Over at Protein Wisdom, Darleen Click takes apart Al Gore’s op-ed in the Fish Wrap of Record, the New York Times, in which Gore inadvertently tells the truth, and pulls aside the progressive curtain. It’s a must read.
Click highlights this immortal line as a pull quote:
From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption.
[Correct Darleen's name; see comments.]
A year ago, my native home town of Atlanta decided that people with CCW’s were ok to ride mass transit carrying their weapons.
And just like every other time the law abiding are allowed to exercise their rights, nothing happened.
It’s almost like the anti-gun forces are lying to us.
Yeah, so maybe I’ll just put a link redirecting my visitors here to Mike over at Cold Fury until I can find the time to actually do some writing, because, I mean, damn:
Oh for Christ’s sweet sake — and no, that is most assuredly not a reference to our egomaniacal-shitheel Current Squatter:
Few would have foreseen … that a united Germany would be led by a woman from Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it,” Obama said.
A history lesson for the Narcissist In Chief: Mr Obama, The Berlin Wall was brought down by better men than you could ever dream of being. Ronald Reagan was a LEADER, and a great one; you aren’t even fit to stand in the shadow of the truck that carried his jockstrap to the laundry. Ronald Reagan played a very large part in the liberation of millions; everything you do will only serve to enslave and impoverish a formerly free and prosperous people. Reagan’s “Mr Gorbachev, open this gate…Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” will ring like a bell — or a call to arms — in the ears of liberty-loving men and women down through the ages. Your vapid, droning “uhh…umm..ahh…let me be absolutely clear…uhhh…umm…there are those who would have us…uhh..duhhh…drooooolllll…ME! ME! ME!” will be forgotten before you leave the national stage, which glorious day cannot come soon enough.
You refused to go to the wall because you don’t identify in the least with the courage, integrity, and dedication to freedom that liberated those millions from the tyrannical system you espouse, and you don’t consider it a victory, but a defeat. Because for you and your despicable ilk, that’s exactly what it was. You’re far more interested in building more of those walls, right here in America That Was, than you’ll ever be in tearing any of them down. The walls you’re building may not be of brick and mortar; they’re built instead of strangling overregulation, government encroachment, stifling of all dissenting opinion, and the thousand different slimy tentacles of a federal behemoth that has far outgrown its original mandate, its legitimacy, and its claim to the loyalty of its subjects. But they serve the same purpose. The so-called “soft” tyranny you’re perpetrating is still tyranny.
You are a disgrace, a loathsome toad. You are without honor, and without shame. You couldn’t even consider going to a commemoration of a truly historic event that promised you no spurious awards, or ill-gotten gelt for your Chicago cronies.
…
You are a sorry excuse for a President, a sorry excuse for an American, and a sorry excuse for a man. History will remember you neither kindly nor fondly. And it gives me no small satisfaction to know that of all the insults that could legitimately be hurled at you, that’s the only one that would ever really matter to you.
I just randomly deleted chunks so as not to quote the whole delicious thing.
Damn. Just damn.
And in case you think Mike’s being just a tad harsh, a tad overblown, this from Firehand, the other guy I want writing my blog for me:
But as he heads to Japan,Obama he promised a reporter that he will visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki sometime in his presidency.
Hey, visiting the ceremony of the falling of the Berlin Wall would have been uncomfortable for him; he probably wishes the Soviet Union was still operating and crushing freedom. Whereas if he goes to these cities he can make some references to how mean and nasty the US was to Japan, which would fit right in as a continuation of his Apology Tour.
Obama’s shame for the country he pretends lead has nothing on the shame and disgust many of us feel for him.
I’ve just started going through the archives of A Girl and Her Fed, which is well drawn and looks interesting. It may even deal reasonably with the liberal tendencies of the protagonist, an intern reporter. (Who is told by her editor, “I love journalism schools. They produce the best fiction writers on Earth.”)
I despair, as I often do when discussing SF stories or comics, of explaining the setup for this. The shoulder angel is Ben Franklin, and he’s not exactly a hallucination. He probably has something to do with this. [Update: No. Ben's really a ghost. Probably.]
Anyway, “Ben” delivers the QotD runner-up:
When your choices are “Live Free or Die”, or “No, thanks, it cuts into my free time,” it’s not worth discussing.
[update]
I do not have time for this right now. But I will make time for it, believe me.
