Mini-Sudoku for Dummies

Solution below.

Crab-Salmon Croquettes, or: The Idiot's Guide to Heaven on Earth

For your consideration, in guy-recipe form:


TVD's Crab-Salmon Croquettes

1 big can salmon (drained, reserve liquid)
1 little can crabmeat (ditto)
4 diced celery stalks
1/4 cup minced green onions, onions, or a little dried onion, onion powder, whatever
1 golfball-sized hunk of mayo
3/4 cup smashed crackers or matzo meal, or a combo of both
5 splashes Worcestershire sauce
1 or 2 eggs, whipped up with a fork
Juice of a 1/2 a lemon, or a blast of that ReaLemon® that's been sitting in your fridge for like 12 years


any dried seafood seasoning
lotsa paprika
cayenne pepper
go easy on the salt, if you use any at all


Paradise. 

(If you don't have crabmeat, just use the salmon and only 1/2 a cup of the cracker crumbs. Tuna fish will do in a pinch, too.)


Mix it all up gently in a bowl, easy does it. We don't want a paste. Add the reserved liquid a little at a time, just enough to keep it medium-wet.

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**CRITICAL MYSTERY SOLVED** Before cooking, put the mixture in the fridge for an hour first or the freezer for 30 minutes, and your croquettes won't fall apart, leaving you with fried fish dust. This is the secret for all successful croquettes.
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Make little hockey pucks out of the cooled mixture. Preheat a frying pan with a thin layer of oil (butter's even better), and put your hockey pucks in. DO NOT TOUCH them for at least 12 minutes---they have to set up. You can smush them down a little with the spatula (that's an egg turner thingee). When the bottoms are safely brown, you can turn 'em over and finish them off with another 10 minutes of cooking. Put them on a plate covered by a couple of paper towels.


You can lo-cal them using only a little oil or butter in the pan---just cook 'em under a lower heat for a little longer. The mayo makes 'em creamy, but if they're still a little dry for you, Campbell's Cream of Celery soup (no water) heated up is a great topping sauce. Don't be afraid---even the cookbooks say it's OK.

Put some parsley on top. Civilized people do that.


Makes about 10 hockey pucks. Try 'em with fries, a splash of vinegar, maybe some cole slaw. Now you're stylin'.

Global Warming: What You Can Do

(A version of the following was published by The American Spectator Online in February 2007.)


I've been on the fence about this thing until America's most highly-paid newsman Katie Couric wrote this on her blog:

"And all the experts agree. Well, almost every expert. (There are a handful of scientists -- many of them on the payroll of big oil companies -- who wonder if global warming is a reality.)"

Oil companies. I should have known. They want us all dead so they can have all the oil to themselves. Still, as a Republican, the question I really have to ask is, what's in it for me??

It's another perfect day here in Southern California, a nippy 69 degrees, and the value of my house has doubled in the last 5 years. What if everybody had nice weather, the chilling thought went down my chilled spine. My obscene profit, up in smoke like from the tailpipe of a Hummer. And if it gets as warm as Mexico here, why, they sell land as cheap as dirt!

We have to do something about this, like now. As Al Gore said while snarfing up his well-deserved Oscar, this is a moral issue. Quicker than Gore flunked out of divinity school, I came up with this helpful list. Clip and save:

---Plug in your clocks only when you absolutely have to know what time it is. If you need the alarm, get up five minutes early to set it.

---Al Gore says cigarettes are a significant cause of global warming, so quit smoking and sell him the carbon credits.

---Your kids are useless for pushing your car up to highway speeds, but they can increase your mileage considerably around town. Use your headlights only when there's no moon, and remember, your horn uses less energy than your turn signal.

---Stairs make you huff and puff and expel carbon dioxide. Use the elevator. And sports are carbon-intensive too, so do 'em on your X-box.

---Take as long as you want browsing in the fridge. Leaving the door open cools the world off.

---Down more Slurpees, or better yet, nice frosty margaritas. See, this isn't so bad.

---Lower the thermostat in your Gulfstream jet, and make the help wear sweaters.

---We need our corn for ethanol. Switch from Fritos to pork rinds.

---Do not use a television or radio unless it's bicycle powered, like Gilligan's.

---Turn your computer off right now. Turn it off, get up out of your chair, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

Then sit down quietly. Moving, talking and breathing should be kept to the absolute minimum. Human life is eco-unfriendly, and should be lived as little as possible. It's the moral thing to do.

Nine

9. Mini-sudoku solution, as promised.

The Left Is Right

Live 8, besides calling for debt relief for Africa, asks for free markets for African products, which cannot compete with European products because of EU subsidies.

The playing field isn't level---African producers get no help from their governments, because their governments are focused on corruption and Swiss bank accounts. How can Africa compete in the poker game of life when France keeps slipping chips into her stack?



Screw you, world poverty, we're all free traders now. 


Trade makes everyone richer. I can make 20 bottles of wine a week or 2 loaves of bread, my choice. Grapes grow easily where I live, but wheat doesn't do so well. You can make 20 loaves of bread or a bottle of wine for similar reasons. If we trade, we both got bread and wine every night.

But if my government pays me to grow wheat, that's what I'll do. Too bad for you.

That's the trade situation right now for Africa. European nations "protect," no, reward their crappy "wheat-growers," their "farmers," so Africa can go to hell. Live 8 says later for that. Cool.

Universal Health Care, Armageddon, or What?

Caught Christian apocolyptic author Tim LaHaye on Sunday's blab TV. Seems the Book of Revelations sez the anti-Christ isn't some weirdo like Christopher Walken, but someone who's "attractive, intelligent, and articulate." Somebody who isn't seen as bad, but good.

Whew. Great news for our friends on the left---they can stop worrying about the current Republican White House occupant.

Now, the wife thought he looked kinda cute in that flight suit, but "intelligent" is never used in conjunction with "Bush" (unlike his fellow Yale C-student opponent in the last election), and even the president's non-reality-based supporters can't prop up the whopper that he's "articulate."

I mean, there are limits to partisan self-derangement, even for conservatives.


But on the horizon there's only one political figure whom none can deny is "attractive, intelligent, and articulate":



Repent now and avoid the rush? 


The "smartest woman in the world" is also hot. I trust you, the discriminating reader, will examine the evidence closely, because your eternal soul might depend on it. Word up.

The 'Dude Rocketh On

My pal Philosoraptor gave me a generous plug, even though I give him nothing in return but existential grief, pain and suffering. He urges me to rock on, and I can now reveal how wise and knowing he is, in that Kantian sort of way of his.

