Achmed The Dead Terrorist

When I watched this last night with the young Squire I thought someone, someday, will write a book about post 9/11 comedy and this sketch will have it's own chapter. I have not laughed this hard in a long time.

Quote Of The Day

"My brother lived on various addresses on Benefit Street while going to RISD in the late sixties. It was ill-advised to help a college student move back then. All they owned was books and vinyl records, and they kept them all on shelves made from concrete blocks and planks. And they never lived on the first floor."
- Sippican Cottage

I Am Sure Of The Road

Gerard Van der Leun offers his comment about the "performance art" coming out of Yale:

"As it did for the outlaws and junkies of my old green house, the road that leads forever down has nothing but pleasures along the way, and there are never any real social consequences for taking it. We don't do "consequences" in this country any more. Instead we reward those that discover, as Shvarts has, new and ever more deeply depraved depths.

And don't think this little episode of glorifying multiple spontaneous abortions is the end. I often think "Surely, we've reached the bottom." And just as often I am reminded, as I am by the depraved Ms. Shvarts, that there really is no bottom; that an ever increasingly part of our "culture" (What a laugh!) has fallen more than half in love with easeful death, and will have it.

This is the triumph of the lie -- the lie of the mind to the soul that we so deeply prefer above all other lies.

People have actually come to believe that labeling something "art" gives it a Get-Out-Of-Condemnation-Free card; that there really is some sort of immutable and unwritten social rule that if I say something is "art," then everyone who says what I am about is depraved, sick, and evil must simply back off. It matters little that time will consign the 'art' of Shvarts to the sewer of works that vanish. What matters is that in her little time here she has already managed to degrade the souls of others just a little more, just a little deeper."

Fade Away Already

Don't you wish that Jimmy Carter would just fade away? It seems Congresswoman Sue Myrick wants to help him do just that:

"Today, Rep. Sue Myrick (NC-9) called on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to revoke former President Jimmy Carter’s passport. This is in response to the former President traveling to Syria to meet with Hamas, an organization officially designated by the United States as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

“Former President Carter has acted in contradiction of international agreements to isolate Hamas. He has acted in defiance of both United States policy and international policy. His actions reward terrorists, lend support, and provide legitimacy to their belief that violence will eventually get them what they want,” said Rep. Myrick.

After Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections the Quartet (US, UN, EU and Russia) called on Hamas to renounce terror, recognize Israel and recognize the previous agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel as they seek an agreement to make peace. Hamas has categorically rejected these three conditions for more than two years."

It's Still Warm By The Stove

They come, one after another. I wish they'd leave me be. It's still warm by the stove.

I got tinder and wood 'til I'm gone and forgotten. The food still comes from the ground if you make it. Still they come and cluck their tongues and try to take me from my squalor.

Squalor. I always loved that word. The pastor would boom it from the pulpit, and the newspaper would have it from time to time, back when they could still write, talking about some woman and her cats. People don't understand thirty cats and one dish any more because they aren't on a farm with a pile of something worth eating they'd like to find still there in February.

I live in squalor so what. But they come dressed like streetwalkers or wandervogel or something and want to save me from it. Save me from myself. How can anybody do that, anyway?

They don't know about the shades that tread the house with me. Gone to their reward. I could not go away from them until they invite me to join them. And I will not let you scrub their residue from my walls.

I pray over their stones, including the granite stubs at our feet where we dared not write the names for fear of breaking our hearts over and over. But they have names in my heart, oh yes, they always did. I've whispered them in my own ear every day.

They come in their fancy cars, skinny with mindless exertions and not work, expiating their guilt on my doorstep. But you see, my life is like a coat that's gone shabby and threadbare and I don't care. Many garments are not for show on a farm.

So my life is lived in squalor, and this must not be, you demand. But I take one look at you and know that you never spent one moment in squalor, but your life is squalid. You're a gilt-edge leather-bound thirty-dollar Bible with all the pages written by Beelzebub. Not the same, is it? People didn't use to try to save you. They'd extend their hand and call you friend. I can't find it even in church anymore.

Leave me be, by my little fire, to be warmed by the life I lived. I'll not join you on your icebergs.

Written by Sippican Cottage.

Beautiful

This PostSecret reminds me of M'Lady when she was pregnant with our young miss and the young squire. She was the most beautiful pregnant woman I have ever known.

And she's still beautiful.

