Catchin' Up
It's been awhile since I posted last, having been sidelined by taxes and then other things got backed up as well. There's a been a few things I wanted to post on but couldn't muster the energy, so I'll just run through some quickly now.
Tortured Thinking
So the news came out that we tortured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks - and people are upset about that? What were we supposed to do with him - put him on Larry King and ask him if the sex occurred in the house? The fact that he wasn't gutted alive while being harangued by a mob of 9/11 widows speaks volumes about our national restraint. If they want to embarrass the Bush administration, why don't the Democrats look into something more interesting like who forged the Nigerian-yellow-cake documents?
America, the Humble
President Obama seemed bemused during the ritual, rhetorical flogging of America he witnessed at the OAS meeting, except when he felt they were attacking him personally, at which point he suddenly gets all huffy and declaims "Don't blame me, I was only an infant when those dead white guys pulled that shit!" He then accepted a gift from Hugo Chavez, a book that is apparently so bad it's been called the "idiot's bible." But since the book was written when he was in 5th grade, what the hell?
The New Haven 18
The Supreme Court heard arguments in Ricci v. DeStefano, where promotions were denied to 18 white (well, one Hispanic) firemen because, while they got the top scores on a promotion test, no black firemen were among the top scorers. Justice Ginzburg noted that having a written test that only white firefighters could pass sounds a lot like having a physical test that only male firefighters could pass. No one wanted to go near that one. Moderately-liberal justice Breyer seemed sympathetic to the firefighters' plight, but worried that deciding in their favor could lead to objective standards based on merit being used everywhere, and that thought was just too horrible to contemplate. Justice Kennedy, on the other hand, appeared eager to formulate an impossibly narrow, finely-tailored opinion that would grant relief to those specific 18 firefighters while assuring full employment to everyone working in the testing/diversity/equal-opportunity specialty for decades to come.
The Creme of the Crop
DHS secretary Janet Napolitano appears to have surged into the lead in the race to determine the most incompetent Obama appointee. One wouldn't have thought it possible to so easily overtake the blatantly unqualified Clinton or embarrassingly over-matched Geithner, but Napolitano has proven herself capable of astonishingly poor judgement. Charged with the defense of our borders, she has suspended arrests of illegal aliens, shown a lack of interest in building a border fence, insisted that the Canadian border is just as dangerous as the Mexican border, warned police across the nation to be on the lookout for foes of abortion and immigration, and assured us that the 9/11 hijackers entered the U.S. from Canada. It's like she's angling for a Southpark appearance.
Strunk and White Suck?
This came as quite a shock - but, according to a bitter, linguistologist (or whatever Ph.D's in linguistics are called) named Geoffrey Pullum, they do. Now I have always been a devotee of Strunk and White, going so far as to carry their little pocket bible Elements of Style around with me for a few years in case an SWPL-like grammar argument should break out. But I do admit I've had a devil of a time trying to follow many of their style prescriptions, such as avoiding the passive voice or keeping one's writing crisp and lean, so perhaps the professor has a point. But, surely, had only a small percentage, of all the people who have ever taken pen to paper or, fingertip to keyboard, read their simple, rules on commas, much misery, in this world could have, been avoided.
Tortured Thinking
So the news came out that we tortured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks - and people are upset about that? What were we supposed to do with him - put him on Larry King and ask him if the sex occurred in the house? The fact that he wasn't gutted alive while being harangued by a mob of 9/11 widows speaks volumes about our national restraint. If they want to embarrass the Bush administration, why don't the Democrats look into something more interesting like who forged the Nigerian-yellow-cake documents?
America, the Humble
President Obama seemed bemused during the ritual, rhetorical flogging of America he witnessed at the OAS meeting, except when he felt they were attacking him personally, at which point he suddenly gets all huffy and declaims "Don't blame me, I was only an infant when those dead white guys pulled that shit!" He then accepted a gift from Hugo Chavez, a book that is apparently so bad it's been called the "idiot's bible." But since the book was written when he was in 5th grade, what the hell?
The New Haven 18
The Supreme Court heard arguments in Ricci v. DeStefano, where promotions were denied to 18 white (well, one Hispanic) firemen because, while they got the top scores on a promotion test, no black firemen were among the top scorers. Justice Ginzburg noted that having a written test that only white firefighters could pass sounds a lot like having a physical test that only male firefighters could pass. No one wanted to go near that one. Moderately-liberal justice Breyer seemed sympathetic to the firefighters' plight, but worried that deciding in their favor could lead to objective standards based on merit being used everywhere, and that thought was just too horrible to contemplate. Justice Kennedy, on the other hand, appeared eager to formulate an impossibly narrow, finely-tailored opinion that would grant relief to those specific 18 firefighters while assuring full employment to everyone working in the testing/diversity/equal-opportunity specialty for decades to come.
The Creme of the Crop
DHS secretary Janet Napolitano appears to have surged into the lead in the race to determine the most incompetent Obama appointee. One wouldn't have thought it possible to so easily overtake the blatantly unqualified Clinton or embarrassingly over-matched Geithner, but Napolitano has proven herself capable of astonishingly poor judgement. Charged with the defense of our borders, she has suspended arrests of illegal aliens, shown a lack of interest in building a border fence, insisted that the Canadian border is just as dangerous as the Mexican border, warned police across the nation to be on the lookout for foes of abortion and immigration, and assured us that the 9/11 hijackers entered the U.S. from Canada. It's like she's angling for a Southpark appearance.
