I've still got one more GOP 2008 flip flop in me

This is approximately my 7th or 8th flip flop concerning who to get behind in the 2008 GOP race. I don't feel bad though, or embarassed, because this race IS that tight and IS this fluid. I'm not the only one. So without further adieu, for the third time now in the last 6 months, I am getting behind Fred Thompson. I was for him before I was against him, then for him again, then not, now for him again. Ha, what a hoot. In short, Thompson is just going to be the most electable when it's all said and done. I liked the way he told Nurse Ratchet to shove it at the Iowa debates, small as that incident was, it was revealing. I do like Duncan Hunter the best overall, but it is just looking beyond bleak at this point. At the Iowa debate, he lost track of his bearings while Romney was giving an eloquent response, and when Nurse Ratchet asked Hunter his thoughts to the same question, he confessed he forgot the original question and could she repeat the question. Bad. Very bad. Wake up man. He's not tracking in any poll, and likely never will. I think he drops out of the race in Januaray, and I can only hope he throws his support to Thompson. We shall see.

I'm a Fredhead once again. This time to stay. (I hope!)

The Curt Jester: What in the world?

The Curt Jester: What in the world?: "Here is a senator as pro-abortion as they come who as a state senator did what he could to block a Illinois state version of the born alive infants act. He voted to block the partial birth abortion ban and is in favor of embryonic stem-cell research. He is also in favor of homosexual marriage. So you have a Senator in favor of not only abortion but infanticide once the child is born and yet he is allowed to boost his campaign at a Catholic High School."

The Crescat...: Ugliest Vestment Contest

The Crescat...: Ugliest Vestment Contest: "And the award goes to..."

Hilarious.

Hillary never ceases to amaze

Via Drudge:

Los Angeles Times : Clinton's "don't ask" policy: "“The message was very generic -- and no questions.’’"

Can anyone remember a more vapid candidate, on either side of the aisle, than Hillary? Not taking any questions on campaign stops? With everything that is going on in the country and the world, and she's afraid of engaging Iowans? I guess after all of her plants have now been outed, she's not feeling particularly confident. She knows she's farce, just like the rest of us. What a disgrace. No questions...unbelievable.

New Hot Air video: Pelosi’s Promises

Hot Air » Blog Archive » New Hot Air video: Pelosi’s Promises: "On election night 2006 Pelosi made a few promises to the country during her victory speech. Hot Air TV takes a look at those promises and whether the Speaker fulfilled them."

Heh.

Bhutto assassinated by Satanic terrorist asshole

God be with you, Mrs Bhutto. Thank you for your courage. You knew this was a realistic possibility, but you charged forward regardless. You will not be forgotten. You could be the catalyst for a democratic movement never before seen in Pakistan. I pray it is so.

















Terrorists are Satanic. Their day will come when they will have to account for this. Oh, mark my words. Their day is coming.

Yeeowtch. This could leave a mark

I've read Jonah Goldberg for years at National Review. He's one of the greats. Ooozes with wry, intelligent wit. I believe this would be his first book. Why just now he's getting to his first book is beyond me. Better late than never I suppose. I have a feeling this book is going make a few more waves than most poli-sci books have made in recent years. Just look at that cover! Ann Coulter, God love her, has had a few provocative titles, but this one has got to take the cake. "Liberal Fascism" with a smiley face sporting a Hitler stache. Wow. Just wow.




Now of course, the book is out Jan 8; so I obviously haven't read the book, but I trust that the book and the message intuited by the title is going to be deemed long overdue and most welcome among conservative circles. That's conservative circles, not necessarily Republican cirlces. Conservatives, whether in the pundit class or in grass roots movements I believe have been shut out and shouted down by the liberal fascists to a much greater degree than Republicans in office. The GOP in large part has disowned conservatism for new broader partnerships with Democrats, Corporations (primarily where it concerns illegal immigration, so that corporations can keep the third world work force intact within our borders, and all of the unintended negative consequences that comes with it), and various other special interest groups. As Michael Savage calls our Congressmen, "Republicrats and Demicans". More true than ever before.

But I digress. I have every confidence that Goldberg is going to illustrate with great detail the many examples of liberal tactics in shutting down opposing points of view, which I'm gathering come straight from the playbooks of the world's most well known fascists. Whether it be the recruiter that get shouted off of college campuses or conservative speakers who get food thrown at them. These neo-fascist liberals are all about free speech. Riiiiight.