The humble narrator of this blog has been away to the land of Miami, mastering an album for his all-time favorite band, The Cookies. (As a matter of coincidence, he was a member of that particular band.)

A sneak peek at a couple of the raw tracks is here.

The 'Dude wrote the first one but not the second, did the lead vocals, played bass, and recorded the whole mess with his own bare hands.

The story is kinda cool---this was my favoritest band I was ever in. We broke up, in fine and predictable rock band fashion, but Diamond Jim, the drummer, caught me on a gameshow (yeah, I did OK) and tracked me down through my wife's acting union. I mentioned that I co-owned a recording studio and voila!, the guys were on my doorstep a few months later to make the album we never did get to make.

We're putting it out on vinyl on an esoteric label for esoteric-minded True Lovers of Great Art. I'm told that indy god Robert Pollard thinks it doesn't overly suck.

But now I gotta go buy a turntable. Do they still make 'em?

The Whole Truth and Nothing But...

Since Watergate, the press has put itself in opposition to whatever the current administration says, to balance things out. But what if what the administration says never sees the light of day?

Detainees “provide useful information on locations of training compounds and safe houses, terrain features, travel patterns and routes used for smuggling people and equipment, as well as for identifying potential supporters and opponents.” U.S. questioning has “expanded our understanding of the extent of their presence in Europe [and] the United States…”

“Detainees provide information that helps sort out legitimate financial activity from illegitimate terrorist financing operations,” the report says.

One detainee “identified a complex detonation system…that had been used in the Chechen conflict, and now is being used on IEDs [Improvised Explosive Devices] in Iraq, helping U.S. forces to combat this lethal weapon.”

Despite this apparent cooperation, enemy combatants remain viciously anti-American and dedicated to mayhem, even after release.

“I will arrange for the kidnapping and execution of US citizens living in Saudi Arabia,” one detainee threatened, if freed. “They will have their heads cut off.”

“There is no need to ask for forgiveness for killing a Jew,” another said. “Israel should not exist and be removed from Palestine.”

One detainee reportedly warned that “upon his release from GTMO, he would use the Internet to search for the names and faces of MPs so that he could kill them.”

Among 167 detainees freed from Guantanamo, the Pentagon has identified “about 12” who have resumed terrorist operations. Last October, two Chinese engineers were kidnapped in Pakistan. “Former detainee Abdullah Mahsud, their reputed leader, ordered the kidnapping,” the report states.

“Another released detainee assassinated an Afghan judge,” the document continues. “Several former GTMO detainees have been killed in combat with U.S. soldiers and Coalition forces.”

.


Well, that's the administration's story, that this Guantanamo mess has saved many innocent lives. But I for one never heard it until now. Have you?

Nah, I didn't think so. We get the truth, but it's half the truth, which is worse than no truth at all.


Some can't live with moral dilemmas, but we must. The moral dilemma is the probability of depriving an innocent of his freedom vs. the probability of the rest of these maniacs taking innocent human life. You make your best 51-49 call and live with being a moral leper with the other who are down with the 49.

So me, I make my call based on detentions being temporary and death being permanent. I have to live with that, and so does Bush. Anyone who wants to release these guys to preserve the principle of due process has to live with the deaths of who these guys kill. There is no escape from moral dilemmas. That's how this funky world works.

Chimp Vision

Via CUANAS, from Opinion Journal:

"George W. Bush has unleashed a tsunami on this region," a shrewd Kuwaiti merchant who knows the way of his world said to me. The man had no patience with the standard refrain that Arab reform had to come from within, that a foreign power cannot alter the age-old ways of the Arabs.


"Everything here--the borders of these states, the oil explorations that remade the life of this world, the political outcomes that favored the elites now in the saddle--came from the outside. This moment of possibility for the Arabs is no exception." A Jordanian of deep political experience at the highest reaches of Arab political life had no doubt as to why history suddenly broke in Lebanon, and could conceivably change in Syria itself before long. "The people in the streets of Beirut knew that no second Hama is possible; they knew that the rulers were under the gaze of American power, and knew that Bush would not permit a massive crackdown by the men in Damascus."

Wonderful eagle-eye, that Pastorius, and this is inspiring.


Chimpy McHitler, they call him on the internet.



Our postmodern Western world is blind to the universe of possibilities. How the underqualified C-student child-of-privilege George W. Bush became the visionary of the Western World is beyond me. (The less prudent and worldly call it a miracle.)

The phrase "reality-based community" became a self-definition for our friends on the left, in reaction to this quote from an anonymous White House staffer:

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality...we'll act again, creating other new realities..."

Now, this was taken as some neo-con psychosis, but how different is it from Bobby Kennedy?

"There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask, 'Why?' I dream of things that never were, and ask 'Why not?'"

Actually, Bush didn't have the vainglory to dream of things that never were; more like he wanted to help the things that already are to blossom. The desire for freedom and to be rid of tyranny goes back to at least the ancient Greeks, and no doubt further. I'm certain our real Vietnam mistake was that the Vietnamese were not offered freedom, only a slightly less abusive tyranny than that of the Viet Cong. All things considered, people go with the locals.

Bush isn't LBJ. And these Straussian neo-cons aren't the paranoid WWII generation who (properly) feared world totalitarianism.

Bush's belief in the "consent of the governed" means that he and his evil advisors have learned the lessons of history. The Cedar Revolution in Lebanon tells us about the universal hunger for freedom.

The idea that Syria hasn't bathed the streets of Beirut with blood to preserve their little empire because they're afraid of George Bush rings true with me.

In 1982, the Syrians killed 25,000 people who hungered for freedom in one night (the "Hama"). The only difference I can see is C-student cowboy George Dubya Chimp on the world stage, being as reality-based as all get-out.

Strausscleaning

Idealist writes:

If I really believed our aims were so altruistic I'd be supportive and I suspect others in the world would be, too. However, I can't see it as anything other than a power grab by cynical Imperialist Straussians. I did read the Report for the 20th century by the Wolfowitz, etc. think tank whose name escapes me and it scared the hell out of me. I don't want to be an imperialistic nation. These guys are egotistical, cynical tyrannical creeps and I don't use those terms losely.

Well, let's look at the record. Much has been said about the philosopher Leo Strauss and his "followers." Little is understood. I assume you refer to this:

"The PNAC website states the group's "fundamental propositions", which are

American leadership is good both for America and for the world

Such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle

Too few political leaders today are making the case for global leadership.

