Another worthwhile use of resources...

Or, the doctoring industry strikes again!

Who authorizes funding for this sort of crap?

In other news...I know I have been absent these last few days. Busy weekend (inlaws in town, trip to Marine World (know known by the horrid name Six Flags Discovery Kingdom: Sea, Land, Air), cooking, more cooking, fundraising event (I scooped more ice cream in one day than in the rest of my life. It took two days for feeling to come back to the pad of my thumb)), followed by the start of school (with me playing the role of teacher - speaking of which, this post will be brief. Class at the Keilholtz Academy starts promptly at 9am).

I know, that is no way to run a blog, and all that. I still haven't posted my photos of Vegas, I still haven't ranted against Sacha Cohen, I still need to post more pictures of art (and that is another story, and another reason that blogging will probably be light - I have to get this stuff done).

The fun thing? We are studying arthropoda, particularly spiders and insects. I bought Amalia a bug vacuum and she is turning into quite the little hunter. Now I need to find a good field guide for arachnid identification. I have a good insect book, but need arachnids.

Recommendations?

More from the Doctoring Industry

This "study" had a sample population of 25.

How do these people get funding?

Why does anyone bother to report the results of these studies?

And most importantly...

Why do we actually base policy discussions on crap of this sort?

Fight the Doctoring Industry (the Medico-Pharmaceutical Complex)!

Hey!

How do I get my group listed as a hate group so California can move ahead on the hate map?

First, it probably needs to be a group, so come on, folks...join the Keilholtz Falange! Let's get on the map!

Look, I will even take out of staters, as second class members, perhaps (look SPLC! "second class members" Nevadans sit at the back! Oooooh!).

In a related front, I just heard that Abe Foxman has finally renounced (somewhat) his holocaust denial (as in Armenians, Turkish slaugther thereof). Just a couple of weeks ago he fired someone who went on the record saying that it was a genocide in Armenia. Media pressure changed his mind, but not enough that he is willing to back the Armenian Genocide Censure bill in Congress. That would piss off the Mohammedans, who are great friends of the Jews(!). Abe needs to check the filter in his hookah.

I am not the least bit an anti-semite. In fact, I cannot understand it. I understand most prejudices, really, especially the Irish-English ones, but hatred against the Jews? They are a good bunch, for the most part. But, like anyone else, they have their bad apples.

Abe Foxman, for instance. A sort of Jewish Bill Donahue, but more obnoxious, more out of central casting, and stupider (and that is tough). Right now the Italians have as our Primo Culo, the one and only (deo gratias) Nancy Pelosi (well, there are some Italian magistrates who vie for the Continental honors there). And I can't say that I would take a trade. I am glad that he is not Signor Fossimani. I am glad that he is not a Californian, too.

The Turkish Army

I have long admired the Turkish Army, for its role in preventing Turkey from going into a frenzy of Mohammedanism. Now, am I holding a double standard when I praise the Turkish Army for what I condemn in the French? Yes, and for good reason.

The Catholic Faith is True, and Mohammedanism isn't.

I know that this is a hard saying for mealy-mouthed modern relativists, but it is true, no matter how unfashionable it is. When the French want secularism, they are rebelling against the very thing that allows a concept of secularism (ironically, opening up the gates to the sort of folks who sneer at secularism). When the Turks want secularism, it is a different story.

My prediction in the latest manifestation of the Army-Government saga? When Erdogun is begging the army to stay out, they are already in. Expect a turnover soon.

I miss the Cold War.

This thought came to me as I was deleting spam comments from the blog. The majority of my two or three hundred daily spam posts have ".ru" addresses. Now, I have many prejudices, but topping the list (or at least sharing it with the Englisch) are the Russians. I dislike most of their music, most of their art, most of their architecture, find their Patriarch a KGB stooge, and their writers overwrought handwringers. And I find vodka a silly drink.

Now, obviously there are exceptions. I like some Russian music, particularly the more folkloric (but not the Stalinist Folkloric stuff) music (and Tchaikovsky, who was really German in his music). I like some Russian literature. When I have had enough silly vodka, I find Russian architecture amusing.

But, when I have to sort through scads of Russian spam, I am ready to revive the Cold War.

I have fond memories of the Cold War. I was on the other side back then, but it was a good time.

If the Russians had tried to infiltrate a blossoming new media at that time, we would have considered it an act of war and would have reacted innapropriately. Commie fifth columnists (and, yes, just about anyone you have ever suspected of taking orders from the Kremlin was doing just that), would have clucked and tsked.

Of course now we know that Sen. McCarthy was right, and yet, his name is used as if he were some sort of demon-man (which Paul Robeson, the Commie psycho ham actor and third-rate singer, who, unlike the Hon. Joe McCarthy, was honored by a postage stamp(!), certainly was).

We won, and are overrun by tacky Russian neo-capitalists spamming us with offers of everything the decadent West has to offer, but in helpings that would make a Cold War Vegas denizen blush.

Whooo hoooo! Raise a toast to the man who brought capitalism to the Russians!

It almost makes me want to sing "Old Man River"

Privacy Rights

As you know, I don't give a hoot for so-called "privacy rights." The only privacy rights that exist are the right to not be forced to go naked in public (and along with that comes the responsibility to not go around naked in public, or semi-naked), and some limited right to keep private matters private (and along with that comes the responsibility to keep them so yourself. That means that if you are gabbing on the cell phone in public about your sex life (or advertising it on a teeshirt or bumber sticker), don't holler to me when the government wants to tap Ahmed the Mad Bomber's phone).