Actually, I just stumbled on an article from the past that is quite relevant, and will post in it's entirety here:

Leaving the left
I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity

Keith Thompson

Sunday, May 22, 2005

Nightfall, Jan. 30. Eight-million Iraqi voters have finished risking their lives to endorse freedom and defy fascism. Three things happen in rapid succession. The right cheers. The left demurs. I walk away from a long-term intimate relationship. I'm separating not from a person but a cause: the political philosophy that for more than three decades has shaped my character and consciousness, my sense of self and community, even my sense of cosmos.
I'm leaving the left -- more precisely, the American cultural left and what it has become during our time together.

I choose this day for my departure because I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity with oppressed populations everywhere -- reciting all the ways Iraq's democratic experiment might yet implode.

My estrangement hasn't happened overnight. Out of the corner of my eye I watched what was coming for more than three decades, yet refused to truly see. Now it's all too obvious. Leading voices in America's "peace" movement are actually cheering against self-determination for a long-suffering Third World country because they hate George W. Bush more than they love freedom.

Like many others who came of age politically in the 1960s, I became adept at not taking the measure of the left's mounting incoherence. To face it directly posed the danger that I would have to describe it accurately, first to myself and then to others. That could only give aid and comfort to Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and all the other Usual Suspects the left so regularly employs to keep from seeing its own reflection in the mirror.

Now, I find myself in a swirling metamorphosis. Think Kafka, without the bug. Think Kuhnian paradigm shift, without the buzz. Every anomaly that didn't fit my perceptual set is suddenly back, all the more glaring for so long ignored. The insistent inner voice I learned to suppress now has my rapt attention. "Something strange -- something approaching pathological -- something entirely of its own making -- has the left in its grip," the voice whispers. "How did this happen?" The Iraqi election is my tipping point. The time has come to walk in a different direction -- just as I did many years before.

I grew up in a northwest Ohio town where conservative was a polite term for reactionary. When Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of Mississippi "sweltering in the heat of oppression," he could have been describing my community, where blacks knew to keep their heads down, and animosity toward Catholics and Jews was unapologetic. Liberal and conservative, like left and right, wouldn't be part of my lexicon for a while, but when King proclaimed, "I have a dream," I instinctively cast my lot with those I later found out were liberals (then synonymous with "the left" and "progressive thought").

The people on the other side were dedicated to preserving my hometown's backward-looking status quo. This was all that my 10-year-old psyche needed to know. The knowledge carried me for a long time. Mythologies are helpful that way.

I began my activist career championing the 1968 presidential candidacies of Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy, because both promised to end America's misadventure in Vietnam. I marched for peace and farm worker justice, lobbied for women's right to choose and environmental protections, signed up with George McGovern in 1972 and got elected as the youngest delegate ever to a Democratic convention.

Eventually I joined the staff of U.S. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio. In short, I became a card-carrying liberal, although I never actually got a card. (Bookkeeping has never been the left's strong suit.) All my commitments centered on belief in equal opportunity, due process, respect for the dignity of the individual and solidarity with people in trouble. To my mind, Americans who had joined the resistance to Franco's fascist dystopia captured the progressive spirit at its finest.

A turning point came at a dinner party on the day Ronald Reagan famously described the Soviet Union as the pre-eminent source of evil in the modern world. The general tenor of the evening was that Reagan's use of the word "evil" had moved the world closer to annihilation. There was a palpable sense that we might not make it to dessert.

When I casually offered that the surviving relatives of the more than 20 million people murdered on orders of Joseph Stalin might not find "evil'" too strong a word, the room took on a collective bemused smile of the sort you might expect if someone had casually mentioned taking up child molestation for sport.

My progressive companions had a point. It was rude to bring a word like "gulag" to the dinner table.

I look back on that experience as the beginning of my departure from a left already well on its way to losing its bearings. Two decades later, I watched with astonishment as leading left intellectuals launched a telethon- like body count of civilian deaths caused by American soldiers in Afghanistan. Their premise was straightforward, almost giddily so: When the number of civilian Afghani deaths surpassed the carnage of Sept. 11, the war would be unjust, irrespective of other considerations.

Stated simply: The force wielded by democracies in self-defense was declared morally equivalent to the nihilistic aggression perpetuated by Muslim fanatics.

Susan Sontag cleared her throat for the "courage" of the al Qaeda pilots. Norman Mailer pronounced the dead of Sept. 11 comparable to "automobile statistics." The events of that day were likely premeditated by the White House, Gore Vidal insinuated. Noam Chomsky insisted that al Qaeda at its most atrocious generated no terror greater than American foreign policy on a mediocre day.

