Miracle (or Knot)

For a church that proclaims to have the restored Gospel on the earth, we seem to have an appalling lack of verifiable miracles to which the media and frenzied fanatics might flock, were they so inclined. I know you understand what I'm talking about. Where in the Latter-day Saint culture do we find things on par with the Shroud of Turin, or Fatima, or even the Miracle Virgin Mary Image in the Grilled Cheese Sandwich?

Well, this isn't to say that modern Saints haven't experienced any of these things. When you think about it, only fragments of the papyrii are still around today. And what about the miracle of Brigham Young transfiguring into the voice and image of Joseph Smith shortly following the martydom? I am equally certain that Latter-day Saints have had any number of visitations over the many decades since the church was organized in 1830, but they tend to remain in the realm of anecdotal evidences rather than over-hyped phenomena such as we hear about today in other religions.

So either the church wishes to keep such things quiet and let these miracles serve to strengthen faith as simple testimonies of the living Gospel, or we simply suffer from lousy P. R.

But I think I've found a way to compensate for the church's apparent lack of zing in these Last Days. What we need is something that could be viewed as a miracle and still be marketable. Something that one might even sell on eBay for a ludicrous amount of money (defined as "more than twenty-five cents") and give its owner his rightful fifteen minutes of fame.

Prepare to be dazzled, folks, because I'm about to offer you a chance to glimpse our own personal miracle. We have a knot in a piece of furniture that Mrs. Woody swears looks like Brigham Young. Yes! Let Dave Barry and a host of late night talk show hosts make fun of the Miracle Grilled Cheese if they will. We have an authentic, verified image of Brigham Young right in our living room. Get ready to feel that tingling in your spine, because here it is:

Isn't that great? Of course, the first time I saw it, I have to admit I had a hard time making out his image. I mean, the man's been dead for nearly 130 years now, so my own memories of the late prophet are fading fast. But Mrs. Woody was insistent that he is in fact there in that knot, so I put it to my readers of faith: is this or is this not the spitting image of Brigham Young, complete (as Mrs. Woody pointed out) with his distinctive "page boy" haircut? I'll even adjust the light for you:

Still can't quite see it? Here, let me adjust the contrast just a bit. You know how it is with glare on varnished wood...

Better? Isn't that simply astonishing?

As I say, we may very well offer this up on eBay. I mean, if the Miracle Grilled Cheese sandwich could fetch $28,000, our Miracle Brigham Young Knot ought to be worth a cool $2.00 or $3.00, easy!

On the other hand, this also makes this particular piece of furniture a real family heirloom. Think of the rolled eyes shining faces of our children when they explain to their children why Mom and Dad were committed to a facility this furniture is so special to the family.

And if, like ours, your faith has been strengthened by seeing this miracle of ours, we can only hope you start taking your medication again soon be grateful to have been allowed to share in your happiness.

Thank you.

Your Global Warming Update

Ok, this is funny. A House subcommittee has to postpone a hearing on global warming due to inclement weather. From Drudge:

The hearing is entitled “Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a Warming of the Planet?”

The hearing will be rescheduled to a date and time to be announced later.

DC WEATHER REPORT:

Wednesday: Freezing rain in the morning.

Irony, anyone?

Equally ironic: Your average session of Congress produces as much greenhouse gas as your average day on a Los Angeles freeway. Pick a freeway.

Global Hysteria - UPDATED

I'm no scientist, and neither is Al Gore. Given the fact that the entire scientific community can't quite seem to come to a unanimous agreement on the global warming issue, I'm not quite ready to give in to the hype yet. While I'll grant you that it did seem to take our winter down here a couple of weeks longer to arrive, I can also tell you that it's been one of our chillier winters. Even for Southern California, where "chilly" means "had to put a sweater on, Dude." I don't even want to get into New York and, what is it now, 142 inches of snow? And counting?

No, Al Gore is no scientist. What Al Gore is, precisely, is a politician. Politicians in the Al Gore vein are competent at only one thing: scaring people into supporting their position. And this is something that Al Gore has orchestrated beautifully. Scaring people is how politicians make money. Barbra Streisand makes money for candidates by scaring her friends into believing that without their money the evil Republicans will kill their children and scorch the earth. Republicans make money by scaring their friends into believing that Hillary will make Barbra her Secretary of Defense. Hmm. That one might almost make me give money to the RNC next year. Or not.

Anyway, I'm afraid that, for Woody, the jury is still out on global warming. This is not to say I categorically deny the existence or dangers of greenhouse gasses. I'm all for cleaning up the environment because I believe it to be part of our sacred trust as stewards of the planet we occupy. At some point I may even be wealthy enough to purchase a hybrid vehicle. Hybrids just aren't where I need them to be right now as I contemplate buying a new(er) family vehicle. I would need a hybrid mini-van - not an SUV - and they're just not available yet. But my need for the mini-van trumps the availability of green technology. My apologies. My next car-buying cycle won't appear for (hopefully) another ten years or so, either. But I promise to feel appropriately guilty for buying a carbon-burner this time around.

Perhaps by the time I'm ready to buy again Arnie will have finally created the infrastructure we need to actually support hydrogen technology. That would be great. The problem there is timing. I suspect that the infrastructure won't be ready until I retire, and I sure as heck don't plan to retire anywhere in California. We have, what, 23 (count 'em!) hydrogen stations in the entire state right now, but it won't be viable for long distance travel until we have stations up and down the entire I-5 corridor. Yes, I know that hydrogen cars are supposed to burn both fuels, but I'd rather go whole-hog when I convert. Also, there's no way I'd be able to afford a hydrogen vehicle for quite awhile, unless I'm willing to live in one. So I'm not holding my breath for hydrogen. (Har.)

[Side note: If we have 23 working hydrogen stations and 14 planned, but there are only, like, two hydrogen vehicles in the entire state right now, could that be why we've already decommissioned one station? Just askin'.]

But back to Gore and his Screaming Meemies. I have mentioned elsewhere that there are two classes of people for whom I harbor an instinctive mistrust: politicians (and, by extension, lawyers), and scientists looking for grant money. These two classes of people will do - and say - anything to get our money.

Sorry. This bank is closed.

UPDATE: As if to solidify my position. Politicians make lousy scientists. And vice versa.

Romney... Romney... I Give Up. Romney WHO?

Hugh Hewitt admires Mitt Romney and grudgingly appreciates his religious background. Hewitt himself likes to invoke his friendship with the late apostle Neal A. Maxwell, and clearly would have no problem supporting a Romney presidency. So Hugh has been watching the Boston Globe's anti-Romney campaign with great interest.

This in contrast to the rest of the old media juggernauts who seem intent on simply ignoring Romney and hoping he goes away before the primaries begin early next year. My own anecdotal evidence of this "fact" is the weekend radio news roundup that CBS produced yesterday. I was listening primarily because our local affiliate is still the best place to get traffic reporting. (This was not the case last night. Last night, so long as the Mothership was talking, the locals didn't dare break in for the next hour and a quarter just to tell some poor yokels why they weren't moving on their freeway of choice. "Extended Traffic," my great-aunt's bustle.)

Anyway, just before I got completely disgusted and switched back to classical music (where they are quite right not to interfere with a performance of Mozart's 40th just because of some silly hazmat situation on the 405), CBS decided to talk about Giuliani, whom they have anointed as "the only serious threat" to McCain. This is incorrect. McCain is the only serious threat to McCain. I did, however, find it fascinating that they were quite ready to extol Giuliani's virtues as a fiscal conservative, even if his social conservatism leaves something to be desired (i.e., conservatism). Then they made, in essence, the statement that no one else currently on the Republican trail has the sort of conservative "credentials" that would hold any water with the right wing of the party.

Beg pardon? Mitt who?

So the MSM strategy seems clear. Ignore Romney enough, and he'll simply go away before Iowa even stays up late next winter.

There is a flaw in this strategy, however, and that flaw is the Boston Globe. The Globe is probably still smarting from the insult of having allowed a Republican to get elected to the governor's office of their Commonwealth of Kennedys and Kerrys, Occasionally Known as Massachussetts. Thus the Globe has ever since attempted to cast their ex-governor in the same light as the Boston Strangler (who was probably Ted Kennedy before he learned how to swim) and is going out of its way to highlight every one of Romney's perceived shortcomings.

This is a good thing, because this means the Globe is not supporting the MSM's "ignore Romney" policy, and will thus ensure that Romney continues to maintain a national presence whether CBS wants him to or not.

Wouldn't it be deliciously ironic if Romney somehow captured the nomination (or even a spot on the ticket as VP) precisely because the Globe wouldn't shut up and ignore him like all good little MSMers are supposed to do?

We'd have to send the Globe a great big "thank you" should that happen. Perhaps I'll buy one of their papers next time I go fishing. Assuming they're still printing by then.

Peyton Space... er, Place (UPDATED)

This is just sad on so many fronts. From my childhood, astronauts were my "safe" heroes. These were men (and, later, women) who had proven themselves to have nerves of steel under extremely stressful situations. They faced the prospect of death regularly, even succumbing to it in pursuit of a dream. Yet here we have an astronaut - flight tested - who gets caught up in one of the oldest stories of deceit and debauchery the world has ever known.