Beyond that, all bets are off, and the whole protection from search and seizure thing is nothing but 18th century liberal fetishism for the supreme autonomy of the individual. Bah! Bah! and Bah! Humbug!

If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide.

This sentence still sends liberals up the walls, although none of them can really give a rational reason that it is in error.

If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide.

It will probably be the motto of the Civil Guard in the Keilholtz Dictatorship.

Personally, I find it fascinating that Google keeps track of all of these search engine requests. It will be extremely valuable to anthropologists of the future. However, that being said, I do find things like this amusing. Someone went to a lot of trouble to turn their fetish for privacy (and one wonders what sort of wrong they are doing that they dedicate so much time to wanting to hide it) into a product.

So, if this sort of thing appeals to you, for whatever twisted reasons you might have for keeping your internet activity hidden, here are your fellow travellers. In the Dictatorship we will probably secretly monitor who goes on this site and do some investigations.

The Headline is Wrong

The headline to this story should be:

Courageous elderly priest stands down pack of violent defiant low life dirt punks.

And he should be promoted to Archbishop.

Yes, he probably should have kept his cool a little bit and probably should have used less, well, colorful, language, but there were about a dozen of the trespassing little rats, they were defying him, they were quite probably armed to some degree, and I can hardly blame him for using language milder than I would have used on the little turds.

Now These People are Amusing...

These folks think that they are going to bring in an era of utopian prosperity.

Pretty goofy stuff. In fact, I found the item in the "Oddly Enough" section of my news page. But if you change the faith in nutball meditation to faith in free markets and democracy, you get pretty much the neocon position.

Once any group starts promising utopia, and throws around phrases like "the end of history" with a straight face, you are dealing with dangerous folks. The Eternal Reich ended in a bloodbath. The Workers' Paradise was a bloodbath from day one. Complex nation-building exercises in the Middle East and Asia? Guess where those things end, if not abandoned early enough.

Here's a scuzz for ya!

Sure enough this creep is doing what he is doing to "make pedophilia accepted." In ten years he will probably have a park named after him.

I will tell you one thing: in the Keilholtz Dictatorship this guys and others of his ilk (anyone who has ever been a member of NAMBLA, for instance), will spend many years toiling away in remote parts of Nevada.

Jim Naugle Should Run For President

I would love it if a civic leader around here spoke like this.

Three cheers for Mayor Naugle!

Oh yes....

Erik's Rants and Recipes officially endorses Cindy Sheehan in her race against Pelosi.

Tee hee hee.

Barack Obama and JFK

Remember, if he gets the nomination, you have to call him Barack Osama at every single opportunity. Yes, it seems like an ignorant rednecky sort of thing to do, but it will be important. Trust us. His followers will then say, "but he is a Christian", thus allowing you to ask about just what sort of Christian he is.

Anyway, Democrats are living in the past, and who can blame them?

Ah, to bask in the good old days of...Carter?

Poor, poor bastards. Obviously, you might be thinking, "this is about as close to partisan support Keilholtz has ever expressed? Is he going Republican?" No, of course not. The Republicans are the enemy. Ever since they fought against Franco and the Nationalists...

Oh, not those Republicans. The other ones. The Freemasons and Prottie Party. Ah, yes. Forget it. Cut from the same loaf as the Democrats.

Anyway, where was I?

Ah, yes. This Osama fellow being a lot like Kennedy. I think so. They are both shallow men who rely on their long gazes into an optimistic future to pass as deep thought. They both, remarkably, since that Osama fellow doesn't look Irish, have ears that stick out considerably (perhaps there is some Irish DNA floating around Kenya - as if they didn't have enough problems already. Let me tell you about this Massai who was walking home from the pub the other night...Hold it! I have just had an epiphany. It's Barack O'Bama, son of Paddy O'Bama, and grandson of Kevin Seamus O'Bama. Holy Giraffe, Batman! Barack is really a Kennedy! Good Lord, get ready for some serious nation building wars if this turkey gets elected. What does Turkey have to do with it? Are you saying we should invade Turkey?), and they both have connections to some silly little post-Protestant school in Massachussetts.

I still say that Osama would be better than Hillary and Romney, but at that point all hope is lost in the American political system.

Edict from the Duce

Obviously, under the Keilholtz Dictatorship, the World Health Organization will have to go. As in, all of its assets seized, its executives arrested, etc. They are the geniuses who have told the world that there is no safe level of second hand smoke. In other words, the merest whiff can kill you.

And speaking of killing you: with or without tobacco, the human mortality rate lingers around 100%, with most deaths being unpleasant, no matter if they can be easily or remotely or not at all related to tobacco.

So, when professional worriers and agents of the doctoring-pharmaceutical complex hold an international anti-smoking convention, you know that Satan is having a field day.

A couple of weeks ago I saw a government-sponsored poster making a big deal about the Homosex Pride event being smokefree. Sodomy is good and smoking is bad?!?

Es ist Genug!

By order of the Duce, the counteroffensive must begin. We hereby declare 2007 a special year of Anti-Neo-Puritan activity. And let us go on record as officially declaring that smoking (in moderation) is good.

For your specific marching orders, contact your cell leader.

Believe!
Obey!
Fight!

Two Edged Sword

No the democratic ideal could not have originated in a Catholic system, and this should give people pause as to how ideal it is.

St. Francis of Madrid, Pray for Us!

Some Lunchtime Reading on Immigration

Via Don Jim is this article on the cost of an immigrant, particularly a low-wage Mexican immigrant.