Otter [a.k.a. K.B. Spangler] I salute you. A comic strip about Civil Rights. I’m looking forward to seeing how you handle the RKBA, but you’re doing a fine job so far.
Hm. May be an Obama fan. Can’t tell yet. But damn, no one’s perfect, and so far this is damn good.
[update: This is good, really really good. Otter sees everything through liberalizing goggles, so George Bush is more evil than, say, Obama, but the underlying principles seem to be there.
[And, seriously? I don't really care. It's a rollicking good story, it's not a tease, and I want to post quotes from about every third strip. Best find in a long, long time. most excellent fun.]
Dr. Pat Santy threatens to quit:
Let me be clear. I don’t believe that people have a “right” to health care; because, what advocating such a “right” basically means is that you believe you have a “right” to my mind; you have a “right” to my professional competence; i.e., you have a “right” to enslave me.
[Emphasis in original.] Yeah, read the whole thing. It’s short.
Unlike this, which is where I got the above quote and which is what I really wanted to point at. Kevin Baker over at the Smallest Minority does an Überpost on what is and is not a right, centering on health care. Absolutely wade in and keep going. Chock full of nutritious linkiness.
Including this from Marko the Munchkin Wrangler:
A human right only requires that people leave you alone to exercise it, not that they work for you, whether you give them money for their work or not. Freedom of speech is a human right. Freedom of association is a human right. Free exercise of religion is a human right. Free band-aids and vaccinations aren’t.
Aside from health care, Kevin also mentions:
Police protection isn’t a right. The courts say so. Fire protection isn’t a right. Education isn’t a right either, but I will agree that the majority certainly believes that it is.
“The courts say so.” Exactly. If police protection were a right, the police would be liable every time a crime was committed, and as every Jurisdiction in the land has declared, from the podunkiest little whistlestop to the Supremes they-own-black-robed selves, the cops are never around when you need one, because they can’t be. You do, however, have the right to arm your self, for self-protection. Although, oddly, the courts are only just now beginning to examine what is so plainly and clearly stated in the U.S. Constitution, as well as most state constitutions. Many jurisdictions have simultaneously declared that the police have no obligation to protect you, but you are forbidden to protect yourself and must rely on the police. Huh. How about that. Kinda makes you wonder what side they’re on, doesn’t it?
Representative Joe Wilson (R, SC), of course, calling out Pres. Hussein (D, USSA) during the Obamacare speech.
He’s apologized, of course, being a decent, polite guy, but he apologized for disturbing the decorum of the Congress, not Speaking Truth to Power.
Unlike, you know, these guys.
[Links to RealClearPolitics video of Democrats booing The Bushitler's 2008 State of the Union Address. The Current Occupant is alleged to be among the boors, I mean, boo-ers. ]
Via Grouchy Old Cripple. Wonder how fast his health care package would get served up if the Big O has his way?
[And in case you're wondering, I refer to him as "President Hussein" because, gosh, it is his perfectly legitimate middle name, but it seems to make him (and his supporters) squirm, as if he (and they) are ashamed of his heritage or something. Don't care myself, but whatever discomfits my enemies, I'll do.]
Today is the 64th anniversary of the Atomic Age, which opened at 05:29 a.m. “Mountain War Time” 16 July 1945 over the sands of Trinity, New Mexico.
Today we pause and remember the day we became as gods.
So far, we’ve managed not to kill ourselves.
The headline is my favorite quote from Lansing Lamont’s Trinity, a good, quick read on the Manhattan Project. It’s from chapter 9: “July 16, 1945: Zero Minus One Hour”.
At 5 seconds the cameras began churning…. Julian Mack perched in his machine gun turret [converted to a camera turret]…Suddenly he smelled smoke. The power generator in his turret had overheated and caught fire. The turret was ablaze. An assistant shouted that he was turning off the power. “No, no!” Mack screamed. “The cameras are still running! Let it burn!”
In the control center [announcer] Sam Allison was seized by a sudden fear that the explosion would create a lightning effect and pump electrocuting volts into the microphone he gripped. At minus one second, he dropped the microphone and screamed as loud as h e could: “Zero!” In that instant, a final surge of high voltage engulfed the firing unit, and the signals from McKibben and Titterton charged across the desert to galvanize the detonators on the bomb.
Fermi and the others heard Allison’s last scream. Then silence for what seemed an enternity. And in that millisecond, only the toads spoke at Trinity.
Bad Behavior has blocked 431 access attempts in the last 7 days.