Rand Paul Wins-I Shrug

I never bothered to endorse a candidate in the Kentucky Senate primary, for a couple of reasons. One, such endorsements from such small-time, relatively obscure blogs as mine read like the height of hubris. But mainly, I wasn't sure who I preferred from a purely tactical standpoint, or for that matter as a matter of policy preference. By and large, I prefer Paul, if I'd somehow felt that I absolutely had to express a preference. Yet, had Greyson won the primary, I would have gladly supported him.

But that's all tea over the bridge now. Rand Paul has won, by a significant landslide. As of this post, I had yet to read as to the winner of the Democratic primary, but I suspect it is going to be Attorney General Jack Conway over Lieutenant Governor Daniel Mongiardo.

This is no surprise. Conway is the preferred choice, it would seem, at least by certain members the press, who went out of their way in very obvious fashion to try to derail Mongiardo's candidacy by referring to the campaign as a contest of personalities between two candidates with very little difference in substance.

Yet, those differences were significant. Mongiardo is against the Health Care Bill. He is against Cap And Trade. He is in favor of clean coal technology. Those issues alone constitute a wide gulf between the two candidates, even though Mongiardo in every other sense is as left-of-center to outright liberal as Conway. Yet, those significant differences in the two might well have been enough to spell the difference to the more conservative Kentucky Democratic voters to the point it may have limited Conways wins to the Lexington to Louisville corridor. The onus was on Mongiardo and his supporters to insure that those differences were spelled out, but he waited too long. On top of that he might have suffered from the perception that he was the most progressive of the two, as he was the first major Kentucky politician-and in fact was one of the few-to support Barak Obama in the presidential primaries over Hillary Clinton

If I am right, and Conway is the victor, the Kentucky Press might have done their cause a disservice. Conway, as the most ostensibly liberal candidate of the two in a state that tends to vote Republican in national elections (although the state is predominantly Democrat), might well be the weaker candidate in the fall against Rand Paul, who I must say might well be the weaker of the two candidates between he and Trey Greyson.

It all boils down to the Independents of Kentucky, as always, as well as conservative Democrats. My feeling is they are the ones who might have trended towards Mongiardo, while I have my doubts they would do the same for Conway. Had Greyson won, I could easily predict he would be the next Kentucky Senator, especially against Conway. But Rand Paul, despite his margin of victory-which he certainly owes to Sarah Palin and, especially, the Tea Party movement-carries some baggage that might not play as well in the general election, and he is going to be a huge target from forces outside the state determined to put the Senate seat currently held by the retiring Jim Bunning in the hands of Democrats.

It might be a mistake for them to complain about Paul's national security and foreign policy positions (to say nothing of hypocritical), as according to Paul the greatest national security threat comes from the southern border and illegal immigration-which should be seen as stating an obvious fact. Instead, it will be used as an example of Paul's "unrealistic" global views and of his "isolationist" tendencies.

Kentuckians for the most part will probably not agree with Paul on stated position that the US should not be the policeman of the world and that we need to disentangle ourselves from global politics to the extent that we have become so ensnared. However, this is highly unlikely to result in greater traction for the Democratic candidate. What will hurt Paul with Kentucky voters is his stand against such monoliths as the Department of Agriculture and, especially, farm subsidies.

I should note here that I am in disagreement with Paul on this issue myself, as I am a supporter of farm subsidies for reasons of economic security, though I think the program could be run much more fairly and efficiently than it has been in the past. On the other hand, this is a federal program we are talking about, so I should probably shoot myself for expecting anything that would nearly approach a level of acceptable competence and integrity.

The problem with farmers could probably be solved by placing a moratorium on taxes on family farms worth less than four million dollars and on companies that sell farm equipment, and by ending the progressive nightmare that is the Inheritance Tax (death tax), so in reality me and Paul are not so much divided as we are at differing levels of acceptance of what is practical and what is not.

There are other things, to be sure, but for the most part, Kentucky voters have a big choice to make. Do they want to support a flawed Republican with strong libertarian tendencies? Or, do they want to vote in a Democrat who will be a rubber-stamp for the Democratic Congress and for Barak Obama?

At the end of the day, I am hoping they will support Paul, over either Conway or Mongiardo, either one of who would be a consistently liberal vote for the Democratic Party agenda, though this is most certainly and especially true of Conway.

Mitch McConnell, the senior Senator from Kentucky and the Senate Minority leader, just got a huge smackdown with the election of Paul over his preferred candidate, Secretary of State Greyson. However, he has vowed to support Paul in the general election, as has the GOP in general. I hope they stick to that vow, but I also hope that Paul sticks to his principles and doesn't allow himself to be co-opted by McConnell's Washington inside-the-beltway crowd, who can be a very corrupting influence.

All the same, Paul if he wins will probably have to moderate some of his stands, if he is going to be a successful Senator. Unfortunately, the sausage making that is American politics involves bringing some of that pork back home. Paul should come to realize that this is just bringing tax dollars back to where they belong, in however unfair and flawed a manner, and work towards making sure any such pork is worthwhile, necessary, and serves a general greater purpose for the citizens of the state, and is not just a means to funnel money into the pockets of public officials and political hacks.

It is impossible for anyone, no matter how well-intentioned, to enter politics and not end up stained to some degree.

American Muslim Rima Fakih Wins The Miss USA Title, And Then-

I agree with Michelle Malkin when she points out that most people would have come under serious scrutiny and some criticism for making such statements as Miss Michigan Rima Fakih made in the Miss USA Pageant to the effect that birth control is a controlled substance, and that it should be covered by insurance because it is expensive. It would be hard to imagine anybody giving such incomprehensible answers like that winning such a high-profile beauty pageant, especially when she almost fell on her ass during the evening gown competition.

I can even agree with Malkin in that there is at least a good possibility that Miss Oklahoma, Morgan Elizabeth Woolard, lost the title (though she did come in as first runner up) because of her answer to judge Oscar Nunez's question about the illegal immigration law recently passed by Arizona. Although stating that she is against racial profiling, she supports the law in principle as a matter of states rights.

We can quibble about all of that, but its really going several bridges too far, and in fact clear over the edge, to accuse Miss Fakih of being a terrorist supporter of Hezbollah, and its veering into the territory of the bat-shit insane to suggest that her triumph at the pageant was somehow instigated as a plot to help these violent Islamic extremists, who according to this theory actually funded and supported her through the auspices of a relative with connections to the radical terrorist group.

The genius who dreamed up this delusion is a self-styled reporter of some stripe named Debbie Schlussel, who for some strange reason thinks this is an example of an Islamic terrorist group trying to fit into American society in an effort to one day destroy it. She actually compared it to 9/11 terrorist Mohammed Atta going to strip clubs and drinking alcohol. That's all very interesting. There must be something about those strip clubs, seeing as how Rima has danced at one at some point prior to the contest. There are even photos currently circulating of her-one of her doing a pole dance, one with bills shoved down her top, etc.

Never mind that most of the Islamic radicals Miss Fakih is supposedly sympathetic to would gladly gang-rape her brutally prior to removing her head. Or perhaps they would be merely content to savagely carve up her legs and breasts and douse her face in a good acid bath and leave her alive as an example of what might happen to a woman who violates their precious religious tenets. The woman might well be a target as we speak. Nor would it help her cause in the least that after coming to the US from Lebanon, she attended a Catholic school.

Speaking personally, and honestly, I don't trust any Muslim any further than I could throw one, and I certainly don't trust them nearly as far as I would dearly love to throw a good damn many of them. But that's beside the point. I don't live with them, nor are they a part of my circle or my family. Miss Fakih would do well to adopt my level of mistrust towards them from this point forward. However we might feel about the legitimacy of her win of the Pageant, which is these days more of a monument to the ego of Donald Trump than anything else, we should certainly recognize that it took a certain level of courage for this woman from Dearborn, Michigan, home to probably the largest Muslim community in the US, to even enter this damn contest to begin with. We should wish her well and hope that she keeps her head attached, and without any lifetime scars for what might actually prove to be a foolhardy move on her part.

Yet, for all Miss Schlussel's assurances that Rima Fakih's run for the title was funded by terrorists, that close family members are members of that terrorist group, and have killed Israeli citizens, and that Donald Trump is a dhimmi who allowed her uncle to more or less buy the title, every link she provides in her post to "prove" her points seems to link to her own earlier posts on the subject. Not to say there aren't other blogs making these accusations. Here is one billing itself as a Jewish Internet Defense League. So what are their sources, you ask? Thaaat's right, Miss Schlussel, of course.

I was shocked when I first read this insanity on Popehat, but I was relieved as well as amused when I read the Jawa's Report's Howie sarcastically relate how, in reality, it's all a Zionist plot to subvert unsuspecting Muslims. Evidently never one to pass up an opportunity to excoriate the right, Jonathon Turley pointed to Howie's post as evidence of how unhinged the right is. Or at least he did until I pointed out to him that it was obviously sarcasm. I assume that's why he removed the link. (Sorry about that, guys. You know what they say about no bad publicity). As if that's not bad enough, to further make his point about how bad the right is, Turley links to yet another post that turns out to have been made, on another blog, by the same Debbie Schlussel who got this insanity started. And now, in another amazing development, since I further pointed this out to him, Jonathon has removed that link as well. You could at least say thank you, Jonathon.