Strunk and White Suck?
This came as quite a shock - but, according to a bitter, linguistologist (or whatever Ph.D's in linguistics are called) named Geoffrey Pullum, they do. Now I have always been a devotee of Strunk and White, going so far as to carry their little pocket bible Elements of Style around with me for a few years in case an SWPL-like grammar argument should break out. But I do admit I've had a devil of a time trying to follow many of their style prescriptions, such as avoiding the passive voice or keeping one's writing crisp and lean, so perhaps the professor has a point. But, surely, had only a small percentage, of all the people who have ever taken pen to paper or, fingertip to keyboard, read their simple, rules on commas, much misery, in this world could have, been avoided.
posted by ziel | 4/23/2009 10:52:00 PM
12 Comments:
Based on just the sampling of these short posts - can anyone, anywhere in the "conservative" blogsphere, give me a reason, any reason whatsoever, that we are not doomed as a nation.
(This seems to me to be an even more ardous task since many inhabitants of said sphere are hell bent on atheism.)
I think we are doomed - the question is how long do we have? And what form will the doom take? Will it be a roving-gang anarcho-tyrannic kind of doom? Will the white population get a chance to move to Europe, or will that go too? But I think the doom is about 75 years off.
75 years? That long, eh? Man, I'll be amazed if we make it through the next 8 years and really, really surprised if it is much more than 10 or 15 years.
I'm extremely curious as to why you think it will last 75 more years. I'd love to be that optimistic, especially since I have young, blond haired, blue eyed children.
Thank you in advance for your response.
God Bless.
First, we have far and away the most powerful military, so no one can f- with us in any kind of overt way.
Second, because of this immense military, we have the option of drawing it down gradually over the years so it's not such a fiscal burden.
Third, our universities and research institutions are still the best in the world. This could give us a big leg up in development of new energy technologies which should give us a big advantage when oil starts running out in ten years.
Fourth, we are finding now that our EU competitors are in no way as good shape as they seemed a few years ago. China has a long way to go to give their populace a modern standard of living. Japan is a technology leader, but they have limited growth potential with their aging population. So while our future is bleak, there's no obvious competitor to take away our preeminence over the next couple decades.
And finally, as much as Obama craves a greater third world population to preserve his electoral mandate, there remains stiff resistance that will surely slow this down.
So while we will continue to decline, I don't see us becoming Brazil for a number of decades.
"Strunk and White" Suck? Nonsense! Who is this Geoffrey Pullum anyway? What's he ever written that I should care what he thinks?
S&W's admonitions are good advice. Avoiding the passive voice is a good idea; of course, you won't be able to always avoid it, but by thinking about it, you'll end up using it less. "Avoid needless words" is also good. Those who take S&W to heart will think about what they write - is this word really necessary? Does this sentence really say what I want it to say?
Mr. Pullum should just go strunk himself.
That's very, good use, of the commas, there.
"Figgy said...
That's very, good use, of the commas, there."
I'll plead N.C. on that - I'm no good at using commas and you caught me.
BTW, you did you need to use "very" in your rebuke? Think about it.
Mr Anon, I didn't even notice how you positioned your commas. My comment was in reference to Ziel's intended butchering of commas in his last item.
Now I'm VERY upset.
If SOCUS decides, as expected, to uphold
the current perverse AA regime what would happen if a state, asserting is rights under the Tenth Amendment, and pointing out the plain meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, ignores the court and returns to a pre-Griggs regime of uncompromised cognitive testing for hiring and promotion of state employees? Something like the old PACE exam for federal employees.
Alaska seems to be in a perfect position to do this since it still has a huge amount of money in its oil revenue fund and really has no need of federal pork for more bridges to nowhere. Would BHO send in federal troops to overthrow the govt of Alaska?
If Palin did something like that she might even turn Half Sigma into a fan. She would also prove herself to be the manliest politician in the US.
"Man, I'll be amazed if we make it through the next 8 years and really, really surprised if it is much more than 10 or 15 years."
Who are you, Paul Ehrlich? C'mon man, out of all the doomsday prognostications, what percent came true?
To stick to the example, a whole lot can change in 75 years -- roughly that long ago, during the 1920s, we basically told the whole world to stay out.
The following blog deserves a much wider audience in the race realist/White nationalist movement - http://freiboden.blogspot.com/
If you can, spread the word about it, add it your own website or blog, comment there, etc.
To agnostic, just looking at the financials, via market-ticker is enough for me, much less all of the racial angles that are not even touched upon at the aforementioned site. What, pray tell, is really going right in this country? I don't think HBD solutions are on the horizon, have you seen how much we waste on "education" and to think "they" are going to let gene manipulation happen...
It seems to me that we are broke, corrupt, separated, burdened with Third Worlders, deballed and you get the point.
But, what do I know, I'll go back to my cave now and think happy thoughts, because I really do want the future to be bright. You are much smarter than me and you are right, it will be fine.
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