All of this came back to me as I watched the left's anemic, smirking response to Iraq's election in January. Didn't many of these same people stand up in the sixties for self-rule for oppressed people and against fascism in any guise? Yes, and to their lasting credit. But many had since made clear that they had also changed their minds about the virtues of King's call for equal of opportunity.

These days the postmodern left demands that government and private institutions guarantee equality of outcomes. Any racial or gender "disparities" are to be considered evidence of culpable bias, regardless of factors such as personal motivation, training, and skill. This goal is neither liberal nor progressive; but it is what the left has chosen. In a very real sense it may be the last card held by a movement increasingly ensnared in resentful questing for group-specific rights and the subordination of citizenship to group identity. There's a word for this: pathetic.

I smile when friends tell me I've "moved right." I laugh out loud at what now passes for progressive on the main lines of the cultural left.

In the name of "diversity," the University of Arizona has forbidden discrimination based on "individual style." The University of Connecticut has banned "inappropriately directed laughter." Brown University, sensing unacceptable gray areas, warns that harassment "may be intentional or unintentional and still constitute harassment." (Yes, we're talking "subconscious harassment" here. We're watching your thoughts ...).

Wait, it gets better. When actor Bill Cosby called on black parents to explain to their kids why they are not likely to get into medical school speaking English like "Why you ain't" and "Where you is," Jesse Jackson countered that the time was not yet right to "level the playing field." Why not? Because "drunk people can't do that ... illiterate people can't do that."

When self-styled pragmatic feminist Camille Paglia mocked young coeds who believe "I should be able to get drunk at a fraternity party and go upstairs to a guy's room without anything happening," Susan Estrich spoke up for gender- focused feminists who "would argue that so long as women are powerless relative to men, viewing 'yes' as a sign of true consent is misguided."

I'll admit my politics have shifted in recent years, as have America's political landscape and cultural horizon. Who would have guessed that the U.S. senator with today's best voting record on human rights would be not Ted Kennedy or Barbara Boxer but Kansas Republican Sam Brownback?

He is also by most measures one of the most conservative senators. Brownback speaks openly about how his horror at the genocide in the Sudan is shaped by his Christian faith, as King did when he insisted on justice for "all of God's children."

My larger point is rather simple. Just as a body needs different medicines at different times for different reasons, this also holds for the body politic.

In the sixties, America correctly focused on bringing down walls that prevented equal access and due process. It was time to walk the Founders' talk -- and we did. With barriers to opportunity no longer written into law, today the body politic is crying for different remedies.

America must now focus on creating healthy, self-actualizing individuals committed to taking responsibility for their lives, developing their talents, honing their skills and intellects, fostering emotional and moral intelligence, all in all contributing to the advancement of the human condition.

At the heart of authentic liberalism lies the recognition, in the words of John Gardner, "that the ever renewing society will be a free society (whose] capacity for renewal depends on the individuals who make it up." A continuously renewing society, Gardner believed, is one that seeks to "foster innovative, versatile, and self-renewing men and women and give them room to breathe."

One aspect of my politics hasn't changed a bit. I became a liberal in the first place to break from the repressive group orthodoxies of my reactionary hometown.

This past January, my liberalism was in full throttle when I bid the cultural left goodbye to escape a new version of that oppressiveness. I departed with new clarity about the brilliance of liberal democracy and the value system it entails; the quest for freedom as an intrinsically human affair; and the dangers of demands for conformity and adherence to any point of view through silence, fear, or coercion.

True, it took a while to see what was right before my eyes. A certain misplaced loyalty kept me from grasping that a view of individuals as morally capable of and responsible for making the principle decisions that shape their lives is decisively at odds with the contemporary left's entrance-level view of people as passive and helpless victims of powerful external forces, hence political wards who require the continuous shepherding of caretaker elites.

Leftists who no longer speak of the duties of citizens, but only of the rights of clients, cannot be expected to grasp the importance (not least to our survival) of fostering in the Middle East the crucial developmental advances that gave rise to our own capacity for pluralism, self-reflection, and equality. A left averse to making common cause with competent, self- determining individuals -- people who guide their lives on the basis of received values, everyday moral understandings, traditional wisdom, and plain common sense -- is a faction that deserves the marginalization it has pursued with such tenacity for so many years.

