I win!

No posts over at Mr. Pterry since I left!

Of course, the same can be said of here. Hey, Grandpa Steve, did you hear us yell HI when we drove through?

Gone Fishin'

Okay, not really. Gone to deepest darkest Tennessee for a week, so my intense pace of posting to Grandpa John is going to slow down a little bit.

For the next week, I'm putting the over/under on posts over at Mr. Pterodactyl at 2, and I'm taking the under.

Taranto

Randy Cohen, who writes the "Ethicist" column for the New York Times and gave $585 to MoveOn.org:

Cohen said he thought of MoveOn.org as nonpartisan and thought the donation would be allowed even under the strict rule at the Times.

"We admire those colleagues who participate in their communities--help out at the local school, work with Little League, donate to charity," Cohen said in an e-mail. "But no such activity is or can be non-ideological. Few papers would object to a journalist donating to the Boy Scouts or joining the Catholic Church. But the former has an official policy of discriminating against gay children; the latter has views on reproductive rights far more restrictive than those of most Americans. Should reporters be forbidden to support those groups? I'd say not..."

There is no problem with Cohen giving to MoveOn...

Donation to MoveOn.org; $585. Donation to the Boy Scouts; Scorn and snicker. Comparing MoveOn.org with the Boy Scouts as equivalent organizations; priceless.

Dilbert the Green

Scott Adams' cartoon could be adapted to any number of Liberal causes indicating the depth of their rhetorical argumentation; Do you admit that you hate children, education, senior citizens, the poor, homosexuals, women, foreigners, et al.?

Pox-Raddled Hogarthian Whores & Greedy Little Pimps

Andrew Struttaford on The Corner of NRO excerpts from a London Times story:

[...] Because let’s face it, this Government is doing its best to make our lives about as miserable as any pox-raddled Hogarthian whore’s. Utter the word “middle class” in Whitehall and watch their greedy little pimps’ eyes light up with pound signs. Behold the British middle-classes – a docile, law-abiding army of tax slaves. Hurrah, let’s blow it all on some more social workers in Newcastle.

Isn't Whitehall University where Democrats and RINO's go for 'Theories of Governance' seminars?

(H.T. Pat Santy.)

An Atheist Triangulates

Karl Reitz, an atheist, writes about religions in an article titled, Hitchens Is Not Great: An Atheist's Defense of Religion, in TCSDaily. Excerpts:

The obvious examples of secularized religions are communism, socialism, and fascism, each of which generally involves worshipping government by slightly different rituals or for slightly different reasons. As these convictions faded, faith in the welfare state, and especially environmental protection, has risen to take their place for reasons government should be worshipped. Environmentalist devotees claim that we will experience the (apocalypse) disasters, for which some people are rebuilding Noah's Ark. These disasters can be prevented if we take the advice of (prophets) people who understand, like Al Gore. Of course, if we (sin) pollute a little too much, well, we can always buy (indulgences) carbon offsets. [Words in parentheses crossed out in original] [...]

Even if the secular authors' ire is well-justified, we are never going to live in a world in which the vast majority of people don't have faith in something, whether that something is God or Government. As an atheist I feel much less threatened by someone who is willing to put off perfection by relegating it to another place than I do by someone who thinks they can create it here and now. In other words, I think that the chance that a religion will "poison everything" is indirectly proportional to the length of time the proponents of the religion think it will take to perfect this world. Therefore, nothing scares me more than the demagogue who promises to immediately do just that. Without traditional religion, I think we would have a lot of demagogues in this mold.

While I can appreciate Karl's viewpoint, I can also be somewhat annoyed that he thinks that his sect of atheism is not religious. He assumes, as many atheists do, that "...we atheists take pride in only thinking realistically." This statement is as fraught with faith as other beliefs. Nonetheless, we do agree on the religious nature of and inherent danger in Al Gore's Church of Gaia.

Capitalist v. Socialist

An excerpt from Arnold Kling's article, The Great Tug-of-War, posted in TCSDaily:

Robin Hanson is pessimistic that differences such as those that exist between P's and A's (Pro-capitalist, Anti-capitalist) will be resolved through reasoned argument. People have their identities wrapped up in their particular sides of the tug-of-war. See my essay on trust cues.