Sounds good to me. Weakness is not a strategy, and every nation has paid for theirs with their own blood. Further, the US today is not an imperialist nation. And further, with few exceptions, the rest of the world is corrupt and is incapable of putting moral imperatives into practice.

I'd be interested in anything substantive against the philosopher Leo Strauss besides the "noble lie" canard, which dates to Plato, not him.


It is true that Strauss had extreme difficulty with modern (not 1700-era, which is "classical") liberalism. His own philosophical quest began when as a Jew himself, he was appalled that the modern-liberal Weimar Republic lacked the power or the will to protect the Jews, and saw a fundamental flaw in the philosophy of "tolerance" as a First Principle.

Strauss was correct. The same moral inertia of Weimar persists in modern liberal Europe, and in many of your penpals, I'm afraid. Saddam's open support and reward of Palestinian suicide bombers was enough of an offense against humanity.

Modern Europe, and of course the openly anti-Israel UN, were and are quite content to let the Jews keep dying.

It is indeed no coincidence that many of the neo-cons and "Straussians" are Jews, although many others are Christian. And it is no coincidence that Saddam's support for the murder of Jews was not put forward as a reason to depose him. Europe, and the modern left, frankly don't give a damn.


(I once again recommend the CUANAS blog. The blatant anti-Semitism of the rest of the world goes shockingly unreported in the American media. Not much has changed since the 1930s, when Leo Strauss first sat down to think.)

Nihilism/"Annihilate," Meaning to Bring to Nothing

Complaining about political language is to me a lefty thing, and I have avoided it. Surely there's a basic core of an idea, even an opinion, that doesn't depend on manipulating words. But the media (yes, even FoxHitlerNews and of course Auntie Beeb) calling these homicidal/suicidal maniacs in Iraq "insurgents" has just got on my last nerve.

I understand WWII hero Rodger Young, who gave his life to save his platoon. I understand Japan's kamikazes, fighting for their homeland. I even understand Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove riding his H-Bomb to nuke the Russkies.

But in Iraq (and leave the US/UK military forces out of it), we've got psychotic Muslims killing innocent Muslims. For nothing.

Some sort of consent of the governed, if not democracy, will become the law of the land in Iraq. That's a fact. These guys are not even killing for God. They are dying not for God, but for themselves alone. They are building nothing. They are saving nothing. They are taking many people with them. For nothing. The self is a dead end.

Faithful correspondent Idealist writes:

But then I don't believe in one-sided wars. It's been called imperialism before.

A one-sided war is slaughtering innocents when the "opponent" refuses do the same. The imperialists, the murderers, the Islamofascists in this case, simply kill, with no achievable goal. Even the firebombing of Dresden and the nuking of Nagasaki and Hiroshima had an achievable goal in mind.

"Insurgents" is an insult to all our intelligence. They kill the very people they purport to save because their own self-annihilation is more important than even their fellow Muslims. They are terrorists and murderers, sociopaths. No other words will do.

Stairway to Hell

 

That's noted satanist Jimmy Page boogie-in' on down at the New York Stock Exchange. It all fits now, doesn't it?

Happy V-E Day!!!!!!

I'd bet less than half of Americans know what V-E Day is. It means Victory in Europe, and today is the 60th anniversary of the Nazi surrender.

There is some buzz in Europe, but the American media is almost completely silent about the occasion. Not surprising, since there are parallels to today's crises, and none of them suit our media's worldview.

President George Dubya Bush is over at the ceremonies, unabashedly (as is his style) noting that the Americans fought Hitlerism in the cause of freedom. Now it's true that the USSR, locked in a death struggle, did the heavy military lifting in defeating Hitler.

But it's also true that the US (and UK) could have come to an accomodation with Hitler and signed a separate peace, leaving the continent to the Nazis' tender mercies. If they had, Hitler could have turned his full attention to the USSR, which could not have survived.

I see many nations that owe their freedom to the US and UK trying to finesse the threats of today's world seeking some small diplomatic or economic advantage by making separate peaces with today's implacable ememies of freedom. I see many people in those nations whose understandable distaste for military history has caused them to miss its lessons.

Read the Butcher's Bill for the Second World War. The most shocking revelation is that civilian casualties, for perhaps the first time in military history, outnumbered those on the battlefield.

The lesson is that war is no longer some incestuous pastime for the testoterone crowd. We are past the age of border disputes. When the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.

Good men doing nothing is still the biggest threat to freedom, justice and human dignity. There is no diplomatic solution to tyranny. Freedom and dignity are ideas, and your freedom and dignity were bought with blood, your forefathers' blood and willingness to shed it for such impractical ideas.


And so, after having his way in Afghanistan and Iraq, why is Bush still pushing, pushing, pushing? Politicking at WWII memorials, haranguing Putin?

In your heart of hearts, you know why. It's not about oil.

Perfect Result

Blair survives today's election, the Tories are up but their leader Howard's out, and in the biggest surprise of the day, the staunchly anti-Iraq war Lib-Dems pick up the Muslim vote.

Situation normal---status quo, and everybody in Britain's still miserable. I think they like it that way.

Doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah, Doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-waaaaaaaaaaah

Went to a university jazz recital last night, and there were quite a few 21st century phenomena. First, midway through the show, there was a power failure and the room plunged into darkness. Fortunately, only the keyboardist was electrified, and he sucked anyway, so the rest of the band kept cranking.

Since next to nobody in Los Angeles smokes anymore, nobody in the crowd had a lighter, but slowly, the stage was bathed in more and more eerie blue light issuing from the audience.


Everybody in LA has a cell phone. It was very cool.


So that was a first, and surely not a last.


I'm not much of a jazz fan, but I've come to appreciate the greats, if not the form itself, over the years. Black jazz critic Stanley Crouch got fired a few years back for saying that these new white kids just don't swing---you know, the thing that makes you tap your foot and sway to the beat. Instead, though they're highly technical and accomplished, the end result is poo-poo.


These freshly scrubbed yuppoids with no cultural connection to the music were attempting to recreate the genius improvisations of mind and soul, of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, from painstakingly transcribed sheet music! I mean, that defeats the whole purpose of the thing.



The face of 21st Century Jazz. 


Well, I think you see where I'm going with this, if you recognize the folks in the photo from Galaxy Quest, aliens who built their entire reality by reassembling an old Earth TV show. Think of it the next time you hear some music that sounds perfect to the ear and brain, but has a hole in the middle where its heart (and your heart) ought to be.