A married flight veteran, herself a Navy Captain, finds herself fighting (at least in her own heart) with an Air Force Captain over the same man; he a Shuttle pilot.

[Next on Law & Order: The following story is based partly on recent events. The fictional characters, however, bear no resemblance to any living individuals.]

Who should investigate? NCIS? CSI? NASA's Auditor General? Sheesh.

This is likely to become one of those stories where we have far more questions than answers. What happened to this astronaut that would push her over such an emotional edge? Not that extra-marital nonsense is ever absent from the space program; there have been plenty of exposés that refute the idea of a morally pure corps of astronauts. But this whole incident smacks of a lovelorn female stalking her intended lover. Someone who would even go to the extremes of threatening any perceived competition.

In the meantime, of course, there's her family to be considered. What must they be going through right now? Or has this been brewing long enough that all the effected parties were already well aware that something was going on?

As I say, it's just sad. From a perspective of timing, this couldn't have come at a more inopportune time. Congress has just been handed what can only be classified as a ludicrous budget proposal from the White House, and they've already been rattling sabers over the admittedly ambitious plan to return the United States to the moon in the next decade. You can be sure that there will be hearings and debate over the non-issue of whether our current crop of astronauts are emotionally stable enough to even pursue this project, let alone justifying its cost.

I'm not ready to give up on our space program by any means. I'm just saying that for all the vetting our astronauts go through in order to prove themselves worthy to be blown out of the atmosphere, perhaps we need to do a bit more vetting in between flights, too.

*sigh*

UPDATE: I changed reference to Capt. Nowak as being a Navy captain, not Air Force. The charges now include attempted murder, which means that the bond on which she was to be released is revoked. Here in the Los Angeles area, as predicted, the Radio Talking Heads were already hard at work yesterday hoping against hope to bring us the non-issue of astronaut corps mental stability:

Talking Head Anchor Person: So are there unusual pressures as an astronaut that would make this kind of breakdown likely?

Former Astronaut Dr. Norm Thagaard: No.

A few moments later, one of the THAPs said, "She lost control, and that's really all there is to say about that."

Same THAP, not two minutes later: "We will, of course, stay on top of this story."

Ad nauseum, no doubt.

I should add that Dr. Thagaard, a veteran of five shuttle flights, agreed with me on the prospect of reviewing flight readiness in between flight assignments. He stated, however, that scrutiny of flight crews in the training sessions leading up to any flight is pretty intense, and any suspected instabilities should surface well before a crew launches.

Oh, Whew!

Just when it seemed that the Democratic 2008 Juggernaut would be infallible this election cycle, along comes Joe Biden, just to keep things interesting.

Thanks, Joe! We'll be listening!

Don't Make Me Pull This Car Over!

I think I've figured it out.

I'm not expecting any huge cash awards. Please don't bother notifying the Nobel committee, or even recommend me to the Pulitzer bunch. I'm just a workin' Joe doing my part for the greater good.

One thing that has truly boggled my mind since joining the Blogosphere nearly three years ago has been the levels of poisonous invective that have been reached in many of the discussions I've read. Or even participated in, for that matter.

No one is immune, apparently. Michelle Malkin can, in her own way, be just as spiteful and (dare I say?) mean-spirited on certain issues as the people who regularly write nothing but hateful, sexist, and racist posts about her. Kos and his infamous Kids are widely known for profanity-laced writing of the sort that we used to ban from classrooms back in the day. Used to be that newspapers would bow their heads in shame if they allowed language like that to appear in one of their "responsible" publications, but now they seem to relish the nastier attitudes that are extant throughout the current political dialogue.

So what happened, and why do we allow this sort of thing to continue?

One might argue that this sort of dialogue is a waste of bandwidth. Why clutter our servers with so many words that have absolutely no chance of resolving anything of any real importance? The "I hate you; you hate me" meme that we find in 95% of the comments on any given blog are useless. I don't think they even serve any therapeutic purpose other than to demonstrate the apparent lack of any real education on the part of the commenters (as adjudicated by the number of misspelled words and grammatical errors). As one former boss once told me, there's no reason to use profanity in order to do business. (This lesson has actually only recently been learned in my company. Profanity is finally frowned upon by enough upper managers that I hear much less of it in today's environment.)

So here's my theory. I grew up in what would be considered by many to be a "large" family. There are five of us siblings, and I'm the old guy on this totem pole. Five more different personalities you couldn't hope to find anywhere. As a kid, I ruled with an iron fist (almost literally, really). I was the tyrant. My brother, the middle child, was the class clown. My sisters had differing levels of sweetness, but each has had their own method of conflict resolution with varying degrees of success.

Dialogue in this large-ish family pretty closely resembled what we see in the blogosphere (and politics in general) today. Lots of accusations thrown around with little or no proof to back them up. Very little attempt to truly understand the other person's perspective. If I was annoyed with my brother (which I often was), then he was just wrong and that was all there was to it. If one of my sisters dared to enter my Sanctum Sanctorum (I could tell because one of my dirty clothes mounds had shifted slightly to one side) then there was hell to pay. Explanations were for the weak.

Then we grew up.

We dearly love each other these days. Oh, I may not agree with everything they say or do, but I'm also mature enough to understand that I don't have to. In fact, they probably think of me as more of an old fuddy-duddy than my past life would seem to have indicated. I have not only become conservative in my old age, I have become very conservative. But I believe they still love me all the same.

So what we have here, in the Blogosphere, is a large family (like mine, only larger by a factor of about 100 million) waiting to grow up. Really. That's the only reason I can see for the whole "neener, neener, neener" voice I come across on so many blogs today.

Nowadays when a sibling of mine tells me something with which I may not agree, I will very politely listen, perhaps make a comment or two, but largely leave them to believe what they will. If it's something I happen to feel strongly about, then I'll let them know. Politely. Hopefully without leaving the other one feeling like they have a big red "A" sewn on their chest. And the next time we talk, we'll still be the same loving brother and brother and/or sister that we've always been. I also - contrary to what you may see in my writings - have learned enough to know when I don't have the answer. And I've even had to admit that to my siblings at various times over the years.

It's one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

So here's my thought, for what it's worth. Let's try treating our blog-family like just that. A family. We all breathe the same air; we have many of the same needs; we probably even share more goals than we're likely to believe based on the discussions we're not having right now. If we need a time-out, we take one. Then we can return to the discussion without accusing each other of having genetic abnormalities or deviant sexual proclivities.

It's something to look forward to.

The Kerry Doctrine

Without getting into the whole "new world order" conspiracy (one of very few conspiracies to which I give any credence), John Kerry's remarks on Saturday during the World Economic Forum in Switzerland go a long way toward showing Kerry's true stripes. Here's the telling quote:

"We need to do a better job of protecting our interests, because after all, that's what diplomacy is about," he said. "But you have to do it in a context of the reality, not your lens but the reality of those other cultures and histories."

Kerry criticized what he called the "unfortunate habit" of Americans to see the world "exclusively through an American lens."

Because, of course, any American view of the world has got to be the incorrect one.

What really bothers me here is his statement that the context of "reality" cannot be our own lens but the lens - or "reality" - of other cultures and histories.

So let's examine those other cultures and histories a bit closer so we can zero in on Kerry's perception of "reality." Kerry wants our refusal as a government to officially recognize the "problem" of global warming, our refusal to clean up Africa's AIDS problem for them, and our Kerry-generated status as an "international pariah" to be the talking points.

Let's start with the idea that Kerry made the "international pariah" statement in conversation with a former leader of a nation that has long been considered an "international pariah." Iran has been at or near the top of our National Spit List since storming our embassy, kidnapping American staffers, and holding them hostage. As a nation we "officially" support Israel, but Israel itself has long held the "pariah" moniker since the days of one of the shortest wars on record. Shucks, if you want to split hairs about it, Israel has been a pariah since Joshua wiped out half of Palestine. Egypt is currently considered a pariah by most other Arab nations for even bothering to speak to Israel, let alone having any diplomatic ties with them.

So we're a pariah. We are a powerful nation, and it is impossible - no matter how dedicated a diplomatic corps you may have - to please everyone. We're always going to be a pariah to someone. Japan will always be suspicious of us because we don't want them to kill marine mammals. Canada will always be mad at us for keeping them in a frozen meat locker north of the border. Mexico will love us when we let their citizens work here and spend their money there, but hate us when we talk tough about closing the border. Pick a country. I'm sure you'll find some reason for hating our collective guts.

The AIDS pandemic is a tough problem, of course. No one wants to see people suffer, and it certainly requires some concerted efforts by those with means to combat it. But will we ever be able to support these efforts to the complete satisfaction of everyone? Of course not. As a nation, we're already spending money we don't have on any number of issues, both domestic and foreign. In terms of straightforward aid and comfort, there is no other nation on earth that approaches our level of monetary and other aid to those less fortunate than ourselves. With that in mind, it is likely that whatever money we provide to AIDS must be shared with countless other research projects, assistance programs, and monetary bail-outs that we have provided over time.

