Obama Without A Teleprompter

If Bush sounded this stupid and clueless we’d never hear the end of it. 

 

 

The World Is Safer

For all the crackpot America haters who assure us that George Bush caused terrorism to rise, by going to war against the terrorists (a logical non sequitur on its face, but Liberals seldom concern themselves with logic, much less facts) here’s a little inconvenient truth:

Terrorism attacks have greatly declined in the world, and sympathy for Al-Qaeda in the Muslim world is also in steep decline:

http://www.humansecuritybrief.info/

  Happy Memorial Day.

Freedom isn’t free. It’s paid for by American soldiers.

 

The Bridge is a Republican

The mainstream press again today shows us how it isn’t biased.  The Democrat Detroit mayor was indicted today on multiple criminal charges, yet NBC, CBS, ABC and the Associated Press all managed, just as they did the other day when the Democrat governor of New York resigned in disgrace, to cover the story without once mentioning the party affiliation.  Yet this same day, an Associated Press story was released regarding the results of an investigation of last summer’s Interstate bridge collapse in Minnesota.  In that story, relevant to nothing, prominent play was given to “Republican governor Tim Pawlenty” having vetoed a gas tax increase which would have paid for bridge repairs, and that the Democrats had favored the measure.  No mention that the bridge wasn’t on a repair list, or explanation of how it was the governor’s fault given that the investigation concluded the original construction of the bridge was faulty, which wouldn’t be remedied by yet another tax increase. 

So just to summarize:  Mayor of Detroit, Governor of New York, apparently without a party affiliation.  But Minnesota bridges, or at least the ones that collapse, are Republicans.  

Friday Night at O Bistro

I had dinner Friday night at my local hangout, or if you prefer, my Florida “headquarters,” O Bistro.  And for reasons that will cause this to be posted in politics and not dining, I may be seeking a new place to be my regular haunt.

First, it has nothing to do with O Bistro.  The food is superb, the service attentive….Lucy and Suzy take good care of me, even to the extent of answering me when I call them Lucy and Suzy, given that their names (I think) are Karin and Chrissy.  The owner, Sharon, and her husband, Jack, are gracious and generous hosts.  Friday night, I had another excellent meal;  rather than my customary steak or veal,  I ordered a dish new to me: “adult chicken fingers.”  The chicken is breaded in crushed pecans and the mac and cheese side dish is actually a rich blend of very good cheeses.  Hard to think of chicken fingers with mac and cheese as a gourmet meal, but it succeeds. 

So what’s the problem?  Alas, it’s some of the customers at the bar. 

For reasons which escape me, the bar (or maybe it’s just Florida in general) seems to be a magnet for far-left types and conspiracy theorists, who, like crackpots everywhere,  seem to have an irrepressible urge to share their drivel with everyone within earshot.  And since I’m there frequently and within earshot, this includes moi.  As those of you who know me would expect, this  does  not  go  well.

Friday, the crackpot du jour at the bar wanted, after praising that statesman (and sometimes rapist) Bill Clinton,  to lecture on the topic of oil prices.  Since I actually understand economics, I know that oil prices are arrived at by a combination of factors, including, primarily, supply and demand.  I also know, unlike the windbag du jour at the bar, that they are not set by George Bush.  They are also not set by a) Dick Cheney, b) Halliburton, c) Karl Rove, or even d) George Bush in conspiracy with the Saudis he’s “in bed with.” (the latter was presented to me, quite loudly, as a “FACT.” )  I guess facts are more convenient when you just make them up. 

After posing a couple of simple, pertinent questions which the dumbass du jour couldn’t answer, such as: from what country does the US import the most oil? (as my Canadian relatives all know, the answer is Canada, not Saudi Arabia or any other Middle Eastern country…Middle East oil goes primarily to Europe and Asia); I decided it was time to utter the famous words, “check please.”

Of course, this caused the cretin du jour , sensing my imminent escape, to begin a new lecture that “everyone is entitled to their own opinion.”  In response to that, I think Ann Coulter said it best: “everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but everyone is not entitled to their own facts.” 

If this were but an isolated incident, I’d laugh it off.  But it isn’t.  A recent previous visit involved an otherwise attractive young woman, who, unsolicited, slid down to sit next to me, bought me a drink, and then proceeded, out of the blue, to launch into a harange about Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfield blah blah blah,  all being war criminals, or Satan, or Hitler, or whatever charming accolade those “tolerant” liberals are offering up these days to anyone who dares disagree with them.  (Truth be told, she was so drunk I was having trouble following her thread of McThoughts)  Eventually, she managed to incoherently repeat that cherished left-wing dogma, that Bush wasn’t really elected.  Riiiight.  Guess he wasn’t reelected either?  

But perhaps I’m being unkind; after all, she was nice enough to take time out of her busy schedule of alcohol abuse to lecture me on an election that happened nearly eight years ago, all without taking the time to learn anything about a) the Electoral college system, or b) the five recounts in Florida, every one of which Bush won, even after votes were counted for Gore that actually weren’t for Gore,  but the Democrat doing the counting decided the voter really meant to vote for Gore.

 And we’re not done there.  As they say in the Ronco commercials, but wait…there’s more!  Just before I met this woman; I endured on two consecutive Wednesdays, occupying my favorite chairs at the bar no less, an equally charming metrosexual couple, who, among other inanities, assured everyone within listening distance (sometimes the wife would pull the string on her husband’s back that made him talk) that they couldn’t understand all the fuss those evil crazy Republicans were making about the Muslims, when, after all, we all know the real danger to America are those contemptible Christians. 