Nor is Jonathon Turley the sole offender. Below The Beltway also seems to imply that Debbie Schlussel is typical of the right, and that the accusations of Islamic terrorism funding a run for the Miss USA pageant is widely believed by conservatives.

The most amusing irony of all of this is that, in excoriating the right as bat-shit insane, the left through these leftist bloggers do what it always manages to do best-prove that they are, in fact, the ones who are bat-shit insane.

I think the Anchoress said it best of all. Our society is degenerating to the point that we might be in the throes of a psychotic breakdown. A good first clue to that is the fact that you can't escape the poisonous political atmosphere of the current times anywhere. It's even infested beauty pageants. What kind of judge asks contestants to answer such loaded questions, aiming at obvious answers. And note how, thus far, it is progressive advocates who are asking the questions aiming to promote leftist causes. First Perez Hilton with Carrie Prejean over gay marriage, and now Oscar Nunez with Rima Fakih over immigration law, of all things.

What the hell is next? I can just see it now. "Do you think Barak Obama's detractors are basically racists?" "Do you think George W. Bush should be tried for war crimes?"

Hell, make me a judge, I know what I would ask. "Do you agree with me that Democrats should be encouraged to get abortions as often as possible?"

She Should Have Said No (1949) Pt. I of 8

Elena Kagan-Is This Obama's Harriet Myers Moment?

To a federalist minded person, the nomination of Elena Kagan to replace Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court is the stuff of which nightmares are made. Not only is she a progressive, she is a progressive with absolutely no judicial experience. To any person with no judicial experience, there is little if any inclination to respect judicial precedent. The overriding factor in making a decision is more prone to be based on what the person thinks the law should be-not what is actually stated and allowed (or not) in the Constitution. This can be a problem with a conservative jurist as well, but at least most conservatives tend to be originalists, who do not so much "interpret" the words of the constitution as though that document were some arcane work filled with hidden mystical symbols that must needs be decoded, but as a work that literally means what it says-if it says anything at all on the matter before the court. Progressives are a little bit more-shall we say, "creative", when it comes to what is or is not in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Take a progressive-especially a progressive lawyer-with no judicial experience, and you have the possibility of all kinds of legal mischief, possibly rising to the level of outright misconduct. Respect for judicial precedent is dependent on the failure or success of the last case argued before any given court. A judge merely applies the law-well, in theory. Granted, many decisions made by seasoned jurists can also be questionable and flawed. They too can be influenced by sentiment. They are only human. But a lawyer is-well, I guess they're human too, but that's beside the point.

Lawyers are gamers. They are in it to win it. Judges are referees. If a referee calls a foul, he's right most of the time, whereas the offending player will usually make the attempt to deny the foul, or blame the opposing player. This will last all of two seconds, and the decision of the referee will usually stand. Put a player in that position of referee, and it doesn't matter how well versed he is in the rules of the game. He just can't be objective. It's not in his nature. Moreover, it is just not in his training. Being a referee takes a whole new set of skill sets. In its own way, it takes experience, and a practice and training that is in its own every bit as grueling as that required to be a player.

This nomination might well be Obama's Harriet Myers moment. Whereas a surprising number of conservative politicians, activists, and pundits excoriated George W. Bush for the appointment of Myers, due to her seeming lack of qualifications, Kagan is likewise coming under fire from progressives for much the same reason. In her case, though, there is a very strong feeling that she might not be really all that progressive. Some have called into question her hiring practices both at Harvard and as Obams's recent Solicitor General. In both cases, her record of minority hiring was lackluster at best. In neither instance did she hire any qualified African Americans. Also, according to this article on the Huffington Post, Kagan might not share the judicial philosophy of late Justice Thurgood Marshall (for whom she worked as a clerk) that Obama and others assumes she does.

She has also made the statement that there is no constitutional right to gay marriage. Which, duh-there's no constitutional right to marriage of any type-period. The closest one can come to an inference of a perceived right to gay marriage is under the Equal Protection clause. This however does not negate her statement as to the validity of a constitutional right or lack thereof to gay marriage, nor does her statement intimate that she would decide against such a constitutional right based on Equal Protection. She is, of course, playing word games, but the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and other progressives, are not concerned about that. They want, they demand, open advocacy. Just one more example of the overt politicization of the judicial process.

Then, finally, we get to the meat and potatoes of the reason for this appointment-her support for the "unitary executive", that poisonous mushroom that has corrupted the office of the presidency since at least the days of Richard Nixon, and has infected all holders of the office since that time, Republicans and Democrats alike. Obama is no exception. Power corrupts, but if you don't have enough, it leaves a deep, gnawing hunger that could lead to a soul-devouring binge should it ever become available.

This then is not a mere sign of a thoughtful, drawn out judicial process. This appointment is an indication of Barak Obama's appetite for power coming to the fore. He's like a kid at MacDonalds looking at all the pictures and thinking he wants one of everything on the menu, but he wants to make damn sure he gets the one that comes with the toys first and foremost.

Then, as the Crank Files points out, there might be another reason. As Solicitor General, Kagan argued before the Court in an attempt to uphold the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Law. She failed, and of course this led to Obama's petulant dressing down of the Court during the last State of The Union. The appointment of Kagan might be a way of sticking a thumb in the collective eye of the conservative wing of the court to whom his remarks were truly aimed.

All told, Kagan might not be the worse pick Obama could come up with from a conservative perspective. Some progressives at least consider her a moderate when it comes to such things as immigration law. By and large, however, it's pretty obvious that whoever Obama picks is going to be a progressive, and will probably support the vast majority of his agenda-except for those things that support a unitary executive, perhaps. Otherwise, I don't know that there's anything worth fighting about here, from a conservative standpoint.

Mullah Omar Captured By Pakistan-Or Was He?

I don't know whether this is bullshit or the truth, but according to this report, Mullah Omar has been captured and is being held in protective custody by the ISI-Pakistani Intelligence. He was captured in Karachi, and has been held since at least the past Monday. The source of this report? Colonel Oliver North.

So what's going on? According to Big Government, this might lead to a peace agreement, predicated on a cease-fire, with the potential that Omar will be allowed to live in Saudi Arabia.

Omar has been the leader of the Taliban since prior to and including the days of the 9/11 attacks. If this is true, its a really big deal. So why is it being kept secret? Some people think the secrecy might be an attempt to prevent further social disturbances. The following of Omar and The Taliban is such that it could lead to widespread riots and violence.

The weird thing is, there is no indication that anyone at the White House or the State Department has any knowledge whatsoever about this. But if it is true, its got to come out sooner or later.

H/T: The Jawa Report

Iron Man Is A Rino

I've just about had it with grown-ups going on about Iron Man, with bloggers on the right insisting he's some kind of conservative or libertarian hero, while one progressive blogger plays alone with the meme by insisting that the main villain of Iron Man II is, in fact, Tony Stark himself. It's time to come up for just a little bit of air all the way around.

In the first Iron Man, Tony Stark, after suffering a debilitating, life-threatening injury, decided to devote his incredible wealth, resources, and talents to doing good, to make up for all of the destruction he had caused as the boss and inventive genius of Stark International. What were the evil deeds which caused him to want to turn his life around, the mistakes he wanted to rectify? He had created weapons for the US military. So I think we can just on that account alone say goodbye to his conservative credentials. Not that conservatives really are war-mongers who want to bring bloodshed and destruction on the world for no purposes other than power and personal enrichment. But conservatives do understand that as long as there exists people in this world who hold positions of power and who act in brutal, even insanely violent ways to hold and expand that power, such people have to be met with firm and steady opposition. Sometimes, diplomacy, even hard diplomacy, really is not always enough after all. Not very often, in fact.

But now we're up to the current installment, Iron Man II, in which Stark, played by Robert Downey Jr., is appearing before a Senate Committee headed by-hey it's Gary Shandling's Show, with Gary playing the role of Arlen Specter-under a different name, of course, but still a Pennsylvania Senator of no clear party affiliation. He insists that Stark should hand his Iron Man invention over to the US military.

This is the scenario that has conservatives creaming on their keyboards. Stark is refusing to hand it over, claiming it as his own private property, otherwise boasting that he has privatized world peace, and generally making an obnoxious ass out of himself. In the real world, he would be hit with a contempt of Congress charge. To say nothing of the fact that anything he invented through the auspices of Stark International, by nature of his arrangement with the US government as a military contractor, might well be legitimately considered government property. Senator Shandling, if he really had his stuff together, could probably pull out the terms of Starks contracts to point this out in no uncertain terms.

And while I can appreciate anybody that has the balls to ridicule and lash out at a bunch of elitist Senators (who actually just want Stark's invention in order to make gobs of money for one of their favored contractors-an inept fool named Justin Hammer, played by Sam Rockwell-as well as themselves), and while I certainly appreciate and agree with Stark's stated appeal to property rights, that doesn't change the fact that he is on pretty shaky ground here. Nor is his stance necessarily all that conservative.