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing, said The Duke (that's Ellington, for those who came in late), and that's all me and the estimable Mr. Crouch are saying.

OK, But You Didn't Get This From Me

Since most here gathered don't agree with The Philosodude but kindly read him anyway, he passes this on as a sort of twisted thank you.



 

Pants on Fire

So Tory chief Michael Howard is OK with calling Tony Blair a liar.

This shows how low the Tories have sunk, and the fact it's helping Howard in the polls says nothing good about the electorate, either, folks.

Richard Harries, the Bishop of Oxford, delivered a sermon on the danger of cheapening the debate. "The leaders of the three main parties are all honourable men," he said.

"It is quite wrong to imply that any one of those three is somehow fundamentally dishonest, whoever it is."

He added: "I think there's a great worry about using a phrase like 'liar'. That does imply somebody has deliberately told an untruth. That's very different from whatever degree of spin there might be."

Calling a man a liar used to land you with a pistol in your hand at dawn. I'd call the little dweeb out myself. Now it's just another word, with no consequences. (We have the same cowardly garbage here in the US, but that's another tale.)

I just don't get how wannabe leaders who act with zero class ever expect to receive respect themselves. Fortunately, they always lose.


Of all the folks from either party who have run for US President, I've never doubted they were sincere and honorable men with the best interests of the nation in mind. Blair would be at 60% in the polls now if he'd done nothing about anything, like your typical tut-tutting Eurocrat. (Oh, all those people dead, how unfortunate. That Saddam's such a murdering bastard. Someone should really DO something.)


I doubt the Tories (and half the Loud Left, if they ever stopped to think about it) really wish Saddam were still in power, filling mass graves while his lovely sons Uday and Attila throw the citizenry into paper shredders. So what's all the noise about?

After the smoke clears, we all have to live together under one leader after an election. Of what benefit to the nation are such tactics? No such thing as a Loyal Opposition anymore, just making each other miserable, forever and ever, amen.


Shame on Mr. Howard. I hope for a Conservative third-place finish and the end of his career. Things will have to get worse for the Tories before they get any better.


(Lib Dem Charles Kennedy is pulling much the same, but he's far more sneaky about it. Points for cleverness and actually being opposed to the Iraq war in principle, though.)

Addendum:The above comment about US Presidential candidates does not apply to Al Gore, who is once again acting like a freaking maniac.

Consumer Tip of the Day

Thanks to everyone who stopped by this past week and found...nothing new posted here. There were some great theological concerns (see below) and computer problems. I hope to get back to more frequent gems and to being my usual snarky and shallow self.

Today's tip is this: when you're considering a purchase, go to Google, type in the product name, followed by the word "crap." My Western Digital hard drive imploded after not even a year, so I did a search to see if the fault was mine.

But googling "Western Digital" and "crap" turned up "Western Digital Eats Poo-Poo" and "their drives die left and right." If only I had known.

Next up is a Seagate hard drive. "Seagate" + "crap" = zero hits. So far, so good.

Killing for Religion

One of the most troublesome things about the Bible is when God orders the Israelites to massacre the wicked Canaanites down to the last man, woman and child.

How could God order such a thing? And if He did, does that all of a sudden make an evil thing Good, just because He ordered it? This is sometimes called the Euthyphro problem, referring to Plato's Socrates asking just that question.


It's a question that's been asked for thousands of years, most recently over at Philosoraptor. (Yes, The Dude is The Raptor's illegitimate and wayward blogson.)

It's a question that cannot be answered with brute reason---if this life is all there is, then all death is bad, case closed. And since today, Christianity and Judaism don't see their mission as to go around killing the wicked, this question is then simply a theoretical and theological one, and must be seen that way.

That's the short answer.


To understand the Bible as it understands itself (a good way for us to read anything), and since few of us read the Torah deeply or understand its background (me, too---I had to hit the books on this one), it's important to note that

a) Israel didn't go through with the genocide

b) The men of the Bible questioned God's commands just the same as we do and Socrates did

c) The Canaanites were so world-class wicked that they polluted the people around them

d) The righteous were spared

e) The rest had the chance to flee---Israel was not required to hunt them down and kill them; it was nations, not individuals, that were destroyed

f) Israel got exactly the same treatment when it became wicked after Solomon's death and was cast into the Babylonian Captivity

Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, "This is what the LORD God Almighty, the God of Israel, says: `If you surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, your life will be spared and this city will not be burned down; you and your family will live. But if you will not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, this city will be handed over to the Babylonians and they will burn it down; you yourself will not escape from their hands.'" (Jer 38.17ff)

This essay by a fellow named Glenn Miller has a pretty comprehensive scriptural reading of the issue. Those with skepticism toward God, the Scriptures, etc., etc. should hear the arguments for the defense. It's the American Way.


I had to get some backup on this Will of God stuff, so I asked Brother Levi, a friend who's a sort of Rastafarian. For those not scriptually inclined, he recommended that sneaky moralist Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger. Fortunately, it's here on the internet for free.

God Re-elected

Despite the world press' advice that the next pope be hip and groovy, they went and elected a Catholic anyway.

Go figure.

Cardinal Ratzinger's words on Monday, at the opening of the Conclave:

How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking… The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves – thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth.

Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism.

Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and “swept along by every wind of teaching”, looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today’s standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.

The rest is here, with a lot of Jesus Christ stuff not of interest to the general reader.


But Pope Benedict XVI's message will be clear---that material politics and sterile reason cannot be the salvation of man, although they have great potential to be his undoing. (See my favorite book for more on this, linked over there on the right...)


Addendum: No, he's not a Nazi. Geez, that didn't take long. From
The Times (UK)---

The son of a rural Bavarian police officer, Ratzinger was six when Hitler came to power in 1933. His father, also called Joseph, was an anti-Nazi whose attempts to rein in Hitler’s Brown Shirts forced the family to move home several times.

In 1937 Ratzinger’s father retired and the family moved to Traunstein, a staunchly Catholic town in Bavaria close to the Führer’s mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden. He joined the Hitler Youth aged 14, shortly after membership was made compulsory in 1941.

He quickly won a dispensation on account of his training at a seminary. “Ratzinger was only briefly a member of the Hitler Youth and not an enthusiastic one,” concluded John Allen, his biographer.

Two years later Ratzinger was enrolled in an anti-aircraft unit that protected a BMW factory making aircraft engines. The workforce included slaves from Dachau concentration camp.

