foreign policy, fiscal policy, national defense, yadda, yadda. Right after ObamaCare passed, a Republican Senator told me that a fight over immigration before the 2010 election would be the GOP's dream, as Democrats poll worse nationally on that issue than they do on almost anything else.

You would think someone with the brilliance to make Chris Matthews' leg tingle would understand that.

What Took So Long?

Playing The Wrong Hole:



Hattip: Common Cents.

Mitre For Missal.

The Current Unpleasantness in the Anglican Communion seems to be getting very unpleasant indeed.

As regular readers of this blog thingy know, a few weeks ago The Episcopal Church (tm) consecrated an openly-partnered lesbian as a bishop in Los Angeles.

This is after the The Episcopal Church (tm) said it would honor the restraints asked of it in the Windsor Report, and not repeat their tension-rending stunt of 2003.

That, of course, was then. In 2009, in a doublespeak resolution that would do George Orwell proud, The Episcopal Church (tm) told the rest of the Anglican Communion to get stuffed - even as they insisted they were honoring the Windsor Report moratoria.

It took less than two months for The Episcopal Church's (tm) new way of "honoring" of the Windsor Report to be put into action, and less than six months for it to come to fruition with the election of Mary Glasspool.

As in 2003, the Archbishop of Canterbury said this was not good for the Communion, and there would be consequences. As in 2003, our Gracious Lord of Canterbury was ignored. But considering his years of inaction since 2003, The Episcopal Church (tm) - and everyone else - didn't take Rowan Williams seriously.

Oops.

In his Pentecost letter this year, the Archbishop spelled out some of those consequences by tossing Episcopalians from several councils and committees of the Anglican Communion.

Kate Schori didn't like that one bit, and responded.

Lambeth Palace, which seems to have found a spine in a closet somewhere, fired back.

Oooh, this wouldn't do, so Katie took herself this week - and I presume her latest endowment balance sheets - over across the pond to restore compliant spinelessness. Instead, she was not invited to Lambeth Palace this time, and her preaching at Southwark Cathedral was hobbled by someone's insistence (gee, I wonder who...) that she should not wear her bishop's regalia or preach as a bishop. Plus, Several English clergy were not at all happy Kate was there. And to add insult to consequences, according to Kate, Lambeth Palace bitch-slapped her again by demanding she provide her orders of ordination before preaching.

This is going to get verrrrry interesting, dear readers.

Laissez Les Coup-De-Pied d'Ane Rouler!

Down here we have been through two major disasters - and two major disaster responses under two presidents - in the last five years. So I think we know whereof we speak when comparing the two; and Louisianians think Bush's response to the Katrina disaster - which was a disaster in itself - was better than Obama's response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Ouch.

Isn't the clueless response to the endless crisis supposed to happen in the fourth year of a Carter Presidency?

Note: If my French sucks, blame babelfish. I took Spanish in high school. (I sucked at that, too.)

Fred Who?

I've said for years the GOP will not prosper again until we find our next Reagan. I think we have him now, and just in time for 2012. We've had many false starts over the years, I hesitate to get my hopes up. But...

Obama Lied. Your Health Plan Died.

Even the White House knows the "you can keep your health care plan if you like it" pitch was complete bullshit:

Internal administration documents reveal that up to 51% of employers may have to relinquish their current health care coverage because of ObamaCare.

Small firms will be even likelier to lose existing plans.

The "midrange estimate is that 66% of small employer plans and 45% of large employer plans will relinquish their grandfathered status by the end of 2013," according to the document.

In the worst-case scenario, 69% of employers — 80% of smaller firms — would lose that status, exposing them to far more provisions under the new health law.

Welcome to "transformative" change.

Known By The Friends You Keep. And Protect.

Justice, Team Hopenchange, and domestic terrorists their friends. Read it all.

Welcome to "transformative" change.

Mitre: The Indispensable Tool.

Episcopal Church (tm) priorities:

The star of CMEP’s annual “advocacy” conference in Washington, D.C. starting June 13 will be Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. Comfortably liberal Episcopal refinement is exactly the sort of tone that CMEP often prefers to mask its more provocative agenda. Bishop Schori is enmeshed in the melt-down of her own denomination, including lawsuits against departing local congregations, and its schism with the more theologically orthodox global Anglican Communion. But denouncing Israel still merits her attention.

Read it all. Good grief, indeed.