Liberals could also easily approve of Stark's obstinate refusal to turn his Iron Man armor design over to the military, who might actually use it to-gasp-kill people.

Of course, there's more going on here than a defense against big government encroachment, from the conservative point of view, and even more than a fear of a government abuse of a powerful weapon and technology against some poor, misunderstood, dictatorial regime with whom we would be better served by engaging in diplomacy, from the liberal standpoint. Stark has bigger fish to fry than mere political or ideological considerations. He is dying. The device he invented to keep his heart beating is now poisoning his blood. That's why he's being such an ass in this movie. It's not because he's such a maverick. It's because he's scared to death that he won't be able to come up with a solution to his problem. Of course, he does, by-wait for it-inventing a new element, one which evidently negates the poisonous effects of the chest device. I kid you not. Tony Stark then is not a conservative. Tony Stark is not a progressive. Tony Stark is God. No wonder he's so fucking arrogant.

Before all this though, Stark is genuinely concerned that his better days are far behind him, and he starts to booze it up, leading to an ignominious defeat at the hands of the Russian villain, Mickey Roarke's Whiplash (who somehow has morphed from his beginnings as a glorified assassin and executioner for the criminal Maggia to some kind of tortured, brilliant physicist) who later at the behest of the aforementioned Justin Hammer creates a robot army, which is ultimately dispatched by Stark and his friend and partner James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), otherwise known as War Machine.

Rhodes tries to get into Tony's head and bring him down to earth, as does his newly minted CEO Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), but nothing seems to work. Not even Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury can reason with Stark, who tells Fury he's not interested in joining his super-powered boy band.

Fury, incidentally, has little to do with the plot of this movie, but is there to provide a teaser for the upcoming Avengers movie. This is likewise the case with Scarlet Johanson's Black Widow, who also provides a degree of window dressing of an alluring nature, yet otherwise adds little to the overall basic plot of this film.

And the worse part of this is, future generations of movie archivists and historians might well be hard pressed to explain exactly what Jackson's and Johannson's roles are in a way that will make any sense-particularly if the Avengers movie turns out to be a stink bomb. In effect, time devoted to roles such as this, such as they are, helped degrade what could have been a pretty decent B+ film down to C- territory, and that makes such cumbersome character additions even harder to defend, even if the Avengers movie turns out to be an unqualified success.

The worse shame of it all is, it could have been a better flick than even a B+. Jon Favreau (the director who is, incidentally, not the speechwriter of Barak Obama of the same name) seems determined to keep his films from being just another batch of CGI love fests. He is intensely interested in character development, and in establishing a fidelity to the original comic book mythology, which by the way had its origins in the sixties, during the conflict in Vietnam-not Afghanistan. Naturally, that had to change, or Tony Stark, who really is a mortal man after all, might have to have a second armor plated device just to walk. And then there's the prospect that beryllium underwear would not really be an adequate nor a comfortable substitute for Depenz.

Other than this one understandable change, however, it is a crying shame that Marvel seems determined to avoid pursuing the Demon In A Bottle storyline, where Stark becomes an alcoholic sot (which in the comic led to Stark some years later suffering from a relapse that resulted in him losing his company to the villainous Obadiah Stane, and also was the impetus for his temporary replacement as Iron Man by James Rhodes-who then went on to become War Machine when Stark recovered). The Monte Carlo segment, unfortunately, is as far down that road as the movies seem fated to go, which is really too bad. For all the CGI and the determination to produce a quality product, it seems the movies haven't really evolved as far as the comic book itself. Where the comic book seems geared towards older teenagers, college students, and young adults, the movies by necessity are marketed, to a large degree, to the eight to twelve year old demographic. Hollywood, as ever, is actually well behind the curve.

Because of this, its not very likely we will see anytime soon a movie based on a superhero comic that delves deeply into such dark territories as alcohol or drug abuse, nor any other such personal character flaws. More's the pity, as film by its nature possesses the potential to have a huge artistic impact. Heroes are people too. Nor are they always good people. A hero who takes it upon himself to fight crime and in some cases save the world, so to speak, would by his very nature have to be a flawed individual on some level. It is not a stretch to see such a person eventually engaging in substance abuse, or any other number of self-destructive behaviors. Fantasy is one thing, but reality-that can be a bitch if not faced head on. Portraying such a thing on film can only be negative if it is shown as a good thing, or if it is portrayed in such a way that its overall negative effects are minimal.

I don't guess I would be too much of an ass by ending this with what might or might not be a spoiler, depending on how faithful to the comic book Marvel and Favreau intend to be. Pepper Potts eventually gets married, but not to Tony Stark. She becomes married to Happy Hogan, who is played in this movie in a cameo by director Favreau.

In another, more important development, however-one that is also pretty unlikely to be adapted to the screen-Tony Stark, in the comic books, shows his true colors. He's not a conservative at all. Nor is he God, not by any stretch. He is, in fact-a fascist, a man who wants to register all super-powered beings, by name and ability, for the good of the world. Yes, you read that right. Tony Stark, in a story line called Civil War, wanted to tax, spend, and regulate all super-powered beings.

It gets even better than that though. He wants to pay superheroes a government subsidized salary. Hell, as many super-powered beings as there are in the Marvel Universe, that would really explode the deficit. Why worry about TARP? The GM bailout and Health Care Reform bill costs would be peanuts compared to the taxpayer money involved in such a regulatory scheme, which would probably necessitate an entirely new Cabinet level government department.

Yeah, this guy Tony Stark is about as conservative as-well, as Arlen Specter. But then again, Iron Man is after all an anagram-for Rino Man.

The Republican Civil War Comes To Kentucky

To all of you out there who are convinced that the Tea Party movement is nothing but an organ of the Republican Party, a concoction to attack the Democratic Party and Congress, and the Obama Administration, the following video should go some way toward putting that lie to rest for good.

To be sure, the Tea Party is very much in opposition to the Democrats, Obama, and increased government size, power, and spending. But that is far and away from being the whole story. It also represents a struggle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party, a struggle which might in the long run be in some respects divisive.

Nowhere is this more true than in Kentucky, where there will be this year an election to fill the Senate seat of retiring GOP Senator Jim Bunning (one of the most conservative Senators). There are four candidates, two from each party. The Democratic primary is between current Lieutenant Governor Daniel Mongiardo (who ran a strong race against Bunning in 2004) and the current Kentucky State Attorney General Jack Conway.

The Republican race is between Rand Paul (son of Texas House of Representatives member and former presidential candidate Ron Paul), and current Secretary of State Trey Grayson.

Grayson is supported by the senior Senator from Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and by other mainstream members of the Republican Party leadership.

Rand Paul, on the other hand, has the support of such luminaries as Sarah Palin-and the Tea Party movement.

Enter Doctor James Dobson of Focus On The Family, who initially supported Grayson. That is, he did, until he allegedly learned-according to him-that he had been lied to, that Rand Paul's views had been misrepresented to him, whereupon he switched his allegiance to Greyson.

It's really quite remarkable, as the implication here is that the Republican Party leadership is so desperate to defeat Paul-who is far ahead of Grayson in the polls-that they are willing to deceive a long-time prominent and influential ally and supporter in order to do so. Maybe their concern is fueled in part by worries Paul will not be able to win a general election match-up between Conway or Mongiardo. I think, however, there is a distinct possibility that just don't like the direction the Tea Party might take the Republican Party should they ever take control of it.

What you are seeing is the potential for a major split in the Republican Party somewhere down the road, much akin to the 1964 Goldwater debacle, when the party was also split between conservatives and moderates. This time, the result will only be different if the Tea party takes control, and the so-called "moderate" wing of the party relinquishes that control for the good of party unity. Because one way or another, that wing is going down. It is just up to them, do they want to go down as willing junior partners of a grassroots conservative victory movement, or do they just want to go down period. That's totally up to them, but one thing I know, the Bushes, McCains and McConnells of the GOP have had their day in the sun, and that sun is about to set.

Lost-The Candidate (It Only Ends Once)

It might seem from developments at the end of the episode that my theory is pretty much dead in the water, as Sun and Jin seemed to drown on the damaged submarine that was stolen from Widmore's crew, by Jack, Sawyer, Sun, Jin, Sayid, Hugo, Kate, and Lapidus, with Claire and False Locke left behind. As it turns out, False Locke had planned everything out all along, and even played alone with the betrayal he knew was coming. It was just his way of getting all of the castaways in one place, at one time, and maneuvering them into doing something stupid to kill each other (since according to some arcane "rules" he can't kill them directly).

Jack found the plastic explosives Flocke placed inside his backpack, and in vain tried to convince Sawyer they would be all right if they just left them alone. Sawyer, unfortunately, couldn't summon up that much faith, and so he did as Sayid earlier advised, pulling out both of the two connecting wires simultaneously-which seemed to work, until the attached clock started running down at hyper-speed.

