Dear Mr. Ms O'Donnell,

I heard a news story about a bridge in California this morning. 

IN the story, the newscaster told me a big explosion and fire MELTED the bridge and it collapsed.

Could you call the networks and remind them that fire can't melt steel....?  I know it's impossible, cuz I heard you say so on "The View".

It would be better for everyone if they were corrected on this misunderstanding.  That bridge couldn't have collapsed like they said.

Unless BUSH did it.

Maybe Dick Cheney shot it with his shotgun. 

Or Halliburton has first dibs on the contract to build a new bridge, WHEN that one collapses... so they just set a few explosives to speed up the process...  yeah, that's what it was... Bush's buddies at Halliburton! 

Please call the networks, Rosie.  We're counting on you to tell us all about engineering and science on this one.

And I'm sorry you're leaving the show.  We conservatives were better off with you on it.

George Tenet's book is coming out in a few days, to predictable liberal media fanfare (like the 60 minutes interview last night).

There are already some problems with 'facts', as Powerline points out today.  Tenet claims in the book that he met Richard Perle in the hall on Sept. 12th, and that Perle told him "Iraq has to pay for what happened yesterday' or something to that effect.

But of course Perle was in France on the 12th, unable to fly back because of grounded international flights. 

I expect more factual difficulties to crop up once enough people have read it.

This is a $4 million book deal for Tenet, explaining why he held his fire when honorable people would have been defending themselves on principle, tendering their resignations, you know, doing the right thing.  Tenet hung in there, accepted Bush's medal, retired with his dignity intact--  then sold it off.

He has the right, as Brian Kilmeade pointed out on Fox this morning, to tell his story and accept the money.  But Kilmeade needed to go the extra yard there, and didn't.

Tenet does NOT have the right to be respected by the public for his actions. 

And he will not be, except by the loony wacko left, and they really don't know what the word means.

Of course, when you're going home with $4 million in your pocket, perhaps public respect is less important.

I hope, if I ever have to make such a choice, that I would choose differently than Tenet did.  I believe I would. 

Perhaps fortunately for me, such an integrity test is unlikely to come my way.  :-)

"Idol Gives Back" just doesn't tell the story.

It should have been "Idol Gives Symbolically While Urging People with Much Less Money to Give More"....

I can't say I'm totally against how they did it..  it had good moments...  but when Ellen DeGeneres crowed "I personally am giving one hundred thousand dollars", I got nauseous.

Because that's about like me giving $100.  It's not so small that I wouldn't miss it if it fell out of my pocket, but neither will I be missing my next meal because of it.

Someone like Ellen ought to say "I personally am giving ten million dollars".  That would mean she'd have to sell something, or deny herself something, or SOMETHING.  For her, $100k is just writing a check, and she won't miss the money.

And that, dear reader, tells us something about the Hollywood liberal that is Ellen Degenerate.  She must honestly believe that Americans will be humbled and impressed by her gift, and that it will drive each of us to dig deep and giver $10 or $20 to help.  But honestly, it just makes me mad.  Because she lives in the tens of millions.  And she thinks we'll be impressed by a figure that is chump change to her, and that because it's six figures nobody will realize that it's chump change to her.

She thinks flyover country is impressed by six figures.  She's never been to Midland, Texas, let me tell you.

Instead of a string of celebs urging me to give $10, I want to see a string of celebs telling me that THEY are giving millions, and giving til it hurts, and giving away half their enormous fortunes, and so forth.  Let Barbra Streisand sell her Malibu megamansion and move into a split level duplex in Orange County, and give the proceeds to Idol Gives Back.  Let Gwyneth Paltrow devote her entire next movie paycheck to Idol Gives Back.

What channel to I have to watch to see Bono give away his OWN money instead of trying to make me feel guilty for not giving away mine?

I heard Simon Cowell say, in discussions about this show, "we've all done very well with Idol, and it's time to give back".  How much has he made?  And how much is he giving?

He's made many many millions.  And, like Ellen, he's probably given chump change.

Instead of zillionaires telling me that "if we all give $10, we'll make a difference!", I'd like to see one zillionaire say "I got it covered, don't worry about it, I'm giving millions myself."

Not in this Hollywood.

If the one hundred richest people in Hollywood gave away one percent of their own personal fortunes, my guess is that the $60 million goal of this TV show could be met with one blast email.

Those people are givers, don't get me wrong.  But how much money does the Democratic National Committee need anyway?

Powerline today links to a fantastic column by Andrew Klavan on what it's like to be a conservative, a real one, in today's America.