One of our real problems, of course, is that we are currently spending money we not only don't have, but are having to make up as we go along. At some point this economic bubble is liable to burst, and with it will go any funding for AIDS, marine mammals, global warming, and starvation. Even were we to completely de-fund our entire defense budget, it wouldn't be anywhere near enough to satisfy all of the monetary demands being made by [pick your favorite cause] activists.

Global warming is a huge problem. There's the warming itself, which means that I may be living on potential beach front property within a few decades, assuming the Big One doesn't get me first. I live about twenty miles from the beach on a steady slope, but my mean elevation is still only about fifty feet above sea level. Aside from that, though, is the question of what's really to blame for this warming trend. Yes, there's an awful lot of evidence that some of this may be a man-made problem. However, there's just as much evidence available to indicate that this also could just be part of the earth's own natural cycle of warming and cooling, and we're about to enter the next phase of melting the polar caps, which will then lead to the next cycle of cooling that will finally give me bragging rights when talking with Minnesotans. Whom to believe? John Kerry? Al Gore? Rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth scientists who are looking for more grant money? Meanwhile, we as a nation are apparently supposed to foot the hefty bill of guilt being levied against us by the same nations who gave us the Industrial Revolution in the first place. That's gratitude for ya.

Looking at the world as a whole, I find absolutely no ideals of true international community that people like Kerry seem to believe exist. There isn't a nation on earth that doesn't have at least some blood on its hands, and for many of the nations that Kerry seems to idolize, their blood is still as recent as only a few decades ago. Yes, John, I really want to see the world through their lenses.

With these remarks in an international forum, Kerry once again ably demonstrates just why he has become the irrelevant former presidential contender that he is today. We don't need a man in the White House whose only considered actions would be to cry "mea culpa! mea culpa!" while tearing down our sovereignty as a nation. Because, "new world order" conspiracy or not, that appears to be what John Kerry really wants.

He wants a new set of lenses.

Wingnuts v. Moonbats

Fetching Jen and I don't always agree. Some of her positions in the last election with respect to our ballot initiatives here in California I just couldn't get behind, but my disagreements with her have always been amicable. (This is strictly a one-sided relationship, I hasten to add - Jen and I do not truly communicate other than when I troll her blog and make an occasional comment.)

I find her commentaries to be just a little more saucy than my own, but largely she holds the conservative torch fairly well. This is all to the good. She fully understands what she believes and has no problem stating that in her writing.

I have to say, though, that my attraction to her blog has less to do with what she's written, and more to do with the comments she gets from a few anonymous lefties.

It's altogether too easy to paint these characters with the same stroke of the brush. Reading their comments, one would gather that they have been well indoctrinated by the Kos Machine. That is to say, they spend more time making MTV-spawned personal attacks against the author ("You stink.") and less time arguing her more salient points ("You don't like Kerry. You stink."). Then, of course, they wait for guys like me to jump in and accuse them of just that so they can take the Victim POV and claim that we are all shills of the Limbaugh/Hannity/O'Reilly triumvirate. (Did I mention that I never watch or listen to any of these gentlemen?)

Yeesh.

One such commenter to this post, wherein Jen links to some older commentary by Mark Steyn, went so far as to imply that we didn't get it. He (I'm assuming this is a "he") was only "poking fun" at Jen, apparently. I guess my own sense of humor is impaired enough that I didn't immediately see just how funny such zingers as "Boy, you are nothing but negative energy. Are you like this around your kids?" really are. Is this the sort of thing that Conan says? I've never watched the man, so I couldn't say.

But Mr. Anonymous went on to make (finally!) what I believe was his only money quote:

Sad actually, but the liberals were always more interesting since they are the ones who questioned authority and the status quo, kind of like some dudes 200 years ago who dared question a monarch.

To which I can only say: Dude, you'd really be surprised just how "right wing" those who questioned that monarch truly were.

The Shape of Campaign 2008

We are well into the official start of the 2008 Media Wants Clinton campaign, and I must say that things to this point have been entirely predictable. Right now Clinton's primary advantage seems to be that the more liberal elements (read: the vast majority) of the traditional media really want to make this an "epic" campaign. They need this to be all about a tough-minded woman(!) with a strong socialist agenda(!) fighting her way into the White House, seemingly against the odds.

Unfortunately her primary disadvantage is that those same liberal media outlets can't seem to agree on just what, per se, Ms. Clinton's agenda truly is. Is it the idea that a modern feminist can reach the pinnacle of male-dominated power? Or should it be that a moderate/liberal/moderate/whatever Democrat can return the country to the sound traditional values of destroying both the traditional American family and countless unborn children?

Sorry. Cheap shot, I know, but where Hillary is concerned I just can't help myself. For my own part I really could care less whether a woman becomes President of the United States. Big whoop. Just because we'd have a female chief executive wouldn't make the Europeans hate us any less. In fact, the primary difference between Hillary and Bill is that Hillary is only slightly more likely to land Air Force One wherever her favorite hairdresser might happen to be. That and the fact that she will probably have learned from Bill's lessons on proper intern care and keeping. Otherwise, I would fully expect to see a continuation of whatever agenda Bill never finished when he had the office and Hillary was probably creating behind the scenes anyway.

No, far more worrisome to me is that pesky social agenda of hers. In foreign policy matters, her stance on Iraq is what it is, and I can't see her getting in Iran's face, either. Likewise North Korea. Lots of saber-rattling, I'd like to bet, and lots of "dialogue," which is what career politicians do that allows bad guys to build and test weapons designed to make our property values plummet for the next hundred years or so. Business as usual on the foreign front.

But the real damage another Clinton presidency would wreak is in our domestic policy. Support of gay marriage is a given in a Clinton-II presidency. "Right to choice" (read: slaughter of unborn children) and entitlement programs galore are the spawn of a Clinton administration.

This is not to say that these policies wouldn't have a champion in any other Democratic candidate. My fear is that Clinton would see her presumed victory as a mandate from nature; the voters elected a woman to this office, which by extension means that they want me to enact these policies. Now. Hillary has shown herself to be at her energetic peak when she's grappling with social legislation, and I can't see that changing in the White House. I can't help but think that anyone else would show at least some restraint before crumbling our society.

The other part of my fear, of course, is that the Republicans will find themselves unable to create a significant challenge to whomever floats to the top of the Democratic ticket next year. I certainly am crossing my fingers for Mitt Romney, if he's the choice to counter McCain. "Anyone but McCain" is my campaign slogan for the coming election. I've written previously about Romney's real challenges as a candidate, hoping against hope that I will be proven wrong and that he really can stay above the political fallouts that seem to beset anyone who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. If Giuliani runs, that will only cement my support for the Romney campaign because at that point Romney becomes the only "true" conservative in the field. We certainly can't pin that label on John McCain. Rudy is really just a Democrat in a conservative-looking suit, so I can't see him carrying the banner for the party, either.

(Notice that I do not call Romney a "pure" conservative. I have mentioned before that there are no "pure" conservatives or liberals anymore. Just those that lean way over to one side of an argument or another. It may appear to be a semantics problem to you, but it makes perfect sense to me to differentiate between "pure" and "true" when describing political ideologies. Here at the Woundup, "pure" means someone who stays on the conservative side of every issue, no matter what that issue may be. A "true" conservative, on the other hand, stays conservative on enough issues to be well identified as a conservative. I may be splitting hairs, but when you have hair like mine you tend to split 'em rather than lose 'em.)

For these reasons I do not look forward to the coming campaigns with any gusto. Maybe I'm just getting old and tired, but a body can only take so much of a steady diet of hateful rhetoric between candidates before we just want to line them all up against a wall in front of a firing squad.

Besides, with John Kerry not running this time, where will we turn for entertainment?

Boxer Insults Rice? Big Hairy Deal.

Goodness gracious me. In what is sure to become the next way-overblown non-issue in American politics, Barbara Boxer (for whom I hold absolutely no respect or affection) appears to have insulted Condoleezza Rice yesterday.

I mention this only because suddenly I'm getting hit after hit from people who've been searching the net for articles related to "boxer insults rice," and I found it hilarious that I was getting hits since I hadn't yet written about this incident. In fact, had I NOT gotten those hits I probably would have left this where it firmly belongs: in the realm of "nothing to see here, folks."

Given the reports as published so far, I'm guessing that Boxer should be taken at face value on this one. She probably really was just trying to assert that neither she nor Rice are truly in a position to understand the "real" cost of our war, as measured in human terms. Boxer has no children or grandchildren that are currently eligible to be "sent" to war. Rice is a single woman who also would not experience that sort of personal loss (potentially, of course).

On the surface, the comments by Boxer seem insensitive at worst. Yet bloggers, columnists, and conservative apologists are already lining up to decry the comments as "insults," or "flash points."

Where Boxer blew it was in stating the obvious: She really isn't in a position to understand the "cost" that she was attempting to put in human terms. Only families who have loved ones in that conflict have that perspective. (The fact that a large majority of those families support what their loved ones are attempting is telling. Congress just isn't listening.) In short, when Boxer says things like that, we get the feeling that her empathy for families of the military is really just concern that she's gonna lose more voters before the next election.

