To modern day Islam, the non-Islamic world has two wildly exaggerated faces. Infidels are seen, on the one hand, as being weak, pasty-faced, licentious, naive, heretical, stupid and undeserving of life.
On the other hand, the Muslim world sees western civilization as mad with power, Islamophobic, Jew-loving, Zionist, and energy-devouring.
The truth, as usual, is somewhere in between the two.
The Republican party can be likened to a tribe of brigands finally consigned to the outback for betrayal and thievery by government on an unheard of scale. Why anyone would want to associate themselves with this rabble is one thing, but to want to be called a brigand is another, and to take an associate position as brigand-in-name-only is to reap the scorn while eschewing the benefits, if there be such.
And now, having lost most of the mesa to the half-breeds, the brigandage hopes to retake the high grounds by demonizing their wounded and shooting their survivors.
Zane Grey would call this a western tragedy, onlookers a farce. Is there anything to be salvaged? Well, here's one thing. Brigand-in-name-only hangs a target on some opportunistic palefaces who are only doing what brigands do: Take money at the point of a gun, also known as governing. Since that is the nature of briganding, in-name-only is a poor description of their shortcomings.
You want to identify the Indians in your midst? Those are the conservatives-in-name-only. CINOs are readily identifiable by how they live, what they do, and things they support. You can spot them easily, unlike RINOs, who can only be seen disappearing over the hill with your goodies when it's far too late to do anything about it.
Want a purer posse before the next raid? Get rid of the CINOs. But know this ... litmus-testing every supporter on every conservative issue and throwing out those with imperfect scores will leave you Gabby Hayes, Andy Devine, and in the wilderness forty more years.
"I need to buy a tire."
"Whitewall or black?"
"Half and half."
"That would be the Obama tire."
"It figures."
"How about some Obama hubcaps?"
"Half and half?"
"No, no. You stop the car, they keep spinning."
The left wing is restless; the moderats are pleasantly surprised; the right wing is spitting pre-emptory venom.
I guess that's a danger of being a Rorschach. Until Obama is sufficiently emerged from the protean possibilities of the inkblots, whatever he does will only reinforce the personal interpretation given him by individuals who may have invested keyboard capital in "nailing" Obama early on. They'll hold on to that stretching licorice stick until it finally snaps off in their hand, braying more and more loudly as it begins to dawn on them that they were wrong.
We need to insist on definition by essentials, not the pedantic meanings used by evasive intellectuals.HT: The ineffable Billy Beck
Socialism is not defined by who owns the means of production; it is defined by whether the individual is free to opt out of something, or not. If individuals are free to opt out of something, it’s capitalism; if the individual is not free, it’s socialism.
The frightening thing about Biden is that judging from the avalanche of gaffes the man puts out, I'm beginning to believe his assumption of another man's biography was really an honest mistake!
"Trillion's the new billion" was apropos.
"Trillion's the new thousand" says "buy gold."
."Kneel before the Messiah!"
"That's me! That's me!"
"You're the Messiah, Monica?"
"No, you idiot. I'm the Kneeler-elect."
.I wish they'd stop picking on Warren G Harding.
He had Fred Thompson's energy, Jack Kennedy's morals, LBJ's waist line, and Bush's penchant for lousy appointments.
Why, he was All-American!
"Media bias was more intense in the 2008 election than in any other national campaign in recent history, Time magazine's Mark Halperin said Friday at the Politico/USC conference on the 2008 election.
"It's the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war," Halperin said at a panel of media analysts."
because of management's desire to create productions for new media, like the Internet ... without paying residuals. These are payments that actors receive each time one of their performances is rerun.So they're striking to get paid everytime they hit on the website that uses their clip? It's like having your own morphine pump, only with money. This can only end in mousal abuse.
No Welcome Mat for Carter in Zimbabwe, says Cathy Buckle.
the humanitarian catastrophe now engulfing ZimbabweZimbabwe seems to be in post-drain circling, having opted to die rather than fight Mugabe's regime. Cathy Buckle is a special case. She is among the liberals living in Zimbabwe who thought the whites were causing the country's problems and that Mugabe was doing the right thing. She is one of the enabling, useful idiots dumb enough to have stayed in the country until it was too late.