Jerry Muller reminds us that over one hundred years ago, Vilfredo Pareto was equally pessimistic. In his chapter on Joseph Schumpeter, Muller writes,

Pareto's 1901 essay "The Rise and Fall of Elites," conveys two themes to which Schumpeter would return time and time again: the inevitability of elites, and the importance of nonrational and nonlogical drives in explaining social action. Pareto suggested that the victory of socialism was "most probable and almost inevitable." Yet, he predicted...the reality of elites would not change. It was almost impossible to convince socialists of the fallacy of their doctrine, Pareto asserted, since they were enthusiasts of a substitute religion. In such circumstances, arguments are invented to justify actions that were arrived at before the facts were examined, motivated by nonrational drives.

Capitalists are at a great disadvantage from the start. They must always pull uphill, while the socialists always suck downhill.

There Will Be Peace in Our Time

Senator Edwards is outlining a new national security strategy that includes the creation of a 10,000-person civilian peace corps to stem the tide of terrorism in weak and unstable countries.

Mr. Edwards's plan, which he presented in Manhattan yesterday, comes less than a week after he called President Bush's war on terror a "bumper sticker slogan" and said the current national security strategy has not made America safer.1

President Edwards' vision is the creation of a 10,000-civilian "Marshall Corpse" that will teach developing countries endangered by terrorist takeover to sing peace songs, hold hands, and get along well with others.

Kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya
Kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya
Kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya
Oh Lord, kumbaya
- Robert DeCormier, Peter Yarrow, Noel Paul Stookey and Mary Travers

I'd like to buy the world a home and furnish it with love,
Grow apple trees and honey bees, and snow white turtle doves.
I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony,
I'd like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company.
- Bill Backer, Billy Davis, and Roger Cook

If I had a hammer
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening ... all over this land,
I'd hammer out danger
I'd hammer out a warning
I'd hammer out love between all of my brothers and my sisters
All over this land.
-L. Hays and P. Seeger

One by one, each person will stand, close their eyes, and fall backward only to be saved from hitting the ground by their fellow man. They will learn trust, not hate.

In a new video, recently released by Al-Jazeera, a teary-eyed Osama bin Laden was shown blubbering, "If John Edwards is elected the next American President, we will immediately lay down our arms and renounce our jihad against the West. Kumbaya, Allah, kumbaya."

In my inbox today...

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi today announced that the Democrats will change the country's emblem from an Eagle to a CONDOM because it more accurately reflects the new government's political stance. A condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you a sense of security while you're actually being screwed.

Daily Kos Has Gone to the Dark Side

Eileen Fleming accuses The Daily Kos:

It Sure Smells Like a Right Wing Zionist Cabal at The Daily Kos

The search for the next Cindy Sheehan is over.

Evolution

One final surgical procedure along with hair blondishments and the evolution was complete:







It must be acknowledged that some may argue that since surgery was performed, this transformation was accomplished by and lends credence to Design. As true as this may be, however, in reality this particular instance is a better argument against INTELLIGENT Design.


(Welcome Carnival of the Insanities Readers. Please feel free to also visit Grandpa John's Home. Our postings are not all of the insane variety, but we do look like America!)

Lileks on God

Hugh Hewitt had a three-hour debate between Hitchens and Mark D. Roberts the other night over the subject of God, and it was quite enjoyable, both for its depth and civility. I think Hitch won, ergo God Does Not Exist. Dynamite the churches! Of course, in such situations the atheist always wins, because he doesn’t have to prove anything. It’s like a color-blind man debating someone without sight about the existence of Red – a fascinating intellectual exercise that tests and reveals the talents and character of the debaters, but has little to do with the hue of the stuff that runs through your arteries.

Lileks is always worth reading.

Messico

Ann Coulter asks a question about open borders:

If liberals think Iraqis are genetically incapable of pulling off even the most rudimentary form of democracy, why do they believe 50 million Mexicans will magically become good Americans, imbued in the nation's history and culture, upon crossing the Rio Grande?

Slow down, Congress. Tackle this problem step by step. A comprehensive, one-step-solves-all solution will be costly, inefficient, and create more and greater problems. Seal the borders first and go from there.

That's Hot!

Experps from The Paris Hilton Prison Diaries:

Day 3: So that's what a bitch slap is. Wow. Just … wow. MUST remember not to make that sarcastic face again anytime soon.

Day 11: Jayne Mansfield spoke five languages. She was a concert-level pianist. Marilyn Monroe was a Formula One race car driver. Twiggy built her own home, raised guinea fowl and invented penicillin. Eleanor Roosevelt patented commercial air travel. And yet all of us played a role, the blond bimbo, the ditzy, fun-loving "party girl." Roosevelt especially. But what's to say I couldn't be the first person to walk on the moon or be the first woman to go to college?