Blogs Of Interest

I have been reading some new (to me) blogs lately, many of which I have been re-posting here, so I thought I would pass them along with a few comments:

Post Secret - This blog isn't news to many as it is certainly a web phenom. I enjoy some of the "secrets" more than others though I seldom miss it on Sunday mornings.

American Digest - I find in Gerard Van der Leun's writing, political stance and sense of humor a kindred spirit. I read American Digest daily.

Wired - The Rolling Stone of the on-line world.

TED - I love the concept behind TED; put cutting edge thinkers, techies and entertainers all in one bag, shake, and see what happens.

Shoplift Windchimes - The poet Rives on-line home (whom I found at TED). He has so much fun with words and concepts. I have never been interested in poetry or spoken word but this could lead me somewhere new.

Sippican Cottage - Sippican Cottage just needs to be experienced. Extra dry wit and furniture indeed.

Bitten - I was told about New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman's blog by our young miss who kept encouraging me to read it. Bittman always has interesting recipes as well as links to other food related sites on the web. The original home of the no knead bread recipe.

Uniting The Divide And The Making Of Kings

TigerHawk dissects the Democrats:

"Today, while on a run through Princeton, I noticed that somebody had tacked up signs on telephone poles at key intersections: "Unite the Divide: Draft Gore." My main thought was to wonder if this were the natural denouement of identity politics.

The Democrats have spent the last forty years building a coalition around the idea that group identity not only does matter, but that it ought to matter. This year it would appear that Democratic identity politics has reached its apotheosis, insofar as the two standing candidates of the party are a black man and a woman. The result? In a liberal college town in one of the two or three most Democratic states in the country, the activists want a fat, wealthy, white man to "unite the divide.

"There is another version of this story, in which the old white men choose, rather than putting the matter to a vote. That seems to be the next grand plan to rescue the donks:

DEMOCRAT grandees Jimmy Carter and Al Gore are being lined-up to deliver the coup de grâce to Hillary Clinton and end her campaign to become president....Former president Carter and former vice-president Gore have already held high-level discussions about delivering the message that she must stand down for the good of the Democrats."They're in discussions," a source close to Carter told Scotland on Sunday. "Carter has been talking to Gore. They will act, possibly together, or in sequence."An appeal by both men for Democrats to unite behind Clinton's rival, Barack Obama, would have a powerful effect, and insiders say it is a question of when, rather than if, they act.

So let me get this straight. Jimmy Carter, who would not dream of telling murdering thugs such as Yassir Arafat or Khaled Meshal to "stand down," is going to furrow his brow and in his Nobellish wisdom advise Hillary Rodham Clinton that she needs to back off? And he is going to be backed up in this by Al Gore, who tried to litigate his way into the presidency rather than "stand down"?

What a sad joke of an arrogant idea this is."

Perfect Harmony

With profuse apologies to Nat King Cole:

Unelectable

Obama: Unelectable, that’s what you are
Unelectable though near or far
Though the rants of Wright may hinder me
Her transparent lies screw Hillary
Never before has someone been more

Hillary: Unelectable in every way
That’s why I am here, that’s why I stay
That’s why, Barry, it’s delectable
That someone so unelectable
Thinks that I am unelectable, too

Obama: Unelectable in every way!

Hillary: That’s why I’m still here, the crap you say!

Both: S/he thinks her/his shit’s undetectable–
How can one so unelectable
Think that I am unelectable, too?

CWCID: Protein Wisdom

It's What Separates Us From Them

Voted the number one comedy sketch of all time:



"The premise: a man (John Cleese) attempts to return his brand-new parrot to the pet shop, having realized that the bird is quite obviously dead. The pet-shop owner (Michael Palin) refuses to believe that the parrot is dead, and therefore refuses to let him return it. That's it. While many high-concept sketches have won a deserving place on this list, the Dead Parrot Sketch is something rarer: a simple concept executed with pure comedic brilliance. Cleese and Palin are perfect foils, and much of the joke stems from the rational man growing increasingly hysterical, while the irrational one remains perfectly calm, offering one ridiculous explanation after another ("You stunned him, just as he was wakin' up! Norwegian Blues stun easily.") Just as each new generation keeps discovering the Beatles, hundreds of thirteen-year-olds are right now watching this sketch on YouTube for the first time, and incorporating the phrase "pining for the fjords" into their vocabularies. Unlike that unfortunate parrot, this is one joke that will never die."

