Institutional Control

There'll always be folks who pretent to be something they aren't.  Case in point: a recent commenter to an online article claimed to be a UNC fan who isn't disappointed the football team members cheated, but that they had gotten caught.  I'm a Tar Heel fan.  I hope all the cheaters get caught and receive stiff punishment, whether they be star players with questionable scruples, manipulable and manipulative fellow students,  coaches with selective attention spans, and most importantly the scum-bag agents.

There's lots of commotion in the lamestream media these days about so-called "institutional control" among the athletic departments of major colleges.  Carolina-hating Caulton Tudor wants Butch Davis fired and Bomani Jones (who?) writes for ESPN.com that "Davis' defense rings hollow."  The thrust of their points?  That the head coach should have known about (or knew, and covered up) improprieties committed by several of his players and one coach.  Much of that rhetoric reminds me of the Nifong vs. Duke LaCrosse witch-hunt, so I say consider the source before subscribing any value to their perspectives.

Former assistant/co-head coach John Blake certainly appears to have been doing as many things wrong off the field as right on it, and someone that knows him as well as Butch Davis did or does admittedly could have given much more scrutiny to Blake's allegiances and behavior.  But the student-athletes?

I remember when I was a just a high-school athlete, and hearing reports from former teammates who had gone on to the college level, of boosters palming C-notes to them in the post-game locker rooms.  Perhaps the coaches charged with monitoring their behavior were intentionally looking the other way.  Until a diligent coach got wise (or suspicious) and banned locker-room visitation, how easy was this practice?  For what it's worth, I played a little college ball to and witnessed zero ethical or institutional misdeeds.

Knowing the current schemes by agents to recruit "runners", fellow students who earn a few bucks befriending and distributing gifts to athletes on behalf of those agents, how much "control" can anyone have regarding the kids.  The best you could hope for in such situations is a player having the self-control and wherewithal to refuse something he hasn't earned.  You can try teaching that, but it's a tough climb trying to mandate it.

Not Too Early...

I was thinking about making a list for preferred Presidential candidates, and will certainly be getting to that.  But in the meantime, I stumbled across this video, this morning.  I was already thinking about Chris Christie headlining my list.



Don't you feel so much better when you and someone you admire as much as Ann Coulter are in syncronized agreement?

I Can See November From The Livermush Estate

UPDATED...at bottom

My horse-club's Information Czar recently sent out a mass mailer to all the members reminding them to vote for a fellow member, Beth Jones, in the upcoming mid-term elections.

Okay, re-reading the note, I stand corrected that he only suggested "considering" voting for her, because she's "PRO Horse-Trail."

Well by gosh, if it comes down who is "pro horse trail" between two candidates who cherish Liberty above all else, who believe in and actively support the Tea Party movement, who are prepared to distance North Carolina from the federal government's unrelenting, intrusive power grab by way of Obamacare and offshore and nearshore oil drilling moratoriums and lawsuits against other states for doing a job that federal government won't, and who believes in gutting NC government in favor of privatization, then she should get that consideration.  But all things ain't equal, it seems.

Jones is a former Caldwell County Democratic party Chairwoman, and endorsed by ACTBlue, "The online clearinghouse for Democratic action" who also endorses raving idiot Alan Grayson.  Her campaign website lists the issues as: Economy/Jobs, Education, and Healthcare, the Dem party line that government involvement into those sectors is ever somehow beneficial.

Her Republican opponent, Warren Daniel, graduate of West Point and UNC Law School, says this on his website:

In 1787, our Founding Fathers gave us a Constitution that forever changed the relationship between man and government. They believed that each of us is born into freedom and that the proper role of government is to protect and secure the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which are endowed by our Creator, not derived from the government. Protected by these Constitutional guarantees, America became the land of opportunity for millions of legal immigrants who came fleeing oppression and seeking the American dream.

With the recent passage of Obamacare, it is more evident than ever that “We The People” need to act now if we are going to make a difference. As we enter this 2010 election year, I pledge to you that, as your state senator, I will strive to return North Carolina to the principles of limited government and unlimited opportunity. I hope that you will join me so that together we can bring conservative government back to North Carolina, and preserve the American Dream for our children and grandchildren.