Hattip: Maggie's Farm.

Ass... U... And An Another 'U'.

When you ignore those experts you claim to rely on to see whose "ass to kick", the only ass that should be kicked... is yours.

Of course, expect The Left/Mainstream Media to either 1) ignore this completely; or 2) do their best to propagate the Administration's excuses.

Its as if Obama and Team Hopenchange want to kill the oil industry in Louisiana, not save it. Oh, yeah.

We Control The Vertical; We Control The Horizontal.

Tonight is the time where we at RSR play with the blog graphics. Don't be frightened.

UPDATE: OK, we've played enough. Nite.

Under The Bus, Or Overboard... (UPDATED)

...It's apparently all the same to Obama when it comes to tossing the Israelis:

Bill Kristol reports that senior Obama administration officials have been telling foreign governments that the administration intends to support an effort next week at the United Nations to set up an independent commission, under UN auspices, to investigate Israel's behavior in the Gaza flotilla incident.

The UN "investigating" Israel. Yeah, like that'll be unbiased.

UPDATE 12JUNE10: Team Hopenchange is denying the Obama administration is backing the UN investigation. It was just, y'know, being supported by their UN ambassador. No big deal. Nothing to see here. Hey, lets talk about Sarah Palin's tits!

How To Tell If You Are Going To Have A Really Bad Day.

Yep.

Thursday Evening Distraction.

Legos - getting to be a theme round these parts - used to render classic photographs.

Hattip: Exurban League.

UPDATE: THE GREATEST LEGO BUILD. EVAH.
Almost as good as the real thing.

Hammmertime?

Will The Episcopal Church (tm) win the battle, but lose the war?
I sure hope so.

Was Helen Thomas' Foot In It? (UPDATED)

Scientists apparently discovered the world's oldest shoe.

Hattip: Common Sense.

UPDATE 11JUNE10: Correction: Since the story didn't involve the world's oldest mouth, Helen Thomas' foot was likely not involved. RSR regrets the error.

Entitlement Nation.

Encouraging home ownership via the mortgage interest deduction is now a "tax entitlement", and something Obama and Team Hopenchange - desperate for cash - are looking at dumping.

So we are all on the same page here vis-a-vis Team Hopenchange thinking: When the government lets you keep your own money its an "entitlement" - no different than when government gives away your money to someone who did nothing to earn it. Okie-dokie.

If Team Hopenchange is really "seeking ways to close huge deficits", try this: Quit. Fucking. Spending.

Barry, do you really need a bunch of experts to tell you "which asses to kick" here? Because if y'all do something this stupid, the only asses that are going to get kicked are yours - at the polls.

Is there any part of the American Dream you guys don't want to kill?

No Fly Zone.

Note: This is a rant. This is only a rant. If this were an actual newsy post, little red linky things would appear in the text, alerting you to further reading or confirming the post content. They're aren't any. This is only a rant.

As of now, if we have to travel anywhere in the US less than 12 hours drive away from Baton Rouge, we’re taking the SUV. And even if it’s more than 12 hours, we may still drive. I have had it with commercial airlines.

Last week my daughter, a friend, and her friend’s family drove 8 hours to their family’s camp in Tennessee, just over the Mississippi line. Cost (gas and eats for all) - about $80.

My daughter and her friend left yesterday to come back by plane from Nashville. Cost (more than $200 each for tickets, plus $50 for eats in the airports. Scheduled time to make the journey: 5.5 hours. The actual time it took this particular airline to get them from Nashville to Baton Rouge?

18 hours.

E… I… G…H…T…E… E… N… H…O… U… R… S. Count ‘em:

One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
Eleven.
Twelve.
Thirteen.
Fourteen.
Fifteen.
Sixteen.
Seventeen.
Eighteen.

Their flight was late getting out of Nashville, so they missed their connection in Atlanta. They were told there was a flight at 9-something PM to Baton Rouge, but it was booked. They could 1) wait, and hope space opened up on the 9-something PM flight, or 2) book a flight in the morning.

We called the airline and asked where they would put a 16-year old overnight if she couldn’t get on the 9-something PM flight? Not their problem, we were told. Weather. Act of God. Thankfully, my daughter’s friend had an aunt outside of Atlanta who agreed to put them up, and bring them back this morning at the crack of starlight to meet their new flight home. Which, actually made it.