Sayid informed Jack that Desmond Hume was at the bottom of a well, that Flocke wanted him dead, and that Jack needed to go find him. He then told Jack "You're the one, Jack", or something to that affect. He then grabbed the bomb and took off running with it, getting as far away from the others as he could, and had just gotten out of sight when the thing blew up.

Sayid was almost certainly dead, blown to bits, sacrificing himself to save the others. Unfortunately, the sub began taking on water, and Lapidus was the next to apparently die, when one of the doors burst open and slammed into him, after which the sub began to fill with water. Sun was penned behind some heavy object which was impossible to move, but Jin refused to leave her, and as they died, he held her hand, until their hands went limp and drifted apart.

The others made it out somehow, Jack carrying an unconscious Sawyer, while Hugo carried Kate, who was earlier shot during a gun battle with Widmore's crew.

Meanwhile, Flocke told Claire that the sub had sank, but only some of them were dead. He then stated that he was going to finish what he started. My guess is, since he can't kill them directly, he is going to try to manipulate Ben, Miles,and Richard somehow. In the meantime, lost in all this chaos was Widmore and Zoe (who was not present in this episode). Widmore earlier had locked the castaways up in the old Dharma cages, telling them it was for their own good, and then left. Sayid had then disabled the security system, enabling Flocke to kill the guards in his smoke monster form while Jack freed the rest of them from the cages, telling Kate "I'm with him" as he glanced towards the murderous, raging smoke.

As for Jack, Hugo, Sawyer, and Kate, they did indeed make it to shore alive as the sub sank. Hugo cried like a baby when he realized that Sun and Jin were indeed dead. I felt like crying along with him, because it seems to write finis to my previously stated theory as to the meaning of this little drama. To wit-Jacob and the Man In Black are actually one person, albeit one very schizophrenic person, possibly the life force of the island, or possibly someone who has absorbed the electromagnetic properties of the island somehow. One side represents the logical, cold, calculating, and even cruel aspects of the personality, the other being the primal, chaotic, emotional aspects of that personality. Jacob wants to eentually integrate the two sides into one, and this has all been a contest of wills leading up to that, probably unbeknowst to MIB. To this end, Sun and Jin will be the eventual candidates who will take on the mantle of the two conflicted halves, and therefore lead to this healing of the whole, the true self of the entity.

But, while this seems to be unlikely now, perhaps all is not yet-Lost? After all, what if, in order to take on the mantle of either of the entities, a candidate must first die. This is actually seen to be the case as pertains to Man In Blacks adoption of the form and persona of John Locke. The true John Locke had to literally die before MIB could take his form. Perhaps MIB is not aware that this is also the condition necessary for a candidate to replace Jacob. If so, everything he has done could be playing right into Jacob's hands.

A very slight clue to this might be gleaned from the sideways segments of this episode, where sideways Jack informed sideways John Locke that he was a "candidate" (hence the title) for a revolutionary new surgical procedure that may restore feeling to his legs, and might possibly enable him to walk again, all at very little risk. However, Locke was uninterested. He blames himself for the plane crash which not only paralyzed him from the waist down, but turned his beloved father Anthony Cooper (also known as the con man Sawyer) into a vegetable. My guess is when Locke eventually learns what kind of man his father really was, by way of the policeman sideways James Ford (Sawyer on the island), he might decide to take Jack's advice and learn to let go. Interestingly, right before Jack gave Locke this sage advice, he glanced around to note the entrance of sideways Jin carrying flowers into the hospital room of sideways Sun.

So if Locke is a candidate for healing, what of the real, very dead, John Locke on the island? Remember, events in sideways time always mirror, in some way, events on the island. So island Locke, by that criterion, is also a "candidate". For now, he is seemingly a candidate to take on the mantle of the Smoke. But could he also still be a candidate to replace Jacob? It bears mentioning here that in episode twelve "Everybody Loves Hugo", ghost Micheal Dawson told Hugo he needed to talk to John Locke. Since Hugo can indeed talk to the dead, he probably literally meant John Locke, not realizing he was to do this through False Locke. My earlier stated feeling is that if Hugo tried to communicate with the ghost of the real John Locke in this way, through Flocke, utilizing the entity much in the way of a medium, it might well enable John Locke to take over that form and live again, leaving MIB once more as a formless entity of black smoke, looking for yet another host. This could lead him to take the form of Sun or Jin, thus setting the stage for the final resolution when Jacob takes the opposite form. This would resolve matters due to the seeming fact that whenever one of these entities takes on the form of a dead person, they absorb the memories, personality, and emotions of that person. In the case of Sun and Jin, this would include their feelings for each other, feelings that were manipulated by Jacob in such a way as to lead them to become married, as opposed to being content to maintain a secretive love affair hidden from Sun's mobster father, whom Jacob apparently manipulated as well to approve of their marriage.

Next week, we are supposed to learn more about the relationship between Jacob and the Man In Black. I'm going on record here as guessing that Jacob's full name, before taking on the mantle of guardian of the island, was Jacob Wallace-the sole name Wallace being number 108 on the numbered list in the lighthouse. The significance of the number 108 of course is that all of the main candidates numbers total up to 108.

I'm not giving up hope yet on my theory, by any means. I look for MIB to appear in the form of Sayid, possibly to Miles, Ben, and Richard. If so, look for one of them, probably Miles, to be toast. They don't yet know about what happened on the sub, and that Sayid is dead, and they of course they already know John Locke is really MIB. It's also very possible that MIB could take advantage of Hurley's girt of talking with the dead by appearing in the form of Sun, for the purpose of manipulating him due to his obvious emotional attachment to the woman.

At any rate, if this last episode is any kind of guide, you can expect some pretty intense stuff over these final coming episodes.

24-The End Is Near

If anyone is interested in seeing some hard-core torture, be sure to tune in to next Monday night's episode of 24, Day Eight, Hour 12:00pm-1:00pm (episode 21). According to the previews from last night's episode, Jack Bauer goes all hyper-Bauer on the Russian spy who assassinated his lover, Renee Walker, in this season's episode 17. It looks like some pretty intense shit. Put it this way. In the preview in question, the Russian spy was visible from the waist up. Jack was standing right in front of him. The guy was screaming in agony. You could see Jack's arm going towards him, but you could not see Jack's hand. You do the math.

Jack is trying to learn the identities of the Russian officials involved in the terrorist plot that took the life of IRK President Hassan and ultimately cost the life of Renee. He now has a disc that was purported by Dana Walsh (the CTU analyst who was a Russian mole) to prove who was behind these events. Evidently, it is this disc that will eventually lead Jack to the Russian spy. Just wait until he finds out ex-President Logan is involved with the Russians. I expect Logan to face Jack's ire and to meet his ultimate fate. Jack is not to be outdone. He is out for justice, but also fueled by the desire for revenge.

Dana Walsh learned that in last night's episode the hard way. In a way it was too bad, as she demonstrated in this episode that she was a worthy foe, but she was, alas, not quite good enough. After Jack extracted the disc from her, he could have tied her up and left her to the police, or for that matter even let her go, as he himself said she was nothing but small potatoes. Instead, he killed her, more or less in cold blood. I liked the way he did it too. He shot her once, just to make sure she knew the end was coming. He definitely wanted her to know what hit her. Then, once he was satisfied that message was delivered, Jack shot her again and put her out of her misery. Dana almost looked, ironically, like she was finally at peace. She knew any chance for a normal life was long over, at any rate. Perhaps, in an odd sort of way, this was Jack's way of showing her some mercy, since she admitted to him that she didn't have the heart to kill Agent Cole Ortiz (her former fiancee') when she had a clear chance to do so.

This happened while Jack, who was on the run from CTU, waited outside the bank while Cole and Dana went to their shared safety deposit box to retrieve the disc, Dana agreeing to do so after Cole and Jack rescued her from Bledsoe and his men who, unbeknownst to Jack, was hired by Logan with President Taylor's permission to keep Dana from spilling the beans about the Russians and their involvement with Hassan's murder, thus derailing the still fragile peace accords. Bledsoe subjected Dana to numerous water-boarding ordeals, but Dana still refused to divulge the information they were after, telling Bledsoe to go to hell. After all, she knew her life was over the minute she told him what he wanted to know.

But now, Dana seemed willing to hand this information over to Jack and Cole. Unfortunately, she had a prearranged ace in the hole. Along with the disc was a concussion device that was activated when Cole opened the box, temporarily disabling him to the extent Dana was able to easily render him unconscious. She then took the disc, along with the remainder of the contents of the safe deposit box-a cell-phone, some money, and a gun. She then used the phone, after she shot and killed her and Cole's friend who had come to investigate the noise, and made a 9/11 call reporting Jack's presence outside the bank.

This report made it back to Logan's flunky, who was now at CTU, in charge of the hunt for Bauer, and who sent word to the Russians, who will now be on the hunt for Jack as well. However, Jack easily escaped the two police who responded to the 9/11 call, shooting one in the foot and knocking the other one out. He then took off after Dana, who made it to an empty construction site, ditching her shoes in an attempt to move quietly. After some brief tension, Jack got the better of her, as reported above.