To supporters of Jones, I say "whoa!"  This Daniel guy sure sounds like more of a leader to me.  In my thinking, the time for electing local numbnuts who can be counted on to fight for a locality's share of pork, or for his/her own nest-feathering career, is gone.  Everything I read regarding Jones implies she's just another Hope It Changes corruptocrat with promises of unicorns and rainbows.

NC 44 isn't my district, but to my friends in that area, there are more-important things than "pro horse trail" and Warren Daniel has an obvious leg up when it comes to the concepts of leadership and Liberty.  And be sure to check out his answers (and others!) to the questionnaire from the North Carolina Free Enterprise Foundation.

On a related note, check out this video (thanks to Hot Air via Legal Insurrection) that may serve to remind you what we're all up against this November.


Finally...just got off the phone with Daniel's office...he's in favor of horse trails.

UPDATE: Direct to my email inbox, Warren Daniel responds:

Thanks for your comments and support. We are horse owners too and enjoy riding... I have intended to join the association, and I know at least one of your members.

There you have it.

Endorsements

In today's Townhall.com, Ann Coulter eulogizes her late friend Joe Sobran as "the world's greatest writer."  She listed some of the phrases and quips that influences her writing, and endeared Sobran to herself and so many others, including:

"Watching a death-match fight on Animal Planet once, Joe said he found himself instinctively rooting for the mammal over the reptile."

Honoring Coulter, Sobran, and the universal instinct to root for your own kind (or at least those warm-blooded over those not), allow me to direct your atttention to the sidebar wherein I list my own endorsements regarding the upcoming mid-term elections.

Please click the pictures for links to the candidates' websites.

More coming, as I find time to create the links...

Caulton Tudor Should Resign Or Be Fired

Though I'd rather not drive any traffic to his ass-wipe reportage, or to his big Obama-loving rag of a McClatchey fish-wrap, the Charlotte Obscurer, if you want an example of biased, control-the-court-of-public-opinion drivel, look no further than today's column by Caulton Tudor.  (Sorry, I was gonna link to it, but you'll have to look it up yourself...See the sports section and bring your own barf bag.)

Tudor suggests that Butch Davis should resign or be fired as "the single most necessary step in the rehabilitation process for the school and the football program."

Of course, to make that assertion, you'd have to already believe in Davis' culpability in the matter, and to believe somehow that completely skipping the rest of the NCAA investigation to jump straight into (self-) punishment phase has any merit whatsoever.  Or you have to have personal reasons for wanting that to happen.

Tudor delivers his proposal as if it's somehow valient for Davis to fall on his sword, for the sake of the University's image, but you really have to read with mental earplugs to not hear the Anti-Carolina venom dripping on his keyboard.

Truly, does his body of work really suggest to anyone any measure of objectivity?

He seems to believe that if the players remain without eligibility and a coach has been dismissed, then all the coaches are hiding additional guilt, and by extension the University and all its students are also guilty, and every fan probably, too.

I never read his articles, because I know what I'll get if the subject comes near UNC: thinly veiled animosity.  I only clicked that link today because of the egregious headline and the consideration of ridiculing it in this space.

And to a point, I generally say, who cares?  Let the Pusspack and Blue-Pillow-Biting-Devils have their own propogandist, so long he can either keep to a reasonable level of bile-spewage or acknowledge his bias.  For someone like him to presume the authority over someone else's career, though, is insulting to anyone with a modicum of objectivity.  Where the hell does this guy get off?  What right does he have to call for Butch Davis' job, anymore than he has calling for yours or mine?

What divine edict placed you ahead of the investigative process and distribution of punishment, sir?  Mighty presumptuous of you Tudor, and mighty disgraceful.  I think you should quit immediately.

Of course, I submit that most readers already fired you and your paper long ago.

Dark

I have the DVR'd Ryder Cup coverage going in the background this morning, and just heard Mike Tirico say, "It gets dark earlier here, due to the lack of sunlight."

Insight.  That's why ESPN has Tirico anchoring the coverage.  And it has very little to do with his fawning man-love for Tiger Woods.

Cancer. Some Things You Can Do.

