First, some housekeeping:
Given the Christmas Eve is on Wednesday, this is going to be a shortened week, for the Nightly Ramble. We’ll run the Ramble on Monday and Tuesday, and then perhaps again on Friday…. Friday entirely depends on personal plans that day, and how they time out. Unfortunately the same thing is going to be happening for the next week being new year’s week. Life and its intrusions when I would rather be Blogging.
We haven’t decided on our destination for New Year’s Eve this year, though we will probably end up going up to Niagara Falls as has been our habit the last ten to fifteen years. We’ll see.
Christmas day, though, we’ll be spending at my brother’s place. Dad’s been gone now for a few years, and he’s missed, but Mom will be there, and so will my brother and his wife. Donna, and our kids, of course, and at least one of my brother’s boys, and now their kids… a point which I have trouble getting my mind around. My sister and her husband will be in Florida.. a point I’m sure we’ll all grumble about as we fight with the snow. Those kinds of changes, though, are what happens to all extended families, eventually. But, we’ll carry on. We’ll eat, drink a little, laugh, and revel in each other’s company. It’ll be a fine day. It’s one I’ve been looking forward to. I don’t get out to my brother’s nearly as much as I’d like. Come to think of it, today’s his birthday… I’ll have to see about that. I’ll have to see, also about driving Mom down there, too, Christmas day… particularly if it’s like it is today… and I have no doubt it will be.
Meantime there’s been an awful lot happening over the weekend, and we’d better get to it;
- They call it Snowy Monday….. I’m busy freezing, [1] as I showed you last night. Actually, it’s snowing here again this morning and blowing, too. All that shoveling I did? It’s all filled in again.
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[2]I’ve been having a lot of fun with the Rainier, the last few days. Full-time All Wheel Drive, combined with the automatic locking rear axle, and 300 ft lbs of torque, makes for a combo that can’t be beat in the snow… even by the guys with ‘real’ four wheel drive. Just point it, and go, usually with a cheerful abandon as to where that is, or through what. Example; when I left work Friday night, there was perhaps a foot of snow on the parking lot. The snow crews were up at one end, frntic in their removal efforts. Me, I took off through the foot of snow. Nothin’ to it. I’m sure I’ll hear about that one, eventually. Of course the truck likes to make fun of me, too. Here I sit, freezing my backside off, just having started the truck, and the computer wakes up, looks around, see’s it’s 13 degrees out, and noisily announces “Ice Possible” on the dashboard UI. It’s times like that I wish cars weren’t so smart, anymore. -
Gas is still coming down. Currently, it’s as low as it’s been in over 5 years. [3] I’m thinking we might do a short road trip over the Holiday to get some photography in. Assuming, of course the weather cooperates. And that’s a biggie. This morning, I90 was closed from Rochester to the Pensy Line, and I heard it was closed beyond that, too, not opening up until well beyond Ashtabula, OH. Lake Erie tends to make a mess this time of year… snowfall. Even in summer, that’s a nasty strech of road, the Erie run, when summer storms come off the lake. Been caught in a few winter blasts along that run. It’s OK, but it’s not fun.
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But there are other considerations which may block such excursions. This time of year, and given the calendar, and the number of free days around Christmas, just about anywhere we go, you’re going to run into a ski area, and the people driving to them. (You never get people driving FROM them, for some reason, just TO them.Perhaps they’re using other forms of transport… like Ambulances, for example.) And with all the fresh snow, you’re going to see legions of powderheads skis tied to their roofs, zipping off to their ski areas. One such I can think of is on I81 between Syracuse and Binghampton, NY… a place called Tully. There’s a resort called “Song Mountain” [4] there, that, if you’re southbound on 81, by virtue of there being nothing but small lakes between you and the mountain at that point, you can see off to your right, once you pass the Tully exit. The kids tend to be fascinated as they watch the skiers sliding down the mountain like so many dark colored grains of sand against the white background, while the lifts, which you can also, see, drag them back up again. All that of course assumes you actually can get PAST the Tully exit. The traffic tends to back up onto 81, when the powder’s good. When, I hear, the skiing is very good indeed. I’d hardly know a good bit of skiing from a bad one, myself, never having been. But it’s true that just about every major highway leading to and from our house has a ski area on it, and the usual traffic problems. It’s true; All the problems I’ve talked about regarding the traffic around shopping malls on black Friday [5], can easily be transferred to the road surrounding ski areas, during Christmas week. So where and if we go anywhere, that’s a consideration.
- Jules Crittenden:
Exhibit A, Andrew Sullivan re Dick Cheney on presidential war powers [6]:
One thing you have to concede to Dick Cheney. He says what he thinks. And so we get this:
WALLACE: This is at the core of the controversies that I want to get to with you in a moment. If the president during war decides to do something to protect the country, is it legal?