Day 18: This "Jesus Christ" was an amazing guy. It's so sad he died so young.

Lately I'm identifying with the Jews and all the horrible things that happened to them during Vietnam.

(H.T. Ed Driscoll.)

A Jock's Analysis

Mr. Gary Sheffield, why are Blacks losing representation in baseball today?

"...Where I'm from, you can't control us. You might get a guy to do it that way for a while because he wants to benefit, but in the end, he is going to go back to being who he is. And that's a person that you're going to talk to with respect, you're going to talk to like a man..."

Mr. Sheffield, Mr. Sheffield, follow up question: Why are Blacks over-represented in prison populations and out of wedlock births today?

"...Where I'm from, you can't control us. You might get a guy to do it that way for a while because he wants to benefit, but in the end, he is going to go back to being who he is. And that's a person that you're going to talk to with respect, you're going to talk to like a man..."

Mr. Sheffield, why is the educational system serving the Black community so poorly?

"...Where I'm from, you can't control us. You might get a guy to do it that way for a while because he wants to benefit, but in the end, he is going to go back to being who he is. And that's a person that you're going to talk to with respect, you're going to talk to like a man..."

Mr. Sheffield, why are Blacks so poorly represented in the areas of political and business leadership?

"...Where I'm from, you can't control us. You might get a guy to do it that way for a while because he wants to benefit, but in the end, he is going to go back to being who he is. And that's a person that you're going to talk to with respect, you're going to talk to like a man..."

Mr. Sheffield, what about Condie Rice, Clarence Thomas, and Thomas Sowell?

"They aren't really Black where I'm from so don't display proper Black cultural attitudes. They are Oreos and Uncle Tom's and so can be controlled."

Thank you, Mr. Sheffield, for your enlightened analysis and commentary on racist White America.

Pot Pourri

-The boss is on vacation, so for the next couple of weeks, I'm da man! That could mean up to 112 hour work weeks. I'm da man!

-It can be quite amusing to hear how grandchildren address or refer to their grandparents. With Cole, Linda is Gamma Punkin. I am Gampa Doofus. I wonder who taught him that word? I'm still trying to get Lance's & Mari Jo's kids call me their GREAT Uncle Steve.

-Good line: "...the intellectuals in the 1960s advocated “dropping out,” either by going off to live in a commune or getting tenure,..." -Mary Grabar.

-Since William Jefferson, a Democrat Congressman from Louisiana, has been indicted, many Conservative writers have been scoffing at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's 'clean Congress'. A couple of observations must be added, however. Jefferson's corruption actually occurred while the evil Republicans controlled Congress. Back then it was just mainstream behavior. Nancy has reformed him by now. Also, the freezer in which he hid $90,000 was nicknamed 'IRS', a legitimate socio-political commentary; a free speech issue. "Free William Jefferson!" "Let my people go!"

-Someone was trying to tell me the other day that the 'Sausage Races' at Miller Park were rigged. Liar!

-I see that Grandpa John's is getting world-wide readership. The post, To the Shores of Tripoli, got a comment from President Ahmedinajad. Good to hear from him again, but, in reality, it was the same ol'-same ol'.

That somehow reminded me of my basketball officiating days. During breaks in the action, I would commonly tell a nearby heckler that I'd heard all his/her schtick-style from hecklers at nearly every game, so please come up with something really new and clever. One coach from Corpus Christi complained after his player was called for travelling, "But please consider the circumstances preceeding the travel!" He got the next call.

And that somehow reminded me of Major League Baseball. How stupid does it look when a manager comes out to vehemently argue a call? What the hell is that? And how about those bench clearing 'brawls'? I know a couple of hockey players who think that baseball is established and popular enough now to try and start up a men's league.

Mike Adams

Mike Adams, criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, calls 'em as he sees 'em:

Given that a) feminists who defend abortion invariably fall back on the “right to control her body” argument and, b) this argument is invariably motivated by nothing more than lust, the following re-definition of feminism is in order:

Feminism is a minority social movement, whose members murder innocent children in order to obtain sexual gratification.

Those who would quibble with my assertion that all feminists commit murder do so based on the mistaken assumption that a woman must have or actually perform an abortion to commit a murder. That isn’t so.

Charles Manson never actually stabbed or shot any of the five people at the Tate residence. Nor did he stab either of the LaBiancas the following evening. His conviction on all seven counts of murder was due to his choice to enter into a criminal conspiracy with the very people who did, in fact, directly commit the murders.