Who among us can really say what that cost ultimately will be? I have a son-in-law in the military, and even though he is in no danger of being deployed to Iraq, he does occasionally have to see the casualties of the conflict in his work. That by itself can be traumatic, but how can we possibly measure even that apparently "small" cost?

Short answer: we can't. And neither can Congress.

Did Boxer insult Condi Rice? Perhaps. Is this something to get excited about?

Hey, wake me when it's over.

By the way, the mystery of the search hits lies with a post I'd written just about a year ago. It was actually meant to be a humorous scan of Drudge reports for that day, wherein the most excitable piece of news (according to me, anyway) was a scandal at Krispy Kreme. Included in the "fluff" I chose to pass over was "Boxer insults Rice." Funny thing is, I don't even remember what the alleged insult was at the time, although it may have had something to do with Martin Luther King. Anyway, that's why folks keep popping in here today.

Just wanted to give them something a bit more substantive to come away with.

They Obviously Had It Coming

So it turns out that members of a Yale barbershop group were attacked while on tour in California. So far, so good. Barbershoppers are regularly attacked in California, where diversity is not so much celebrated as it is mandated. But here's the money quote from the article:

Members of the a cappella Baker's Dozen were performing at a party in San Francisco at the new year when their rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner" apparently sparked taunts and threats from fellow partygoers.

Oh, for heaven's sake. What were they thinking? They sang the "Star Spangled Banner?" In San Francisco?? They may as well have put on George Bush masks and paraded down Market Street! Of course they were beaten up!

Had they worn Ché berets and sung "Tiptoe Through the Tulips," no one would have batted an eye.

Sheesh.

No One Is Surprised

Heavy sigh.

Drudge points to this article indicating that Democrats in Congress (surprise!) are attempting to block President Bush's proposed increase of troops to be deployed in two critical areas of the Iraqi war.

I am willing to concede the following points:

1. The war has gone on long enough.

2. No one wants to send more troops.

3. Beefing up troop counts in critical areas certainly smacks of dragging this war out longer than might otherwise seem necessary.

Having said all that, however, I also would state the following:

1. Trying to force a timeline for pull out at this point in the conflict only strengthens al Qaeda's position and does nothing to ensure stability in the area.

2. Proposing, as Kennedy has done, that we only allow more troops to be sent in if there are guarantees to pull troops out is a ludicrous thought. Kennedy's proposal further dilutes troop strength in areas that today may only be marginally stable.

But, hey. The Dems are in control now. If they want to block Bush's proposal, so be it. I just hope they're ready to answer the inevitable questions when we finish pulling out of the region and terrorism seems to plague us still. The question will ultimately shift from "why are we there?" to "what did leaving accomplish?"

I'd suggest a good marketing campaign.

New Jersey to (Finally) Allow Idiots to Vote

or, "Haven't They All Been Elected to the State Legislature Already?"

(H/T: Dave Barry)

It isn't often that a state political machine offers insights to its inner workings. Heck, once upon a time someone told me that California is a state run by liberals for the benefit of other liberals, but I've never really believed that. I mean, I sure as heck don't know what goes on in Sacramento, and neither, I suspect, do the politicians.

Anyway, via Dave Barry's blog we find this beautiful peek "behind the scenes" in New Jersey. Apparently, the only way the current vacuum bag of leaders can stay in power is if they allow idiots to vote. Thus, they must remove the restrictions against "idiots" from their constitution so that those with certain mental illnesses will be allowed to vote.

I'd say we should adopt such a policy here in California, but I'm pretty sure we've been allowing them to vote here for decades.

Please don't get me wrong: I have nothing against those with mental challenges, per se. I'm just dying of curiosity to see who in New Jersey will make the determination as to who would be eligible (or ineligible, for that matter) to vote in their state.

This just screams out for discrimination lawsuits.

Oughta be fun to watch.

#329 - To Blog or not to Blog

Cam is taking another hiatus from his blogging efforts for the immediate future. I can understand where he's coming from.

Blogging is definitely one of those high maintenance activities that, if not balanced properly, can turn into a really bad marriage. When one partner becomes "needy," the other invariably suffers. Thus I can understand his desire to turn off the blog machine for awhile and take a few steps back. Time to regroup; recharge the ol' batteries; take a deep breath and take care of long-neglected business.

Like any new toy, my blogs have taken more than their fair share of my time over the past several months. Fortunately, I've settled into a new pattern that means I spend less time blogging, and more time enjoying the events about which I intend to blog. Someday. But I also refuse to put myself under any personal editorial pressure. There's just no reason for it, and what I have to say isn't all that important except to myself and my loved ones. Plus a few hangers-on who happen to say nice things to me occasionally. Aw, heck, even my two or three detractors are appreciated, if in a weird, perverse sort of way.

In Cam's situation, blogging has (temporarily, I'm pretty certain) become something of a millstone around the neck. He's probably on the cusp of remembering some things he's needed to give some attention for a long while now, and by golly he's determined to do so. Then Nancy Pelosi will nominate Howard Dean to replace John Bolton at the U. N., and he'll be unable to help himself. Did I mention that Nancy plans to have Il Divo sing "Auld Lang Syne*" at the Capitol New Year's Eve party?

Anyway, he'll be back.

In the meantime, I have to chuckle whilst echoing Cam's sentiments in his "farewell" post. The Republican party, he says, has "lost its way." Out with the old; in with the new. I chuckle because, Republican though we may be, we're not so all-fired dedicated to the party that we wouldn't mind seeing a good shakeup in the party elite right about now.

The heart of the matter is the two-faced approach taken by nearly all professional pols before and after an election. In the off-season - that time of year when no one is running for anything but their latest ethics violations - all politicians talk the tough conservative/liberal rhetoric. They'll make the most provocative statements they can think of to remind everyone of just how conservative/liberal they can really be. Then, come election time everyone moves hard-center so as to appease as many voters as possible. With few notable exceptions, the provocative rhetoric gets toned waaaay down just about everywhere except in the shouting matches between old and new media types. The pols are getting better (since Kerry redefined "open mouth, insert foot") about shutting the heck up and letting us fight their battles for them. Then they'll cozy up with whomever appears to be winning and make that their ticket to election.

All of this takes concerted effort if you wish to be a dedicated blogger with any aspirations to participating in the national debate. That effort can be mentally fatiguing, especially in a year when your party does not do well at the polls. Yes, it's a huge let-down that we lost control of Congress in this election. But it's an even bigger disappointment that our current garbage bag of party leadership seem not to have learned any lessons from this latest rout. I don't know what they're expecting in 2008, but unless Romney adds walking on water to his bag of tricks, I don't smell a Republican win two years from now. Not with our party leadership as currently constituted.

Here in California, Republicans - the traditional ones - are apparently all but extinct. With Schwarzenegger showing more and more of his Kennedy stripes with each passing month, I don't wonder that at some point he'll just give up the pretense and change his ticket to Democrat once he leaves the Governor's office. That means our poster boy for conservative causes is himself becoming a lost cause. Behind whom will we rally next time around? There are no shining stars in the party right now, unless McClintock suddenly grows a spine and begins positioning himself to make a run at a serious office, like U. S. Senator. So far, I don't see anyone having the gumption to stand up to the Lib Sisters and take 'em on issues alone.

Thus, I, too, have undertaken a brief sabbatical from political blogging. This is not to say that I don't care right now. Far from it. However, there's not much to debate at the moment. No one is taking a true leadership role in any of our current political hot-buttons. Iraq either is or is not a "quagmire." We've either lost, or will stay for as long as it takes. We're either fighting al Qaeda, or a war against terror. The definitions are becoming hazier with each passing day. Border control is vital, but no one seems anxious to anger our neighbors to the south. Certainly no one in office is willing to be the bad guy these days. Thus we have far too little support coming from those we elected to represent our interests.

That said, I'm certainly not removing myself from the blogging arena. Writing is a need of mine. It helps me focus my thoughts and keeps my communication skills limbered up. I've been writing for a long time now, and having somewhere to keep a record of my thoughts and see how they interact with others is a real treat for me. Even if I only reach a handful of real readers, it's still a kick.

This blog ain't going anywhere anytime soon. There's still plenty of stuff out there to write about.

And, as I say, Cam will be back.

* By the way, I'm kidding about Il Divo singing at the Capitol. But you just know Cam would blog about that!

#328 - It's All About the Money

Sorry for the absence of blogging lately. It's a busy time of year and I actually try to spend as much free time as possible with my family. It's a holiday season, but beyond that I have no excuse.

That doesn't mean I'm not trolling the news every day. Most of the time I just zip past most of what Drudge deems to be noteworthy. I have no idea what constitutes a "standard" at the Drudge Report, but I've sure never been able to figure him out.

Anyway, this morning Drudge pointed to this little gem about the father of Chelsea Clinton's boyfriend getting tossed in the clink for fraud in connection with those Nigerian e-mail scams. And not in the way that immediately sprang to my mind, either.

The very first time I received one of those e-mails I must admit to being somewhat nonplussed. How on earth did this guy get my name, and why is he offering to cut me in on this deal? That lasted for about, oh, fifteen seconds. Then my Internet Survival Instincts kicked in and I immediately began looking for background on the scam. Sure enough, at the time it was on the list of fraud schemes that the Secret Service was keeping an eye on. I don't think they even bother anymore. Back then, though, I was encouraged to forward the e-mail to the Secret Service fraud investigators as part of their ongoing investigation. I felt like a useful citizen for a few minutes afterward.