Of course the anti-immigration crowd is a slippery one. When they aren't snarling over the genetic unfitness of Mexicans or the linguistic inferiority of Castillian (hah!), they are weeping big tears over the fact that more immigration lowers the wages of the black folks, or that immigration is bad because it makes the immigrant work for low wages (!).

Anti-immigrant types: Go back to Ireland.

Those Canadians

I am beginning to wonder whether or not the Canadian "conservatives" are as bad as the typical Canadian (the Canadian liberal). Is is just me, or is there something rather odd about a Canadian who seems obsessed with American immigration policy?

As I have said before, I am all in favor of keeping out Canadians. They are nothing but trouble, whether they are Neil Young or The Latest Neocon. So, my dear readers from the Frozen North, if our immigration policy bugs you, then let me be the first to invite you to stay home. I would take a million Mexicans over a single Canadian (OK, unless said Canadian is Oscar Peterson (who has American ancestry) or Diana Krall).

I know it is cold up there, but you can always make a bonfire of crappy Canadian literature (start with Maggie Atwood), and sit around sipping crappy Canadian beer and singing crappy Canadian music.

If we ever we do the sensible thing and invade Canada to exploit its natural resources and to prevent them from giving all the land back to the savages, I will be the first to enlist.

Life in the Dictatorship

Fortunately, there will be no prohibition on ex post facto laws in the Keilholtz Dictatorship. If one has done something abominable, one will face consequences, whether or not someone during the Feeble Democracy Era bothered to write it down correctly or not.

So, this judge had better fight tooth and nail to prevent the Keilholtz Dictatorship from happening, because the day after we come to power, this guy is going to prison for the rest of his life. Hard labor, too.

The hero of Chile

I'd like to take the chance to speak about a great man, a hero to the
people, a man who brought justice and hope to the people of Chile, a man whose memory I deeply venerate.

I speak, of course, of President Salvador Allende.

Words cannot express how much this man and his legacy has meant to my
life, how "La vía chilena al socialismo" has inspired my own thinking on true equity in human society, how the nationalization of property he so courageously undertook is the path to real human freedom. I still weep for the cruel coup d'etat that ended his reign, and I curse the memory of that thug who replaced him.

That is why, whenever I have a glass of Chilean wine, I always preface it with a toast: "Viva Allende!"

Australia! It's the new Canada!

Criky, Mate!

Your country is on the road to taking the New Sodom title.

When will the backlash begin?

Waaaaah!

Wow! If we were to have a whining Olympics, Cindy Sheehan might give the anti-immigration crowd a run for their money.

I am normally not a "love it or leave it" sort of person, but Sheehan herself suggests it, sort of like those Film Actors' Guild members who were going to move to Canada if Bush got elected. We're waiting.

Unfortunately she is moving back to California. We really don't need her back. We have enough like her. The startling thing is that she is a native Californian. Usually that sort of crap comes from people who move here from Nebraska.

Excellent Points...

No, this blog is not going to become Erik's Perpetual Commentary on TSO, but you should read what he has to say here.

He is spot on. The high gas prices (we are at about $3.40 a gallon in California) cost us an extra fifty bucks a month. A pain in the kiester, but not the end of the world, and that, combined with the dollar toll increase, has made me more inclined to use BART when going to the City (we get public transit fare with pre-tax dollars).

Part of this is that, due to our Explorer's crappy mileage, a trip to the City costs about $12, not counting parking or coffee or food or doing anything that costs money. So, four trips a month saves me $48, and that is four decent bottles of wine. I like spending money on wine more than on transportation.

Of course we don't really commute by car, and we have not gone on a lot of road trips. Even so, this is hardly the stuff of "major financial crisis." You can budget and plan for these things. And if you can't, well, that says more about you than it does about the price of gas.

PS. Of course when the price of gas jumped a few years ago, I used that as part of my justification to raise my writing fees, but you have to make your fee stay in line with your costs of doing business.

Aw, Boo Boo is sad.

I know, he looks and sounds like a teenager, but he is a big boy lawyer, so he can take it.

Poor Russell has a nightmare of "inexorable devastation." Someone buy him a violin, fast. At least he will always have Pat Buchanan on his side. If these people don't like a land of immigrants, why don't they move to Finland? Or Norway.

Now, in fairness, Russell seems like an all right young man when he isn't sulking about Mexicans. In fact, some of his other posts are down right worth reading. Check him out.

How do you say "Schadenfreude" in Spanish?

I have to say that I have been having a little bit of fun with the hysterical anti-immigration folks out there.

As a tribute to them, I think I am going to cook Mexican food every night this week, as I listen to conjunto music.

They tend to be at their funniest when they retreat into the "they're taking away our freedoms" wail. Good Lord, you would think that the drive for neo-puritanical nanny statism is coming from the fellows who line up in the hiring lots.

One of the best is the fellow (a grim and earnest looking young man), who, while insisting that statistics are the only hard facts on the matter, complained that all of the immigrants are uneducated and unskilled (counterexamples be damned! Statistics!). Of course every single mic and wop who arrived at the beginning of the last century had a Harvard degree, but that was then and, and, and...but this has NOTHING to do with race, I tell you! NOTHING! Get those filthy brown paws off of me...you...you...!

The thing is: they already lost, and bleating about sealing off the border is preposterous, as there are enough fifth columnists who, for various reasons, some noble and others less so, will see that there remains a steady flow of immigrants.

Kalifornia Uber Alles

The conservative Canadians seems to think that the country they want to flee to would be better off without immigration.

The money quote: "All we really have to do is look at California to see the national future..."

And, if you people had it so good you would be lucky.