Ratzinger has insisted he never took part in combat or fired a shot — adding that his gun was not even loaded — because of a badly infected finger. He was sent to Hungary, where he set up tank traps and saw Jews being herded to death camps. He deserted in April 1944 and spent a few weeks in a prisoner of war camp.

The Anchoress has more, and better.

Scotland Speaks

Our friend from the Land Downover, DKelly, offers his take on the UK election:

I believe it is be more accurate to say that this is the swing the Conservatives would need across the country to make the seat they need for a majority winable. There is actually a huge difference between this and actually requiring this percentage across the board.

That they need this result has little to do with the boundary changes, though they will not help for sure, and is far more deep seated.

There are two major problems.

The first is that the Conservatives are in exactly the same position as the one Labour faced in the 80s and early 90s, in that they have been reduced to their strongholds. At that time Labour needed a substantial margin of victory for a 1 seat majority. As an asside it should be noted that this was not assisted by the then latest boundary changes which had increased an already present advantage for the Conservatives. (History, like sprouts, has a tendency to repeat.)

Yes, America is dealing with this in changing the rules of the Senate to let President Bush install judges on majority vote and bypass the "filibuster" rule, which permits a sizable minority to veto things. Then again, what goes around comes around.

The second is the rise of tactical voting, which collapsed the vote of the third party in many marginal constituancies and even some previously fairly safe Conservative seats in the 97 election simply to get rid of the Conservatives. As the general feeling in the country is that we aren't stupid (or forgetful) enough to have Howard, the non-blue vote is still dedicated to keeping the Conservatives out. This means that they pretty much one-on-one with the second favourite party in many 'must win' places, a problem Labour are less likely to encounter until there is a similar desire to remove them from power.

In these circumstances it is not surprising that they need over 40%, maybe it is surprising that it is not over 45% and a rod the Conservatives back very much of their own making.

So, your point is that the UK vote has a clear consensus of 60% anti-Conservative. Sounds about right.

The American system, which splits the executive branch from the legislative, deserves perhaps some respect. Knowing how to do the right thing is usually beyond the everyday concerns of mob rule, which is democracy in its purest and most nauseating form.

Although the Republicans control both the legislative and executive branches at this moment, many Americans are comfortable with split control, which is impossible in a parliamentary system.

The executive is expected to act, the legislature to frustrate. Or vice-versa, depending on the personality of the president. Not a bad system. It could accomodate Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, or Tony Blair as head of state, while allowing Clement Atlee, Michael Foote, Karl Marx, or even Lib Dem Charles Kennedy as the legislative leader.

We Yanks ain't as dumb as we look sometimes.

In The Country Formerly Known as England

YahooNews has the latest update:

Labour is heading for a third General Election victory, according to a clutch of recently-published polls.

But the projected margin of Tony Blair's victory varied as pollsters put his lead over the Tories at anywhere between one and 10%...

An ICM poll for The Sunday Telegraph found Mr Blair was heading for another landslide victory and a majority of 158. That survey puts Labour on 40%, the Conservatives on 30% and the Lib Dems on 22%...

The Conservatives would win just one seat from Labour and end up with 155 MPs, 10 fewer than in 2001.

Well, as a committed American conservative, I think I'd still vote for Blair's party because the Tories are so pathetic. On the other hand, the article states that if Gordon Brown, the economic whiz Chancellor of the Exchequer whose views on other stuff are foggy as hell were party leader, the margin would be far greater.

The Independent just reported that Blair has agreed to hand over the PMship to Mr. Brown in (very) due time, keeping a (very) old promise.


None of the Above remains democracy's most formidable candidate, and it looks like he's about to win. I wonder what he's like. Anyone who says "things can't get any worse" has no imagination.

I wish us all a great deal of luck.

Immigration Man

¡La Migra!

Duck your head in and yell that into any Los Angeles restaurant kitchen, and you're likely to see half the staff bug out the back door.

It's slang for the immigration man, or in other words, "RAID!"


I've lived in LA for over 20 years and have been a dove on illegal immigration. Mexicans and Central Americans are legendary for never asking for handouts, only work. On freeway exit ramps, they won't be begging, they'll be selling oranges and peanuts. (Always oranges and peanuts, dunno why.)

Now our county health system has provided care of the last resort to everyone regardless of ability to pay, and proof of citizenship is not required or even asked for. (This system is never mentioned in the wail about 40 million uninsured Americans. It is indeed our medical safety net.)


But it does seem that illegal immigrants have achieved a critical mass and swamped the system. The same as above applies to our schools.

But that was true too in 1994, when California governor Pete Wilson, a Republican, got himself re-elected by riding his support for Proposition 187, which banned illegals from receiving public services. (187 was later thrown out by the courts, on some ground or another.)

But the damage was done. To save his own sorry ass, Wilson had once again attached racism to the GOP. The Latino vote, a bloc which would soon pass Blacks in size, looked to go heavily Democrat forever.


However, a Texas governor named Bush learned from Wilson's disaster, and refused to be painted in an anti-Hispanic light. He diffused the racism charges and he got around 35%-45% of the Hispanic vote in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, a surprising total that may have swung those elections his way. In doing so, he may have saved his party.

For the Republican Party or the administration to take the lead on immigration now would be suicide as long as the Democratic Party sits on the sidelines.

And everybody knows it.


If illegal immigration is indeed a threat to Joe Six-Pack, and it still fancies itself the party of the working man, the Democratic Party should take the politics out of it and this whole issue could be legislated in a few months.

The Democrats have less to lose than the Republicans by taking a stand on the immigration mess. If they don't think there's a problem, then they should say so. But as with Social Security and probably another dozen issues, America is held hostage by a party that refuses to lead or follow.

The Willies

Blogger.com tells your humble narrator (that's me) that your new favorite blog (that's this) got a referral and a long look from this blog.

Now I had to use the Google Spanish-English translator, but this is what it said:

EVERYTHING ARRIVES!!!!!
THE OLD WISE PEOPLE COUNT...
THAT The VIBORAS, CAN SWALLOW THEIR OWN POISON And WHEN THEY THROW TOO MUCH CAN BE CHOKED And BEEN ABLE TO HAVE WHOLE WEEKS OF NIGHTMARES, SPECIALLY FOR ALREADY The EXTINCT VIBORAS Of the NORTH SANTAFESINO, NIGHTMARES THAT WITH TIME ARE MADE MEAT TAKING REVENGE To ALL The VICTIMS BY The POISON.
MEMO: WITH MUCHISIMO AFFECTION, WE LOVE And WE WAITED FOR YOU To YOU HAS BEEN SLIGHT.
"THE SELECT HORDE".