Most everyone I know well, including some folks I'd just as soon disown, are aware of the fact that I've recently begun treatments for metastasis of the cancer I had diagnosed and treated 3 years ago.  I have avoided airing those personal details in this public space, because I don't want to sound like I'm pining for anyone's sympathy.  Fact of the matter is though, the way I look at it: I'm luckier than any of you folks...I get to kick cancer's ass a second time.  The chest-thumping factor is, as Kramer would say, "off the charts, Jerry, off the charts!"

Be that as it may, there'll probably be at least a third and fourth time, many years from now.  And I have a point to make, so listen up.

In the first go-'round, I lost my job, my Corvette, a salivary gland, a sizable portion of beard, and most everything else I owned.  This time they've already spill't enough blood to float a small farm animal, and will soon claim a few sections of both lungs.  But, and I'm being 100% sincere, it's a minor setback.

My high school football coach just called me yesterday, and asked what he and our church could do for me.  I received the question as if to mean, what could they do to benefit me?  And answered that, besides their continued prayers, there was nothing I needed.  But there is one thing I wish I'd have requested, which will benefit far more than just me, and I may call him back.

I wish I'd have told him that the cancer that is inside me is not remotely as threatening to my life and what I value than the cancer that has grown unchecked around me, and which continues devouring healthy tissue.  Around, and amongst, all of us.  I am writing of the pervasive, intrusive, constricting, and malignant cancer that is statism, and all its forms.  All the greatest civilizations known to have existed, rolled into one, can't hold a candle to what the Founding Fathers established.  And while our economy chokes from the tumor squeezing its windpipe and our national security teeters precariously from the tumor rotting its brain, our elected representatives had no qualms in turning to funny boy Stephen Colbert for a little levity on the subject of illegal immigration.  Talk about fiddling while the shining city burns.

The Presidential administration sees fit to invest in offshore drilling to benefit Brazil, but simultaneously continue their moratorium on drilling in the Gulf.  That's 40,000 American jobs outsourced to Brazil, not by an employer trying to escape onerous regulation and taxation, but by the guy who gets wee-wee'd up at the notion of American exceptionalism.  The justice department (in an effort to assert and solidify federal authority) manages to fight against one state's attempts to stop illegal immigration, but can't justify an effort to investigate and prosecute blatant voter intimidation.  That is, the federal government will fight hard to protect its own power, but won't lift a finger to help fight for yours.

Banks that accepted "stimulus" funds but decided to repay them have been refused that option, presumably because the administration prefers having the control to having the cash.  This latest law to loan money to businesses contains such conditions that make it nothing but a trojan horse into those businesses to inject more governmental control.

Every new law and regulation and unvetted czar and Supreme Court nominee, that we've gotten from this President and this Democrat-controlled Congress and this Democrat-controlled Senate is consistent, not with an effort to engender Liberty for Americans, but an effort to destroy or pervert Liberty in the name of a more-collossal and controlling government.

Dear Coach,

Yes, there are a few things you can do, just for me:  Vote Republican.  Endorse and support the Tea Party movement.  Criticize governmental malfeasance and ineptitude.  Demand honesty and accountability from the national media.  Vote Republican.  Fight to abolish the income tax in favor of a flat sales tax.  Rage against Socialism, in all its forms.  Combat disinformation by the liberal media, and popular culture.  Vote Republican.

All of us will eventually die.  Some folks never really live, and that's the sad part.  I told one person that you wouldn't wish my condition on anyone, but if you had to, you'd wish it on the meanest, toughest, son-of-a-bitch you'd ever met.

Round # 2 for me with ACC, and I'm bringin' the hammers.

Help me win the fight against the more-sinister cancer: statism.  And we'll all win.

Thanks for the help.  Hey cancer, fill yer hands, you sonofabitch.

Why Do You Make The Big Bucks?

Back when I was building things for a living, I had these two laborers on the jobsite who were constantly trying to either get out of doing their assigned tasks or take credit for someone else's production.  Their names: James Carter and Willie Clinton.

Seriously, if they'd have been state road-working employees, they'd have been outfitted with upside-down shirt pockets, so the shovels they'd be leaning on would have a place to catch and keep them from toppling over when/if they fell asleep standing up.

One day, I saw them talking with each other and was wondering what they were up to, when Willie walked over to me.  He said, "We was wondering why it is that you make the big bucks."