Wow!! really??  I must have missed all those times then when the Baptists rounded up some Catholics, beheaded them, and then circulated the videos on the internet.  Or the day a New York city landmark vanished, killing thousands, after the Methodists crashed into it with a hijacked plane.  Little did I know, in a world filled with terrorist attacks committed by radical Muslims, in Spain, England, Indonesia, and the United States among others, that the greatest menace to western civilization is Americans who go to church on Sunday.  The things you can learn from liberals!

Now, I know what you’re thinking.  And you’re wrong.  I do not start these conversations.  I have witnesses that I do not start these conversations.  I take a book when I go to dinner, and attempt to sit quietly reading, minding my own business, and drinking my wine, at least until Lucy turns the lights down too dim for me to continue reading. I consciously try to avoid these conversations, knowing what kind of people seem to be around here, and knowing my own shortcomings vis a vis the amount of drivel I’m willing to listen to before I put a none too polite end to it.   And it certainly isn’t that I don’t enjoy an intelligent conversation….I’d relish one if I could actually find one.  But parroting cliches  heard on CNN, or repeating asinine conspiracy theories  read on the internet, DOES NOT constitute intelligent conversation. 

Perhaps, before I give up on O Bistro altogether, (after all, the food and service are really good) I’ll try moving from the bar to a table.  A table for one.

Some days, I really miss Spankys in Georgia.

Obama’s First 100 Days

What an Obama presidency might be like:

Link to the Washington Post column

My favorite quote from the column: 

“Obama’s 100-day agenda would be designed, in part, to improve America’s global image. But there is something worse than being unpopular in the world — and that is being a pleading, panting joke. By simultaneously embracing appeasement, protectionism and retreat, President Obama would manage to make Jimmy Carter look like Teddy Roosevelt.   Which is why President Obama would probably not take these actions — at least in the form he has pledged. Sitting behind the Resolute desk is a sobering experience that makes foolish campaign promises seem suddenly less binding.   But it is a bad sign for a candidate when the best we can hope is for him to violate his commitments. And that’s a good sign for John McCain.”

Peggy Noonan on WFB

Link to Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal

May we not lose his kind…

“with the loss of Bill Buckley we are, as a nation, losing not only a great man. When Jackie Onassis died, a friend of mine who knew her called me and said, with such woe, “Oh, we are losing her kind.” He meant the elegant, the cultivated, the refined. I thought of this with Bill’s passing, that we are losing his kind–people who were deeply, broadly educated in great universities when they taught deeply and broadly, who held deep views of life and the world and art and all the things that make life more delicious and more meaningful. We have work to do as a culture in bringing up future generations that are so well rounded, so full and so inspiring.

Bill Buckley lived a great American life. His heroism was very American–the individualist at work in the world, the defender of great creeds and great beliefs going forth with spirit, style and joy. May we not lose his kind. For now, “Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels take thee to thy rest.”

My Favorite Buckley Quotes

SOME NEW QUOTES HAVE BEEN ADDED: 

 “Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”

Some of Buckley’s best lines were uttered in court during a lengthy libel trial in the ’80s against National Review brought by the Liberty Lobby, which was then countersued by National Review. (The Liberty Lobby lost and NR won.)   During the trial, Buckley was frequently irritated by attorney Mark Lane’s questions, prompting him to respond in court in answer to one of them: “I decline to answer that question; it’s too stupid.”

About the current state of affairs in higher education, he once remarked  that he’d: “rather be governed by the first 2000 names in the Boston phone book than by the 2000 member faculty of Harvard University.”

On being asked if he’d called Jesse Jackson an ignoramus:  “If I didn’t, I should have.”

When Buckley ran, as a third party candidate, for Mayor of New York City, and was asked what he’d do if he won: “Demand a recount.”

The end of his 1970 Playboy interview, coming after a long, intense grilling about Vietnam, civil rights, Communism, etc.:

PLAYBOY: Don’t most dogmas, theological as well as ideological, crumble sooner or later?

BUCKLEY: Most, but not all.

PLAYBOY: How can you be so sure?

BUCKLEY: I know that my Redeemer liveth.

 

George Will on William F. Buckley Jr.

Link to George Will on WFB 

They are not long, the days of wine and roses….

“Pat, Bill’s beloved wife of 56 years, died last April. During the memorial service for her at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, a friend read lines from “Vitae Summa Brevis” by a poet she admired, Ernest Dowson:

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:

Out of a misty dream

Our path emerges for a while, then closes

Within a dream.

Bill’s final dream was to see her again, a consummation of which his faith assured him. He had an aptitude for love — of his son, his church, his harpsichord, language, wine, skiing, sailing. “

William F. Buckley Jr. RIP

One of my best friends I never met.  He wrote 50+ books, founded the most influential conservative magazine in the world, sailed his own boat across both the Atlantic and Pacific, played the harpsichord, was a friend to Presidents; and was rumored once to have even found time to phone Dad at the old house on Riverside Drive many years ago, to inquire about a lapsed subscription to National Review. (mine)  Mr. Buckley was a gentleman for whom the phrase “renaissance man” truly fits, and a model of civility and elegance we lesser beings may only aspire to.  Only one man could write an obituary worthy of him, and alas, he is that one man.  A faithful servant of the Lord to the end of his days, he was without doubt one of the Creator’s finest works.