He nails it.  It's very much like being a Christian and being asked what I believe.  Because to state it clearly is to run the real risk of offending people. 

And as Klavan says, one hesitates to tell the truth when one knows it will offend and one has good manners and a (perfectly natural) desire to be liked.

Jesus said He didn't come to bring peace; he came to set brother against brother and father against son and so forth.  Because telling the truth will do that.  Everyone is at a different stage of understanding themselves and others, and it is likely that two people who are at two different stages are going to clash when essential truths are discussed.  It's why there exists a well-worn old saying about never talking politics or religion when you don't want to cause an argument. 

I know myself well enough to know that I am a mix of good and bad impulses, and that in my present state I could never please a perfect God.  I also know that I, of my own power and will, could never improve myself to such a state that I WOULD please God.  It's what the Christian calls "man's sinful nature", and it's fine until one points out that it applies to the person one is TALKING to.  Then it feels like insult.

The nonreligious person, and many religious ones, shrug and say "nobody's perfect".

But this isn't a dismissal of the problem, just a way of restating it in comparative terms.  'Nobody's perfect' really means 'I may not be the best person, but there are others worse than I am, so I guess I'm not that bad'.

But where pleasing God is concerned, there is only yourself and God; nobody else matters, and you are not compared with anyone else.

The liberal LOVES to compare himself with others, people chosen expressly because they make HIM look good in comparison.  But that strategy works only so long as one is alive.  And for those who do not believe there is a judgment day, that is sufficient.

But comparing oneself with others can be risky business, because some others actually make one look BAD in comparison.  So the task at hand is to make as many people as possible seem morally worse, so the comparer will look morally better.  Because being good isn't the real point; one must be SEEN to be good.  The judgment of God is dismissed in favor of the infinitely more achievable approval of other people.

And because people with a driving need to be SEEN as good are often burdened with other moral weaknesses, like laziness, they can largely be depended upon to take the easy road.  To be seen as good, one need not work hard at BEING good.  It only takes the loud repetition of phrases like "for the children", and the regular fingerwagging at 'meanspirited' people.

Read the Klavan column, and see clearly how hard it is to tell the truth.  Maybe you'll be a bit more understanding of the real social dilemma the Washington conservative faces.  Losing friends and having people declare you socially unacceptable is hurtful, and principle often doesn't salve emotional hurt.  The good man too often stands alone. 

And of course, the proper response is "principle first.  If it hurts, it hurts.  The pain will weed out the weak and show us clearly who is actually a man of principle."  The conservative believes God is pleased with his consistency, and the disapproval of people is thus easier to handle.  The liberal has no such help.

This weeding process is ongoing.  It's why Republicans are having such a hard time with the current crop of Presidential candidates.  And why we hope Fred Thompson will run.

He appears to be a genuine man of principle.  I hope its true, and I hope he runs.

Townhall.com features a column today by Rich Lowry on France.

It sums up what I've told people about France for years.  The people refuse to give up their fantasy lives, their benefits, their welfare payments, their short working hours and long vacations...  all of which could be supported in a postwar economic boom which saw growth in birthrates, which meant ever larger workforces to support the nonworking, and growth in business, which provided government with the revenue to spend.

Lowry points out only 41 percent of French adults are actually in the workforce today.  And 25% of working adults work in the government, meaning they don't actually produce anything, but instead are a drag on the productivity of the actual producers.

France is in a death spiral, economically speaking.  Their short term solution has been to cultivate immigration in order to supplement the workforce, with the unfortunate result of Islamic resistance to French culture.  This resistance has caused even greater expense to the state, because people who refuse to assimilate into the culture are essentially unemployable and are added to the welfare rolls. 

The French people have long voted to kick the reality can down the road a piece.  But reality will not be deferred forever.

The 'center right' and 'center left' is no longer a choice.  Now they face electing an actual conservative, Sarkozy (not American style, to be sure, but much more conservative than they've had for decades), or else a genuine wacko leftist liberal, Segolene Royal.

The French can either surrender their nation and their lives to economic disaster, or they can face the truth and take their medicine and join the 21st century.  Meanwhile, the dreams of people like Dominic DeVillepin, the Napoleonic dream of French glory and world leadership, turned to dust long ago. 

I've been consumed over the past weeks with the chore of moving.  Downsizing too, which means lots of junk spread out all over the house and lots of chin-in-hand pondering over the decision to discard (not to mention around 250 trips per week up and down the stairs... aaauugghh!) 