All of which is why I have come to believe, and gladly join with others who have discovered for themselves, that the single most important thing a genuinely liberal person can do now is walk away from the house the left has built. The renewal of any tradition that deserves the name "progressive" becomes more likely with each step in a better direction.

Keith Thompson is a Petaluma writer and the author of "Angels and Aliens" and "To Be a Man." His work is at www.thompsonatlarge.com. Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/05/22/INGUNCQHKJ1.DTL

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

"God is not great" goes under the knife

Jennifer Graham on Christmas on National Review Online: "But, as it turns out, random encounters with dwarves are more unsettling than Hitchens’s merry assault on my faith. A hardy thing, it survived not only Hitchens, but Sam Harris and Dan Brown, and odds are, it will endure for another Yuletide season despite Mike Huckabee."

In Drunken Rage, Atheist Guru Hitchens Bullies Hero Priest of 9-11

POE.com » Blog Archive » In Drunken Rage, Atheist Guru Hitchens Bullies Hero Priest of 9-11
"You will either die a Catholic or a madman"

Father Rutler is the real deal. Wow.

Christmas meditation - Things that matter

A few days out from Christmas, I was out alone along the hustle and bustle of some last few days of Christmas shopping in San Antonio. Being alone is so important sometimes. I could not believe the clarity of thought. I usually love to blast the radio with some music or talk radio. Not that morning. Quiet was goooood.

It's not unusual that every Christmas family draws near. Even with the small grudges that normally prevent me from reaching out to a friend or relative during the year, I'm drawn to them at Christmas and realize how trifling it is to hold a grudge at all. Life is so short. Yes, cliche. But cliches are ususally cliches for good reason. So in the quiet of my car, I just savored the moment. Savored that I would meet and greet family and friends over Christmas break, celebrated their good health, and embraced this as another great opportunity for me to stamp out dumb grudges I have with one or two in the family circle. It matters. In the grand scheme of things, it matters.

Britpop Blowout

A few of my favorite britpoppers of the 90's. Feel free to let me know which you prefer best.

Pulp. Glorious Pulp.


SuperMoz


Depeche bicuriousmode


Echobelly. Mmmm.

Tanc out, but supports Romney

Well, Romney's not a bad choice to get behind, but he should have got behind Hunter. I thought Tanc was real border security guy. And he gets behind Romney. Umm, ok dude, whatever.

Huckaquote

Not sure whether I take him at his word, but in an interview with Mike Huckabee fielding a foreign policy question, he stated that if war was a last resort with an Iran or North Korea or some other player, how would his policy differ from that of President Bush. Huck stated that he would use overwhelming force, not underwhelming force. Hmmmmm. Now that is something to chew on for a bit. If he be sincere with that statement, that's encouraging. Many have argued that the reason Iraq is taking so long is that have tied one hand behind our with ridiculous rules of engagement that favor the enemy. Overall, after the major conflict with Iraq's army, we certainly have been underwhelming. If we had been overwhelming, the entire war would have been wrapped up in six months.
At any rate, food for thought.

Happy Birthday Patrick

My son Patrick turns 5 today. I'm a little sad about it because he's the youngest, so this will be the last 5th birthday, the last time we'll see and hear the things he does at this age. Well, such is life. We have a nice birthday party set up for him. I was thrilled to get him a Darth Vader and Stormtrooper action figure, exactly like the ones I had when I was a kid.

Tanc....dude....

Tom, exit stage left buddy. You had a good run. You did. But Hunter needs your poll numbers bud. Ain't no shame in your game. Hell, you should be veep hands down. But seeing you both in the race is making me nauseous. Hell, flip a coin, but one of you has got to go.



Dude, please. Drop.

Man, I miss the 90's

Curve was more or less a one hit wonder, but damn, what a hit.

Could Fred be making a comeback?

That blast at the debate was impressive, but already some dissenters from the Mitt endorsement?


The Corner on National Review Online: "The other day, Jonah put some distance between himself and NR’s endorsement of Mitt Romney. I’d like to do the same. Romney strikes me as impressive, but also as terribly flawed. Over the next couple of days, I’ll do my best to explain. In the meantime, one observation. Endorsing Romney, the editors explained that they had decided against Fred Thompson largely because “Thompson has never run any large enterprise.” This brought to mind another Republican candidate—one whose management experience, like that of Fred Thompson, was limited to having served as a partner in a law firm. Abraham Lincoln."

Dude!