I asked him if he didn't consider it possible that I earned more because I was willing to take on more responsibility and answer for my errors or wrong decisions instead of blaming someone else or some seismic anomaly, that I came to work prepared to do those things required to help my employer be successful, and that I considered his success was a good thing worth working for, and that I actually work harder and more efficiently than anyone else on that jobsite, and that I show up for work even when I don't feel like it, or because I do things myself that others in my charge cannot or will not do?

"No," he said, "I don't think that's why.  I think there's something else."

"You're right," I said, "come here and I'll show you why I make the big bucks."

I walked over to a block wall that had been poured solid with concrete, and held my open hand in front of it.

"Now ball your fist, and hit my hand as hard as you can."

In a rare moment of compliance (or maybe it was just that he was willing to seize upon any opportunity to take a whack at me), Willie did just that.  And I pulled my hand back, as he bloodied his knuckles on the unforgiving wall.

"That," I said to Willie, "is why I make the big bucks."

I watched Willie walk back to where Jimmy had been waiting expectantly.

Jimmy: "What'd he say, what'd he say?"

Willie then held his palm up in front of his own face and said, "hit my hand."

I chose those names in this tale because we've recently had a couple of former US Presidents by similar names inject themselves into the national discussion as if they're some kind of authority on, get this, the Tea Party and its emerging force as a voice for, and of, America.

Back in April, Slick Willie claimed that the Tea Party was "dangerous,"  but this past week was heard listing things "they" may be good for, peering professorially (and condescendingly) over his bifocals.  And Jimmy the peanut head recently suggested that Tea Party rallies were a lot like his own Presidency.

Wow.  Things are so bad now for the Corruptocrats that the two most-recent, most egregious examples of Presidential ineptitude not named Obama are swimming hard as hell to get in front of the wave, in an effort to deflect the reality that honest, law-abiding citizens who never envisioned themselves at a political rally, are indeed rallying to protest all the big-government intrusion and dependency that these two fostered and perpetuated their entire political lives.  Next thing you know, Owl Gore will be claiming to have invented the Tea Party.

It isn't a single person that gives the Tea Party ralliers their drive and focus, it's the result of caging good people in an ever-deepening invasion of statism.  The more those statists try to put their own brand on the Tea Party movement or belittle and ridicule its participants, or infiltrate those ranks with nutcases bent on smear tactics, the more they succeed in only defining themselves for everyone paying attention as the real enemies of America.  Like that bumper sticker said, "If they don't want civil disturbance, why do they keep disturbing us?"  The answer is that they just don't get it.

Power, for the statist, is the only thing that matters.  More laws and more regulations equals more authority and control.  Kinda like if I'd have let Willie and Jimmy have a "boss-for-a-day" experiment on the job, these folks have taken the past 23 months and proven just how inept and corrupt and un-American and rabidly evil they can be, given such unbridled authority.

The thing they did not count on was that good people maybe wouldn't sit silently while their country was sabotaged by its government.  We've seen the harm you can, and will, bring to our economy and national security, and individual liberty.  It would seem that enough good Americans weren't numb or asleep or addicted to your benevolence, despite the hardiest efforts of your assumed intelligensia and media, and none of your twists and perversions and slander come as a surprise to us now.

Anything other than finding useful occupation outside and away from public scrutiny, now that we've all seen you for what you truly are, only serves to reinforce our understanding of your destructive motivation, and the inherent danger therein.

...And for all those folks out there who were duped by empty Democratic rhetoric, Dennis Prager has a spot-on essay for overcoming emotional hurdles when it comes to "Danger on the right" at TownHall.com.  Please consider checking it out.

KLAVAN

I'm working on something that might have to go into the drafts folder for the time being. In realizing that possibility, it occurred to me to check what else I might have in there.

There was this...



Klavan's always a healthy diversion.

More livermush originality to follow soon, promise.

Cold Day, Hot Pie

Many, many years ago, in one of my earliest jobs in the construction industry, I worked for a grading and utilities contractor.  Our company's business was usually within about a 50-mile radius from the office, so our crews generally travelled to jobsites each day, as opposed to staying in hotels during the week.  One such early morning ride included our hero of this tale, named Bill.