To add insult to injury, my daughter’s checked bags were on the 9-something PM flight last night to Baton Rouge, leaving her with no fresh clothes or preening gear in Atlanta. Trust me - an unpreened teenage girl in day old clothes is not at all happy.

Between this kind of customer service and efficiency, and the professionalism and efficiency of TSA’s bi-pedal sloths, I don’t want to get anywhere near a commercial airport anymore.

If travel is going to take this long, bring back trains!

Hold the iPhone.

iPhone junkie that I am, I will likely hold off on the iPhone 4.0 when it comes out later this month - at least for a while. There are several reasons (I don't use all the goodies on my current 3GS, I don't need another data plan, it isn't a necessary expense right now, yadda, yadda), but the biggest is this: bandwidth. If ATT can't handle it's current traffic, how does it plan to handle video telephone calls?

Proof.

America's Alpha and Omega.

Ed Driscoll looks at 1969:

You know it's authoritative - Gropius and Meis get a mention.

Go Easy On The New Guy.

Dear readers, let me introduce Common Sense, out new Blog de Jour. It's where I found this excellent cultural community service, because no, I don't have 6 years to waste invest.

New BP Ad? (UPDATE: Please Read.)

A friend emailed me this. I have no idea who created it, but whoever did pretty much captured the moment down here:



UPDATE 10JUNE10: While the spoof ad above reflects our frustration over this disaster down here in Louisiana, the spoof ad would be equally effective - and equally right - if one replaced the BP logo with the Obama 'O' logo. We need to remember that BP isn't the only big player here. And it seems they are being used by the other big player, Obama - and his allies from The Left/Mainstream Media - as a scapegoat (I guess the British are learning what that Yank term "under the bus" means... -ed.) to deflect criticism of Team Hopenchange's huge ineptness in dealing with this crisis.

Remember, too, BP isn't exactly a Texas-style oil company. It appears to be on the same side of the ideological fence as Obama and his fellow travellers.

"And After This, The Deck Chairs Need Rearranging..." (UPDATED)

Pat Austin, who must be enjoying her summer vacation, is running an Obama Caption Contest over at And So It Goes In Shreveport. Go give it a try, dear readers - this one's almost too easy.

UPDATE 09JUNE10: Well, I won Pat's contest - I think on the strength of my second entry - and she's now giving me my 15 minutes of fame as her featured blog.

Yes We Can... Make A Picture Worth A Thousand Words, Or, Taste The Rainbow!

Mostly Cajun has this wonderfully accurate illustration of Obama's energy policy. It is also an excellent illustration of Obama's fiscal policy, his foreign policy, his economic policy, his health care policy, his... well, you get the picture.

Did We Just Dodge A Bullet?

Or, more accurately, a whole lot of them? Maybe I have been out of the loop too much, but I haven't seen anything about this in the national news. Read it all. Be glad the 12th century boys are often this inept. I mean, "old passport had gone through the washing machine"?? Please.

Hattip: Libertarian Republican.

Hope...

...And a #@!*load of Chinese Change. U.S. government debt hits $13.6 trillion in 1010; estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015.

Tuesday Night Super Fight.

My buddies Scott and John will be liveblogging tonight's 'Super Tuesday' primary elections over at The Hayride. Pretty much the only place to go in Louisiana anymore for your election results and analysis. [EDIT: Other than John's own blog, of course.]

Tuesday Afternoon Distraction.

Cross Herbie Hancock's Rockit video with the 'print' command, and you get this. And a double geek bonus because Legos are involved.

(If you missed the Rockit reference, go here.)

Hattip: Matthew at Billy Ockham.

Sunday Afternoon Distraction.

The best lounge band drummer. Eveh. Everybody else is posting this, so I fugure what the heck. I'm too busy to go looking for neat stuff right now.

"Earn This".

Remember today. And remember, too, that freedom isn't free. Freedom will never be lost because free people cannot afford it; freedom will only be lost when free people are unwilling to pay the price.

Unintended Consequences.

Via Instapundit comes this interesting twist that the Team Hopenchange economy boffins didn't anticipate - private employers refusing to consider the unemployed for employment.

Times are still tough for my firm, and we will have to shrink some more before we see daylight. But once we start growing again, we will be very selective in hiring - so I understand the rationale in refusing the unemployed. It says a lot about a person's abilities that they were able to keep a private sector job through all this. Those are the kind of folks we'll be looking for.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up.