I think the word's getting out. Dunno what it is, though.

The Duty to Beauty

The governor of Wisconsin is going to nix any law that would permit the hunting of feral cats, which are blamed for the deaths of 47 million to 139 million songbirds a year in that state.

It's not illegal here in California. At least I don't think it is.


 
I bagged this beauty with a thirty-ought-six and a 125-grain load in the Santa Monica Mountains, just outside Malibu. The taxidermy fees were a bit steep, and there's not much meat. But these buggers are a worthy adversary for the dedicated varmint hunter---clever and quick as, well, cats.

The songbirds in California are particularly beautiful; they sweeten the very air with their angelic calls and I do love them so. Both they and the Golden State are better off with "Fluffy" on my mantelpiece, where this ruthless killer can do no further harm.

I urge Gov. Doyle to reconsider his position on this vital issue of aesthetic good vs. evil.

The Where Are They Now File

 


That's supposed to be John Kerry, not Jesus.

It seems the good senator is trolling for hard luck stories from our troops in Iraq. I'm sure it's to help them, not embarrass the administration. Heaven forbid. If he does for the Iraq vets what he did for the Vietnam vets, well...never mind.

Thing is, after 20-odd useless years as a senator, I just can't explain John Kerry's sudden interest in politics these past couple of months.


Addendum: Just ran across plenty more on this at Polipundit.

Can't Live with 'Em, Can't Kill 'Em

Or maybe you can.

My new Harper's, which remains a supremely literate American treasure (founded 1856) despite its present left-psychotic editor's attempt to pervert it, has a letter citing a study that 75% of those who get Schiavoed are female.

They say it's because females are practical. So are their husbands, I reckon.

75% of divorces are initiated by the woman. Good strategy---get rid of him before he does you in. Practical.

(Went back and tidied this one up a little.)

Things Could Be Worse

The latest UK polls show Labour and the Tories in a 36%-36% tie. Still, constituency boundaries being what they are, Labour would still get a lead of 100-140 seats. The Conservative Party needs about 42% of the vote to win the PMship.

I dunno, our electoral college doesn't seem so bad.

Africa's Future is Black

Millions butchered in Africa. Where's the outrage among Blacks?

When two million non-Muslim Africans were killed by a fundamentalist Islamic regime (well before the recent janjaweed/Darfur stuff), even the reliably far-left Black Commentator was forced to note the silence, perhaps explained by the Nation of Islam's unwillingness to criticize.


Then, re Congo, where the toll is 3 million dead and rising, I found this recent colloquy very troubling.

Me: Everybody's got a butcher's bill. You can condemn the dead or help the living. It's your choice.
My Correspondent: Long, dreadful legacy of Belgian Catholics in the Congo and Rwanda-Burundi, among other places.


Now, of course that's true. King Leopold's regime in Congo killed over four million Congolese at the turn of the past century. I continued:

The slaughter in Africa today is nothing but agenda. The African nations want no part of a "white" solution, and the Europeans don't want to be accused of neo-colonialism.

Meanwhile, both African and European nations are guarding their interests in plundering Congo's natural wealth. Make no mistake, there are no clean hands. Everybody's involved.

That said, there is no one to speak for the children of Africa. It's my opinion that the African diaspora, especially in the United States, is their best hope.

The good guys (if there are any) and the bad guys must be sorted out, and action must be taken, action that won't be easy or pretty or even purely Black.

But the body count grows every day and agendas and even legitimate historical grievances must take a back seat.

Black America has the unique power to lead both this country and the world concerning Africa, to stop the murder and save the children.



The reply: The suggestion of an outside group becoming instrumental to solving the issues in Africa, is the revival of the colonial mentality and legacy. Africans know their environment, their territory, their problems, far better than anyone else. The foreigners in Africa are mainly there for material reasons; the large caches of foreign weaponry compound the problem. There are also the partly Africanized Asians (mainly Indians) and Europeans who have been in Africa for some generations.

The average African is a humble person, much less materialistic than most people in the world, one who desires to see his/ her child grow up healthily in an atmosphere of peace and tranquility. We have had foreign "peacekeepers" in the Congo, who have turned out to be purveyors of foreign perverted sexual practices and literature, and been tricksters, stalkers, and rapists of African children.


Now of course, the facts here are largely accurate, too, except for the notion that the ancestral culture of average Africans will exempt them from the failings of the rest of humanity. I do not think this is a minority Black view, either here in the USA or in Africa. "Black Consciousness" was perhaps seen in the West as a fad, but a look at Steve Biko's Black Consciousness manifesto from the 1970s shows a decidedly non-Western philosophy underlying it. It is very real and I think it holds even greater sway today.

Just as Ronald Reagan had his 11th Commandment, thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican, similarly goes the pan-African view. There will be no real condemnation of African genocide, and interventionist solutions are unacceptable. In fact, any such effort by "the outside world" will be opposed. Africa for Africans, goes the song.

The West has never offered anything except its own brand of tyranny and murder, and it is unrealistic to expect "average" Africans to believe anything has changed. And as Vietnam and dozens of other places have taught us, a people will prefer a tyranny of its own to the tyranny of outsiders, all of which is why President Clinton's (I believe) altruistic adventure in Somalia went so horribly awry.


I usually have some clever answer for everything, but not this time. I find it terribly difficult to accept that the slaughter will and apparently must continue. I suppose Africa will solve its problems in time, but not until millions more have died.

I so very much want to be wrong about this.

Re-elect God

Well, the AP took a poll, and everybody pretty much agrees the Catholic Church better get with the program in electing their next pope.

I mean, how could a religious leader call abortion a sin against "non-violence to all sentient beings," condemn homosexual activity (indeed, putting one's genitals in any fun place that doesn't have to do with making babies), and expect his clergy to be celibate?

Who does he think he is, the Dalai Lama?

Well, yeah, he does.

Just a thought experiment for anti-Papists, "recovering" Catholics, progressive thinkers, and AP poll participants. I don't think many people would presume to tell the Dalai Lama what to think and believe. And when he passes on, I don't think even Bill Clinton will have the narcissistic temerity to compare himself to the Dalai Lama, and say he leaves a "mixed legacy."


I'm not troubled by the idea of a higher order that prescribes a moral code that few if any of us can live up to. If there is one, we should expect nothing less.

(Neither should we use it as an excuse to cast the first stone, but you already knew that.)

The Usama-Saddam Connection

No, it's not what you might think. Read on, Macduff.