There was one major flaw in the entire episode which has so far been unremarked, concerning the scene at the bank with the safe deposit box. In the box, as I said, was a gun, money, and a disc in a plastic case. There was also some kind of concussion device, which was strong enough to temporarily disable Cole, who stood over the box, then taking the gun, remarking as to how Dana would never change, before the concussion stunned him. Yet, it did so while seeming to not damage the thick wad of bills, or the disc in the case. So far as you could tell, they were not so much as even jostled around. I guess you could make the point that the case was concussion proof, but I think it's more than likely just one of the many oversights that crop up from time to time.

At any rate, I am looking forward to see how this series finally resolves. I tend to think the news of a 24 movie might be a blind, to disguise Jack's demise at the end of the series. Of course, the movie could also be a prequel with a star other than Sutherland-a younger Jack Bauer.

At this stage, it wouldn't surprise me to see the series end the opposite way it started. Jack taking the life of a president instead of working to save the life of a presidential candidate. I can envision Logan's coming fate, as he crouches in terrors, knowing Jack is in the room with him, having made it past his security, or disabling them, before he finally puts the weasel out of the world's misery.

Nothing is better than justice served with a piping hot side of revenge.

Kent State-40th Anniversary

Today is the fortieth anniversary of the Kent State "Massacre", as some refer to it, though actually the whole thing started off on May Day, 1970, with a series of events that culminated in what was truly a tragedy, yet one that could have and should have been avoided-the killing of four Kent State students by the Ohio National Guard, and the wounding of nine other students. Everyone is familiar with the iconic picture of the girl who gazed out in shock and despair while crouching near the body of one of the dead students.



Many people have an inaccurate view of this event, while many people on both sides of the political equation maintain whatever belief is most palatable to their own points of view. Even after so long a time, fortunately, it is not that difficult to find the sequence of events that led to the ultimate confrontation of Monday, May 4th, 1970. The problem is, for many, it is best to ignore or forget certain things.

This was not about a repressive government oppressing innocent students who were simply doing nothing more than exercising their rights to assemble and protest under the First Amendment. Although there was certainly an element of peaceful, legal protest in the beginning, things quickly spiraled out of control.

It all began when President Richard Nixon announced on April 30th that the US and its South Vietnamese allies were in the process of expanding the Vietnam War into Cambodia, in the hopes of then bringing the war to a final conclusion. He had long promised (and in fact was elected in part because of his promise) to end the Vietnam War and to bring "peace with honor". He was loathe to simply withdraw, as he fully understood this would be taken as a sign of weakness and defeat by America's enemies. Time has proven how prescient Nixon was, many times over. Of course, many of America's youth had other concerns, due to the draft. Any of them were subject to be called up to fight what was in essence an undeclared war-a police action.

When Nixon made his announcement, a series of demonstrations was scheduled for May Day, by the Kent State Victory Bell. This series of protests culminated in a symbolic burial of the constitution (in the form of a copy of the document). Many other students (including a former Vietnam Veteran) burned their draft cards. Throughout the day there was a series of speeches and crowd participation in the form of chants and slogans. It was really nothing out of the ordinary for the times, and in fact might have actually been quite benign in comparison to the general tenor of the times. Unfortunately, things later turned quite ugly, when a crowd converged on Water Street, where a number of bars were located, and began a street demonstration. Eventually, cops were pelted with rocks, and many of the bar patrons, many of whom were also students, joined the original crowd, they made their way toward town, overturning cars and smashing windows in the process. Banks ans loan companies were attacked, one bank having every one of its windows broken.

Eventually, the police restored some semblance of order and herded the students back toward campus, in addition to a number of people who didn't even live there or in that area. By now, rumors were circulating that the Air Force ROTC barracks were going to be attacked. To forestall this, all weapons were removed from the building, which was indeed attacked on the next day, Saturday the 2nd. It was in fact burned so badly nothing remained but the outer shell of the old building, which was more of a small shack than anything.

This was enough to encourage the Ohio Governor, Republican Jim Rhodes, to call out the National Guard. In the meantime, the mayor of Kent had previously announced a curfew from duck until dawn.

Sunday the 3rd was actually pretty uneventful, however uncomfortable it might have been due to the presence of the Guard. It was not until the next day, the 4th, that all hell broke loose. By now, the protest had turned into one of protest against the draft, and the Vietnam War and its expansion into Cambodia, into one of protest against the presence of the National Guard, who were attacked with rocks. No one is certain who gave the order to fire, but the matter might eventually be cleared up when modern technology is used to clean up the background noise of sound recordings of the event. One student is on record as stating that he clearly heard the order given to fall back and fire. Maybe soon the mystery will be solved-but there's really no mystery to it.

If there is a mystery to be solved, it is more a matter of why anyone, students included, could engage in wanton mayhem and property destruction, destroy a military facility, and attack people-either private citizens or people of authority-with rocks, fists, or anything else, and be considered by many as heroes.

The only true tragedy that happened at Kent State is that the ones responsible for instigating the violence and mayhem were themselves not killed, or at the very least arrested and prosecuted.

It Was One Hell Of A May Day

Just a day in the life of a naive happy-go-lucky person who is silly enough to think he should be able to go to see a play in New York City without being endangered by criminal, radical thugs engaging in property destruction and threats of violence against civilians and police while protesting in favor of illegal aliens undocumented immigrants. On May Day, of all days. Doesn't he know May Day was set aside as an especially sacred day for the furtherance of the cause of leftist mayhem and for tearing this racist country apart?

About an hour later we were heading to a concert on the NYU campus, and started walking down Broadway toward Astor Place. We started hearing lots of police sirens all at once, and then looked straight ahead. There were young guys with baseball bats and Che signs pinned to their backpacks running down the street smashing store windows, all on the west side of Broadway. We stopped dead on a corner, because there were police cars coming from so many different directions the street lights were rendered meaningless. As soon as we stopped, about 6 NYPD units pulled up to our exact corner and the cops jumped out and tackled two of the vandals literally TWO FEET in front of me. Some other officers arrived, jumped out of their cars, and started a crazy foot pursuit of another guy who started running in zig-zags down the middle of Broadway. They tackled him as well, in the middle of the freakin’ street, as cars kept almost hitting everyone involved. It happened incredibly quickly. There were tons of eyewitnesses, and I even saw a few people videotaping, but of course I can’t find mention of this incident anywhere online or in the media. We had about five minutes to get to the concert, so stopping and gawking wasn’t an option. We just kept walking, tried to get away from the whole mess. But we could see and hear police interviewing plenty of witnesses, and heard people say “they just kept breaking windows”, and saw the perps with their faces in the pavement for ourselves. I could describe them to you, but that would be utterly and totally racist.

Be sure to go to the site and read all about it. But note how he says he only had five minutes to make it to the play he was attending, on Broadway. Makes you wonder about that car bomb doesn't it? And maybe some other things as well.

H/T Michelle Malkin Be sure and go to that link as well and check out all the pictures, for those of you who don't (want to) believe that our immigration problems amount to more of an invasion of our borders than anything. Here's one that will both whet your appetite, yet make you sick to your stomach.



Revolution Without Borders! Yeah, buddy, that's the ticket.

Now, if you would like to read a brutally frank and honest assessment of what is actually going on here, from the perspective of the left, I highly recommend this article from In Defense of Marxism. Socialists, by and large, see themselves as natural rivals-for the support of the working class and the poor-to the Democratic Party, which is referred to here as "the graveyard of progressive ideals". Although socialists prefer the Democratic policy to that proposed by most (real) Republicans, they are pretty clear in their conviction that the Democratic agenda is to use the Hispanic poor immigrants as voting chattel. The immigrants themselves will get precious little out of it other than a chance to live here and work for peanuts and draw social services, or otherwise make a subsistence living.

Actually, it would be the best thing all the way around if the illegal Hispanic immigrants become registered members of some socialist party, should they indeed win the battle to become legalized citizens. The Democratic Party would certainly sing a different tune then. Unfortunately, the kind of things it will take to totally and permanently ruin the Democratic Party might well be the thing that will send the nation into a downward spiral from which it might never recover.

I'll Teach You To Throw Up On Me You Bald Headed Bastard

Thanks to long-time reader Danielle, I now have a whole new perspective on the myth of Cronus. I always thought it was kind of strange, as though something just didn't fit. Uranus cast all his children into Tartarus as soon as they were born. They were so horrible to look at, evidently, he just couldn't stand the sight of them. It was always a bit of a nagging question as to how Cronus managed to make his way stealthily up to his bedside while he slept, or while he was drunk, or otherwise in some way preoccupied and, egged on by the vengeful mother Gaea, castrated the old man, then flinging his genitals into the sea. It was almost as like he came out of nowhere, as though Uranus was never aware of his birth, or his very existence.

Now at last I possibly have the answer. Cronus had not even been born yet. He evidently castrated Uranus while still in Gaea's womb, while Uranus was fucking her. Ouch. Now that presents a bizarre picture. Cronus must have evidently been born right at the moment after he did the deed, Uranus's genitals in hand, after which came the triumphant toss which gave birth to Aphrodite from the foam of the sea, while drops of blood that fell upon the ground gave birth to the Furies, and to Pegasus.