As for Hispanics converting to Mohammedanism, I have yet to meet one. I have met plenty of Angloes who now bow to Arabia, though. Mostly young women, who are taking the "shock Dad" thing to extremes. I remember reading one website of an Australian feminist grad student convert to Mohammedanism, and I thought, "poor Mohammedans. Another round of converts like these, and they will be begging us to take back huge chunks of Christendom."

And in Other News...the Pot calls the Kettle Black

I am no fan of George Bush and his little Pseudo-cons. But that jackass Carter should just sit on his hands, lest people remember his administration.

Immigration Reform

TSO should vote for me, then.

I am openly in favor of an almost completely open border with Mexico.

If we are going to talk about immigration abuse, lets get all of the non-Native Californians to pack up and go home first.

You're better off in
Beautiful Texas,
Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia,
Tennessee.

I could probably get behind a border wall that runs North-South, along the Eastern edges of Modoc to Imperial Counties. It could bend west up in Modoc County, as Oregonians are only a stone's throw from Lower Canada, and the Frozen North herself.

I saw a bumper sticker today that brought out my Teutono-Roman invasiveness.

"You are on Indian Land."

Not anymore. Europeans won that war. And if someone were to come out with a proposal to wipe the last vestiges of pagan Indian culture off the continent, I would support it, even if it means eliminating some valid cultural expressions that could still possibly be disentangled from the paganism, for instance the languages.

Massive immigration is imperialism, and I support both. It is better to be European in culture than it is to be non-European in culture. It is better to be Latin in culture than it is to be Anglo in culture.

So we have Angloes, who have utterly failed at building an original culture, whining futilely about the coming of a vital culture. Angloes, you are doomed as a people. Get over yourselves.

"But they're stealing our jobs!"

I have a friend, a sort of liberal, who used to be an extreme liberal, but is gradually moving rightward. In about five years he will probably salute photos of Franco with me. This fellow is a contractor, and he has just about given up on hiring Angloes. They are, he says, lazy, whiny, and selfish. They demand to be overpaid and expect great praise for the most minor achievement. They suffer from more physical ailments, they are more sensitive to their work environment, they are more sensitive to comments and criticism, and they pay less attention to the quality of their work (Have you Driven a Ford Lately?).

Now, do I advocate shipping all the Angloes back to Anglia? It wouldn't break my heart if it were to happen, but, no, I don't. There are still some good, honorable Angloes. In fact, most of our native-born Angloes are pretty honorable folks. It is the outside agitators who come to California, expecting a California of their own Imagination, and proceed to build it. I have no fear for the long run, as they are doomed to fail. But in the short run, we have to deal with, and, ultimately, correct, all sorts of daft notions, which we are then credited with having given birth to.

No, the Angloes will become a complete irrelevancy very soon. The future of California is a Latin future, and it shall be a glorious future.

The only group that, as a group, should be completely denied entrance, and should face internment and deportation, regardless of their race or place of birth is Mohammedans. And a wall between Mexico and us will do nothing to help that.

PS To Kathy, no if immigration bothers you, stay in Canuckistan.

Arriba JONS-Falange!

It would seem that the Bishop of Pamplona has cojones!. I, of course, always and everywhere urge people to vote for JONS-Falange, even outside of Spain. What? You don't have a chapter in your neck of the woods? Start one!

Via Cacciaguida, who is a good guy, in spite of his anti-endorsement of God's own party.

Oh yeah, please note that this is coming from a Basque bishop. So much for the Basques all hating Franco, as the leftist-written histories of Spain would have you believe.

St. Francis of Madrid, Pray for us!

Carbon Debits!

You know something?

I have been an environmentalist for years. I have always believed in preserving wilderness, keeping crap out of rivers, going easy on the hunting of genuinely endangered species, removing Mormon dams, etc. Part of my loathing of Mormonism has to do with their views on Western water policy (not to mention the coffee, tobacco, and alcohol thing, and the paganism, the pyramid scheme cosmology, the mind-numbingly poorly written frauds of The Book of Mormon and it's rip-roaringly funny sequel, Pearl of Great Price. And their generally ghastly aesthetics).

The reason to do these things is that it ultimately makes the Earth a better place for people to live on and to use. You preserve endangered game species so that your grandchildren can hunt them. If that notion sounds shocking, well, to Hell with you then. There are compassionate folks who would say, "well, geez, I will pray for you," but I am not a compassionate folk. I am a Volk, but the extent of my compassion is that I will tell you that you are an idiot, in order to help you get out of idiocy.

We don't preserve nature for the sake of nature. That is stupid on many levels. We preserv nature for its salutary benefits on society. We want our teenagers to experience beautiful wilderness. We shouldn't give two flips over wilderness that is so remote and has a climate so hostile that it will only be enjoyed by the savages who aren't smart enough to leave it and the super wealthy who fly up there to show the world how much they care about nature.

So, increasingly, I have become more and more hostile to the mainstream environmentalists. They are pagan turds and double dip their membership with the secular neo-puritans, who I would send off to detention centers in a second.

Senator Gore's son, the former Vice President, is one of those idiot Boomers that I have a deep loathing for, and have since before he was even Veep. This Cabron Credits ($1K for each inch of horn?) business is about the height of Gaia idiocy (yet it will get worse. It always does).

So, imagine my delight when I discovered this via Kathy Shaidle! I have already wanted a shirt that says, "I am increasing my carbon footprint!" These folks might be rednecks, but they are my kind of redneck.

vive la france!

Verily, the French are annoying, but I wish them the best, really. For one thing, when France is doing well, it is in a better position to really annoy the English, and there is nothing that warms my heart like knowing that someone out there is holding up the torch of annoying the English.