The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, the Obama-appointed sages who are supposed to figure out how to deal with reducing our exploding Federal deficit, says it needs a budget increase.

Like most of you reading this right now, I know how to solve this issue - both the Commission's problem and our larger national problem - and it won't cost anybody a dime. So listen closely, National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform: The government...

Must. Live. Within. It's. Means.

And 'means" means what we, the People, agree to give you - not what you decide we should be paying.

How hard is that??

Hattip: Instapundit.

Disingenuous CYA, Excellent Example Of.

Helen Thomas "apologizes" for this. I ain't buying it.

UPDATE: The Boss had a good point - if the apology was "heartfelt", then what was her initial outburst?
(Maybe she overdosed on Bengay. -ed.)

Jan And The Fat Man?

Christie-Brewer 2012? The GOP could do worse. Which is the fear - they usually do.

Makers Versus Takers. (UPDATED)

After 18 months, it is clear there are indeed two Americas in the era of Obama. The America that makes wealth, the Makers, and the Takers, the America that takes wealth (or borrows it from the Chinese and sticks the Maker's descendants with the bill). Under Obama - a Taker all his life - the Takers are now the good guys, and claim a "right" to whatever wealth us Makers - now the bad guys - create.

Nowadays, the Takers are winning. See this and this. But what will the Takers do, especially elite Takers like Obama and Pelosi, when none of us Makers are left, or [cough] John Gault [cough] we just quit making wealth for them? Tigerhawk got it right:

"Fixing this will be the political work of the next generation".

After the Terror War ( priority number one - ed.) this should be our main focus. And hopefully we'll start the fix in the fall of 2010.

UPDATE: Maggie's Farm links to this American Thinker article, which argues this is all the application of the 'Cloward-Piven Strategy'. I'm not one to buy into paranoia and shady conspiracies, but after reading a bit of the 'Strategy' itself I think the Thinker article has a point, tactically. Besides, Lefties love working from a playbook or a manifesto or some such. Be sure to read them all.

We Need A Cleaning Team!

Maggie's Farm posted a picture of an oil-soaked bird on a Louisiana beach. Scroll down when you get there.

Helen Thomas Puts On A Black Shirt.

The Grand Dame of Wrinkled-Prune Lefties thinks Jews are "occupiers" in the Middle East, and should "go home" to Poland, Germany, and the Unites States. But what about those whose "home" is Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Ethiopia or... have lived in the Holy Land for dozens of generations? Does she have a final solution for them?

Are You Now, Or Have You Ever Been, A Republican?

If you answered yes, then Representative Alan "Tailgunner Al" Grayson (D-FL) thinks you belong in jail. Yes, seriously. Political prisoners. In America.
Well, at least The Left / Mainstream Media are starting to be honest about what they mean by "transformative change".

An Armed Society Is A...

...Safer Society. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you likely knew that already.

Boyz 2 Men.

Yep.

Well That Didn't Take Long.

From an earlier RSR post, on Israel stopping the flotilla of "activists" bound for Gaza:

Side Note: How long it will take The Episcopal Church (tm) - who claimed it had to wait years for their "polity" to issue a statement regarding requests made to it by the Archbishop of Canterbury - to issue a statement denouncing Israel?

Answer: Less than three days. Not a direct denunciation, but it doesn't take binoculars to see which side our Presiding Bishop is on.

Balls.

Yes, this guy has 'em. Watch it all.

From The Hayride: "He’s got a hell of a future if they don’t kill him first." Agreed.

Do I Miss Him Yet? Why Yes, I Do.

And it takes a lot for me to say this, but oh, for the good old days when when presidents were, well, presidential, and not deferential. At least W had a pair:

"Yeah, we water-boarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed," Bush said of the terrorist who master-minded the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. He said that event shaped his presidency and convinced him the nation was in a war against terror.

"I'd do it again to save lives."

How many Islamic terror attacks were there in the US between September 12, 2001, and January 20, 2009? And how many have there been since? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Does Victor Davis Hanson Have A Crystal Ball?

No, but he does have history, and he takes a look back at 1979 to see what 2011 holds. Read, learn, mark, and inwardly digest. It ain't pretty.

'We Con The World'.

Indeed.

Hattip: Instapundit and The Hayride.