I think what we are seeing here is the origin of why men, or at least western men, had for such a long time, such a hang-up about having sex with their pregnant wives. It is almost as though this myth was invented or developed to make men think twice about doing that. My guess is it might have had something to do with perceptions as to the effect of sex on an unborn child. Whatever the case, the video itself is interesting and worth a look for anyone interested in Greek myth.



Naturally, Cronus was determined not to make the same mistake his pop made, and so he swallowed his children whole as soon as they were born. We can safely assume he abstained from sex with sister-wife Rhea until they were born. This is portrayed in the artwork at the top by Goya, where a suitably monstrous Cronus is seen devouring who is apparently the future God of the Underworld, Hades.

The glossed over implications of all of this is the influence of the female deities in question. In the case of Cronus and Gaea, there is an implicit acknowledgment in the belief of the natural bonding of mother and child which takes place as early as well before childbirth, while the child is yet in the womb. This could have come about due observations as to the obvious attachment of the newborn infant to his mother which is not apparent insofar as the relationship of the infant to the father. No child knows who his father is, but it seems as though the bond with the mother is complete from the moment of childbirth. Thus, it is easy to make the leap that this bonding is developed during the entirety of the gestation process.

And it is equally true across genders. Both sons and daughters have that bond with the mother that neither can possibly have with the father. Since men have ruled since the dawn of historical times, and probably well before then (and probably always have), the bond between mother and child might have from earliest times been viewed with some alarm, and may have been a contributing factor to the subjugation of women.

It seems to present a compelling case that, if men felt that women should be subjugated, there was also a chance women might be resentful of that subjugation, and pass that resentment on to their children. Why make matters worse by having sex with her while she is carrying the child. It also possibly goes a long way towards explaining the sternness of discipline exhibited towards children by their fathers.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day-Why I'm Not Going For It

Nope I won't be participating. for a number of reasons.

1. It's kind of dumb and childish.

2. I don't want to take a chance on some seventh century savage hunting me down and killing me and my family.

3. So far as I know, there's no money in it, nor is there likely to be any bragging rights unless you're a big name blogger like Andrew Sullivan or some of the other big-time bloggers who are supporting the idea.

4. I'm reasonably sure it might be considered as being against Blogger's TOS. In fact, I'm reasonably sure Sonia Belle got in trouble at least in part over her support of the Iraq War and her stand against Islamic fascism. The link I provided tells you all you need to know. Don't bother to go there, as there is no longer a there to go to.

Not only has her account been disabled by Blogger, so has her Google account and GMail. Even past comments she has made on other blogs have disappeared. I don't believe this has anything to do with porn. For one thing, aside from her profile picture, Sonia's blog was for the most part pretty boring. (Sorry, Sonia, but that's just the truth). Also, she was behind an adult warning link that you had to click onto before you could proceed to the sight. Finally, none of her porn was against Blogger's TOS. The only porn that might get you in trouble is bestiality, incest, or child porn, something Sonia never engaged in.

There is a slight chance there might have been links to other porn sites on her blog that might have got her in trouble with Google bots who might have automatically flagged her as a promoter of spam, but I kind of doubt that. Had this been the case, she would have probably been banned at the same time she was put under the adult warning flag. Until I find out otherwise, I have to assume someone complained to Blogger about her posts in favor of the Iraq War and against Islamic fundamentalism, and Blogger responded by giving in to them.

Moreover, there has been a strange meme making the rounds lately, involving big-name bloggers such as Anne Althouse discouraging participation in Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, even though Althouse herself was earlier supportive of the South Park writers whose program was censored. Even the person who initially proposed the stunt, set for May 20th, is now disavowing it.

This makes me think they might possibly be doing this under pressure from their providers-Blogger in Althouse's case, but others as well. The cartoonist who originally proposed the idea, and who has now turned against it, might have run afoul of her employer, while others, such as one of the bloggers at the Gay Patriot, might have simply decided he wanted nothing to do with something that might seem a little much like piling on another oppressed minority, something he would understandably be sensitive about.

However, whereas Althouse might have received the courtesy of a heads up from Blogger due to the fact she is one of their better known and widely read bloggers, a chump like me would probably get nothing but the ax, with no explanation. Nor according to Bloggers TOS am I entitled to one.

Then of course, there is reason number five-I can't draw worth a shit, so in my case its a moot point. I guess I could photoshop something, but for all the other reasons I mentioned, I guess I will pass on the opportunity to draw a picture of, say for example, Mohammed getting fucked in the ass by a hog or something.

Do I think this is right? As most of you might suspect, no I do not. All the comparisons Althouse and others have made to "Piss Christ" are wide of the mark. The main objections to Piss Christ were due to government funding of this and other similar projects by the NEA. True, there are Christians who would doubtless love to see such artwork banned, government funding or not. On the other hand, none have ever killed anybody over it, nor to my knowledge have any ever threatened to do so. The whole idea behind EDMD was to make a stand against intimidation by radical Islamists, who will never be satisfied, because everything we do to all intents and purposes is offensive to them. Before long they will be demanding an end to outdoor barbecues involving pork products because the scent is offensive and there's an off-chance they might stumble upon such a picnic of infidels. Sexually clad women of course are offensive to them, so they would probably ban them as well if they could. I'm reasonably sure the time will come when they will insist on all major food chains, grocery stores as well as restaurants, offering Halal food-and perhaps minor mom-and-pop operations as well, if that would seem practical to them, or even if it doesn't.

If the truth were known, they would ban anything that doesn't fit into their religious views. But the violence, and the threat of violence, against those outside their faith is what sets them apart from even the most radical conservative Christian and Jewish groups, most of whom (with the exception of a very small handful of deranged individuals) are violent only in cases of self-defense, or when otherwise provoked. Everybody Draw Mohammed Day would be a good way to let off a little steam as regards people's frustrations over such unbridled arrogance, and dare I say evil. But by the same token, its a little like putting a band-aid over a bullet wound.

Right now, they make up about one percent of the American population. The best way we could go about combating their evil and intolerance is to do whatever is possible and reasonable to keep their numbers at that level or lower. If that makes us as intolerant as them in some people's eye, so be it. I can live with that. I can't live without my head.

I'll end this by stating in no uncertain terms that I also discourage any and all small-time bloggers from participating in Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. But I'm not about to sit here and pretend you should not do so in order to avoid offending Muslims, even the so-called "moderate" ones, assuming there really is such a thing as that. And even if there are, and even if they would be offended, so what? No one has a right to go through life and expect to never be offended, including about their religious beliefs. If I sat here one day and typed out a long, somber-minded piece about my religious devotion to BOB or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Cthulhu, etc., I'm sure somewhere along the way, if someone really took me seriously, I would find myself the object of derision, and rightly so.

A group of Christian archaeologists from China recently announced they have discovered, on a mountain of the Ararat range, yet another in what must have certainly been a fleet of Noah's Arcs. You can be pretty confidant they are going to be the subjects of ridicule over the following days. That just comes with the territory. If Muslims-radicals or otherwise-can't understand that or deal with it, they need to resign themselves to the proposition that maybe they just don't belong in western, and remove themselves to where they can practice their beliefs in the peace they insist they want, but which in reality seems to be definable as the kind of peace that comes with not having to be around anyone that might believe something differently.

Lost Again

Last week on Lost, something occurred which gave me faith in the validity of my theory as to which of the candidates will replace Jacob and, conceivably, the Smoke Monster who is not so much Jacob's evil self, as the primal, emotional side of this schizophrenic entity-Jacob being the coldly logical, calculating, pragmatic side.

Sun will replace one, her husband Jin the other, and the two of them, by reason of their love for each other, will serve to integrate the two conflicting sides and make them whole.

But before I go into what happened last week, there is also another aspect that might seem confusing and which needs to be addressed. If what we are seeing in Sideways time is the result of what would have happened if the crash of Flight 815 never occurred, then how does that explain such drastic changes in their lives inflicted by Jacob's influence, from years before the crash, suddenly no longer being in affect at the time the crash ordinarily would have occurred?

Luckily, we have the possible answer there as well-time travel again. Jacob didn't insinuate himself into the survivor's lives until they became survivors after the crash. Once the crash occurred, only then did Jacob, after almost instantaneously learning all there was to know about them, go back in time to pivotal points of their lives and influence them-in affect changing them to what he most needed them to be. Had he chosen not to do so, or had he been unable to do so, the crash survivors would have been as we see them in Sideways time, stranded on the island due to a mishap with the escaped electromagnetic energy which initially caused the crash-but otherwise the same people, with the same lives, that we are seeing in Sideways time.

As for what happened last week, it was one of those "blink and you miss it" type of things. When Sun and Jin were finally reunited on Hydra Island, after a separation of some three years, they ran toward each other and embraced. In a straight line from the exact spot between the two of them as they embraced stood one of the pylons erected by Charles Widmore as a means of keeping the Smoke Monster at bay.