CHENEY: General proposition, I’d say yes. You need to be more specific than that. I mean — but clearly, when you take the oath of office on January 20th of 2001, as we did, you take the oath to support and defend and protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
The irony seems lost on him. How can the suspension of all laws into the power of the executive branch in wartime be seen as a defense or protection of the Constitution? Perhaps for a brief amount of time in a dire emergency, after which there would be a thorough accounting to the Congress and the Courts. But indefinitely? As inherent in the office? And with jurisdiction over the entire United States as well as the world? With “enemy combatants” defined as anyone the president calls an “enemy combatant” and no distinction between citizen and non-citizen? Including the right to torture? Indefinitely?
Breathless histrionics his. Whatever alternative United States Sullivan has dwelt in for the last seven years, sounds like it’s been a living heck. All laws suspended indefinitely. Enemy combatant labels slapped on everyone, everyone tortured … indefinitely.
In the United States I’ve been living in, the president very politely sought and received authorization from Congress to run this nation’s wars; asked for and received billions of dollars in multiple appropriations from Congress to finance this nation’s wars; consulted Congress on interrogation techniques and had Democrats urging him not to pussyfoot around; and when the going go tough and popular opinion wavered, stood alone as a strong executive, pushing forward to fight and win while the legislative branch dithered, wrung its hands, and did what legislative branches and weak executives do, which is cater to popular whims, ineffectively. …
Look, Jules, at what point has Sullivan ever written anything that wasn’t at the least, borderine histrionics? That’s exactly why he’s earned the moniker “St Andrew, the Incontinent” around here. And by the way, you’ve also given us as good a reading as I’ve seen yet on why I ceased to consider him a libertarian, or a conservative or much of anything else he claims. He gives us so much in the way of falsehood in his positional claims, I sometimes wonder if he is, as he claims, a homosexual. There’s a part of me that wouldn’t be too shocked if that turned out to be BS, too, with he and Eliot Spitzer chasing High priced call girls around New York City.
- Is there anyone on the planet who does not understand the implications of this [7] are far more than just a high school prank? If we’re going to be basing guilt or innocence on a photograph only, and a low grade photograph at that, what does this say about our criminal justice system as a whole?
- I’ll have to show this [8] to the other half. Oh, I know… I’m sure I’ll get hit for my trouble but.. . (Shrug)
- Anyone who considers the Joe Biden [9] ever had a brain in his head, had better reconsider. [10] And yes, that includes you, Billy. [11] I understand your comment and to a large degree I am in sympathy with it. I just don’t think this guy’s got the smarts to pull off half of what he’s talking about. And that’s assuming that he even knows what he’s talking about… always a question mark. Granted, that’s also dangerous, but it’s a different kind of danger, and perhaps more controllable, thereby.
- I want you to do me a favor, and look at the mugshots in this link [12]. Look very closely at the clothing.
- We now see the Democrats trying to lower expectations [13], after having promised us a magic pony in every garage by next Tuesday. Seems what we’re going to got for having given them power, is a cockroach in every garage. And we’re expected to drive the thing, instead of our cars, and particularly our SUV’s.
- It is still amazing to me…. though I guess it shouldn’t be any more… how much effort the press, even the international press, goes to, to intentionally mislabel behavioral problems attached to Islam in the civilized world. As in this case [14] for example.
- Glenn gets this one [15] right:
WRONG QUESTION: Leonard Downie asks Could we uncover Watergate today? [16] The real question, given the way the press covered for John Edwards, Barack Obama, et al. is whether the press would cover a Watergate if it happened under a Democratic administration…
(Nod) Just so. And by the way, the answer is ‘No’. For his part, Downie remains very close to his historical perspective. Understandable, and even laudable. But consider the case of Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. We know, for example, that his arrest and indictment was hurried into because of press leaks. Unlike the Watergate situation, this was not a case where the truth was being said on in order to keep it permanently out of the public eye. Rather it was part of an ongoing investigation. The case against the governor would have been far more prosecutable had the story been held for 48 hours, let’s say. Personally, I can’t help but wonder if that wasn’t the intent of running the story when they did.
- While I have Glenn open on my desktop, here, let’s look at another of his links [17]that catches my eye, mostly because it’s on a topic I’ve addressed here many times:
NICK KRISTOF: Bleeding-heart tightwads. [18] “This holiday season is a time to examine who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, but I’m unhappy with my findings. The problem is this: We liberals are personally stingy. Liberals show tremendous compassion in pushing for generous government spending to help the neediest people at home and abroad. Yet when it comes to individual contributions to charitable causes, liberals are cheapskates.” When you’re spending other people’s money, it’s not compassion — it’s compulsion.
Well, exactly so. That’s something which almost to the word, I reflected on back in 92, first, and several times since. (I’m at work so don’t have the oldest references to hand, but I do have [19]some of the newer ones [20]) I made the point by way of pointing out that when taxes went up, charity giving goes down, rather dramatically. And usually when Taxes go up, guess which party is in power? There’s this, too, and this one wasn’t even written here, but at Q&O: [21]
Let’s try breaking this down a little differently. Since Obama choses to place this argument within the realm of Christian theology, let’s deconstruct it there.