Bud Light Dude

Iran students break campus gate in protest: reports

Hopfully this could snowball into a outright revolution...keep praying.

Iran students break campus gate in protest: reports: Iranian students staged a new demonstration at Tehran University on Sunday, damaging the main gate to allow outsiders into the campus and denouncing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, news agencies reported.

The protesters chanted slogans against the president and carried banners calling for the release of three fellow students who have been held since May in a high-profile case, the Fars news agency and state-run IRNA reported.

The reports did not disclose the number of students involved. Both news agencies said that the demonstration had been called by the radical wing of the Office to Foster Unity, a reformist student group.

"The students marched on the gate and damaged it, and this allowed several non-students to enter the campus. The students chanted slogans and carried protesting placards," IRNA reported.

"Ahmadi-Pinochet, Iran will not become Chile!" chanted the protesters, playing on the names of the Iranian president and late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, Fars reported.

Best Ghostland Observatory video yet

Got some interview action at the end too. Love these guys.

Goofin in Iraq

Dude, that's hilarious

Now ok to be fabulous in the military?




Picture used in the article at military.com. Just precious!

Continuing coverage of Savage vs. CAIR

Great article on Savage vs CAIR

Michael Savage has been an invisible presence to his so-called colleagues in talk radio. And this is an orchestrated act. From Sean Hannity’s under-his-breath swipes at Savage to Limbaugh’s blatant attempts to not recognize Savage at all, these people show their total lack of depth and the very fact that they are mouthpieces of the Republican Party. Now a tiny group that has done absolutely nothing to promote American – Islamic relations, other than their own agenda and the agenda of terrorists, has decided that they cannot be criticized simply by being identified for what they are. The comfort of the darkness can only conceal the evil for so long. When brought to the light, it squirms and wriggles, clawing for survival by the most insidious means necessary.

So for the CEO’s of the above named companies, and those to be named as this lawsuit filed by Attorney Daniel Horowitz unfolds, this is going to be a wakeup call to their wallets, seeing as these soulless bastards can’t be tempted in any conscience-related regard. And as Savage himself has told his listeners that he will reveal the names of these companies, it should be an interesting series of events that will follow. I mean, look at what happened when Savage mobilized is enormous audience to protest the Immigration Reform atrocity, not to mention the infamous Dubai Ports Deal. Do these corporations really believe that millions of American listeners to The Savage Nation will just let this slide? Need I remind these spineless businessmen that there’s something called Christmas coming up? Some of the companies on the coward list are already in financial trouble. Bad move, people.

Yes, England is dead

Morrissey smells the coffee

I love Morrissey's music, and pretty much love the man too. When you look up enigmatic in the dictionary, they have a picture of Morrissey. As a conservative, his left wing fancies were very irksome, but his music was so good that I had to give him a pass. Not that he's changed his ideology in any substantive way, but he has made comments that would indicate he's seen the ill effects of out of control immigration policy that has turned England into a mish mash of cultures that is not at all cohesive and all but lost Britishness. It's really unfortunate, because this is not something that can be reversed. The England that you knew is gone. I almost thing I haven't been able to wrap my brain around that yet. Like a death in the family that doesn't hit you until a few days later. It's only going to get worse, not better.

So let me take you back to a time when England was still England in all it's bloody Englishness, and when the Smiths were in all their glory. The little version of This Charming Man is so great.

Commercial I was in

Click here

Under the video, click on “On the red carpet with Bart Durham & the cast of “Coach Foster Fights Back”


I’m one of the paparazzi right behind the interviewer. That was a hoot.

Give em HELL Savage!!

I wish more prominent bloggers would pick this story up. So much silence around this story of great import.

WorldNetDaily is in here:

"Do you support the right of one of America's most popular radio talk-show hosts to air his unadulterated views?

Or do you support the brown-shirt tactics of those who want to Islamicize the United States of America?"

Savage versus CAIRo

Here are the sponsors that have allegedly dropped support for Savage:

Citrix Systems, Inc.
Trusted I.D.
Office Max
JCPenney
AutoZone
AT&T
Wal-Mart

From the CAIRo front group HHA

I'll be writing these spineless companies about my disgust.

Henry Cuellar (D) is a fucking puto

Look at this bullshit. What a condescending prick.



This has triggered in me a rekindling of the fires to wage war once again on illegal immigration. Time to get the emails and faxes cranking to my senators, let them know I'm watching them, and counting on them to protect our borders as is stated in Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution:

The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union, a republican form of government, and shall protect them against invasion