Something else happened. Sun got back her ability to speak English-after Fake Locke (Smokey in the guise of John Locke) touched her. Recall that Flocke had previously touched an unconscious Sun, whereupon she awoke having forgotten how to speak English, though she could still understand it, an indication that her desire to speak English derived from a previous touch from Jacob. Flocke's previous touch negated that gift, while not negating the ability to understand English (possibly because she was unconscious when he touched her, which might have limited his power).

When Flocke saw the result of his touch, and that it would be more of a hindrance than a help to his plans, Flocke rescinded the power of his own touch with a follow-up, not realizing the true import of Jacob's influence, in Sun and Jin's case, was their marriage, which otherwise would have never come about, despite their love for each other. As we saw in the Sideways timeline, they would not have been married at the time of the crash of Flight 815 had it not been for Jacob's influence.

Yet, Jacob's influence was also such that Sun became fluent in English as a means of eventually leaving Jin, who though loving him she had come for a time to distrust due to his criminal associations with her mobster father. It took a time of separation following the birth of their daughter before she realized just how much she really loved him after all. So what will the overall implications of Flocke's latest actions amount to?

We also saw how his touch has influenced Sayid. We saw in Sideways time how Sayid would do anything to protect Nadia, including from himself. Jacob's influence changed him to where he would do anything to get Nadia for himself. Now that's she's gone, Sayid wants her back, and Flocke has promised to deliver on that promise. Yet, Flocke's touch in Sayid's case seems to have had yet another unexpected result. Sayid is changing back to where he is not willing to go too far, not despite his feelings for her, but because of them. In last week's episode, he apparently backed out of murdering Desmond Hume in cold blood, against Flocke's express orders, after Hume asked him what would Nadia think if she found out he committed such a cold blooded murder on her behalf?

That seems to have been too much for Sayid to cope with. Yet, this was a man who, while yet under Jacob's influence, willingly became a hired assassin for Benjamin Linus during his return stint to the outside world.

So if you see where I'm going with this, then it becomes obvious that the seemingly ageless war between Jacob and the Smoke Monster is much more complicated than that of a simple war of good versus evil. If anything, Jacob's influence would seem to be a net negative. On the other hand, it might be more pragmatic in certain ways-yet it seems to instill a sense of determination towards the candidates to go about the accomplishing of those innermost desires which they might otherwise sublimate for the greater good of all concerned.

Another case in point is Sawyer. Although it is hard to gauge the influence of Flocke's touch on him (remember, Flocke touched him when he saved him by grabbing his arm as he was about to fall to his death while descending the face of the cliff towards Flocke's cave), it is certainly obvious by now what Jacob's influence was.

In Sideways time, we saw how Sawyer, whose true name is James Ford, decided to become a devoted officer of the law in the aftermath of his mother and father's murder and suicide by the "real Sawyer". Although he was still devoted to tracking down the villain and possibly killing him, he still wanted to make a positive difference.

Jacob's influence changed all of that. Instead, Ford adopted the name Sawyer and became not just a career criminal, but the same kind of con artist who wooed naive and unhappily married women and stole their family's life savings. It would stand to reason now that the effect on Sawyer of Flocke's touch, of negating Jacob's influence, would be to revive in him that dedication to justice and honor that might in the long run contribute yet another facet of Flocke's ultimate downfall.

And at the end of last week's episode, we saw Flocke touch Jack Shepherd. How will that play out? In truth, we know little of Jacob's influence on him, other than had he not intervened in Jack's life, he would have had a relationship with his son, something he ended up avoiding due to the belief that he would be a terrible father.

So far, Flocke has not exercised the power of his touch on Hugo, whom Jacob transformed from a business entrepreneur with a golden touch of his own, into a lottery winner, though of otherwise uncommonly bad luck.

He has also not touched Kate, nor for that matter Jin. Doubtless he will in time, but to what effect?

In closing, I should like to point out that I might be in the course of revising an earlier theory to the effect that the island is itself alive, and Jacob and Smokey could just represent two conflicting sides of its personality. While that might well be true, it is also conceivable that the island is just a place of special electromagnetic power, and the two warring sides just might have been caught up by the force of its power and transformed by it in some unknown way.

it is even conceivable that the Adam and Eve skeletons might well be the original persons of Jacob and Smokey-a husband and wife. It's been theorized that since time travel is an integral element of the show, these skeletons, whom Jack Shepherd says died about fifty years ago, could in fact be Sun and Jin, victims of time travel. I think, however, that they might actually be the original parents of Jacob and Smokey, regardless of whether those two are one person or two. It is also possible that they might be those two, and that they-Jacob and Smokey-might have originally been husband and wife.

One thing about this show-there's no end to the possibilities, which is one of the things that make it so compelling.

Lindsay Graham And John McCain-Two Twisted Individuals

I read a hilarious report today that is just so asinine I don't know what to make of it. It seems Lindsey Graham, Republican In Name Only Senator from South Carolina, is hopping mad at Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, because Reid is going ahead with an Immigration Reform Bill ahead of their previously agreed schedule-originally after the 2010 mid-term elections. Graham is so upset at this, he has threatened to pull out on the Cap And Trade legislation he has been working on along with Senators Kerry and Lieberman. In response, Kerry has pulled the plug on the planned unveiling of the legislation until further notice. For the time being, it is in effect dead.

Graham's reasoning, however, is what is so mind-numbingly obvious it almost comes across like a comedy routine. Graham is certain that Reid is just doing this for political purposes, a way to possibly salvage his political career, which no doubt is the truth. Reid is in trouble and such a bill might be the only way he can salvage his own political career, by appealing to the Latino voters in his state.

In the meantime, Graham-who I should here point out has long been an advocate and supporter of Immigration Reform (he supported the last controversial attempt at such legislation co-authored by John McCain and Ted Kennedy and supported by then President George W. Bush), but he is certain this is just another way for the Democrats to gain a political advantage for the up-coming 2010 mid-term elections over the GOP, whose base has long let it be known in no uncertain terms that any GOP Senator who supports any kind of liberalization of American immigration policy will do so at their own peril.

Graham has worked hard on the Cap and Trade bill in the probably futile hopes of making it palatable to most conservative voters, by working for the inclusion of calls for more exploration and drilling of oil and natural gas, development of clean coal technology, and even construction and expansion of more nuclear plants.

It's obviously an important issue to him, and so is Immigration Reform, and moreover, Lindsey Graham is not up for re-election this year. In fact, he's not up until, I think 2014. So what is his problem here?

Enter-John McCain, who is in the fight of his Senatorial career, in a primary contest with former Republican House member JD Hayworth, currently a conservative talk radio host in Arizona. Although McCain is for now ahead in the polls, it is by no means a comfortable lead-some polls show the lead held by McCain to be as slight as five percent-and Hayworth seems to be steadily gaining ground. He seems to in effect have the momentum.

So there you have it. McCain can't afford to vote for an Immigration Reform Bill at this stage. That would certainly be political suicide, especially given the current climate in Arizona, his home state. He would like to vote for it. He would love to vote for it, for all the self-serving rhetoric he's been dishing out on the stump lately about securing our borders. But he knows he can't vote for it before the 2010 elections, and so does Lindsey Graham. More to the point, McCain not only can't afford to vote for it, he also can't afford to sabotage any filibuster attempts by any of his fellow GOP Senators, something for which he also has an unfortunate history. McCain is in a real bind now, and he-and Lindsey Graham-know that only too well. Lindsey Graham is like a little kid playing hide-and-seek in the middle of the living room, laying in the middle of the floor with a blanket pulled over him, and thinking no one else can see him.

Of course, while this is funny on one level, on another it is really quite sad. What you have here is a United States Senator throwing a temper tantrum because a key ally is being put in a position where he has to oppose a bill in order to retain his seat, when he would ordinarily love to support the bill-as would Graham himself, who has therefore removed himself from the negotiations from yet another bill they would both also love to support, one they had hoped to be able to do so while including elements they hoped would prevent the disintegration of their core support.

In the meantime, there is yet a second factor at work as regards Grahams seemingly untypical meltdown-



Grahams recent actions in fact gives him plausible deniability as regarding the charges made against him in the preceding video, recorded at a recent Tea Party in South Carolina, Grahams home state.

It seems like Graham has the balls to stand up to the Democrats after all, seems to be the intended message, not of course that they have anything on him that he has to worry about, by God. Yes Graham has balls, and while they might be tiny little round ones, they are straight ones nevertheless.

By the time Graham does come up for reelection, don't be surprised if he isn't married to Katy Holmes

As for McCain, he knows full well that if he is elected to yet another term, it will in all likelihood be his last one. Given his past history, what possible reason does he have to improve on it now? He has it in his senile mind that he is an elder statesman, the kind of guy who can "reach across the aisle and get things done for the American people". What that translates into is he is a conservative of convenience, but a liberal by inner sentiment. He dare not vote for or support an immigration reform bill now.