From that time, of course, I have successfully ignored anything coming into my e-mail that even smacks of being a scam. Even when I get those rather authentic-looking phishes with the logo of my somewhat obscure credit union in them I don't so much as blink. I just let my spam filter quietly and efficiently drop them into Spam Outer Darkness.

So to read that this former congressman (whose wife also happens to be a current congressperson) and friend of the Clintons actually was connected to one of these schemes, I was ready to cheer that they'd finally nailed one of the idiots responsible for so much of the spam that overloads my filters every day.

Not quite. You see, I've always just assumed that the only people dumb enough to fall for these schemes were the same ones who read Weekly World News or the Los Angeles Times and actually believed what they were reading. I mean, how gullible can ya get?

Then to find that Ed Mezvinsky, a former congressman (who would be assumed to have a level of intelligence above paramecium) actually fell for one of these scams - not once, but multiple times - is just too much to be believed.

Apparently, as with gambling or narcotics, these scams are addicting. This man's personal greed and avarice were such that he began defrauding clients and relatives in order to support his habit.

I mean, at what point did he fail to understand that these schemes were never meant to benefit him??

Ah, well. This one gets to spend time in prison contemplating his sins. As a friend of the Clintons, I'm assuming he'll contemplate them right back into another run for office. He's probably assuming Hillary will be in office then, and he'd like to be invited to more state dinners.

Preferably with Nigerian diplomats.

#327 - Dr. Phil Chimes In (and Out) (UPDATED)

So the Dr. Phil Franchise jumped into the homeschool debate. I only bring this up because the good doctor unfortunately smacks of "credibility" whenever he tackles a controversial subject. It has little to do with whether his opinions are in any way correct. It has far more to do with Dr. Phil having more of a "National Enquirer" kind of audience.

You know the folks I'm talking about. These are the folks who hear something on one of those CBS sound-bite reports ("homeschooling causes child abuse!") and the next thing you know this obscure prejudice has become firmly engrained in the listener's psyche. No amount of empirical evidence to the contrary will shake them, either. These are the same people responsible for most of the conspiracy theories ("JFK was killed by abused homeschoolers!") in the world today.

You might guess by now that I give little, if any, credence to Dr. Phil's opinions of homeschooling. You would be correct.

But, to be truthful, I really could care less what the overly vaunted Dr. thinks about anything. Hey, his weight loss strategies are not bad, but that doesn't mean that everything that comes out of the man's mouth is something with which I automatically agree. After all, the man is a clinical psychologist, which means he gets paid by the word. The more words he comes up with, the more money he makes. More power to him.

That said, I also understand that there are many in the homeschooling community (see the HSLDA's harrumph here) who have and will take umbrage at Dr. Phil's statements. More particularly, he seems to think that homeschool is fine up to a point, and that point is high school. By high school, he opines, the kids are in more need of association with peers (and peer pressure by extension, I guess) in order to develop properly. Or as properly as any psychologist is capable of understanding.

All this takes me back to why I homeschool.

Primary of which is, I don't homeschool because (or in spite) of Dr. Phil. Really. Nothing that Dr. Phil says has any bearing whatsoever on why, how, or for how long we intend to homeschool our children. Neither should he have any bearing on that process. Dr. Phil, being a psychologist, is a mere resource. Someone to whom one might turn if they were conflicted about something and just didn't seem able to overcome the obstacles. But for a family in our position - one where Mom and Dad are in 100% complete agreement about homeschooling - such a resource is not required.

Nor do I need Dr. Phil to validate our decision. (I could make some sort of statement that I don't need anyone to validate our decision, but that sounds altogether too maudlin, even for me.)

This, then, becomes the single greatest weakness in the homeschool "movement" (for lack of a better adjective). While there are a great many hard-working, dedicated homeschooling families who have produced countless well-adjusted and properly educated kids, there are also those on the fringe who vacillate. These are the families that people like Dr. Phil tend to interview.

That's just good TV, I'm afraid. Dr. Phil would get absolutely nowhere having my family on his show because we're just too darned unremarkable as homeschoolers go. We are not separatist nutcases who homeschool to spite the government; we simply don't trust the government to adequately and safely educate our children. We do not "unschool" our children; neither do we force them to sit bleary-eyed in a classroom trying to keep up with the super-achievers or being dragged down by the underachievers. Homework is a non-issue. Socialization likewise, unless the Mother of All Experts would like to pooh-pooh church and family as primary socialization networks. Our student-to-teacher ratio is 2:1, unless Daddy steps in and helps in which case it's more like 1.5:1. Find that in any public school today.

No, if Dr. Phil showcased my family on his show, we would only be depicted as an exception rather than the rule.

Want the real scoop on homeschoolers? Try talking to some. Don't ask Dr. Phil which ones, though.

UPDATE: Just by way of clarification. I've been surfing around on this issue (LOTS of emotional response to DP's show!) and have found that Dr. Phil came down pretty heavy against "unschooling." Just for the record, Mrs. Woody and I are not unschoolers. We follow more "classical" homeschooling lines. Also, the definition of unschooling has shifted somewhat since I first got involved in the homeschooling environment. Twenty years ago, unschooling literally was the process a family went through upon taking children out of public school in preparation for schooling at home. Sort of a public school detox, if you will. These days the term apparently is used nearly exclusively for those folks who wish to take a completely unstructured approach to their childrens' education. That's just not our style. We have well-established, very firm educational goals for our girls, so the current definition of unschooling truly does not apply here. I choose not to judge unschooling one way or another, but I'm absolutely certain that it wouldn't fit in our family dynamic at all.

#326 - A Troubled Path In (Not To) the White House

ccwbass at Way Off Bass [Full Disclosure Statement: Yes, he is my literal brother by birth. Deal with it.] points out the rising tide of interest in Mitt Romney's seemingly inevitable campaign for President.

In this case, "interest" may not necessarily represent a good thing, depending on which side of Romney's de facto campaign you happen to be. I, of course, think it can only be a good thing to have a faithful Latter-day Saint in the White House. So much should be obvious. But I advise caution on one point:

Having a Latter-day Saint in the White House does not equal having an infallible man in the White House.

I say this without having given Brother Romney a whole lot of study. I say this more from the perspective of one who has come away from election after election being disappointed in the reality versus the promise of any given candidate - particularly those who have ended up in the White House.

In 1976 I was just barely old enough (I'd made the deadline by something like a whole week) to vote in the general election. In fact, I turned 18 between the primary and the general, so I hadn't even participated fully in the decision-making process that year. It goes without saying that my only recollection of that election was the choice between Ford or Carter for President. Even though a purely nascent Republican at the time, I remember instinctively mistrusting Carter. Perhaps it was his smile. I well remember the old joke that said "never trust a smiling politician." The problem is, they all smile when they're running for office.

Anyway, Carter made it to the office having ridden a wave of anti-Establishment sentiment. "I will clean house," he'd said, hoping that we would believe that Nixon's criminal misuse of the office was somehow the only thing that needed fixing. Ford had been the "caretaker" President, and never could get folks behind him. His "healing act" of pardoning Nixon was, I suspect, the true death knell of his too-short term in office. Inflation and other national woes might have been overlooked but for that.

There is no doubt that Carter is a good man. If we measured him strictly by his adherence to his beliefs (and isn't this what Romney will be subjected to over and over again?) he stands as a man of far more integrity than, say, Clinton. Reagan was another man of integrity who simply let his government get away from him. His personal beliefs never wavered, but he had many unscrupulous people working for him. This had the effect of tainting his presidency with hints of scandal while he himself seemed able to rise above them to the end of his term.

Both Bushes have been men of integrity as to their personal beliefs, but both men have also been products of the professional political machine. In other words, while their intentions have been honorable, they both have shown blindness to some principles so they could defend their actions to pursue other means. This makes them good but misguided men.

As one who sees another Clinton in office as one of the predicted signs of the Apocalypse, I must look once again to the Republican slate of candidates in 2008. McCain will court the moderates because he knows that's where the safer high ground lies. But Mitt Romney has a triple disadvantage where the national press is concerned. He is not only a conservative (as opposed to McCain's moderate), but he is a right wing conservative by association. Worse still, in the eyes of a rather large voting bloc, he is a Mormon right-winger, which will have him continually being roasted and barbecued by the Southern Baptist Convention, among others.

Fortunately, the SBC has not had a wonderful track record of predicting winners or losers in any given election. They will be, however, a force to be reckoned with in the press, which is where this coming election is most likely to be fought.

But let us assume for a moment that Romney somehow keeps it clean and finds himself sitting in the White House. Mission accomplished, right?

Not entirely.

The first thing Romney will find himself fighting is the long-established, well-oiled machine that is Washington politics. He will find himself - as every president has ever done - having to dance with the devil to get things accomplished. And the "devil" does not necessarily represent the guys who voted for the Donkeys, if you get my drift. As Reagan found, the devil often masquerades as a trusted advisor who is left to manage things pretty much on his (or her) own and conveniently fails to inform the Commander in Chief when treading a treacherous path. Thus the Chief Executive becomes guilty by association, and any attempt to correct such things "quietly" always becomes a scandal of cover-up.