So, I am glad that the Conservatives (really, I should say "conservatives" as they are really secular Liberals) won. I would rather have a Catholic party win, but it is going to take a lot of missionary work before there is a restoration of order in France.

It's just that there would have been even more work had the Socialists won.

Kent State

Around here, people look at me like I have two heads when I tell them that I support the conduct of the Ohio National Guard at Kent State. Would that our own Golden State National Guard had the same reaction in the Bay Area. It is nice to see that Kathy Shaidle agrees with me. For a Canadian, she is awfully sensible. With a few more like her, that place might grow up to be a real country someday.

Gentlemen, start your Stukas...

Wir fühlen in Horsten und Höhen
Des Adlers verwegenes Glück!
Wir steigen zum Tor
Der Sonne empor,
Wir lassen die Erde zurück.

What is this all about? Let's just call it Norbert Schultze Appreciation Day.

Kamerad! Kamerad!
Alle Mädels müssen warten!
Kamerad! Kamerad!
Der Befehl ist da, wir starten!
Kamerad! Kamerad!
Die Losung ist bekannt:
Ran an den Feind!
Ran an den Feind!
Bomben auf Engelland!

Yes, I recognize that it is never acceptible to bomb civilians, whether they be in Dresden or in London. And, certainly the cause of the German leadership was hardly a good one.

However, when I read about things like this, I really find it difficult to get teary-eyed over besieged London, and I can't say that the victory of Stalin and his allies was a great triumph for humanity, even though the end of Hitler was.

Ach!

In the whole Imus kerfluffle, I realized that, in my being busy with other matters, I have not kept up with Project Keep the Left Honest About Blacklists, and have not published a post with the word "faggot" in it.

How about, "Al Sharpton is a faggot."?

Does this mean I will have to go to rehab or CBS will drop my blog?

What These People Need is Portuguese Imperialism

The problem with the end of imperialism is that so many of the people "liberated" from it could really benefit from its return.

I think this will be a new Quixotic cause of mine: return all of Portugal's former colonies to Portugal, for the sake of the folks living in them. Now, I realize that Portuguese rule was, shall we say, less than ideal, but has life really improved in Angola or Ceilao? Also, when they take a beautiful name like Bom Bahia, even in its Anglo-Corrupt form of Bombay (which is a great gin, by the way), and turn it into Mumble, that is just an insult to the West that should be punished.

Of course I could never wish the Englisch on anyone (besides, perhaps the Belgians or French), so why not do the right thing and turn India over to Portugal? All Goa, All the Time!

Chinese Food and the Naderites

Consider this adequate warning: any affiliation with any of Ralph Nader's Public Interest organizations will be considered justifiable grounds for all sorts of pestering, including hard labor, in the Keilholtz Dictatorship. Here it is published in full view of the world, so no whining that you did not know any better.

Here, for instance, we are treated to a story about one of the Center for Science (sic) in the Public Interest's (sic, sick) periodic naggings. It is one of their regular finger wagging reports indicting whole cuisines, this time Chinese ( they had already done this one, so perhaps they are at the end of their creativity?). Too much sodium, too large portions, etc.

Not just at the Gao Si Canton Gardens in West Peoria, but "Chinese restaurant food." Everywhere. Also, they warn, Mexican and Italian is bad, too.

Now, perhaps the report is not as badly done as it sounds, you will never know from reading in the press, because most reporters, in fact, nearly all of them, are incapable of reading and understanding a scientific paper. They rarely check the numbers, they don't even bother, in most cases, to report as to whether or not the study was primary or secondary research. They simply interview a few people and print what they hear. The more they hear the same thing, the truer it is (see smoke, secondhand). Instead of evaluating the data and the interpretation thereof, they fawn over the credentials of the scientist doing the report, and consider that they have "dug deep into it" if they figure out who financed the report (because, in the little brain of a typical reporter, money always corrupts, and nothing else ever corrupts).

Ah yes...

The main thing I was going to talk about on the prior entry was to note the date. Today is the International Holiday called the Day of Nostalgia and Melancholia. Today is the day that we recognize that zealous do-gooders will lynch a strong leader simply because he is a strong leader, and that they will almost inevitably end up with something worse.

Julius Caesar was the great proto-Fascist, a man who saw the impending chaos of a crumbling Republic, and did what he had to do, including some dirty work, to preserve the Common Good. Julius Caesar was the great prototype of a range of political actors, ranging from the Saintly: Francisco Franco or Antonio Salazar, to the diabolical Adolf Hitler. In between, representing a generous mingling of the good, the bad and the ugly were Mussolini, Saddam, Pinochet, Tito, Lincoln, Peron and de Gaulle. These middle characters, the deeply flawed heroes, are probably most in the mold of Julius Caesar.

In many ways I have always emulated certain traits of Caesar: for instance, I never joke about politics, although I might present political ideas in the manner of a joke. In this I look at how Caesar dealt with the pirates who kidnapped him. I recognize that the most arrogant people, the most megalomaniac, the Ralph Nader's, will do almost anything to put on a disguise of humility, something that Caesar never did. He was a general who became dictator, not because of his own ambition, although he was certainly human, but because Rome needed a dictator at the time.

The dirt punks of his day, the sort of people who fill the ranks of Indymedia, the Green Party, Code Pink, the Red Brigades and countless other anarchistic cells (not to mention neocons), killed him in the hope of bringing about some glorious democracy. In the end they got civil war and empire.