But if he is elected, to what will in all probability be his last term in office, you had better understand this-he will have no reason to pretend to be anything other than what he is. And he will act accordingly. Thus you have Lindsey Graham, throwing the equivalent of a Senatorial hissy-fit, all because he knows if his buddy McCain is put in a position where he can't support his cherished dreams without risking the loss of his Senate seat due to those pesky little inconvenient things known as the voters, its all the Democrats fault. They should have had enough class to wait until after the election-when it would be too late for the voters to punish McCain accordingly.

In the meantime, to all those Arizona Republicans who might be thinking of whether they should support McCain in the primaries, if you fall for his lies and manipulations now, you have only yourselves to blame. JD Hayworth is by no means perfect, but what politician is? When it comes to John McCain, what he says now and what his actual legislative history and voting record is might well be-in fact is-two different things.

The British Mess

In the event of a hung Parliament, where no party has a clear majority following the next set of British elections, Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg has promised that he will not form a coalition government with Brown and his Labour Party. He has said this in an apparent attempt to counter charges by Cameron's Conservatives that a vote for the LibDems is tantamount to a vote for five more years of Brown and Labour. As has been pointed out however, this would likely cause disaffection amongst those left of center voters who are now supporting Clegg (due to his performance in the series of "Leaders Debates" in which he performed far above expectations and according to most analysts won the debates). They might hate Brown, but they certainly would not wish to see the Tories gain power.

However, it seems pretty obvious that, the way the British electoral system is set up, either Brown or Cameron will have to form a coalition government with the LibDems, which means that one of the two leaders of said parties would become Prime Minister.

Even if the Liberal Democrats perform at the highest possible levels, they will only pick up a relative handful of seats, just enough to keep the Conservatives, poised to end up with the most seats in any event, from gaining a clear majority. The clear losers, under the most likely at this point scenario, will be Labour, who might well, and in fact likely, nevertheless maintain the reins of government with Brown still at the helm-assuming Clegg relents and forms his coalition government with Labour. It does seem highly unlikely that either Labour or Conservatives will agree to Clegg being Prime Minister.

So what do you have? Very likely, chaos. At the very least, the British public are going to be outraged in large part at themselves if their votes for Clegg amounts to a return to power of Brown, or for that matter Cameron.

This problem could be easily solved were Britain to merely hold run-off elections between the two top contenders. Under that scenario, the election would more than likely be between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. The Conservatives would likely win that one running away, because frankly if you love Labour, you would have to be absolutely enthralled with the Liberal Democrats. Their policies would be tantamount to national suicide.

They are in favor of a multinational foreign policy and are full speed ahead in favor of full integration into the European Union, including but not limited to adopting the Euro and dropping the Pound. They are also for unilaterally dismantling the Trident nuclear deterrent. They favor what can only be described as an open borders immigration policy, and would like to see a system of home incarceration for convicted offenders of "minor" crimes.

Bear in mind that the Liberal Democrats, the heirs to Gladstone, have been out of power now for closely approaching one hundred years, when to all intents and purposes they slid into practical irrelevancy as the third party of British politics. They contributed to a hung Parliament once in the early to mid seventies, but that matter was quickly resolved. Then again, there was not so much at stake then.

This is not your great-great-great grandfather's Liberal Party, which used to favor a laissez-faire economic policy. They actually bonded with another minor party, the Social Democrats, in the eighties, and swung greatly to the left. At the time it was a matter of survival more than relevancy that they do so.

Now they are on the verge of establishing themselves as power brokers and netting a handful of Ministry posts in the bargain, in addition to asserting some of their policies into government as a matter of compromise politics. Clegg's latest promises to the contrary, the Labour Party seems to be the most obvious route to go. Labour is certainly unlikely-to say the very least-to form a coalition with the Conservatives, so how could Clegg?

Ironically, the overall result of this might well turn out to be the fiasco that, far from bringing the Liberal Democrats to power and establishing them as a permanent major player in British politics might well in the long run turn them into a footnote of British history and seal their permanent doom.

If there is one thing the British can't abide, it's chaos, which is seemingly what they are headed towards. The result could be a collapse of government if Clegg fails or refuses to form a coalition government with Labour, or the Conservatives. At that point, would Brown even have the authority to call another election? If he does not, does anybody aside from the Queen have that authority-or does she even have that authority? I rather suspect not. Nor would there be any sitting chamber that would have the authority to do pretty much anything in the way of forming a government or reforming this batty electoral system in which the runaway winner of the election might well end up, and probably will end up, with no more than 64 seats, about ten more than they now have, while the loser could and probably will end up with more than two hundred, and be positioned to yet run the government. It's stark madness, and if it instigates the fall of the British government, would that be any great mystery?

The whole problem has arisen due to the perception, probably an accurate one, that Cameron and the Conservatives are themselves to all intents and purposes a center-left party, and by American standards, on the average an out-and-out liberal party. It is no longer the party of Margaret Thatcher, or Winston Churchill. It has regressed back to where it is once again the party of Neville Chamberlain, minus the optimistic outlook.

There is no truly conservative party by any stretch of the imagination. Even the much and with good reason maligned British National Party is not so much a conservative party as a hyper-nationalist one with fascist overtones. No one is buying their snake oil. At least, not yet.

But like I said, the British cannot abide chaos, and it won't take long before demands are made for electoral reform. But in the meantime, what is going to be the result on Britain's relations with the EU and with America? Unfortunately, the US is a big part of their problem. Most Brits want their country to cut themselves loose from the alliance, which they feel has brought them nothing but turmoil. As it stands, the western city with the largest percentage of pro-Islamic radical sympathizers is not Paris, not Amsterdam-but London. The government has brought a lot of this headache on themselves, as much with their liberal social and immigration policies as by their connection to Iraq and Afghanistan, but by now America makes the most convenient scapegoat.

Then there's the EU. They had a conniption over the economic turmoil of relatively tiny Greece. What will happen if the British economy collapses due to political instability? It could easily happen. In America, not too very long ago, such a scenario would probably have been temporarily good for the economy, because not so much of it was bound up in government subsidies, and in fact, there would have been some who would have and could have easily and happily profited from the situation inherent in the inability to oversee the regulatory schemes that tend to put a brake on economic growth. No such potential exists in Britain. To utilize a current phrase, Britain is "too big to fail". So what happens if it does just that?

Eyjaffjallajokul Sends Us A Message

Happy Earth Day, SUCKERS!



He (or she?) must have read the article that proposed limiting jet flights as a means to combat Global Climate Change, which contained the following-

Jet aircraft atmospheric damage is unique in that exhaust emissions from such aircraft are deposited not only in the lower atmosphere but also in the cloud-forming troposphere and higher, where resulting contrails are formed and other chemicals remain to interact for decades.

The now well recognized critical role (including by the United Nations) that air transportation plays in climate change is raised to the highest levels of concern by the Pentagon's report. "Rather than decades or even centuries of gradual warming, recent evidence suggests the possibility that a more dire climate scenario may actually be unfolding."

And since no one else seems at all interested in limiting jet flights, instead preferring to limit or outright ban other aspects of energy consumption which are far more vital to the lives of most every day Americans and for that matter everyone else in the world, it looks like the old volcano deity has decided to take a firm stand on behalf of humankind everywhere. For a while, air traffic was virtually halted throughout Europe, both within the continent, and to and from it as well.

No word of relief from Global Climate Change alarmists or anyone else, no further recommendations to reduce air traffic from European or American leaders, not even so much as a pointing to the silver lining inherent within that gigantic cloud of volcanic ash that hung like a shroud over the European continent. Nothing but anxiety over the lack of air traffic, especially of course from the airlines, who will probably recoup their losses now by making passengers stand in the aisles when they fly while holding onto a secure hand strap they'll probably charge you an extra twenty dollars for. Hey, come to think of it, who needs seats, they can haul a lot more folks that way. Whoops, better scratch that idea, that would mean they could reduce their flights.

It would not be the first time that the old Icelandic volcanoes acted up and cooled things off as a result of their tantrums, as witness this account of Ben Franklin's observations toward the end of the eighteenth century of the rampant and unusual cooling throughout Europe and America, and maybe beyond, all the result of the activity of the Laki fissure volcano system.

Now we get a twofer-the volcanic ash itself should contribute to cooling or at least marginally offset the alleged man-made warming going on, and in the meantime the reduction albeit temporary of air traffic (about one percent at most of which is probably vital and necessary) should further reduce pollution, and more importantly, for that very brief period at least contribute to a lessening in consumption of the petroleum necessary to produce the jet fuel that certainly contributes greatly to our ever-dwindling supplies of non-renewable energy sources.

Have no fear though. Al Gore will soon hop on a jet and log a few thousand miles in order to enlighten us all on the need to cut down on, or be taxed out our asses for, our driving back and forth to our piddling little daily jobs and to the stores to do our shopping for, you know, unimportant luxuries such as food, clothing, and other supposed household "necessities", to say nothing of our decadent modern addiction to wanting to keep warm in the cold of winter and tolerably cool during the dog days of summer.

I hope the next time that volcano decides to party he brings all his buddies with him.