Could such a thing happen to MItt Romney? Of course. And this would be the bad thing. Not just because such a thing might happen, but because such a thing might happen to a "Mormon" president of the United States.

I say this because it has always amazed me that the press reports things two ways: Either a man bit a dog (news), or a Mormon man bit a dog (bigger news!). It never fails. No matter how significant the crime, it always becomes somehow more significant if committed by a Mormon. Always.

You know that scene in the book "All the President's Men" where the crooks are brought before the judge at their arraignment and one of them, when asked his name and occupation, mumbles "CIA" under his breath? Remember how that catapulted Watergate from "just another break-in" status to "full-blown constitutional crisis" status in, like, fifty pages? This is what happens whenever the term "Mormon" is applied to any report of a crime, scandal, or misunderstanding as reported in the press.

So, yes, I root for a Romney campaign. Given the current choice, I'd much rather have a Romney than a McCain in office come 2009. But I'm also realistic enough to realize that no matter who takes that office is going to have their hands full if they wish to both govern and yet remain a person of integrity.

It just goes with the territory.

#325 - As If to Prove My Point

The Wholesome Image™ continues unabated.

#324 - A (Very) Little Humor

Step-Dad Z-Meister has waaaaaay more friends than a normal retiree should be allowed. I base this on the number of emailed satires he forwards to me, nearly always from someone new (to me, at least).

This first one just made me chuckle. At least the punch line did.

Regardless of where one stands on the issue of the U.S. involvement in Iraq, here's a sobering statistic.

There has been a monthly average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theatre of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2,112 deaths.

That gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers.

The firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000 Persons for the same period.

That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in the U.S. Capital than you are in Iraq.

Conclusion: The U.S. should pull out of Washington

Not altogether far-fetched, I think.

More along the lines of something that will likely get me some snarky responses from more moderate readers comes this snorter. For the record, I actually know the guy that passed this one along. This fellow (name withheld to protect the libelous) is one who both worked on my teeth and sang tenor with me in the Ventura County Master Chorale. Heaven only knows where he got it:

A Lady wrote a lot of letters to the White House complaining about the treatment of a captive insurgents (terrorists) being held in Guantanamo Bay.

She received back the following reply:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20016

Dear Concerned Citizen,

Thank you for your recent letter roundly criticizing our treatment of the Taliban and Al Quaeda detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Our administration takes these matters seriously and your opinion was heard loud and clear here in Washington.

You'll be pleased to learn that, thanks to the concerns of citizens like yourself, we are creating a new division of the Terrorist Retraining Program, to be called the "Liberals Accept Responsibility for Killers" program, or LARK for short.

In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have decided to place one terrorist under your personal care.

Your personal detainee has been selected and scheduled for transportation under heavily armed guard to your residence next Monday.

Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud (you can just call him Ahmed) is to be cared for pursuant to the standards you personally demanded in your letter of complaint. It will likely be necessary for you to hire some assistant care-givers.

We will conduct weekly inspections to ensure that your standards of care for Ahmed are commensurate with those you so strongly recommended in your letter.

Although Ahmed is a sociopath and extremely violent, we hope that your sensitivity to what you described as his "attitudinal problem" will help him overcome these character flaws.

Perhaps you are correct in describing these problems as mere cultural differences. We understand that you plan to offer counselling and home schooling.

Your adopted terrorist is extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat and can extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil or nail clippers. We advise that you do not ask him to demonstrate these skills at your next yoga group. He is also expert at making a wide variety of explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish to keep those items locked up, unless (in your opinion) this might offend him.

Ahmed will not wish to interact with you or your daughters (except sexually), since he views females as a sub-human form of property. This is a particularly sensitive subject for him and he has been known to show violent tendencies around women who fail to comply with the new dress code that he will recommend as more appropriate attire.

I'm sure you will come to enjoy the anonymity offered by the burka over time.

Just remember that it is all part of "respecting his culture and his religious beliefs" -- wasn't that how you put it?

Thanks again for your letter. We truly appreciate it when folks like you keep us informed of the proper way to do our job. You take good care of Ahmed - and remember, we'll be watching.

Good luck!

Cordially, your friend,

Don Rumsfeld*

*Now doing "an outstanding job" as emeritus consultant to the new guy.

Thanks, Bob!

#323 - Hoffa Reappears. Sorta.

It happened while I was still in high school. (Note: there are disputations as to what, exactly, "in" high school means, but that's not for this story.) Jimmy Hoffa, former Teamster boss and Mafia beneficiary disappeared quite suddenly in July of 1975. This was news that riveted a nation because Hoffa was one of those larger-than-life characters that I'd grown up hearing about. He was a favorite target of Robert F. Kennedy when Kennedy served in his brother's cabinet in the 60's. He was constantly associated with the Mafia, whether deserved or not. Turns out he probably wasn't in the Mafia, but when dealing with the Mafia close is bad enough.

Then, of course, there were the wild rumors and speculation. If the Mafia got him, where'd they bury him? My personal favorite was either the end zone or one of the cement supports of Giants Stadium. I particularly loved the "buried in cement" scenario because it always reminded me of Hoffa being tossed, Jack Lemmon-like, into a giant gloppita-gloppita machine.

So Hoffa became a perfect metaphor for disappearing without a trace, preferably by less than savory means. I found this to be a comfortable disappearance. Here was a man for whom I had no respect disappearing probably because of ties with one or more crime families in a case that is still considered unsolved.

Except for the confession.

Turns out there was a confession, and many people now find it to be highly credible. Hoffa was apparently done in by someone he trusted and had frequently used as his own muscle in some of his shadier dealings. He either did not know or somehow overlooked the fact that this same man was himself a hit man. Poetic justice, methinks.

So, after literally decades of fanciful speculation and amateur detective work, the "truth" comes out in this hit man's own death-bed confession. I've never read the book, but if I get bored sometime I might look for it.

Apparently Hoffa was murdered the same night he was supposed to meet with Mafiosos to "clear the air" between them. Instead, he gets two bullets in the back of the head, and a quick ride to a local funeral home where he is incinerated and, presumably, scattered to the wind.

Mystery apparently solved.

I believe I'll miss it.

#322 - Well, No Wonder...

Christmas is coming. Rapidly. However, the internet shopping junkies have already been trolling for deals, and the Woundup keeps popping up on their radar screens.

I suppose that's because folks began coming here by accident looking for Woody's Roundup® toys and such. My apologies. As I mentioned before, you won't find anything here about the Roundup. That's partly because I'm too old for that stuff, partly because my Woodyettes just aren't interested in that stuff, and partly because I fear Disney® Lawyers™ far too much to even mention Woody's Roundup©™® with impunity.

No, shoppers, at the moment the only shopping advice you'll find here is why you should avoid Il Divo™®etc. According to the Cranky Reviewer, Il Divo (so I quit attributing... so sue me) causes brain cancer, infertility, and is responsible for single-handedly destroying civilization as we know it. Or something like that. The Cranky Reviewer's reviews frankly begin to run together in my fevered brain at this festive time of year.

So, anyway, sorry if you came here under false pretenses.

Merry Christmas©!

#321 - Life By Committee - Revisited

Dredging through Drudge this evening I came across a reference to a highly disturbing article. A Bishop in the Church of England has indicated that children who are severely deformed or disabled at birth should be allowed to die under certain circumstances. At first, this struck me as sounding awfully familiar. But there's a small difference in this case. Holland's Groningen Protocol actually codifies circumstances under which life should be terminated - effectively placing the Dutch government in the role traditionally assigned to God, or courts (as when dealing with convicted murderers). In this case, however, Anglican Bishop Tom Butler of Southwick appears to be arguing for a more traditional approach to this deeply emotional issue. He indicates that

...there are occasions when it is compassionate to leave a severely disabled child to die.

With this particular statement I actually agree. When writing about the Groningen Protocol, I recounted the story of a young couple with whom I was acquainted whose very premature baby was born with multiple deformities, none the least of which was a brain that had developed with no more than a stem. After long consultations with family, doctors, and local church leaders they made the painful decision to not attempt any extraordinary lifesaving procedures; not even a respirator, if memory serves. The baby lived barely a week, during which they snuggled her, named her, blessed her, bonded with her as best they could, and generally enjoyed this small life for as long as God had granted them. It was a very significant experience for me, and I learned much about how we should protect both the lives as well as the spiritual welfare of our children and loved ones. Their family "portrait" probably still hangs on their family picture wall.

Reading further, however, I found this rather chilling statement by the Reverend Bishop:

[The Bishop] has also argued that the high financial cost of keeping desperately ill babies alive should be a factor in life or death decisions.

While I believe I know what prompted this statement, it unfortunately sounds far too Groningen-like for my taste.

Look, unless you're born rich or put off having children until you've made your pile, no one is ever ready for all the burden and responsibilities that go along with raising offspring. Even the rich ones have their challenges laid out for them, unless they prefer to abdicate everything to the care of their nanny. But the parent who, when presented with a desperately sick child, has as their first thought, "How will we pay for all of this?" is one who should have reconsidered becoming a parent in the first place.