Friends from across the pond are still on their ear (and mine) about the Iraq war. They'd punish Tony Blair for it in the upcoming May 5 election if the Conservatives weren't so comically clueless or if the mommy party (health care, public transportation, the environment, etc., etc.), the Liberal Democrats, were ready to govern a Great Nation.

Labour looks to take 40% of the vote, the Tories 30%, and the Lib Dems as high as 25%. Still, it shows that like most of Europe, the UK leans far more heavily to port than starboard.

So needless to say, they despise George W. Bush.


From what I read of the European press, the whole story is simply not told. It's not even told much here in the US. To understand what the US (and the UK) faced after 9-11, it's helpful to look at Usama bin Laden's 1996 Declaration of War.

In it, you see al-Qaeda's two strongest recruiting points were a) the US/UK (in other words, "Christian") military presence in "The Land of Two Holy Places (Mecca and Medina)," Saudi Arabia, which were needed there to keep an eye on Saddam and enforce the "no-fly zones," and b) the deaths by starvation of a half-million innocent women and children that the "containment" sanctions on Saddam caused (more on that here).

And of course, in the largest sense, the hopelessness engendered by the Western-supported tyrannical governments of the Muslim world.


Al-Qaeda offered itself as a remedy to all those things, and could not be engaged only with force because they were essentially correct.

Bin Laden was right, but we could hardly admit that.


But removing Saddam once and for all and the subsequent "democracy initiative" answered bin Laden completely. Our troops are out of Saudi, the sanctions that cost innocent lives are a thing of the past, and freedom is on the march in the Muslim world.

Al-Qaeda has been transformed from being "the base" (its literal translation from Arabic) of a worldwide liberation movement to just another would-be tyranny among many. Bin Laden now kills more Muslims than "Crusaders," and world Islam has realized for itself that bin Laden is not their champion, but their enemy.


It was not our intention that he escape justice, but as it turns out, Usama bin Laden is more valuable to the future of peace alive than dead.

Surfin' USA

I mean, this is kinda funny. That's supposed to be Jesus, not John Kerry.

Nothing that I wouldn't have drawn in the margins of my copybook during religion class. I might have given it its own page. It's from a graphic novel (that means comics for adults) -type thingee that just earned its creator an arrest warrant from the European Union.

Yup. Here in the land of museums showing crucifixes in urine (you know) and calling such asininity art, arresting someone for such a thing would be so 17th century. We're so hip in the stodgy ol' US, it makes me puke sometimes. But Europe, which is far hipper than us, wants to nail this guy.

Now, in the old days, blasphemy was a real art form in Europe. Americans today don't even know what "cursing" is, and why it was considered so bad. The English used to swear by divine genitals, and an Italian friend once taught me how to call The Master of the Universe a pig. Now that's some imagination. But the fun might be over in the Old World.



I did get a few things out of religion class. (One of 'em was taught by Sister Miriam Paul. Nuns used to take male names, for reasons I don't want to think about. We just called her Gronk.)

Ironically, Jesus Himself, capital aitch, would not have been so upset about being mocked like this. In Matthew 16, He says,

"And whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age, or in the age to come..."

The Son of Man is Jesus, of course. (Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is attributing the works of God to the Devil, or some say, to man.)


The reason for the EU arrest order is purely political, making a test case of Jesus. But if He was OK with it, what's the problem?

The real worry in Europe is the interpretations of Islam that dictate a death sentence for blaspheming the Prophet Mohammed, ala Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses. The title refers to a legend that Mohammed dictated some (discarded) verses of the Qur'an under the influence of you-know-who. Since Mohammed is seen as working under the influence of the Holy Spirit, well, see above.

Rushdie found himself on the receiving end of a religious decree calling for all good Muslims to do him in. He hid out for years, although these days he shows his face now and then.


The EU is trying to set a precedent, because their Muslim population is skyrocketing. What you can say and what you can't over there looks to be in for a major shakedown.


The United States has dealt with the problem of Jesus, at least: we decided we won't stop anyone from putting Him in pee, but it's probably a good idea that the government not contribute any money to help museums exhibit it.

In Europe, the erstwhile Mecca of Really Great Cursing, freedom of speech has been taken for granted. With its nascent EU and growing Muslim minority, it has just entered a new frontier.

The Faith Card

Re my consideration of the GOP's inability to resonate with Black America, except a bit among the religious-minded, Brother Daly comments:

And that is why the left is SO opposed to the Faith-Based Initiative and why they have revved up the "Separation of Church and State" crowd...

I don't know if they're thinking that far ahead, Jim. The left, which seems to be ideologically the same in both the US and Europe, appears to have a visceral hostility to Jerusalem, figuratively speaking (and literally, if you poke around the CUANAS blog this site links to).

But there definitely could be something there. I did a rough count of the votes of the Congressional Black Caucus on the Schiavo bill. Of those who voted, 12 were against, but 8 voted for it, including Harold Ford, Jr., Jesse Jackson, Jr., and the caucus chairman, Elijah Cummings.

It's too small a sample from which to draw any conclusions, but if Jim's right, the historical strength of Black Christian faith in America is nothing to be trifling with.

Addendum, 3/29: Rev. Jesse Jackson is lobbying Florida's Senate Black Caucus to cross party lines and provide the last few votes for a bill that would likely spare Terri Schiavo permanently. The chances for passage are slim, but the entry of Black faith into the national discussion is welcome, even if it is Jesse Jackson who starts it.

Athens or Jerusalem? Hurry Up Already, Pick One...

At the heart of the dilemma we find ourselves in these days is the conflict between reason and revelation, or as one great thinker put it, Athens and Jerusalem.

Plato believed morality, specifically justice, could be derived by the intellect, and The Republic set out to prove just that. He did a good job.

However, few of us have read Republic, and fewer of us each year read the Bible. Before we throw the baby out with the bathwater, it might be good to consider this passage from George Washington's 1796 Farewell Address:

Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.

A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice?

And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

If we exile Jerusalem from our society, pitch the Ten Commandments into the dumpster, we may be very unpleasantly surprised at what we get. The results of the past fifty years are not promising.

For Her Own Good

It is Tuesday night, and the legal challenges by Terri Schiavo's parents are melting away. It has been four days since she has had any nourishment or water.

My best understanding of things is that they have no real chance of ultimately prevailing, and preserving her life. Even the conservative Catholic Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, who might be thought to be her best advocates, have made it a cornerstone of their judicial philosophies that not everything in our society is a matter for the Supreme Court. From what I know of their rulings on previous cases, that is their opinion here.