On a frigid January morning, Bill's foreman pulled the company crew-cab into a convenience store about half way to their jobsite, a new sewer line project, approximately 1.5 hours drive from the office.  Bill, like most of his coworkers on the drive, had been snoozing on the way to the job, but rousted himself up to fetch some coffee and nabs (nabs = nondescript name for any type of snack food).  In addition to his coffee, Bill left the store with a pack of smokes and a factory-packaged fried apple pie.  Bill drank his coffee and smoked a cigarette while they were stopped, but put his pie away unopened for later in the morning, when he'd be taking a break.

When the crew arrived at the jobsite, and while the equipment operators lubed, cranked, and warmed up their various machines, Bill filled the resevoir of what's called a salamander heater with off-road diesel fuel.  The temperature was expected to only get into the 20's for a high that day, and the fellows would be wanting to keep warm, especially their hands.  A salamander heater has a metal saucer-shaped tank about the size of a small wash-tub as a base, with a 6" metal smokestack protruding skyward from its center.  The surfaces can throw off 150-degree heat, and really make a difference for men working with their hands to ward off the numbing effects of the cold.  Although a very chilly day, the weather was otherwise clear, and the crew began shouldering the task of laying pipe and setting manholes.

Then, about 9:30 that morning, Bill's breakfast started petering out, and he remembered that fried apple pie.  Man, he thought, that thing would be just the ticket about now.  And, it'd be even better if it was warmed up.  Of course, there wasn't a microwave oven on a pipeline jobsite out in the woods, but he did have a heat source: the salamander heater.  So, Bill went to the truck, grabbed his pie, took it out of its wax-paper wrapper, and laid it on the base of that heater, up close to the stove-pipe.  And waited.

15 minutes or so later, Bill figured that the time was right to check on the consumability of the pie.

Now, not being the sharpest tool in the shed, and having a limited understanding of the laws of thermodynamics, Bill didn't consider the possibility that his pie could theoretically be every bit as hot as the heater on which it had sat.

Bill, with his gloved hands, picked up his pie.  He turned the pie from hand to hand but couldn't guage the pie's temperature through the thick leather gloves.  At that point he decided to do one of those things that later affords no deniability...he slapped the very hot pie to the right side of his face, leaving a D-shaped scorch mark.

"Ssssssssssss"

That moment of stupidity was one that old Bill was never able to, during his tenure with that particular company, live down.  And he eventually moved to greener pastures.

Recollecting this story reminds me of the temporary stupidity of folks who've chosen to endorse Democrats in recent years.  Can there be any deniability at this point that the Democrat Party is almost universally corrupt, particularly the Presidential administration?  Is there not a shrinking distinction between Democrat and Socialist?  The Obama/Biden White House has set new extremes for ineptitude and cronyism.  Chris Dodd and slobbering Barney Frank are finally going to get the "credit" they deserve for wrecking the economy.  The Clintons are proving to everyone that they never give a damn about anything besides more power, recognition, and authority for themselves.  Reid and Pelosi have shown exactly how lustful for more big-government schemes they can get when their authority goes unchecked.  Rangel and Waters could end up in jail for their crookedness.  Chicken-Little Gore's wealth redistribution scheme (and latent hypocrisy).  John Edwards' cheat-a-thon, and John Effin Kerry's boat-cloaking maneuver.  NC Congresscritter Boob Etheridge assaulting a student.  Funny man Franken's stolen election.  Bribery and scandal with Blago and Sestak.  Everything Alan Grayson has uttered.  The Atlanta-area Congressional dipshit that thinks Guam could tip over for having too many US soldiers stationed there.  Thuggery and shenanigans and corruption and outright ignorance.  The list goes on and on.

Seriously, if there's any good anywhere in the Donkey party, I ain't seeing it.

It may not be enough to scrape that Obama/Biden sticker off of your Prius in the months and years ahead...You may have to move to a place where nobody knows you, or knows what that big, D-shaped scorch mark on your face is all about.

Call Me Capricious, Then

I just never really find myself in disagreement with The Hammer.  Except, well, this time.

Charles Krauthammer said yesterday that Sarah Palin's endorsement of Christine O'Donnell versus Mike Castle in Delaware, is "destructive and capricious", because in his assessment she has no chance of beating the Democrat in November but Castle would be a "shoo-in."