Admittedly, I have only ever known a small handful of people who have had to go through these decisions in their own lives. Some, like the couple I mentioned previously, are friends. Others are extended family. A few are merely chance acquaintances. But in every single case when discussing the subject, their first and foremost thought was always, "What would be best for this child?" Thoughts of financial burden or worries about how to rearrange their lives to accomodate such a child are always secondary. For a true parent it has little to do with money or inconvenience, and everything to do with wishing - indeed, hoping against hope - that their precious baby didn't have to suffer so.

So while I think I understand that the Bishop was merely trying to provide some practical guidance in this instance, his concerns for financial considerations in what is already a highly emotionally charged decision for parents make the Anglican Church seem just a little cold-blooded.

It's not Groningen, but it could be.

#320 - More Public Service

To all you yahoos good people who arrive here looking for Woody's Drive-In in Salt Lake City, this link's for you.

I've visited Woody's a few times over the years. Mrs. Woody's brother happens to live in the area, and it's a sort of tradition for us. It's a cholesterol palace, but, hey, it's no Chuck-A-Rama either.

The food is pretty good and the atmosphere is friendly. Not a bad place to eat, but a heck of a commute from Anaheim, California.

#319 - Two Questions

(H/T: Dave Barry)

First, why is this considered news? This sort of thing happens all the time in the entertainment biz. This is why Trump invented pre-nups in the first place.

Second, whom does she think she's kidding?

Britney fears the raunchy footage will destroy her wholesome image[.]

She has a "wholesome image?"

[checks dictionary]

Umm... only if Bill Clinton is re-writing the dictionary. No, I believe Ms. Spears burned that particular bridge a looong time ago.

Makes for fun blog fodder, though.

#318 - Who Really Won?

Silly question, of course. According to the ever-reliable "the Onion," the politicians won!

Natch!

(H/T: Dave Barry)

#317 - Congratulations, Nancy and Howard!

Let me be the first to heartily congratulate the Democrats on their truly decisive victory in the House of Representatives. You have your absolute moral mandate. Good for you.

Not to pressure you, or anything, but I can't help thinking about Pelosi's First Hundred Days scenario. I've just been running back through some memes and threads over the past couple of years and wanted to point out to you what our expectations are, now that you're in power. I'll even be generous and give you two whole years:

1. You are not allowed to fail in Iraq. You can spin "fail" any way you wish, but failure is not an option. Certainly not based on what your expectations were while we were in control. If you have a plan for withdrawing our troops, now's the time. To be considered successful, however, let me remind you that at the same time you're bringing our troops home, the new Iraqi government must be able to continue to govern effectively for at least a few months after we leave. That will give you time to declare that it was Iraq's failure to govern and not our withdrawal that did absolutely nothing to ease the violence in that region.

2. Katrina must never again be allowed to happen. My goodness, the fuss you made over the government's multiple failures to deal with such devastation. So, I'm assuming that in the next two years you will not only have repaired the levee system, but will also have ensured that evacuation plans will not include having thousands of busses sit idle in a parking lot somewhere instead of using them to move people to higher ground.

3. Political corruption. Not allowed during your tenure. And we get to adjudicate your behavior by exactly the same standards you applied to Republicans. Fair?

4. Gay marriage. It goes without saying that one of your first orders of business will be to override the votes of people in all the states where they legally enacted protection of marriage laws. I just hope you're not expecting that we who voted for those laws will stand up and cheer when you do so. Please also do not act shocked when some of the more extreme elements of our party begin using the words "censure" and "impeachment" in conjunction with your name. This is not a threat, but merely a friendly warning.

5. Stem cell research. Just wanted you to make sure that when you pass stem cell research legislation, you have done so having already a complete knowledge of the true benefits of that research before you rush off to create (and then destroy) innocent lives. Note that I say "true benefits" rather than "political benefits." Really, we just might think a little less of you if those benefits turn out to be elusive.

6. Abortion. Now, just because I voted down our California initiative that would have required 48 hour notice to parents before terminating a minor's pregnancy, I don't want you to get the false impression that I somehow support abortion as a fundamental right. I believe I have made it abundantly clear in previous writings that I truly believe that elective abortion is a golden passport straight to Dante's seventh level. Although, since I imagine Hell to look a lot like the Capitol building, I suppose you'd be quite comfortable there.

7. Ooh! Let's not forget about the economy! Our expectations, now that Pelosi is the de facto empress of the nation, is that you will not only leave the economy in as good or better shape than it is now, but that you will also eliminate poverty and tax only the rich (defined as those people making more money than I do). You will also make it possible for corporations to continue to do business so they don't have to keep laying off thousands of workers every year.

8. Global warming. You will of course commit the United States to the Kyoto protocols, or whatever replaces them. This means that the United States will not only take the lead in eliminating global warming, but will also admit and apologize for having caused global warming in the first place. That means that, while you're busy keeping our economy on track, you will also be prepared to pay exorbitant amounts of money to developing nations who were callously destroyed by our negligence. We have a guilty conscience, after all.

9. Immigration. You have two years to resolve this thorny issue. Really, two years ought to be plenty of time, so long as we suddenly acquire a national backbone about our current revolving-door borders. May I point out that allowing thousands of people to cross our borders without control of any kind places us in a kind of double jeopardy? Sure, you have your potential terrorism problem, but there's also an economic angle to be considered here. Isn't it possible that those same rich people you plan to tax might get a little tired of supporting entire third-world nations within our own borders? You know how expensive health care is, for example. Just a thought. (I know I sound a tad cold-hearted on this one. My apologies. I just think it would be cheaper in the long run to simply help developing nations beef up their own health care rather than try to cure them here. Our doctors have better lawyers, and that's always more expensive.)

I could have added something about impeaching Bush, but I kind of see that as a waste of our time, don't you? I mean, we had Clinton dead to rights - in flagrante delecto so to speak - and wasted all that time in the trials rather than preventing 9/11. So I'll just leave the whole Bush-impeachment issue off the table for now. I'd suggest you'd do the same, but, hey, I'm not in power anymore.

Anyway that's it. It's not much more than we would ask of Santa Claus, really, except that Santa is more likely to deliver on his promises. I'm sure you understand; we just really don't want you guys to mess up now that you've got the ball.

#316 - Fun With Insomnia

Yet another thing you can do with insomnia is...

REDESIGN A PERFECTLY SERVICEABLE BLOG PAGE.

Of all the time-wasting nonsense. My only excuse is that I've had flu today (now going well into tomorrow) and I'm restless. I'll try to get some sleep now, but I just wanted you to know how much I suffer for my art.

Well, I don't so much suffer as mess around.

Actually, I'm avoiding housework for the most part.

'Night.

#315 - Uncle Woody's Election Night Woundup - UPDATED

UPDATE: Whoops. Serves me right for speaking too early in the process. Turns out that I was overly optimistic about the state-wide offices.

Uncle Woody's final ballot initiative tally remains 5 out of 13. The two close ones (84 and 90) were decided not in Uncle Woody's favor. More bond debt and some private developer will soon be telling you to find lodgings somewhere else, thank you very much. Boo hoo.

Uncle Woody's final tally on the high-visibility offices of Lt. Governor, Secretary of State, Controller, Treasurer, Attorney General, and Insurance Commissioner was nearly commpletely wrong. Turns out Arnie will be getting in touch with his inner-Democrat as he works with Dems in all of those offices, except for Insurance Commissioner. 'Nother words, business as nearly usual here in the Golden State.

For all that, my "shoulder shrug" (as attributed by Way Off Bass) has not materially changed:
--------------------------------------------------
I realize it's obligatory for a Republican blogger to say something about today's election. What I'm really supposed to say, of course, is that I'm depressed, gonna slit my wrists, and move to, um, well, whatever nation has a strong conservative base today, and, um... gee. Can't think of one right off-hand. Cam mentioned Australia, but only because they have a PM with a backbone right now. The rest of the country is just as politically screwed up as we are.

Oh, well. No matter. Even though I'm supposed to wax suicidal over our apparent loss in the House, I just can't get too worked up over it. Really. So Pelosi is the Presumed Speaker now. So what? If she's busy in Washington, that means she's not paying too much attention to California, and that suits me just fine. Also, I can't say we didn't have this one coming. We've known for some time that anti-war sentiment would fester into a revenge/payback election in the mid-term, and it did. It was inevitable. Enough people are fed up with the Iraq situation that they're really hoping a Democratically controlled House will somehow be able to talk some sense into our international policy.

Fat chance, of course. To do that, they still need to elect a Democrat to the Big House in 2008, and right now they can't find a coherent enough voice to galvanize their base. If Romney doesn't foul himself up in the next two years, he could make things very uncomfortable for any Democratic front-runner. McCain ceased to be relevant to any conservative base a long time ago and is now only fit for news fodder.