Even if her feeding tube were ordered reinserted, it seems to me certain that a court will eventually order it be pulled out again permanently. There is no purpose, no good to be found, in forcing her to repeat these past four days. It's time to pray that she has not suffered, does not suffer, and will not suffer as we wait for the end to come.

And for those who were certain she was incapable of suffering, I pray you were right.

Godspeed, Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo. You go to a far better world than the one you leave.


Addendum, Wednesday Night: My buddy Patterico can take you the rest of the way. He's a brilliant attorney with impeccable credentials. Some people have a lot to answer for.

Compelling

Strange story in the morning paper I hadn't heard much about. Seems there's a "right to die" case down in Florida that's being compared to capital punishment, the war in Iraq, and all sorts of things.

But society asserts it has a compelling interest in continuing to execute (justice, deterrence, what have you). Iraq is a similar case.

What's missing for me in this whole thing is society's compelling interest in having Terri Schiavo die.

The facts about her condition are hard to discern, but she did not appear to be suffering. Even if she has the brain of a goldfish, I don't see the compelling need to pull her from her bowl and throw her to twitch and die on the floor. Where's PETA when you need them?

The law says this is supposed to be for her own good.

As Mr. Bumble observes in Oliver Twist: "If the law suppose that ... the law is a ass..."

Ward Churchill Told the Truth

Lost in all the "little Eichmann" hubbub was his charge that the US (read Clinton Administration)-led sanctions on Saddam caused the deaths of some 500,000 innocent Iraqis.

My favorite lefty, Alexander Cockburn, reported the following exchange:


In 1996, Madeleine Albright was asked the following question on CBS’ “60 Minutes” by Lesley Stahl: “We have heard that half a million children have died (in Iraq). I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And you know, is the price worth it?"

Albright infamously replied, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.”


So for those who require unvarnished honesty from our leaders, instead of talking WMDs, George W. Bush should have told the American people and the world,

"It's true that the "containment" strategy toward Saddam is working. But the United States and Bill Clinton have killed a half million innocent children to do it, as our former Secretary of State has admitted. But I don't think it is worth it. For the sake of decency and justice, I propose we go into Iraq, kill only the guilty, and send a couple thousand of our own good sons and daughters to their deaths to show mankind just how sacred Americans hold decency and justice to be."

There are any number of reasons Bush couldn't say those words. Fortunately, we have a president who understands actions speak louder.

Haloscan is Cool

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Republicans and the Black Vote

Why won't the vast majority of Black people even consider voting Republican today? What can the GOP do about it? By way of preface, I've done a lot of research and a ton of dialogue on this question. Here we go:


Even though the Democratic Party didn't elect its first Black congressman until 1935 (the Republicans' first Black congressman was in 1869), the hugely popular Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the Black vote away, starting in 1932 during the Great Depression, and it can't be surprising to Republicans that he did. With World War II breaking out in 1939-41, circumstances and his leadership in both peace and war made FDR an irresistible force of nature.

Still, most would be surprised that Richard Nixon got a maybe third of the Black vote in 1960.

It was 1964 candidate Barry Goldwater's support of "states' rights" in opposition to the Civil Rights Act that sank the GOP share to a shocking 3%.

The Dixiecrats' bolt to the GOP sealed the deal. The Republican Party was now the home of American racism.

Black folk know what's what---getting them to vote Republican again is not a matter of technique or championing cosmetic issues.

(Although make no mistake---affirmative action is an article of near-religious faith. Payback is owed, if not for slavery, then for Jim Crow. If not for Jim Crow, then for its residue which must be admitted continues to this day. To be against it, regardless of how principled the opposition [states' rights again, anyone?], is to be anti-Black, case closed.)

Frederick Douglass said the best thing whites can do is leave Black folk alone. Bush largely does that, engaging only the churchmen. He upped his share of the Black vote to 11% in 2004, mostly from Black evangelicals.

But the GOP still shows its tin ear when it associates itself with Rev. Jesse Peterson and Armstrong Williams. When Black folk draw up lists of Uncle Toms (and they do), Peterson and Williams are consistently at the top.

Surveys show that the younger the Black voter, the less married he is to the Democratic Party. The sea change won't really happen until those who came of age in the 60s die off.

Strom Thurmond finally kicking the bucket helped. But Trent Lott, with just a few ill-chosen words, perpetuated the Dixiecrat legacy and remains a symbolic liability. And the Armstrong Williams debacle, especially in its sneakiness, was a bigger disaster than white GOPers can conceive.

The Democrats don't really walk the walk; Black people, even Farrakhan, know that Democrat policies have decimated them. But Black folk were happy enough that The First Black President could talk the talk. That's a sign of respect.

Until and unless the GOP learns how to show that respect, and takes the trouble to learn who's who and what's indeed what, best we restrict ourselves to going about our colorblind business, leave Black folk alone and quit with the clumsy and frankly lazy attempts to woo them, and bank on the attrition of the (very loud) 60s crowd and, ultimately, the strength of our ideas.

Why Me?

I don't know.

A recent exchange in another forum:

You know (tvd), being a liberal I'm not naturally an isolationist and I'm not opposed to improving human rights throughout the world, and nation building as a concept.Funny, however, that nation building was not given as a reason for our toppling of Saddam...


"Nation-building," in its accurate sense, is us going in with troops to try and straighten out some dysfunctional and irrelevant country, like Haiti recently, or the former Yugoslavia.We do it every 10 or 20 years in Haiti, with shocking regularity. It never seems to stick.

Now, I had the impression you were actually a pacifist by principle. I respect pacifism deeply, in the Quaker or Buddhist sense, or even in the Jesus sense. Put away your sword, he who lives by it dies by it, turn the other cheek and forgive your brother seven times seven times, etc.

I'm a believer.

So I ask you, leaving out the current issues, how many American lives would it have been worth to stop the murder of nearly a million people in Rwanda in 1994? 5? 500? 5,000? 50,000?

Ready to talk about 2 million dead in Sudan and 3 million in Congo? It is Africa's hate of colonialism and Europe's fear of charges of neo-colonialism that makes the body count rise every day.

To me, it's only the anti-imperialistic Left, the anti-militaristic Left...you...who can cut through the fear and the PC and effect action.

People like me? We can barely make the case that removing a fascist, expansionist dictator who violated his peace treaty, killed 300,000 of his own people, paid rewards to terrorists across the world, and tried to assassinate one of our former presidents should be deposed.

People like me have no credibility.