Let's Put That 'Total Gym' To Work! (UPDATED)

Ugh. Now we have entertainer 'experts' getting involved with the BP oil spill disaster down here - Kevin Costner and James Cameron, so far. (Can Paris Hilton be far behind? -ed.) I say if we have to get an an entertainer involved, let's at least get one who could actually, y'know, get the job done.

Of course, I'm speaking about.... Chuck Norris.

Once all those oil molecules floating around the Gulf find out 'ol Chuck is pisssed and on the way, they'll be getting themselves back down that borehole as fast as they can. 'Cause we all know Chuck would whip each and every one of them. Individually. Before lunch.

UPDATE: Some James Cameron suggestions...

UPDATE: A friend recommended Steven Seagal as an option. Makes sense: He's here, and he's not busy at the moment, and he allegedly has some experience in aggressively plugging holes.

Is It Just Me?...

...Or do other Louisiana readers find themselves going more and more to The Hayride for their Bayou State news and commentary, and less and less to The Dead Pelican? Most particularly, The Hayride has done a bang-up job covering and analyzing the ongoing BP disaster.

I've also noticed I get a lot more referrals from The Hayride than from The Dead Pelican nowadays. Wasn't that way before.

Science!

Put on your way-back caps, all my dear Anglican/Episcopal readers, and hearken back to 2008. I'm sure you remember Presiding Bishop -and former scientist - Katherine Jefferts-Schori's immortal 'cow farts' Easter message, and the reason she had her mitre in such a wad over bovine wind:

"When atmospheric warming, due in part to the methane output of the millions of cows we raise each year to produce hamburger, begins to slowly drown the island homes of our neighbors in the South Pacific, are we truly sharing good news?"

Well, let me share some good news with you and the Presiding Bishop:

"For years, people have warned that the smallest nations on the planet - island states that barely rise out of the ocean - face being wiped off the map by rising sea levels. Now the first analysis of the data broadly suggests the opposite: most have remained stable over the last 60 years, while some have even grown."

So don't cancel that trip to Bora Bora - our former oceanographer Presiding Bishop got it wrong. Hey, go have a Big Mac, too. In fact, have few - tell 'em it's a religious celebration.

Sunday Library.

A Mary Jane Wilkie of New York City is worried:

In metropolitan areas, many Episcopal churches struggle with building and maintaining a healthy Sunday school. For such churches, resources are few, space is scarce, and parents are unclear about what they want for their children. Most churches lack a corps of competent teachers, and some congregations are too small to offer the "critical mass" needed to recruit such a corps.

Well, when your Presiding Bishop says we're the posh, and having kids is something only those Papist proles do, it's kinda hard to maintain numbers for a healthy Sunday School. And it is beyond me why any Episcopal congregation would be "too small" anymore, or their "resources too few", what with all that 'full inclusion' and 'radical welcome' swelling the pews and the collection plates.

Oh, wait...

Not to worry, dear readers, Ms. Wilkie has a cunning proposal to deal with all this, and get young Episcopalians attached to their church: Ship 'em off:

I propose that, rather than wrestle with obstacles individually, churches could work collectively. Those in a specific geographic area could establish a center for children's spiritual development, to serve that area's churches on Sunday. Parents could leave their children at the center, and worship in the church of their choice, thus seeing to their own spiritual growth.

Yeah, we wouldn't want the little rugrats getting in the way of some spiritual 'me' time for mom and dad (or - because this is an Episcopal church - mom and mom, or dad and dad, or mom and new boyfriend, or dad and one-night-stand, or mom and dad and their 'roommate'...). Nothing says bonding like separation. But impressions are important to Ms. Wilkie, and she doesn't want a soul to get the impression that this is, y'know, our church:

To avoid the impression that it is the Sunday school of one particular church, the facility could even be a non-church, e.g., a school or a library.

Limiting it to a particular church is sooo un-Episcopalian. It could hurt the feelings of the Presbyterians down the street, and we all know how nasty pissed-off Presbyterians can be. When you consider it with that with-it, hip, cool, think-outside-the-Epistles 'Piskie outlook, libraries are the perfect place for Lefty group religious instruction. Ignore for a minute the pesky church/state separation issues it would raise (though a sound "Episcopal theology doesn't have much church in it anymore" defense could easily win that argument), I'm sure when we all think of worshipful spaces, the first image we have is book stacks and out-of-date computers.