Whether they have ever had or performed an abortion themselves, all feminists today are voluntarily involved in a movement whose principal issue/goal is abortion on demand. And this meeting of the minds renders the term “baby killer” equal applicable to both the committed and casual feminist alike.

That sexist pig Adams, enemy of modern culture, Conservative doop, bomber of gay bathhouses, and worse than Bush... I read him every time he posts an article.

To the Shores of Tripoli

Quickly scan the archives of your memory and list the top ten reasons that you have heard for the Islamist jihad against our nation, freedom, and way of life. Our friendship with Israel, imperialist economic oppression, lust for oil, George W. Bush, cartoons, yada, yada, yada?

According to Gerard W. Gawalt, the manuscript specialist for early American history in the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Muslim leaders must have foreseen these reasons long before they ever took place. In Gawalt's research he records the circumstances during the first days of American independence:

After the United States won its independence in the treaty of 1783, it had to protect its own commerce against dangers such as the Barbary pirates. As early as 1784 Congress followed the tradition of the European shipping powers and appropriated $80,000 as tribute to the Barbary states, directing its ministers in Europe, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, to begin negotiations with them. Trouble began the next year, in July 1785, when Algerians captured two American ships and the dey of Algiers held their crews of twenty-one people for a ransom of nearly $60,000.

Paying the ransom would only lead to further demands, Jefferson argued in letters to future presidents John Adams, then America's minister to Great Britain, and James Monroe, then a member of Congress. As Jefferson wrote to Adams in a July 11, 1786, letter, "I acknolege [sic] I very early thought it would be best to effect a peace thro' the medium of war." Paying tribute will merely invite more demands, and even if a coalition proves workable, the only solution is a strong navy that can reach the pirates, Jefferson argued in an August 18, 1786, letter to James Monroe: "The states must see the rod; perhaps it must be felt by some one of them. . . . Every national citizen must wish to see an effective instrument of coercion, and should fear to see it on any other element than the water. A naval force can never endanger our liberties, nor occasion bloodshed; a land force would do both." "From what I learn from the temper of my countrymen and their tenaciousness of their money," Jefferson added in a December 26, 1786, letter to the president of Yale College, Ezra Stiles, "it will be more easy to raise ships and men to fight these pirates into reason, than money to bribe them." [...]

As he declared in his first annual message to Congress: "To this state of general peace with which we have been blessed, one only exception exists. Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary States, had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact, and had permitted itself to denounce war, on our failure to comply before a given day. The style of the demand admitted but one answer. I sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean. . . ."

The American show of force quickly awed Tunis and Algiers into breaking their alliance with Tripoli. The humiliating loss of the frigate Philadelphia and the capture of her captain and crew in Tripoli in 1803, criticism from his political opponents, and even opposition within his own cabinet did not deter Jefferson from his chosen course during four years of war. The aggressive action of Commodore Edward Preble (1803-4) forced Morocco out of the fight and his five bombardments of Tripoli restored some order to the Mediterranean. However, it was not until 1805, when an American fleet under Commodore John Rogers and a land force raised by an American naval agent to the Barbary powers, Captain William Eaton, threatened to capture Tripoli and install the brother of Tripoli's pasha on the throne, that a treaty brought an end to the hostilities. [...]

In fact, it was not until the second war with Algiers, in 1815, that naval victories by Commodores William Bainbridge and Stephen Decatur led to treaties ending all tribute payments by the United States.(emphasis mine)

Thomas Jefferson apparently popularized the 'carry a big stick' policy long before Theodore Roosevelt. He was dissatisfied with the first treaty and its tribute requirement so he fought again to delete the tribute clause.

Today's 'enlightened' reasoning behind Islamist militant action against the United States doesn't really apply to the larger historical picture of their terroristic activities.

There is one reason that many of you may have never heard before.

According to a Muslim apologetic site, Ishmael:

The people of Ishmael are clearly the Arabs (through biological descent), and all Muslims through theological descent. No knowledgeable non-Muslim would dispute that.

"And the angel of the LORD said to her [Hagar], "Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the LORD has listened to your affliction. He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsman." (Genesis 16:11-12, ESV)

The festering of the worst of this biological and theological heritage, coupled with modern technology has made today's Barbary Pirates an extreme danger to anyone within their sights. Jefferson reasoned that a second war was necessary as does President Bush. In this he has my full support, only I would request that he maximize the abilities of our armed forces and not attempt to carry a smaller, more popular stick.