While I do see the value of having the raw numbers of "R's" in the Senate and all the inherent reconstructive power of a conservative majority, the time for half-measures is long gone.  Chris Christie didn't seem particularly electable, and neither did Scott Brown.  I don't want any shoo-ins, unless they've proven dependable in flawlessly adhering to the Constitution, and Castle can't remotely make that claim.

Out with establishment RINO's.  I'd rather lose with the good guys than win with the losers.

And a vote for Castle is a vote to just lose a little, instead of maybe winning a lot.

UPDATE:  Michelle Malkin reminds us that "9 terms (of phony republicanism) are enough."

UPDATE 2: Check out Mark Levin and Jim DeMint ("I've been here when we had the numbers, and we didn't have the principles") at the National Review.  Reference the Mark Levin podcast pane.

NC Sheriff's Association Wants Your Prescription Info

From Drudge and the News & Obscurer, the NC Sheriff's Association wants access to your medical records.  Their argument is that there's practically no way to enjoy their donuts and perform crime-fighting responsibilities in a traditional manner, so why not just make it easier for them?  What's the big deal about a little invasion of privacy, anyway?

Okay, let's assume there is widespread prescription drug abuse.  Is warrantless access to a citizen's health information even remotely a good idea?  Ever?  I know, or have known, lots of cops, but there isn't any one of them I want knowing that much detail about me.  And I don't even take prescription drugs.

Lynn Bonner, in the N&O quoted Lee County Sheriff Tracy Carter as saying, "We can better go after those who are abusing the system."

And we're expected to believe there'd never be any abuse by the authorities against one of my neighbors?

So, in order to stop drug abuse, good North Carolina citizens must condone and accept police intrusion on their liberties?

I'm all for enforcement of the law, but not at the expense of personal privacy, so I say no thanks.  If you can't do the job of law enforcement without reading a person's private medical information, then either you just can't do the job, or that job doesn't need doing.

The Other 9/11 Mega Mosque

From Alec Rawls' Error Theory.  Remember, this is the big project that I refused to help out with, the Shanksville Flight 93 Mosque, which is no less a mosque than the one proposed near Ground Zero.

If plans to burn copies of the Koran (or cartoon characterizations of Mohammed) hurt your feelings, consider how divisive and destructive the schemes to erect these muslim structures are to the rest of us.  Ain't saying I condone book burnings, but I do agree with whatever it takes to pick a fight with the cowards who would otherwise be cutting up stewardesses and pilots with box cutters and then flying planes into iconic American structures.

Alan Keyes against the Flight 93 memorial




Conservative hero Alan Keyes is asking whether there is a pattern of submission surrounding the nation's 9/11 sites. Apparently he has seen our video expose of Islamic and terrorist memorializing features in the crescent memorial to Flight 93 (now called a broken circle). Like any straight-thinker, he doesn't like what he sees. The Flight 93 crash site is no place for a giant Islamic-shaped crescent, no matter what it is called.

On this point, Keyes cites Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo's 2005 objection to the newly unveiled Crescent of Embrace design:

Back in 2005, then-Rep. Tom Tancredo was reported to have sent a letter to the National Park Service "asking the Interior Department to reconsider the crescent-shaped design of the memorial to those aboard a plane hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001, because some may think it honors the terrorists." Tancredo quite sensibly argues that "regardless of whether 'the invocation of a Muslim Symbol' was intentional, 'it seems that such a symbol is unsuitable for paying appropriate tribute to the heroes of Flight 93 or the ensuing American struggle against radical Islam.'"

Keyes notes our claim that the design is still replete with terrorist memorializing features and he seems to find it credible. Why shouldn't he? The damning features are all right there in architect Paul Murdoch's design drawings. Thank you Doctor Keyes!


"It’s not just embarrassing. It is a dangerous willful blindness, spurning the woken vigilance of Flight 93."

That's the last line of the full-page advertisement that Tom Burnett Senior and Alec Rawls will be running in the Somerset Daily American this Friday and Saturday (when the two first ladies will be in town for the 9/11 anniversary):


Click for legible image. Full ad-copy PDF here (large file warning).