The Zen Of Politics

This is the best protest sign against the Beijing Olympics I have seen so far. I find it highly amusing that communists do not possess a sense of humor nor do they take criticism/ridicule very well. The zen of politics - the more you try to hold onto something the more elusive it becomes. Do you think the Chinese feel the Olympics beginning to slip away yet?

Mockingbird

Liberal(s) Of The Month

It's that time again already and my liberal brethren never disappoint. From Seattle Washington's 43rd district:

"At the mere mention of doing the pledge there were groans and boos. Then, when the district chair put the idea of doing the Pledge of Allegiance up to a vote, it was overwhelmingly voted down. One might more accurately say the idea of pledging allegiance to the flag (of which there was only one in the room, by the way, on some delegate’s hat) was shouted down.

There were to be 67 delegates to the state convention apportioned at this legislative district caucus: 14 for Clinton and 53 for Obama."

Priceless

You just gotta love Chris Muir.

The World's First Web Server

For those of us who spend a great deal of time on-line, this article about the first web server is a must read. Just think - the invention of HTML was only 18 years ago. And how it has changed our lives....

Let's Talk About Politics

I am not a John McCain fan, as has been noted here on more than one occasion. However, this ad has an almost Thompson-esque feel to it. The narrator makes an assumption that he is addressing adults, with adult sensibilities and reasoning capabilities. He also assumes, perhaps in error, that those he is addressing understand their country's own unique history.

This ad might just be aimed at those Democrats who feel their party has left them; an offer of sorts, to join the Republicans under their "big tent". Who knew the Republicans would end up "bringing everyone together"?

Pink Slip Nation

From Powerline:

"That's how the Minneapolis Star Tribune headlined its story on last month's decline in payroll jobs in its print edition:

It's no longer a question of recession or not. Now it's how deep and how long. Workers' pink slips stacked ever higher in March as jittery employers slashed 80,000 jobs, the most in five years, and the national unemployment rate climbed to 5.1 percent. ***

The grim picture described by the Labor Department on Friday provided stark evidence of just how much the jobs market has buckled under the weight of the housing, credit and financial crises.

I'm sorry to see unemployment climb to 5.1%, but by historic standards, that's not exactly a "grim picture." For example, nothing like the unemployment rates that, along with runaway inflation, propelled Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980. But I wondered about a more recent comparison. Do you remember 1996, when Bill Clinton swept to an easy re-election victory over Bob Dole, on the basis of what pretty much everyone in the press considered a near-perfect economy? No "pink slip nation" in 1996!

Actually, though, the unemployment rate in November 1996, when Clinton rode a soaring economy to victory, was 5.4%. That's right--three tenths of a percent higher than the "grim picture" of a "pink slip nation" painted by this month's unemployment report.
To be fair, the unemployment rate in November 1996, while higher than the current rate, was essentially flat, while March's 5.1% unemployment represented an increase over the extraordinarily low rates that have characterized George Bush's presidency. Still, it makes you wonder: is the current hysterical treatment of economic news the product of a rational evaluation of the data, or is it just one more sign of the media's desire to put a Democrat in the White House in 2009?"

CWCID: Instapundit.

Quote Of The Day

"What's another word for Thesaurus?"
- Steven Wright

Signs Of Spring

We were busy over the weekend planting our newly arrived fruit trees; two cherries, two peach, two pear, two walnut and one lone apricot. We bought peat, soil and manure from a local garden center and actually had to bring it inside for it to thaw. See me in six years and I'll let you know how it all turned out.

M'Lady is in the process of planting our last seedlings which will be put into the garden next month. Tomatoes, eggplant and many different kinds of peppers are already beginning to sprout.

The young squire and I built seven A frames which we will use in the garden for climbing plants such as cucumbers, melons, peas and beans.

And due to a recent warm spell (it almost got to 60 degrees yesterday) the spring peepers have made their annual appearance. We slept with the windows open last night so we could be serenaded by them.

Soon we'll begin to till the garden and the grass will start to grow. Then the work will really begin in earnest.

Mother Would Be So Proud

I have noticed that many of my more liberal brethren are much freer with written profanity than I am. I was taught that extensive use of four letter words indicated a certain lack of vocabulary. And while I will admit to using profanity more freely in my speech than I should - I am proud that, at least in my writing it in virtually non-existent.

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