Today I took out the trash, and for the third consecutive week my trash extends the full length of my curbside, about eighty feet.  I feel like I should tip those guys. 

But even though my blogging has been ultralite over the past few weeks, I'd be abandoning my duty as a citizen journalist if I didn't offer this story, to compare and contrast with the murderous rampage of Mr. Cho which I discussed at length in previous posts.

If you're going to go on a public rampage and do yourself harm, you can't be much less destructive, or more pitiable, than to rush into a busy restaurant, grab a kitchen knife, and hack off your own thingiebob.

Whether they'll send grief counselors for the patrons I don't know, but I'm quite certain that somewhere a flag will fly at half staff.   :-)

"You had everything you wanted.  Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats.  Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you snobs.  Your trust fund wasn't enough.  Your vodka and cognac weren't enough.  All your debaucheries weren't enough.  Those weren't enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs.  You had everything."

The incoherent Mr. Cho, on video, on NBC News (much to their everlasting shame, whether they realize it or not).

Think about this rant, though, in light of what's going on in the world.  Here you have a young alienated man (much like many we see carrying signs and screaming in protest marches somewhere east of here).  A young man who takes deep personal offense, apparently, that others are wealthy and self-involved (much the same offense as, say, Osama takes, including the disgust and contempt for those who drink alcohol). 

Here we have a young man who branded himself "Ismael Ax" in his final moments.  Ismael is the son of Abraham, the half-brother of Isaac and is considered in history/mythology (take your pick) the father of the Arab race.

Ishmael was older than Isaac, but the Bible says Isaac was the son that Abraham was promised by God.  Muslims, needless to say, are deeply offended by this as well.  Even though Ishmael received from God a great kingdom to the east, it wasn't enough to offset descendants' unhappiness that Isaac got the good stuff.

This, biblically, historically, is a weak and ill-informed (my fault) summary of the origin of the seemingly endless conflict between Arabs and Jews.  Both consider themselves the children of a child promised by God, and inheriting God's promises for the future.

The 'Ax' bit nobody seems sure about.  A character in a western novel by James Fenimore Cooper wields an axe, but it might be a riddle about Biblical stuff too.

Either way, the name of Ishmael means that Mr. Cho was identifying with someone who felt wronged, and who felt he deserved an inheritance from God which others wrongly denied him.

I don't believe he was conducting a jihad.  He wasn't a Muslim and didn't show signs of becoming one.  

But he was mixing elements of various current events and current figures; the contempt for sin and hedonism that Osama showed, the righteous indignation that, in his view, the Arabs feel against the Jews, and even the classic western secular liberal's contempt for 'the evil rich'.  

As I've said, every young man is upset when other men don't respect him and women don't love him.  This young man arrived at this campus already very far down that path of bubbling hatred.  

But I'm guessing that the campus itself provided him with all those cultural elements to which he added his rage, and which amplified it.  And every single one of the non-personalized things about which he professed anger are things which themselves oppose the traditional conservative America we defend.   In his rage he adopted the voice of America's enemies, without and within.

This is an extreme case of a common condition.  Too many of today's shrill hateful liberals are people who personally are hurt, depressed, self-despising people who desperately cast this way and that to try to find something to make them feel better about themselves.  And NOTHING makes a person feel better about himself than to point the finger at someone ELSE and loudly declare how bad HE is.

This is, in my view, the heart of liberalism.  It's why a compassionate and decent man like Dubya can be so viscerally hated by so many.  

The liberal is a person who not only needs to feel 'good', he desperately needs to be SEEN to be 'good'.  He is in search of self-esteem, and it comes from the moral approval of others.  

And when millions of desperate depressed people so badly need to be seen as 'good', there is no doubt that millions will take the easiest route; point a moral finger of outrage at somebody else.  Blame somebody else for one's own problems.  

So many suicides are like this; "they're gonna regret how they treated me, this'll teach 'em, I'll show 'em, when they're crying at my funeral they'll know that it was their fault I did this.  THEY SHOULD HAVE TREATED ME BETTER!"

Mr. Cho took it right off the edge of the map, but this was the direction he was travelling.  "You'll pay for how you treated me.  The blood is on YOUR hands."  Mixing in some classic liberal 'causal outrage' was his way of being SEEN to be good, his way of declaring they deserved what he did and that what he did was right and just.

God help us all.  This could be just the beginning.  Now that NBC has given him the voice he wanted, shared his defiance with every young person who can log onto YouTube, how many more times will this happen? 