We are hoping that visitors will hold onto our ad, maybe even tape it to their car windows, and most especially, show it to any press people they come across. Hey, if the Park Service can use 9/11 to plant the world's largest mosque on the Flight 93 crash site, we can use 9/11 to object.

Please continue the article after the fold...

Miller on Cameron

Restore The Constitution, Guilford Courthouse

Some thoughts on my first rally, the RTC event at Guilford Courthouse Battleground Park, Greensboro, NC...

Easily the most entertaining speaker was Bubba, from What Bubba Knows.  If you expect sensitivity and tolerance, Bubba does not mind shaking your sorry ass up.  I like that.

We arrived a little late, and I'd complain about the sparse signage for road names and numbers, or the repeated instances of signs hidden by foliage overgrowth, but I'd be afraid more so-called stimulus funds would get earmarked for pruning services.

Judging from how far away we had to park, I was thinking the attendance would be over 1,000.  I believe it was more like 500-700.  Still a good turnout, considering the weather, but who belonged to all those cars?  My guess is that many of those vehicles were parked there by the passive resistance crowd: Park in the way...walk off to other parts of the park...discourage attendance?  If so, it certainly didn't work, because there were lots of attendees parked further back from us, who walked (and limped) farther to and fro.

My radar was on alert for trouble, but there was none.  At least, there was no obvious blatant trouble.  There were some curious characters, but even the few that I mentally pegged as such were applauding the same speakers and at the same times as was I.

Whether you had the full re-enactment uniform (which was way cool), or the tie-dye t-shirt, or shirt & tie, or the Veteran's hat (thanks, by the way) or the boonie hat, I was glad to see you and glad you're on the right side.

I wasn't so glad to hear some of you, and that was my only major gripe regarding the event.  If you were there to schmooze or carry on your own agenda, you should have the common decency and regard to set yourself up at a little table on the periphery, or even the entrance, and blather on to your heart's content.  If you were sitting or standing near me or someone else who gave a shit what the speaker had to say, as a manner of learning what the speaker was all about or to perhaps glean some wisdom, have the good sense to shut the fuck right up.  There were some things said that I'd heartily endorse, and some things that knitted my eyebrows, and some things that I missed because I was distracted by your soliloquy.

Especially if you were one of those speakers.  There were at least five of you who felt no qualms about being out in the crowd before or after your speech, showing little regard for the one at the podium and droning on and on about the golden friggin corral, or how hot it is, or the epic saga of how you came to acquire this particular firearm.  Point one is there's a time and place.  Point two is never miss an opportunity to shut up and listen.

And a note to the organizers of the next one: The distrubution of pamphlets and such needs to be limited to the entrance/exit areas to minimize the associated distraction therein.  And, if there was a published cast of characters (list of speakers, with maybe a bare-bones bio for each), I missed it.  If there wasn't such, make a note of having one for the next rally.  I'll be there.

Note to the law enforcement personnel:  If you're hiding behind a wall, you appear as if you expect to be a target.  On the other hand, those listening to and applauding the speeches are apt to be sorted into the "friendlies" column.  Listening has a multitude of benefits.  Hiding has comparitively few.

All in all, I enjoyed the rally, and was glad I went.  Plus, I wished I'd have planned enough time around the event, before and after, to suitably appreciate the historical markers.  Coming soon hopefully, a photo-essay field trip to King's Mountain.

We were there.

III

Brilliant!

Freckles and I had tentatively planned on going to the Crawdads' game last night, but talked ourselves out of it.  The scheduled fireworks would have been fun, but sitting through the 18-4 drubbing...not so much.

So, instead, we watched part of a game on the TeeVee last night.  And were treated to two sportscasting gems!  Without naming names:

1) Pitcher tosses a big overhand curve, which the umpire calls a strike, and the catcher snags just above the dirt in front of him.  The previous pitch, another curve, had bounced in the dirt in front of the catcher and gotten away, allowing the runner on first to advance to second.  Announcer #1 (also known as Master of the Obvious #1) says, "If he'd not caught that one, it would have bounced on the ground."

As if everyone would have expected the ball to circle the globe?

And:

2) A shot from the blimp shows the sunset over the river, and the announcer, seemingly in an attempt to upstage his partner's MOTO moment says, "That is, I believe, a view toward the West end of town."