We will always have dirt punks like Brutus and Casca: pierced and wolfish looking, with lean and hungry looks, an inhuman zeal in their eyes, tatooed, ready with truncheon and dagger to join the next tittilating cause, and they will always destroy the order for the sake of whatever utopian vision they have bought from whatever Nader or Moore who has sold it to him.

So, what could be more proper on this Day of Nostalgia and Melancholia, but to quote from the Bard on this great proto-Fascist leader?

O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers.
Thou are the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy --
Which like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue--
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use,
And dreadful obects so familiar,
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quartered with the hands of war,
That this fould deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.

This is the reality of revolution and the madness of frenzied democracy: blood and destruction, domestic fury and fierce civil strife. This is the payment demanded of those who think they can bring about utopia on earth by their disorder and misbehavior.

Certainly we should not stand in blind admiration of the great dictators, and we may even find huge aspects of the rule of many of them repulsive. And while we cannot condone evil, especially when it is done for the sake of good order, the riotous evil that stirs men's hearts to base action should be doubly condemned. Again we turn to the Bard to help us understand how to evaluate men like Caesar and Pinochet:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend my your ears.
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious.
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest --
For Brutus is an honorable man,
So are they all, all honorable men --
Come I to speak at Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me.
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept.
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And sure he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause.
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason!

Bear with me.
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it comes back to me.

Now, this is obviously well-known as a piece of "crowd-swaying" oratory, and it is. However, there is another dimension at work here, and that is the awakening of the crowd from a mass-hysteria, a blood thirst that chanted the word "ambition" and could only be quenched with the blood of the great leader. The point isn't that Antony moved the crowds, but that the crowds were moved first by such a clumsy speaker as Brutus, who was armed only with a sentimental attachment to a failing democracy and a couple of loaded words, with which to stir the envy that smolders in the heart of every mediocre man: every future Sandinista, every potential Red Brigade member, every PIRG activist, every Liberation Theologian, every DNC faithful.

Brutus is the clumsy fool, so smitten with his half-baked democratic ideology that he encourages the mob to befoul their own living rooms. So it is with modern man, and so it shall be until the end of time.

So, on this day, the Day of Nostalgia and Melancholia, say a prayer for a fallen dictator, a flawed hero. Some may have gone on to their deaths unrepentant, unbaptized, hostile to the Church, in the clutches of a False Religion, but we can never know, so go ahead, pray for Saddam. Some may have died in a state of Grace (Pinochet was attended to by priests in his last days - go ahead, pray for Pinochet. If you spring him from Purgatory you will have one eternally grateful soul in Heaven on your side). But do take a moment to pray for the soul of a deceased dictator today.

And Another Thing...

I have never hid my deep dislike of Screaming Bill Donahue of the Catholic League. At best, he is an embarassment. He represents the entirely wrong way of engaging the culture: that of borrowing the whine and entitlement tactics of the left. Waaaaah! They are being mean to us! Make them say they are sorry. I would talk about him more, but I hear they make you go into rehab... har har har.

And here, obviously I am not saying that Mr. Donahue is a rump ranger, or light in the loafers in any way. What I am saying is that he is the sort of person who would have been tagged as a "fag" back in elementary school. Hell, we didn't even know about all that disgusting stuff. Fag was what you called someone who was being less than a Mensch.

But that is a side issue (of course if we are to oppose blacklists, we must say "fag" in solidarity with the general - I don't oppose all blacklists, but when they come from people who get teary over Pete Seeger getting blacklisted, I find them very hard to accept). The real issue is this nonsense with Mr. Hannity.

Who cares?

Why are "serious Catholics" wasting time watching this trash? Is it because, deep down, we still think there is something left of the magic between us and the GOP (and its mouthpieces)? Are we serious?

Let me spell it out for you:

The GOP is not a pro-life party, and I am not talking about any "seamless garment" nonsense. I am talking about doing nothing to get a partial-birth abortion ban passed with a majority of both houses AND the presidency.

The GOP is a sort-of free market and corporate welfare party, and nothing else. Any nod towards traditions and morality are nothing more than a sentimental gushiness, easily set aside if a dollar is to be made.

Let me spell it out even clearer (I wish I could remember where I read this, if you are the author, please holler): the only GOP candidate to have only been married once is the friggin' Mormon.

And you wouldn't vote for a Mormon, would you? I mean, if the choice were between Mitt Romney and Hitler, I would expect you to have to think about it for a few minutes, before voting for...nevermind. You get the point. Putting a Mormon in any position above, perhaps dogcatcher (and even then...Hitler, Romney, Hitler, Romney. Bow Wow! Woof woof!) is like pinning a "Smite Me" sign on the back of the country.

The dream is over. We have lost the round that began with our false victory (Kennedy, '60). It is time to try something else.

Now, I am aware the Nancy Pelosi (oh, what a cute little Italian grandmother, if you can imagine a cute little Italian grandmother in favor of sodomy and baby murder. Sorry, I can't. Maybe wopping you over the head for mistreating the pasta, but not that crap) must be stopped, but constantly picking the GOP to do the task is a mistake, unless we can force the GOP into something else, and that will not happen unless they have to work for it.

Rick Santorum and his ilk will not do.

The Left and Books

This post has some interesting stuff on cultural attitudes, but the money line is the last sentence. I have long noticed that "Leftists talk about books, but they don't buy books" as well as the fact that they are the first to point that Republicans don't support the arts, when they are the last to do so as well, at least with their own money.