How many thousands, hundreds of thousands, of young men in this country are near that point of no return?

My rambling thoughts on Mr. Cho and his trail of bodies at VT.....

Drudge had a headline in quotes, indicating it was from Cho's note, saying "you made me do this".

Who?  Well, everyone, of course, but in particular it was "rich kids" and "religion".  it is said he expressed disappointment in his own, I presume Korean, religion, but was also opposed to Christianity.

Now, who is it who has loudly said for decades that being rich means you're evil?  Who is saying today that Christians are the biggest threat to the America we know and love? 

Liberals.  No doubt including some college professors and LOTS of college students, exposure to whom this young man was subjected on a daily basis. 

Now I don't doubt there was something wrong with him.  Every young man wants women to love him and other men to respect him, and every young man is disappointed when these things don't happen.  This young man's disappointment went to off-the-cliff extremes, but it isn't an unknown emotional state, just an unusually excessive level of it.  It has happened before, but on a smaller scale.  I can't help but wonder if some day the trigger of the nuke will be in the hands of a government worker or military man who is similarly disappointed and convinced that society owes him.

But at the end, when Cho had decided people needed to die for the way they treated him, he needed moral outrage on his side.  He needed to be on the side of right, not just selfishly killing people for their treatment of him.  He needed to feel as if it was his duty to do what he did, to punish the offenders. 

And the way he explained it was to talk like a liberal.  Rich kids, Christians, they're the problem.  They're hypocrites.  They're gonna bring down this country.  THEY MADE ME DO THIS.

All day I read liberal blogs with entries in which the writer hopes Bush or Cheney will die, that someone will kill them, that they're evil.  How much of that was taken to heart by this man? 

Too much. 

I'm still waiting to hear about the crazed Lutherans who took the atheists as hostages, or the angry
Christian Fundamentalists who murdered people in a shopping mall because they wouldn't take the tracts being handed to them by Christian volunteers.  I'm still waiting to hear about the Baptist suicide bomber who took out the abortion clinic and killed the staff because he believed God would accept him into heaven for doing it.

Still waiting.  Waiting for proof that Rosie was right, that Christianity is as much a danger as Islam.  Waiting for proof that Paul Krugman was riight in his recent column when he complained of the strategy of the Christian right to "infiltrate" government, as if one day the Southern Baptist Convention were going to declare itself the new Congress in a coup. 

Still waiting.  

Meanwhile, when mass murder occurs, it's either Islamic fundamentalists or liberal nutcases.  It's never the dangerous evil Christians. 

I guess we're just mind-controlled by that book that tells us "thou shalt not murder". 

Oh, did I mention that VT had recently passed a rule making possession of weapons on campus illegal, and congratulated itself on making VT "a safer place"?

As someone who 16 years ago lost a dear wife to a gun crime in a state with stiff handgun control, I say make handgun possession mandatory for everyone over 35 with no criminal record who can pass a psych evaluation and gun handling course.  Even grannies should have guns. 

That way, no criminal would ever dare attack anyone at a shopping mall or fast food place.  Even the university professors would be armed, compelled to be.  Perhaps those cowardly liberals wouldn't REACH for their guns, but at least they'd have them.

/end rant

... that's what it says on the front page of Drudge today.

Another heart-rending tale of the slow destruction of mother Gaia earth because of evil cruel heartless capitalist carbon emissions.

I tell ya, if global warming gets any worse, we Texans ain't gonna have to go to Colorado to ski.

Well, MSNBC has done it.  They've officially announced the end of their televised simulcast of the Imus in the Morning radio show.

Okay, both my readers have been informed that I am now Macblogging, on my new 20" Imac with the Intel Core 2 Duo chipset.

Mac is HARD.

So.... 

through the magic of Parallel Desktop, I'm now blogging on Windows XP...   on my Imac.

Too cool...   Windows runs like an application on the Mac when you use Parallel Desktop. 

I've even replaced the confounded one-button Mighty Mouse with my old fave scroller two-button job, and it seems to make the Mac even more easy to learn... 

Or should I say slightly less difficult.

Now I can learn how to use the Mac stuff without the pressure of do or die. 

:-)

Mac Daddy, peeking through the Windows

At last, the proof we've been waiting for.  We the skeptics can now shed our doubt and join the faithful in the stirring and uplifting chorus of voices, blended harmoniously as we point the finger of blame at capitalism for ruining our environment and causing the dreaded.... M C G W.

This little effort to remove Don Imus from the airwaves is not without alternative purpose, dear reader.