The implication, I suppose, is that if you were fast enough, you could run to the next town and the sunset would still be in the East.

And to think we'd have missed that.

Question

Do you believe that perhaps the Conspirator In Chief thinks that "Ground Zero" is named after him?

Freshly Minted

In the spirit of coining new terms of aspersion, like Islamophobia and ConspiRACIST, as a manner of degrading oppositional argument, I was already prepared to submit this one:

ISLAMOPHAG- One who endorthes toluhwanth above all elth.

But then, I learned this morning from Uncle Jimbo that Greg Gutfeld has investors lined up for an actual Islamophag establishment; one that seeks to play off the GZ Mosque's purported theme of unity.  UJ's favorite new name for Gutfield's Gay Bar for Muslims is Mohammed's Man Meet.

Fucking classic.

How about Mo-HOMOed's?  That's maybe too convoluted.

Towel-Heads & Pillow-Biters has a pleasant ring to it, no?

How about Let's Sharia My Prayer Rug?

All the "bouncers" should wear the official Bin Ladin coveralls, you know, the style with the padded knees and the zipper in the back.

Other suggestions?

UPDATE:

Ann Coulter's site is on board with more ideas, including -

Shiite Faced
Al Queerda
Holey War
Rahm Emanuel

If You Build It...

...Bigoted Crackers will come.

As you well know, there's been a raging debate over this proposed Mosque in NY city, very near the site of the 9/11 World Trade Center attack, also known as "Ground Zero." And recently, I found myself in a mudsling over in the comment section of perhaps my most-favorite blog, Flopping Aces.

It seems, other commenters may have resorted to some unsavory name-calling, and one of the regular contributors felt justified in returning the favor by posting an article which effectively lumped all opposition to the Mosque into the category of "Islamophobes."  The author also coined the term "conspiRACISTS" in his article, ostensibly to belittle anyone who didn't subscribe to his extreme notion of tolerance.

One other contributor took umbrage to the labeling, and he, Mike's America, is now an ex-contributor.  Two other contributors defended the race-hustling author.  One called me a bigot.  I hope I recover.

I never even voiced specific opposition to the construction, and don't believe the argument is one over the applicability of our Constitution, but over the protections our country should afford its citizens in a time of war, and even the very definition of who that enemy is.

Personally, I don't give a rat's ass if your game involves labeling me.  I'm unaffected.  I figured some others might be swayed by your condescending tone, though, so I pushed back.  Most folks still avoid being labeled racist at all costs, and that's why the liberal media plays that card every couple weeks.  I expect it from Olbermann and Matthews and CNN and ABC/CBS/NBC/PBS, and so I distance myself from those nitwits.

Similarly, I'm now convinced that some of the authors at FA have pissed away my loyalty.  You'd lost your argument when you lost your audience.  Calling 92% of those readers "Islamophobes" will do that.

Those same regular authors like to refer to themselves as "conservative."  If you're among a legitimate group of conservatives (Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin), which of them would ever use the term "Islamophobe"?  Which of them would cringe, instead?

I enjoyed what Jeffrey Jena had to say about the proposed Mosque, though:

If this group of Muslims own this property then I must defend their right to do all that is legal with that property. If they think their actions will somehow raise tolerance for their sect they are sadly mistaken. If they want to be crappy neighbors then I would love to see New York do the same right back at them.

My first suggestion would be for Mayor Bloomberg to zone the area around the mosque for strip clubs and legalized street walking. Assign policemen of Jewish heritage to answer all calls at the Mosque. Schedule the gay pride parade to circle the block several times, if possible right at prayer hour. Allow as many street vendors as would like them licenses to sell pork sandwiches and “medicinal” marijuana in that area. My final suggestion would be to have the city tear up the side walks around the building and repave them with a nice mixture of Portland Cement and bacon fat.

Or, the Cordoba House masonry subcontractor could just run some livermush in with the mortar, and every brick laid becomes a big "Fuck you too, Mohammed".

Tolerance is a fine thing, taken in moderation.  Recently though, the very overextension of tolerance, in fear of being labeled intolerant, has gotten lots of good Americans killed.  I'd be an Islamophobe long before I'd be an enabler or a victim.

Pack Your Crap, And Get Out