But Ms. Wilkie is seeing the long game. Because she knows none of us live that false Ozzie and Harriet world anymore, where mom and dad are 1) still married to each other, and 2) mom and dad want to participate in church life as a family. (I mean, really - how... Republican!!) :

In an ideal world, parents and their children would grow spiritually in one place, and most of us are attached to our specific church, cringing at the thought of not having it available for our children. We should, however, consider the long-term consequences of continuing as is.

And the consequence of Ms. Wilkie's proposal would be that our children will have no real experiential memory of their specific church as a place of worship. And when it comes time for them to love it and care for it as we did, they will have no investment in it, and no interest in keeping it.

Now when they sell it and it becomes the neighborhood library...

'Daisy', Updated.

Ouch.
(If you miss the reference, go here and here. -ed.)

Hattip: Jeremy White on Facebook.

UPDATE: "In your heart, you know BP is right".

Ah, You Don't Believe We're On The Eve Of Destruction.

Well, we are. But in this sense its a good thing.

Side note lesson for all you conspiracy theory / Ron Paul types: Barry McGuire recorded this song in 1965, 45 years ago. It turned out it wasn't "eve of destruction" after all. Heck, most of you wouldn't be here if it had. So calm down, take off the tinfoil hats, and embrace the end of the world as we know it. I have, and I feel fine. You will, too.

Hattip: Insty.

Yet another reason to use Macs.

Stalinist commies use Dells. (Watch the video)

Google Is Your Guardian.

Once again, checking facts is not, it seems, something to be worried with when one needs to prove a Lefty point about traditional Christians. Here's what at issue:

"The Anglican bishop of Uyo in Nigeria, Isaac Orama, has described homosexuals as "inhuman, insane, satanic and not fit to live".

And that issue? While it may fit standard-issue Lefty bias nicely... Apparently, it isn't true. Has the editorial board at The Guardian ever heard of Google??

Hattip: Stand Firm.

Love Means Never Having To Say...

..."I'm Totally Serial!"

The man who invented the Internet and slew ManBearPig; the woman who made music safe for elevators; who made up the couple that inspired 'Love Story',

Have decided to split.

What? Don't they know that divorce is bad for the environment?

The Green Road To Hell.

John Stossel asks, "But what if much of going green is just bunk?" As an architect, I am thrust onto the cutting edge of the "green" movement - whether I want to be or not - and I can assure you that, yes, it is mostly bunk. It is a political and moralistic (nearly religious) movement, not a technological or engineering one.

Reducing energy use and life-cycle costs in the built environment are, in and of themselves, not a bad idea. We should do that. But 'going green' nowadays isn't about lowering costs; it's about doing the "right" thing - even if it costs more.

As architects, we are being forced into the bureaucracy-heavy LEED program in order to achieve "sustainable" buildings. LEED is the brainchild of the uber-Lefty environmentalist group National Resources Defense Council, and is rife with politically correct silliness. For example, in LEED you get a 'point' for putting bike racks in your design, even if there is no demand for them - and no foreseeable demand. Bikes = "green"; therefore a bike rack = good.

The fundie greenies, just like the fundie evangelicals in the 80's, are moralistic busybodies. They can not cannot convince a majority of Americans to adopt their moral choices willingly (I mean, would you want to live like Ed Begley, Jr.? Didn't think so. -ed.), so they try to use government as a way to force those moral choices on everyone else - in the name of a greater good that they define.

Irony Alert, Or, If I Had A Hammer...

After watching this video of "nonviolent activists" using using metal bars and tools to "nonviolently" resist the Israelis enforcing the arms blockade of Gaza:



I ran across this image today at the decidedly anti-Israeli Episcopal Peace Fellowship homepage (a part of The Episcopal Church (tm)):

God And Ayn Rand.

Charles Murry, writing in the Claremont Review of Books, reviews two books on the (greatly misunderstood) icon of modern libertarianism, Ayn Rand. Well worth the read.

In college I read The Fountainhead, as any good architecture student does, but didn't read Atlas Shrugged until I was in my early 30's. I think waiting to read the latter after a few years in the real world is a good thing. The message is very complex, and often uses unrealistic scenarios (Gault's Gulch) to make a real point. Atlas Shrugged is like a fine wine; it's subtleties are lost on those who do not know what they are consuming. Without the wisdom of experience, it is a work easy to mis-understand and confuse, and is often - I think incorrectly - used to bolster unrealistic expectations (The Libertarian Party) or paranoia (isolationists/conspiracy theorists), or both (Ron Paul).