Rhodesia was once the bread basket of Africa. Now it's a basket case. I feel sorry for them up to the point of wondering why there is no resistance/revolution. Then, having barked, I watch the caravan roll off the cliff.
From the nitwits at American Thinker cometh...
The continuous assault on Sarah Palin is not so difficult to understand. In fact, it can be summed up thusly: she's a woman opposed to abortionIt's not just abortion, Litmus-man. It's someone who embodies what feminism claims to aspire to; it's a female Horatio Alger story; it's a tolerant believer. It's a shame when Ride of the Valkyries is being played and some only hear a violin plucked.
...but I know what I like.
Scholars still argue over Bosch’s elusive point of view. Are the men and women depicted in a dizzying variety of sexual behaviors in the central panel joyously indulging in the freedom Adam and Eve won at such a steep price? Or are they victims of agonizing lusts that were let loose in the human bloodstream when Eve took that unseemly bite of the forbidden fruit?Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delight
Much as (mostly) conservatives bally-hoo the election results that went against the political flow in suppressing same-sex marriage, this same election enacted decriminalization in places along with legitimizing the use of cannabis medically in others. Where's the bally-hoo?
From the comment section of the Library of Economics and Liberty ---
Speaking as a 20 something, I have never met anyone with communist sympathies or affiliation who was the least bit embarrassed to admit this in a crowd. And there is good reason for this; I have never been in a crowd that experienced any negative affect from hearing such a confession. In fact, any of the times I've seen such a statement met with opprobrium (always by some token dude. Not me, I've learned when to show my cards. 
), it is the one who challenges the communist who experiences social stigma (e.g. "McCarthyite", "red baiting", etc).
Sure if someone who is a "true believer" starts yelling at everyone about their Wicked Capitalist Ways, they get shunned, but this is true for almost all belief systems; people don't like to get lectured by evangelists. But people with passive Communist beliefs are seen as interesting, intellectual, or fashionable. This is certainly not true for fascism, or even mainstream conservatism.
About that shining city on the hill...
I've figured out that the District of Columbia is the best metaphor.
Washington DC by day is what they promise.
Washington DC by night is what you'll get.
[L]isten carefully … “Wham!!!”
That's the sound of my foot kicking the door shut on the era of white guilt. The rites have been muttered, the carcass lowered, dirt shoveled, and tombstone erected. White guilt is dead and buried.
However, despite my glee, there's apparently one small, rabid bastion of American racism remaining. Black Americans voted 96% for Barack Obama. Hmmm. In a color-blind world, shouldn't that be 50-50? Tonight, every black person should ask forgiveness for their apparent racism and prejudice towards white people. Maybe it's time to start spreading that guilt around.
---Tom Adkins writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer
"Hey, watch your step, George! What is that anyway?"
"Ah, that just some dog poop, Barack, we got two of 'em, you know."
"Well, I, well, I almost stepped in it. Hold up a second."
"What?"
"I think I can kick this pile of crap right between the two women and down the hall."
"Don't do that, Barack. Leave it for the SS."
"Secret Service?"
"No, the shit scoopers. They gather all the poop, bag it, and ship it to Kenya."
"What? Well, I, you know, I wondered why there was more dog poop in Kenya than dogs."
"We just started this last year, Barack. The reason there is more poop than dogs in Kenya is 'cause they eat the dogs."
"Huh. Well, yeah. Hunh."
McCain: "How's the exhaust fumes down here, Rudy?"
Guiliani: "Ah, you'll get used to 'em, Johnny Mac."
McCain: "You know my friend, I think I overmarried."
Guilliani: "You did, Johnny Mac."
Palin: "You boys be quiet under there and get to sleep, doggonnit."
The point of our discussion, from my end of it and before I leave it, is that you are in no more danger at this moment than you have been the last eight years. The shocking thing is how safe you thought you were, not how unsafe you think you are now.