Take NPR, for instance. I love NPR. It offers a lot of great programming, news and culture talk as well as some decent arts broadcasting. However, more and more NPR stations, primarily with affluent liberal audiences who pride themselves in their culture and wit, are totally abandoning any music programming. In the Bay Area, one of the more cultured areas in the nation, we do not have a decent classical radio station. We have a commercial "dentist's office" station (no vocal, nothing too difficult, no complete works (just movements), narrow range of programming, etc.). Yet if you listen to some Volvo driver with a KQED sticker jabber on, you would think that the GOP is solely out to destroy public access to the arts.

Watching the music/policy talk ratio on Pacifica is even more depressing.

The thing is, the left has, for the most part, the exact same attitude towards the arts as the right. They just pretend otherwise. The right wing at least admits that they don't think that the Good and the True are always linked to the Beautiful.

Now, this is painting with a broad brush, but it is fairly accurate, and it goes back to the Puritan influence on our culture. For the Puritans, the Beautiful was the deceptive, when Puritanism was secularized, anything outside of a market framework became the irrelevant. For leftists, anything outside of policy is irrelevant.

So, when it comes down to it, the left would rather rebroadcast the same newscast four times, than devote one part of that time to interesting cultural programming. They just have the indecency to sneer at the right for doing the same thing.

Conservative Credentials Officially Revoked!

McCain, Giuliani, and Romney (phhht! sppppt.) have all come out blustering away at Ann Coulter's comment, therefore showing that their conservatism is about a half inch deep at best.

Of course Mitt "Windsock" (or should we just call him "Kolob Boy") Romney of Massachussetts would fall into that (he is, after all, the ONLY candidate who I would probably vote for Hillary over. Hell, if he ran against Hitler himself, I would have to think about it).

I like "Kolob Boy". It is a good term for him. I have been calling the mayor of Oakland "The Cadaver" recently, and it might make a good tag team: Kolob Boy and The Cadaver. Mitt Romney and Ron Dellums. Hmmm.

Now, there is part of me that wishes that our Free Speech Hero (tee hee hee) was someone other than Ann Coulter, who I find tedious. But she will do in a pinch. After all, who is most likely to call a straight man "a faggot" anyway? Although I did coin the term "straight fag" for the long-haired, vegetarian, neo-tonal music loving, overly sensitive sorts who used their utter wimpiness to pick up the wrong sort of girls. I don't think Edwards is either a fag or a straight fag. A sleezeball trial lawyer, sure. A filthy Democrat, undoubtedly. He might be a straigt fag, but most trial lawyers I know are really macho sorts. They are into the whole knight in shining armor thing.

So, yes, it was the wrong sort of childish remark for Ann Coulter to make. She should have called him something else. Testa di cazzo, anyone?

Solidarity - John Edwards a Faggot?

I have mentioned before the need to stand with those who are being proposed for blacklisting by the left, even though we may disagree with their stridency. I mean, if it was such an odious thing for some slimeball like Paul Robeson to not make millions on his hammy acting and minstrel singing because he thought Stalin was swell, then it is equally odious for all Republicans to have to recite some formula for distancing and apology because one writer of theirs says something a little crass (although if the left were squawking that she was falsely accusing Lawyer Edwards of engaging in disgusting behavior, they would have a point. However, their offense is at the word itself, because it will not do for these people to call this by any name but the most glowing).

So, say it with me, in solidarity:

Faggot!
Faggot!
Faggot!

Oooooh. Aren't we being transgressive?

Faggot!
Faggot!
Faggot!

Once again, Keilholtz bravely challenges another taboo!

Faggot!
Faggot!
Faggot!

And, no, he is not drunk while writing this (he has yet to have his morning espresso), and will not go into rehab.

Faggot!
Faggot!
Faggot!

Isn't this fun? Is it making you want to go pointing at the next poofter sashaying down the lane while yelling "Faggot! Faggot! Faggot!" so that he may be correctly identified by the police?

Faggot!
Faggot!
Faggot!

OMG isn't that, like, a hate crime or something?

Faggot!
Faggot!
Faggot!

It has a nice rythm to it, doesn't it?

Happy Nixon Day!

Well, hello dear readers. Shade of Richard Milhous Nixon here. I was finally able to get Keilholtz distracted enough for me to take over the blog for a minute. I have been asked about what I think of this Presidents' Day business, and, let me say this about that:

I am all in favor of Presidents' Day, because it is really Richard M. Nixon Day, and I deserve a National Holiday. The reason it is my day is because it takes the gutless modern road of not wanting to honor great men (and, believe you me, Lincoln was my man!) and to instead honor the abstraction of the Presidency.

Now, no other man in American history, besides maybe LBJ, understood that the Presidency is above the Man. It is also above the Law, because whatever the President does, is the LAW. And if you don't go along with that, Jeb, Howard, and G. Gordon would like to have a little chat with your psychiatrist!

Yes, to celbrate the office of President, rather than particularly important holders of that office means that either you are saluting nitwits like Carter and Kennedy OR you are saluting my concept of the Presidency, which means you are saluting ME, Richard Milhous Nixon, the Greatest President Who Ever Lived!

Long Live Me!

Now, I have been told that I have an important meeting on the sixth level, so I have to go back down, now.

I Miss Dan Quayle

I really do. He was such a funny man. However, no one, besides maybe Spiro Agnew, was as funny as James Watt. I thought of him the other day, as I encountered in a grocery store, in this order: a black fellow, two women, one of whom was most probably Jewish, and the other in a wheel chair.

It's good that I don't have Tourette's Syndrome. I did have to stifle a giggle, however. It is not everyday that you see a particularly bad political speech come to life before your very eyes. It would have been like seeing Checkers, alive as you or me.