Look; what he says here, on the surface, is quite correct. We are in fact under a scripturally ordained responsibility to reach out and help others. No question.
[22] [23]Where he falls short of the mark, is where he conflates individual acts of charity, with government involvement. Note again where I say we are under a scripturally ordained responsibility… we as individuals….not the government. Not even as one church or another. As individuals. I eman, at what point did Christ say ‘governments are the source of charity”? No. Rather, Christ himself said:
” Give unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar’s and give unto God, that which is God’s.”
If you break this line of Christ’s down, you see there’s a rather thick line, drawn between charity and government. Confiscation which is what taxes are, is not charity, and it is certainly not the act of an individual. Charity is the realm of God, and the individual….not of government…. And given Obama’s brother’s situation, we see what happens when such is left to government. We see the work of Obama’s ideal.
He’s clearly of the idea that charity involves giving away somebody else’s money, however you have obtained it… and there’s the crux of the issue; he has bent the religion to his own world view, which I view as being on a level plane with Islamo-Facists… who have done precisely the same thing. Jerry Wright, call your office.
Perhaps now we have a clearer understanding of why Obama’s attachment to Wright and his preaching of liberation theology is of such great import to Americans.
OK, it’s a little out of context, but I think the central point is still driven home. The idea about chairty is you, yourself getting involved, not just throwing money… and someone else’s money at that, at the problem, and hoping it’ll all just go away. Something to consider, this Christmas. And consider that the context of the Q&O quote is a story where Obama’s brther lives in a shack, on around $65/year.
- Of COURSE you’d expect the morally vacuous New York Times to tell us the credit crunch is all Bush’s fault. I mean forget about Fanny and Freddie. Those can’t be the problem… after all Democrats ran those.
- Speaking of that, here’s a link [24]to a video over Reason TV. The speaker is one Peter Wallison. Please listen closely, and notice how closely the parallels what we’ve been saying in these spaces for the last six months at least.
- I think Bush has this one right, [25] though. The judgment of his performance, in the end will not even resemble what the Times has to say on the subject. And as often as we’ve been spanking GWB around here, that ought to give you a clue.
- I do have to give Bush credit, here, however. Compare Barack Obama canceling his vist to Walter Reed because he couldn’t bring the press with him to this story [26].
- Me at Q&O this afternoon [27], responding to our conversation on BTR [28]last night:
Dale;Your response was exactly what I was anticipating, when I dropped my rather cryptic comment.Certainly, the goal here… the one overarching idea, as you call it… is not simply money, but rather it is the increase of governmental control, of which money is merely a part, albeit a major part.
The stated goals, as well as the concept of governmental omnipotence, are shown to be lies at every turn. Global cooling becomes global warming becmes (whoops) climate change. Banks are bailed out because they…. oops Car companies are bailed out becase they… oops homeowners are bailed out because they are the locus of the central problem in the financial world.
It doesn’t take a great deal to figure out based on the pattern before us, that these guys are just vamping, rather like what we see of the Wizard of Oz, after Toto pulls the curtain back.
The real goal, obviously, is to maintain the illusion of governmental omnipotence, which is of course helpful in the maintainance and indeed the expansion, of governmental control… and that we mere mortals pay no attention to that man behind the curtain over there, lest we with Reagan say “Government isn’t the solution, government is the problem.”
The hope I have at this point is that the trust level for governmental solutions will decrease as a result of the Democrat party’s screwups… mostly their own over- relience on government, but their corruption, as well… Of course one has to rely on Providence that we’ll survive long enough to see them ushered out of office, too.
That day coming, however, requries we continually beat the drum over these failures, as they appear. We know damned well the Dinosaurs aren’t going to be saying anything about them.
- Did anybody notice the AP report [29] on the former Ohio attorney general Mark Dann? Seems the attorney general had been using his campaign account to cover home repairs and family vacations and the like. Gee, another Democrat doing that? I had no idea. I notice that the Associated Press mentions nothing about the idea that the guy is of the Democrat Party. As many times as this is been pointed out, and by as many people, we still end up taking the Associated Press to task for these omissions. They never seem to have any problem mentioning party affiliation when the criminal is of the Republican party, Governor Ryan for example. After all this time and all this being taken to the woodshed over the years, I can only assume that there is something intentional going on here on the part of the Associated Press.
- OK, I’m going to get a little “Inside Baseball” with you here. It’s Small World time: Scott Fybsuh [30]mentions this week that the former owner of WJTO in Bath, Maine, is picking up a new station, WNBP (1450 Newburyport). Interesting to me, because the current owner of WJTO is someone with whom I worked with at WVOR (100.5 Rchester), back in the day, Bob Bittner. Also interesting to me given Scott starts this week’s report with a laundry list of “Public” stations (Read that ‘taxpayer funded’) that are closing in the Pinetree State. The group buying WNBP, as Scott notes, meanwhile, has a long history of ‘Community voice” stations, as does the station he’s buying up,.. this would seem to prove that the government stations there… and the expense to taxpayers… really are not needed.