Nearly Three Years and 1,600 Posts Later

Tuesday, June 08, 2004

This blog spot will have 4 members - John (me), the most intelligent one of the group and the only unabashed liberal; Steve, Lance and Todd. Two of whom are low life conservatives (we won't mention any names) and Todd the war monger (the jury is still out on his political persuasion.)

Hopefully, we can have fun and discuss issues in a frank, rational and unemotional manner! I'm looking forward to it!

posted by Grandpa John @ 8:38 PM

From these humble beginnings, Grandpa John's has steadily and faithfully slid downhill along that proverbial slippery slope. Another debacle to be laid at the feet of that dastardly George W. Bush.

Good Night and Good Luck

Wicked Dox, who posts hard to find older articles, has posted this 1999 article by Mark Skousen titled 'They Were Right'.

Excerpts:

[...] But despite this grounds-well of concern over the threat of communism, communist sympathizers at high levels combined with media forces to ridicule and vilify patriotic conservatives. Most historians deplored the anticommunist movement of the 1950s and 1960s as "extremist," "paranoid," "right-wing" hysteria. Accordingly, there was little credence given to this alleged vast communist conspiracy; reaction went rarely beyond references to McCarthyism, red-baiting, and blacklisting. They challenged the anti-communists' claims that the Soviets had planted numerous agents in government, that Stalin had infiltrated the film industry as a means of promoting communist propaganda, that the Communist Party USA was a pawn of Moscow, and that the Soviet Union was a serious military threat.

They depicted the anticommunist era as an unwarranted "witch hunt" against liberal progressives and idealistic movie stars and a groundless attack on patriotic government officials who they say were falsely accused of espionage. They carried on a 40-year campaign to prove Alger Hiss and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg innocent. My uncle's book so angered members of the political science and history departments at Brigham Young University that Richard D. Poll, a history professor, wrote a scathing critique of his "extremist" views on Karl Marx and communism. [...]

The KGB files prove beyond doubt that Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, and numerous other Americans accused of spying for the Soviets were guilty. They confirm what J. Edgar Hoover and the House Un-American Activities Committee were saying all along: that spies reached the highest levels of the State and Treasury departments, the White House, and the Manhattan Project, and that the Communist Party USA (which had 50,000 members in World War II) got its marching orders from Moscow. [...]

After writing three books on the Soviet archives, historians John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr summed it up this way about the anti-communists: "They were right." And being right, they deserve our praise and gratitude.

Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek were thought to have lost the economics debate with the communists. Even as late as 1989, "...[Paul] Samuelson claimed that "The Soviet economy is proof that, contrary to what many skeptics had earlier believed, a socialist command economy can function and even thrive.""

The 8 foot statue of Senator Joseph McCarthy in my front yard stays up!

Ham & Britney

Dear Fans,

[...] I just hope this letter made some of you think a little bit more of me and where I am coming from. I just want the same things in life that you want...and that is to be happy. It is just so weird because everyone has their own perception of me and how they think I really am. It is so weird how stories are told. There is your side, my side, and the truth. Somebody has to figure it out. I guess we will never really understand or figure out life completely. That's God's job. I can't wait to meet him...or her.

Love, Britney

Reality in Da Hood

La Shawn Barber writes in Examiner.com:

While President Bush and pro-amnesty members of Congress are pushing an unpopular immigration “reform” bill that would bestow American citizenship on millions of people who have no regard for America’s laws, liberal Democrats across the Washington region are increasingly complaining about overcrowded houses, noise, loitering and general public nuisance — all caused by illegal aliens.

These local liberals are in no mood for “celebrate diversity” chants.

Listening recently to frustrated folks call a local radio talk show to vent about illegal aliens loitering in front of stores and cramming into $400,000 houses in their neighborhoods, I wondered if those same liberals accused pro-enforcement Americans of being “nativists,” “xenophobes” and “racists” for complaining about the same problems.

Now that illegal aliens have migrated to their neighborhoods, such liberals have become pro-enforcement all of a sudden.

A Republican called in to say her Democratic friends labeled her a racist when she’d complain about illegal immigration. She’d tell them something like, “You just wait until it happens to you. Then you’ll be singing a different tune.”

It’s happening to them, and they are singing a different tune. It turns out that liberals in half-a-million-dollar houses don’t like living next door to a single-family house filled to the brim with illegal aliens who park on the front lawn, throw trash everywhere and urinate outside.

It could be worse. They could have some Burris living next door.

As the old saying goes, "Everybody's for gun control... until they get mugged."