I dreamed I saw Nixon's Dog last night
Alive as you and me...

It has a nice ring. I could hear Joan Baez singing it, if Joan Baez had even the slightest hint of a sense of humor. Aw. I shouldn't be so hard on Joan Baez. She did call Amalia "cute" once (and it was a totally spontaneous thing: she was sitting outside at a restaurant, and we were just passing by).

Anyway, I have always wanted to form a band called "A Black, A Woman, Two Jews and a Cripple...And We Have Talent!" It would be fronted by a nerdy bald westerner. They could do Beach Boys songs.

Not that I would want to listen to any of that.

But I do like to listen to politicians like James Watt, LBJ, George Wallace, Dan Quayle, and Spiro Agnew. IF we have to have liberal democracy (pheh!), then at least it ought to be funny. I want to hear that "a mind is a terrible thing to waste...or to not have at all." I want to hear "nattering nabobs of negativism." I want to hear that paternalistic Texas drawl talking about defeating Communism in Southeast Asia.

That is one of the problems with Bush: he just isn't very interesting a speaker. I was listening to him the other day at the press conference, and he did a decent job, but...so what? No one really learns anything at those things. He almost got funny with some online reporter, but he didn't get a twinkle in his eye and say, "why, I bet you there are two four-letter words I know that you don't know: w-o-r-k and s-o-a-p."

And W could do it, too. It wouldn't be too much to ask for him to look the camera in the lens and say, "well, perhaps it isn't treason to vote the way they did, but if I were on the jury...I just don't think I could easily find the reasonable doubt...And treason's a capital offense. You know, I hope it doesn't come to that, but..."

That would get those Demos stomping and cursing and snorting!

Cheney. Now he has potential. If only his handlers would give him more time in front of the microphone. That could be a whole lotta fun.

Liberals are not serious.

One of the fixtures of liberal discourse is whining about Elias Kazan, The Right Hon. Joseph McCarthy, blacklists, etc.

"Because of [fill in the blank with the name of whichever commie turd you want here]'s beliefs alone, he was unable to find work [well, he was unable to use his own name to find work. He could still make plenty of money in Hollywood, so long as he used a cover]. How terrible. How sad."

And, yet, all someone has to do is refuse to bend over for the Homosex Agenda and the blacklisting is assumed and immediate.

Are so many basketball fans pro-homo that the NBA must take immediate action? They are a monopoly. Where else are homos going to go to watch basketball, if they are into that sort of thing? If the NBA is such a hot-nest of homosexism, then perhaps it should be investigated, and we ought to question whether or not children should be exposed to it.

Remember those old days when people who were not Commies would say "I am a Communist" or whatever cause it was that they were defending, simply to make the point that censorship is wrong?

Well, by order of the Duce, 2007 is the International Homophobia Year. It is time for decent people to come out of the closet and say, "we believe in the right to resist the Homosex Agenda, and, even though we may not want to see homos villified, we stand by those who do."

To promote this great event, We are sponsoring a Homophobia essay contest. You will win nothing more than bragging rights. Choose one of these topics and start writing:

1. On the Virtue of Homophobia
2. Should Homophobes face workplace discrimination?
3. Is there any significant difference between Barney Frank and Barney that Gay as Hell Purple Dinosaur? Why is this crap still on TV?

The deadline is March 15.

You know something...

Socialists are a menace.

Let's hope that the people of Holy Portugal make Socrates drink his political hemlock.

Our Lady of Fatima, Pray for us!
San Francisco Franco y Bahamonde, Pray for us!
San Josemaria Escriva, Pray for us!
Santa Isabel, Reina de Portugal, Pray for us!
San Antonio de Lisboa, Pray for us!

Giuliani

Now, there are some Republicans that would have me scrambling to vote Democrat in a second. Har har har. Not really. Let's rephrase that: there are some Republicans that could drive me back into voting a straight third party ticket, but which one?

Giuliani is one of those Republicans. First, he is disqualified because he is pro-abortion. Out. End of discussion. Second, what exactly is his marriage status? We will need to investigate that. Third, he compounds it by combining his reprehensible ideas with an Italian name.

And, most importantly, he is directly responsible for putting Hilary Clinton in striking distance of the presidency. Have people already forgotten his eleventh hour ditching of the Senate election?

Oh, yes, he was sick, but call me old fashioned, but I don't see that we want a sickly president, because then we have to pay too much attention to the Veep slot.

Whoo hoo! Giuliani. A sickly supporter of infanticide!

Stop Playing Liberal Games!

Look. The problem is not that Edwards hired staffers who were intolerant. The problem is that they were anti-Catholic. I would hope that our President is intolerant of Mormons, Falun Gong, Scientologists, Episcopagans, and other whack-job cults out there. This sort of blanket tolerance: tolerance of you, tolerance of me, tolerance of these other three, this is all rubbish. This is why I like the more vehement of the Mohammedans. They are against us. We are against them, and we can all work together in an atmosphere of honesty and animosity.

I can't believe what a bunch of crybabies we sound like. Demanding that Edwards fire these staffers? Are you kidding? We should praise him for letting his staff be relaxed enough to show the world what the Edwards campaign is all about. The time to bring this stuff up is closer to election time, anyway, if you are thinking in terms of partisan political strategizing.

Don't we realize that in today's climate, complaining about inthenthitivity is not our winning strategy?

Quit whining.

Early Endorsements

It is a little early, but Erik's Rants and Recipes is so far endorsing Barack Obama for the Democrat nomination for President. Be sure to talk him up to your Democrat friends.