But back to today. Those who actually bothered to read my "Curmudgeon's Guide for Young Conservative Voters" already know that Uncle Woody called 5 out of 13 ballot initiatives with 2 still close enough that no one can call 'em. The two, by the way, are the Parks (and other infrastructure) Bond initiative - #84 was leaning Y (against my N) at last count. Prop 90 was leaning N against my Y. 90 is the Eminent Domain initiative, and I think there are enough developers and business execs in this state to keep this one down. I'll probably lose this one.

The ones I pegged were: 1A (Transportation Fund Protection) - Y; 83 (Sex Offender Monitoring) - Y; 85 (Waiting Period & Parental Notification) - N; 87 (Alternative Energy Bureaucracy) - N (this is particularly satisfying because Bill Clinton appeared in numerous ads giving a doctored stump speech to urge its passage. Heh.); 89 (Campaign Reform) - N.

Of course I'm not losing sleep over the ones that got away. Most of them were either tax increases being voted down, or bond issues being approved. We just live in a state where the word "debt" is meaningless to far too large a portion of the population. The voting population, at any rate. I'm used to it now.

Locally the races ran exactly as anticipated. Our congressman ran unopposed in this district, so no surprise there. Schwarzenegger won against Angelides, and even though I'm no fan of the Muscle-Bound One, I'm far less a fan of the Fraudulent Huckster. Republican wins for Lt. Governor, Secretary of State, Controller, and Insurance Commissioner are also satisfying. In fact, of the statewide offices, the only head-scratcher is Jerry Brown (former "Governor Med Fly" Brown!) for Attorney General. His campaign ads called him "independent." Not since he left his father's house he isn't. Also, the man has never shown himself to be particularly tough on crime. He probably grows his own pot, but that may just be my personal hysteria speaking.

Uncle Woody's Bottom Line: No change. Really. Not one race that was either won or lost today will have any immediate impact on me or my family. Gas prices will go up or down depending on whether OPEC can quit squabbling long enough to limit production as they continually threaten. Public education will continue to become less and less relevant to my circumstances over time, unless someone begins to threaten my rights to homeschool. Nothing about that in this election, that I've heard or seen. My taxes will not be going up in the immediate future, unless Arnie listens to his Chiefette of Staff too much more.

Having Democrats in charge of the House only means that Bush now will have an excuse for his lame border-control policies. It also means that we will continue to hear partisan bickering over how and when to disengage ourselves from Iraq, with the Dems pushing harder than ever for their cut-and-run scenario. Bush is pretty much a lame duck now, but would have been with or without a Republican House for the next two years anyway.

Back to bed, citizens. Nothing to see here.

#314 - It's Coming!

I'm pretty sure the Book of Revelation names this as one of the signs of the Apocalypse.

#313 - Way Off Bass Reviews Christmas Albums

Not a moment too soon, too.

Cam and I are (arguably) musicians. That means that we not only have both performed in our fair share of Christmas concerts over the years, but we also have a fairly good-sized collection of Christmas music to help get us in the mood every year at about this time.

(This is a lie, actually. Unlike the annoyance we feel at Christmas muzak assaulting our senses at the mall a full month before we're ready for it, Christmas musicians begin dealing with Christmas music in September. What's more, we enjoy it. So, it was only a lie to say that Christmas hits us at this particular time of year. It was not a lie to say that we have good-sized collections. This has been your caveat emptor for this post. Thank you.)

Since Little Bro has remained single for a goodly portion of his adult life, it's safe to say that he has had, oh, ample opportunity to build up his collection. It's also safe to say that, good as my collection is, I still envy him his. Generally.

Anyway, check out the reviews WOB has posted thus far. I'll have to think about the "Cornets for Christmas" album, but I'm already looking for ways to drop broad hints to Mrs. Woody that her darling hubby would love to get his ears on the "Christmas Fantasy" album. I can always use another recording of "Fantasia on Christmas Carols" and I, too, love the Warlock "Bethlehem Down." I first became acquainted with Warlock's music in high school, and I've been a devotee ever since.

Seasonal Greetings!

#312 - Ad Hominem Kerry

Good ol' John Kerry. Like my brother, I really miss Kerry from a blogging perspective. The man just reeks of opportunities for snarky posting of the highest caliber. He is one of the reasons the Woundup came into being in the first place. (Well, that, and not wanting my brother to have all the fun.)

Kerry, for his part, has not left us bereft of material. Although other things have occupied my mind and column space of late, Mr. Kerry has once again managed to prompt at least one more post.

Kerry's blab about our "uneducated" military backfires for a couple of reasons. I work with many, many military and ex-military individuals who are as sharp as any MBA's I've ever met. Not a few of them actually happen to be MBA's, as well as a decent smattering of post-graduate degrees from all the academic disciplines.

By the same token, many of the people I work with who had military careers are, like myself, relatively uneducated. That is, they never pursued their college studies. They opted instead to enter the workplace and prove themselves as being just as capable and intelligent - indeed perhaps more so in many cases - than their "educated" counterparts.

Whether college grads or not, they chose military careers for many reasons, none the least of which was receiving assistance with their schooling. The fact that they loved their country enough to have wanted to serve is, I think, one of the burrs under Kerry's saddle, but that's fodder for another post.

But Kerry himself is germaine to the point of this post: Lack of a formal education is no indicator of intelligence or ability. Mr. Kerry likewise proves that neither is having an education any guarantee of smarts. (Appendix A would be John Murtha.)

Keep talking, John. It always does our side a world of good.

#311 - The Curmudgeon's Prayer

UPDATE: Howdy and welcome to all you Junkyard Blogites. Enjoy your visit!

It's nearly 3:30 AM here on the left coast, and I have insomnia. Bad insomnia. I'm about to try to lay down and sleep and will hope against hope that my boss wasn't expecting to see my shiny forehead physically in the office today. I still plan to report to work, mind you, but the line between working virtually and virtually working will be much, much thinner today.

In the meantime, if I were one to recite prayers, this is one I might consider:

Now I lay me down to sleep.
My baggy eyes are sunken deep.
If I should wake with my alarm
I plan to do the darn'd thing harm.

I'll throw it 'gainst the wall at first.
I'll want to hear its innards burst.
(If there is justice in this life,
I'll not wake up my sleepy wife.)

And should I "Snooze" and not "Disarm"
I'll have to shoot my old alarm
Who's been with me through thick and thin.
A .38 should do it in.

Yet, since I've aged a bit of late
and even though the clock I hate,
I'm sure come morn all will be well
'cause I'll likely sleep straight through the bell.

'Night.

#310 - And the Site Meter Says...

I enjoy looking through the referrals to the Woundup as tracked by Site Meter. They really do yield some surprises from time to time, and show just how many ways - both accidental and deliberate - people come across this blog.

For instance, say "Howdy" to Scrummager over at Townhall.com. He was nice enough to place me on his Blog Roll, and I have reciprocated. Don't know much about him yet, except that he appears to be a retired law enforcement type who's enjoying his life in Sanford, Florida. He also claims to hold the ranking of 17,234,675 at Technorati which, he claims, are still better odds than the Florida lottery.

Heh.

I apologize to the poor soul who ended up here whilst looking for Woody's Roundup® toys. I mean, this person had to be desperate. I was on page 8 on Yahoo! and the summary under the link said nothing about toys. Well, that's not strictly true. I did refer to North Korea's playing around with dangerous "tinker toys," but I also used the word "nuclear" in that context.

Is it that time of year already? Woody'd better get on the ball.

Not buried quite so deep on AOL's search engine ("Powered by Google!") was the Cranky Reviewer's review of Il Divo. You remember, don't you? Cam compared the Il Divo Christmas "collection" favorably with William Shatner's "The Transformed Man." Oh, yeah, that review! The search string, by the way, was "IL DIVO FOR HIRE." One shudders at the portent of this phrase.

Meanwhile, the search phrase "homeschooled cover face spelling bee" on Google scored my riposte of CBS' "special report" on homeschooling that aired in October of '03. Oddly enough, CBS never fails to find fault with homeschooling in general, and Christian homeschoolers in particular. But then, if the current crop of CBS "journalists" are all the product of public education, that may well explain a few things.

Finally, I apparently have ensnared more than a few innocents with my ever-popular (in my own mind) Curmudgeon's Guide for Young Conservative Voters. All Uncle Woody can say is, if young conservatives in California are looking to Uncle Woody for advice as to how to vote this November, this country is in for ginormous trouble. I'm flattered, really, young people. But do us all a favor... figure it out for yourselves! I have enough to feel guilty for, if some of my detractors are correct.

Oh, one more before I go; apparently some operative was checking on sources for links to Dick Mountjoy's official campaign website. For you history buffs, waaaay back in May I posted a piece about the laughable state of California's Republican office seekers, particularly Mr. Mountjoy. Apparently, whomever was checking for links to their boss's site found my little missive. Whether they read it or even took it seriously remains to be seen. I can tell you, however, that my opinions have not changed since May. Mountjoy is without question the single most invisible Republican candidate we've ever had for US Senator. I'd be tempted to write "Dick WHO??" on the ballot, except that we're electronic here in Orange County and I'm afraid that Hugo Chavez will laugh at me, or call me "the Devil," or whatever it is our little unhinged neighbor to the extreme south does these days.

Blogs. Gotta love 'em.

#309 - This Is Precisely Why...

...we are not a cat family.